My partner who is a nutritionist and former vegan for 12 years mirrored every single major point that Dave brought up. I very much appreciate how well informed and diligent Dave is in all his research. This is a shining example of why I follow his content and will continue to for years to come. Thanks for your work, Dave!
The big take away is when Dave says he's sitting down to take a break and watch a movie, he means this^. Dave, there's plenty of comedies on there too!
@@tommygunz5356 you mean to say that you COULDN'T care less. If you COULD care less, that means you care somewhat. Next time you try to leave a snarky comment you should probably make sure you don't make any errors in your comment
@@AMM1998 Circling Grammar nazi stork waiting to pounce.. alert !! nabb them YT trolls serr (comma after comment, you should probably ensure you don't use make make)
I'm don't consume animal products for 13 years now and to be honest I think the health arguments is quite weak, so I won't bother. I do it mainly over the ethical perspective, but the environment argument is quite strong. As a Brazilian I can't agree with your point about the availability of land suitable for planting. We are one of the largest meat producers of animal protein ( considering chicken, cow and pigs) and the majority of the lands used for those are suitable for other kinds of farms. Besides that our soil production is again for stock feeding, and we do have far more cows than people in our country. Shifting the focus from meat consumption would reduce the farming impact in our environment. The ethical thinking process is quite simple, is including animal intake is the only alternative for a healthy lifestyle? Can I minimize the suffering of other without creating harm to my self? The answer is very clear for me after so many years without meat, but that's a personal experience and I know that that won't translate for everyone.
He does cover this in the documentary. Just because you aren't putting the dead animals in your mouth, doesn't mean you aren't creating equal levels of suffering to other habitats in the wild. We empathize more with larger animals. Mainly due to the ability to connect with their eyes (and other factors). Realistically, eating bugs for example would be far far worse than eating cows. It would take thousands of bugs to sustain a few people for a week. It would only take one cow. I use bugs as an example because its a species that even most vegans don't care about. My vegan friends exterminate cockroaches for example. If every life counts, then it would seem that harvesting plants would be the greater cause of death and suffering to wild life. Ironically the only way to reduce the suffering humans cause on the planet is by reducing the number of humans... Seeing as most people brand Hitler as the most evil man to have ever lived, it might not be perceived as ethical. Unfortunately suffering is unavoidable, this is the point Dave makes about the eco system. Life balances itself out. Each animal prioritizes itself and the ecosystem accounts for that. We as humans have actually broken the system. I would think the world would be a better place with elss humans. But im also not willing to kill any, so in my opinion you shouldn't battle in a fight you simple cannot win. Just be healthy and make choices for yourself, try not to judge others too much, and remember that the best marketing strategy is one that convinces you that what you are doing now is wrong.
@@coachalex4995 I don't mind being wrong. However simply saying it with no retort proves nothing to anyone...Enlighten me! To clarify, my comment is specifically referring to animal cruelty. I know cows are bad for the environment (if that's your point).
@@eddyertang Hey eddyertang, Firstly, the fact that you know vegans who kill cockroaches doesn't prove anything. It certainly doesn't mean that "most vegans don't care about [bugs]". I, myself, am a vegan and have killed the odd cockroach. It's a very subjective thing, but I believe it comes down to necessity through fear. I personally am afraid of them, and certainly wouldn't want them in my bedroom/kitchen cupboards. I definitely don't kill them because of the sensory pleasure (visual/sound/taste) that I can get from them. Secondly, "If every life counts, then it would seem that harvesting plants would be the greater cause of death and suffering to wildlife. ". You are aware that plants and animals are very very different? Specifically that plants don't feel pain? And also that so many more plants are fed to animals to fatten them up to produce a smaller amount of food? It's estimated that a huge portion of the world's surface could be freed up if we stopped farming animals. Thirdly, what are you doing bringing Hitler into this? Is that supposed to be funny? I don't believe he was doing what he did from some kind of ethical food production standpoint. Really?? That's weak, and potentially insulting to many. And finally suffering is not unavoidable. Unnecessary suffering is completely avoidable. If you don't need it to live, then it is unnecessary and you do it for pleasure. Can you really say, in the face of all the research, that a healthy vegan lifestyle is not possible? And if you accept that it is possible, then all the animal products you consume are for your pleasure and the animals' pain. Let's not forget that veganism is not about us eliminating animal death, it is about minimising our part in their suffering as much as possible. I hope these arguments were clear enough. Cheers, Greg
@@gregbrowning5437 About your first point: I think subjectifying the purpose for killing living creatures is very gray territory to base your argument upon. Many would argue that killing a bug through your own (irrational) fear is far worse than eating animals for your own health. You also used the word "necessity", you use this subjectively to justify your actions. You compare it to pleasure. The pleasure in the removal of hunger is not so different from the pleasure you receive by removing your fear. Regardless of which is worse, it would be extremely difficult to convince someone (using your argument) that your actions are acceptable and those you appose are not. Second: I think you didnt watch the video or wernt paying attention, maybe also to my comment. We are not discussing the value of plant life (which should not simply be overlooked). We are discussing the billions of living animal ecosystems that a killed and completely eradicated through farming. This happens to bugs, rodents and small mammals directly, but many more species indirectly by destroying their homes and food sources. Providing a much slower more painful death. This is why i said "Just because you aren't putting the dead animals in your mouth, doesn't mean you aren't creating equal levels of suffering to other habitats in the wild"... This is the unseen torture you are causing by eating plants, and you have distanced yourself from it by not seeing it, and not putting the carcass of the dead animals in your mouth. Im not judging or saying you are bad for avoiding meat, i think its a really respectable thing to do, but im just talking about the facts of the situation. Thirdly: No, no intention to be funny in my comment. Simply stating that the only way to eradicate the negative human impact of humans is by reducing the numbers. Eating meat, or plant based diets (as demonstrated above) causes immeasurable suffering to the animals plants and environment around us. There is no way to prevent this currently. Maybe science will resolve it with printing food and new food production technologies. But likely they will come at their own price. 100% right now you simply cannot avoid contributing to suffering if you wish to stay alive. Thats' just a fact. The point i was making that unless you are willing to commit some mass exodus of humans (the most destructive species to the planet) then you will never solve your ethical dilemma. Therefore i pointed to Hitler as an example of what people think of those who try and interfere with human life on a drastic scale. Finally: "Unnecessary suffering is completely avoidable. If you don't need it to live, then it is unnecessary and you do it for pleasure." Completely untrue and again missing the point. Certainly not done for pleasure. Simple survival dictates the requirement for something else to suffer, and the amount of suffering you (and everyone else) has caused to defenseless creatures is simply immeasurable. May it be directly or indirectly. I'm sorry to be the one to break that to you. Do you watch TV? that requires power, that requires oil. Do you know what adding to oil demand causes and contributes to? War, oil leaks, oil rigs in the sea killing wildlife, high risk jobs with high mortality rates, disease. This is just one minute example. I wish your argument had even one piece of relevant or true information but its just a very basic and uninformed mindset. I don't expect you to now agree with mine, but denial is a state you should live within for as short a duration as possible. At least if your going to start debating about it. Cheers Ed
@@eddyertang Thanks Eddy for your clear unhindered (by emotions) thoughts. Not breeding (too much) is the challenge. Hard to put upon others. China has produced generation(s) of little princes that way. Rational decissions make us superior, but emotional ones prevent us from protecting ourselfs.
You really missed the mark at 39:00 there dave... We have billions of animals of livestock that all need to be fed in order to grow to the sizes that we like them in. This costs us humongous amounts of land in comparison to the land that would suffice to plant crops that would directly be used to feed us. Going up trophic levels (i.e breeding livestock) uses and wastes tons amount of space and energy and hurts ecosystems more than not having to feed that livestock.
You are not refuting his point. He cited (1) arguing that livestock can be raised in areas unsuitable for crop production, and additionally that existing predictions of crop usage for omnivorous vs. vegan diets did not use an optimized vegan diet and thus underestimated the necessary amount of crops for vegans. Unless you can provide some contradictory research or a different reinterpretation of the literature your comment is at the moment is just restating the point that he disagreed with in the video! (1) journals.lww.com/nutritiontodayonline/Fulltext/2018/07000/ Assessing_the_Role_of_Cattle_in_Sustainable_Food.5.aspx#pdf-link Layman, D. K. 2018. Assessing the Role of Cattle in Sustainable Food Systems. 53, 160-165
@@natalyag4295Then why don't we do that then, oh wait, we can't, because there's not enough grasslands in the world to graze all the animals we currently kill. Also, what makes land unsuitable for growing human food, but lush with cow food? Most species of wild grass are edible as sprouts and seeds. The idea that grasslands and hillsides are unable to grow any human food, it's just not true. We're so detached from our food now that I hear the argument "humans can't eat grass" constantly. This is like saying we can't eat banana plants because the trunk is too tough, forgetting we can eat the shoots and fruit. Right now, the vast majority of these grazing animals are fed things humans already can eat easily, such as corn, oats, and soya. If you get rid of the animals, all that farmable land can just be used to feed humans.
Dave, you are a boon to climbers everywhere. Thank you for the well-researched information you present in an accessible manner, and for encouraging us all to think for ourselves.
This has been an eye openner and one of the best explanation that I have heard in a while, for nutrition and the whole dieting and baance diet and Dave really put a point on that theme and I am very happy bout that. Thanks or everything. Excelent video and all the good things in life for you. From Portugal.
Ah Dave! Your videos are brilliant. Can't believe I've only just come across this. To hear someone eductated and intellient break down some of these arguments so well is fantastic. Thank you.
Also, at 07:19 MacLeod's comments about the relatively inferior quality of plant protein "facilitating" sarcopenia and his anecdote about how he used a low protein vegan diet to drop some unneeded lean muscle mass strike me as disingenuous at best, outright disinformation at worst. From the starting point of a low-protein diet, there's of course possibly some difference in muscle retention for the same number of grams protein per kg bodyweight for animal vs plant protein sources, but it's unlikely to be substantial. Many people (including myself) build muscle just fine on plant-based diets, in some cases extraordinary amounts of muscle. Yet through lack of any qualification of his statements, MacLeod's comments could be construed as saying that muscle wastage is a foregone conclusion if a person's diet excludes animal protein. Recent research has compared groups consuming pea protein vs. whey protein, and reported: "Both groups experienced increased strength for 1RM back squat (p = 0.006) and deadlift (p = 0.008). No training effect (p > 0.05) was found for body composition, muscle thickness, IMTP peak force, IMTP rate of force development, or performance in either WOD. *Using PRE values as the covariate, there were no group differences for any measured variable. We conclude that ingestion of whey and pea protein produce similar outcomes in measurements of body composition, muscle thickness, force production, WOD performance and strength following 8-weeks of HIFT.*"
your scientific approach and critical analysis of this, and using your platform with a climbing audience is so refreshing. Allot of my friends have switched to this under the precedence of documentaries like the one you watch. A healthy balance seems to be a much healthier way to live, and the cutting out of the western diet and reverting back to the home cooked meals with high quality food as opposed to processed food.
I agree with a lot of @Dave MacLeod's criticism of the health-related claims and the biased narrative presented in the film; the film's message is that a plant-based diet is superior to a diet containing animal products, which I don't believe is true. I think a well-planned vegan diet can be the equal of an omnivorous diet for some athletic endeavours, or at least not be the limiting factor in an athlete's performance - possibly entailing more effort for the vegan though. Dave's comments imply that what is optimal is a requirement in several parts of this video, such as the areas dealing with biological value of protein consumed, and the necessity of combining amino acids in the optimal ratios in the same meal (with the implication it may be impossible on a vegan diet, not merely more difficult). I guess from the point of view of elite athletes it's preferable for everything to be as good as it can be, but once an athlete's diet is not the limiting factor in their performance this emphasis is redundant and misplaced. I grant this certainly goes against the notion presented in the film that a vegan diet is eminently superior, which is what Dave is (rightly) challenging. Also, I thought that it was widely agreed that the need for protein combining was a myth - or is Dave again talking about what is optimal? Are there studies that indicate protein combining is necessary? Even just for elite-level athletic performance? On the subject of land use, at around 40:16 Dave talks about the land use of animal vs. plant agriculture, where the former consumes around 80% of agricultural land yet produces only 18% of calories (albeit a higher ratio of highly bioavailable protein). Dave's comments "...that's because large areas of the land surface of the world are unsuitable for crop production... it could not be swapped over" could be misleading in that they might leave the viewer with the impression that *none* of the animal agriculture land could be used to grow plants. In practice, a lot of land that doesn't currently grow plants for human consumption could be modified to do so (e.g. swales, terracing, other ideas from permaculture), or different crops more suited to the local environment could be selected. Dave's assertion that a plant-based diet is not "sustainable" without "supplement[ing] the hell out out of their diet" is subjective and not borne out by my own experience (after 18 years vegan); supplementation of several nutrients (vitamin B12, vitamin D, etc) is recommended for all plant-based diets, but that does not mean that a plant-based diet with only minimal supplementation is "unsustainable". This is yet another false dichotomy Dave seems to be presenting, albeit possibly unwittingly.
More or less my thoughts on the film, good to hear it from someone who knows what they’re talking about. I’m going to stay vegan though purely because it helps keep me on a higher quality of diet
You miss soooo many nutrients on a vegan diet. So ‘quality’ of diet is just an ‘idea’ .... you need vit B’s K2 D and so on. You can not get them in a Vegan diet!
@@Doors_of_janua looks like you got your nutrition information off of instagram and some anti vegan weightlifter bros. Stop cherry picking information to reassure yourself. Of course there are poor examples of vegan diets but... dont knock it till you've tried it, or at least done some actual research.
@William Boyle you're trippin william. you say "whatever nonsense you eat as a vegan." then "i tried eating vegan food" obviously salad isnt enough calories to fulfill you and you had/have no idea what you're doing. if salad is the only thing you can think of when listing vegan options then you have no place in a nutritional debate😂. stick to your meat and your biased charts you see on instagram.
The big issue is the cost to the environment and the cruelty practiced, when you make it about yourself, you really miss the point. We can be just as strong if not stronger without supporting the destructive forces of factory farming.
Yeah, "me, me, me, me". I feel good eating a lot of meat, so I don't care about the environmental costs. Its high time climbers take responsibility. I hope flying to 30 bouldering places all over the world every year will also one day become a thing of the past.
@@kriszteblade Suppose I went to the gym, but the only reason I enjoyed going to the gym was to espouse how disciplined and hard working I was to others. Suppose I endured all of that suffering in order to feel that sense of superiority. Would my behaviour genuinely motivate others to go? Instagram posts filled with me shaming others for being so unhealthy and undisciplined. Am I a force for good in the world? It's really quite questionable. On the one hand I'd likely be making people want to exercise, but not out of a want for their own health, not out of love for their own life and fitness, but instead because of a sense of shame that I'm shoving down their throats, making them feel insecure. I'm guilting people into doing something that I consider to be for their own good, but couldn't I just accomplish the same goal with a positive spin instead? 'If you don't care about your fitness, or are unable to care about it, then that's OK, it's your choice, but know that there are genuinely plenty of positives to it that you're missing out on. I understand it's hard to get used to, but it really does feel good to know you're doing something positive'. Isn't that a more encouraging, convincing, and less abrasive approach? I say this because people generally don't like doing things which they themselves don't desire. If your approach to recruit new vegans is to shame them and talk about how virtuous you are, don't be surprised when decent people are reluctant to submit and join you. If your approach is instead to be a decent and empathetic human being who wants the best for others, and is tolerant of different opinions rather than cramming your own down their throat, you might be surprised to find that people are far more open to following suit. By all means though, continue telling other people how selfish they are and how selfless you are if you want to. I'm sure you're in a similar position to professional climbers and refrain from flying around the world purely for ethical reasons, and definitely not any other reasons.
You can eat meat and animals while being environmental friendly and respect the life of the animal. You can eat vegan and still have a huge impact on the environment : soy plantation, advocat, banana,etc... all this shit crossing ten time the world before ending on your vegan plate.
Would be interesting to see a debate with yourself and someone advocating for a vegan diet who also has a similar background. I can admit I don't have the skills to really understand most research papers and whether or not the conclusions derived from them are actually valid. Its easy to watch this netflix documentary and believe that particular viewpoint, its also easy to watch your youtube video and believe a particular view point as well, as both seem just as plausbile having no background understanding on any of this, but having two exducated people debate about it is way more illuminating. I'm still watching your vid though so might edit this later. 28:50 - You didn't address the stomach point, not sure if that was an editing mistake.
While admittedly my background is by no means nutritional science, your comment underscores why building a strong background understanding is important to form a critical viewpoint on deep subjects such as these. I'm not sure if a debate format would ultimately be the most desirable--often times they only reveal who has better debating skills. I suppose those who are truly invested in this topic must go through the process themselves (as David does in the video) and rigorously evaluate the scientific literature and reviews...
Why does everybody say 'thanks for giving your opinion'? He is not. He is looking at the science (often refers to in it) to understand if the claims in the documentary are sound. So SCIENCE is giving an opinion, and on the main it's a damning one for the documentary. Game changers is Hollywood tackling a difficult, delicate subject with a lot more nuances than the promoters of the video have money (or intellectual honesty, but was a given).
I would not recommend watching debates to form opinions about topics. Often the one who seems to be "winning" is really just shouting louder than their opponent, which says nothing of the validity of their claim.
Hey Dave, I am a vegeterian and would like to transition towards a vegan diet step by step. I really cannot stand the junk science demonstrated in the documentary and have always been skeptical of the supposed health benefits of a vegetarian or vegan diet; i am a vegetarian for other reasons. My question the following: You talked in the video at length about the fallacy of comparing the western diet to a well-rounded vegan diet. But what do you personally think about the difference between a well-rounded omnivorous diet to a well-rounded vegan diet, especially in the context of climbing? You talked about bioavailability of protein, how big of a factor is this in your opinion? Will a difference between the diets be noticable for average, or even expert climbers or only for the very best? Do you think a vegan diet will hold an average climber back even when protein demands are met? Thanks for the great video and for dealing with junk science so the rest of us don't have to. PS i hope my english is not too bad, i am not a native speaker.
Why would you ask a climber about diet? Would you ask dietitian/diet expert who climbs for tips on climbing? I recommend nutritionfacts.org as a first step in getting science based diet information.
