News Brief by Kip Hansen – 12 April 2022
According to Marc Daalder reports at newsroom., a New Zealand based news website:
“New Zealand diplomats helped remove references to the need for “plant-based” diets from the latest IPCC report’s influential summary”.
“Coverage of the negotiations by the Earth Negotiations Bulletin – the only media outlet permitted to attend the event – makes clear that New Zealand argued against the use of the term “plant-based” in favour of “sustainable healthy diets” in at least two sections of the report’s summary.”
Daalder refers to this section of the approved SPM:
“Summary for Policymakers IPCC AR6 WG III C.9.1
“Demand-side and material substitution measures, such as shifting to balanced, sustainable healthy diets [See Footnote 62], reducing food loss and waste, and using bio-materials, can contribute 2.1 GtCO2-eq yr-1 reduction.”
FOOTNOTE 62: ‘Sustainable healthy diets’ promote all dimensions of individuals’ health and wellbeing; have low environmental pressure and impact; are accessible, affordable, safe and equitable; and are culturally acceptable, as described in FAO and WHO. The related concept of balanced diets refers to diets that feature plant-based foods, such as those based on coarse grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and animal-sourced food produced in resilient, sustainable and low-GHG emission systems, as described in SRCCL.”
[SRCCL = Special Report Climate Change and Land (2019)]
The Kiwis did us a good turn with that. A demand that the world must shift to “plant-based” diets is nothing more than another attempt of the UN and IPCC to force society to make changes that UN bureaucrats and the Davos crowd demand – not changes for themselves, but only changes to be forced on every other common man and woman.
The most interesting thing about this report is that it shows how clearly the wording that appears in IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are based on politics and not on any underlying science at all. The brave Kiwis, supported by India and Kenya, forced the IPCC to stick to science and call for “balanced, sustainable healthy diets”, which except for the vague but important quality of ‘balanced’ and the undefined amorphous quality ‘sustainable’, is at least firmly supported by medical science.
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Author’s Comment:
Next time you meet a New Zealander, a Kiwi, shake his hand and thank him . . .
Maybe they have delayed the nutty demand that “everyone must be vegan” nonsense from the IPCC.
Thanks for reading.
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I do not know whether vegans or the Green Blob are more self righteous and preachy. Of course, there is considerable overlap.
Tom ==> For the record, my family diet (based on my religious faith) calls for “eating meat sparingly”. So we eat a lot of grains and veggies. But not “no meat”.
Don’t Kip, I’ll make up for that….
Greg ==> Thanks for your offer to make up for my eating less meat by eating more. Someone’s gotta keep up the consumption….
In bad taste I know but couldn’t resist.
How do you know if someone is vegan? Just wait, they’ll tell you.
That reminds me of an old Bob Hope joke. He looked out and saw Euell Gibbons grazing on his front lawn! Gibbons was a 1960’s advocate for eating wild foods.
Mac ==> Yes, the famous ” Stalking the Wild Asparagus” by Euell Gibbons . Nw edition out this year, with illustrations:
https://www.amazon.com/Stalking-Wild-Asparagus-Euell-Gibbons/dp/0811739023/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=euell+gibbons&qid=1649896126&s=books&sr=1-2
He was 64 when he died. His obit said he “died of natural causes”.
Gunga => Hopefully, not too many natural wild foods.
Also for the record, the Summary for Policymakers is a political document, not a scientific one. Every one of them over the years has numerous claims that are contradicted by the actual science portions of the IPCC reports. I wouldn’t fret much about the SPM. It’s written to have have an aura of scienceyness because it’s included with the rest of the IPCC reports, but it’s all nonsense.
The media does not know that…nor do they know the SPM is released before the AR is actually complete.
Yes, they need a bit of time to make changes to the report that the summary summarises. You couldn’t make it up…..oh, wait…
stinker ==> The problem is is that all the Policy Makers — governmental leaders, legislators, etc etc — ONLY read the SPMs and NEVER read he science sections.
Worse, only the SPM gets reported to the general population
Rhoda ==> Yes — as if it were the Science and not the politics.
Killing innocent animals for something that you don’t need, can’t be a good thing, though.
Do you believe in biological based prey and predator? Should all predators be wiped from the face of the earth?
Animals are neither innocent nor guilty. They just are. The rest of nature’s predators and omnivores don’t agonise over it and nor do I.
I object to cruelty, but that is completely different to eating meat.
You are free to make your own personal choices and I wish you well with them.
“If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?”
John Cleese
The “Reluctant Cannibal”, Flanders & Swan: “If the Juju had meant us not to eat people, he wouldn’t have made them of meat.”
A not-too-in-depth look at human anatomy, the human digestive system and human nutrition shows human beings are designed to eat meat.
And a not-too-in-depth look will lead you to this false conclusion. We are omnivores, plain and simple. Our dentition is the key, not our digestion. Our teeth are developed to grind grains or tear flesh.
And a not-too-in-depth look at human diets across the world and in “modern” times (last 6k years) we see that those who eat mostly plants are the most amazingly fit. As the Tarahumara if they eat steaks on their 50-mile fun runs at 7,000 feet. No, it’s beans and corn.
Ask the Tibetan goat-herders if yogurt and tofu will sustain them on their herding hikes up the Himalayas at 8,000 feet or more. Ask if the Bulghurs were known for being bigger and stronger, despite their refusing to eat cows but instead ate wheat. Ask whether Mesoamerican warriors would eat bowls of quinoa or maybe chia, or if they filled up on meat, before marching all day and then fighting in hand-to-hand combat.
You can eat whatever you choose. You are omnivorous.
But then why do humans utilize animal protein better than plant protein and why do animal proteins come out on top of the protein quality list for human digestion? It sounds to me like you know nothing about human nutrition but can spout a lot of BS about ancient warriors.
Not grain. Grain came along long after our dental development was fixed. Meat, nuts, green leafy vegetable, seasonal berries and fruits were the norm of the hunter gather diet until the advent of agriculture and fixed settlements.
Spot on.
The Maasai are a pastoralist tribe living in Kenya and Northern Tanzania. Their traditional diet consists almost entirely of milk, meat, and blood. Two thirds of their calories come from fat, and they consume 600 – 2000 mg of cholesterol a day.
Average lifespan of 45 years … just saying.;-)
compared to barely 40 for the average Tanzanian. It always ends up with the Thomas Sowell’s ‘compared to what’ statement. the other issue is that is this Maasai on a standard diet or a modified diet such as what is being found these days with children being fed gruel sweetened with honey. When Mary Ruddick stayed with the Maasai quite recently she found a centenarian woman who had over 20 children, was still quite well and refused to eat anything but traditional foods. There was also an old man about 80-odd who would climb the local mountain at a pace Mary, who is a fairly healthy 40-odd westerner, could not hope in the least keep up with.
Even small introductions of western foods could have dramatic effects on health spans of these peoples with noting the Inuit with as little as about 4% carbs in their diet have quite substantial changes in health outcomes. Which means it is practically impossible unless you find the odd individual who refuses to partake of those introduced foods, that you can make an assessment on. We generally have to rely on reports and some studies done on these groups before much change had taken place such as the work done by Weston A Price.
There was also a study recently referenced by Dr Paul Mason in a talk from the 1930s where there was an active comparisson between the Maasai and a similar group of largely vegetarians who intermarried with the Maasai for generations before. This would lead to largely similar genetics in the groups and yet the diet meant that on average the Maasai men were 5 inches taller and much healthier than their vegetarian counterparts. There were only 2 health issues more common in Maasai then which was constipation and arthritis. Not exactly uncommon issues for a people not genetically suited to consumption of milk, even raw milk.
Contrary to this we see in many of the blue zones that dairy is in fact consumed in quite large volumes, but the vegan activists try to write that out of the history of these areas somehow trying to make the diet majority beans or sweet potatoes even when food surveys prior to WW2 and in the 1960s often points to animals like pigs as the main source of nutrition.
Ask an Inuit where their ancestors got their vegetables.
I have a cousin who is vegan, and I can assure you that she is not healthier than I am. She is obsessed over her weight, and yet can never lose that last few pounds despite never eating any sugar or meat. She spends 1/3 of her waking hours preparing her organic vegan food. She has to, else she would would have the same boring meals again and again. What kind of life is that? And her skin looks worse than her pre-vegan days.
