 All right in this episode of mind pump. Oh boy. We get a little controversial there's a lot of information and heat going around in regards to Veganism eating a vegan diet. This is it's been politicized, which is crazy. This is the first time I've ever seen a diet actually become Political the arguments for going vegan are it's better for your health And now the big one it's better for the environment So we dive into the vegan diet and how in many cases it can actually make you Sick and fat now we aren't anti vegan, but we do think that for some people It's not the right way to go, but we give our reasons for it We talk about how the environmental impact is it actually better for the environment? We talk about who may be behind the agenda of pushing this kind of new trend is their money behind it We talk about the cancer risks that might be associated with meat or maybe associated with Veganism we talk about obesity and obesity rates and how going vegan may actually Increase those rates in some people and then we talk about the nutrients some of the nutrients that you might need to supplement with If you go vegan so we think you're gonna love this episode again It's really controversial also. There's only three days left We are closing out on the biggest promotion of the year Maps Prime and Maps Prime Pro 50% off now Maps Prime Remember this is the program that helps you design what you need to do to prime your workouts properly Now priming is a fancy term for a really good warm-up. Now. Why is that important? 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They are half off. Here's what you do to get the discount go to maps fitness products Dot-com and use the code Prime 50. That's PR. I am E 50 no space for the discount and remember there's only 72 hours left act now Or you will not get this promotion again till deep next year I want to bring up an article with you guys because I think this would be a really good Way to kind of start a conversation a good episode. So I'm reading this article by science alert It's a great website and they they post science alarm Yeah, they post articles that are science-based and I thought this was a really interesting one the title of it was that malnutrition is increasing at a relatively Rapid rate in wealthy countries malnutrition. So this is nutrient nutrient deficiencies magnesium calcium iodine vitamin D and E And a is actually coming blowing through the roof in terms of deficiencies and in this article They talk about how scientists think that it's the It's the adoption of vegan diets that is causing this rise in malnutrition Over the last few decades, we've seen veganism quadruple and in developed nation has it really yeah, wow Yeah, so that can't be a popular article. Oh, well, I mean you go back 30 years It was very rare to find vegetarians let alone vegans and there's a difference between vegetarians and vegans, right? So for the sake of this article talk about vegans that's gone up Considerably over last like four decades and along that and remember also consider that along that period of time the last four decades The general wealth of advanced nations has Exploded so people have more access to food more access to different types of foods More shelter. We just have more stuff or better off generally speaking from you know having things available to you standpoint and yet malnutrition is going up and scientists are saying this is because Less and less people are eating or are eating meat more and more people are going Vegan vegetarian and vegetarian and this is important is important discussion because recently I don't know how few guys have felt this but I have no I completely have first of all I want to ask you do you know the history on where the vegan diet came from like how did it start? Boy, that's a great question Hasn't been around very long Obviously not because we know that you know hundreds of years ago you would die trying to do it Yeah, you it was very difficult because what a lot of people don't realize and this is by the way this is Established clear science. This is not Like my opinion. This is established clear science. There are certain nutrients that you can only get from Animal products and from meats and when you eliminate meat and animal products Oftentimes you have to fortify your diet with supplements in order to make up those differences And we've known this for a long time I mean for a long time before supplements were invented before we had the ability to synthesize or isolate vitamins and minerals when children would have things like you know when they'd suffer from things like rickets or Malnutrition what you would do is you would supplement your kids diet with organ meats like I like a liver liver was a staple in many American households for a long time for kids It might even have gone back as recent as Doug's generation Where you know if a kid was kind of not doing so well doctor told the parents make some liver for your kids or cod liver oil That was a big one where remember, you know, do you ever remember watching the old? Tom and Jerry cartoons or whatever where the mom would pour the oil in the spoon and try and feed it to the kid and the kid would Fight it nobody would want to eat it because it's you know, it's fish oil That's made from fish liver disgusting well wasn't that too in the Nordic region like was it where all the basically all the Vikings are They had a hard time Surviving except for they found this cod liver oil really helped them to address those Deficiencies they've been supplementing with it for thousands of years for a very very long one of the one of the reasons Why some scientists think that the Vikings were so successful in their plunders was because they had the ability to supplement with a such a nutrient dense Food and so for a long time. This is what doctors told parents to supplement give their kids cod liver oil organ meats egg yolks Because those are some of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet And so it is a more recent phenomena that we've been able to go vegan or especially have kids go vegan Now, I love I love having this discussion with you because I feel like we really don't have a dog in the fight Yeah, I'm so glad you said that because we're not carnival advocates, right? No not at all In fact and all of us talk about having vegan days Because I've seen lots of benefits to it. There's a there's a ton of benefits to eliminating meats or Even like a high protein if you're on a normal high protein diet to having a lower protein diet for the day Or maybe even a couple days But in my experience And all the different and this is so what I do with a client so the audience knows Because I think it's important that I educate my clients on all the benefits of all the different types of diets Because