Are, Meat, Fish and Milk Nutritional Necessities? by Brenda Davis, R.D.

thank you so much for being here at nowhere that they very end of this amazing event and I’m glad that you stayed offense it’s a it’s a long day for some of you I know it’s been a pretty good day for me I’ve had to to our interviews before this so lots of I think we will get lots of distance from all of this and I’m really honored to be here I’m very grateful to Steve who has amazing energy and the amount of work to do something like this I’m just in awe that so very grateful to be here and very privileged to meet so many like-minded beautiful human beings so thank you for that so today we’re doing a lecture called our meat fish and milk nutritional necessities and science very clearly says no the evidence is pretty strong and pun totally intended every single one of the guys pictured on here has built these muscles with a hundred percent plant-based diets and I want to just run through a few other people who I think add to the evidence

this is Scott uric have you heard of Scott uric so Scott is an ultra marathon world champion he set the Appalachian Trail record running nearly 80 kilometers which is 50 miles a day for over 46 days it’s shocking he actually set the u.s. record for the 24-hour run six and a half marathons in one day 24 hours amazing he’s been a hundred percent plant-based since 1999 this is Julia Hubbard she’s a world champion bodybuilder holder of three world titles three Olympia titles two universe titles she’s a British British masters 60 and 200-meter sprint champion she’s been a hundred percent plant-based since 2015 and vegetarian since 1990 this is Patrick Bob omean this is a world champion he’s pretty cool he’s a world champion strongman he actually I read the other day that he holds the record for lifting the most weight of any human being he’s really strong he’s considered Germany Strongest Man and Patrick Bob omean has been a hundred percent plant-based since 2011 this is Tia Blanco she is a world champion surfer 2015 and 16 world champion title holder and she’s been a hundred percent plant base since 2013 and vegetarian from birth this is David Carter NFL football defensive lineman he’s six foot six and 300 pounds he’s called the 300-pound vegan and he is just the sweetest guy he looks top here he’s not really that tough he’s just really sweet and this man has been a hundred percent plant-based since 2014 and I don’t think I need to say too much about Venus and Serena Williams but you all know who they are they’ve been a hundred percent plant-based since 2012 this is Matt dancing he’s a mixed martial artist championing he’s I think five or six times a winner of the Ultimate Fighter and this guy’s been a hundred percent plant-based since 2004 and this is Sonya Looney she’s a world champion mountain biker four times a u.s. national champion first woman to finished a tenday race across the annapurna and Nepal through the mountains and I can tell you it was grueling and I I hold up Sonya Looney she is passionate vegan and she’s actually one of my closest friends she lives as she’s from Arizona but lives in Kelowna and is just a awesome athlete and Sonia has been a hundred percent plant-based since 2014 and I can tell you that she told me she was really nervous about going plant-based because she was scared it would have a negative impact on her performance and she said she was in the top 20 in the world when she became plant-based within six months she was number one

and this is dr. Ellsworth Wareham and he’s not an athlete and I’m very sad to tell you for those of you that don’t know I just heard he passed away a couple of weeks ago but I want to honor him he is just an amazing man he is a blue zone centenarian he was a cardiothoracic surgeon till he was 95 years old practicing teaching young doctors and he retired because as he said he told his family he would spend more time with them and even this picture on the right is him at his hundredth birthday party giving a speech and right up till he was a hundred and two he was doing interviews on a regular basis and articulate totally with it and he it’s a great loss but this man has been a hundred percent plant-based since 1965 and he has been vegetarian from birth so for the first 50 years of his life he was vegetarian for the second 54 he was vegan so yes an amazing example for all of us so I and he was a Blue Zones centenarian and for those of you that have been in my other lectures we talked about the Blue Zones but for those of you that weren’t I just want to quickly remind you about the Blue Zone so blue zones are places in the world where people live sort of the longest healthiest lives and what really separates the blue zones from other areas is that in the blue zones even when people get to be ninety or a hundred are still pretty productive they’re working in their gardens remember the story that Dan nurse told when he was going to Okinawa to interview a hundred year old man he said he arrived the home and he sees this man walk out that the hundreds girl man was living with his 70 year old son he said he sees this man walk out with shorts and a t-shirt and a big shovel slung over his shoulder and he was walking quite briskly out to the garden so he assumed of course this was the 70 year old man and he went up to him and he said I’m looking for your father and you know what I’m gonna say he said my father that was the hundred year old man so it’s it’s really quite quite something what what people in the Blue Zones can do in the walking up the mountains and at these advanced ages Dan was saying he had a hard time keeping up with some of them on their little tracks so there are five blue zones that we know of that’s Okinawa Japan Sardinia Italy Loma Linda California the seventh-day Adventist community there like dr. Ellsworth Wareham a Korea Greece and the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica and you know the one thing that’s always interesting is to look at in the blue zones what are the sort of common golden threads that we can weave through every single blue zone and and they are that they all have a strong families they they value family they tend not to smoke there very strongly socially engaged they do constant moderate physical activity and where diet is concerned two common features they all consume legumes as a dietary people and they all consume plant-based diets and this man is an Okinawan centenarian and just look at his face he is don’t don’t you just love him like I just love this man I wish I could just give him a big hug look at his muscles look at the the strength at a hundred years of age it’s amazing this is this is what I want to be 100 for that strong and vibrant and to me if some of the fastest strongest longest lived people on the planet managed without animal products it’s likely safe and adequate for the rest of us

so you know it’s so interesting when I was in university in the late 70s we learned two things about plant-based diets we learned that vegetarian diets were risky should never be used for children or pregnant women and we learned vegan diets were downright dangerous and should be used by nobody and that was all we learned about plant-based diets honestly and I can remember becoming a vegan are pretty much vegan in 1990 and being scared that I would be Elstad from my profession because two of the four food groups were animal products and I thought how can I be vegan and and and be a dietician and and that was scary for me I’d never met I’d only met one vegetarian in my whole life it was my grade eight science teacher and he taught in the same school as my dad and my dad thought i reaiiy can remember my dad saying it’s one thing that he does that to himself but to do that to his children can you imagine and so that’s that was the that was the thinking in those days and and I can remember as a teenager being so intrigued by this whole vegetarian thing even though he had been the only vegetarian I ever Matt I just loved the idea of not killing animals to eat and and so it was a you know being a dietitian and starting to think this way I really was worried about this but I can tell you I made a decision I can remember this like it was yesterday I remember thinking to myself you’re seeing the bigger picture you’re seeing the picture of the animals the environment human health even we were making that connection for protecting against chronic diseases and I thought to myself if you don’t have the courage to stand up for what you believe who will the change has to happen and I like to be liked by people and I was scared that I would be looked at as one of those fringy people who was just off the rocker and a not a credible dietician so I remember saying to myself every eye will be dotted and every T will be crossed you know I’m gonna make sure that I know what I’m talking about and so I I spent a lot of time researching and and I do feel like I did make a difference from within the profession and I saw the changes and I remember you know pushing the Canadian government to allow for the fortification of non-dairy milks and these kinds of things and I can remember the first book I wrote back in 1992 the dairy industry it was called becoming vegetarian and when they realized there was a chapter called without dairy they were very upset because I think we were the first dieticians to say you could survive without dairy and and they were not happy they wrote a 45 page rebuttal to the book they took a full-page ad out against us in our professional journal it was quite a battle and and so there were a lot of things like that that happened but over the years we went from saying that no you this is too risky vegan diets are downright dangerous to saying that well-planned vegetarian including vegan diets are healthful nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases these diets are appropriate for all stages of the lifecycle including pregnancy lactation infancy childhood adolescence older adulthood and for athletes this is the official position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and and I’m so proud of the Academy for having this kind of position and the lead author on this paper is my writing partner vesanto melina and when Vasant ia nominated vesanto for the highest award offered by dietitians of Canada and she received that award two years ago and the person that allowed the ad in our professional journal came up to her after her talk and said I’m sorry we ever allowed that ad in our professional journal it was wrong and I apologized and so you can imagine coming from where we we were 30 years ago to reaching this point where this type of diet is has been now not only given the stamp of approval but actually you know these diets can provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of diseases this is in the position it’s really quite quite a wonderful thing to see how far we’ve come in 30 years

