6 Reasons Why Vegans (and Doctors) Are Wrong About Animal Protein

From the archives:

ere’s how stupid shit happens. You go to your doctor for something benign—like acid reflux, or some other condition that’s annoying, but not necessarily life-threatening. You’re here at Body IO®, so you know what we do—and if you know about us, chances are you know about the Paleo movement and other dietary protocols that claim to stimulate massive fat loss, muscle gain, and good health.

Now, these all include meat and animal fat. Lots of it. Your doctor, however, tells you that the only way to be healthy and cure all your ailments—not just what you’re in his office to treat—is to swear off animal products and become a vegetarian or vegan. Seriously, they say this.

Your doctor may be a member of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. This organization seems to have two absolute criteria for membership: 1) Being vegan, and 2) Pushing a vegan lifestyle on patients regardless of the reasoning behind it. Dr. Joel Fuhrman is an excellent example of this, espousing the power of veganism despite looking for all the world, physically, like a sucked-out human wraith. Take a look. He’s frail, weak, and delicate—an absolute picture of good health.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine encourages “higher standards of ethics and effectiveness in research,” but what they mean by this isn’t what you think. It’s not better science they’re after. Rather, it’s poor science, so they can maintain the lie that a vegan lifestyle is healthy and that animal products are the devil. Paraphrasing here, members have said, during television interviews, that they “know the research doesn’t support a vegan lifestyle, per se, but we’re going to keep doing studies until we produce one that proves we’re right.”

This is the complete opposite of science. The perfect vegetarian meal? I’ll take a prime cut of steak that came from a vegetarian cow, and so should you.

Here are the simple facts:

1) Vegetarian diets cause a deficiency in vitamin B12 levels[1-2]. This doesn’t seem too important until you realize that vitamin B12 deficiency results in a condition called hyperhomocysteinemia[3-7], which is powerfully oxidative. I liken the effect on arterial tissue to running a cheese grater through the inside of your arteries, which readily explains the rise in stroke risk[8-10].

2) Vegans suffer from protein malabsorption and amino acid deficiencies[11-19], some of which can be health-threatening[20]. Ever see an impressive vegetarian bodybuilder? Me neither.

3) Vegetarian diets produce massive imbalances in the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in the body[3, 21-23]. This constant supply of pro-inflammatory agents may be what ruins the immune system in vegetarians[24-29].

4) Vegetarians have much higher levels of advanced glycation end products[30-31] which are a risk factor for kidney disease and atherosclerosis[31]—not to mention Alzheimer’s disease[32-35]. This may explain why large epidemiological studies picked up evidence of accelerated cognitive decline in vegetarians[36]. This also explains why vegans say the most batshit crazy stuff without even flinching.

5) Name the mineral and vegetarians have a deficiency: zinc, iron, selenium, calcium and iodine[37-46]. This would explain their increased risk of bone fracture[47].

6) Vegetarian diets don’t even protect against any type of cancer[36, 48-54]. It’s a myth. If you maintain healthy body fat levels, you’re just as “protected” from cancer, and health correlates with the amount of muscle mass you have[55-59]. Sick, scrawny Joel Fuhrman is f’ed, and Dr. Oz won’t fare much better.

Now, despite this massive laundry list of ailments, every single one of them can be fixed with the addition of a few lean portions of meat per day[60-70]. That’s it. Even if you want to lower cholesterol levels (which is a whole ‘nother topic), it’s more effective to add lean animal protein to your diet than vegetable proteins[71-74]. Meat cures what ails vegetarians and vegans, not the other way around.

I would love to continue my rant on vegans, but I think the research speaks for itself. Stop messing around with weak-ass food that grows from dirt, and forget the pimped out thousand dollar juicer. Grab yourself some food from nature’s ultimate vegetable processing unit: the cow.

Update 2019/01/08: If you want to hear more vegan and vegetarian lies and my unabashed rebuttal, check out my new podcast, World Without Vegans™

[expand title=”References (click to expand)”]
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