You are wrong in both of your above assertions, however.

One, subsisting on ribs and chicken is not healthy in any sense of the word. You would be deficient in many nutrients and in fairly short order you’d get scurvy, which would be followed by a host of other malnutrition-induced maladies (not to mention the lack of fiber, making the whole process rather unpleasant). If you were to eat the whole chicken–entrails and all–the deficiency would be somewhat mitigated, but not entirely. A lot of people point to the Eskimos an example of a society that ate only meat, but they also ate a very wide variety of land and sea animals, and they also supplemented their diet with seaweeds and various herbs.

Second, the very definition of a “balanced diet” is what makes it intrinsically healthy. Eating a wide variety of foods from several different groups ensures that you get adequate nutrition without neglecting one nutrient or going overboard on another. Eating all plants may lead to a B12 deficiency, while eating all red meat may lead to an iron overload.

Basically, there’s nothing “optimal” about a meat-oriented diet (in fact, the “optimal” diet would depend on an individual’s personal biochemistry–you wouldn’t recommend a 12 oz. sirloin steak for dinner every night to someone predisposed towards having high cholesterol). Ignoring the ethical implications, not only is meat incredibly inefficient to produce, but it’s also not good to deprive your body of nutrients that come from plants. These silly fad diets are meant to manipulate lazy people who don’t want to get off their ass and exercise into buying books and partaking in potentially harmful and invariably ineffectual eating behaviors, and I maintain that any doctor who advocates them should be stripped of his/her license for violating the Hippocratic Oath. It isn’t a coincidence that obesity and cardiovascular problems have skyrocketed since Americans began eating a high-meat diet, and it’s sure as hell not the bun on that burger that’s going to make you fat and unhealthy.

I’m not wrong in either of my assertions. Read Vilhjalmur Stefansson then come back and talk to me about the problems with all-meat diets. Your comments about exercise reveal a abysmal ignorance of the workings of the energy-balance equation, and the rest of your comment belies any kind of knowledge of the most basic biochemistry (which, BTW, you won’t learn plodding through all the vegetarian pablum out there). If you instead read the real medical literature, you will learn that the notion that cholesterol is problematic is embodied in the lipid hypothesis, which is just that, a hypothesis, which more and more serious scientists are abandoning because there is no evidence that it’s valid. If you want to do something worthwhile with your time, instead of parroting all the idiocy you find on the vegetarian sites you spend so many hours perusing, try to find a single serious scientific study published in a reputable journal showing that elevated cholesterol has anything whatsoever to do with heart disease. I’m sure you’re convinced that it’s important, but just take the time to surf the scientific literature to see for yourself. Have fun.

Furthermore, the vegan diet will not inherently make you unhealthy. If all you eat is soy and apple juice, then yes, it will, just as it will if all you eat is chicken and ribs. It is certainly more difficult to get all the proteins you need from a vegan diet, but it’s not impossible or even that difficult if you’re fairly intelligent. The Mayan diet was essentially vegan, with only occasional supplementation of meat products, and they didn’t die out.

I am neither a vegan nor a vegetarian, but this article and many of the comments afterward irritate me. It seems putting forth a logical argument is out of style these days, and one has to mock, misrepresent, and oversimplify things instead to get an audience.

For instance, you neglect to mention that some plant sources DO contain complete proteins (such as hemp), or that all it takes to get adequate protein intake is to eat protein from a variety of sources. It’s not hard to make some beans to go with your rice or put some nuts in your bread, now is it?

But then, I guess when you’ve written a bunch of books on a subject you don’t like to admit the competition has any sort of validity. Highly unethical, yes, but then so is promoting low-carb lifestyles in place of healthy, balanced ones.

If I had it my way, any doctor who promotes fad diets, cosmetic surgery, or other unnecessary/harmful treatments would be stripped of his license for violating the Hippocratic Oath.

Actually, if all you eat is chicken and ribs, you’ll remain quite healthy. Many people remain on all-meat diets for the long term and do just fine.

What did happen to the great Mayan civilization if it didn’t die out? It was long gone before the European explorers ever got to it.

What a tragedy, though, that poor tiny baby withering away; makes me ill thinking about it. I’d know something was up if my baby was only 3 lbs., but I do get lots of fat to help me think.

