That’s right. I’m officially Almost-Vegan. They say it takes three weeks to make your body feel like it’s almost necessary to do it, or in better words, easier to do it. Tony Robbins on the last day of his 4 day (50 hours of talking) event, decided to pitch his thoughts on health, and oh boy was he convincing, but absolutely right. Before anything, we must take care of our bodies and feel at 100% right? Because if our bodies aren’t how we want them, or if we feel like shit, how are we going to get motivated to build our business? Well, he spent the next 10 hours straight educating us on what you all pretty much know… What we’re eating is complete and absolute crap. Fast food, eating out even, the liquids we consume, and so on. Everything I was eating was 100% horrible even when I thought I was “eating good.” Anything from man-made chemical poison, to processed fats (frozen foods, fast foods, snacks), to refined whites (white breads,pastas,sugars,rice). He broke it down so well, and explained to us how everything we’re putting in our body is so bad for us. We are poisoning ourselves and our children from the day they’re born. Fuck I could go on and on because I love health and food. It’s almost a second passion of mine, it’s just so difficult to stop what we been conditioned to love, fatty chemically cooked food and liquids.
After his 10 hour speech, I was sold after his meat speech, oh god… He didn’t even talk about the slaughterhouses, it was all about how bad meat really is for us, and where the flavor comes from. Uric acid in the animals blood as their slaughtered, and the blood is not fully drained from the animals. Did you know the flavor of meat we’re enjoying oh so much is the flavor of the animals piss (Uric acid). Oh god and the dairy part! You know, and have known we’re the only animals on this planet drinking breast milk as adults! Every other animal on this planet stops drinking breast milk after their infant stages, and do you see other animals drinking other animals breast milk? No, just us. I’ve even known this, just figured the FDA was in our best interest, or just never pictured my physical fucking mouth sucking on Cow titties, sucking milk from their udder, not to mention the chemicals they add to milk actually prevents you from “getting strong bones,” it actually sucks the calcium straight from you, so you’re not really even getting the calcium benefits from milk, it’s hurting you. Oh god, it almost makes me sad to even think about how we’re poisoning ourselves every day.
So he pitched his 10 day challenge, which he didn’t even mention the word Vegan/Vegetarian, he just simply pointed out what’s bad for our bodies, which is very close to Vegan, except fish is allowed. Anyways, I was sold, and he gave us a 10 day challenge. I’m now on day 21 without high fructose corn syrup (or any refined sugar), refined whites (only brown), alcohol, caffeine, dairy, meat, eggs, or any food/liquids with pesticides/added hormones/or fancy ass chemicals that are linked to cancer, which is pretty much everything I was eating. That’s right, I’m almost 1 month completely sober of any fucking drug, and it was tough. Really tough, those first 10-15 days I was having some intense cravings, and I had to eat a salad…
I have drank 100 ounces of water every single day for the last 21 days as well, half my body weight in ounces. The first 2 weeks was a living hell, let alone we were in fucking Maui 4 days later, and we made a promise with Tony to commit to the 10 day challenge, so we did even while on our 8 day vacation. Fuck was it hard, I almost cheated quite a few times, because my conditioning was to crave yummy fucking fatty greasy acidy foods. So we went to the grocery store out there and stocked up on all organic food in our little hotel, and cooked for ourselves every day which really included only salads and fruits, haha.
When I got home from Maui, I deleted/trashed EVERYTHING IN MY HOUSE and I stocked up my fridge with ONLY and ALL organic foods, only brown rices/flours/breads (nothing refined). All organic canned veggies, frozen veggies/fruits, fresh fruits, fresh produce, tofu substitutes for sandwich meat, veggie patties for hamburgers, etc… And now I feel like a fucking Vegan pro, because I just made the most awesome Vegan Gyros with my own homemade Vega Tzatziki sauce. It is not even a thought anymore to crave restaurants, fast food, bad foods, sodas, coffee, etc…
I even switched my shower head to a 5-stage filter so I only shower in filtered water, just google what you’re showering in. I switched my deodorant to an organic one, because did you know you’re rubbing “Aluminum” into your armpits? Google that too, it’s linked to cancer. I asked myself if all this shit is linked to cancer, why the fuck is it in everything we buy? Pick some books up, and educate yourself. Tony changed my life, not just the Vegan part, the first 3 days were insane. I changed all my soaps, shampoos, conditioners, laundry detergent, dish soap, EVERYTHING to organic. I only drink filtered water from a 5-stage filter, not a 2-stage like Brita. Now some of you might think I’ve gone overboard, but hey, if I’m going to test this theory of my immune system boosting, not needing to pop pills for every little problem, and most likely never getting colds/flus again. I’m going to go all the way.
How do I feel? Well the first 2 weeks I felt like fucking shit without caffeine, or wine, or my fatty foods. But now I wake up bright ass fucking early, 7AM every morning feeling ALIVE, ready to work, ready to do anything. I start to get tired around midnight, but feel great throughout the entire day, minus the first 2 weeks. I feel myself getting healthier, and I feel better about myself, oh and I’ve lost 14 pounds of FAT. I was 195-197 before Tony Robbins. Now I’m 181-182. Now that I have the Vegan eating on lockdown, and it doesn’t feel difficult, it’s time to start my workout regimen. Fucking fresh veggies, fruits taste like fucking amazing to me. Meat smells like ass now in the stores, and people smell fucking horrible. Not needing caffeine or alcohol to be ready to thrive during the day is quite fucking nice. I use to laugh at Vegans (not literally, but at the thought of it), I would ask them how the fuck do you not eat meat? Now I know, it’s easy, it’s poison, it’s not to meant to pass through or digestion system, it’s so bad on your body and digestion system.
Now I’m not truly Vegan, because I still eat fish such as salmon, tuna, etc, for the omegas, and other health benefits. I still wear clothes made from animals, lol. So it’s more of, I follow what common sense says to eat now, not what we’ve been programmed to eat and conditioned to stuff our faces with.
