The Case Against Veganism — Carefully Researched Book Spills the Beans
An
estimated 6 million Americans are vegans, which is typically considered
to be a healthy choice. However, there are drawbacks to strict veganism
that need careful consideration.
Mara Kahn, author of "Vegan Betrayal: Love, Lies, and Hunger in a Plants-Only World," delves deep into the history and science of veganism, revealing many oft-ignored facts about this strictly plant-based diet. She’s put together a compelling story, covering her personal journey
from being a vegan and vegetarian to exploring diet and health and
finding out the truth behind the hype. It’s really the best book I’ve
ever read on this topic, as it covers the vegan issues in their
entirety.
"Even though my book is titled 'Vegan Betrayal,' I do respect vegans
and what they’re trying to do. My own journey led me back to
vegetarianism. I know that many … vegetarians that became vegans … are
suffering from diminished strength and faltering health. I think this is a topic which has been swept under the rug and
it’s not being openly discussed in the vegan community. I think it’s
very important that we start this discussion. I hope this book will help
kick-start that really important dialogue,” Kahn says.
While I would never argue with anyone who decides to be a vegan for
philosophical, spiritual or ethical reasons, I believe it's important to
consider and address the risks if you're jumping into veganism for its
purported health benefits alone.
Surveys show ethical considerations are the primary reason people convert to vegetarianism or veganism.
But as Kahn reveals in her book, veganism is not the only ethical diet.
She also presents compelling arguments that it's not a historically
validated diet. Kahn became a vegetarian at age 19, while traveling in Europe. She
became an overnight convert after meeting a young vegan woman who Kahn
refers to as “a beautiful specimen of humanity” and “extremely healthy” —
not realizing this same woman would return to eating meat just five
years later due to fading energy. Up to that time, Kahn had eaten a
very meat-based American-style diet, including bacon and hamburgers. At
that time, in the 1970s, veganism was largely unheard of. It didn't get
a strong hold in the U.S. until the 1980s. Interestingly enough, Kahn’s investigation reveals there doesn’t
appear to be a single cultural group in the history of the world who
actually survived long-term on an exclusively plant-based diet. So from a
health perspective, there’s very little historical support for the
strict veganism idealized today.
"I did a thorough research of the history of vegetarianism. In fact,
I spent almost six years researching this book. I'm a journalist … I
love to dig deep," Kahn says.
"At this point, it's really important that we distinguish between
vegetarianism and veganism. Vegetarianism has a very long and honorable
history. It goes back at least 2,500 years to Greece, and much further
than that in the Indus Valley, India and that part of the world. It has proven itself to be a viable diet … [Yet even] in the Northern parts of India, the Kashmir regions, they eat meat because the climate is so different in the mountainous regions of North India. Vegetarianism has a very long and noble history with verified
health results. However, veganism … is a non-historical diet … Its
health benefits are not verified. There were scattered enclaves of religious people that lived cloistered lives who probably did follow a vegan diet … but these were very, very tiny populations, and we have no idea if they were healthy and how long they lived.” From a historical perspective, veganism is a very recent development.
The roots of veganism go back to England, when in 1944, Donald Watson
coined the term “vegan.” Watson’s primary argument for veganism was one
of ethics. At the age of 14, he’d witnessed the slaughter of a pig,
which left him horrified. Immediately, he decided to stop eating meat and wanted the whole
world to follow suit, despite having no training in nutrition. Veganism
is based on ideology, not human physiology, Kahn reminds us in her book,
which also delves into human evolution.
Part of the confusion is that many vegans appear quite healthy in the
earlier stages. This isn't so surprising when you consider the fact that
many switch from processed foods to a mostly raw plant-based diet. The
influx of live foods will undoubtedly improve your health. However, in the long term, the absence of all animal-based foods can
take a toll, as certain nutrients cannot be obtained from the plant
kingdom. Carnosine, carnitine, taurine, retinol, vitamin D3, conjugated
linoleic acid and long-chained omega-3 fats are examples. B12 deficiency
is also very common among vegans.
