Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1107: How Going Vegan Can Make You Fat & Sick

Episode Date: August 29, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin discuss the benefits and pitfalls of veganism.   Is the vegan diet causing malnutrition in advanced nations? (3:50) The history and origins of the vegan diet. (5:55) The importance of NOT subscribing to a particular diet. (8:21) Things to consider before going vegan. (11:13) Who benefits from this influx of vegan propaganda? (16:15) What’s BEST for the environment is what is BEST for ourselves. (21:37) The health benefits of veganism. (25:15) How these diets are popular due to the agricultural revolution. (30:40) Why Mind Pump is focused on the 98%. (32:50) How diets can become religious in nature. (37:15) The unintended consequences of scare tactics by environmentalists. (42:00) Do NOT push your agenda on everyone else + the importance of checking your ego at the door. (47:57)   People Mentioned   Dominic D'Agostino (@DominicDAgosti2)  Twitter Mikhaila Peterson (@mikhailapeterson)  Instagram   Related Links/Products Mentioned   August Promotion: MAPS Prime & Prime Pro ½ off!! **Code “PRIME50” at checkout** MAPS OCR Preview Promotion: Discount code “OCR30” at checkout Vegan Diets Are Actually Increasing Malnutrition in Wealthy Countries Documents detail Monsanto efforts to fight cancer researchers labeling their products dangerous Why Giving Up Meat Won't Have Much of an Effect on Climate Change WHAT THE HEALTH @mindpumpsal Vegan Post Mind Pump 987: The Ketogenic Diet is Making You Fat Mind Pump 725: Mikhaila Peterson’s Personal Account of Treating Debilitating Disease Through Diet Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK The Game Changers: Film Mind Pump Free Resources    

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND is it's been politicized, which is crazy. This is the first time I've ever seen a diet actually become political The arguments for going vegan are it's better for your health and now the big one It's better for the environment. So we dive into the vegan diet and how, in many cases, it can actually make you sick and fat. Now, we aren't anti-vegan, but we do think that for some people,

it's not the right way to go, but we give our reasons for it. We talk about how the environmental impact, is it actually better for the environment? We talk about who may be behind the agenda of pushing this kind of new trend? Is there money behind it? We talk about the cancer risks that might be associated with meat or maybe associated with veganism.

We talk about obesity and obesity rates and how going vegan may actually increase those rates in some people. And then we talk about the nutrients. Some of the nutrients that you might need to supplement with if you go vegan. So we think you're going to love this episode. Again, it's really controversial. Also, there's only three days left.

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get this promotion again till deep next year. I want to bring up an article with you guys because I think this would be a really good way to kind of start a conversation, a good episode. So I'm reading this article by Science Alert. It's a great website and they post science alert. Yeah, they post articles that are science based and I thought this was a really interesting one. And the title of it was that malnutrition is increasing

at a relatively rapid rate in wealthy countries, malnutrition. So this is nutrient deficiencies, magnesium, calcium, iodine, vitamin D and E, and A is actually blowing through the roof in terms of deficiencies. And in this article, they talk about how scientists think that it's the adoption of vegan diets

that is causing this rise in malnutrition. Over the last few decades, we've seen veganism quadruple in in developed nations. Has it really? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So it can't be a popular article. Oh, well, I mean, you go back 30 years, it was very rare to find vegetarians, let alone vegans. And there's a difference between vegetarians and vegans, right? So for the sake of this article, we'll talk about vegans. That's gone up considerably over the last like four decades. And along that, and remember, also consider that along that period of time, the last four decades, the general wealth of advanced nations has

exploded. So people have more access to food, more access to different types of foods, more shelter, we just have more stuff, or better off, generally speaking, from having things available to you standpoint. And yet, malnutrition is going up. And scientists are saying this is because less and less people are eating meat, more and more people are going

Vegan vegetarian and vegetarian and this is important is important discussion because recently I don't know if you guys have felt this but I have no I completely have first of all I want to ask you do you know The history on where where the vegan diet came from like how did it start? How did it start boy? That's a great question Hasn't been around very long. Obviously not because we know that hundreds of years ago you would die trying to do it. Yeah, it was very difficult because what a lot of people don't realize,

and this is, by the way, this is established clear science. This is not like my opinion, this is established clear science. There are certain nutrients that you can only get from animal products and from meats. And when you eliminate meat in animal products, oftentimes you have to fortify your diet with supplements in order to make up those differences.

And we've known this for a long time. I mean, for a long time, before supplements were invented, before we had the ability to synthesize or isolate vitamins and minerals, when children would have things like, when they'd suffer from things like rickets or malnutrition, what you would do is you would supplement your kids' diet with organ meats.

