I recently visited a slaughterhouse where they are in the beginning of the season. They unalive 3k+ animals daily.

I am not a vegetarian, and I have a deep understanding that we need food to survive, and that meat is important part of our diet.

Nevertheless, this hit me hard in multiple parts.

First, just listening to all the animals outside inside trailers.
Secondly, contemplating their imminent fate.
Third, what does this do to your psyche if you are the one unaliving x amount of animals each day.

Life is precious. I'll be first in line the moment we figure out how to grow proteins and carbs in laboratories.

"We love the low carb Julian Bakery bread"

There's your problem right there. Bread shouldn't be low carb. Bread IS carbs (and gluten too). If you want to cut back on the carbs, stop eating bread!

Same goes for butter.

Don't eat a crap version of the real thing, just eat proper bread and maybe less of it.

Refined carbs aren't great, but grains, starchy roots (potatos) and beans are a key component of every bluezone in the world where people live the longest and with the fewest amounts of disease. There's a video about it on the same channel as this video above :-)

You don't want to trade weight loss, for long term health is what I'm saying. Weight loss in of itself is going to improve health markers and general wellbeing, but the majority of people in the west die from preventable heart-disease, which is without a doubt tied to cholesterol, which eggs are full of (yes there are a lot of cholesterol deniers out there, but there is no valid research backing up their claims). Bob Harper is a good recent example, huge keto/low-carb advocate, had a heart-attack, despite being lean and athletic. He's doing the bluezone way of eating now....

Also have you noticed that nobody ever mentions the 4th macro nutrient in any diet these days? Fibre! The one macro nutrient almost everybody is deficient in.... but nobody seems to talk about it, except those selling fibre supplements. I find it weird personally!

From a Keto perspective eggs are the perfect food! My blood tests, weight, and sleep/energy improved by avoiding carbs. Really makes you think how upside down that USDA approved food pyramid is...

Deplorable in manners. Laughable at their mentality of prioritizing highest-value food items for consumption regardless of taste & variety. Still smarter than those buffet eaters that pig out on carbs.

Hope they don't sick from all the cholesterol from the shrimps.

I usually just sort of use whatever is to hand. Butane, rubbing alcohol, gasoline, carb cleaner, but these are all pretty flammable and/or toxic (WD-40 is good for some things, but then *that* is hard to clean off). If Monster works, that sounds good. So, like, does Doctor Pepper or Coke work too? I don't care for Monster, but I can drink the rest of the Doctor Pepper. Mountain Dew if I have to.

Good point, I was too lazy to post the link, my bad. List of quotes from people who Gary has misrepresented: http://www.bodyforwife.com/an-open-letter-to-gary-taubes/

(for newtboy, notice how this is not a vegan website, nor are the people complaining about Gary Taubes vegan researchers)


Sugar consumption going down since the late 90s https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/02/25/surprise-american-sugar-consumption-is-on-the-decline

Indeed this video is about sugar, but it's a common strategy to use sugar to demonise carbs(the only research you will ever find where "carbs" are bad for you, always use sugar of some type). Every single popular diet today uses this kind of shitty research to back up their diets. They're all variations of low-carb: atkins, paleo, keto, isogenics etc because this is what sells the most animal products, which is a far more lucrative industry than grains and beans. But possibly more importantly it doesn't work in the long run! So you have repeat customers. They lose weight quickly for 6 months, then in 12-18 months time they are heavier than how they started.



BTW this is vegan http://www.blogto.com/restaurants/doomies-toronto/

You don't have to eat healthy all the time once you are at a stable weight and your other biosigns are good, pig out every now and then .

Life won't be so short this way ;-) (on average 13 years longer)

They're talking about sugar, not carbs.

"Gary Taubes, who's made a living misrepresenting science."
How so? If you're going to make such a claim, back it up.

"Despite sugar consumption going down"
Really? I have yet to see any evidence that that's the case.