so you know we’re going to be examining the evidence it’s why our meat and milk view’d is essential for people what are the key nutrients in these foods and can we get enough of these key nutrients from plant foods how much do we need what are the actual intakes in plant-based diets what are the richest plant sources and are there benefits to getting these nutrients from plants instead of from animal sources so let’s start out why our meat and milk viewed as essential for people well we need to look at public health history for many years hunger and malnutrition were the number one public health nutrition concerns government policies were directed towards the elimination of hunger and deficiency diseases nutrition education campaigns were really dominated by eight more messages so that we could wipe out these deficiency diseases and economic policies actually sought to maximize meat and milk production to reduce malnutrition because these were concentrated sources of you know calcium and in milk and protein in meat and farmer subsidies markings marketing support price controls all of these things were set into place and they figured it was a job pretty well done diseases of nutritional deficiencies diminished and the interests of animal agriculture became very deeply entrenched in the economy it appeared as though the job of improving the health through nutrition had been very effectively accomplished meat and milk acquired health halos meat is now associated with protein muscles and masculinity milk is associated with calcium and strong bones and teeth everybody learns this in grade school everybody knows it but they eat more messages have backfired while nutritional deficiency diseases plummeted the eat more message gave rise to another malnutrition minutes called overconsumption and you know when we think about malnutrition what comes to mind it’s usually when you hear the word Mountain nutrition you think of children in Africa who are starving right in during the Ethiopian famine and the children with the large bellies but they’re so so skinny and that’s what most people think of but really there are three types of malnutrition one is under nutrition or hunger second is micronutrient deficiencies like a vitamin A deficiency which causes blindness and is the lead possible on the planet number three is overconsumption and overconsumption is now a bigger threat malnutrition wise than is hunger or malnutrition it actually exceeded the numbers have exceeded the numbers who are dying of starvation and it’s become the new norm over consumption natural exceeds as I mentioned under nutritionists the number one form of malnutrition globally and as a result these diseases kill about 70 percent of the global population so this is what we learned what we learned is it was not lack of meat or cow’s milk that was responsible for malnutrition it was a lack of a variety of nutritious foods now we know that and we have an abundance of research studies that show us that plant-based diets are more health in term for preventing disease and national and international diet guidelines are now reflecting this knowledge and I showed this yesterday but I want to show it again today the World Health Organization’s twelve steps to healthy eating the first step is eat a nutritious diet based on a variety of foods originating mainly from plants rather than from animals with cancer organizations you know this is American Cancer Society eat a healthy diet with an emphasis on plain foods World Cancer Research Fund eat mostly foods of plant origin the American Institute of cancer research chews mostly plant foods like vegetables fruits whole grains and cut out sugary drinks if we look even at the Dietary Guidelines for Americans scientific advisory committee they set a dietary pattern that is higher in plant-based foods such as vegetables fruits whole grains legumes nuts and seeds and lower in animal-based foods is more health promoting and is associated with less environmental impact than is the current u.s. diet and this is Canada’s Food Guide and I think this is the culmination of a lot of information over many years but what we have done in Canada is we actually stopped the influence of industry on national nutrition recommendations so we normally nutrition recommendations are very much very much influenced by industry and our government said there you know that’s that’s not going to happen this time our nutrition guidelines or are going to be based on science not on selling products and yeah I mean just wonderful news so you can see when you look at the guide something is missing I mean a quarter of the plate used to be dairy products well they’re not there except for in the corner where you’ve got the protein rich foods it’s included as one of the options half the plates fruit and vegetables 1/4 the plate is full grains and the other quarter is protein rich foods of you know you’ve got tofu there you’ve got beans there you’ve got nuts and seeds there and you’ve got some of the animal products as well but a huge huge stride in the right direction

so now I want to move on to talking about the key nutrients from meat fish and milk and where they are in plant-based diets how you can get them and if there are advantages so we’re going to talk a little bit about protein will talk about vitamin b12 and in meat poultry and fish iron we could talk about zinc as well but we’re going to talk just about iron calcium and we’re going to talk about EPA and DHA from fish so those are the nutrients that have chosen to cover and you can see they’re not all there we could have talked about vitamin D from milk but I had to be a little bit selective to keep within the time so the first question is can we get enough of these key nutrients from plant foods so the approach we’re at where protein is concerned I love this denden Pizarro did this this cartoon and it says this it’s this little guy here this little rodent down here saying to this big gorilla no meat at all you sure you’re getting enough protein and and really the point being that the largest land mammals on the planet are vegetarians and they seem to be able to build these huge muscles without any meat and so we probably can whoops we probably can – and this is Derek tres eyes or tree sighs I think it’s tres eyes he says no meat no problem he’s a vegan bodybuilder and has been for many years and I think if he can do it probably the rest of us can – yeah it’s pretty impressive

so how much protein the big question is how much protein do we actually need well the RDA is point eight grams per kilogram body weight and of course a kilogram is 2.2 pounds so we need a little more for infants and children per pound of body weight or per kilogram of body weight we need a little bit more for athletes possibly more for seniors and people eating whole food plant-based diets maybe plus 10% because of the digestibility issue and so where we talk about digestibility if you look at protein digestibility fiber in plant foods reduces the amount of protein you can absorb into your bloodstream because you lose some your feces and so let’s take a look well you absorb about thirty two to three or I’m sorry 92 to 96 percent of the protein from things like white bread or flour soy protein isolate peanut butter tofu so more the foods where the fiber has been extracted right so the fibers not reducing the absorption that’s a bump the same as you get from beef milk eggs cheese all of those things you absorb about 94 to 97 percent so right in the same ballpark but you can see that you absorb less from oatmeal 86 percent lentils 84 other legumes around 72 to 89 percent and so that’s why we have that 10 percent added in to allow for that little bit of loss in the feces and the digestibility however is increased by soaking sprouting cooking blending when you break down the plant cell walls you increase the availability of that protein so all of those things can help so let’s talk about average requirements well average requirements this is a RDA again women 46 grams men 56 grams per day now if we add the 10% on to that it would be about 51 grams for women and about 62 grams for men so this is all kind of GU bleeding [ __ ] or whatever you want to call it it doesn’t mean a lot when we talk about grams of protein so we need to look at how much protein is actually in food as well but first then the seniors this is a whole other issue which we’re just starting to learn about we don’t actually have a separate RDA for seniors in North America although protein digestibility and protein synthesis are reduced and there is a separate RDA in some countries like Australia so in Australia for people 70 or older the recommendation their RDA is about 25% higher than it is for younger adults well you can imagine the challenge because seniors eat less they need fewer calories and so if you need fewer calories but you need more nutrients that can be a huge issue it means you don’t have as much room for cookies you don’t have as much room for the foods that don’t provide a lot of nutrition so that’s important the consensus is actually building that around a gram per kilogram per day up to 1.3 reduces age-related muscle loss in seniors so for people who are who are vegan that means that they may want to consider having things like very highly available protein foods like hemp seeds like tofu and these kinds of foods can be very helpful for seniors

