Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
tl;dr: the rats were fed too much meat, and got sick as a result.
Rats are -primarily- vegetarian, PREFERRING seeds, nuts, grains, and fresh vegetables and fruits. They can be healthy with small amounts of meat (as in - one serving per week).
tl;dr: the rats were fed too much meat, and got sick as a result.
Rats are -primarily- vegetarian, PREFERRING seeds, nuts, grains, and fresh vegetables and fruits. They can be healthy with small amounts of meat (as in - one serving per week).
If you'd ever owned a pet rat you'd knowthat.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, says the man who is a rat expert because he once owned a rat.
Of course I know that aflatoxin can be on many different vegetables, beans, nuts, and other food items. I was just addressing the meat issue because that was what was being talked about.
However, I'm not worried about small traces of aflatoxin on the foods I eat. Of course I examine most food items before consuming and rinse/wash before cooking. But you can't wash aflatoxin out of meat.
Also I buy peanuts (along with other shelled nuts) but not peanut butter because they put the best/cleanest peanuts in a jar knowing that people will be able to see the condition of the peanuts before buying.
Now to the "meat" or heart of the matter. Aflatoxin-toxicity cannot be tested on humans but can be tested on small animals. I don't know for sure but it's probably against the law to do the testing on humans.
So the team at Cornell University got 100 rats and injected all of them with aflatoxin. Then they divided them into two groups. One group received a diet that included 20% of calories from animal protein and the other group received their diet with 5% animal protein and the other 15% was vegetable protein to make up the difference. So both groups got the same amount of protein overall.
The end result was: ALL of the rats who had 20% animal protein in their diet got cancer and none of those who got 5% had cancer. And this was not the first time this study was performed. It was first performed by a scientist in India. And it will likely be performed many more times by various research groups around the world, if it hasn't already. That's usually the way it works because scientists tend of be skeptical and seek to verify the result for themselves. They don't do this with all studies of course but they usually do it with studies that have surprising or unexpected results.
Dr. Campbell himself repeated it over and over in different ways to make sure it wasn't a mistake.
And, I just remembered, it was tested inadvertently on humans. When Dr. Campbell went to a foreign country, on sabbatical, to help solve the problem of a lack of animal protein, it was decided that peanut butter would be tried. So peanut butter was distributed to all households in a certain village as a trial.
Little did they know that the peanut butter was tainted with with aflatoxin, and some of the children developed liver cancer. So then they had to find out why some children got liver cancer and others did not.
And it turned out that some families were a little better off economically and had some access to animal protein, and the children from those families were the ones that got cancer. At about the same time, Dr. Campbell received word that another scientist in India had proven this to be true based on small animal studies. That experience is what got him started doing his own studies to verify the results. And the rest of the story is that because of all the animal studies, he was able to qualify for NIH funding and participate with five other doctors in a 20 year (human) study in China. The doctors consisted of 3 Chinese doctors and 3 American doctors.
Note: Laboratory rats and mice are often specially bred for specific testing purposes, depending on what is being studied. This conversation is not about ordinary or common rats that are not used in laboratory testing.
Note: Laboratory rats and mice are often specially bred for specific testing purposes, depending on what is being studied. This conversation is not about ordinary or common rats that are not used in laboratory testing.
ALL rats - laboratory, fancy, wild, NY city street rats - PREFER a plant-based diet. They are omnivores and scavengers but if you give them some rotting fruit and vegetables, next to a rotting piece of meat, they'll go for the vegetation first every time.
Rats - do not thrive on a flesh-based diet. Forcing a rat of ANY kind to eat 20% of its daily diet in animal protein will be unhealthy for the rat.
The conversation isn't about rats at all. It's about "7 ways animal protein is damaging your health."
Animal protein doesn't damage ANYONE's health, unless they have a specific medical issue that makes them not properly or efficiently process or digest animal protein. Humans, by virtue of being omnivorous, do not normally have any such medical issue, however there are some exceptions.
The only other time animal protein can damage someone's health, is if they eat too much of it.
The rats weren't even fed meat, as in the whole food. They were fed "animal protein" which sounds like isolated milk protein, highly-processed garbage.
Campbell's rats weren't fed meat either; it was highly-processed powdered milk protein, isolated casein. That, and overconsumption, certainly helps to get the results you want.
Most adults know that consuming too much meat or anything else, even water, can cause health problems.
A known problem in the US western diet is too-high consumption of processed meats. Meat is a whole food but processed meats are not. Processed meats are in the same Group 1 carcinogenic category as cigarettes. This includes sausage, canned meat, bacon, ham, lunch/deli meats, meat jerky, hot dogs, salami and other cured meat products.
If you are consuming highly-processed foods regularly, you might develop problems, especially if you have other unhealthy habits.
ALL rats - laboratory, fancy, wild, NY city street rats - PREFER a plant-based diet. They are omnivores and scavengers but if you give them some rotting fruit and vegetables, next to a rotting piece of meat, they'll go for the vegetation first every time.
Rats - do not thrive on a flesh-based diet. Forcing a rat of ANY kind to eat 20% of its daily diet in animal protein will be unhealthy for the rat.
Many rats are even genetically altered for special testing purposes. They even have a rat that is born bacteria- free. It has no bacteria in its digestive system.
Quote:
The conversation isn't about rats at all. It's about "7 ways animal protein is damaging your health."
But no one ever mentioned the "7 ways." Not one person challenged it. And it didn't even include everything. The eighth way: Animal protein, when metabolized, is acidic to the body and cancer thrives in an acidic environment.
Quote:
Animal protein doesn't damage ANYONE's health, unless they have a specific medical issue that makes them not properly or efficiently process or digest animal protein. Humans, by virtue of being omnivorous, do not normally have any such medical issue, however there are some exceptions.
The problem is: You don't know what you don't know. You only know what you know and that's as far as you're willing to go.
Quote:
The only other time animal protein can damage someone's health, is if they eat too much of it.
And of course your not saying how much.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
