A Few More Veggie-Head Myths Busted
This 15-week Nutrition Series has explored all of the ways that a balanced, omnivorous diet will always be our best bet for health. Among the hundreds of sources cited, I have referenced exactly 160 STUDIES up to this point that concluded that a vegan diet will never be the healthiest option. I have proved that:
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Photo from: abramericas.com
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However, before I close the door on this very science-based series, I have a few more myths I want to put to rest.
Myth: Meat rots in our stomachs.
Farming Truth: Many plant based advocates claim that our bodies can’t actually digest meat, and that it has to rot in our stomach before our bodies pass it through. My favorite debunk of this myth was done by Gnolls, and is definitely worth the read… but, be warned! He uses science, just like me… There’s a lot of different numbers circulating about exactly how long it takes from the time we consume meat until it exits our bodies. However, King Institute points out that people are actually asking the wrong question. Instead of figuring out how long it takes to digest a particular food item, we need to realize that the nutrient contents of foods determine how long it will take to digest it.
Each food is broken down into nutrients (mainly the macronutrients protein, carbohydrates, and fats), then the nutrients are processed at different rates. This means that, if you ate steak and broccoli at the same time, the protein from the steak would combine with the small amount of protein from the broccoli, and those proteins would be digested together. If you combined butter and vegetable oil, the fats from those would be sorted off together by our bodies and be digested at the same time. Thus, certain parts of the food are digested before others. However, it takes all three nutrients to uphold a healthy diet.
Farming Truth: Many plant based advocates claim that our bodies can’t actually digest meat, and that it has to rot in our stomach before our bodies pass it through. My favorite debunk of this myth was done by Gnolls, and is definitely worth the read… but, be warned! He uses science, just like me… There’s a lot of different numbers circulating about exactly how long it takes from the time we consume meat until it exits our bodies. However, King Institute points out that people are actually asking the wrong question. Instead of figuring out how long it takes to digest a particular food item, we need to realize that the nutrient contents of foods determine how long it will take to digest it.
Each food is broken down into nutrients (mainly the macronutrients protein, carbohydrates, and fats), then the nutrients are processed at different rates. This means that, if you ate steak and broccoli at the same time, the protein from the steak would combine with the small amount of protein from the broccoli, and those proteins would be digested together. If you combined butter and vegetable oil, the fats from those would be sorted off together by our bodies and be digested at the same time. Thus, certain parts of the food are digested before others. However, it takes all three nutrients to uphold a healthy diet.
The irony in this myth is that plant foods are actually the ones that stay in our bodies (specifically in our colons) for a really long time because our body can’t digest them… and it’s super important that they do. A lot of people don’t realize that fiber, by definition, is actually food that is indigestible by our bodies, and it’s usually made up of cellulose. Because we are not herbivores (I’m going to have a future blog post discussing why we’re not herbivores), there are certain parts of the plant that we just don’t have the ability to break down. This “roughage” cleans out our digestive system and controls blood sugar. That’s why it’s so important to have a balanced diet that incorporates all food groups.
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Photo from www.ecowatch.com/
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Myth: Vegetarians live longer.
Farming Truth: Okay, so, in many cases, this myth can actually be true. Most vegetarians pursue their diet for health reasons, so plant-based advocates often do live longer because these are the people that care about their health. They eat healthier than the typical American, avoid smoking, drugs, and excess drinking, exercise on a regular basis, and get regular checkups. They’re also usually people who live in higher socio-economic groups, so they have better access to health care. This actually led many studies to conclude that vegetarians live longer because researchers didn’t measure these other factors or consider how much the subjects prioritized their health.
