Understanding Veganism and Vegetarianism
in the Context of Chronic Disease
Written April 2024
This article does NOT constitute medical advice. Consult with your physician before making any changes to your medical plan.
This is a topic that requires a close look at biochemistry. Remember the physiology goal we are aiming for. The goal is to heal from chronic disease. It is likely that plants may be the main cause of your chronic disease, or a partial cause of your chronic disease, or a contributing factor to your chronic disease. If so, then some specific plants, or perhaps even all plants, may need to be removed from your diet for a period of time in order to facilitate healing. This can be difficult for a vegan to accept at first. Be patient with yourself. Albert Einstein is often credited with the quote "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that was used to create them." Change may be required, at least temporarily, in order to get the necessary nutrients needed and toxins removed for healing. It may be necessary to temporarily set aside ideology and look closely at the biochemistry of the human body if you want to cure your chronic disease. It is a choice, albeit a discordant one. Veganism is a direct cause of chronic disease, all by itself, without any other co-factors. Not every vegan has chronic disease as it usually takes 5-20 years of veganism to develop chronic disease as a result of veganism alone. Studies show that there are 5-times as many ex-vegans and ex-vegetarians as there are current vegans and vegetarians. 84% of vegans leave veganism after just one year. It is nutritionally difficult for humans to sustain health on a vegan diet. This is mostly due to nutritional deficiencies and plant toxicities that lead to things like sarcopenia, depression, anxiety, gout, bone fractures, disc degeneration, joint inflammation, arthritis, osteopenia, osteoporosis, anemia, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, eating disorders, pregnancy complications, kidney stones, cancer, autoimmunity, hypothyroidism, and more. A 2023 study called The Impact of a Vegan Diet on Many Aspects of Health: The Overlooked Side of Veganism looked at some of this. I have personally talked with over 100 vegans through various health forums and communities, and I've found that their common vegan deficiencies include, but are not limited to, vitamins B12, B2, B1, D, A, K1, K2, thiamine, niacin, iron, iodine, zinc, copper, selenium, DHA, EPA, calcium, magnesium, choline, methionine, lysine, leucine, tryptophan, carnitine, taurine, creatine, saturated fat, cholesterol, melatonin, coenzyme Q10, heme iron, and others. Common vegan toxicities include, but are not limited to oxalates, lectins, fructans, phytates, salicylates, cyanide, tannins, glucosinolates, saponins, proteinase inhibitors, arsenic, lead, cadmium, deuterium, starchy carbohydrates, fermentable carbohydrates, polyols, and others. As cited in my article Healing Chronic Disease, Bruce N. Ames of the University of California Berkeley pointed out, in his paper called Man-Made and Natural Carcinogens: Putting The Risks In Perspective, that modern plants have 10,000 times more carcinogens, by weight, than the synthetic pesticides they are treated with. This does not mean you shouldn't eat any plants. What it means is that, if you want to heal from chronic disease, you need to know exactly which plants are making you sick, in what dosage, and at what frequency. This, however, can take years or even decades to figure out given the extremely large number of different combinations of nutritional deficiencies and toxicities resulting from plants that may be causing your chronic disease. It could be thousands of different combinations that are affecting your health. This makes it difficult to test all the combinations. But, let's say for example that after years of experimentation you are able to finally figure out that oxalates, gluten, and other lectins are causing your chronic disease. That means you cannot eat most grains, potatoes, beans, rice, nightshades, and much more. What is left for you to eat to sustain energy and nutrients? Not much. You may have suffered for years while trying to figure out what plants were causing you trouble, and your findings may now mean that you cannot live on plants alone because there are not enough plants available that your body can tolerate to sustain your required calories without being sick. Instead, as an alternative, you could simply implement an elimination diet that eliminates all plants and your chronic disease is very likely to be improved in 3-12 months. So, it really depends how sick you are as to which path you may want to take, and how important a vegan diet is to your ideologies. If the goal is healing from chronic disease then a vegan diet may not be a biochemically appropriate choice for a period of time.