Good questions. Yes I think even when the vegan diet is carefully planned, it is unrealistic to expect optimal function, because the list of supplements would be so long and difficult to get right (B12, B6, retinol, vitamin A, DHA, EPA, zinc, iodine, choline, carnitine, creatine, methionine, glycine and others). A nice analogy for the vegan diet is flying a plane very low. If you get every meal just right and take every supplement, you can just stay above problems, but there is not much 'room' for error or poor choices along the way. Yes the difference of improving the diet will definitely be noticeable for climbers at all levels. Connective tissue injuries, fatigue, anabolic resistance, poor mental health and other preventable conditions are very common and improving diet quality can make an impact on all of them. It would not be my choice to supplement with refined protein powders to offset the poor protein quality because refining of this nature is environmentally wasteful and it is much more environmentally responsible to just eat high quality properly farmed food.
@@climbermacleod This is simply not true. B12 is the only supplement necessary. Please look it up. E.g. WHO. Choline is plants. Please look it up, e.g. nih.gov. Also excess choline is associated with prostate cancer.
@@Halorocker101 Trust is a personal decision. I would argue though that blogging and studying an msc does not make one an expert in a field. I teach msc students so I have some insight into this. Regarding Gregors bias, well, Dave is not a vegan, is he by default biased? If Gregor started eating meat, would you believe him more? Gregor lives from digesting literature and drawing conclusions not from selling soya.
Im not a climber (more a hill runner) but i've been absorbing all of your nutrition videos. I like your honest, unbiased analysis. Thanks for taking the time to create these videos. Also love that you are also from Glasgow 👍
Great content as always, Dave -- thank you for putting this out. I just wanted to push back on bioavailability aspect of your argument against plant protein (at 8:40). Having looked into the literature several years ago, I didn't find any evidence that plant protein is less bioavailable than animal protein, even though I was specifically looking for that. E.g., soy and beef have essentially the same PDCAAS score. However, I did find plenty of evidence that animal protein is generally superior for muscle building, since it has higher levels of BCAAs including leucine, so no qualms about that part of your argument.
Just because you couldnt find it doesn't mean the evidence is not out there... Bioavailability is widely researched and in my understanding based on the amino acid profile of the food which is then compared to the >human< needs for anabolism of proteins. And as you correctly stated that leucine plays a major part in muscle synthesis why then do you not understand why animal protein is more bioavailable?
@@Danfranschwan2 Bioavailability is a different concept from the completeness of the amino acid profile. Bioavailability refers to the body's ability to digest the protein. For example, some minerals like iron are known to be much less bioavailable from leafy greens than from red meat -- that is, even though there's iron in the plants, it's in a form that's not as readily absorbed by the body. If you have found evidence that a similar argument applies to proteins, you should link to it.
I really have to appreciate how thoroughly researched and informed this video is. I'm very hard to rid of skepticism, especially so regarding "internet information" or whatever, but the facts presented here make it abundantly clear that lobbies exist everywhere and that good faith is hard to come by when corporate interests are intermingled with it.
@@IsaacSMILE has the same impact on me. running had already got me eating quite clean, so was already pondering the change, but just never got round to it. I watched Land of Hope and Glory and just knew I would never eat meat / dairy again. My taste buds are not worth others suffering in such sick circumstances, especially as their are so many delicious vegan foods around now.
I must admit i watched this documentary and immediately got sucked in, not knowing anything much about nutrition and with the way its presented i thought it was a definite thing. I can always rely on Dave Macleod to cut through the shit and give everyone an honest unbiased answer. Thanks as always (:
Valid critique of a bad documentary. As a long-term vegan, these kinds of documentaries and arguments are infuriating because they are on one hand easily disproven, reinforcing the opinions of people who want to keep eating meat and on the other hand create misinformed vegans that will have unsustainable diets, reinforcing the opinions of people who want to keep eating meat. However, I think you're falling short when you neglect to mention that the scientific consensus is that a well planned vegan diet is healthy and sustainable. Also, your argument about how that guy protecting rhinos is ridiculous because he went vegan is pretty bogus. I doubt that he was a necessary predator for that ecosystem to function. Nor are almost any humans these days, including you. You actually present an argument against it yourself, showing how early humans hunted almost all megafauna to extinction. And if you want to save the environment by making milk and meat production more efficient, this will come at the price of any ethics left in those industries. The industrialization of animal agriculture is one of the cruelest inventions of modernity and I think it's callous to advocate for it based on better sports performance.
How sure are you such docs so bad for veganizm? I got approached by several people to share experience of being vegan after they watched this movie. I think it is very difficult to get the message across. Too simple, not true enough. Too true, not catchy enough...
@@greengraycolor Admittedly, I have no hard proof of this being a net negative for veganism. But I think the fact-based criticism in this video shows how easy it is to make this documentary look bad and reinforce stereotypes about deluded vegans with an agenda. And some of the clips of ex-vegans shown here are a good example. Too often, vegan UA-camrs promote false promises and incomplete diets and then return to meat after a couple of years in bad health. In my mind, that is worse for veganism than these people never going vegan in the first place. A healthy vegan diet still requires good information and some effort in this day and age and pretending it doesn't isn't helping anyone. The best thing you can do is being a healthy, well informed vegan, helping people out with good information when they try to go vegan.
@@nutzerbezeichnung I have only seen reviews of this documentary but so far I haven't heart a valid claim it lies. Half truths, well, as a scientist I would never hope for more. Every study, every literature stream is never a complete picture. I cringe here because Dave makes wild claims, imprecise arguments sprinkled with a lot of terms which make people think he is an expert. I think it's easy to make any claim look ridicules if the topic is not trivial relative to the level of knowledge of the audience.
I began eating red meat again after 16 years recently. 5 of those years were Vegetarian, 5 were Pescatarian (with no dairy) and 6 of them were Vegan. My health and vitality was failing. I was keeping up to date with the latest (biased plant-based) science. I was tracking my nutrients. I was taking all the right supplements. I was getting good sleep. Still my health declined. I took a long hard look at human biological needs, bioavailablity of nutrients in food, anti-nutrients in plants and the role of consuming animal proteins and fats in regards to human evolution. Eventually all of my research and the barrages of tests through my doctor lead me back to eating meat. And I have to say that the difference is night and day. I'm getting leaner and stronger. I have more mental clarity and focus than I have had in years. I dont think my digestion has ever been this good. My general mood has been massively uplifted. I'm eating far less food volume yet i'm getting more nutritional value with just 2 meals a day and i'm creating less waste in regards to food packaging and the like. My diet is verging on keto now and is high in animal products (meat, fish, eggs). I'm very low carb, almost zero sugar and high fat / high protein. I'm not quite in ketosis but I could get there by eliminating a further 20g of daily carbs from my diet. My Veganism was based in ethics. And for a time I was happy to deal with any health consequences as a result of my decision to stop eating animal products. That was until my health really began to decline. Ultimately my takeaway has been that human ethics and human biological needs are not entirely complimentary and that human dietary requirements are not so black and white. I think some people can do really well on a plant-based diet, but most will suffer negatively from it if it's done long-term. There are many essential nutrients we require that are just not found at all or in bio-available amounts, in plants alone. Here is another couple of rebuttals of this documentary - www.biolayne.com/articles/research/the-game-changers-review-a-scientific-analysis/ tacticmethod.com/the-game-changers-scientific-review-and-references/?fbclid=IwAR3POOLdLm6GmPEifnG70S24eTjZmr3udBBsvVkaUxAOtNi96y0Kz2F5nZ8 ua-cam.com/video/pJvCuXEjQeA/v-deo.html
Love your channel and content, and really enjoyed this video, the environmental points at the end were misleading though. From my own masters almost all food emissions reduction pathways rely upon a significant reduction of meat consumed globally. It is fair to say this doesn't need to be an eradication, and there are reasons why a well managed sustainable animal product agriculture might bring some benefits, but it's not strictly necessary. More importantly the methane point at @42:00 has a few flaws. 1. The methane is synthesised within cattle, it is far more potent than CO2 and is not sequestered in the same way as the carbon cycle. 2. The point that methane degrades after a short time (9 years-ish) so therefore a stable herd size = zero emissions is incorrect accounting, ignoring the fact that atmospheric methane concentration has nearly quadrupled in the last 250 years, and that to maintain a heard as opposed to downsizing it, carries an opportunity cost that maintains an artificially high concentration that will cause more warming. Also herd sizes are being kept small in the western world partially as they are supplemented by imports from herd expansion in the developing world, who are seeing significant social and environmental impacts from the rise of industrial cattle farming. On a similar point, a large amount of land use of cattle farming is due to either cattle feed been grown in significant volume, or forest clearance to graze cattle. Add to that the opportunity cost of not restoring wetlands/forestland/peatlands because it is needed for grass fed cattle - there are significant enviro-impacts. Finally a large-proportion of the land inappropriate for crop agriculture that is used for grazing is used by pastoralists, a form of agriculture under direct threat from industrial farming and inconsistent with the 'efficiencies' needed to maintain the current trajectory of global meat consumption. Again great video, it's given me a lot to think about from a nutritional perspective, but probably worth been careful on the environmental arguments if it's not a direct area of study.
Thanks for the comment. Sure, there are plenty of modelling studies that conclude less animal food will reduce emissions. But I wonder if you can show me one that measures food correctly (in nutrients rather than kcals or kgs) and addresses the land use consequences of mono crop agriculture (soil death). I'm not quite sure what you mean by methane not being sequestered in the same way as the carbon cycle. The point was that fossil carbon is not part of the biogenic carbon cycle and methane from ruminants (who acquire those carbon atoms from the atmosphere, via grass) is.To your point 2: The sources of increased methane concentrations are addressed in the video in reference 25. Did you read this paper? Other work from Myles Allen at the IPCC, Michelle Cain and others has shown that the stable herd sizes over long periods do not add to warming (correcting earlier incorrect accounting of GWP100). Speaking of opportunity cost, Allen himself has pointed out that there is a rather more worrying opportunity cost of becoming distracted from the big fish (fossil carbon) by focusing on reducing herd sizes which offer only a one off pulse of cooling for a couple of decades. This of course is not to mention the opportunity cost of a human nutrition disaster, or the carbon emissions of healthcare costs as a result of dealing with it. No, herd sizes in the west are smaller largely because of improved veterinary care (genetics, care standards, nutrition) which increase yield of meat and milk per animal raised. I'm totally with you on forest clearance for cattle grazing. However, note that cattle grazing is also used to protect forests from degradation and outright destruction from fire. Its about the management. Also note that nearly 90% of cattle feed is human inedible, much of it waste products from human food production. Should we send brewers hops, corn stalks and pea husks to landfill instead? Broadly though, I'm with you that cattle should eat mostly grass. I think your final point about the efficiencies of industrial farming as it is currently practised being needed is debatable. However, I would certainly agree pastoralism is under threat and that is a very big problem.
@@climbermacleod Thanks for such a thought out reply. I'm pulling together a proper response so will post tomorrow when less busy. To risk been a kiss arse, your a legend mate, properly inspired me to move from (Leeds) gym climbing to chasing trad and mountaineering so thank you.
The problem with most of the studies around meat vs veggie/vegan is the sample sizes and the longevity of studies is so small it’s makes the studies almost redundant and that type of evidence would need such a huge study. Neither argument can paint a real picture! Thus leads to people’s opinions of ‘feeling better’ from one diet versus another is taken as hard evidence. This diet worked for X this diet worked for Y doesn't mean it will be working for everyone. I struggle with sweeping statement films!
I feel blessed to live in a society that provides such a large variety of food that I don't have to pay for animals to be slaughtered for my benefit. I never looked for excuses to continue paying for the ongoing slaughter of those animals, but instead looked for excuses to stop. 10 years vegan and I wish I had done it sooner.
really appreciate getting your opinion and incite onto this topic. Found the video really useful for me to make decisions on how to drop my western diet, without the need to go completely plant based. Thank you for the all the amazing videos you make and show us viewers.
Been fell running and trail running for 25 years. Went fully Plant Based 2 years ago and never felt better. Route times have improved, recovery faster and my hip joint inflammation has vanished. Climbing wise, I’m just as strong and my body composition is leaner and feel generally better all round. For information: my diet is around 95% wholefood organic. Pretty much no processed food at all. Works for me anyway.
Felt exactly the same in terms of my performance and energy levels, I originally did it for the animals but the added health benefits have been amazing. Its a shame to see Dave take this stance I'd like to say your diet was a personal choice and whatever you want to do is ok. Unfortunately the meat heavy diet condemns billions of animals to abhorrent conditions and brutal deaths every year.
I was strict vegetarian for 15 years. My health deteriorated. I found health and good athletic performance again in my 60s though a ketogenic diet. I am a keen cyclist and cycling coach. Now retired, I was a senior paediatric intensive care nurse throughout my professional career and taught anatomy and physiology to pre and post grad student nurses. There is nothing about our GI tract, our metabolism or our physiology that suggests we are plant based eaters. Zero.
@Abel Abel Yes you certainly can but our anatomy and physiology is not that of a herbivore as David makes very clear above. I do include high fat low carb nuts and seeds in my foods but the best high quality nutrition comes from an inclusion of animal food products in a diet for humans. Ethically I wish we were herbivores which was my motivation for holding out for a significant part of my life. The truth is that we are not and I now eat to maximise my health. That requires food from animals. It's fine if you disagree with me Abel, you must do what you think is right.
@Abel Abel Fortunately truth has never been governed by consensus. It is established through scientific evidence, not dogma. Archaeology shows the exact opposite of what you state here as fact. The rapid development of the human brain happened as a result of hunting being mankind's primary food source. Evidence of that is irrefutable from early settlement remains cave paintings etc. How many cave paintings are there of early man collecting bananas? At the advent of agriculture humans became smaller and their jaws narrower. Again, anyone who has studied would know this. Native Americans upon their discovery were found to be one of the healthiest, tallest and most immune resistant races and as is very well documented, their food sources were based on hunting - especially bison and every single part of those animals were used. Scientific evidence here: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010529071125.htm Clearly you only looked at the title of the video above and did not watch it. It gives clear anatomical and physiological evidence of the opposite of your unsupported statement. Evidence is what shows the truth. NOT consensus.
It's quite funny how defensive the Vegan's get. Great video Dave! Thanks!! Eat what you want folks - whatever makes you feel better both physically and mentally, just be honest with yourself.
I would enjoy a nutrition book for everyone, like a flowchart - according to your goals (health, energy, focus, longevity, ethical considerations, digestion, body development (muscle, sinews, bones..)..). I think some first stages of change apply to anyone, like getting away from industrial (junk) food. The mental change is pretty big (at least for me) - according recipes (book(s)) would be great to get going. This could change things. There is only(?) much shit on the market. Studying papers can't be the only way, even for educated people.
Wow, me being one of the "vegan believers" for 2 years now, for many of the reasons given in this documentary, I'm shocked how thin these arguments are. Never cared to take a deeper look into the scientific literature, just because I like the idea of eating plants. Anyway, I want to thank you for this great breakdown, as it really opened my eyes to how much I was thinking in a box. However, not going to change much of my diet, because I feel good and I love the food I eat.
Tibor Frei hey man! I think you might be interested in watching the “debunks of the Game Changer debunks” - check out Mic The Vegan or Dr Garth Davis. It’s important that there is a critique of the people “debunking” this documentary as they mistakenly overlook many hugely important concepts or fall to fallacies. 🙏🏼👍🏼
Hey Dave! Thanks for the interesting thoughts and your time that went into the video. No one is perfect so I won't go into little things like humans having the biggest brains and so on (it's only in relation to bodysize). A point I do want to make is about the environmental effects of meat consumption. I wouldn't dare try to make the point that all livestock is bad, we also oftentimes use them in conservational efforts as well. But the way things are going at the moment with the meat industry we are mostly pushing deforestation. People that do consume meat usually rather look for a good price than for local and ethically sourced products. So your point about unsuitable land for crop production works in schotland, but not so much in the Midwest of the US or in brazil where vast amounts of the crops go into the production livestock. The big herds in Australia/Brazil or the USA don't really eat grass at all, it's mostly soy and corn. If these areas where used to produce diverse sets of crops while also rearing small animals like chicken, which could also help with soil regeneration, we would be far better off with space to spare for conservation. A mostly plant based diet for most of the population would be enough to help with this issue. Because it still takes lots of energy to raise large livestock, or any animal. Thermodynamics and so on. I just think it's important to point out that meat production does take up quite a lot of space and resources and we should consume accordingly.
I think that you have fallen foul of the latest round of vegan propaganda, which seems to be very selective on when (and where) deforestation began. Indonesia has been largely deforested (eg Sumatra is 95% deforestated, mainly for palm oil plantation) but this has been erased (conveniently) to push focus on amazon cattle ranches. Truth is, these amazon cattle 'ranches' are industrial factory farm feedlots, which is clearly wrong. But the primary reason for deforestation is logging. Then comes the 'golden' (fertile) period for arable production, then a lot of it is turned over to cattle feedlots (tertiary). Also, the work of the Savory institute proves that the absence of large bovine herds is driving desertification and Allan Savory has proven that reintroduction and constant moving of herds (mimicking pressure from predators) regenerates desertified areas (which amount to ⅔ of earth's landmass) therefore making the whole argument that cattle take up too much land, rather null and void.
@@bbwoolfy Concerning the deforestation argument, sure, the logging itself is the main driver in areas with little to no Forest management and suficient biomass per tree. But that is hardly the reason to completely clear areas with arid shrubland with fire for example, that's why I didn't even name the amazon. I'm not really concerned with any agenda, I'm speaking from the point of a biologist. I think it's well established by now, that unregulated deforestation for any cause is bad, especially in areas with a biodiversity as high as Sumatras or even more so Borneo. I don't see where this issue has been erased. Neither in peoples minds nor the media does that appear to be the case. Concerning the regeneration of desertified areas, the method of choice is hardly universal. And in ecosystems that naturally do not have any large herds of bovines, this approach would lead to little more than create more ecological problems (e.g. australia). Plantations aswell as reintroduction of native flora and fauna would rather come to mind.
@@Hutchslover Slash and burn has been a favoured form of clearing deforested land (from logging) for arable farming for a very long time now. Accelerated with the rise of globalisation. Taking a more sinister turn under Bolsinaro who wants to eradicate all indigenous people in Brazil. You did mention Brazil and I was involved in a recent discussion with vegans pushing the same arguments re pastured beef taking up too much land. One even promoting factory farming over pastured livestock. Incredible! But they were flooding me with all this carefully prepared, highly selective propaganda which erased global deforestation, particularly Indonesia (which is now dubbed 'sustainable' palm oil by virtue of some jedi mind tricks). Also Dave mentioned Amazon deforestation for beef in the video. So that's why I brought it up. In the work of the savory institute, restoring degraded/desertified land, I don't see any issue in regards to Australia, given that they have large bovine herds there already. The crux of the issue is in how the herds are managed. The problem being that with current (lack of) thinking animals are allowed to graze in areas for too long and thus impacting the plants and soil beyond repair. I see it as quite a natural low impact solution to restoring barren land and increasing biodiversity. Would you say the same re changing the hydrology of land to increase biodiversity? What harmful impact do you envisage from turning degraded/desertified land into rich fertile biodiverse land using Savory's methods?