so what are the actual intakes for for vegetarians and non-vegetarians and in terms of protein and we’ve talked quite a lot about the Adventist Health Study 2 and epic Oxford well in the in the Adventist Health Study to take a look at this meat-eaters averaged about 75 grams of protein a day vegetarians about 70 point 6 or 71 and vegans about 70 70 point 7 there’s not a big difference between any one of those groups it’s really quite interesting whereas in epic Oxford we saw a little bit bigger range with the meat eaters getting closer to a hundred the vegetarians around the 74 and the vegans around the 67 but all of them were well above that sort of recommended intake of 46 grams or 56 grams for four men or even adding that 10% so all well within their recommended range so now let’s take a look at how much protein is actually present in plant foods so here you’ve got soy beans tofu veggie meat are all around somewhere 20 to 30 grams generally that’s really similar to what you would get from a serving of meat poultry or fish and then we see a fair bit in legumes like lentils and other legumes about 14 to 18 grams and a cup of legumes and then see the foods like hemp seeds and pumpkin seeds and and intact grains like camel spelt amaranth quinoa all somewhere between 8 and 13 grams per serving that’s very similar to what you would see in a couple of eggs or a cup of milk or an ounce of cheese so very very similar amount and then you get little bits from all the other plant foods like nuts and oats and spinach and other vegetables so you’re getting bits in just about everything you eat so if you think about needing 50 grams or 60 grams of protein well all of these options provide you with about 15 grams so you might need you know how many servings of maybe four or five six servings of these foods depending on your needs but a third of a cup of sprouted peas a half a cup of almonds sunflower seeds or peanuts a cup of of lentils or beans 3/8 of a cup of pumpkin seeds about a pound of broccoli which is a fair bit of broccoli or 2/3 of a pound of kale about 1/3 of a cup of firm tofu 3/4 of a scoop of P protein or 2 cups of quinoa so what I want to point out is if we look at meat versus some of these plant foods this is important so ground beef has about 39% of calories from protein one ground beef patty has about 22 grams of protein so let’s compare to tofu tofu has 41 percent of calories from protein and about 0.55 cups of tofu would give you 22 grams of protein so very very similar serving sizes very similar amounts of protein on the other hand if we compare ground beef to spinach for example well ground beef has 39% of calories from protein as we said 22 grams of protein the spinach also has 39% of calories from protein however because it’s so low in calories you would actually have to eat 25 cops to get 22 grams of protein or you could cook it and then it would be about 4 cups cooked down so you need to understand some people say oh well the percent of protein in broccoli or spinach is the same as meat but in fact because they’re so low in calories you would have to have quite a large volume to give you the same amount of protein so plant-based eaters generally get plenty of protein unless they get insufficient calories how many people get insufficient calories not that many right we most of us amble along reasonably well getting enough calories the people that don’t get enough calories are people who are sick or people who are anorexic right and so they may not get enough protein if they’re not getting enough calories and then the people that eat nutritionally inadequate diets that are low in protein so for example people that are eating high-fat high-sugar junk food diets they often don’t get enough protein sometimes I see teenagers come in and they’re you know they wanted to become vegan because of the animals or the environment and they just drop meat milk from the menu so instead of a burger and fries they get a double order of fries with their coke they’re not gonna get enough protein and so that’s that’s an issue and then the others are very poorly planned for terian diets because fruitarian fruit is a little low in protein it’s between 1 and 10% of calories from protein we need about 10 to 15% so if all you eat is fruit it you may not get enough protein so if you’re eating a diet that’s very high in fruit you would need to be eating some nuts seeds and greens and so forth in the mix

so what are the most healthful plant choices well legumes leggings are really the plant protein powerhouses so the best choices are the ones that are not stripped of their value before we eat them beans peas lentils are really wonderful soybeans and the products like tofu tempeh natto mommy that aren’t highly processed are also really good options and of course the question always comes up but don’t beans contain these harmful lectins and aren’t lectins dangerous and in fact it’s a really interesting story everything yeah electrons are throughout the food supply even dairy products contain a fair number of lectins so it’s not just beans that contain lectins the other thing to know about lectins is there are a variety of lectins in the food supply so there are some that have actually been found to be anti carcinogenic and others that have found to be quite toxic and so not all lectins are really dangerous but it within the legume family the leggings that contain the less dangerous lectins are the smaller legumes like lentils and peas the legumes that contain the more dangerous lectins are the big beans like kidney beans especially and they contain a kind of lectin called hemagglutinin which which can be quite toxic so if you eat undercooked kidney beans you will get quite sick you’ll get like a food poisoning kind of deal where for four or five hours it’s coming out both ends and you’re in terrible pain so the key isn’t not to eat legumes the key is to pop the legumes because cooking destroys the locked ins so and not very many people eat undercooked beans beans you once they’re cooked you should be able to you know press them at the roof of your mouth with your tongue and they should be able to be broken that way to be thoroughly cooked and using an instant pot or some tool like that to cook them really well is a bad plan but I don’t think we need to worry about lectins when we’re consuming a properly cooked beans and the other thing to say about beans or beans are most decisively linked to health benefits they’re one of the only foods that are common to all blue zones so if they were really toxic do you think they would be a staple in every single one of the world’s longest lived populations it wouldn’t even make sense if they were that lethal they’d be the shortest living people on the planet not the longest living people on the planet so I think that kind of disarms the lectin argument

