Eating For Life. Designing An Optimal Diet by Brenda Davis

it’s such a pleasure to be here and a privilege and thank you Steve and all of the team that has put on this amazing conference it’s such a privilege to be a part of this and I thank you all for being here on this beautiful beautiful day so today I’m going to be talking about eating for life designing an optimal diet and when I think about an optimal diet I mean we all have a little bit of a different definition of optimal but to me the important factors are number one the diet has got to maximize health and well-being it’s got a support a person’s healthy body weight so you won’t be overweight or underweight it’s got to minimize risk of all chronic diseases it needs to meet our needs for all essential nutrients it’s got to be satisfying appealing and culturally and socially appropriate for us it’s and and last but definitely not least it has got to be ecologically sustainable and ethically justifiable so when we think about the healthy people who who consume healthy diets and who truly enjoy Optimal Health we can’t help but talking about um the blue zones and the blue zones are really regions of the world where people commonly live to be 90 or a 100 years of age there are many centenarians within the blue zones but not only do they live to be 90 or 100 years of age but at those Advanced ages they’re healthy they’re out gardening they’re doing really well they’re not on 14 medications there are five well-recognized blue zones okanawa Japan Sardinia Italy 7th Day Adventist vegetarians of lomalinda California Iaria Greece and the ncoa peninsula of Costa Rica and if you look at what lifestyle practices are common the Common Thread that we can weave through all of these populations there’s certain lifestyle practices that are a little bit unique within each of these populations this is just three of the blue zones a VIN diagram of three of the blue zones some are shared by two or more populations but there are six lifestyle practices that are common to every Blue Zone on the planet and they are strong sense of family these people are socially engaged they do constant moderate physical activity they don’t smoke they all consume and two things where diet is concerned they all consume plant-based diets and they all consume legumes you know I I’m just going to go back for a second because tomorrow the entire lecture is looking at diet and disease and what we know about the link between diet and disease and the various populations and so just touching on it lightly here but tomorrow that will be the entire lecture so in terms of Optimal Health we know the healthiest populations in the world are eating plant-based diets the evidence for plant-based diets is actually really strong and I show this this quote from Mary and Nestle because of really who she is I don’t know if you’re familiar with her work but she wrote many books safe food and um the food politics and but she she was a former senior uh nutrition policy adviser for the government she was uh NYU Nutri head of the Nutrition department for years she was even a senior editor for the surgeon Generals Report back in 1988 and and the reason I show this is because I want you to understand that this is not controversial in the mainstream scientific community scientists know that plant-based diets are most appropriate for human health and Maran nessle says there’s no question that largely vegetarian diets are as healthy as you can get the evidence is so strong and overwhelming and produced over such a long period of time it’s no longer debatable but plant-based diets are not foolproof there are no animal products in a lot of potato chips or soda pop or other junk Foods people can put together a diet that is based on plant Foods that’s actually really unhealthy so what we’re going to talk about today is 10 steps to a truly optimal plant-based diet and

step one is make whole plant Foods the foundation of the diet what we want to do is aim for at least 10 or more servings of color ful vegetables and fruits each day I was adding up my numbers this morning just wondering where I’m at and I’m at about 14 to 16 on most days and I’m not you know I’m not a 200 lb man so I think that we just need to recognize that these are foundational Foods we need at least three or four servings of greens a couple servings of red a couple servings of orange yellow a couple servings of purple blue a couple servings of white beige because all of these different colorful foods provide us with different beneficial components and you know the US recommendations aim for feasible rather than optimal they recommend at least two to three servings of vegetables and one and a half to two servings of fruits a day that having been said almost no one in the United States meets even these feasible recommendations the average is less than 1% of adolescents less about 2% of men and about 3 and 1 12% of women meet the US recommendations and guess what guess what they included when they looked at the number of servings people were eating they included french fries and ketchup amongst vegetables and they included jam and jelly with fruit so this is really scary this is really quite frightening why do we need these Foods they’re nutrient-dense foods and nutrient density is all about nutrients per calorie what do we get for our calorie what we want to do is we want to get the most from every calorie consumed we want to select foods that contribute to health rather than undermine it okay so think of this if a person has a disease it’s kind of like their houses on fire everything you put in your body will either serve as gasoline or water you know and think about this every single cell is a product of what we eat we think of food as fuel but food is so much more than fuel it’s the building blocks with which our brain is made of every cell in our body so we you know we if we’re if we’re eating junk constantly no wonder our bodies are not functioning optimally this is we have heard a lot from Dr Ferman this is his nutrient density index so at the top green leafy vegetables other non-starchy vegetables and fruit then you’ve got other plant foods and fish then you’ve got animal products and at the bottom of the list you’ve got french fries and vegetable oil well when you dip food in oil before you eat it it dilutes the nutritional density and oil has very few nutrients so it’s mostly calorie you know to me mostly calories to me oil is to high fat plant foods like sugar is to high carbohydrate plant Foods we’ve extracted a macronutrient and left everything of value behind the phytochemicals the antioxidants and so forth we want to be including legumes or legume products on a daily basis in my view because these are are the foods that are most concentrated sources of protein iron zinc and some other trace minerals and also fiber so they’re very very valuable Foods in plant-based diets there’s an interesting study that looked at food intake patterns of people 70 years plus and found that the only statistically significant food indicator of longevity was legum intake for every 20 gam and 20 G is about 2/3 of an ounce okay so for every 2/3 of an ounce of legumes there was a 7 to 8% reduction in mortality really quite stunning we need to be including at least one serving 1 ounce of nuts and seeds a day and I would prefer to see one serving of each I think these are extraordinarily valuable Foods they are underappreciated by many people in the plant-based Community the there is very consistent evidence that they improve longevity cardiovascular disease risk diabetes metabolic syndrome there’s moderate evidence for protection against demena macular degeneration and gallstones as well so nuts and seeds are really our primary sources of essential fatty acids they’re low and saturated fats they’re really rich in vitamin E and most people get about half the vitamin E that they need they’re great sources of B vitamins and vitamin K they’re abundant sources of many trace minerals many of which are difficult to get from other Foods in sufficient quantity they’re high in phytochemicals and antioxidants and they have the lowest glycemic index and glycemic load of any plant Foods so they’re very valuable and also they’re high in arginine