What I completely avoid:
White anything (sugars,flours,breads,pastas)
Fake sugars (high fructose, corn syrup, etc.)
Animal meats (cow,lamb,chicken,pork,buffalo,etc.)
Alcohol
Caffeine
Processed fats (fast food, most restaurants, fried food, frozen packaged foods-unless organic,trans fat,hydrogenated oils)
Dairy completely (milk,cream,butter,yogurt,cheese)
Anything from animals (eggs)
What I can eat: (I choose to eat organic only at least 95% of the time)
Brown rice, sugar, pastas, breads, tortillas
Potatoes! Sweet, red, whatever
Beans!
Fish
Soy/Tofu substitutes (soy milk, soy meats, soy based fake dairy products, soy cheese, etc.)
Almond/Rice substitues (rice milk/cheese, almond milk/cheese, etc.)
Vegetables
Fruits
Almonds, nuts, etc.
All kinds of other fancy shit, agave nectar, flax, cane sugar, yeast
Skys the limit, I just need to read the ingredients, and make sure it doesn’t have processed fats (trans fat, hydrogenated oils), meat, dairy, fake sugar, anything refined, or any weird unknown mad-made chemicals, hormones, or pesticides (LOL good luck on that right?)
I have made a lot of dishes I enjoyed in the past, in a Vegan way, and it’s fucking delicious. If any of you are considering or have been considering eating better, because you care about what you put into your body. I strongly advise you do it now, because it will to late 5-15 years from now when you’ve been stuffing the same chemicals in your body every single day for years on end.
Well there you have it, my almost-Vegan challenge! Below are just a few samples of things my girlfriend and I made.
Thanksgiving
* Salmon, sweet potatoes, kale salad
Vegan Burger
* Rice cheese, Vegan mayonnaise
Vegan Enchiladas
* Homemade enchilad sauce, corn tortillas, rice cheese, homemade Guacamole, vegan sour cream
I must say, I hate that it takes 9238752 years to post a new blog, but when you DO…Wow, mind blowing and LIFE CHANGING. You never cease to amaze.
Glad you liked it
Thank you! I know it takes me long to blog sometimes, I’m working on it 
Hey,
What song was it you had on Bemodels prelaunch page? The one with pink and black and countdown with seconds..
I loved it, would be great if you would share the name!
Thanks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZJ9ZJq_oLk
Say goodbye to your muscle mass with your vegan diet, plus not being able to eat at 99% of restaurants — I hope you enjoy manboobs too.
I rather like high fat, low-carb (some like the paleolithic diet, but more dairy), I’ve not only been healthier than ever on it, but it’s helped a lot with my body building.
Good for you Eric. But you’re absolutely wrong. Google Vegan bodybuilders. I don’t need breast milk and dead carcasses to gain muscle, obviously you’re brainwashed by what the media says. I’ll be just as toned and built as I want to be eating whole live foods.
You are a real solid due man, always learning. I follow you’re material from a distance, as I enjoy reading experiences of other successful young people. The diet shit is definitely important, I was the same way figuring out the bs. Check out the book “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration”. I think you would really like it; it gets into a study by a dentists about indigenious culture diet, the ones who had perfect bodies and abilities, but their actual kids DEGENERATED from eating bad food. Anyways, keep it solid man.
Thanks man, glad you think so =]
I’ll be sure to check the book out.
I know vegan body builders exist, but how many were vegan /before/ becoming body builders? Basically none, they’re lucky because they’ve got the genetics to allow for looking great while eating garbage. All those carbohydrates turn to sugar in your GI tract. The media tells me that high carb food is good for me, so I don’t know how that makes me brainwashed, considering the grain industry basically influences everything the US. If i’m saying grain is bad, how am I brainwashed by the media which is essentially loaded on Special K and Cheerios? You certainly see a lot of commercials, ads, and promotion that you need to eat more like you, than eating mostly meat and diary like me. So, who’s the one falling for what the media says then?
I never said carbs were not good, so are you saying you think all carbs are good? Refined and white? Obviously fruits, veggies, and whole grains, whole wheats are absolutely essential carbs to life, I knew that before my -almost vegan expedition.- So I’m not saying you’re brainwashed because of carbs. I’m saying we believe meat and dairy is good for us when it’s really not. If I need to post a blog on my thoughts of what I have learned in the past 35 days, I will to defend meat and dairy, but really it’s common sense.
Cows milk is for baby calfs. An animal that is born at 90lbs and grown up to 1500lbs in 2 years? You know humans baby milk is a stream for fat so we can grow, and we stop drinking it when were not infants, so why does it make sense to drink the hormones of a 1500lb animal. That’s why americans are fat, 50-70% of the reason is dairy, the rest is processed fats such as fast food and convenient frozen foods. If you want to defend dairy, go ahead, but you know the USDA food pyramid is actually backed by the dairy board. Pick a book up called “The China Study.”
Meat, now come on, really, dead animals? I can go on and on and on, so I’d rather write a blog on it. But if you honestly think animal protein is necessary to life and growing muscle, I call that denial, because there a bunch of Vegan body builders who have been and kept maintaining insane muscle from plant protein, and bean protein. For YEARS, and if you’re telling me maintaining muscle for 5-20 years on plant protein isn’t enough proof, then I don’t know what is. Let alone, every Vegan I’ve ever encountered and spoke too including my own father, hasn’t been “sick” or had the “flu” in 5+ years.
And on and on and on…
I’m also not “Vegan.” I eat fish.
I was saying carbohydrates are bad, not good. You do not need carbohydrates to live at all — that’s a scientific fact (http://www.ajcn.org/content/75/5/951.2.full).
The media doesn’t tell us that meat and dairy are good for us, considering that recently there were several stories across the major news networks claiming that diets like the Ornish Diet and the Esselstyn Diet are the best ways to cure heart disease and prevent diabetes, and these are both vegan-based diets. Lest we forget all of the constant media attention of how important it is to eat whole grains and to avoid red meat.
