Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck
Speaker 2: and Jerry's here too, and this is a good old
Speaker 2: fashioned root and tune, down home episode of Stuff you
Speaker 2: Should Do.
Speaker 3: Technical difficulties, please stand by.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're a good twenty minutes late, Chuck.
Speaker 3: Man, because it's about to say me, it's not my fault.
Speaker 2: No, it's not your fault. It's the computer's fault, right.
Speaker 3: Not even But who cares about computers? This is I mean,
Speaker 3: this is probably literally the opposite of computers, because we're
Speaker 3: talking about plants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was gonna ask you, old school Chuck,
Speaker 2: have you ever eaten a plant?
Speaker 3: I love living things, so I do not kill plants and.
Speaker 2: Eat So are you a breathetarian? That's what they are, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: where you just don't eat.
Speaker 3: No, of course I eat plants, you know, Emily, I
Speaker 3: would argue it has a plant based diet. Now that
Speaker 3: I know that a plant based diet doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: you're vegan or vegetarian. It just and you know, as
Speaker 3: you'll see, depending on the percentage of the website you
Speaker 3: look at a lot of people say like you know,
Speaker 3: it really depends on how much you eat and a
Speaker 3: certain percentage, like maybe eighty percent of your diet is
Speaker 3: plant based, and that's easily Emily. She eats vegetables constantly.
Speaker 2: She always has like a radish in her hand.
Speaker 3: No, but there's just her meals. Like her meals she'll cook,
Speaker 3: Like we try to eat the same stuff, but I
Speaker 3: don't want to sit down and eat Brussels sprouts, broccoli
Speaker 3: and cauliflower for dinner.
Speaker 2: That's a plant based diet for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but she'll put some chicken in there and some fish,
Speaker 3: so she's sort of pescatarian plus maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pesca poultry tarian.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean there's a lot of for all this stuff.
Speaker 3: I didn't know about a third of these probably.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they all seem to fall under the umbrella term,
Speaker 2: like you said, a plant based diet, so like a
Speaker 2: vegan diet is a plant based diet, but not all
Speaker 2: plant based diets are like vegan diets. Yeah, that kind
Speaker 2: of setup.
Speaker 3: I had never heard of blacktoe vegetarian, which basically means
Speaker 3: you throw out all the rest, but I'll eat dairy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, understandable. There's also ovo vegetarian. These are terrible names
Speaker 2: by the way. Yeah, that means that you include eggs
Speaker 2: in your vegan diet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not oval that would make even more sense, I think.
Speaker 2: No, it means that you include ovum in your diet. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I should say it's not a vegan diet at all,
Speaker 2: Like you can't have any kind of animal products, Nope,
Speaker 2: in a vegan diet, not just like meat or dairy
Speaker 2: or eggs, but like vegan won't eat honey. Yeah, we
Speaker 2: talked about fig wasps recently. They won't eat figs for
Speaker 2: that reason.
Speaker 3: I think some vegans I found a lot of support
Speaker 3: behind vegan saying like a processed wasp part and a
Speaker 3: thing is fine.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll bet there's some that still won't.
Speaker 3: Oh sure.
Speaker 2: And then there's also lacto ovo vegetarian. You're a vegetarian,
Speaker 2: but you eat eggs and dairy. There's lacto ovo bacon vegetarian.
Speaker 2: And then there's what you said, Emily was pescatarian, which
Speaker 2: is general. I mean you're essentially just you know, you're
Speaker 2: eating more vegetables than the average person at this point.
Speaker 2: If you're a pescatarian.
Speaker 3: I think that's right. No comment on what that does
Speaker 3: to your butt.
Speaker 2: What if you just eat seafood.
Speaker 3: No, if you eat nothing but broccoli and cauliflower all
Speaker 3: day long.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, not just your butt, but like the well
Speaker 2: being of people around you too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's it's very good for you. She's a
Speaker 3: much healthier human than I am.
Speaker 2: Nice, well, not the part that you're not as healthy,
Speaker 2: but I'm glad that she is.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Of course, one thing we should going out early
Speaker 3: on is that there's a sort of exhaustive look at
Speaker 3: how much meat people eat around the world at a
Speaker 3: certain point or kind of pepper throughout and just for
Speaker 3: cops purposes. In the United States, we average per capita
Speaker 3: meat consumption between one hundred and twenty three to one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty ish kilograms, depending on where you're looking.
Speaker 3: So just kind of put that in your in the back,
Speaker 3: in your back pocket when we start talking about other countries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that really kind of came home to me
Speaker 2: when I converted it to quarter pounders. Yeah, or in
Speaker 2: Europe royale with cheese, that's thirteen and thirty two quarter
Speaker 2: pounders a year. That means you're eating almost four quarter
Speaker 2: pounders worth of meat a day every year. At one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty one point four kilograms.
Speaker 3: Man, if only you could do that and live.
Speaker 2: Right, that's called heaven, my friend.
Speaker 3: So clearly with those kind of numbers that the US
Speaker 3: is a meat based culture. I mean, plenty of people
Speaker 3: here do not take part in that kind of thing, obviously,
Speaker 3: but as you'll see, many cultures around the world historically
Speaker 3: have plant based diets and still have plant based diets.
Speaker 3: Depending on who you ask, they might say there's about
Speaker 3: two billion meat based eaters in the world and about
Speaker 3: four billion plant based eaters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean that's not too bad. They're really
Speaker 2: holding things up because I mean, if actually that's more
Speaker 2: than that's the majority. You're saying the majority of the
Speaker 2: world is plant based.
