I’ve been chatting to a vegan on the Happy Guide blog for a few days, and as usual, the debate gets quite intense, vegans are certainly passionate about their choices.
Vegan diets untenable
I want to say something about this because basically, my view is that vegan diets are essentially dangerous. My reasons include “big picture” stuff like…
- Homo genus has been eating animal foods for 2.5 MILLION YEARS.
- Eating animal foods is what MADE US HUMAN, e.g. availability of long-chain omega-3 needed for our brain development.
- Traditional cultures and hunter-gatherers highly valued certain animal foods and would often spend a huge time/effort to get them, especially known to be needed for healthy pregnancy. Tradition is not something to be sniffed at. Healthy behaviors get built into culture over thousands of generations based on observations about “what works.” Science can now dissect these behaviors to understand the mechanisms e.g. cooking with onions reduces formation of heterocyclic amines, cod liver oil, fish eggs, fermented foods and organ meats have micronutrients that are very healthy… omega-3 DHA, preformed vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K2… this is cutting edge science that was always there in healthy traditions.
- Our gut physiology clearly shows adaptation to higher nutrient density foods available from animals.
- Archaeological evidence from early humans that clearly show diets based primarily on hunting, e.g. cro-magnon in France.
- Study of modern-day hunter gatherers and their diets.
- There are no examples of vegan cultures where vegan diets maintained healthy populations over generations, not now, not ever in history.
- Nutrition is an emerging science, and science is what you do when you don’t know what you’re doing. We don’t know it all yet.
- Testimony of long-term health failure on vegan diets.
… as well as the micronutrient evidence like…
- Our partial need for dietary taurine shows evidence of adaptation to animal foods.
- Some people need dietary cholesterol and don’t make enough of their own.
- Poor conversion in the body of plant-based omega-3 into DHA.
- Healthy balance of omega-3 and 6, essential to prevent chronic inflammation is not possible on a vegan diet.
- Poor conversion of carotenoids to retinoids (vitamin A).
- B12 is only found in animal foods. Vegan B12 status has been found to be very poor in studies. B12 is essential for heart health, involved in pathways with homocysteine that is a risk factor for heart-disease. B12 also needed for healthy myelin sheath that protects nerves, and many other processes in the body. Inadequate dietary sulfur amino acids (methionine and cysteine), and glycine needed for methylation.
- Thyroid problems from excess plant goitrogens including soy but also many other plant foods.
- Inadequate zinc, B6, choline and fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and K2
- Selenocysteine, an animal-based form of selenium is safer at high levels than the plant form selenomethionine, which can cause selenium poisoning.
The poor conversion of plant forms of micronutrients is evidence of adaptation to animal sources of these nutrients that are in the form we need. Click here to read a nice article by Denise Minger about some of these poor conversion issues.
… as well as the macronutrient/food evidence like…
- Lack of high quality, highly absorbable protein. This is one reason why sedentary women do best for longer on vegan diets, their protein needs are very low. Vegan men often use large amounts of protein powder, a highly industrialized process where the cost to nature is hidden. Protein powder is missing all the healthy cofactors found in natural protein sources. Protein is absorbed and utilized by the body depending on the source. Animal proteins have a higher biological value, more is absorbed, so grams of vegetable protein does not equal grams of animal protein.
- Reliance on grains (unnatural for humans) which cause a whole cascade of problems in the long-term.
- A high carbohydrate diet is a main factor in insulin resistance and inflammation, a primary cause of many diseases, including heart-disease.
… as well as insights into the real cost to nature of our diets…
- A grain based diet is a tragedy for nature and the environment. If land is cleared for planting monocrops, then all the life, the complex ecosystem that was there, is gone forever, until it is returned to nature or a polyculture way of producing food crops that mimic nature. Harvesting grains kills mammals and nesting birds. These are just a couple of examples. There is no death-free food (see book recommendation below). If we care about LIFE, then we need to produce food in harmony with natural ecosystems. Permaculture is good to research. I remember chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall saying that when she first went to Africa, the rivers were overflowing with life, a situation that has sadly changed in such a short time. Abundant LIFE as natural ecology is the humane and sane future, not veganism.
Vegan pillars have shaky foundations
Two of the main arguments used by vegans are The China Study and Dean Ornish’s lifestyle intervention studies showing reversal of atherosclerosis of near vegan diets, very low fat.
