Free the Animal

Vegetarian Paleo

Here's how to deal with me when we have a fundamental conflict, unlike some people. A comment from a vegetarian reader.

I see this blog all of the time and I love reading it. I never comment because, as interesting as I think it is... I am newly a vegetarian and am really enjoying this lifestyle choice.

Is it possible to practice this diet with the exclusion of meat?

I keep a foodie blog, tracking my progress as a vegetarian.

Well, I took a quick five or so at your blog and there's no mystery at all. You're having a ball. Quite obvious, and I salute and congratulate you on it. Even though our food choices are not the same, much of what you're doing is real food, you're doing it yourself, and you're doing it with imagination and gusto. Salut!

How could I possibly dis that?

Here's what I think: in spite of you adopting a diet that I would not undertake, I think you're heads & tails above most. I didn't see any fish, and I've had many acquaintances over the years who call themselves "vegetarian" but eat fish and/or shellfish. Could you consider that? It would make me immensely happy if you did.

That approach, if one does it, is an ideal modified-vegetarian approach in my view. The cool thing about fish is that it's as wide in variety as the sea -- really, a whole other world of nutrition. In terms of meat, for most of us, we have beef, pork, lamb, chicken & turkey. Toss is some buffalo, emu, or game meat from time to time. But in terms of fish, you have huge, huge variety in taste, nutritional composition, fat content, texture and other attributes. One can eat very fine and high nutrition with fish, vegetables, fruit and nuts. You will annihilate the grain, legume & sugar eaters in terms of nutrition. Instead of grains, rice, legumes, or sugar, just eat a bigger portion of fish, more veggies, more fruit (berries preferable), and/or nuts. Then laugh at your malnourished interlocutors.

I aim for optimal nutrition from food. So, I'm going to try to eat from as wide of a variety as practical; from meat, fish, natural fats, vegetables, fruits, and nuts / seeds.

So now let me get to some critiques of the vegetarian path.

1) You have to get a decent amount of protein or you'll lose weight, as many vegetarians do. This fools them into thinking they are on a good path, but what their body is doing is scavenging lean mass and bone in order to make up for malnutrition. They become skinny fat, i.e., low body weight but relatively high body fat percentage.

2) Since you're not going to get protein from natures most readily available (and tasty) sources, you're stuck with legumes in general, and soy in particular. I've blogged before about lectins, but soy is probably one of the worst (follow the links). In short, lectins are everywhere, but the ones found in legumes and grains are ones we haven't had exposure to long enough to adapt to. For some people, this means a peanut can kill them, and for others, wheat and other gluten containing "food" can melt their gut. So here's what you have to consider: Peanuts don't kill you, nor does wheat and other gluten heavy grains cause immediately noticeable harm. But what do you know of your generalized inflammation, inflammation that may lurk below the pain threshold? You might want to get a blood test for c-reactive protein.

3) This may not apply to you, evidence thereof being your blog, but more and more, vegetarians are straying from the whole foods path to processed foods. Let's just say that highly processed foods eaten chronically are death to all, from vegan to carnivore.

Now, in the interest of objectivity, allow me to highlight the fact that I don't think vegetarians and vegans are entirely deluded. Here's an example:

"Raw For 30 Days" - Vegan Cure for Diabetes

I think that's cool & awesome. But the same thing could have been accomplished with a Paleo diet, and what's more: it's sustainable.

Alright, I believe I've made my point, which is: I think a careful vegetarian diet that eschews processed foods and sugar entirely is probably better than the average American diet -- even one including meat. And that's because the average American diet includes a ton of wheat & sugar. Most simply: vegetarian diets have sometimes been shown to deliver net benefit simply because vegetarians are of an above-average health consciousness, and that's a bigger association to overall health than the specifics of your diet. Because of their fundamentals, they are going to eat closer to nature, closer to the Paleolithic, and that's going to have a net benefit on some scale.

As a last bit, I've often described the vegan diet as one of "long-extinct pea-brains and chimpanzees." As I've remarked on before, the two lines of hominids that were vegetarian (other than the bugs, worms and caterpillars they all consume) went extinct like a couple of million years ago. Still, if one is vegetarian or has even mildly been exposed to the rational, one has with little doubt been exposed to the "argument" that our digestive tracts are more like those of "vegetarians" than of carnivores.