Speaker 3: I'm saying two billion and four billion. I'm not weighing
Speaker 3: in on percentages.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, we will go around the world in a minute,
Speaker 2: but let's go through history for a little bit first. Okay,
Speaker 2: because plant based diets, especially in the West, they're kind
Speaker 2: of like a new thing. Maybe they came out of
Speaker 2: the New Age movement in the seventies and eighties. No,
Speaker 2: this is really old stuff. In fact, you can make
Speaker 2: a really good case that plant based diets, especially a
Speaker 2: flexitarian version is essentially the default diet of humans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's in some cases were actually in
Speaker 3: a lot of cases, especially historically speaking, and still in
Speaker 3: some places today, it's sort of the de facto diet
Speaker 3: because that's what you have and you may not have
Speaker 3: the kind of money to like go get really good
Speaker 3: meat or something like that. So if you look back
Speaker 3: through time and you go back to say like Ireland
Speaker 3: in the nineteenth century before the potato famin, they were
Speaker 3: eating tons of potatoes there, or a lot of poor
Speaker 3: people in iron that were like, hey, we can grow potatoes,
Speaker 3: they have some vitamins and minerals. Maybe we can milk
Speaker 3: a cow and eat a little pickled herring, but other
Speaker 3: than that, we're eating lots and lots of potatoes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. This is before the famine, when a
Speaker 2: potato blight came and when the Irish immigrants really started
Speaker 2: to come on mass to the United States in the
Speaker 2: nineteenth century, they were quite surprised at the abundance and
Speaker 2: availability and cheapness of meat in the United States, and
Speaker 2: that apparently dates back to colonial times where colonists in
Speaker 2: well what would become the United States were eating more
Speaker 2: meat than the average person back in England. Like, they
Speaker 2: were eating essentially the same amount of meat as elites
Speaker 2: back in the UK. And that's the long standing thing
Speaker 2: where meat consumption throughout history in most places is associated
Speaker 2: with higher status and elite status. You're wealthier because it's
Speaker 2: always been harder to come by. Well, the colonies had
Speaker 2: a lot more land, so they could grow a lot
Speaker 2: more livestock and then hence eat a lot more meat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, had a lot more land, asterist, right, and yeah,
Speaker 3: everyone knows what we mean by that. Yeah. And you
Speaker 3: know there's who helped us with the original version of this.
Speaker 3: Was it Libya No Laura, all right? The claw Claw,
Speaker 3: doctor Claw. She dug up a graft basically about how
Speaker 3: Italians eat and prior to well, not that long ago,
Speaker 3: they ate what you would call the Mediterranean diet now,
Speaker 3: and they just called it what we eat because that's
Speaker 3: what's around here, the diet. Yeah, exactly, fruit, vegetables, olive, oil, legomes, fish, cereals,
Speaker 3: not a ton of dairy or meat. But they after,
Speaker 3: I believe after World War Two, they started eating a
Speaker 3: lot more meat. Before that, it was basically a plant
Speaker 3: based diet because as you'll see, once again, no, no, no choke,
Speaker 3: they're eating lots of fish. Plant based diet is we're
Speaker 3: talking about meat here. The fish get a pass. I
Speaker 3: guess as far as plant based diet goes, it does
Speaker 3: not mean vegetarian or vegan.
Speaker 2: Right, And Italy followed the same trajectory that most nations
Speaker 2: do once they reach a certain point of prosperity, meat
Speaker 2: consumption to start going through the roof. Whereas before in
Speaker 2: history elite like individual groups of people who are well
Speaker 2: off or could afford beat, when an entire nation becomes
Speaker 2: well off enough, they start buying meat. Meat consumption just
Speaker 2: goes up. So after the war, Italy followed that. And
Speaker 2: you'll see like throughout throughout the world, the more prosperous
Speaker 2: a nation, the higher their meat consumption. Almost it's almost
Speaker 2: to a.
Speaker 3: Country, yeah, which you know, a cynic might say, well,
Speaker 3: if every nation was prosperous, everyone would just eat tons
Speaker 3: of meat, and it sounds cynical, but like the data
Speaker 3: sort of says what you just said, right. You know,
Speaker 3: if you look at the US in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 3: they were roundly encouraging the people eat lots and lots
Speaker 3: of meat. There was a cholera outbreak in eighteen thirty
Speaker 3: two in the US government said eat more meat and
Speaker 3: drink more alcohol, and lay off the fruits and vegetables,
Speaker 3: obviously because of cholera, but there was also just this
Speaker 3: idea in America early on that like, you know, we're
Speaker 3: well fed and we're well bred because we eat red
Speaker 3: meat and we growing big here in the States. We're
Speaker 3: not sitting around eating rice and grains and potatoes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that diet has just spread throughout the world.
Speaker 2: But again, it doesn't necessarily seem to mean because people
Speaker 2: are emulating the United States. It just seems like the
Speaker 2: United States was following a trajectory that other countries are now, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and hey, what a great time to set up
Speaker 3: where countries are now because remember those numbers I told
Speaker 3: you about the United States. We're going to walk you
Speaker 3: around the world, everybody not in the way back machine.
Speaker 3: What do we call this when we're just currently go
Speaker 3: far machine? Yeah, the go far and wide machine.
Speaker 2: It still has that new imaginary machine. Smell nice.
Speaker 3: Modern day in the go far and wide machine and
Speaker 3: come with us at first to Africa. If you look
Speaker 3: at continent wide, the stat is about sixty five grams
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, sixty five kilograms of meat per capita. I
Speaker 3: wonder about that number, because if you break it down
Speaker 3: per country, South Africa they eat about sixty five point
Speaker 3: two kilograms compared to let's say, the Democratic Republic of
Speaker 3: Congo at just over four kilograms. Who's eating more red
Speaker 3: meat in Africa than South Africa to make that average
Speaker 3: sixty five?
Speaker 2: I don't know. One thing that I recognized from researching
Speaker 2: this is that there are so many stats that are
Speaker 2: so different and estimates that are just so different. And
Speaker 2: don't understand why it's so hard to track something like
Speaker 2: meat consumption, Like we've got that so commoditized that I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't understand how we can't track it. Even for
Speaker 2: the United States. You rattled off, Yeah, different estimates for
Speaker 2: how much meat the United States eats, So who knows, Chuck,
Speaker 2: Who really knows whether any of these numbers are correct
Speaker 2: or not.
Speaker 3: Well, no one's ever asked me how much meat I eat.
Speaker 3: I could skew that. Oh really, have you? Oh?
Speaker 2: I get that all the time usually because I have
Speaker 2: like a big chunk of like steak in my teeth.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I mean like an official study, like
Speaker 3: I don't know, I know, I'm just kidding. Do any
Speaker 3: of that stuff. It's sort of like weird black magic
Speaker 3: to me. But we do know that generally speaking, West
Speaker 3: African nations eat a little more meat. It's a little
Speaker 3: more meat heavy than East African nations. But even in
Speaker 3: West Africa, that's again, I mean, if the average per
Speaker 3: capita was sixty five kilograms, that's like less than half
Speaker 3: the United States per capita.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I'm guessing from what I could tell, the
Speaker 2: United States leads the world in meat consumption. I'm sure
Speaker 2: most other countries, depending on where they are, are going
Speaker 2: to eat a lot less. But again, like you said,
Speaker 2: Africa is not some single bontolith. It has a bunch
Speaker 2: of different variation. Asia is the same way. On the whole.