Carbohydrates make you fat if you don’t burn them off, fat doesn’t make you fat. This is why you can drink whole milk and eat steak every night and you’d still lose weight so long as you weren’t consuming more than several net carbohydrates a day (net = carbs – fiber). This is the basis for diets like Atkins, which certainly do work and reverse diabetes and heart disease.
Cow milk is indeed for baby calves, but cow hormones do not affect humans, it doesn’t work that way, this is a myth perpetrated by the very media you claimed I might be brainwashed by, in the mid 1990s. The claim was that girls started menstruating earlier because of cow hormones, when it was in fact because girls were fatter, but why were they fatter? Well, they’re eating les meat and fat then they used to, but they’re eating a lot more carbs.
Humans are not meant to eat mostly grain diets, in fact not even cows can eat those diets. Consider for a moment that we feed our dogs and cats high carb foods instead of pure meat like they’d eat in nature, and it’s no wonder that obesity is hugely on the rise in house pets too. Of course we aren’t carnivores, but we are predators and meat eaters (see evolution, eyes in front, cunning, and intelligence).
Humans didn’t have farming until about 10,000 years ago, and for the last 200,000 years we ate a diet of about 80% meat and 20% other stuff.
The food pyramid is obsolete, but it was actually majorly funded by grain associations, which is why the biggest blocks on the pyramid were all grain blocks, dairy was one of the smallest. The same is true for the “My Plate” that recently replaced it.
I’ve read the China Study, what’s interesting about that study is it’s wrong, it’s a fabrication, and in fact this was debunked by a raw food vegan:
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/
Further, you can’t compare people from different backgrounds in such a way, because Asiatic people have eaten high carb diets much longer and can handle them much better than Europeans or Africans, so the same information cannot easily be compared, even though the information the China study provided was completely inaccurate.
Meat, yes, dead animals. Why is that shocking? Farming isn’t sustainable, every time the ground is plowed up, about 2,000 years of top soil is destroyed. However how many millions of years have animals roamed the world on diets of each other? At least the last 180 million.
Neolithic man was taller and had better teeth than people born after the introduction of farming, all the way until the 20th century. What does that tell you about farming versus meat consumption? There’s a reason meat tastes great to us and eating unflavored grains isn’t great at all, because it wasn’t meant to be that way. In fact a vegan has written extensively on the history of the human and pre-human diets and why we’re meant to eat meat (he’s vegan for religious reasons only):
http://www.beyondveg.com/
http://www.beyondveg.com/cat/paleodiet/index.shtml
The fact that humans spent the vast majority of their existence eating meat says that eating meat is natural, not eating highly processed plants, which is no wonder, since the 1970s the US government has promoted high carb diets officially, and you can track the rise in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc in there.
I suggest you check out two books: “Wheat Belly” by William Davis and “The Vegetarian Myth” by Lierre Keith.
If you’re not interested in reading or don’t have the time (I imagine you don’t have that kind of time right now) check out a movie called Fat Head, you can get it on most Pay Per View networks now or, dare I say, download it on a torrent site. The blog is also full of great information, and I check this blog daily, in fact the only two blogs I check daily are yours and his:
http://fathead-movie.com/
There’s a million other things I could talk about, but I don’t really want to waste your time. I know you’re quite busy.
I will submit that you can indeed be a body builder on a vegan diet, I didn’t deny that, but it’s extremely difficult and not very much fun at all. I enjoy eggs, meat, and whole milk, and I don’t have to worry about going the extra mile to burn the carbs off if I had a vegan diet. You can find plenty of vegan horror stories. I know you said you eat fish, but if the vast majority of your diet is the same as a vegan one, there’s little difference. You can make it work, but it’ll take more work than simply eating the way humans are supposed to. There were no soy bean farms for most of human existence.
Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of reasons to be vegan or vegetarian, but health and the environment are the absolute last reasons to do so.
I didn’t get a chance to say this before though. I’m not trying to give you a bunch of bull, I’m just trying to give a different perspective. I love your web site and I wish you’d post more often, I’m a web site entrepreneur myself, and so your success is very inspiring.
What you’re saying is interesting, it’s not actually wasting my time. But it all seems to come down to what stories and studies you want to believe. You’re passing me stories and films on arguments against what I believe, and I could easily pass scientific studies, nutrition studies, blog studies, personal stories, doctors stories, short films, long films, live events, etc… to prove my point against your beliefs.
PS. I never said anything about carbs being the answer, I was just saying carbs are great. And I sure as hell don’t believe eating mostly grains, I don’t know how we got that misunderstanding. I believe a 70% live food diet, or water based foods, 70% veggies/fruits, 30% grains,fish,meat in your case. Whatever we choose to eat, 70% of it should be water based foods and or/live foods (veggies and fruits). The other 30% could be chicken, steak, etc… The goal is to balance your pH, because as you know eating that crap (meat and even fish) produces acid in your body. Having an extreme acidic body like I did caused increase potential to getting sick quicker, fatigue, feeling crap, craving fatty foods, gassy, smelly, etc. Now that I eat 70% veggies, and 100 ounces of water a day, my armpits barely smell, I could not shower for 3 days and not smell, and I’m only on day 37.
Of course dogs are suppose to eat meat, they’re carnivores. And wherever you’re getting the idea that humans are carnivores is beyond me. If that is what you believe, then please film yourself doing as nature intended. You’re not allowed to use any weapons/traps/knives, or build any tools. You need to hunt an animal with your bare fingernails and eat it with your teeth as nature intended for all animals (I’m sure your jaw will snap before you can open an animal up with your jaw/teeth anyways). Let me know if that rotting dead carcass in front of you sounds appetizing with blood and guts all over your face, and please film it to prove that we may in fact be carnivores. You said the way nature intended, this is nature, cut back the bullshit technology and tools, and be a man on your own and go eat an animal with no help.
