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Rest in Peace, China Study

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I know this was all over the blogosphere yesterday but I think it’s important enough for a repost.

One thing I can count on every time I write an article extolling the health benefits of animal products is someone sending me an email or posting a comment like this:

I think you’re absolutely wrong. You should read: The China Study, by Dr. T. Collin Campbell.

Sorry to be contrary, but T. Colin Campbell’s “The China Study” should put this issue to rest. Please consider the information presented there. The methodology is impressive.

Campbell recommends a vegan diet–no animal based food at all. He claims that population studies demonstrate that vegan populations do not suffer from the high incidence of cardiovascular disease and cancer that we in the West do with our diets heavy on animal protein.

In fact, those are direct quotes from comments that have been left on my blog over the past year. I can’t even show you some of the emails people have sent because the language might offend you.

Usually I direct those folks to Chris Masterjohn’s excellent critique of the China Study. Now, however, I’ll be sending them over to read Denise Minger’s freshly published China Study smackdown.

Here’s the introduction:

When I first started analyzing the original China Study data, I had no intention of writing up an actual critique of Campbell’s much-lauded book. I’m a data junkie. Numbers, along with strawberries and Audrey Hepburn films, make me a very happy girl. I mainly wanted to see for myself how closely Campbell’s claims aligned with the data he drew from—if only to satisfy my own curiosity.

But after spending a solid month and a half reading, graphing, sticky-noting, and passing out at 3 AM from studious exhaustion upon my copy of the raw China Study data, I’ve decided it’s time to voice all my criticisms. And there are many.

Denise got hold of the raw study data and took it apart with a fine-toothed comb. And what she found is that the claims Campbell made in his China Study book are not supported by the data. She also found important data points Campbell never bothered to mention in the book because they didn’t support his vegan agenda.

For example, Campbell conveniently fails to mention the county of Tuoli in China. The folks in Tuoli ate 45% of their diet as fat, 134 grams of animal protein each day (twice as much as the average American), and rarely ate vegetables or other plant foods. Yet, according to the China Study data, they were extremely healthy with low rates of cancer and heart disease; healthier, in fact, than many of the counties that were nearly vegan.

This is just one of many cases of the selective citation and data cherry picking Campbell employs in the China Study. Denise’s critique masterfully reveals the danger of drawing conclusions from epidemiological studies, which can only show correlations between variables – not causal relationships. Campbell should be well aware of this. After all, in his book he rails against the nutritional bias rampant in the scientific community. Yet nowhere is such bias more evident than in Campbell’s own interpretation of the China Study data.

Denise concludes:

Ultimately, I believe Campbell was influenced by his own expectations about animal protein and disease, leading him to seek out specific correlations in the China Study data (and elsewhere) to confirm his predictions.

Campbell’s response to previous critics of the China Study has been something to the effect of: “I’m a trained scientist. Therefore you should believe me and not my critics.” That is a weak argument – to put it mildly. You don’t need six years of graduate school to learn to think critically. Nor does having a lot of letters after your name make you immune to biased thinking or intellectual blindness. A lot of smart, educated people believed the cholesterol hypothesis for decades. But that never made it true.

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You can read more – and I mean a lot more – over at Denise’s blog. I recommend starting with her article China Study: Fact or Fallacy? For many of you, it will be more than enough. But if you’re interested in this stuff, she has written several other articles worth reading.

There are also reviews of Denise’s article at Free the Animal, Whole Health Source, Robb Wolf and PaNu. If you don’t have time to read Denise’s article, read Dr. Harris’s review at PaNu. It’s the next best thing.

Rest in peace, China Study.

P.S. You might also want to check out this debate between T. Colin Campbell and Loren Cordain on human protein requirements. Notice that Cordain’s articles contain 164 citations of research studies. How many references do Campbell’s articles contain? Zero. And Campbell’s typical “I’m more educated than the other guy” won’t fly here. Dr. Cordain has some serious chops.

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401 Comments

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  1. I presume all the vegans here do not wear leather shoes, nor use any products using leather

    • Mostly not! It’s really hard to avoid ALL animal products 24/7 though, they are present in many products that we are not even aware of!
      However, anything is exchangeable with plant based ingredients or stuff that is made in lab!