first of all diets are a made-up fucking thing, right? This is as when we evolved as humans. It was called just survive you wait what you have Yeah, you ate what you could eat whatever and we just live in a different time now where we have the luxury of you know What I'm gonna only eat this way. I'm only gonna eat that most optimal, right? I mean sometimes there's a lot of people that you know that subscribe to any Specific diet enough to where they put it in their fucking bio need to wake up for a second realize that didn't even exist You know 50 plus years ago like nobody would do that. That's just absurd in the first place But it's something that I like to take all of my clients through though I like to say hey, let's let's go on a vegan day and let's talk about it And let's talk about how you feel the things that you notice the pros the cons And I just don't leave it at that though And one of the things that I noticed when I would put a client through a vegan diet is They would they would man increased in energy on some days. They'd they'd feel their joints wouldn't be so achy and Right away. They would want to be oh, you know, this this is the vegan diaphragm is well Hold on. It's it may not just be that it may have been when we were eating before I put you on this vegan diet You were eating a bunch of processed food or you were over consuming on the meats Or you simply just weren't getting enough of other things that you need in the diet And now that we're eating a lot of these plants, you're now getting that and so, you know Let's try adding some meats into your diet like chicken and fish and because they were you know They weren't anti it for you know animal saving animal purposes They just want to know what's the healthiest best way for them to eat and then the same time I would move them over to a paleo and and then when keto came really popular I'd put somebody on a keto diet and one of the things I always try and teach my clients is to not subscribe to a diet Do not get hung even if it gave you the best results in the world. Let's unpack Why it made you feel that way. What was it inside the the quote-unquote diet? That made you feel so great or made you think that it was so great and let's start to pick that apart Yeah, I want to in the reason why this is a topic. I want to talk about is I feel like recently there's been Such a push a massive agenda to go in this direction huge push. I'm hearing it from all angles There's documentaries coming out. I'm hearing it now that it's oh, it's better for the environment You know, that's what we need to eat this way. It's the best diet And and I'm very very cautious and the reason why I'm very cautious Isn't because you can't have a healthy diet. That's vegan. I first off. I want to be very clear You can eat a healthy diet. That's vegan, but I also want to be very clear It takes much more planning to do that than it would to eat a healthy omnivore diet This is a fact and supplementation. It requires way more planning. It just does nutrient deficiencies are very common in A vegan diet. So that's number one that we need to consider and when I look at the average person Here's the thing you need to understand I'm coming from a perspective as a personal trainer who's worked with people for 20 years and one thing that I learned early on was I Want to communicate the things that I know that that will give people the best Bang for their buck and I'm not going to communicate things that are going to confuse people We're gonna backfire and one of the things that'll backfire is if you just tell a bunch of people and sell to them really hard That eating meat is bad. Okay, because the average person does such a terrible job of planting their diet to begin with They don't care about planting their diet. All they're gonna do is cut meat out So now they have a poorly planned Vegan diet and a poorly planned vegan diet is a recipe for disaster It's absolute recipe now the argument that someone's gonna say to you Sal is that you know all diets require lots of planning They don't all diets a good diet requires planning. That's true But to avoid nutrient deficiencies an omnivore diet does not require Nearly the planning that a vegan diet will require first of all There's certain nutrients that you just don't get from plants. You just don't Vitamin B12 for example, you don't get vitamin B12 from plants now most vegan diets are fortified with vitamin B12 because they'll eat Something that's processed whether it's a cereal or some kind of a vegan supplement or processed food That'll be fortified with added vitamin B12 But vitamin B12 otherwise you're not gonna get it from from plants creatine is another one now creatine is an essential Your body can synthesize it But studies show consistently that when you give creatine to vegans their cognitive function goes up their IQ actually improves And that tells me they're not getting the amount of creatine that they need and creatine comes from plant-based foods There's also vitamin D3 base. I mean me base. Excuse me. Yeah vitamin D3. That's another one There's vitamin D2 that you get from plants, but to get your D levels to go up by consuming D2 It's very difficult vitamin D3 You you consume less of it and it's much more effective DHA Omega-3 fatty acids. That's another one certain types of iron. Those are other things They're very they're difficult or impossible to get through plants And so if you tell a bunch of people who don't do any planning and you sell them on the fact that Eliminating meat is good for them. All they're gonna do is cut meat out and first of all, here's another thing I want to I want to make this point because I know a lot of people are saying Oh, but you know eating meat has been tied to increased risk of colon cancer First off that's processed meat. That's different, but even if we look at that increased risk It's a tiny risk. It really is. It's a small risk The biggest risk that you can have for cancer and in terms of your diet is obesity obesity Contributes to something like 40% of all cancers all cancers and what we're discovering now This is something that we've talked about ad nauseam on the podcast over and over again is that eating heavily processed foods Makes people eat more food eating too much food is what makes you fat. That's the bottom line If you eat too much you're overweight heavily processed foods Some studies show will make you consume upwards of five to six hundred more calories a day Okay, so we look at the average diet and by the way the average American diet is shitty. I know this Okay, I know this already, but the average American diet if we look at their diet It's largely comprised of heavily processed foods. However, the few times that they do eat a whole natural food What is it normally? Consist of