I finished the book. Lots to think about as most of it contradicts everything I’ve learned about nutrition. I know I won’t give up any foods, but I will certainly eat only quality/wild animal foods in my diet as well limiting my intake of them.
Next up on my to-read list is The Blue Zones by Dan Buttner. You might want to check it.
I’ll check it out. Thanks.
In the meantime, were there any recommendations or suggestions in the book you didn’t believe or agree with? I don’t think he did a great job explaining how diabetes and insulin resistance are the result of animal products and not carbs. I think the dangers of even occasional animal based foods were overblown as well. Yesterday on his Facebook page he wrote eggs might not be as bad as he once thought. At least he follows the research and has the integrity to acknowledge when he may be wrong.
Kinda related to the thread, I just finished watching Steak (R)evolution on Netflix. Interesting documentary done by a French chef who went around the world talking to other chefs, ranchers, and butchers about how they work with steak/cattle in their country.
Got into everything from how the animals are raised to how they’re cooked, and pretty much everything between. Peter Luger’s (the one in Brooklyn) was actually featured throughout the movie.
Sorry about the late reply. I have not been on the forum so much lately. I don’t think he did so much of a great job with the chapter on diabetes, but I think throughout the entire book he does reveal things that are worth taking thought of.
Yes, he is someone who is willing to admit when he was wrong, just as he thought he was wrong when he was protein obsessed too. I tried to find that post about eggs.
Saw the post. Regardless, I am vegan because I learned what goes in the egg industry, organically farmed or factory farmed.
I respect that. I only pointed it out because it shows he is more concerned about the science and truth instead of sticking to his guns in the presence of contradictory evidence.
Thanks for the video Chris.
I’m not sure what you mean (in regard to organic egg farming), Brick. Is there something I’m missing?
I get my eggs literally next door (to our development). The chickens are full-time free-range, out in the open, under some tree cover, and sharing this space with some geese, turkeys, and ducks. The farmer “cycles” the chickens into new locations on the property in warmer seasons. There is no crowding, no factory-type cohabitation.
I’m not trying to speak for BrickHead, but once chickens stop laying eggs or slow down the production substantially they’re often slaughtered and tossed into a stew.
How is this mistreatment? I eat chicken anyway, so as long as the chicken lived humanely, how is taking it’s life “for the stew” a violation?
Mmm, now I’m hungry for chicken stew
I will report back with my thoughts and conclusions about reading about both sides and the results of this experiment. I said several times in this thread: this is not a lifelong pledge.
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OK, so the experiment/meltdown/journey ended. And it came to an end because of the conclusions I have drawn from experimenting and failing with a vegan diet as well as in my spare time educating myself on hunting, wildlife, vegetarian nutrition, and environmentalism in my spare time, mostly on lunch breaks and watching wildlife shows with my wife before bed for an hour or so.
I want to make it clear that this was NOT silly navel gazing or angst-laden pondering, such as, weepy thoughts like, “What is the meaning of life,” “Why is the world so unfair?”, blah, blah, blah. I have better and more important shit to do than think about what I am eating all day: work, gym, family, chores, etc.
Here are some take home conclusions and thoughts. This will be lengthy, but I will type until I am tired of typing, and then perhaps follow up again this weekend or some other day (those I am close with hate–repeat: HATE–my forum posting. They do know what I write on here; they just think typing to strangers is dumb!
OK, here we go.
I hope Push sees this one. Veganism, I have come to realize, is indeed, as Push called it, city boy lunacy. Hence why those who take it up, I have realized, also have a similar couple of interests and characteristics: punk rock, or any other form of angst laden music or “movement” that is at constant war with “society”; liberalism; feminism; egalitarian socialism; and so on. After meeting some vegans, and with much of what my best friend, vegan of ten years or more says and thinks, one can conclude that they have a completely infantile view of the world. I like to pride myself on not having this view (people have seen most politically or societally oriented posts) and remaining hard headed and realistic, but being the city boy that I am, I have concluded that before learning more about hunting, farming, and wildlife, I had almost no knowledge on these topics and I think this is where groups like PETA use their trickery and emotional and moral abuse too fool uninformed and gullible and sensitive people (I myself am very sensitive, emotional, and empathic).
Veganism, in regards to the environment and animals, is actually more environmentally destructive, less compassionate, and completely unsustainable when compared with humane farming and hunting. As I said, much of what I said in this thread and thought, was a reflection of city-boy ignorance. Now that I am sober and untraumatized by biased propaganda, likely made by squeamish wimps or trendy city folk, such as PETA videos, Cow spiracy, and Forks Over Knives. Actually, a few people featured in Forks Over Knives are rural people (eg, Campbell, Barnard), but are missing the big picture, even if they were brought up on farms.
Ethical vegans and animal rights activists are unbelievably hypocritical, ignorant, uninformed, or all. They are all over the fucking place! On one hand, they don’t want us to be the ruler, or owner, or master over animals–any position “above them”. So they want to recognize that we as humans are animals too, part of the giant macro-ecosystem called planet earth, but they don’t want us to behave as the animals we are, which entails what other animals do: eat, kill, AND use other animals. They are against us using animals for transport, medicinal or scientific reasons, and companionship. However, if one watches enough wildlife videos or reads some books, they too will realize that all kinds of living creatures devour others and use them for hygienic purposes. For example, I cannot remember details, but I saw on a BBC wildlife special some type of sea mammal, a type of whale I recall, use a certain type of fish to cleanse parasites from itself. Another time long ago I remember seeing in a film plover birds plucking at a crocodile’s teeth, so the bird gets to eat and the croc gets its teeth cleaned. So, as we human animals have far more sophisticated brains and other capabilities, we use other animals for far more than teeth flossing. The vegans do not realize that that they wouldn’t even have a life if it were not for using and consuming animals.