Like a liver. Liver was a staple in many American households for a long time, for kids. It might even have gone back as recent as Doug's generation, where if a kid was not doing so well, Dr. told the parents, make some liver for your kids, or cod liver oil, that was a big one. Do you ever remember watching the old Tom and Jerry cartoons or whatever, where the mom would pour the oil in the spoon

and try and feed it to the kid and the kid would fight it. Nobody would want to eat it, because it's fish oil. It's made from fish liver, it's disgusting. Well, wasn't that too in the Nordic region, like was it where all the basically all the Vikings are? They had a hard time surviving, except for they found this cod liver oil,

really helped them to address those deficiencies. They'd been supplementing with it for thousands of years for very, very long. One of the reasons why some scientists think that the Vikings were so successful in their plunders was because they had the ability to supplement with such a nutrient dense food. And so for a long time, this is what doctors told parents

to give their kids, cod liver oil, organ meats, egg yolks, because those are some of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. And so it is a more recent phenomenon that we've been able to go vegan, or especially have kids go vegan. Now, I love having this discussion with you because I feel like we really don't have a dog in the fight. Yeah, I'm so glad you said that because we're not carnival advocates. Right. No, not at all. In fact, and all of us talk about having vegan days, because I've seen lots of benefits to it. There's a ton of benefits to eliminating meats or even like a high protein,

if you're on a normal high protein diet to having a lower protein diet for the day, or maybe even a couple days. But in my experience, and all the different, and this is, so what I do with a client, so the audience knows, because I think it's important

that I educate my clients on all the benefits of all the different types of diets. Because first of all diets are made up fucking thing, right? This is, when we evolved as humans, it was called just survive. You ate what you had. Yeah, you ate what you could eat, whatever. And we just live in a different time now

where we have the luxury of, you know what, I'm gonna only eat this way. I'm only gonna eat that. What's most optimal. Right, I mean, sometimes a lot of people that, you know, that subscribe to any specific diet enough to where they put it in their fucking bio, need to wake up for a second and realize

that didn't even exist, you know, 50 plus years ago. Like nobody would do that. That's just absurd in the first place. But it's something that I like to take all of my clients through though. I like to say, hey, let's go on a vegan day and let's talk about it and let's talk about how you feel,

the things that you notice, the pros, the cons. And I just don't leave it at that though. And one of the things that I noticed when I would put a client through a vegan diet is they would, they would, man, it increased in energy on some days, they'd feel their joints wouldn't be so achy. And right away, they would wanna be, oh, you know, this this is the vegan diaphragm. It's well hold on

It's it may not just be that it may have been when we were eating before I put you on this vegan diet You were eating a bunch of processed food or you were over consuming on on the meats or you simply just weren't getting enough Of other things that you need the diet now that we're eating a lot of these plants, you're now getting that. And so, let's try adding some meats into your diet like chicken and fish. Because they weren't anti-it for animal-saving animal purposes. They just want to know what's the healthiest best way for them to eat. And then the same time, I would move them over to a paleo. And then when keto came really popular,

I'd put somebody on a keto diet. And one of the things I always try and teach my clients is to not subscribe to a diet. Do not get hung, even if it gave you the best results in the world, let's unpack why it made you feel that way. What was it inside the, the quote unquote diet that made you feel so great or made you think that way? What was it inside the quote unquote, diet that made you feel so great or made you think that it was so great and let's start to pick that apart?

Yeah, I wanna, and the reason why this is a topic I wanna talk about is I feel like recently there's been such a push. A massive agenda. To go in this direction, huge push. I'm hearing it from all angles. There's documentaries coming out. I'm hearing it from all angles. There's documentaries coming out. I'm hearing it now that it's,

oh, it's better for the environment. That's what we need to eat this way. It's the best diet. And I'm very, very cautious. And the reason why I'm very cautious isn't because you can't have a healthy diet that's vegan. First off, I want to be very clear. You can eat a healthy diet that's vegan. First off, I want to be very clear, you can eat a healthy diet that's vegan,

but I also want to be very clear. It takes much more planning to do that than it would eat a healthy omnivore diet. This is a fact and supplementation. It requires way more planning. It just does. Nutrient deficiencies are very common in a vegan diet. So that's number one that we need to consider.

And when I look at the average person, here's the thing you need to understand. I'm coming from a perspective as a personal trainer who's worked with people for 20 years. And one thing that I learned early on was, I wanna communicate the things that I know that will give people the best bang for their buck. And I'm not gonna communicate things

that are gonna confuse people or gonna backfire. And one of the things that'll backfire is if you just tell a bunch of people and sell to them really hard, that eating meat is bad, okay? Because the average person does such a terrible job of planning their diet to begin with. They don't care about planning their diet.

All they're gonna do is cut meat out. So now they have a poorly planned vegan diet. And a poorly planned vegan diet is a recipe for disaster. Now, absolute recipe. Now the argument that someone's gonna say to you, Sal, is that, you disaster. Now, absolutely recipe for disaster. Now, the argument that someone's gonna say to you, Sal, is that, you know, all diets require lots of planning. They don't.

All diets, a good diet requires planning, that's true. But to avoid nutrient deficiencies, an omnivore diet does not require nearly the planning that a vegan diet will require. First of all, there's certain nutrients that you just don't get from plants. You just don't. Vitamin B12, for example.

You don't get vitamin B12 from plants. Now, most vegan diets are fortified with vitamin B12 because they'll eat something that's processed whether it's a cereal or some kind of a vegan supplement or processed food that'll be fortified with added vitamin B12. But vitamin B12 otherwise, you're not going to get it from plants. Cratein is another one.

Cratein is an essential. Your body can synthesize it, but studies show consistently that when you give creatine to vegans, their cognitive function goes up. Their IQ actually improves. That tells me they're not getting the amount of creatine that they need. And creatine comes from plant-based foods. There's also vitamin D3. Vitamin D3. Me-based, me-based, excuse me.

Vitamin D3, that's another one. There's vitamin D2 that you get from plants, but to get your D levels to go up by consuming D2, it's very difficult. Vitamin D3, you consume less of it and it's much more effective. DHA, omega-3 fatty acids, that's another one. Certain types of iron, those are other things. They're very difficult or impossible to get through plants.