China Study — fatally flawed
The China Study was a massive epidemiological i.e. observational study in China where people’s diets were analyzed against health outcomes. A book was written by lead author Colin Campbell based on his conclusions of the China Study, that animal protein causes disease.
This is not how science is done, this is not the scientific method, that has been developed so as to avoid wrong conclusions so easy to come to if we’re not careful.
Epidemiology is good for creating hypothesis, an idea of possible causation, but cannot show causation itself, further study involving ideally double-blind clinical trials are needed to attempt a first step in teasing out the cause-effect. Attempt is made to isolate a variable while keeping all others constant to test the effect of that single variable.
Clever science bods have recently looked at Campbell’s work and found it to be full of holes, bias, selective interpretation of data based of his personal agenda, and frankly, shoddy science. Here’s an enlightening chat between Dr. Mercola and Chris Masterjohn about how Campbell’s work is fatally flawed. It’s in 4 parts, I recommend watching the whole thing if you are a China Study believer…
The China Study, analyzed objectively actually shows meat consumption to be neutral for health outcomes, fish to be protective, but WHEAT to be incredibly strongly correlated with disease, the strongest correlation of all. If you’d like to dig deeper into the flawed science of The China Study, here’s some good places to start…
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/cancer/the-china-study-vs-the-china-study/
http://rawfoodsos.com/the-china-study/
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html
Dean Ornish lifestyle intervention
The other main pillar of veganism is Dean Ornish’s lifestyle intervention study which was the first to prove that lifestyle could reverse heart disease. I think in terms of understanding the power of lifestyle, Dean Ornish has us done a huge service, but in my view, a couple of things need to be clear…
- A diet to reverse a certain condition is NOT necessarily a diet that will maintain health of a population over generations, or prevent the disease in the first place. Fasting also has a tremendous record of healing, but it won’t maintain your health for long :-)
- The mechanism behind Ornish program was not understood, there were MANY factors in his study including smoking cessation, exercise, meditation etc. Until the mechanism, the causes are understood, it is not scientific or even humane, to recommend a diet without understanding the full implications. Since Ornish’s early work, atherosclerosis HAS been reversed on even HIGH FAT diets. So, it seems to be the process of weight normalization, insulin control etc that are the true causes, i.e. NOT vegan low fat.
So, the pillars of veganism are so shaky, and only hold up at all due to the momentum gained from popular exposure to flawed science like the China Study book, and EARLY intervention studies like the work of Dean Ornish. All in all, vegan diets in my view have no basis for recommendation whatsoever, and are frankly dangerous.
Vegan health failures
I regularly come across accounts of health failure on vegan diets. The book recommendation below “The Vegetarian Myth” (author 20 years vegan) is a detailed account, and I recently came across another book called “The Meat Fix” (author 26 years vegan) about long-term health failure and recovery by eating animal foods. Interestingly, the author reports being able to throw away his glasses after a while on his new carbohydrate-controlled, animal foods based diet.
Here’s a very interesting account by Dr. Chris Masterjohn about his journey into vegetarianism, and veganism spurred on by reading “A Diet for a New America” by John Robbins. Then his subsequent worsening dental problems, irregular heartbeats and panic attacks, and finally his return to health using nutrient dense animal foods. Anxiety, panic attacks, poor libido, dry skin, tooth decay and digestive problems are the most common issues I see reported, and the length of time it takes for these to manifest varies depending on the health of the person in the beginning, and the choices made while vegan. Here’s Chris’s story:
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Vegetarianism.html
Here’s an excellent page of vegan failures (including Gandhi) and reasons by the Natural Hygiene Society, previously advocates of veganism…
http://naturalhygienesociety.org/diet3.html
E.g…
Kevin Gianni, “Renegade Health”: What diet do you eat now Kevin?
“At one point I was taking 6-10 vegan supplements a day to attempt to override my deficiencies – B complex, DHA, Vitamin D, B12, a mineral supplement, protein powder, chlorella, and more. I also adjusted my diet to add more cooked foods to see if that would change the way I felt as well. This was over a 2 year period. ….. After the introduction of goat’s kefir and yogurt, I immediately felt an increase of energy, slept better and many issues started to clear up – my acne started to disappear, my knees stopped aching after a run, I gained back weight lost, I was able to retain muscle mass better, I could get out of bed in the morning, etc.”