Is your first reaction when you see a fat ass ugly cow on the highway, omfg that would be so good if I went and charged at it, ripped it apart and fucking ate it with my bare teeth. I highly doubt it. Us humans love the convenience of how its slaughtered automatically for us, and packaged neatly, and cooked and seasoned. Oh and it’s a scientific fact the flavor in meat is from PISS AND SHIT (Uric acid and leftover from the colon) during the process of killing the animals. Try eating kosher, no blood, no flavor. Now we can all deny that we’re not eating piss and shit, but it’s a “scientific fact” in the stories I’ve read and heard. The flavor in the blood that we love so much is in fact Uric Acid. Go eat a cow raw how nature intended, and tell me if tastes good.
Nature did not intend man to build weapons to hunt and eat animals, roast it on a fire, and package it neatly, and flavor it with sauce and spices, and neatly touch it up with leaves, did it? I like to think not. Common sense tells me, our intelligence is to build tools to defend ourselves, not eat animals. I mean, if other animals can hunt without tools, and we’re considered an animal? Specifically a mammal, shouldn’t we be eating meat the same way the other species do. Or maybe we’re like Gorillas, one of the strongest animals, who lives off of… Plants. That’s my belief.
Every study I’ve come to believe are the ones that dairy and meat are linked with higher risk to cancer, illness, fatigue, obesity, etc… Like I said, everything you sent me, is just another study, or someones belief, whether it’s “scientific” or not. Neither of us were there, neither of us are the trial patients. I have 500 articles that argue and have evidence and just enough proof that your “research” has. You know what I mean?
It comes down just simply what we each believe. We both know it’s a fact cow milk is not our milk, and it’s a pathway for fat/nutrients for calves to grow to 1000lbs. We both know cow milk is made of mucus, and we both know cow milk leeches nutrients from your body. You also know that when ever you get sick, you’re suppose to stop drinking milk. I like to take the common sense corner, and see the simple things now, and realize that hey, maybe us humans are taking advantage of our “intelligence” and just eating and drinking anything we can get our hands on. Because I sure as hell cannot picture man 1000 years ago drinking cow milk from the udders, just sucking away.
I will definitely read and watch what you sent me. The China Study review looks like it’s from a 21 year old girl with no degree or real “practice” in nutrition, however the means nothing and I know I could be 100% wrong, but the fact remains, she’s running studies just on herself and coming up with these theories on her own with only “ONE” test subject? Oh wow, she reads 7 hours a day, but where is the lab, and blood results to see what’s actually doing what to your body. Acid or Alkaline? On and on right? And she is still a “RAW” food consumer with only “light” amounts of meat. I wonder why she only does “light” amounts of meat? Oh because it’s absolutely horrible on your digestive tract, and our bodies are not meant to break down meat.
However, these are the stories I believe. I have 1,000 books, and scientific studies to prove my point as well, but we will just debate forever about our beliefs, because it really comes down to a belief at this point.
Don’t you think so? Because I know you’ll just come right back with arguments, but I’m simply never going to agree, because I’ve read and heard enough to shape my new beliefs. Most of it to me being common sense now.
My response is sort of long, so please take a chance to read it, as I read all of yours.
The reason I listed a film was because it was just easier, like I said, I could’ve gotten into the whole thing but I didn’t want to waste your time. When it comes to believing studies, we have to remember there are two different types of studies: clinical studies and observational studies. Clinical studies require multiple trials and peer review, observational studies are just that, observations, they’re hypotheses that work something along the lines of “well this group does X so Y must be true,” no real science there.
Essentially all of the anti-saturated-fat and pro-carb research is based on observational studies, and it’s actually heavily slanted already against saturated fat, this is largely based on two different things. The first being an observational study called the “lipid hypothesis” which claimed to connect saturated fat consumption to heart disease (it was fundamentally flawed, and lacked peer review, in addition to that a lot of information that would’ve changed the results of the study were ignored, this is not science.)
The second: It was commonly accepted that carbohydrate foods make you fat and high fat foods like red meat were better for you, that is until The US Senate’s “McGovern Report” written by a vegetarian, claimed that in order to reduce heart disease in the US (at this time largely caused by smoking and drinking) the US needed to promote a grain heavy, low-saturated fat diet. You can actually track the rise in obesity, diabetes, and other diseases after this began. In fact during the committee hearing for the report, scientists told McGovern that there was absolutely no proof that saturated fat caused heart disease and high cholesterol, his response was that the American people couldn’t “wait” for science, they just had to go ahead and push this. Here’s a news report in 1977 that contains this exact thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFQc2kxm9c
As you can see in the video, actual scientists beg the committee for more research before jumping to their conclusions. This was also where the logic for the food pyramid came from, it’s why the largest blocks were grains.
Having said all that, you can find modern, peer reviewed, clinical studies which prove high carbohydrate diets cause heart disease, increase cancer (because carbohydrates break down into sugar in your GI tract and most cancers feed on sugar), as well as other diseases:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110614115037.htm
(The original scientific paper is also linked in the article, and there are many others like this I could show you)
You are right, you didn’t say carbs are the answer, but you are eating an extremely high carbohydrate diet. I personally believe in an 80% high fat meat diet and 20% vegetables and diary products, though I don’t drink much milk, I don’t really like it, but I try to. I try not to eat any grains at all, especially not wheat, corn, potatoes or things made from them, they’re extremely high in carbs.
You can find so many examples of low-carb diets resulting in people reversing their diabetes, losing a lot of weight, and so forth. Similarly, when it comes to diets that are against saturated fat like the government promoted Ornish diet, people do sometimes lose weight but this is with a lot of exercise and they also tend to have to keep taking their various medications to lower blood pressure or help with diabetes.
Take my grandmother for example, she is overweight, she has diabetes, and the government tells her the best way to deal with her diabetes is to eat more grains which are extremely high in carbohydrates. If you measure her blood sugar (or any diabetic for that matter) before and after she eats two pieces of toast, it’s no different than after she eats a candy bar, however before and after she eats a steak, there’s almost no change at all.