  2. Why so black and white. Food that may be appropriate for Joe the skinny gamer may not be good for Jim the athlete. How about ancestry. Just the fact that people of some countries are almost all lactose intolerant, but not people from another country shows that we are not the same when it comes to appropriate food. I think that the problem is too much unnatural processed and unnaturally raised meats (and plant food for that matter), but mainly the fact that it is toooo much. One thing that is pretty clear (no elaborate study needed), is that the fatter people got, the sicker they got. Are we meant to be plant or meat eaters is a strange question. If there is any answer to that that would be correct for all or at least the vast majority of people it is that we are obviously omnivores and equipped to eat both, anything to stay alive. Our oldest known common ancestors are the African bushmen whose descendants often still live the prehistoric lifestyle. They eat about 75% percent plant food incl. roots, vegetables and fruit and about 25% meat, mostly antelope and smaller game. But they are all extremely thin by our standards.

    • bingo!

      I love watching these vegan propaganda documentaries that show subjects getting off their junk diets and getting healthy with their vegan diets and then say “see, we told you meat and animal products was the evil,” while completely dismissing all the other garbage the subjects were eating previously.”

      Assuming macro’s were in line, Im willing to bet that if you took a control group that were eating what the typical American ate and had marked health issues and switched them to a whole foods diet that still had meat in it their health would turn around dramatically.

      Im willing to bet even more that if you took it further and eliminated grains, included high ORAC value veggies and fruits and matched their animal protein intake based on their lean mass you’d get better results than going vegan.

  3. Too many posts to go through, so I hope I am not repetitive in my response. Personally, the China Study has it’s merits, but so does the meat eating world. What has to be studied is not so much whether eating meat in itself is bad or good or indifferent, but have the study correlate within it’s own region. Comparing a study from a foreign country where livestock raising laws are so different from the western world, no wonder you’ll get such disparity. The U.S. livestock is bread with hundreds of antibiotics and vaccinations and other chemicals that obviously it affects the U.S. population the way it does. But, we can say the same thing about our plants. Our plants are heavily doused with chemicals even after harvesting. How can you do a study without adding all the contributing factors that goes into raising a livestock or harvesting a plant. Let’s make a true comparison of a cow raised in North America with one that is raised in a small farm in a part of a foreign country that has little to no big city influence. Let’s analyze plants that is harvested in the U.S. versus a plant that is harvested in a small farm in a foreign country. You will see major differences and you can conclude that any study with that huge of a disparity will provide you with answers conforming to the person doing the study. So, the bigger question is, what is the question?? Are trying to get away from animal protein or are we trying to get away from plants? Truth is, that’s none of your business! We as humans have the capacity to consume what we want, you want to be a vegan or vegetarian, great. Want to be a complete carnivore? Great, but do it on your own dime and don’t sell your agenda to me. As a free thinker, I don’t subscribe to any of the carnivore, paleo, vegan or vegetarian lifestyle, but I do dabble in all of it from time to time as I please! That is my 2 cents, good night ya’ll!

  4. Sorry Chris but I don’t take you seriously on science issues when you make most of your income from selling Paleo (read heavy on meat protein) and giving talks based on your books. Therefore you have an agenda. From an anthropological standpoint if you want to actually eat what our ancestors did you need to eat almost all calories from plant sources and occasionally supplement with insects and wild eggs. If you do not believe this please do show us how easy it is to kill with a spear an adult animal such as a rabbit or deer. I can assure you that none of your books include recipes for raw or roasted grasshoppers or robins eggs.

    • Using a gun or snare would be more effective hunting rabbits. Deer hunting with a gun or if like the challenge a crossbow.

    • Before there was a spear there was the persistent hunt. Check out the work of Professor Daniel Lieberman…I do not see a heavy diet of vegetables fueling such a long endeavor, but a fat adapted runner has access to far more energy to sustain this rigorous hunting technique.

    • This is a silly comment, really. He talks mostly about Denise Minger’s critique of The China Study. If you have issues with that, then you should specify why. I would suggest you go and read her critique and then address a specific issue you have. This is just a straw man.

