As for all the other stuff, all farming has environmental impact. You can argue degrees of impact, but at the end of the day I am just not willing to only eat items that have a lower environmental impact, but require me to stick a needle in my stomach every day and still be at a high risk of dropping dead 20 years earlier.
That said there are many anti-cancer fighting properties of a plant based diet. Consumption of meat and animal products seem to lead to higher cancer risks.
I’m currently losing weight on a whole food plant based diet combined with modest daily fasting (10 hours eating, 14 hours fasting per day).
Vegan vs keto study:
Great lecture on weight loss with a plant based diet:
Health concerns with a keto diet:
That said I’m just a vegan who has been listening to these folks talk about this stuff, but I’m not an expert. I’m glad you found something that works!
But I’m thinking about my vegan diet. When I started I relied on a LOT of carbs and grains. It just made it easy but it wasn’t very healthy (I made a hard switch before I really knew what to eat). Now four years in I don’t buy any bread or bagels. I don’t have bread in the house.
I eat some brown rice. I don’t know if that disagrees with you.
Here’s my daily diet:
2 liters (I usually eat less/day) blended in a vitamix blender: water, carrots, oat milk, blueberries, mango, strawberries, peaches, flax seed meal, chia seeds, protein powder, powdered peanut butter (PB2),
For lunch I have a big salad,
I snack on apples and some very healthy crackers (Mary’s crackers)
Dinner is usually either a lentil vegetable curry mixed with brown rice, or I will have brown rice and sautéed vegetables with something like peanut sauce or teriyaki sauce.
And that’s it! That’s what I eat pretty much every day. Oh I make some bomb vegan tacos now and then. No fake meat just lots of amazing plants.
Anyway! I just wanted to share because I like this stuff and also I don’t eat a lot of grains. The brown rice could be replaced with lentils or something for pretty much no grains.
I really like the Nutrition Facts YouTube channel so poke around there if you’d like.
I see he has some videos on insulin:
To your health!
Grains are a big issue, but other things like the apples, carrots, peaches, crackers bounce up my blood sugar as well and would cause me challenges and likely have to go back on extraneous insulin to prevent the small blood vessel issues that hyperglycemia causes diabetics.
For someone to restrict carbs on a vegan diet you are limited to basically cruciferous vegetables and certain berries. While I eat those things now, its the addition of the meat and dairy products that I eat that make enough variety for me to stick with it. Eating the same things every day is not something that I am able to do with success. That is the real test of any diet you take on…it has to be a real sustainable lifestyle change. For me that is the real benefit of keto, I have been able to make it that lifestyle change. It has definitely benefited me for my diabetes management and weight loss.
I am realistic to acknowledge that there may be some long term issue, but the fact that I can get to the point of having a long term issue is the magic here.
Keto folks and vegans tend to have those zealot reputations, but I definitely appreciate great dialog. Wish you well.
> Red meat is absolutely devastating to the environment and water supply, with immense greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and polluted water tables
The above is an almost incontestable fact. Climate change and health experts both say we need to move western populations to a more plant based diet. But the moment someone brings that up, 25 people feel the need to jump in with their personal story about how eating nothing but red meat cleansed their vital bodily fluids. It's complete nonsense to respond to generalized scientific claims in this fashion and for some reason a lot of people don't realize this. Hacker News has a lot of people who think they can "hack" diet, aging, weight loss, what have you.
I have my own personal anecdote, of course. I lost close to 100 pounds on a vegetarian diet on which I tried to avoid low-nutrient sugary foods. Doing this changed the course of my life. But I'm not going to claim that this fact about me makes any difference whatsoever to scientific claims abut what it makes sense for individuals or populations to be eating. A vegetarian diet is not the only way to lose weight or live a healthy life.
Even if we take for granted that (contrary to all conventional medical wisdom) keto is the only way someone like you could live healthily, this simply has no impact whatsoever on the OP claim that red meat is bad for the environment and not necessary for the overwhelming majority of people to be eating.
I agree. People are indeed mixing up 3 things that are only loosely related:
1. What is healthier.
2. What will cause you to lose weight (which is related to 1, but not exactly the same).
3. What is better for the planet.
The three are different goals, which might or might not be opposed to each other.
Yet, you did. You are participating…you don’t realize this?
> Even if we take for granted that (contrary to all conventional medical wisdom) keto is the only way someone like you could live healthily, this simply has no impact whatsoever on the OP claim that red meat is bad for the environment and not necessary for the overwhelming majority of people to be eating.
No one to my knowledge talking about keto here made this absolutist claim. I know I didn’t. I simply provided my experience and commented on the fact that because of my success, environmental factors for agriculture do not factor into my dietary equation. I don’t understand the need y’all have to create a strawman here.
