meat vs. beer

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feedthebear

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I've been having some digestive tract issues lately and went in for another round of testing today. With what the tech told me during the test, I think the doc. is going to give me a choice of giving up meat or alcohol.



I'll be the drunk guy at the salad bar.:tank:
 
I might have fatty liver disease. From the ultrasound they could tell I have fat cells that have infiltrated into my liver. Now its a question of what is the cause and if there is damage. I'm hoping that regardless of cause, I can bring it back under control with diet.
 
Chrus said:
Instead of giving up meat or beer... could you just scale back the consumption of both?

I don't actually drink a lot. Usually somewhere in the range of 1 to 3 a week.

On the other hand, for the past year, it hasn't been unusual for me to have 4 or 5 burgers a week. My fat consumption is a lot worse than my alcohol consumption. If I need to fix something, thats where I'm going to do the most good.

I've done the vegetarian thing before. I did it for a year about 8 years ago because my diet was really bad. Once I fixed my diet, I went back to eating a little meat. Now my diet is right back where it was before I went veggie the first time. So I'm going veggie again.

SWMBO has been thinking of going veggie for the past several months too. She's waffled back and forth with it. If I do it too, we'll be able to support each other in the transition.

On the plus side: I know its probably psychosomatic, but after only 1.5 days of the veggie diet I feel like my body is already starting to detox.
 
That's a serious bummer man. It would be a tough decision for me.

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damn you edwort and your BGE

hey ftb my doc said the same thing to about fatty liver told me diet and exercise may help control it. unfortunatly, i have an additional complication in Crohn's disease. have to cut out the beef and pork mostly fish and lean chicken is best if you go of the v.. ve.. veg.. vegan... :mad: (whew) diet
:rockin:
 
feedthebear said:
I don't actually drink a lot. Usually somewhere in the range of 1 to 3 a week.

On the other hand, for the past year, it hasn't been unusual for me to have 4 or 5 burgers a week. My fat consumption is a lot worse than my alcohol consumption. If I need to fix something, thats where I'm going to do the most good.

Sounds to me like you need to up your beer consumption, and lower your burger input.
 
Is it all meet or is chicken ok? I don't eat anywhere near as much beef as I used too. Heart disease runs in the family and after my very "healthy" Dad had a heart attack a few years ago, I stated really watching the fat and cholesterol.
 
red meat is over rated. i cut way back on it a few years ago. I eat it less than once a month now. I just cook with lots of spices and I don't even miss it.

whichever way you go, take care of yourself. good luck.
 
Usually in the summer time, I get pretty burnt out on red meat. Football season is meant for eating steaks with a side of steak. Come summer, I'm ready for salads and seafood. And the occasional hunk of meat.
 
Cheesefood said:
Come summer, I'm ready for salads and seafood. And the occasional hunk of meat.

Yeah I am the same way. In a few weeks we'll be getting more salad than I'll know what to do with, so salad every night for sure.

Sorry to hear about the fatty liver thing, but 3-4 burgers a week is a lot. I bet you can scale back and heal and then gradually reintroduce a bit.
 
As a vegetarian (16 years) brewer (just a few months, but a beer snob for years!), I can say I've never missed the meat, but I'd miss the beer something fierce!
 
i don't think i could live without my grill OR my keg. well, i could live...i just wouldn't feel like doing it for very long.

i actually do eat a LOT of chicken, though, and less steak lately. mainly cuz it's cheaper.
 
Oh! What a horrible decision to make! I would give up meat though. By the way, this is my first PUI on this forum. Woohoo, I can't wait to do my first HBPUI :D
 
Red meat is SO tasty... As my grandmother always said 'Everything in moderation'...
Maybe limit yourself to one red meat meal a month, as a treat???
 
I've seriously reduced the amount of red meat I eat over the years, but I don't think I'd ever eliminate it. Smaller portions and further between, yes; but none? I don't think so.
 
We must have beef or we die! I'm really curious about a condition that forced a beer or red meat choice. Nutritionally, they have almost no over-lap.

[My body gets zero out of non-meat iron sources. Even eating red meat AND taking daily iron supplements, I have to reload via mega-supplements every other year.]
 
My blood work all came back negative, like I expected. The doc. suggested the biopsy first and then changing my diet based upon the results. I said, "How about I try changing my diet and seeing if things improve before we stick needles in my chest." She said that in addition to the veggie diet I need to loose 10 lbs in the next 6 months. Otherwise I have to do the biopsy.

David_42, when the body processes alcohol, it converts it back into sugar. The sugar is then processed into and stored as fat. My problem is that I'm storing fat in my liver. Which in turn can cause scaring and cirrhosis or cancer. Unless you have a disease, the two main causes of that are: eating too much fat, eating too much sugar, and drinking too much alcohol.

With me its eating too much fat, the main source of which was meat.

I'm going to include eggs, a little dairy, and a little fish in my vegetarian diet. Eggs and dairy to help supplement my protein. Fish for Omega-3.
 
Interesting connection. Years ago, I thought I had a liver problem. Turned out that the test, which had been in use by blood banks for decades, gave false positives much more often than true positives.
 
david_42 said:
Interesting connection. Years ago, I thought I had a liver problem. Turned out that the test, which had been in use by blood banks for decades, gave false positives much more often than true positives.


Did you get back on schedule as far as liver punishing goes? As the Bartender at a local watering hole's short said. "The Liver is EVIL. It must be Punished!"