Speaker 2: Asia eats far less meat compared to one another. Some
Speaker 2: meat more, some eat less, and you get all sorts
Speaker 2: of weird little statistical blips that come up from that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you look at the top ten countries around
Speaker 3: the world with the highest rates of vegetarianism, India and
Speaker 3: Taiwan are on there. So two of the top ten
Speaker 3: are in Asia, Japan and China. They aren't on the
Speaker 3: list of top ten percentage vegetarian wise, but they eat
Speaker 3: a lot less meat than the US at an average
Speaker 3: per capita consumption under seventy five kilograms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Taiwan's a good example too. It has a
Speaker 2: very high percentage of vegetarians, but it also has a
Speaker 2: really high per capita meat consumption too, So it's just
Speaker 2: basically wacky over there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is another like if you look at Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal,
Speaker 3: minimum are, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, they're all under twenty
Speaker 3: kilograms and Thailand is it like twenty five and Laos
Speaker 3: at thirty. So I mean that's way less than the
Speaker 3: seventy five average in Japan and China.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would guess Thailand, and I'm not sure about Laos,
Speaker 2: but I would guess Thailand is wealthier than probably memr
Speaker 2: or Indonesia. I don't know about Vietnam, but I think
Speaker 2: a lot of it also has to do with the religious,
Speaker 2: like what religions are predominant.
Speaker 3: There too, Yeah, which we'll get in. Well, actually take
Speaker 3: a break before we do that, but we'll talk about
Speaker 3: India real quick, because they have the highest proportion of
Speaker 3: vegetarians in the world. Close to forty percent, thirty eight percent,
Speaker 3: thirty nine percent are vegetarian in India for you know,
Speaker 3: obvious reasons, and six point six kilograms of meat per
Speaker 3: capita compared to as many as one hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: for the U.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, that's very low. It is very low.
Speaker 3: All right. We promise talk of religion because who doesn't
Speaker 3: love that, But this is religion as it relates to diet,
Speaker 3: because depending on your religion, there may be a lot
Speaker 3: of rules and restrictions on what they say you should
Speaker 3: eat because of a bunch of reasons. It can sometimes
Speaker 3: it shows like purity. Sometimes it's like no, it shows
Speaker 3: how dedicated and faithful you are. Sometimes it's like, hey,
Speaker 3: you get at following rules, don't eat this on this day,
Speaker 3: and let's see how you do with that. But for
Speaker 3: whatever reason, there are plenty of religions that have rules
Speaker 3: sort of surrounding meat, for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of the most famous ones are kosher. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a big one where you have to actually separate
Speaker 2: certain kinds of food like you separate meat, separate dairy.
Speaker 2: There's also like restrictions and guidelines on how animals are slaughtered.
Speaker 2: So it's not particularly vegetarian by nature. Keeping kosher is
Speaker 2: but it makes you so much more mindful that a
Speaker 2: lot of people just eventually end up being vegetarian just
Speaker 2: by following a kosher diet. There's also halal is very similar.
Speaker 2: It has all sorts of permissions and bands and stuff
Speaker 2: like that on what animals can be eaten. But it's
Speaker 2: different in that like there's no shell fish allouter birds
Speaker 2: of prey, but you can eat rabbits. But they're both
Speaker 2: similarish in that you really have to pay attention to
Speaker 2: what you're eating if you are a genuine adherent of
Speaker 2: this religious diet that's being prescribed to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you're wondering, like, well, how does that
Speaker 3: affect the rate of vegetarianism in Israel? They are second
Speaker 3: behind India. That's not the only factor, of course, but
Speaker 3: I think the highest percentage of veganism is in Israel too,
Speaker 3: which is Yeah. I don't know why that surprised me,
Speaker 3: but it did.
Speaker 2: Okay, good noted. There's I think so this is another
Speaker 2: thing too, like a lot of people just end up
Speaker 2: being default vegetarians because of their religious diet. And another
Speaker 2: good example is the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church, which we
Speaker 2: talked about in our Holly Selassie episode. I think they
Speaker 2: have two hundred days a year that are considered fast
Speaker 2: days where you just can't eat meat, but you can
Speaker 2: eat plants. So I mean, for all intents and purposes,
Speaker 2: you're at least the majority of the year of vegetarian.
Speaker 2: If you're Eastern Ethiopian Orthodox.
Speaker 3: I wonder if one hundred and sixty five days a
Speaker 3: year they just party down on some steak probably what
Speaker 3: Seventh Day Adventist. It's not a requirement to be a vegetarian,
Speaker 3: but they're like, it's not a bad way to live.
Speaker 3: They kind of endorse it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, remember they grew out of that whole William Keith
Speaker 2: and John Kellogg movement of the nineteenth century.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they endorse the movement. Generally, thirty six percent end
Speaker 3: up lacto ovo vegetarians, and then sixteen percent I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: an additional sixteen percent eat plant based diet with maybe
Speaker 3: a little fish, maybe a little bit of meat.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Buddhism is very connected to vegetarianism, like a straightforward
Speaker 2: religious decree like kosher. Instead, it's linked to nonviolence, right,
Speaker 2: So if your religion forbids violence, you can't really cut
Speaker 2: the head off of a chicken and eat it very easily.
Speaker 2: People still do in Buddhist countries, but it's much more
Speaker 2: or it's much less common and frequent, and in fact,
Speaker 2: apparently in Japan from six seventy five to eighteen seventy two,
Speaker 2: meat was essentially banned in that country because of the
Speaker 2: influence of Buddhism and Confucianism.
Speaker 3: You gotta weight on that chicken to dive natural causes.
Speaker 2: Just follow it around like a buzzard.
Speaker 3: He's not looking so good.
Speaker 2: He looks a little peaked.
Speaker 3: Hindu is. I love that word, by the way, good used.
Speaker 3: I heard that word last night on the TV show
Speaker 3: The Pit, and I realized I just don't use it much.
Speaker 2: You know what I like? That's similar. It's peckish.
Speaker 3: I like peckish as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 3: Maybe our musical duo should be peaked and peckish.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that is that. You just won the
Speaker 2: band name contest, Chuck for all time.
Speaker 3: But everyone would be like, who's peaked and who's peckish?
Speaker 3: Like I think Josh is peaked and Chuck is peckish.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't matter. We can both be it, would it?
Speaker 2: Would depend on our mood on any given day.
