Meatless Mondays: A Healthier You, a Healthier Planet

I have never posted on a message board before, but I decided to pop my cherry to tell my story. My name is Rick. Since I was a kid I had been active in sports, exercising every single day. Never had any health problems worse than a cold. Freshman year of high school I found my true love in the form of Olympic weightlifting and trained competitively for the next thirty years. If you had asked me what my concerns in life were heart problems would not have even made the top 100 list. I was working out constantly, sleeping well, eating no junk food, and had no history of disease in my family. In terms of health I felt on top of the world.

In May of 2005 I was at work at a construction job when everything suddenly turned to hell. I felt out of breath like I had just run a 5 minute mile, and my chest felt crushing, like someone had dropped a 700lb deadlift on it. I had no idea I was having a heart attack, I didn't even know what the symptoms of a heart attack were. Thank God my coworker realized what was happening and drove me to the emergency room. When the doctor told me that I needed a triple bypass surgery I went into shock, everything went fuzzy and dark as though I were blacking out. My brain couldn't comprehend what he had told me. A triple bypass surgery? I had never had health problems before. I exercised religiously. I didn't eat junk food. I was young. My family had no history of heart problems. How was this possible?

Even after the operation I was in denial that there was anything wrong with my lifestyle. I scoffed at the doctor when he told me to eat less red meats and bump up the amount of vegetables in my diet. I continued to eat meat for every meal, drink glasses of milk a day, and pop eggs like candy. No surprise that my heart problems were not improving even when on meds out the ass. From day one I had been taught that eggs are the golden protein, milk the perfect food, and eating meat one of the qualifications for manliness. One day my wife finally sat me down and told me Rick, I don't want to lose you. Then on out I agreed to try my doctor's diet suggestions. I did one vegetarian meal a day for lunch, and replaced beef and pork with fish for my other meals. I did not think it would accomplish jack diddly but figured that if I at least tried it my wife and doctor would get off my back. To my surprise my health started improving, and I actually looked forward to the lunches. A year after that and I was up to two vegetarian meals a day. My doctor was stunned by my test results, told me to keep doing whatever I was doing. Somewhere in there I finally stopped worrying that I was going to die any day, and felt that I had control over my life and my condition.

Fast forward to 2012 and me and my family are on a mostly whole food vegetarian diet. I'm no longer on all the meds because my body is getting healed through my diet instead of chemicals. This might be too much information, but my other problems like erectile dysfunction, allergies, and asthma went away too. I still eat meat for holidays and when I go to other people's houses, but I stopped eating eggs recently after reading that egg yolks have almost the same effect on the heart as smoking does. My new diet has revolutionized my strength training to boot. I always thought vegetarians were pencil necks, but I got new PRs in all my lifts after fixing my diet and the gains haven't stopped since. I was a meat head my entire life but I can say now with confidence that Real Men Eat Plants is more true than Real Men Eat Meat. I love meat and always will, but I love my health more. I'm not saying to stop eating meat or you will need triple bypass like I did or anything extreme like that, I'm just saying that our diet of eating eggs, milk, and sausage for breakfast, meat for lunch, then meat again for dinner every day year after year is kicking our health into the gutter. Everyone can benefit from reducing their meat and upping the vegetables even if it is just one day a week or one meal per day.

Hope my story is worth something to someone. Very grateful for this website. Starting gymnastics training has been great for me.

Never TMI Richard, and thank you for sharing!

I definitely think that moderating red meat exposure can be a good thing for a lot of people, but the primary issue is always not enough veggies!

I am not surprised to hear your results, because the idea that too much red meat can cause problems and that a diet very high in plant matter will help reverse atherosclerosis (clogged blood vessels) is steadily approaching fact status. Peripheral arterial occlusions are actually pretty high on the list of causes for erectile dysfunction, which is why vasodilators work so well (they temporarily enlarge the interior diameter of all blood vessels) and why a diet that promotes plaque removal will improve those symptoms and eventually, with good adherence and compliance to the diet, reverse them altogether for everyone who has ED due to this factor.

I think people would be very surprised to see how little meat I eat, and how little of that is red. For me, it's price, but I am also pretty keen on maintaining good health status So, I strength train + do cardio + eat pretty healthy.

