Throughout human history, pretty much wherever humans lived, there were periodic times of — literally — feast and famine. Turns out this concept is important to Longevity…
Your review matches what is coming from medical experts in the field in what is starting to be termed “Food as Medicine.” It is gaining traction more in the concierge medicine area than the mainstream procedures, pills, and prescriptions realm, which points to a major deficiency in the U.S. healthcare model. Two of the medical experts whom I have found on point are Dr. John McDougall and Dr. Joel Fuhrmann.
I will be publishing a Substack article on the educational design of McDougall’s online course approach in the coming weeks. In researching that article, it has become quite clear that the deck is stacked against good nutrition by the processed food industry. The billions of dollars of ads and other marketing such as packaging and product placement are hard to overcome.
Your eating pattern actually follows another recommendation often called “The Buddha Diet.” The approach involves daily intermittent fasting by restricting the times we eat to just a few hours a day. A typical goal is to restrict caloric intake to a 6, 7, or 8 hour window. As long as the person is eating foods that are low in caloric density such as wet starches and vegetables one will feel satiated and never really be hungry. Buddhists for reasons of history do not always follow the best plant-based, whole food diet. The plateaus of Tibet are not prime growing terrain for vegetables. But we know better now and can avoid the meat, dairy, and eggs that some Buddhists eat.
For a whole lot more information on this subject check out Michael Greger's new book "How Not To Age. Over 600 pages of research. He concludes that most of the benefits of protein restriction are due to the reduction of the amino acid Methionine.
You have my endless admiration for everything that you provide through your books and programs—except when it comes to your ideas about diet.
Case in point being this article, which suggests that if we reduce our protein intake and go vegan or vegetarian we can live longer and save the planet.
There are several issues you ignore:
1. You don’t distinguish between industrially-raised meat and pasture-raised and regenerative ag. In the case of beef, you say that “we have to grow grains and vegetables to feed them.” We don’t, if they are finished on pasture, which is increasingly the health-based, environmentally responsible trend. And that 2500 water number you cite is mostly RAIN.
2. None of your information about feedlot meats is helpful when industrial ag is a key driver of the climate crisis, as it kills soils, destroys ecosystems and the life therein, causes drought, and pollutes water around the world. You should be advocating the opposite if you want to heal the planet.
3. Furthermore, bear in mind that if people want to eat healthy plants, they’ll buy organic – which crops are fertilized with ANIMAL MANURE. Soil that has no life in it does not grow healthy plants.
4. Audubon Society logically has this label on their beef in supermarkets in 19 states: NO COWS, NO GRASS, NO BIRDS.
5. Check out ancestral nutritionist Mary Ruddick and her life and work with indigenous tribes around the world. They live to 100 or more because they eat meat, not the opposite. Only when they start to eat the Western diet does their health break down. (Also, Mary confirms in several interviews that the Blue Zones are a myth created by researchers who have no experience with the tribes year-round and who have an agenda to sell the plant-based diet): https://youtu.be/Mk_z2cNJAjs?si=xttvOdUy_tBPMu_1
6. It’s wrong, I believe, to inspire people to buy a supplement and think that it’s going to slow their aging process. Such practices against the backdrop of our profoundly unhealthy diets and lifestyle are just throwing money away. There has to be a total dietary, mindset, and lifestyle shift to make a difference, not just a supplement. Such shifts take months—or years, to really heal. I believe it’s inappropriate to not give a full picture of what’s involved.
7. Finally, you should be aware that there is an extraordinary shift going on in the field of mental health, including ADHD, bipolar, pathological depression, schizophrenia and more. Turns out that such conditions are not the result of chemical imbalances in the brain, but a problem with brain metabolism. Check out MetabolicMind.org. Turns out that the ketogenic diet is putting people with lifelong conditions into remission. It’s a meat-based diet that is low carb – moderate protein – high fat. A diet that has been used since the 1920s to help control seizures in people with a diagnosis of epilepsy.
