Why Vegans Have Smaller Brains Meat Stops Brain Atrophy
“Your brain can atrophy from a diet that does not [include] enough meat.” 1:02 in
Vitamin B-12 is found in zero plants. Many other nutrients are unavailable or in too-low quantities in plants. Without supplements, animal foods are necessary for complete nutrition.
“The less meat you eat, there is a correlation with your brain shrinking.” 7:30 in
Seeing the mostly carbohydrate lunches and breakfasts at the school where I teach is so upsetting because it has a direct link to their learning and behavior. I’m actually taking a week off from the regular Chemistry curriculum to have the students learn about proper human nutrition, how to reverse diabetes, and to track their food consumption in Cronometer.
My take and understanding on high fibre : It’s more than what our microbiome may need, it slows down digestion exposing the gut to the fibre for longer periods … high fibre inevitable comes from high plant diet … in todays general context plants grow in soil artificially fertilized with chemicals, sprayed with toxins all adding to the natural toxins the plant already produces to ward off insects … surely a high fibre diet can’t be healthy? Would love to know more about this.
I’m 58 and have been eating carnivore for 4 months, keto/ketovore for about a year and a half. Reversed my bipolar disorder, slowly coming off all of my psych meds (which have definitely dulled my brain over the decades I’ve been taking them). Wish I had before and after MRIs of my brain to see if there were any visible changes! But the most important thing is the reversal of my severe mental illness!!!! Nourishing my brain and body with fatty meat, mostly beef and practicing mindfulness meditation daily. Profound healing is possible!
David, Alison, and Anita discuss the critical role of animal-based nutrition in brain health, particularly the risks of a plant-based diet leading to brain atrophy due to vitamin B12 deficiencies. They also explore the environmental impact of plant-based versus regenerative farming, debunking the myth that cows significantly contribute to climate change while highlighting the detrimental effects of industrial crop farming. Make sure to listen to the full interview to learn more.
David Ellis, Alison Morgan, and Anita Tagore are experts in nutrition, agriculture, and environmental sustainability. Anita, a retired medical doctor with a master’s in nutrition, advocates for regenerative livestock farming. Alison, an agricultural specialist, and David, a geophysicist turned diet and farming researcher, co-authored Why Vegans Have Smaller Brains, a book challenging the mainstream narrative on diet and sustainability.
0:00 Intro
1:45 Meet David Ellis, Alison Morgan, and Anita Tagore
3:37 Why they wrote Why Vegans Have Smaller Brains
6:00 Why B12 supplementation alone isn’t enough
10:34 Importance of fat-protein balance in diet
14:52 Risks of vegetable oils and why animal fat is superior
17:26 Cholesterol and cardiovascular health
22:56 Fiber, colon cancer, and gut health
30:04 Truth about cows, methane, and climate change
42:03 Do cows use too much water
46:01 Final takeaways from David, Alison, and Anita
48:20 Where to find the book and connect with the authors
Transcript
0:00
if you followed this channel for a while you know that I support a carnivore meat-based diet but have you ever
0:06
thought about what happens when people don't eat a carnivore diet or a meat-based diet or having a lot of meat
0:13
in your diet what happens to the body and the Brain if you eat a plant-based
0:18
diet are there ramifications are there things that impact especially young babies or children when they don't get
0:25
enough meat in the diet [Music]
0:33
hey guys my name is Judy Cho and I'm board certified in holistic nutrition and I have a private functional medicine
0:38
practice where we focus on root cause healing and that often starts with the carniv recur all meet Elimination Diet
0:44
today had the pleasure of sitting down with David Allison and Anita they wrote the book why vegans have smaller brains
0:51
and how cows reverse climate change in this discussion I talked with all three of them about how a plant-based diet
0:59
actually has ramifications on the body how your brain can actually atrophy from
1:05
a diet that does not have enough meat and how it can impact your health when
1:11
you're not eating enough saturated fats or fats from animals we talk about the environment and if cows truly are taking
1:19
up all our water and if feed lot animals are different in their impact than
1:24
regenerative agriculture animals that are being grazed on the fields until
1:29
till the day they are processed we talk about nutritional deficiencies and gut health and the need for fiber and if
1:36
there are any nutrients missing in an animal-based diet or if there's just some people that shouldn't be eating a
1:42
meat-based diet let's get right into the interview so hello this is like the first time I'm actually doing an
Meet David Ellis, Alison Morgan, and Anita Tagore
1:47
interview as a panel and it's pretty cool so hello David Allison and Anita
1:53
I'd love for you and I have your book and we can talk about that a lot more in detail which is why vegans have smaller
1:59
brains but if I can have you all introduce yourself and the bigger thing I'd like to know is why did you write
2:05
this book did the diet did the environment did that impact you where you were passionate about and then
2:12
sharing this amazing book hi I'm Anita tagor I'm a retired medical doctor I
2:18
qualified from University of Cambridge in the 1980s more recently I did a
2:24
master's in nutrition and in the last few years uh I've been working on this
2:30
book and I have a regenerative livestock Farm I'm Al Allison Morgan ali uh I'm an