And so if you tell a bunch of people who don't do any planning, and you sell them on the fact that eliminating meat is good for them, all they're gonna do is cut meat out. And first of all, here's another thing, I wanna make this point. Cause I know a lot of people are saying, oh, but eating meat

has been tied to increased risk of colon cancer. First off, that's processed meat. That's different. But even if we look at that increased risk, it's a tiny risk. It really is. It's a small risk. The biggest risk that you can have for cancer

in terms of your diet is obesity. Obesity contributes to something like 40% of all cancers, all cancers. And what we're discovering now, and this is something that we've talked about, ad nauseam on the podcast, over and over again, is that eating heavily processed foods makes people eat more food.

Eating too much food is what makes you fat. That's the bottom line. If you eat too much, you're overweight. Heavily processed foods, some studies show will make you consume upwards of five to 600 more calories a day. Okay, so we look at the average diet. And by the way, the average American diet is shitty. I know this, okay, I know this already.

But the average American diet, if we look at their diet, it's largely comprised of heavily processed foods. However, the few times that they do eat a whole natural food, what does it normally consist of? Meat. If you look at an American diet and you look at the whole diet all day long, the two things that they had all day long that was not heavily processed

were the eggs they had in the morning and maybe the steak they had later on the day or the chicken they had. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna tell them to remove the very, very few whole, unprocessed foods out of their diet. And what do you think they're going to replace it with processed food? Overly processed. They're going to, they're going to replace it with heavily processed food. That's why we're seeing the explosion of this all this impossible meat products that's going through the, what's happening is you're

getting all these people who who are now believing that meat is bad for them and that not eating meat will be better for them. And what they're replacing it with is heavily processed plant-based foods that are designed to taste like meat. Now, when I hear this, right away my mind goes, okay, why? You know, where is this agenda coming from? And I feel like the natural thing to look towards is money. Oh yeah. And so who would want this to go this direction? I mean, who cares for everyone to be vegan so much that there's a lot of money that's being pumped

into these documentaries and the advertising and the propaganda to drive the average person instruction. Who would want that? Well, we already know who's benefiting right now, which is these like impossible and beyond meat companies that just popped up out of nowhere, making their way into fast food chains. It's already shown that in the next 10 years, it's poised to be $140 billion industry. And so they're the tech, I mean granted,

it's like 10% of the something trillion dollar industry that meat is already created, but it's definitely a substantial business venture. Well, here's the thing you wanna consider when it comes to meat. You can't currently, okay? I'm gonna speak carefully, because I'm pretty sure this will happen sometime in the future.

But as of right now, there is no patented cow, or patented chicken, or patented pork, or patented fish. There are no GMO animal products yet, okay? So you can't own a patent on it. So when we look at the beef industry, what you're looking at is the accumulation of all the people who are raising meat and beef and chicken and stuff like that. You can't really do that because they all compete with each other.

Don't they? Let's look at individual companies. You can patent plants. That was a precedent that was set in the 90s when GMO companies created plants and it went all the way to the Supreme Court for them to be able to patent these plants because these plants could,

they were genetically modified in the laboratory and they could withstand being sprayed with these patented herb, these patented sprays that kill weeds and stuff like that. Mon Santo was a company that represents some of this stuff, right? So because they were able to pant and plants, these companies became mega, mega powerful, super powerful. Now, if the average American,

you eliminate all your competition. The average American goes vegan. They are going to consume a dramatic increase in GMO products. There's gonna be a lot, there's a lot of money being made through GMO products. So that's where you, that's where you can look. And they're gonna push,

and by the, there's some of the biggest lobbies in the world. These are companies, these are mega powerful companies. And it's one or two companies that are doing this or few, we're not talking about like all the cattle farmers or all the dairy farmers. We're talking about a few companies that are patented,

like Monsanto, the makers of these glyphosate, these glyphosates, they own this, the patents on this stuff. They want people to eat more plant products because when you go eat more plant products, again, the average person is going to be consuming far more of these genetically modified plants. So yes, there's a little bit of an agenda going on because for a health... It's mainly, like, it's comprised of soy. And it's like, for the most of these soy... Soy corn, soy corn, and so...

Wheat. I mean, obviously, that's gonna tie back to those companies. Yeah, and again, if you... When we're looking at things from a health perspective, because they'll say things like, it's healthier to avoid me. This is not true. Compare apples to apples. A healthy omnivore diet is very healthy.

A healthy vegan diet can also be very healthy, but here's the problem that I have. The amount of planning that goes into having a healthy vegan diet is far as at a far higher level. Now, as a trainer who's worked with people for a long time, and I worked with everyday average people, I don't like this self-selection bias that we have where you have these hardcore vegans who've been vegans for 15 years. They're like, no, I, okay, that's a little bit of self-selection bias. Why don't you compare you to a fitness fanatic who eats omnivore?

Now let's compare that. Well, you're trying to compare your diet to the average Americans. Most diets compared to the average American diet is much better. But a well-planned vegan diet just requires a much higher level of planning. In fact, I know a lot of fitness and health professionals

who do nutrition coaching, who don't even take on vegan clients. Not because they're anti-vegan, but you ask them, why don't you? It's hard as far. It was one of the hardest things as a trainer. It was that, was getting a client who would tell me they were vegan before I even got them.

See, I like taking clients through a bunch of different diets so we can start to unpack what it is that makes them feel good about what they're doing on this new diet. But man, was it a challenge when I had somebody that was like, I don't, I refuse to eat meat, and you had to take them on as a client, because it does.

