Vegan vs. Paleo – Who Do You Believe?
October 6th, 2010
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by admin · Filed Under: Grass fed Meat · Organic Food · Paleo - Primal
Eat Meat or Go Vegetarian? Who and what do you believe about ‘what to eat’?
I’d like to share some insight from my journey as a 15-year vegan/vegetarian. Really, I could write a book about it, and I might some day. For now, I’m going to do my best to summarize some important lessons on psychology (beliefs), food, health, environment and ethics of ‘paleo or vegan’ as well as some personal experiences.
These are critical points that people base their worldview on – these are personal, professional, spiritual and global issues. People need to be informed. If we are going to make diet & lifestyle choices, they need to be informed by truth, whether you eat meat or go vegan or are somewhere in between.
I’ll start with a brief overview of a few factors that influenced my transition from vegan/vegetarian to eating meat. Then I’ll cover two critical points most people get wrong – nutrition and the environmental issues surrounding eating meat. I will also dispel some myths about the topic so you’ll have real reasons to base your beliefs and guide your diet & lifestyle choices.
I Was a Teenage Punk Rocker
I was introduced to organic food and health food stores in Miami Beach when I was 10 years old. At 12, I had my own produce stand in the Florida Keys. At age 16 (1986), I was a punk rocker, started playing in bands, spent some high school in Israel and became a vegetarian. 1986 was also the last time I ate at McDonald’s.
For the next 15 years, I lived a committed vegan/vegetarian lifestyle. I was an outspoken advocate of the vegan/vegetarian diet/lifestyle for ethical, spiritual, health and environmental reasons. This is true vegan/vegetarian living – it’s not a ‘diet’ or a trend for the sincere; it’s a lifestyle, built on beliefs, ideologies & philosophies where compassion is valued and eating red meat is seen as unnatural, unnecessary and dangerous.
This idea & lifestyle was diametrically opposed to the mainstream Standard American Diet (SAD) and most conformist social trends, which I found appealing…
The punk rock community in America during the 1980’s was larger than life, diverse and imbued with innovators, intellectuals, freethinkers, revolutionaries, activists, musicians & characters of all types. This global community was a model for multicultural diversity & tolerance, which the United States has yet to figure out. Although not entirely vegan/vegetarian, there was a strong presence, and it grew into factions; there were militant vegans, anarcho-vegans, spiritual vegan/vegetarians – it was diverse, which was important.
When I was 19, I went to India to learn yoga and embraced what I thought was the most natural, compassionate & spiritual lifestyle. Back home in the states, I played in well-known punk bands, developed a coherent philosophy, rejected most forms of authority and passionately promoted vegan/vegetarian lifestyle.
The punk subculture had varied social and political beliefs associated with it and was primarily concerned with concepts such as rebellion, anti-authoritarianism, individualism, free thought, discontent, drug free living, deep ecology, activism and skepticism.
‘Straight edge’ was a stance against recreational use of drugs, alcohol and meat eating.
The political ideology most often associated with punk is anarchism; punk has also been associated with other leftist ideologies such as socialism and social liberalism. Some punks, anarcho-punks specifically, however, perceive leftists as ineffectual, and sometimes just as objectionable as right-wingers. Philosophical and religious ideologies within the punk subculture include: atheism, agnosticism, Christianity, Islam, Hare Krishna and Rastafarian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_ideologies
Our drug free and vegan/vegetarian lifestyle was not a trend, it was an empowered, outspoken community delivering a message to the world about human & animal suffering. We were kids, but we were also leaders, authors, artists, performers, teachers, athletes and activists intended on creating social, political, economic and environmental change.
We took a strong stance against an ultra- conformist, celebrity-obsessed, socially distorted, xenophobic, narcissistic consumer culture that demonstrates a type of collective psychopathic behavior disregarding the pain, suffering and death of animals.
I read almost every book (at that time), wrote about it, knew every argument inside and out, took vegetarian cooking classes and worked at health food stores & organic restaurants in-between tours. Like most vegans and modern-day environmentalists, I had a strong sense of righteousness and I knew exactly how to save the planet.
Fast forward to 2010…
A lot has changed! The alternative has quickly become mainstream. This is both good and bad. ‘Going green’ has not only become conventional, but is now a status symbol for consumers. The organic food and beverage industry has grown from $1 billion in 1990 to almost $25 billion in 2009. Movies like ‘Inconvenient Truth’ and ‘Food, Inc’ have made a noticeable impact on the consciousness of society. Memes (ideas) like ‘Eco-friendly’, ‘Meatless Mondays’, ‘Alkaline’ and ‘plant based diet’ have spread through culture like California wildfires. Faulty beliefs about human health, industrial food production (agriculture/biotechnology) and ‘planet-friendly diet’ has spread faster than BP oil in the Gulf.
