The Science:-
Funded by the $multibillion animal product industries plus the junk food and refined sugar industries.
The WHO:-
Unelected officials with financial ties to Pharma and funded by billionaires.
The Journals:-
Owned by Pharma.
Nutritionists and Doctors:-
Medical training in nutrition is very limited and all medical schools are funded by pharma. Naturopathy training funded by the $billion supplement industry, and more lately by big animal ag.
Legacy media:-
Carries pharmaceutical, animal flesh, dairy and junk food industry advertisements and receives money from them. Sensationalises studies and uses misleading headlines. Life threatening conditions caused by eating disorders and lack of calories or B12 conflated with the alleged dangers of a vegan diet.
Meat and dairy industries:-
Heavily subsidised and has huge and well organised lobbying power. Laws in some US states make it illegal to expose proven cases of animal abuse, as is harmful to the industry. Funds science and cardiologists and openly discuss ways to neutralised negative impression of saturated fat; which thousands of studies show is positively associated with heart disease. Studies comparing a high fat diet, with an even higher fat diet or with a diet high in white flour and refined sugar will show no difference in outcomes, this does not show that fat is not harmful. Serum cholesterol levels will plateau on a high fat Western diet, making additional dietary intake appear to have no impact, this does not show that cholesterol is not harmful. Now, even more absurdly, claims are made of dangers of fat deficiency in vegans.
It is almost impossible to do randomised, placebo controlled studies, the gold standard of evidence, lasting for more than a few weeks on the effects of diet. This is used by the industry to cast doubt on many well designed, decades long, observational studies involving thousands of people. For example meta-analysis clearly show that increased consumption of meat, particularly red and processed meat is positively associated with increased risk of developing cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Industry funded front groups claim that the observational form of evidence is weak, and make recommendations for the continued consumption of red and processed meat. These tactics are taken straight out of the tobacco industry playbook.
Over 80% of the animals in the industry are factory farmed. The sewage waste is immense and highly toxic. Run off into oceans destroys oxygen producing plankton and ecosystems. Forests, which produce the oxygen that keeps us alive, are cleared and land needed for food is taken from indigenous populations to raise grass-fed meat for those in the developed world who can afford it, or grow soy for factory farmed animals, for those who can’t. The ‘right’ to eat this way is a privilege of the well off at the expense of the less well off, the developing world and all the animals involved in the industry, as well as wild animals slaughtered and species made extinct by land clearing. About 20 times less land is needed to feed people directly from the soil.
The dairy industry is part of the dead animal industry; there is no ethical or humane way to take a baby away from its mother, who will often cry for days while her precious, awaited baby is fed mixed colostrum through a plastic tube. Once she is exhausted (no longer able to produce milk, after about her 7th pregnancy), a cow is made into burgers.
It is well documented in meta- analysis that cows milk consumption is positively associated with prostate cancer, the most common cancer in men in the US, where there is about double the risk of getting cancer and up to a 4 times the risk of metastatic or fatal cancer for high dairy consumers compared to low. There is some evidence that breast fed babies whose mothers eliminated eggs, dairy and fish have lower chances of developing asthma. Early exposure to cow’s milk is positively associated with T1 diabetes.
Fishing industry:- Marine mammals have been massacred for eating fish, but now we ourselves have exhausted most of the oceans. All oceans and consequently fish are filled with heavy metals, and nearly 50% of ocean plastic pollution is discarded fishing equipment. Migrant workers are subjected to human rights violations in the deep sea trawling industry.
The evidence for eating fish for CVD prevention applies only to those having already had a heart attack and is probably in response to removal of red meat and not the addition of fish. Farmed fish are pumped full of antibiotics to keep them alive, their biological imperative being thwarted they sink to the bottom and their grey flesh must be dyed pink to make it palatable.
Poultry:-Free range hens now have more vaccines than caged because of bird flu hoaxes, all chicks have multiple vaccines. ‘Free range’ denotes four metres square each; though thousands of chickens can be kept in the same facility, not necessarily with access to the outdoors or to daylight. Male chicks are crushed alive at a day old. . All chickens; free range or not have the ends of their beaks cut off to prevent them pecking each other and have been bred with such an enlarged breast area they can barely stand by time of slaughter. Many arrive at the slaughter house with at least one broken leg.
Pharma:-
Meat and dairy and Pharma are one and the same industry; farmed animals are given 80% of the worlds antibiotics and trillions of vaccines. Eating dead animals is supporting Big Pharma.
Cholesterol levels, measured by the $trillion dollar testing industry, instead of being lowered with good dietary advice are lowered with statins, another $trillion industry. Statins block the liver enzyme the body uses to make cholesterol (there is zero need for it in the diet). The brain is mostly fat, so no wonder statins cause dementia and confusion. It is not logical to cite the adverse outcomes of using toxic drugs to lower cholesterol, nor the uselessness of inserting stents into major vessels, to claim that raising cholesterol is not harmful. Cholesterol is harmful, particularly in its harmful oxidised form in cheese and dead flesh, it can form plaques which break off forming clots which pierce and damage vessels. Low cholesterol is correlated with poor outcomes but is not causative, cancer patients for example have low cholesterol.
Junk food:-
I think we can all agree on this. Though we have allowed the take away food industry in the UK to double in the past 2 years.
Fake meat:-
A growing junk food industry. Contains weird chemicals. Will keep us fat, sick and on drugs. Funded by billionaires with financial ties to Pharma.