which is a which is an amino acid that’s a very potent vasodilator so it helps with improving of blood flow we want to choose whole grains but most of them should be intact the goods on grains well grains are not absolutely essential they are key sources of protein and energy for a large part of the world’s population they contribute a lot of nutrients and also about 45% of our dietary fiber to me a very reasonable approach with grains is to get everything else first get your vegetables and fruits The More nutrient-dense Foods get your legumes get your nuts and seeds and then the calories you have to play with can be intact whole grains and some people need very few two or three servings a day at most and some people who are burning four or 5,000 calories a day that they’re competitive athletes they may be able to consume more the other thing that we often forget is the power of herbs and spices we need to be using these Foods constantly I my breakfast is a um sprouted grains some fruits I make a cashew cream I put some nuts and seeds on and then I often put on a little ginger and a little cinnamon you know just to get the herbs and spices in so it’s a wonderful way of eating just it just boosts the flavor and all of the wonderful powerful protective components in Foods

step two is to select our carbohydrates with care carbohydrates are not the enemy Blue Zone intakes actually range from 50 to 80% of total calories so the the percent of calories in every Blue Zone ranges from 50 to 80% of calories carbohydrates from Whole Foods are very consistently protective to human health if you think about it and you look at the carbohydrate content of Whole Foods all of these plant Foods whether it’s fruits uh starchy vegetables um legumes uh and non-starchy vegetables they range from 58 to 92% of their calories from carbohydrates so how can carbohydrates be so so horrible if they are the predominant macronutrient in almost every healthy food the only plant food that’s lower in carbs is nuts and seeds Okay but refined carbohydrates are very bad news why well when we ref refine a carbohydrate and I’m using wheat uh wheat grain as an example we’re literally taking out the most nutritious part of the grain here we’re taking out the bran and The Germ this is where most of the nutrients fiber protein Etc are stored and what we’re left with is called endosperm which is almost pure starch there’s a little bit of protein in a few nutrients but in the process of taking a grain of wheat and turning it into white flour we lose 80 to 90% of the fiber 70 to 80% of the vitamins and minerals and 95 % of the protective phytochemicals but nobody eats a bowl of white flour what do we do to it first we add fat sugar salt and a bunch of food additives before we eat it you know there’s no possible way that when we consume our carbohydrates in this form that they could possibly support human health about 90% of the carbohydrates that people consume assum in in North America are refined carbohydrates and we wonder you know it’s understandable why people have blacklisted carbohydrates it’s just they don’t understand that there’s a difference between unrefined and refined carbohydrates you know diets that are rich in refined carbohydrates are consistently linked to overeating and obesity they adversely affect blood lipids blood pressure and heart disease they adversely affect insulin sensitivity and diabetes risk they increase our risk of GI disorders including GI cancers the increase non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and the increase inflammation impair IM and impair immunity so we hear quite often that wheat is a chronic perfect poison we’ve all seen Grain Brain and wheat belly and so I just wanted to to touch on this topic I don’t have time to go in detail but I want you to know that we don’t have serious scientific evidence against grains the there are very significant volumes of evidence that show that refined grains increase risk of disease but unrefined grains are actually protective they’re associated with reduced risk of heart disease diabetes and many cancers as well however it’s really important to know that even whole grains vary widely in how valuable are they are to human health at and and so I’ve developed this thing called the whole grain hierarchy at the top of the hierarchy is intact whole grains that’s the grain as it’s picked off the plant nothing added nothing taken away how do you make it healthier by sprouting it when you sprout a whole grain you decrease antinutrients you release the stored forms of nutrients and you absolutely magnify the phytochemicals and antioxidants because phytochemicals are the things in plants that protect them against predators they protect to allow the plant to grow so when you start sprouting those phytochemicals increase 3 4 500% so very very good way to improve the value of a grain is to sprout it you also reduce the gluten content when you sprout very significantly next on the list would be broken whole grains then rolled then shredded then ground then flaked and at the bottom of the list would be puffed whole grains and so what are we doing as as we go down this list we’re increasing the surface area of the grain we’re increasing the glycemic index we’re decreasing the nutritional value exposing nutrients to air the bottom of the list a puffed hole grain like brown rice cake for example uh many people think is a wonderfully healthy food because it’s low in calories but the nutritional value is quite dismal and it’s absorbed more rapidly than white sugar okay so we just need to understand that all whole grains are not created equal you know the recommended maximum intake this is the American Heart Association recommends men eat no more than nine teaspoons of sugar a day and women no more than six the 2015 dietary guidelines recommend now for the first time ever no more than 10% of calories from sugar it used to be 25 25% was the recommended maximum but the average intake 22 to 30 teaspoons of sugar a day and everybody says no way nobody’s going to eat 30 you know 22 to 30 teaspoons of sugar a day but 1 8 oz container of lowfat fruit yogurt contains nine teaspoons of sugar on average and that’s just not not just dairy yogurt it’s soy yogurt and coconut yogurt and almond yogurt and all sorts of yogurt that’s fruit flavored a soda is 10 to 13 teaspoons of sugar a slush is 28 teaspoons of sugar you know those things kids drink in the summertime the numbers add up very quickly to get under the six teaspoons for women you’d be eating no fruit yogurt and you haven’t eaten anything else all day so it’s it’s interesting the other interesting thing is about half of our sugar comes in the form of liquid beverages sweet beverages sodas and uh Iced Teas and uh sports drinks and all of these sorts of things and this is very bad news because when you drink a beverage that has calories it doesn’t register with your appetite control center the way that it would if you were consuming solid foods so your body feels as though it’s eaten no calories at all and uh and so it contributes of course to overweight and obesity well what about the sugar the natural sugar in in fruits the added sugars of course are very consistently associated with increased disease risk but uh fruit sugar is consistently shown to be protective when it’s inside the whole food why because fruit is rich in fiber it this slows sugar absorption it increases satiety they’re loaded with antioxidants so they reduce oxidative stress uh phytochemical and fruits have multiple disease fighting actions so they’re also very protective and these foods are actually really important sources of potassium and vitamin C and other nutrients in fact it’s not that easy to design a diet that’s sufficient in pottassium for healthy people without fruit however although we’re well equipped to handle the small amounts of fructose and fruit when we remove fructose from food and we add it to Beverages and process foods our body’s capacity to handle fructose very quickly becomes overwhelmed it is metabolized only by liver cells glucose is metabolized by every cell of the body excess fructose is turned into fat it’s turned into something called vldl in the in the bloodstream and it’s stored as fat in