So called regenerative agriculture or rotational grazing as well as free-range, grass fed, cage free are just advertising terms brought to us by the meat, dairy and egg industry. They are greenwashing and part of the humane hoax. As the saying goes "there is no right way to do the wrong thing." Some of these methods may be a very tiny bit better for the animals. But in the end they wind up in the very same slaughter houses. There is nothing good that happens in slaughter houses. Raising animals anyway you do it causes extreme animal suffering and wastes massive amounts of land, food, energy and water. Pasture raised cattle are actually worse for the environment than feed lot raised animals (and believe me I do not advocate either).These animals require more land, as they move around a lot. The get more exercise, so they require more feed and a lot more water. The United Nations told us years ago in their report "Livestock's Long Shadow," that animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gasses than ALL forms of transportation combined. Other studies have shown that the problem is even worse. Animal agriculture destroys forests, wetlands and other wildlife habitat. Irrigation for the crops used to raise animals for food is the largest consumer of piped water in the U.S. Animal waste does not go into sewers, but in huge lagoons. It eventually winds up destroying rivers, lakes, oceans and reefs. Raising animals for food is a very inefficient way to feed people: cycling crops through animals and then eating the animals, instead of just raising the crops for food. A whole-food vegan diet is not some woo- woo thing. The science is clear that it is the best thing for our health. Following this diet can not only prevent, but actually reverse heart disease, the #1 cause of premature death. As Kim Williams, MD, past President of the American College of Cardiologists has told us "There are two kinds of cardiologists. Vegan doctors and those who have not read the literature." Generally there is no need for supplements...except for Vitamin B12. It comes from bacteria. We live in a generally clean environment so we don't get the B12. We also don;t get cholera either, which is a good thing. If one lives in a cold climate with little sun in the winter Vitamin D might be required. Otherwise supplements can sometimes unbalance your system and cause other health problems. Studies have shown that supplements often do not contain what is on the label. I went Vegan over 32 years ago ( and a few years vegetarian before that). I can honestly say that it was probably the best decision I have ever made. At 75 I have no major health problems and take no medications ( I did get all my COVID vaccinations though). Friends I grew up with who still eat the Standard American Diet (SAD Diet) have many many bad health problems and take numerous medications.
“So called regenerative agriculture or rotational grazing as well as free-range, grass fed, cage free are just advertising terms brought to us by the meat, dairy and egg industry. They are greenwashing and part of the humane hoax. As the saying goes "there is no right way to do the wrong thing." “
No Stephen, they are terms that speak to the restoration of soils around the globe, the way Nature intended, in a symbiotic relationship. Ruminants built the soils of the world, which is why they exist on every continent except Antarctica. Overgrazing, plowing and deforestation destroyed the soils—we have less than 50% of the groundcover that the Earth had originally. Dead soils are dry soils. Dry soils have no relationship with the water cycle, thus, the planet is drying up – from Great Salt Lake to the Panama Canal. Only by restoring soils and ecosystems with different management practices with ruminants, other animals and other soil management practices can we heal the planet. There is even a ranch in Mexico that has restored so much moisture in the soil with managed grazing, it only rains above that land, and everywhere else is desert. https://youtu.be/ANZNt8LXM6o?si=tBA_qHVYFSjgh-G2
The government is working towards restoration to an extent, teaching how to change plowing methods for example, and teaching managed grazing to restore soils. I agree that slaughter houses are terrible places for industrially raised cattle. But on regenerative farms and ranches, there are more humane practices in place. And on such farms the land is healthier, thus the animals are healthier, thus the product is healthier.
“Livestock’s Long Shadow” and its hyped data has since been debunked. The “more greenhouse gases than ALL forms of transportation” for example. That piece of data came from measuring the entire life cycle of an animal and then comparing it ONLY with the emissions from the tailpipe of a car. Crazy. Nothing about the mining, processing, producing, etc. of our vehicles. Just comparing a cow burp to a tailpipe emission.
The real story: according to the Environmental Protection Agency, agriculture in ALL forms (not just livestock raising), contributes 10% of US greenhouse gas emissions, including livestock, commercial agriculture and rice growing. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
Also: livestock are a constantly renewable resource which deliver products from their carcasses that are invaluable. Without livestock, all of those products, from leather to pet food to bone meal, blood meal for organic fertilizer, to heart valves, to gelatin for vitamin coatings, plasma protein, crayons, candles, floor wax, shaving cream, lubricants, tennis strings, insulin, epinephrin and much more...will then become industrially made (probably with plastic), increasing CO2 emissions from industry, toxic chemicals in environment. Real leather can last for centuries. Fake plastic leather, only 3-5 years.
Vegan diets can work for some and I’m glad it has worked for you. But it is especially problematical for women and is not recommended for women trying to get pregnant, for young children and teenagers and as well as for some elders.
If your whole foods vegan diet is organic, then most of it was fertilized with animal manure.
Thom—Excellent analysis.