I guess that’s why soy milk cartons have a warning on the side now not to use in place of infant formula.

Ed, there are no vegan societies. He meant traditional societies on a national or subnational level, that’s why the only society that was cited as non-vegan was Indian. I don’t doubt that the California Seventh Day Adventists lived longer than the typical Californian, but one must also remember that in a large group, alternative diets are safer – people can tell you if you clearly have a deficiency. People in this church would certainly be able to help each other with it if they were all lifelong vegans. However, these two parents probably didn’t have their son around many other people at all – malnutrition to the point of starvation is NOT difficult to spot.

Dietary aspects aside, people in a church like the Seventh Day Adventists (which appears pretty strict) are more likely to live longer simply because they’re missing out on all the sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll that all the other Californians are getting in on

>> Or you can just keep claiming that we “need” to meat to get protein without supporting
>> it with any statistics. The fact is that the average vegan lives longer than the average
>> omnivore which leads you to the logical conclusion that a vegan diet is optimal for humans.

He didn’t say you needed meat to survive, he just said you needed protein from animal sources – in fact, he didn’t even really say that, but it’s implied that it’s ideal. Here, I’ll quote him: “Humans need protein, vitamin B-12, and other nutrients that come from meat, or at least eggs and dairy products.” The NIH study you cited does not prove conclusively that the average vegan lives longer, it proves that the Seventh Day Adventists in California live longer than the average Californians.

>> To suggest that humans eat more like rats or raccoons (true omnivores) than gorillas
>> (herbivores who share over 95% of our DNA) is patently absurd.
The closest evolutionary ancestor of ours is not the gorilla, but the chimpanzee. The diet of the chimp varies very widely and they have been known to kill many kinds of small animals to get meat. Some are nearly vegetarian, but the vegetarian chimps get protein through eating insects, so they’re not entirely without animal matter.

>>You may be surprised to know that Dr. Benjamin Spock, the world’s foremost expert
>>pediatrician who wrote Baby and Child Care (one of the best selling books of all time)
>>recommended a vegan diet for children in his final edition. Another thing you can look up.
>>But what we he know??
What we he know? I dunno what we he know. I do know what I know, though. I put on weight when I flirted with veganism and I felt like crap. That’s anecdotal evidence, but it was what determined that I was on this side. I’m not concerned with the experience of Dr. Spock, because, although he was very accomplished in his field, his advice doesn’t change the fact that I feel better when I have a lot of fat and protein in my diet. Tell you what, if you stop telling people that eating meat is a toxic travesty, I’ll ignore you vegans withering away as I munch quietly on my T-bone steak.

Hi ed–

MRE

What a bizarre comment. I’ll put it up as is so that anyone reading can observe the thought processes of a vegan in action.

MRE

The parents in the article were irresponsible and whether they were vegan or omni, that is what should be emphasized.

Hi Karmyn–

You didn’t ask for my advice, but I’ll give it to you anyway.  Keep him on the breast for at least a year.

Cheers–

MRE 

Me too. 

- Many vegans (about half of them) are hypocritical, stupid, and malicious.
- Many omnivores (about half of them) are hypocritical, stupid, and malicious.

The diet one chooses has little or nothing to do with that person’s intelligence. Many vegans (about half of them) are just trying live their lives in a way that they understand to be healthy and more compassionate. Because they are wrong about the health “benefits” does not make them malicious.

Were these particular parents stupid? Absolutely. But any omnivore who uses a few isolated incidents to judge all (or even most) vegans is simply ignorant.

To this day it pains me to hear people badmouth vegans, as if all vegans support PETA, preach to strangers, burn down animal testing facilities, and maliciously starve their children to death. I still consider myself to be “mostly vegetarian,” though I’d never admit it to anyone without the relative anonymity of the Internet. I can do without the sneers and judgment, thanks.

I would hope that an M.D. like yourself could be a little less critical of the misinformed.

Hi Ben–

Point taken.  But, if you must know, I’m only hypercritical of the of the 50 percent of them who are “hypocritical, stupid, and malicious.”

I have no problem with anyone’s being a vegetarian; what I have a problem with is their constant harping that the vegetarian lifestyle is the most healthful.  The evidence is there for anyone to see that it isn’t, so when they go on about, I feel compelled to point out that they are idiots.

Cheers–

MRE