meat if you look at an American diet and you look at the whole diet all day long The two three the two things that they had all day long That was not heavily processed were the eggs they had in the morning And maybe the steak they had later on the day or the chicken they had So what you're gonna do is you're gonna tell them to remove the very very few Whole whole unprocessed foods out of their diet. And what do you think they're gonna replace it with? Processed food overly processed. They're gonna they're gonna replace it with heavily processed food That's why we're seeing the explosion of this all this impossible meat Products that's going through what's happening is you're getting all these people who are now believing that meat is bad for them And that go that not eating meat will be better for them And what they're replacing it with is heavily processed plant-based foods that are designed to taste like meat now When I hear this right away my my mind goes, okay Why you know, where is this agenda coming from and I feel like the natural thing to look towards is money Oh, yeah, and so who who would want this to go this direction? I mean who who cares for everyone to be vegan so much that there's a lot of money That's being pumped into these documentaries and the advertising and the propaganda to drive the the average person Destruction who would want that? Well, we already know who's benefiting right now Which is these like impossible and beyond meat companies that just popped up out of nowhere Making their way into fast food chains. It's already shown that in the next 10 years It's poised to be a hundred and forty billion dollar industry. Wow, and so they're taking I mean granted It's like 10% of the something trillion dollar industry that meat is you know already created, but it's definitely a substantial You know business venture. Well, here's the thing you want to consider when it comes to me You can't Currently, okay, I'm gonna speak carefully because I'm pretty sure this will happen at some time in the future But as of right now there is no patented cow or Patented chicken or patented pork or patented fish. There are no GMO Animal products yet. Okay, so you can't own a patent on it So when we look at the beef industry what you're looking at is the cumulation of all The people who are raising Meat and beef and chicken and stuff like that's it you can't really do that because they all compete with each other Don't they let's look at individual companies. You can patent plants You know that was a precedence that was set a precedent that was set in the 90s when GMO companies created Plants and it went all the way to the Supreme Court for them to be able to patent these plants because these plants could they were genetically modified in the laboratory And they could withstand being sprayed with these patented herb, you know These are patented sprays that you know kill weeds and stuff like that Monsanto was is a company that represents some of this stuff, right? So because they were able to patent plants these companies became mega mega powerful super powerful Now if the average American you eliminate all your competition that way the the average American goes vegan They are going to consume a dramatic increase in GMO products There's gonna be a lot. There's a lot of money being made through GMO products So that's where you that's where you can look and they're gonna pushes it and by the way There's some of the biggest lobbies in the world These are companies are mega powerful companies and it's one or two companies that are doing this or few We're not talking about like all the the cattle farmers or all the the dairy farmers We're talking about a few companies that are patented like Monsanto or the makers of these glyphosate these glyphosates They own this the patents on this stuff They want people to eat more plant products because when you go eat more plant products again The average person is gonna be consuming far more of these genetically modified plants So yes, there's a little bit of an agenda going on because for my health Mainly like it's comprised of soy and it's like for the most of these soy corn soy corn and I mean Obviously that's gonna tie back to those companies. Yeah, and again if you When we're looking at things from a health perspective because they'll say things like it's healthier To avoid meat. This is not it's not it's not true Compare apples to apples a healthy omnivore diet is very healthy a healthy vegan diet can also be very healthy But here's the problem that I have The amount of planning that goes into having a healthy vegan diet is far as at a far higher level Now as a trainer who's worked with people for a long time and I worked with everyday average people I don't like this self-selection bias that we have where you have these hardcore vegans who've been vegans for 15 years They're like no I okay. That's that's a little bit of self-selection bias You're why don't you compare you to a fitness fanatic who eats a omnivore now? Let's now let's compare that what you're trying to compare your diet to the average Americans Most diets compared to the average American diet is much better, right? But a well-planned vegan diet just requires a much higher level of planning in fact I know a lot of fitness and health professionals who do nutrition coaching Who don't even take on vegan clients not because they're anti-vegan, but you asked them Why don't it's difficult? It's hard as fuck It was one of the one of the hardest things as a trainer It was that was getting a client who would tell me they already they were vegan before they I even got them See I like taking clients through a bunch of different diets So we can start to unpack what it is that makes them feel good about what they're doing on this new diet But man was it a challenge when I had somebody that was like I don't I refuse to eat meat And you had to take them on as a client because it does there's just not a lot to select from that's all it is It's just that that's simple, you know when you have and that that's like why I don't like any diets That's why I don't like the carnivore diet. That's why I don't like the ketogenic diet It's you know and that's what I meant by when we started this conversation that I don't have a dog in this fight I don't stand behind one single diet. I don't believe in that for anybody. This one is especially politicized though There's a lot more factors. That's how you know why it's so tribal. That's right. That's how you know There's an agenda. Yes, that's how you know there's an agenda This is why we need to address it and it's it is everywhere There's there's all kinds of different like a documentary is coming out like constantly And so I think that people just need to realize that this is this is definitely trying