2:37
agricultural specialist and a lot of my work over the last 40 years has been uh
2:42
to do with the impacts on the environment of different farming systems livestock crops all all those systems I
2:50
studied agriculture at the University of reading in England and I also have a postgrad in global development and
2:57
worked overseas in Central Asia and um on the Middle East and I'm Dave
3:03
Ellis I have I graduated in geology from University of Cambridge uh but then I
3:09
spent uh my career 35 years as a geophysicist working in oil and gas industry since I retied a few years ago
3:18
I've now become as you can tell really interested in these topics of diet and
3:24
on Farming and in particular how farming can uh help reduce climate change which
3:30
is the subtitle of the book well thank you thank you I'm excited to dig into
3:35
this more so obviously this book it's a pretty strong statement and I was just
Why they wrote Why Vegans Have Smaller Brains
3:40
wondering you know why is the title why vegans have smaller brains do vegans actually have smaller brains and you
3:46
know whoever wants to take the question but I'm curious why you titled the book the way you did there is plenty of
3:51
evidence that diet does affect the size of your brain the best evidence is in
3:58
babies who've been bre breastfed exclusively um breastfed by vegan or
4:04
vegetarian mothers some some of these babies can suffer severe brain atrophy
4:11
and this brain atrophy can actually be reversed with vitamin B12 treatment if
4:17
it's caught in time usually within the first year of Life the the brain atrophy
4:22
uh reverses completely at the other end of the spectrum there are many studies
4:28
older people which show that low levels of B12 speed up the rate at which your
4:35
brain atrophies we all have some brain atrophy this starts in our mid 20s it's
4:42
about 1% a year and in our 50s it speeds up to 2% a year it's the rate of brain
4:50
atrophy that matters more than your actual brain size in in older people and
4:57
the rate at which your brain atrophies the the the higher it is the greater your risk for mild cognitive impairment
5:04
and dementia and because it's can be reversed in babies with vitamin B12 and
5:11
in older people It's associated with low levels of vitamin B12 um and b12 isn't
5:18
found in any plant food so that's That's the basis of the title and we've also
5:25
chosen the title because it's controversial and gets attention yeah and as if one title wasn't controversial
5:33
enough the subtitle is in many ways controversial and that speaks to the farming part of the book which Ali Ali
5:41
wrote yeah so you know there's this common belief that because cads produced mean they cause climate change and
5:47
there's so much evidence that the reverse is true they actually we we'll talk more about that but help they
5:54
actually um are very beneficial to the environment when they're farmed correctly at pasture Anita I wanted to
Why B12 supplementation alone isn't enough
6:00
ask you so you brought up B12 so you know if I'm just going to be controversial well why not just take B12
6:07
and then still follow a vegan diet um well if if you are vegan and you're not
6:12
going to change your diet you should definitely take B12 supplements but there are other nutrients that matter as
6:19
well uh for example there was one study that looked it the effect of
6:25
supplementing with B12 on brain atrophy and and it showed that only if your
6:32
levels of DHA which is a type of omega-3 fatty acid only if those levels were
6:39
high did B12 have a beneficial effect um there are many other nutrients
6:46
um which may be present in plant foods but the bioa availability of them is low
6:53
and it's difficult to get them from plant Foods yeah the best best source of
7:00
all the all the um nutrients that we need for a healthy brain come in animal
7:06
Foods I I also saw a study where mothers that ate a plant-based diet vegan
7:11
vegetarian the baby is smaller too so it's not just the brain but they're um
7:16
yes once they're delivered they're smaller even in um in the body they're also smaller so it just looks like
7:22
there's more and more information sharing that eating a plant-based diet is really not ideal for people yeah in
7:29
fact the wh recommend um animal Foods in
7:34
the developing world to pregnant women and in infancy and childhood because
7:41
they fully appreciate that the best way to get nutrients is from animal foods
7:47
and in the book you mentioned that so the less meat you eat there's a correlation with the brain just overall
7:52
shrinking I know you just brought that up a little bit is it the nutrients itself or is it the meat is there also
7:59
Al something to do with the fats in the meats uh it's probably a combination of
8:05
B12 and DHA but the studies show uh the
8:10
best Studies have been been done on vitamin B12 so we can say for sure uh
8:16
that it one of the key nutrients is vitamin B12 but that's not to say that there aren't others okay and I saw in
8:24
the book that the vitamin B12 if there's not enough DHA in the blood that then the B12 doesn't support I guess uh the
8:32
stopping of the brain atrophy do you know what that connection is like what is it about DH which obviously is in a
8:38
lot of fatty fish or the most bioavailable form in fatty fish what is it about those two that work so
8:45
synergistically I I don't know exactly how they work synergistically but um a
8:51
high level of the fat within the brain is composed of DHA so I would imagine
8:58
that's how it has that effect so then would you recommend so there's oh go ahead every cell in your body has a
9:07
sheath of of fat around it and the brain when you add when you add that all up the brain is 60% fat so it's not a
9:16
