17- Plant Based Diet Myth with Lierre Keith

Lately, the term plant based diets has been thrown around quite a bit across various media channels. For the most part, a plant based diet is basically a vegan or vegetarian diet, it is just a new term that is being used as a marketing tool to catch people's attention.

A lot of information that is being told about plant based diets is based off of very poor science, or shown in a very particular way to make the data look better than it really is. One of the main culprits of this information is the documentary What The Health, which has been thoroughly debunked by Robb Wolf (his post can be found here) and many others.

Due to so much of this information being so far on the wrong side, and my concern of the health of people who decide to follow these claims, I decided I needed to talk with someone who has been down the vegan road before and has felt the impact that these diets can play on the body. Granted, some people do very well on a plant based diet and I don't want to take anything away from them, but for the majority of the population, there are health concerns and nutrient needs that need to be discussed beforehand. There is a reason that there has never been a civilization that has relied 100% on plant material to survive. All this can be learned in this episode of Plant Based Diet Myth with Lierre Keith!

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Shownotes

6:45 – Lierre was a vegan for 2 decades
7:30 – The average vegan lasts 3 months on the diet, which goes to show really how long 20 years is on this diet
7:45 – Being a vegan isn't just about what you eat, but also who you are
9:45 – Leaving the vegan world will create enemies, and you will lose friends
10:30 – Lierre became a vegan at 16, which is the age group that groups like PETA target for their marketing
12:00 – At the beginning of transitioning to veganism, typically people feel better. Why is that?
13:50 – Problem with high carb diets is that it causes too much insulin in the body and blows out the insulin receptors
15:00 – Within 3 months, all these symptoms started to show up
16:00 – Cholesterol is the mother hormone, and it is very important for your hormone production
17:20 – After 2 years, she her bones and joints started to degenerate
19:30 – The worst you feel, you think the harder you must try
21:40 – Popular vegan Youtuber said that menstrual cycles are unclean, is this a common thought process amongst vegans?

24:40 – Are there fat-based vegans who use more avocado and coconut fats?
25:20 – Vitamins A and D come from animal products and fats, which are essential for health
27:30 – Can you live more as a vegetarian and only consume some animal byproducts such as eggs, dairy, etc?
29:25 – Nutrient-dense foods caused a huge increase in brain size and decrease in GI tract length
31:00 – An Oxford study on brain sizes with different diets showed that vegan diets shrunk the brain by 5% over 5 years
33:55 – Is agriculture as morally right as it seems? Do animals die in the process to support agriculture?
37:30 – Is there a way to create a sustainable agriculture or livestock farming to be able to support 7+ billion people?
39:00 – Nature makes a perennial poly-culture, where as agriculture is a mono-culture
41:00 – Perennial plants have more time to grow, which means their roots reach deeper into the soil and collect minerals
45:30 – To drop the world's population, you need to teach a girl to read
48:20 – If we can replace the grasslands by 75%, we can reduce carbon footprint
49:40 – The land will continue to rebuild if left to do what nature naturally does
51:25 – The movie What The Health and what they brought forward about the meat industry
52:15 – 1 acre of land, 2 different ways you can use it
57:30 – If you had 2 minutes in front of a group of young teenage women who are thinking about veganism, what would you tell them?