to move everybody in a certain direction The way you know that there's an agenda is when a topic that should have nothing to do with politics And we're talking about diets like what okay, what does politics have to do with this as soon as it gets tied to politics? You know, there's a bit of an agenda and that's exactly what's happened. It's become Totally politicized and the way that they've politicized it is by attaching it to the environment So now what you're hearing now is that going vegan or eating a you know mostly plants or all plants is Better for the environment. It's far more complicated than that. It's actually There are vegan diets that are worse for the environment than omnivore diets in fact, if we compare it on an on a Macronutrient dense calorie per calorie basis That's worse the environment you try grow how much lettuce how much space needs to be devoted to lettuce To produce the same amount of energy that you would to produce pork for example Okay, when you calculate that in there lettuce in comparison to pork produces three times as much Greenhouse gases. Okay. Now beef is the highest You know greenhouse gas producing animal product Lettuce in comparison to beef is about one-to-one. They're almost about equal when you calculate in the waste that's produced So when you produce Vegetable and plant products we tend to throw away a lot of them more so the average person throws away I think it's 40% of it gets thrown away Whereas 30 it's more like 30% for animal based products when you can't when you factor that in then you start to see that It's far more cocky It's far more complicated than people believe right and so it's not as easy as Don't eat meat save the environment. In fact, you guys want to know what kind of foods have the lowest Greenhouse gas emission and carbon footprint heavily processed high sugar foods heavily processed high sugar foods That will produce less greenhouse gases and have the less the smallest carbon footprint. That is how we should eat. Yeah No, we shouldn't right? Yeah. I think what we need to understand is what's obese and diabetes ridden Here's exactly the planet will go on though that no it won't it actually now and let's look at the health costs What's best for the environment is what's best for our health when we're talking about ourselves Healthy humans in all aspects health healthy, you know good mental health psychological health and physical health Is what's going to be good for the environment because healthy humans make better decisions They need less medicine. We're more productive. We're more efficient We lead more meaningful lives at the end of the day a healthy person It's what's going to be better For everybody not an unhealthy person and so if we take a bunch of people who don't plan their fucking diets to begin with And we tell the and we make we sell the case and we politicize it because here's what happens too When you politicize things people start to pick sides like oh wait a minute. I'm a I vote this way Therefore I have to this is the side that I'm going to be on when you start to politicize you get a bunch of uninformed people Avoiding meat you're going to create nutrient deficiencies You're going to promote obesity because the increased rate of processed food consumption which promotes Over-eating so we're going to have less healthy people and that's going to be bet worse for the environment well, I want to I want to talk about some of the things that We all think is really good about the vegan diet. Let's talk because I feel like All of us in here intermittently have vegan days. We intermittently have carnivore days So we encourage people that listen to the show That there are some health benefits to doing this and I know there's people listening right now That for because I used to have clients like this that have adopted This diet and have seen just unbelievable changes in their life And they'll just they'll never move away from it because of these benefits And what I would want to do is I want to educate them On probably what they're going through or what they're feeling and why that is And then and then also how and why we use it the way we do right? Well, I like uh, I love Plant-based foods um, and I like them to be unprocessed just like I like my meats to be unprocessed I'm not promoting people eat hot dogs and you know, you know sausage patties and stuff like that I'm talking about whole natural meats and I also like whole natural plants, uh, like fruits vegetables Nuts and seeds they're extremely healthy and they have tremendous benefits And I don't think people eat enough of all those types of things. They've got beneficial fiber There's antioxidants that you can get from them and from a a modern health standpoint It does make sense to consume less energy dense foods Uh, uh more often because we're not as active, right? So I can eat a big bowl of vegetables and not get Tons of calories and that actually makes sense Nowadays now I can go to the reverse. Of course, if I go heavily processed food, I'll eat tons and here's the thing too Most heavily processed foods are plant-based. They're not animal based. There are processed Meat products, but when you go in the grocery store Most of the things that are in boxes and packages and Rappers are plant-based. They're not animal based. I mean, you're sure you can buy sausage hot dogs You know, uh, you know bacon you can buy beef jerky, which is would consider processed meat But most of the time when you're buying things in boxes and wrappers, they're made with what like wheat, soy, corn, sugar You know that kind of stuff, but if you eat whole natural foods I I uh the evidence is in my opinion quite clear that a lot of Whole natural plants is very very good for you. I'm just against the whole demonizing meat side. Oh, yeah No, I mean there's days where I mean I focus on whole natural vegetables Specifically for my digestion and also to lower inflammation and just you know Go through that kind of recuperative type of a day where I'm a little I'm I'm not necessarily super avoiding meat, but to take a break from it and really just focus on different You know Benefits just eating vegetables will provide that for me and upping that amount. Well, this is what I have found That I have found that you know because I do I have a client come in the very first two weeks with me Always was you know, eat how you normally don't change anything I don't try and impress me. I just want to see your habits your behaviors and so then I always got a really good little screenshot of What an average couple weeks looks like for this client that I would have And then I would take them through all these different types of diets And we would talk about them as we go through them And one of the things that I always noticed that when