There's just not a lot to select from. That's all it is. It's just that simple. You know, when you have, and that's like, why I don't like any diets. That's why I don't like the carnivore diet. That's why I don't like the ketogenic diet. It's, you know, and that's what I meant by when we started this conversation, that I don't like the carnivore diet. That's why I don't like the ketogenic diet. And that's what I meant by when we started this conversation

that I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't stand behind one single diet. I don't believe in that for anybody. This one is especially politicized though. There's a lot more factors going on. That's how you know it's so tribal. That's how you know there's an agenda. Yes, that's how you know there's an agenda.

This is why we need to address it. And it is everywhere. There's all kinds of different like documentaries coming out, like constantly. And so I think that people just need to realize that this is definitely trying to move everybody in a certain direction. The way you know that there's an agenda is when a topic

that should have nothing to do with politics, and we're talking about diets, like, okay, what does politics have to do with this? As soon as it gets tied to politics, you know there's a bit of an agenda. And that's exactly what's happened. It's become totally politicized. And the way that they've politicized it

is by attaching it to the environment. So now what you're hearing now is that going vegan or eating a mostly plants or all plants is better for the environment. It's far more complicated than that. It's actually, there are vegan diets that are worse for the environment than omnivore diets. In fact, if we compare it on a macronutrient dense calorie per calorie basis, it's worse the environment.

You try grow, how much lettuce, how much space needs to be devoted to lettuce to produce the same amount of energy that you would produce pork, for example. Okay, when you calculate that in there, lettuce in comparison to pork produces three times as much greenhouse gases, okay. Now beef is the highest greenhouse gas producing animal product.

Let us in comparison to beef is about one to one. They're almost about equal. When you calculate in the waste that's produced, so when you produce vegetable and plant products, we tend to throw away a lot of them. More so. The average person throws away, I think 40% of it gets thrown away,

whereas it's more like 30% for animal-based products. When you factor that in, then you start to see that it's far more complicated than people believe. Right. And so it's not as easy as, don't eat meat, save the environment. In fact, you guys want to know what kind of foods have the lowest greenhouse gas emission and carbon footprint, heavily processed high sugar foods. Heavily processed high sugar foods

will produce less greenhouse gases and have the smallest carbon footprint. Now does that always should eat? Yeah, no, we shouldn't, right? I think what we need to understand is what we obese and diabetes written. Here's exactly what the planet will go on though. No, it won't, right? I think what we need to understand is what we obese and diabetes written. Here's exactly what the planet will go on though. No, it won't, it actually won't.

Let's look at the health costs. What's best for the environment is what's best for our health when we're talking about ourselves. Healthy humans, in all aspects, healthy, good mental health, psychological health, and physical health is what's gonna be good for the environment because healthy humans make better decisions.

They need less medicine. We're more productive, we're more efficient. We lead more meaningful lives. At the end of the day, a healthy person, it's what's going to be better for everybody, not an unhealthy person. And so if we take a bunch of people who don't plan their fucking diets to begin with, and we tell them, and we tell them, and we make, we sell the case and we politicize it, because here's what happens

to when you politicize things. People start to pick sides. Like, oh, wait a minute. I vote this way. Therefore, I have to, this is the side that I'm going to be on. When you start to politicize, you're going to get a bunch of uninformed people avoiding me. You're going to create nutrient deficiencies.

You're going to promote obesity because of the increased rate of processed food consumption, which promotes overeating. So we're going to have less healthy people, and that's going to be bet worse for the environment. Well, I want to talk about some of the things that we all think is really good about the vegan diet. Let's talk because I feel like all of us in here intermittently have vegan days.

We intermittently have carnivore days. So we encourage people that listen to the show that there are some health benefits to doing this. And I know there's people listening right now that for, because I used to have clients like this that have adopted this diet and have seen just unbelievable changes in their life and they'll just, they'll never move away from it

because of these benefits. And what I would wanna do is I wanna educate them on probably what they're going through and what they're feeling and why that is. And then also how and why we use it the way we do. Right, well I like, I love plant-based foods and I like them to be on process, just, and I like them to be on process, just like I like my meats to be on process.

I'm not promoting people eat hot dogs and, you know, sausage patties and stuff like that. I'm talking about whole natural meats, and I also like whole natural plants, like fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. They're extremely healthy, and they have tremendous benefits, and I don't think people eat enough of Those types of things. They've got beneficial fiber

There's antioxidants that you can get from them and from a a modern health standpoint It does make sense to consume less energy dense foods More often because we're not as active right So I can eat a big bowl of vegetables and not get tons of calories. And that actually makes sense nowadays. Now I can go to the reverse, of course, if I go heavily processed food, I'll eat tons.

And here's the thing too, most heavily processed foods are plant-based. They're not animal-based. There are processed meat products, but when you go in the grocery store, most of the things that are in boxes and packages and wrappers are plant-based. They're not animal-based. I mean, you're sure you can buy sausage, hot dogs, you know, bacon, you can buy beef

jerky, which is what considered processed meat. But most of the time when you're buying things in boxes and wrappers, they're made with what? Like wheat, soy, corn, sugar, you know, that kind of stuff. But if you eat whole natural foods, I, the evidence is, in my opinion, quite clear that a lot of whole natural plants is very, very good for you. I'm just against the whole demonizing meat side of the whole thing. No, I mean, there's days where, I mean, I focus on whole natural vegetables specifically

for my digestion, and also to lower inflammation, and just go through that kind of recuperative type of a day where I'm not necessarily super avoiding me, but to take a break from it and really just focus on different benefits, just eating vegetables will provide that for me, and upping that amount.