Articles, blogs, books & documentaries by vegan/vegetarian authors are popping up everywhere like Crossfit Gyms. T. Colin Campbell (China Study), Dean Ornish, M.D. (Eat More, Weigh Less), Joel Fuhrman, M.D.(Eat To Live) and others praise the benefits of a plant based diet and blame saturated fat and cholesterol for the nation’s epidemic of heart disease…and then there’s celebrities and detox, fasting and extremely unnatural diets, but let’s not go there (at least not yet).
Lesson #1: Skepticism of any American social trend is a healthy lifestyle choice.
These days, mainstream society is charmed by these seemingly healthy, natural, green living concepts that reduce our carbon footprint, curb global warming, prevent disease and create a more sustainable future.
Sounds pleasant and seems to make sense, right?
On the surface it does, just like I believed when I was a teenage punk rocker. As I matured, I questioned everything, including the alternative.
In the early 90’s as punk rock was heading towards mainstream, I began a career as a certified fitness trainer and licensed massage therapist. I wasn’t a body builder nor did I teach that methodology. I had my own method of cross training/functional fitness and worked in some exclusive private gyms, elite health clubs and boutique studios. I met a wide variety of people with fitness goals and some health problems that went unsolved by doctors. This is much more common than you may realize.
Most people I encountered in this industry had assumptions they believed about diet, weight loss, health and nature. They were unhealthy, but somehow considered themselves somewhat knowledgeable Their beliefs were the reason why they were not healthy and also why many of them are still unhealthy – yet they didn’t see that. They were convinced they were experts on health, despite their body of evidence that demonstrated otherwise. This would become a common theme and frustration in this field – people (clients, customers, population at large) who are ignorant, yet arrogant and totally unaware of the dissonance.
The most common health issue was long term un-wellness that most doctors provided NO answer or solution for. Since they didn’t have a disease, modern medical doctrine deems these people ‘healthy’, which they clearly were not. I had to question the doctrine, get past the medical dogma and look outside the standardized medical paradigm for nutrition pioneers and real medical experts that were independent thinkers and creative problem solvers. I became a punk rock health coach.
I found few vegans (my friends included) had great energy, worked out, looked good, felt good and appeared relatively healthy. They had no actual proof of anything other than they look and feel good, were not fat or diseased. True, vegans and meat eaters alike can be unhealthy, but I discovered – as a great majority of my new friends and colleagues have found – vegan/vegetarians were generally unhealthy relative to non-vegans. Many female vegans we encountered were radically unhealthy.
Simultaneously, all of them were hell-bent on denying that their diet could be the reason that they weren’t well.
Cognitive Dissonance
…an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying, blaming, and denying. It is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
Experience can clash with expectations. A state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. People are biased to think of their choices as correct, despite any contrary evidence. This bias gives dissonance theory its predictive power, shedding light on otherwise puzzling irrational and destructive behavior.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
I quickly learned that myself, like many people, our friends, family, celebrities, authors, experts in the mainstream and alternative, can be sincere, passionate and dead wrong.
I started questioning my beliefs about nutrition, the ‘experts’ I trusted and the ideas I believed. I began in-depth research on everything and reject many ideas that I thought was true about human health and nature.
Lesson #2: Question Everything.
Over the years, I found that when presented with facts that clash with beliefs, a large percentage vegans/vegetarians and trendy environmentalists (semi-vegetarian) tend to selectively ignore, deny or dismiss important facts.
Similarly, they tend to hand pick pieces of the truth or only certain facts that support their beliefs. They can also be fully convinced about mythological accounts of history.
What if these beliefs – held by wonderful, good intentioned people – were built on false or incomplete information?
Lesson #3: Ignoring half the equation makes one ignorant, not informed.
Many popular beliefs about the ‘dangers of red meat’ are built on faulty assumptions, propaganda, half-truths or personal bias.
Lesson #4: Examine your beliefs thoroughly. Make sure you have good reasons for your beliefs, reasons based in truth.
I did a lot of thinking, my transition to eating meat took time and there is much more to discuss. This short article doesn’t even come close to fully explaining it…and of course I’m not saying ‘all’ vegans think or believe this way, these are general trends.
Vegan/vegetarianism is a belief system tied to one’s identity and worldview. Vegans have strong beliefs and are often sensitive on these issues. Questioning their beliefs is seen as a threat. When people are sensitive, they get emotional; when people are emotional, they won’t see the truth. Emotional people tend to selectively ignore, deny, defend or dismiss (dogmatic) ideas that challenge them.
Lesson #5: Balance your emotions when examining the truth about sensitive issues. Whatever you are sensitive about, you may not see the whole truth about.