    • please show me how youll eat grains and legumes and other plant foods and without milling them and cooking them.

  5. People going to believe what they want. It doesn’t matter what “science” finds today, because tomorrow they’ll find something contrary to it. However, if anyone is a “believer”, GOD originally planned for us to have a whole plants based diet. But like always, we try to think we know better than GOD and go about doing our own thing. While I agree in part about the China Study leaving out detailed studies…. so what…. That book would have ended up bigger than a dictionary. Regardless, someone is always going to find fault in studies…. There’s always going to be something missing or overlooked…Why? We’re human… Totally faulable beings. Still, there’s no overlooking the those who changed their lives and their health by switching to a plant based diet… Did they all go completely 100% to a based diet? Or did some just significantly reduce their animal based foods (meats, fish, dairy and eggs)? In the end…It’s for people to decide what’s right for them and to be happy with it. If you want to eat meat… Go for it… But stop bashing the studies. Plain and simple the process foods, meats, dairy companies are going to do whatever it takes to continue to make their money… Including paying people to discount the studies. Because that’s the bottom line….No one really cares about anyone else anymore… Only themselves and the $$$$ they can make.

    • I would love to know why you think God planned for us to eat a plant based diet. Everything I can turn up, including the Bible, indicates that we are omnivores and very much designed to consume both plants and animals.

      • Hey Jaima, It says here that we were originally designed to eat plant based and here are the scriptures, firstly:

        Genesis 1:29-30 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

        But also see after the fall: Genesis 9:3-5 Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.

        And lasting read: Romans 14:1-23 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand. One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’” So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall. So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

        You can also see verses 1 Corinthians 8:13 and 1 Corinthians 10:25

  6. This response does not answer the increases in cancer associated with increases in cancer found in many other studies including controlled studies in Campbell’s early career. Ifind it increduluous that she alone reanalyzed the raw data in the manner described. Is she an epidemologisy? Further this data set is absolutely huge. One outlier community doesnt invalidate the many many associations of a plant based diet with lower cancer rates. I’d like to see her statistical analysis. Data on Blue Zones and particularly the Seventh Day Adventists is consistent. I find the anti vegan sentiments to be hyperbolic and unscientific. Diets high in plants and the associated micronutrients are healthy and prorective against many diseases and this is the direction which the scientific evidence is pointing.

    • Go read her article and you can find her statistical analysis. Then address a specific issue. Your critiques are simply opinion otherwise.

  7. Its funny they target one study. Its clear when 3-4 peopleat the same time are coming to the same conclusion and then THIS study coincides with all their findings. Throw it out thas fine. They still came to the same conclusions and now are other studies finding the same thing.

    And whos to say this woman isnt cherry picking.? There is always margin for error.And when you goselect this error margin and feel you have found a flaw is irrelevant. If I flip a coin with 50% chance. There isa chance Icould flip heads 10/10. Would this error margin show that I now am lygin in my study and you will 100% get heads. No, she looked at some cherry picked shit. And not the whole broad of the study.

    This just goes to show the ignorance of people, this woman trying to debunk it. I guarantee she went in with the attempt to find a problem. Thats issue one, she wanted to find something so she made something come out, and I am sorry but its stupidity, and then low IQ bloggers with bias to meat celebrate like these guys who dedicated their lives to finding the truth are now proven wrong.

    I would intellectually debate any blogger, any person attempting a debunk on these studies including using citations from other studies, to prove they are making baseless claims over something they read from someone who didnt know in the first place. You mine as well call this fake news.

    I can make a blog and post the retards comments to, this doesnt support anything and only makes it look more desperate. This lady looked at someone elses study, let mesee this woman do her own realstudy going against it. Insteadofcherry picking which you said they did, which is hilarious lie.

    I could go on. But I am done.

