Friday, January 26, 2007

Day +205

I am fine today. Continue from yesterday….

Meat or no meat, does it matter? Many people advised me not to eat meat after I had this disease. They said meat is not good for our health. They are influenced by some alternative health promoters who strictly prohibit their followers to consume meat with ‘great’ and unsubstantiated theories.

If giving up meat could guarantee a cure without bone marrow transplant, or at least achieve a long term survival rate equivalent to that of bone marrow transplant, I would be very happy to be a vegetarian. Everybody just follow what everybody said but where is the reputable scientific report and statistic?

Recalling what I had studied in Biology about human teeth and digestive system, I concluded that there should be no basis of claiming human as plant eater (herbivores). We have various types of teeth such as incisors, canines, and various types of molar for grinding, tearing and cutting foods. This shows that humans are omnivore who are both plant and meat eater. Why should we insist that we are now herbivores? Could God design our teeth wrongly?

I met a Hindu lady in her late 40s while doing chemotherapy in UH. She was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) and in one occasion, we stayed in the same cubicle in the hematology ward. She had been a vegetarian for the past 40 over years and yet she still got this disease. Now her family forced her to eat meat :-(

Meat to no meat, no meat to meat is an example of extreme action some patients take to ‘combat’ their disease. After much pondering and as an omnivore by God’s design, the best bet to me is still a balanced diet :-)

To be continued ad see you next post :-)
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5 comments:

M R said...

Meat eating was believed to shorten lives of mankind after sin came to the world, first slaughtered by God to cover the first couple. Later animals were instructed to be killed for offering. If sin was predicted to come to this world, teeth may be pre-made for meat-eating. Even then, the structure of teeth meant to crush and chew all sorts of food. The design of cutting sharply doesn't mean we must be meat eaters.


Being a vegetarian doesn't mean no sickness. Being a meat-eater doesn't mean all die very quickly. If everyone knows how to eat balanced food, good. But the fact (don't quote me, please search the journals, research, databases, etc, like national geographics last yr, research on three groups with longivity), meat consumption finishes one's life faster. First we need to recognize the structure of meat, types of animals, the proportion of fat and cholesterols, the process of meat today, the widespread of disease via animals as hosts of these microorganism, etc.


We can refer to the book of Daniel, he was wiser than others, compared to their diet, whereas he insisted not to take wine and meat. Diet makes alot of difference. Because diet has been overlooked pretty much these days, sickness and death rates elevate unnecessarily.


Our bodies cope differently. Some smokers live much longer and we know for sure about the onset of lung cancer, emphysema, bronchilitis,etc ( CAL, chronic airway limitation). The same manner would be in diet, including the difference between non-meat eaters and meat-eaters.


I am no a big meat eater but i try to eat plenty of vegetables, fruits, nuts, processed properly and made delicious. Watch out the instruction in the old testament, there are instruction from God what to eat, and that was way before contamination ruled over the planet. The reality is God want our physical bodies function adequately in a contaminated environment, and even then there are far too many contamination of all kinds.


I have also personally come across extremists in food, full of religious ideas without a hint of the scientific background. Regarding the concepts, they could be neither religious nor scientific, but just ridiculous. Be wise. Eat for your health. And eating is part of maintaining good health. Start from what we need to do everyday.

January 26, 2007 9:28 PM
Brandon Teoh said...

I fully agreed with jimmy chai.

I had been a semi-vegan. Not fully. I used to be quite extremist.

However, after a few years of being diet-conscious. I came to conclusion that diet has nothing to do with religions, it is quite scientific and about being practical.

Jimmy mentioned that Daniel insisted not to take meat... in fact, I don't think in the old days... BC or AD, human actually get to eat a lot of meat like chicken rice or steak dinner and etc. During those time, these are probably eat once a year. I am not sure, caused even in the movie Samson/Delilah, Samson is advised not to eat strong food. And I like to think that Jesus also didn't feast a lot one (correct me if I am wrong).

So, to me... being vegetarian oriented is really about being simple. Not to demanding with certain types of foods. For instance, if you eat Bah Kut Teh everyday because you crave for pork, then maybe it is not advisable. However, if you say that you eat Bah Kut Teh (daily) because you own a Bah Kut Teh restaurant, then too bad.

I think the whole idea of being vegan-oriented is to control our desire.

So, take a balance diet. As in how to define balance diet ? I also don't know. Like Jimmy said, everybody probably has different needs. Very subjective.