Brain damage
“By far the most intractably damaged brains and nervous systems I have ever encountered have to the letter been vegetarians and especially vegans.” — Nora Gedgaudas, Primal Body, Primal Mind. Click for excellent video.
Vegetarianism is do-able if you can tolerate dairy
(not recommended, but less damaging than veganism)
The compassion, desire for health, and to do the right thing for the planet are noble ideals, ones I can relate to (although I definitely question the idea that veganism, or vegetarianism are the best ways to achieve either goal).
Veganism is a bridge too far… but vegetarianism can support health as long as dairy foods can be tolerated. We do not recommend it, because it’s so hard to say who is affected by dairy, and who isn’t. The effects of unnatural foods can be insidious, doing damage over a long time frame. BUT if someone is not willing to eat animal foods that involve the death of the animal, then vegetarianism is an option to consider. Personally, I would say go for pescetarianism, which would allow fish. Adding this gives us fish, dairy, eggs, shellfish, and THAT is definitely doable for health over generations and we have models for it e.g. Kitavans.
So if you are vegan and unwilling to consider meat or fish, please consider some or all of the following that in my view will offer you some protection against the long-term damaging effects of vegan diets…
- Eat some cheese now and again if you can tolerate dairy, preferably made from raw whole milk, esp goat milk, but emmental is widely available and made from raw cow milk. Quality yogurt and kefir are also good, again if you can tolerate dairy.
- Eat fermented vegetables e.g. sauerkraut.
- Take a high-quality B12 supplement, it ain’t worth the risk.
- No gluten grains, stick with white rice, quinoa, millet, or learn to prepare whole grains in the traditional way that removes anti-nutrients… soaking, sprouting etc can ameliorate some of the damage of grains.
- Eat some eggs from happy free-range chickens that can eat wild greens with omega-3 in them.
- Take a DHA/EPA supplement derived from algae.
- Don’t eat vegetable oil high in omega-6, use macadamia oil, coconut oil, and olive oil. Butter/ghee if OK with dairy. Don’t cook with olive oil, use it for salads.
- Don’t overdose on nuts, and favor ones lower in omega-6 like macadamia, hazelnut, pistachios, almonds. Soak nuts overnight and be sure to dry them if you want to store them, I soak and eat the next day.
- Don’t eat soy apart from limited amounts of fermented soy products like tempeh.
- Favor roots/tubers over grains as a starch source… sweet potatoes, potatoes, yams, taro, cassava, squash etc.
A full accounting
I have one more strong recommendation for vegans and would-be vegans and that is to read “The Vegetarian Myth” by Lierre Keith who was vegan for 20 years, a woman passionate about justice, compassion and equality.
It’s an impassioned, powerful read. Her health was destroyed by 20 years of veganism, a story I’ve heard over and over.
She calls for a “full accounting,” meaning the big picture of what has to die to feed you. Eye-opening, and a good start to explore the bigger picture of diet and how we live. See it on Amazon.com
Best wishes,
Michael Kinnaird
Happy Guide 
“Thanks for the links, I’ve actually been doing a lot of research into this. Confusing is right. We’ve already pretty much decided to remove fish oil from out protocol. So many different opinions out there, and the issues of contamination don’t help matters.”
What do you think of whole oily fish? Wouldn’t they have the same issues of long chain polyunsaturated oils?
LikeLike
I’m not sure the mechanism is fully understood although the most likely issue is peroxidation. Biochemistry is not my thing, so I look to experts who I think are talking sense for stuff like this. PUFAs are easily oxidized and so with fish, the handling is such that they are quickly frozen or kept on ice, whereas quality of fish oil is subject to so many factors it’s hard to know what you’re getting, or what state those fats are in, or how long they’ve been hanging around. Another issue could be co-factors, nutrients present in natural foods that work synergistically. Probably both these things. Fish is reported to do better in studies than oil. Again, nature is the guiding principle.
LikeLike
“Well, it’s pretty well established that some people don’t convert carotenoids to retinoids efficiently. My view is that because we evolved eating animal food, we are adapted to that. It’s not just preformed vitamin A alone. Taurine is another example I mentioned in the article.”