If you don't mind, could you share the source that informed you that eggs affect the heart like smoking? I would like to see how that works.

This was the study I was talking about http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-08-17/news/33252380_1_yolks-hollandaise-spence I know it has come under some criticism but at this point in my life I take these types of warnings seriously. When the daily value for cholesterol is 300 mg and a single large egg has over 200 mg I know there is no doubt I used to eat too many eggs. Scrambled in the morning, boiled for lunch, raw in my protein shakes day after day. Too much of anything is never good I realize now. My concerns over how we produce eggs in this country have grown slowly over the years too. It might be that just seeing studies like this was the tipping point to make me stop eating eggs. If I had chickens of my own I would cook up some omelettes a few times a week but I do not plan on ever going back to how many I used to eat.

When I was looking around for other studies about eggs and heart disease I found this speech that compares eating a single egg a day to having the same risk factor as smoking 5 cigarettes a day. I did not look up the study itself but let me know what you think if you do. I only watched a few minutes of the video but from the description it sounds that it talks about the role of meat in heart disease too so it might be useful to this topic.

Happy for your success, but you know what it is, it's that the typical egg eater often has it with a few slices bacon, hash browns, two slices of toast, a glass of juice and exercises infrequently. Hard to single out eggs as the bad boy in that list. It's a free world, and if you feel better avoiding it makes sense to, to at least reduce stress.

And now, time for some heart-healthy moderate alcoholic consumption ! (1)

(1) http://www.bmj.com/content/319/7224/1523?rss=1&ssource=mfc

That study has been proven to have so many issues that it shouldn't be counted as evidence toward anything. I could give many people who did the exact opposite and got the same health benefits. These meat and egg studies still haven't been able to distinguish between organic and grass fed animals instead of sick concentration camp ones.

We should always choose grass-fed animals over concentration camp ones, but I think that grass-fed as a solution is really overblown and oversimplified. A lot of my friends think of grass-fed as a magical bullet for everything wrong with our meat industry, both the health and environmental issues. But simply changing from corn to grass doesn't solve the huge environmental problems of beef production, such as the greenhouse gas emissions, water and land consumption, and pollution. Most importantly, we have to keep in mind that it's simply not possible to switch the entire beef industry to grass fed. Grazing systems require a lot more land and other resources than factory farms, and the US currently has a cattle inventory of 92,582,400, with 742,000 herds, 30.9 million beef cows, and 26.7 million feeder calves. Worldwide we have over 1 billion cattle. All of our beef cows becoming grass-fed simply isn't feasible, especially when you look at how beef consumption is set to rise dramatically this century. Our consumption of beef itself has to change, the current rates are not sustainable no matter how much we want to turn our eyes from the issue. And is it really such a big deal to lower our consumption? You still get to enjoy meat, just in healthy moderation. Like having one scoop of icecream instead of five three-scoop sundaes every day.

Grass-fed beef has the benefit of not requiring all the resources used up by corn production, but there's no denying that beef production is bad for the planet no matter what way you slice the issue.

Some articles:
http://www.examiner.com/article/environmental-experts-grass-fed-beef-not-more-eco-friendly-than-grain-fed-beef
http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2010/04/08/grass-fed-beef-packs-a-punch-to-environment/

However, some environmental specialists say grass-fed meat isn't much more eco-friendly than factory-farmed livestock. Grass-fed cows emit up to 400% more methane than grain-fed cows, according to Jeff Anhang, an environmental specialist with the World Bank's IFC Environment and Social Development Dept. They also take up much more land and water because they take longer to grow...

Others insist the myth of the eco-friendly, grass-fed cow is misleading at best and a sham at worst. According to Dr. Jude Capper, an assistant professor of dairy sciences at Washington State University, grass-fed beef does as much harm to the Earth as factory-farmed cows.

"There's a perception that grass-fed animals are frolicking in the sunshine, kicking their heels up full of joy and pleasure," said Capper. "What we actually found was from the land-use basis, from the energy, from water, and particularly, based on the carbon footprints, grass-fed is far worse than corn-fed."

To begin with, there is greenhouse gas emissions, the argument most often invoked to promote grass-feeding. Yet grass-fed meat is more, not less, greenhouse-gas intensive.