the liver contributing to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease so all of the adverse effects of too much sugar are magnified with fructose over glucose and what’s really interesting if you look at the the the sugar content of various sweeteners whether it’s agave syrup or coconut sugar or honey or maple syrup or molasses what you see is that almost all of the sugar is is fructose and glucose okay and and the only sugar that’s all glucose is corn syrup if you look at something like agave syrup 57 to 90% of the sugar is free fructose in table sugar half is fructose half is glucose but they’re tied together so in order to absorb these things we have to split that sugar before the sugars can be absorbed so it seems as though things with the free fructose are even more damaging than sucrose and so you can see high fructose corn serup has a variety of levels of free fructose but also um agave syrup a lot of people think coconut sugar is you know very low fructose sugar but it’s only got 3 to 9% but the rest 70 to 79% is actually sucrose which is half fructose half glucose so you know my approach to sugars has been very simple I use them like I would use oils so a teaspoon to flavor for culinary flavor in a dressing or something um but basically I don’t use sugar as a food uh really I use uh if I want fruit or dried fruits to sweeten desserts and that’s it uh that’s sort of a reasonable direction to go where sugar is concerned what about the fructose and fruit well just so you understand a 20 o Pepsi has about 36 gram of fructose you can see that’s just a 20 o some people get a 40 o so so you can see the amount in fruits it takes a lot of fruit to add up to just one soda okay and and there’s great differences in fructose content of different fruits but you can see by having a variety you’re not going to go over the top and what is the top we don’t really know some experts are saying 50 gram some say 25 gram but I think when people are consuming it in fruit and consuming fruit re relatively moderately throughout the day it’s not a huge issue so

step three we need to boost fiber intake and you know not going going to go through all of this in great detail cuz I think you know the benefits of fiber but a lot of people don’t understand that not only does it do all the good things for our gut and good things for our microflora but it also enhances immune function it lessens hormonal imbalances it does things that a lot of us don’t even recognize that it does the RDA or the recommended dietary allowance is 38 gram for men and 25 for women and in fact average intakes are about half that I think to really enjoy Optimal Health we probably need at least 35 to 50 grams a day and this is what’s really interesting estimated Paleolithic intakes ranged between 70 and 50 plus grams a day and 70 at the low end of the the the range this was people who were eating 2third of their calories from animal products from Meat and Fish and so forth only a third of their calories were from plants and they were still getting 70 gr the people at the other end of the spectrum where they were getting 2third of their calories from plants were eating 150 plus grams a day and and this may not make a lot of sense but I’ll explain it this way wild plants can contain four times the concentration of fiber that our conventional or commercially grown plants do so they were just much more concentrated in fiber so the human body I think is designed to handle quite a lot of fiber but our gut microbiome gets messed up when we’re not consuming a lot of fiber so what are the best fiber sources well beans without a doubt are the number one source of fiber they’re the most concentrated fiber foods with about 10 to 20 grams per cup of beans avocados this threw me for a loop when I saw this on you know the U the the um nutrient database the USDA nutrient database I was looking at various things about avocados and I saw 13.5 gam of fiber in a 200 g piece of fruit not including the skin it’s quite shocking you wonder where the fiber is hidden cuz it doesn’t seem very fibrous but it’s a very high fiber food uh then grains then berries and then other vegetables fruits nuts and seeds are all sources but of course only plant foods contain fiber I had someone asked me the other day but even if you cook animal even if you cook meat doesn’t it contain fiber if you cook it and so people don’t realize plants have fiber to to give them their shape and structure animals have bones we don’t have fiber so we get very little fiber from refined carbohydrates fast foods processed foods we get no fiber from animal Foods dairy products fat oil or sugar so we want to be aiming for at least 10 to 15 grams of fiber per meal from a variety of whole plant Foods because there are a wide range of types of fibers in Foods there are gums and hemicellulose and sem cellulose and pectin they all do different wonderful things in the body so we want to be consuming a variety of them what some people do is just sprinkle bran on everything and think it’ll solve the problems and there are two two reasons why we shouldn’t be doing that one is we don’t just want insoluble fiber like you’re getting from bran we want a variety of fibers but second is for people eaing plant-based diets uh bran is a huge source of Fates it’s like a little phate bomb and it inhibits the absorption of minerals that we already have a little bit of a challenge absorbing sufficiently like iron and zinc so we don’t want to be sprinkling bran on our food that having been said I think it’s important to know that Fates are not all bad the sort of Paleolithic World wants us to think that Fates are all bad and they’re not as a matter of fact moderate intakes of Fates have huge health benefits they’re powerful antioxidants they help us to repair DNA protect against ameloid amalo plaque formation in the brain they inhibit tumor growth they inhibit bone loss they lower cholesterol they improve glycemic response they reduce risk of kidney stones they do all sorts of beneficial things for the body and of course they’re reduced by many traditional methods of preparation like soaking sprouting fermenting blending juicing all of these things help to reduce Fates in food

step four be very picky about your protein sources meat poultry fish eggs and dairy products are very rich sources of high quality protein we know that but they’re not the only sources nor are they the preferred sources for human health I love this cartoon this little rodent is saying to the gorilla no meat at all are you sure you’re getting enough protein and the point being that the largest strongest land animals on the planet are all vegetarian so that should tell us something you know and if you go to there’s a website called vegan bodybuilding.com uh the these all three of these people here are 100% vegan bodybuilders and or athletes and uh if they can do it uh we probably can too you know there are ma major advantages to getting protein from plant Foods over animal products you know plant foods are tremendous sources of phytochemicals and antioxidants animal products don’t offer that they’re high in iron and zinc like meat is but they also provide calcium and potassium and magnesium and folate other nutrients that we don’t get a lot of from meat they provide fiber they’re low fat they’re cholesterol free they’re free of new 5gc which is is a very pro-inflammatory molecule in meat they’re they’re they’re free of carnitine and carnitine as we mentioned earlier uh is responsible for the production of TMA by gut bacteria which goes to the liver to form tmao which is very atherogenic uh they provide a safer form of iron for the body for example in legumes fertin is absorbed very slowly into the gut and there are literally thousands of iron atoms in one molecule of fertin and then the iron is released slowly as our body needs it whereas iron from animal products the heem iron particularly is a strong prooxidant and increases oxidative stress so and of course the plant foods are free of hormones and antibiotics that are used in animal products so how much protein do we actually need well the World Health Organization suggests 10 to 15% of calories from protein the RDA is8 gram per kilogram of body weight many dietitians