2001 was a turning point…
I discovered that my years of severe digestive problems were caused by gluten & dairy intolerance – I had to change my diet. I also read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price – one of the most important books on the topic. I got really excited! This book inspired extensive research into nutrition, natural history, anthropology, evolutionary biology, epidemiology (disease development), food and farming.
I began to question what I believed was ‘natural, what was ’spiritual’ and what humans are designed to eat. Superstition and personal bias influence the beliefs & choices of most vegan/vegetarians as well as proponents of the Standard American Diet, and the new semi-vegetarianism promoted by government policy and academia today.
In the summer of 2002, a New York Times article ‘What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?’ by Gary Taubes served me a nice hot cup of wtf? and I furthered questioned my previous assumptions (beliefs). I continued a relentless research on the topic.
Lesson #6: Read that article and that book. After that, read ‘Good Calories, Bad Calories’ by Gary Taubes.
When you understand these works, you will begin to develop a framework from which to understand human health & our natural relationship with this planet. You’ll also get a grasp on the most sustainable farming methods. You’ll know ‘what to eat’ and why people believe the things they do (helpful for industry professionals).
Today, I not only eat meat & eggs (sometimes raw), but I promote, teach and sell pasture raised, grass fed meats. There is a lot more to my transition to eating meat, these are only a few…
I still love my vegan/vegetarian friends, even the ones who think I’ve ‘sold out’. All these issues are still very important to me, but I have grown and today, I’m better educated about human health, nutrition, natural history, biology, environmental sustainability, global politics, world hunger, farming/food production, political propaganda and corporate marketing. I’m more politically active in some of these issues.
Human health and wellness is a component of nature, much less anarchic as many believe. Understanding human health & wellness, requires an understanding of biology and physiology.
Lesson #7: Natural history & evolutionary biology are the framework in which to understand and create human health, wellness and disease prevention.
Bringing up human evolution brings up a lot of misconceptions & fears in a lot of people. More on that later…if you want to understand it, start with this:
I express my inner punk these days by eating grass fed meats, from pastured farming operations, not Big Ag factory farming and I support local/regional Eco Ag (grass fed, pasture farming). You want to be punk rock? Find your farmers market, CSA (community supported agriculture) and local Weston A Price group now. Where your dollar goes can tell you how punk you are…or if you’re being punked.
My diet/lifestyle and my teachings are based on a deeper & broader understanding of human health, ethics & ecology. How I live and what I teach is based in fact, not fiction.
There are a lot of good people going vegetarian these days. There are a lot of people who genuinely want to do the right thing for the planet. There are also plenty of well-intentioned people & professionals who have some misconceptions that have far reaching implications in today’s world.
People, government policies, academic recommendations, experts and the public at large, when discussing ‘red meat’ are often misinformed and often misrepresent (intentionally or not). Here are a few articles on the trendy topic of ‘vegan or paleo’ that is now a global issue.
These articles are not about who is right or wrong. It’s about what is true or false.
Hopefully, this will help you in your decision making process about diet & lifestyle, specifically in regards to eating meat or not, which is also one of the greatest global issues of our time.
Lesson #8 – If you eat food, you are involved in global politics.
Is grass fed, local foods expensive? Yes, it’s worth it.
Is there such a thing as ‘cheap’ food? No, that’s an illusion.
Can most of the world’s population afford organic or grass fed foods? Not the way we experience it in the Northeast/New England region, but most of the world doesn’t live in this region. So we need more than generalizations, sound bites as answers – we need solutions and some are already in place. Much of the poor population in developing regions are already using organic, sustainable farming. Organic farming is growing strong these days and the times they are a changin’.
Two more books I recommend…
The more we raise our voice and support local, organic, pasture-based farming – whether we eat meat, drink milk or not - the sooner factory farming’s externalized cost (ecological destruction and human disease) become more noticeable, less acceptable and real change can happen. It’s already happening and getting stronger every week – real food, eco-friendly diet and sustainable food production are gaining strength and the more this happens, the more valued & affordable real food becomes.
The important issues facing farming in our country right now is our freedom to choose to grow and eat what we want. We want real food from sustainable sources.
Your dollar is your political voice. Your voice is a political weapon. Grass fed, local food is not ‘elitist’ as some are preaching, it is our most responsible and sustainable farming method on the planet today that produces safe & superior quality food.
There is heavy pressure from all directions to conform in this culture, especially with political, health and food related issues.
There is a strong drive to go vegan/vegetarian/semi-veg, simultaneously there is a stronger drive to indoctrinate people into denying the importance of organic food and surrendering to the industrial food pyramid. Choose your diet carefully, based on real reasons that you have studied, whether you go vegan or paleo depends on many factors, but don’t be misled or misinformed.
Lesson #9: Do not be intimated by anyone, ever.
Please share your thoughts on the topic and my article, keep in mind, there are more articles to come, but I would love to hear your thoughts. Please comment below.