Meanwhile I, meat eater, have a balanced diet of a few starches, a little sugar, a little alcohol, some veggies, and meat just got a great report from my doctor. I rarely drink soda with high-fructose corn syrup, sometimes drink soda with sugar, and never eat anything cooked in grease. And I have been about the same weight for over 10 years. And I don’t need to spend a lot of time preparing meals due to lack of variety.
You can replace almost all your required nutrients with plants and bugs, except for one: Vitamin B12. The only source of that essential nutrient is meat. The body rejects almost all non-food sources of vitamins. B12 has to come from eating meat. Therefore, you must eat meat to be fully healthy. The key is always balance. Any extreme is never healthy.
Wade ==> Personally, I will skip the bugs — ate too many (unintentionally) in my food in the Third World.
The Vegan Society, right on its web site, says that Vegans must take supplemental Vitamin B12 to avoid neurological degeneration. Before artificial B12, the only source of B12 in the diet was meat and animal products.
A vegan diet is not more healthy – the latest metastudies show that vegan mortality is the same as for meat eaters – some diseases, like colon cancer, are reduced by the vegan diet, but other diseases favor the meat eating diet.
Most vitamin supplements use versions of them with very low bio-availability. That’s why they have levels of units in the thousands when the amount a human body needs from natural sources is much lower.
The commonly used form of synthetic B-12 only results in about 5% of it actually being metabolized, the rest just gets passed through.
Look for Methylcobalamin and/or Adenosylcobalamin on the supplement label. If you see Cyanocobalamin that’s the synthetic which is a poor replacement.
People who try to exist on an absolutely pure vegan diet may find themselves in a hospital with a Hydroxocobalamin IV drip. That’s a form of B12 only used in cases of severe deficiency.
It’s almost a fallacy to make such comparisons. Maybe your innate health is better or your cousin’s health is below average.
Are there any identical twin studies? if not, there’s a grant proposal waiting for someone to write.
Forget where but there was a simple observation on how long term diets effect people.
The photo was of some Chinese delegates (traditional rice based diet) meeting some Mongolian/Central Asian State of Some Description (maintaining a traditional meat and milk diet).
There was a group photo. Literal head and shoulders.
What more examples? Look at the photos of slum dwellers. Poor underclass (and we are talking proper old school underclass, not this modern woke ‘I am oppressed cause I still have a 3 year old iPhone’ First World Problem rubbish) had poor diets. The trope of the stick thin street urchin developed for a reason.
A child with long term better diet is going to grow better than one without. You do not need to do a study. In fact I would personally suggest that even attempting a study has major ethical issues. Look at the evidence of people who were deliberately mistreated over the years in massive numbers and offer the suggestion that those people were simply of below average base health to start with.
I upped my meat consumption and my cholesterol improved significantly.
we don’t measure cholesterol so not sure how it ‘improved’. If you meant Lipoprotein measurement then they are estimates rather than a measurement and they have virtually no practical value. Heart attacks for example follow almost the exact same bell curve as the distribution of ‘cholesterol’ measurements with a slight issue being more prominent at the lowest readings.
All cause mortality also is worse with long term low lipoprotein estimates with optimum in this usually being about 220 mg/dl (5.7 mmol/L) which is the range they start pushing contra indicated statins at you at. While all cause only graduallys goes up the higher the total ‘cholesterol’ and sharply goes up the lower the total ‘cholesterol’ in a j-shaped curve. None of these measurements still have any real predictive power to them.
Any predictive power comes from ‘epidemiology’ which like climate models can barely predict breakfast if you already have eggs in the pan they are so poor. For understanding of this epidemiology cannot give you actual risk or causation and even the epidemiologists themselves understand in these fields that you need at least somewhere between 600-1000% minimum to point to causation between two associations. Jon Ionidis is one of the more respected people in this field and he even says that 200% is at best 20% likely to give you a result matching the prediction meaning that 80% of the time you will actually find no difference or the opposite. So when talking about ‘cholesterol’ how ‘strong’ was the findings in relation to heart disease?
With LDL, the supposed ‘Bad’ cholesterol it was somewhere about 135%, this isn’t ‘high’ LDL but LDL in general so remember what I said earlier about lower levels were found the most likely with a worse result (barely much difference it should be noted). Low HDL combined with high Trigs was about 210%, high Blood Pressure/hypertension about 610% and diabetes about 1040%.
So we see that ‘cholesterol’ has no real predictive power in heart health, its a means to sell a product rather than improve health outcomes. High blood pressure on the other hand is highly likely to have some causative action and can be regulated with a diet high in taurine for example (as can low blood pressure, taurine is a blood pressure regulator so do not take it with blood pressure tablets if you supplement with taurine). While diabetes is poor glucose management so you can either follow the associations advice that more glucose is needed and pump yourself full of insulin and lower glucose intake and manage energy via other means such as a ketogenic diet etc to see which works best.
“Heart attacks for example follow almost the exact same bell curve as the distribution of ‘cholesterol’ measurements with a slight issue being more prominent at the lowest readings.”
Shortie, do you happen to have any links on that? Would really appreciate it!
This is actually incorrect. B12 is easily bio-available to vegans, and we can look to a genetic cousin the Gorilla for how to acquire the said vitamin if the person wants to live the nutritionally poor vegan lifestyle. When Gorillas eat lots of fiber that ferments in the lower part of the gut, it cannot absorb B12 from this low in the process and thus passes it out in the stool. The Gorilla then picks up and eats the stool thus gaining access to B12.
I’ll prefer to get mine from steaks and eggs but let it not be said that it is impossible for vegans to get B12. 😉
A closer reading would show I didn’t claim human beings were designed to eat only meat. If I implied otherwise…
Animals designed to eat plants have different teeth and digestive systems. Look at a deer and look at a human being. Their teeth are made for chewing plants. Our teeth are made for meat and plants. Their digestive system is relatively bigger. Our brains are relatively bigger.
“Our brains are relatively bigger.”
Albeit, basically non-functional in climate activists and other marxist operatives..
True to your moniker.
Jyrkoff, a quick study – does your keyboard function in a useful manner if you restrict yourself to using only your mouth? Then same test using your fingers.
Human evolution allowed the use of tools. We developed the ability to process food sources independent of our teeth. We lack the ‘killing teeth’ of large predators because basically we don’t need them. We kill using tools.
Basically if push came to shove we could ‘tool’ a method of getting next to anything into a state we could swallow it, which brings us back to the argument that it is not out teeth that determine our diet, it is our digestion.
We can put anything into our mouth – rocks, small twigs, sawdust, our foot, dead animal – because we have the ability to process it beforehand. The big question is can our body then extract benefit from the ideas, or do they pass through largely unchanged, or worse, cause us harm.
We can process meat in our diet. We benefit from the experience.
Deal with it.
JoeG ==> But it is fine to eat a living carrot?
Seriously, the killing and eating of animals depends on world view and universal view (which includes theology and religion).
My view is that if one couldn’t kill a chicken, luck, gut, and cook it — then one should be eating it. I taught all my children how a chicken gets int the pot in exactly that way. One is mostly vegan, the rest just eat healthy, well-balanced meals.
Joe-
How about if I let you decide what is okay for you to eat & you return the
favor & let me decide for myself what I can eat? Works for me!
I can speak from experience. I DO need meat. Not want– need. The protein density is far higher in animal meat than in even the nearest equivalent in the vegetable world. And being sick and gaunt all the time on a 100% no meat diet is terrible.
Massively ignorant statement.
I went vegan, sugar-free, gluten-free, and soy-free and at the same time I went on a mission to get super fit. No problems whatsoever. I was ripped, shredded, and could run a 5k any day of the week, on trail in sandals or even barefoot. I had not just a 6-pack, but every muscle you want to see popping out was showing proudly. I was told that I was “quite the specimen” due to my fitness and even got compliments on my muscled legs.
I was eating fewer than 2,000 calories a day, less than 60 grams of protein, all from plant sources. And this in my early 40’s!