Hi, Dave! You know so much about nutrition! Do you have a video about how to prepare food? I am not sure, but some people say that the way we prepare food has an impact on the nutritions in it. If there is no video about this theme on your channel yet, can you recommend something to read or to watch?
Great video and great nutritional information regarding sports performance. Thanks for making this video as it has opened my eyes to sports performance nutrition.
Wow Dave. Very eye opening for me, as this documentary almost had me convinced to go "plant based". It's good to follow someone so knowledgeable about the science with a balanced view to sort things out. Your content is truly invaluable. Thanks a ton for your hard work in putting these videos out.
Hi Dave. Thanks for the video and perspective on the movie. I’d be interested to see you do one on the other Netflix movie ‘What the Health’ - when you have another free Saturday eve..!!! Cheers
10/10 with honours. I am an atheist, which means I don't believe in miracles. Any documentary purporting to show us the Light gets my spider sense tingling. I did watch the trailer of this documentary though, and the 'smooth' transition from saying 'gladiators ate a principally meat-free diet' to a few seconds later asserting that 'gladiators were totally meat-free' did it for me. Shabby, which your fantastic dissection confirms aplenty. Thanks for that. Should be recommended viewing for any fan of the Game changers and its ilk.
Thanks for sharing this. I feel a lot of comments made attacks about the ethics of meat. I didn't notice that this video was talking about ethics, it was a science based approach review of a video on Netflix. Well done!
Dave, I respect your work so much. You zero bs approach and matter of fact style takes into account bad science and gives a really well balanced view. You have a talent and a very level head. I love that your proof of the pudding is so clear, you've climbed hard shit in every category! So I've got a question I'd really be incredibly grateful if you would answer and I'm sorry that some of this information is probably in your videos somewhere. I've recently gone on a low carb diet. In some ways, I feel amazing. It seems to have had a profoundly positive affect on my depression and anxiety and am so glad I'm doing it. And I've lost so much weight. However, I have the keto flu soooo bad! After 2.5 weeks still! Did you experience this and is it worth pushing through for?
Thanks. Yes I experienced keto flu and once it had passed I felt good. It is really worth experimenting with your electrolytes to see if adding more calcium, magnesium, potassium and/or sodium helps with symptoms. Mine disappeared instantly after adding extra salt and magnesium.
Thanks for that Dave. Nice to hear somebody else clued in and educated on this. I've studied Food and Nutrition and i'd have the same view as yourself, soo many good points! Thanks again and well done. Hope you have a good Winter season!
Great video Dave. At roughly 28:00; however, you said humans have the largest brain in the amimal kingdom. This is incorrect, we have the largest brain to body ratio (encephalization). Many whale and dolphins species, as well as some remaining terrestrial mega fauna, have brains exceeding the weight and size of human's. Just as an FYI :). Keep up the awesome videos!
When you showed the video of "raw alignment" who turned away from a vegan diet I think it is important to mention that she had a eating disorder before she went vegan and that that lingered on through her later diets (from what I have notice. She was raw vegan for a time and by watching the videos of her, to me it seemed like she just didn't eat enough. She'd have two smoothies and a salad a day, and that absolutely will lead to some deficiencies... So maybe it wasn't because of her being vegan, but of her not eating enough ... I really enjoyed watching your critical take on this documentary.
"They didn't do it right" is the default defensive position of vegans as concerns ex-vegans. Alyse is one out of *thousands* who are forced to abandon veganism every month, much less every year. Almost all of the people who give video testimony as ex-vegans are intelligent, credible, and made every effort to carry through on what they believed was the "ideal diet". If a diet is truly natural and healthy, why is it so damned hard for even dedicated, educated people to "get it right"? Alyse and the others didn't fail the diet. The diet failed them, as it did for me many decades ago. Films like "Game Changers" are part of a concerted, profit-driven and cynical move to completely convert the food supply to one that is controlled at the corporate, global level. The only sustainable pushback is to support local, pasture-fed, animal-based farming and distribution. F*ck Monsanto, Cargill, and cynical manipulators like James Cameron and Arnold (neither of whom is vegan btw).
@@terraflow__bryanburdo4547 "Films like "Game Changers" are part of a concerted, profit-driven and cynical move to completely convert the food supply to one that is controlled at the corporate, global level." lol dude not sure the discussion can go further than this
Just noting here the absurdity of implying veganism is being pushed by some nefarious corporate lobby given the depth and power of the animal agriculture lobby around the world. Truly, these people live in a fantasy land
Honestly, I think excluding or including single food product is not going to make or break your diet. You can remove fruits, berries, nuts, seeds, beans, lentils as well as meat from your diet and be just fine. Those are only secondary after more general principles.
Hi Dave, I understand your disappointment with many of the modern documentaries on nutrition. I believe this this film is made by and made for the western citizen and in order to be attractive, we must add a bit of shock value or exaggeration. I feel this is a response to the so-called "bro science" that I have personally heard for 20 years, when people ask me " but where do you get your protein bro?!" Decades ago, we would laugh at the thought of a vegan professional athlete, but today we have scientific data which shows how it is possible. We are slowly re-writing sports nutrition. Low quality to high quality* I've been a follower of you for over a decade and always enjoy your more lengthy and intellectual responses about the biological response to certain foods but felt you couldn't help but throw a little dirt on various characters of the film. In any debate, we know this doesn't actually support your argument. I noticed a number of emotional responses; scoffs about private jets or how the film withheld hypocritical information such as athletes getting injured. Your delivery implied their injuries were caused by a vegan diet and not the fact that anybody attempting to lift 180kg with one arm, MIGHT run risk of injuring themselves; no matter what they eat. These people make a living off of pushing their bodies to 100%.The simple principle of injury does not mean a lack of nutrition. To conclude your video with a number of youtube clips of people explaining why they stopped being vegan does nothing. I felt this was an unnecessary addition which did not help your case. As a viewer, I ask " who the hell is Bonny Rebecca, Alyse Parker, Yovana Mendoza? internet celebrities? does their popularity increase validity or relevance? they make a living off of youtube/instagram influencing? " DAVE, DAVE, DAVE, COME ON! This kid in his parents grungy basement?! Is that a future wideboyz pain cave? Vegetables caused him to injure himself? Wait, Omnivorous athletes don't get injured? Correct me if I am wrong, but I feel that is also distorting a message to support ones agenda. All in all; I enjoyed the response. I've looked into a number of references you listed to help increase my personal knowledge and look forward to hearing more from you on this issue, but if I can just say one thing ; Leave out the empty material and emotional responses. You're a brilliant dude with a ton of knowledge to share with this community. Cheers.
Dave, have you decided not to make or upload the detailed video about why you aren't vegan that you planned at that time? I am very curious to the information.
No I will do this, but just have my hands full with another project at present. It takes a lot of work to produce this sort of video, so I can't say exactly when I would publish it, but I definitely will because it is important.
Hey Dave, great video as always. As someone in that generation (20s - 40s) it would be high in my ambitions to be more vegan / vegetarian and while this wouldn't put me off it does give me more reason to read up on it. With that in mind, (and I know you will be making the many promised videos on diet!) is there any books you would recommend to get a better grasp on diet not just from a general health, but additionally for performance?
My question is: Why don’t food labels for protein include both bioavailability rating and amino acid breakdown? I’ve seen so many “sport/fitness nutrition” products that don’t even mention the amino acid breakdown (both animal & plant sources). (while they’re at it, the fibre and non-sugar carb breakdowns would be useful too)
That is an easy one! Because packaged foods are optimised for profit, not for your benefit. Packaging is specifically designed to obscure or mislead if it suits the manufacturer to do so.
Dave as a young bioinformatics student I think I can follow a lot of your arguments and I agree with most of them. One of the reasons I still refuse to eat meat (except fish) is because of the environment. What would you propose one could do to have an omnivorous diet but avoiding supporting the increasing carbon emissions?
You should research on industrial fishing and fish farming as its for sure worst on the enviroment than meat production. Most fish relies on wild stocks and current industrial pratices are completely unsustainable its impact on stocks and environment is being ignored
@Thomas Bake properly raised ruminants build soil and increase soil carbon. It's an issue of choosing your meat carefully. Know your farm, how they raise their meat and don't fly your food around the world in a plane. Eat what grows where you live.
This video bashes the documentary which is fair enough since it is sensationalising the plant-based diet, yet you respond with almost equal bias. Skiving over the fact that many meats are carcinogenic, contain antibiotics, huge amounts of inflammatory compounds and raise blood serum cholesterol, to name a few. Not to mention the enormous amounts of land, water and fossil fuels consumed in the animal-agriculture industry. Also, you mention that predators are here for a reason yet it's interesting that where livestock roam, apex predators are culled to prevent them from eating said livestock...and zooming out on a global scale, the amount of ecosystems collapsing due to climate change (largely in part driven by animal ag) is shocking.
Mostly vegetarian is not the same as vegetarian. This is Adam Ondras' diet: "Diet is important. I don’t feel like my diet is very special, but I suppose some people would think that it is. The most important thing is how I eat during the time when I’m training hard. Right now I’m climbing outdoors, and in comparison I don’t climb as much. So diet is still important, but less so. I try to eat as much natural food as possible. For breakfast I have porridge or a smoothie. Throughout the day I eat only fruit, nuts, and seeds, as well as some vegetables and good spices like turmeric, curry, and cumin mixed with rice, buckwheat, or millet. In the evening I have some protein. It can be meat, eggs, lentils, or legumes. I don’t eat that much meat. I find that if I eat too much meat I’m not as strong. But at the same time if I go two weeks without any meat-I also feel weak. So I eat meat once or twice a week." www.climbing.com/people/adam-ondra-the-future-of-climbing/
Hey Dave, thanks for the video. I am vegan for ethical reasons but am very healthy eating conscious. I was wondering if you had any good book/source recommendations for nutrition information. I would like to see the opposite point of view. Appreciate the research put in. As long as I can live a healthy live without killing I will, but I'd still like to know what the non plant based nutritionists have to say
100 years ago, Polar explorer Roald Amundson learned from the Inuit that seal blubber could succesfully prevent scurvy. He insisted his crew consume it becuase it was superior to the preferred method of the time, storing lime juice that eventually went bad.
The real question is, looking into the future, could we sustain a non plant-based world in terms of climate change and water/land availability. Also, do you value marginal nutritional gains over life?
Yes - low meat, insects, a balanced approach to agriculture wih mixed livestock and crops. Lots of important ways to keep the planet alive. Not sure a vegan diet will save the planet. Campaigning for animal welfare will certainly do more than not eating meat.In the long term, synthetic forms of food will be the way forward
Are you referring to Honnold's mini-rant about overeager vegans? I think you missed the point or forgot the '/s' ;) instagram.com/p/B_fVa5qFDBw/ "alexhonnold: Rant of the day: diet. For some reason there are tons of folks who get mortally offended every time I post about how vegetarianism or veganism are better for the planet. And yet it’s a fact that eating less meat and dairy is the simplest way for the average individual to lower their impact. There are countless reputable sources on this subject, though it’s maybe easier to just watch a few films like @gamechangersmovie or @cowspiracy (both of which I had slight issues with, but the overall arguments are sound). The most vocal critics of my diet posts fall into a few categories: 1) People who don’t want to think about it one way or another, they just want to eat how they’ve always eaten. In some ways this category annoys me the most - it’s intellectual laziness. I grew up eating steak and drinking milk; my family was as middle class American as it gets. And then I read a ton of books and started worrying more about performance and my carbon footprint. So I stopped eating meat (or at least seriously limited it). We have to change as we learn new things. 2) Folks who argue that meat can be sustainably raised (or they hunt their own food). I agree that in some cases this can be “sustainable”, but there’s no version of sustainable meat that feeds 7.8 billion people. We have to start by just eating less meat. 3) People (almost always overly macho young men) who think that I must be seriously light duty to eat mostly plants. I don’t even know what to say to them, but I’ll just leave then with this @jimmychin pic of me soloing the Excellent Adventure, 5.13a (7c+). I think the plants did me well that day, as they have for the last 7 years or so. For anyone interested, read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. It had a big impact on me. Oh, and my last mini rant is reserved for vegans who are all up on their high horse and poo poo other folks’ good efforts - it’s better for someone to eat meat once a week than to eat it every day. It shouldn’t be a test of ideological purity. Diet is a spectrum and it’s better to do less harm than more."
Dave, any comment on the Adam Ondra diet as the dominant athlete in our sport? While I don't know the specifics, he seems to eat extremely healthy whole foods and mostly plant based, with an emphasis on spices to improve digestion. As the evidence suggests, he is a pretty good rock climber ;) Also Jonathan Siegrist and Alex Honnold are long-time (mostly) vegetarians with good results.
I don't know what Adam Ondra or the others eat either. The details matter! So no I can't comment and wouldn't even if I did know. What they eat is up to them. One thing I would say though, is to be pretty wary of attributing cause and effect to any one thing with respect to training/diet etc and a single athlete. There is variation in tolerance for 'good' and 'bad' diets in any population and if you take a cohort of athletes eating a sub optimal diet, you'll still get a few great athletes who are self selected as the ones who can tolerate the sub optimal diet or training.
We do actually know the specifics: "Diet is important. I don’t feel like my diet is very special, but I suppose some people would think that it is. The most important thing is how I eat during the time when I’m training hard. Right now I’m climbing outdoors, and in comparison I don’t climb as much. So diet is still important, but less so. I try to eat as much natural food as possible. For breakfast I have porridge or a smoothie. Throughout the day I eat only fruit, nuts, and seeds, as well as some vegetables and good spices like turmeric, curry, and cumin mixed with rice, buckwheat, or millet. In the evening I have some protein. It can be meat, eggs, lentils, or legumes. I don’t eat that much meat. I find that if I eat too much meat I’m not as strong. But at the same time if I go two weeks without any meat-I also feel weak. So I eat meat once or twice a week." www.climbing.com/people/adam-ondra-the-future-of-climbing/
Thanks for doing this review. I've been pretty disappointed with health-focused vegan/plant-based documentaries so far. Nutrition is by its nature an imprecise science, and documentaries in general are not the best way to communicate health science. It's complicated, but a documentary has to be short and punchy with a powerful message. I'm not defending it, but I understand why they did it the way they did and used a sample size of 3 for some of their tests during the documentary. I've been vegan for 6 years, and my perspective is that it has nothing to do with health for me. I know this wasn't the point of your video, but I think it's worth me mentioning. If including some non-human animal products meant I'd be a bit more healthy, or a bit better at climbing, I still wouldn't include them in my diet for the same reason I wouldn't include human animal products in my diet if it made me a bit healthier/stronger. For me, it's just about the ethics. I will say that I think you're partially wrong about B12. B12 in animal products comes in no small part from supplements injected into animals prior to slaughter to supplement B12 in humans, since it's hard to get enough from natural sources. Eating more meat will help with B12, sure, but so will getting B12 from any other supplement.
Good dissection of the point Dave, we have a current trend in society towards veganism and the documentary fuels that trend. Personally I think the environmental detriment of mass livestock farming is the best reason to eat less processed meat but it doesn't mean its not healthy. A well researched and diet is always better, avoid trends!
"all amino acids must be eaten at the same time for optimal performance.." - Source please. Also you can easily make a vegan meal that has all essential amino acids... I accidently stumbled upon your video, but halfway through I get the impression that there is lots of misinformation here. There is many powerful and strong vegan athletes in all kinds of sports, even more than are shown in the movie. A vegan girl lately did a new world record in the plank btw.... I dont get your points at all, considering we are living on a planet that is dying and animal agriculture being one of the biggest contributors to that. Also the enormous animal cruelty that goes in non vegan products is frightening and sick. I have no idea how anyone can still support eating animals when we can live happy and healthy on plants.
"A vegan girl lately did a new world record in the plank btw" surely it wouldn't be fair to list all of the records meat eaters happen to have broken recently? Dave spoke specifically about the benefits of vegan diets in training for endurance feats.
"all amino acids must be eaten at the same time for optimal performance.." You realize that the amino acid profile of single source plant protein is incomplete, and this limits the synthesis of certain proteins, right? When your body has excess amino acids floating around that it can't use because it is missing other amino acids, it doesn't store them, it burns (metabolizes) them. This means that you would need to consume multiple different plant protein sources in the same sitting in order to get a balanced amino acid profile. This problem doesn't exist if you are eating animal protein. This also ignores the issue of lowered bio-availability of plant protein.
@@norcofreerider604 Do you need to consume a complete amino acid profile with every meal or would it be sufficient to consume enough of each protein over a day or so (e.g. as might be the case in intermittent fasting)? This is almost a moot point as the vast majority of plant-based meals consist of multiple types of plants anyway.
I'm glad to hear that you're informed on this topic Dave! Great video for sure, thank you for taking the time to debunk a lot of that stuff. I'm eating a carnivore diet currently, only meat and salt (no dairy or eggs). It's completely stopped the inflammation I've had from an autoimmune disease. I would still like to eat plant products, since there are quite a few I like, but I have to rely on blood work for tracking inflammation and I haven't had a chance to find what my dietary triggers are yet. I wouldn't have ever switched to this diet or even considered eating it long term if I didn't learn about the nutrient density that meat has. It has everything we need, in much larger quantities than many plants, and in a more bioavailable form. There's a growing number of people adopting this diet, many of them are curing systemic diseases, have more energy (although any very low carb, high fat diet will do that for most people), and feel better than they have in years. Look up CarnivoryCon for some science, Shawn Baker, and Mikhaila Peterson, and consider that there are amazing things that meat does for some people. I definitely don't think it's the best diet for everybody, but for certain people it definitely is, and I will definitely continue eating meat. I recently went back to a high-carb diet, went climbing, and I was INCREDIBLY sore for the next few days while my muscles healed. I've since stopped, and I haven't felt sore like that again. I can either stop my autoimmune disease from getting worse, or go back to my old diet and taking several medications to mediate it. For the sake of my life, I can't even think about going vegan, regardless of the ethics. Speaking of which, it seems like there is much worse loss of life when it comes to large scale agriculture. When the homes of burrowing animals are destroyed, pests killed, etc., it seems to me that it's hardly even an argument in favor of veganism. If it works for you, great, do what you want to do, but reconsider arguing about things like a meat tax (c'mon Germany...) or other ridiculous things like that. Some of us need meat.