such as myself suggest an added 10 to 20% for vegans simply not because the protein is lower quality but simply because it’s less digestible so to make up for the lower digestibility ility of plant protein and needs are a little higher for children they’re higher for seniors and they’re higher for some athletes so how much protein do we get in food well animal products you see somewhere 25 to 90% of calories from protein depending on the fat content and for a plant Foods veggie meats are mostly protein 55 to 80% but whole plant Foods legumes nonstarch vegetables are 20 to 40% of calories from protein even mushrooms are 30% of calories from protein so really important dark leafy greens are 35 to 40% of calories from protein of course you need to eat 30 or 40 cups to get a reasonable amount because they’re so low in calories but but a lot of the calories are coming from protein grains nuts and seeds about 8 to 177% the only foods that fall below that sort of 10 to 15% are root vegetables and fruits so if you’re eating a variety of plant foods and you’re eating enough calories it’s actually hard not to get enough uh protein it’s just not an issue so a lot of people say well isn’t plant protein inferior and the answer is absolutely not in fact most people don’t know this but animals do not make essential or indispensable amino acids they’re all made by plants and all plants contain all nine indispensable amino acids they come from plants either directly by eating plants or indirectly by eating animals that ate plants or very indirectly by eating animals that ate other animals that ate plants but they were all made by plants so it makes no sense to think we can’t get them from Plants that’s where they’re made okay so do we need to complement proteins do we need to combine you know our grains with legumes and only in order to get complete protein and no we’ve known for 25 or 30 years that this is not necessary we can get sufficient of all the indispensable amino acids from Plants by eating a variety of plants over the course of a day and by making sure we get enough calories there’s really only two ways of blowing it one is to get insufficient calories and the other is to eat mostly junk food or mostly fruit or mostly oil okay otherwise it’s not a um a big issue and to put it into some perspective to meet your daily needs for total protein say you needed 65 grams of protein a day and all of the indispensable amino acids you need from just one food and nobody eats just one food but this is what you would need you would need about 1.6 cups of tofu you would need about three beef burger patties you would need need about 3 and 1/4 to 4 and 1/2 cups of beans you would need 1.8 cups of pumpkin seeds you would need 12 eggs or you would need about eight cups of milk okay so you can see it can come from plants as well as animals so I want to touch on the soy question because I know that there there are um a large number of vegetarians who now specifically avoid so and are scared of soy and most of the negative comments about soy that we see on the internet come from the West na A price foundation and the West na A price foundation is a very anti-vegetarian organization they actually say you won’t believe this but they say that the only people that should never breastfeed their children is vegans because their milk will be inadequate so they’re just very very anti-vegetarian and in fact it’s just the opposite you know vegans actually have lower levels of environmental contaminants in their breast milk and their breast milk is very very good they it may have a little lower levels of Omega-3s but that can be corrected very very easily so on to the soy question is soy safe well this is to me the acid test let’s look at the blue zones Okana aans are the among the healthiest longest live people on the planet they average two servings of soy a day the Adventists another one of the blue zones average around two servings a day as well so to me if the healthiest longest liveed people on the planet are eating soy it can’t be poison you know they probably wouldn’t be the healthiest longest live people on the planet if it was poison so you know the evidence actually suggests protective effects prostate cancer men who drink soy or use soy milk instead of cow’s milk have a 30 to 50% reduced risk of prostate cancer women who consume soy in childhood and Adolescence have a significantly reduced lifetime risk of breast cancer women who consume um uh soy as adults especially Asian women have a significantly lower risk of breast cancer women who have the braa one or two Gene for cancer who consumed the greatest amount of soy this was a study in Korea had a 60% lower risk of cancer women who were consuming the highest amounts of meat had a 200% increase in risk of cancer uh and people who have breast cancer and consume soy when they have breast cancer whether or not they’re on tamoxifen have less recurrence have a greater longevity than people who don’t consume soy it reduces risk of cardiovascular ular disease it also risk reduces risk of kidney disease when it’s replaced with uh when meat is replaced with soy soy has also been found to help reduce menopause symptoms by about 25% and it even reduces me the risk of male pattern boldness believe it or not so the thing about soy to me that we need to understand is if you eat soy and you don’t have to it’s not a necessary food you can eat other legumes if you pref first some people are even allergic to Soy but you want to stick to organic soy and you want to select mostly first generation soy products things like edamami and Tempe and tofu it doesn’t have to be fermented uh soybeans and soy milk that’s made with or whole organic soybeans these foods are reasonable soy Foods in my uh view we want to limit our intake of the more highly processed so soy Foods especially those to me made from soy protein isolates and concentrates which increase levels of igf1 about the same amount as meat wood so what are considered safe intakes most of the experts are saying two to four servings a day and that’s what most of the studies that show protection from soy are showing this is in the range of two to four servings a day but for children probably not more than one to two a day because of the phytoestrogens in soil you don’t want to overdo the phytoestrogens for children and it’s interesting the studies on men showing feminizing effects on men with soy two studies in one study the guy was eating 14 servings of soy a day and in the other study the guy these are just case studies the guy was eating 18 to 20 servings a day so if all you eat is soy yeah it could cause some problems in at moderate levels there’s no evidence that it kind causes those kinds of problems so

step five is to choose healthy fats this is our last macronutrient we want to replace unhealthy fats with healthy fats from Whole Foods quality trumps quantity remember the blue zones the Okana aans eat about 11% of calories from fat the people in Sardinia and Greece eat about 306 or 37% of calories from fat they’re both you know doing really well to me it’s again not so much the percentage of macronutrients it’s the source of the macronutrients that matters so you know when it comes to how we should deal with fat we need to number one avoid trans fatty acids completely we need to limit saturated fat moderate our use of concentrated fats and oils minimize fried foods and oxidized fats and includes sufficient sources of essential fatty acids in the diet so we want to make Whole Foods our primary sources of fats because they’re rich in fiber and antioxidants and phytochemicals and sterols and stanols and all of the things that are protective but concentrated fats and oils should be used more sparingly as I said I would equate them you know to these whole plant Foods as I would sugar to Caro High carbohydrate Whole Foods or oils are pure fat they have a little bit of vitamin E and not much else so we’ve lost the fiber we’ve lost the phytochemicals so they not that they should never be used but they should be used fairly sparingly in my view for most people there are some people that can afford to use more what about coconut oil is it really a miracle or a menace and I would say it’s neither uh coconut oil is