i love meat tho, it would be so hard to give up all that protein....i think i would crave hamburgers too much ...i want to try something tho to lose my last 15 pounds...is there any reading material on this?...i need like a day by day or meal by meal plan

I'm sure you could come up with your own meal plan, pre plan it then just stick to it.
I don't know if I can completely give up meat either but I did give up all red meats. I pretty much only ear turkey and chicken, ground turkey tastes great to me, I even eat turkey bacon and like it alot.

I'm pretty surprised that I'm not missing meat. I had turkey on Monday, cottage cheese on Tuesday and no overt proteins yesterday at all.

I did eat some baked crap at work yesterday. But ... I'm almost dreaming of grains!

I'm home today so it's either a good opportunity to try to stick with fruit and vegetables alone -or- to incorporate grains and fish. I really wanted to try to make polenta ... hmmm.

And I dont think the point of the study was that it had to be all or nothing. The point was to add more and more of these foods to your diet and remove the more processed foods. The study was an extreme case, but I dont think you need to go to that extreme to see benefits. I am not fully convinced that over the long haul the limited foods presented in the study would be a healthy diet. Losing 10 lbs in 10 days...well a lot of that was probably water and colon cleansing...hopefully!

I do think the point that blood pressure and cholesterol needs to be addressed from a lifestyle standpoint first was made.

susan...sorry i had a little chuckle at your comment that you gave up meat but had turkey and fish ??? did you mean red meat? At last i was taught in my animal science classes turkey and fish were meat...i'm not trying to be mean just being silly

i personally don't think i could give up meat..i definately have cut wayyy back on red meat and started eating more fruit/veggies and limit my processed foods...but i'm not sure if i could do a raw vegan diet. I really think i'd go off the deep end. I envy those that could give up meat for moral/health reasons, but unfortuantely i like meat too much and since i have 2 degrees in animal science i sort of see a point in meat...but i'm not knocking any vegans out there..i just know i couldn't do it.

I guess I'm meat indoctrinated ... golly I haven't had meat for over two days! Can you tell I live in farming country?

Seriously, I just meant that what I missed was grains, not the meat. I don't think I even want to eat that ape/gorilla style. But Dr Oz does make some very good points.

i think the points dr oz makes are pretty amazing...but i know i couldn't do it. I know i'd probably loose weight instantly...and luckily i don't have a cholesterol problem...but god i couldn't do without at least some meat a week.

I'm going off on a tangent here...

You mean fish isn't a vegetable?

Man, if I had a dollar for every time someone said they were vegetarian, then went on to chronicle the great fish or chicken they had or to offer me meat of all sorts (sea creatures, fishes, chickens etc.) I would be very wealthy indeed!!! "Meat" is anything that isn't a plant or animal secretion, ya know? If it has flesh and was living, it is meat!

The other thing that is so silly to me is when people say they are vegan or "practically or mostly vegan" then go on to say that they eat (insert many types of animal products here) various very much NOT vegan foods.

Sorry about the tangent, I just find this illogical behavior baffling!

<<<I am kinda like Spock

Maybe it is because I was raised Catholic. But I am also of scientific mind. So which side wins in this debate? Then there is the "what was in your formative years" factor. But my default definition of vegetarian says that fish is not "meat." That's the Catholic-Friday-formative-years influence thing that is clearly outweighing my logical side. I remember those calendars we got from the Church, with the little picture of the fish on the Fridays - "No Meat on Fridays." But chickens were definitely considered to be meat.
I have no idea why the Catholics excluded fish from their definition of meat. Does anyone know?

Wild guess, and gut answer here...Maybe because when they developed the doctrines, there wasn't the science to classify fish as being part of the animal kingdom? They don't breathe air and all, ya know? Maybe because the wealthy were able to eat other, larger, more expensive animals as they were "luxury" foods and sea creatures were considered "peasant" food, therefore to "deny" yourself of the pleasure, you could default to "lesser" animals?

Thankfully, we know better now and realize that fish and other sea creatures are indeed part of the animal kingdom.

I just looked up what I could find - I guess the exclusion was for the flesh of warm-blooded animals, and fish are cold-blooded animals. I still don't know why they would make the division based on that distinction though.

Well, religion and spirituality doesn't always make sense, does it? We as humans often do things that go beyond logic, in the name of religion or spirituality, right?

Even though I haven't seen an Oprah episode in years... I popped on and read this thread.

I have been reading "The China Study" which is very interesting and talks about a whole foods plant based diet (basically vegan but without processed foods). Although I wasn't very happy about the beginning of the book calling the South Beach diet a high fat/high protein diet, I think the rest of the book is fascinating. One thing that struck me was that what we consider good cholesterol levels in the US and other western countries is actually considered high cholesterol in other countries that eat minimal meat/dairy. The other thing I found fascinating is that animal based protein may contribute to cancer cell growth. I had already known that animal based protein can have a negative impact on our calcium levels but I didn't know that it could contribute to something such as cancer.

I am personally trying to follow a vegan diet although I don't think I'd ever call myself a vegetarian or a vegan because I really have no real qualms about eating meat or dairy. In the past 2 weeks though, I've eaten meat once and cheese a couple of times. In the past week, I've eaten no meat and no main dairy items but I have eaten some things that contain trace amounts of dairy like my beloved bread

Is it hard? Honestly, no. It is a challenge sometimes, especially when eating out. I think it is fun to change up your diet and see how you can fit an eating pattern into your life. This is actually my 2nd or 3rd attempt at trying to follow a mostly vegan diet (sorry SoulBliss if I offend!) but the first few times I failed miserably. Even a vegetarian diet was only fleeting with me mostly because I find my weight stalling if I eat a vegetarian diet. It is my ideal though and has been for a couple years to cut out most, if not all, animal products. I work on improvement, not perfection I think once you start enjoying non animal products, it is a lot easier to cut animal products out.

What I don't understand is how did meat at main meals become the default? Again, grwoing up Catholic, Fridays were the big exception to the rule. I loved Fridays. If you ever ate my mom's pork chops you would understand. But anyway: How did it come to be so standard? If anything I would intuitively think it would be the other way around; more meals without meat than with it.
As I understand it, that would also make sense agriculturally. There are some agricultural lands that are not suitable for crops but are suitable for grazing animals. But if we only used the meat obtained from these grazing animals, we would not come anywhere close to being able to eat meat with that "default" frequency that we do. Hence, we have the gawd-awful feedlots. If people would just cut back, even a little...... it would be so much better for the planet.
I don't like to eat beef, pork or chicken. I do like dairy, and whenever possible I choose goat dairy. I don't want to inadvertently support the veal industry by buying cow dairy, which I am concerned about doing. (Where do the males go?)

Well, you are right, they become veal calves or hamburgers, naturally!

Wanna know what happens to the male chicks at most egg hatcheries/chicken farms? PM me if you don't already know!