 Welcome to the Human Performance Outliers podcast with your hosts, Dr. Sean Baker and Zack Bitter. At Human Performance Outliers podcast, we dive into a wide range of topics revolving around health, nutrition and physical fitness. If you enjoy the show and wish to support us, please visit patreon.com forward slash hpo podcast. If you do not use patreon but still wish to support us, please also consider checking out our PayPal page at paypal.me forward slash hpo pod. The link to both of those can also be found in the show notes. Finally, please consider subscribing to us on your favorite podcast listening platform. Now, on to the next topic. Oh, shiny hat. Zack, are we recording now to start and start going? All right, man. So Bobby, you're out in Thailand. I'm in Bangkok, Thailand. It's eight AM here. So if I sound sleepy, that's because I just woke up. We've done, we've already had two podcasts today and some other stuff. I just got done working out. Hey, where are you from originally? I mean, I assume you didn't grow up. Maybe you grew up in Thailand. I don't know. Where are you from originally? Now, originally I'm from Macedonia. There's a small country in the Balkans of Europe next to Serbia, Greece. And then I basically grew up in Germany. The last five years I've been traveling the world, though. That explains my accent, I would say. I was actually born in Germany. I was born in Hofe, Germany, which is on the Czech Republic border down in Bavaria. My dad was a military guy. I was born there when I was, you know, I didn't live there long. So I can't speak German a little bit. But let me ask, you know, because this is interesting, because you are, you know, part of what seems to be a phenomenon of former, you know, vegans that are now leaving veganism. And it seems like a deluge. It seems like there's quite a few that are just kind of abandoning ship. But I don't know, you know, someone did it and inspired other people to do it if that's what's going on. Or if it's just that there's so many vegans now that this is just a natural occurrence. And I want to talk about that. But let's first, before we do that, let's just talk a little bit about your experience, because you know, because I became aware of you, I can't remember how. I think I saw your critique of Garth Davis, Dr. Davis. And I watched it, I thought, well, that's pretty cool. And, you know, I kind of like what you had to say. I commented on that or something. And then I looked at your Instagram and, you know, back when you were vegan, you were, I mean, you're a fit guy. I mean, you look good. You're muscular, you're lean. I mean, I'm sure most people would point to you as a role model for a vegan as a guy that look at this guy, man, he's got a lot of muscle, he looks athletic, he looks healthy. So talk about, talk about your story a little bit, just kind of give us your background and then we'll get into some of the details and then maybe talk about this phenomenon that seems to be going on. Sure, sure. Yeah, see about the whole muscle building on a vegan diet, I started bodybuilding and powerlifting when I was 16 years old, right? And that is basically the better half of my, my life. Hence when I was a vegan, I already had substantial amount of muscle through veganism. I went through fasting practices where I would lose a little bit of muscle and then regain that muscle again. And everybody that has been into weightlifting knows there is such a thing as a memory effect. So therefore to this very day, I cannot say it was due to the vegan diet that I built muscle. I would rather say that despite the vegan diet, I still could keep some muscle, right? Because my heyday is where when I was 19 or 20 years, basically 10 years ago, and I was much more muscular than I was ever as a vegan. So yeah, that is that. Other than that, as a vegan, I was basically buying into this philosophy of low protein such as promoted by Garth Davis, that you do not eat that much, that essentially carbohydrates are our primary fuel source and that is very protein sparing, that it has been propaganda, right? Sold to us by the meat and dairy industry. We need much, much less. And I thought, wow, I've been doing it wrong all my life, right? As a bodybuilder back in the day, I used to eat rice and chicken six times per day. So apparently I did it all wrong, right? The vegans came out with a new solution, eat 30 bananas instead. All right. So I might as well try it. Yeah, try that out. And again, you know, if you increase certain measurements, you can keep some muscle, but to have real muscle growth on the vegan diet, I cannot say that this is really the case. And this is what I see with so many people promoting vegan bodybuilding now. Most of them build a muscle on meat like anybody else. Yeah. Bobby, were you using like vegan protein powders at all and stuff too, like pea based proteins and stuff? Or were you trying to do like a whole food approach? Yeah, I tried both. In the beginning, I got rid of all the supplements. So I tried it out the natural way, whatever that means. So I tried out with chickpeas and lentils and tofu and tempeh and all of that. But after a while, you just run into digestive issues. Essentially on the vegan diet, this is an interesting thing. You cannot get the best of both worlds. Either you can feel somewhat all right, but then you need to eat little calories. If you want to perform on a higher level, then you will need more protein. And for that, you will need lentils, beans and such. And that will compromise your digestion again. So therefore, after a while, you have to supplement with protein powders because you cannot eat those sheer amounts of plant proteins, practically impossible. And therefore, yes, I was supplementing. And essentially, I got even sponsored in the end by a vegan supplement company for proteins. Bobby, let me ask you, when did you go vegan and what made you decide to do that? Was it an ethical, compassion thing? Did you want to do it for health? Because apparently, you were already in shape and already lean muscular dude. What sort of led you down to make that decision? Sure. When I was in Macedonia, my family, they're all hunters and butchers, all of them. And I saw my first pig getting slaughtered when I was two years old. And obviously, as a two year old, that was just a shocking scene. I couldn't stand the side of it. To be honest, when I'm looking back nowadays, I think I was just exposed to such a thing way way too early in life. I mean, let's be honest, if you're two years old, and let's say you walk in onto your parents having sex in the bedroom, you will get traumatized, right? It's just too early. That doesn't mean sex is bad. And the same applies for hunting or slaughter or whatnot. It is just part of life that I was exposed to too early, I would say. Since then, I always felt very compassionate towards animals. I always had dogs, cats and whatnot. I was always playing with animals. And yeah, then essentially through bodybuilding, I became so unconscious if you were about my food choice, I would go to the supermarket, I would buy the meat, there was no connection anymore, and would totally overeat to a point where I felt disgusted by eating so much animal products out of the supermarket. Yeah, and then I started reading into the studies. And as I said, the vegans claimed that, hey, scientifically speaking, we essentially found out that eating meat is bad for you. And now you don't have to anymore. The whole thing seemed to be as if we overhauled the idea of eating meat. Like that was something that we used to do back in the day. Now we have supplementation, whatever you need can be synthesized. So therefore, we are living in this evolved society where we can replace everything. There is no need anymore. The vegans like to say, if we don't need to, why do it, right? I said, okay, that makes sense. Therefore, initially, it was a compassionate move, but it was backed by science, or at least I thought so. And you did this for Silver. I think maybe you said four years or something like that. Was that right? Four years straight, no cheese whatsoever, 100% plant. And then, I mean, you have a YouTube channel, you had, I mean, assume a fairly large following. A lot of people looked up to you that took your advice. I mean, I assume you were committed to this and all in. You were saying what you believed at the time. As many people I'm sure do, I'm saying what I think is true, and I may be wrong, and five years from now I may change my mind, but I mean, I'm still going to say what I think is true. At what point did you decide that it wasn't working for you? Because when I look back, I mean, I see pictures of you from two or three months ago, and you look healthy to me, it wasn't like, you know, I mean, at least, you know, again, Instagram and social media, you put out your best, you know, you put out your best face, so on and so forth. At what point did you start to say, what made that decision for you? Was it a health decision? Was it just thought decision? How did you decide to no longer want to want to practice veganism? Sure. Yeah, first I have to say, man, looks are not everything, right? Nobody knows how you feel inside. So you can look like Mr. Universe if you feel shit inside. Nobody sees that, right? And for me, it basically started two years into veganism, but I have a very, very high pain threshold, I say. And I just ignored all the symptoms. I was just talking to a friend, and he told me that he saw veganism as a bad relationship, right? First, you have this honeymoon period where everything is fine, and then you cling on to it, and you try to save it, right? You try to really, really make it work again. And this is what I used to do for two years, because I got all the side effects in the book. I got the bed digestion. I got the depression. I got the anxiety. I got the paranoia, social anxiety, which is super weird for me because I was always a very social guy. I got tooth pain beyond belief. I lost the tooth. I had to go to the dentist three times per week here in Bangkok, root canal treatments and whatnot. It was terrible. Chronically inflamed diarrhea for eight months. Yeah, those were basically all the symptoms that were kicking in, and I tried to fix them with every possible scenario. I was always blaming it on Bangkok. Maybe it is the water supply around here. Maybe the hygiene isn't tip top. Maybe this is why I tried every single approach, the supplementation. I tried fasting. I tried readjusting the diet again and again and again and again. And yeah, at some point, I couldn't take it any longer. I believe, and this is something that you said in the beginning, many people started speaking out about the same issues. And this is when I saw the patterns repeating, because I mean, you know, it is well shown. Everybody that is coming out as an ex vegan reports on basically the same side effects over and over again. It's the same story in the beginning. They feel great. And then weakness, fatigue, tooth decay and whatnot is always the same story. Yeah. And then I said, I cannot take it anymore. Bobby, when you know, because you said you tried everything, you know, and this is where some people will criticize you because I hear that all the time we see that, well, these vegans just know they were fasting or they were doing detox. You know, they're trying everything and no one, none of them are doing the Dr. Grieger daily dozen or Dr. Gayard days, Davis's protein, a holic plan, none of them do that. It's only these crazy young kids that they do all the stupid stuff. Those are the only ones that leave veganism. Now you are an intelligent guy. I mean, you're, you know, successfully building a good physique. So that takes some knowledge about nutrition and how to do things. And so talk to me about, you know, your approach to veganism early on, how did you decide? I mean, you weren't, you weren't out there drinking piss from day one, you know, drinking, I don't know what you're doing, but I mean, you know, you know what I'm talking about. Thanks, I passed on that one. I passed on that vegan breakfast. I mean, I assume you went into it with with knowledge and wanting