so let’s compare let’s compare legumes to meat so likens this keeps kind of okay legumes are the highest fiber foods meat has no fiber legumes are high and phytochemicals meat has no phytochemicals legumes are high in antioxidants meat contains minimal oxidants legumes are low in fat they’re lower and they’re low in saturated fat actually very low in fat most legumes are only about five percent fat so very low in fat very low in saturated fat so do you know what the highest fat Legum is we’ll the peanut yes and we we yeah we usually think of the peanut as and not but it really is a legume and it is the next would be soy beans which are about 40 percent fat and then garbanzos so yeah and then garbanzos had about 13% but most other legumes are at about 5% so very low of course meat is high in fat and high in saturated fat about 30 to 60 percent of the calories in meat depending on how lean it is come from fat and legumes are cholesterol free meat is high in cholesterol legumes contain a kind of iron called non heme iron which we’ll talk about later meat contains both non heme and heme iron about 40% of the iron in meat is in the heme form but it can serve as a pro-oxidant which is the exact opposite of an antioxidant and you know what I want to tell you just so you understand this whole thing about antioxidants so you’ve heard about free radicals right now free radicals are these these molecules with an unpaired electron and they come in and they try to steal an electron from another molecule in the body and when they steal that electron guess what happens to the other molecule it becomes a free radical and so it’s like these little thieves that are going and trying to find an electron to steal and it’s like a chain reaction of destruction in the body so just creating one free radical after the other doing damage to the body guess what an antioxidant does yeah it walks in and it says oh hi I see your free radical would you care to have an electron and the free radical says why yes thank you but it doesn’t turn into a free radical itself it stays stable and so that’s the beauty of antioxidants where’s pro oxidants they create free radicals they do the exact opposite they cause oxidative stress so heme iron can serve as one of these Pro oxidants and then legumes are have no added hormones or antibiotics meat often has added hormones it has natural hormones but it has hormones added and antibiotics added legumes do not contain any of this molecule called neu5gc this is a sigh alloc acid that is actually quite pro-inflammatory and it’s found in meat so of course meat contains neu5gc legumes you can’t produce TMAO with the consumption of legumes but you certainly with some so TMAO trimethylamine n-oxide is something that comes from usually from carnitine but it can also be formed from choline you eat meat meat goes into your gut and neither certain bacteria in the gut that convert that carnitine into TMA or trimethylamine then that gets shuttled to the liver where it gets turned into TMAO and that TMAO is highly inflammatory it’s highly atherogenic causing cardiovascular disease so and kidney disease it’s quite a problem now what’s really interesting about TMAO is if you’re vegan you don’t have the bacteria to make it you don’t have those nasty bacteria and your intestinal tract and what’s really interesting is there was a study done that actually fed vegans meat to see they would produce TMAO and they couldn’t because the bacteria weren’t in their intestinal tract or even if you give vegans a carnitine supplement they can’t turn the carnitine into TMAO and then the legumes are low in chemical contaminants and the meat tends to be higher because chemical contaminants tend to move up the food chain especially persistent organic pollutants like dioxins and PCBs and then the other thing that I didn’t mention here is the endotoxins that are you know the outer cell membrane of gram-negative bacteria that as they dissolve or die these endotoxins can leak into the bloodstream and again they’re highly inflammatory in and there are lots especially in ground meat and processed meat not so much in legumes and if we look at red meat and mortality we see a very consistent link in all of the all of the meta-analysis we have that meat increases risk of death but we also have similar meta analyses looking at meat and diabetes and this one you can see the processed meat two of the studies 51 percent increased and this was the highest versus lowest intake I believe no pan was actually this was incredible in the pen study 2013 one serving of meat was I think it was three ounces or three and a half ounces but a serving of processed meat was one ounce unless it was a wiener it was an ounce and a half but it was one out and it was a half ounce of bacon that was one serving and Frick you know having a serving or whatever it was increased risk just dramatically so a half an ounce of bacon unbelievable and and so you can see very consistent link between meat and diabetes risks this is meat and heart disease risk you can see the the process meet in the dark red here in the assist in the light but but again consistently higher risk this is unprocessed meat and cancer risk and in some studies it was a fairly low relationship but in a lot of studies we’re seeing especially with colorectal cancer and and bladder cancer we’re seeing quite a strong relationship between intake and and cancer this has processed meat in cancer very strong relationship in fact the link between processed meat and cancer is so strong that processed meat has been declared a group one human carcinogen and and you know when you think about it and red meat has been declared a group to air probable human carcinogen but a group one human carcinogen is the highest rating that with the strongest evidence for cancer and and so this is cigarettes this is asbestos this is alcohol this is arsenic and processed meat has been put into that same category and maybe not as potent as some of those others but still a potent carcinogen and here we are have you ever come across a cancer fundraiser where they’re selling hotdogs to raise money for cancer it’s like selling cigarettes to raise money for for a cancer and we need to be really clear that this is not acceptable and and we need to get that when we’re feeding this stuff to our children these are carcinogens so some just to be really aware of

then just finishing up with protein the other big issue that often comes up as well what about the quality of plant protein can you really get all of those essential amino acids sometimes we call them indispensable amino acids from plants aren’t they don’t we have to complement proteins don’t you know aren’t they lacking and and the truth is we can absolutely get all the amino acids we need from from plants animals do not make essential amino acids it’s why they’re essential because we can’t make them animals can’t make them they’re made by plants it makes no sense to think we can’t get them from plants it’s where they come from of course we can get them from plants so all plants contain all 90 sexual amino acids we can put all of those essential amino acids from plants either directly or indirectly directly by eating the plants or indirectly by eating animals that ate the plants are very indirectly by eating animals that ate other animals at ate plants they come from plants so we certainly can get them from plants now the thing to know is yes some plants are low relative to human requirements in one of the amino acids but it’s not a big concern because you know this old myth that we needed to complement proteins is really not true we can get sufficient of all of the essential or indispensable amino acids if we eat a variety of plant foods over the course of 24 hours so otherwise we really don’t have to worry about it so we need a variety of plants and we need to get enough calories if we do those two things we don’t have to worry so much about the quality of protein the only people that would really have to worry are very young children who are barely meeting their protein requirements then we’ll need to think about making sure they have some a higher quality protein so we want them to make sure they have enough legumes and usually providing enough legumes in the diet will solve that problem because the amino acid that’s most commonly lacking in children’s diets would be lysine and the most concentrated source of lysine in the plant world of course is the legumes so that solves that