In this, simple chemistry is the Draconian ring master, dictating that every decomposing carbon-containing molecule ends up as methane if the decomposition is anaerobic, as it is in the largely oxygen free rumen, and as carbon dioxide if the decomposition occurs in the presence of oxygen, as befalls most cellulose not digested by ruminants.

Since grazing animals eat mostly cellulose-rich roughage while their feedlot counterparts eat mostly simple sugars whose digestion requires no rumination, the grazing animals emit two to four times as much methane, a greenhouse gas roughly 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

This, and the faster weight gain by feedlot animals, result in significantly higher greenhouse gas emissions per pound of meat by grass fed animals than by feedlot ones.

This is true, to variable a degree, for organic and non-organic, large- and small-scale grazing operations in the U.S. and overseas.

Then there is land. Upward of a quarter of the entire U.S. surface area is pasture or grazeland.

Personally, I have been going meat free for the last 3 weeks and I feel and look better than I did, with no decrease in body composition. In fact, I think it has helped me maintain more of a caloric deficit and I have actually been leaning out. (Part of this is definitely owed to Josh for using his peri-workout nutrition plan.) I have simply been using slow digesting whey for the majority of my protein intake. It's actually cheaper than eating meat if I buy in bulk which is an added bonus.

First world problems...

How about some meat on Mondays for these kids?

Any food would be good for those poor children, Fred. Not sure what your point is...

The point being that self-inflicted restrictive diets are a true luxury for those of us living large in the first world.  The problem is that people like Aurele feel the need to impose their vision of restriction on the rest of us and, sadly, those possibly not able to afford the luxury of restricting our diets.  Quoting studies/articles about how the current production won't/can't support future needs is a narrow minded view based on a static assessment.  Beware of people who purport to know how to save your skin by keeping you from wealth (food is wealth btw) or the pursuit of wealth/knowledge (or energy - but that's another thread entirely) as generally they are only looking to expand their own power.  Remember, 'necessity is the mother of invention'; I have full faith in my fellow man to figure out the situation.  

jl5555 said:

The point being that self-inflicted restrictive diets are a true luxury for those of us living large in the first world.  The problem is that people like Aurele feel the need to impose their vision of restriction on the rest of us and, sadly, those possibly not able to afford the luxury of restricting our diets.  Quoting studies/articles about how the current production won't/can't support future needs is a narrow minded view based on a static assessment.  Beware of people who purport to know how to save your skin by keeping you from wealth (food is wealth btw) or the pursuit of wealth/knowledge (or energy - but that's another thread entirely) as generally they are only looking to expand their own power.  Remember, 'necessity is the mother of invention'; I have full faith in my fellow man to figure out the situation.  

First off, Aurele isn't "imposing" his vision upon anyone. Nobody is forcing you to read this thread or his posts. Nobody is even asking you do that. You are doing out of your free will and are hence imposing it upon yourself.

Secondly: Eating properly as a luxury? Eating healthily isn't a luxury for all of us, it's an opportunity. I would like everyone to have this opportunity but they don't. And simply because some/many people don't doesn't in any mean that we should not take advantage of it. Sure, eating healthily isn't exactly the number one issue for many people and is a luxury for them since they have much more serious and immediate issues to deal with, but not everyone. Besides, as a strength/conditioning/training community that we are, it is perfectly proper to discuss things differently than how we would discuss them with someone who's first priority is to find any food regardless of the kind.

I don't live an expensive life, but eating healthily is one of my top prioritize because I have the opportunity to put it there.

Nobody is suggesting that you are doing something wrong if you are unable to control your diet. If you cannot help your situation, you cannot help your situation.

Discussion of the sustainability of a meat-driven world diet is nothing but healthy. There costs of mass production of any kind, and if mass production of meat is causing more harm than good, then discussing these consequences will do nothing but help find a solution. Quoting studies/research to support his position isn't narrow minded, it's called backing up what you say. You think it's a static inaccurate assessment? Why? Please support your position...

Patrick Smith said:

First off, Aurele isn't "imposing" his vision upon anyone. ....

Ah, but you're wrong.  When anyone says that we must do things because at the global level it is unsustainable they are implicitly saying that the only option is restriction.  When you invoke "global" you mean total, no room for dissention..

