I Admire Vegans

I admire vegans. Usually, they’re conscientious, caring, egalitarian, disciplined people. I don’t think it’s just a coincidence. I think there’s a correlation there. They’re conscientious because they understand the consequences of actions and, more specifically, they understand that what you eat manifests in good or poor health in the present and the future. They’re caring, because often they desire to end the suffering of other beings (animals, in this case). They’re egalitarian, because they often understand that modern farming practices damage the environment and affect not only themselves, but everyone else and other species on the planet. And they’re disciplined, because they change their eating patterns even when it’s inconvenient or less enjoyable to stick to what they believe.

Plant-based dietary philosophies have contributed a lot to human progress, not only to improved dietary patterns in Westerners, but also to nutrition science as a whole. Plants contain a myriad properties that are essential for and supportive of good health… the benefits of which are beyond the scope of this writing. Suffice it to say, however, that whole plant foods are, arguably, an indispensable foundation to a healthy diet for happy people. Because people who decide to adopt a vegan diet are so often health conscious as well, they have developed tasty recipes, meal plans, convenient food prep tips, and more that have contributed to the world’s knowledge base of how to incorporate life-saving and life-promoting plants into a sustainable and delicious lifestyle.

Additionally, people who switch from a low quality diet to a health-conscious, vegan diet often experience dramatic improvements in health and energy and a diminishment or disappearance of many medical symptoms. This is because whole plants, raw plants, and unprocessed plants (especially when cultivated cleanly), are so healing and nourishing to the human body. The average western diet is starving for the phytochemicals, chlorophyll, fiber, quality vitamins, and minerals that plants provide.

So why am I not a vegan? I was, in fact, vegan for about five years. I didn’t eat meat or dairy products or eggs. I seemed to feel some improvements in my health in the short term, but over time I noticed I got really skinny and my cuts wouldn’t heal without substantial scarring. And believe me, I was a dedicated, health conscious, hard-working vegan who cooked beans and whole grains and greens consistently to get all the nutrients I could.

Being a scientist, I studied the concepts in depth and came across a lot of medical literature countering what I was taught to believe about veganism. I wanted to believe the vegan diet was healthy. After all, it seems to be better for the environment and we don’t have to kill animals. Yet, after some difficult study I had to come to terms with the fact that animal food is a healthy, intergral part of optimal human nutrition. It’s in our genes. I was open minded and eventually swallowed my pride about what I had been defending to friends and clients for those few formative years of my young life.

Here’s my current stance as a nutritionist, after years of studying optimal human nutrition.

The vegan diet debate hovers around three polemic aspects: human health, animal rights, and the environment. I’l briefly discuss my stance on all three.

Many vegans think that animal foods are categorically bad for you at worst, and unnecessary at best. Most vegans think that the cholesterol content and saturated fat, for example, within meats is what clogs arteries, causes heart disease and stroke, and increases cancer risk.

This belief came about because of modest associations in scientific literature between blood cholesterol and increase heart disease risk. Dietary cholesterol was guilty by association.

The reality is, and this is now borne out with recent research, is that high cholesterol is good for people. Higher cholesterol levels are associated with improved mood and longer life. Only heart disease and stroke, while being top killers overall, are only modestly increased risk with higher cholesterol levels. So, if you aim for lower cholesterol you’ll decrease your risk of heart disease and stroke, but you’ll die earlier than you would have because something else is going to get you. Cholesterol is health protective. The so-called damaging effects of cholesterol in the arteries come about because cholesterol gets oxidized and sticks to artery walls, creating plaques and artery disease. The oxidation is the problem, not the cholesterol. The oxidation comes about not because of eating animal products, but because of pro-oxidative, unhealthy, “Standard American” diet high in sugar and poorly farmed and highly processed foods. The biggest contributor to cardiovascular disease is unequivocally glycemic load (spikes in blood sugar from sugar and processed plant carbs like bread and cakes), and NOT cholesterol or saturated fat. Environmental toxins come in at a close second.

The reason the health consensus has been so unclear is partly because human metabolism is highly adaptable. We can transform many plant nutrients into animal (human-usable) form, especially with the help of cooking, which releases calories and certain nutrients into a more available form (raw food is good for you as well, for different reasons, so keep eating raw vegetables). This is great that we can transform foods and survive without animal foods for long periods of time.

But this doesn’t mean that we thrive without animal foods. Humans thrive best on an omnivorous diet, meaning we eat both plants and animals for energy and nutrients. In fact, absolutely no indigenous culture has been found to live a strictly carnivorous nor strictly herbivorous (vegan) diet. Humans instinctively seek out animal food, probably because seeking out animal foods conveyed an adaptive advantage for survival. Because it’s good for us. If there ever were any vegan populations, they didn’t survive to tell the tale. I doubt they were killed by barbaric, omnivorous humans. They didn’t thrive or survive because an all-plant diet doesn’t support optimal human health.

The fact is that, in the absence of supplementation, humans absolutely require eating animal foods to survive (unless you want to eat animal feces for your B12 intake, which most vegans do not do). Vitamin B12 is an essential human nutrient only found in animals and animal feces, and perhaps small amounts in certain soils.