to do it the best way you could balancing the nutrition. Talk to me about how that went and things you tried and that whole sort of, we'll get into that later. We'll get into how the comes down later. Sure. You see, first I have to say that those people that go through those fasting practices and such people have to take into consideration. Those people didn't just start with drinking piss, right? Yesterday they ate a steak and today I'm going to drink piss. This is it, right? They get into veganism and out of a sudden they feel bad and they try to adjust their diets. It's not because they feel so great on the vegan diet. This is something that people really have to consider here. Anyways, for me, it was like that as well. I went into the whole food plant based diet first, and then I started encountering the first issues. Digestive, upset, low energy and such. This is why I tried out water fasting, intermittent fasting. That is nothing radical, right? I tried the raw vegan approach, the fruits approach as well. I tried it out just to feel better again because I didn't feel good on the whole food diet. Anyways, after seeing that those approaches don't work either, I said, okay, now I'm going to do everything from a sport nutritional perspective. I'm a personal trainer myself. So I said, all right, all the micronutrients need to be adjusted, all the calories need to be adjusted, the macronutrients, the protein levels need to be at least at 2.5 grams per body weight, kilogram, carbohydrate for my activity level and such. So everything was accounted for and it still failed, right? The daily dozen, I did that for basically over a year. I was eating the berries, the flax seeds and all of that. And because there could be a potential danger of not essentially getting enough DHA and EPA, I said, all right, cool, I'm going to supplement the LGR, I'm going to supplement the B12, the D3, everything, right? Iodine and whatnot, everything was accounted for. I was tracking everything religiously and I still failed. So therefore, you know, when people come out and they blame me, I haven't done it right, it's just that default. They're like little bots that will just repeat that sentence. You didn't do it right. You've never been vegan. Yeah, I've heard it all before, but I'm very, very confident that I did it right. Thanks a lot. So Bobby, like, you have an interesting story and I love having guests like you on the show. And one thing I try to do is to try to think like, what would I do in that, in the situation, how I would think maybe if I were in the same situation you are. I can appreciate a potential that there's a very tiny sliver of the human population that can somehow just do well on a vegan diet, a strict vegan diet. But your experience would tell that you weren't one of them at the very least. Do you think that that's kind of a, that's the reality or do you think that there's nobody who can survive on a vegan diet and these people are pulling the hood over our eyes with this like 15, 20, 30 year vegan type stuff? Yeah, that is a great question. Honestly, there was a time when I thought that there might be a small population that can thrive on plans only. Nowadays, honestly, after being deeply, deeply embedded in the vegan community, I can tell you firsthand that there's so many vegan YouTubers, huge names that will come out very, very soon and say that they've been either cheating on their vegan diet or that they felt like shit all along. The human psychology is amazing. People go through denial for years and years on end, or as I said, they're cheating and they're lying to the audience for money. Therefore, as for right now, even people that are claiming that they feel good after the reintroduction of animal products, I see an improvement in every single one of them. I have dear friends around here that used to be vegan when I made the switch. They said, you know what? All right, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to try it out myself. They tried it out and they felt great as a vegan before that. All of a sudden, they realized, shit, man, I didn't even know how it feels to really feel good. If you're sick and you don't know it, you don't even know how it feels to be really healthy. I don't believe anybody really thrives. Yeah, that topic comes up a lot on the podcast too, this idea of normalizing feeling bad. I think that's a reality for a lot of folks, not necessarily the vegans with folks over here following a standard American diet. They've normalized feeling like garbage. They think, you know, well, this is just the way things are supposed to be. Then when they turn and look at their friend or their family members and they feel the same way, look the same way, they're like, well, that's just normal. In reality, they've just never optimized. Yeah, 100%. I mean, it is absolutely accepted to feel shit nowadays. Nowadays society is the default, right? To feel weak, to underperform, that somehow became totally normalized. But as I said, once you reintroduce those things as a vegan, I have yet to meet anybody that tells me they didn't feel a difference. So therefore, yeah, absolutely just confirming their own biases and not knowing how it truly feels to perform on a good level. This is why I have to say I'm very grateful that I came from a sports perspective, from a background where I already used to know how it feels to perform good. When I was in the gym the later years, man of veganism, I was suffering. I was depressed in the gym. I couldn't move the dumbbells anymore. I was thinking about doing yoga instead, right? And this is where you see people naturally getting drawn to their malnourished. And then the next thing you know, you're the vegan yoga trainer, right? And it feels natural to you just because you're not capable to move weights anymore. It's really the case. Let me just ask you because I see this all the time. We see, you know, the point of guys like Nemo Delgado and John Venus and Patrick Paboumian and Kendrick Ferris and Tim Schieff, who's now no longer vegan. And actually, I think Tim's coming on the show as well. But we see those guys and when I look at a guy like Kendrick Ferris, and yes, he went to the Olympics, but he had his worst performance ever. And then he got hurt and basically out since. And so comment on the fact that we have these people, they uphold these athletes that are doing well, Serena Williams and saying, these guys are on veganism. You're crazy. They can do great. How do you counter that? Because I say these people are genetically gifted and they're still not reaching their potential. I see a lot of guys in the NFL at the highest level eating garbage. I mean, eating a junk food diet. And so I think there's such a human difference in genetic potential that we see this. And I just don't think they're hitting their optimum. When they talk about Patrick Paboumian being the strongest man in the world, I'm like, he's nowhere even close. I mean, I know the guys, I mean, I just taught me to set stand everything on the show. And he feeds Thor Bjornsson, you know, half Thor Bjornsson and Brian Shaw, six pounds of red meat a day. And those guys are the strongest men in the world. So what is your response to these, you know, Nemo Delgado, I'll never eat meat. I've never touched meat in my life. What do you guys answer that? Yeah, Nemo Delgado, I'll just start with him first, because it's such a great example of, yeah, the vegan bodybuilder, the IFBB pro. Okay, vegan or not vegan. That is the true question here, because all of his muscle has been built on a vegetarian diet, right? If you're vegetarian, this is just a fact. He was vegetarian until six weeks prior to his first show. That is admitted. So all of his muscle has been built vegetarian. Not saying vegetarian is ideal, but at least you will get certain nutrients, right? At least you will get some cholesterol, you will get some quality protein, whey protein, eggs and dairy. That was his go-to. Then he did this cut, his definition phase for six weeks vegan, and he placed all right at his first show. Since then, we haven't seen any contest pictures of him anymore. He competed and he didn't show any of those competition pictures on his Instagram. What went wrong? There was one year after veganism, right? Now two or two and a half years in, he doesn't post anything. All of those pictures are old pictures. Therefore, most of those athletes, again, they build their careers on meat. Then they make the switch and they get praised by the vegan community. There he is, the world's strongest man, vegan, right? He's been vegan for a couple of years. Since then, injury after injury, this is something that I forgot to mention. I got injured thousands of times and the main difference is it is normal, quote-unquote, to get injured as an athlete. It happens. But the main difference between meat-based and plant-based athletes is that the plant-based athletes do not recover. Their careers turn to shit. This is what you see with all of those vegan athletes as well. Patrick Baboumian, too, he had to end his career because of injuries. That's pretty much what is going on here. Meat-based in the beginning, then injury and the career. This is the always repeating pattern that you see with those vegan athletes over and over. Let me ask you this question. There's an ethical, obviously, there's a large ethical part of the vegan ideology to elect from a different word. I assume that you, at some point, participated and believed that I don't want to say meat is murder and all that stuff that you constantly hear. How do you now sort of reconcile changing your mind about that? That's a great question. It was hard in the beginning. I'm not going to lie. After four years of veganism, man, it was tough, really. I started out with eggs and eating eggs felt like I was catapulted back in a time machine or something. I felt like a caveman. And then I progressed into fish and such. The ethical issue was tough, but there was one factor that I was already thinking about three months prior to leaving veganism. And I just saw that nobody has the moral high ground because for modern day food production, if you look into plant production, there's so much biker. It's much more than if you would eat one cow per year or whatever. So, hence when I saw that, I realized, wait a second, in life, there will always be a certain amount of suffering. Something will die, nevertheless. And if we as humans close our eyes to our food and want to distance ourselves from our food, then all right, we can rely on to those big companies. We're going to get our quinoa shipped across the country in plastic bag, put it onto our table, eat it and feel righteous about it. Meanwhile, millions and billions of animals have been killed in the crop production. And therefore, I said to myself, okay, if I want to be happily oblivious here and act as if I'm on the moral high ground, I can, but that is just absolutely ignorant. In the beginning, when I found about veganism, I found out about what is going on in the meat production in the industry. So, when I found out about that factor, I couldn't ignore that either. And then I realized, okay, as a vegan, you're not more ethical. It's actually a lie. You're much more ethical if you reduce your grain consumption and you eat the more meat based diet. So therefore, the ethics, yes, I do not like to see animals suffering, but animals will suffer for modern day food production nevertheless. That's also like one of the things that I always find interesting because I feel like most conscious carnivores or omnivores would be very open to a conversation of, let's give these animals a very high quality of life and that the end of their life will eventually eat them. And then we can guarantee they have a long fulfilling life as opposed to what they're going to see in the wild, where what is like half a ruminants get killed before the age of one. And then kind of make it, that's where I think the feeling good of the whole situation would kind of fall. But instead, we end up getting in these arguments about kill or not kill. It's like black and white when in reality, like you said, if you just peel back one more layer of that onion, you find out, oh, I'm killing no matter what I do just to be alive. So minus ending my own life, I'm going to be killing stuff in order to stay alive. Yeah, I think, you know, Bobby, I think, you know, from an ethical standpoint, you know, I'm just putting myself in the shoes as a vegan that's thinking about maybe leaving. And I think, you know, while it's true in the United States, most of our animals are fed grain and the grain that we produce also involves killing little animals. And I know you're aware of that. But if you make the ethical decision that I'm going to eat just an animal that was raised on grass, there's very little by kill in that in that particular process or generally just that animal you eat. And in the end, you're actually causing less death to animals by choosing that route. You know, if you're a vegan, you say, I'm going to no longer be a vegan, but I'm going to eat only grass finished animals are well pastured. Now, you know, again, Zach's point of the argument, yes, they're still dying and they're not living out their natural lifespan. But neither are all these field mice and rabbits and deers and foxes and whatever else and insects if you count insects as sentient, neither are they. And so that's that that's a pretty solid argument to make. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't want to get to who here and spiritual, but even the Buddha realized back in the day, life is suffering. And I see in this world that we are growing up, we are so disconnect from our food supply. And we start to live in this utopia where nobody dies. But you have to understand that there is a life cycle for everything. And as you said already, Zach, in nature, those animals would die before they are one year old as well, they would get torn apart in the most vicious way imaginable, right? So therefore with animal husbandry, we're offering them a safe zone where they can live out their life until we of course decide to eat them. But that is a symbiotic relationship and the death will come nevertheless. Again, if you try to escape that direct kill, yeah, you produce millions and billions of other deaths in the food processing of crops and grains. So what is the better option here? Yeah, and correct me for a while, I heard something in the long line, you were going to look at doing something to sort of document or do some kind of documentary based around this concept. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. As for right now, I'm in contact with one producer in particular, food producer from Australia, Rob Tongs. And he is a food producer for animal foods and for plant foods. And he has absolutely no interest in bashing either or or glorifying either or he just came out and said, Listen, I produce plants and animals, but the vegetarian dish always kills more animals than the lamb that I had yesterday for dinner. That is just the fact. And hence we're going to go through Australia and expose what is going on in plant production because I cannot hear it anymore, this moral high ground, this high horse of vegans coming and telling me now that I'm so unethical just because they're sitting here oblivious and munching on their chia seeds. I was in Copangan, it's a small island here in Thailand. This is where the shift happened. It was this vegan restaurant and I ordered this vegan burger made out of quinoa, chia seeds, hemp seeds and whatnot shipped across the country right from South America to this little island here in Thailand. Meanwhile, there is this little fisherman right next to it caught the fish that morning is selling it right there. How much better does it get in terms of environmental footprint? And I thought, Dude, I'm a hypocrite. This guy is selling his fish right here on the island and I'm buying stuff that has been shipped all over the globe and I'm acting as if I'm somehow morally superior to those people. It doesn't make any sense. And therefore, yeah, we want to expose what is going on in the plant production and do a documentary about that. Bobby, why do you want to do this? I mean, what is compelling you to want to continue to influence people? I mean, I expect I know why, but I'd like to hear from you like, why do this? Why not just fade off and go back and do whatever and not deal with this stuff? I mean, do you feel compelled to help people from maybe making mistakes that you made? Why are you doing this? Sean, see the things this man, I saw it too often. People, they just go back to eating meat and they disappear from social media, right? But when you've been a vegan, you've been passionate about this subject, right? You thought it's the right way to go. You promoted it and then you realized, Hey, wait a second, maybe your health failed. Maybe your friend's health failed. I see it over and over and over again. Young people are stepping into veganism and they're compromising their health. It's such a destructive diet. As I said in the beginning, as for right now, I still have to see one person that is truly thriving on this diet. So we can go into conspiracies behind it or whatnot. The reality of things is, as for right now, people are suffering and people need to speak out about it. As you see now that we have the support system here where people share their experiences, people see, Hey, I'm not alone in this, right? There are other people that suffer as well. It's not only me, right? It's not only me. It is essentially the diet's fault. But this is the first time that this is a possibility. So therefore, I will speak out for the people. And as for right now, I have to say this as well. When I was a vegan, people would send me messages and send comments and they would tell me, Bobby, you turned me vegan. Thank you very much. But nothing would ever follow up. Right? That's it. Like, thanks. You made me vegan. Done. What happened next? Nothing, right? Nowadays, people tell me, Bobby, thank God, man. I was listening to your videos and I thought you're full of shit. But I made the switch myself and I feel amazing, right? My libido is back. My energy is back. My health returned. My teeth feel good again. So on and so forth. I get messages on a daily basis. So therefore, I see there is a need for disclosure. The vegan propaganda machine becomes stronger and stronger on a daily basis. As I said before on the Gav Davis video, there is so much conflicting science that is based upon plant based studies. And I'm saying nothing wrong with eating plant based if you choose so. But those studies are not made on vegan populations. And therefore, you cannot promote a vegan diet that excludes all the animal products under the falsehood of a plant based diet. It is a dangerous ideology and I'm going to speak out against it. Yeah. So you're, I mean, essentially making the distinction between vegetarianism and veganism, you know, which, which is more of it, you know, which is a ethical, I mean, I always hear that veganism is not a diet. It's a, it's a belief system. You know, and you know, we always hear you're not really a vegan if you ever leave. I guess the only way to leave is when you die. I suppose, I mean, it has to be on your tunes to be a real vegan. You have to die for the cause. That's the only way you can do it, I guess. But what, so talk about this because, you know, and not to be conspiratorial, but I do see a very, it seems like a concerted effort to really impact young people, to go after these kids that are impressionable. They're, you know, they're, they're, they're even in grade school. They're, they're seven, eight, nine years old even sometimes and we're seeing that going on. Do you see any problem with that? I mean, people will say, well, you know, these kids are, you know, they're exposed to meat and told meat is good for you and that's bad too. And so that's the counter argument. But what, what is your concern about, you know, you know, going in and doing vegan activism and particularly recruiting young kids? Yeah, so first of all, meat is bad too. How so? Without eating meat, we wouldn't be here right now, right? So every single generation has been eating meat. So therefore, that has to be proven as bad and convince the masses that this is bad up until now, I don't see any evidence for meat being bad, right? That is first and foremost. Secondly, in Germany, we have the first vegan kindergarten now, right? They opened up vegan kindergarten where parents can support each other and tell each other that it's so good to feed their kids grains and soy. Fantastic job, Germany. Good. And yeah, what do I think about it? Obviously, it is absolutely terrible. We see this push and I see it happening already for the last 30 years or so. It happened with corn flakes for breakfast, right? Breakfast cereal and such. That is already all plant based foods. You know, you have to think about it like this. When you look into food production, people nowadays, the vegans, they will say, cut out the middleman, go straight to the source. Where do those animals get their protein from, right? Go to the plants. Okay, vegans, think about this. Those cows, originally, they're not eating soy and corn, right? They're eating grass. You cannot eat grass. You cannot convert it. So therefore, now they tell you, yeah, but those cows, they eat the crops, they eat the soy and the corn. Now, if we cut out the cow, you can eat the soy and the corn. Yeah, great job. That soy and that corn is not meant for the consumption of that cow to begin with. And now you're going to eat it. It's unhealthy in both cases. So therefore, again, to not get too conspiratorial, let's just talk about an economical standpoint. It's easier to feed you all of that grain. It's simple. It makes more money in the end. It's easier. It's more effective. Yeah, and obviously they want to reach out to the children because they're the most gullible, right? And the children, as I said before, you get traumatized with anything if you're not old enough for it. They will show you Disney movies and then they will tell you how bad it is to eat meat. And you as a kid especially will say, wow, how amazing. I never need to grow up, right? I can live in this fairy tale land. I can stay in the Neverland Ranch, whatever, and eat corn flakes and grains and never need to kill. Of course, those kids are the most gullible. Of course, it's being catered to them. And this is the dangerous thing because I've been in contact with many, many social media influencers and those kids are in their 20s, right? They are just bought and paid for. They are basing their online income on those companies, the plant-based companies that are sponsoring them, starting with plant-based news. I'm not going to expose any other names. Those people are sponsoring those young kids and using them for their agenda. Those kids do not know what they got themselves into. It's absolutely horrible, destructive practice. I'm not surprised. I mean, there's a lot of money to be made in what I think is processed food, quite honestly. I think there's just a lot of money out there. But why do you think? I hear all kinds of conspiracies. Believe me, as a crazy carnivore guy, I get a lot of people that are out there, believe me, and I see these things. And why is there a push at the very top levels if we want to believe there's somebody, the sheep from Saudi Arabia that's funds plant-based news? Why does he want to do that? What's motivating him to want to make everybody eat soy and corn? What's going on with that? Yeah. I mean, in the end, we have to admit that we do not know what is going on on the highest level. It's only an assumption in the end. Therefore, I wasn't at a coffee meeting with a builder group yesterday, so I cannot really know what they're planning. But if you look into it, it's pretty, pretty sensical to see that if you look into nature, right? Dim Hof, the Iceman from the Netherlands, he said something very, very beautiful. He said, your mother wants the same that mother nature wants for you. And that is for you to be happy, healthy, and strong. Okay, now if I look into the vegan diet, happy, nope, you get sad and depressed, healthy, nope, you get sick, strong. Yeah, obviously