I read something about that with retinoids before. Though it seems the main reason some don’t is because of other health issues. Though with the health issues that cause meat eaters to not absorb B12 from their food, you say they should just make themselves healthier so they can, not that there is something wrong with trying to get B12 from those sources because “some” can’t convert or absorb it due to bad health etc.
“Mainly vegans do it because of some misguided ethic, because they don’t understand nature, because they hate cruelty. And I do too, so let’s end cruelty instead of trying to force ourselves into a niche we are not adapted to.”
End cruelty by encouraging people to eat more animals and supermarket animals if easiest for them? Can’t have your cake and eat it too. You choose a hopeful “health” over lack of cruelty. It’s a choice you can make, though don’t be in denial of it. Everyone has their priorities.
“Vast areas of the planet where people live are only suitable for obtaining food from herbivores grazing grass we can’t eat and turning it into meat we can eat. ”
Sounds very healthy and nutritionally balanced. So cause they are unlucky, everyone else who isn’t, should follow their inferior diet?
“So resolve those issues. All the time, I see sticky plaster solutions instead of getting at the roots.”
lol. adding to the high demands is not helping to resolve those issues…
Those issues are unlikely to get resolved enough.
“The greater the crisis, the more attention to the solution. Madness is everywhere, but the true and real solutions exist now for how we can live in harmony with nature. The system must change where people need to hoard for themselves, that is the root of abuse to people and nature.”
Solving human corruption and the side effects of advanced life and “intelligence” is more of the issue. Not going to change mass psychology and behavior or reverse the trends. These are just all the things and consequences of what ‘evolution’ and getting ‘bigger brains’ did…
“The utopian version needs effort, but start with the supermarket version. Then go to farmer’s markets, plant a tree, find a farmer etc. Let’s move into it.”
Can’t supply all demand from small time, inefficient and expensive farmers. Could only supply limited, expensive supplies to small groups of health conscious “elite”. And even the elite few who can afford and get access to all that, only can in limited capacities. They can’t while they’re traveling, dining out, socializing, and many other situations. So, conventional, hormone and steroid laden grain fed animals is what the majority will continue to consume and is possible.
“There is, scientists can tell by looking at carbon isotopes or some such thing. They know that early homo sapiens was basically a top level predator. There’s a lot of evidence.”
Until they found out they measured it completely wrong. We’re not even built anything like a “top level predator” lol! We could build tools to make up for our lack of natural bodily weapons, though could not make tools to make up for our lack of natural bodily physiology for processing it the same way real “top level predators” in nature could. Cooking helped a little, not totally. We are still closer to other great apes in our physiology. We didn’t evolve into a lion physiology.
Caveman Diet Secret: Less Red Meat, More Plants
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caveman-diet-secret
Then there are the studies that show what animal protein heavy diets Actually do to us:
Meat and cheese may be as bad for you as smoking
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140304125639.htm
LikeLike
“I read something about that with retinoids before. Though it seems the main reason some don’t is because of other health issues. Though with the health issues that cause meat eaters to not absorb B12 from their food, you say they should just make themselves healthier so they can, not that there is something wrong with trying to get B12 from those sources because “some” can’t convert or absorb it due to bad health etc.”
Actually I didn’t respond to your link about B12 deficiency in meat eaters, although I did look, and they weren’t deficient, there were some borderline people. I think our guts are in a mess generally because of many issues… imbalance of gut flora, and a wide range of issues caused by grains and other foods causing leaky guts and therefore immune problems. The dots are hard to connect but they all have their roots in unnatural foods. You simply can’t compare issues of absorption with issues of adaptability to animal foods meaning low conversion of carotenoids and plant based omega-3, one is a health issue, the other is a genetic issue… humans are adapted to forms of nutrients obtainable from animal foods.
“End cruelty by encouraging people to eat more animals and supermarket animals if easiest for them? Can’t have your cake and eat it too. You choose a hopeful “health” over lack of cruelty. It’s a choice you can make, though don’t be in denial of it. Everyone has their priorities.”
Eh? I said plant a tree and find a farmer. Education is the greatest catalyst for change, envision awesomeness and move into it. Check out Joel Salatin.
“Vast areas of the planet where people live are only suitable for obtaining food from herbivores grazing grass we can’t eat and turning it into meat we can eat.”
“Sounds very healthy and nutritionally balanced. So cause they are unlucky, everyone else who isn’t, should follow their inferior diet?”