about 87 to 90% of calories from saturated fat so a lot of experts caution against heavy use because it’s so high in saturated fat however other types you know um the saturated fat in coconut oil seems to be a lot less atherogenic than the fat in animal products and why because about 60% of the fat in coconut oil is medium chain triglycerides about 45% of it is lauric acid which is a 12 carbon uh saturated fat about 177% is is meristic acid which is a 14 carbon fat about 8% palmitic acid and about 3% steric acid which is an 18 carbon saturated fatty acid and the saturated fatty acids that raise LDL cholesterol are loric acid meristic acid and ptic acid and so you think case closed it must raise cholesterol levels but actually loric acid is well known for increasing HDL even more than LDL so it actually improves the ratio of LDL to HDL a little bit medium chain triglycerides are not stored as fat nearly as R readily as the bigger saturated fatty acids like meristic or palmitic acid so there’s an advantage that way too and also loric acid is converted in the body to something called monolaurin which is antifungal antiviral antiseptic and it has some reasonable properties so does that mean we should eat coconut oil with a B I don’t think so I would treat coconut oil as I would any other oil I would enjoy mature coconuts in moderation like you would other high plant Whole Foods like nuts seeds and avocados but I would use coconut oil more sparingly as you would other concentrated fats and oils they all contain 120 calories per tablespoon and very few nutrients most North Americans can’t afford that many empty calories we want every calorie to cons that we consume to provide the most it can provide for our bodies so I think this is really important and you know what I do with coconut oil I buy a lot of coconut oil but you know what I use it for I use it for my skin It’s a Wonderful natural moisturizer and so it’s a that’s a great use I add a little bit of vitamin E sometimes a little Shia butter sometimes a little uh cocoa butter and I make you know cream out of it it’s a great it’s a great thing for that the other thing with fat is we need to re be really conscious about exposing our bodies to damaged fats do not allow oils to smoke if you’re using oils in cooking you need to keep the temperature moderate better still start with water and if you need to flavor with a bit of sesame oil or something add it after the temperature has come down never cook with omega-3 Rich oils like flax or hemp seed oil they are very unstable fats they get oxidized very quickly and do not burn high fat foods or allow them to Blacken you want to minimize processed foods and finally you want to be very careful about storing all high-fat Foods so when I buy nuts and seeds for example if they’re shelled they go in the freezer immediately okay and I mean you can put them in the refrigerator but do not leave them at room temperature if walnuts taste bitter they are rancid okay and so store your nuts and seeds take care of them the first thing I shouldn’t say the first thing I do is put them in the freezer because actually the first thing I do with nuts and seeds is soak and dehydrate because I want to reduce the antinutrients I want to improve the digestibility of the nuts and seeds and then I freeze them to preserve the fragile fats that are there so that’s just automatic as soon as they’re brought home unless they’re in their shell obviously oh I depends the bigger they are the longer you have to soak them so for example small seeds like um you know pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds you can soak for 4 hours 6 hours something like that but the larger nuts I would soak for longer and what I do with almonds is I soak them for at least a day or two even sometimes two days and I’ll I’ll uh rinse them after the first day but I love when they get really big they start to taste a bit like coconut actually and then I dehydrate them they’re wonderful that way so what about getting enough of these longchain omega-3 fatty acids without fish we absolutely can fish again do do not make DHA and EPA EPA and DHA are actually made by microalgae these are tiny plants in the ocean and at some point along the food chain the fish get them from the microalgae even you know little fish eat the microalgae bigger fish eat the little fish and so on but we can get EPA and DHA directly from microalgae we can also get it by making it in our own bodies from alphao lenic acid which is the plant omega-3 so how do we optimize our omega-3 fatty acid status number one eat a balanced healthy diet it’s really important to know that nutritional and adequacies like protein deficiency zinc magnesium nasin a lot of nutrients if we don’t have enough of them we won’t be able to convert the plant omega-3 to the bigger longer uh doosa hexanoic acid NIOSA pentanoic acid what we call the Fish fats so that’s very important dietary components like trans fatty acids excessive intakes of alcohol and caffeine can also impair conversion very high fat diets diets that are 40% calories plus from fat also impair the conversion of plant Omega-3s into longchain Omega-3s so how do we make sure we get enough well if you’re taking direct sources of EPA and DHA you just need to meet the RDA which is 1.1 gram of ala for women and 1.6 for men uh and that you would need to take two or three times a week two to 300 milligrams of EPA and DHA now for vegetarians and vegans who are not taking direct sources you need to double your a ala uh require we double the Ala requirements so then you would be looking at 2.2 for women and 3.2 for men grams of ala per day and all of this information is in much much greater detail in becoming vegan comprehensive addition and express addition in slightly lesser detail but um but still in much greater detail than in the presentation you want to choose foods that are rich in alphal linolenic acid so things like ground flax seeds chia seeds hemp seeds walnuts and it’s not that you can’t eat whole flax seeds but they’re slippery little seeds they go right through you they add beautifully to your stool bulk they’re really good for people who are constipated but you can’t extract a lot of Omega-3s unless you’re chewing them well so you know in a flax cracker you’ll chew more than say what you might sprinkle on a bowl of cereal so when you’re putting it on a bowl of cereal you definitely want to grind your your seed first and if you grind them you want to store the ground seed in the freezer to preserve those Omega-3s uh walnuts are a good source hemp seeds are a reasonable source as well and uh and just to give you an example um about about a tablespoon a heaping tablespoon of ground flax will give you enough as will an ounce of walnuts as will a couple of tablespoons of chia seeds or about three table two or three tablespoons of hemp and you know a lot of people don’t realize this but about half the fat in Greens is omega-3 so but you would have to eat 30 cups to get three gram because they’re they’re so low in fat but they still are sources some people eat too much omega-6 and and why would that be a problem because omega-6 fats can reduce conversion by about 40 to 50% if you eat too many they compete for the same conversion enzymes and so you don’t want to if you’re using oil use the omega-6 Rich oils like sunflower and safflower and soy and cotton seed and so forth and you want to limit foods that are made with those fats as well also it’s reasonable to consider a direct source of EPA and DHA there are all kinds of supplements especially for those with increased needs So Pregnant and lactating women or those who may not be good at converting so people with diabetes metabolic syndrome hypertension for example or pop populations who have traditionally eaten a lot of fish they may not produce the enzymes as efficiently so this just gives you an example of some of the supplements that are available that are you know completely vegan EPA and DHA supplements and what you would want is maybe 2 or 300 milligrams two or three times a week