After six or seven years, the B12 stored in your liver will be
completely exhausted, at which point you may start to experience serious
neurodegenerative diseases. There are many documented cases of
blindness from B12 deficiency, as well as other neurological disorders. Vegetarianism typically allows both dairy and eggs. Back in
Pythagoras’ days, early Western vegetarians also ate fish. (Today, this
“branch” of vegetarianism is sometimes separated out and referred to as
pescetarianism.)
My passion has been identifying food to optimize health and I'm
absolutely convinced that seafood is one of the healthiest foods on the
planet, primarily because of its docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) content — a
22-carbon omega-3 fat that is absolutely essential for your health, as it's a structural component of your cell membranes.
If you have low DHA levels, it's almost physiologically impossible to be
healthy because it's such an important part of energy generation at the
molecular level. You need DHA, which is only found in fatty fish and
certain other marine animals like krill.
There's even quantum physics going on with respect to its ability to
capture light and integrate it into your system. For example, DHA in
your retinal pigmented epithelium is responsible for converting sunlight
into vital DC electric current your body needs. If you're deficient,
your ability to generate energy by your mitochondria will be impaired.
Granted, water pollution is a major concern today, so you have to eat
really low on the food chain. Anchovies, sardines, herring, wild Alaskan
salmon, fish roe and krill are all good choices as they're high in omega-3s while being low in mercury and other pollutants.
If you exclude these foods, you're just not going to be healthy. And
contrary to popular belief, you simply cannot obtain all the DHA you
need from plant sources. Plant-based omega-3 (alpha-linolenic acid or
ALA) has 18 carbons whereas marine-based omega-3s (DHA and
eicosapentaenoic acid or EPA) have 22 and 20 respectively. The
difference in the length of the carbon chain makes a significant
difference in terms of functionality. ALA functions as a source of fuel (food), whereas EPA and DHA are
structural elements. More than 90 percent of the omega-3 fat found in
your brain tissue is DHA, which suggests how important it is for healthy
neurological function, for example. The problem is that, although your body can convert some of the ALA
found in plants to the DHA found in marine oils, it is very rare for it
to be more than 5 percent — the typical conversion rate is 1 to 3
percent, or even less.1 This simply isn't enough to have any significant benefit. So please, don't make the mistake of thinking you can forgo
marine-sourced DHA for a plant-based ALA found in flaxseed, flaxseed
oil, chia seeds, walnuts and leafy greens.
I think one of the reasons why vegetarians — at least those who follow
Pythagoras' model, which includes fish — seem so healthy is because this
diet is lower in protein than the conventional meat-based diet. When
you eat excessive protein, you stimulate powerful biochemical pathways
that trigger disease. This, combined with the fact that fish provides
critical omega-3 and other healthy fats and cofactors, makes a strong
case for the "pescetarian" form of vegetarianism. “I agree totally,” Kahn says. “I remember trying to be an omnivore again …
I started eating plenty of fish and my health skyrocketed almost
immediately … My energy just skyrocketed. I started sleeping better. My
nerves became calm. I was in intense gratitude to this first [wild
salmon] that I ate; for the energy and the renewed love for life that it bestowed on me. It was absolutely amazing.
I did interviews and talked to or heard the stories of hundreds of
vegans and ex-vegans, and almost invariably … the same thing happened to
them … I think there's a very good reason Pythagoras ate some fish from
time to time. It was plentiful in the Mediterranean region where he
lived. It wasn't contaminated. There's reason he prescribed it to his
everyday followers in the towns. That reason is probably DHA … DHA is really a problem with vegans … In fact, two of the
founders of veganism, as they became older, suffered from Parkinson’s
disease. They had their DHA tested and it was zero … I eat sardines every other day. The rush of powerful and sustained energy I get from them I cannot find anywhere in the plant world.”
While keeping your protein low is a wise move, excessively low protein
can become a problem for vegans — especially if your diet is also low in
healthy fats. Some will get just 8 to 12 percent protein from plants in
their daily diet, which can trigger muscle wasting. "In that sense,
vegans are consuming flesh after all — their own — if they're not eating
enough protein," Kahn says.