surprise to me actually well it would have been a few years ago but not anymore that that fat is essential for a
9:22
healthy brain as well as vitamin B12 well the type of fat matters yeah DHA
9:27
things and also it's not just fish that that DHA is available from it's in in um
9:34
cattle in beef and um in the the organ mates from heror sorry evolutionarily
9:42
speaking um it was actually the brain of large herbivores that had the most
9:49
DHA uh some people seem to think that uh it's just fish that matters but um in
9:57
our in our past it would have been from the brain of uh wild herbivores that we
10:03
would have got adequate amounts of DHA and no plant food contains DHA and and
10:09
the other thing is some some people might say that well our bodies can make DHA from another omega fat called
10:17
ala uh but the conversion is very inefficient and if you have a high
10:22
amount of Omega 6 fat in your diet which is what most seed oils have then
10:28
sometimes that conversion grinds to holdt completely okay what about protein
Importance of fat-protein balance in diet
10:34
sealing so you talk about how there's also a beautiful synergistic balance of
10:39
fat and protein um that we can't just there's a vegetable ceiling or a plant ceiling and then there's a protein
10:45
ceiling why does it matter that we get a sufficient balance of protein and
10:51
fat hey guys just a really quick Interruption if you notice we don't really run ads on this YouTube channel
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12:01
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example why a carnivore diet may have lower T3 markers but may be in fact okay
12:34
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12:41
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medications all right guys thank you for being part of this community let's get back into the video well if you're
13:12
following a ketogenic diet or trying to follow a ketogenic diet if you have uh
13:18
too much protein in your diet the protein get gets converted to glucose
13:23
and that will take you out of ketosis plus the body has a limited capacity of
13:30
deamination to get rid of the excess protein carnivorous animals can actually
13:35
eat more protein than humans can um they they up to 50% of their diet can come
13:43
from protein do we talk about a fat seiling as well well the thing that limits um fat consumption is feeling
13:50
full yeah right right it's not a question of metabolizing it it just makes you feel very full and if you eat
13:58
Beyond certain point it'll make you fall to the point of feeling nauseous right
14:05
and not make you fats in our PR on our clinical practice so we meet mostly carnivores or
14:11
meat-based ketogenic people and when we do the macros on people when they're not eating sufficient fat and I guess we
14:16
could say percentage of total calories at least I think for males it's like 65 at minimum and then for females it's
14:24
around 70 if not more but then they're always hungry or they're not eating enough because if you're eating lean
14:30
meats it's also hard to eat a lot of chicken breast um you will eat less calories too but um it's just a
14:36
commonality we've seen that it is not easy to do a lower carb diet with
14:41
heavily meat-based if you're eating low fat as well so yeah exactly we would recommend at least 70% fat but animal
14:50
fat in in your diet yeah you keep bringing up animal fat versus plant fats
Risks of vegetable oils and why animal fat is superior
14:55
do you want to talk about differences uh yes um so there's a chapter in the book
15:02
called just stop vegetable oil um and
15:07
most of the vegetable oils are actually not made from vegetables they're seed oils they're an unnatural food we didn't
15:16
evolve with them they're an ultra-processed food you need a large Plant to make them they're only new to
15:23
the human diet in the last 100 years whereas we evolved with eating animal
15:28
fats those are the facts that our bodies are designed to eat um which is why we
15:34
recommend them so I've been eating meat-based uh strict strict carnivore for three years and then I for probably
15:40
the next last four is years it's 95% meat and I'm thriving on it I reversed
15:46
mental issues and mental health issues and other things and then some people always say well it's probably your genes
15:53
like or your blood type the your certain thing allows you to eat this way and so
15:59
there are conversations about certain genes are or certain people with certain genetics cannot eat this way I wanted to
16:05
know your thoughts like how much does genes affect you and things like your
16:10
height and other other factors obviously genes do matter but they're not
16:16
necessarily your destiny um lifestyle matters a lot especially diet um so some
16:24
people might have a predisposition to diabetes or autoimmune diseases it's the
16:32
Threshold at which um each of us can tolerate certain foods that matters but
16:38
I would say everybody would Thrive well on the diet that we are proposing it's
16:44
just the amount of other foods that everybody can tolerate varies from
16:49
person to person we watching One species we've all evolved over six million years
16:56
uh because we ate meat and high high fat meat diet and awful uh so um we're we're
17:04
all the same in terms of our species need for for um eating just as other
17:11
species of animals have a specific diet so do you all believe that most humans
17:18
can eat meat based I I believe all humans can yeah I
17:24
I believe all humans should I I wanted to talk a little bit about cardiovascular events so one big concern
Cholesterol and cardiovascular health
17:29
we always hear is um obviously saturated fats have been fearmonger for so long it's going to cause a cardiovascular