From what I have read, and should have read earlier considering my profession, dietetics, the most environmental and environmental destruction related to eating comes from grain production. The most ethical and healthiest way to eat is to rely on organic, locally raised and grown, and mercifully slaughtered animals and vegetables and tubers, pretty much a paleo diet with dairy. Grain production involves pretty much destroying ecosystems and all that lives in them. So vegans are doing no environmental service by eating and purchasing products the way they do. Actually, and this relates to the next topic, much of what they use, such as synthetic, Franken-tech-style, products are not nearly as long lasting as fur (gasp!).
Factory farming is an abomination. No more commentary needed here.
I’ve come to learn that some ethical hunters actually are the real environmentalists.
Some vegans really are in la-la land, going so far as to take up a fruitarian diet because our own GI tracts and teeth are similar to frugivorus apes. You know, because the mammalian genome is only a tiny fraction different than theirs, while not realizing that this tiny difference in
the makeup of the genome, determines whether we are going to be a rat, chimp, wolf, human, and so on. So they just live on veggies, fruits, nuts, and seeds, as apes do. And to fruitarians, spices are “exitotoxins”–you know, because they make food taste good. And cooking degrades food, so everything should be raw, as the aforesaid items. One can see from fruitarian videos on YT and pictures of them that they like to be involved in situations and activities in which they can escape mentally or physically and not have to deal with life with two feet on the ground, such as yoga (hence you see a lot of vegans in that common crossed legged yoga-meditation seating position), gallivanting in the Caribbean at retreats so they can eat buckets of fruit and meditate and embrace one another over what’s wrong with society at large and only ingest “species-specific” foods (the ones chimps eat), and ultra-fasts lasting two or more weeks! I don’t like to be insensitive this bunch or make fun of them, but it really shows one that veganism is far more about than what one eats!
If one knows enough about the world, they can clearly see that a vegan diet is the diet of coddled, over-industrialized, squeamish wimps. I am not saying all vegans are like this, but if one thinks about the matter in context, then I believe this is a logical conclusion. And it also shows that vegan-sustainability is only situational, not taking survival into account at all. So this tells me the inherent, natural flaw in it, if that makes any sense. This is not a scientific way of looking at it, but in a sense, it means that Mother Nature actually did not intend for humans to be vegans. Yeah, yeah, the “appeal to nature” thing, but I don’t need excessive explanation or scientific reasoning for everything, I believe. What happened to going with your gut and instinct?
Take for example, a show I saw last week, in which Indians living in the South American amazon hunt whatever the fuck they can find, tarantulas or monkeys for example, or Africans taking honey from a tree that they have to climb fatal heights for. It’s either eat the animals or their secretions or die! Or take Greenlanders, for whom veganism is not an option while they are living on frozen tundra. They USE wolves for their sleds, and eat sea animals. Want a kale salad with craisins and chopped walnuts just like at home in Williamsburg or Bushwick? Sorry, it ain’t there! 
Some vegans will say, “Oh, but we have a choice here and now.” Oh, really? Well, what if, god forbid, this coddled system goes kaput and you have to feed yourself with enough calories, fat, and nutrients in the most efficient way? Where will veganism be? You talk about sustainability, right?
I learned there is a difference between animal rights and animal welfare. Animals do not have rights and so far as we are sharing this earth with them, we will have to DEAL with them according to situations. After to coming to my senses, post-PETA traumatization, I realized, that yes, one can be an animal lover and an animal eater and user, but NOT an exploiter or abuser. I still do not think sea mammals such as Killer Whales should be held in captivity considering the devastation it does to them, their bodies and minds. Just no fucking way they should be there. Same goes for elephants or the ridiculous idea of having capuchin monkeys as pets, creatures that cannot be domesticated whatsoever, in my view at this current time.
Not every fur trader or slaughterhouse worker is a freaking sadist! PETA-style shit had me almost not wanting to wear my goose down jackets, even though they are the damn warmest jackets I have! And what if I one has a cat, an obligate carnivore, or a dog, an omnivore? What shall s/he do?
OK, enough for now. I made my ethical decision: try to purchase animal products more mindfully (like the eggs I got from the farm around the corner), go to restaurants that provide wild game or grass fed products (such as Bareburger and the Polish joint near me that serves quail and pheasant), and look into what companies make clothes ethically if possible and have limited amounts of grains and more potatoes and cassava and beets for starchy carbs.
I once felt ridiculous for this basket case of a thread, but actually, I am grateful for learning a lot about food and wildlife and hunting in the past two months. And I also apologize if I had any city-boy-style disrespect to any rural people here, who have experience with farming or hunting. Thanks to Push and Angry Chicken in particular. I might even want to learn how to hunt in the future. Long Island and upstate NY have a few places.
I might write more tomorrow. But for now, I will head off to the kitchen for some grass fed buffalo mozzarella and tomato slices. Maybe after the gym tonight I will hit up Bareburger for an elk or wild boar burger.
The burgers are on Brick!
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They should be, after this disastrous thread.
Damn good post, Brick.
The thread was not disastrous. It was civil and informative.
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Thanks! I have to post with no one around here from now on.
Brick, I have to say that this has been the most informative and in depth expositories on the subject that I’ve seen. You jumped head first straight into the deep end!
Honestly man, great work. That took some serious balls to challenge those notions, examine yourself in such a way, then create a sound conclusion that you can live with.
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I agree 100%. Great job, Brick.
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