To All The Carnivores I Loved

Did that sound gay? Yeah it probably did.

To all the lifters in the place, with style and grace, would you please raise your hand if you've been told before meat is bad? 

Flexing guns ain't necessary, thanks. 

So yeah, probably most of us have faced that claim in our hoisting-devoted lives at least once. "You need more veggies", or "meat is bad". Almost on par with the arguments against busting a nut (at least eating meat doesn't fuck your sight), these people usually brandish the worst type of bullshit you'll ever encounter: scientific bullshit.

Indeed, vegetarianism (and veganism) was incredibly supported during the last quarter of the last, pathetic century. Along with pop music, people descended into the uttermost phaggotry by supporting veganism, political correction, and every other side of sheer stupidity. Good bye real men who ate 2kg steaks and fled civilisation on huge Harley-Davidson bikes at the cry of "fuck pollution" to rape coyotes in the desert. Now we drink fat free water, listen to whoever is famous that week, and, sometimes, fuck trees. Of course, it was the era when most gurus would chant the benefits of munching on grass.

No more meat?!

But weep not, noble men, for today the "vegetarianism for health reasons" flag has been burnt and pissed on. 

Burkert et al. from the henceforth glorious Institute of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, in Graz, Austria, has come up with some very, very interesting results after testing 1320 individuals and their eating behaviours. 

Apparently, vegetarians had a lower average BMI, and were unlikelier to drink alcohol, but they also ended with higher percentages in illness biomarkers. Test subjects on more common diets (carnivorous with fruit and vegetables) showed less incidence or tendency to develop cancer, allergies, or mental health ailments. The icing on the cake? Vascular risk, the long preferred argument of pro-veganists, was found to be the same in both groups, and moreover, a lower animal fat intake was linked to poorer health. 

Of course, this doesn't entail that a vegetarian diet may be the cause of poorer health; I won't incur in cum hoc fallacious argumenta. God forbid. Tested subjects could have opted for a vegetarian diet due to their already weakened health condition, but we can't deny the light the study has shed. 

Of course, there's another side to it. Vegetarian diets have been found to be linked with lower cholesterol levels (Appleby et al.) or found a higher life expectancy in vegans.

So, what can we make of all this?

• Vegetarian/Vegan diets may have been linked to poorer health partly because of the general lack of knowledge about nutrition many of their practitioners may suffer. A more restricted aminogram, and lower levels of certain micronutrients (or a lack thereof) could be the culprit. If you plan to go veggie, perhaps you should consider supplementing B12, iodine, calcium, iron, and vitamin D. This is not as crucial for vegetarians, who can rely on better protein sources to maintain bone density and health, besides muscle. Omega-3 fatty acid levels were also found to be lower in vegetarians (WH Wu).

• I totally understand people not wanting to eat animal products for ethical reasons, but they should be aware that these diets are not only not necessarily healthier, but also could be unhealthier.

• Given the audience of the blog is the lifting community mainly... You probably should eat meat or fish if you want to grow bigger or stronger. IIFYM is a thing, but it won't work wonders when your protein intake lacks certain aminoacids.

• Conversely, you should eat fruit and vegetables every day. Taking a multi vitamin may be nice to cover whatever micro nutrient you may be deficient in, but you have to factor in fiber intake as well.

Stay around,

J

Sources:

Paul N Appleby, Margaret Thorogood, Jim I Man & Timothy JA Kay, The Oxford Vegetarian Study, The American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition, 1999.

WH Wu et al, Effects of docosahexaenoic acid supplementation on blood lipids, estrogen metabolism, and in vivo oxidative stress in postmenopausal vegetarian, European Journal Of Clinical Nutrition, 2005.

Nathalie T. Burkert, Johanna Muckenhubber, Franziska Grobßschädl, Éva Rásky, & Wolfgang Freidl, Nutrition And Health - The Association Between Eating Behaviour And Health Parameters, A Matched Sample Study, PLOSONE, 2014.