Those who think plant-based diets are somehow unhealthy are grossly ignorant and should be quiet before they embarrass themselves further.
While it might work for you, from very personal and bitter experience I can tell you it won’t work for me. I require red meat in my diet to counteract a persistent issue of anaemia. It’s all about bioavailability. Iron from plant sources – even sources that superficially appear far richer in iron than meat – has very poor bioavailability, especially when consumed with anything containing calcium or certain other essential nutrients. The majority of the iron in plant form is just wasted when consumed. Iron in meat is immediately bioavailable due to the fact that it’s already in the form required for the human body to use.
Archer ==> Yes, a fine example of how personal diets are — thus, not to be dictated by bureaucrats.
If you are concerned about your diet — see a doctor or a qualified (but not woke-to-death) nutritionist.
I have no issues from iron deficiency because I know what plants to eat which have enough iron. I used to supplement because I was so worried about it, but have not taken any iron in some time, and my last blood work showed zero deficiencies.
If you get enough Vitamin C, then the bioavailability of iron, in any source, heme or non-heme, increases. Since I get more than enough C from my diet, I have no anemia. Every issue folks come up with to debunk veganism has been well proven to be a non-issue.
We get enough of everything with a properly chosen diet. You can be vegan and eat only cookies and sugar soda and fatty, unhealthy foods all day, and you’ll indeed be deficient and weak. Or you can do it correctly and be running 5k’s any day of the week without even considering heme iron, B or C Vitamins, or amino acid profiles.
Veganism works, you just have to do it correctly. Eat all the meat you want, it’s your body, and you must take care of its specific needs. But if you wanted to, you could go vegan and simply supplement like the “cheater” vegans do. There’s plenty of excuses to not go vegan, but a lot of valid reasons to give it a fair shot, like I did.
An open mind is a large mind.
Five kilometers?
I’m sitting in bed finishing a glass of whisky and I could go and run 5k right now and be back in twenty minutes. And I’m 40. Maybe if you were eating proper you could manage 6k or even 7k.
Confuscious say too open-minded, brain falls out.
Vegan diet is to complicated and fraught with the danger of not getting it right. I’ll stick to the tried and true diet. Everything in moderation.
John Dilks ==> Or, as one of my captains put it more simply: “Eat your chow.”
I think I’ll trust my doctor over some nobody on the internet, thank you.
Who is your doctor? Every doctor I have found has been bought off by big pharma.
Mike ==> That’s a vicious rumor. Doctors are, however, trained in modern medicine and the approach of modern medicine is to treat illness with medications. So, their training gives them a bias towards prescribing pills.
Worse than that, medical insurance companies have what is called standard of care. Kind of a Medical Editorial Narrative….doctors are expected to follow the standards and can get in trouble if they don’t.
One thing that doctors have in their favor is that they actually understand human physiology — which almost no one else does. Without a good understanding of biology in general and human physiology in particular, the common man-in-the-street makes stupid decisions about health.
My Dad was a Pediatrician. He started his own practice that later grew as other Doctors joined and other locations were opened. He practiced for 50 years.
One thing he hated was when drug companies started advertising on TV to the patients. They convince the patient that they need this or that. If their Doctor won’t prescribe it, they shop for another Doctor until they find one that will.
It used to be they had to “sell” the drug to the Doctors, who knew a thing or two about drugs/antibiotics and their effects and side effects, to get them prescribe it. (I remember those days when I was a kid. Dad had a box full of samples in a locked closet that he’d rummage through when one of us was sick.)
Gunga ==> My Dad was a pediatrician too. Ran a single doctor practice his whole life in Los Angeles before any health insurance came along.
If a patient hadn’t paid their bill after three tries, he quit billing them. Then would start over when they brought their next baby in. His rule was “Babies need doctoring whther or not their parents can pay.”
Doctors are, however, trained in modern medicine and the approach of modern medicine is to treat illness with medications.
Kip, that’s one reason I tend to prefer osteopaths, as they’re trained to take a more systemic approach.
One thing he hated was when drug companies started advertising on TV to the patients.
Gunga – an opinion with which I generally agree, but I have to say that since I don’t regularly see an eye doctor (even though I should) I would have never known about the new Vuity eyedrops if not for TV ads.
NHS gp, so no big pharma entanglement on her part. That happens at the managerial level here. Her initial prescription was iron supplements, but they resulted in me becoming intimately familiar with the location of every toilet in a five mile radius, so she suggested I bump up my red meat intake and get my iron that way.
The reason the supplements had that effect was because they are massively overloaded with plant-sourced iron compounds to make up for their poor bioavailability; they are poorly absorbed at the best of times, and pass through entirely unabsorbed if you take them with tea or anything containing calcium. Vitamin c does increase bioavailability, but the effect is marginal and the required volume of plant matter necessary to replace the iron in a 200g serving of beef is impractically large as a result.
Sounds to me like you’re not getting enough protein to your brain. Of course your muscles will show if you don’t have any body fat. It doesn’t mean that they are strong and useful. I’ll bet any NFL lineman can kick the crap out of your “quite the specimen” body.
I never claimed that the vegan diet in broad strokes is inherently unhealthy. I, too, was on a vegan diet to lose weight. And I did lose quite a bit of weight. But after my body was done consuming excess fat, it needed something else. So, I added protein “rich” non-meat sources. It was not enough and I often felt sluggish, had a cloudy mind, was moody, and generally a miserable person to be around. So I slowly returned to a meat diet. First chicken then, last year, red meat. The sluggishness, moodiness, and cloudy mind disappeared. Not only that but with a vegan diet, my endurance exercises began to falter. Where I could normally walk 3 to 4 miles a day, I was tiring out after 2 miles.
No one way of living for one person will apply just as well to another person. Vegan diet works for you but a mixed diet works for me. A protein-heavy diet works for another person but not for you or me. Do not call me ignorant after having done the homework myself and learned how my body works.
As long as you afford people choice then I can accept yours. Please don’t support people like Biden who limit choice.
Not in the least ignorant. You have an agenda. Read some of the literature published by vegans who learnt at the cost of their health that one sandal doesn’t fit all.
Vegan diets without B12 supplements are not life-sustaining. If you need an industrially produced supplement for the diet to work at all, then you cannot make any claims as to its being “natural”.
NB: Is it possible to eat vegan and local?
Fran: “ Is it possible to eat vegan and local?”
–
–
I dunno, Fran. How many vegans live in your locale? 😲
😉
I don’t know about Fran, but I have an entire field full of vegans right next door.
TonyG ==> Can you supply recipes?
H.R. ==> And can you catch them? or do they run faster than you?
I should imagine they have an initial higher speed but only over a very short distance.
Kip, those free-range vegans are harder to catch, but they do taste better.
Worth the extra effort!
😉
I had a nutrition book that gave the symptoms of B12 deficiency. It said they can take about 5 years to begin to manifest.
One I remember (I no longer have the book.) is mental issues that resemble schizophrenia.
Actually you are a testament to just how hardy our species is with regards to being able to survive on just about any diet, no matter how poor. While humans are weak and slow compared to many other animals, we have a big advantage (even without our intelligence) over most of them because we can get by on a huge variety of different food stuffs. Otherwise, we would not have been able to colonize the earth.
While being vegan isn’t an ideal diet for the vast majority of homo sapiens, it is survivable, at least in the short term. Many times in human history (and pre-history) individuals survived with little or no animal protein, and at least some of those individuals were able to reproduce and raise the next generation. So yes, a vegan diet is survivable, as you have seen in your own case.
That said, some people cannot tolerate such a diet for long term, and many people simply do not want to give up animal protein. It all boils down to personal preference (and, of course, physiological tolerance).
I also know from my own personal experience what I’m able to tolerate. In my late 20’s I was a near-vegetarian. I ate chicken and fish 2-3 times a week, and had a cup of yogurt 5 days out of a week, and occasionally ate ice cream in the summer time. That was the only animal protein I ate. I had no problems with that diet at all, and the only difference I notice now that I eat eggs daily and red meat once or twice a week is that on my old diet, I’d occasionally be turned away from my regular blood donation due to low iron. It happened roughly once a year. I had enough iron for my own purpose but not enough to sustain losing a pint of blood every 2 months. Women are also susceptible to low iron more than men. But, as the old saying goes – your mileage may vary….