The Masai eat blood, milk and meat mainly, they are in excellent health. Veganism is the inferior diet, so many issues with it.
“Solving human corruption and the side effects of advanced life and “intelligence” is more of the issue. Not going to change mass psychology and behavior or reverse the trends. These are just all the things and consequences of what ‘evolution’ and getting ‘bigger brains’ did…”
The system rewards sociopathic behavior. It puts psychopaths at the top… the people who will gladly tread on their brother to get ahead. System needs to change.
“Can’t supply all demand from small time, inefficient and expensive farmers. Could only supply limited, expensive supplies to small groups of health conscious “elite”. And even the elite few who can afford and get access to all that, only can in limited capacities. They can’t while they’re traveling, dining out, socializing, and many other situations. So, conventional, hormone and steroid laden grain fed animals is what the majority will continue to consume and is possible.”
Money, money, money. In Africa, permaculture is being rolled out, small scale, community based. There’s no money, there’s land, people, food. You are trapped in a paradigm… think what could be instead.
“There is, scientists can tell by looking at carbon isotopes or some such thing. They know that early homo sapiens was basically a top level predator. There’s a lot of evidence.”
“Until they found out they measured it completely wrong.”
Clutching at straws now.
“We’re not even built anything like a “top level predator” lol! We could build tools to make up for our lack of natural bodily weapons, though could not make tools to make up for our lack of natural bodily physiology for processing it the same way real “top level predators” in nature could. Cooking helped a little, not totally. We are still closer to other great apes in our physiology. We didn’t evolve into a lion physiology.”
Our digestion has evolved for high nutrient density from animal foods and cooking. Be careful of physiology, there are baboons with massive fangs that eat grass. If man can make a big pointy stick, there’s no selective pressure to change. We never killed by biting and clawing, so no evolution needed to optimize those those things. Chimps hunt and eat meat, bonobos eat mammals, eggs, insects, gorillas ferment vegetation and live off the resulting short-chain fats. We can’t do that. They also have to spend all day eating.
“Meat and cheese may be as bad for you as smoking”
Be careful of media hype. That study was thoroughly debunked by the ancestral health community. You can cherry pick studies to show anything, because most studies are not fit to be called science, but the media creates a drama and twists everything that is published to generate sales. Money again. The system, again. People do all sorts of insane things for money. There are few real truth-seekers. Everyone wants to get ahead, to write a book, to make a million, to be famous, remembered, important, to be somebody. Carve out a niche for ME. The system creates endless madness.
LikeLike
The more I look, the more negative evidence I find against Fish Oils and how harmful they are.
Complicated and Confusing, to say the least.
“In a recent study, the authors admitted that the effects of long-chain omega-3 oils on aging and lifespan are not well known. The authors fed male mice bred to get old more quickly (SAMP8 mice) one of two diets. The first diet was 5% fish oil and 5% safflower oil. The second diet was simply 10% safflower oil. They started the diets at 12 weeks of age.
The results are worrisome for those who might be taking fish oil. The mice that were fed the fish oil had shorter life spans than the mice fed the safflower oil.
The authors found that the mice fed fish oil for 28 weeks showed strong oxidative stress when compared to the mice eating safflower oil. This caused hyperoxidation of membrane phospholipids. But that’s not all. It also diminished their antioxidant defense system. This is probably due to a decrease in tocopherol.”
Suppresses the immune system:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19549756
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1833105
Linked to prostate cancer:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/podcast/transcript090313.html
Linked to pulmonary edema:
http://www.menshealth.com/health/fish-oil-supplements
Essential fatty acids: not so essential after all:
http://chriskresser.com/essential-fatty-acids-not-so-essential-after-all
http://elynjacobs.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/conquering-cancer-with-parent-essential-oils/
LikeLike
Thanks for the links, I’ve actually been doing a lot of research into this. Confusing is right. We’ve already pretty much decided to remove fish oil from out protocol. So many different opinions out there, and the issues of contamination don’t help matters.
LikeLike
“Points is, we can’t just say we’re getting enough vitamin A because we eat plenty of carrots. It’s very complex.”
According to who? Show me which experts, scientists and doctors are saying that it is impossible to get enough vitamin A from plant foods, not just your opinion.
“And so a diet needs a broader view to be viable, it needs to have a proven record for producing health over generations.”
