u/synergyiskey

Hey all, hope you're well.

I realise it's incredibly late since the deadline on gov.uk seems to be September 15, but is it possible to apply at this point? I see four courses for chemistry in my area on the gov.uk website that are apparently still open for application.

I know oxalates are one driver for their development, but I've heard calcium is also involved. If I'm drinking ~1L a day, could that contribute to kidney stones?

I may sound like an idiot here, but I don't really get the craze. Aren't the vast majority of eggs from chickens that were fed grains/soy, meaning their yolks are PUFA (linoleic acid) bombs? Chickens being monogastric means they can't handle high-PUFA diets as well as cows (although neither would suffer them ideally).

I may sound like an idiot here, but I don't really get the craze. Aren't the vast majority of eggs from chickens that were fed grains/soy, meaning their yolks are PUFA (linoleic acid) bombs? Chickens being monogastric means they can't handle high-PUFA diets as well as cows (although neither would suffer them ideally).

I'm not craving meat very much in any form really, whether that be beef, fish or chicken. I've been having red meat basically daily for the past 6 months, and now I'm just not craving it, although I'm still having it of course. It just doesn't excite me like it did a while ago. Could this be because it's summer? I genuinely wouldn't mind having loads of fruit at the moment, but I don't care for meat that much and especially not eggs.

I've strangely not been craving steak much recently even though I've had it virtually daily for the past few months, but I've been enjoying pressure-cooked tough cuts (e.g. shank) in its stead. What could be the reason for this, and would I be missing out on anything by opting to just have the stewed tough cuts for a while?

I've strangely not been craving steak much recently even though I've had it virtually daily for the past few months, but I've been enjoying pressure-cooked tough cuts in its stead. What could be the reason for this, and would I be missing out on anything by opting to just have the stewed tough cuts for a while?

I began making kefir 1½ months ago with a 15g starter. I now have ~800g of kefir grains which I (unfortunately) submerge in only 2L of milk every other day. Definitely too many grains for that quantity of milk, but I don't know what to do with such an excess of grains and I'm honestly somewhat protective of them.

I've got a few height questions which I don't really know how to answer.

1. I hear women are hard-wired to find tallness extremely attractive. If that's the case, why are more men globally not taller? Please don't say "it's all relative", because even back in the Stone Age, the height of European Gravettian hunter-gatherer males was 6' (compared to 5'10 currently), while in South Asia the hunter-gatherer males were ~5'10 (compared to 5'5 currently). It can't be because of food abundance back then compared to now surely, so how is it possible that with women being hard-wired to select for height, the height has trended down over thousands of years when we have more food now than ever before also?

2. If height is such a desirable trait in men globally, why is there so much variance in it? It's not even just a latitude thing – both the Dinka men and Pygmy men are equatorial, but the former are ~6' while the latter are ~4'11. Similarly, Inuit men are arctic at ~5'5, while Scandinavians are ~6'. An even more damning example is the difference between Albanians and Serbians; both neighbours and genetically similar nations but the former has an average male height of 5'8 while the latter has one of 5'11! Should there not be less variation between men globally for height, and more between men and women if women are such sticklers about height?

3. On the above note, I've heard women prefer a height difference of 8" between their partner and them, yet there is nowhere in the world with such a marked average height discrepancy between the genders. How did this preference arise if biology has not manifested it anywhere?

4. Many people will say that short women produce/contribute to the creation of short men (via offspring and contributing their genes as it's a polygenic trait), but does this not ultimately mean that the "short man problem" is created by short women? After all, if a tall man and a shorter woman get together, we can't reasonably attribute the possible shortness of their kids to the taller man – meaning shorter women create the very problem they're troubled by?

I know it's a lot, but I'd be grateful for any responses.

I've got a few height questions which I don't really know how to answer.

1. I hear women are hard-wired to find tallness extremely attractive. If that's the case, why are more men globally not taller? Please don't say "it's all relative", because even back in the Stone Age, the height of European Gravettian hunter-gatherer males was 6' (compared to 5'10 currently), while in South Asia the hunter-gatherer males were ~5'10 (compared to 5'5 currently). It can't be because of food abundance back then compared to now surely, so how is it possible that with women being hard-wired to select for height, the height has trended down over thousands of years when we have more food now than ever before also?

2. If height is such a desirable trait in men globally, why is there so much variance in it? It's not even just a latitude thing – both the Dinka men and Pygmy men are equatorial, but the former are ~6' while the latter are ~4'11. Similarly, Inuit men are arctic at ~5'5, while Scandinavians are ~6'. An even more damning example is the difference between Albanians and Serbians; both neighbours and genetically similar nations but the former has an average male height of 5'8 while the latter has one of 5'11! Should there not be less variation between men globally for height, and more between men and women if women are such sticklers about height?

3. On the above note, I've heard women prefer a height difference of 8" between their partner and them, yet there is nowhere in the world with such a marked average height discrepancy between the genders. How did this preference arise if biology has not manifested it anywhere?

4. Many people will say that short women produce/contribute to the creation of short men (via offspring and contributing their genes as it's a polygenic trait), but does this not ultimately mean that the "short man problem" is created by short women? After all, if a tall man and a shorter woman get together, we can't reasonably attribute the possible shortness of their kids to the taller man – meaning shorter women create the very problem they're troubled by?

I know it's a lot, but I'd be grateful for any responses.

Red meat consumption apparently corresponds to greater production of these metabolic byproducts following protein breakdown. I've been tested for higher levels of both and am wondering if there's anything I can realistically do on this diet to mitigate them.

I already drink quite a lot of water, but I'd be curious to hear if anybody else with the same has managed this successfully.

For what's such a pessimistic way of viewing the world that I don't spiritually want to align myself with, I can't help but continually stumble upon experiences that verify its legitimacy. As a shorter South Asian guy especially, the ubiquity of height and race in the social discourse (whether that relates to dating, careers or otherwise) is incredibly demoralising. Over the past day alone, I saw two posts on this platform alone where women were a) infatuated with a homeless man who was tall and handsome or b) contemplating knowingly being the side chick for a tall handsome guy with an Italian accent.

I'm aware that it's important to play the hand one's dealt, but damn if I don't feel diametrically opposed to the convention in just about every way possible. I wouldn't even say I'm particularly bad-looking in the face, but it's so difficult to exude any sort of genuine masculinity when I'm so far outwardly removed from its requirements.

Hope you're all well. Apparently there exists a correlation between rates of certain maladies and consumption of HCAs, which are formed by the Maillard reaction in cooked meats and increase in concentration with cooking time/temperature. Since I consume seared steak virtually daily, I looked into this a little more, and other than just consuming meat raw to inhibit this process altogether, it's supposedly possible to limit HCA formation by marinating meats in antioxidant-rich compounds (such as thyme, rosemary, oregano, ascorbic acid etc) or with other hydration preserving agents like honey, since water is the primary facilitator of these reactions in the first place.

There's a super useful paper from which I found all of this information here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0362028X2205709X

I'm curious why you guys think so many people have what are effectively knee-jerk objections to this diet, or carnivore. Even if you don't "appeal to nature", the biochemistry is all laid out, and it's only a matter of accessing it. It's insane to me that people are fine eating what's considered food nowadays, especially when there indeed are cheaper meat options e.g. heart, brain, liver that don't necessarily have to set one back financially if they're struggling. There's just no real excuse for the negligence, but so many people associate vegetables and nuts with health for some reason, and can't even tell you why. "Fiber" is what it seems to come down to most of the time…