the next nutrient I want to talk about is iron and how much do we need well women need about 18 milligrams men and older women about eight and the upper tolerable intake level is 45 milligrams now sometimes you’ll see vegetarians need 1.8 times more than this I think that’s been that that recommendation has been discredited because it was based on one study that minimized the enhancers of iron absorption maximized the inhibitors of iron absorption and so it’s very questionable whether or not vegetarian vegetarians might need a tiny bit more but not not much more than that and the reason that women need so much more iron than men is simply because they’re they’re losing iron in their in their menstrual period every month that’s all so postmenopausal women who have stopped menstruating I have the same requirement as men so what are the actual intakes well surprise surprise here’s the Adventist Health Study two non vegetarians 20 milligrams lacto-ovo 22 point one and vegans twenty two point two vegans are at the top of the pile look at epic Oxford again vegans are at the top of the pile look at the diet quality study from Belgium again 17 for non-veg 20 for lacto-ovo 23 for vegans vegans consistently consumed the most iron of any of the dietary groups now we know that they’re not consuming heme iron which is super absorbable and so what are their what what is their iron status like that’s what really matters not as much how much they’re eating but are they absorbing the iron they’re eating so vegetarians and vegans do not have a higher incidents of iron deficiency iron stores however which is serum ferritin are typically lower in those on plant-based diets so the lower iron stores if they’re at the lower end of the normal range don’t affect how a person feels they’re not at a disadvantage when the iron in the blood is replenished so hemoglobin and hematocrit are okay serum ferritin a little on the low side not an issue however it may actually turn out to be an advantage which is kind of interesting both high ferritin and high heme iron which is the iron in blood meat of course are associated with insulin resistance metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes they’re they’re associated with cardiovascular disease risk some cancers and oxidate and oxidative stress so having high stored serum ferritin or high heme iron can actually work against you so heme iron is found in animal tissue meat poultry and fish about forty to forty five percent of the iron and meat is heme traces and other foods it’s very rapidly absorbed regardless of how much the body needs it can act as a pro-oxidant and that was actually quantified in a number of studies so very interesting for every one milligram of iron consumed per day the disease risk increases an estimated 27 to fifty seven percent for heart disease depending on this study you look at 16 percent for diabetes and 12 percent for colon or lung cancer that’s for every one milligram of heme iron it’s shocking absolutely shocking now non heme iron in plant foods on the other hand is absorbed and released in a controlled manner as the body needs it so a lot of different forms of iron but there’s you know some of the plant iron is actually absorbed in a huge molecule with that with a thousand or more our atoms of iron and those atoms are released as the body needs it in a controlled manner so they don’t act as Pro oxidants this protects us from iron overload and from oxidative stress and non-heme iron is not associated with increased disease risk so how do we maximize iron status we want to select iron rich foods within each food group we want to be aware of absorption inhibitors of absorption enhancers and we want to replace Medan with legumes rather than with dairy so let’s look at these things so selecting iron rich foods from each food group so legumes that most iron rich legumes are soy beans tofu lentils black beans lima beans and chickpeas I had a friend who found that her iron was a little on the low side she added lentils to her breakfast bowl so instead of just the whole grains she added lentils and cooked them together and that was enough for her she got her iron back up without any problem a whole grains amaranth quinoa mostly the the pseudo grains are little higher in iron but wheat camels belt iron fortified cereals of course are all iron rich not since these all seeds are rich in iron almonds Brazil nuts cashews pine nuts vegetables the green leafy vegetables peas string beans olives are all pretty rich in iron and in the fruit family prune juice and dried fruits are are richer than other fruits and then other foods of course the fortified foods like fortified meat analogues but also blackstrap molasses blackstrap molasses is interesting if you’d want to buy organic for sure but a couple tablespoons of blackstrap molasses has about the same amount of iron as an eight ounce steak it’s quite shocking so you want to be aware of absorption inhibitors and the biggest things are phytates polyphenolic compounds zinc and calcium so the the two that that are probably most problematic are the phytates and the poly and all compounds which can reduce your absorption of iron by about 50 to 90 percent and phytates the most concentrated sources wheat bran and a lot of seniors especially sprinkle wheat bran on their food and that can really impair the absorption of minerals so we have to be careful of that polyphenolic compounds mainly in tea like tannins and tea can really reduce your iron absorption so you would want to keep your teeth separate from your meals to enhance your iron absorption and then zinc can interfere and calcium especially in dairy products can interfere with calcium absorption so you want to boost calcium or I’m sorry boost iron absorption so foods rich in vitamin C and organic acids allium vegetables like onions and garlic beta-carotene rich foods such as carrot spices like pepper tumeric and ginger can all actually enhance iron absorption to some degree the most potent being vitamin C rich rich fruits and vegetables and then of course replacing meat with legumes rather than dairy you see meat is iron rich legumes are iron rich daring is I important what we often see in people becoming vegetarian is instead of meat and potatoes they have lasagna they have passed without Fredo sauce they’ve grilled cheese sandwiches they have all of these Pizza and so on they’re familiar foods their comfort foods and they end up iron deficient quite often when they do that so we need to be aware of that