I took somebody on a vegan diet And what what was happening before Was this person just rarely ever got a bowl of berries like there's they've never done that before like literally never done that Maybe they have an apple or a banana every once in a while, but never because we're going all vegan You start to do things you never would do before you start eating You know things with lots of nuts and seeds on it. You start eating balls of berries You start having balls of vegetables big giant salads And so what they would so what I'd show them is like, okay Well, here's what you were eating before look at we went two days in a row And you didn't have but maybe a cup of a cup or two of broccoli. That's it I'm saying that's all you had and we had one or two servings of fruit and all it was was an apple or a banana Or you didn't really have any nuts or seeds in your diet because you thought those were bad for you, right? And then now we're on this vegan diet and man, you're getting these seeds these nuts We're having lots of berries. We're having large portions of vegetables And it it would be that is what I would would be able to show them the difference But would they normally replace because they're eating more of that right the processed Non meat products right oftentimes it was replacing the cookies the bread the pastas It's replacing the chips which are all vegan foods Those are all also vegan foods So it wasn't necessarily that they were like not eating meat They're eating more whole natural foods right and the and they were in the form of you know vegetables and fruits and nuts And that kind of stuff right and then I would do with that same person now We would start to You know insert meats and stuff and now we would start moving more towards like a paleo-esque type of diet And 99 of them would feel just as amazing if not more We'd add start adding some muscle because all of a sudden their protein intake would naturally come up and They'd feel just fine and great and that would be me trying to show them that listen It wasn't the vegan diet. It was hey, you just you were lacking in antioxidants and fiber and all these Micro nutrients that you get from all these fruits and vegetables because you just flat out weren't eat enough You were putting cookies and bullshit things in your diet, and you weren't getting enough of this You know, it's such a such a good point adam You know and it's Here's some points that I want to make about this and and you can talk to a lot of health coaches and fitness coaches and Some of the hardest clients have ever worked with you ever get a vegan that was obese and you had to train them and help them lose weight Wow is that difficult very very difficult to work with there's was very very little things That we could work with and their diet was comprised of a lot of These processed foods there were the most difficult people to work work with because I didn't have the nutrient dense satiating effects of these You know lean meats, you know, here's some history. I think people need to understand first off These kind of diets are possible now because of modern technology When the agricultural revolution happened around 10 000 years ago And this is evolutionary scientists are quite clear on this. There were some big changes that happened to humans We got shorter and our health actually got worse now. There were some benefits to it We didn't have to roam we could sit in one place and grow food and we could specialize our skills Which was great for society. We could grow big societies But even if you read some of the accounts of some of the early European sailors that came to You know the new world people who came to the americas from spain And from a lot of these european countries and when they would write about what they saw they would say things like Tall muscular You know, and then of course they would label them savages or whatever But they would say things like they were very tall very muscular They had all their teeth because they were coming from being dependent on a few staple crops To a place where there were lots of hunter-gatherers and these people were very vibrant and very healthy Um, when you talk to nutritional experts who work with women, for example, on balancing their hormones Oftentimes to get women to get their periods again. They have to recommend that they eat things like organ meats egg yolks Um, sometimes people will lose their periods because they go on a vegan diet And i'm not demonizing The vegan diet by any stretch of the imagination all i'm saying is that the planning that's required Is much much much higher. I think that's the point that i keep Trying to make over over again and trying to hammer and i think it's a dangerous present that we're doing Keep pushing people in direction. It's gonna fuck up. It's gonna fuck up a lot of people's health Well, especially what what i'm seeing is and i know there's for sure somebody who's listening Who's like hardcore vegan and they've been doing it for 10 years. It's been the best thing of life Like i'm not talking to you Like i'm not worried about you know the best vegans that i've seen like you've got this dude This isn't this conversation isn't for you. It's for every fucking other person It's for the my little cousin and my and my uh, little niece who Watched the what the health documentary and my other cousin who's who's in high school right now and all this propaganda is circulating the high school right now and You know now they're starting to you know shame kids that are eating all this meat And it's like now the cool hip and trendy thing did not eat meat It's like no education around it. No real planning. No real understanding And they're trying to make an attempt at like just not eating meat and staying away from it for all the wrong reasons Like that's who the fuck i'm talking to right now I'm not talking to somebody who just like i'm not talking to the carnivore person the keto person the paleo person Who's got their shit dialed like that's good for you if that works for you You feel amazing and you're consistent like what mine pump came about was to talk to the general population When we came in this space we saw a bunch of fitness idiots that were all fighting over the same fucking two percent people I'm interested in the 98 percent the average person who doesn't have the education that doesn't have the understanding But wants to make better healthier choices and they're hearing this propaganda that the vegan diet is a better healthier choice And that's just flat out bullshit information. No it is. It's not true Yeah, the the best the the most consistent and best vegans that i've worked with or known were Were this kind of person this kind of an avatar. It's somebody who is a vegan for moral and ethical purposes So they're