If you do attempt to heal on a vegan or vegetarian diet then be sure you verify that you are actually healing by using the extensive bloodwork discussed in my article Healing Chronic Disease, plus a more extensive diagnostic workup specifically designed around vegan deficiencies and toxicities. Just because you feel better does NOT mean you have fixed the chronic disease. The problems could be getting worse and worse without you knowing it if you don't use bloodwork and diagnostics to evaluate. Let me illustrate how disease can sneak up on you by discussing the typical steps employed when healing chronic disease:
1.) Eliminate all processed foods (including seed and vegetable oils).
2.) Eliminate all grains, beans, and lactose.
3.) Eliminate triggers such as nightshades, FODMAPs, fructans, oxalates, phytates, and salicylates.
4.) Reduce carbohydrates (starches and sugars) below 25g per day.
5.) Eliminate all plants.
So, if a person is sick with a chronic illness they may decide to go on a whole food vegan diet, and let's say they do Step 1 and eliminate all processed foods. Eliminating processed foods is possible for a vegan, and it may be enough to help them feel better temporarily, and so they may consider themselves cured. But what they are omitting is the high likelihood, for example, that they feel better from reducing something like high-dose gluten that was in the processed foods and was causing leaky gut. Now when they go on this whole food vegan diet they may temporarily feel better from coincidently reducing gluten, but they unknowingly end up consuming higher total carbohydrates from potatoes, rice, oats, quinoa, soy and corn with their new vegan diet. In a year or two they feel sick again, but this time from insulin resistance due to the high carbohydrate diet, and they don't understand why. However, if they had used the proper bloodwork and diagnostics upfront they would have known that they would be very likely to get insulin resistance by switching to this whole food high carbohydrate vegan diet. As another example, consider my personal experience with oxalate poisoning that I described in my article Healing Chronic Disease. I had no idea that I was poisoning myself by eating foods that I was told were super healthy like spinach, beets, beet greens, nuts, nut butter, dark chocolate, turmeric, chard, raspberries, and kiwi. All the while these jagged crystals were building up in my prostate, thyroid, joints, abdomen, tendons, ligaments, and who knows where else. It was very difficult to change my mindset about eating plants as I was quite emotionally attached to the high-plant diet at that time. I had embraced plant-foods as important my whole life. I needed to emotionally detach myself from plants. Change was necessary. Plants can hinder optimal biochemical function in just a short time. Consider the results of a recent study by lead author Isabella D. Cooper called Ketosis Suppression and Ageing: The Effects of Suppressing Ketosis in Long Term Keto-Adapted Non-Athletic Females. In this study they took women who had been on a very low carbohydrate diet for many years, and they switched them to eating a much higher carbohydrate diet for 21 days. They analyzed dozens of blood tests before and after and found that all women had progression toward disease after just 21 days on the higher carbohydrate diet. Then they put them back on their original very low carbohydrate diet and all the blood tests progressed away from disease and returned to optimal healthy levels. This type of blood work analysis is very useful for your own personal evaluation.
1.) Eliminate all processed foods (including seed and vegetable oils).
2.) Eliminate all grains, beans, and lactose.
3.) Eliminate triggers such as nightshades, FODMAPs, fructans, oxalates, phytates, and salicylates.
4.) Reduce carbohydrates (starches and sugars) below 25g per day.
5.) Eliminate all plants.