Do you mean: like these vegetarians. (Note added later: Bea just saw this, said it freaked her out, and that I needed to emphasize that you take the time to watch it. It will blow you away.)

(HT: To the commenter on a previous post who clued me into that, and this.)

Meat & Morality

One feature of the hit & run vegans (who sometimes comment here) is that they always eagerly provide a link to photos of feedlots, slaughterhouses, and so on. That's their lazy way. Of course, it's effective.

1 in 200 Children are Vegetarian

Nichole Nightingale, 14, was exposed to a YouTube video that showed the graphic details of how chickens are slaughtered for meat. The letter ended with an invitation to visit the Web site of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for more information.

This information prompted Nightingale to become a vegan – meaning she consumes no animal meat or animal products such as eggs or milk.

In complete defiance of human evolutionary biology, the "wise & experienced" 14-year-old decides to eat the diet of long-extinct pea-brained hominids and chimpanzees. Just wonderful.

Not to drag on, because frequent commenter Monica Hughes, PhD biology, has a pretty wide ranging post on the issue. Go read it. As far as the photos go, at the end of her post she quotes Garrett Hardin.

In passing, it is worth noting that the morality of an act cannot be determined from a photograph. One does not know whether a man killing an elephant or setting fire to the grassland is harming others until one knows the total system in which his act appears. "One picture is worth a thousand words," said an ancient Chinese; but it may take ten thousand words to validate it. It is as tempting to ecologists as it is to reformers in general to try to persuade others by way of the photographic shortcut. But the essence of an argument cannot be photographed: it must be presented rationally -- in words.

In today's increasingly graphic world, this is an identification worth burning into your consciousness. Words can be weasely and manipulative enough. Photographs lacking all context are a recipe for a snake pit. Don't allow yourselves to be anyone's fool.

While I have always regarded the treating of animals humanely and with respect a great value, and thus regard feedlots and other similar operations as shameful, I regard the use of photographs and hyperbole as means to manipulate people into ignoring their own biological imperatives for the sake of propaganda to be despicable.

But what can you expect from people who eat the diet of long extinct pea-brained hominids?

"Spilling the Beans"

Isoflavones, genisteins, lectins, saponins, and phytoestrogens -- don't these wonderful names signal a whole host of cancer fighting, heart disease preventing, cholesterol-lowering miracles?

Uh, no. They're anti-nutrients and toxins. Guess where you'll find them -- some in pretty high concentrations? Meat? No. Natural fats? Wrong again. How about junk food? Bingo! But wait; junk food is processed, refined, shaken, stirred, emulsified, liquified, toasted, frozen, dried, baked, broiled, fried, fortified, vacuum packed, and spoon fed. So, then, what is it in junk food that's composed of all those toxins?

Ah, the chemicals: preservatives, coloring, flavoring, deodorizing, odorizing, texturizing, viscocitizing, right? Naturally...wrong!

Alright, enough suspense: soy. Yep, as "foods" go, soy is among the most toxic. Of course, soy never existed in our diet until some few thousand years ago. Lorette Luzajic has a very worthwhile article on the whole thing, if you'd like to know. You'll be shocked. More on the toxins here (and here, too). By the way, Asians don't eat a lot of it as is claimed (they never have), and also, what they do eat is in fermented form like tempeh, miso, tofu, sauce. Fermenting, soaking, and sprouting are wise techniques and traditions for breaking up toxins and anti-nutrients in grains and beans / legumes going back centuries and longer. I don't advocate eating grains or legumes, but if you must, ferment (like true sourdough) soak (like grandmother used to do for beans), and or sprout.

If you read labels, you'll find soy protein and/or soy oil in almost all processed foods. Here, allow me to stimulate your appetite.

To produce soybean oil, the soybeans are cracked, adjusted for moisture content, rolled into flakes and solvent-extracted with commercial hexane. The oil is then refined, blended for different applications, and sometimes hydrogenated. Soybean oils, both liquid and partially hydrogenated, are exported abroad, sold as "vegetable oil," or end up in a wide variety of processed foods. The remaining soybean husks are used mainly as animal feed.

And for dessert, how about some hexane?