against killing of animals so they're driven by that that that feeling To not eat meat or to avoid eating meat which i can i a hundred percent stand behind if you feel That strongly about uh, you know animals and you don't think they should be killed for for consumption You are You are taking action with the way you live and i always respect that i always respect Like i hate it when people preach but they don't practice what they preach But a vegan who's like no i don't think animals should be killed I don't think we should raise them to be killed. Um, I think they should be treating a treat a particular way Therefore, I don't eat animals. I respect that it's also studies will show those are the most consistent people They tend to stay vegan the vegans that go on and off And do it terribly are the ones that do it for health purposes I'm doing it become healthy Those are the people that go on and off with it The second thing is the vegans who do it for moral reasons they sit down They try to plan it out. They go, okay, this is how I want to eat. I got to figure this out I'm really trying to understand. What are the foods I need to eat? What do I need to supplement with to make sure that I don't have nutrient deficiencies? And they tend to be the most consistent and these are the people who who do the best These are also the people that that tend to agree with a post like you did on your instagram the other day Oh, they all do I mean incredible posts because you're not you're not calling out and saying that vegan is bad No, no, it's just terrible advice for the average person and if you do the planning you do the work Sure, it could be amazing for you problem is though most people are just lazy and they're not going to do that Most people don't follow any diet and and that's a dangerous one to just say hey I'm going to eliminate an essential nutrient. Yes, and here's the other thing too. Okay, and by the way If it wasn't vegan, let's say there was this huge push to go Keto or there was this huge push to go carnivore. Um, I would be just as we did I would be just we did we did we came out when it when keto first hit the scene before it became popular and bastard eyes We talked about it. We talked about the pros of it and how it can be beneficial We all went through it explained our experience of the things we like things we didn't like And then what happened over the course of the net the following year to two years So we did the ketogenic the very original ketogenic episode was almost three years ago now And we had don don d'arrestino on the show We talked all about the benefits of it But then it got fucking popular and then all the keto podcast started then all the keto books came out And now people are changing their profile names the keto this keto that And that's where we came out and said some shit. It's like, hey, you know, you guys You took something that had it does have some health benefits And there is a a small population of people that this could be extremely good for And now everyone's doing it because it's the next popular thing to do now It's bad and and you're gonna run into some problems because what you need to understand just like with workouts Okay, just like with workouts your diet What what's gonna work best for you can be very different From what works best for the next person. So I'll I'll use a good example. Let's go in the opposite direction Okay, our friend mckayla peterson. We had her on the show a long time ago. This is jordan peterson's daughter She's a huge carnivore diet. So she's the opposite. All she eats is meat and she eats no plant products whatsoever Now from her standpoint the carnivore diet is amazing Now she suffered from severe autoimmune issues And depression she would have these crazy autoimmune flare-ups anytime she would eat a plant-based product Product so her body just has this reaction now for her Eating a carnivore diet is the best diet. She's the healthiest she's ever been I can't argue that what you need to understand about your metabolism in your body is it's like a fingerprint And then when you throw in your own emotional connections to food, it gets even more individualized So are there people that a vegan diet will work best for? Absolutely, but the problem is making it cool for everybody and pushing it as a widespread agenda Because I know the average person is going to suffer from health issues nutrient deficiencies They're not going to do it right and no diet is best for everybody And that's where the problem lies and the reason why this vegan push To me is more dangerous And more nefarious than the previous diet pushes like the low carb diet push the low fat diet push Atkins keto fasting the reason why the vegan agenda because you're eliminating one of the most nutrient dense foods in the world But not just that's why yes, that's the main reason why but it's not just that It's because they've taken a diet and they've attached they've attached morality to it Really diets tend to have a religious feeling around them anyway Like everybody in fitness knows this like if you're at somebody if you're at your in-laws house You never talk about politics religion and diet. That's the other one, right? A lot of people don't talk about that you start talking about diet in Texas and you start having a big You can have huge arguments like if I'm a if I'm a keto guy And I'm talking to somebody who's like a low fat guy and we're going back and forth We can actually get into a massive argument people in the fitness space knows it knows this Diets can become religious in nature because we identify with them this one right here in particular They're attaching all kinds of morality. I have never heard anybody say it's moral to eat keto It's moral and ethical to eat, you know Low fat or it's moral and ethical to eat carnivore. Nobody says that about any diets except for the vegan one Now that we've attached morality to it. Holy shit You want to talk about something that's got some some danger to it? You got to be very careful because I've run into a lot of People who want to do the right thing who've bought into the moral arguments of veganism and whose health is suffering Terribly, I had one client that I was working with Virtually this young lady. She was anemic She wasn't getting her period and her hormones were all over the place and this poor girl the the prescription was You probably we need we need to start throwing some in fact She had her doctor tell her you need to start eating some meat you need to start eating You know some egg yolks you need the cholesterol So you need some of these nutrients and she was so torn because of this moral Dilemma and at the end of the day, you know the the thing I told her and I didn't want to push her in any direction Because I don't want to push