Yay for Paleo! I was a veg. for many years too, and dabbled in veganism. I’ve seen the light!
Great and informative post Antonio! Times are changing!
Thank you so much for your very well-expressed insights. I’ll be sharing this!
Healing blessings…
Excellent article!!! I am going to be linking this up on my blog, FB and Twitter. This was so perfectly stated. Thank you!
Awesome post. Outstanding. THe Omnivorre’s Dilemma Changed my life, just finished in defense of food too.
Great article Antonio… really enjoyed reading it. I love the punk references in terms of food choice too.
Food choice is crucial to the health of the planet… and there are many misconceptions starting to be propagated in the media that could be very harmful to our children’s future. Keep up the good work:)
So good to read this. I ended up vegetarian as a student for several years – not because I wasn’t into eating meat, but I found good meat too expensive to buy. I substituted with dairy products (before I ate very little dairy products) and increased gluten because I always felt hungry. When I started eating good meat again, my energy levels shot up, I was satisfied, happy, etc. Later on my own kids developed diary product allegies – so I cut out milk/cheese from our diet. 3 months later my own health made another big leap upwards. I know realise that this so-called ‘healthy’ vegetarian part of my life was the most detrimental to my health. About ecological implications about eating meat – in many areas of the world, goats/cattle herds survive on vast areas of land on which it is impossible to grow crops (poor soil, lack of rain, difficult terrain). These animals are more or less the only resources for poor people who live in these regions. Please promote these practices.
Antonio, freaking awesome to have you back – keep the new content coming!
BTW Brazilian Bananas and Cream is still my favorite dessert
Way to go Antonio! I think that you’re right on the money, and your speaking from the heart. There’s no perfect solution for anyone, but you’ve discussed several diet scenarios . . . and left enough leeway for each of us to find the perfect solution to match our bodily makeup. So way to go and many Thanks!
John
I’m just curious what types of illnesses you and your vegan friends were afflicted by and whether they may have been avoided if you changed up something in your diet. I’ve been vegetarian for 25 years, vegan for 10, and high-raw for 3.5 years, and I’ve only seen my health improve. Maybe I’ll come down with something eventually, but for now, I’m stronger and healthier than ever in my life. Haven’t been sick not even once since going raw, lost 40 pounds (and still 145 solid lbs – only WISH I could be one of those skinny Bs!), have had 3 fights (taekwondo), just completed my 5th marathon 2 days ago – pretty much feeling on top of the world – know I’m deficient in D, but I think the carnivores in these parts are, too. Have done blood tests tho haven’t yet figured out how to read them or what to do with them. I do mostly hemp/pea/brown rice, spirulina/chlorella, nuts & greens for protein, lots of fruit. I’m one of those who would refrain from animal products even if they were found to be healthier or even necessary – just don’t feel I have the right to exploit animals, regardless. A friend at the gym is on this Paleo diet – will print out your article for him – he’ll appreciate it – thanks for sharing your thoughts.
great post but what else should we expect from antonio!
Dat’s my boy! Thanks Antonio.
I enjoyed this post. I think the biggest lesson I’ve found in health is to find what works for you as an individual. Some people do feel better as vegetarians. I didn’t. I got bronchitis multiple times, sinus infections, walking pneumonia and I just generally felt terrible during the year and a half I was a vegan. Plus, I was always tired. People told me my skin looked gray. And I felt hungry and cold all the time. There’s no doubt that I feel much better eating meat but it stressful trying to make sure that meat is from natural, pasture-raised, humane conditions. It’s next to impossible to have a social life outside your own home, and also be in control of all the food that goes in your body. But I try. I strive for 80/20 in regards to making my own food so I know the oils are high quality, and the produce is organic, etc. But people have to figure out what works best for them. No matter what type of diet works for a given person, we all need to eat real food, from sources that are as close to nature as possible. Great discussion!
Only once – and very briefly – in this article did you address the issue of animal suffering. There are many of us who do not eat meat for one simple reason: we do not want to be part of a factory system that treats sentient beings like objects devoid of any kinds of nervous systems and mental capacity. Chickens may taste great – but they also deserve to live whatever brief lives they have as chickens – not debeaked, crowded into battery cages stacked to the ceiling, covered in their own excrement and thrown live (in many cases) into a boiling vat to remove their feathers. Similar sad fates befall other food animals – especially pigs, who are more aware and smarter than dogs. I don’t see people running around my neighborhood throwing their golden retrievers on the barbeque. Life is brutal for men and animals. But our goal should be to move toward compassion for all creatures. If all food animals were raised humanely and “harvested” without suffering I doubt we would be having this conversation. But it’s virtually impossible to feed all 6 billion+ people on our planet hamburger every day without increasing suffering exponentially – and I applaud people who choose not to be part of the brutality.