I guess I also drink about 100 ounces of water a day. Your arm pits stinking is caused by various things, one of them being genetics, did you know 80% of Asians have no arm pit smell at all, ever? Just a side thought.
I’ve tried high carb diets before, in fact I used to be obese myself. I tried doing the government thing of eating whole grains, exercising, and so forth, it sort of worked but it was a pain and I was losing about a few pounds every few weeks, and I felt like shit all the time. I discovered the film Fat Head and I began doing a lot of reading on carbohydrates, and I went to eating a lot of saturated fat, and set a maximum of 5 net carbs a day, I lost about 150lbs in 5 months with no exercise at all, and I gained muscle mass, which was pretty shocking. Of course after that I started going to the gym and body building.
Now that I’ve done low-carb for so long, when I do eat carbs, a little while later I feel tired and crappy, but that never happens with meat. Further, I was pre-diabetic on high carb, even when I was exercising, but I’m not even remotely close to that anymore, my blood work is also fantastic.
We could both type until we’re blue in the fingers about our personal experiences on our respective diets, but when it comes to science high-carb just doesn’t have it. There’s so much flawed information like the China Study, which like the lipid hypothesis, ignores so much contradicting information in order to push an agenda. The idea that fat is bad came out of the 1970s, before that people just didn’t think it.
People used to eat far more meat and far less grain than we do today, and look what’s going on around us. The solution that the government, media, and pop culture tell us is that in order to fix it we need to eat even more grain, that doesn’t make sense.
Dogs are indeed carnivores, but humans are omnivores with a focus on meat, and I provided you with a lot of information in that beyondveg site as to why this is so. You don’t need claws to eat meat, that’s a myth. Consider that chimpanzees hunt small animals and sometimes even kill and eat each other, where are their knives? Where are their claws? Great apes don’t need knives and claws because we’ve got cunning, great hands, and even better intelligence, such as tool building which we’ve had for at least a few million years.
I don’t think a rotting carcass sounds good to anyone, in fact even dogs will ignore rotting meat most of the time, and they can handle it far better than we can. You can’t use weasel words in order to avoid science, history, and anthropology. Humans have been hunting and consuming meat for at least 500,000 years. Even if eating meat arose as a cultural phenomena in early man, it’s those that thrived on eating meat that went on to create offspring and lead to us. For all of human history we can find evidence for, especially modern humans, they have been mostly hunters, not having claws doesn’t mean you aren’t a hunter. Further your brain is made mostly of fat, and it’s believed that the two things which lead to our power brains today is freeing up the use of our hands (walking upright) and eating an extremely high fat diet. Prior to about 10,000 years ago, humans ate almost nothing but meat, and that’s especially true for humans in desert areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, and very cold areas such as Europe and North Asia.
If you hate piss and shit so much, I would reconsider eating organic, considering it’s used to grow it and the food is covered in it, which is one reason why so much organic food keeps getting contaminated with E. Coli. Or you can enjoy lysteria if you eat organic cantaloupe.
Some people do eat raw cow meat or near raw cow meat (rare steak anyone?), but I don’t like it, plus it’s potentially dangerous. Humans have been cooking for between 400,000 and 790,000 years, so again culture leads to evolution in this regard. I don’t desire to claw to death a cow and eat raw cow meat because for the last 20,000 generations or so, humans have been using spears, rock tools, and fire to make food.
Nature isn’t a god, nature doesn’t “intend” on anything. Natural selection is a process by which the best adapted survives, and that means the humans that came out of Africa were best adapted for the various climatic problems and droughts because they ate animals, not because they had to spend all their time hoping soy beans would grow.
Natural selection created humans capable of building tools (did you know ravens and some other birds can also make tools? as well as otters? did nature design that?) and using them for hunting. Speaking of otters, since it’s unnatural to use tools, I guess they should stop using rocks to bash open clams and eat them. I’m not so sure any sort of vegan philosophy like that would work on them, though.
Speaking of not natural, you mean to tell me it’s less natural to hunt and more natural to farm? Farming takes even more intelligence and cunning than hunting does. Farming takes planning, it takes tools, it takes time, it takes insight, and most importantly it takes fortuity. It’s basically why no other animals have ever farmed except us; just like other animals don’t type on blogs abut their internet businesses, which is pretty unnatural, but we both do that.
Gorillas don’t eat just plants, they certainly eat a lot, but they also consume large numbers of insects for protein. Further, bonobos and chimps are closer to us than gorillas, they’re our cousins, and gorillas are more like great uncles. As I stated before, chimps eat a lot of meat, including small animals, each other, and insects as well, they also eat fruit too.
You can learn a lot, with well sourced information, about the myths about other apes here:
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-2a.shtml#part 2
It’s a lot of reading, but well worth it to get some good information. Groups like PETA and so forth that promote veganism constantly make claims like “gorillas eat nothing but plants,” but no one actually tries to find out if that’s true. It’s because it’s not true, they don’t do that.
>> “Every study I’ve come to believe are the ones that dairy and meat are linked with higher risk to cancer, illness, fatigue, obesity, etc…”
But were these observational studies or clinical ones? You should always look for the original source when reading about studies to find out. I’m willing to bet they’re probably observational studies. Further, I’ve never heard of anyone who felt sluggish when doing low-carb, but plenty of people on strange diets, like vegan, raw fruit, etc that did – but some experiences are mixed, some people do great on vegan diets, but most people aren’t vegan for very long at all, it’s a very short lived lifestyle for most people.
If you’ve got 45 minutes, I suggest taking a look at this, it goes into the differences between observational studies and clinical ones, how the logic works, and so forth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1RXvBveht0
Or you can just read the wikipedia articles on those two types of studies, but it’s probably easier to just watch something instead.