not. Quite the opposite. You're getting weak, right? So therefore, through food manipulation, you essentially create a consumer that is reliant on your food and your medicine. There is a good reason. I'm from Leberkusen, Germany. That is essentially the main city of Bayer Industries, right? The pharmaceutical complex that just bought Monsanto. Of course, they have an interest to sell you their food and then sell you their medicine. It is an artificially created problem. If you eat that food, of course, you will run into issues. If you eat any processed food, you will run into issues long-term. What people do not understand is that this vegan diet is a completely man-made manufactured diet. All of those plans, they think they're eating a whole foods diet. All of those plans have been man-made. If you look at a banana, a banana has no seeds. It is a clone. You would find nothing like it in nature. All of those whole foods are essentially already processed foods, right? The only whole food would be animal foods. That is just the case, but people do not want to see that. So you produce processed foods, you make the sick and weak, and then you offer a solution, which is, of course, to be found in the pharmaceutical complex, which is owned by the same people. That is basically how it is. Yeah. It seems like with all this stuff, you can always follow the money and you're going to find the answer to a lot of the questions. Even if you don't want to go as deep as you described, you just have to look at the profit margins of some of this stuff. It's why the Eatland Set study had so much of that advocacy. They didn't have a lot of your typical what you would consider, I guess, a whole food plant-based diet stuff in there. They had a lot of processed grains and sugars and things like that in their recommendations, because those are the things with the huge profit margins behind it. It's not as profit-making to raise a cow on grass and then take it to slaughter three or four years later. Exactly. Yeah, that's very true. I mean, if you look at the food pyramids and whatnot, I am still flabbergasted how you can recommend corn flakes as a food group or how you can recommend bread. Those who are always cheat meals on my watch. I don't understand how that end up as a food recommendation by the government. Yeah. We actually had a Belinda Fetke on a few episodes ago, and she was explained to us kind of just the basis of even the vegetarian diet here in America. It was essentially a movement from the Seventh-day Adventists. To call it an ideology isn't even a comparison. It literally was an ideology. Yeah, of course. They have huge shares in sanitarium, which is a huge grain-producing factory as well. When I lived in Australia, all you call those things, the cereals, wheat and beaks or something on those lines, they were all produced by that dairy company, which is created by the Seventh-day Adventists. They have cereal companies. Of course, they're going to be interested in that. It's crazy. Yeah, when I lived in New Zealand, I remember eating some mojito beaks. Yeah. It tasted like sawdust. I don't know why people eat it. But hey, Bobby, let me ask you, because you've been, since you went, how long have you decided, when was the point when you said, I'm no longer vegan. I'm going to start introducing animal foods and diet. Talk to me a little bit about that process and what kind of changes you've experienced over the last several period of time. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, so that was three months ago. At that point, I remember that day clearly, man. I'm laying in bed. It was basically already two weeks or so that I had sex the last time with my girlfriend because of lack of limito. I can admit that with no shame. It was the vegan diet. It's not me. Yeah, it was terrible, man. I had absolutely no desire for sex at all anymore. I remember having sex and just thinking about eating oatmeal because that was my only thing that I was still enjoying somewhat. Even though now eating raw honey, again, I realized I don't even like oatmeal. I like the raw honey on top of the oatmeal. Anyways, that's another story. So I was there sitting completely inflamed, my teeth hurting, nothing helps, severely depressed, suicidal thoughts even. And I'm just thinking to myself, all right, where's this going? So I was at ground zero. And when I reintroduced the animal products, you asked how and what improved. Basically, everything, Sean. It's crazy. First, I have to say, man, I never thought that I'm going to end up on your podcast out of all places because I remember being in pain, in agony, suffering and seeing the Joe Rogan experience with you on and listening to that podcast and saying, yeah, sure, he didn't even do blood work, right? Ridiculous. Yeah, great. Meanwhile, I did my blood work back in the day and my blood work turned out to be okay. But what did that mean? Nothing, man. I felt terrible. I felt horrible every single day. So what do those numbers really prove? Nothing. Anyways, so after the reintroduction of animal products, man, everything, everything improved little by little. The digestion improved. The diarrhea after eight months, stopped straight away from one day to the other, right? Depression cleared up. Teeth remineralized. No pain in my teeth. The strength of the gym is back again. The libido is back again. The desire for life, the joy is back. I just feel like a human again. I feel like myself again, finally, right? And basically, if you ask me what improved, what didn't improve, I feel like myself again 100%. And one more thing, I just had to join the team Carnivore to get ready for this podcast, of course. So I've been on the Carnivore diet now for the last, what is it, four days by now. So still adapting somewhat. And I have to say, on the second day, I saw a humongous improvement in digestion again. So through the introduction of animal products, it already felt much, much better. But now for the first time, I just felt this ease, this relaxation. It felt like the butter was massaging my colon or something. It was absolutely amazing. And my sleep improvement since then is beyond belief. Yeah, so everything improved. Really, there's nothing that didn't improve through the reintroduction. We might have to title this podcast, the Buddha was massaging my colon. Hey, folks, Human Performance Outliers podcast is growing. And due to the growth, we are looking to take on some new sponsors. So if you feel like your company or organization would be a good fit for our audience, please do not hesitate to reach out to hpopodcast at gmail.com. Thank you. Hey, what? You know, I'm on YouTube now. I never thought I'd get sucked into social media. You get sucked into some of the drama that's out there. But I mean, what do you think? I mean, there are people like, what is this freely the banana girl and vegan game? Are these guys, what's going on with those guys? Are they gonna dump veganism anytime soon? Are they too bought into it? What's going on with those folks? If you want to speculate, I don't know if you're willing to. Yeah, sure, sure, why not? I mean, honestly, again, I know that basically many, many big YouTubers will come out as not being vegan anymore. But if we're talking specifically about freely and vegan gains, freely will drop debt before ever dropping the vegan label. No chance for her to step out of that box. No chance in hell. I think she will just end up like, you have a few of those fruitarians 20 year vegans and such. They look absolutely emaciated, lost all their teeth. I think she's going to end up there as well. Unfortunately, because I mean, there's so many people reaching out to her trying to save her, but for her meat is murder and will stay murder forever. I don't see her stepping out of that box ever again. Vegan gains on the other hand, I still have hope for that guy because I see him really focusing on gaming nowadays. So maybe that will be a new outlet for him and he will reconsider his food choices. Yeah, in the end, man, everybody is responsible for themselves. All we can do is share the information and hopefully the people will pick it up. Do you think, I mean, it seems like veganism is going to continue to expand and grow. I mean, do you see that happening? What are your thoughts? I mean, we hear a lot about it. I'm not sure because I don't know. I mean, when you listen to vegans, they're growing like wildfire and they're going everywhere. But when you look at the statistic, it still remains the smallest percentage because a lot of people try and then they leave it. What do you think is going to happen with that? But one of the issues is, it's driving a lot of policy that may impact nutrition for people. Like you said, vegan kindergartens and schools where nutrition, they may alter the nutrition and also with national policy. So what do you think is going on with veganism over the next 10 years? Sean, it's an artificial push. That's what it is. In real life, there are not more vegans. It's absolute BS. There are not more vegans. The population of vegans in the UK increased to 5%. No, it's not true. No chance is that true. They are pushing their products everywhere. And as you said correctly, it is a political push because next thing you know, you're going to have the meat tax and such. And what they want to achieve in the end, it seems, is to have this narrative of meat is murder as the law, basically. That of course has vast implications, right? What will happen if you run over a cat on the street with your car? You're going to end up in jail or something. I don't know. And you see that this is essentially the narrative that they are pushing, but there is no basis in reality. Those products are in the shelf. They try to cater to everyone. They are promoting it. There is a good reason why you see those animal activists out of a sudden in the media all the time. Who has an interest in veganism? Nobody would have an interest in veganism if you wouldn't promote it. Who in his right mind would start thinking about excluding those food groups? Nobody. It isn't arty, fishly, pushed movement. All of it. And therefore the real numbers are much, much lower, I'm sure, because even the real vegans are not even vegan, man. I know it for a fact. And even those vegan celebrities, the craziest thing for me was Jay-Z and Beyoncé. They are offering a lifetime membership for their concerts, free concerts for the rest of your life if you go vegan. Why? Why do you have an interest in that? As if Jay-Z and Beyoncé are vegan in the first place. What is the interest behind that, right? That should be the first red flag if you hear something on those lines. It is an arty, fishly, pushed movement with celebrities put in place to promote their agenda. There is nothing happening in reality. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty interesting. I mean, we see a lot of people, I guess, again, this is all this social media and celebrity stuff, and your sort of position, as many of them are just pretending to be vegans, more or less. 100%. 100%. But I know it for a fact. See, we just had a couple of people. I'm not going to name them. Coming out recently, big YouTubers that are not vegan anymore, I've been in contact with those people. I know for a fact that they ditched the vegan label some time ago. And this is what is happening with many of those vegan, those social influencers, right? They are too attached to their label. They don't understand that they're spreading a dangerous misinformation here. Many people, they're sneaking in animal products. But in their mind, they're still vegan. Yeah, I just had a weak moment. No, you didn't have a weak moment. You're just following your cravings. This is your body reaching out to you to get in some nutrients that you cannot find in the plant kingdom. Those people are so deluded that they truly believe that they are vegan. Oh, yeah, I had some sushi last Sunday, but I'm still vegan. No, you're not. You're not vegan. That is not veganism. This is a plant-based diet that you're following. You're promoting a dangerous misbelief, which will lead to the exclusion, the abolition of those foods if it continues as such. Again, a bit too conspiratorial here, a bit too dark. This is really where it's going. The next step, as you said already, could be the taxation first and then in the end, the complete elimination of those food groups. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, what we see historically is as animal products go out and we see with animal fats, as we've seen a reduction in the usage of lard and butter that's been replaced with soybean oil, canola oil, margarine and whatnot, we see when animal foods go out, the processed foods come back in. I think this is more of the same thing. I'm not quite to the point where I think they're going to ban meat. They may tax it. They may make it harder for people to get. They may not completely eliminate, but if they can convince you to make meat a condiment, which is what we're hearing, meat needs to be a condiment, a little sliver on top of your grains and salad and whatever processed foods you want to eat, then that will be a huge win for a windfall for these companies that make their profit on that stuff. It's not going to happen overnight because there's just too many people whose livelihoods depend on animal agriculture. There's too many animals. I mean, it's not something that could happen even in 20 or 30 years, in my view. Yeah, it won't happen overnight, that is for sure. But see, once the lab grown meat has been introduced, then you don't have an excuse anymore. If you look into the production of lab grown meat, Memphis Meats is producing lab grown meat. Tyson Foods already bought, I think, 70% of the shares or something. Either way, the FDA has already approved lab grown meat from Memphis Meats. But let that think in. It is already approved and we do not have a product yet. How do you know that this is suitable for human consumption without ever trying it? It is already FDA approved. So if that isn't something alarming, then I don't know what is. They're still working on their first beef patty, which should come out this year, they say. Let's see about it. And then it will be ready for the markets. Man, that stuff could be cancer for all I know. It is lab grown meat. For the first time, a human will ingest that in human evolution and you have no second thoughts in it. So what I'm seeing here is once you reduce it, as you said, Sean, you reduced meat to a condiment. What stops you from eating lab grown meat as a condiment? Why would you kill an animal if you began the vegan narrative? Don't have to. If you do not have to, why would you? For condiment, they're just going to produce a bit of lab grown meat and people will be so used to this plant-based diet that they will happily eat it. This is what you see with people that are not in the carnivore movement, but simple omnivores. They're already embracing the lab grown meat. Many people that I talked to from the fitness industry, they say, yeah, I don't want to hurt animals. Why not? Sounds like a good idea because we are so used to technology. And don't get me wrong, technology is amazing. Otherwise, we couldn't connect here. You're in the States. I'm in Thailand. We can talk. It's amazing. It's great. But when it comes down to food technology, we have to take into account that we're still in this animal flesh body. It is a monkey being in that sense. And that has specific dietary needs that didn't transcend yet. We're still not cyborgs, right? So therefore, yeah, I see the danger in the lab grown meat specifically because I do not believe that people will become vegan by default, but they will eat lab grown meat instead. And some people will be plant-based. Yeah. I mean, I think, and that's the same thing I see. I think a lot of people that, you know, and I look quite in depth at how that process goes. And, you know, and then again, it's, there's evidence now that maybe it won't be as environmentally friendly. It'll put out more carbon dioxide and maybe methane isn't the issue. And I don't know if you get too much into the environmental issue because that's, you know, I think veganism, there's three pillars. There's a health pillar, there's an environmental pillar, and then there's an ethical pillar. And I think the health pillar is pretty easy. I mean, I can look in the mirror and I know I'm healthier or not. That's a pretty easy one to sort of debunk. The ethical one really, that's hard because people's ethics, you know, that's, you know, it's, you're either going to do this or not. But then the environmental one is very difficult because it's hard for me to look outside in the sky and say, oh my gosh, I can't see from my own eyes if the environment's getting better, getting worse. What's impacting that? What's not? Is it the fossil fuels? Is it the cars? Is it the cows? I have to rely on somebody that does a study to tell me these things. And so how do you approach the environmental aspect or do you even talk about that anymore? At the moment, I'm mainly focused on the health aspect, but about the environmental impact. I mean, and really, when did it become environmentally unfriendly to have human and animals grazing free? Sorry, I don't see it. So if you look into the desertification of the lands, Alan Savry had a great TED talk about this as well. I'm sure you heard about him. You see that we essentially messed up the whole system that the Native Americans had in place. If you look at the bison's roaming free, that was the best practical food source that you could have, right? Huge ruminant animals. They give you so much meat. Absolutely amazing. What we did is we basically domesticated them, made cows out of them. Now you inject those cows with artificial hormones because they're too small. I'm asking myself, why don't you still eat bison instead? Anyways, so with the monocultures of those plants, we are doing so much environmental destruction. Hence the question is, what is the lesser of those two evils? Is it really environmentally more friendly to create monoculture after monoculture and to create those crops for the masses? Again, I know that a lot of it is being fed to cows right now, or would it be better to reintroduce ruminant animals? I do not see environmental issue with that scenario. Quite the opposite. I believe that this is the only way how we can make this planet green again, right? We actually had Alan Savry on the podcast, and actually his episode is going to be released on Friday. He's our next one we're going to release. I think it's a very nuanced and difficult conversation. Just like it's not meat as murder, it's not cow farts destroying the planet. The one thing I do think is very difficult because a vegan, and I often call this propaganda, but they're very good at visual image and optics and a very short, concise message which is very persuasive, and then you have to spend 20 minutes trying to debunk that, which it's always put you on the back foot. You're always playing defense, and so I think that's something the vegans do very well, and whoever's supporting them, or if we want to get conspiratorial about that. Absolutely fantastic edit. I mean, if you look at the Netflix documentaries, and again, you have to ask yourself, why are those documentaries on Netflix in the first place, right? Who has an interest in that? And you look into the numbers of cospiracy, you see that when cospiracy came out, I think they claimed CO2 emissions 82% or something on those lines. Later on, they had to come out with a new statement, which was 50% is CO2 emissions from cow burps, right? Not cow farts, but cow burps allegedly. And now the number is much, much smaller again. So therefore, yeah, you're correct. What they do is they just push out the number, they show you some animal cruelty images, and then you have to defend that position, right? I just want to say something about the health aspect that you mentioned health, ethics and environment. You just have to look into the mirror, you said. Yeah, that is true. Because, man, any diet that is messing up body composition should be considered not healthy. Any diet that feeds into fatty tissue and not into muscle tissue should at least be questioned. You see that there's something horrendously wrong with the protein pathways. People think nowadays, right, because we have this image from the dumb buff guy, the meathead, that is somehow bad to be muscular and that it has nothing to do with health. Yeah, right. But take into consideration that your body needs proteins for all the metabolic pathways, not only for muscle building, but for the regeneration of your skin, of your organs, of your brain as well. All of those mechanisms in the body need protein. So therefore, if you see that you're malnourishing your muscles already, what do you think is happening to the rest of your body internally? But people do not take that into consideration. They want to screen meathead. Yeah, I mean, that's a point I've made many times. There's clear evidence that lean muscle mass is protected from disease and also that it likely leads to longevity. And I think that's interesting. From a health standpoint, what are some of the major sort of fallacies that are being sort of put out there by the vegan doctors or vegan health advocates that you take issue with now, that even though you may put that out there yourself over the years? Sure. Pretty much all of them, Sean. Sorry, I have to laugh, man. But pretty much all of them, really. Starting with the daily dozen of Dr. Greger with eating three cups of beans per day, man, if your digestive tract needs three years or something to get adapted to eating beans, sorry, you're not meant to eat beans. Your physiology is not adapted to eat beans if you're farting after one year of eating beans. Something is horribly wrong there, for sure. Beans come with the lectins. The greens come with the oxalates, the salicylates and whatnot. Every single food item has so many anti nutrients that will compromise digestion and overall health. Therefore, all of those food items that they are listing, I don't see any particular reason in eating any of those. Sure, maybe some berries or so. I think the fruitarians have it more right than the actual vegans. All of those health claims are essentially funded on what? You look into every single food item. They're either heavily processed, come with problematic amounts of fiber, problematic amounts of anti nutrients. What is healthy about their diet? If you look into the blue zones that have been consuming those particular food groups, all of them have been using those food groups as condiments. If you look into the bean consumption of the Mediterranean, I have friends from down there, they eat a couple of beans with their fish. Nobody over consumes or bases their caloric intake on plant foods because once you do that, you're relying on heavily, heavily anti-nutrient rich foods and that will mess up your health in the long run. There was no population that relied only on plant foods, period. Therefore, yeah. Yeah, I mean, one of the popular things is the Okinawans and the blue zones. When I look at the data on that, I found out that data was gathered in 1949, right after World War II, when we decimated, when the US decimated Okinawa and we killed off all their damn pigs. They went from having something like 130,000 pigs on the island to having something like 7,000 or 800 depending on the fats you eat. Then they had to survive on subsistence foods like purple sweet potatoes. That became the narrative that all these people live along because they ate these sweet potatoes and that didn't even represent their true diet, but that's been pushed out there for pretty hard. It's insane. 