Your pseudonym says it all.
” Killing innocent animals for something that you don’t need, can’t be a good thing ”
… and killing people by promoting unscientific, superstitious ideas is even worse!
That’s something humans and other predators always have been doing. It’s part of life.
A pure plant diet will undoubtedly lead to malnutrition. Vitamine B12 is one of those nutritions we can’t produce ourselves and that we only can get from animals. Without it we get anemia and untreated, it’s ‘goodbye’. The health care system where I live acknowledged that several decades ago. It also leads to reduced brain functionality … (food activists seems to be in this situation already …) Humans are omnivores, not herbivores. If meat would something bad, the Inuits would have been gone long time ago. The traditional Inuit diet consists of seal meat, seal oil and fish. Occasionally some polar bear meat. No veggies, what so ever. Health status? Completely healthy, which is the opposite condition of vegetarians and formost vegans … (and those who eat modern western industrial food …)
Supplements? Well, the real stuff are extracted from animals. The synthetic ‘equivalent’ lacks quality and efficiency, so you’ll need to digest far more. It’s not cheap either … Your choise, your wallet, not others!
Time to change your diet, before it’s to late …?
Sasjal ==> To be fair, it is possible to eat a vegetarian diet and be healthy if one is very careful — and usually requires some vitamin/mineral supplementation. It is a tough personal choice though.
The largest mostly vegetarian country in the world (India) manages because of milk. Children who do not get any milk supplement grow into little scrawny people.
Fran ==> Note that India was one of the three countries that blocked the mandate language for “plant-based diets”
Wrong. They HAVE to eat carbs. Humans cannot survive on only meat. We need three macronutrients to survive, and carbs are one of them. B Vitamins occur in plants. Did you not know this? Look it up.
I’ve been vegan for years and I don’t worry about B’s C, or any other micronutrients. No anemia, no deficiencies show up on my blood work. There is no wasting. I’ve maintained a steady weight for years and years now. I can increase muscle mass if I choose, simply by adding more protein and more resistance in my workouts.
Most non-vegans actually can’t keep up with me on the trail, assuming their meat diets will power them up the hill. Sorry, but when a bowl of quinoa takes me 4,000 feet up a mountain while the jerky eaters turn back exhausted, well, one cannot blame my diet or their diet. Fitness depends on how you use what you’ve got; and how well you use the fuel you’ve eaten. Humans can be carb-adapted, fat-adapted, or flexible, like me. But they can’t live on only protein and fat. There must be at least some carbs, or you die.
A poverty diet of beans and corn are all the Raramuri need to run 100 miles in homemade sandals at high altitude. So I see your Inuit and raise you a tribe of ultrarunners.
No, there is no plant source (for humans) of B12. And it is essential for human health and healthy reproduction and child rearing.
We do, like ruminants, make B12 in the digestive system. But after the point at which nutrients are absorbed, so its not available to us.
Before 1900 the only source was animal based food. We evolved eating some meat fish and dairy. Trying to do without it, without B12 supplements, will lead to ill health and short lifespan. In the case of children, to serious developmental difficulties.
I don’t agree with Jyrkoff (what an appropriate name) but can’t you get B vitamins from yeasts? Bioavailability may be an issue though.
I don’t understand the vegan position on eating unfertilized eggs. They aren’t alive. It’s an egg, not an embryo.
jeffery ==> At my house we eat only fertilized eggs — not available in grocery stores — we raise our own.
This is why most great apes eat their own poop.
Liar. Name the edible plants that contain vitamin B12 in a bioavailable form. I’ve seen a number of people that tried to go vegan without taking B12 supplements, and it wasn’t pretty. Eventually they got the supplement route or just cheat and eat meat occasionally and just don’t tell their other vegan friends. This makes them frauds as far as I’m concerned, but it’s their life. So, which kind of vegan fraud are you?
Has anybody here claimed humans can eat only meat? You need fat, too.
Seriously, fruits and vegetables are full of micronutrients. So are meats. They are complimentary.
jeffery ==> No, one one claimed or recommended “humans can eat only meat?”
BS, there is no requirement to eat carbs. Your liver will product all the glucose you need from fat. Check with Shawn Baker, KenDBerryMD and numerous other carnivores, nothing but meat for years. Meat may contain a small amount of carbs anyway, so you will always be consuming a few.
I believe that those ultra runners occasionally eat pork.
Inuit diet is traditionally reported as “meat-and-fish only” and this is not a matter of choice, taste, religious belief or indoctrination from “experts”. Meat and fish are what’s mostly available in lands occupied by Inuit people.
But, having spent a little time in a couple of Inuit communities, I can report that gathering and eating non-animal foods does appear to play a part in the Inuit diet. What I have seen being eaten was blueberries, cloudberries and some green leafy things that I couldn’t identify. What I have heard about but not seen was kelp, and I also heard stories about taking undigested green plants from the stomach of a freshly killed seal, washing them and eating them. So I submit that traditional Inuit diet includes as much fruit-and-veg as can be gathered from the harsh environment.
Dulse has been eaten for over one thousand years in North-Western Europe. The ancient Celtic warriors of old ate dulse as they were marching and, during the seventeenth mcentury, British sailors ate it to prevent scurvy. First recorded as being eaten was in 6th century.
I was at college with a guy from Skye whose mother gave him Dulce Broth to bring back to Edinburgh with him. I remember that it tasted very salty, I’m not sure whether it was due to the seaweed or the mother!
If you grow plants to eat, you must keep the animals out. So you kill them, directly or indirectly. Too many people, especially those with a liberal arts background, fail to understand this very basic ecological fact.
That’s why I eat a lot of pork. You just know those pigs are guilty of something. 😄
The British and French peasants kept pigs and chickens. These supplied meat and eggs, both pigs and chickens could survive on scraps and scavenging. Nothing was wasted when a pig was killed. The diet was supplemented by grains suited to the Climate and potatoes.
In rural France you can still find little two level stone built sheds. The chickens lived on the first floor and the pigs on the ground floor.
It is a sign of thevwealth in the industrial West that people no longer have to keep pigs and chickens to survive and can afford to eat a meat free diet of previously expensive and rare foods from around the world.
As for Quorn, I still haven’t worked out the rationale for that
You are suggesting I don’t “need” bacon? To hell with that!
Surely bacon is a vegetable.
and chocolate is too.
Beer is its own essential food group.
Old Cocky ==> Ronald Regan said Ketchup was a vegetable….
It’s nominally made using tomato.
Old Cocky ==> Of course, Regan was referring to ketchup in school lunches….when the public complained that there were no veggies in the student lunches.
Tomatoes now but mushrooms originally.
We are all born to eat and be eaten by something. There is no issue of guilt or innocence in nature. You are expressing personal beliefs not science. I support your right to act on your beliefs. Wealth share the same rights, not the same beliefs. The assumption that an action that doesn’t correspond to your beliefs “can’t be as good thing” is getting close to the line. It may not be a good thing for you, but for many others it may be life saving.
“Wealth” should be “We all”.
To quote Tom Halla: “I do not know whether vegans or the Green Blob are more self righteous and preachy.”
Thanks for providing a timely example
edit: I think that should have been a response to “Jyrkoff” instead
But you’ll happily ignore science and kill things with reproductive systems, excretory systems, circulatory systems, endocrine systems, etc. The only thing lacking is a face and eyes that are familiar to your own. That is an emotional evaluation of the system.
BTW, how many animals would never have lived, reproduced, had time to enjoy sunshine, eat, wander about etc. if they weren’t raised for the food chain?
What tosh … what do you think happens on the wild Plains of Africa?
How about killing innocent plant life? Eating meat is something we do need. Plant protein is not sufficient.
How can you be sure they are innocent? Ever heard of pest control?
These animals are grown for human consumption. Eating an innocent carrot can’t be a good thin either.
Patrick ==> Not only innocent, but we eat them while they are still alive!
Have you seen carrots? Just look at them – they are never ‘innocent’.
That’s a temporary reprieve–wait till the next gathering with payoffs to stand aside in the next writing event. Obstacles must be pushed aside, bought off, or gulagged.