Speaker 3: Or perhaps we are both peaked and peckish. Yeah, at
Speaker 3: all times, we're always hungry and we're always not looking
Speaker 3: so good. Hinduism, at almost eighty percent, eats a plant
Speaker 3: based diet. But they again, it's not required. It's just like, hey,
Speaker 3: why don't you do this that kind of thing heavily suggested. Maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also I mean, especially since the Hindu nationalist
Speaker 2: ruling party took over the Baratiya Janata Party BJP, they
Speaker 2: have been enforcing like really strict rules that are Hindu
Speaker 2: in nature against eating meat, so much so that people
Speaker 2: have been beaten. I think one person at least has
Speaker 2: been lynched for eating meat or being associated with the
Speaker 2: meat trade, specifically beef, because cows are considered sacred in Hinduism.
Speaker 2: And also similarly, in India, vegetarianism is linked to social status,
Speaker 2: in basically complete contradiction of what it's like in say
Speaker 2: the West, where eating meat has long been associated with
Speaker 2: being an elite or having high status. Vegetarianism is in India.
Speaker 3: Apparently all right, flip loped it, I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you're like, wow, eighty percent of Hindus
Speaker 2: are vegetarian. It's pretty impressive. Prepare for this, Janes. These
Speaker 2: are the people who are so against hurting or killing
Speaker 2: anything that they have little hand dust rooms that they
Speaker 2: carry with them to dust off seats before they sit
Speaker 2: down so they don't actually accidentally kill a bod. Ninety
Speaker 2: two percent of them and fifty nine percent of Sikhs
Speaker 2: in India are all vegetarians.
Speaker 3: And I guess eight percent of Jains are bad Janes.
Speaker 2: I guess. So I mean, like, how would you show
Speaker 2: up to like the Jain meeting and show your face?
Speaker 3: Yeah, or show up to a Jane party with a
Speaker 3: raka ribs that's probably not it's probably frowned upon, I
Speaker 3: would say, I would think so, all right. So if
Speaker 3: and of course I'm kidding, no offense to any Janes
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 2: No, of course not. I'm sure they'd show up and
Speaker 2: be like natural causes, everybody would be able to check you.
Speaker 3: So, if you're gonna eat a plant based EyeT, it
Speaker 3: can look at like a it can look many different
Speaker 3: ways depending on what you're into. We found some information
Speaker 3: from Harbord Health and obviously one thing that you're gonna
Speaker 3: do is eat lots of veggies like Emily does. They say, like, hey,
Speaker 3: fill half your plate up with veggies and vary the color.
Speaker 3: Don't eat just like a bunch of green veggies. Like
Speaker 3: eat veggies of all stripes and colors.
Speaker 2: Get to some anthracyanins, why don't you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also the way so these are like if you want
Speaker 2: to start to get into vegetarianism, these are some easy
Speaker 2: ways to kind of slide into it. Another one is
Speaker 2: changing the way that you think about meat. Rather than
Speaker 2: it being the center or the star of the meal,
Speaker 2: just kind of put it to the side, like it
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, a thumb sized
Speaker 2: piece of steak. But I mean if it more, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of evenly resembled the grain or the greens on
Speaker 2: your plate, that would make that would make a lot
Speaker 2: more sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll have the cream, spinach side abruptly and a
Speaker 3: thumb of steak.
Speaker 2: Right. It's funny, so I used thumb. So have you
Speaker 2: ever heard that thing about a portion of meat being
Speaker 2: no bigger than the palm of your hand.
Speaker 3: For like that's the healthy way to eat meat? Yes,
Speaker 3: I don't think I've heard that, but oh okay, I
Speaker 3: could see that.
Speaker 2: So not just that if you cut your hands that
Speaker 2: you're serving of fruit and vegetables, and then your thumb
Speaker 2: is your measure of fats like a nut, butter or
Speaker 2: something like that. Good. There's a name for all this.
Speaker 2: It's called the Zimbabwe hand jive.
Speaker 3: I can, I've done that dance, but I did not
Speaker 3: know that was a eating scale.
Speaker 2: Well, so this guy in nineteen ninety three, doctor Kazim Mauji,
Speaker 2: came up with this way of doing it and it's
Speaker 2: been widely adopted. But I had no idea. That's what
Speaker 2: it was called.
Speaker 3: It's a great name. What I do. We host a
Speaker 3: lot of especially in the spring and summertime of people
Speaker 3: when we go to the lake and just at our
Speaker 3: house here we have we ow dinner parties. We just
Speaker 3: do a lot of that kind of stuff. And aside
Speaker 3: from being exhausting, one thing, I'm just kidding, it's actually
Speaker 3: a lot of fun. But one thing I do, and
Speaker 3: this goes along with like how you think about meat
Speaker 3: and how much meat you have, is I don't cook
Speaker 3: up like, you know, twenty chicken breast. If there's twenty
Speaker 3: people there, I cook up a bunch of you know,
Speaker 3: whatever kind of cut of chicken and or steaks. Sometimes
Speaker 3: they'll do a couple of meats and I will I
Speaker 3: will slice it all up on a big platter and
Speaker 3: then you can just get a portion of something rather
Speaker 3: than saying, like, here's a gigantic chicken breast on your
Speaker 3: plate that you now feel responsible for, right, And people
Speaker 3: seem to really like that, you know, like maybe I'll
Speaker 3: have a little bit of this and a little bit
Speaker 3: of that and then the rest is our veggie sides.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's a tip from Chucky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you should just set up a carving station and
Speaker 2: ask to see each person's thumb, righty. Yeah, that'd save
Speaker 2: you a bunch of money totally. So let's see what else. Oh,
Speaker 2: another good one is to choose different fats, avocados, olive oil,
Speaker 2: stuff like that, and then just cook at least one
Speaker 2: vegetarian meal per week. Yeah, and if you start doing
Speaker 2: these kind of things, it's actually really easy to find
Speaker 2: yourself down the road, like just doing it without thinking
Speaker 2: about it, and more and more meals throughout the week
Speaker 2: become vegetarian. Because we'll talk in a minute about why
Speaker 2: people do this, but a lot of people stop eating
Speaker 2: as much meat for health reasons or because they want
Speaker 2: to lose weight. And if you just kind of start,
Speaker 2: like you said, dip your toe in like this, it
Speaker 2: just becomes kind of second nature over time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can get used to something like that. And
Speaker 3: I think what you'll find if you if you think
Speaker 3: you need meat because like it's more filling, that's just
Speaker 3: not true. You get plenty full eating all that other stuff,
Speaker 3: So you know, you can give it a whirl. I
Speaker 3: do that stuff every now and then grains at breakfast
Speaker 3: is great. This is basically again what Emily does. A
Speaker 3: lot of oatmeal, buckwheat, barley, quinoa, eat like a horse,
Speaker 3: but not as much as a horse.