I have a feeling you have already read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, but if not I think you would like it (along with his other books). The two fundamental lessons I took from it were, rather simply, the importance of eating a varied, "natural" diet, and the influence of the agricultural industry in pushing society towards what I think is fairly characterized as an unhealthy but profitable diet. I would be curious to hear your take on it, as it's pop-science and has received a bit of pushback. Your perspective as someone who follows the underlying research would be quite valuable. As always, thanks for your channel. We all greatly appreciate it (and not just as climbers).
Yes I have read most of Pollan's books. I think the majority of it makes sense, but crucially, only in the context of a western style mixed diet where meat is considered unhealthy. Without that part, the case for variety is rather more shaky. A great number of studies have now amassed testing the idea of meat being unhealthy from various angles (SFAs, protein, heme iron, TMAO etc etc) and none of it has supported the idea. For this reason, Pollan's famous catchphrase has been reworked to "eat meat, not too little, mostly fat". One can build a rather stronger case from the evidence for this version than Pollan's original version! But other than this, Pollan is right about synthetic food and the negative influence of profit driven big business in the food supply.
dave do you think the protein quality of something like eggs is as good as something like chicken or red meat? in terms of how the body uses it to rebuild after a training session.
I disagree with your argument that eating plant based make you loose weight. I gain 4 kg of muscle when changing to vegan diet (because I watch carefully the amount of proteins that I eat but nonetheless). I can only speak for myself, but I feel I recover better with vegan diet, and i went from 3 / 4 training sessions a week to 4 / 5 training sessions a week, which help getting stronger than when I was on a meat diet ( I didn't eat junk foods except occasional chips and I still do). As for the digestive system, you didn't mention the PH of human digestive system which is the same as herbivores , and also carnivores don't have cholesterol.
Martin Renaudin - I’m able to put on muscle much easier on a plant based diet too. I used to be one of the guys who ate masses of meat thinking I needed it after training sessions. In fact , when I used to concentrate on protein sourced from animals, the muscle mass a density used to decline quickly. Plant based, my muscle mass and weight stays constant. 👍🏼
Hi Martin -- I recently switched to a plant based as well but Ive found the opposite effect. May I ask what specifically you have been doing with your diet to achieve this? I probably havent been as rigorous with supplementing and I would love to know what I can do better. Cheers, Leo.
@@ItzSkillful to sum up, cereals and leguminous plants, vegetables, oliv oil, all kind of seeds, and things like seitan, plant based steak that I cook with indredient like cgm, brewer's yeast, soya
Indeed, broad generalizations are usually dubious I went from a primarily plant-food high-carb diet (10% or less animal protein) (for most of my early life) to a high fat much higher animal-protein diet (30%+) and it basically changed my life -- I used to have ridiculous blood sugar fluctuations -- would crash my blood sugar, eat a pile of junky carbs, and then get stuck in a food coma for an hour. Adding a lot more fat and animal protein to my diet (especially in the form of a huge breakfast) made it possible for me to get into climbing!
Dave, are there any information sources about healthy (performance & general health) diets (and the differences between them, e.g., when one is beneficial over the other) that you would highly recommend? Admittedly this is a lazy question, I could Google, but you've obviously done a bunch of research yourself already so it would be great to get some pointers in the right directions. Also, any thoughts on fermented vegetable proteins (miso, tempeh, etc.) for increasing bio availability of nutrients?
To your first question, that is a bit like saying 'what is a good training program'. It depends on what you are optimising for and various individual factors. To figure out the answers I would recommend reading the primary scientific literature. But if your base foods are red meat and eggs, this is an excellent start since it provides very nutrient dense food and displaces many other foods that are problematic for various reasons (nutrient poor, toxicity, appetite dysregulation, anti nutrients etc). There are various ways to improve various plant foods with fermentation. But since we have access to higher quality (animal) foods, this is rendered somewhat irrelevant from a nutrient point of view at least.
@@climbermacleod with all due respect, my question is nothing like 'what is a good training program', what I was after was some reputable resource(s) that condensed the massive amount of nutrition information into an easier-to-digest, comparative format, comparing different diets on different criteria. I'm not sure what your profession is, but reading the primary material is not something I have time (and probably not the training) for. I do read papers on a weekly basis for my regular job, and even for people within that field (computer science) I notice many struggling to find/understand publications.
@@climbermacleod regarding improving nutrient density of plant foods via fermentation. I don't think access to animal foods renders it irrelevant. You said it yourself, calories are not the only thing we should be comparing between different food sources. Increasing the nutrient yield without increasing the amount of plant matter we need to grow/buy can only be a net win, and might render some pro-meat arguments irrelevant. FYI, I am not vegan nor vegetarian, but even the IPCC suggests moving further towards plant-based diets.
@@alexaverbuch1 What I was getting at was that the whole field cannot be condensed like that without being inappropriate for different sub groups of people who are optimising for different things. So the resource you are after does not exist. I also have a busy work schedule myself, but I have learned the hard way that reading the actual scientific data is very often the shortcut to reaching the answer, unless you get really lucky and happen to listen to the right people. I wasted many years following poor advice from credentialed sources I thought must be trustworthy. You can go round in circles figuring out who should be trusted as a filter for the research, still with a high probability of error in the end. In the hard physical sciences, this may be less true. But nutrition science relies on much poorer quality data which is open to misrepresentation. Therefore, I just cannot recommend this approach, sorry.
@@alexaverbuch1 I don't understand what you mean about calories? Would you clarify? My point was that rather than exploring workarounds to improve nutrient poor food, we could instead just eat nutrient dense food. Properly raised animals are better for both nutrition and the environment. This would be my choice. Are you able to point to a quote where the IPCC suggest plant based diets. That is news to me. To my knowledge they have not said this. Rather, it was the media who said this. For example, on Aug 8th 2019 the IPCC tweeted "IPCC does not recommend people’s diets. What we’ve pointed out on the basis of the scientific evidence is that there are certain diets that have a lower carbon footprint - Jim Skea, Co-chair of #IPCC"
Dave you're a smart guy. I'm grateful that you share your thoughts. It's incredibly difficult to find a well-considered opinion these days (be it diet, climate change, or whatever) that doesn't stem from an emotional association with an idea. I think possibly your mental training for climbing (suppressing emotional drives from rational consideration of the situation) has given you an ability to separate reason from emotion better than most people posses. Anyway, very grateful. Cheers!!!
It changes a lot from day to day depending on activity and goals. But averaging out the fluctuation over time possibly comes out at 30% protein, 50% fat, 20% CHO. TBC that is a guess. I don't consistently track, I just eat healthy food.
On Dave's point at 42:00, I dont agree with his assesment of the carbon cycle in the context of the earth's energy budget. Methane is around 30x more potent a GHG than CO2. So while plants have sequestered the carbon from the atmosphere that the ruminants are excreting, there is still a huge GHG contribution that would not be present to the same order of magnitude if the protein was produced from plants, other livestock or if that methane was combusted: this is not a harmless part of the 'natural' carbon cycle. With livestock growth continuing in many countries outside the USA (his counter example), I doubt the global agricultural methane emission rate equals the elimination rate from the atmosphere, which is the steady state condition which Dave is implying exists. Additionally, the elimination rate of methane from the atmosphere is high enough that reducing methane emissions now can suspress atmospheric warming potential in the coming decades. No doubt, fugitive methane emissions from oil and gas production is a large and largely un-characterized contributor too, but it is a separate point.
Methane is not 30X more potent. This incorrect calculation has been superseded by improved modelling of the impact of short lived climate gases. www.nature.com/articles/s41612-019-0086-4 Discussed by Allen here: www.newsroom.co.nz/@ideasroom/2019/03/29/510792/a-climate-neutral-nz-yes-its-possible# The correct figure is more like 7 times. Moreover, if emissions from ruminant herds are reduced by 0.3% per year (totally achievable with improved veterinary care, changes in feed etc) then the ruminant herd no longer contributes at all to warming. It is certainly true that cutting methane emissions in the short term will counteract the continuing warming from the cause of global warming (burning fossil fuels). But it is better to deal with the cause than use methane as a distraction to allow governments to keep supporting fossil fuels. This in the long term will lead to an exacerbation of warming, not any positive influence.
@@climbermacleod That is not my interpretation. The accuracy of the conventional GWP-e metric is dependent on emission scenarios. I’m glad you have a good basis for the comment, but I was simplifying a fairly complex point. It isn’t simply 7 either. Allen’s main point is that the GWP of methane is better approximated as rate dependent not linearly dependent on cumulative emissions (he suggests a more complex formula in his recent papers). You are leaving out his main suggestion of an emissions growth dependent term of tonnes of methane per year per year multiplied by a factor of 2100 in addition to the figure of 7 you quoted. This is also a simplification and whether the error of traditional methods actually supports your points is contextually dependent, though mostly it would. This obviously has important policy implications. Interestingly to me, Allen’s method of carbon accounting, while more accurate, is interpreted in a way most beneficial to a western country’s emission policies (much like the accusation of exaggerated methane GWP used allegedly by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation to shift GWP responsibility to developing economies), and bypasses the policy option of global participation in (or at least responsibility to adhere to) a nominal methane cap, by assuming responsibility for global warming contributions on a country level and ignoring past emissions. Additionally, the error incurred by using GWP (20y or 100y) compared to Allen's GWP* method is minor on a global scale because there is still a significant increase in current global production of agricultural methane, despite the fact that it is inaccurate on a physical level. And that error that Allen is addressing will continue to be small without a global reduction in meat production rate, combined with better distribution of the meat. I think his point of the discrepancies in accounting methods is a bit more of an intellectual point of the drawbacks rather than a serious criticism of its efficacy: I hope most policy makers understand the difference in the responsible applications of GWP20 vs. GWP100, however inaccurate they are in a general sense. There are a whole lot of problems with GWP100 that I am well aware of. I had encountered Myles Allen’s work only in passing before, so I’m glad you mentioned it, it is very interesting. It is most relevant in dealing with low emission projection scenarios and peak temperature rise and temperature stability in the future, which is where NZ is on a country level, hence his commentary. Where one stands on this is a matter of context, politics and worldview I think. So neither of us are substantially wrong in a scientific sense, and I don’t think there is an easy answer. I have problems with living in a western country and eating comparatively lots of meat and talking about the minutia of GWP while implying the developing world’s ruminant herd numbers should be stagnating (yes, I know we should also stop flying, driving, using as much energy, pick our food more carefully, support local and invest responsibly). Does New Zealand have an exclusive right to all its meat and its cushy methane emission history just because they aren’t contributing to warming currently? If every other country had acted like that on a meat consumption per capita basis, Allen remarks it alone would have contributed 1 degree of global warming since 1990. He agrees that global meat production should stop increasing, and without eating less meat in the west, that will not happen globally. No doubt ruminants can be a sustainable protein source, but highly contextual policy commentary from a physical scientist is not the only perspective here, and I don’t think you represented his global take on this very well either. This is as much about environmental and social justice as it is about a country’s individual warming contributions. Notwithstanding my apparent obsession with this, decarbonisation of the economy is THE priority, and I hope that agricultural emission discourse does not derail that. This is a complex global problem with complex solutions, and if we need to treat it as simplistically as you are suggesting, then many could fall victim to the propaganda of oil and gas lobbyists. I also don’t agree with your general ecological defences of meat production (especially living in Australia), but I want to see you climb more things so we’ll both have to agree that there are other defensible arguments besides our own on this.
@@andrabispeimle671 Thanks for your comment. I agree it is complex and another area of complexity not mentioned is a rather larger problem than emissions which is soil loss. Developed countries which switch to a plant based diet will in the long term (surely the definition of sustainability) end up with their soil in the sea. Then there will be no food, plant or animal. We can look again to the US as an example of this. When all the bison were shot in the 1800s (before global warming) the prairies has some of the deepest soil on the planet. Once it was switched to crop production it is now nearly gone. The US ecologists joke that the US' biggest export is soil. Sure it is mortgaged for a few more decades with fossil fuel fertiliser, but the clock is ticking down there, and in many other countries. So yes NZ should be allowed its ruminants for several reasons. If they farm them properly, they are not warming. If they farm them properly they can sequester carbon and may in some places actually contribute to cooling. Their ruminants can move soil carbon uphill. Meanwhile if they stop eating ruminants they will emit soil carbon until there is none left. A disaster. And while doing it they will fertilise their crop with fossil fuel derived nitrogen fertiliser. They should also be allowed their ruminants because grasslands need ruminants (they co-evolved and are literally two parts of a single system, you can't just remove them and everything is okay). Grasslands are very reliable carbon sinks. There is a lot of focus on forests. But forests store their carbon above the ground and burn down. When that happens, all is lost. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aacb39/meta A further area of complexity not added to any model is the unintended consequences of putting the human race on a malnutrition (plant based) diet. We can see how this is playing out already. Red meat consumption has been falling for 50 years in the US and now it has a very metabolically sick population. The emissions of the US healthcare system, if it were a country, would be the 13th biggest in the world. It will just get worse. India of course is already further on in terms of animal food avoidance and is the poster child of malnutrition consequences with stunting coexisting with diabetes and obesity in the same country! We do not want to emulate this. Taking all these aspects and more together, we can see that a shift away from producing meat is no solution. It causes soil loss with concomitant C emissions, malnutrition, healthcare emissions, loss of biodiversity, continued reliance on fossil fuels, loss of ecosystem functioning etc. Therefore, I'm instead arguing for deep reform of farming practice, such that it is both carbon neutral, soil neutral and is actually able to provide food that is capable of allowing humans to thrive.
Great video! I've always wanted to be vegan because of concerns for the treatment of animals in the western world, but have always felt like shit when I have been vegetarian/eaten vegan. Watching this doc, I thought, well maybe it is possible to be a high functioning vegan athlete, and I decided to try to figure out if I could do this myself. So far, I have been disappointed by the experience of changing from a largely whole food omniverous diet to a whole food plant based diet. I appreciate your step by step approach with this video. Thanks!
Hello Sean, I hear your sentiments about the ethical problems related to the use and consumption of animal products. I've been living on a plant-based diet and vegan lifestyle myself about as long as I have been climbing. Roughly 8-9 years now. Perhaps started climbing a little later than that. I turn 40 at the end of this year and I have been continuing to make gains in the gym and on the rock. I'm interested to hear what sort of discomforts or in what way your switch to a plant-based diet made you feel bad and perhaps I can offer some insights into how I approached it. And hopefully, you can glean something from it.
So if you got this from a vegetarian diet (whilst still eating eggs, milk, and cheese) then it may have been something to do with the type of foods you were eating. Alot of eastern foods are a good way to mix up a large amount of lentils, legumes, nuts, grains etc... I would also consider suppliments. The reasons outlined in this video though are part of the reason I keep milk, eggs, and mussels in my diet. The cheese is just because i'm addicted.
You can't even call this a documentary. If they put this on You Tube the comments section would eat it alive! Real experts would debunk everything. Why You Tube is better than streaming for getting life changing, cutting edge, "game changing" information!
Really enjoyed this deconstruction of the documentary. Has really clarified a lot for me. I feel that the main focus throughout was on meat and veganism, with a less substantial mention of non-meat, animal products (ie. milk, eggs). Might you be able to include the positives/negatives of these products in your next diet related video? (I've got a mild addiction to cheese so I'm hoping for purely positives in that regard! Unfortunately, I have my doubt about that...) I was also very surprised by the results of the two meta analysis you mentioned at the start, relating to the health implications of red and processed meat. Excited to give them a read! Cheers for more class content, keep it up!
Great video. Two questions, if by any chance you read this: Doesn't your final reference show that two thirds of those youtubers are still vegan? I haven't checked all the channels in the list, so I don't know if any of the 'still vegans' have any related health problems, but it does come across as anecdotal at best and cherry-picked at worst. Also, the source contains this peculiar bit of logic: "Note: I will count premature death (before age 60) as failure." Is there any scientific research on how long people generally stick to a vegan diet? Secondly, what books on sports and nutrition would you recommend to other climbers?
My partner who is a nutritionist and former vegan for 12 years mirrored every single major point that Dave brought up. I very much appreciate how well informed and diligent Dave is in all his research. This is a shining example of why I follow his content and will continue to for years to come. Thanks for your work, Dave!
The big take away is when Dave says he's sitting down to take a break and watch a movie, he means this^. Dave, there's plenty of comedies on there too!
Baboumian was comedy enough. And then there were the ring tests..
😅
one of the best parts of this great video was hearing Dave's pleasant scottish accent pronounce 'nineteen ninety nine'
I could care less
@@tommygunz5356 you mean to say that you COULDN'T care less. If you COULD care less, that means you care somewhat.
Next time you try to leave a snarky comment you should probably make sure you don't make any errors in your comment
@@AMM1998 Circling Grammar nazi stork waiting to pounce.. alert !! nabb them YT trolls serr (comma after comment, you should probably ensure you don't use make make)
I'm don't consume animal products for 13 years now and to be honest I think the health arguments is quite weak, so I won't bother.
I do it mainly over the ethical perspective, but the environment argument is quite strong. As a Brazilian I can't agree with your point about the availability of land suitable for planting. We are one of the largest meat producers of animal protein ( considering chicken, cow and pigs) and the majority of the lands used for those are suitable for other kinds of farms. Besides that our soil production is again for stock feeding, and we do have far more cows than people in our country. Shifting the focus from meat consumption would reduce the farming impact in our environment.
The ethical thinking process is quite simple, is including animal intake is the only alternative for a healthy lifestyle? Can I minimize the suffering of other without creating harm to my self? The answer is very clear for me after so many years without meat, but that's a personal experience and I know that that won't translate for everyone.
He does cover this in the documentary. Just because you aren't putting the dead animals in your mouth, doesn't mean you aren't creating equal levels of suffering to other habitats in the wild.
We empathize more with larger animals. Mainly due to the ability to connect with their eyes (and other factors). Realistically, eating bugs for example would be far far worse than eating cows. It would take thousands of bugs to sustain a few people for a week. It would only take one cow. I use bugs as an example because its a species that even most vegans don't care about. My vegan friends exterminate cockroaches for example.
If every life counts, then it would seem that harvesting plants would be the greater cause of death and suffering to wild life.
Ironically the only way to reduce the suffering humans cause on the planet is by reducing the number of humans... Seeing as most people brand Hitler as the most evil man to have ever lived, it might not be perceived as ethical.