17:36
event and so then people will believe okay fine so maybe that's not the truth
17:41
but then they start eating this way and adding more fat and eating more meat-based and then they notice their
17:47
cholesterol actually does go up and now their to total cholesterol is marked High you know their LDL is marked High
17:55
although their HDL and triglycerides also improve in the right direction how do do you then not have your doctor
18:01
worry and or or how do you not worry when your doctor's like the way you're eating is not working you're probably
18:08
needing a Statin how do we not worry when also there are people that will
18:13
then have a cardiovascular event and in that area there is cholesterol well cardiovascular events don't happen
18:20
overnight it's a buildup over years so if you change your diet you might not
18:26
change your risk immediately it might take years for you to reverse your cardiovascular risk um the the trouble
18:34
is that the current food guidelines are based on flawed evidence they're based
18:39
on studies which aren't good studies so it's it's the whole system that needs to
18:46
change yes your LDL might go up but as you said your triglycerides would go
18:52
down and your HDL would go up and those markers are actually better indicators
18:59
of cardiovascular risk than your total cholesterol or your total LDL it's
19:05
specifically the triglyceride to HDL ratio that matters and that's also a
19:10
marker for your insulin sensitivity so your insulin s sensitivity is probably
19:16
improving but we not everybody realizes that and one of the reasons cholesterol
19:22
has been aligned is that you know when these is it the plaques that build up in in your arteries that the start to cause
19:29
the blockages and the blood clots that people have seen that cholesterol is in
19:35
those plaques and then they make an assumption will the cholesterol cause the plaque right and I think many people
19:41
argue actually it's the other way around the cholesterol is there to try to help it's the analogy is just because you see
19:47
a fire engine at a fire doesn't mean the fire engine CA the fire the fire engine is there to help put the fire out so um
19:56
one of the reasons that that cholesterol is has been fairly associated with heart disease but it is challenging to change
20:04
the thinking in the medical profession uh absolutely the average doctor will find
20:10
it hard to believe all this but the evidence is there yeah I love using
20:16
common sense with a lot of these beliefs and if you think about it most of our cholesterol is produced in our liver and
20:22
our small intestine and if our body was so if it's such a bad um if is so bad
20:29
for us why would it produce 70% or almost 70% of what the body needs and then the rest needs to be from our food
20:36
why would the body be actively making something that's so bad for us when the body is really good at recycling things
20:43
such as bile acids and um and other things so it's just um that Common Sense
20:48
doesn't make sense if cholesterol is supposed to be so bad for us and in fact if you look at the molecule it's really
20:54
meant to reduce inflammation so like you said David yes and anywhere there's inflammation including in the arteries
21:01
you'll see the cholesterol because it was there to it was the firetruck right in in that situation and it's been so
21:08
Mis it's been so miss shared in terms of the public and hopefully one day this
21:14
information from Anil keys will go away yeah that it's glucose that causes
21:19
damage to the cholesterol that's the real problem if if you're on a low carbohydrate diet um your your
21:27
cholesterol will be healthy can you share a little bit more about that Allison so what is it or how does
21:32
that work where um I'll hand over to Anita she'll be able to explain it well
21:38
the other thing I was going to mention was that if you look at overall um all cause mortality as you get older a
21:45
higher cholesterol level is actually associated with a lower risk of death um
21:51
it's only when and and the jurry is out anyway on um cardiovascular events and
21:59
cholesterol yeah one of the ways we we put it in the book is that this you know
22:04
the studies that show that actually it's a relationship between glucose in the bloodstream causing
22:10
inflammation um I think you know Malcolm Kendrick in the UK he he he points out
22:16
that the leading cause of amputation in the United Kingdom now is some type two diabetes and type two diabetes is you
22:24
know our inability of our insulin to manage you know glucose levels so in a
22:30
way I mean it's very similar to smoking so in the book we say that carbohydrates
22:35
are the new smoking they lead to inflammation they damage the capillaries in your extremities in your eyes in your
22:43
I think in your kidneys or whatever and so it's a very similar effect to to smoking and we would say that it's carbs
22:50
that also need a health warning when they're sold to you as food right no
22:55
thank you um I wanted to Pivot to gut health so so another big concern other than cholesterol and cardiovascular risk
Fiber, colon cancer, and gut health
23:02
is well without fiber in a carnivore diet you'll end up with colon cancer and
23:07
you'll never po can you talk a little bit about the a meat-based or meat
23:13
heavily meat focused diet and uh the the risk of colon cancer first of all fiber
23:19
isn't a nutrient we don't need it um we weren't designed to eat it at the moment
23:27
there are many many studies on fiber and colon cancer most of them are
23:33
epidemiological studies you can show an association but you can't show a cause
23:39
from these studies for every study that shows that fiber reduces the risk of
23:45