Speaker 2: This is a big one for me. Chuck is eating
Speaker 2: fruit for dessert because I don't ever eat something and
Speaker 2: like a meal of any kind and not think like, okay,
Speaker 2: now I have to have something sweet. Oh really, I
Speaker 2: just can't not do it. My brain's just as wired
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 3: I am too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so if you just eat like an apple
Speaker 2: or some strawberries or something like that, it just short
Speaker 2: circuits that it does it for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have just retrained my brain to where I
Speaker 3: don't seek that and it's not like I was eating
Speaker 3: dessert every night, Like the only time I literally have dessert,
Speaker 3: like a dessert is kind of either if a bunch
Speaker 3: of people are out to eat and it's an occasion
Speaker 3: or maybe on vacation or something like that. But it's
Speaker 3: not like even eating out in a restaurant. We never
Speaker 3: eat dessert like that. But I have found just one
Speaker 3: square of dark chocolate scratches that itch in a nice way.
Speaker 2: That always feels like a punishment to me because it's
Speaker 2: just one, just one, and it's dark chocolate.
Speaker 3: Oh you don't like dark chocolate.
Speaker 2: It's fine, but it's not going to short circuit that dessert.
Speaker 3: You know what. I used to not be into dark chocolate,
Speaker 3: but I la la la love it now.
Speaker 2: Yeah good, I'm glad. I'm glad to hear that. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna cut the legs out from under you in a
Speaker 2: little while then.
Speaker 3: But I don't do that every night, but I'll still,
Speaker 3: you know, when I want that, when I find myself
Speaker 3: like god, I gotta have the sweet thing to night,
Speaker 3: I'll do one square, sprinkle a couple of little dabs
Speaker 3: of sea salt on top, and that that does it
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 2: My God, why don't you live in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: I know because I don't have a manny store greens too, obviously,
Speaker 3: like leafy vegetables, salads. Just eat as much stuff like
Speaker 3: I love a salad. Emily make you know, she grows
Speaker 3: that stuff and prepares fresh salads, makes her own salad dressing.
Speaker 3: She's gotten more into cooking. She never used to do
Speaker 3: stuff like that at all, but she's that. I found
Speaker 3: myself eating a lot more salad these days.
Speaker 2: Right. And then the last one is, after you do
Speaker 2: all these things, eat more vegetables, eat vegetarian meal once
Speaker 2: a week, eat a salad for dinner. This is actually
Speaker 2: the key to the whole thing. Go to bed really
Speaker 2: early so that your normal breakfast will come much more quickly.
Speaker 3: I don't eat breakfast. But yeah, that was a joke,
Speaker 3: by the way, I know, I get it.
Speaker 2: But okay, well thanks for the laugh.
Speaker 3: Support.
Speaker 2: You want to take a break and then come back
Speaker 2: and talk about why people become vegetarian vegan?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well we'll be right back again.
Speaker 1: Learn and stuff with Joshua job stuff you shin up?
Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck. I think I promised before we left that
Speaker 2: we talk about why people become vegetarian. I already said
Speaker 2: health reasons, which we'll get into more in a little while,
Speaker 2: But a lot of people just do it because it's
Speaker 2: just healthier. Like if you want to eat healthier, most
Speaker 2: people don't like double or triple down on fried chicken,
Speaker 2: like you instead start turning to plants, you know, Like
Speaker 2: people just start eating more plants, And it's almost intuitive.
Speaker 2: I don't think it even has anything to do with
Speaker 2: the nutritionists set in the United States convincing people like
Speaker 2: plants are healthy. I just feel like we just intuitively
Speaker 2: know that that is healthy. You're than eating like a
Speaker 2: steak or again fried chicken. Yeah, I feel like there's
Speaker 2: a place for fried chicken. I'm not knocking that.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, as you know, it's my favorite food
Speaker 3: and I just you know, I heard you got to
Speaker 3: pick and choose with that stuff. But it's not removed
Speaker 3: from my life, thank goodness. But you're gonna get lots
Speaker 3: of vitamins and minerals and fiber and antioxidants in your
Speaker 3: veggies if you eat legumes eat if you're a vegetarian,
Speaker 3: you probably eat lots of lagomes and chick be's and
Speaker 3: lima beans and stuff like that. Soy you're gonna get
Speaker 3: lots of protein, amino acids, lots of fiber and antioxidants
Speaker 3: there and also no cholesterol, which is you know, I
Speaker 3: have cholesterol problems genetically speaking, so and a lot of
Speaker 3: people do. So that's a good way to get your
Speaker 3: cholesterol down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's a lot of variety in just legumes alone,
Speaker 2: like rather than do you want the chicken or the fish,
Speaker 2: there's something like twenty thousand species of legumes. And I
Speaker 2: didn't know this. I ran across this, chuck. There's a
Speaker 2: category of food called neglected and underutilized legomes, the status lagoom.
Speaker 2: They even have an acronym for n Ul's right, And
Speaker 2: there's apparently a ton of legomes that are found around
Speaker 2: the world that are known to like local cuisine that
Speaker 2: they're just waiting to be adopted to kind of make
Speaker 2: the plant based diet even more varied.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's twenty thousand. I probably have had five. Yeah, acteah,
Speaker 3: maybe more, but no, no, no.
Speaker 2: No, I know what you mean. Yeah, I just had
Speaker 2: a night so one of the one of the ones
Speaker 2: I found was the Bombara ground nut. You would make
Speaker 2: a trillion dollars if instead of a mayonnaise operation. You
Speaker 2: opened a Bombara ground nut operation in Brooklyn. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: I mean you would make so much cash, dude, overnight.
Speaker 3: People just like saying ground nut.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that Bombara really sells the ground nut if
Speaker 2: you ask me, Yeah.