  8. The amount of poor quality advice and commentary around this subject is freightening from both a health and sustainability perspective. The China study may not be perfect, but it is based on rigorous scientific research, is supported by a myriad of further scientific studies and has been peer reviewed. Many commentaries that supposedly “debunk” the study are merely blogs and perspectives from individuals who have no scientific training and who’s perspectives have not been subjected to any kind of peer or scientific scrutiny. The amount of evidence in support of plant based diets being used to manage and reverse chronic diseases is now overwhelming. Irrespective of any study, for anyone who doubts that they would benefit from putting nutrient dense, natural products into their body – why don’t you give it a go for 30 days and see what it does to your blood work, energy level and sense of well being.

  9. I’m curious about some of the commentators on here. Bit of background information on myself; currently started suffering with GERD for the past 3 months out of the blue. LONG TERM vegetarian for 28 years and on occasion Vegan. Granted not the best vegetarian but still heck of a long time to be one.
    Interestingly enough whilst I’ve had this GERD problem, I have begun to crave meat and have been able to eat Chicken, sausages and fish and keep it all down which surprised me. I have cut out most fruit, eating good fat foods (do your research on this e.g. raw milk, avocadoes, coconut oil, eggs, Ghee and meat etc) and ditched processed carbs such as Bread, oats, grains etc in favour of low carb vegetables. I have cut out all processed sugar and am in the process of cutting out most natural sugars.
    The difference is astounding. I too have believed vegan plant based diet is the way to go, however given how much better I feel because of the drastic change in my diet and the way I feel, I suspect will never lead me to being a Vegetarian/Vegan again. I am looking at finding my meat ethically farmed (if that’s even possibly in today world??) alongside other animal products.
    This aside, all the comments on here sniping at the meat eaters and how wasteful due to resources etc due to the population of the planet, how many of you have reproduced adding to the over populated world that we currently live in? (you may think this is going off topic but actually its the heart of the topic if you really think about it.)

    • Irrelevant! You were never whole foods plant based low fat vegan! Your GERD may have been triggered by just one type of food, not the whole plant foods group!
      You may fix one problem (permanently?) – GERD, but you may also, in time, get other more serious health problems – cholesterol, heart disease, colorectal cancer, CVD,… Who knows!

    • this is funny. a veg. for almost 30 years and just switched. were you that easily switch to become a veg. in the first place.?

      Simply put when you switch from this processed food and meat you consume much less calories. 500 calroies of plant based food can fillyou upvs. the condensed calroric garbage you can get other places. (fastfood. that 320 calrorie lunchable where i could eat 4, etc)

      Most people get an understanding but not the complete understanding, the previous was just an EXAMPLE before I get flamed. theres people who switch and always feelhungry, simply because they arent eating enougfh calories. and they switch back to a garbage diet.

      Point is the knowledge you gained for the reason to switch to a whole foods plant based diet is thrown out over complete misguidance and lackof understanding.

      Getting GERD made your mind wild and blame thigns that may have been the wrong issue.

      BTW. Im not entirely vegan. I just eat better. And will make the transition. Thanks

  10. I honestly cannot believe some of these comments. The comment about not caring about about “lesser” animals and caring only for other humans has got to be the most ignorant comment I’ve ever seen in my life. How very speciesist of you. If this person was educated in any sense of the word about this topic, she would have known that statistically, the consumption of animal products, in particular cows, is the leading cause of deforestation of the Amazon and hunger in other countries. Your meat addiction is LITERALLY killing millions of people, including children, all over the world. So if you claim to care about your fellow humans, but disregard the lives of other sentient beings, and completely disregard the collective spirit the universe, the LEAST you could do is educate yourself on the extreme and horrific ramifications of animal agriculture has on your fellow humans before you type such a baseless, ignorant, selfish comment. You can go ahead and look information this up for yourself- I’ll cite one extremely essential documentary for you, Cowspiracy… there’s a whole wide world web out there though, so you can do your own research like I did.

    • Yeah because all that land taken up to grow plants doesn’t affect any animals does it??? And I’d be delighted to hear your views on mono-crops and the damage that they do to the land and wildlife. There are numerous documentaries about that presenting just as much damning evidence as Cowspiracy.

      Look, I respect your right to your lifestyle choice but at least do the right thing and present both sides of any argument before you pull apart anyone else for theirs.