Well, this is what I have found. I have found that, because I do, I have a client come in. The very first two weeks with me always was, eat how you normally don't change anything. Don't try and impress me. I just want to see your habits, your behaviors. And so then I always got a really good little screenshot of what an average couple weeks looks like

for this client that I would have. And then I would take them through all these different types of diets and we would talk about them as we go through them. And one of the things that I noticed when I took somebody on a vegan diet and what was happening before was this person just rarely ever got a bowl of berries. Like they've never done that before. Like literally never done that. Maybe they have an apple or a banana every once in a while, but never because we're going to all vegan. You start to do things you never done that before. Like literally never done that. Maybe they have an apple or a banana everyone's so wild, but never because we're going to all vegan.

You start to do things you never would do before. You start eating, you know, things with lots of nuts and seeds on it. You start eating balls of berries. You start having balls of vegetables, big giant salads. And so what they would, so what I'd show them is like, okay, well, here's what you were eating before. Look at, we went two days in a row and you didn't have, but maybe a cup of a cup or two of broccoli.

That's it. I'm saying that's all you had. And we had one or two servings of fruit and all it was was an apple or a banana, or you didn't really have any nuts or seeds in your diet because you thought those were bad for you, right? And then now we're on this vegan diet and man, you're getting the seeds, these nuts, we're having lots of berries, we're having large portions of vegetables. And it would be that is what I would be able to show

them the difference. And what would they normally replace because they're eating more of that? Right. The processed non-meat products. Right. Oftentimes it was replacing the cookies, the bread, the pastas, it's replacing the chips,

which are all vegan foods. Those are all also vegan foods. So it wasn't necessarily that they were like, not eating meat, they're eating more whole natural foods. Right. And they were in the form of vegetables and fruits and nuts and that kind of stuff. Right.

And then what I would do with that same person, now we would start to insert meats and stuff. And now we would start moving more towards like a paleo-esque type of diet. And 99% of them would feel just as amazing if not more. We'd start adding some muscle because all of a sudden their protein intake would naturally come up and they'd feel just fine and great.

And that would be me trying to show them that listen, it wasn't the vegan diet. It was, hey, you were lacking in antioxidants and fiber and all these micronutrients that and fiber and all these micro nutrients that you get from all these fruits and vegetables because you just flat out weren't eat enough. You were putting cookies and bullshit things in your diet and you weren't getting enough of this. You know, it's such a good point, Adam.

And here's some points that I want to make about this. And you can talk to a lot of health coaches and fitness coaches and some of the hardest clients I've ever worked with. You ever get a vegan that was obese and you had to train them and help them lose weight. Wow, is that difficult? Very, very difficult to work with. There was very, very little things that we could work with. And their diet was comprised of a lot of these processed foods. There were the most difficult people to work with because I didn't have the nutrient-dense satiating effects of these, you know, lean meats. You know, here's some history. I think people need to understand. First off,

these kind of diets are possible now because of modern technology. When the agricultural revolution happened around 10,000 years ago, and this is evolutionary scientists are quite clear on this. There were some big changes that happened to humans. We got shorter and our health actually got worse. Now there were some benefits to it. We didn't have the Rome. We could sit in one place and grow food and we could specialize our skills,

which was great for society. We could grow big societies. But even if you read some of the accounts of some of the early European sailors that came to the New World, people who came to the Americas from Spain and from a lot of these European countries, and when they would write about what they saw, they would say things like tall, muscular, and then of course they would label them savages or whatever, but they would say

things like they were very tall, very muscular, they had all their teeth, because they were coming from being dependent on a few staple crops to a place where there were lots of hunter gatherers, and these people were very vibrant, very healthy. When you talk to nutritional experts who work with women, for example, on balancing their hormones, oftentimes to get women to get their periods again, they have to recommend that they eat things like organ meats, egg yolks, sometimes people will lose their periods because they go on a vegan diet. And I'm not demonizing the vegan diet

by any stretch of the imagination. All I'm saying is that the planning that's required is much, much, much higher. I think that's the point that I keep trying to make over again and trying to hammer. And I think it's a dangerous present that we're doing. We keep pushing people in direction. It's gonna fuck up a lot of people's health.

Well, especially what I'm seeing is, and I know there's for sure somebody who's listening, who's hardcore vegan, they've been doing it for 10 years, it's been the best thing in life. I'm not talking to you. I'm not worried about you. No, the best vegan side. Like you've got this, dude.

This isn't, this conversation isn't for you. It's for every fucking other person. It's for the, my little cousin and my little niece who watched the, what the hell documentary and my other cousin who's in high school right now and all this propaganda is circulating the high school right now and you know, now they're starting to, you know, shame kids

that are eating all this meat and it's like now the cool hip and trendy thing to not eat meat. It's like no education around it, no real planning, no real understanding, and they're trying to make an attempt at like just not eating meat and staying away from it for all the wrong reasons. That's who the fuck I'm talking to right now. I'm not talking to somebody, just like I'm not talking to the carnivore person, the keto person, the paleo person, who's got their shit dialed. Like that's good for you.