>> “We both know it’s a fact cow milk is not our milk, and it’s a pathway for fat/nutrients for calves to grow to 1000lbs. We both know cow milk is made of mucus, and we both know cow milk leeches nutrients from your body”
Cows and humans are totally different types of animals though. Cows get massively fat just by eating grass, if humans eat only grass they’ll die. Second, cow milk does not leech nutrients from your body, that’s a myth, it’s completely untrue.
>> “You also know that when ever you get sick, you’re suppose to stop drinking milk.”
Says who? I’ve never been told that by anyone.
>> “. Because I sure as hell cannot picture man 1000 years ago drinking cow milk from the udders, just sucking away.”
But He did, in fact He did this 100,000 years ago from water buffalo. In parts of Africa which have changed little in the last 12,000 years, people do drink milk, they do all sorts of things we’d find odd I guess like washing their hair with cow urine to make it red, but that’s humanity for you. I don’t recommend washing your hair with urine
I know the girl who wrote that doesn’t have a degree in nutrition, but read what she had to say, she talks simply statistics and why the numbers in the China Study simply do not add up the way they are presented. If the math is wrong, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got credentials to say whether the conclusions are wrong. For example, if you give me two $20 bills and tell me it’s $41 total, I don’t need to be an accountant to verify that the math is wrong, it’s straight forward in how you present it.
>> “I wonder why she only does “light” amounts of meat? Oh because it’s absolutely horrible on your digestive tract, and our bodies are not meant to break down meat.”
Probably because she eats mostly raw fruits and vegetables. Shifting your diet massively in one direction can cause digestive problems, it doesn’t matter which way you go. Humans are most certainly able to digest meat, which is why when they eat meat they feel fuller, for longer, don’t get sluggish.
>> “However, these are the stories I believe. I have 1,000 books, and scientific studies to prove my point as well, but we will just debate forever about our beliefs, because it really comes down to a belief at this point.”
It doesn’t matter if you’ve got 1,000 books, if they all quote the same inaccurate information. I can find 1,000 books that say Kirshna healed the sick and many other things, but if they all cite the same wrong sources, it doesn’t matter.
>> “Don’t you think so? Because I know you’ll just come right back with arguments, but I’m simply never going to agree, because I’ve read and heard enough to shape my new beliefs. ”
I’m not talking about beliefs, I’m talking about science. From peer reviewed clinical studies, I can tell you that you are wrong in your beliefs, and I think it’s a shame that you’ve closed your mind to consider alternate view points. I’d certainly love to see any peer reviewed clinical studies you can find which back up your points, I honestly would. This isn’t a religion for me, I just want to be healthy; I wish you could say the same.
>> “Most of it to me being common sense now.”
Common sense was decided by a committee meeting where scientists begged for further study. Plus common sense always told us the earth was flat, but hell, science proved that wrong.
P.S. Take a look at rapper Fat Joe, massive weight loss going low-carb, not high carb.
I’ll read your whole reply shortly.
But what you’re saying is:
1) You don’t believe dairy is bad for you?
and
2) You don’t believe meat is bad for you?
… And I’m not even considering the pesticides, chemicals, and added hormones. We both know that is bad. But I’m saying even if you went completely organic, grass fed, etc… You believe both meat and dairy is a healthy daily food source?
I understand your viewpoint, but there are plenty of real scientific backed studies that prove that they’re bad for you. I’m not close-minded, I’ve been drinking dairy for 25 years, and eating meat for 25 years, until last month, I’m changing. I’ve experienced more energy, more life, I wake up earlier, I wake up feeling better, and I know longer have cravings. So far so good. I feel 1,000 times better. Now if 1-year from now, I feel worse, and not as good as I did when I ate steak and chicken every day. I’ll go back to dairy, but so far my pH levels have been increasing in my urine and saliva tests, as well as feeling 1000x better.
I was never talking about farming, yes I know hunting is natural, but I believe we aren’t suppose to hunt and kill animals to eat, because if we did, we should be able to do it with our bare hands and eat them with our bare hands without fire and tools in their most natural state, and I’m pretty sure we would puke. Granted, hunting a fish sounds more natural than jumping and opening up a cow with our fingernails. If I can jump at a cow and eat it with my bare hands, I’ll believe we’re suppose to eat meat. I believe we’re more closer related to an herbivore than a carnivore, it’s just as simple as that. I’ve read enough backed data to convince me from my old beliefs, that milk and dairy are bad.
You’re telling me and acting as if I am naive, because of my new choices. I use to believe for 4 years straight being on “The Abs Diet” that meat and dairy were very important and essential for their protein, minerals, and vitamins. But just recently did I realize you do not to eat animals or dairy for those minerals and vitamins. You DO NOT need meat and dairy for the minerals you seem to believe so strongly you can only get from meat/dairy. People believe they need animal protein, or even lack protein, when we really don’t even need that much protein every day. I can get protein from beans, seeds, lentils, fish, etc… And the biggest reason I’m not drinking/eating dairy is because of the fat content, it’s ridiculous. I don’t need breast milk to survive, why are you so fixated on making me drink breast milk, and so convinced it’s healthy for you? Not to mention 50 million Americans are Lactose intolerant, 1/6th of America can’t stomach dairy.
I use to follow many diets that suggested meat for protein, and oh boy do I know the benefits of dairy and meat, but I don’t believe it anymore.
I will read your blog, and all the articles and videos you provided by next week, and if it somehow convinces me or shows me what I’ve been missing, it’s possible I can change. But the event I attended had me start thinking, and then I started picking up some Vegan books. However, I’m not Vegan. I am choosing to not eat/drink breast milk, and not eat beef, pork, or chicken. I still eat fish. I do not need dairy to survive.