      • Livestock needs to be fed too, way more crops go to feeding the livestock than feeding actual people. There’s over 4 BILLion livestock animals in the U.S. alone and less than 4 MILLion actual people.

    • I think it is about moderation. I have an autoimmune condition which is made worse every time I consume grains, beans, tofu or nuts, or dairy so for me a vegan diet is not possible as I would not be able to eat complete proteins. So I have to eat meats and fish, however I am conscious to ensure I only eat organic grass fed meat that has been treated well. So I think everyone is very unique and there is no perfect diet. I would like to mention cowspiracy was massively flawed in its productions. As a sports and nutrition scientist myself I could not belief how many assumptions they made in the show. Sometimes it is worth looking at things with a critical eye rather than just accepting.

  11. I’m a left leaning atheist who cares about science, and I know what I’m doing isn’t good for the environment I just don’t care plus I believe that humans can fix it without giving up meat at the rate our technical knowledge evolves, I don’t care about the rights of lesser animals only my fellow humans, I don’t care that it’s bad for health, I’ll be able to replace my organs with brand new ones by the time it becomes a problem with the power of stem cells. I only care about my freedom to choose what I eat as well as yours, something this extremist left doesn’t seem to care about anymore. I don’t care about why you choose to live the way do, just don’t try to force your lifestyle down my throat. can we just respect each other as fellow humans, we would probably like each other more.

  12. If you don’t need medical education, clinical experience, lab experience, data analysis experience, studies published in peer reviewed scientific journals etc etc to “think critically” why the heck do we need you?

    • [after my “faith” in humanity seemed to be lost irreversibly]
      Your comment made me literally say “whoa, amazing!” out loud. 🙂

  13. yes listen to Denise, the 23rd old English teacher. Don’t head the 20 year study conducted by a PhD Doctorate with over 30 years of research nutrition experience.

  14. throw out the original China Study if you want to. there are hundreds of other study that say the same thing about animal product.s. wake up.

  15. I think I will defer to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Health Organization, and the American Cancer Society on this one. Most scientists and studies across the world clearly suggest that, in general, less meat (especially processed and red) is better that more meat. Most oncologists and cardiologists agree. I love meat and I’ll probably never go completely meatless, but at some point I have to take my head out of the sand and start acknowledging this large and consistent body of research.

  16. you realize you cant give someone any credit when he uses the information from a teenagers blog to justifie its arguments. this is so sad that it is actually cringy

  17. Wait … so, we are supposed to find the opinion of one woman who is second-guessing the work of over 6,000 researchers more important than the man who wrote the book based on their research, who has lived the lifestyle they have found to be most beneficial?

    That sounds highly illogical.

    Especially when the China Study doesn’t actually say that we should be completely free of animal “products” in the first place. It says that less is better and that whole foods, especially plant life, is good for you.

    I do think it suspect that they discounted that one county and the data collected there. I think they did more harm than good by doing so. Because, even though the county did not prove that plant-based diets are better, persay, it certainly proved something about whole foods and less processed foods being healthier.

    For the record, I do not believe that one has to eat an only plant-based diet. But, I do believe that when I had accidentally stumbled onto a time of my life where I was eating almost zero meat, zero grains, no eggs, very little oil and a lot of vegetables, my health improved dramatically. More so than just eating more vegetables, cutting out a lot of sugar, eating less grains, and/or eating less meat.

    And, I do think that people in the old West, who ate a very high protein diet in general, grew old pretty darn fast compared to people in other places who ate more plant-based foods, and, they tended to die young. Because, I’ve seen proof that it is so.

    Dr. Berg, however, says that to eat a diet full of fat is the way to go and mentions the Alaskan natives as proof.

    Fact is, some people fare better with one sort of diet and some people fare better with another. Some people lose weight eating high protein and are full of energy and some people need a lot of fruit. Perhaps it is all related to ancestry. Keeping in mind that the Chinese in that particular county are fairly genetically different than the other Chinese involved and seem to be more related to the people who are commonly referred to as Eskimo.

    • She didn’t guess the data collection, just correlations.
      And to me – and to statistics – she’s right.

