If you eat fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, whole grains, and fresh non processed hormone free meats, all in moderation, you'll be healthier.

Hilarious that you start by lambasting him for eating vegan but poorly, then instantly forget what you said in paragraph one and lie that a vegan diet is automatically better...It's simply not that simple.

Eating healthy is healthier than not. That's the best you can honestly say.

Nutritionfacts.org is run by a lying, constantly exaggerating quack that's been repeatedly debunked for making things up and cherrypicking data and studies to fit his preconception and further his movement. He said the WHO said going vegetarian is equivalent to quitting smoking.....it's a lie, they said no such thing or anything close. The science says eating processed meat daily increased cancer risk for colorectal cancer by 18%, and smoking increased cancer risk by 2000%. Not equivalent at all.
Downvote for fibbing about science and for hyping a liar.

Wow. Like many misinformed university students, he was not 'craving meat" and feeling unhealthy because he was vegan. He was feeling unhealthy because rather than eating unhealthy meat, he ate unhealthy processed fake shit.

Try greens, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, mushrooms, nuts, and seeds and you'll find yourself quite healthy. And, according to the preponderance of science (not funded by the meat and dairy industry) you'll be much, much more healthy. It's very similar to the smoking industry when they were found to be unhealthy.

It's also similar to the climate change "controversy" and anti-vax "controversy". Science is in complete agreement that a vegan diet is way more healthy than any other diet, but smoke screens are made so that people give up because they're confused, and frankly would just like to eat meat without feeling like assholes.

Check out nutritionfacts.org, a doctor who just goes through contemporary studies in nutritional science. Just the science.

Try starting here if you truly believe in science.

With logic like Ben Rukle's, I'm surprised he's not advocating Soylent Green:
It's full of nutrients that people need, since it's made from people.
It's environmentally friendly because humans are a renewable resource.
It's ethical cause people these days live comfortable lives, so it's fine to kill them in their teens.


The good old "killing humanely" argument. Yes it's better than factory farming, but killing a human in a nicer way is still murder by law, and so is treating them nicely before killing them.
If ethical living is his goal, then he's failed.

I've also heard his story many times. Eats mainly vegan junk food, which lacks nutrients (as does all processed junk food), and then somehow links that to all vegan food being unhealthy.

This is why I'm always banging on about eating unprocessed whole foods, they are nutrient dense.

You'll also notice that at the end they are eating specifically processed meat - the type proven to cause cancer. (as well as the worlds #1 killer heart-disease).
If he wants healthy food, then he's failed.


When it comes to sustainability, foods like potatoes, rice, and grains give you the most calories output for energy/water/land put in.
There also simply isn't enough land on the planet to farm animals this way and feed everyone.
If he wants sustainable farming, then he's failed.


Also he looks like he's about 2 years late for a heart-attack.

The reason why none of those supplements and things work is because it's usually just one ingredient, and the body doesn't know what to do with a single ingredient.

The body is expecting a particular set of ingredients in fairly specific amounts in order to make use of the "active ingredient".

Luckily for us, the specific sets of ingredients are prepackaged perfectly in fruits, vegetables, spices, legumes, tubers and grains.

So eat your whole-foods - just chop, blend and spice it all however you like - whatever it takes that you eat them as a staple

The dorkiness of this video makes it charming...wood grain wallpaper, don't get a splinter.

Had it been done with say, grains, then they would have died

Your video, Stephen Colbert Endorses Savage Cock 190 Proof Grain Alcohol, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Love me some sand dunes. I've heard low droning sounds while out in Guadalupe sand dunes in central california and in Death Valley. I remember researching why and there were some theories - something about grain size (changes pitch), friction & amplification from a layer of moisture below the surface and sand collision upon the surface creating vibrations that in turn create a feedback loop of low frequency. Stony stuff, lol!

You can find examples of that throughout history, I think it's how science has always worked. You can sum it up with the saying 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' - when something has been so reliable and proven to work, are you likely to believe the first, second or even 10th person who comes along saying otherwise?

If you are revolutionary, you go against the grain and others will criticise you for daring to be different - as did so many geniuses in all kinds of different fields.