You know, I want people people have to make their own decisions This is another thing I've learned as a trainer is that they have to make you can't push someone into something You got to have kind of you can inform them, but then they have to make their own decision Otherwise, if you push too hard what ends up happening is they they push in the opposite direction And so I you know, I told her I said look at the end of the day The animal that you need to be most concerned with Is the is your own self? You are the most important animal on the planet in in in terms of what you should be concerned with because If you're not healthy You can't help other animals. You can't make a difference in the world It's just like the argument I tell parents when parents are like I can't work out because It takes, you know time away from my kids and I tell them if you're not healthy You're not giving your kids good time a healthy fit you Is better for everything so at the end of the day you have to consider the animal That's most important and if you find that eating animal products makes you healthier Then that's probably the best decision that you can make for yourself and you can help more I mean you can eat animal products and and then because you're healthy you have more energy To devote to better farming practices better treatment of animals And in just better information in general if you're not healthy, you're not doing anybody any favors I feel like the the big one right now is is the environmental and carbon footprint Yes That to me is the one that when I hear the younger generation coming That's what worries me the most actually even beyond the moral aspect because I the moral aspect I can see You know in terms of people like really grabbing onto that be like well cruelty like let's Let's address cruelty in this world and here's like how I see it and I could see how their perspective or a life A life is a life, right? Right a life is a life, but But you see this just all of a sudden being wrapped into even though it's not checked It's not checked as this becomes popular opinion overnight because of it's so politicized and wrapped into everything else in terms of global warming in terms of like, you know All these like industrial farm complexes are the the reason for the entire thing and it's like Is that true like have you even asked yourself if that's true? Like always ask yourself if that's true. Look at the counterpoints. Look at other statistics Other information you have to look at it all and you have to it's it's it's it's very complicated It's extremely complicated more complicated than people Want to admit especially politicians they'll never admit that a problem is too complicated To solve with laws, you know, they always have the answer with a law like oh, we'll just pass a law You know, here's a good example plastic straws. Here's a great example You know what you know what I noticed now at starbucks now instead of getting a straw They have these massive plastic sippy couple lids lids that they that they put on the top of every Yeah, so now instead of a straw which is they've melted 20 of them to get one tenth of the plastic Now we're throwing away these massive lids that are far more plastic Now i'm not saying that banning straws that people knew that that would happen But nobody considered the unintended consequences Of just passing a particular law But you do you see what i'm saying? Yeah, so what would the unintended consequences be Of a bunch of of the average person The average american consider the average american they place almost no no Effort and planning into their diet they value food Mainly for its palatability and its taste What would the what would the unintended consequences be about just scaring everybody away from me? No, no, no, don't eat meat. It's bad for the environment bad for your health. Just eat uh plant foods The unintended consequences I would i'm gonna guess i'm gonna make my guess but it's an educated guess and i'd bet everything on it Higher processed food consumption processed foods also come in lots of wrappers plastics And other things that we need to throw away it's going to contribute to obesity because processed foods encourage More food consumption fat people are sicker require more medication are less productive and generally worse for the environment Okay, unhealthy people are just generally worse for the world. So that's another unintended consequence higher gmo consumption the average american is going to avoid meat, but they're not going to go organic They're just going to eat plant-based Wrap wrapper products, whatever that's going to be more chemical sprayed into the soil More glyphosates sprayed all over the place, which also kill lots of other Organisms like bees and animals that are important for the survival of the earth We're not considering all of the downstream effects Of this what they're trying to make it sound like a super simple solution To the environment and then we're also not considering that it's more complicated in terms of Which one really produces more waste really when we're comparing apples to apples Beef they always use beef because beef is the worst one But that's not the only animal that we eat. We also eat chicken and pork and fish And other animal products those animal products are actually far Cleaner on the environment. For example, I use the the example of pork pork produces three times less the greenhouse gas emissions than Lettuce wood for the amount of energy being produced type of deal So you have to consider all of these things and realize it's way more complicated What we needed here's what we need to do with food what we need to do with food is is Connected to what what's most important most clear, which is What is good for us? Health wise forget everything else stay there stay there for a second. We haven't even gotten Fuck we haven't even won that argument yet. Shit. Are we we're still eating crap? We're still eating shitty right now Well, that's the red flags for me if I have to literally supplement and bring things in Outside of just what I could grow and eat and I'm gonna be deficient You're trying to tell me that's what's best for me. I have a hard time with that. Yeah, I mean Let's go back to the original conversation, which is let's eat with healthy We we haven't finished that conversation yet. Now we're moving to here's what's best the environment Oh, and by the way, if you vote for this guy, he's against it. You vote for this guy there for it We're gonna create a lot of problems and the statistics are true I just like I said, I just I've been reading up on this how malnutrition is going up During the most plentiful times in all of human history malnutrition. Are you kidding me? Yeah, that's crazy We should not be malnourished. We're