ResourceGuy ==> Yeah, that’s why I say “Maybe they have delayed the nutty demand that “everyone must be vegan” nonsense from the IPCC.”.
‘New Zealand diplomats helped remove references to the need for “plant-based” diets from the latest IPCC report’s influential summary.’
YAY NEW ZEALAND!!!!
I’ll thank you again later while I’m having my cheeseburger.
Mmmmmm cheeseburger,
Bob
Bob ==> Thank you, Homer…..
Biob
Presumably you meant to write ‘sheese burger’? Soya based cheese and a burger made of Tofu?
TonyB ==> As a vegetarian, maybe you can answer a question for me. Why would a vegetarian want to eat Fake Meat?
Even if I was a Meat-Only-itarian, I wouldn’t want to eat Fake Veggies.
Great question Kip.
One that has puzzled me forever.
I have a friend who chooses to have vegetarian bacon.
She reckons it tastes just like real bacon.
But if you don’t like real bacon, why not eat tofu jerky or smoked cheese or something else instead of strips of smoked who knows what, that attempts to emulate a kind of food you already decided you don’t want to eat.
Just doesn’t make sense to me.
Mr.
Yes eat something completely different. There are numerous delicious alternatives to eating this fake product.
Kip
I cant think of anything more horrible than eating fake meat that tastes like meat. If I wanted to have that taste I would eat the real thing, but as a vegetarian of so many years I am afraid the taste and smell and appearance of meat -fake or real is not pleasant
TonyB ==> Don’t mean to put you n the spot here…I eat very little meat myself.
If you have vegetarian friends — do you have any insight into why the Fake Meat Hamburgers are so popular (so the press says) among vegetarians?
My understanding is that ‘fake meat’ sales have plummeted and interest is fading fast.
Bruce ==> I couldn’t quickly find any stats on Fake Meat or Fake Meat Burgers….have you got any data or links?
kip
As AGW says, there has been a lot of clever marketing based on saving the planet and eating healthily. Vegan products have also gained good positions on the shelves of supermarkets because of the marketing behind it.
The market is certainly growing here in Britain and we have always been a decade ahead of our meat eating European cousins.
In recent months it has sometimes proven difficult to get a vegetarian version of say a veggie burger , that is to say that uses milk, eggs, cheese or butter, which provides a much better taste and texture experience than many vegan products.
tonyb
TonyB ==> Thanks again.
Beyond Meat Inc. Stock is down over 57% in the last 6 months. It’s a NASDAQ listing.
Bruce ==> Thanks, to take a look readers can go to
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BYND/chart
That wouldn’t surprise me a bit. No human wave of people were clamoring for “fake meat” burgers, etc. – it’s all hype and “selling” (just like BEVs).
Kip
I know of no vegetarian personally that eats these meat tasting fakes.
I know of vegans that do, and those who for health reasons believe the plant based burger is better than the real meat based burger.
I will put a caveat on that, as if you are a very recent vegetarian that enjoyed meat but gave up for health reasons or peer pressure, you might not be so worried about eating something made of plants that tastes like the product you reluctantly gave up recently
TonyB ==> Thanks for further insight.
I still don’t really get it, but I can see the “recently reluctantly gave up” angle. But who would become a vegan “reluctantly”?
Reasons… Girl friend?
Not long ago I got a “burger” at a stall at a market.
Looked ok, tasty sauce, nice vegetable parts, but seemed to lack much in the way of “meat” taste. Basically tasteless and no “body” to it.
Decided not to bother with a burger from there again.
Was walking past the stand next day, and realised it was a vegan burger stall ..
… sort of explains the lack of “meat” taste, I guess.
Kip, that’s puzzled me for years, too.
Something that both my other half and I wonder about. Why pretend something made in large industrial units in aa factory from a micro-fungus is from an animal that grew and flourished
But whatever floats your boat
Hmmm?
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
New Zealand – Lamb
… yep … I got it. Special interests drive policy. No way to run the world.
Yet … I LOVE lamb. LOVE to eat them. They’re cute too … I like to look at them before I eat them. Thank you lamb producers for telling the Warmists to shove off
You mean they EAT them in NZ?
We sure do. But many are exported.
I know lots or rather blue kiwi sheep jokes….
Old ==> Careful now, this is a family web site….
kenjii ==> For year, when our kids were kids and we had gardens and barns and all that, we’d buy a male lamb from the local shepherd (sheep farmer) for $10 and raise in on our excess goat’s milk til the Fall, when it would be butchered. Each one was named “Yummy”. So that our kids would know that the lamb was FOOD and not a pet.
Hey – New Zealand grass-fed beef is actually a big export and delicious. Not everything NZ is lamb or sheep!
Don’t forget venison
Now I never knew that – they have lots of deer in NZ?
Richard ==> https://www.deernz.org/
As promised in my comment this morning, I’m now eating a cheeseburger.
MMMMMMMMMMM, CHEESEBURGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Regards,
Bob
PS: I also consider it plant based. I plant it right in my mouth.
I have been a vegetarian all my adult life so am probably more qualified than most to comment on veganism, Most vegans seem to believe they can save the world with their diet and can be very evangelistic and militant in promoting this, which can be very tiresome.
It completely beats me why they believe veganism to be much better for the planet. Avocados, Almond Milk, coconut milk, soya and so many other seeds, nuts, pulses, fruit and other vegan related items have to be imported, often out of season and as with avocados need vast quantities of introduced water or the clearance of rain forests.
Compare that to a dairy cow grazing on pasture with the milk and cheese available locally
generally I would say that if you want to do you bit, where possible buy at a local outlet locally produced food in season. I recognise that is not always possible, but I am not pretending to save the world with my diet. If you are a planet saving vegan you really need to hold yourself to much higher standards than the rest of us and much of your diet won’t do that
tonyb
TinyB ==> Thank you for such a rational comment.
Diet is a very personal, up to the individual, thing.
And yes, regional, national or worldwide diets are not a matter to be determined by international bureaucrats under any circumstances. They may choose their own diets, but not ours.
I wonder what else requires the clearance of rain forests?
Coffee.
Ban that at your peril.
Windmills, solar panels…”biofuel” crop farming…
Thanks for your vegetarian insights. I grew up on a dairy farm where
you made sure you ate enough at each meal so you wouldn’t be hungry
before the next meal- it was impractical to get a snack. Meals were
always hearty- meat & potatoes w/vegetables & gravy. In cold weather,
you ate more for the extra energy to stay warm. Eating was a priority!
We butchered our own beef, pork, & chicken, as well as any fish & game
we got. We also raised a lot of potatoes & had two large gardens,
along with apple & plum trees & a variety of wild berries & hazelnuts.
With a smokehouse, canning jars, wine jugs, etc., this made all of the
food quite tasty & one of my joys in life (& it shows! ;)) For me,
being a vegetarian would have caused me more stress than any health
benefits I may have gained doing it. To each, his own!
BTW, I bet having more variety of beans that are good sources of
protein & minerals makes it better for you vs 50 ya. Thanks again.
I worked ONE SUMMER on a Klamath Falls, OR hay ranch. I was 18yo and in the best condition of my life. I moved sprinkler pipe. Yep … most every day in the HOT SUN … walking through calf-deep mud to move hand-set sprinkler lines. Yep. A white suburban kid doing massive physical labor … moving 3″-30’s and 4″-40’s OMG!
Our noon meal was literally like Thanksgiving every day. I have never eaten so much in my life. Huge breakfast, lunch, and dinners. And I LOST 20lbs that summer. I came home and was able to easily run the rim-trail at my local reservoir – 12 mile run up and down hills so steep you could hardly walk them.
After that … I decided I wasn’t tough enough to be a farmer and hustled my ass into a college classroom.
For a lot of us it has nothing at all to do with saving the planet.
Some of us are ethical vegans and don’t like how animals are treated. I personally can’t pretend I’m saving any animals by being vegan. They’re gonna be killed and I can’t stop that. So it’s not about ethics; I use non-food animal products like leather, wool, and (oh my God, silly vegans!) yes beeswax.