colon cancer there's another one that shows that it has no effect or even increases the risk um the few controlled
23:54
studies that are out there don't support the idea that um fiber reduces the risk
24:01
of colon cancer at all for example well there's there was one on um looking at
24:08
the risk of adenoma recurrence adenomas are thought to be a precursor of colon
24:14
cancer and it was a good controlled trial on 2,000 people and it showed that
24:21
fiber had no benefit there was another Cochran review of controlled trials
24:28
where they um increased fiber for 2 to eight years and that didn't lower the
24:34
risk of colon cancer and paradoxically after four years there was a slight
24:39
increase in colon cancer so I'd say the evidence for fiber being beneficial for
24:47
the risk of colog cancer is is not there so you're saying that there are actual studies that show that by increasing
24:55
fiber there's actually an increase of risk so there was a Cochran review of
25:01
controlled trials I can send you the link to it later um which show that it
25:06
didn't lower the risk and I think their words in this review was paradoxically
25:12
after four years there was an increase in Risk but I'll I can send you the link to that later okay thank you let's talk
25:19
about constipation so the other um we we do hear that even from um anecdotally
25:25
from people that start a carnivore diet um they'll say I'm starting to feel better and eating
25:30
this way but I have horrendous constipation so you have to look at the
25:37
definition of what constipation actually is some people think that you need to go
25:43
every day but in fact it's whether you're straining or having difficulty passing stools that um constitutes
25:53
constipation there is no minimum uh frequency of defecation that's known to
26:00
be good for health so it's fine to not go every day so long as you're not
26:05
straining or having difficulty passing stools there was one very good study
26:11
done um in Singapore um on where they showed that
26:17
eliminating fiber completely from the diet of their study participants
26:22
actually resolved constipation completely and they had a really good analogy they said that adding more F
26:31
they used a traffic jam as as the analogy for constipation if if you have
26:38
uh a colon that's already packed with fiber adding more fiber is just going to make the situation worse as in a traffic
26:44
jam if you have lots of cars adding more cars is just going to make the traffic jam worse you were saying earlier um
26:52
Anita about the importance of uh the Integrity of the gut and how and leaky
26:57
guts and how um yes so some people talk about the
27:03
microbiome as if that's a very important thing but we would argue what matters
27:08
more than the bacteria in your gut is actually the Integrity of the gut
27:14
barrier um most uh in the medical profession don't even recognize leaky
27:20
gut as a problem but if if the gut barrier wall is compromised in any way
27:27
um then things toxins and other stuffs other things which shouldn't be coming
27:33
into your body do enter your body and can cause problems particularly with um
27:39
people who suffer from autoimmune diseases and what's the cause of um leaky gut or um there are many causes
27:49
but um mostly it's plant foods that uh cause a um problem with the um gut
27:57
barrier yeah there's a lot of things it could be medicine it could also be toxins in the environment stress I mean
28:04
it's just our our modern world causes a lot of our leaky gut and cell d wall
28:10
cell wall damage I also another you know Common Sense thing is I think about
28:15
babies I I nursed my second um he almost had zero food when he was up to the age
28:21
of one and then we nursed him even beyond that but he never had fiber in that one year and he massively grew and
28:28
it's like okay so I guess when they're a baby they don't need fiber for their microbiome or their gut health but my
28:35
son had many bowel movements and he was super healthy and 99th percentile and it's just but he literally was on breast
28:41
milk that had it was you know it it wasn't low carb but it's lowish carb but
28:47
there's no fiber in that and there's not really vitamin C so it's just okay but as humans or as adults now we need more
28:54
of that fiber it doesn't really make sense yeah that's one of the um points that comes up in the book it's it's a
29:01
really good point baby breastfed babies have zero fiber in their diet they have
29:07
no problems with constipation they don't need fiber at all in in fact laran fiber
29:15
can be can cause problems in in babies and in the book you guys mentioned that
29:20
um the breastfed and um and then the formula fed have different short chain
29:25
fatty acids do you want to just touch on that a little bit so babies go into ketosis uh more easily than older people
29:34
do uh it's an evolutionary thing uh they need a much higher amount of energy for
29:40
their brains than than adults do 70% of their energy uh is used by their brains
29:48
and having fat more fat reserves than other primates and fat in their diet is
29:57
thought to be one of The evolutionary adaptations that also helped brain
30:02
growth okay um let's pivot a little bit to climate change um in the book it's
Truth about cows, methane, and climate change
30:08
fascinating because we always hear that the cows the methane um is causing a lot
30:14
of the the climate change that the you know the world is heating up but in the
30:20
book you argue that it's actually the plants that are causing worsening of that can you talk a little bit about
30:26
that um yes so uh the first thing is to that um in terms of the the various
30:35
assessments that have been done by for instance the UN food and agriculture
30:40
