No I do not, I also eat very little fruit in fact possibly one piece a month, I still cannot stand the smell of veg, eating Brocoli or cauliflower or even smelling it makes me feel ill, I am fairly fit and healthy I have regular health check ups and bloodwork done and I have no major problems with my bowels.
So you can live a healthy normal life without them and you can still lift weights and get big too.
But you should eat as much fruit and veg as poss.[/quote]
You’re 32, just coming off the last vestiges of being ‘a young man’. Glad your healthy still. I’ve never understood that reaction you have to vegetables. Some of them have a strong taste but in general the worst i can say about them is that they are a bit dull and take too long to chew!
I suppose it’s simply that because you became used to not eating them as a child, if you had been persuaded you wouldnt see them the way you do now.
In general i’d believe that no man made food supplements can equal good quality foods of any kind, but would be interested in any studies showing otherwise. i.e. taking a multivit doesnt make up for not eating vegetables.
Nice avatar, btw, that man was a power house of raw strength, read a book about him years ago (guvnor i think it was called)
No I do not, I also eat very little fruit in fact possibly one piece a month, I still cannot stand the smell of veg, eating Brocoli or cauliflower or even smelling it makes me feel ill, I am fairly fit and healthy I have regular health check ups and bloodwork done and I have no major problems with my bowels.
So you can live a healthy normal life without them and you can still lift weights and get big too.
But you should eat as much fruit and veg as poss.
You’re 32, just coming off the last vestiges of being ‘a young man’. Glad your healthy still. I’ve never understood that reaction you have to vegetables. Some of them have a strong taste but in general the worst i can say about them is that they are a bit dull and take too long to chew!
I suppose it’s simply that because you became used to not eating them as a child, if you had been persuaded you wouldnt see them the way you do now.
In general i’d believe that no man made food supplements can equal good quality foods of any kind, but would be interested in any studies showing otherwise. i.e. taking a multivit doesnt make up for not eating vegetables.
Nice avatar, btw, that man was a power house of raw strength, read a book about him years ago (guvnor i think it was called)[/quote]
Funny you should mention the Avatar in the thread, that guy spent very little time down the gym and he didnt eat much veg either, he used to say they took up too much room on his plate and left less space for his steak!
Greatest bare Knuckle fighter ever in many peoples opinion, unbeaten in over 2000 fights, lost only once in the ring to a guy he went on to beat twice, thats all natural he hardly spent much time down the gym either, imagine what he would have been like if he trained hard, or even juiced!
I just hate the taste of greens, I can have mushrroms in a lasagna say. I think there is a lot worse I can do to my body than deprive it of friut and veg.
now while i might get flamed for this, i was on jay cutler’s website and he has a diet posted and what struck me was that he does not eat any vegetables or fruit. also, of the things i’ve read about arnold, during his hey-day he piled on the meat and eggs but you dont see any vegis on his plate in that scene of pumping iron.
so, if you eat brown rice or something for fiber, are vegetables really that essential? (given that you are getting fiber from another source)
i’m wondering if the push to pile on vegis to even out one’s acid/alkaline profile, etc is just a fad-- and in time maybe the people who do this really arent that much healthier.
just an idea, yeah it might be dumb but whatever
-jake[/quote]
In case you didn’t notice, Jay isn’t the epitome of health and neither is Arnold with all his operations and transplants.
So go for it if you like.
You should read Berardi’s material on nutrition. Top stuff and veges will only PROMOTE your growth when added to the rest of your diet.
[quote]electric_eales wrote:
FightingScott wrote:
If you like to shit comfortably and don’t want ass cancer you must eat vegetables.
So areyou saying if you do not eat vegtables you are garaunteed to get cancer of the colon?
[/quote]
If your diet consists of nothing but meats, dairy, cereals, and processed foods you will have health problems and the likelihood of you getting colon cancer will increase. You need those veggies to scrub that colon!