PS. Honestly I am going to test the theories myself (pH tests, blood tests, cholesterol levels), I know science is amazing and all, but honestly, it just seems like common sense that dairy is the #1 killer in America. I’ve looked at a lot of scientific studies and books and diets that say meat and dairy is good for you. But so are the studies that say it’s also bad for you. Meat and dairy could be great in some ways for you, but it’s also bad for you. I don’t know why you have to keep telling me it’s only good for you, when it’s clear it’s also bad for you. You’re very pro meat and pro dairy, and that’s just that, you claim you’re following “health” and “actual science backed studies” but so am I. It has nothing to do with being close-minded, so don’t even call me close-minded. A vegan would say the same thing to me if I didn’t give Veganism a chance, so that’s a crock of crap. It goes both ways. You’re close-minded for not even attempting to give the harder route a chance. You’re on the easy path, it’s easy to eat the bullshit us Americans eat, it’s easy, it’s convenient, and it’s packaged and served in front of our fat faces. Let alone every restaurant you’re stuffing your face at it using vegetable oil, non-organic, pesticide, added hormones, refined whites, and chemicals to make shelf-life longer. It’s been “proven” that people on the board are from the Dairy industry, and are the ones pushing “studies” and “campaigns” to drink dairy, even though there are more than enough proven studies that dairy is in fact bad for you.
Most milk you buy at the store does not have added hormones, even if it did, as I stated previously, cow hormones are not metabolized by the human body anyway. You’re forgetting that even organically grown food uses certain types of highly poisonous pesticides, so long as they’re considered “natural.”
I asked for one of the peer reviewed clinical studies that prove what you’re saying, I provided some in my own defense.
It’s certainly possible you feel better because you thought you would feel better, if you kept reading/hearing over and over you would feel great and do great on your new diet, that’s just the placebo effect, it’s quite common, especially among true believers. I didn’t enter my high fat/low-carb diet thinking I would feel better, in fact I was very skeptical it’d work at all, but it did. If it worked so well, and made people feel so great, why is it so much harder for people to stay vegetarian and vegan? Why do most people not stay on those diets for more than a few years? Why is it far easier to stay on low-carb/high fat than it is vegan? Any diet you have to struggle with isn’t a proper diet.
Also if when you were eating steak and chicken every day, you were also eating potatoes, then you may not notice a difference 1 year from now, I’d only consider your test if you were doing extremely low-carb versus your high carb diet today.
We can hunt small animals with our bare hands and we can eat them too that way, especially insects, small reptiles, etc and this is what we did prior to hunting, our ancient ancestors ate far more things like that than plants, and I’m talking about going all the way back to 1.5 million years ago to Homo Erectus.
Hunting a fish isn’t really any more natural, it takes even more skill to do, and you still have to skin the fish, get rid of the tiny potentially dangerous bones (depending on the type of fish), if we use your standards for land hunting on fish, fish are even more unnatural. Since even Homo Erectus had fire, it’s not even viable claiming not having fire is “natural” when it comes to humanity, as fire has existed in our genetic line long before we evolved into Homo Sapiens, who were and still are extremely skilled hunters and the group planning and tool making which requires hunting large game comes natural to us and exists in literally every part of human existence, regardless of how isolated.
Humans, however were not born with long necks, hooves, or large flat teeth meant for eating a lot of plants, our teeth are sort of in-between. Further, as I pointed out on my second post, humans have their eyes in front, because we are predators, and need depth perception for hunting, it’s why cows, horses, goats, etc have eyes that face outward so they can keep an eye out for predators. Humans are apex predators, largely because we’re so violent and cunning. Plant eating animals simply do not evolve cunning or intelligence, I’d like to see one example, it’s why my cat is smarter than a cow, because she is a predator.
But speaking of fire, there are many plants you can’t eat directly from the ground, potatoes being one, and I wouldn’t consider it that healthy when the organic ones are covered in cow poop to help them grow — I already mentioned the dangers of doing this before, and I’m sure you’ve also heard of the many people that have died from eating organic food contaminated with E. Coli and listeria.
Plus there’s also the fact that parts of some plants such as potatoes, rhubarb, etc have extremely high oxalic acid and will kill you if you eat them, that’s almost playing with fire and it probably took us a while to figure it all out.
Lest we forget the best friend organic food ever had, soy: the most processed food on the planet, aside from corn. Probably one of the most unnatural things that’s ever existed in the arena of food.
“The Abs Diet” is not low-carb, it’s no wonder you felt like crap on it. It had you eating legumes, beans, oat meal, whole grains and cereals, and so on, that’s an extremely high amount of carbohydrates. It’s essentially a high grain diet with more lean meat, not even high fat meat. I’m saying don’t eat whole grains, don’t eat cereals, avoid grains and high carb foods completely and eat high fat.
>> ” But just recently did I realize you do not to eat animals or dairy for those minerals and vitamins.”
The Abs Diet had you eating those primarily for protein, but if you don’t eat grains, you do indeed benefit from eating meat and dairy, it has a lot of vitamins and minerals. If it didn’t, our ancestors would’ve died off on their primarily meat diets.
>> ” I can get protein from beans, seeds, lentils, fish, etc…”
That’s absolutely true, you can, I more or less agreed with that.
>> ” And the biggest reason I’m not drinking/eating dairy is because of the fat content, it’s ridiculous.”
This is an extremely inaccurate myth, fat does not make you fat. Carbohydrates mess with your insulin levels and make fat get stored in your body. This is why diets like Atkins which say you can eat 100 times the daily allowed fat amount by the USDA/FDA and you still lose massive amounts of weight. If fat made you fat, then low-carb/high-fat diets would make people obese, but they don’t, the exact opposite happens.
>> ” I don’t need breast milk to survive, why are you so fixated on making me drink breast milk, and so convinced it’s healthy for you?”
Why do you keep calling it breast milk? You also keep calling meat “rotting flesh.” You know that you’re using a red herring right? That’s a logical fallacy, it’s no more different than if I called what you eat “flowers and compost.” Plants rot just as meat does, and if you don’t like where milk comes from, that’s fine, but organic plants come out of a ground covered in feces and old school poisons.