Unfortunately suffering is unavoidable, this is the point Dave makes about the eco system. Life balances itself out. Each animal prioritizes itself and the ecosystem accounts for that. We as humans have actually broken the system. I would think the world would be a better place with elss humans. But im also not willing to kill any, so in my opinion you shouldn't battle in a fight you simple cannot win. Just be healthy and make choices for yourself, try not to judge others too much, and remember that the best marketing strategy is one that convinces you that what you are doing now is wrong.
@@coachalex4995 I don't mind being wrong. However simply saying it with no retort proves nothing to anyone...Enlighten me! To clarify, my comment is specifically referring to animal cruelty. I know cows are bad for the environment (if that's your point).
@@eddyertang Hey eddyertang,
Firstly, the fact that you know vegans who kill cockroaches doesn't prove anything. It certainly doesn't mean that "most vegans don't care about [bugs]". I, myself, am a vegan and have killed the odd cockroach. It's a very subjective thing, but I believe it comes down to necessity through fear. I personally am afraid of them, and certainly wouldn't want them in my bedroom/kitchen cupboards. I definitely don't kill them because of the sensory pleasure (visual/sound/taste) that I can get from them.
Secondly, "If every life counts, then it would seem that harvesting plants would be the greater cause of death and suffering to wildlife. ". You are aware that plants and animals are very very different? Specifically that plants don't feel pain? And also that so many more plants are fed to animals to fatten them up to produce a smaller amount of food? It's estimated that a huge portion of the world's surface could be freed up if we stopped farming animals.
Thirdly, what are you doing bringing Hitler into this? Is that supposed to be funny? I don't believe he was doing what he did from some kind of ethical food production standpoint. Really?? That's weak, and potentially insulting to many.
And finally suffering is not unavoidable. Unnecessary suffering is completely avoidable. If you don't need it to live, then it is unnecessary and you do it for pleasure. Can you really say, in the face of all the research, that a healthy vegan lifestyle is not possible? And if you accept that it is possible, then all the animal products you consume are for your pleasure and the animals' pain.
Let's not forget that veganism is not about us eliminating animal death, it is about minimising our part in their suffering as much as possible.
I hope these arguments were clear enough.
Cheers,
Greg
@@gregbrowning5437 About your first point:
I think subjectifying the purpose for killing living creatures is very gray territory to base your argument upon. Many would argue that killing a bug through your own (irrational) fear is far worse than eating animals for your own health. You also used the word "necessity", you use this subjectively to justify your actions. You compare it to pleasure. The pleasure in the removal of hunger is not so different from the pleasure you receive by removing your fear.
Regardless of which is worse, it would be extremely difficult to convince someone (using your argument) that your actions are acceptable and those you appose are not.
Second:
I think you didnt watch the video or wernt paying attention, maybe also to my comment. We are not discussing the value of plant life (which should not simply be overlooked). We are discussing the billions of living animal ecosystems that a killed and completely eradicated through farming. This happens to bugs, rodents and small mammals directly, but many more species indirectly by destroying their homes and food sources. Providing a much slower more painful death.
This is why i said "Just because you aren't putting the dead animals in your mouth, doesn't mean you aren't creating equal levels of suffering to other habitats in the wild"... This is the unseen torture you are causing by eating plants, and you have distanced yourself from it by not seeing it, and not putting the carcass of the dead animals in your mouth.
Im not judging or saying you are bad for avoiding meat, i think its a really respectable thing to do, but im just talking about the facts of the situation.
Thirdly:
No, no intention to be funny in my comment. Simply stating that the only way to eradicate the negative human impact of humans is by reducing the numbers. Eating meat, or plant based diets (as demonstrated above) causes immeasurable suffering to the animals plants and environment around us. There is no way to prevent this currently. Maybe science will resolve it with printing food and new food production technologies. But likely they will come at their own price. 100% right now you simply cannot avoid contributing to suffering if you wish to stay alive. Thats' just a fact. The point i was making that unless you are willing to commit some mass exodus of humans (the most destructive species to the planet) then you will never solve your ethical dilemma. Therefore i pointed to Hitler as an example of what people think of those who try and interfere with human life on a drastic scale.
Finally:
"Unnecessary suffering is completely avoidable. If you don't need it to live, then it is unnecessary and you do it for pleasure."
Completely untrue and again missing the point. Certainly not done for pleasure. Simple survival dictates the requirement for something else to suffer, and the amount of suffering you (and everyone else) has caused to defenseless creatures is simply immeasurable. May it be directly or indirectly. I'm sorry to be the one to break that to you.
Do you watch TV? that requires power, that requires oil. Do you know what adding to oil demand causes and contributes to? War, oil leaks, oil rigs in the sea killing wildlife, high risk jobs with high mortality rates, disease. This is just one minute example.
I wish your argument had even one piece of relevant or true information but its just a very basic and uninformed mindset. I don't expect you to now agree with mine, but denial is a state you should live within for as short a duration as possible. At least if your going to start debating about it.
Cheers
Ed
@@eddyertang Thanks Eddy for your clear unhindered (by emotions) thoughts. Not breeding (too much) is the challenge. Hard to put upon others. China has produced generation(s) of little princes that way. Rational decissions make us superior, but emotional ones prevent us from protecting ourselfs.
Thanks for the breakdown - very much appreciate the time and effort you put in to create this.
You really missed the mark at 39:00 there dave... We have billions of animals of livestock that all need to be fed in order to grow to the sizes that we like them in. This costs us humongous amounts of land in comparison to the land that would suffice to plant crops that would directly be used to feed us.
Going up trophic levels (i.e breeding livestock) uses and wastes tons amount of space and energy and hurts ecosystems more than not having to feed that livestock.
You are not refuting his point. He cited (1) arguing that livestock can be raised in areas unsuitable for crop production, and additionally that existing predictions of crop usage for omnivorous vs. vegan diets did not use an optimized vegan diet and thus underestimated the necessary amount of crops for vegans. Unless you can provide some contradictory research or a different reinterpretation of the literature your comment is at the moment is just restating the point that he disagreed with in the video!
(1) journals.lww.com/nutritiontodayonline/Fulltext/2018/07000/ Assessing_the_Role_of_Cattle_in_Sustainable_Food.5.aspx#pdf-link Layman, D. K. 2018. Assessing the Role of Cattle in Sustainable Food Systems. 53, 160-165
@@natalyag4295Then why don't we do that then, oh wait, we can't, because there's not enough grasslands in the world to graze all the animals we currently kill. Also, what makes land unsuitable for growing human food, but lush with cow food? Most species of wild grass are edible as sprouts and seeds. The idea that grasslands and hillsides are unable to grow any human food, it's just not true. We're so detached from our food now that I hear the argument "humans can't eat grass" constantly. This is like saying we can't eat banana plants because the trunk is too tough, forgetting we can eat the shoots and fruit.
Right now, the vast majority of these grazing animals are fed things humans already can eat easily, such as corn, oats, and soya. If you get rid of the animals, all that farmable land can just be used to feed humans.
Dave, you are a boon to climbers everywhere. Thank you for the well-researched information you present in an accessible manner, and for encouraging us all to think for ourselves.
This has been an eye openner and one of the best explanation that I have heard in a while, for nutrition and the whole dieting and baance diet and Dave really put a point on that theme and I am very happy bout that. Thanks or everything. Excelent video and all the good things in life for you. From Portugal.
Ah Dave! Your videos are brilliant. Can't believe I've only just come across this. To hear someone eductated and intellient break down some of these arguments so well is fantastic. Thank you.
I really enjoyed the format of this video. Cheers Dave.
Also, at 07:19 MacLeod's comments about the relatively inferior quality of plant protein "facilitating" sarcopenia and his anecdote about how he used a low protein vegan diet to drop some unneeded lean muscle mass strike me as disingenuous at best, outright disinformation at worst. From the starting point of a low-protein diet, there's of course possibly some difference in muscle retention for the same number of grams protein per kg bodyweight for animal vs plant protein sources, but it's unlikely to be substantial.
Many people (including myself) build muscle just fine on plant-based diets, in some cases extraordinary amounts of muscle. Yet through lack of any qualification of his statements, MacLeod's comments could be construed as saying that muscle wastage is a foregone conclusion if a person's diet excludes animal protein. Recent research has compared groups consuming pea protein vs. whey protein, and reported:
"Both groups experienced increased strength for 1RM back squat (p = 0.006) and deadlift (p = 0.008). No training effect (p > 0.05) was found for body composition, muscle thickness, IMTP peak force, IMTP rate of force development, or performance in either WOD. *Using PRE values as the covariate, there were no group differences for any measured variable. We conclude that ingestion of whey and pea protein produce similar outcomes in measurements of body composition, muscle thickness, force production, WOD performance and strength following 8-weeks of HIFT.*"
Either way, Chris Sharma eats meat and sends harder than you ever will.
your scientific approach and critical analysis of this, and using your platform with a climbing audience is so refreshing. Allot of my friends have switched to this under the precedence of documentaries like the one you watch. A healthy balance seems to be a much healthier way to live, and the cutting out of the western diet and reverting back to the home cooked meals with high quality food as opposed to processed food.
I agree with a lot of @Dave MacLeod's criticism of the health-related claims and the biased narrative presented in the film; the film's message is that a plant-based diet is superior to a diet containing animal products, which I don't believe is true. I think a well-planned vegan diet can be the equal of an omnivorous diet for some athletic endeavours, or at least not be the limiting factor in an athlete's performance - possibly entailing more effort for the vegan though.
Dave's comments imply that what is optimal is a requirement in several parts of this video, such as the areas dealing with biological value of protein consumed, and the necessity of combining amino acids in the optimal ratios in the same meal (with the implication it may be impossible on a vegan diet, not merely more difficult). I guess from the point of view of elite athletes it's preferable for everything to be as good as it can be, but once an athlete's diet is not the limiting factor in their performance this emphasis is redundant and misplaced. I grant this certainly goes against the notion presented in the film that a vegan diet is eminently superior, which is what Dave is (rightly) challenging.
Also, I thought that it was widely agreed that the need for protein combining was a myth - or is Dave again talking about what is optimal? Are there studies that indicate protein combining is necessary? Even just for elite-level athletic performance?
On the subject of land use, at around 40:16 Dave talks about the land use of animal vs. plant agriculture, where the former consumes around 80% of agricultural land yet produces only 18% of calories (albeit a higher ratio of highly bioavailable protein). Dave's comments "...that's because large areas of the land surface of the world are unsuitable for crop production... it could not be swapped over" could be misleading in that they might leave the viewer with the impression that *none* of the animal agriculture land could be used to grow plants. In practice, a lot of land that doesn't currently grow plants for human consumption could be modified to do so (e.g. swales, terracing, other ideas from permaculture), or different crops more suited to the local environment could be selected.
Dave's assertion that a plant-based diet is not "sustainable" without "supplement[ing] the hell out out of their diet" is subjective and not borne out by my own experience (after 18 years vegan); supplementation of several nutrients (vitamin B12, vitamin D, etc) is recommended for all plant-based diets, but that does not mean that a plant-based diet with only minimal supplementation is "unsustainable". This is yet another false dichotomy Dave seems to be presenting, albeit possibly unwittingly.
The agriculture you are referring to @ 37:26 already exists as feed for the animal industry.
A 47 minute long video?
You're spoiling us, Dave
Have you not watched the one on the keto diet?
More or less my thoughts on the film, good to hear it from someone who knows what they’re talking about. I’m going to stay vegan though purely because it helps keep me on a higher quality of diet
Extra work to go onto a diet that produces almost 100x more carbon
You miss soooo many nutrients on a vegan diet. So ‘quality’ of diet is just an ‘idea’ .... you need vit B’s K2 D and so on. You can not get them in a Vegan diet!
@@Doors_of_janua looks like you got your nutrition information off of instagram and some anti vegan weightlifter bros. Stop cherry picking information to reassure yourself. Of course there are poor examples of vegan diets but... dont knock it till you've tried it, or at least done some actual research.
@William Boyle you're trippin william. you say "whatever nonsense you eat as a vegan." then "i tried eating vegan food" obviously salad isnt enough calories to fulfill you and you had/have no idea what you're doing. if salad is the only thing you can think of when listing vegan options then you have no place in a nutritional debate😂. stick to your meat and your biased charts you see on instagram.
@William Boyle Fair enough, to each their own! Ignorance is bliss. However you wanna justify keeping your eyes and ears closed is fine.
Thank you so much man!! You are a straight LEGEND, keep this up. You inspire me to look more into everything like this.
The big issue is the cost to the environment and the cruelty practiced, when you make it about yourself, you really miss the point. We can be just as strong if not stronger without supporting the destructive forces of factory farming.
preach brother
Yeah, "me, me, me, me". I feel good eating a lot of meat, so I don't care about the environmental costs.
Its high time climbers take responsibility. I hope flying to 30 bouldering places all over the world every year will also one day become a thing of the past.
@@kriszteblade Suppose I went to the gym, but the only reason I enjoyed going to the gym was to espouse how disciplined and hard working I was to others. Suppose I endured all of that suffering in order to feel that sense of superiority. Would my behaviour genuinely motivate others to go? Instagram posts filled with me shaming others for being so unhealthy and undisciplined. Am I a force for good in the world? It's really quite questionable. On the one hand I'd likely be making people want to exercise, but not out of a want for their own health, not out of love for their own life and fitness, but instead because of a sense of shame that I'm shoving down their throats, making them feel insecure. I'm guilting people into doing something that I consider to be for their own good, but couldn't I just accomplish the same goal with a positive spin instead? 'If you don't care about your fitness, or are unable to care about it, then that's OK, it's your choice, but know that there are genuinely plenty of positives to it that you're missing out on. I understand it's hard to get used to, but it really does feel good to know you're doing something positive'. Isn't that a more encouraging, convincing, and less abrasive approach?
I say this because people generally don't like doing things which they themselves don't desire. If your approach to recruit new vegans is to shame them and talk about how virtuous you are, don't be surprised when decent people are reluctant to submit and join you. If your approach is instead to be a decent and empathetic human being who wants the best for others, and is tolerant of different opinions rather than cramming your own down their throat, you might be surprised to find that people are far more open to following suit.
By all means though, continue telling other people how selfish they are and how selfless you are if you want to. I'm sure you're in a similar position to professional climbers and refrain from flying around the world purely for ethical reasons, and definitely not any other reasons.
Callum Scott excellent comment,
You can eat meat and animals while being environmental friendly and respect the life of the animal. You can eat vegan and still have a huge impact on the environment : soy plantation, advocat, banana,etc... all this shit crossing ten time the world before ending on your vegan plate.
Would be interesting to see a debate with yourself and someone advocating for a vegan diet who also has a similar background. I can admit I don't have the skills to really understand most research papers and whether or not the conclusions derived from them are actually valid. Its easy to watch this netflix documentary and believe that particular viewpoint, its also easy to watch your youtube video and believe a particular view point as well, as both seem just as plausbile having no background understanding on any of this, but having two exducated people debate about it is way more illuminating. I'm still watching your vid though so might edit this later.
28:50 - You didn't address the stomach point, not sure if that was an editing mistake.
While admittedly my background is by no means nutritional science, your comment underscores why building a strong background understanding is important to form a critical viewpoint on deep subjects such as these. I'm not sure if a debate format would ultimately be the most desirable--often times they only reveal who has better debating skills. I suppose those who are truly invested in this topic must go through the process themselves (as David does in the video) and rigorously evaluate the scientific literature and reviews...
Why does everybody say 'thanks for giving your opinion'? He is not. He is looking at the science (often refers to in it) to understand if the claims in the documentary are sound. So SCIENCE is giving an opinion, and on the main it's a damning one for the documentary. Game changers is Hollywood tackling a difficult, delicate subject with a lot more nuances than the promoters of the video have money (or intellectual honesty, but was a given).
I would not recommend watching debates to form opinions about topics. Often the one who seems to be "winning" is really just shouting louder than their opponent, which says nothing of the validity of their claim.
Hey Dave,
I am a vegeterian and would like to transition towards a vegan diet step by step. I really cannot stand the junk science demonstrated in the documentary and have always been skeptical of the supposed health benefits of a vegetarian or vegan diet; i am a vegetarian for other reasons.
My question the following: You talked in the video at length about the fallacy of comparing the western diet to a well-rounded vegan diet. But what do you personally think about the difference between a well-rounded omnivorous diet to a well-rounded vegan diet, especially in the context of climbing? You talked about bioavailability of protein, how big of a factor is this in your opinion? Will a difference between the diets be noticable for average, or even expert climbers or only for the very best? Do you think a vegan diet will hold an average climber back even when protein demands are met?
Thanks for the great video and for dealing with junk science so the rest of us don't have to.
PS i hope my english is not too bad, i am not a native speaker.
Why would you ask a climber about diet? Would you ask dietitian/diet expert who climbs for tips on climbing? I recommend nutritionfacts.org as a first step in getting science based diet information.
Good questions. Yes I think even when the vegan diet is carefully planned, it is unrealistic to expect optimal function, because the list of supplements would be so long and difficult to get right (B12, B6, retinol, vitamin A, DHA, EPA, zinc, iodine, choline, carnitine, creatine, methionine, glycine and others). A nice analogy for the vegan diet is flying a plane very low. If you get every meal just right and take every supplement, you can just stay above problems, but there is not much 'room' for error or poor choices along the way.
Yes the difference of improving the diet will definitely be noticeable for climbers at all levels. Connective tissue injuries, fatigue, anabolic resistance, poor mental health and other preventable conditions are very common and improving diet quality can make an impact on all of them. It would not be my choice to supplement with refined protein powders to offset the poor protein quality because refining of this nature is environmentally wasteful and it is much more environmentally responsible to just eat high quality properly farmed food.
@@climbermacleod This is simply not true. B12 is the only supplement necessary. Please look it up. E.g. WHO. Choline is plants. Please look it up, e.g. nih.gov. Also excess choline is associated with prostate cancer.
@@Halorocker101 Trust is a personal decision. I would argue though that blogging and studying an msc does not make one an expert in a field. I teach msc students so I have some insight into this. Regarding Gregors bias, well, Dave is not a vegan, is he by default biased? If Gregor started eating meat, would you believe him more? Gregor lives from digesting literature and drawing conclusions not from selling soya.
@@Halorocker101 Great conclusion. Take care!
great seeing you discuss this. fantastic video as always.