Patrick Smith said:

Secondly: Eating properly as a luxury? Eating healthily isn't a luxury for all of us.

You clearly have never been hungry...

Patrick Smith said:

....Quoting studies/research to support his position isn't narrow minded, it's called backing up what you say. You think it's a static inaccurate assessment? Why? Please support your position...

It's narrow minded because it presumes that the past will dictate the future but allows no room for innovation or invention.  It is a dark, narrow, selfish, unpleasing view of the future.  Man thrives on invention and change.  

Great discussion, remember to keep it a discussion, these topics tend to heat up fast.

Hmm, so where is he "imposing" his vision upon you such that you are forced to endure it? That is not a reply.

If you're referring to him stating his opinion in a public place, that is not imposing anything upon anyone. 

jl5555 said:

You clearly have never been hungry...

Extremely untrue.

However, even if I had never been hungry it would make no difference to what I said. If food is a given due to financial security then you automatically will begin selecting the food according to what you want/need.

Ex. Someone who receives 10 bucks for food every day will not go to the store and buy 10 dollars worth of the first food he sees. Nor will he wisely spend the 10 dollars on something of little substance. If he is wise, he will purchase the food that best finds that best satiates him and keeps him healthy/gives him energy to work.

If money is short and unreliable for food then clearly you will hold yourself to less strict standards because the standards lowered in your list of priorities and simply having food has risen in your priorities.

jl5555 said:

It's narrow minded because it presumes that the past will dictate the future but allows no room for innovation or invention.  It is a dark, narrow, selfish, unpleasing view of the future.  Man thrives on invention and change.  

Nonsense. It does nothing of the sort. The past does dictate the future. See if you can do anything right now in the fleeting moment that becomes the past and see if it does not in some way change the future (the fleeting moment yet to happen). Simply considering this has already changed the future.

It is not natural law that man will inevitably survive and thrive. Man is subject to the same dangers that all other animals are and is fully capable of wiping itself out in many ways. There is no higher power that will prevent man from harming his future, either. Man will only survive the future because of invention and change if people actually believe invention and change should be explored. Discussion is the means of much invention, innovation, and change.

You give all appearances of believing that Man's cleverness, his innovation, and his creativity will prevent him from dying out because he changed and invented things to solve problems. Yet you seem to believe that Aurele is doing something wrong by stating his opinion, backing it up with studies and research, calling for discussion of a global issue (which lead to actions/innovations/creations/inventions to solve them)? How is this process in any way not conducive to Man overcoming future challenges?

Plus, I fail to see how something being unpleasant reduces it to being narrow minded or lack of respect as an opinion/position. Believe me, there are many many scenarios that end in an extremely unpleasant ending for humanity. 

Again you do not provide evidence for your position and beliefs.

• Why is it dark? 
• Why is it narrow?
• Why is it selfish?
• Does it offend you that someone lacks faith that humanity will always automatically win in the end?

Cole Dano said:

Great discussion, remember to keep it a discussion, these topics tend to heat up fast.

Will do, Cole.

hehehe... it is good to discuss the topic, and share different viewpoints... not so much discussing each other and calling each other names.

My intention, posting that picture was to open our eyes / act as a reminder at how privileged we are to be able to choose what and when to eat for the purpose of thriving, and not just surviving. I won't apologize for those that have high emotion on this topic; In this situation, high emotion is a good thing!

Let's put a contextual frame around the thinking:

For all its faults (chemical pollution, soil erosion, excessive use of energy, impoverishment of diets due to the few cultures left to grow & its corollary impoverishment of bio-diversity, maybe the energy inefficiency of animal production, with its consequences in high waste concentration, and maybe also what we really do to animals?) modern agriculture has so far managed to feed more humans today than at any other time in history.

Can this continue (be sustained in the future)? I don't really know, but something tells me that nope, it cannot continue!

There is enough food for all (look it up). The technical reason some people are starving is logistics - the food is not available at the right place, and humans have put artificial barriers to prevent this food to be delivered. Here is in favor of the abolishment of all borders!

To me, the real reason 15% of the world population is allowed to starve is that, for all the good speeches and prayers, we humans, do not want to admit that we do not care. As long as we have enough, the rest can starve!