If that works for you, you feel amazing and you're consistent. Like what my pump came about was to talk to the general population. When we came in this space, we saw a bunch of fitness idiots that were all fighting over the same fucking 2% people. Well, I'm interested in the 98%, the average person who doesn't have the education, that doesn't have the understanding, but wants to make better healthier choices,

and they're hearing this propaganda that the vegan diet is a better healthier choice. And that's just flat out post-information. No, it is, it's not true. Yeah, the best, the most consistent and best vegans that I've worked with or known were, were these kind of a person, this kind of an avatar. It's somebody who is a vegan, the most consistent and best vegans that I've worked with or known were this kind of person, this kind of an avatar. It's somebody who is a vegan

for moral and ethical purposes, so they're against killing of animals. So they're driven by that feeling to not eat meat or to avoid eating meat, which I, I 100% stand behind. If you feel that strongly about animals and you don't think they should be killed for consumption, you are taking action with the way you live. And I always respect that. I always respect, like I hate it when people preach, but they don't practice what they preach.

But a vegan who's like, no, I don't think animals should be killed. I don't think we should raise them to be killed. I think they should be treated a particular way. Therefore, I don't eat animals. I respect that. It's also studies will show those are the most consistent people. They tend to stay vegan. The vegans that go on and off and do it terribly are the ones that do it for health purposes. I'm doing it become healthy. Those are the people that go on and off with it. The second thing is the vegans who do it for more reasons,

they sit down and they try to plan it out. They go, okay, this is how I want to eat. I got to figure this out. I'm really trying to understand what this is how I want to eat. I got to figure this out. I'm really trying to understand, what are the foods I need to eat? What do I need to supplement with to make sure that I don't have nutrient deficiencies? And they tend to be the most consistent. And these are the people who do the best.

These are also the people that tend to agree with a post like you did on your Instagram the other day. Oh, they all do. I mean, incredible post because you're not calling out and saying that vegan is bad. No. No, it's just terrible advice for the average person. And if you do the planning, you do the work,

sure, it could be amazing for you. Paul Mis though, most people are just lazy. They're not gonna do that. Most people don't follow any diet. And that's a dangerous one to just say, hey, I'm gonna eliminate an essential nutrient. And here's the other thing too, okay? And by the way, if it wasn't vegan, let's say there was this huge push to go keto or there was this huge push to go carnivore, I

would be just as we did. I would be just and we did. We did. We came up when when keto first hit the scene before it became popular and bastardized, we talked about it. We talked about the pros of it and how it can be beneficial. We all went through it, explained our experience, the things we like, things we didn't like. And then what happened over the course of the following year to two years, so we did the Keto genic, the very original Keto genic episode was almost three years ago now. And we had Don Dio Steano on the show. We talked all about the benefits of it, but then it got

fucking popular. And then all the keto podcast started and all the keto books came out and now people are changing their profile names to keto this, keto that. And that's where we came out and said some shit. It's like, Hey, you guys, it took something that does have some health benefits. And there is a small population of people that this could be extremely good for and now everyone's doing it because it's the next popular thing to do. Now it's bad. And you're going to run into some problems because what you need to understand, just like with workouts, okay, just like with workouts, your diet, what's going to work best for you can be very different from what works best for the next person.

So I'll use a good example. It's going the opposite direction, okay? Our friend, Michaela Peterson, we had her on the show a long time ago, this is Jordan Peterson's daughter. She's a huge carnivore diet. So she's the opposite. All she eats is me and she eats no plant products, whatsoever.

Now from her standpoint, the carnivore diet is amazing. Now she suffered from severe autoimmune issues and depression. She would have these crazy autoimmune flare-ups anytime she would eat a plant-based product. So her body just has this reaction. Now for her eating a carnivore diet is the best diet. She's the healthiest she's ever been. I can't argue that. What you need to understand about your metabolism and your body is it's like a fingerprint. And then when you throw in your own emotional connections to food, it gets even more individualized. So are there people that a vegan diet will work best for? Absolutely. But the problem is making it cool for everybody and pushing it as a widespread

agenda because I know the average person is going to suffer from health issues, nutrient deficiencies, they're not going to do it right and no diet is best for everybody. And that's where the problem lies. And the reason why this vegan push to be is more dangerous and more nefarious than the previous diet pushes, like the low carb diet push, the low fat diet push, atkins, keto, fasting. The reason why the vegan agenda? Because you're eliminating one of the most nutrient dense foods in the world.

But not just that. That's why. Yes, but that's the main reason why. But it's not just that. It's because they've taken a diet and they've attached, they've attached morality to it. Diet's tend to have a religious feeling around them anyway. Everybody in fitness knows this.

If you're at your in-laws house, you never talk about politics, religion, and diet. That's the other one, right? A lot of people don't talk about that. You start talking about diet. In Texas. You start having a big, you can have huge arguments. If I'm a keto guy and I'm talking to somebody

who's a low fat guy and we're going back and forth, we can actually get into a massive argument. People in the fitness space knows this. Diet can become religious in nature because we identify with them. This one right here in particular, they're attaching all kinds of morality. I have never heard anybody say it's moral to eat keto.

It's moral and ethical to eat low fat, or it's moral and ethical to eat carnivore. Nobody says that about any diets, except for the vegan one. Now that we've attached morality to it, holy shit. You wanna talk about something that's got some danger to it. You gotta be very careful because I've run into a lot of people who want to do the right thing, who've bought into the moral arguments of veganism and whose health is suffering terribly.

