Meatoxing

This is an unashamed defence of meat eating. 

Yes, I know that’s unfashionable in a world where all the cool kids are going vegan. 

But hear me out. 

The current debate around meat eating vs plant based, focuses on two extremes of both types of diet. 

On the one hand, you have highly industrialised agriculture, where animals are processed in the most inhumane and methane-producing fashion, before being packaged in plastic and shipped about in ways that are similarly disastrous for Mother Earth. 

On the other hand, you have those who are attempting to change this disaster by adopting a vegan diet that is disastrous, in my humble opinion, for their own health and also the health of the planet (more on this later). 

But I’m here to shout about a third way. 

One that is better for the environment, for animal lives and for the human bodies that then eat them. 

It’s win, win, win as far as I can tell.

Conscientious nose-to-tail meat-eating of grass-fed, fatty ruminants that were reared locally beats veganism hands down when it comes to sustainability, welfare and our health. 

And here’s why… 

Whether we like it or not, humans are protein hungry animals. 

Until we have fulfilled that macronutrient need, we will feel hunger. 

That’s why in a heavy carb-loaded western diet, we are all eating way too much. 

Our processed foods laden with seed oils, flour and sugar are not only addictive and poisonous, they’re also not sating our hunger.

Despite our excess, we are still starving. 

Our lifestyles are making us sick too.

Chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease reign supreme. 

We have lost touch with our bodies; we have forgotten how to nourish them. 

I recently did something my formerly vegetarian self never thought I would do. 

I only ate meat, fish, eggs and a little dairy for an entire month. 

I had heard about carnivores on social media. 

They all seemed a little wild-eyed and bonkers to me. 

And instinctively, I thought just eating meat was surely highly unsustainable and incredibly unhealthy.

Right?? 

But being someone who loves having my preconceptions challenged, I did some more homework. 

Despite having the biggest veg patch in the village and being a committed eco warrior, so impressed was I with what I learned about carnivore eating, I decided to try it for myself.  

For 30 days. 

I expected to hate it. 

I expected to crave my greens. 

I expected it to be expensive. 

I expected to be constipated. 

I expected to feel, well, a bit sweaty…

Nothing could have prepared me for the incredible health I experienced from this experiment. 

I had so much energy – gone were the cups of coffee to get me up in the morning and keep me going through the day. 

I needed less sleep – I awoke after 7 hours super refreshed and raring to go. 

Having always thought I was just a naturally windy girl, I had such a settled tummy and was fully regular. 

Who knew plant fibre actually CAUSES constipation in some people?? 

I hit personal bests in the gym. 

I’ve been trying to squat 100kg since I was 25, but I’ve never managed to. Before now. 

Three weeks of a carnivore diet and aged 39, I squatted 100kg. Three times. 

In the same session, I bosched out my first ever 60kg bench press too. 

Despite eating just two small meals a day and normally being a very greedy, hungry, hangry person… 

I just wasn’t. 

I cooked my meals calmly, with little urgency. 

I could let the meat sit and rest before I ate. 

There was a delightful stability to my mental state and my blood sugar levels. 

Gone was having to self impose moderation in my eating. 

I was in touch with my appetite, which was remarkably small. 

Meat does the body good.  

And if you do it right, eating the whole animal, it can be cheap too. 

But I don’t think we should scrimp on meat.

We ought to buy the best we can afford.

I think it matters where meat comes from and what the animal was fed. 

If not for any other reason than for concerns about animal welfare. 

I want my food to have been happy and healthy while alive and for its death to be part of the process of honouring the animal. 

But grass-fed meat isn’t just better for for the cow, it’s better for us and better for the planet. 

And here’s why. 

When animals who are not meant to eat grains, eat them, it causes all sorts of havoc.

Grain fed meat is higher in omega 6 than grass fed and lower in omega 3.

If all you saw in that statement was Greek and a load of numbers, worry not.

Just know that we need a good balance between the two to be healthy.

With so many refined carbs in our own diet and eating meat that is also high in omega 6, we’ve skewed too much in that direction.

Consequently, as bariatric surgeon Dr Andrew Jenkinson says in his excellent book, Why we eat too much, our bodies are in a “perpetual autumn”.

In autumn, we start to eat foods high in omega 6 that signal to the body that winter is coming.

That we need to start laying down body fat to see us through the scarcer months ahead.

Explains a lot about why so many of us are carrying too much timber.

It is also the case that there are nutrients you can only get from animal meat.

Nutrients like carnitine, carnosine, Vitamin K2, Vitamin B12. 

They are essential for your mental health, brain function, immune system.

I appreciate there are very strong views in the other camp though.

Recently a friend sent me an article about research done into meat production that suggests grass fed, organic meat was still more polluting and unsustainable compared to plant agriculture. 

First of all, I’m sceptical about the science here.

Ruminant animals have been farmed for thousands of years and roamed the earth for many millions more.

It seems pretty shoddy to me to blame them for the climate change triggered by our industrial revolution 150 years ago.

But this study was also merely comparing a kilo of meat to a kilo of plants. 

It’s not a fair fight because a kilo of grass fed beef is so nutrient dense, it would nourish you properly, for far longer and more effectively than a kilo of broccoli.  

You would remain sated and functioning for far longer before any hanger were to strike. 

The whole argument also fails to understand how food is produced.

When you grow your own, you start to see how plants deplete the soil.

They suck it dry of nutrients without giving anything back in the process.

Little blighters.

You need to bring a boatload of animal poo in to keep your soil in good condition.

Mixed, organic agriculture is a beautiful, environmentally sustainable cycle of life.

The cow eats the grass which nourishes it perfectly.

The cow poos out the digested plant complete with microbes from it’s gut and trample it into the ground.

These microbes not only put nutrients back into the soil, they also help to capture carbon.

The soil is rejuvenated sufficiently to grow more delicious grass for the cow.

Which in turn provides an amazingly nutrient dense superfood for us.

Nature is a marvel.

And we are extraordinary in how we keep trying to interfere with this marvellous process.

There is a community of people starting to make more noise about all of this.

I highly recommend Brian Sanders’ Peak Human podcast for a brilliant overview of everything I’m banging on about.

Cattle farmers are not enemies of our environment.

They are actually the custodians of our future countryside and planetary health.