Speaker 3: For sure. Obviously. You know, we've mentioned the concerns with
Speaker 3: red meat, but with beef and pork, people have been
Speaker 3: you know, calling for years for less of that in
Speaker 3: your diet, and you know, health practitioners and doctors because
Speaker 3: obviously you know, heart attack, stroke, cancer, all the things
Speaker 3: that can lead you in that direction once you eat
Speaker 3: too much red meat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the medical consensus consensus is and remains so
Speaker 2: that eating red meat, too much red meat is bad
Speaker 2: for you, Like, it just leads to all sorts of
Speaker 2: negative health outcomes like stroke and heart attack, heart disease,
Speaker 2: things like that. The problem is, despite that consensus, studies
Speaker 2: still come out fairly regularly that question that idea, that
Speaker 2: say no, it's not necessarily true, and they usually get
Speaker 2: shouted down, but it's enough that it makes you, like,
Speaker 2: some people question that. I feel like, because the medical
Speaker 2: consensus is that for now, it's probably okay to kind
Speaker 2: of follow that philosophy that less meat is healthier than
Speaker 2: more meat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Another big, big reason is animal welfare
Speaker 3: and just maybe your moral values as a human. That
Speaker 3: is a lot of people switch over to vegetarianism or
Speaker 3: veganism because the modern factory farming system in the United
Speaker 3: States is a horror show. And everybody knows this. Some
Speaker 3: people some people do it anyway, but it's a big reason,
Speaker 3: you know, Like vegans are like, no, all animals have
Speaker 3: a right to life and a right to freedom, and
Speaker 3: we're not doing it right here in the United States,
Speaker 3: so I'm not going to take part in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a whole subcategory of veganism called ethical vegans,
Speaker 2: And I think that they could shoulder their own episode
Speaker 2: because the whole philosophy behind it and like the way
Speaker 2: that they live their lives. It's really interesting. And something
Speaker 2: I ran across that they counter is the idea of
Speaker 2: carnism eating meat not being normal and we just take
Speaker 2: it for normal. And they they questioned that they're like,
Speaker 2: who said that eating meat is normal? And that that's
Speaker 2: like why people why people like me can feel bad
Speaker 2: when I pass like a truck full of cows on
Speaker 2: their way to the slaughter on the highway and then
Speaker 2: still go eat like a cheeseburger that same day. That
Speaker 2: we just kind of have this idea that carnism is
Speaker 2: normal and vegans are like, no, that's not true. So
Speaker 2: I found that fascinating. I kind of wanted to get
Speaker 2: into it a little more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, I'm not gonna tell that story. Mind
Speaker 3: fleeting is another one, which is I mean exactly what
Speaker 3: it sounds like, just instead of like falling into a
Speaker 3: pattern and I just I'll just eat that because that's
Speaker 3: what I've always eaten, or you know, grabbed that thing
Speaker 3: that's quick and brainless to put in my mouth, grab
Speaker 3: it by the horns. Yeah, to really just have a
Speaker 3: heightened awareness of what you're eating, what's going in your body,
Speaker 3: and every impact from your health to what it means
Speaker 3: to the world and to that animal. Just being more
Speaker 3: mindful is another reason that people will go to a
Speaker 3: plant based on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's how people get to that from
Speaker 2: like religious mandated diets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we'll put environmentalism in its own category because
Speaker 3: there's a whole section on that. But that's another reason.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's pick up health outcomes. Let's dive into a
Speaker 2: little more So one of the things that people figure
Speaker 2: out pretty quickly when they become vegans in particular, is
Speaker 2: that you can get really unhealthy really quick just eating
Speaker 2: food that qualifies as vegan food. There's a ton of
Speaker 2: process vegan food out there, A lot of times, a
Speaker 2: lot of sweetener, including just sugar, is added, and just
Speaker 2: basically eating packaged food or even French fries as long
Speaker 2: as they're cooked in vegetable oil, those are vegan. And
Speaker 2: everyone knows that French fries aren't really good for you.
Speaker 2: So there is like a whole kind of blind alley
Speaker 2: that you have to watch out for when you get
Speaker 2: into veganism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not a vegan, but it's I can still say,
Speaker 3: you know, word of caution if you go that route,
Speaker 3: that you have to be more active in meal planning
Speaker 3: and because what you really want to do is eat
Speaker 3: whole foods and eat real foods. So if you're like
Speaker 3: I'm going to go vegan and just sort of buy
Speaker 3: the ultra process stuff that is technically vegan, you're not
Speaker 3: doing yourself any health favors. I mean, you know you're
Speaker 3: still doing and you know, as far as your moral
Speaker 3: values are concerned, you're doing right by that. But you
Speaker 3: want good outcomes all the way around, so just lean
Speaker 3: toward whole foods and the Mediterranean diet, which again people
Speaker 3: around the Mediterranean just call it eating that has roundly
Speaker 3: been shown over the years to be kind of the
Speaker 3: one of the ideal diets that you can lean toward.
Speaker 2: I would say the ideal diet. I mean as far
Speaker 2: as health outcomes go, Like I can't imagine how much
Speaker 2: this diet has been studied and result after results shows
Speaker 2: that like some kinds of cancers, diabetes, cognitive decline, cardiovascular disease,
Speaker 2: like these things are all lower in people who eat
Speaker 2: like a Mediterranean diet, like that's just what they eat.
Speaker 2: Then people who don't, especially regular meat eaters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. As far as the end of it,
Speaker 3: you know, we'll kind of go through a little bit
Speaker 3: about like who's deficient in what depending on what you eat.
Speaker 3: If you're looking at protein and saturated fat, you're going
Speaker 3: to have obviously, if you're a meat eater, you're gonna
Speaker 3: have the highest intake among anyone, and the lowest is
Speaker 3: going to be among becans. That's just makes a lot
Speaker 3: of sense. If you're a vegetarian or a fish eater,
Speaker 3: you're gonna be somewhere in the middle. And vegetarians are
Speaker 3: more likely than meat or fish eaters to have, as
Speaker 3: a result, inadequate protein intake, and vegans even more likely
Speaker 3: to have inadequate protein intake, I think, more than vegetarians.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a long standing chestnut in like the I
Speaker 2: guess I don't want to say bodybuilding communities, people who
Speaker 2: work out like hardcore, that you can't possibly be ripped
Speaker 2: as a vegan and our stuff you should know. Listener
Speaker 2: Doyle Wolfgang van Frankenstein, the guitarist for The Misfits. He
Speaker 2: is just vegan to the core and he is totally ripped,
Speaker 2: and in fact, he has his own protein powder called
Speaker 2: Vegan Monster Protein, where you can get ripped yourself if
Speaker 2: you want to and still be a vegan.
Speaker 3: I think ripped Vegan is that's got to already be
Speaker 3: a band name.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't. Yeah, maybe that's his sideban, his folk side band.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ripped vecan. You might have a vitamin B twelve
Speaker 3: deficiency if you are a vegan, because plants don't have
Speaker 3: B twelve. I think fifty two percent of vegans are
Speaker 3: B twelve deficient. Seven percent of vegetarians, and if you're
Speaker 3: a meat eater, you have a less than one percent
Speaker 3: chance of being B twelve deficient.
Speaker 2: And that's a big deal too. I mean, like that
Speaker 2: is a well known problem for vegans and vegetarians because
Speaker 2: B twelve is used for red blood cell production, cell
Speaker 2: wall production, nerve function, DNA production, and it's just not
Speaker 2: in plants, it's in meat, it's in fish, it's in dairy.