"Stuff your face with this food "
Eh, life is way too short to eat vegan food.

How ironic that the part where they talk about misrepresenting studies that they reference Gary Taubes, who's made a living misrepresenting science.

It's a common thing to compare fat vs sugar to make carbs look bad. But when you actually eat proper carbs (not sugar) then carbs win every time.

These people who ate 80% carbs, and only 10% fat, and effortlessly lose weight without calorie restriction or exercise: https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/health-science/stars/stars-written/

Also the fat you eat really is the fat you wear. They can radioactively mark it and find it again in your body.

Despite sugar consumption going down, diabetes and heart-disease is rising too.

Regardless of any study. Try eating 80/10/10 for a few weeks, and you'll see the results for yourself. Stuff your face with this food https://www.forksoverknives.com/recipes/?recipe_type=wraps-and-burgers

There's no portion or calorie restriction. Eat yourself thin.

Edit: And yes fat does definitely contribute to weight gain and heart-disease, take it from the only cardiologist to ever reverse heart-disease https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_o4YBQPKtQ&feature=youtu.be&t=6

Now what is the average caloric expenditure for the "average American" over the same period? I bet that in addition to the average caloric consumption going up 800/day, the average caloric expenditure went down due to a lot less people working in physical jobs now compared to 50 years ago...

It seems calories-in/calories-out would be a much simpler explanation for the "obesity epidemic" compared to eating high/low fat high/low carbs etc. etc.

Agree with lots of it. Taste is definitely to a large part habitual, you definitely dull your sense of taste if you eat lots of sugary / salty foods.

However choosing potatoes is a terrible idea for a diet. Like sugar, starches rapidly turn to glucose, release insulin and promote addiction. They admittedly have high satiety and may be less calorie dense than what he was eating before (which is what caused the weight loss) but I would not suggest swapping one addiction for another.

Also I love refuting the instinctual assumption that you can lose weight eating badly by simply offsetting it with exercise. He's correct to stress diet over exercise. Exercise does make you lose weight (and has other health benefits) but the effect of high calorie food utterly dwarfs exercise:

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/29/12051520/exercise-weight-loss-myth-burn-calories-video

Also, it's more of a subjective thing, but lean meat proteins (eggs, chicken, fish) are very filling and can make it easier to avoid the high GI carbs that absorb into your body too fast to be used effectively and end up as excess body fat. I'd argue you're making your diet considerably more difficult if you try to give up meat at the same time as losing weight.

HIITS is fantastic. 10 minutes of proper HIITS is as good for your cardiovascular system as 1hr regular cardio. It makes sense too - think about what humans would have done in the past. Short intense periods of hunting, or running from predators, fighting other humans etc intertwined with cooling off exercises like walking and picking things off trees.

But either way it's not possible to out exercise a bad diet.

Athletes are lean because they eat mostly carbs. Which, despite the fitness industry's best efforts to demonize, do not make people fat.(So they can sell protein powder, AKA dairy waste product).

Ok I'll try to divide up my wall text a bit better this time

I totally acknowledge that people in the past, and even in present day, some people have to live a certain way in order to survive, but for the vast majority of people that doesn't apply.


Taste:
Like most of the senses in the human body, the sense of taste is in a constant state re-calibration. It's highly subjective and easily influenced over mere seconds but also long periods of time. They say it takes 3 weeks to acclimatize from things you crave, from salt to heroin. That's why most healthy eating books tell you go to cold tofurkey (see what I did there ) for 3 weeks. It's all about the brain chemistry. After 3 straight weeks you aren't craving it. (The habit might still be there but, the chemically driven cravings are gone).
Try it yourself by eating an apple before and after some soft drink. First the apple will taste sweet, and after it will taste sour. Or try decreasing salt over a 3 week period, it'll taste bland at first, but if you go back after 3 weeks it'll be way too salty.