Low fat is another, and in my view, more concerning problem, among
vegans. When you eat a high-net carb diet (total carbs minus fiber),
you're essentially burning carbohydrates
as your primary fuel. If you shift down to relatively low levels of net
carbs, which is easy to do on a vegetarian diet since vegetables are so
high in fiber, then your body starts burning fat as its primary fuel.
This means you need to increase the amount of healthy fats in your diet
in order to satisfy your body's fuel demands. Sufficient dietary fat is also essential for maintaining healthy
hormone levels, Kahn notes, including your sex hormones. Raw veganism in
particular is associated with loss of menses (amenorrhea), due to low
calorie and fat intake, increasing your risk for infertility and
osteoporosis.
Low fat is likely far more troublesome than low protein, because once
you start burning fat for fuel, powerful protein-sparing processes start
taking place, allowing you to get by with as little as 6 to 8 percent
protein without risking muscle wasting. I only have 8 percent protein in
my diet and I do not believe I'm protein deficient. That's because fat
is my primary fuel. If I were burning carbs, I would not fare well at
all with such a low amount of protein.
The health problems associated with veganism create a high dropout rate.
It's difficult to find good statistics on this, as people don't want to
discuss it. Many are ashamed, feeling they've somehow "failed," and
many are shamed by their fellow vegans, who believe they're making a
huge mistake to go back to eating animal foods.
"I've even read accounts of ex-vegans who describe it as kind of
cult-ish. The shaming that ensues is very powerful … One vegan told me
that when she decided to go and buy some eggs for the first time in, I
don't know, 10 or 15 years … her boyfriend, who was a staunch vegan,
refused to go in with her. In fact, he had told her … he would rather
she was a continually suffering vegan than to be a healthy meat-eater.
This, to me, was a perfect illustration of what I personally call
Reverse Speciesism, preferring the health of an animal over the health
of your fellow human being, which is really kind of a new thing, I
think, in human history. It's not talked about much in the vegan
community — the high dropout rate — but the numbers are large … It's
estimated about 50 percent of vegans have left because of declining
strength and declining health."
What many vegans fail to integrate into their overall evaluation is that
even the consumption of an exclusively plant-based diet involves
killing a wide variety of animals. Not intentionally, of course, but
rather as an artifact of the process of growing the food. Essentially,
there's no animal-free lunch, which is a direct quote from Kahn's book.
There's going to be some type of destruction of life involved. Then
there's the issue of plant consciousness as well.
As noted by Kahn, unless you're growing all your food by yourself in a
no-till organic setting using hand tools, animals are destroyed in
industrial agriculture. Studies by reputable scientists show up to 70
percent of rodents and small animals present in industrial growing
fields end up being killed by the machinery. Animals are also killed in
traps, and during food storage and transportation. As Kahn says:
"To be a vegan, you have to somewhere draw the line on what food you
will eat and what you won't. For most of them, it's a matter of
consciousness. Is the living thing conscious of what's going on? Is it
suffering? That demarcation between an animal that's conscious and
unconscious has totally changed throughout history and throughout
cultures.
For instance, now they're looking at fish. In the past, it was just
decided, because they were so cold looking and expressionless, that fish
didn't have consciousness. But new testing is showing that perhaps they
do; perhaps they can feel pain … People are taking that further and
looking at insects. I interviewed scientists that work with insects.
Some of them really do believe that insects have consciousness and an
intelligence that we can't even understand …
The same with plants … Brilliant botanists believe that plants have
elevated intelligence that we can't even begin to understand, because we
don't speak the same 'language.' They know for sure that plants
absolutely know when they are being eaten. Living plants send out chemicals to warn their neighbors of
danger ahead and they send out chemicals that summon insect bodyguards
to ward off predators. These are intelligent beings that want to live.
They have what I call 'want to live, don't want to die' skills that are
very developed."