There are many types of diets, even among ones that include meat. Just because certain early humans survived, or even evolved, doesn’t mean they had optimal health or longevity on their diets? Not really. They just made do with what they had access to which was imperfect and and imperfect health, often starved.
Evidence shows that early humans were also cannibals. So maybe cannibilism is our natural diet and we can’t be healthy without eating each other? Maybe we are deficient in things we don’t know about by not eating other humans anymore?
Should we practice canibilism again and periods of starvation to make it the most genuine diet with a proven record for the the most amount of generations?
” I have given broader view arguments too, like the fact that eating animal foods is what made us human… fats from seafood, bone marrow and brains, providing ample DHA.”
I don’t know any meat eaters that eat bone marrow or brains in their diets! There is also DHA in eggs. Though how does this argument support the need for pork and chicken etc? They don’t even have DHA! So far, all your arguments about specific nutrients like B12, iron, zinc, vitamin A and animal protein, can all be obtained from seafood. So how do you support the argument for a requirement for red meat and land animals?
“We didn’t evolve into big brained humans eating algae, but eating DHA from animal sources. Nutrients in nature are in a natural form, with cofactors, and our bodies evolved to handle natural foods, not extracted, isolated nutrients.”
Algae oil is not anymore extracted or unnatural than extracted fish oil is. It’s not extracting just the DHA, it’s extracting the OIL from the algae. Not much different than extracting oil from olives. Still has co factors etc just not fiber.
Fish don’t naturally have DHA, they get their DHA from sea plants.
When we evolved larger brains, there was not the issues that are present today. There was not the over fishing and pollution etc.
“DHA from algae contains no heavy metals. Fish, shell fish, and fish oil often contain
toxic metals including mercury.
Algae make and maintain a consistently pure DHA. Fish don’t make DHA. They consume
it from sea plants, so the concentration of DHA in fish varies. Also the condition and
purity of fish oil can deteriorate during the time fish are stored and processed.
Many people are allergic to fish protein, but not to algae.”
Then there are the other issues we keep hearing more and more about with fish oils. Like them increasing prostate cancer.
“A study by scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle linked eating a lot of oily fish or taking potent fish oil supplements to a 43% increased risk for prostate cancer overall, and a 71% increased risk for aggressive prostate cancer. Their report was published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.”
Major sustainability issues. Micro algae is much more sustainable for the planet for the demand:
http://www.foodprocessing.com/articles/2012/algae-dha-healthy-as-fish-oil
Then there is the case that the dha = brain growth is only one theory of it. There are other newer theories now. Who’s to say which ones are right.
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2012/01/humans-evolved-large-brains-science-front
And other theories, such as “Big Brain Evolved Through Social Problem Solving”
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20040709013702data_trunc_sys.shtml
I think it was the canibilism that really grew their brains so fast!
Though what we do know is that in todays time, fish stocks are greatly threatened and the ocean doesn’t have a very bright future at the rate we are exploiting it, not much time left!
If the scientists and doctors and studies show that Algae oil is both as effective and a lot more sustainable and toxic free (can be grown easily in clean aquatic farms), then that is something to listen to.
I’m not against others choosing to eat fish (from still sustainable stocks), though the increasing issues are only going to get worse.
Everyone taking fish oil pills or eating a lot of fish = not sustainable. It’s already threatened now with the limited demand, we’re lucky health consciousness is limited.
“People won’t pay strict attention. A diet has to be robust and easy to implement”
The only diet robust and easy to implement is the SAD diet. The convenient, supermarket, conventional food, conventional meat, highly processed, high carb and bread, high dairy, high sugar diet that people can get anywhere, at any store or restaurant or cafe etc. This utopian “organic, small farmer neighbor, grass fed only freely frolicking cow diet” with no dairy or grains or bread etc. is NOT “easy to implement” or adhere to for most people, let alone have access to and afford etc. No more so than a carefully planned plant based diet is!
“The diet we evolved eating is a diet high in animal foods, we adapted to it, and when people return to such a diet, they heal from disease.”
There is no evidence that people evolved eating HIGH amounts of animal foods. Certainly no where near the access and excess of what they eat today.
And when you talk about evolving to eat different things cause of ancestors doing so, they also started to evolve to eat grains and dairy etc. Adaptations have happened since the start of humans eating grains and dairy and they’ll continue to happen and adapt. What you can handle depends on your own particular ancestors, they already know this with dairy etc.