So, if a person is sick with a chronic illness they may decide to go on a whole food vegan diet, and let's say they do Step 1 and eliminate all processed foods. Eliminating processed foods is possible for a vegan, and it may be enough to help them feel better temporarily, and so they may consider themselves cured. But what they are omitting is the high likelihood, for example, that they feel better from reducing something like high-dose gluten that was in the processed foods and was causing leaky gut. Now when they go on this whole food vegan diet they may temporarily feel better from coincidently reducing gluten, but they unknowingly end up consuming higher total carbohydrates from potatoes, rice, oats, quinoa, soy and corn with their new vegan diet. In a year or two they feel sick again, but this time from insulin resistance due to the high carbohydrate diet, and they don't understand why. However, if they had used the proper bloodwork and diagnostics upfront they would have known that they would be very likely to get insulin resistance by switching to this whole food high carbohydrate vegan diet. As another example, consider my personal experience with oxalate poisoning that I described in my article Healing Chronic Disease. I had no idea that I was poisoning myself by eating foods that I was told were super healthy like spinach, beets, beet greens, nuts, nut butter, dark chocolate, turmeric, chard, raspberries, and kiwi. All the while these jagged crystals were building up in my prostate, thyroid, joints, abdomen, tendons, ligaments, and who knows where else. It was very difficult to change my mindset about eating plants as I was quite emotionally attached to the high-plant diet at that time. I had embraced plant-foods as important my whole life. I needed to emotionally detach myself from plants. Change was necessary. Plants can hinder optimal biochemical function in just a short time. Consider the results of a recent study by lead author Isabella D. Cooper called Ketosis Suppression and Ageing: The Effects of Suppressing Ketosis in Long Term Keto-Adapted Non-Athletic Females. In this study they took women who had been on a very low carbohydrate diet for many years, and they switched them to eating a much higher carbohydrate diet for 21 days. They analyzed dozens of blood tests before and after and found that all women had progression toward disease after just 21 days on the higher carbohydrate diet. Then they put them back on their original very low carbohydrate diet and all the blood tests progressed away from disease and returned to optimal healthy levels. This type of blood work analysis is very useful for your own personal evaluation.
Vegans often need encouragement and support in order to transition to a diet that will heal their disease but that they see as contrary to their ideologies. We can help vegans through this and show them that plant-based eating and animal-based eating have the same values and beliefs. We all want health for our bodies, health for the planet, and happiness for animals. The animal-based diet model achieves all three of these values to a much greater extent than a plant-based diet model. We've already talked about health for our bodies. In my article Healing Chronic Disease we talked a little bit about health for the planet, but let's expand on that more. Imagine we have a plot of land, and we can do two different things with that land. In the first scenario, we cut down all the trees, bushes, and shrubs. We bring in excavators to dig up all the roots. We kill or displace all the animals, insects, and worms. We displace all the butterflies and bees. We poison all the bacteria, fungi, archaea, and other microbes with antibiotics (glyphosate, aka Round-Up) as we prepare the land for a crop. We commit the ultimate biocide with this biological cleansing as we destroy the piece of land and completely halt evolution. Then, after killing everything, we plant one acre of wheat, but, in order to grow, the wheat requires that we apply fossil fuels to the land to provide the nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (NPK) which has long been eliminated from the soil as we raped the earth. The wheat will not grow without the unnatural application of this fossil fuel. This unnatural extraction of fossil fuel is used by the wheat and ultimately ends up in the atmosphere in enormously unnatural quantities of the greenhouse gases nitrous oxide and methane that nature never previously expelled on its own in such large quantities. Nitrous oxide is 300 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Once the wheat is finished growing we harvest it, and we kill 15 mice per hectare as they instinctively freeze when the noisy machine comes through. Hundreds of other small animals and trillions of life forms are killed as well. Then we drive the wheat to a factory, in vehicles that require fossil fuels, where more fossil fuels will be used at the factory to process the wheat into whatever products it is used for. The wheat is shipped to stores or other factories in vehicles that require more fossil fuels. You then use more fossil fuel to drive your car to the store to buy the product. This process is then done for the dozens and dozens of other agricultural plant products you consume and the nutritional supplements you take to avoid deficiencies. Now let's look at a second option with that same piece of land. Let's allow natural grasses to grow as we introduce ruminant animals to the land. The ruminants provide the necessary enzymes and bacteria from their mouth and manure that the grasses require for life. The naturally grass fed, non-grain fed, ruminants burp a small amount of methane gas which rises into the atmosphere, gets converted to carbon dioxide, and that entire equivalent amount of carbon dioxide is used by the grasses for respiration as nature intended. It's a perfect system aligned with nature. The grass roots dive ten feet deep to bring up water and minerals. Small animals proliferate. Bugs, worms and microbes flourish. Butterflies and bees return. The ruminants are happy. They are slaughtered when ready, and you drive to that farm which is a short distance from your home and you buy a whole cow. That one cow provides all the nutrition you need for an entire year with no other foods or supplements needed. You use a little gas to make one trip to the farm once per year and you use a little energy to run your freezer at home for a year. Can vegans make one trip per year to one single farm to get all of their food for that entire year? Probably not. The grasses and land, nurtured by the ruminants, pull copious amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so much that if we did this with 75% of land which is now agricultural plant-based land we could sequester all the carbon dioxide that humans have emitted since the beginning of industrialization. This second option regenerates the land, saves the planet, makes animals happy, and humanely kills only one animal compared to killing hundreds of animals and trillions of other lifeforms with the first option. The second option requires no nutritional supplements which means an entire fossil fuel burning industry can be eliminated thereby reducing impact on the planet. Veganism requires massive supplementation because the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients in plants are scarce, are not bioavailable, and are removed from the body by plant toxins. Take calcium for example. The RDA for calcium is 1200mg per day. A vegan needs to get at least that 1200mg and probably more. But a person eating only beef generally needs just 25-80mg per day. Veganism depletes the body of minerals like calcium because anti-nutrients in plants, like oxalates and phytates, bind to calcium and excrete it from the body. This is common with many nutrients on a vegan diet.