90% of the pig population got decimated. Two years, those people have been eating plant-based, if you will. Those people are sanitarians, so that means they are living over 100 years in a lifespan of 100 years, two years they've been not even vegan, plant-based and that somehow is miraculously the reason why they lived up until 100 as of course, bullshit. All of those blue zones rely heavily on animal products. Fish is the main thing and then pork as well. In Okinawa, they even have this saying in Okinawa, every plate starts with pork and ends with pork. None of those populations is vegan. None of those populations is classically plant-based either. Have they been eating sweet potatoes? Sure. Is the sweet potato the reason why they lived up until 100? Of course not. People don't take into account that all of those blue zones have a totally different social structure than we do in the West. Those people have a purpose. When they're 70 years old, they still play with their grandchildren. They have a purpose in their society and that plays a role. Man, if everybody neglects you after you're turning 60, you won't have a desire to live. That is a very, very strong psychological aspect that people have to take into consideration. It is not only the diet. Yeah. You touched on it with that. That's just one more pillar to health that they have working for them when they have a value to be alive past 60, 70 years old. On top of that, add other variables like prioritizing exercise and fitness and things like that. All of a sudden, you start to see them pile up and then it makes it even more difficult to point to one specific variable as being the reason they lived to be 100. For whatever reason, we choose to pick the nutrition part of it, which isn't even entirely accurate. Bob, you said you spent a lot of time traveling the world. We see different cultures respond differently. My understanding is people in Japan, maybe I'm mistaken, they don't have any idea about, they're not really into veganism. They totally think meat is fine. What has been your perspective around the world? We see that in many cases, veganism is merely a product of a wealthy society that most people in the world, like if you go to some of these really poor countries, I mean, they would like no way in hell, I'd want to do that. I'm forced to eat this food because I don't have a choice. What is your perspective around different cultures and reasons around the world and how acceptable veganism is to those places or if you can? No, of course. Now, veganism is a mainstream push for the masses in the western society, 100%. It is catered to the overpopulated cities in the west. You've been told everything is overpopulated. We need to be environmentally friendly. We need to eat in a more sustainable way. We need to eat in a more ethical way and such. Meanwhile, the rest of the world, if you go through any culture, you will see that they're heavily, heavily relying on animal products. The Asians, you hear that a lot, they're eating rice, they're basing their diet on rice. Quite the opposite, especially here in Thailand, you can see the traditional dishes. Yes, they do eat rice, but they're eating the whole animal. They're eating organs, they have blood soup, they're eating raw meat around here, frogs and whatnot. Basically, they eat every single animal imaginable. Therefore, in my travels, I didn't see any push for veganism in those rural areas at all. In the main cities, of course, here in Bangkok, we have vegan restaurants as well, but it's always catered to westerners. There's always this push for the westerners 100%. Another thing, again, with this overpopulation, I just mentioned here, I've been in Australia, man. You have so much space down there in Europe, the same. It is only the overpopulated cities where you feel that the world is overpopulated. We are too many. There's not enough resources and such. I believe that this is a brainwashing going on for the masses in those already overpopulated cities because that is not the reality of this planet at all. There's plenty of space. Yeah, that's a very controversial topic because there's people that say that it's a food distribution problem. It's not a population problem. We had Frank Mitlan, he's concerned about population growth in developing countries and really wealth growth because when they decide that they want to consume more, there's not necessarily food, but when they want to travel, airplane travel and have more and more access to computers and electricity and those sorts of things, those are going to be the issues with the populations, maybe not necessarily food. As you write there, in the United States, there are huge areas. Most of us live, I think, 80% of the world's population lives in a city and most of it's coastal. We've got all this room throughout the world where humans could live if we chose to do so, but we like to cluster in the nice areas and it's nice to have the nice weather and that sort of stuff. It's interesting issue. The thing about the, we see that we're smoking. When the west cracked down on smoking in the US and Europe and that kind of faded a little bit, it just got shifted over to Asia and Africa and these poor countries. I think we'll see the same thing with this plant-based slash processed food. It's just going to be dumped on these poor African developing countries. They don't really have a choice. They're just like, okay, eat it or starve. I think there's a very different way we could go. We could teach these people how to farm correctly, how to efficiently raise their animals so they're not all sick because it's interesting that I find that there's 1.4 billion cows on earth, 95 of them are in the US, 95 million are in the US, but like we look at the Indian herd, which is about 200 million, they're all sick. They're all infested with parasites or sick animals. They're not very productive. There's just a lot of waste in that and we could change that and feed a lot more people. I think it's got to be a willpower thing. I just don't know what we're seeing right now is all these kids and my kids. I've got a bunch of kids in there and I've got to fight with these kids because they're exposed to this plant-based stuff all the time at school from their tears, from their teachers. They know, we talk about this, yeah, well, animals are going to die anyway. I don't hesitate to show them, look, there's an antelated deer. Does that bother you? No, that's normal. They know that's normal, but there's a lot of kids out there where they shelter them from it. It's funny, I had a picture of a lion eating a piece of meat and you couldn't even hardly tell us from an animal and that was deemed socially inappropriate. I had to take it down. Twitter made me take it down and Joe Rogan talked about it on the show. I sent Joe a message and he said, I'm going to talk about it on my show and it's just comical. I mean, it's comical, but at the same time, it's kind of scary that these kids are being fed Disney and processed food. No, it's absolutely hypocritical. We are, as I said, so disconnect from our food supply This is something that they want apparently us to get away from. It is displayed as something that has been practiced in ancient times. This is not what civilized society does. We transcended that, the need for killing. Yeah, but as I said, you cannot escape that in the end and meanwhile, we're still eating that food and we are reliant on those companies. Therefore, there is clearly a demand for those products. Intuitively, people will always go to those products, but we are slowly transitioning away from that violence, so to speak. They are displaying food is good, violence is bad, and then food stays good replaced by lab-grown options. Of course, as you said, there's cater to children, but that is very, very dangerous because I always wonder when vegans tell me that the science is out there, cholesterol is bad, how come that mother's milk is cholesterol rich? All the building materials are in mother's milk. How does the human body make that shift? When does that happen? And cholesterol becomes something destructive to your body. When do eggs turn into five cigarettes per day? Like what the health claims, right? When is that pathway changing in the human body? I would argue, never really, right? Why would dietary cholesterol ever become something bad in your body? Yeah, but either way. Yeah, it is absolutely a push, man. It is such a destructive movement. I know I get a little bit dark about it, a bit conspiratorial and whatnot, but if you see what is happening on your own body and with your family, my little sister was vegan, my girlfriend was vegan, my friends were vegan, all of them suffered all the time, man. And if there would be no disclosure for this, they would still be in agony and they wouldn't know why. When you are in that vegan bubble, you do not question anything else, man. You think it is maybe the environment, it's maybe me, it's maybe this, it's maybe that. You cannot find the fault in the vegan diet. And what I'm afraid of is once we only have lab-grown meat, right? I'm going to paint a dark picture here. But once we have only plant-based options, people will feel miserable and they will not know how to fix their health because they've never been exposed to animal products. When you think about it, we already have allegedly born vegans or born vegetarians. What if we create a society where people grow up without ever really seeing what true health is? Because they've been indoctrinated and meat is bad, meat is murder, and they've been growing up on those plant-based products. Now they're facing ill health and the only way out of it would be to take pharmaceutical drugs. The last year of veganism, I was really considering taking anti-depressants because I was convinced I'm just depressed. It's normal. Yeah, great. After a couple of eggs, I wasn't depressed anymore. There was the fix, right? It's crazy, man. This is what they're doing. Yeah, I mean, it's sad and it's not unique to veganism. I think, you know, we have kids growing up on the standard American garbage diet. They start out obese and hyper, you know, hyperinsulinemic and they've got chronic disease from day one. Literally, they're in utero. They're exposed to that. And so I think there's a lot of problems all around. And we do find people that never in their entire life have they experienced a day of being healthy. And we've now got generations that have done that. And so so many people are, you know, they just don't like their body. They don't like the way they feel. They abandon the physical part and they get sucked into video games or they get sucked into virtual reality and that becomes their world. And that's, you know, are we going to be the singularity where we're going to be transhumans and we're going to implant chips in our brain and we're all going to be, you know, these sort of, you know, Wally people right around in carts and, you know, suck down soy slop and synthetic meat. And that is our existence. We have a gelatinous frame, you know, kind of like, you know, I say a boneless chicken, but I mean, we're basically not doing much physically and we're just we're just kind of living in this virtual world. I mean, that to me, I mean, that seems dystopian and dark and but I think there's we're already starting to see that a little bit. You know, we it's not too hard to make that leap. Yeah, exactly. I don't know if it seems dystopian or dark or just a natural or an artificially created progression of what is going on right now. I honestly do not see another option for the future. Again, sounds dark. Yes. But what else is the option? You know, as for right now, everything that we are focused on is technology. And it is basically so alluring to us that we cannot step away from it. Right now, as I said, we're using this technology, if I would tell my friends, I have a new phone, everybody would like to check it out, have a new car, everything is technology, we are attracted to technology, this inescapable. Is there an artificial push behind it that is luring us into something that has an agenda behind it? Yeah, highly likely, right? But where is this going? I believe that there is, as for right now, no option to turn our backs on what we created. You can say that we essentially summoned a demon here with technology and that we definitely could end up in the singularity. Because if you have so much physical issues, where would you rather spend your time in the virtual reality or outside, right? Outside your fat, you have no girls, you're a loser. In the virtual reality, you have it all, right? One click away, you can get anything you need. You have a six pack and 10 ladies