January 26, 2007 10:20 PM
David said...

Jimmy, I thank you for your interesting comment. I also thank Brandon for the response :-)

I believe my doctors were too busy reading authoritative, peer reviewed medical journals until they don’t have time to read National Geographics. That is why they failed to make treatment decisions and advices based on the magazine :-( (Doctors, correct me, if I were wrong.) In fact, they encouraged me to eat meat throughout my treatment, especially during the bone marrow transplant. But I am very sure they would ‘command’ me to stop smoking ‘instantly’ if I were a smoker. Anyway, the statistic or report that I was looking for is not the impact of meat on human life span, but something about the impact of meat on AML-M4 patient with 3q deletion.

God asked human to eat meat, but meat eating is a mean by God to shorten human life and God even pre-made teeth to enable human to eat meat with the purpose that they die faster? :-( What a God this is! I can’t find anything like this in the bible :-( I believe this is also contradicts with “The reality is God want our physical bodies function adequately in a contaminated environment.”

Bible never mentions that “Daniel insisted not to take wine and meat” was because he wanted to stay healthy. While quoting this Bible verse, I think we should also consider the following:
1. In Leviticus, Moses asked the priest to eat the Sin Offering and Guilt Offering (both are animals), “Any male in a priest’s family may eat it; it is most holy.” However, for Grain Offering, Moses said, “Every grain offering of a priest shall be burned completely; it must not be eaten.
2. Jesus first miracle was to turn water into wine :-)
3. Jesus feed the 5000 and 4000 with fishes and loaves, and many other references that mention meat eating.

As Brandon said, meat or no meat might not be a religious matter :-(

I fully agree with what you said in the last two paragraphs. I am also no big meat eater and try to consume as much fruits and vegetables as I can.

Anyway, for those who insisted we should be herbivores, please have mercy on Eskimo. Without meat, they can’t even survive!

God bless you :-)

David

January 27, 2007 9:10 AM
M R said...

Hi, i give a quick reply=)

I have read journals and articles, for health and affiliated with religious institutions, there are, in fact, explain further while med dietitian approach, like taking bit of wine, bit of white meat etc are good for health, they are not and there are also about the design of statistics make-up. There are health authority does insist purely a advocacy for health alone. No promotion of wine (not even abit of smoking=)

Wine. Was it fermented wine or unfermented wine? =) pure fruit juice, or that after fermentation kind king solomon even would condemn?

Fish. God allows us to eat fish, mentioned in the OT, after sin. From eating nuts, grains (began from the eden garden) etc, to vegetable (remember this during noah's period), then to moses, leading those rivals to the promised land (what types of meat to be eaten, clean here is how "scientifically healthy", by examining the quantity of unwanted components, like high proportion of choresterols, etc), and what type of fish. The unclean fish, are those in the sea, where is the ultimate location of all water, after washing the planet earth, those blood, dirt, oil, rubbish..), would do the cleaning up. Other organisms eat up some components, and other fish swallows them. Does it make sense? Or need to take study biology, environmental conservation, etc at uni to appreciate the moral behind those bad regulations for those israelites?

Character of God. What kind of God would pre-arrange, for a world that bound to fail to sin one day and has compassion and mercy for you and me to live, in that kind of environment, and pain and suffering from sickness alone, can afflict us like hell every inch? From the earliest days, the age was advanced, and today, if one of us happens to be 80, we are really long-lived. But for sb at 70 or 80, how much does he or she need to go thru just sickness alone? If it happened to be living in iraq 6 months ago, he or she cursed at the heaven...=)

First of all, no one forbids anyone not to have or must have sth to live, one day, under normal circumstance in this world today. You don't eat vegetable one day, you gonna wake up tomorrow still. You don't drink, tomorrow we can rehydrate you even with iv or cvc access. No big deal.

But what benefits do we have after all, for long run? Don't simply label it as religious or must it scientific. I think we are given plenty to analyse on our own to make decisions, best decision. (when we come to best decision, that can be ethical dilemma again, what is "our" best (interest), culture, time, etc. MOngolians have only horse meat for food, so be it, in this sinful world, so be it =)

January 30, 2007 5:18 PM
David said...

Thank you Jimmy for this good discussion. Your points are noted. I fully agree with you that the world is too much polluted and we must be very careful on what we eat :-)

David

January 30, 2007 7:01 PM

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