Im not a climber (more a hill runner) but i've been absorbing all of your nutrition videos. I like your honest, unbiased analysis. Thanks for taking the time to create these videos. Also love that you are also from Glasgow 👍
Great content as always, Dave -- thank you for putting this out. I just wanted to push back on bioavailability aspect of your argument against plant protein (at 8:40). Having looked into the literature several years ago, I didn't find any evidence that plant protein is less bioavailable than animal protein, even though I was specifically looking for that. E.g., soy and beef have essentially the same PDCAAS score. However, I did find plenty of evidence that animal protein is generally superior for muscle building, since it has higher levels of BCAAs including leucine, so no qualms about that part of your argument.
Just because you couldnt find it doesn't mean the evidence is not out there... Bioavailability is widely researched and in my understanding based on the amino acid profile of the food which is then compared to the >human< needs for anabolism of proteins. And as you correctly stated that leucine plays a major part in muscle synthesis why then do you not understand why animal protein is more bioavailable?
@@Danfranschwan2 Bioavailability is a different concept from the completeness of the amino acid profile. Bioavailability refers to the body's ability to digest the protein. For example, some minerals like iron are known to be much less bioavailable from leafy greens than from red meat -- that is, even though there's iron in the plants, it's in a form that's not as readily absorbed by the body. If you have found evidence that a similar argument applies to proteins, you should link to it.
I've heard a few commentaries on this "documentary", but this one is the best so far. Informative, and a laugh a minute.
I really have to appreciate how thoroughly researched and informed this video is. I'm very hard to rid of skepticism, especially so regarding "internet information" or whatever, but the facts presented here make it abundantly clear that lobbies exist everywhere and that good faith is hard to come by when corporate interests are intermingled with it.
Dave - you are a treasure. Thank you for this analysis - truly, it's very helpful!
Just sat down after lunch and this video pops up. "Posted 40 seconds ago". Lucky day
I recommend you watch Earthlings Land of Hope and Glory and see what you're eating and likely unaware that you're being complicit in.
I did this recently and pretty much immediately stopped eating animal products.
@@IsaacSMILE has the same impact on me. running had already got me eating quite clean, so was already pondering the change, but just never got round to it. I watched Land of Hope and Glory and just knew I would never eat meat / dairy again. My taste buds are not worth others suffering in such sick circumstances, especially as their are so many delicious vegan foods around now.
Brainwashed
Luke Hinds him
Both of them actually
I must admit i watched this documentary and immediately got sucked in, not knowing anything much about nutrition and with the way its presented i thought it was a definite thing. I can always rely on Dave Macleod to cut through the shit and give everyone an honest unbiased answer. Thanks as always (:
Valid critique of a bad documentary. As a long-term vegan, these kinds of documentaries and arguments are infuriating because they are on one hand easily disproven, reinforcing the opinions of people who want to keep eating meat and on the other hand create misinformed vegans that will have unsustainable diets, reinforcing the opinions of people who want to keep eating meat.
However, I think you're falling short when you neglect to mention that the scientific consensus is that a well planned vegan diet is healthy and sustainable.
Also, your argument about how that guy protecting rhinos is ridiculous because he went vegan is pretty bogus. I doubt that he was a necessary predator for that ecosystem to function. Nor are almost any humans these days, including you. You actually present an argument against it yourself, showing how early humans hunted almost all megafauna to extinction.
And if you want to save the environment by making milk and meat production more efficient, this will come at the price of any ethics left in those industries. The industrialization of animal agriculture is one of the cruelest inventions of modernity and I think it's callous to advocate for it based on better sports performance.
How sure are you such docs so bad for veganizm? I got approached by several people to share experience of being vegan after they watched this movie. I think it is very difficult to get the message across. Too simple, not true enough. Too true, not catchy enough...
@@greengraycolor Admittedly, I have no hard proof of this being a net negative for veganism. But I think the fact-based criticism in this video shows how easy it is to make this documentary look bad and reinforce stereotypes about deluded vegans with an agenda. And some of the clips of ex-vegans shown here are a good example. Too often, vegan UA-camrs promote false promises and incomplete diets and then return to meat after a couple of years in bad health. In my mind, that is worse for veganism than these people never going vegan in the first place. A healthy vegan diet still requires good information and some effort in this day and age and pretending it doesn't isn't helping anyone.
The best thing you can do is being a healthy, well informed vegan, helping people out with good information when they try to go vegan.
@@greengraycolor Plus, I think that it's wrong to promote a cause with lies or half truths, even if it's a good cause.
@@nutzerbezeichnung I have only seen reviews of this documentary but so far I haven't heart a valid claim it lies. Half truths, well, as a scientist I would never hope for more. Every study, every literature stream is never a complete picture.
I cringe here because Dave makes wild claims, imprecise arguments sprinkled with a lot of terms which make people think he is an expert.
I think it's easy to make any claim look ridicules if the topic is not trivial relative to the level of knowledge of the audience.
@@greengraycolor Lies of omission and blatant misrepresentation of cited studies. I think that's enough to discredit this documentary.
Don't often comment on videos, love this video, well said!
I began eating red meat again after 16 years recently. 5 of those years were Vegetarian, 5 were Pescatarian (with no dairy) and 6 of them were Vegan. My health and vitality was failing. I was keeping up to date with the latest (biased plant-based) science. I was tracking my nutrients. I was taking all the right supplements. I was getting good sleep. Still my health declined. I took a long hard look at human biological needs, bioavailablity of nutrients in food, anti-nutrients in plants and the role of consuming animal proteins and fats in regards to human evolution. Eventually all of my research and the barrages of tests through my doctor lead me back to eating meat. And I have to say that the difference is night and day. I'm getting leaner and stronger. I have more mental clarity and focus than I have had in years. I dont think my digestion has ever been this good. My general mood has been massively uplifted. I'm eating far less food volume yet i'm getting more nutritional value with just 2 meals a day and i'm creating less waste in regards to food packaging and the like. My diet is verging on keto now and is high in animal products (meat, fish, eggs). I'm very low carb, almost zero sugar and high fat / high protein. I'm not quite in ketosis but I could get there by eliminating a further 20g of daily carbs from my diet. My Veganism was based in ethics. And for a time I was happy to deal with any health consequences as a result of my decision to stop eating animal products. That was until my health really began to decline. Ultimately my takeaway has been that human ethics and human biological needs are not entirely complimentary and that human dietary requirements are not so black and white. I think some people can do really well on a plant-based diet, but most will suffer negatively from it if it's done long-term. There are many essential nutrients we require that are just not found at all or in bio-available amounts, in plants alone.
Here is another couple of rebuttals of this documentary -
www.biolayne.com/articles/research/the-game-changers-review-a-scientific-analysis/
tacticmethod.com/the-game-changers-scientific-review-and-references/?fbclid=IwAR3POOLdLm6GmPEifnG70S24eTjZmr3udBBsvVkaUxAOtNi96y0Kz2F5nZ8
ua-cam.com/video/pJvCuXEjQeA/v-deo.html
Love your channel and content, and really enjoyed this video, the environmental points at the end were misleading though. From my own masters almost all food emissions reduction pathways rely upon a significant reduction of meat consumed globally. It is fair to say this doesn't need to be an eradication, and there are reasons why a well managed sustainable animal product agriculture might bring some benefits, but it's not strictly necessary.
More importantly the methane point at @42:00 has a few flaws. 1. The methane is synthesised within cattle, it is far more potent than CO2 and is not sequestered in the same way as the carbon cycle. 2. The point that methane degrades after a short time (9 years-ish) so therefore a stable herd size = zero emissions is incorrect accounting, ignoring the fact that atmospheric methane concentration has nearly quadrupled in the last 250 years, and that to maintain a heard as opposed to downsizing it, carries an opportunity cost that maintains an artificially high concentration that will cause more warming.
Also herd sizes are being kept small in the western world partially as they are supplemented by imports from herd expansion in the developing world, who are seeing significant social and environmental impacts from the rise of industrial cattle farming.
On a similar point, a large amount of land use of cattle farming is due to either cattle feed been grown in significant volume, or forest clearance to graze cattle. Add to that the opportunity cost of not restoring wetlands/forestland/peatlands because it is needed for grass fed cattle - there are significant enviro-impacts.
Finally a large-proportion of the land inappropriate for crop agriculture that is used for grazing is used by pastoralists, a form of agriculture under direct threat from industrial farming and inconsistent with the 'efficiencies' needed to maintain the current trajectory of global meat consumption.
Again great video, it's given me a lot to think about from a nutritional perspective, but probably worth been careful on the environmental arguments if it's not a direct area of study.
Thanks for the comment. Sure, there are plenty of modelling studies that conclude less animal food will reduce emissions. But I wonder if you can show me one that measures food correctly (in nutrients rather than kcals or kgs) and addresses the land use consequences of mono crop agriculture (soil death). I'm not quite sure what you mean by methane not being sequestered in the same way as the carbon cycle. The point was that fossil carbon is not part of the biogenic carbon cycle and methane from ruminants (who acquire those carbon atoms from the atmosphere, via grass) is.To your point 2: The sources of increased methane concentrations are addressed in the video in reference 25. Did you read this paper? Other work from Myles Allen at the IPCC, Michelle Cain and others has shown that the stable herd sizes over long periods do not add to warming (correcting earlier incorrect accounting of GWP100). Speaking of opportunity cost, Allen himself has pointed out that there is a rather more worrying opportunity cost of becoming distracted from the big fish (fossil carbon) by focusing on reducing herd sizes which offer only a one off pulse of cooling for a couple of decades. This of course is not to mention the opportunity cost of a human nutrition disaster, or the carbon emissions of healthcare costs as a result of dealing with it.
No, herd sizes in the west are smaller largely because of improved veterinary care (genetics, care standards, nutrition) which increase yield of meat and milk per animal raised. I'm totally with you on forest clearance for cattle grazing. However, note that cattle grazing is also used to protect forests from degradation and outright destruction from fire. Its about the management. Also note that nearly 90% of cattle feed is human inedible, much of it waste products from human food production. Should we send brewers hops, corn stalks and pea husks to landfill instead? Broadly though, I'm with you that cattle should eat mostly grass. I think your final point about the efficiencies of industrial farming as it is currently practised being needed is debatable. However, I would certainly agree pastoralism is under threat and that is a very big problem.
@@climbermacleod Thanks for such a thought out reply. I'm pulling together a proper response so will post tomorrow when less busy.
To risk been a kiss arse, your a legend mate, properly inspired me to move from (Leeds) gym climbing to chasing trad and mountaineering so thank you.
Great video. Very interesting information. Thanks a lot Dave!
This is gold. Thank you, Dave!
Is it though?
Really enjoyed this video. Thanks Dave.
The problem with most of the studies around meat vs veggie/vegan is the sample sizes and the longevity of studies is so small it’s makes the studies almost redundant and that type of evidence would need such a huge study. Neither argument can paint a real picture! Thus leads to people’s opinions of ‘feeling better’ from one diet versus another is taken as hard evidence. This diet worked for X this diet worked for Y doesn't mean it will be working for everyone. I struggle with sweeping statement films!
I feel blessed to live in a society that provides such a large variety of food that I don't have to pay for animals to be slaughtered for my benefit. I never looked for excuses to continue paying for the ongoing slaughter of those animals, but instead looked for excuses to stop. 10 years vegan and I wish I had done it sooner.
really appreciate getting your opinion and incite onto this topic. Found the video really useful for me to make decisions on how to drop my western diet, without the need to go completely plant based. Thank you for the all the amazing videos you make and show us viewers.
Been fell running and trail running for 25 years. Went fully Plant Based 2 years ago and never felt better. Route times have improved, recovery faster and my hip joint inflammation has vanished.
Climbing wise, I’m just as strong and my body composition is leaner and feel generally better all round.
For information: my diet is around 95% wholefood organic. Pretty much no processed food at all.
Works for me anyway.
Felt exactly the same in terms of my performance and energy levels, I originally did it for the animals but the added health benefits have been amazing. Its a shame to see Dave take this stance I'd like to say your diet was a personal choice and whatever you want to do is ok. Unfortunately the meat heavy diet condemns billions of animals to abhorrent conditions and brutal deaths every year.
if you carefully listen to Dave, what he says here in no way contradicts your experiences...
I was strict vegetarian for 15 years. My health deteriorated. I found health and good athletic performance again in my 60s though a ketogenic diet. I am a keen cyclist and cycling coach. Now retired, I was a senior paediatric intensive care nurse throughout my professional career and taught anatomy and physiology to pre and post grad student nurses. There is nothing about our GI tract, our metabolism or our physiology that suggests we are plant based eaters. Zero.
@Abel Abel Yes you certainly can but our anatomy and physiology is not that of a herbivore as David makes very clear above. I do include high fat low carb nuts and seeds in my foods but the best high quality nutrition comes from an inclusion of animal food products in a diet for humans. Ethically I wish we were herbivores which was my motivation for holding out for a significant part of my life. The truth is that we are not and I now eat to maximise my health. That requires food from animals.
It's fine if you disagree with me Abel, you must do what you think is right.
@Abel Abel Fortunately truth has never been governed by consensus. It is established through scientific evidence, not dogma. Archaeology shows the exact opposite of what you state here as fact. The rapid development of the human brain happened as a result of hunting being mankind's primary food source. Evidence of that is irrefutable from early settlement remains cave paintings etc. How many cave paintings are there of early man collecting bananas?
At the advent of agriculture humans became smaller and their jaws narrower. Again, anyone who has studied would know this.
Native Americans upon their discovery were found to be one of the healthiest, tallest and most immune resistant races and as is very well documented, their food sources were based on hunting - especially bison and every single part of those animals were used. Scientific evidence here:
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010529071125.htm
Clearly you only looked at the title of the video above and did not watch it. It gives clear anatomical and physiological evidence of the opposite of your unsupported statement. Evidence is what shows the truth. NOT consensus.
Dave, this is incredibly well thought-out and presented. You have an impressive intellect. Thanks for sharing.
Really glad you decided to go through this scientifically. Its nice to see a clear view on diet science.
You're my role model Dave! I'm having my ninth cuppa black /w milk this morning and feel something is changing! ;)
It's quite funny how defensive the Vegan's get. Great video Dave! Thanks!!
Eat what you want folks - whatever makes you feel better both physically and mentally, just be honest with yourself.
@Abel Abel what of all the insects killed for growing single crops? or do they not count as animals?
Exactly! Everyone has different health issues which require a different approach to diet
Thanks! Looking forward to the next video
Great video. I would be very interested in a book by you on nutrition for climbing . I hope it's in the works, I'm a big fan of your other two books
This would be great!
I would enjoy a nutrition book for everyone, like a flowchart - according to your goals (health, energy, focus, longevity, ethical considerations, digestion, body development (muscle, sinews, bones..)..). I think some first stages of change apply to anyone, like getting away from industrial (junk) food.
The mental change is pretty big (at least for me) - according recipes (book(s)) would be great to get going.
This could change things. There is only(?) much shit on the market. Studying papers can't be the only way, even for educated people.
@Pierre Gleize are you an athlete?
Paul focus on real food from the earth. Carbs are always the best energy source. Where can we find them? Plants :)
👍
The irony here Dave is that you are the real “game changer”!
Wow, me being one of the "vegan believers" for 2 years now, for many of the reasons given in this documentary, I'm shocked how thin these arguments are. Never cared to take a deeper look into the scientific literature, just because I like the idea of eating plants. Anyway, I want to thank you for this great breakdown, as it really opened my eyes to how much I was thinking in a box. However, not going to change much of my diet, because I feel good and I love the food I eat.
Tibor Frei hey man! I think you might be interested in watching the “debunks of the Game Changer debunks” - check out Mic The Vegan or Dr Garth Davis. It’s important that there is a critique of the people “debunking” this documentary as they mistakenly overlook many hugely important concepts or fall to fallacies. 🙏🏼👍🏼
@@Scott-ec5uy Will check it out, thanks mate.
Hey Dave!
Thanks for the interesting thoughts and your time that went into the video.
No one is perfect so I won't go into little things like humans having the biggest brains and so on (it's only in relation to bodysize).
A point I do want to make is about the environmental effects of meat consumption. I wouldn't dare try to make the point that all livestock is bad, we also oftentimes use them in conservational efforts as well. But the way things are going at the moment with the meat industry we are mostly pushing deforestation. People that do consume meat usually rather look for a good price than for local and ethically sourced products. So your point about unsuitable land for crop production works in schotland, but not so much in the Midwest of the US or in brazil where vast amounts of the crops go into the production livestock. The big herds in Australia/Brazil or the USA don't really eat grass at all, it's mostly soy and corn.
If these areas where used to produce diverse sets of crops while also rearing small animals like chicken, which could also help with soil regeneration, we would be far better off with space to spare for conservation. A mostly plant based diet for most of the population would be enough to help with this issue. Because it still takes lots of energy to raise large livestock, or any animal. Thermodynamics and so on. I just think it's important to point out that meat production does take up quite a lot of space and resources and we should consume accordingly.
I think that you have fallen foul of the latest round of vegan propaganda, which seems to be very selective on when (and where) deforestation began. Indonesia has been largely deforested (eg Sumatra is 95% deforestated, mainly for palm oil plantation) but this has been erased (conveniently) to push focus on amazon cattle ranches. Truth is, these amazon cattle 'ranches' are industrial factory farm feedlots, which is clearly wrong. But the primary reason for deforestation is logging. Then comes the 'golden' (fertile) period for arable production, then a lot of it is turned over to cattle feedlots (tertiary).
Also, the work of the Savory institute proves that the absence of large bovine herds is driving desertification and Allan Savory has proven that reintroduction and constant moving of herds (mimicking pressure from predators) regenerates desertified areas (which amount to ⅔ of earth's landmass) therefore making the whole argument that cattle take up too much land, rather null and void.
That was directed at @Hutchslover.
@@bbwoolfy Concerning the deforestation argument, sure, the logging itself is the main driver in areas with little to no Forest management and suficient biomass per tree. But that is hardly the reason to completely clear areas with arid shrubland with fire for example, that's why I didn't even name the amazon. I'm not really concerned with any agenda, I'm speaking from the point of a biologist. I think it's well established by now, that unregulated deforestation for any cause is bad, especially in areas with a biodiversity as high as Sumatras or even more so Borneo. I don't see where this issue has been erased. Neither in peoples minds nor the media does that appear to be the case.
Concerning the regeneration of desertified areas, the method of choice is hardly universal. And in ecosystems that naturally do not have any large herds of bovines, this approach would lead to little more than create more ecological problems (e.g. australia). Plantations aswell as reintroduction of native flora and fauna would rather come to mind.