I think that's completely fair, because whilst it sometimes puts the brakes on breakthroughs because of mob mentality, it also puts the brakes on spurious bullshit. I'd prefer every paper be judged entirely on merit, but I have to accept the nature of people and go with something workable.

Thinking further, the use of chemicals and fertilizers in orchards is more different than I'd first thought too.

If you take an apple orchard, every plant is priceless compared to a grain crop. Killing off insects, keeping exactly the right fertilizer amounts and irrigation are all absolutely required. In grain farming, pests like weeds or insects are measured and the cost/benefit is weighed to see if it's worth the cost of spraying. I'd imagine with a fruit crop, the benefit is almost always keeping your plants as healthy as humanly possible. With grains though guys will often estimate a 5% loss from whatever best is there and decide to leave well enough alone.

A bit of a side note, but the kinds of chemicals guys on the grain side use has changed a lot too. Plenty of chemicals used for killing insects when I was a kid where being replaced then. Farmers here universally remember a laundry list of different pesticides they remember as just nasty and downright scary stuff. The ones available today are far more selective, and for weeds round-up ready has allowed guys to abandon pretty much all other weed killers, and most of those were much more expensive and lingering than round-up.

OK, yes. That's correct. I have no personal experience in grain farming (except corn, but grown to eat on the cob, so that's also different).
I still say the same applies to OVER use of chemical fertilizers and the environment, but perhaps that's much less of an issue with grain crops.

As I said above, I admit that new crop genes paired with new chemicals could produce greater yields on more damaged land. Roundup/roundup ready crops are a prime example of this, as they artificially eliminate competition for the remaining nutrients and root space, leaving it all for the crop. That doesn't eliminate the damage though, it only hides it from the farmer. When they stop working (and they will eventually), we'll have serious trouble.

I think I see part of the problem. The other option you wondered at is you are comparing(literally) apples to grains.

If your lucky enough to live in a climate that can support orchards and vegetables that's an entirely different story. Grain farming is a different beast and you can't farm canola and wheat the same way you'd farm apples or tomatoes.

As for out here on the prairies, the average family owned and operated farm is on the 1k acre mark. Of the 20k farms in my province, more then 90% of them will be under 2k acres and virtually none of them hire more than 2 people outside their immediate sons and daughters to work there.

As for over production, the grain vs vegetables thing still hits. Crop rotation matters with grains, over production simply doesn't. Most of the land here has been passed down from parent to child for 100 years and they've always been quick to pick up on the latest innovations from new equipment to man-made fertilizers to round-up ready crops. The only consistent theme has been greater(and more consistent) yields per acre each year and correspondingly better profits for the farmer. Your gloom and doom scenario just isn't the reality for current grain farming techniques.

In first world countries....yes, or close to that much. Agreed. Not world wide.

Mechanized harvest is accepted in "natural" old school farming. Agreed, it would fall under the "industrial farming" methods, but is one of the least damaging.
>1000 acre farms do not count as "family farms" in my eyes, even if they are owned by a single family. So is Walmart, but it's not a mom and pop or family store.

Again, mechanization is not the same as industrialization, but does still do damage by over plowing, etc. I'm talking about monoculture crops, over application of man made fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Grain was farmed "by hand" since farming existed with few problems, but more work involved. The work it takes to rehab a river system because industrial farming runoff contaminated and killed it is FAR more work than the extra work involved in farming using old school methods (which does not mean everything is done with hands, tools and machines have been in use for eons).

Roundup doesn't "break down" completely, and doesn't break down at all if it's washed into river systems and out of the UV light.

Once again, machines aren't all of "industrial farming", they are one of the least damaging facets, and they are not unknown in old school, smaller farming techniques. BUT....overuse of heavy equipment either over packs the soil, making it produce far less, or over plows the soil, making it run off and blow away (see the dust bowl). If it was ONLY about machinery, and ONLY industrial farming used machines, you would have a point, but neither is true.

No, actually overproducing on a piece of land like that makes it unusable quickly and new farm land is needed to replace it while it recuperates (if it ever can). Chemical fertilizers add salts that kill beneficial bacteria, "killing" the soil, sometimes permanently. producing double or triple the amount of food on the same land is beneficial in the extreme short term, and disastrous in the barely long term. (See 'dust bowl')

Man power is far less damaging to the environment than fossil fuels for the same amount of energy. Also, the people would use no more resources because they're in the field than they would anywhere else, so there's NO net gain to the energy used or demand on the environment if they farm instead of sit at a desk, but machines don't use energy when idle, so there is a net loss to the energy required if you replace them with pre-existing people.