over fed And under everything in excess. Yes, it's a matter of now like bringing and presenting your body with the best Forms of nutrients now. I'm not and again, I want to be very very clear. I'm not against Veganism if you plan it well, it can be very healthy. I don't think it's for everybody But for the people that it's for I think it could be great No, it's just the things they attach it with like they said the carbon footprint thing If you want to if you want to reduce your carbon footprint footprint Ride your fucking bike to work twice a week and have two vegan days a month. There you go Yeah, you know I'm saying and you're and you'll probably a smaller house Right, there's so many other things that you can be doing and that argument I think is such a terrible one. I've shared that article I mean they said they've broken it down to like the difference is like 2% It's like 2% and that's not even taking to count the argument that you made Sal So when people say that to me, I'm like, there's so many other ways that you can reduce your carbon footprint Then simply just cutting out staking me. That's more dangerous to your health Now let me ask you guys this question because I know what the answer would be for me But let's say you took your average client. Okay your average client And first thing first I've learned this through uh, it took me a few years to learn this as a trainer But I started to learn that there were a few things I could communicate that would have a big positive impact and then there were things that if I communicated too much They were just paralyzed with too much information or it just wasn't effective. Okay But imagine if you took your average client and all you communicated with about diet was avoid meat What do you think would happen to that client? Do you think that they would have gotten leaner? Or do you think they would have gotten fatter? Right. It's not even a question. Right. What do you fatter fatter for sure? We're already a super carb. I mean, I'm the one that made the argument from early on that I don't even like us not, you know telling people that they need help with protein I think we already under consumed protein as it is So I've had many many especially my female clients had to boost protein If I were to tell my client that same client that just avoid meat all together We'd be we'd be up a shit. So and they would be Replacing that with their already super carb heavy diet with more No, the most effective thing I ever if I had to communicate one thing with nutrition That was like really effective by itself. It was avoid heavily processed foods Like that was the best thing I could tell if I told the client. Hey look Don't worry about anything else. Just avoid heavily processed foods I would notice their calories would drop considerably and then they would replace it with whole natural foods in the form of Meats vegetables fruits nuts and seeds that was the single most effective thing that I could that I could do If I just told people to avoid meat I I know what would happen. They'd replace it with processed food They get fatter and then we'd have to deal with potential nutrient deficiencies In which case I'd have to tell people to supplement and here's always been my argument too I I think supplements are okay I'm glad we have them But if I could if people can eat in a way that means that they don't need supplements That's the best way to eat. Wouldn't you guys agree? Oh, yeah I think that's the best way to eat Well, the position that I have on this is is very similar to the position that I have on crossfit and that is this I don't I am not Anti crossfit I'm anti people that have lots of success with crossfit pushing it on everybody else Just like I'm not anti vegan if you are running a vegan diet And it's great for you. Your health is great. You're hitting all your nutrient targets Fucking awesome. Stay with it. Keep doing it more power to you Just like the kid who's running cross fits been doing it for five years has no problems No, aches pains has a great squat has a great overhead press has all these things that moves But the problem is you're not the fucking majority And most of my fucking career I trained the majority I trained all the average joes and the normal people And I hate when we take something that we've had a lot of success with and then we try to push it on everybody else Is an agenda. That's all it is like it's not for everybody I would I would and I would say this if you want to if you're really interested in going vegan Just do your due diligence Do your research look at people who are experts in that space And see what foods you need to eat what foods you need to combine What you need to eat a lot of what you need to avoid so that you do it the right way because again If you do it right, you're probably going to be okay. And if it works for you, that's absolutely fine But do not go into it like this. Don't go into it just avoiding me. You're going to cause yourself a lot of different problems I'm really looking forward to that documentary that's coming out Um, I think it's in a few weeks the one that arnold was promoting and it looks like they're talking about I suspect and I'm going to say this right now because I don't know for sure But I want to be I want to I want to see if I can predict this I suspect what's going to follow that is going to be a line of plant-based supplement Of course, of course, and it's like smart business right now I mean it would be the most brilliant thing for us to do right now I mean, it's if it would be much easier for us To ride the wave and make money than to come out with a counter message like we are right now And like I said, we have no dog in this fight. I've got no diet to sell you I've got no no supplement to sell you. I got none of that stuff It's just simply us explaining to you our experience with all the thousands of people that we thousands of people We've handled in person and probably tens of thousands of people that we've interacted with virtually It's just not the most ideal diet for the majority for any of the reasons and arguments that everybody tries to sell you on Yeah, just don't be a sheep man like like think for yourself I know like public opinion definitely sways a lot of your average People and and this is this is one of those things that's just going to keep You know moving that direction saying that meat is is not ideal and plant-based diet is the best diet And so just check yourself when you hear that information and make sure you're always like doing your own research Excellent and with that go to mind pump free.com and download our guides. They're all absolutely free You can also find us all on instagram You can find justin at mind pump justin adam at mind pump adam and you can find me at mind pump cell