Thanks for your comments.. much appreciated! Especially after a 6 month hiatus.
Susan – that is the reason why I became and stayed a veg*n, as I mentioned, I have a few more articles on the topic coming out, one includes the ethics of humans and eating meat.
Sue – as well, I will discuss common issues found in veg*ns and why that diet works for some and not for many others
Luigi, God’s Child, John, Chava, Ahmed, Ann, Taylor & Matt – what up! thanks for the support!
Mari – you got it. Veg*nism does that to a lot of people and you are 100% correct on land management issues of animal farming. Thanks !
I have more article on this, I already wrote a lot and want to do a book about it… thank you for the support and for your awareness that this is a critical time where we need intelligent, health-based solutions, not more industrial farming which is destroying the planet & its people.
Jonathan – Omnivore’s Dilema is such awesome book!
@ Sue Rushford.. Absorbtion of essential nutrients and vitamins from fruits and veggies is extremely individual and many people, no matter how much fruit/veggie/grain they consume, they cannot get sufficient nutrient levels.. Sounds like you are the exception besides your vitamin D deficiency.. Need to get out in the sun..
@ Susan: This article focuses on the humane treatment of animals, thru the purchase of local grass fed meats and pasture raised livestock.. These animals do what nature intended them to do and the end product that winds up on our table is superiorly nutritious.. And the recent statistics and number crunching has shown that this local farming could easily sustain the nations population.. The consumer needs to make the choice to sustainability to swing the market and put the mass production facilities out of business..
Tony – I am fortunate to live in a suburban community in PA that is in close proximity to farms raising grass fed beef. The animals are still shipped to slaughter out of the area, and there is no way for the farmers to insure that the slaughter was humane. Beyond that – the price is double or triple the price of beef in the supermarkets and I can’t imagine getting a nation addicted to 99cent burgers, dollar stores and all you can eat buffets to pay $20/pound for steak. I agree that local farming could sustain the nation’s population IF our diet was largely plant-based and people actually followed the dietary guidelines that 3 ounces is a serving of meat. I am not interested in turning everyone into a vegetarian- a hopeless task, to be sure -but there is absolutely no sense of scale and balance in the average American diet. A meat-based diet is environmentally unsustainable, and fiscally irresponsible on a national scale. I work in a hospital, and I can tell you that at least 2/3s of the people we treat every day are there because of poor lifestyle choices – heart & vascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, emphysema and obesity. There is a dietary link to every condition, and thousands of studies show that reducing or eliminating meat has a positive effect on all of them.
Susan: I am not familiar with humane slaughtering techniques.. So i could not comment.. As far as the price of grass fed beef, there are plenty of ways to make it affordable.. Whole foods sold it for $3.99lb this summer.. I know people getting $2.50 to $3.00 a lb when buying in bulk.. I get 50lbs of grass fed beef myself for about $3.75lb.. So is it more expensive… Yes.. But, I think people blow its cost out of proportion.. I think there is plenty of meat to easily sustain a nation and do it responsible.. What about wild game??(deer, bison, elk, ostrich, etc..) If these meats were popularized.. I think there would be plenty to go around.. Also, please direct me to one study that links meat to those disorders… If you are talking about the fat from the meat.. Then you won’t find one..
Great article am bookmarking for later reading (assignment due!). I was vegan for a year, but had the lifestyle to complement it , once uni started I was back to being a veggo. After graduation, I went to Guam and took up fish again cause food is culture~ had people inviting me to sacred festivals and just walking up to me at the bus stop giving me food~ there was a lot of poverty, so I ate what was shared, no question.
For the past two years, if another is cooking and sharing~ I’m eating it.
Otherwise, having studied nutrition, I mix my food groups to match my needs as a veggo. Love my cheeses tho ~:-)
Hi Antonio, Wow!This is a very well organised and articulate article.Just having heard Susan E Schenk on Health Renegade site talking about very similar conclusions. She mentions loss of memory and fuzzy thinking as some of the side effects of long term veganism, and is also about to publish a book out in January I think, ‘Beyond Broccoli’ is the proposed title. Like you her diet has evolved along with her observations and experience, to include a few carefully selected animal products. As a person who came into veg/vegan/raw foods through illness and allergies, I have travelled my own path, leading to very similar conclusions to you both. I am so glad to see you back on line and am waiting to hear when you will share your knowledge and publish, meanwhile keep informing and raising awareness. TKs
I have been Vegetarian since I was 8 years old, I have stopped eating dairy altogether in the last year but still eat ogranic free range eggs if I know the hens they have come from [ usually my own pets , or those off friends ].
I hear what you are saying, but I could never go back to eating meat due to the fact that to do so an animal MUST die and to me this is unexceptable for the good of my health .