Here you can see that White Oak Pastures, a well-known farm that raises grassfed beef, actually emits negative carbon.
That means net carbon is being taken out of the atmosphere by their farm.
That means net carbon is being taken out of the atmosphere by their farm.
This discussion can help a vegan to save their health, save the planet, kill fewer animals, and give animals a happy life. For vegans who need encouragement I recommend that you read the inspiring book by Lierre Keith called The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability. Lierre suffered from severe chronic disease that directly resulted from 20 years of veganism. It was very difficult for her to transition to an animal-based diet, but it was necessary for her to heal from chronic disease. Lierre now spends most of her time trying to help other vegans make their way to health. Another book, by author Jayne Buxton, called The Great Plant-Based Con explains much of the science that exposes the vegan myth. Scientific studies that make veganism look attractive have many flaws. These studies often try to discredit the consumption of beef. When you read the studies you typically see that the beef consumers consist of mostly smokers while the non-beef consumers consist of mostly non-smokers. Tricks like this are commonly used for deception. Studies in mice may show that high protein consumption increases cancer. But when you read the study you notice that only one amino acid is administered and it is administered in very unnaturally high doses. This does not exist in nature, so it's no surprise that it may cause cancer. It is not evidence that protein in human food causes cancer in the human body. It is a trick employed by industry-funded institutions. Large scale observational studies often like to show that large populations of people do better on low-protein high-plant diets. They give participants a survey and ask them to recall what they ate over the last year. This is not science. Can you remember what you ate for breakfast two days ago, let alone every meal for the last year? This is propaganda, not science. Let's look at a specific example with the highly publicized 2023 study led by well-known plant-based advocate and scientist Walter C. Willett at the Harvard University Chan School of public health called Red meat intake and risk of type 2 diabetes in a prospective cohort study of United States females and males. Go to the methods section and what do you see in Table 1? Well, you see that the quintiles of higher red meat eaters, compared to lower red meat eaters, consisted of greater numbers of smokers, greater number of alcohol consumers, higher BMI roughly indicating obesity levels, greater total calorie consumption likely coming in the form of soda consumed with burgers, higher amounts of processed meat which are known to be unhealthy, much lower amounts of physical activity, lower amounts of multivitamin use, and lower amounts of fruit likely being replace with junk food. Obviously this group of people would be at higher risk of diabetes. Nearly every TV network in the nation displayed this study through media channels trying to push the narrative that red meat is bad, but the methods section alone shows that it is clearly not red meat that is bad. Rather, the coincidental poor lifestyle choices associated with those participants is bad. The conclusion of the study states "Our study supports current dietary recommendations for limiting consumption of red meat intake and emphasizes the importance of different alternative sources of protein for T2D prevention". This is unethical deception, and it happens all the time in fraudulent science. What about conflict of interest in industry? Bayer, the drug company, owns Monsanto, the food and agriculture company. The sicker they make people with poor quality food the more money they make with pharmaceuticals. Same with the Nestle food company who is now selling diabetes drugs. They make more money if they keep you sick with bad food. This type of conversation can help vegans shift from modern man-made agricultural plant-based diets of the last 10,000 years to evolutionary ancestral animal-based diets of the last 2.5 million years upon which our genetics are based.