Yes, you quoted it directly, buy your characterization of what that meant was insane. You claim they said Monsanto worked on the project (and other things) because they're evil and want to do evil and harm. The video actually said they do these things without much care for the negative consequences to others, and that makes them evil. I hope you can comprehend the distinct difference in those statements, and that your portrayal of what they said is not honest.

@newtboy,
Some, (very few) still grow grain using old school methods, some even using old school grains (thank goodness, we will have them to thank for still having grains when/if the Monsanto grains fail). It's not even 99%, but it is 'most'.

If you count your numbers by production it's probably more than 99% fall under your idea of 'industrial'. If you want to count old school methods as no chemicals for pest control and harvesting by hand then you need 20 some old school farms to match the quantity of food produced on one thousand acre family farm.

Clearly, natural farming takes more effort, and costs the consumer more, but does not require major ecological mitigation, so if you count ALL costs involved, it's not that much more expensive.
Can you explain the ecological mitigation costs you imagine are associated with farming a thousand acres of grain by hand versus using modern equipment and some round-up? The round-up breaks down within days of application and the equipment doesn't impact the land any more than having 20 some people marching through on foot. For bonus points include the ecological foot print of everybody required to work the land in both scenarios. Including that makes it glaringly obvious that the efficiency of what you class 'industrial' farming techniques is on the whole much better on the planet. Of course, it shouldn't be a surprise producing double and triple the amount of food from the same land with a fraction of the manpower means less overall demand on the environment.

As for the propaganda in the vid, you claimed I misrepresented the Manhattan presentation, I quoted the video verbatim. I'm not interested in doing the same for every point they ran. The video is propaganda of the purest form and I stand by that.

Twice what my family eats...but yes, a small subsistence farm could also be called a garden, just as my orchard of 30+ apple trees could be called a back yard. That doesn't make it produce any less.

Not true. Some, (very few) still grow grain using old school methods, some even using old school grains (thank goodness, we will have them to thank for still having grains when/if the Monsanto grains fail). It's not even 99%, but it is 'most'.

Industrial farming describes a methodology, not a size, not an incorporation. The fact that a single person or two might farm thousands of acres means they are using the same industrial methods, because non industrial farming takes more people.

Clearly, natural farming takes more effort, and costs the consumer more, but does not require major ecological mitigation, so if you count ALL costs involved, it's not that much more expensive. You act like it's impossible, but it's how ALL farms operated prior to the mid century. If it wouldn't scale, please explain how it worked for thousands of years before industrial agriculture started, or how it continues to work in other countries.

It may not work for WEAK shallow root grain crops that can't compete for water and nutrients, like the one's Monsanto sells. It worked fine for thousands of years with more natural, long root crops that also held the soil together.

I didn't hear that in the video, but fine. Don't just repeat known BS and lies then. Roundup is only a pesticide in that it allows GMO crops that have modified genes to be pesticides themselves to grow without competition....and that doesn't count, and I think you know it.

No, I'm not trying to say the video is perfectly honest, it's clearly highly biased...I didn't say that. They do HINT that Monsanto's actions are "evil", but extrapolating and exaggerating from their already somewhat overboard, clearly biased but careful statements to make them insanely more overboard and biased is not helpful to anyone.

You mean this characterization..."You know, on account of them being evil and wanting to see millions of people dead because it gives their corporate heads joy. Just like it wanted to invent pesticides as a means of convincing the public to poison each other for giggles, and getting the state department to experiment on people."
Um...yeah....that's completely insane. I already explained why it's wrong in so many ways, and defy you to show where they said anything resembling that. You have to listen with quite a biased ear to hear that in between the lines of what they actually said, and one must be incredibly, clinically paranoid to believe any public company does things just to be evil rather than purely for profit. The evil they do is an accepted result of their business methods, not the intent of their business, and I think the video was fairly clear about that.

You may stand by that, as I stand by my summation of your comment...that it's insane and exaggerated hyperbole that ridicules an extreme paranoid stance no one actually took.