step six you need to meet all your micronutrient needs and we’ll talk only about the micro nutrients we’re talking vitamins and minerals here that tend to be an issue for plant people on plant-based diets so B12 iron zinc calcium vitamin D and iodine and we’ll just do a very quick slide on each to give you a quick summary of what you need to know about and in uh becoming vegan both of the books we created this thing called the vegan plate and if you follow this guide you’ll meet your needs for all of these uh micronutrients so first of all vitamin B12 number one plant sources are not very reliable sources of vitamin B12 although there are some exceptions for example cweed contains both inactive and active B12 and when you dry seaweed you tend to convert some of the active B12 into inactive B12 an inactive B12 can actually take up residence on B12 receptor sites preventing real B12 from getting in there and they can actually contribute to a functional B12 deficiency in in that that regard now chlorella and AFA which is a blue green algae may have more usable true B12 but the studies are very in the very early stages and uh you know done on one or two people and so we can’t say yet that these are just rely on these things only and you’ll be fine uh you still need to even if you’re using those I would still take a supplement as well uh fermented foods and organic vegetables are not reliable sources of B12 now in Indonesia they’ve confirmed that they have reliable B12 in their Tempe but they don’t use clean stainless steel Vats to to produce their Tempe like we do in North America or Europe so we can’t rely on on things like that for B12 um mushrooms some may be sources especially if they’re grown on human manure uh but generally we want to wash them well and we’ll wash a lot of the B12 off uh internal production is insufficient because most of our production of B12 happens in the large intestine we can absorb a little bit but most of the absorption happens in the small intestine so and you can produce a little bit if you have very poor Dental hygiene and you’ve got a lot of plaque on your teeth you can actually produce some B12 but it’s probably not worth what it will do to your longevity having such bad dental hygiene so B12 production uh you know is just not something you can rely on in the human body so our stores and adults might last two or three years but I’ve seen people become deficient in 6 months babies born to breastfed others who are B12 deficient can develop clinical signs of deficiency within a few weeks and they can have irreversible brain damage uh By the time they’re 10 or 12 months old uh not worth ever taking a chance with trust me I’ve seen too many court cases and babies taken away from parents and all of these things please be sure to get a reliable source of B12 in your diet how much do you need four micrograms a day in two or more servings of fortified Foods at least 25 to 250 micrograms a day from supplements if you’re doing daily supplements and 1,00 to 2500 micrograms if you’re doing it once or twice or three times a week okay so what about iron and zinc most studies actually show adequate iron and zinc status in in vegans as a matter of fact vegans eat more iron than what non-vegetarians eat but it’s just less absorbable and so there are some ways we can improve the absorbability one is to eat vitamin C with our iron-rich foods so when you have iron-rich foods like beans you’ve got red peppers in your dish the very rich in vitamin C and can help with the absorption of iron the other is to really watch the Inhibitors so things like Fates can reduce iron absorption by over 50% uh cannin from tea so if you’re drinking green or black tea or even some of the herbal teas it can reduce absorption by 50 to 90% from a meal so you would want to separate your tea from the meal by an hour or two to prevent that in inhibition of absorption and zinc is a bit of a big deal as well and one of the best sources of zinc are the nuts and seeds like cashew and pumpkin seeds are loaded with iron and zinc so they’re a really really good food and if you soak your pumpkin seeds you’ll help to release that that iron and zinc uh and and the best sources legumes lentils are especially rich in iron and black beans lima beans chickpeas soybeans are also quite rich in iron and zinc uh whole grains but especially the pseudo grains are good sources uh nuts and seeds all seeds cashews pine nuts almonds Brazil nuts all of of them are good sources mushrooms are surprisingly good sources as are peas and string beans green leafy vegetables avocados prune juice dried fruits are reasonable sources of iron and then fortified foods and black strap molasses do you know that a t let’s see a tablespoon of black strap molasses has about the same amount of calcium as a cup of milk and about the same amount of iron as an 8 O steak could be two tablespoons of black strap molasses but they’re very concentrated in Trace it’s the only sugar that’s actually concentrated in minerals so what about calcium you know calcium a lot of people believe that they’ve got to have milk for their calcium that their bones will dissolve if they’re not drinking milk cows milk is it to me I I always think it kind of defies rationality to assume that the human species would require the milk of another species for its survival it doesn’t make sense milk milk is there to support the growth of an offspring and cow’s milk is designed to promote the growth of baby calves and deer milk and you know deer milk and moose milk have twice as much calcium as cow’s milk we don’t call them essential Foods so I think it’s really important to recognize that milk is very rich in calcium but it’s not an essential food we can get plenty of calcium in other places however vegans who consume less less than 2500 uh 525 milligrams of calcium a day have a higher risk of bone fracture compared to omnivores and the difference completely disappears when vegans get more than 525 I recommend that people aim for a th000 milligrams a day as to meet the RDA but almost half of vegans have intakes lower than 525 migr a day so we need to strive to to meet our the recommended intakes and we can use fortified non-dairy products but things like tofu and almonds and dark green leafy vegetables are excellent sources except for the dark greens that are high in oxalic acid like beet green spinach and swiss chard for example I’ll show you that on the next slide but I want to tell you from a personal perspective I had my bone density done when I was in my late 40s but maybe seven or eight years ago and my mom had osteoporosis by that age and she’s always been a fairly big Dairy consumer and my bone density was so high it was two and a half standard deviations above Norm for my age they couldn’t even plot it on the chart they put an arrow at the top of the chart and uh and said go figure I’ve been vegan for 25 years and the doctor said you know your bones are made of steel but it’s because I’ve been really conscious of calcium and vitamin D but it’s also because I keep giving my bones a signal to stay strong by doing weightbearing exercise on a daily basis so the weightbearing exercise is just vital to bone health so if you look at calcium absorption the dairy industry likes to tell us that dairy products are the only foods that we really absorb much calcium from and that’s simply not true we get about 32% of the calcium from dairy products but we get about the same from calcium from tofu made with calcium we get about uh 27 25 27% from legumes and soy milk we get 40% plus from the low oxalate dark greens like broccoli and kale and Chinese greens and turnip and mustard greens however we get less than 20% from the spinach beet greens and swiss chard which are very high in oxalates and the oxalates bind to these you know to the minerals like calcium making them unavailable we get about 5 or 10% from most of these foods and if you eat a salad that has kale and broccoli in it and also spinach the spinach doesn’t inhibit the absorption of the calcium from the kale and broccoli and spinach is a wonderful food it provides a lot of nutritional value so we still want to be consuming those Foods so vitamin D few plant sources are reliable sources of vitamin D we need the RDA is 6 to 800 uh IUS per day many experts suggest a th000 to 2,000 and the other thing to mention is vitamin D2 and D3 if you’re taking small amounts like a th000 or 2,000 I use there’s really no difference in absorption from the plant versus the animal Source vitamin D and you can get vitamin D vegan style now as well uh if you live below the 33° latitude uh there on cold winter days you won’t produce vitamin D if you live where I live which is in um in Colona in Canada well it’s probably more like October to March or November to depending on the year uh but we don’t make vitamin D at all during those months and so we do need to be really conscious of that and make sure we have a source of vitamin D and finally I iodine the uh RDA for iodine is 150 microgram the upper limit is 1100 and vegans often have suboptimal iodine status I think it’s really important to recognize that this can be an issue for people especially healthc conscious people who are trying not to use iodized salt you know they’re trying to lower their sodium intake and so you need to make sure you have a daily source of iodine it’s a really important nutrient and so what can we use we can use seaweed but the amounts in seaweed is are variable so we need to be just conscious of that and um you know plants grown in iodine rich soil are also sources but I think seaweed is a good source or using a supplement an iodine supplement