Also, “conventional medical wisdom” for many years encouraged type 2 diabetics to eat a diet based on grains, fruits, and pasta (I still have the pamphlets that were given to me when first diagnosed) supplemented by many lovely and expensive pharmaceutical therapies for people to manage their diabetes. Three years ago, the American Diabetes Association reversed its opinion of low carb and keto, declaring them effective and safe strategies to manage type 2 diabetes via diet. So…effectively keto and low carb has become “conventional medical wisdom”.
Finally…you eat how you want, and I’ll eat how I want. I’m happy you found a diet that is successful for you. Keep eating it and don’t let some random person on the internet try and shame you about it for any reason, because it’s none of their damned business.
Carb restrictions allowed my body to manage the blood glucose with just my own body’s production of insulin, which eliminated extraneous insulin. Stable low blood glucose prevents small vessel damage which prevents most of the issues that are caused by type 2 diabetes
You had diabetes because you were likely obese and inactive. Not because you were eating bread, FFS.
I don't understand why it is so hard for people to understand the concept is literally just "calories in minus calories used / out = weight gain or loss." It is simple thermodynamics.
Keto/Paleo diets are among the least nutritious and most difficult to adhere to (most people who claim to follow keto/paleo don't, because it's extremely restrictive), consistently ranking among the worst diets health-wise by nutritional scientists. One of the best is the Mediterranean diet, one which involves no red meat.
> As for all the other stuff, all farming has environmental impact. You can argue degrees of impact,
That's literally what we're saying, and there's plenty of proof.
Beef uses ten times more resources than chicken: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-...
You want to help the environment? Minimize your red meat consumption. That alone makes a huge difference. The second biggest difference you can make is minimizing energy use for personal transportation, and the third biggest difference is reducing energy consumption in your home (mostly heating/cooling.)
Results: We find that the top sources of priority micronutrients are organs, small fish, dark green leafy vegetables, bivalves, crustaceans, goat, beef, eggs, milk, canned fish with bones, mutton, and lamb. Cheese, goat milk, and pork are also good sources, and to a lesser extent, yogurt, fresh fish, pulses, teff, and canned fish without bones.
Starting keto for me eliminated literally all processed foods. Every food I eat is is pretty much its whole form, excepting cheeses, butter, and olive oil. There are quite a few processed foods on the market called “keto”, but most folks I know on the diet tend to avoid or only use those very sparingly.
On a weekly basis I eat eggs, cheese, pork, beef, fish, chicken, berries, nuts, and cruciferous vegetables. Some olive oil, and some butter. If that is unhealthy…I am not sure what healthy is.
Incorrect. Restricting carbohydrates absolutely was the reason my A1Hc went down and I came off insulin within 3 months of starting keto while I was still morbidly obese
> I don't understand why it is so hard for people to understand the concept is literally just "calories in minus calories used / out = weight gain or loss." It is simple thermodynamics.
When did I state the contrary? I didnt. What Keto did for me was allow my body to reach satiety without excess caloric intake and stabilize my blood sugar levels which help control hunger.
> Keto/Paleo diets are among the least nutritious and most difficult to adhere to (most people who claim to follow keto/paleo don't, because it's extremely restrictive), consistently ranking among the worst diets health-wise by nutritional scientists. One of the best is the Mediterranean diet, one which involves no red meat.
I lived in the Mediterranean area for a number of years, I can assure you…plenty of red meat was consumed where I lived. By the way…I have been on a keto diet for more than 5 years. My heath is good, my doctor has zero complaints and has suggested keto as an option to other T2 diabetics and overweight folks in his practice because of the success it has had for me and some of his other patients.
> You want to help the environment? I think my point was and is that I am not willing to do it at the expense of my own health. In terms of other things you mentioned, not sure why that is even part of the discussion.
There is no such thing, at least not for the people who live around the Mediterranean.
Analogously, getting your stomach stapled would be bad for you if you had a health BMI but might be a good idea if you are 170lbs overweight.
Also, your basic premise that red meat is the only way to lose weight is false. There's no reason that an appropriate weight loss diet that excludes red meat could not be crafted.
Ok. You judge it how you want, I said keto was successful for me. I made no universal declarations.
> Also, your basic premise that red meat is the only way to lose weight is false. There's no reason that an appropriate weight loss diet that excludes red meat could not be crafted.
Well I never said this. I said keto was successful for me.
BTW: Equating keto to “red meat” is like saying “vegan = lentils”. You should probably learn more about keto.
Edit: added some hard returns to clarify my responses to the quoted items.
If I was a vegan, and the vegan diet resulted in health benefits for me, but vegan agriculture processes had more environmental impact, I would still eat vegan…because what is most important to me is the health benefit I am receiving.
In this case I eat keto and receive health benefits from that diet that I am unwilling to give up just to satisfy the dogmatism of environmentalists who have a problem with pastoral farming.
My response is that one person's dogmatism is another person's recognition of genocide. But I do understand that when you perceive that your life is at stake, the fate of rest of the world may not matter so much to you anymore.