Keto:-
A $trillion industry cashing in on an initial rapid loss of lean muscle mass and water. On this diet there is an increased risk of exposure to pesticides which bioaccumulate in animal flesh and milk and are linked to Parkinsons and Alzheimers. Even if organic, the animal and the crops eaten will be as close as 660ft to chemically sprayed crops. The diet seems to require many supplements (27 according to one protocol) when just some fruit would suffice, big win for the $billion industry supplement industry. The keto diet has little fibre for the microbiome, which is important for every aspect of health and which functions best with about 100gms of fibre/ day No long term (over 24 weeks) studies on health effects and these studies cannot show that participants were able to maintain the diet for this long.
Carnivores have short intestines as rotting meat must be eliminated quickly. Humans (at this stage of our evolution) have fairly long colons for surface area for the microbiome and absorption of nutrients from plant sources and are not suited to handle more than a small amount of cancer causing rotting dead flesh.
We are told that nomadic tribes eating mostly meat and eskimos living on raw fish have none of our health problems. This may be because they only live to about 40. Studies show that they also have terrible heart disease and atherosclerosis.
The keto diet has not been shown in studies to slow cancer growth. All cells use sugar, not just cancer cells and many cancers actually seem to feed on cholesterol.
High fat consumption is associated with heart disease, the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes (which is caused by accumulation of fat in muscle cells), diabetic neuropathy and blindness, increased IGF-1 production (which may promote cancer growth), and also increased in acid load and hyper-filtration in the kidneys, which may lead to chronic kidney disease.
The keto diet can cause constipation, irritability, problems sleeping and brain fog due to the brain’s preference for sugar as fuel. It has been shown to be effective for those with epilepsy because, like lobotomy, it seems to shut down parts of the brain.
Slaughter houses and meat packing:- A human rights issue as much as an animal rights one. No CCT cameras are allowed. Low paid workers are economically forced to do the worst job in the world, killing sentient beings all day and many experience violent thoughts that affect their lives. Animal abuses have been documented in all slaughter houses, whether the animals are organic and grass fed or not.
Whole food plant based vegan:-
No subsidies and no lobbying power. Very little to no mark up. Until recently heavily criticised in legacy media, for example vegans were accused of cutting down the rain forest to grow soy; over 85 % of which is in fact grown to feed farmed animals. Claims that an animal wouldn’t have had a life if not intended for consumption are bogus; if the land for grazing had not been cleared millions of wild horses, wolves and bison would have lived instead. Grazing animals enhancing depleted soils is a fallacy; water must be added to a system and it is the action of bacteria, fungi and plants, not animals, which nourishes the soil. Who says using all the hill land that can’t be cultivated for grazing is a good thing, can’t we let some other species live there instead? Regeneratively grown plant crops do not deplete soils. Composted human manure is perfectly adequate to fertilise plant crops and there’s lots of it readily available. It takes considerably less land, water and energy to feed humans with plants directly from the soil, and is far less disruptive to the soil structure, than feeding them through the energy inefficient bodies of other animals to make the luxuries of dead flesh, milk and eggs. Far less forests need be cleared, less taken from developing nations and far less species made extinct by eating food from the soil directly.
The industry funded Weston A Price foundation has decades of industry funded misleading research to call upon and has made ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims about the inadequacy of plant based diets.
Strong anti vegan backlash on keto social media, the Light ‘truth’ paper and in the Health Freedom movement in general, claiming that the massive health benefits of whole food plant based for arthritis, diabetes, heart disease and depression have been debunked, that plants are tasteless and bland and that vegan diets are outright dangerous!. Everyone can find fruits, vegetables and legumes that they find delicious. All plant cells contain all the essential amino acids, though in different concentrations. Everything needed eg iron (in the less toxic non-heme form), cholesterol, collagen, choline and protein is easily found and made in the optimum amounts by the body from plant sources. Only B12 must be supplemented; it is made by bacteria in the soil and not by animals.
Fibre, only found in plants, feeds the microbiome which is essential to our existence and protects against cancer, depression, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, eczema, IBD, IBS, systemic inflammation and more.
A fibre rich diet has been shown to improve behaviour in autistic people. The microbiome switches genes on and off, controls inflammatory cells and allergies, feeds colonocytes and produces short chain fatty acids which make us feel satisfied, full and happy.
Most importantly the vegan diet aims to reduce the suffering of others, especially our very close relatives, as much as possible.
Who gets to decide what is the best diet?
We all do ourselves of course, only please check out who is making a killing first.
Jo
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A person should eat what is best for their individual bodies. Let people become interested and educated about nutrition and learn how their own body function benefits from their own body’s preferential and what your micro biome does for keeping your body at health. Listen to your body. Be closer to nature, meaning eat after seasonal grows.
Reinvent real food without the chemicals, colouring and sugaring. Learn how to say no to bad food by reading the contents, more than five things added, put it back on the shelf. Reclaim good things from the food industry, they are always sensitive to less demand.
Go back to basic farming and do away with all the greed that comes with the large scale industries. Support your local farmers.
Do away with GMOs that causes negative things in your body. Say no to them. You must be your own inventor.
Take a cooking course or just do a cook out yourself with other people, it is fun.
If you hate cooking, find someone that loves it.
Make food shopping as important as when you go for the newest car and connect yourself in real life with doing away with the ‘smart’ phones and look your friends and family in the eyes instead of glue them down to your control device invented to take away your focus of what it is to be human and embrace that beautiful soul of yours.
Jo, brilliant piece. I have been taken in by...so many things. All the while thinking it is not so.
Truth is also mirage. It's very hard to locate "truth." There are very very real people who have documented that vegan diet "almost killed them," etc. I listen to everybody. But anyway, I'm going vegan. Today's the day. Thank you!