I know local organic farmers take better care of their livestock than factory farms , but the animals all have the same final terryfying journey to the slaughter house where they are full of adrenalin by the time they get there and then are painfully killed.
I could never eat that .
We don’t need meat to survive and I don’t believe anyone with true compassion would play a part in an animals death .
loved this post: thorough, well-researched, incredibly persuasive. My favorite line “As I matured, I questioned everything, including the alternative.” This, I think, is the sign of a nimble and searching mind.
well done, antonio.
The decision to go veggie for me was driven by the fact that I had quit eating red meat more than 10 years ago. I was still consuming poultry at the time, but gradually I grew to hate the taste of it too. I had been plaged by stomach problems my whole life; however, after a couple of months of making the decision to go vegitarian, ALL my stomach problems went away! When eating meat, I felt sick at least 5 days a week, but now I only feel sick to my stomach 1-2 times a year! My quality of life has definitely improved, so I will NEVER go back to eating meat. I’m currently moving towards becoming a high raw vegan. Already in the first month my boyfriend and I have noticed that our heads are much more clear. I am suffering less and less from depression and am able to focus better at work.
I do not believe that my life choice is the correct choice for everyone by any means, but for me, it is definitely the right. I’m a long distance triathlete and since becoming vegetarian I have suffered no set-backs due to lack of nutrition. Acutally, last year I was healthy all year long while training for an ironman. I’ve also had several of my meat-eating friends tell me they run better having not consumed any meat during the day they are running and cycling.
I appreicate the article for it’s focus on sustainablity and do hope that people will continue to becomre more aware of their impact on the earth. A great documentry that I haven’t seen listed here is “No Impact Man” — instant Netflix. Since watching the documentary I have taken steps to be a little more green just because I realized how easy it really is. And in time, I’ll become even greener as I hope you all will too!
Now, is the time to realize that the FDA…is run by the food industry,the food they tell you to eat,or not , is only to make more money…. like the fact ,that GMO’s are safe…
I have just started a Paleo diet and I have already begun to feel the benefits. I feel more focused, more energetic and more powerful. I really love the Paleo diet so far and I’d like to point out a couple of reasons.
1. I don’t feel full all the time
2. I don’t feel guilty for eating things society has deemed at “bad for you” (animal fat)
3. I can eat the foods I love
4. I really don’t miss the breads and flours like I thought I would
Bread had always been just a vehicle for my food anyways. No one eats a bacon cheeseburger because the love buns!
Finally I found another vegetarian punk rocker who became a massage therapist and now is paleo; I thought I was the only one! Great article, I will post this on my FB page. I went paleo 2 months ago, I am lucky enough to live in the same small town as Robb Wolf so I have been hearing about it for a few years. Now that I finally switched, I have never felt healthier in my life.
I went to Tibet, and asked the question of why they were not vegetarian. They told me that it kills less animals to eat meat than to cultivate food. They asked me why was one larger life worth more than the smaller? They also were very loving to their animals, and honored them in life and death.
Vegetarians don’t talk about is the large number of smaller animals and life forms that are killed from cultivation. Steven Davis wrote an article that is summarized here http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97836&page=1. I also have the original paper if you need it. Anyway, I have been not making comments about my friends often misinformed vegan posts on facebook, so I think it is time I link to this post.
Thank you! Tanya
@ Tanya Davis’ paper is good but not without flaw. Here is another take on his study. http://jgmatheny.org/matheny%202003.pdf I’m not agreeing with one or the other but with regards to fairness this should be considered as well.
And this is the part of the debate that drives me nuts because a person can never be too sure. You have so many books/studies/etc. that point to one way and then something else comes out that contradicts it. It’s frustrating. It’s tough for a layperson like myself to even take the time to look into this shit let alone try to decipher who’s being honest and who has ulterior motives. Or who is working on behalf of a cetain industry or has a personal grudge with someone on the other side of the argument. Or who is just looking to justify their diet/lifestyle based on ego/preference/taste/convenience/etc. Take Denise Minger’s debunking part of The China Study. So know I not only have to read the book but I have to check all the sources and see if the author is being completely honest? This is the kind of thing I’m talking about. It gets extremely frustrating. But I guess we’re always going to have that as long as we have to live in a monetary system. We’ll never really get honest science because the profit motive always gets in the way.