Speaker 2: So you really have to pay attention to that and
Speaker 2: basically take B twelve supplements all the time to make
Speaker 2: sure you don't become deficient because it's not good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Here's one thing though, and this is
Speaker 3: something that was controlled for BMI. Even if you're a
Speaker 3: vegetarian or vegan, you have a kind of a remarkably
Speaker 3: a remarkable statistical risk or higher risk I guess of
Speaker 3: getting bone fracture than meat eater, And especially when it
Speaker 3: comes to your hips, the risk of hip fracture. With vegetarians,
Speaker 3: you have a twenty five percent higher risk of fraction
Speaker 3: your hip as a vegetarian controlling for BMI again, and
Speaker 3: vegans one hundred and thirty one percent higher chance of
Speaker 3: hip fracture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I so part of it is that B twelve
Speaker 2: deficiency because B twelve helps produce bone and so bone density.
Speaker 2: But I also wondered if vegans typically get less protein
Speaker 2: and therefore have less muscle mass on average. Obviously you
Speaker 2: can get ripped as a vegan, but not everyone does.
Speaker 2: If you're more susceptible to falling, like you can lose
Speaker 2: your balance more easily because you have slightly less muscle
Speaker 2: mass than a meat eater, and then with less bone density,
Speaker 2: if you do fall, you're more likely to break a bone.
Speaker 2: Just my yea, I wonder.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I did mention cancer. You know. I think
Speaker 3: we often talk about like heart attack and stroke and
Speaker 3: stuff like that by eating too much red meat. But
Speaker 3: cancer is another factor that I sort of briefly mentioned.
Speaker 3: But if you're a vegetarian or a vegan, you have
Speaker 3: at ten to eighteen percent lower risk of cancer than
Speaker 3: meat eaters. All calls, All calls mortality. That's another good
Speaker 3: band name. Man, that's three band names, all Mortality, Peckish,
Speaker 3: and peakd All calls. See that can't be our band
Speaker 3: name because I can't even say it. At the end
Speaker 3: of the show, all cause mortality was not different, which
Speaker 3: is surprising between vegetarians and meat eaters and begans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, another thing that surprised me is that vegetarians have
Speaker 2: a twenty percent higher risk of having a hemorrhagic stroke.
Speaker 2: So we should say all of this data came from
Speaker 2: a twenty twenty one analysis of this British cohort of
Speaker 2: sixty five thousand Brits that have been followed around since
Speaker 2: the nineties. So they managed to look at twenty thousand vegetarians,
Speaker 2: So this is a pretty robust study, and they found
Speaker 2: that they have a twenty percent higher risk of stroke.
Speaker 2: They couldn't they couldn't determine that for vegans. Think they
Speaker 2: only had like twenty five hundred in this cohort, but
Speaker 2: for stroke at least, they weren't able to figure out
Speaker 2: how that affects vegans. You would assume that it would
Speaker 2: be even an even higher percentage for vegans. But a
Speaker 2: hemorrhag hemorrhagic stroke is where blood vessels in your brain
Speaker 2: start bleeding. Again, that would make sense because B twelve
Speaker 2: helps fortify cell walls, and I would think the lack
Speaker 2: of red blood cell production would have something to do
Speaker 2: with that too. So I think what we're trying to
Speaker 2: say the upshot is it's not just like a slam
Speaker 2: dunk that you're going to be healthier or your lifetime
Speaker 2: health outcomes are automatically going to be better. But it's
Speaker 2: still I mean, it's just if your overall or sorry,
Speaker 2: if you're all dash cause mortality is going to be
Speaker 2: the same, then I don't know, I think that kind
Speaker 2: of makes an argument to eat whichever makes you feel best.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's just a weird Statyeah, all dash cause yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I can't explain that. Maybe someone will
Speaker 3: have some more information on that. But earlier we did
Speaker 3: promise an entire section on the environmental impact of eating
Speaker 3: animals because that is yet another reason. And you know,
Speaker 3: obviously people have all kinds of reasons and it's usually
Speaker 3: a combination of all these things. But we were learning
Speaker 3: just it's become plainly obvious more and more, this isn't
Speaker 3: the kind of thing. I think that, especially in America,
Speaker 3: people like to look at a lot in the past,
Speaker 3: but it seems like in the last like fifteen years
Speaker 3: or so, people are sounding the alarm like, hey, besides
Speaker 3: ethical concerns and health and all that other stuff, like
Speaker 3: raising animals is to eat is kind of a or
Speaker 3: the way we do it is a disaster for the environment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a lot of misleading stats out there
Speaker 2: that compare the amount of kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions
Speaker 2: compared to the kilograms produced of something. Right, that doesn't
Speaker 2: make any sense because kilogram of broccoli is a lot
Speaker 2: less as far as food being spread among people than
Speaker 2: a kilogram two point two pounds of beef. Right, you
Speaker 2: can feed way more people with two point two pounds
Speaker 2: of beef than you can with two point two pounds
Speaker 2: of broccoli. So exactly at best. But so some people
Speaker 2: have said, well, let's just alter it a little bit,
Speaker 2: So we'll measure the kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions for
Speaker 2: every thousand calories produced, and so that makes it a
Speaker 2: lot more apples to apples comparison. But even still, when
Speaker 2: you alter it like that, the numbers essentially come out
Speaker 2: the same, which is that meat production has a much
Speaker 2: larger carbon footprint than almost any kind of plant production,
Speaker 2: although there are some surprises like, for example, your beloved
Speaker 2: dark chocolate has a larger carbon footprint than producing poultry
Speaker 2: or pork chuck. How do you feel about your dark
Speaker 2: chocolate assault On top of it now.
Speaker 3: Kill that chocolate. You know, coffee and chocolate are two
Speaker 3: pretty notorious you know, environmental disasters as well on the
Speaker 3: on the non meat side for sure.
Speaker 2: For sure. The reason why, apparently is demand. There's so
Speaker 2: much demand for chocolate that the deforestation that results to
Speaker 2: create more fields for cocoa production, that that just is
Speaker 2: what's giving it such a huge footprint. And I think
Speaker 2: coffee is relatively the same overall though. I found a
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen study from Sustainability the Journal, and they basically
Speaker 2: said thirty vegetarians have thirty three percent lower greenhouse gas
Speaker 2: emissions based on their diet than a vegan than meat,
Speaker 2: and a vegan diet has fifty three percent lower greenhouse
Speaker 2: gas emissions. It's just that's just how it goes.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And if you're like, well, I like eating some meat,
Speaker 3: the biggest spenders there are beef, lamb and mutton.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that was weird.