      • Statistics can be skewed in any direction you want. Complete nonsensical evaluation of the book and findings. I’m wondering if she was working for the meat and dairy counsel.

    • Also, it turns out that Eskimos’ diet is 95%+ animal products, namely seal and whale blubber. BLUB-BER. They eat fat. Just the fat. That’s where most of their calories come from. Yet, NO HEART DISEASE. No high triglycerides, no high cholesterol. Very little cancer. Answer that, bitches. Answer that. Oh, wait, I’ll do it for you. They eat it RAW. Uncooked seal blubber goes down their gullets, intact with all the enzymes necessary to digest it. If I were in China, I would go to that county and look at the food they eat and I’d bet their meat food was raw, or salted, or ceviched (sic) in some way. Regardless of the one county, there were 299 million other people in the study. Maybe that county was high on forgiveness, and drum circles, maybe they didn’t work that hard, or had daily marital counseling. We don’t know. Don’t hang your hat on one county to shove the whole boat down the drain. More importantly, focus on why carnivores have larger livers and kidneys than omnivores (to piss out all the acid caused by the breakdown of protein into amino acids) or why omnivores have a much higher pH than frugivores or herbivores: it is to kill off the pathogens that come with eating meat, as well as to digest it. Humans have much smaller livers and kidneys, and our stomach pH is closer to monkeys and cows. Humans were designed to eat fruit and vegetables and some other stuff. However, meat is delicious. It always has been and always will. Part of that is the fat in it. Part of it is the sugary BBQ sauce. The more primal reason, is that it contains the animal’s neurotransmitters and hormones and steroids and epinephrine, so when we eat it, we get a dose of all that, and it makes us feel strong and our bodies don’t have to produce those items. So we like it and our subconscious tells us that it is good food. “Meat is good for you,” in the same way that the lead pipes built by the Romans were good for the Roman Empire. Why did the empire fall? Oh yeah, lead poisoning. But, yet, even so, furthermore, meat comes at a cost: more acid, and a meat a few times a month is tolerable, but not every day, not every meal, along with a Pepsi and some msg and a cellphone EMFs beaming out of your pocket. The human body can only handle so much. DUH. But people “need protein”, right? You don’t need protein, you need amino acids. Can you eat a steak and survive to see the next sunrise? Yes. It will not kill you in an hour or a day. ATP is created by the cells for energy. That is cellular respiration. What is ATP made of? Carbon & oxygen. Sugar & breathing. We need fat and amino acids in small amounts for rebuilding and housekeeping, but the bulk of our nutrition should be breathing and apples. Peace, Love & Joy.

      • This is absolutely false, and an oft-repeated myth. Here is a study for you to review.

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12535749

        FINDINGS:
        The evidence for a low mortality from IHD among the Inuit is fragile and rests on unreliable mortality statistics. Mortality from stroke, however, is higher among the Inuit than among other western populations. Based on the examination of 15 candidate gene polymorphisms, the Inuit genetic architecture does not obviously explain putative differences in cardiovascular disease prevalence.

        INTERPRETATION:
        The mortality from all cardiovascular diseases combined is not lower among the Inuit than in white comparison populations. If the mortality from IHD is low, it seems not to be associated with a low prevalence of general atherosclerosis. A decreasing trend in mortality from IHD in Inuit populations undergoing rapid westernization supports the need for a critical rethinking of cardiovascular epidemiology among the Inuit and the role of a marine diet in this population.

        • For people that need to be right even if they are wrong, need to insist on profanity or arrogance instead of humility and compassion, clearly should not only review their food choices but also their mindset. Regardless of what one eats, it should never be an excuse for divisiveness and everyone should embrace one’s differences as opportunities for compassion, universal cooperation and love.

        • I am living proof of the study..I had cancer and other health conditions and I had no treatment except for a removal of a tumor.
          I continue to have good health and have been plant based for more than four years now.

          Not bunk.

  18. The only reason this is even a debate is because our lives have become too easy. With enough hunger sauce, you’ll eat whatever you get can your hands on. If you don’t, your genes will be removed from the population (#naturalselection).

    If you want to stop killing animals for food, we have to stop factory farming too. Many animals are killed in both processes.