“Nope, diets with animal foods produce healthy populations over generations. There’s no model for vegan diets achieving that. There are people like the Kitavans who eat only relatively small amounts of animal foods… mainly fish and they have outstanding health… and they eat no grains or dairy… it’s basically a low protein paleo diet. That works.”
If that works, then why eat and promote heavy high protein red meat diets? Sounds like a pescatarian diet is the only one your arguments could possible support the possible need of.
LikeLike
“Show me which experts, scientists and doctors are saying that it is impossible to get enough vitamin A from plant foods, not just your opinion.”
Well, it’s pretty well established that some people don’t convert carotenoids to retinoids efficiently. My view is that because we evolved eating animal food, we are adapted to that. It’s not just preformed vitamin A alone. Taurine is another example I mentioned in the article.
Here’s a very informative page about vitamin A. http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=106. It states “If you are a person who avoids animal foods and you are trying to obtain more retinoid forms of vitamin A by consuming plant foods that are high in carotenoids, you might get a very large amount of carotenoids yet still be unable to convert these carotenoid forms of vitamin A into the retinoid form that is also required by the body for proper physiological functioning.”
“There are many types of diets, even among ones that include meat. Just because certain early humans survived, or even evolved, doesn’t mean they had optimal health or longevity on their diets? Not really. They just made do with what they had access to which was imperfect and and imperfect health, often starved.”
So perfect would be algae for DHA, some bacteria somehow for B12 but they got by eating fish and seafood? For 2 and a half millions years? Biology seeks an exquisite adaptation to environment, therefore we are adapted to eat fish, seafood, bone marrow, liver etc. Is it possible to thrive and survive taking a vegan nutritionism approach? Maybe, who knows really, but why do it? Mainly vegans do it because of some misguided ethic, because they don’t understand nature, because they hate cruelty. And I do too, so let’s end cruelty instead of trying to force ourselves into a niche we are not adapted to.
“I don’t know any meat eaters that eat bone marrow or brains in their diets! There is also DHA in eggs. Though how does this argument support the need for pork and chicken etc? They don’t even have DHA! So far, all your arguments about specific nutrients like B12, iron, zinc, vitamin A and animal protein, can all be obtained from seafood. So how do you support the argument for a requirement for red meat and land animals?”
There probably isn’t a specific need for land animals, but my aim is not to tell people what to eat on the basis of ethics, but simply to create a simple diet, robust, that will remove the dietary causes of disease and supply everything we need for health. Veganism doesn’t fit. It’s essentially unsound. Vast areas of the planet where people live are only suitable for obtaining food from herbivores grazing grass we can’t eat and turning it into meat we can eat. Go tell these people to eat natto, algae extracted DHA, and some bacteria producing B12.
“When we evolved larger brains, there was not the issues that are present today. There was not the overfishing and pollution etc.”
So resolve those issues. All the time, I see sticky plaster solutions instead of getting at the roots.
“Though what we do know is that in todays time, fish stocks are greatly threatened and the ocean doesn’t have a very bright future at the rate we are exploiting it, not much time left!”
The greater the crisis, the more attention to the solution. Madness is everywhere, but the true and real solutions exist now for how we can live in harmony with nature. The system must change where people need to hoard for themselves, that is the root of abuse to people and nature.
“If the scientists and doctors and studies show that Algae oil is both as effective and a lot more sustainable and toxic free (can be grown easily in clean aquatic farms), then that is something to listen to.”
Possibly, but what is declared awesome one minute is questioned later as new info comes to light. The answer to over-fishing and pollution is management, team-work, to stop pollution.
“I’m not against others choosing to eat fish (from still sustainable stocks), though the increasing issues are only going to get worse.”
Until they get better. These are strange times.
“This utopian “organic, small farmer neighbor, grass fed only freely frolicking cow diet” with no dairy or grains or bread etc. is NOT “easy to implement” or adhere to for most people, let alone have access to and afford etc. No more so than a carefully planned plant based diet is!”
The utopian version needs effort, but start with the supermarket version. Then go to farmer’s markets, plant a tree, find a farmer etc. Let’s move into it.
“There is no evidence that people evolved eating HIGH amounts of animal foods. Certainly no where near the access and excess of what they eat today.”
