by groundhoggpeggy » Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:06 am
Well Jeff and F1Jim and Mr. Sactramento Bob... here's what I'm sayin'>>>
I speak in generalizations regarding this board and the one previous because I do not wish to name individuals I have personally known (not that personal, but many email correspondences grew from acquaintance on the board) and get into their troubles publicly here.
I have seen some people make a good attempt and run into trouble. Unless they were flatout lying to me... most of them had pretty good understanding and adherence to the program. For some of them, they had some serious issues... most of them I have since lost contact with, and, unfortunately, they seemed to have left the board.
Dr. Klaper (vegan practicing M.D.) realized some of his vegan patients (okay... if you don't like the word vegan... animal product free, but unkonwn as far as oils or tofu burgers) disappeared, and made an attempt to follow up and see if it reasons for failure could be identified... you can see a quick synopsis of that on that lecture online someone referred to here... still... I admire him for noticing that some people just quietly went away (this should raise red flags) and making an attempt to follow up and see what happened.
If your health fails, something ain't right! I personally believe there is some external cause in most cases... sometimes there might just be a particular organ weakness or whatever in a person, but I believe, personal belief, that normally some outside influence causes failure of heatlh. I, and everybody else on the planet who thinks that way, would LOVE to know what those causes are, just to have a little bit of control over our state of health, so everybody could enjoy the best possible health their unique bodies can have. This is what we all want.
And I used to think it was easy enough by following a non-processed, low-fat vegan diet as near to 100% as possible.... which I did (I did also drink coffeee most of those years... which is low-fat vegan and no more processed than pinto beans-- although I realize Dr. McDougall is against the use of it) for over 12 years... the coffee was my only usual culpa, and I followed the diet... no packaged junk... I bought loads of veggies, organic whole grains, legumes... and we had vegan processed foods only for special occasions... as Dr. McDougall suggests. On my birthdays, I could put away an entire Tofutti Rock and Roll... and I did... on my birthdays. For THaNksgivings and Christmases, I bought coconut oil to bake treats with... but still used succanat or other minimally processed sugar and other ingredients. Now, I'm saying here, that I've seen others who have seemed (unless they were flatout lying about it) to be at least that much compliant and understanding of the diet who ran into some sort of health issue, some of them even serious.
Since I seem to have a tendency to take on the weight of the world... and I just want everybody healthy and happy... sometimes I would get a correspondence with some of these people for a short time... I was stuck in a library with free access to lots of research materials, and often would relay stuff I thought could be something of help for them to investigate further... usually I lost track of them eventually... and so did the board.
I don't know what that means... did they never get better and are now chronically ill.... did they get better from stopping the diet and didn't want to come back here and cause trouble? There's no follow up... we don't know what happens when people drop away... not healthy, busy people, but people who were struggling and suffering...
Also, I have a very good memory... especially for compiling what happened to whom, what they did, and what research said about it... poor memory for other stuff, maybe, but excellent memory for these things... so I am remembering a whole LOT of people and situations that I found here.
As far as talk on this baord I was referring to... mainly it was stuff written to (some of these) people by you, Jeff... I'm not saying I listen to anybody... no, I was born skeptical... I HEAR everybody, but I don't make up my mind for a good decade or so.
I first read McDougall in about 1982 or 1983... from there... I did nothing.
Later, I trailed 7th Day Adventists, locally where we lived, in that I read a few of their cookbooks and ate preltty much how they ate. I got kinda freaked out when I saw how many of them in our area at the time got Parkinson's Disease. Maybe just a fluke, though.
From there, I trailed macrobiotics people I knew who had studied with Kushis and were certified teachers... we were friends, I was not a client, but I got enough books and conversational info to try the diet...
From there, ate SAD for 5 years... mostly because of moving to a new geographical/ social / financial situation... it was yummy...
from there, back to macrobiotics for a few months, then vegetarian, vegan and within a couple of years was full McDougall, except for holidays and special times. I understand the diet.
People here with problems in the past have understood the diet, and as I said, have followed it decently ujnless they were flatout lying. But the answers to problems have always been about full vs. less compliance, poor understanding... eating tofu burgers or packaged vegan junk... etc., which the people said they didn't do. Soon, they disappeared.
Follow up, similar to what Dr. Klaper attempted to do, would be essential to try to find it IF people following the diet truly did fail at times, and might bring to light some useful information to either assist in compliance and/or understanding, or find the cracks some people might fall into and be able to improve those situations or possibly even prevent them.
I don't claim to know anything... but I've seen some disturbing stuff, and I think problems need to be addressed with something more than poor understanding/poor compliance, in most cases. The diet is not that hard to get.