Some people choose to eat organic plants. I was one of those people. We have been lead to believe that organic plants are less harmful to the planet because they don't use fossil fuel fertilizers. Do you know where organic crops get their fertilizer? The USDA prohibits the use of chemical fertilizers (fossil fuel based fertilizers) on organic crops. The fertilizer on your organic plants typically comes from manure of factory farmed cows located in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO). You can read the USDA regulations here. Section 205.203(b) says "The producer must manage crop nutrients and soil fertility through rotations, cover crops, and the application of plant and animal materials". A keyword being "must". Then in Section 205.203(c) they define "Animal and plant materials" which includes "Raw animal manure". Call around or visit organic farms and ask them where they get their animal manure. They cannot get the manure from the farms of regenerative pasture raised happy cows because that manure is being used on those specific farms to naturally re-fertilize the grasslands of those regeneratively raised ruminants to support the natural carbon sequestration of that land. So the organic plants you are eating typically employ the manure of factory farmed animals to fertilize their crops because it is easy and inexpensive to collect that manure from the concrete floor of an animal factory, and it has the correct balance of NPK's to grow the plants. Call the farms of each plant you consume and specifically ask them exactly where they get their manure. Most people are likely supporting the factory farming of animals without knowing it. Call every supplement company from which you purchase organic plant-based supplements and ask them what farms they get the plants from to make the supplements you use, and then call each of those farms to find out where they get the manure to grow their plants. Do the same for each company you buy spices and herbs from. Call the companies and farms of every organic plant-based burger you eat and every organic restaurant you visit. Again, you are probably supporting the factory farming of animals without knowing it. Humans cannot survive without ruminant animals. It is a necessary part of our existence. Without ruminant animals humans will go extinct. But, in my opinion, factory farming of animals is an unacceptable inhumane approach. I do not think it is worth supporting.
The role of national economics and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) plays a large role in the adoption of a plant-based mentality within a society. I have personally spent 25 years working in the field of financial planning where I took many courses on economics and money. I've now been able to apply that economic knowledge to its impact on nutrition as it relates to economics and GDP. It is profound! Allow me to explain. Let's first define GDP. In simple terms, GDP is a measure of products made and services rendered by providers in a country. It is the amount of stuff a country makes and sells to consumers, plus the amount of services provided to consumers. Now let's look at the way nutrition led by grass-fed ruminant animal-based diets compares with nutrition led by agricultural plant-based diets. I'll save you the suspense of the outcome. The outcome is that agricultural plant-based diets are massively greater contributors to GDP than grass-fed ruminant animal-based diets, but this comes at the price of massive destruction of our planet. Think about our discussion above. The raising of grass-fed ruminant animals, when done correctly, is mostly self-sustaining. The animals provide the enzymes, bacteria, and nutrients that the grasslands require for survival, the grasslands provide the nutrition that the ruminants need for survival, and the atmosphere provides the water. A perfect symbiotic ecosystem. The ranchers manage the ecosystem to keep it functioning as efficiently as possible. They utilize some fossil fuel to slaughter the meat, and the consumer uses some fossil fuel to drive to the farm once per year and to run their freezer for the year. The ranchers minimize interference in the ecosystem as much as possible. Agricultural crops, on the other hand, require fossil fuel, equipment and employees to run the bulldozers that tear down the shrubs and trees; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to till the land; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to run the pumps that spray the antibiotics; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to run the pumps that irrigate crops; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to run the machines that harvest crops; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to power the trucks that drive the harvest to the factories; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to run the factories that mill the harvest; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to turn that milled harvest into a product; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to manufacture the bags and boxes that package the product; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to drive those products to the grocery stores; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to manage and operate the grocery stores; and fossil fuel for the consumer to drive to the grocery stores once per week. Hundreds and hundreds of contributing industries are created along that line to support the agricultural plant-based model in this process. Millions and millions of people are employed by implementation of the agricultural plant-based diet model. Clearly, the agricultural plant-based diet is an enormously greater contributor to GDP than grass-fed ruminant animal-based diets. But the price for that is massive destruction to our planet. Grass-fed ruminant animal-based diets are very gentle on our planet, but governments do not like that because it contributes very, very little to GDP. Ranchers are employed, but few additional industries and jobs are created when people eat grass-fed ruminant animal-based diets compared to agricultural plant-based diets. Governments push an agricultural plant-based diet because it massively fuels the economy, and then they manipulate virtue signaling to make it look like it is saving the planet. This is the sad outcome. The government agenda of an agricultural plant-based diet is to fuel the economy and fuel industry, not save the planet. We have been lied to about saving the planet so that economies can continue to grow by exploiting the Earth.