organization um they look at emissions from the livestock sector globally um
30:47
but they only look at emissions and um what they don't look at is that methane
30:53
is part of a biogenic carbon cycle it's uh produced by the animal from the
31:00
digestion of the plant foods that it ate the grass um that it ate and the grass
31:07
um took that was able to make that carbohydrate to make its leaves and stem and
31:14
everything uh by extracting carbon dioxide from the air during
31:19
photosynthesis so the the carbon has just come from the carbon dioxide in the
31:25
air through the plant the animal eats the plant turns it into its own body
31:31
tissues um and it uh breathes out so or belches out some methane a r ruminants
31:38
Bel belch out methane but that methane then breaks down back into CO2 just
31:46
replacing some of the CO2 that was taken out by the plants um so there's no additional
31:53
methane there's no additional carbon going back into the atmosphere it's a cycle the the ruminant cannot create carbon
32:01
out of nothing it comes from the plant carbohydrate and in addition to that
32:06
postured ruminants grazing animals they they contribute to carbon sequestration
32:13
which means the drawing down of carbon from the atmosphere from the carbon dioxide and storing it capturing it in
32:20
the soil um grassland soils it's well understood that grassland soils are
32:25
always higher in carbon always higher in organic matter than Aral soils where we
32:31
grow wheat and barley and all the all the other crops and the reason for this is that um the the Grassroots are
32:40
secreting sugar uh into the soil and that sugar was made from the carbon from
32:46
the air from the carbon dioxide and also that the animal um it's dung is also
32:53
redirecting carbon onto the land and that is taken under under ground
32:59
contributing to the buildup of organic matter and carbon in the soil and grassland grass plants and the other
33:06
broadleaf plants that are in grassland they're perennial plants and they cover
33:12
the land very densely so the soil isn't exposed to the air whereas when you're
33:18
growing arable crops um those arable crops are annual plants wheat barley uh
33:25
oil seeds vegetables like carrots potatoes brasas they're all annual
33:32
plants and the farmer has to till the land plow it or some other preparation
33:38
and the land is exposed uh for a lot of the time and the Aral plants are fairly
33:43
thinly space for much of the year so there's a lot of soil exposure to the air that's a completely unnatural thing
33:52
um and the organic matter in the soil is exposed to the air and that the carbon
33:59
from the soil turns into CO2 and is added to the atmosphere and there there
34:06
is data showing that about a third of the um increase in uh carbon in the
34:15
atmosphere the increase in carbon dioxide has actually come from soil um
34:21
uh damage and most of that soil damage has been caused by arable farming uh
34:27
because of the exposure of the soil uh in addition to that arable farming involves a lot of field operations you
34:34
know Harvest well plowing or other tillage preparing the soil
34:41
spraying uh harvesting lot of fossil fuels going in there whereas grazing
34:46
Livestock systems use very little fossil fuel they also tend to use very little
34:51
uh agrochemicals artificial fertilizers because you're fertilizing the animal itself is fertilizing the soil and very
34:58
few pesticides at all only you know 99% of pesticides are used to grow Arab
35:05
arable crops so massive harm from pesticides affecting biodiversity so all
35:11
these harms all this these emissions are actually coming from um plant-based
35:18
farming and we've we've always known this really um because we've always
35:24
understood until modern times until the coming of uh big machinery and
35:30
agrochemicals I.E fossil fuel-based agriculture in the last century the
35:35
traditional way of farming was mixed farming or mixed lay farming where
35:41
Farmers understood that arable crops like wheat or so on um take they damage
35:48
the soil they deplete the soil take nutrients out of the soil and take organic matter out of the soil so what
35:55
you do is you you might grow the arable crop for a couple of years and then you put grass back in and you
36:02
graze it with livestock like sheep or cattle uh and therefore you restore the
36:07
organic matter to the soil you do that for a couple of years or maybe five years and you've got some organic batter
36:14
and other nutrients back in the soil so that you can grow another arable crop
36:19
and we we've completely dislocated that whole system in the last century so I
36:25
worked for a long time in the east of England which is our main crop growing area and there arable crops are just
36:33
grown year after year after year wheat barley oil seeds vegetables um and there is no grass in
36:41
the rotation no Livestock in the rotation um and that's what's happened all over the industrialized World um so
36:50
we've dislocated arable farming from livestock farming and it's livestock
36:56
farming that restores soil and um and also restores biodiversity so that's what are your
37:03
thoughts though about the feed lot cattle so um seedlot cattle um for a
37:09
start there's a misunderstanding um that um you know a lot of people even here in Britain where
37:15
we've got a lot of grass land um and a lot of cattle and sheep out at pasture
37:21
all the time PE people still um will tell me that all our beef is produced in
37:28
uh in seed Lots on grains that's simply not true globally it's around about 10%
37:35
of um beef production is grain fed uh in feed lot systems and that's mostly in
37:42
the United States um even there though a lot of the the most of the animals are
37:49