Like I said, humans can convert plant nutrients to human usable form pretty impressively. There is genetic variation, however. Some people don’t convert carotenoids to active retinol (vitamin A) very well. Others do just fine. Some (in fact, most) don’t convert plant omega-3 (like in flax seeds) to DHA and EPA (animal form) very well. Others are pretty darn bad at it. It’s not their fault, it’s their genetics, and they need animal food to live optimally.

In fact, everyone needs animal foods to thrive optimally.

Here is a list of some nutrients that are difficult to obtain from plant foods:

Health practitioners, myself included, continuously see many supposedly healthy-eating vegans with health problems. This comes as a surprise to them, because they’ve been told how healthy the vegan diet is. Additionally, most of these vegans, if they choose to adopt a healthy diet that includes healthy meat, see big gains in their health pretty quickly. Why, they wonder, when they originally felt so good after starting a vegan diet, did they slowly deteriorate and then start feeling better when they switch back to eating meat?

The answer is that 1) when they switched to vegan diet they started eating healthier overall, with more wholesome foods along with their transition to veganism and 2) they slowly became depleted over a period of time in certain of the above nutrients available in animal foods. We can store B12 in our tissues for years, for example, before needing to replenish it, so long as we’ve had a good source of meat in the past from which to draw.

A lot of paleo proponents feel that the more meat you eat, the better. I don’t tend to think this way. There is a lot of genetic variation, and because humans have such an adaptable metabolism, I think we can get by with less meat than some would like to think, although at some point quantity is less important for health than quality.

Paleo proponents and most vegan/anti-animal food proponents have a common enemy: food processing, sugar, industrial pollutants, agrochemicals, and other toxins. These are the real problem that both can address. Either diet can decrease toxic burden and increase overall health and lower disease rates. However, the human metabolism is taxed when deprived of animal products, and many people suffer needlessly for years. No, they don’t tend to get increased risk of cancer, heart disease, or stroke, but they do suffer from chronic degeneration, low energy, brain fog, and lowered quality of life as a result of insufficient nutrition. The lowered risk of cancer in vegans and vegetarians is probably due to anabolic insufficiency (cancer is a growth process and gets starved without animal foods, just as humans themselves get starved without animal foods). Also, feedlot animal foods are a far cry from traditional animal foods, having toxins and fatty acid profiles unlike what we’re designed to eat. Animal tissue harbors environmental toxins because of bio-accumulation in the food chain. But does this incriminate meat and fish? or does it incriminates humans who are dumping those toxins into them and our environment? It’s the latter. It’s not fish’s fault it accumulates mercury. With a well-designed Paleo diet, you can get plenty of cancer-fighting phytochemicals while still eating select, clean animal foods.

Comparing a feedlot steak (with it’s hormones, antibiotics, and grain feed) to free-range, natural-fed meat is like comparing a stack of wheat-flour pancakes topped with margarine and high-fructose corn syrup (vegan) to broccoli with coconut oil on it (also vegan). There is simply no comparison. The “processed” example, whether meat or vegan variety, is full of agricultural toxins, is pro-inflammatory, and increases disease risk. The problem with the vegan diet is that it categorically removes all meat, while the Paleo diet gets the best of both worlds by including healthy forms of both animal and plant products.

The preponderance of evidence, especially emerging evidence, shows that both animal foods and plant foods are healthy for the body when grown and processed in the right way because that is what the human body thrives on. There are thousands of studies showing this.

Vegans are conscientious and don’t want to harm animals, which is very respectable; however, you can be a good, moral, conscientious person and still eat meat.

Carnivory isn’t bad or unethical. It’s part of nature. However, vegans are right that causing suffering is bad. Feedlots and chicken factories aren’t happy places because their living conditions promote animal suffering. We need to change that, and I’m thankful for the vegans and other groups leading the charge on this. In the ferocious wild there is, paradoxically, less suffering than in the human world, because the old and sick animals are eaten before they can degenerate and suffer for years, which would happen in the absence of carnivores.

Would you rather live a miserable life and die of degenerative diseases or live a happy, healthy life and die a few years earlier from a carnivore or omnivore?

We all die. All animals die, whether eaten by humans or not. Virtually no animals in the wild go uneaten. If not eaten by a carnivore, they get eaten by bugs or maggots or yellow jackets. It’s the way of life. It’s the circle of life. Death isn’t what we’re fighting. We’re fighting suffering. Proponents of Paleo and Veganism can probably find common ground there.

By urging humans to go against our natures and not eat meat, we are increasing the suffering of the human population because of decreased overall health, both emotional and bodily. Is it necessary for us to eat meat? As long as we supplement, we don’t need it survive. However, we do need it to thrive optimally.

Avoiding meat causes suffering in humans.

The environmental effects of modern meat farming practices are pretty disastrous. Huge swaths of land are used to grow corn and soy, sprayed with harmful chemicals and using substantial amounts of water and energy, and used to feed the unhealthy animals we consume. We release antibiotics and hormones into ourselves and the environment. By the way, it’s not just animal farming practices that damage the environment, but also many other non-organic farming practices.

Again, I admire vegans and am grateful for their contributions to society. I’ve addressed briefly the three main polemics behind the vegan vs omnivore debate. These are 1) human health, 2) animal rights, and 3) environmental health. Of course, there’s much more than what I’ve shared here. The bottom line, however, is that carnivores eat mainly just animals, herbivores eat just plants, and omnivores eat animals and plants. Humans are omnivores.

What are your thoughts? Please comment.

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