Plant agriculture has been counter productive for humans. About 2.5 millions years ago humans transitioned from mostly eating insects to developing tools that allowed us to widely consume animals, and as a result our brains grew enormously fast through evolution with the high density nutrition. But the archaeological record shows that once the agricultural revolution began around 10,000-12,000 years ago humans got shorter, our teeth began to rot and get crooked, our brain shrunk by 10%, our dental arches shrank, our bones became more brittle, and our joints got weak. Plant-based eating did not serve us well. Plant agriculture also required the construction of settlements and cities to protect and tend to crops. When the weather did not cooperate and crops failed this led to mass famine. Mass famine led to one city stealing from another city. This led to the establishment of armies to protect themselves from others. Armies led to wars. Wars led to conquering for the gain of agricultural land. More agricultural land led to slavery, suppression of women, and unsustainably large families. Large families have led to over-population on the planet. And the cascade goes on and on. Humans are destroying themselves by focusing on plant agriculture. Imagine how different the world would be today if we had instead focused on raising happy, thriving, ruminant animals through natural regenerative self-sustaining ways that were nurturing to the planet and the animals. Imagine how much healthier the planet would be. Imagine how much lower the population would be. Imagine how much disease and how many wars we would have avoided. I cannot find any scientific evidence of any person experiencing a heart attack prior to the year 1900. But, then in the early to mid 1900's there was an explosion of heart attacks as people reduced meat and animal fat consumption and began eating large quantities vegetable oils along with increased plant consumption. I usually do not accept correlation of this type as dependable evidence unless confounders do not exist or can be discredited. I'll leave you to come to your own conclusion on this as you consider confounders.
Some people choose to eat organic plants. I was one of those people. We have been lead to believe that organic plants are less harmful to the planet because they don't use fossil fuel fertilizers. Do you know where organic crops get their fertilizer? The USDA prohibits the use of chemical fertilizers (fossil fuel based fertilizers) on organic crops. The fertilizer on your organic plants typically comes from manure of factory farmed cows located in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO). You can read the USDA regulations here. Section 205.203(b) says "The producer must manage crop nutrients and soil fertility through rotations, cover crops, and the application of plant and animal materials". A keyword being "must". Then in Section 205.203(c) they define "Animal and plant materials" which includes "Raw animal manure". Call around or visit organic farms and ask them where they get their animal manure. They cannot get the manure from the farms of regenerative pasture raised happy cows because that manure is being used on those specific farms to naturally re-fertilize the grasslands of those regeneratively raised ruminants to support the natural carbon sequestration of that land. So the organic plants you are eating typically employ the manure of factory farmed animals to fertilize their crops because it is easy and inexpensive to collect that manure from the concrete floor of an animal factory, and it has the correct balance of NPK's to grow the plants. Call the farms of each plant you consume and specifically ask them exactly where they get their manure. Most people are likely supporting the factory farming of animals without knowing it. Call every supplement company from which you purchase organic plant-based supplements and ask them what farms they get the plants from to make the supplements you use, and then call each of those farms to find out where they get the manure to grow their plants. Do the same for each company you buy spices and herbs from. Call the companies and farms of every organic plant-based burger you eat and every organic restaurant you visit. Again, you are probably supporting the factory farming of animals without knowing it. Humans cannot survive without ruminant animals. It is a necessary part of our existence. Without ruminant animals humans will go extinct. But, in my opinion, factory farming of animals is an unacceptable inhumane approach. I do not think it is worth supporting.