I had one client that I was working with virtually. This young lady, she was anemic, she wasn't getting her period and her hormones were all over the place. And this poor girl, the prescription was, you probably need to start throwing some, in fact, she had her doctor teller, you need to start eating some meat, you need to start eating some egg yolks, you need the cholesterol,

you need some of these nutrients. And she was so torn because of this moral dilemma. And at the end of the day, the thing I told her, and I didn't want to push her in any direction, because I don't want to push, I want people, people have to make their own decisions. This is another thing I've learned as a trainer,

is that they have to make, you can't push someone into something, you can kind of, you can inform them, but then they have to make their own decision. Otherwise, if you push too hard, what ends up happening is they, they push in the opposite direction. And so I, you know, I told her, I said, look, at the end of the day, the animal that you need to be most concerned with is your own self.

You are the most important animal on the planet in terms of what you should be concerned with. Because, if you're not healthy, you can't help other animals. You can't make a difference in the world. It's just like the argument I tell parents when parents are like, I can't work out because it takes time away from my kids. And I tell them, if you're not healthy, you're not giving your kids good time. A healthy fit you is better for everything. So at the end of the day, you have to consider the animal that's most important. And if you find that

eating animal products makes you healthier, then that's probably the best decision that you can make for yourself. And you can help more, I mean, you can eat animal products and then because you're healthy, you have more energy to devote to better farming practices, better treatment of animals, and just better information in general. If you're not healthy, you're not doing anybody any favors.

I feel like the big one right now is the environmental and carbon footprint. Yes. That to me is the one that when I hear the younger Generation coming worries me the most actually even beyond the moral aspect because I the moral aspect I can see you know in terms of people like really grabbing on to that be like well out cruelty like let's let's Let's address cruelty in this world and here's like how I it. And I could see how their perspective or a life is a life, right? Right. Right. Life is life. But, but you see this just all of a sudden being wrapped into it, even though it's not checked, it's not checked. This is becomes popular opinion overnight because of it's so politicized and wrapped into everything else in terms of global warming

in terms of like, you know, all these like industrial farm complexes are the reason for the entire thing. And it's like, is that true? Have you even asked yourself if that's true? Like always ask yourself if that's true. Look at the counterpoints, look at other statistics, other information, you have to look at it all. And you have to, it's very complicated. It's extremely complicated. More complicated than people want to admit, especially politicians, they'll never admit that a problem's too complicated to solve with laws.

You know, they always have the answer with a law. Like, oh, we'll just pass a law. You know, here's a good example. Plastic straws, here's a great example. You know what I noticed now at Starbucks? Now instead of getting a straw, they have these massive plastic sippy couple lids that they put on the top of every.

So now instead of a straw, which is, they've melted 20 of them to get one thing. Yeah, one tenth of the plastic, now we're throwing away these massive lids that are far more plastic. Now, I'm not saying that banning straws, that people knew that that would happen, but nobody considered the unintended consequences of just passing a particular law.

I enjoy this to be better. I'll be honest. But do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. So what would the unintended consequences be of a bunch of the average person, the average American, consider the average American, they place almost no effort in planning into their diet, they value food mainly for its palatability and its taste. What would the unintended consequences be

about just scaring everybody away from me? No, no, no, don't eat meat. It's bad for the environment, bad for your health, just eat plant foods. The unintended consequences, I'm gonna guess. I'm gonna make my guess, but it's an educated guess and I'd bet everything on it. Higher processed food consumption.

Process foods also come in lots of wrappers, plastics, and other things that we need to throw away. It's gonna contribute to obesity because processed foods encourage more food consumption. Fat people are sicker, require more medication, are less productive, and generally worse for the environment. Okay? Unhealthy people are just generally worse for the world.

So that's another unintended consequence. Higher GMO consumption, the average American is gonna avoid meat, but they're not gonna go organic. They're just gonna eat plant-based wrapper products, whatever. That's gonna be more chemical sprayed into the soil, more glyphosate sprayed all over the place, which also kill lots of other organisms

like bees and animals that are important for the survival of the earth. We're not considering all of the downstream effects of this, what they're trying to make it sound like the super simple solution to the environment. And then we're also not considering that it's more complicated in terms of which one really produces more waste

when we're comparing apples to apples. Beef, they always use beef because beef is the worst one. But that's not the only animal that we eat. We also eat chicken and pork and fish and other animal products. Those animal products are actually far cleaner on the environment. For example, I use the example of pork.

Pork produces three times less the greenhouse gas emissions than lettuce wood for the amount of energy being produced, type of deal. So you have to consider all of these things and realize it's way more complicated. What we need to do, here's what we need to do with food. What we need to do with food is connected to what's most important, most clear,

which is what is good for us, health wise. Forget everything else. Stay there. Stay there for a second. We haven't even gotten, fuck, we haven't even won that argument yet. Shit. Are we still eating crap?

We're still eating shitty right now. Well, that's the red flags for me. If I have to literally supplement and bring things in outside of just what I could grow and eat and I'm going to be deficient. You're trying to tell me that's what's best for me. I have a hard time with that. Yeah, I mean, let's go back to the original conversation, which is, let's see with healthy.

We haven't finished that conversation yet. Now we're moving to, here's what's best, the environment. Oh, and by the way, if you vote for this guy, he's against it. You vote for this guy. They're for it. We're're gonna create a lot of problem. And the statistics are true. I just, like I said, I've been reading up on this, how malnutrition is going up during the most plentiful times

in all of human history, malnutrition, are you kidding me? That's crazy. We should not be malnourished. We're overfed and under everything. There's an excess. Yes, it's a matter of now like bringing and presenting your body with the best forms of nutrients. Now I'm not, and again, I want to be very, very clear.