It’s more about my own body and physiology. Red meat and pork tend to sit in my stomach and not digest, so I quit those. I can’t find fish that’s not risky, or chicken that doesn’t taste like a wet rag, so I just quit meat altogether. I used to eat tons of dairy and gluten, but it stopped agreeing with me. So rather than take some pills or some drug to let me eat dairy, I just stopped. The gluten, something I ate with almost every meal, started giving me gastric issues and then severe migraines. So I quit that as well. Soy is bad for my guts and I quit that.
I certainly am not looking to “replace” those things with fake meat or nut milks. As you point out, those things don’t come with an ecologically cheaper price tag. I don’t drink fake milk and I don’t eat fake meat. I tried the fake meats. Sure, a few are quite similar to meat, but who cares? They put so much crap into them to simulate meat that they become in some cases less healthy. Skip! And faux milks all too often have inflammatory gums like carageenan, making them no option for me. They hurt me as bad, or worse, than dairy or soy, and often are loaded with sugar– which I avoid.
Imagine a vegan who doesn’t eat tofu. Or fake meat. Or fake milk. It’s not to save the world or be better than anyone else. It’s just what my body likes, and millions of other plant eaters have come to the same place as well. It’s just not that weird to eat only plants.
Only Americans seem to have a mental block in place that prevents them from understanding how a person can survive quite well and be perfectly healthy and functional eating no animal products.
I do but meat is yummy.
Fragile little petals, aren’t we ?
I’m an ethical meat eater. I like how they taste. And since good taste = ethics … well
I’m glad you’ve found a diet that works for you. For some people,
animal products don’t work for them at all.
My one beef with vegetarians, organic people & animal rights
fanatics is they almost always have no experience farming &
are totally clueless as to what it all entails. This same
idealist stupidity led 60s hippies to think recycling was new
never realizing they were several millennia too late!!!
The reality is that farming’s both very labor & capital intensive
& you must be profitable enough to stay in business. It’s that
simple. This alone shoots down most ideas of what people think
farming should be. Good practices usually means making more
money & bad ones, making less money.
The way most farmers accrue enough money to retire is through
renting/selling their farm & selling equipment as the profits
through the years aren’t that good. Farm produce has an
inelastic supply/demand curve which means the value of their
commodities only goes up when less is produced in total & the
opposite when more is produced in total. Everyone’s always
trying to produce more despite more being less which benefits
us shoppers.
A century ago, farmers were very diverse & relied on several
things working good enough to get them through. Now, there’s
too much outside money looking to get farm subsidies that
probably did more to destroy the family farm & promote
specialized corporate “industrial agriculture” than anything
I know. Since most produce comes from these larger farms, they
can drive out smaller farmers as subsidies put a floor on
losses & they have deep enough pockets to survive. I’m leery
of what they do, too. The only hope is that they use good
practices that profitability pushes them to do.
Whether or not antibiotics, hormones, etc., are really bad for
me, I don’t know. Both health & climate are two areas with
a lot of advocacy vs just the facts. Some people I know will
buy certain foods only at certain places because they think
off-the-shelf isn’t that good. Since they’re sensible people,
they may be right. I’ve always gotten good food o-t-s so I’m
going with that until it doesn’t work.
I have some of the same concerns these people have but am not
concerned about things that aren’t even problems at all.
There are more than 300 million of us Americans and we are not a homogeneous group. However, some people keep believing that we are.
Almond milk isn’t milk, it’s nut juice, think about that the next time you have a glass.
Shortly after getting my Covid booster, I developed a kidney infection (relationship between the two unknown) however, as part of that problem I couldn’t stomach cooking or eating steak. In fact, for a period of time I couldn’t stomach eating. Did wonders for my weight. Now, I eat meat but not steak and mostly veggies and for some unexplainable reason I’m not as hungry as I used to be. My wife hates it, hasn’t had a steak in months.
It’s been clear for decades that global warming/climate change is not a scientific concern but a political one.
Just ask any greenie. While they may start with talking about the climate they quickly move on to equity, redistribution, social justice, ending capitalism, etc. It’s Marxism plus EU-style global governance wrapped inside the self-styled noble cause of saving the planet.
I agree completely. The green environmental front is just the fig leaf over the Marxist “naughty-bits”, as Monty Python would have said.
Rico == Que rico!
Try to grow a potatoe in Greenland and Lapland or live on a litmus diet, soon you will understand why the Inuit and Laps live on a carnivorous diet.
They live on that diet out of necessity, not because of some general notion about such a diet being “better.” The only correct diet is the one that works for you, and since you are different than me, your diet cannot always work for me. Or anyone else. And, sadly, it’s not a 100% meat diet. Humans cannot live on only meat, we will die. We need at least some carbohydrates. Some folks say as little as 5-10% of our intake must be carbs.
In a warm climate, people eat all sorts of things because that’s what’s available. Our teeth show us that we are equipped to deal with all kinds of food, from meat to grains. Because we’ve been omnivores for much of our evolution.
Speaking of cows, how does a steer reach 1,000 pounds eating only green grass? Is it because plants are devoid of protein and nutrients?
Your body needs a lot fewer carbs than you might believe or than government agencies claim.
(Notice the word needs.)
Great comment! I always thought vegans were overly self-righteous
to condemn people over their diet as many people globally don’t
have any food but meat- Inuits, Japanese & Norwegian fishermen,
people in forests, etc.
Buffalo were grass fed & grew big as do cows which are usually fed
grain for more marbling- fat- before butchering. Horses “under the
plow” were fed grain for extra energy & protein. Clover was
introduced into Europe to augment the grain in their diet, especially
when grain crops failed. It’s just when they work that they need
what grain has.
Grain is also a more energy rich food than grass – essential for working animals that can’t spend 8-12 hours a day grazing.
Richard ==> Just as a note, the best hay or sillage for cattle is made with improved pasture hay — a mix of clover, alfalfa, and grasses that produce seed heads. “Well-managed spring and autumn pastures may be 25% crude protein or even higher.”
https://extension.psu.edu/protein-in-pastures-can-it-be-too-high
“you are different than me, your diet cannot always work for me”
Another great point! Since the early 70s, high-carb diets were the
rage. I never dieted but I did eat a lot of carbs which worked well.
My sister tried them & they never worked as she felt lethargic.
When high protein diets came out 20 years ago, they worked & she
had a lot of energy. I would’ve probably had a better chance of
survival where carbs were available & she where protein was. I’ve
never heard of genetics ever being discussed when considering a
diet, as it could be an important factor.
They live on that diet because they chose to live in that environment. Not out of necessity extent of that choice.
Cows, ruminants, reach of a size because they have chambered stomachs which allow them to get the most out of grasses and herbs. You’re not a cow, nor a ruminant so your diet choice isn’t comparable for the sake of argument.
I can answer your question about the cow…cows are obligate vegans. Every part of their digestive (including the teeth and jaws) system is dedicated to gleaning everything possible out of the plants that they eat. They have specialized molars to grind and pulp vegetation and they have an extra “stomach” (the rumen) to extract even more nutrients that are very hard to get at. And then there is the chewing of the “cud” to “milk” (sorry, bad pun) the food for all it has.
Basically a cow is a very highly efficient processing system for low quality food sources. Obligate herbivores are able to extract nutrients from plants that omnivores cannot. Not saying we don’t get nutrients from plants (which we do and we need) but we are no where near as good at processing it.
We can process meat very easily (as can other omnivores and obligate carnivores) but meat takes no specialized digestive system to efficiently process.
But OTOH, did you know that even an obligate carnivore like a cat will also suffer severe malnutrition if only fed muscle meat from animals? Some people think they can feed a cat on canned tuna, but there aren’t enough of the nutrients it needs in pure protein. Most obligate carnivores need to eat other bodily tissues, like organs, fat, brain and bones to get everything they need. So a cat can live on mice, but not canned tuna (or any other kind of muscle meat).
Neanderthals were highly carnivorous (much more so than even the most meat-loving modern humans) but, like cats, they would have eaten organs, fat, brain and bone marrow of their prey. Possibly a modern human could live like that, but most people would blanch at the thought of eating the heart, liver, brain (and a lot of fat and marrow) along with their chicken patty or steak!