Food science:
One of the major things stopping me from not being vegan, was the health concerns, so I read a number of books about plant-based eating.
There is a new book "How Not To Die" by Dr. Michael Greger. If you want scientific proof of a plant based diet this the one stop shop. 500 pages explaining tens of thousands of studies, some going for decades and involving hundreds of thousands of people. I was blown away at the simple fact that so many studies get done. Most of them are interventional studies also, meaning they are able to show cause and effect (unlike observational or corrolational studies, as he explains in the book). 150 pages of this book alone are lists of references to studies. It's pure unbiased science. (It's not a vegan book either in case you are worried about him being biased).

At the risk of spoiling the book - whole foods like apples and broccoli doesn't give you cancer, in fact they go a long way to preventing it, some bean based foods are as effective as chemotherapy, and without the side effects. I thought it sounded it ridiculous, but the science is valid.
Of course you can visit his website he explains all new research almost daily at nutritionfacts.org in 1 or 2 minute videos.
He also has a checklist phone app called Dr.Greger's Daily Dozen.

There are other authors too, most of these ones have recipes too, such as Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Cadwell Esselstyn, Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr Joel Furhman.
Health-wise it's the best thing you can do for yourself. And if like me you thought eating healthy meant salads, you'd be as wrong as I was I haven't had a salad for years. My blood results and vitamin levels are exactly what the books said they would be.

Try it for 3 weeks, but make sure you do it the right way as explained in the books, and you'll be shouting from roof tops about what a change it's made to your life. The other thing is, you get to eat more, and the more you eat it's healthier. What a weird concept in a world where we are constantly being told to calorie count (it doesn't work btw).

Environmental:
I've read a lot about ethics, reason and evidence based thinking, as well as nutrition and health (as a result of my own skepticism). So I could and I enjoy talking about these all day long. On the environmental side of things, I'm not as aware, but there some documentaries such as Earthlings and Cowspiracy which paint a pretty clear picture.
Anyone can do the maths even at a rough level - there are 56 billion animals bred and slaughtered each year. Feeding 56 billion animals (many of which are bigger than people) takes a lot more food than a mere 7 billion. Therefore it must take more crops and land to feed them, not to mention the land the animals occupy themselves, as well as the land they destroy by dump their waste products (feces are toxic in those concentrations, where as plant waste, is just compost)
The other thing is that many of these crops are grown in countries where people are starving, using up the fertile land to feed our livestock instead of the people. How f'd up is that?
It's reasons like that why countries like the Netherlands are asking their people to not eat meat more than 3 meals a week.

Productivity and economics:
Countries like Finland have government assistance to switch farmers from dairy to berry. Because they got sick of being sick:
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dietary-guidelines-from-dairies-to-berries/

The world won't go vegan overnight, and realistically it will never be 100% vegan (people still smoke after all). There will be more than enough time to transition. And surely you aren't suggesting that we should eat meat and dairy to keep someone employed? I don't want anyone to lose their job, but to do something pointlessly cruel just to keep a person working seems wrong.

Animal industries are also heavily subsidized in many countries, so if they were to stop being subsidized that's money freed up for other projects, such as the ones in Finland.

The last bit:
If you eat a plant based diet, just like the cow you'll never have constipation, thanks to all of the fibre
When it comes to enzymes, humans are lactose intolerant because after the age of 2 the enzyme lactase stops being made by the body (unless you keep drinking it). Humans also don't have another enzyme called uricase (true omnivores, and carnivores do), which is the enzyme used to break down the protein called uric acid. As you might know gout is caused by too much uric acid, forming crystals in your joints.
However humans have a multitude of enzymes for digesting carbohydrate rich foods (plants). And no carbs don't make fat despite what the fitness industry would have you believe (as the books above explain).
Appealing to history as well, when they found fossilized human feces, it contained so much fibre it was obvious that humans ate primarily a plant based diet. (Animal foods don't contain fibre).

