Nutrition
Flawed & Fundamentally Wrong
Veganism is often ideology rather than science. Yet plant-based and meat-heavy diets each have distinct metabolic benefits—the key lies in cycling between them.
Nutrition
Veganism is often ideology rather than science. Yet plant-based and meat-heavy diets each have distinct metabolic benefits—the key lies in cycling between them.
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Ideologies are always flawed and fundamentally wrong. Veganism, unfortunately, is an ideology. The ideological character of it is that veganism is viewed by its proponents as a kind of "unified field theory of lifestyle" that nourishes humans optimally in nutritional terms and keeps them healthy, as well as—of course—being the supreme ethical rule. Problematic, because it's overly simplistic.
Nevertheless, there are undoubtedly advantages to a vegan diet. The underlying principles—and it's principles we're talking about!—can be summarized as follows:
And precisely what actually weakens veganism—namely the absence of taurine, carnitine, carnosine, many essential amino acids—in other words, all of which makes a meat-rich diet nutritionally valuable—is simultaneously also a great strength.
Longevity researcher Valter Longo, known for his "fasting-mimicking diet," puts it succinctly: A diet low in animal products mimics fasting. A thought-provoking statement, isn't it?
Because what many people completely overlook is: Not only the energy content of food determines which signaling pathways are activated in our cells, but also the nature of the food itself. It appears that "nutrient-dense, animal-based food" signals anabolism to the body, while a diet low in animal products is a signal to the body that it should become catabolic, that is, break down.
It makes sense too. If our ancestors chased a deer for three days without success, the body must presumably be able to understand that it's currently not getting access to high-quality proteins and nutrients. Conversely: if a tribe successfully hunted a mammoth, the body should quickly understand that it's time for anabolism and growth.
We modern people with a "Western diet" are—from the perspective of activated cellular switches—swimming in anabolism. mTOR overactivation is what this is called technically. The consequence is civilization diseases like fatty liver, heart attack, insulin resistance, and so on. We're lacking the opposite of anabolism, namely catabolism.
Mind you: "Western diet" includes many things, including sugary and fatty, highly processed food, high energy density, and so on. Meat and animal products aren't the reason we're derailing.
What we can derive from this possible dualism seems clear: Phases with lots of animal-based food should alternate with phases where you perhaps eat less. Or, in other words: You don't have to eat animal products all day or kilograms of (red) meat.
There are many posts on this topic in the blog. Using the example of methionine restriction (methionine is an amino acid that is particularly abundant in animal products and underrepresented in plants) and considering autophagy, the line of thinking can be better understood in detail. More on that here.
So the circle closes. It's not "either or" but "and." This very perspective is what distinguishes ideology from a thoughtful and differentiated approach. Of course, vegan phases that work in us like a kind of fasting can be healthy.
But a cycle is only complete when a phase of catabolism (= less animal-based food) is then concluded with a phase of anabolism (= more animal-based food). Just as Ori Hofmekler (Warrior Diet) once explained it vividly using the example of "periodic undereating."
Others can smash heads. We look at effective principles and integrate them into our lives.