That takes me back, I grew up on a mixed farm (mostly sheep/wheat) so we used our own meat supply. One of the great treats was kidney, heart or brain along with our chop for breakfast.
Liver seems to be a luxury item in some cases (e.g. pate de foie gras), as do fish eggs.
Old Cocky ==> Every year when we slaughtered our lamb — always named “Yummy”– we took the liver home with us while the rest was flash-frozen. Liver that night for dinner — the kids ate it like candy.
Ignorance is bliss .
Your statements show that you do not understand very much about cows .
Cattle can grow to well over a tonne on grass so you think that grass would be a good diet for people ..
Cattle sheep and deer have four stomachs and use enteric digestion to break down the cellulose in grass and other forage crops that is indigestible to humans .
A small amount of methane is released as the microbes in their digestive systems break down the cellulose.
The microbes multiply rapidly and are the major food source for the animals as they pass through their four stomachs.
The green blob have vilified farmed animals for their methane emissions and so many politicians have swallowed this lie .
Farmed livestock are carbon neutral as all forage consumed has absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere and the very small amount of methane released during digestion breaks down in 8 to 10 years into CO2 and water vapour .
The anti meat and anti dairying lobby can eat all the vegetables they want but they have no right to stop other people from eating meat and milk products .
99% of our farmed cattle sheep and deer in New Zealand are well looked after grazing on green pastures .
We have very strict laws around the slaughter of our animals .
New Zealand exports a large amount of meat and milk to many countries around the world feeding 25 to 30 million people.
That steer’s digestive system is designed to process that grass and extract the nutrients. Our digestive system can’t do that with grass. But, I can eat the vegan and get those nutrients.
This whole ‘green’ vegan thing is because ruminant digestion produces methane. Two very simple ‘killer’ points:
Rud ==> On methane, very very little effect….
The “whole” thing is not about methane at all. Who told you that? Green vegans also look at the water quality effects, such as from hog farms. They’re a huge problem that the pork industry has had to admit is hurting water quality for a lot of people.
The other concern is the amount of land used for grazing that they think should be used for plant food production. Also, the amount of feed crops we grow, like corn, that is given to animals instead of humans. It’s the steps involved, where we devote land to growing feed that we give to animals that are on more land devoted to ranching. The idea is that we could be using the land for human plant food and “re-wilding” the spaces we use for animal grazing.
I can’t say I’m so fervent as a vegan. We get a bad rap, but my ethics say that as long as I didn’t kill the animal, I bear no guilt as I did not cause it any harm. “Supporting the industry” is a silly notion because if I stop buying meat, the meat company won’t notice. They have a million customers, my few bucks won’t be missed. For me, it’s mostly about diet. I have a leather belt, a leather wallet, and wool clothing. If non-vegan food is on offer, I surely would be dumb to turn down free food merely because it has a little chicken or butter in it.
A lot of “vegans” are like me. We know full well our diet does not save the world. We know full well that we’ve not “saved” any animals from slaughter or done some saintly act by switching to plants. We’re not vegans to be “green” but rather because our bodies and our physiology responded well to it, and so we stuck with it.
Please do not paint us all with the same stereotypical brush. It is unfair.
If you look at ranches in the American West, you see huge amounts of land are used to produce beef. Can’t we put that land to better use?
No, that land is not suitable for farming. Huge amounts of land are needed for grazing because of the sparse edible vegetation. Ranching is the only suitable agricultural use for that land.
Jeffery ==> Or, just leave it alone? (My environmentalist desert loving opinion).
Cattle grazing land used to be grazed by bison. Without a lot of grazing, short grass prairie ecosystems get ‘sick’. There are studies that show it is a big mistake if cattle are removed from large acerages in North America and not replaced by bison.
Bruce ==> That’s bascially true, but not for various desert lands way out west — where an acre doesn’t even support one cow and calf.
Most ranch land is not desert. I often hunt on a cattle ranch in Alberta that is over 60 Sq miles in size. It’s in the Palissar triangle, technically not a desert but very dry. Ground on the uplands carpeted in prickly pear cactus in spots. Too dry to farm, except in the river valleys, which are irrigated.
Hi Kip I think you might have got that wrong .
I met an Aussie run holder from South Australia and we got talking .He said he was a cattle man and had 180 hereford cows and sold off the progeny each year .
I then asked him how large was his run and he said it was 180,000 acres .Yes that,ts right 1000 acres to run a cow and her progeny and all young cattle were sold to other farmers on better land and better rainfall to fatten .
Windmills 😉
So why stick any label on yourself like “vegan”, if you just eat what you like to eat?
I don’t like kale or offal, but I don’t feel I have to label myself as a “no-kaler” or a “no-offaler”.
It’s like all the labels people put on themselves these days to advertise what they like to do with their privates to other people.
I mean, as long as they’re not harming anyone else, who cares?
And why do we need to know about such proclivities?
“Please do not paint us all with the same stereotypical brush. It is unfair.”
“Only Americans seem to have a mental block in place…”
… now about that unfair stereotypical painting…
Not to mention cattle are CO2 emission neutral, because the grass they eat would otherwise die and emit…CO2 as it decays.
So bacon and eggs is carbon neutral?
We will eat turnips. while they eat steak.
Who was it said you need a revolution every ten years? One of your guys wasnt it?
He wasnt wrong!
Thomas Jefferson? “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Richard ==> Are we talking politics or fertilizer?
Is there a difference?
John ==> Thanks — actually made me laugh out loud!
We ARE already on a “plant based diet”: either we eat plants directly or we eat plants processed by cows and other mammals.
Joao ==> Don’t confuse us with details…..
Actually, all our physiological energy comes from the Sun, via Plants, via Animals…..
That also amounts to a challenge for agenda media and agenda science to work (manipulate) harder.
Study: Vegetarian Weaver Birds are More Sociable than Their Insect-Eating Counterparts | Sci-News.com
Resource ==> Thanks for the link. Nutty study — they didn’t actually study any birds, only other studies, and found concepts not causes.
Hitler was a strict vegetarian, doesn’t seem to have made him more ‘social’.
How did it get so crazy..
1/ Humans are not plant eaters, because we have small acidic stomachs. There is No Way we can eat the amount of plant material required to sustain us. Andas most Plant material is – Cellulose (Fibre/Fiber), not only does it go straight through us but that fibre attaches to and carries away huge amounts of what low nutrition there was there to start with.
2/ Blindingly obvious once its pointed out, ‘plant eating’ comes with the unavoidable risk of eating soil.
OK, the organic part of that (IF you can find any reasonably organic soil any more on this Earth) is primarily bacteria and it was not = stinky anaerobic soil, those bacteria are actually, mostly harmless and even Good For Us (some of them make Vitamin B12)
But the other part of the soil, the rocky mineral part, while containing good things (Magnesium, Sodium Copper Manganese, Lithium, Cobalt etc) also contains many metals that are incredibly toxic.
And the acid in our stomachs will solubilise those metals and we will be poisoned by them.
Hence why the official plant eaters of this world have pH neutral stomachs – the toxic metals will remain bound to their Anions and go right on through.
3/ (The Bombshell)
Us humans are not really any great Carnivores.
This whole meat eating ‘thing’ is based on an insane misunderstanding, on fashion, political correctness, nice-ness, not nice-ness and its just crazy through and through and through
Humans are Lipivores. We are Fat Eaters
And not just any crappy old fat either. NOT oil, oils as might be found in plants.
We operate (best by a VERY long shot) off of eating burning full-on saturated fat – the sort of fat you find inside warm-blooded animals
Unfortunately, obtaining that fat (apart from taking milk off lactating mammals) involves killing the animal,
But while we’re ‘in there’ animals contain some intensely nutritious stuff – stuff that due to fashion, political correcetness, snobbery and perceived niceness, are routinely discarded.
Hence my opening assertion – How crazy can this get?
We go to sooo much trouble rearing and keeping what animanls we do and ‘when the time comes’ we throw away all the very best bits from within the animal and selectively eat what, in even modest amounts, is toxic
We throw away the liver, kidney, brain, blood, bone-marrow and most especially, try to remove every last vestige of fat.
Leaving only the high protein flesh which, eaten even in moderation, destroys your kidneys and liver. We really have gone stark raving looney mad.