The reasons why you wouldn't want a whale to eat krill for you is:
1. Food is a packaged deal - there is nothing harmful in something like a potato. But feed a lot of potatoes to a pig, and eat the pig, you're getting some of the nutrients of a potato, but also heaps of stuff you're body doesn't need from the pig, like cholesterol, saturated fat, sulfur and methionine containing amino acids etc And no fibre. (low fibre means constipation and higher rates of colon cancer).
2. Your body's health is also dependent on the bacteria living inside you. (fun fact, most the weight of your poop is bacteria!) The bacteria inside you needs certain types of food to live. If you eat meat, you're starving your micro-organisms, and the less good bacteria you have, the less they produce certain chemicals and nutrients , and you get a knock on effect. The fewer the good bacteria also makes room for bad bacteria which make chemicals you don't want.
Coincidentally, if you eat 3 potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you have all the protein you need - it worked for Matt Damon on Mars right?

you can check out one source of research here: jonathanbalcombe.com/

as far as being educated on veganism, you are sadly mistaken. you are simply repeating the myths you have been taught since childhood. if you would not wish to experience somethign yourself, it can never be considered humane. freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/factory-farming-alternative-farming/

btw, if you were educated, you would know that the brain runs on carbs and not on fats & protein. for peer reviewed research on diet and health, i would recommend http://nutritionfacts.org/

Go vegan instead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9nNa81dSoY
IT'S EASY! Just take a few weeks to get informed, don't jump into it. Read the books suggested below.

Vegetarian is a nice thing to do, but it should be really be only a stepping stone on your path to fully plant based diet. Plant foods are hearty delicious foods like pizza, burgers, lentil shepherds pies, pastas. You just swap out one or two ingredients that are from an animal origin, add more spices/herbs and you have a filling & healthy meal. You can stuff your face, and lose weight, lose the type 2 diabetes and heart disease as well. It's win win.

What many vegetarians don't know is that the milk and dairy industries are often more cruel, than farms that just use animals for meat, and often they are also intertwined. For example, for a cow to produce milk, it must be pregnant. Where do all of the offspring go? Veal if they are male. Or they become milking cows if they are female - destined to be constantly impregnated for their short 4-5 year lives until they die of exhaustion, or can no longer produce milk from exhaustion, and turned then eventually into meat. There are plenty of videos online where a cow gives birth and the calf is dragged away by it's hind legs. They both cry out to each other for days until they're voices give out.
Also cows milk GIVES people osteoporosis because it siphons out calcium from your bones, since it is so acidic. If you measure the amount of calcium in a glass of milk, let someone drink it, and then measure the calcium in their urine, then the urine contains more calcium than what went in. And it's being leeched from the bones.

It's a similar story for chickens. Male chicks get thrown into a grinder ALIVE. Because they're no use if they can't lay eggs.


The toxic waste produced the by milk and egg industries (animal poo etc) destroys environments.

The antibiotics used to keep all of those animals of course ends up in the environment and it will eventually make a super bug which medicine cannot kill.

The job loss portion seems silly, since anyone farming animals is capable of farming plants like rice, potatoes, wheat and grains etc. Those are some seriously nutrient and energy dense foods, and very efficiently produced, and very healthy. Carbs have just gotten a bad reputation thanks the Atkins people. And well we know that Atkins died of a heart attack, he had a history of heart attacks infact. He died overweight.

It is much easier just to go "cold turkey" for 3 or 4 weeks, and become completely plant based since it means your taste buds will adjust and you'll never crave animal products again. Everyone wins, the planet, your health both physical and mental, and of course the animals.

There are plenty off great books with recipes that are familiar and hearty that can help people get started, it's easier than you think. Books such as:
The Starch Solution, Dr. John McDougall.
Negative Calorie Effect, Dr Neal Barnard.
Power Foods for the Brain, Dr Neal Barnard.
Engine #2 Diet, Rip Esselstyn.