Your review matches what is coming from medical experts in the field in what is starting to be termed “Food as Medicine.” It is gaining traction more in the concierge medicine area than the mainstream procedures, pills, and prescriptions realm, which points to a major deficiency in the U.S. healthcare model. Two of the medical experts whom I have found on point are Dr. John McDougall and Dr. Joel Fuhrmann.
I will be publishing a Substack article on the educational design of McDougall’s online course approach in the coming weeks. In researching that article, it has become quite clear that the deck is stacked against good nutrition by the processed food industry. The billions of dollars of ads and other marketing such as packaging and product placement are hard to overcome.
A very interesting set of videos on the topic is the current Better Life Summit (https://www.youtube.com/live/viht0mU6d94?si=oJxOWfBqzcRFSbGf).
Your eating pattern actually follows another recommendation often called “The Buddha Diet.” The approach involves daily intermittent fasting by restricting the times we eat to just a few hours a day. A typical goal is to restrict caloric intake to a 6, 7, or 8 hour window. As long as the person is eating foods that are low in caloric density such as wet starches and vegetables one will feel satiated and never really be hungry. Buddhists for reasons of history do not always follow the best plant-based, whole food diet. The plateaus of Tibet are not prime growing terrain for vegetables. But we know better now and can avoid the meat, dairy, and eggs that some Buddhists eat.
For a whole lot more information on this subject check out Michael Greger's new book "How Not To Age. Over 600 pages of research. He concludes that most of the benefits of protein restriction are due to the reduction of the amino acid Methionine.
Dear Thom
You have my endless admiration for everything that you provide through your books and programs—except when it comes to your ideas about diet.
Case in point being this article, which suggests that if we reduce our protein intake and go vegan or vegetarian we can live longer and save the planet.
There are several issues you ignore:
1. You don’t distinguish between industrially-raised meat and pasture-raised and regenerative ag. In the case of beef, you say that “we have to grow grains and vegetables to feed them.” We don’t, if they are finished on pasture, which is increasingly the health-based, environmentally responsible trend. And that 2500 water number you cite is mostly RAIN.
2. None of your information about feedlot meats is helpful when industrial ag is a key driver of the climate crisis, as it kills soils, destroys ecosystems and the life therein, causes drought, and pollutes water around the world. You should be advocating the opposite if you want to heal the planet.
3. Furthermore, bear in mind that if people want to eat healthy plants, they’ll buy organic – which crops are fertilized with ANIMAL MANURE. Soil that has no life in it does not grow healthy plants.
4. Audubon Society logically has this label on their beef in supermarkets in 19 states: NO COWS, NO GRASS, NO BIRDS.
5. Check out ancestral nutritionist Mary Ruddick and her life and work with indigenous tribes around the world. They live to 100 or more because they eat meat, not the opposite. Only when they start to eat the Western diet does their health break down. (Also, Mary confirms in several interviews that the Blue Zones are a myth created by researchers who have no experience with the tribes year-round and who have an agenda to sell the plant-based diet): https://youtu.be/Mk_z2cNJAjs?si=xttvOdUy_tBPMu_1
6. It’s wrong, I believe, to inspire people to buy a supplement and think that it’s going to slow their aging process. Such practices against the backdrop of our profoundly unhealthy diets and lifestyle are just throwing money away. There has to be a total dietary, mindset, and lifestyle shift to make a difference, not just a supplement. Such shifts take months—or years, to really heal. I believe it’s inappropriate to not give a full picture of what’s involved.
7. Finally, you should be aware that there is an extraordinary shift going on in the field of mental health, including ADHD, bipolar, pathological depression, schizophrenia and more. Turns out that such conditions are not the result of chemical imbalances in the brain, but a problem with brain metabolism. Check out MetabolicMind.org. Turns out that the ketogenic diet is putting people with lifelong conditions into remission. It’s a meat-based diet that is low carb – moderate protein – high fat. A diet that has been used since the 1920s to help control seizures in people with a diagnosis of epilepsy.
