Myths Debunked!

Sigh. 

I very often have the same conversation with different people.

Myths abound with a plant based lifestyle. It's like alien abduction.

Cows will take over the world! 

Yes.. with machine guns.

I'd suggest that you read this blog posting that answers many of the common questions I get.

Here are some insane comments I'd like to address:

Livestock will take over the world!

um, no.. they won't. The only way we'd have excess livestock is if everyone went vegan overnight and that will never happen. If people shifted to a plant based diet, it would take years.. people would eat less and then less and less livestock would be bred for slaughter so the numbers would go down gradually until there were a normal number. We are not over run by lions or bears or rats or even cockroaches. There is a natural order that is naturally kept in balance.

Everyone will starve!

Quite the opposite. We'd be able to feed more people if people ate a plant based diet. Almost all of the corn grown today is fed to cows. Cows aren't even meant to eat corn. They are meant to eat grass. The reason cows get sick and need antibiotics is because humans force them to eat corn. If we stopped breeding cows for slaughter and started using the land for other crops, we'd be able to feed every hungry person on earth. On average, it takes 16 pounds of grains/corn to make 1 pound of edible flesh. Think about how many people you could feed with 16 pounds of grains!

Humans are supposed to eat meat!

There is no health reason to eat meat. We need plant foods to live, not animals. Humans choose to eat animals and consume animal products, just like they choose to eat junk food and candy and just like they choose not to eat fellow humans or their dog. There are lots of alternatives to eating the muscles and drinking the secretions of other species. It's a choice.

 

It's difficult to get enough protein and calcium on a plant based diet!

No, it isn't. I've talked about these things on other blog posts so I won't go into too much detail here. All foods have protein (except sugars and oils) so it's actually kind of hard to not get the protein you need if you are eating sufficient calories of whole foods each day. The average person needs 45 to 55 grams of protein a day. The average meat eater gets 3 times that. Excess protein is really bad for your body.

Lots of foods have calcium as well, like beans, nuts and greens. In fact, it's been shown that animal proteins actually remove the calcium from your bones and cause osteoporosis.

You need meat to get B12!

B12 is a bacteria. It used to be that you'd get B12 via soil on your veggies, but our society is so germaphobic that we wash everything so much that it's hard to get it naturally now. Animal based foods contain B12 only due to bacterial contamination. You can get the B12 you need via fortified foods or a multivitamin.


It's too expensive to eat healthy and plant based foods!

No, it isn't. I've covered this - click here.