Personally I think it's heavenly casue ot allows me to drink booze! I blame hangovers on the gallbladder. Evil creature.

:D
 
If God didn't want us to eat meat, then why did he make the animals so tasty.

I had my annual check up...PSA, liver, chlorestal etc done recently. Got the green light. Woo Hoo.

Hope everything works out for you.
 
Everything is going good so far. 1 week vegetarian. Already I can tell some difference. My energy level is up. But more importantly, the painful indigestion problem that I've had for the last two months (and got so bad I finally made the appointment with the doc.) is completely gone now.

I haven't lost any weight yet and I'm sure the fatty liver is still there. But, God, do I feel better. I finally felt good enough to bottle my red ale that's been 3 weeks overdue.
 
Just wondering why skip out on all meat? Chicken is low fat. I had to give up red meat for 6 months because of my gallbladder, man was that ever tough.
 
I'm a boarderline compulsive eater. Okay, sometimes I cross the boarder for long periods of time. The only thing that saves me from really packing on the pounds is a healthy metabolism and exercise.

I don't think I could be entirely satisfied only eating pork and chicken. Eventually I'd start jonesing for the cow. Its better if I give all three up. Easier to remove temptation that way.

Although, after a couple days I realized that no meat meant no buffalo wings. So I'm on a quest to find vegetarian buffalo wings before football season starts up.
 
david_42 said:
"vegetarian buffalo wings"

That's just basically wrong!

F'n A! I heard a routine on XM Comedy a few days ago abut vegetarians. He said, and I paraphrase, all these vegetarians justify their choices by claiming that meat doesn't taste good, they like vegetables more, etc. If that's true, then let's look in your freezer. Oh, hey, vegetarian meat-substitute hamburgers! Tofu bacon substitute! If meat tastes so damn bad, why are you constantly trying to replicate it? You don't go to the butcher and see "all meat tomato substitute".

Pretty funny stuff...

My own observations have been that alot of vegetarians/vegans (especially vegans) are overweight. I suppose that would be because of the high proportion of carbohydrates in their diets.

I'm no doctor, but I wouldn't say that "meat" is the problem here. It's fatty, high-cholesterol meat. Could you not just try lean cuts? boneless/skinless chicken breasts? It's not a porterhouse, but it's better than just salad...
 
Evan!, the guy you are listening to on the radio is an idiot.

Most vegetarians do it either for spiritual or health reasons. Meat substitutes are about trying to find something that will have the same size or same texture as the meat that you would normally use in a recipe. But believe me, 99% of the meat substitutes taste nothing like meat.

Dave42, I haven't been able to find MorningStar's wings anywhere. But I've never been terribly impressed with their products. I've picked up some seitan (wheat gluten). I'm going to try frying it with hot sauce. If it works, great. If not, I'll fall back on jalapeno poppers and curry.

Oh, and I've dropped 2 lbs in 2 weeks.
 
feedthebear said:
I've picked up some seitan (wheat gluten). I'm going to try frying it with hot sauce.

Hail Seitan!

I'm holding back from lashing out at all the meat-eaters here because I respect them as brewers...;)

Saying we're supposed to eat meat because it tastes good is like saying we're supposed to shoot heroin because it feels good.

Oops, I said I was going to hold back didn't i? Sorry...
 
One thing you have to try if you like the hot stuff is a few drops of your favorite "flavor" hot sauce (Louisiana or Tabasco are good) in a bowl of oatmeal, and sweeten to taste. It really gives an otherwise bland--but disgustingly healthy--breakfast a shot of pizang. And the oatmeal itself helps to quelch any burn, if you don't like that too much.
 
chthonik said:
Hail Seitan!

:off:Lol. I just try to grow and raise most of my food. I am slowly getting there, but tbh the way everything works is kind of stacked against this philosophy. I think people don't eat more vegetables because what we have access to sucks in terms of genetics and freshness.

:ban:
 
feedthebear said:
Everything is going good so far. 1 week vegetarian. Already I can tell some difference. My energy level is up. But more importantly, the painful indigestion problem that I've had for the last two months (and got so bad I finally made the appointment with the doc.) is completely gone now.

I haven't lost any weight yet and I'm sure the fatty liver is still there. But, God, do I feel better. I finally felt good enough to bottle my red ale that's been 3 weeks overdue.


Tis good to hear!

I'll drink to that. If you can find a way to get into locally grown veggies or grow some yourself it makes eating vegetables like night and day imo.
 
feedthebear said:
Evan!, the guy you are listening to on the radio is an idiot.
Whoa, relax! I believe Evan! cited a comedian.

chthonik said:
I'm holding back from lashing out at all the meat-eaters here because I respect them as brewers...;)

Saying we're supposed to eat meat because it tastes good is like saying we're supposed to shoot heroin because it feels good.
OK, how about "we're supposed to eat meat because we are omnivores, and have been since we evolved as a species" (pretty sure the heroin analogy doesn't fit there).

The health issue isn't meat, per se. Sure, we probably don't need as much as we did in caveman times, given that we spend a lot more time typing on homebrew forums (for example) than running down mammoths with sticks and stones. But meat in moderation isn't unhealthy. If it's all you eat (and you're not running down mammoths) then you have a problem. The bigger problem is probably the nature of the carbs and fats (overprocessed, and generally uunfamiliar to the human body) that a lot of people eat today.
 
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