@@Hutchslover Slash and burn has been a favoured form of clearing deforested land (from logging) for arable farming for a very long time now. Accelerated with the rise of globalisation. Taking a more sinister turn under Bolsinaro who wants to eradicate all indigenous people in Brazil.
You did mention Brazil and I was involved in a recent discussion with vegans pushing the same arguments re pastured beef taking up too much land. One even promoting factory farming over pastured livestock. Incredible!
But they were flooding me with all this carefully prepared, highly selective propaganda which erased global deforestation, particularly Indonesia (which is now dubbed 'sustainable' palm oil by virtue of some jedi mind tricks).
Also Dave mentioned Amazon deforestation for beef in the video. So that's why I brought it up.
In the work of the savory institute, restoring degraded/desertified land, I don't see any issue in regards to Australia, given that they have large bovine herds there already. The crux of the issue is in how the herds are managed. The problem being that with current (lack of) thinking animals are allowed to graze in areas for too long and thus impacting the plants and soil beyond repair.
I see it as quite a natural low impact solution to restoring barren land and increasing biodiversity.
Would you say the same re changing the hydrology of land to increase biodiversity?
What harmful impact do you envisage from turning degraded/desertified land into rich fertile biodiverse land using Savory's methods?
bbwoolfy wwf un ipcc do not agree with you on this. At least 80 % deforestation is for feed for farm animals.
Hi, Dave! You know so much about nutrition! Do you have a video about how to prepare food? I am not sure, but some people say that the way we prepare food has an impact on the nutritions in it. If there is no video about this theme on your channel yet, can you recommend something to read or to watch?
Great video and great nutritional information regarding sports performance. Thanks for making this video as it has opened my eyes to sports performance nutrition.
Thanks for all this information Dave!
Wow Dave. Very eye opening for me, as this documentary almost had me convinced to go "plant based". It's good to follow someone so knowledgeable about the science with a balanced view to sort things out. Your content is truly invaluable. Thanks a ton for your hard work in putting these videos out.
Hi Dave. Thanks for the video and perspective on the movie. I’d be interested to see you do one on the other Netflix movie ‘What the Health’ - when you have another free Saturday eve..!!! Cheers
It's total junk. Take your nutrition advice from good science, not Hollywood.
10/10 with honours. I am an atheist, which means I don't believe in miracles. Any documentary purporting to show us the Light gets my spider sense tingling. I did watch the trailer of this documentary though, and the 'smooth' transition from saying 'gladiators ate a principally meat-free diet' to a few seconds later asserting that 'gladiators were totally meat-free' did it for me. Shabby, which your fantastic dissection confirms aplenty. Thanks for that. Should be recommended viewing for any fan of the Game changers and its ilk.
Thanks for sharing this. I feel a lot of comments made attacks about the ethics of meat. I didn't notice that this video was talking about ethics, it was a science based approach review of a video on Netflix. Well done!
Dave, I respect your work so much. You zero bs approach and matter of fact style takes into account bad science and gives a really well balanced view. You have a talent and a very level head.
I love that your proof of the pudding is so clear, you've climbed hard shit in every category!
So I've got a question I'd really be incredibly grateful if you would answer and I'm sorry that some of this information is probably in your videos somewhere.
I've recently gone on a low carb diet. In some ways, I feel amazing. It seems to have had a profoundly positive affect on my depression and anxiety and am so glad I'm doing it. And I've lost so much weight. However, I have the keto flu soooo bad! After 2.5 weeks still! Did you experience this and is it worth pushing through for?
Thanks. Yes I experienced keto flu and once it had passed I felt good. It is really worth experimenting with your electrolytes to see if adding more calcium, magnesium, potassium and/or sodium helps with symptoms. Mine disappeared instantly after adding extra salt and magnesium.
Thanks for posting. Great breakdown of the misleading information that was in The Game Changers.
Thanks for that Dave. Nice to hear somebody else clued in and educated on this. I've studied Food and Nutrition and i'd have the same view as yourself, soo many good points! Thanks again and well done. Hope you have a good Winter season!
Great video Dave. At roughly 28:00; however, you said humans have the largest brain in the amimal kingdom. This is incorrect, we have the largest brain to body ratio (encephalization). Many whale and dolphins species, as well as some remaining terrestrial mega fauna, have brains exceeding the weight and size of human's. Just as an FYI :). Keep up the awesome videos!
When you showed the video of "raw alignment" who turned away from a vegan diet I think it is important to mention that she had a eating disorder before she went vegan and that that lingered on through her later diets (from what I have notice. She was raw vegan for a time and by watching the videos of her, to me it seemed like she just didn't eat enough. She'd have two smoothies and a salad a day, and that absolutely will lead to some deficiencies... So maybe it wasn't because of her being vegan, but of her not eating enough ...
I really enjoyed watching your critical take on this documentary.
"They didn't do it right" is the default defensive position of vegans as concerns ex-vegans. Alyse is one out of *thousands* who are forced to abandon veganism every month, much less every year. Almost all of the people who give video testimony as ex-vegans are intelligent, credible, and made every effort to carry through on what they believed was the "ideal diet". If a diet is truly natural and healthy, why is it so damned hard for even dedicated, educated people to "get it right"?
Alyse and the others didn't fail the diet. The diet failed them, as it did for me many decades ago. Films like "Game Changers" are part of a concerted, profit-driven and cynical move to completely convert the food supply to one that is controlled at the corporate, global level. The only sustainable pushback is to support local, pasture-fed, animal-based farming and distribution. F*ck Monsanto, Cargill, and cynical manipulators like James Cameron and Arnold (neither of whom is vegan btw).
I believe this comment commits the straw-man fallacy.
@@terraflow__bryanburdo4547 "Films like "Game Changers" are part of a concerted, profit-driven and cynical move to completely convert the food supply to one that is controlled at the corporate, global level."
lol dude
not sure the discussion can go further than this
Just noting here the absurdity of implying veganism is being pushed by some nefarious corporate lobby given the depth and power of the animal agriculture lobby around the world. Truly, these people live in a fantasy land
Thanks for the video. Very interesting as always.
Thanks for providing references.
Honestly, I think excluding or including single food product is not going to make or break your diet. You can remove fruits, berries, nuts, seeds, beans, lentils as well as meat from your diet and be just fine. Those are only secondary after more general principles.
Hi Dave,
I understand your disappointment with many of the modern documentaries on nutrition. I believe this this film is made by and made for the western citizen and in order to be attractive, we must add a bit of shock value or exaggeration. I feel this is a response to the so-called "bro science" that I have personally heard for 20 years, when people ask me " but where do you get your protein bro?!" Decades ago, we would laugh at the thought of a vegan professional athlete, but today we have scientific data which shows how it is possible. We are slowly re-writing sports nutrition. Low quality to high quality*
I've been a follower of you for over a decade and always enjoy your more lengthy and intellectual responses about the biological response to certain foods but felt you couldn't help but throw a little dirt on various characters of the film. In any debate, we know this doesn't actually support your argument. I noticed a number of emotional responses; scoffs about private jets or how the film withheld hypocritical information such as athletes getting injured. Your delivery implied their injuries were caused by a vegan diet and not the fact that anybody attempting to lift 180kg with one arm, MIGHT run risk of injuring themselves; no matter what they eat. These people make a living off of pushing their bodies to 100%.The simple principle of injury does not mean a lack of nutrition.
To conclude your video with a number of youtube clips of people explaining why they stopped being vegan does nothing. I felt this was an unnecessary addition which did not help your case. As a viewer, I ask " who the hell is Bonny Rebecca, Alyse Parker, Yovana Mendoza? internet celebrities? does their popularity increase validity or relevance? they make a living off of youtube/instagram influencing? " DAVE, DAVE, DAVE, COME ON! This kid in his parents grungy basement?! Is that a future wideboyz pain cave? Vegetables caused him to injure himself? Wait, Omnivorous athletes don't get injured? Correct me if I am wrong, but I feel that is also distorting a message to support ones agenda.
All in all; I enjoyed the response. I've looked into a number of references you listed to help increase my personal knowledge and look forward to hearing more from you on this issue, but if I can just say one thing ; Leave out the empty material and emotional responses. You're a brilliant dude with a ton of knowledge to share with this community.
Cheers.
Dave, have you decided not to make or upload the detailed video about why you aren't vegan that you planned at that time? I am very curious to the information.
No I will do this, but just have my hands full with another project at present. It takes a lot of work to produce this sort of video, so I can't say exactly when I would publish it, but I definitely will because it is important.
Hey Dave, great video as always.
As someone in that generation (20s - 40s) it would be high in my ambitions to be more vegan / vegetarian and while this wouldn't put me off it does give me more reason to read up on it.
With that in mind, (and I know you will be making the many promised videos on diet!) is there any books you would recommend to get a better grasp on diet not just from a general health, but additionally for performance?
My question is:
Why don’t food labels for protein include both bioavailability rating and amino acid breakdown?
I’ve seen so many “sport/fitness nutrition” products that don’t even mention the amino acid breakdown (both animal & plant sources).
(while they’re at it, the fibre and non-sugar carb breakdowns would be useful too)
That is an easy one! Because packaged foods are optimised for profit, not for your benefit. Packaging is specifically designed to obscure or mislead if it suits the manufacturer to do so.
Dave as a young bioinformatics student I think I can follow a lot of your arguments and I agree with most of them. One of the reasons I still refuse to eat meat (except fish) is because of the environment. What would you propose one could do to have an omnivorous diet but avoiding supporting the increasing carbon emissions?
Eat from a local butcher not a supermarket- simple, no? Locally sourced meat which isnt ranched or imported for supermarkets is obviously better
You should research on industrial fishing and fish farming as its for sure worst on the enviroment than meat production. Most fish relies on wild stocks and current industrial pratices are completely unsustainable its impact on stocks and environment is being ignored
@Thomas Bake properly raised ruminants build soil and increase soil carbon. It's an issue of choosing your meat carefully. Know your farm, how they raise their meat and don't fly your food around the world in a plane. Eat what grows where you live.
@@climbermacleod Thankd a lot for your answer. I'll try to take everything into account.
This video bashes the documentary which is fair enough since it is sensationalising the plant-based diet, yet you respond with almost equal bias. Skiving over the fact that many meats are carcinogenic, contain antibiotics, huge amounts of inflammatory compounds and raise blood serum cholesterol, to name a few. Not to mention the enormous amounts of land, water and fossil fuels consumed in the animal-agriculture industry. Also, you mention that predators are here for a reason yet it's interesting that where livestock roam, apex predators are culled to prevent them from eating said livestock...and zooming out on a global scale, the amount of ecosystems collapsing due to climate change (largely in part driven by animal ag) is shocking.
Can you point to some research on this?
Fantastic video. The information was well delivered in a way which was easy to understand.
Great analysis! What are the diets for Adam Ondra and Alex Honnold. When I watch their videos it appears that they are mostly vegetarian.
Mostly vegetarian is not the same as vegetarian. This is Adam Ondras' diet:
"Diet is important. I don’t feel like my diet is very special, but I suppose some people would think that it is. The most important thing is how I eat during the time when I’m training hard. Right now I’m climbing outdoors, and in comparison I don’t climb as much. So diet is still important, but less so. I try to eat as much natural food as possible. For breakfast I have porridge or a smoothie. Throughout the day I eat only fruit, nuts, and seeds, as well as some vegetables and good spices like turmeric, curry, and cumin mixed with rice, buckwheat, or millet. In the evening I have some protein. It can be meat, eggs, lentils, or legumes. I don’t eat that much meat. I find that if I eat too much meat I’m not as strong. But at the same time if I go two weeks without any meat-I also feel weak. So I eat meat once or twice a week."
www.climbing.com/people/adam-ondra-the-future-of-climbing/
Hey Dave, thanks for the video. I am vegan for ethical reasons but am very healthy eating conscious. I was wondering if you had any good book/source recommendations for nutrition information. I would like to see the opposite point of view. Appreciate the research put in. As long as I can live a healthy live without killing I will, but I'd still like to know what the non plant based nutritionists have to say
100 years ago, Polar explorer Roald Amundson learned from the Inuit that seal blubber could succesfully prevent scurvy. He insisted his crew consume it becuase it was superior to the preferred method of the time, storing lime juice that eventually went bad.
Thank you Dave !!
The real question is, looking into the future, could we sustain a non plant-based world in terms of climate change and water/land availability. Also, do you value marginal nutritional gains over life?
Yes - low meat, insects, a balanced approach to agriculture wih mixed livestock and crops. Lots of important ways to keep the planet alive. Not sure a vegan diet will save the planet. Campaigning for animal welfare will certainly do more than not eating meat.In the long term, synthetic forms of food will be the way forward
I would be interesting to talk with Honnold, who is currently on a rage about veganism. Maybe call him up Dave?
Are you referring to Honnold's mini-rant about overeager vegans? I think you missed the point or forgot the '/s' ;)
instagram.com/p/B_fVa5qFDBw/
"alexhonnold:
Rant of the day: diet. For some reason there are tons of folks who get mortally offended every time I post about how vegetarianism or veganism are better for the planet. And yet it’s a fact that eating less meat and dairy is the simplest way for the average individual to lower their impact. There are countless reputable sources on this subject, though it’s maybe easier to just watch a few films like @gamechangersmovie or @cowspiracy (both of which I had slight issues with, but the overall arguments are sound). The most vocal critics of my diet posts fall into a few categories:
1) People who don’t want to think about it one way or another, they just want to eat how they’ve always eaten. In some ways this category annoys me the most - it’s intellectual laziness. I grew up eating steak and drinking milk; my family was as middle class American as it gets. And then I read a ton of books and started worrying more about performance and my carbon footprint. So I stopped eating meat (or at least seriously limited it). We have to change as we learn new things.
2) Folks who argue that meat can be sustainably raised (or they hunt their own food). I agree that in some cases this can be “sustainable”, but there’s no version of sustainable meat that feeds 7.8 billion people. We have to start by just eating less meat.
3) People (almost always overly macho young men) who think that I must be seriously light duty to eat mostly plants. I don’t even know what to say to them, but I’ll just leave then with this @jimmychin pic of me soloing the Excellent Adventure, 5.13a (7c+). I think the plants did me well that day, as they have for the last 7 years or so.
For anyone interested, read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. It had a big impact on me.
Oh, and my last mini rant is reserved for vegans who are all up on their high horse and poo poo other folks’ good efforts - it’s better for someone to eat meat once a week than to eat it every day. It shouldn’t be a test of ideological purity. Diet is a spectrum and it’s better to do less harm than more."
Dave, any comment on the Adam Ondra diet as the dominant athlete in our sport? While I don't know the specifics, he seems to eat extremely healthy whole foods and mostly plant based, with an emphasis on spices to improve digestion. As the evidence suggests, he is a pretty good rock climber ;) Also Jonathan Siegrist and Alex Honnold are long-time (mostly) vegetarians with good results.
I don't know what Adam Ondra or the others eat either. The details matter! So no I can't comment and wouldn't even if I did know. What they eat is up to them. One thing I would say though, is to be pretty wary of attributing cause and effect to any one thing with respect to training/diet etc and a single athlete. There is variation in tolerance for 'good' and 'bad' diets in any population and if you take a cohort of athletes eating a sub optimal diet, you'll still get a few great athletes who are self selected as the ones who can tolerate the sub optimal diet or training.
We do actually know the specifics:
"Diet is important. I don’t feel like my diet is very special, but I suppose some people would think that it is. The most important thing is how I eat during the time when I’m training hard. Right now I’m climbing outdoors, and in comparison I don’t climb as much. So diet is still important, but less so. I try to eat as much natural food as possible. For breakfast I have porridge or a smoothie. Throughout the day I eat only fruit, nuts, and seeds, as well as some vegetables and good spices like turmeric, curry, and cumin mixed with rice, buckwheat, or millet. In the evening I have some protein. It can be meat, eggs, lentils, or legumes. I don’t eat that much meat. I find that if I eat too much meat I’m not as strong. But at the same time if I go two weeks without any meat-I also feel weak. So I eat meat once or twice a week."
www.climbing.com/people/adam-ondra-the-future-of-climbing/
Thanks for doing this review. I've been pretty disappointed with health-focused vegan/plant-based documentaries so far. Nutrition is by its nature an imprecise science, and documentaries in general are not the best way to communicate health science. It's complicated, but a documentary has to be short and punchy with a powerful message. I'm not defending it, but I understand why they did it the way they did and used a sample size of 3 for some of their tests during the documentary.
I've been vegan for 6 years, and my perspective is that it has nothing to do with health for me. I know this wasn't the point of your video, but I think it's worth me mentioning. If including some non-human animal products meant I'd be a bit more healthy, or a bit better at climbing, I still wouldn't include them in my diet for the same reason I wouldn't include human animal products in my diet if it made me a bit healthier/stronger. For me, it's just about the ethics.
I will say that I think you're partially wrong about B12. B12 in animal products comes in no small part from supplements injected into animals prior to slaughter to supplement B12 in humans, since it's hard to get enough from natural sources. Eating more meat will help with B12, sure, but so will getting B12 from any other supplement.
Excellent breakdown. One of the best debunks of that movie I've seen.
Good dissection of the point Dave, we have a current trend in society towards veganism and the documentary fuels that trend. Personally I think the environmental detriment of mass livestock farming is the best reason to eat less processed meat but it doesn't mean its not healthy. A well researched and diet is always better, avoid trends!
"all amino acids must be eaten at the same time for optimal performance.." - Source please.
Also you can easily make a vegan meal that has all essential amino acids...
I accidently stumbled upon your video, but halfway through I get the impression that there is lots of misinformation here.
There is many powerful and strong vegan athletes in all kinds of sports, even more than are shown in the movie. A vegan girl lately did a new world record in the plank btw....
I dont get your points at all, considering we are living on a planet that is dying and animal agriculture being one of the biggest contributors to that. Also the enormous animal cruelty that goes in non vegan products is frightening and sick. I have no idea how anyone can still support eating animals when we can live happy and healthy on plants.
"A vegan girl lately did a new world record in the plank btw" surely it wouldn't be fair to list all of the records meat eaters happen to have broken recently? Dave spoke specifically about the benefits of vegan diets in training for endurance feats.
"all amino acids must be eaten at the same time for optimal performance.."
You realize that the amino acid profile of single source plant protein is incomplete, and this limits the synthesis of certain proteins, right? When your body has excess amino acids floating around that it can't use because it is missing other amino acids, it doesn't store them, it burns (metabolizes) them. This means that you would need to consume multiple different plant protein sources in the same sitting in order to get a balanced amino acid profile. This problem doesn't exist if you are eating animal protein. This also ignores the issue of lowered bio-availability of plant protein.