>> ” Not to mention 50 million Americans are Lactose intolerant, 1/6th of America can’t stomach dairy.”
Very true, but how many Americans are allergic to meat? Dairy is a weird thing, you have to consider a few interesting things: most people that are lactose intolerant are either from Central America, Southern Europe, or South East Asia. Why is this important? Well because people in these regions didn’t often drink milk, however in all other regions drinking milk from cows became an important way to stay alive during famine, drought, and so forth. So the ability to handle milk left some humans, but I wouldn’t consider drinking milk necessary at all, my wife is lactose intolerant and she’s on the low-carb diet.
>> “But the event I attended had me start thinking, and then I started picking up some Vegan books. However, I’m not Vegan. I am choosing to not eat/drink breast milk, and not eat beef, pork, or chicken. I still eat fish. I do not need dairy to survive.”
That’s fine, but at least admit fishing takes a lot of skill as hunting does.
>> “Honestly I am going to test the theories myself (pH tests, blood tests, cholesterol levels), I know science is amazing and all, but honestly, it just seems like common sense that dairy is the #1 killer in America”
Dairy is absolutely not the #1 killer, I’d love to see proof of this. It’s easy to disprove: people drink far less dairy than they did 30 years ago, but now they’re fatter and dying faster than they were 30 years ago and calcium deficiencies are far more common. So how can you say it’s the #1 killer, when people are consuming less and getting more unhealthy? I’m not saying that dairy made people healthy before, what I’m saying is that there’s no basis for your argument at all, but if you do have proof, I’d certainly like to see it.
>> “I’ve looked at a lot of scientific studies and books and diets that say meat and dairy is good for you. But so are the studies that say it’s also bad for you. ”
Again, like I said in my last post, you have to consider whether or not the studies are clinical or observational, and this goes for either side too.
>> ” I don’t know why you have to keep telling me it’s only good for you, when it’s clear it’s also bad for you. ”
Except you’ve offered no proof to show it’s clearly bad for me, but I’ve shown you contradicting proof.
>> “You’re very pro meat and pro dairy, and that’s just that, you claim you’re following “health” and “actual science backed studies” but so am I.”
So where are yours?
>> “It has nothing to do with being close-minded, so don’t even call me close-minded. A vegan would say the same thing to me if I didn’t give Veganism a chance, so that’s a crock of crap. ”
If you don’t want to be called close minded, don’t say things like “I’m simply never going to agree” because it makes you sound like you’ve suspended disbelief and it’s now a religion of sorts for you.
>> “A vegan would say the same thing to me if I didn’t give Veganism a chance, so that’s a crock of crap”
Which reminds me of a joke: How do you spot a vegan at a dinner party? You don’t have to. They’ll tell you all about it.
I know you aren’t strictly vegan but your diet is largely vegan.
>> “You’re close-minded for not even attempting to give the harder route a chance. ”
I already told you I did, I tried high carb, and it didn’t work. I thought for years that vegetarians and vegans were healthier people, because I simply didn’t know anything about health at all. I’m not close minded because I asked several times for proof of your claims against meat and dairy, and I’m absolutely open to being proven wrong about this. I never told you “you’ll never convince me,” but you said that to me.
>> “You’re on the easy path, it’s easy to eat the bullshit us Americans eat, it’s easy, it’s convenient, and it’s packaged and served in front of our fat faces.”
Except you’re wrong, I’m not. Because Americans eat mostly grains, not meat and dairy. As I pointed out both the food pyramid and “my plate” are 60 – 70% grain, not meat and dairy. By avoiding grains not only am I not eating like most Americans, I’m avoiding what makes most Americans so unhealthy.
>> ” Let alone every restaurant you’re stuffing your face at it using vegetable oil, non-organic, pesticide, added hormones, refined whites, and chemicals to make shelf-life longer.”
Clearly you don’t know much about low-carb/high-fat diets if you’re accusing me of eating vegetable oil, which I don’t eat. I also told you that hormones in cows don’t affect humans, even if they did, most of the cows we come in contact with in our food don’t have them at all. Lastly, organic food is covered in pesticides, cow crap, and other things, I’m surprised this doesn’t gross you out too. Further, I don’t eat refined wheat anything, because I don’t eat grains, cereals, or anything like that.
>> “It’s been “proven” that people on the board are from the Dairy industry, and are the ones pushing “studies” and “campaigns” to drink dairy, even though there are more than enough proven studies that dairy is in fact bad for you.”
You do realize that most organic farms in the US are owned by General Mills and Kellogg too, the biggest grain producers on the entire planet? They also get their grains subsidized and used as cow food (even though cows can’t eat grains and it slowly kills them), so it benefits Kellogg and General Mills that dairy be popular, but not completely.
You have to consider that all of those TV programs like The Biggest Loser, who are they sponsored by? Kelloggs, and what are they told not to eat on the shows? Meat, especially high fat meat. The propaganda machine is in favor of high carb, low fat grains especially, so you can’t claim that I am eating like most Americans, when I’m not certainly not, your diet is closer to the American diet than mine is.
You really do not know what low-carb is, and I think you should learn some more before making accusations about what you think it is I eat. You seem to think that I’m promoting the idealized diet by the FDA/USDA which says you should have no more than 10g of protein a day, 20g of saturated fat, and 300g of carbs. Think about that, 300g of carbs, and who is selling all of the carbs in the country? Kelloggs and General Mills. The grain lobby is almost as big as the oil and drug lobbies, is it any wonder the people running the organic farms and selling all that vegan food are so anxious for you to buy it? Do you think that has no influence on studies which cast meat and fat in a negative light?
To clarify though, I’m saying that one should not eat more than just 5-15g of carbohydrates a day, should get their fiber from vegetables not whole grains, should eat as much protein and fat as possible — fat from meat, not from plants (except olive and coconut oils); so no soy bean oil, no transfats, no fat from grains and sugar. That is hardly the stance of the average American.