(Protein, by definition, contains Sulphur and Nitrogen. If we overeat, that stuff moves into our bowels where it rots anaerobically – producing some truly hideous poisons and even before the bacteria which do that ‘job’ are the angriest sons of bitches you ever want not to meet)
Such is the fate of almost all our pet felines. Under the illusion that they also are carnivores, we feed them far too much protein and hence why 80% of pet cats die from kidney failure.
For more info, go find the series of interviews Naomi Whittel (she’s selling something but who ain’t these days) did called The Real Skinny on Fat
I was with you up until the cat part. Cats are obligate carnivores. Their guts are proportionally far shorter than ours, so their waste doesn’t hang around in the bowel for very long at all. The reason they have such high rates of kidney failure is because most cat food is stuffed with sugar and grains and seed oils, whilst lacking essential nutrients that keep their kidneys and liver healthy; and because so much of it is dried, meaning they don’t get enough water. I’ve not lost a single cat to kidney failure after switching to a grain-free diet and making sure to serve any dried food with water.
Archer ==> Oddly, diet is not among the 10 most common causes of kidney problems in pet cats. When I was in the pet business , kidney problems were blamed on too many fish bones (calcium) included in fish-based wet cat food. Cat foods then shifted away from so much fish and bone, and went to more grains….and because dry cat food is more convenient, dry.
The truth is, in general, we don’t really know what causes domestic house cats to be prone to kidney problems….
Well then, maybe they’re just predisposed to it after centuries of domestication? Wouldn’t be the first time.
Archer ==> More likely some tendency of genetics — in-breeding
Archer, agree with you about Peta comment and fat part. The research on this is starting to appear now and people are realising that high saturated animal fat, low carbon diets actually are good diets for humans. It’s also logical given farming and agriculture are very recent changes for us a species.
Glad I always ate what tasted great and have always felt strong, fit and full of energy.
I have no idea of the numbers, but millions of people have followed high protein diets for decades with no ill effects on their kidneys or liver.
As for our felines, how many of their natural prey are fat? Most wild animals are pretty lean.
I will be the first to concede that just because a species evolved to eat a specific natural diet, it does not necessarily mean that is the healthiest diet for that species. I will also concede that most of what nutritionists and other “experts” teach us about fat is just plain wrong.
I will even go so far as to submit that IMO, much, if not most, mainstream diet and nutrition advice has little to no scientific basis. But I’m not sure you Naomi Whittle has all the answers, either.
Jeffery ==> I think that this bit:
most mainstream diet and nutrition advice has little to no scientific basis”
is spot on.
The problem with cats is that they have evolved to eat all of their prey, not just the muscle meat. When a cat kills a mouse or bird, it eats the whole thing (less the feathers for the bird). There are nutrients in the organs (and yes, fat), bone/bone marrow, and brains that are necessary for cats to eat.
My cats usually only eat half the thing. The other half is left under the couch.
The New Zealand meat industry processes around 25 million sheep and five million cattle every year. On average, New Zealanders consume 10.6 kilos of beef, 3.7 kilos of sheep meat, 18.7 kilos of pork and 40.6 kilos of poultry meat per capita in this year. That doesn’t include fish or an occasional shrimp on the barbie either.
Morton ==> all the Kiwis I have known personally do like their meat….
The earliest Kiwis even liked eating their enemies.
It would have been better if the IPCC summary contained more nuttiness, not less.
BB ==> Yes, nuts are a good source of proteins….
Just like a Snickers bar.
Jeffery ==> Do you too sometimes just get a childhood-revisited craving for a Snickers?
No, not really. Snickers was the first candy bar I could think of that has nuts.
So what’s the term for people who deliberately eschew Snickers bars? I’m anti-nougat.
Morticia Ardern. Not to be confused with blackface Trudeau.
About diets:
In a world which still struggles to feed everyone. vegan diets do not cut it.
I will note here for the record that some people claim that the world produces ample food, overall. This may be true, but it shows that here as in many other areas of endeavor, logistics is key. Food must be moved from where it is to where it needs to be. Failing this, producing what is needed nearby to where it is needed is your go-to option.
For any type of agriculture, animals play an important role. An agricultural sector which excludes all animal products, as the vegans would have it, is of necessity, suboptimal. Why?
Simple, many domestic animals convert things we can not eat into things we can, with excellent nutritional results. The ruminants are particularly useful in this regard. Cows turn grass into a host of dairy products, plus hamburger. Cattle are our big beef producers. Pigs will eat most anything and convert it into *Bacon*. Chickens easily supplement their grain diets by foraging for bugs all day long. And so it goes.
Any optimal agricultural solution involves animals.
“Next time you meet a New Zealander, a Kiwi, shake his hand and thank him . . .
Maybe they have delayed the nutty demand that “everyone must be vegan” nonsense from the IPCC.”
Not sure it is such a big favor. Were the IPCC to endorse a vegan diet as the “One True Way”, the publicity would be awful. They would have marked themselves as fully in the camp of the the worst of the most radical of the loony left found on any university campus. For many people, this would be a torpedo below the water line of the IPCC’s credibility.
TonyL ==> Had it not been for the represenatives from NZ, India and Kenya, the SPM would have called for a shift to plant-based diets for all.
Then the media would be harping on endlessly that “The Science” says we must all shift to plant-based diets. Then the Governments would be harping at us, and passing laws and regulations to encourage (read FORCE) the shift in its populations. (Except for at State Dinners for politicians.)
“not changes for themselves, but only changes to be forced on every other common man and woman.”
In their private conversations, the Davos illuminati probably agree that they can’t continue their rich lifestyle unless everyone else is poor.
It’s not that they’re that stupid. It’s that their delusion of homo superior cannot be maintained unless everyone else is poor.
“sustainable healthy diet” is an easier sell than “plant-based”, but there’s no difference if “sustainable healthy diet” ends up being defined as “plant-based”
TonyG == As with all things IPCC, it is only the words that matter. No governments pass laws or make regulations based on footnotes.
“balanced sustainable diets” … could they have had Jacinda in mind ? I mean … in case of a starvation, could Kiwis resign themselves to eating horse meat ?
Petit_Barde ==> The Canadians do…..
All the fanatical minorities scrambling to influence non group members lives because… be like me or die!
I don’t read it like that. The key word is sustainable and “everyone knows” meat isn’t sustainable. It’s an attempt to disguise the agenda that is all.
andic ==> The original text, nixed by NZ, said “plant-based diets”.
If I had that many sheep on my islands I would change the language as well Green is the largest agenda fest ever created to bring man down to a commodity
Without animals it takes a lot of oil to grow plant food unless of course you compost, which is what we do in our land fills and sewage treatment facilities. Fertilizer has to come from somewhere. I have spend the past 20 years growing 30% of my food budget in a cost effective manner because I love what I grow and because it saves me money and gives me meaningful exercise. Yet I need my chickens for eggs and fertilizer. Chickens are the best composters in the world. The money I save growing my own fruit, grain and vegetables I use for buying high quality meat from local framers in PA. There is plenty of marginal land in PA…. if people would get back to work and get off the make work on line tread mill and fill the hillsides with goats, sheep and cattle, there would be an abundance of fertilizer and awesome grass fed meat for much of the east coast. Love animals and eat them!
No one mentions Blood type. The book entitled Eat Right for your Blood type comes to mind. I for one am allergic to shell fish and became so at the age of 45, exactly 45 years ago. In that book it lIsts what is right for B type as I am and mentions shell fish as a food to avoid. On the other hand my wife is type O and she just loves shrimp. I enjoyed crabs when I was young but no longer. This is why we should eat what works for us.
Hey Al happy 90th! I loved crabs and oysters in the 70’s the quality and the size is not as god as it once was. As I have aged, if have drifted to smoked fish and squid… Italian style.
See how many get this reference (after Kip didn’t get the Small Soldiers and blowing up transformers one on the other thread)
Chicken isn’t Vegan?
How about eggs? How can unfertilized chicken eggs not be vegan? Is it how the chickens are raised? Not every chicken is raised in a factory farm. Eggs are full of B vitamins.
Thinking ==> I get the straight English….but not if it is some cultural reference….