Before you get on your high horse, and tell me that it is not true, that you do care, and look at all these aid and UN agencies, etc... please reflect on this:

As long as we will leave 15% of the world die of hunger, AND pretend that we are the good guys, nothing will change.

Nothing can change - Good guys don't need to change, they are good already!

Until the time we own up to the fact that humans (we) are the biggest bastards ever to come into existence, and make our peace with it, we will not change.

Only when you look into the mirror and have a close encounter with who you really are, can room for change and evolution be made.

Per FAO (I think 2009) 30 Billions dollars (30,000,000,000) is enough to provide food for the 968 millions chronically hungry humans (providing we fix the borders problem, etc...)! 30 billions, IT IS NOTHING!

To give you an idea, 30 billions is 0.00046 (0,046%) of the world economy; it is also 0.00272 (0.272%) of the 11 trillion dollars bailout gifted to the banks since 2008!

That is 272 dollars for each 100,000 dollars gifted to the banks against your will by obsolete governments would have made our world hunger free!

Think about it..........

Agreed and well spoken, Fred. I appreciate your reminder now that you've given it context.

jl5555 said:

The

point being that self-inflicted restrictive diets are a true luxury for

those of us living large in the first world.  The problem is that

people like Aurele feel the need to impose their vision of restriction

on the rest of us and, sadly, those possibly not able to afford the

luxury of restricting our diets. 

It's the other way around: Meat and animal products are a luxury. Meat is far more expensive to produce per calorie than grains and legumes, and consequently eating veg is cheaper than meat. I really don't understand the myth that eating vegetarian is somehow more expensive. What composes the majority of calories in the diets of developing countries? Plant foods. Why? Because things like rice are way cheaper to produce than beef. It's when economies grow that we see the shift to a Western diet high in animal foods, since people then become able to afford the luxury of it. For people who want to get the most nutrients and calories per $, eating meat over plant foods is about as efficient as taking an airplane to commute a couple blocks rather than just walking there.

FredInChina said:

First world problems...

How about some meat on Mondays for these kids?

The largest organizations that are feeding the malnourished in developing countries all are vegetarian, as far as I know. Not for ethical reasons, but for efficiency ones: they can feed way more people with a lot less money on a vegetarian diet than with meat and dairy.

Look at the meal plan of the World Food Program. Not a single oz of meat in there.

400g of cereal flour/rice/bulgur

60g of pulses

25 g of oil (vit. A fortified)

50 g of fortified blended foods (Corn Soya Blend)

15g of sugar

15g of iodized salt

Nutritional value

Energy 2,100 Kcal

Protein 58 g

Fat 43g

TO be fair, the WHO is trying to keep people from starving to death, not turn them into fantastic athletes.

If you want to adjust the macros for what an athlete needs for maximum muscle gain (a specific goal, I know), it is definitely more expensive (and more difficult) to get this from a pure vegetarian diet. Soy protein is not cheaper than whey, and it does require more soy protein to get the same level of anabolism vs whey.

The hardest thing in a pure vegetarian diet is being a larger person, like me, and consuming enough food to support the weight. It is just too bulky. It's hard enough as it is to eat 8 cups of cooked veggies per day, 7-8 cups of rice, and split protein between meat and whey powder. It's plenty affordable though

For smaller athletes, the bulk thing is less of an issue. There's a good reason why you almost never see a pure veggie athlete at my size.

Absolutely. WHO isn't trying to build Olympic athletes, but the topic from that picture was malnourishment.

Josh, where do you buy your isolate from? Usually whenever I see soy and whey side by side, the soy isolate is cheaper. Really just depends on brand, I guess, but in bulk soy and whey seem to cost about the same.

I'm surprised about the issue of bulking up, though. If you tried to get thousands of calories just from fruits and vegetables, yeah that's pretty much impossible, but grains, legumes, and oil are higher in calories than meat, so why the trouble getting a calorie surplus? There's quite a few NFL players who are big guys and are vegetarian. Tony Fiammetta, Ricky Williams, and Arian Foster are all vegan, and about 250 lbs. The reason there's so few vegetarian athletes I think has more to do with the fact that there's still a lot of misconception about meat in athletic circles, with people associating meat so strongly with masculinity and strength, and thinking that if you don't eat meat you'll be weak and effiminate. The term "meat head" exists for a good reason, haha. When NFL players go vegan, they get a lot of shit from fans and teammates for it, so they have to have pretty strong convictions to make the change and stick it out.

