Korean Job Discussion Forums

blaseblasphemener · Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 5:59 pm Post subject:

floatsam,

what do you do for a living? you have a way with words; just wondering if you have ever had anything published. not to mix aphromnsisnsnsms, but you take the cake when you write home about it. Confused

blaseblasphemener · Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 6:06 pm Post subject:

I BROKE MY CHERRY!

I just had my first subject post hit 1000 views! (I think it's the first anyway).

What is my prize? Do I get an autographed picture of Dave Sperling? And will it be pre-beard, as I find his current picture to be kind of creepy.

flotsam · Joined: 28 Mar 2006

Congrats dude.

And I've only published the one series, but it's under my pen name.

red dog · Joined: 31 Oct 2004

A few people here have mentioned "free-range" farming. Sorry, I have no information about the Korean situation -- but here's a link that shows the difficulty of ensuring that such claims are meaningful. Although it pertains to the U.S., I think it has some relevance for other countries as well:

http://www.cok.net/lit/freerange.php

Regarding the health issues some of you have brought up, I think The China Study is one of the best resources:

http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.html

The author, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, presents a very convincing case against eating animal products and shows why switching to hormone-free, antibiotic-free, preservative-free (and so on) products won't solve the most important public health problems brought on by poor nutrition. It's a great book, and it's a sad comment on the state of the media that it doesn't seem to have generated as much attention as fad diets such as Atkins and Eat Right for Your Type.

pegpig · Joined: 10 May 2005

endo · Joined: 14 Mar 2004 Location: Seoul...my home

What in the hell is a aphorism?

google and winkepedia here we go!

blaseblasphemener · Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 10:27 pm Post subject:

pocketfluff · Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 10:55 pm Post subject:

blaseblasphemener · Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 11:43 pm Post subject:

pocketfluff,

no worries. just wanted to share that movie with people who haven't seen it.

I'm not a vegetarian myself, just got me thinking.

I'm thinking more though about all the ramifications of what I eat, and making better choices.

KittyLover · Joined: 20 May 2006

I love the idea of becoming a vegetarian. It's humane, more efficient, better for the environment...all that jazz. However when I tried it, I noticed myself getting fatigued and dizzy. Ate lots of beans, nuts, tofu, all that stuff. Still got dizzy. I've seen others try it and get the same effects. The iron that you get from animal products and the iron that you get from plant products are different. The iron from animal products is more readily absorbed into your body.(http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/minerals/iron/index.html) Perhaps lower consumption of meat and higher standards by consumers are the keys.

red dog · Joined: 31 Oct 2004

Hi KittyLover,

Did you have your iron levels tested when you were avoiding meat? Maybe you were dizzy for some reason unrelated to nutrition. Anyway, from what I've read, iron deficiency can be a problem for both meat eaters and vegetarians, but it's no more common in either group. Personally, I got dizzy spells even as a child (when I was a meat eater); there's no way of knowing why, but I'm starting to think my body may not absorb iron properly and that I may always have had a tendency toward anemia. Now I take vegan iron tablets (having had the necessary tests, of course); hopefully I'll be able to stop taking them soon and can rely on beans and green vegetables for iron.

Also, although I don't recall having felt any different when I first started avoiding meat as a teenager, I have experienced withdrawal symptoms at various times since then when trying to cut out junk food and caffeine; I think this happens to some people with animal products too because their bodies are working so hard to clean out all the bad stuff. It's tempting for people to say "oh, I'm not eating meat, so a deficiency must be causing my symptoms," but the change in diet may not be the cause at all. Or it may be a positive change -- the beginning of detoxification and better health.

I was quite low on iron when I got tested recently, and I admit I'm 100 percent to blame for it -- I didn't eat enough fruit or vegetables for years and ate all kinds of white rice, white flour, oily foods, etc. (Other people seem to get away with these mistakes whether they're vegan or not, and who knows why.) For moral reasons, I've chosen to use vegan iron tablets to build up my stores -- but from a health perspective, eating meat for iron would not have been a smart choice because meat has a lot more than just iron. I'd be getting a lot of saturated fat and cholesterol that could very well have given me a heart attack and probably wouldn't have solved the iron problem.

Here are some links about veganism and iron:

http://www.vegansociety.com/html/food/nutrition/iron.php

http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/iron.htm

I hope this helps,

red dog

pocketfluff · Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 2:28 am Post subject:

red dog, I had not known that iron tablets were available. I'm mildly anemic; I'd be greatly interested in knowing how much (percentage-wise) the body absorbs tableted iron.

I could, of course, find out this information on Google, but I feel much more confident in having a vegetarian's personal account on how such tablets work for her.

Thanks in advance.

KittyLover · Joined: 20 May 2006

Me too! I've tested low for iron before, but I can't remember if it was in my vegetarian phase or not. If you know a proper place to get tested and possibly get supplements, let me know where.

red dog · Joined: 31 Oct 2004

Hi Pocketfluff,

The brand I'm taking now is VegLife and I bought them from VeganEssentials in June. Before that I was taking a vegan multi with iron, which I bought from Pangea in January; my blood count seems to have improved a lot between October 2005 (when I was first diagnosed with anemia) and May 2006, but my iron stores were still very low, so I decided to change brands. I haven't been tested again since I started taking the new brand, so it's too soon to see how well the iron is being absorbed, but each tablet has 25 mg of iron, which is a very high dose.

I hope I won't have to rely on them for long -- and I certainly would never tell anyone to take an iron supplement without getting the proper tests done first. I tested quite low on "serum ferritin," a test that measures the iron stored in the tissues. Without that test, there's no way of knowing if the anemia is the result of iron deficiency or some other cause.

This article by a vegan dietitian touches on iron deficiency and other nutritional issues that many people are concerned about. I'm not sure people need to be quite this concerned when switching to a plant-based diet, but some may find it helpful:

http://www.veganhealth.org/sh#iron

This article mentions some tests used to diagnose iron deficiency anemia -- I think someone who is concerned about iron is better off asking a doctor to run these specific tests (as opposed to just trusting the doctor). I had the ferritin test done the last time, but next time I'll request them all.

http://www.pcrm.org/health/cancerproject/food_choices.html#iron

Not sure if this helps, but I hope it does ...