It's also worth noting that some of the research vegans rely on to
substantiate their dietary choices as healthy actually do not offer such
proof. For example, when Kahn dug deep into some of the most well-known
studies that vegans love to cite, she discovered they actually define
vegetarianism in a very broad way. They do not support a purely
plant-based (vegan) diet at all. Not only did these studies include
fish-eaters, but also dairy-eaters and even those who ate red meat once a
week. Kahn says to be very wary of vegan studies conducted by vegans. As
with all conflicts of interest, people have a tendency to find what they
want to find, even if they have to massage the data a bit to get there.
Interestingly, in recent years the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
(AND), formerly the American Dietetic Association (ADA), made the
transition to promoting a plant-based diet. As it turns out, this
decision was primarily based on the recommendations of a devoted vegan
and a vegetarian. “The ADA position paper, which came out in 2009, recommends a
vegetarian and a vegan diet to all people of all ages, from infancy to
old age. If you do some more digging, as journalists love to do, [you
find] it was co-authored by two people. One was a vegetarian and one was
a vegan. In fact, the vegetarian belongs to a religious denomination that encourages the spreading of vegetarianism across the world. My question is: why weren’t these two authors tagged for conflict
of interest? They’re recommending this to the whole world and to all ages …
There are some serious flaws in their research. First of all, I
looked at their sources. I can't remember if it was 100 or 200 sources. I
could find only 17 in all those sources that were exclusive to vegans.
You cannot take vegetarian research and apply it to vegans. It just
doesn't work. There are too many missing nutrients in a vegan diet that
are present in a vegetarian diet. I wish that vegans would not just read vegan blogs and websites
and recommendations from other vegans. They need to look at science, at
research — non-biased sources. They need to read my book, which would
tell them everything they want to know about the history, philosophy and nutritional facts of veganism.”
That's not an inflated claim, I can assure you. I've read hundreds of health books, and Kahn's book, "Vegan Betrayal," is among the very best when it comes to teasing out the truth about veganism and health.
I'm not opposed to vegetarianism. By Pythagoras' definition, I am a
vegetarian. I eat very small amounts of animal protein; mostly fish.
Occasionally, I'll have some organic grass-fed meat or free-range
pastured chicken. But meats are not a cornerstone staple in my diet, and
I believe most people could benefit from lowering their meat
consumption. It shouldn't be entirely excluded, however, because animal
foods do contain very valuable nutrients your body needs for optimal
health.
Organic pastured eggs are another source of incredibly healthy
nutrients. Ditto for raw butter. If ethics and animal welfare are your
concerns, I would encourage you to investigate and educate yourself on
humanely-raised animal foods. Yes, the animal will die in the end, but there's a tremendous difference between the life of an animal raised in a concentrated animal feeding operation
(CAFO) and one raised on pasture that is allowed to live a full,
healthy and stress-free life. There's also a big difference in the way
they're slaughtered.
At the end of the day, you have to choose between the life of an animal
somewhere — even if only a few rodents caught in a harvester — or your
own health. A balance must be struck between optimizing your health and
causing the least amount of unnecessary suffering. “If you look at the most lauded diet in the world, the
Mediterranean diet — which by the way, they were doing a long-term study
on, and which they ended early in 2013 because the benefits were so
enormous they felt it was unethical to deprive the control
group — the Mediterranean diet, which is mostly plants, limited fish,
limited red meat, limited dairy, [gives you] all the carni-nutrients you need … It’s a complete diet.
It's been named one of the best diets in the world. It's
historically validated for thousands of years and many, many generations
that this diet confers long lasting health and long life … The vegan
diet is not validated. That's what we need to work on — getting those
research studies done, so that future vegans will know what they're up
against," Kahn says.
Veganism Has No Historical Support for Its Health Claims
There Are Short-Term Benefits to Veganism, but Long-Term Risks
Historically, Vegetarianism Always Included Some Animal Foods
Like It or Not, You Need Marine-Based DHA
Adding Fish Can Make a Big Difference
Low Protein and Low Fat — 2 Common Health Barriers for Vegans
Veganism Has a High Drop Out Rate
Even Vegan Diet Affects Animals
Why the American Dietetic Association Now Promotes Plant-Based Diet
Balance Ethics and Health When Choosing Your Diet
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