With respect,
Rondi Lightmark
So called regenerative agriculture or rotational grazing as well as free-range, grass fed, cage free are just advertising terms brought to us by the meat, dairy and egg industry. They are greenwashing and part of the humane hoax. As the saying goes "there is no right way to do the wrong thing." Some of these methods may be a very tiny bit better for the animals. But in the end they wind up in the very same slaughter houses. There is nothing good that happens in slaughter houses. Raising animals anyway you do it causes extreme animal suffering and wastes massive amounts of land, food, energy and water. Pasture raised cattle are actually worse for the environment than feed lot raised animals (and believe me I do not advocate either).These animals require more land, as they move around a lot. The get more exercise, so they require more feed and a lot more water. The United Nations told us years ago in their report "Livestock's Long Shadow," that animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gasses than ALL forms of transportation combined. Other studies have shown that the problem is even worse. Animal agriculture destroys forests, wetlands and other wildlife habitat. Irrigation for the crops used to raise animals for food is the largest consumer of piped water in the U.S. Animal waste does not go into sewers, but in huge lagoons. It eventually winds up destroying rivers, lakes, oceans and reefs. Raising animals for food is a very inefficient way to feed people: cycling crops through animals and then eating the animals, instead of just raising the crops for food. A whole-food vegan diet is not some woo- woo thing. The science is clear that it is the best thing for our health. Following this diet can not only prevent, but actually reverse heart disease, the #1 cause of premature death. As Kim Williams, MD, past President of the American College of Cardiologists has told us "There are two kinds of cardiologists. Vegan doctors and those who have not read the literature." Generally there is no need for supplements...except for Vitamin B12. It comes from bacteria. We live in a generally clean environment so we don't get the B12. We also don;t get cholera either, which is a good thing. If one lives in a cold climate with little sun in the winter Vitamin D might be required. Otherwise supplements can sometimes unbalance your system and cause other health problems. Studies have shown that supplements often do not contain what is on the label. I went Vegan over 32 years ago ( and a few years vegetarian before that). I can honestly say that it was probably the best decision I have ever made. At 75 I have no major health problems and take no medications ( I did get all my COVID vaccinations though). Friends I grew up with who still eat the Standard American Diet (SAD Diet) have many many bad health problems and take numerous medications.
“So called regenerative agriculture or rotational grazing as well as free-range, grass fed, cage free are just advertising terms brought to us by the meat, dairy and egg industry. They are greenwashing and part of the humane hoax. As the saying goes "there is no right way to do the wrong thing." “
No Stephen, they are terms that speak to the restoration of soils around the globe, the way Nature intended, in a symbiotic relationship. Ruminants built the soils of the world, which is why they exist on every continent except Antarctica. Overgrazing, plowing and deforestation destroyed the soils—we have less than 50% of the groundcover that the Earth had originally. Dead soils are dry soils. Dry soils have no relationship with the water cycle, thus, the planet is drying up – from Great Salt Lake to the Panama Canal. Only by restoring soils and ecosystems with different management practices with ruminants, other animals and other soil management practices can we heal the planet. There is even a ranch in Mexico that has restored so much moisture in the soil with managed grazing, it only rains above that land, and everywhere else is desert. https://youtu.be/ANZNt8LXM6o?si=tBA_qHVYFSjgh-G2
If you don’t understand these relationships, you are a big part of the problem. For example, according to the World Wildlife fund: https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/grassland-decline-continues-at-alarming-pace-with-1-6-million-acres-of-the-great-plains-destroyed-in-2021-alone.
The government is working towards restoration to an extent, teaching how to change plowing methods for example, and teaching managed grazing to restore soils. I agree that slaughter houses are terrible places for industrially raised cattle. But on regenerative farms and ranches, there are more humane practices in place. And on such farms the land is healthier, thus the animals are healthier, thus the product is healthier.
“Livestock’s Long Shadow” and its hyped data has since been debunked. The “more greenhouse gases than ALL forms of transportation” for example. That piece of data came from measuring the entire life cycle of an animal and then comparing it ONLY with the emissions from the tailpipe of a car. Crazy. Nothing about the mining, processing, producing, etc. of our vehicles. Just comparing a cow burp to a tailpipe emission.
The real story: according to the Environmental Protection Agency, agriculture in ALL forms (not just livestock raising), contributes 10% of US greenhouse gas emissions, including livestock, commercial agriculture and rice growing. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
Also: livestock are a constantly renewable resource which deliver products from their carcasses that are invaluable. Without livestock, all of those products, from leather to pet food to bone meal, blood meal for organic fertilizer, to heart valves, to gelatin for vitamin coatings, plasma protein, crayons, candles, floor wax, shaving cream, lubricants, tennis strings, insulin, epinephrin and much more...will then become industrially made (probably with plastic), increasing CO2 emissions from industry, toxic chemicals in environment. Real leather can last for centuries. Fake plastic leather, only 3-5 years.
Vegan diets can work for some and I’m glad it has worked for you. But it is especially problematical for women and is not recommended for women trying to get pregnant, for young children and teenagers and as well as for some elders.
If your whole foods vegan diet is organic, then most of it was fertilized with animal manure.