just worshiping you. Everybody would trade that off, right? Or many people would trade that off, I have to say. So therefore, I definitely see that this way is going. Bobby, let me ask you because you are, I mean, among the vegans that I have seen, you know, and again, I'm relatively new to this, but I mean, there's quite a few recently that have sort of renounced veganism. You've certainly been one of the more outspoken ones. It's still putting out content and really sort of railing against veganism or other ones are just kind of like apologizing and saying, well, I may go back to veganism. I'm sorry. I really want to be a vegan, but my health won't allow it. You're not doing that. You're saying, screw this, stupid idea, it's a bad idea, it's going to ruin your health. Have you gotten a lot of backlash from being that particular guy? What's been the impact on you since you kind of turned around? Oh, yeah, sure. Death threats. Really. I got death threats. I get messages on a daily basis from vegans telling me that they're going to find me somewhere. I'm going to hit me and whatever they're going to smash my face in. I got just a message a couple of hours ago. That was funny. Yeah, sure. I get a lot of backlash, but again, it is important to not be apologetical about this at all. Once you see the detrimental health effects from this diet, you have to speak out. This is your responsibility. As I said before, many people, they just step away. They don't talk about this. This is crucial. I mean, you see it as well, Sean, right? You could just eat meat, be happy and don't talk about anything else, right? But you see exactly there is a mainstream push behind it and this needs to be disclosed. Therefore, yes, I'm getting death threats. Yes, I'm getting all kinds of threats on a daily basis. People are giving me hate. They say that I'm a shill for the meat and dairy industry that I'm getting funded. I'm getting sponsored even on that note. I would love to get sponsored, right? That would be amazing. What made my life so much easier. Aside from that, I do not care about those people. When I see people stepping out nowadays, you just saw it with Ro Vano. She stepped out and she's like, Oh, sorry, guys, you know, I had to do this, but in reality, I would like to be vegan, but somehow I have to eat fish. What are you apologizing for? You found something that restored your health. That is great. Shouldn't you share that with your fellow people? Shouldn't you tell them, Hey, listen, if you eat fish, you're actually healthier than if you eat just raw vegetables. Wow, big surprise. You should share that. I see that as an obligation. And therefore, I will not shut up about this. In the beginning, I said, I don't want to hate on veganism. But honestly, Sean, after the reintroduction, every single animal product has a certain benefit. The eggs fixed my digestion. The meat gave me more energy. The fish gave me better libido. Everything has its place. If you start excluding those food groups, you will suffer. And I am not going to shut up about it. No chance. I hate when I see people suppressing that and trying to appeal to the plant based viewers. Why would you, man? Now they're playing, you know, both sides. Yeah, I like the vegan still here. I'm eating 80% plant based. I'm just doing it for health. A little bit of meat here. No trying to be between. No, no, no, no, no, no, be honest about what you're doing. It's not the plants that fix you. It's the animal product speak out. It's your obligation. Well said. Yeah, I think that's great, Bobby. I mean, there's, and then of course, we see the, what was his name, goji man saying that, you know, you were sick before and animal products are not going to fix you. It's, you know, you've got to, you've got to do some special, you know, stool tests that only I can interpret. Then be a poop now. I just kind of laugh about that. But I mean, there is definitely a, you know, it's almost, again, I hate to be in this drama, but I mean, all I see all day long, you know, because I, you know, I have a YouTube channel, I look what's in there and it's always my response to someone else leaving veganism. It's like that's all that's going on now. It's just people commenting on their leaving and it's a big drama pageant where, you know, response, response, and I guess that's the nature of YouTube. But I mean, in the end, you know, I'm wondering if it's going to advance our knowledge. Is it going to, is it going to help people? You know, it's just sort of interesting to observe this. And I try, you know, not to get too caught up in that stuff because I'm just trying out here, just trying to try to tell people to do what works. And I don't care what that you're on. I mean, I happen to do this and I think there's some benefits to it. But in the end, you know, it's like, I'm not trying to save the tomatoes. I'm not, you know, I'm not, you know, I'm not out here to, to, to, you know, have an ethical argument. And I know that's, you know, part of that ideology. But, you know, that's just kind of what I see. Yeah, with the responses, you have to take into account, of course, it's drama. Of course, it can get boring for people that are looking for a little bit more intellectual stimulation on YouTube. But it reaches a lot of people. You know, every time you respond to a big YouTuber, of course, you will reach more people. And with that, you can really provoke change in those people's minds, right? Therefore, I see that as a valuable tool. I find it a bit boring and tiresome as well. But every time I do a response to somebody, you just see more clicks. And this is how it works. You don't reach people by appealing to everybody and not cross collaborating, so to speak. It is a tool in the toolbox. And we have to use it to promote a healthy message here. With the vegan diet, one more thing, because you mentioned Goji man there. People always say that somehow you're masking your underlaying issues, right? Meat didn't fix you, but you're just masking the issues. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? So, they say that with fasting, raw veganism, you messed up your body. And now, you reintroduced meat and you're masking the symptoms. Meanwhile, the whole food plan based diet doesn't fix the issue, right? You need to step onto the SIBO diet. You need to take antibiotics. You need to do another fast. I have a question for the vegans. Why does the whole food plan based diet does not fix the gut issues, right? And why does the meat based diet fix the gut issues? They will always claim that you're just masking symptoms. Those issues have not been resolved. What issues? An allergic reaction to anti-nutrients and foods? What issues? That is not an issue. That is your human physiology not being adapted to those foods. 90% of SIBO cases, people that have SIBO, relapse again on a whole food plan based diet because they're just not adapted to those foods. That's what I see with those people. And now you can send as much poop as you wanted to go, G-man. He won't fix the issue. I don't understand how people like him became an authority on the internet. He's just a student. He's just a student, man. You know, sorry. He's sitting there in his basement collecting poop and sending you pills and SIBO tests. And somehow this will magically fix you. That is bullshit. And everybody knows it. Meanwhile, the carnivore diet is fixing people because it is addressing the issue of those plans that are not digestible for you. It's that simple. But they somehow do not see it. They will try every single measurement to get adapted to an artificially created food group that we haven't been involved to eat in the first place. It has nothing to do with masking the symptoms. You're just eating what your body is adapted to eat. Plain and simple. Yeah. I'm trying to get you to, I'm trying to think of where you could say something positive about veganism. But I, like I said, I have, and this is kind of interesting because I've known many vegetarian vegans in my life and they've all been wonderful people that I've actually interacted with. But, you know, then the online persona becomes a different thing. It's a lot of name calling and threatening and all this stuff. And so, you know what, if you could say I'm going to still be vegan and it didn't mess up your health, how would you do things differently? I mean, just as far as acting attitude, how would you, I don't know, I don't know what, you know, like I said, is there a better way to do it? Because we see, I mean, I guess I'm exposed to the silliness, the worst of the worst, the activism, which I disagree with. But I suppose that, you know, again, I don't know, I'm not in that community. I mean, you know, I'm sure I walk around and see vegans and never say anything to me. I've never, you know, I think I've been eyeballed a few times at the grocery store when I've been to Whole Foods and I see somebody looking at me funny that I think doesn't have any meat in their car and I always got to worry that I'm going to get stabbed or something like that. No, no, no, Sean, they're compassionate. They're compassionate and loving. They would never thank you. Well, that's good. I feel better than that. Because I kind of, I just kind of, you know, when I walk into the produce section, I guys kind of, kind of look in my, make sure my peripheral vision is working pretty good. If it's a meat counter, I'm pretty sure I'm okay, typically. Yeah, about doing things differently. It's really hard to say. First and foremost, I can say with certainty that I would never go vegan again, never in my life. And I do not recommend it to anybody, anybody ever. That is something that I really have to say. Other than that, I see the biggest danger in spreading that plan based health information. If you look into those pillars, as you said, health, environment and ethics, if you want to talk about the ethics, if you want to be an animal rights activist and you acknowledge that you are compromising your health for the greater good of the animals, you become a Jesus figure, a Gandhi figure, then all good, go for it, be that guy, no worries. But the moment that you mix in health, then we have a problem. Because it has nothing to do with a healthy diet, not at all. If you look again into those plant based studies, the plant based populations, there always was an amount of animal products. You have to mention that. If you want to promote veganism, you have to promote it either from an ethical standpoint, or just from an anecdotal standpoint, you feel good and that's about it. You cannot claim that you have the secret to longevity and health here with veganism, because this is when it becomes destructive. If I would do it again, which I would never do, then I would say that yeah, be ethical and kind and take into account that your health will suffer, which on its own is a contradiction, because how is it ethical to be unhealthy? If you have a society of weak malnourished vegans, how is that ethical? You create a dangerous society of release. Here, and it's going to be interesting, I'm talking about paleo effects this year in April. I'm on a panel, and Dr. Joe Kahn will be on the panel, so I'm sure we'll get back and forth about some stuff. But what he likes to say is it's the only diet that's ever been approved or proven to reverse heart disease. We just had a couple of cardiologists on the day that did not agree with that particular statement. You've heard that, I'm sure you maybe even use that. What are your thoughts on the Caldwell Esselstyn or the Dean Ornish plant-based diet reverses heart disease? Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, of course. Again, as I said, Dean Ornish, Esselstyn, there was a percentage of animal products in their diet recommendations, especially low-fat dairy. So first and foremost, it's not vegan, right? We should end it there. It's not vegan. Done. Secondly, okay, even if they reversed heart disease with a dietary approach, then that happens due to a fasting-mimicking state. You essentially have stages of fasting, the most radical one being dry fasting, then progressing to water fasting, juice fasting, fruit fasting, raw veganism, and then basically a plant-based diet. That is a fasting-mimicking state. If you temporarily fasted your body out and you got a benefit out of that, you reversed heart disease, if that is true as another topic, but then you had a short-term intervention that has been successful. Congratulations. Amazing. But is that something that you can practice long-term? It doesn't say anything about it. You see Dr. Greger saying that exact same thing. He says, if we have one diet that reverses heart disease, shouldn't that be our default diet? Yeah, probably not, because it's a short-term intervention. If I heal something with a water fast, should that be my default diet? No, it's a water fast. I wouldn't do that for the rest of my life. This is how I see those interventions. The other criticism is it wasn't just diet. It was stop smoking, stop drinking, exercise, meditation, and the actual pull-life style switch. The actual thing that they measured has extremely variable reliability. That was a criticism here from the cardiologist today. I think it's just interesting that I see this all the time. I've gotten to where I used to try to reason with people on a vegan diet. I would talk, try to present evidence and why I thought what they were saying was wrong. At this point, I just don't even engage. Half the time, I just stop talking. Sometimes I block them if they're particularly nasty. Sometimes it's a source. You're point about, I call it education, edutainment. You've got to entertain people to get them to listen to you. Then you can drop some knowledge. I sometimes use some of these crazy vegan stories or responses. I just use them as a source of humor. It just riles people up and then we have more people that are listening to you. I guess it's the same thing as these response videos, I suppose. People on YouTube want to be entertained. Nobody wants to go to school again. You want entertainment and therefore this is definitely the way to go. Yes, it's clickbaity. Yes, people will complain. Oh my God, you just do that for the clicks. Yes, guess what? That is YouTube. Of course, you do it for the clicks, so to speak. You want that information to get exposure. If that is the way to go, of course, humor will always go a long way, triggering people. It is just a very effective method to do things. This is how it works. To reason and argue with vegans, it doesn't make sense because they're too indoctrinated. It is essentially like talking to a religious person, good luck in convincing a fundamentalist Christian that God does not exist. It's impossible, of course. If you have strong beliefs, you cannot argue about it. The lack of rationality and objectivity is something that is really, really predominant in the vegan community. I saw it as well. I have to say that when I was a vegan, which is so strange, man, because I always kept an open mind, I thought when I was a vegan, I didn't see it as a possibility to talk to the meat camp. I know you talk to Tristan back in the day. It felt like the opposition, the enemy. We do not talk to those people because somehow we just saw them as the enemy, as the threat. As vegans, you stay in your bubble where you reaffirm your own beliefs and you repeat the same narrative over and over and over again. This is why they say that veganism is a cult. Rightfully so. You know, the litmus test for me was when I would get in one of these conversations, I would just ask the person, I said, if your health depended upon you eating an animal product, would you do it? Most times, they would say, no, I would never do that, even if my health failed. Then I just said, okay, then there's nothing more to discuss. I mean, you're not a right person. Well, then you're operating from two different principles at that point because you're going to eat what makes you optimized and healthy. And if they're not going to, then that's where those roads completely merge in separate ways at that point. Sure, sure. But the thing is this, I'm going to say that if you claim that you wouldn't eat animal products, if your health depended on it, then I'm going to say that you didn't experience bad health yet. Because sooner or later, it's going to hit you, man. Sooner or later, the deficiencies will be so great that you cannot take it anymore. And then you will sing a completely different song. I see that with many vegans, me myself as well. When everything was fine, I said the same, nah, I would never eat an animal. You don't have to, because subconsciously, you still believe that there is no way in hell that you would need animal products. The narrative in the vegan community is you don't need them. Period. That's it. There's always the plant-based solution, they say. This is why those people claim that they would never touch animal products. But once their health is sacrificed and I don't wish it upon anybody, I lost the tooth, god damn it. For what exactly? For being on a plant-based diet. Lost the tooth, deteriorated mentally. I just wasted basically two years of my life. Muscle torn, ATL torn, from doing nothing. I went for a little jog. I tore my knee apart. I lifted a two and a half kilogram dumbbell to warm up and my biceps tore apart. Complete this. Yeah, exactly. Not a heavy lift, not a PR here. Two and a half kilos, just to warm up. Boom, my biceps blew out. So those are damages that I will have for the rest of my life now. And all of that got repaired straight away. I had cramps every single day. I was cramping. And yes, I know about magnesium, dear vegans. I tried it all. Magnesium, electrolytes, whatever. It didn't help. Just a couple of eggs and fish later and everything came back to normal. So therefore, those people that claim they would never touch animal products, because what? You didn't experience bad health yet and I don't wish it upon you. But once you do, you will be another eggs vegan. And this is what I have to say. Every single now vegan is a future eggs vegan. We have a dropout rate of 90% anyways. All of those people that claim veganism is the way to go will be future eggs vegans. And therefore, we have to handle them with care, with love and with respect, because none of them will stay in that camp. Yeah. And I think that's a good message too, just in general. And I think that's one thing I'll, every once in a while, I'll get a message from someone who's angry about promoting eating meat and stuff. And one of the things I'll respond by is I'll just say, because usually they're coming in angry, and I'll say, well, if your diet is healthy and good for you, then your attitude shouldn't be the first thing I'm going to do with this person I've never met before is send him an email in a fit of rage. So I think you have to consider that too. Anytime someone does something negative to you like that too, is just ask, well, what's driving this? And in some cases, it's like that's probably not what their actual personality really is. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now it's the indoctrination paired with a nutritional deficiency. Honestly, this is really what is going on. You need B vitamins, you need DHA, EPA to have a functioning brain and to have a positive mental attitude. I saw that straight away. I mean, my depression cleared up after a couple of eggs. It's that simple. People see that and therefore, if you stay in a state of depression, and you pair that with ideological indoctrination, of course, you will spoon negativity all across the internet. With that being said, the internet, the comment section, back in the day, we had television and nobody had the chance to write a comment, right? It was just thoughts. I remember my father, we were watching Mike Tyson boxing. My father would scream, are you idiot? And I'm like, yeah, say that to Mike Tyson's face. You know, what are you doing there? It was just a thought, right? Nowadays, you have the option to just write down a comment, right? You idiot, whatever you do it wrong, meet Eda. You can do that straight away. And this is why we are facing so much negativity nowadays. You have to take into account just this temporary impulse that people share with you, right? For what it's worth. I think that may be a pretty good sentiment to finish up. I'm going to go see my son. So anyway, thank you so much for coming on. I think a lot of people are really going to benefit from this and what you're doing in general. I'm looking forward to see what happens if you get that documentary going. I think there has to be a counter message. I had no desire to be the meat guy, but it's just sort of evolved that way. I just kind of feel that it's my duty now to try to help in any way I can and learn as much about the environment and the ethical side, and talking to people like you helps us to further understand what's going on. And I think there should be more discourse between people that eat meat and vegans and kind of come to a, it's not a heat, you know, it's not a, I mean, in the end, because as much as I give Joe kind of hard time, I mean, I think we're, we both generally want the same thing as people to be healthier now. I disagree with his nutritional strategy. I think we both agree that processed food and some of the stuff is garbage and we agree that we should exercise and not smoke. There's a lot of commonalities there, but we just disagree about probably the ethical argument about animals and some of the health issues. But I think hopefully more of that will happen where we've got people that were ex vegans now that they can talk with vegans or even people like me that never were vegans or never wanted to be vegans, but at the same time want the best for people, you know, from their health standpoint. Yeah, absolutely, man. It's important that we open up the discussion on that note for the first time, me and John Venus. We're going to have a podcast together. That's the first time as well that an actual still vegan and a non vegan communicate in that fashion. So that's definitely a step into the right direction. I want to thank you not only for having me on Sean, but for doing what you're doing. It's absolutely amazing. As I said, from the vegan perspective, back in the day, I thought you're absolutely crazy. How can that be? How really I thought it's absolutely the craziest idea on this planet to just eat meat. What's wrong with those guys? But now looking into it, I have to say that you played a big role and other people like yourself that are speaking out for this are playing a humongous role in this shift in the recovery of vegans and in the shift of the global narratives. Therefore, I really believe we're doing God's work here. It's really, really needed in those times. Otherwise, we are facing all of those dark topics that we were discussing today. Therefore, the discussion is absolutely on right now. You're doing great work. So thank you very much for doing what you're doing. Well, thank you very much. Yeah, it's a long fight. I mean, it's going to be. Yeah, I was going to tell you sometimes. But anyway, I think we all come together and I think we just do it right for people. Anyway, guys, Zach, I got to get, man. Cool. Yeah, Bobby, do you have anything you want to share? YouTube channel, social media links or anything like that before you leave? Yeah, sure, sure. I mean, just head over to Bobby's perspective on YouTube from there. You can find the Instagram, the Facebook and whatnot. So Bobby's perspective on YouTube is basically the goal too. It's what I watch those videos every once in a while. They're great. And I really enjoy it. And like I said, that's the reason I ran into figured out who you were when you were kind of beating up on Garth Davis. You got to check it out. That'd be great. All right, I got to run, Zach. All right. All the best. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Human Performance Outliers podcast with hosts Dr. Sean Baker and Zach Bitter. If you enjoyed the show, please consider following us on social media and checking out our websites. Links to those can be found in the show notes. Also, if you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to shoot us an email at hpopodcastatgmail.com. Thanks again for tuning into the show.