Thread by @MEATritionCom

1/n A fascinating article came out this summer that argues for a plant-forward omni diet, and it contains a very inflammatory headline:

"Debunking the #vegan myth: The case for a plant-forward omnivorous whole-foods diet"

Note author Loren Cordain, a paleo proponent

2/n

The abstract:

"Veganism is without evolutionary precedent in Homo sapiens species. Strict adherence to a #vegan diet causes predictable deficiencies in nutrients including vitamins B12, B2, D, niacin, iron, iodine, zinc, high-quality proteins, omega-3, and calcium."

3/n

Let's review the images quickly because they show some of these dangers.

Fig. 1. Hazard ratios for all-cause mortality as calculated by Cox proportional hazards multi-variable regression analysis16. P = 0.082.

All cause mortality for #vegans and vegetarians is higher!

4/n - Figure 2. Health Risks of a Vegan Diet

- #Depression - omega 3 and zinc deficiency
- #HairLoss - protein, Zc, Fe
- #Dermatitis
- #Anemia (iron & Vitamin B12 deficiency)
- #Osteoporosis (vitamin D & calcium deficiencies)
- #Sarcopenia
- #Hypothyroidism - iodine deficiency

5/n - Figure 4. Fig. 4. Risk of bone fracture among various dietary groups

#Vegans were 43% more likely to have bone fractures.

6/n - Fig. 5. Lifetime incidence of psychiatric diagnoses among 4181 adults.

Do depressed people become #veg or does an animal-deficient died lead to depression?
The jury is still out - depression may be caused by a 'brain energy' issue after overeating carbs & seed oils

7/n - #NoseToTail Eating

The authors say that eating organ meats from the entire animal would have likely benefitted our nutritional state.

Unfortunately, these are 'low-fat' paleo authors that don't focus on 'high-fat' megafauna like elephants for our prey.

8/n These paleo authors have essentially argued for decades that small animals are hard to acquire and lack lots of body fat - this is true - however, we know through the work of @bendormiki that there were mountains of ultra heavy fatty megafauna in Africa millions of years ago.

@bendormiki 9/n
Dr Ben-Dor has argued that we are limited by protein intake to 35% and could have made up the other 65% calorie difference by eating either animal fat or plant carbs.

If mountains of fat are walking by, and they're easy to kill, why would humans eat carbs?

@bendormiki 10/n

Thus - I agree with the authors based on science and anecdotes that humans are definitely not herbivorous vegans.

We get deficiencies, we get sick and weak, we die earlier.

Plants are FAMINE FOODS.

Humans are FACULTATIVE CARNIVORES, a type of omnivore.

@bendormiki 11/n

Okay, so over the weekend, I posted this science article to 28 million people at the popular subreddit called r/Science.

I received over a dozen rewards.
5,200 upvotes.
2 MILLION views.
1.9 thousand shares.
at a 55% upvote rate.

12/n

But a 55% upvote rate? That means there was a concerted effort to downvote the article back to an unpopular non-viral state.

Every minute I'd get a notification of a comment dragging my name through the mud while breaking all the bounds of scientific inquiry and reason.

13/n I triggered the #vegan hivemind. They didn't want to see science that questioned the vegan lifestyle. They called for my ban from the subreddit, they called me names, they questioned my bias. They said I was funded by the meat industry just for posting the article!

14/n

Thus - I just want to warn everyone that science isn't perfect - I found issues I disagree with in this paper, however, it helps tell us what is real and what isn't on this big oblate spheroid we all call home.

I hope the hivemind doesn't beat science into submission.

15/n

Finally - you probably want some links! The next tweet will be the reddit thread if you want to read comments.

sciencedirect.com/science/articl… - This is the full article, with all the images I posted. Ben-Dor's work wasn't cited once - so take it with a grain of salt.

16/n

And here is the Reddit Post. It's just a giant forum on thousands of topics. Easy to make an account and follow subreddits on topics you care about. I've made many which are listed at r/keto4 's only post.

reddit.com/r/science/comm…

17/n
@LorenCordain but James H O'Keefe doesn't tweet.

@VeganRecovering @SBakerMD @DrPaulMason @bendormiki @KetoCarnivore @robbwolf @Mark_Sisson @meat