Speaker 3: Beef produces sixty kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram,
Speaker 3: and a kilogram of poultry is only six. But you
Speaker 3: compare that to a kilogram with just some English peas,
Speaker 3: that's under one kilogram of greenhouse gas emissions produced. So
Speaker 3: you might think that as far as water consumption goes,
Speaker 3: the plants would far outpace like a meat diet because
Speaker 3: you got a water vegetables. But generally there are just
Speaker 3: a few plant based foods that have a bigger water
Speaker 3: footprint than beef.
Speaker 2: Yeah, beef is just the worst offender of all but
Speaker 2: livestock raising livestock in general, apparently one fifth to one
Speaker 2: quarter of all the water used by humans goes to
Speaker 2: raising livestock, which is nuts. But the reason why is
Speaker 2: because not only do you need water to keep that
Speaker 2: head of cattle alive until you decide to kill it,
Speaker 2: you also need water to grow the grain that you
Speaker 2: feed that head of cattle. So they're just consuming all
Speaker 2: over the place, especially as far as water is concerned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just so you know, there are like zero
Speaker 3: sort of vegetables that out paste beef. The two that
Speaker 3: do out paste beef that I was referring to our
Speaker 3: chocolate and almonds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and who considers an almond of vegetable? Come on,
Speaker 2: give it up.
Speaker 3: And I think as far as lamb and mutton go,
Speaker 3: the two other biggest defenders in the meat category only
Speaker 3: cashew's pistachios and hazel nuts consume more water to produce
Speaker 3: than lamb and mutton.
Speaker 2: Hazel nuts are so great, far and away the best.
Speaker 3: Nut, you think, not the ground nut.
Speaker 2: I haven't had one yet. Well, peanuts apparently are a
Speaker 2: ground nut. I have not had the bombar ground nut yet,
Speaker 2: so I should wait and reserve judgment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, peanuts they grow underground.
Speaker 2: Right, Yep, they're a ground nut.
Speaker 3: I can just see Jimmy Carter holding a big thing
Speaker 3: of peanuts and roots with dirt falling off of them.
Speaker 2: All right, Pete and God bless that man.
Speaker 3: That's right. The US maintains about nine billion, nine billion
Speaker 3: livestock to get the meat that it needs or wants,
Speaker 3: I guess is the better way to say it. And
Speaker 3: if that grain went to humans, it'd be enough for
Speaker 3: eight hundred and forty million people that have plant based diets.
Speaker 2: Yes, And there was another thing that I came across
Speaker 2: that I was kind of surprised by. Totally makes sense.
Speaker 2: Is if we en mass as a species, humans essentially
Speaker 2: abandoned livestock production, beef production, or meat production in favor
Speaker 2: of a plant based diet. Just basically, globally, the chance
Speaker 2: of communicable diseases developing would drop drastically because seventy five
Speaker 2: percent of emerging communicable diseases are zoonotic, which means humans
Speaker 2: get them from animals, and we make our closest contact
Speaker 2: with animals through the livestock industry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and at petting zeus.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, as long as it wasn't grown in
Speaker 2: a lab, you can kiss communicable diseases, goodbine.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The other environmental disaster of raising livestock, and this
Speaker 3: is more and more lately, is the habitat destruction to
Speaker 3: raise all these animals. You're talking about extinction of plant
Speaker 3: and animal species and thousands more being threatened in the
Speaker 3: year's upcoming because of habitat destruction. And it's also true
Speaker 3: for some kinds of agriculture. You know, we've talked about
Speaker 3: palm oil cultivation being a big problem for a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff, specifically orangutang populations or at least by example,
Speaker 3: but beef once again is the biggest factor. They drive.
Speaker 3: Beef drives forty percent of tropical deforestation globally, whereas palm
Speaker 3: oil and soy, which are two sort of offenders on
Speaker 3: the other side, are only eighteen percent combined.
Speaker 2: That's all, just eighteen percent of deforestation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean the one takeaway here is beef
Speaker 3: beef bad.
Speaker 2: It's what's for dinner and what ruined the planet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's far and away leading the way
Speaker 3: in all all the bad categories.
Speaker 2: You know, it really does.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is we've just kind of touched
Speaker 2: the surface, especially on the environmental impact. There's a lot
Speaker 2: to dig into there if that interested you. But I
Speaker 2: feel like we gave some good reasons for people to
Speaker 2: adopt a plant based diet. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 2: going too fully, but i'd like to think it's I'm
Speaker 2: kind of part way there already.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I eat more vegetables now, I eat way less
Speaker 3: red meat than I used to. Yeah, for just like
Speaker 3: all the reasons that we talked about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've cut my four quarter pounders with cheese every
Speaker 2: day in half and I eat both halves. Since Chuck
Speaker 2: kind of laughed at my last joke, I think everybody
Speaker 2: that means we should probably slog along to listener mayl.
Speaker 3: That was a real laugh. That was an oh Josh laugh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love those two all right?
Speaker 3: This from a Smithy because of us actually, Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I saw this one. Hey, guys, I've always had a
Speaker 3: bit of an interest in metalworking, and as of about
Speaker 3: five years ago, i've had an interest in your show.
Speaker 3: I'd say your show has been the longest running podcast
Speaker 3: of my life. Actually, I remember listening to your episode
Speaker 3: about blacksmithing four years ago and that kind of set
Speaker 3: off the domino effect of me getting really into blacksmithing
Speaker 3: as a hobby. I'm definitely one of those that like
Speaker 3: to collect hobbies, with most passing in about six months
Speaker 3: and I never pick it up again. But not true
Speaker 3: with blacksmithing. I've stuck with it since your episode came out,
Speaker 3: and I'd like to say I've come a long way
Speaker 3: with it. I've attached to a few pictures of my work,
Speaker 3: which was very good, by the way, starting with early
Speaker 3: works and all the way to the two I completed
Speaker 3: about a week ago. I thought you might be interested
Speaker 3: in seeing how your show kicked off one of my
Speaker 3: favorite hobbies I've ever had, So thanks for that. And
Speaker 3: that is from Tate Avent and you can find Tate.
Speaker 3: Just look up Tater makes t a I t E
Speaker 3: r a k e s and check out Tate's work.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks a lot, Tate. That is awesome. Congratulations on
Speaker 2: your awesome hobby and getting so good at it, And
Speaker 2: we really appreciate you letting us know that we had
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