The role of national economics and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) plays a large role in the adoption of a plant-based mentality within a society. I have personally spent 25 years working in the field of financial planning where I took many courses on economics and money. I've now been able to apply that economic knowledge to its impact on nutrition as it relates to economics and GDP. It is profound! Allow me to explain. Let's first define GDP. In simple terms, GDP is a measure of products made and services rendered by providers in a country. It is the amount of stuff a country makes and sells to consumers, plus the amount of services provided to consumers. Now let's look at the way nutrition led by grass-fed ruminant animal-based diets compares with nutrition led by agricultural plant-based diets. I'll save you the suspense of the outcome. The outcome is that agricultural plant-based diets are massively greater contributors to GDP than grass-fed ruminant animal-based diets, but this comes at the price of massive destruction of our planet. Think about our discussion above. The raising of grass-fed ruminant animals, when done correctly, is mostly self-sustaining. The animals provide the enzymes, bacteria, and nutrients that the grasslands require for survival, the grasslands provide the nutrition that the ruminants need for survival, and the atmosphere provides the water. A perfect symbiotic ecosystem. The ranchers manage the ecosystem to keep it functioning as efficiently as possible. They utilize some fossil fuel to slaughter the meat, and the consumer uses some fossil fuel to drive to the farm once per year and to run their freezer for the year. The ranchers minimize interference in the ecosystem as much as possible. Agricultural crops, on the other hand, require fossil fuel, equipment and employees to run the bulldozers that tear down the shrubs and trees; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to till the land; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to run the pumps that spray the antibiotics; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to run the pumps that irrigate crops; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to run the machines that harvest crops; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to power the trucks that drive the harvest to the factories; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to run the factories that mill the harvest; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to turn that milled harvest into a product; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to manufacture the bags and boxes that package the product; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to drive those products to the grocery stores; fossil fuel, equipment and employees to manage and operate the grocery stores; and fossil fuel for the consumer to drive to the grocery stores once per week. Hundreds and hundreds of contributing industries are created along that line to support the agricultural plant-based model in this process. Millions and millions of people are employed by implementation of the agricultural plant-based diet model. Clearly, the agricultural plant-based diet is an enormously greater contributor to GDP than grass-fed ruminant animal-based diets. But the price for that is massive destruction to our planet. Grass-fed ruminant animal-based diets are very gentle on our planet, but governments do not like that because it contributes very, very little to GDP. Ranchers are employed, but few additional industries and jobs are created when people eat grass-fed ruminant animal-based diets compared to agricultural plant-based diets. Governments push an agricultural plant-based diet because it massively fuels the economy, and then they manipulate virtue signaling to make it look like it is saving the planet. This is the sad outcome. The government agenda of an agricultural plant-based diet is to fuel the economy and fuel industry, not save the planet. We have been lied to about saving the planet so that economies can continue to grow by exploiting the Earth.
Plant agriculture has been counter productive for humans. About 2.5 millions years ago humans transitioned from mostly eating insects to developing tools that allowed us to widely consume animals, and as a result our brains grew enormously fast through evolution with the high density nutrition. But the archaeological record shows that once the agricultural revolution began around 10,000-12,000 years ago humans got shorter, our teeth began to rot and get crooked, our brain shrunk by 10%, our dental arches shrank, our bones became more brittle, and our joints got weak. Plant-based eating did not serve us well. Plant agriculture also required the construction of settlements and cities to protect and tend to crops. When the weather did not cooperate and crops failed this led to mass famine. Mass famine led to one city stealing from another city. This led to the establishment of armies to protect themselves from others. Armies led to wars. Wars led to conquering for the gain of agricultural land. More agricultural land led to slavery, suppression of women, and unsustainably large families. Large families have led to over-population on the planet. And the cascade goes on and on. Humans are destroying themselves by focusing on plant agriculture. Imagine how different the world would be today if we had instead focused on raising happy, thriving, ruminant animals through natural regenerative self-sustaining ways that were nurturing to the planet and the animals. Imagine how much healthier the planet would be. Imagine how much lower the population would be. Imagine how much disease and how many wars we would have avoided. I cannot find any scientific evidence of any person experiencing a heart attack prior to the year 1900. But, then in the early to mid 1900's there was an explosion of heart attacks as people reduced meat and animal fat consumption and began eating large quantities vegetable oils along with increased plant consumption. I usually do not accept correlation of this type as dependable evidence unless confounders do not exist or can be discredited. I'll leave you to come to your own conclusion on this as you consider confounders.
This article does NOT constitute medical advice. Consult with your physician before making any changes to your medical plan.