This is a case of correlation does not equal causation. What do I mean? Just because I have a dog and I am in college, it doesn’t mean that I have a dog because I am in college. These two things have nothing to do with each other, and people can logically understand that. But now, let’s say I’m studying small animal veterinary sciences and am in a student organization that serves at the local Humane Society. If you took all of the people that fit those exact criteria (in the case of vegetarians, the criteria are eating only plant foods and caring more than usual about their health), chances are they each have a dog. But the problem with saying that all vegetarians live longer by only studying subjects that fit that criteria (which 99% of people on a plant-based diet do) is like saying that all college students have a dog just because you studied the group of people who are majoring in small animal veterinary sciences and volunteer at the Humane Society.
I know that analogy seems like a stretch, but I’m not the first person to catch onto this flaw. In the first post of this series, I bullet pointed quotes from five different studies. Each of them were conducted by different groups, and each found that a vegan diet is not healthier. But why trust these studies over the ones that found vegetarians live longer? The answer is that they “adjusted for lifestyle factors,” meaning that, beyond just what label subjects put on their diet, researchers recorded whether the subjects exercised, smoked, had access to health care, and also tracked the specific foods they were eating instead of just what food groups.
The truth is that, if all people cared about their health the way that vegetarians do, then all people (even those who still consumed animal products but did it in a more balanced, informed way) would experience lower rates of mortality. The problem isn’t animal products, it’s that people don’t care enough to take care of themselves. All of the previous blog posts in this nutrition series prove that a diet that excludes all animal products is not the healthiest option. Unsurprisingly, after lifestyle factor adjustments were made in the studies, health-conscious omnivores out-lived vegans/vegetarians, and had better qualities of life.
Farming Truth: Okay, so, in many cases, this myth can actually be true. Most vegetarians pursue their diet for health reasons, so plant-based advocates often do live longer because these are the people that care about their health. They eat healthier than the typical American, avoid smoking, drugs, and excess drinking, exercise on a regular basis, and get regular checkups. They’re also usually people who live in higher socio-economic groups, so they have better access to health care. This actually led many studies to conclude that vegetarians live longer because researchers didn’t measure these other factors or consider how much the subjects prioritized their health.
This is a case of correlation does not equal causation. What do I mean? Just because I have a dog and I am in college, it doesn’t mean that I have a dog because I am in college. These two things have nothing to do with each other, and people can logically understand that. But now, let’s say I’m studying small animal veterinary sciences and am in a student organization that serves at the local Humane Society. If you took all of the people that fit those exact criteria (in the case of vegetarians, the criteria are eating only plant foods and caring more than usual about their health), chances are they each have a dog. But the problem with saying that all vegetarians live longer by only studying subjects that fit that criteria (which 99% of people on a plant-based diet do) is like saying that all college students have a dog just because you studied the group of people who are majoring in small animal veterinary sciences and volunteer at the Humane Society.
I know that analogy seems like a stretch, but I’m not the first person to catch onto this flaw. In the first post of this series, I bullet pointed quotes from five different studies. Each of them were conducted by different groups, and each found that a vegan diet is not healthier. But why trust these studies over the ones that found vegetarians live longer? The answer is that they “adjusted for lifestyle factors,” meaning that, beyond just what label subjects put on their diet, researchers recorded whether the subjects exercised, smoked, had access to health care, and also tracked the specific foods they were eating instead of just what food groups.
The truth is that, if all people cared about their health the way that vegetarians do, then all people (even those who still consumed animal products but did it in a more balanced, informed way) would experience lower rates of mortality. The problem isn’t animal products, it’s that people don’t care enough to take care of themselves. All of the previous blog posts in this nutrition series prove that a diet that excludes all animal products is not the healthiest option. Unsurprisingly, after lifestyle factor adjustments were made in the studies, health-conscious omnivores out-lived vegans/vegetarians, and had better qualities of life.
This is the last week of my Nutrition Series. Health is a topic that I’m super passionate about, and plan to continue to research. But did I miss anything? Are there any health myths you see floating around the internet that you want to see busted? Is there anything you would like to add to the topics I have covered? If so, head on over to my social medias (linked on the home page) and tell me about it. I may do some follow-up articles.
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