step seven I’m not going to go into this in any great detail because our time is is running out but I want to just tell you that we are just starting to recognize the scientific Community is just starting to recognize how vital a healthy microbiota or a microbiome is it is unbelievable the benefits of healthy gut Flora many people don’t know this but healthy microbiota actually enhances our nutritional status because it helps us to synthesize vitamins like B vitamins and vitamin K2 it even assists the synthesis of necessary amino acids it helps us to release energy and make these um short chain fatty acids that protect against colon cancer from fiber it protects us against pathogens it promotes a healthy body weight it boosts our immunity it helps to protect against allergies to reduce inflammation it helps to maintain the Integrity of the gut wall and it also just recent recently there was a study showing how much it can actually improve brain function so every organ of the body is affected by the microbiota that inhabit our gut and it’s really important that we protect our friends in our gut and so what can we do well first of all imbalances contribute to every disease process imaginable so how do we improve gut Mo microbiota by eating a plant-based diet that’s high in prebiotics from Beans whole grains things like asparagus artichokes bananas onions garlic they’re all high in prebiotics and prebiotics are what feed probiotics are what feed the bacteria to um you know to produce what we need and then we need to eat food-based probiotics if at all possible things like yogurt and you can make your own yogurt at home with coconut or almonds or whatever fermented vegetables Tempe miso all provide probiotics the friendly bacteria uh we need to minimize our intake of foods that Foster the growth of harmful bacteria so we’re talking about processed foods fried foods refined carbohydrates and red especially red and processed meat we want to take probiotics and minimize our use of antibiotics and if we do take antibiotics take probiotics while we’re taking the antibiotics and after we’ve taken the antibiotics we want to avoid excessive alcohol consumption and

step eight is to fight inflammation an optimal diet needs to be an anti-inflammatory diet the worst offenders for inflammation are overweight and obesity themselves fuel INF inflammation an unhealthy diet fuels inflammation allergy alcohol high blood sugar extreme exercise can fuel inflammation lack of sleep smoking pollution stress can all fuel inflammation but in terms of food the most pro-inflammatory foods are highly processed foods fast foods fried foods refined carbohydrates both sugars and starches high fat meat and dairy red meat processed meat foods that contain trans fats gluten especially for Gluten Sensitive individuals and prooxidants like the environmental contaminants in so many of our foods and finally alcohol what are the most anti-inflammatory foods phytochemical rich fruits and vegetables the dark green leafy vegetables berries onions garlic beets tomatoes peppers all of those colorful fruits and vegetables herbs and spices especially turmeric ginger Cayenne clove Sage Rosemary time uh legumes like nut and nuts and seeds whole grains sprouted Foods fermented foods raw cacao and dark chocolate and green tea are the most anti-inflammatory foods so now we want to maximize phytochemicals and antioxidants not only are they anti-inflammatory but they actually block disease process protecting us against disease so we want again as many colorful fruits and vegetables and spices and and beans and Grains and so forth as we can we want to soak Sprout and ferment to increase phytochemical content we want organic because organic foods contain more phytochemicals and antioxidants and we want to eat more raw foods because we generally get more phytochemicals from raw foods than from cooked foods and I just want to quickly mention we want raw foods because of enzymes as well because they help us to convert our phytochemicals into their bioactive metabolites or their active forms like myosin in the cruciferous vegetables and alanes in the alium vegetables now the other thing I want to mention briefly here is that a lot of people think it’s just fruits and vegetables we get phytochemicals and antioxidants from and this is actually not accurate if you look at this list at the top of the list you see some nuts ginger root walnuts hazelnuts then blueberries artichokes cranberries then bunch of colorful beans like Black beans and and kidney beans and pink beans and then plums and garlic and so on it’s all plant Foods that’s the point I’m wanting to make in terms of antioxidants not just fruits and vegetables

step nine is to minimize harmful chemical residues in Foods so what do we want to minimize agrochemicals the pesticides herbicides the plant growth Regulators Veterinary drugs like hormones and antibiotics and antimicrobial agents which are often used on imported fish for example like melite green environmental contaminants the heavy metals and the persistent organic pollutants the packaging materials like BPA the the um product of food uh processing and cooking like the heterocyclic amines and the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and acrylamide and advanced glycation end products and the alahh tides like acryline formed from cooking fat food additives and preserv like preservatives and colors and flavors and artificial sweeteners and all of that garbage what do they do to us well the Damage Done by these chemicals is unbelievable it c number one oxidative stress but they fuel inflammation they disrupt hormones they act as obesogens they they damage they’re they’re neurotoxic they damage the brain the nervous system they they damage the liver kidneys reproductive systems every body system is damaged by these compounds they increase our risk of every chronic disease that we know of so first of all agrochemicals how do we deal with them by choosing organic when we can by growing organic in our own Gardens you know um I I like this the environmental working group it puts out their dirty dozen Clean 15 list every year and so for people that can’t necessar necessarily afford everything organic it lists the foods that are sort of the least concentrated in pesticides and those that are the most concentrated The Dirty Dozen and people can avoid those specifically we want to use foods without excessive packaging use jars instead of cans or use BPA free packing materials uh where environmental contaminants are concerned these chemicals move up the food chain and they are you know very concentrated in animal products like fish meat and dairy products so we need to eat lower on the food chain to reduce our intake of these compounds for people that eat fish they need to be very aware of the pollutants in fish the dioxins and the heavy metals and there are a lot of assistance for them there there are a lot of uh these kinds of of forms online that explain where these products are are really uh uh