and then moving on to vitamin b12 plants are not reliable vitamin b12 sources and I want to go through them some foods are thought to be b12 sources seaweed and algae especially they contain both active b12 and inactive b12 what we call non cobalamin coronoid and an inactive non cobalamin core note it said they look like b12 they attach to b12 receptor sites and when you dry seaweed you actually convert some of the act of b12 into inactive b12 and so we just need to be aware of that as well and so these four even though there’s some like chlorella that that may have more of the usable b12 and may be a reliable source we only have one or two studies on five or six people and so it’s not we can’t yet say this is solid reliable source don’t worry about anything else so right now I would say don’t rely on seaweed as a matter of fact Sealy can actually contribute can contribute to a functional b12 deficiency because what it does is it it it you know you think you’re you’re getting the b12 you’re getting these analogs attaching to receptor sites so the real b12 can’t get on to the receptor sites so it’s just just to be aware of that we need to make sure we have an alternative source of b12 fermented foods like tempeh black tea or vegetables contain very little active b12 now it depends on where they’re B where they’re actually produced so for example there was just a study from Indonesia that showed that there was a fair bit of usable b12 in there tempeh now if you if you analyze the tempeh in the United States not so much why because in the United States the tempeh is made in stainless steel vats that are kept very clean whereas an Indonesian they’re doing them in old-fashioned wooden vats with with you know the b12 producing bacteria and in the wood and and they’re not as clean and so they get our b12 producing bacteria and and so it can be in some parts of the world a source but it’s not something you should actually rely on as a source organic vegetables contain very little if any act of b12 if you ate the dirt that you know and maybe you use to manure to fertilize the you might get some b12 but it’s not not recommended you might get some pathogenic bacteria as well mushrooms actually are minor b12 sources but very minor they might supply 5% of the RDA internal production some people say if you eat properly you’ll produce enough internally and actually we all produce enough internally in our large intestine the problem is is we absorb most of the b12 in her small intestine and things don’t usually go backwards so so most of the b12 we make in our large intestine gets excreted in our stool so we can’t rely on internal production and see vitamin b12 stores can last two to three years in adults many people however become deficient much more quickly I’ve seen people who become deficient within six months of adopting a plant-based diet so it it can happen more quickly in some people now breastfed babies born to b12 deficient mothers can develop b12 deficiency within months of birth and even sometimes within weeks of birth and and within months they can develop a very severe permanent brain damage and this is you know this is for me the the saddest thing to see happen it’s completely unnecessary women who are giving birth need to make sure they have a source of of vitamin b12 in their diets because what happens when parents you know ignore b12 and end up killing their baby because they’ve ignored b12 or causing severe brain damage is they end up in court and they end up going to jail and I’ve been contacted on a number of occasions by lawyers saying can you be an expert witness in this trial and and it is it’s it’s just so devastating for the parents who went vegan because of all the right reasons but didn’t get well educated on what they needed to do and we really need to make sure that doesn’t happen because when that hits the headlines I mean obviously nobody wants to see a child die or have permanent brain damage of course but also when that hits the headlines it sets us back 20 years because it becomes Exhibit A for why people are justified eating their meat this is what’s gonna happen if you’re vegan and people sit up and take notice so we need to take care of that b12 deficiency symptoms you start out with megaloblastic anemia and of course make a little blastic anemia you get all the typical signs of anemia fatigue weakness irritability all that sort of stuff and then nerve and brain damage and the first thing that happens here is you get numbness and tingling in your extremities if you’ve ever experienced that it can be caused from a number of things but b12 deficiency is probably one of common causes of numbness and tingling in your extremities the tips of your fingers the tips of your toes even the tip of your nose and and so that’s the first sign of the nerve damage happening the next sign could be difficulty walking and then eventually you get brain damage and psychosis and death so that’s kind of the the order of things in terms of b12 deficiency you can get gastrointestinal disturbances like a sore stomach diarrhea basically lack of appetite and then the other thing that happens is your homocysteine goes up and when homocysteine goes up it increases your risk of birth defects it increases your risk of Alzheimer’s disease and it increases your risk of heart disease so it’s like shooting yourself in the foot as a vegan to ignore b12 because you you are counteracting the benefits of a plant-based diet so we just don’t want to do that so what is the recommended dietary allowance for b12 it’s about two point four micrograms a day for adults a little more during pregnancy and lactation how much do we actually consume well look this is the Adventist Health Study to non-vegetarians lacto-ovo vegetarians and vegans all consume the same amount which is quite interesting Adventist Health Study thing about b12 the Adventists tend to know about me 12 and take care of it they eat fortified foods or they take supplements or whatever they’re doing in epic Oxford we saw something very different so non vegetarians about 8.2 lacto over around the three vegans not even one microgram a day so what’s expected there well you can imagine you know we see suboptimal be 12th status in the Adventist Health Study – fairly low rates for omnivores and vegans but in epic Oxford we saw either suboptimal levels or you know deficient or depleted in 73 percent of the vegans so that needs to end we need to figure out how to solve that that problem so why the differences will in North America there is greater use of b12 supplements and b12 fortified foods then there is in the UK generally so we don’t one of the things we just don’t want to mess with b12 vegans vegetarians and everyone over the age of 50 needs to ensure reliable sources of course everyone needs to rely to to get reliable sources of b12 but they also need to regularly monitor their b12 status just know where you’re at so why everyone over 50 well everyone over 50 the Institute of Medicine recommends that everyone over 50 get their b12 from supplements or fortified foods just like vegans and that is because vitamin b12 is bound to protein in animal products in order to leave the b12 off of the protein it’s bound to you need enough stomach acid and you need enough production of enzymes to cleave it off and as you get older that production can wane and you may not be able to get the b12 from the animal foods so it’s estimated about 10 to 30 percent of people over 50 can’t do a good job at getting the b12 so the Institute of Medicine just says everyone over that age should rely on fortified food supplements further b12 so how much is enough well remember it was 2.4 micrograms a day but what we see is that at that level some people they’re homeless cysteine still goes up and we want to keep homocysteine down so we recommend from supplements a thousand micrograms two or three times a week or 25 to 250 micrograms a day and if you’re getting your b12 from fortified foods about two servings a day with about 4 to 10 microgram per serving so what are reliable sources well for vegans and lacto-ovo vegetarians supplements fortified foods and and and it’s an luck and of course for for additional sources for lacto-ovo vegetarian for under fifty animal products like dairy and eggs could provide some b12 so let’s look at the amounts and plant-based foods what you see is meat analogues contain about one to eight point five micrograms per serving ready to eat cereals around one to six non-dairy milks around point six to three nutritional yeast like vegetarians support formula about four micrograms per keeping tablespoon and compare that to the animal products whoops sorry about that we’re seeing a very similar amounts in a serving of animal product so just so you know you can get plenty in fortified foods if you it’s hard though if you’re you eating a whole food plant-based diet you might not be using so many fortified foods a lot of people do use the non-dairy milks and the nutritional yeast though and those are excellent sources

so and then I want to touch on the omega-3 fatty acids don’t we need fish for omega-3s and we hear this all the time we need it to reduce our risk of heart disease we need omake long-chain omega-3s for our brains and our eyes and so on answer is actually no we can actually get these nutrients from plants we can get alpha-linolenic acid from land plants like Chia flax and hemp seeds and walnuts we can get a little bit from greens and we can get the long-chain omega-3s EPA & DHA from sea plants called micro algae we actually get a little bit from macro algae and you know the difference between micro and macro the micro are these tiny tiny little plant the macro are the big seaweeds now in the big sea we we get EPA we don’t get DHA so just to to know that and then now Rita you were just telling me about another source a key flower that has DHA from a flower that’s grown up in Canada so we’re gonna have to investigate that one a little more that sounds really interesting a key flower yeah aah I very interesting so and fish do not this is critical fish do not make epa and DHA just like you know animals don’t make these essential fatty acids fish don’t make epa and DHA they’re made by microalgae so epa and DHA are made by microalgae the zooplankton eat the microalgae they’re riverís fish eat the zooplankton the small carnivorous fish eat them and then the large carnivorous fish and that’s how they get their epa and DHA so we can go directly to the source cut out the fish and just grow the algae and so it’s widely available now as a supplement for people who don’t want to eat fish so do plant eaters actually get enough so compared to non vegetarians epa and DHA in the blood tissue and breast milk are about 30 percent lower in lacto-ovo vegetarians and about 40 to 70 percent lower in vegans so there’s definitely lower levels in vegans so why the low omega-3s well because diets are often insufficient contain insufficient alpha linolenic acid which can be converted to epa and DHA and diets may not be well designed to maximize that conversion so we’re going to talk a little bit about that how do how can people who don’t eat fish optimize their omega 3 fatty acids this number one you need to be aware of the factors that can depress conversion and those are non diet factors like genetics and gender men are less efficient than women people who smoked age as you get older you you young babies and older people don’t convert as well chronic diseases like diabetes metabolic syndrome hypertension can reduce the conversion of the plant omega-3s to the long-chain more biologically active Omega threes like what you would get from fish so what about the diet factors well high intakes of omega-6 fatty acids can impair conversion by about 40 to 50 percent and omega-6 fatty acids will mention those in a minute in adequate nutrition you need to get enough of the cofactors for the desaturate enzymes to be able to convert so you need a nutritious diet some of the things are you need enough protein you need enough zinc magnesium niacin pura daxing and vitamin C you needing you you want to minimize trans fatty acids and alcohol because they can impair conversion and very high fat diets there was a study comparing diets that were 40% fat versus those that were 20% fat and the very high fat guy it’s actually a limited conversion of ala to end DHA the next thing we need to do is make sure we get enough of the plant omega-3 so what do we need well for people that don’t eat fish and donate epa and DHA directly they need about 2 to 4 grams of ala a day and if you look at how much is in foods you get about 2.6 grams ounce of walnuts you get about the same in a heaping tablespoon of ground flax seeds you get about a 1.7 in a tablespoon of chia seeds you get about 0.9 and a tablespoon of hemp seeds and you get less than 0.1 in a cup of leafy greens so in in essence you need to eat like a horse or a cow to get enough from leafy greens you’d be eating about 20 to 40 cups a day right and so that’s a lot of greens but greens can still contribute if you eat six cups of greens a day it’s giving you a portion of people make it oh make a threes that you would need so and then we want to reduce omega-6 if we’re using excessive amounts and so we want to avoid omega-6 rich oils and cooking and and processed foods like safflower sunflower grapeseed corn oils soy cottonseed sesame oils doesn’t mean you can never use any like I might use a couple of drops of sesame seed oil in a peanut sauce to give a flavor it’s a flavoring but you don’t want these things in any great quantity and you owe the omega-6 whole foods don’t worry about so sunflower seeds if pumpkin seeds and all of that you can generally enjoy those in at least in moderation and then do consider a direct source of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids who really needs it well those with increased needs like pregnant and breastfeeding women tend to have lower levels of DHA then than omnivorous women so it might not be a bad idea to boost your level a little bit during pregnancy so that your babies you know going to get enough for brain growth and and you know this is a little controversial because women of childbearing age are the most efficient converters so they convert about one one study showed us a conversion of about third 6% to long-chain omega-3s from ala which is just phenomenal so they converted to epa DHA epa and DHA about 36% so really quite quite a lot and then people who don’t convert efficiently and so that’s people with diabetes metabolic syndrome or hypertension and populations with traditionally high fish intakes so someone from Japan or someone from an island where they eat a lot of fish their enzymes responsible for conversion may not be produced like the average person would produce those enzymes so then in those people they may need a direct source and may be wise to take a micro supplement like dr. Fuhrman’s supplement for example so some people do better with direct sources what do you need will you you know we usually say two or three hundred milligrams a day some of the supplements now contain up to a thousand milligrams which may be suitable for some people I’ve met a few people who have had their levels tested and they said they couldn’t get them up with under six to eight hundred milligrams a day so for some people they may need that there are advantages to the plant-based option because they’re clean so they’re not contaminated with Mercury they’re they’re sustainable because we’re not raping the ocean to get them we’re growing them and they’re cruelty-free we’re not killing anything so some pretty significant advantages there are problems with fish so fish tend to be among the greatest sources of heavy metal mercury lead cadmium they’re among the greatest sources of environmental contaminants especially dioxins fish would be the number one source but even PCBs DDT malachite green which is an antimicrobial antibiotics antiseptics so and there are ecological concerns we’re rapidly depleting our fish stocks there was one report that said by 2048 our fish stocks would be gone shocking and there are ethical concerns and one of the things that I’ll never forget is this this film that showed the wonders of the ocean and it was just incredibly beautiful and at the end of the show they showed this shrimp trawler come along with a net that was about a mile long and what it does is it because they’re bottom-feeders shrimps are bottom feeders is it it drags the net on the bottom of the ocean for quite a long time lifts up everything to the boat and in that net you can imagine what they catch dolphins turtles you name it what they do is they basically pick out the the shrimp which is about 20% of the weight that is there of animals that are there the other 80% are drop dead to the bottom of the ocean it’s disgusting for the little bit of shrimp and and we need to think about that as human beings it doesn’t make sense to me for us to be doing that