In my heart of hearts I want to be vegan but am just not convinced it is the best way to go. I want to keep an open mind to all sides of the debate and wish there was concrete evidence to establish one diet/lifestyle over another (I know that’s not completely possible but we’re no where near approaching that standard). There is so many factors involved with this issue of food. When it comes down to it I want what’s best for the planet, best for human health, and what’s best for animals (I guess if I’m being honest the environmental concerns trump everything else at this current time). Maybe that is a pipe dream and in reality does not exist. Maybe there is no such thing as a sustainable system that will feed the entire world’s population. Hell if I know. The grass fed/pastoral meat is considerably better in it’s treatment and product. But we simply do not have the land mass on this earth to feed everyone that way, at least from what I have read. I would like to see the studies/numbers crunched to see if that system would truly be possible on a world scale. That doesn’t mean I’m in favor of monocroping (at least not the scale/methods we currently use) to help feed everyone either because most here know the destruction that it causes ecologically. I don’t know much about permaculture at this point but from what I have read that seems like the most reasonable and practical at this point. That could be a pastoral/grass fed meat system. It could be vegan. There appears to be examples of both. Maybe strike a balance of something in between? Even with an omnivorous diet we could all probably cut back substantially our intake of meat. To make a pastoral system work on a grand scale that might be absolutely necessary. Do we even need dairy? Not in my opinion but I can definately see the argument for meat.
I’m well beyond the point of rambling so I’ll end this mess of a post. Hopefully someday soon the experts that do this stuff for a living can put down their biases and come to some sort of consensus because I think this issue of food is beyond dire. It has mass implications on all sorts of issues and something needs to be done. And the further down the rabbit hole I go I’ve come to the conclusion that it needs to be done soon.
Awesome post! I’ve been looking at a lot of posts regarding vegans since we had (mostly) vegan guests at our farm this past weekend. Their zealousness and intolerance drives me nuts. We’ve come around to a largely vegetable diet with grassfed/pastured meat and eggs and small farm dairy as well as deer hunting. I’ve read a lot of the same things you have. If we didn’t have access to the meat we have, I’d return to vegetarian but not vegan eating. I think my husband would return to conventional meat. I doubt we’ll be facing that. I’ll have to check out Anna Lappé’s book. You might enjoy Deeply Rooted by Lisa M. Hamilton. Not a nutrition book, but definitely a book that takes a good look at unconventional farmers and ranchers.
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Excellent post! I am going to go take a poll among a few of my Paleo groups. I’m willing to bet at least 80% of them are ex-vegetarians or veg*ns.
First off, I think the ideology of “listening to your body” is overrated. If you have no idea what it feels like to be healthy, you have no way to guide yourself to a proper diet via intuition. And if someone went to veganism from the standard industrial diet (a term I find more accurate than “standard American diet”–it ain’t just American!–or “standard Western diet”), of course their health will improve, since they’ve dumped so much of the junk. But that doesn’t mean they are as healthy as they have the potential to be.
Second off, the standard industrial diet IS a plant-based diet. Even people who eat lots of red meat are, at the end of the day, eating even more corn and wheat and soy and potatoes. To claim that our problem is that we’re not eating a plant-based diet is a flat-out lie. And the good health of the Inuit before they were forced onto industrial food and government rations should be more than enough evidence that an actual meat-based diet would not harm us. They are not of a different species than the rest of us, and in fact moved to the region where they currently live MORE recently than the rest of us adopted agriculture. If their traditional food were bad for them, they should have died out by now.
Third off, I think the fat-soluble vitamins are an important issue to consider. And so far, from what I have read (and this is a pet issue of mine), the data are not encouraging in terms of us getting the fat-soluble vitamins from plants. At least two different studies, one from the U.S. and another from the UK, have shown that between 40 and 50 percent of the people they tested were incapable of converting enough beta carotene to vitamin A that BC is a viable vitamin A source for them. And if they only tested healthy people, that number may be far higher; a lot of us have diabetes or hypothyroidism or other disorders that prevent us from making that conversion entirely. And that’s just adults. Infants and children under the age of six can’t make the conversion. Fetuses can’t either, yet doctors tell pregnant women not to eat liver. (Urinary tract defects are the most common class of birth defects in the U.S., according to the Mayo Clinic, and urinary tract development is mediated by vitamin A. Scared yet? You should be.) Then there’s the issue of vitamin K. A study in Rotterdam proved that the vitamin K in vegetables, or vitamin K1, does nothing to decrease heart disease risk, while the K2 from dairy and eggs and animal organs does. Another study showed that the K2 analog mk-7 from natto does not cross the placenta, meaning that while mk-7 may have some positive effect on born people, mk-4 from animal foods is more important to human health. And then there’s vitamin D. Not everyone is in an ideal situation to get it from the sun. D deficiency is a huge problem in developed countries, even when it doesn’t progress far enough to produce rickets.
Another thing about vitamin D: people who live in far northern latitudes typically get it from salmon. But the salmon are diminishing now, and it isn’t from overfishing. The traditional way to fish salmon is to catch them when they are going up the river to mate and die, but we can’t do that as much now. Why? Because most rivers are dammed. Why? Because farmers want that water to grow their *crops.* We need vitamin D, but we do NOT need grains or soy. Why should the salmon die just so vegans can assuage their consciences? I promise you, that is what’s happening.