This little underhanded slap is hilarious. I love it how you folks always try to frame things in “a single person is responsible for the entire apocalypse” terms. Frankly, it’s why your argument struggles. You devolve into ridiculous moral absolutism.
Considering that conservatively almost 90% of the people on this earth eat meat, I’m pretty sure that any global catastrophe that may or may not arise from meat consumption will not fall solely at my feet.
Sounds too much like religion to me.
Ruminants like cattle, sheep, etc have existed naturally for over 50 million years. They are an essential component of prairie land ecosystems. And much of the land that they occupy is non-arable for crops.
Red meat is the closest thing to a natural human diet there is.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-2-million-years-humans-ate...
For 2 million years, your ancestors basically ate the diet from this article. Our biology is highly evolved for it, with agriculture being < 500 generations old.
The "monocrops" in the United States are largely corn and soy, which are used as food additives, instead of being eaten as food, and as food for (you-guessed-it) animals we use as meat.
If you want to avoid monocropping, eat vegetables.
In the end you’ll get a huge selection of bland and tasteless vegetables, engineered to grow fast and large with a thick skin to prevent pests from eating it.
The logic is what I said. If you start growing more plants it will not fix monocropping issue. It will only make it worse.
If you don’t want to eat beef that has been fed monocropped feed then vote with your wallet and buy sustainable meat that was pasture raised (on non-arable land).
The absolute best case scenario for your argument is that monocropping turns out to be just as bad under a shift-to-vegetables model, but in that case we still end up reaping enormous environmental wins. Just because vegetables might not (?) solve the monocropping problem doesn't mean that we don't have good reasons to switch to them, as was originally argued. I'm not really sure how you avoid that, and frankly, the number of large scale climate change studies urging a shift to our diets seems to bode poorly for attempts to push this line.
Then there is grass fed cattle.
> and the amount of crops used to feed the animals is an order of magnitude more calories than if you just ate the crops directly.
Cows naturally eat grass, cows convert grass into protein and fat that humans can consume. Humans can’t consume grass directly.
Cattle grazing on open grass lands is generally healthy for the land, the cattle and the end consumer. It’s actually a great trade off to destroying land with monocrop agriculture used to fatten up cattle which makes them sick and contributes to chronic conditions/metabolic diseases of the end consumers.
I don’t want to sound insulting but I don’t think you thought very well what it means to grow 91 million heads of cattle on grass alone, remember grass takes time to grow and it doesn’t do it during winter.
The US once supported as many as 75M Buffalo, I don’t want to sound insulting but any guesses what they ate?
Just switching to chicken from red meat drops that resource usage by a factor of TEN.
Growing cattle for food is incredibly wasteful.
Sure. Which is significantly more expensive. If only grass fed beef was available, beef consumption would automatically decrease.
Suggesting red meat is a more sustainable alternative is disingenous.
Can society live without cars? Probably. We did before.
Will it be an interesting and convenient future? Probably not.
But we have alternatives (electric cars)! And we keep looking for more ways to propel. We don’t stop looking for solutions, just because gas is bad.
Same for beef. We have sustainable alternatives. Just vote with your dollar. Don’t buy factory meat. And help subsidize further research.
Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water!
I was a vegan for more that 2 years, but also ruined my health including my teeth.
When hearing from other ex-vegans, it's mind-blowing how many things we have in common regarding our health. When active in the movement, no one would talk about the problems.
One of your arguments against red meat is that it's devastating to the environment. You know what is also devastating to the environment? having children. It's not a necessity to have children, I have none.
Why is your need for breeding more acceptable than my need for eating red meat?
I believe beef provides superior, and evolutionary-compatible nutrition for my body. And lack of that nutrition will have a negative effect on my health, and thus associated costs with it. Maybe not tomorrow, but in 10 or 20 years.
I’ve been both a vegan for 2 years and pure carnivore for 8 weeks. I’m eating everything at the moment. But I have my own conclusions what works for me.
You can believe and eat whatever you like. But if you make disingenous faith based arguments in a public forum, expect to be called out.
Evolution works in as few as two generations. This is established.
> Stone Age humans were apex predators, only moved to more plant-based diet 85,000 years ago
We’ve evolved since then. We are the same species but claim we are genetically the same as humans 85,000 years ago is crazy.
Im over 3 years now with brief breaks away from keto. Long term checkmark.
>And health is only one element.
Deliciousness is another yes.
>Red meat is absolutely devastating to the environment and water supply,
How does a cow in a giant field eating grass and pooping tons of carbon down into carbon sinks damage the environment? In fact, Cow farming is great for the environment.
> deforestation, and polluted water tables,
I think you've confused all the problems with the unethical and immoral agriculture. Fertilizers and pesticides are so tremendously destructive to the environment.
>on top of the incredible cruelty of factory farming and slaughter.
Totally agreed here. We need to ban factory farming.
But so is obesity: https://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/news/20191220/growing-obe...