Fiber not only decreases transit time in the intestines, which can help reduce the risk of colon cancer, but processing of fiber in the intestines produces chemical compounds such as butyrate which are very chemoprotective.
Reading this thread I feel like most of the responders here missed the point of the OP’s post.
The OP was only asking if you can get away with not consuming vegetables while pursuing a contest shape.
Yes you can, due to genetics, “special supplements”, and the fact that bodybuilders don’t exactly compete weekly so they have periods where they eat their vegetables and periods where they no-carb it up until contest time.
And I dare to theorize that with vitamins and fiber supplements, you don’t need to eat fruits and vegetables, period. Assuming that your supplements are bio-available enough, you’ll get all the nutrients and fiber needed.
Only thing is that most of us would very much rather get what we need from food than pounds of pills and powders daily.
*Note: this post is dedicated to the memory of the 1 cup of broccoli that I devoured as part today’s lunch after splashing hot sauce on it.
And I dare to theorize that with vitamins and fiber supplements, you don’t need to eat fruits and vegetables, period. Assuming that your supplements are bio-available enough, you’ll get all the nutrients and fiber needed.
[/quote]
I gotta disagree with this, at least depending on context. For optimal health, there are not enough supplements in the world to rival the phytonutrient content of whole foods. There’s so much we don’t even know regarding the compounds in fruits and vegetables.
Coupled with the fact that often times, individual compounds isolated from foods do not seem to perform the same in isolation as compared to when they are ingested in combination with the natural wide array of compounds found in whole foods, supplementation cannot hold a candle.
Fruits and vegetables ability to modulate gene expression plays a big role in helping one stay healthy in spite of genetic predispositions for certain ailments. Eating a diet which lacks these beneficial phytonutrients, while simultaneously being high in compounds which have negative biochemical effects, is playing Russian roulette with your genetics; sure, you might be one of the lucky ones who doesn’t suffer, but then again, you might not.
Until such thorough genetic testing becomes available that everyone will have their own personalized diet and supplementation protocol for health, your best bet is to eat a wide range of fruits and veggies when possible.
I do agree with your statements about being able to progress without vegetables and fruit depending on immediate goals, etc. Sometimes maximal progress towards getting shredded, or getting huge, does not always coincide with optimal health.
In the long run, though, progress and health shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.
[quote]NewDamage wrote:
Fiber not only decreases transit time in the intestines, which can help reduce the risk of colon cancer, but processing of fiber in the intestines produces chemical compounds such as butyrate which are very chemoprotective.
[quote]electric_eales wrote:
NewDamage wrote:
Fiber not only decreases transit time in the intestines, which can help reduce the risk of colon cancer, but processing of fiber in the intestines produces chemical compounds such as butyrate which are very chemoprotective.
Eat your vegetables.
Fibre is also available from wheat you know[/quote]
Wow.
Thanks for that.
Whatever you gotta do to justify not eating vegetables, you go ahead and do.
one thing people forget is that good meat when cooked correctly also contains a lot of vitamins. and with how much easier to digest meat is than vegetables, wouldn’t they even be more bio-available?
in addition, all of those cancer studies i bet consisted of people who ate veggies vs people who ate like shit. what if you ate clean food, but left out greens? what if colon cancer risk is not reduced by greens, but by just clean non-processed (and not fried) foods? if anyone has seen studies like that i’d love a link to it.
i’m sorry, but i can’t picture our bodies evolving to eating a pound of leaves each day. we have good eyes and brain for hunting, why wouldn’t we have adapted the digestive system for its fruits?
[quote]NewDamage wrote:
electric_eales wrote:
NewDamage wrote:
Fiber not only decreases transit time in the intestines, which can help reduce the risk of colon cancer, but processing of fiber in the intestines produces chemical compounds such as butyrate which are very chemoprotective.
Eat your vegetables.
Fibre is also available from wheat you know
Wow.
Thanks for that.
Whatever you gotta do to justify not eating vegetables, you go ahead and do.