Because while excellent as far calories to price, grains and legumes contain antinutrients and grains especially can cause increasing digestive distress as you age. Rice and Sweet potatoes are great, but its hard to find a good protein source that is truly vegan.

Agreed with Ian. As a gluten, soy, and generally carb intolerant person, anytime I add these things, I don't feel near as good. I have tried various methods of adding them in and removing them. All of them simply made me soft. Some people may be able to work with this but it seems to be few are far in between.

Thank goodness today is Sunday!

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/03/torontos-vegan-dog-owners-putting-their-pets-on-an-all-vegetable-diet-but-vets-split-on-the-idea/ 

Aurèle said:

Absolutely. WHO isn't trying to build Olympic athletes, but the topic from that picture was malnourishment.

 

Josh, where do you buy your isolate from? Usually whenever I see soy and whey side by side, the soy isolate is cheaper. Really just depends on brand, I guess, but in bulk soy and whey seem to cost about the same.

 

I'm surprised about the issue of bulking up, though. If you tried to get thousands of calories just from fruits and vegetables, yeah that's pretty much impossible, but grains, legumes, and oil are higher in calories than meat, so why the trouble getting a calorie surplus? There's quite a few NFL players who are big guys and are vegetarian. Tony Fiammetta, Ricky Williams, and Arian Foster are all vegan, and about 250 lbs. The reason there's so few vegetarian athletes I think has more to do with the fact that there's still a lot of misconception about meat in athletic circles, with people associating meat so strongly with masculinity and strength, and thinking that if you don't eat meat you'll be weak and effiminate. The term "meat head" exists for a good reason, haha. When NFL players go vegan, they get a lot of shit from fans and teammates for it, so they have to have pretty strong convictions to make the change and stick it out.

I totally agree with a lot of what you're saying. 

I think we can safely eliminate carb requirements from the vegetarian question since they all come from plants

That leaves us with fats and proteins, and the fats are pretty equal in price. Heck, you can get animal fat for free from the butchers, they don't make tallow with it anymore. But, realistically, getting fat in one's diet is really cheap, even for the retail consumer.

So, to me, it primarily comes down to protein.

To get 200g of protein per day, you need to eat around 1.6-1.7 lbs of chicken breast or steak, or 2.5 lbs of ground beef. That's going to cost you around 5 dollars for the chicken or ground beef where I live, and something ridiculous for the steak. For frozen fish like tilapia, it tends to be 8 dollars per day or so.

Whey protein powder will give you the same amount of protein for something like $5.36 these days, I think, at $7.50 per pound. That's 67 cents per 25g serving. By contrast, gram for gram of protein, I have found that soy protein is around a dollar per 25g serving. That's for what you can get in reasonable size containers.

Buying 25-50 lb bulk packs pretty much equalizes things out from what I can tell.

So, if you buy cheap chicken breasts (2 bucks per pound, including ribs), you can actually save money by eating meat these days. At least if you aren't ordering things in bulk. Of course, there are bulk deals on chicken meat too...

In any case, I think the money argument for vegetarianism, from the consumer's side, does not add up.

I think that people need to be eating a crapton of vegetables, but I also think that we need some meat.

Somewhat an aside, but looking into additional vegetarian protein sources I ran across "wheat meat" which is made from pure wheat gluten proteins. It's also called seitan and used a lot in Asian cultures. I've run across pure gluten in the chinese store and didn't know what to make of it. I know it will freak out the wheat phobics - it's the nuclear option of wheat consumption - pure gluten. Anyway it is 80% protein! Somewhat deficient in lysine I read from one source but made up with the  beans in your vegetarian diet.

Anyway this led me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_African_Hebrew_Israelites_of_Jerusalem#Way_of_life  who run a chain of vegetarian restaurants who make a burger using "wheat meat" as one of the offerings.

If anyone has direct experience of this food or group/cult please let me know!