I'm not against veganism. If you plan it well, it can be very healthy. I don't think it's for everybody, but for the people that it's for, I think it can be great. Oh, it's just the things they attach it with. Like I said, the carbon footprint thing. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, footprint, ride your fucking bike to work twice a week

and have two vegan days a month. There you go. You know what I'm saying? And you'll probably be a smaller house. Right, there's so many other things that you can be doing in that argument, I think is such a terrible one. I've shared that article. I mean, they said they've broken it down

to like the differences like 2%. It's like 2% and that's not even taking the county argument that you made, so. So when people say that to me, I'm like, there's so many other ways that you can reduce your carbon footprint than simply just cutting out, sticking me down.

That's more dangerous to your health. Now, let me ask you guys this question, because I know what the answer would be for me, but let's say you took your average client, okay? Your average client. And first thing first, I've learned this through, it took me a few years to learn this as a trainer, but I started to learn that there were a few things

I could communicate that would have a big positive impact. And then there were things that if I communicated too much, they would just paralyze with too much information or it just wasn't effective, okay? But imagine if you took your average client and all you communicated with about diet was avoid meat. What do you think would happen to that client? Do you think that they would have gotten leaner?

Or do you think they would have gotten fatter? Right, there's not any question. Right, what do you, fatter? Fatter, for sure. Or already a super carb. I mean, I'm the one that made the argument from early on that I don't even like us not telling people that they need help with protein.

I think we already under- under consumed protein as it is. So I've had many, many, especially my female clients, had to boost protein. If I were to tell my client that same client that just avoid meat altogether, we'd be up a shit store and they would be replacing that with their already super carb heavy diet with more. No, the most effective thing I ever, if I had to communicate one thing with nutrition, that was like really effective by itself. It was avoid heavily processed foods.

Like that was the best thing I could tell, I told the client, hey look, don't worry about anything else, just avoid heavily processed foods. I would notice their calories would drop considerably, and then they would replace it with whole natural foods in the form of meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. That was the single most effective thing that I could do.

If I just told people to avoid meat, I know what would happen. They'd replace it with processed food, they'd get fatter, and then we'd have to deal with potential nutrient deficiencies, in which case I'd have to tell people to supplement. And here's always been my argument, too. I think supplements are okay. I'm glad we have them. But if people can eat in a way that means that they don't need supplements,

that's the best way to eat. Wouldn't you guys agree? Oh yeah. I think that's the best way to eat. Well, the position that I have on this is very similar to the position that I have on CrossFit. And that is this. I am not anti-crossfit.

I'm anti-people that have lots of success with CrossFit pushing it on everybody else. Just like I'm not anti-crossfit. I'm anti people that have lots of success with CrossFit pushing it on everybody else. Just like I'm not anti-vegan. If you are running a vegan diet and it's great for you, your health is great. You're hitting all your nutrient targets. Fucking awesome. Stay with it. Keep doing it. More power to you.

Just like the kid who's running CrossFit has been doing it for five years, has no problems, no aches, pains, has a great squat great squad has a great overhead press has all these things But the problem is you're not the fucking majority and most of my fucking career I trained the majority I trained all the average Joe's and the normal people and I hate when we take something That we've had a lot of success with and then we try to push it on everybody else as an agenda That's all it is, like it's not for everybody. I would say this, if you want to,

if you're really interested in going vegan, just do your due diligence, do your research, look at people who are experts in that space, and see what foods you need to eat, what foods you need to combine, what you need to eat a lot of, what you need to avoid, so that you do it the right way. Because again, if you do it right, what foods you need to combine, what you need to eat a lot of, what you need to avoid, so that you do it the right way.

Because again, if you do it right, you're probably gonna be okay. And if it works for you, that's absolutely fine. But do not go into it like this. Don't go into it just avoiding me. You're gonna cause yourself a lot of different problems. I'm really looking forward to that documentary that's coming out.

I think it's in a few weeks, the one that Arnold was promoting. And it looks like they're talking about. I suspect, and I'm going to say this right now because I don't know for sure, but I want to be, I want to see if I can predict this. I suspect what's going to follow that is going to be a line of plant-based supplement. Of course. Of course. And it's like smart business right now. I mean, it would be the most brilliant thing for us to do right now. I mean, it's, it would be much easier for us to ride the wave and make money than to come out with a counter message like we are right now. And like I said, we have no dog in this fight. I've got no diet to sell you. I've got no supplement to sell you. I got none of that stuff.

It's just simply us explaining to you our experience with all the thousands of people that we, thousands of people we've handled in person and probably tens of thousands of people that we've interacted with virtually. It's just not the most ideal diet for the majority, for any of the reasons and arguments that everybody tries to sell you on. Yeah, just don't be a sheep, man. Like think for yourself. I know like public opinion definitely

sways a lot of your average people. And this is one of those things that's just gonna keep, you know, moving that direction saying that meat is not ideal and plant-based diet is the best diet. And so just check yourself when you hear that information and make sure you're always like doing your own research. Excellent. And with that, go to mindpumpfree.com and download our guides. They're all absolutely free.

You can also find us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin, Adam at Mind Pump Adam and you can find me at Mind Pump Sal. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs.

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