spend two-thirds of their lives um at grass at pasture and and they're very
37:54
beneficial in range and ranching systems um and it's only at the end that they'll
38:01
be moved to feed lots and fed on grains and even then a lot of the feeds that
38:07
are fed to those cattle uh are not grains that are edible to to humans and
38:12
could be better used for humans as some people would say uh they're actually byproducts and waste products of arable
38:19
and crop farming and it's the true is same in it's the same is true in um in
38:26
Britain in the east of England where all the arable farming is um there's a lot
38:32
of byproducts from feeds so lots of vegetable uh waste left on the ground
38:38
after you've harvested brassas and everything um and what we do is we bring
38:43
in tens of thousands of sheep in the Autumn to clear that up um so animals
38:48
are really um you know a a key part of the circular economy that is so
38:54
important of re recycling when waste and upcycling waste products from crops uh
39:02
and turning them into highly nutritious meat and and milk uh so they're really
39:07
important otherwise those waste crops and byproducts just rot in the field uh
39:14
and contribute to methane and um other uh emissions but ideally all livestock
39:22
would be out at pasture and only pasture reared year around yeah um so you know
39:30
the the best the most regenerative um and environmentally um ideal uh system is uh
39:40
grazing livestock outter pasture permanent pasture or if you you know if
39:47
if we're in a society that does want to um grow some plant Foods vegetables and
39:53
fruit Etc then we also need to put grass back into those rotations instead of
39:58
depending on agrochemicals so an grazing livestock are really
40:04
important yeah I think one other factor that also impacts is I'm go ahead I
40:10
think Ali would say where there is a perhaps a problem with intensive systems
40:15
is with pork and chicken yeah or the battery farming of chickens and so on
40:21
because pigs and chickens are monogastric animals not not like ruminant
40:28
um so they they're not very good at uh digesting cellulos ruminants are the
40:34
most efficient animals are digesting cellulose we can't digest cellulose at
40:39
all but ruminants can they actually need they're the animals that need fiber in their diet you know because the the
40:45
ruman microbes need that fiber um so those uh but pigs and poultry are
40:53
monogastric and the way that we you know produce p pork and poultry meat and um
41:00
eggs is with those animals uh mostly confined but almost entirely fed on
41:06
grains and soy and in Britain most of that soy comes from Latin America
41:11
although there are moves to try and reduce that um and um so about 35% of
41:20
the soy that we import to this country because we can't grow soy is is used in Pig and poultry feed but in and in
41:27
hardly any is used in ruminants because ruminants can make their own protein perfectly uh well they don't need
41:33
additional protein actually the biggest use of soy is to produce alternative to
41:39
meat and and um dairy products for vegan and uh vegetarian 45% of our soy Imports
41:48
uh go into um the um vegetarian and vegan um Alternative Market so it's
41:56
actually that that's contributing to deforestation not beef production you
42:02
know what about water um that's another one I hear often is well the cows Pi up all our water yeah yeah that's another
Do cows use too much water
42:10
myth um which we talk about in in um in the final chapter of of the book which
42:16
is called embargo the avocado and in in that we talk about uh food imports
42:22
versus local food and we talk about um food miles emissions food waste and the
42:30
water footprint of different kinds of foods it it's a misapprehension that um
42:36
cows use all the water dairy cows do need a high water intake because they're
42:42
producing a very large volume of milk you know 40 liters or more per day in a modern dairy cow um those kind of
42:50
intensive Dairy systems we we wouldn't Advocate because they're also High grain
42:55
use uh and have various welfare issues but and and that kind of dairy system is
43:01
certainly not uh appropriate for um an arid country such as in the Middle East
43:08
because it's taking a lot of what we call Blue Water which is water from uh
43:14
reservoirs or or rain capture systems uh so it's competing with um the
43:20
environment and it's competing with people but in most situation where you've got pasture uh Catal or sheep um most of
43:29
their water is what we call green water it's rain that would have fallen on the land anyway um the animal is getting a
43:37
lot of its water from the vegetation it eats and it's putting a lot back into
43:42
the soil VI its urine and dung um and that's being held in the soil and um and
43:49
the organic matter from the dung dung is also helping to hold that water in the soil so it's actually just recycling a
43:56
lot of the water in the local water cycle whereas if you look at Crop
44:02
Production a lot of for instance we um we Import in Britain we import 2third of
44:08
our fruit and vegetable requirements and a lot of those fruits and vegetables are exotic produce coming from developing
44:15
countries which are climate vulnerable water vulnerable water scarce um and
44:21
they're traveling a long way uh so high food miles and high food admissions um
44:27
for instance everybody thinks avocados are a superfood but they compete with
44:32
people um for instance in um in Chile um
44:38
in many in some are in the avocado growing areas of of Chile people the
44:43
ordinary local people are being restricted to 50 liters of water per person per day which is a third of
44:50
average consumption per person in Britain um whereas each avocado