    Now, imagine a world where we aren’t killing any animals. Good luck fighting off (but you better not kill!) the carnivorous animals that are happy to eat you while you eat your bowl of spinach.

    Food is plentiful (in the west), and we have to do next to nothing to acquire it. If this wasn’t the case, people wouldn’t be so picky about what they ate. O, you don’t want to eat meat? Good, more for us.

    • As humans, we have the choice to be compassionate or not. Why not choose compassion instead of violence, suppression and the causing of suffering? The simple choice of compassion can create an energy of peace and harmony throughout all activities and truly change the world.

      As stated, there is an abundant number of choices. Actively eating meat and animals, for those aware, is a choice to be mean, brutal, selfish, ill and cause suffering. Why not choose compassion?

      As for being overrun by animal predators, the animals being saved are themselves vegetarian like the cows, pigs, sheep, chickens. They are not interested in eating us. and I don’t see a great army of cows and chickens attacking the general population very soon.

      • How many deer fawn, rabbits, and other rodents are killed by combines harvesting your vegetables? How many insects have you killed while driving your car? How many harmless spiders have you squished in your house? How much habitat was destroyed for you to live the life you live now (i.e. to build roads, sidewalks, houses, and buildings). You cannot be alive today and not have an impact on animals.

        As far as the compassion goes, is it more compassionate to shot a deer that dies in a few seconds or to let the population go over the carrying capacity of the habitat (which is lowered because of human development) and have deer slowly starve to death over many weeks or have it die slowly because of disease that is easier to spread because of the high population? What about wildlife that are hit by cars and suffer a very slow and painful death? (I just use deer for an example but the same logic can apply to any wildlife)

        • Harm minimisation doesn’t imply harm eradication. Living the most compassionate life possible while still living is the goal. Do you need a house to live in modern society? Yes. Do you need animal products? No.

          I don’t know of any widespread deer disease that we’re compassionately ending by killing them but please feel free to correct me with references.

          Euthanasia of an already dying animal (eg one that has been hit by the car) isn’t at all comparable to slaughtering animals for food.

      • Nothing in the world matters except the mindset of compassion, fulfilled by the sincere actions of compassion. If you want to nitpick and find an excuse to cause suffering you will certainly achieve your goal. Try to do something radical and spend your efforts to make the world a better place instead of mastering diatribes of ignorance and micromanaging the minutia that serve as a convenient distraction from the truth. All the rebuttals in the world do not eliminate suffering, they simply distract people and give some people the excuse you are looking for to be negligent of kindness and benevolence and cause suffering. The difficult road is to be compassionate, the cowardly way out is to be in denial of the truth and look for one negative item among a million ethical and compassionate reasons to do the right thing. Doing the right thing takes courage, copping out is the cowards way for personal and selfish gluttony. Every conscious action involves every conscious being.

        • How about you just get off your petty high-horse and your “compassion” trip and pretend like you’re “holier than thou” because you don’t kill animals? You talk about nitpicking yet you’re the only one doing the nitpicking here trying to push your world view on others when all you’re doing is denying your nature and the nature of reality. Oh you’re such a highly evolved and enlightened mind! Woohoo! OR maybe your hierarchy of needs are being met gracefully so you can pick and chose your type of morality and your vain assumptions of what good and what’s not is completely tied up to your privilege? You want to be “compassionate” go ahead do some real work put that compassion to work instead of using it as a reason to act like you’re better than other people that doesn’t subscribe to your narrow comfortable view of the world. At the end of the day you’re really just some judgmental snob on the internet, finger pointing around just to appear like you’re some type of angel when really you are no different than anybody you’re ragging on. You live, you consume, and you favor the circumstances that benefit you ok, not some martyr for animals that you’d like to think you are so drop the b.s. and act like you’re the “superior kind being”

          • Criticizing compassion by claiming someone is being “holier than thou” etc is just a defense mechanism. The vegan ethics are based upon justice, not competition.

      • Pigs and chickens are both omnivores, not herbivores. In fact, I have seen a pig eat a chicken that got to close. Chickens would happily pick your bones clean if you happened to keel over and die near a flock of them.