Fourth off, you don’t have to plow anything to raise animals for food, and you can raise most food animals under light tree cover. Whereas, plowing to grow annual crops releases carbon from the soil, and plant agriculture causes runoff into waterways that destroys aquatic life as far away as the ocean. Also, plant agriculture without proper crop rotation, and with an over-reliance on synthetic inputs, severely reduces soil fertility. This leads to desertification which raises global temperature, and it does not matter even if you use organic methods because the Iraqis did that back at the beginning of agriculture and look at what their country’s become now. It used to be cedar forest. It is now desert. Meanwhile, raising animals outside of a CAFO operation–in other words, in a more natural environment–allows their wastes to degrade into the soil, which makes the soil more fertile.
Fifth off, if your diet truly is animal-heavy–not grain-heavy, which is a more accurate characterization of the standard industrial diet–then your insulin remains at healthier levels, you get the nourishment you need from less food and you spend less time hungry. I can attest to this from personal experience. If I am less hungry, it follows that I achieve satiety from fewer calories. If I need fewer calories, that’s more food I can leave for another person. We will never solve world hunger by providing more plant foods. All we will do is produce more hunger. We are actually better off encouraging people to adopt more animal-heavy diets and discouraging grain consumption, for that reason.
They are un-desertifying areas of Africa by encouraging more raising of cattle. Think about that.
I can’t really be arsed about the whole notion of animal exploitation. I would love to see CAFO go away, but at the end of the day we’re animals too, and being led around by the nose to adopt a diet that is not species-appropriate for us is what is the true exploitation. Plant foods, especially grains and soy, have a higher profit margin than meat does, especially when that meat is raised humanely. And you should see how other-than-human animals kill *one another.* I daresay even industrial slaughterhouses are kinder than a lion is. And in the end, unless we are embalmed, living things in nature will consume us too. It’s not exploitation. It’s simple energy exchange. I am a part of nature, not apart from it, and as far as I’m concerned, veganism only enforces the false separation between humanity and the rest of nature that already plagues this culture. I have no use for that, whatsoever.
Nothing will make me happier than when everyone finally figures out veganism has failed as both a health ideology and an environmental ideology.
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Dana, very intelligent and comprehensive response to everything above.
Sounds like the only person who “sold out” was you.
I tried the vege thing a good many years back, didn’t really know what I was doing at the time, did my best, learned much but eventually dropped it especially after I hit my 21st b-day, about the same time I threw myself head first into the gym landing in a squat rack. I found it hard to train on my chosen diet and I felt like crap, physically and emotionally..
That was almost 18 years ago and I haven’t looked back. I can’t deny I do feel some heart strings getting pulled when faced with some choice meats (breaks my heart to eat Lamb and Veil), but then in some areas I am a wussy..
As I see it we have incisors for a reason, face it were omnivores for a reason. That’s how we evolved..
Also if cows weren’t meant to be eaten they would be hard to hunt. Anything you call walk up to and hit with a rock is supposed to be food..
While I am largely vegetarian I also understand the importance of moderation.
I’m also a scientist so I understand the importance of not putting to much weight in the latest study. You see people can pretty much find a scientist that will publish a paper to support their view of all most anything. The majority of the population simply do not have the education to make rational decisions based on BOTH science and personal experience to really know what they are talking about. Going vegetarian is not so great if you don’t make sure you are a balanced vegetarian. Pasta vegetarians lose health pretty rapidly IMHO.
For me, and my wife, eating a very balanced vegetarian diet has had tremendous benefits….but you know what? We occasionally eat fish and sometimes a turkey sandwich. why? Because of what I said above. We don’t have enough data, and never will, to predict the perfect diet for a person because every person is going to be different.
For sure cutting out red meat whether grass fed or not is a good idea. yes grass fed is way better both environmentally and health wise, but it’s still better to forge it entirely if one can.
I also want to make one comment with regards to the paleo diet that so many seem to ignore. Why would you want to have the diet of prehistoric man? How much more do we know about health and diet today? Paleo man was likely jumping out of trees killing a deer with a spear and then eating some on the spot and perhaps dragging the rest back to camp for dinner and clothing….
Not dissing the paleo diet at all actually. Just dissing extremism in general. I do however really like your comment about, “You wanna be punk the by from local farms”. I’m in the north east as well and I fully suport you here. Also from a moral ethical point of view I think local farming trumps factory farming every time. IMHO.
Thanks for the nice article. Lots to think about….and QUESTION.
Peace
There are some interesting points in this post but I don’t know if I see all of them heart to eye . There is some validness but I will hold opinion until I look into it further. Good clause, thanks and we want more! Added to FeedBurner likewise.
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