Hexane is an alkane hydrocarbon [...]. Hexane isomers are largely unreactive, and are frequently used as an inert solvent in organic reactions because they are very non-polar. They are also common constituents of gasoline and glues used for shoes, leather products, and roofing. Additionally, it is used in solvents to extract oils for cooking and as a cleansing agent for shoe, furniture and textile manufacturing. In laboratories, hexane is used to extract oil and grease from water and soil before determination by gravimetric analysis or gas chromatography.

Mmm. Yummy.

The Black Swan

Here represents a core fundamental of scientific method.

Suppose you lived in Europe any time during the last few hundred years and were fortunate enough to observe the lovely swan in action. Suppose further that you noticed that every single one was white. How about you observed a million of them over time? Could you say, definitively, that "all swans are white?"

No. You. Can't.

You could hypothesize, which, if you're a scientific researcher, would naturally involve attempting to find swans that aren't white. Grasp that: you look for swans that are not white, because, it doesn't matter if you find 10 billion white swans, you still can't say definitively that all are white universally, or even globally, unless every nook and cranny of the Earth has been checked for non-white swans. OK, but so what? Could we work with and find use in hypotheses that may not be substantiated universally, but are true in a limited context? Sure. It's done all the time, and it's fine, so long as it's done right.

But this isn't how politicized, government, and big-industry "science" is done, now -- especially in areas like diet, medicine, environment (yea, all you "health-nut" greens: the bad science is exactly the same, and I've looked into it just as extensively as health going back far more years than I've been into health / fitness). What is done now is that everyone is going about looking for white swans, finding them, and proclaiming that, (!!!) yep, all swans are white.

But it gets worse. Way, way worse. Why? Simple: all swans aren't white. It only took a single exception to disprove the "rule." Here, let me have the always delightfully candid Robb Wolf elaborate:

In the case of vegetarianism from the China Study perspective, we should see a simple dose response curve with meat intake and cancer. We do not. In fact, we only need ONE (1) example of a conflicting finding to completely discredit the hypothesis. The Inuit Paradox is just such an example. Now the vegetarians will start back-pedaling and yamering a bunch of bull-shit, but the fact is we have a well documented example of a society that consumes greater than 90% of it’s calories from MEAT yet suffers NO: cancer, diabetes, or heart disease until the introduction of neolithic foods. This fact is forgotten, ignored, dismissed…but it’s still a fact. The inuit, are BTW but one of hundreds of hunter gatherer cultures who represent this interesting “Paradox”.

So this is what you're up against, folks. It is the literal equivalent of having government and big industry marching about and conducting research, today -- often spending your tax dollars -- to tell you that they have -- yay! -- located even more white swans. And you're trusting your health and that of your kids to that kind of...FRAUD?

"Opposing Views" Asks...

Are Vegetarians Healthier?

Could veggie burgers increase your lifespan? Many experts insist that switching to a vegetarian lifestyle can greatly increase overall health, leading some to ditch their pork rinds like an old smoking habit. Still others swear by an omnivorous diet, saying that occasional New York steak never hurt anyone. Is a fresh helping of tofu just what the doctor ordered, or only a lot of empty calories?

You do notice the smuggled premise, right? Not to mention the typical smug assurance which, is really the more necessary the more wrong you are.

At any rate, the Weston Price Foundation does a very admirable and thorough job. Much of the veggie stuff is shallow assertion. The comments are generally shill with far too much protestation; but then again, that's what has to happen when you go up against reality in such a stark manner. Thanks to Diana for emailing that link.

Here's one of my recent -- and infrequent -- posts on vegetarianism.

Mother Earth News...

Has published an article by Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories, and whom I've blogged about several times in the past.

• Fasting, Diet, Carbohydrates, Cause & Effect
• 180 Degree Errors
• Big Fat Lies
• Good Calories, Bad Calories 
• What Do You Really Know About Dietary Fat? 

Anyway, there's all your background. Those first two are the more important, as I attempt to explain his "alternate hypothesis." Now that I've read the principal part in GCBC that relates to that I'm soon going to have another post about that.

In the meantime, check out the Mother Earth News article, and most particularly, the comments (in reverse chronological order). Lots of vegan & vegetarian ignorance, hysteria, and old myths and modern ignorance. As always, I wish them well. I even wish that sort of diet was healthy from an evolutionary perspective. But it's not; and I don't make up the facts, just report them to you.