44:57
uh tree is being watered with more than that in irrigation um so these are having big
45:05
impacts on local communities in in poorer countries and more water scar
45:11
countries same goes for nuts you know nuts actually require a lot of water we
45:16
import an awful lot of nuts from from other countries um but uh grazing
45:23
livestock actually um are the most efficient and they using mainly green
45:28
water even in the winter in you know in where we're when we have to house cattle
45:33
or sheep well most cattle in the winter yes they're having some uh water from
45:39
troughs and from the system but it's at a time of year when our reservoirs are
45:44
full and there's a lot of um water falling and you know we're not they're
45:50
not competing whereas crops are competing when they're irrigating they're they're competing and they're
45:55
reducing re res River levels and that's impacting the environment so as we're
Final takeaways from David, Alison, and Anita
46:01
closing I'd like to ask each and every one of you if someone walked away with one thing from the book what would it be
46:09
like what is something that you really want like a gem that you want people to know whether it's for the healthy
46:15
environment please share one uh mine would be uh to women who are planning a
46:20
family to read the book and see how important it is for developing fetus and
46:28
a young child to have animal food in their diet because they have no choice
46:34
uh like adults do and what they eat in the first few years of life affects them
46:40
for the rest of their life because if they don't get the right nutrition they won't fulfill their cognitive potential
46:48
that would be the group that I would want the most to read the book I I would
46:53
say we we've talked about soil destruction bable plant the other um area that I would like
47:01
people to understand is that we we're seeing this massive decline in biodiversity and uh particularly in
47:09
insect life and earthworms in the soil um that is majorly being caused by
47:15
arable cropping um whereas we don't use pesticides in raising livestock
47:21
production hardly any um we're not damaging the soil where and we're not uh
47:27
we're using lower levels of um artificial fertilizer if at all we don't have to use it at all so the habitat
47:36
destruction and the pesticide use um is what's causing this massive loss of
47:41
insect life and biodiversity and that's coming from crop farming not from animal
47:47
farming not from pasture reared animal and I would finish by saying that the you the diet that we propose in the book
47:54
which we call the sapiens diet because we think it's the best diet for people
47:59
it's the diet that we evolved with uh that turned us into Homo sapiens with our large brains so we call it the
48:07
sapience diet it's some protein a lot of fat and some aul um it's so it's a sapium diet it's
48:14
good for people but as Ali's been describing it's also a diet that's good for the planet well thank you so much
Where to find the book and connect with the authors
48:20
where can people find you all and then where can people find the book it's on Amazon um you need to go to
48:30
um the Amazon in your own country so in the UK it's amazon.co.uk in americ
48:37
amazon.com and it's a available there and of course the Kindle version you
48:43
can't buy on the Amazon App you have to buy that from the Amazon website I know I always thought that's
48:49
so bizarre but yeah it it's not they're not just picking on us it's all all
48:54
Kindle books are the same we have website why vegans smaller brains.com
48:59
you can visit that for further information there are links on there to to Amazon okay and to our social media
49:06
the links are on the website okay well I'll put all the links the website the Amazon links in the show notes um but
49:13
thank you so much for your time I think this book um it just adds to a lot of this coopertive data that we have about
49:20
why we've been so misled with the environment with our health and and for our children and I'm right there with
49:26
you and need so glad that in a sense I got sick early so that I didn't raise my kids plant-based because I totally would
49:32
have done that um and so it's uh it's unfortunate but we can make change and we can share the truth so that people
49:39
can have human health so I I just think thank you so much for your work because it's such important work um and if we
49:46
don't help other humans like who's going to do that at this point so thank you thank you for your time okay guys I hope
49:51
you enjoyed this interview this book why vegans have smaller brains has a lot of
49:57
information that we did not cover even in this interview and I wish I really recorded this but offline they also
50:02
shared how much they have reversed certain illnesses and diseases that they suffer from each and every one of them e
50:09
now eating a Sapien diet or a meat focused diet there is so much importance
50:14
in the way we eat because the way we eat is the foundation of our health however
50:20
our bodies our brains our mental health looks is so much fueled by what we are
50:25
putting inside our body and even if certain things are created within the body that process only works
50:32
with what you put in your body when we go to the vet the vet will always ask if the dog or cat or whatever animal or pet
50:39
animal you have what did this animal eat before it got sick we should start
50:46
asking those questions to humans when we are not feeling well it's just something
50:51
to think about okay guys make sure to eat a lot of meat take care of your bodies because it is the only place you
50:57
have to live I will talk to you later bye guys
51:04
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