[/quote]
I am not jusitifying it, I said at the dstart it is very important to eat fruit and veg, but the original question was ‘is it essential’
one poster claimed it is essential becuase you need the fibre from veg, i was simply pointing out if it is only the fibre that is required it can be gained from other sorces, thus making eating veg non essential (but this does not mean you should not eat them)
This thread is about to have the crap hijacked out of it, and its going to open a can of worms. Oh well.
[quote]dexslave wrote:
one thing people forget is that good meat when cooked correctly also contains a lot of vitamins. and with how much easier to digest meat is than vegetables, wouldn’t they even be more bio-available?
[/quote]
In any food, cooking can make some vitamins more bioavailable, and make some vitamins less bioavailable. However, good health goes beyond vitamins.
Also, the manner of cooking can affect the effects of food on the body. For example, charred meats contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which are carcinogenic.
You can’t just use arbitrary words like “clean” and “unprocessed.” You have to get to the actual difference between dietary factors which affects health. Like I mentioned before, there are numerous, NUMEROUS phytonutrients in vegetables and fruit which have chemoprotective properties. While I agree with you that “clean” and “unprocessed” food should be staples, greens in particular contain so many compounds you wouldn’t want to miss out on unless, again, you like your genetic odds for avoiding disease…
[quote]
i’m sorry, but i can’t picture our bodies evolving to eating a pound of leaves each day. we have good eyes and brain for hunting, why wouldn’t we have adapted the digestive system for its fruits?[/quote]
Actually, most likely we have evolved largely by eating ridiculously high amounts of fiber, coming from plants that most certainly don’t resemble the genetic engineered versions you see today. For a long time we probably acted more as intelligent scavengers, capitalizing on animals which were sick or were killed by other predators. We mostly likely weren’t the killing machines we like to fancy ourselves as.
There were likely periods of lean times which plants predominated the diet - plants which were much more bitter, high in fiber, and harder to chew, than those which we eat today, with fiber content ranging in the hundreds. These lean times were probably peppered with protein and fat gorgings when possible, but hunting is a hard endeavor.
However, don’t confuse today’s goal for optimal health versus our ability to survive and reproduce in the past. Now we possess the intelligence and foresight to ask the questions which might help us live longer, healthier lives. Back then, whatever helped us survive long enough to reproduce was going to be maintained, and traits and behaviors which did not, were not selected for. So when we look to the past and wonder how we used to eat and behave, we need to consider the possibility of what is best for surviving to one’s reproductive years to produce may not only be irrelevant to surviving through old age, but it may negatively impact it as well.
Not at all. Heh, i didnt make the thread to hear people agree with me. i was just throwing the idea out there to see what other people made of it (wherever the conversation led).
also, as i said before, i still eat my salads and will continue to.
And yes, i’ve wondered before too if longevity/health are conflicting goals with our genes designed for reproduction and survival. For instance, my family has a history of being workaholics in younger years, then depression later in life. Good for reproduction? hell yes. Health and happiness? heh, probably not. But to keep the thread focused on nutrition, thats a good point about current day greens being little like the ‘original’ ones we evolved to eat. maybe that is why we need to plan our diets so well for health. (this is all informally educated supposition, if someone knows their biology better plz comment)
However, don’t confuse today’s goal for optimal health versus our ability to survive and reproduce in the past. Now we possess the intelligence and foresight to ask the questions which might help us live longer, healthier lives. Back then, whatever helped us survive long enough to reproduce was going to be maintained, and traits and behaviors which did not, were not selected for. So when we look to the past and wonder how we used to eat and behave, we need to consider the possibility of what is best for surviving to one’s reproductive years to produce may not only be irrelevant to surviving through old age, but it may negatively impact it as well.
Horrible, horrible hijack. Sorry.
[/quote]
Good post bro. That’s why NewDamage has a physique many aspire, his intrinsic knowledge on training and nutrition.