so finally our last nutrient is calcium and the big question here that always comes up is isn’t cow’s milk necessary for strong bones what we’ve seen the advertisements got milk and we’ve been taught this for years that you must have dairy for strong bones but we don’t need cow’s milk any more than we need moose milk cows milk has a lot of calcium it’s about 300 milligrams per cup moose milk has 600 milligrams per cup but yet we don’t consider it an essential food you know to me it defies rationality to assume that the milk of another species would be required for our survival every species every species makes milk to support the life and growth of their offspring and that milk is very specifically designed for that species we need cow’s milk as much as we need dog milk cat milk moose milk deer milk they are produced for their species so we’ve got to come up with better ways to get our calcium and in pre-agricultural populations human at humans actually average one to two thousand milligrams of calcium a day without a single drop of snow so how did they do it well we can do it the same way they got it mostly from wild plants so how much calcium do we need well the RDA is about a thousand milligrams for women 19 to 50 and and for men 51 to 70 years of age and no it should be for men 19 to to 70 years of age sorry and then for females 51 to 70 it’s 1,200 and for men over 70 it’s 1,200 so what are our actual intake well you can see this the first three graphs are the Adventist house study and you can see we’re all close to the thousand milligrams that vegans at about nine hundred and thirty three vegetarians eleven forty-five omnivores ten seventy two they were all getting plenty of calcium but in epic Oxford you see vegans at five eighty two compared to around a thousand for the other dietary groups in an epoch Oxford they found an increased risk of fractures in the vegans but not in the vegans that got more than five hundred and twenty-five milligrams of calcium a day they had the same rates as everybody else so when do need to get enough calcium now in the Taiwanese Buddhists the vegans actually consume more than the the meat-eaters why do you think that might be well they don’t consume dairy right or very little and so the the vegetarians are eating more soy they’re eating more tofu they’re eating more greens and so those are primary sources of calcium in those populations so they would actually get more so and this is just showing the epic Oxford study and you can see a thirty percent higher risk of fracture in the vegan group but then when adjusted and looking at the vegans that only consumed at least five hundred and twenty-five milligrams of calcium a day you can see the rates were actually even lower than the fish eaters and the lacto-ovo vegetarians so they were protected by getting a little more calcium in their diet and the take-home message here is the bone health of vegans may be compromised if calcium intakes are very low vegans need to consume at least five hundred and twenty-five milligrams of calcium per day and preferably they should meet the RDA for calcium and this is my little show-off slide this is my personal experience I’m 60 years old I have a family history of osteoporosis my mom developed osteoporosis at about 50 and I’ve been vegan for thirty years and I had my bone density done after 20 years being vegan and my bone mineral density was two to two and a half standard deviations above normal for my age and osteoporosis is 2.5 standard deviations below normal for your age so my my bone density was actually so high they had to draw a little arrow at the top of the chart because they couldn’t plot it my doctor was just stunned he said he’s yeah he’s good thank you he said I don’t believe it he say I thought for sure you’d have low bone density because you don’t consume dairy and your mom has osteoporosis but the deal is is I’ve always made sure that I have good sources of calcium in my diet and I exercise and exercise is key because you’ve got to keep telling your bones to stay strong weight-bearing exercise is a big sign to your bones that they need to kick building bone instead of tearing down bone and so that’s really important yeah so what are the best dairy-free calcium so this well leafy greens that are low in oxalate is the fortified non-dairy milks almonds figs tahini beans blackstrap molasses broccoli all of those foods actually hemp seeds are loaded as well especially with the shell on so if you look at this list you can see a cup of milk has about 300 cows milk has about 300 milligrams and if and that’s about the same as as fortified non-dairy milks exactly the same so if we look at you know tofu and blackstrap molasses and roasted hemp seeds they’re also very high kale and tahini and navy beans somewhere in the one in 200 milligrams in a serving and then lots of other plant foods have little bits it’s actually not that difficult to the thousand milligrams if you’re choosing your foods well and in fact this menu you can see oatmeal blueberries fortified non-dairy milk and a few almonds and then for breakfast lunch is a pita with hummus and a kale salad and an orange dinner is a stir-fry with tofu and Chinese greens and vegetables some brown rice and were at 12:50 to 1509 1 milligrams of calcium depending on how high that the tofu was so in the vegan plate this is the food guide that we made in our in our becoming vegan you can see in the center of the guide the calcium rich foods within each food group and that’s how we help people share that they do get enough calcium so how do we absorb calcium from plant foods I can remember back in the the 1980s the dairy industry in Canada had an ad that basically said you know sure there’s calcium in plant foods but you can’t absorb it and so they made people believe that they had to have milk because it was the only thing that would supply enough calcium but if you actually look at it you absorb a moderate amount of calcium from dairy products about 32% of the calcium and milk you absorb you absorb about the same from tofu from fortified soy milk you absorb a little bit less from legumes sweet potatoes around the 20 to 25 percent but you absorb significantly more from 40 to 63 or 64 percent from low oxalate greens like broccoli and Chinese greens and mustard greens and turnip greens and kale you absorb however very little about 5% from high oxalate greens like spinach and Swiss chard and beet greens these are wonderful foods they’re rich in folic acid and other nutrients but they’re not even though they’ve got a lot of calcium the calcium is not terribly available from them so what about plant versus animal sources of calcium well there are a lot of nutritional plusses from from plants so they’re low in saturated fat their cholesterol free the rich sources of fiber and antioxidants and phytochemicals and vitamin C K and folate and magnesium and potassium and boron all of which are important to bone health so you get all of that from plants which is therefore the milk from mammals cultures around the world including long live populations like the people of Sardinia and Korea Greece and so on do use the milk of some mammals however it doesn’t mean it’s necessary and we can survive there are some downsides to dairy so dairies rich in saturated fat natural and added hormones antibiotics igf-1 and told residues and so I just want to end it has some health risks so very quickly going through those cheese’s for one source of saturated fat in the u.s. diet replacing 5 percent of calories from dairy fat with equal equal calories from polyunsaturated fat was actually associated with a 24% risk reduction in cardiovascular disease what about the hormones well cow’s milk contains natural hormones estrogen and progesterone in some countries like the u.s. synthetic hormones can also be added to increase milk production and drinking cow’s milk increases estradiol and and progesterone in the urine and blood of consumers we don’t really know for sure the outcomes of that increase antibiotics the use of antibiotics in cows to prevent infection and promote growth is very widespread in the industry and using antibiotics in animals without disease promotes the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria which is not a good thing and these back to enter the environment through manure infect people and and and these are highly resistant to conventional treatment igf-1 I’m going a little quickly now because I know I’m running out of time is a hormone that promotes growth it’s very important during the growing years it’s important to bone strength but high levels of igf-1 increased risk of several cancers and can increase the growth of cancer cells there’s a strong link between animal product consumption especially milk and dairy products and serum igf-1 levels so reducing intakes can actually lower levels environmental residues like the persistent organic pollutants like dioxins accumulate in the fat of animals they can disrupt hormones they can increase the cancer risk they can damage the nervous system then they can increase food sensitivities and even heavy metals damage the central nervous system and increase cancer risk and these are more concentrated in conventional milk than in organic milk but nonetheless are an issue and then we’ve got the health risks like lactose intolerance and prostate cancer in acne and type 1 diabetes lactose intolerance affects about 70% of the world’s population rates are lowest in Northern Europe and highest in Asia and Africa and South America but it generally results in discomfort upset stomach bloating cramps diarrhea so it seems ridiculous to be trying to push milk on Asians which we’re doing right now when they’re so sensitive to it Darrien take his linked to increased risk of prostate cancer there was a 2018 study that showed whole milk increased risk of prostate cancer recurrence in overweight men and a 2017 study that showed that men who consumed three or more servings of high-fat milk a day had a 6 times higher risk of death from prostate cancer than men consuming less than one serving a day and acne is an issue there’s a positive link between milk intake especially skim milk and acne and there’s also a link between the severity of acne and milk type 1 diabetes there’s a link between a 1 beta casein milk protein and type 1 diabetes and evidence early evidence suggests that high fiber intakes can protect against type 1 diabetes now the beta a a 1 beta casein and milk varies in different parts of the world depending on the type of cows so it’s not the same risk everywhere and I love dr. Michael clappers words of wisdom I don’t know if you were here to hear him but he said the purpose of cow’s milk is to turn a 65 pound calf into a 4 100 pound cow as rapidly as possible cow’s milk is baby calf growth fluid everything in that white liquid the hormones the fat the protein the growth factors the igf-1 every one of those is meant to blow that cow up to a grape bro that cow up to a great big Tower it wouldn’t be there loved it