There is, scientists can tell by looking at carbon isotopes or some such thing. They know that early homo sapiens was basically a top level predator. There’s a lot of evidence.
“And when you talk about evolving to eat different things cause of ancestors doing so, they also started to evolve to eat grains and dairy etc. Adaptations have happened since the start of humans eating grains and dairy and they’ll continue to happen and adapt. What you can handle depends on your own particular ancestors, they already know this with dairy etc.”
We haven’t adapted much in 10,000 years. It can be fast where selective pressure is high. For example if there is only milk and nothing else, there would be an extreme selection pressure that could wipe out all the maladapted. So this is why we see Northern Europeans with dairy tolerance. Grains are another matter, very damaging they are and I doubt there is anyone who can eat grains without damage without first doing processing like soaking, sprouting, milling, fermentation and cooking, ideally all of these, then grains can be eaten but why bother, they are an ecological nightmare as well as a health nightmare.
LikeLike
“I only pointed out how it is possible to obtain those nutrients on the diet when you said it wasn’t.”
Nutrients in the diet and nutrients absorbed and utilized by the body are different things, as I mentioned with carotenoid conversion and linoleic acid conversion. Even if you look deeply into one nutrient like vitamin A, it’s extremely complex and vitamin A has many forms. Points is, we can’t just say we’re getting enough vitamin A because we eat plenty of carrots. It’s very complex. And so a diet needs a broader view to be viable, it needs to have a proven record for producing health over generations. I have given broader view arguments too, like the fact that eating animal foods is what made us human… fats from seafood, bone marrow and brains, providing ample DHA. I think it’s unwise to flirt with such big picture evidence, we don’t fully understand about nutrition yet, which is why we have all these diet wars. An evolutionary framework is valuable.
“Algae comes from nature. And who cares as long as you can purchase what you need, in the same supermarket that sells the same packaged refined rancid fish oil and other stuff you didn’t go get yourself. How is taking an algae pill anymore difficult than a fish pill?”
We didn’t evolve into big brained humans eating algae, but eating DHA from animal sources. Nutrients in nature are in a natural form, with cofactors, and our bodies evolved to handle natural foods, not extracted, isolated nutrients. The point is that the the vegan diet looks more and more untenable as technology is needed to provide vegans with nutrients normally found in animal foods… B12, DHA, retinoids. What’s next? It wasn’t long ago the vegan website assured people omega-3 was in vegan foods, now the picture is different as we understand more… and there is more to come.
“That problem goes for even people who eat animal sources and still have deficiencies. How do they have deficiencies when they consume sources of it?”
I really think that anti-nutrients in modern diets are causing major issues, particularly grains. The whole diet has to work. The USDA reliance on grains with no understanding of how to make those grains safe to eat… I think it’s a disaster.
“If their diet is failing on an animal diet, then it doesn’t say much for animal diets. What it says is that no matter what the diet, everyone needs to pay strict attention to detail or it won’t be good.”
The diet we evolved eating is a diet high in animal foods, we adapted to it, and when people return to such a diet, they heal from disease. A SAD diet with animals foods that fails does not mean animal foods are the cause. People won’t pay strict attention. A diet has to be robust and easy to implement, and have a sound rational basis, i.e. not veganism.
“Optimal omega-3 and -6 balance is estimated to be 1:1 to 1:4. Since vegan sources of omega-3 tend to come packaged with more omega-6, it makes the balance very hard to achieve. One could eat a ton of flax oil to do it, but you’d prob have to eat so much that it wouldn’t be healthy. Also, we have the conversion issue.”
“Certainly worth paying careful attention to, though not impossible. Just avoid vegetable oils and grains. There are plenty of nuts and seeds with good ratios.”
Try tracking your diet on Cronometer for a week, then tell me even 1:4 is doable. It’s tough even when you can eat fish, and then, as I said, we have conversion issues.
“Perhaps the vegans with bad health didn’t look after themselves good or eat right for the diet, just like the majority of meat eaters don’t eat right. If I used the argument that because so many meat eaters are insanely unhealthy as proof that that diet is unsustainable, same thing.”
Nope, diets with animal foods produce healthy populations over generations. There’s no model for vegan diets achieving that. There are people like the Kitavans who eat only relatively small amounts of animal foods… mainly fish and they have outstanding health… and they eat no grains or dairy… it’s basically a low protein paleo diet. That works.
LikeLike