located so what about products of high temperature cooking like heterocyclic amines these are carcinogens they were listed as carcinogens and and the NIH uh uh or listed them as carcinogens in 200 five uh they are formed uh in meat poultry fish and eggs when they’re cooked at high temperature they are not formed in Plants because you need either creatine or creatinine to form uh heterocyclic amines and plants don’t contain creatine or creatinine so people who are vegetarian don’t get any heterocyclic Amun what about polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons these compounds are known mutagens they’re linked to lung skin and genital urinary cancers they are formed when foods are blackened the black are the food and it doesn’t matter if it’s a plant food or not all foods form pah’s anything heated above 392 de fah can form ph’s so grilled or charred meat poultry fish but they’re also formed in grains or anything else that we fry in oil like french fries Advanced glycation end products these are um these literally impair immune function they accelerate aging they contribute to the progression of all of The Chronic degenerative diseases and damage to our organs in advanced glycation end products the most concentrated sources are cooked processed meat so this is a broiled Frankfurter at the top of the list then boiled frankfurters so processed meat and then grilled or fried meat but even fried tofu will contain these Advanced glycation and products snack foods like chips and cookies and so forth also contain them and fruits and veggies are very low in these compounds so finally acrylamide and acrylamide is something that is formed when high carbohydrate foods are heated above about 248° fah which isn’t a very high temperature so they form very easily even if you’re baking potatoes or especially with dry heat and the Really highest amounts of acramite are in potatoes because potatoes are high in an amino acid called asparagine and that’s what you need to produce acrylamide is this higher levels of asparagine so you can see this the potatoes and then Rye crisp Breads and anything that’s cooked for a long time at a fairly high heat you will produce acry amide in we want to use food preparation methods that minimize the production of these harmful uh compound so wet cooking methods as opposed to dry cooking methods or frying and finally minimize food additives minimize processed foods to avoid all of the harmful chemicals that are used in these foods and finally

step 10 maintain a healthy body weight we want to minimize liquid calories do not drink your calories they don’t register with your appetite control center drink water instead or drink green juices but no sugar sweetened beverages limit foods with any added fat sugar and salt or eliminate these Foods completely you know there’s I like this book salt sugar and fat it explains how these foods are so addictive you know the human body is wired to like these flavors for our survival and so when we take them out of foods and concentrate them we can’t stop eating it’s just the way we’re wired and so we have to avoid eating them avoid deep fried foods this is shocking you take one potato with about 160 calories and turn it into French fries 521 calories and you’ve added 360 calories of pure fat yeah for one potato it’s shocking avoid the stuff pour portion control is so important and if you look at what we’ve done in to portion sizes this came from the CDC in the 1950s you know a soda was 7 oz now it’s 42 Oz a hamburger was 3.9 Oz Now it’s 12 french fries were 2.4 now they’re 6.7 and of course as you increase serving sizes you increase the sizes of people right super siiz food you superp siize people so don’t supersize your food except for salad you’re allowed to supersize salad and you need to rewire your taste buds completely and they can be completely rewired it takes probably 20 30 days at the most to get your taste buds accustomed to real food and to enjoy it you know Dr Ferman talked yesterday about how people aren’t addicted to things like kale or broccoli and I almost said I don’t know about that because when I go away and I don’t have access to my greens I feel like I’m going into withdrawal I really do I so I I think we can we can change all of that so well and finally eat mindfully and gratefully be really conscious about where the food is coming from and be grateful for the food that you have and finally one last um point is to be truly optimal the diet has got to be ecologically sustainable and ethically justifiable you know there is no one step that any human being can take that would do more for the preservation of this planet than going vegan that’s my my firm belief [Applause] [Music] some people suggest going back to our roots and eating a paleo diet to help protect the planet during the Paleolithic period the human population rose from a half a million people to about 6 million people today there are 7.5 billion people on this planet if we were all hunter gatherers we would need 50 15 Planet Earths to sustain the current population our population growth is not slowing down by 2050 it is estimated that we will have 9.3 billion people on this planet the ultimate question has got to be how can we as human beings best adapt to our current environment to sustain ourselves and all life on this planet because we are on a traj trajectory that is not very appealing the United Nations environmental program expert panel concluded that two activities have a disproportionately large effect on this planet’s life support system number one was animal agriculture especially livestock and dairy and number two was the use of fossil fuels and there recommendation a global shift to a plant-based diet I believe they might have even used the word vegan the FAO of the United Nations in 2013 said the livestock SE sector is responsible for 14.5% of all human cause ghg admissions cattle 65% of this this is more than all forms of transp portation combined it’s shocking the award-winning environmental study of 2008 by Weber and Matthews from Carnegie melon University found that eating 100% plant-based or vegan diet just one day a week reduces greenhouse gas emissions more than eating local 7 days a week 24 hours a day so for people that are on the local bandwagon we need to eat loc local but it’s even more important that we eat plant-based and finally we need our diet in my view needs to be ethically justifiable animal life we most of us like to imagine animals on farms this way 100 years ago 40% of the population lived on farms today it’s 1.9 % and we’ve got a lot more people how are we feeding those people well we need a reality check because we are slaughtering on this planet Earth 70 billion animals a year there are 7 and a half billion people on this planet and we kill 70 billion sentient animals every year for food 9 to 95% of these animals are being raised in concentrating concentrated animal feeding operations otherwise known as factory farms and we have a choice it makes very little sense to funnel wholesome plant Foods through animals in an overpopulated world when we consider our food choices not just for ourselves but beyond ourselves a plant-based diet simply makes sense becoming vegan what it’s all about is it is about widening our Circles of compassion it is about refusing to contribute to the pain suffering and death of 70 billion animals a year not including the animals from the sea when it is absolutely unnecessary not only is it unnecessary it’s destroying us and it’s destroying the planet it is absolutely insane what we are doing it makes zero sense and I believe that the fate of this planet rests in human hands our food choices matter they matter not just for us not just for our neighbors not just for the animals they matter for all life on this planet and I want to leave you with um a quote by Dr Albert schwitzer who I think we all uh know and admire 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 with real ethics ethics in its unqualified form is extended responsibility to everything that has life thank you Dr schwitzer and uh I will close with that and uh thank you very much for your attention and again everything I covered is in the books which I would be very happy to sign for you thank you