so you know I wanna I want to just end by saying you know there are reasons are meat milk and fish nutritional necessities absolutely not when we get our nutrition from plants we all win and of this picture I think it’s so beautiful the planet wins you know the United Nations environmental program expert panel concluded that two activities have a disproportionately large effect on the its life-support systems number one animal agriculture especially livestock for meat and dairy and fossil fuels and their recommendation a global shift to a plant-based diet the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that if we followed recommended guidelines we’d reduce by 2050 our greenhouse gas emissions by 29% but if we all went vegan we would reduce it by 70% their recommendation a global shift to a plant-based diet then we’ve got the eat The Lancet Commission summary report from 2019 Walter Willett was involved and he said transformation to healthy diets by 2050 will require substantial dietary shifts global consumption of fruits vegetables nuts and legumes will have to double consumption of foods such as red meat and sugar will have to be reduced by more than 50% a rich a diet rich in plant foods with fewer animal sources confers both health and environmental benefits and there are advantages for people human health impacts by 2050 deaths per year would be reduced by 5.1 million people if the global dietary guidelines were followed and by eight point 1 million people if people all went the more than half the avoided deaths would be due to decreased red meat consumption and of course have showed this slide before but and the animals we would be benefit benefiting the animals when you think about the animals the the you know the seventy billion animals that are slaughtered for food every year the vast majority for those animals are raised in K phos confined animal feeding operations and I talked a little bit about the pigs yesterday but these animals when you think about eggs for example when when we you know we raise chickens to produce eggs all of the male chicks are of no use to the egg industry and guess what happens to them some of them are ground up live and put back into the chicken feed some of them are just suffocated in bags they’re just needless byproducts of the industry what we do to animals as human beings is incomprehensible to me you know I love this quote by dr. Schweitzer he once said that the time is coming when people will be amazed that the human race existed so long before it recognized that thoughtless injury to life is incompatible with real ethics ethics in its unqualified form is extended responsibility to everything that has life I love this man when I look at his picture it almost brings me to tears I love this man he was really the father of compassion if you will and of reverence for life and and these words I think he would be amazed that it’s taking this long he was he was the the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 and we need to get this it’s time it’s beyond time Albert Einstein once said we have to do the best we can this is our sacred human responsibility and I think he was a very and so thank you very much for your attention thank you for staying and shape that thank you thank you so much thank you I’m very humbled and honored thank you so much it’s just a privilege to connect with so many compassionate conscious human beings so thank you for everything that you do to make this world a better place [Applause] [Music]