@@norcofreerider604 Do you need to consume a complete amino acid profile with every meal or would it be sufficient to consume enough of each protein over a day or so (e.g. as might be the case in intermittent fasting)? This is almost a moot point as the vast majority of plant-based meals consist of multiple types of plants anyway.
I'm glad to hear that you're informed on this topic Dave! Great video for sure, thank you for taking the time to debunk a lot of that stuff.
I'm eating a carnivore diet currently, only meat and salt (no dairy or eggs). It's completely stopped the inflammation I've had from an autoimmune disease. I would still like to eat plant products, since there are quite a few I like, but I have to rely on blood work for tracking inflammation and I haven't had a chance to find what my dietary triggers are yet. I wouldn't have ever switched to this diet or even considered eating it long term if I didn't learn about the nutrient density that meat has. It has everything we need, in much larger quantities than many plants, and in a more bioavailable form.
There's a growing number of people adopting this diet, many of them are curing systemic diseases, have more energy (although any very low carb, high fat diet will do that for most people), and feel better than they have in years. Look up CarnivoryCon for some science, Shawn Baker, and Mikhaila Peterson, and consider that there are amazing things that meat does for some people. I definitely don't think it's the best diet for everybody, but for certain people it definitely is, and I will definitely continue eating meat. I recently went back to a high-carb diet, went climbing, and I was INCREDIBLY sore for the next few days while my muscles healed. I've since stopped, and I haven't felt sore like that again.
I can either stop my autoimmune disease from getting worse, or go back to my old diet and taking several medications to mediate it. For the sake of my life, I can't even think about going vegan, regardless of the ethics. Speaking of which, it seems like there is much worse loss of life when it comes to large scale agriculture. When the homes of burrowing animals are destroyed, pests killed, etc., it seems to me that it's hardly even an argument in favor of veganism. If it works for you, great, do what you want to do, but reconsider arguing about things like a meat tax (c'mon Germany...) or other ridiculous things like that. Some of us need meat.
I have a feeling you have already read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, but if not I think you would like it (along with his other books). The two fundamental lessons I took from it were, rather simply, the importance of eating a varied, "natural" diet, and the influence of the agricultural industry in pushing society towards what I think is fairly characterized as an unhealthy but profitable diet.
I would be curious to hear your take on it, as it's pop-science and has received a bit of pushback. Your perspective as someone who follows the underlying research would be quite valuable.
As always, thanks for your channel. We all greatly appreciate it (and not just as climbers).
Yes I have read most of Pollan's books. I think the majority of it makes sense, but crucially, only in the context of a western style mixed diet where meat is considered unhealthy. Without that part, the case for variety is rather more shaky. A great number of studies have now amassed testing the idea of meat being unhealthy from various angles (SFAs, protein, heme iron, TMAO etc etc) and none of it has supported the idea. For this reason, Pollan's famous catchphrase has been reworked to "eat meat, not too little, mostly fat". One can build a rather stronger case from the evidence for this version than Pollan's original version! But other than this, Pollan is right about synthetic food and the negative influence of profit driven big business in the food supply.
dave do you think the protein quality of something like eggs is as good as something like chicken or red meat? in terms of how the body uses it to rebuild after a training session.
My biggest concern from watching this was how long it took you to drink your cup of tea. That must have been cold.
4 cups. The my tea breaks didn't make the cut.
@@climbermacleod 4 cups. Respect
How did 47 minutes go by so fast? Great video!
I disagree with your argument that eating plant based make you loose weight. I gain 4 kg of muscle when changing to vegan diet (because I watch carefully the amount of proteins that I eat but nonetheless). I can only speak for myself, but I feel I recover better with vegan diet, and i went from 3 / 4 training sessions a week to 4 / 5 training sessions a week, which help getting stronger than when I was on a meat diet ( I didn't eat junk foods except occasional chips and I still do). As for the digestive system, you didn't mention the PH of human digestive system which is the same as herbivores , and also carnivores don't have cholesterol.
Martin Renaudin - I’m able to put on muscle much easier on a plant based diet too. I used to be one of the guys who ate masses of meat thinking I needed it after training sessions. In fact , when I used to concentrate on protein sourced from animals, the muscle mass a density used to decline quickly. Plant based, my muscle mass and weight stays constant. 👍🏼
Hi Martin -- I recently switched to a plant based as well but Ive found the opposite effect. May I ask what specifically you have been doing with your diet to achieve this? I probably havent been as rigorous with supplementing and I would love to know what I can do better. Cheers, Leo.
@@ItzSkillful to sum up, cereals and leguminous plants, vegetables, oliv oil, all kind of seeds, and things like seitan, plant based steak that I cook with indredient like cgm, brewer's yeast, soya
Indeed, broad generalizations are usually dubious
I went from a primarily plant-food high-carb diet (10% or less animal protein) (for most of my early life) to a high fat much higher animal-protein diet (30%+) and it basically changed my life -- I used to have ridiculous blood sugar fluctuations -- would crash my blood sugar, eat a pile of junky carbs, and then get stuck in a food coma for an hour. Adding a lot more fat and animal protein to my diet (especially in the form of a huge breakfast) made it possible for me to get into climbing!
Dave, are there any information sources about healthy (performance & general health) diets (and the differences between them, e.g., when one is beneficial over the other) that you would highly recommend?
Admittedly this is a lazy question, I could Google, but you've obviously done a bunch of research yourself already so it would be great to get some pointers in the right directions.
Also, any thoughts on fermented vegetable proteins (miso, tempeh, etc.) for increasing bio availability of nutrients?
To your first question, that is a bit like saying 'what is a good training program'. It depends on what you are optimising for and various individual factors. To figure out the answers I would recommend reading the primary scientific literature. But if your base foods are red meat and eggs, this is an excellent start since it provides very nutrient dense food and displaces many other foods that are problematic for various reasons (nutrient poor, toxicity, appetite dysregulation, anti nutrients etc). There are various ways to improve various plant foods with fermentation. But since we have access to higher quality (animal) foods, this is rendered somewhat irrelevant from a nutrient point of view at least.
@@climbermacleod with all due respect, my question is nothing like 'what is a good training program', what I was after was some reputable resource(s) that condensed the massive amount of nutrition information into an easier-to-digest, comparative format, comparing different diets on different criteria.
I'm not sure what your profession is, but reading the primary material is not something I have time (and probably not the training) for.
I do read papers on a weekly basis for my regular job, and even for people within that field (computer science) I notice many struggling to find/understand publications.
@@climbermacleod regarding improving nutrient density of plant foods via fermentation. I don't think access to animal foods renders it irrelevant. You said it yourself, calories are not the only thing we should be comparing between different food sources. Increasing the nutrient yield without increasing the amount of plant matter we need to grow/buy can only be a net win, and might render some pro-meat arguments irrelevant.
FYI, I am not vegan nor vegetarian, but even the IPCC suggests moving further towards plant-based diets.
@@alexaverbuch1 What I was getting at was that the whole field cannot be condensed like that without being inappropriate for different sub groups of people who are optimising for different things. So the resource you are after does not exist. I also have a busy work schedule myself, but I have learned the hard way that reading the actual scientific data is very often the shortcut to reaching the answer, unless you get really lucky and happen to listen to the right people. I wasted many years following poor advice from credentialed sources I thought must be trustworthy. You can go round in circles figuring out who should be trusted as a filter for the research, still with a high probability of error in the end. In the hard physical sciences, this may be less true. But nutrition science relies on much poorer quality data which is open to misrepresentation. Therefore, I just cannot recommend this approach, sorry.
@@alexaverbuch1 I don't understand what you mean about calories? Would you clarify? My point was that rather than exploring workarounds to improve nutrient poor food, we could instead just eat nutrient dense food. Properly raised animals are better for both nutrition and the environment. This would be my choice.
Are you able to point to a quote where the IPCC suggest plant based diets. That is news to me. To my knowledge they have not said this. Rather, it was the media who said this. For example, on Aug 8th 2019 the IPCC tweeted "IPCC does not recommend people’s diets. What we’ve pointed out on the basis of the scientific evidence is that there are certain diets that have a lower carbon footprint - Jim Skea, Co-chair of #IPCC"
Dave you're a smart guy. I'm grateful that you share your thoughts. It's incredibly difficult to find a well-considered opinion these days (be it diet, climate change, or whatever) that doesn't stem from an emotional association with an idea. I think possibly your mental training for climbing (suppressing emotional drives from rational consideration of the situation) has given you an ability to separate reason from emotion better than most people posses. Anyway, very grateful. Cheers!!!
totally agree!
Hi Dave, what is your approximate macro contribution and daily calorie intake?
It changes a lot from day to day depending on activity and goals. But averaging out the fluctuation over time possibly comes out at 30% protein, 50% fat, 20% CHO. TBC that is a guess. I don't consistently track, I just eat healthy food.
On Dave's point at 42:00, I dont agree with his assesment of the carbon cycle in the context of the earth's energy budget. Methane is around 30x more potent a GHG than CO2. So while plants have sequestered the carbon from the atmosphere that the ruminants are excreting, there is still a huge GHG contribution that would not be present to the same order of magnitude if the protein was produced from plants, other livestock or if that methane was combusted: this is not a harmless part of the 'natural' carbon cycle.
With livestock growth continuing in many countries outside the USA (his counter example), I doubt the global agricultural methane emission rate equals the elimination rate from the atmosphere, which is the steady state condition which Dave is implying exists. Additionally, the elimination rate of methane from the atmosphere is high enough that reducing methane emissions now can suspress atmospheric warming potential in the coming decades.
No doubt, fugitive methane emissions from oil and gas production is a large and largely un-characterized contributor too, but it is a separate point.
Methane is not 30X more potent. This incorrect calculation has been superseded by improved modelling of the impact of short lived climate gases. www.nature.com/articles/s41612-019-0086-4
Discussed by Allen here:
www.newsroom.co.nz/@ideasroom/2019/03/29/510792/a-climate-neutral-nz-yes-its-possible#
The correct figure is more like 7 times. Moreover, if emissions from ruminant herds are reduced by 0.3% per year (totally achievable with improved veterinary care, changes in feed etc) then the ruminant herd no longer contributes at all to warming. It is certainly true that cutting methane emissions in the short term will counteract the continuing warming from the cause of global warming (burning fossil fuels). But it is better to deal with the cause than use methane as a distraction to allow governments to keep supporting fossil fuels. This in the long term will lead to an exacerbation of warming, not any positive influence.
@@climbermacleod That is not my interpretation. The accuracy of the conventional GWP-e metric is dependent on emission scenarios. I’m glad you have a good basis for the comment, but I was simplifying a fairly complex point. It isn’t simply 7 either. Allen’s main point is that the GWP of methane is better approximated as rate dependent not linearly dependent on cumulative emissions (he suggests a more complex formula in his recent papers). You are leaving out his main suggestion of an emissions growth dependent term of tonnes of methane per year per year multiplied by a factor of 2100 in addition to the figure of 7 you quoted. This is also a simplification and whether the error of traditional methods actually supports your points is contextually dependent, though mostly it would. This obviously has important policy implications.
Interestingly to me, Allen’s method of carbon accounting, while more accurate, is interpreted in a way most beneficial to a western country’s emission policies (much like the accusation of exaggerated methane GWP used allegedly by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation to shift GWP responsibility to developing economies), and bypasses the policy option of global participation in (or at least responsibility to adhere to) a nominal methane cap, by assuming responsibility for global warming contributions on a country level and ignoring past emissions. Additionally, the error incurred by using GWP (20y or 100y) compared to Allen's GWP* method is minor on a global scale because there is still a significant increase in current global production of agricultural methane, despite the fact that it is inaccurate on a physical level.
And that error that Allen is addressing will continue to be small without a global reduction in meat production rate, combined with better distribution of the meat. I think his point of the discrepancies in accounting methods is a bit more of an intellectual point of the drawbacks rather than a serious criticism of its efficacy: I hope most policy makers understand the difference in the responsible applications of GWP20 vs. GWP100, however inaccurate they are in a general sense.
There are a whole lot of problems with GWP100 that I am well aware of. I had encountered Myles Allen’s work only in passing before, so I’m glad you mentioned it, it is very interesting. It is most relevant in dealing with low emission projection scenarios and peak temperature rise and temperature stability in the future, which is where NZ is on a country level, hence his commentary. Where one stands on this is a matter of context, politics and worldview I think. So neither of us are substantially wrong in a scientific sense, and I don’t think there is an easy answer.
I have problems with living in a western country and eating comparatively lots of meat and talking about the minutia of GWP while implying the developing world’s ruminant herd numbers should be stagnating (yes, I know we should also stop flying, driving, using as much energy, pick our food more carefully, support local and invest responsibly). Does New Zealand have an exclusive right to all its meat and its cushy methane emission history just because they aren’t contributing to warming currently? If every other country had acted like that on a meat consumption per capita basis, Allen remarks it alone would have contributed 1 degree of global warming since 1990. He agrees that global meat production should stop increasing, and without eating less meat in the west, that will not happen globally.
No doubt ruminants can be a sustainable protein source, but highly contextual policy commentary from a physical scientist is not the only perspective here, and I don’t think you represented his global take on this very well either. This is as much about environmental and social justice as it is about a country’s individual warming contributions.
Notwithstanding my apparent obsession with this, decarbonisation of the economy is THE priority, and I hope that agricultural emission discourse does not derail that. This is a complex global problem with complex solutions, and if we need to treat it as simplistically as you are suggesting, then many could fall victim to the propaganda of oil and gas lobbyists. I also don’t agree with your general ecological defences of meat production (especially living in Australia), but I want to see you climb more things so we’ll both have to agree that there are other defensible arguments besides our own on this.
@@andrabispeimle671 Thanks for your comment. I agree it is complex and another area of complexity not mentioned is a rather larger problem than emissions which is soil loss. Developed countries which switch to a plant based diet will in the long term (surely the definition of sustainability) end up with their soil in the sea. Then there will be no food, plant or animal. We can look again to the US as an example of this. When all the bison were shot in the 1800s (before global warming) the prairies has some of the deepest soil on the planet. Once it was switched to crop production it is now nearly gone. The US ecologists joke that the US' biggest export is soil. Sure it is mortgaged for a few more decades with fossil fuel fertiliser, but the clock is ticking down there, and in many other countries.
So yes NZ should be allowed its ruminants for several reasons. If they farm them properly, they are not warming. If they farm them properly they can sequester carbon and may in some places actually contribute to cooling. Their ruminants can move soil carbon uphill. Meanwhile if they stop eating ruminants they will emit soil carbon until there is none left. A disaster. And while doing it they will fertilise their crop with fossil fuel derived nitrogen fertiliser. They should also be allowed their ruminants because grasslands need ruminants (they co-evolved and are literally two parts of a single system, you can't just remove them and everything is okay). Grasslands are very reliable carbon sinks. There is a lot of focus on forests. But forests store their carbon above the ground and burn down. When that happens, all is lost. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aacb39/meta
A further area of complexity not added to any model is the unintended consequences of putting the human race on a malnutrition (plant based) diet. We can see how this is playing out already. Red meat consumption has been falling for 50 years in the US and now it has a very metabolically sick population. The emissions of the US healthcare system, if it were a country, would be the 13th biggest in the world. It will just get worse. India of course is already further on in terms of animal food avoidance and is the poster child of malnutrition consequences with stunting coexisting with diabetes and obesity in the same country! We do not want to emulate this.
Taking all these aspects and more together, we can see that a shift away from producing meat is no solution. It causes soil loss with concomitant C emissions, malnutrition, healthcare emissions, loss of biodiversity, continued reliance on fossil fuels, loss of ecosystem functioning etc. Therefore, I'm instead arguing for deep reform of farming practice, such that it is both carbon neutral, soil neutral and is actually able to provide food that is capable of allowing humans to thrive.
@@climbermacleod Some great points and food for thought, thanks for taking the time.
Do you have a rebuttal to the China Study by the Campbell’s?
Great video! I've always wanted to be vegan because of concerns for the treatment of animals in the western world, but have always felt like shit when I have been vegetarian/eaten vegan. Watching this doc, I thought, well maybe it is possible to be a high functioning vegan athlete, and I decided to try to figure out if I could do this myself. So far, I have been disappointed by the experience of changing from a largely whole food omniverous diet to a whole food plant based diet. I appreciate your step by step approach with this video. Thanks!
Hello Sean, I hear your sentiments about the ethical problems related to the use and consumption of animal products. I've been living on a plant-based diet and vegan lifestyle myself about as long as I have been climbing. Roughly 8-9 years now. Perhaps started climbing a little later than that. I turn 40 at the end of this year and I have been continuing to make gains in the gym and on the rock. I'm interested to hear what sort of discomforts or in what way your switch to a plant-based diet made you feel bad and perhaps I can offer some insights into how I approached it. And hopefully, you can glean something from it.
So if you got this from a vegetarian diet (whilst still eating eggs, milk, and cheese) then it may have been something to do with the type of foods you were eating. Alot of eastern foods are a good way to mix up a large amount of lentils, legumes, nuts, grains etc... I would also consider suppliments.
The reasons outlined in this video though are part of the reason I keep milk, eggs, and mussels in my diet. The cheese is just because i'm addicted.
You can't even call this a documentary. If they put this on You Tube the comments section would eat it alive! Real experts would debunk everything. Why You Tube is better than streaming for getting life changing, cutting edge, "game changing" information!
Really enjoyed this deconstruction of the documentary. Has really clarified a lot for me.
I feel that the main focus throughout was on meat and veganism, with a less substantial mention of non-meat, animal products (ie. milk, eggs). Might you be able to include the positives/negatives of these products in your next diet related video? (I've got a mild addiction to cheese so I'm hoping for purely positives in that regard! Unfortunately, I have my doubt about that...)
I was also very surprised by the results of the two meta analysis you mentioned at the start, relating to the health implications of red and processed meat. Excited to give them a read!
Cheers for more class content, keep it up!
Great video, i feel much more informed
Great video. Two questions, if by any chance you read this:
Doesn't your final reference show that two thirds of those youtubers are still vegan? I haven't checked all the channels in the list, so I don't know if any of the 'still vegans' have any related health problems, but it does come across as anecdotal at best and cherry-picked at worst. Also, the source contains this peculiar bit of logic: "Note: I will count premature death (before age 60) as failure." Is there any scientific research on how long people generally stick to a vegan diet?
Secondly, what books on sports and nutrition would you recommend to other climbers?