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.
Speaker 3: You Should Do.
Speaker 1: Technical difficulties, please stand by.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're a good twenty minutes late, Chuck.
Speaker 1: 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 1: Not even But who cares about computers? This is I mean,
Speaker 1: this is probably literally the opposite of computers, because we're
Speaker 1: talking about plants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was gonna ask you, old school Chuck,
Speaker 2: have you ever eaten a plant?
Speaker 1: 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 1: No, of course I eat plants, you know, Emily, I
Speaker 1: would argue it has a plant based diet. Now that
Speaker 1: I know that a plant based diet doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: you're vegan or vegetarian. It just and you know, as
Speaker 1: you'll see, depending on the percentage of the website you
Speaker 1: look at a lot of people say like you know,
Speaker 1: it really depends on how much you eat and a
Speaker 1: certain percentage, like maybe eighty percent of your diet is
Speaker 1: plant based, and that's easily Emily. She eats vegetables constantly.
Speaker 2: She always has like a radish in her hand.
Speaker 1: No, but there's just her meals. Like her meals she'll cook,
Speaker 1: Like we try to eat the same stuff, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to sit down and eat Brussels sprouts, broccoli
Speaker 1: and cauliflower for dinner.
Speaker 2: That's a plant based diet for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but she'll throw some chicken in there and some fish,
Speaker 1: so she's sort of pescatarian plus maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pesca poultry tarian.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's a lot of for all this stuff.
Speaker 1: 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 set up.
Speaker 1: I had never heard of blacktoe vegetarian, which basically means
Speaker 1: 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 1: 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 1: I think some vegans I found a lot of support
Speaker 1: behind vegan saying like a processed wasp part and a
Speaker 1: thing is fine.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll bet there's some that still won't.
Speaker 1: 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 1: I think that's right. No comment on what that does
Speaker 1: to your butt.
Speaker 2: What if you just eat seafood, No.
Speaker 1: If you eat nothing but broccoli and cauliflower all day long.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, not just your butt, but like the well
Speaker 2: being of people around you too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's it's very good for you. She's a
Speaker 1: 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 1: Yeah. Of course, one thing we should go out early
Speaker 1: on is that there's a sort of exhaustive look at
Speaker 1: how much meat people eat around the world at a
Speaker 1: certain point or kind of pepper throughout and just for
Speaker 1: cops purposes. In the United States, we average per capita
Speaker 1: meat consumption between one hundred and twenty three to one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty ish kilograms, depending on where you're looking.
Speaker 1: So just kind of put that in your in the back,
Speaker 1: 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 1: Man, if only you could do that and live.
Speaker 2: Right, that's called heaven, my friend.
Speaker 1: So clearly with those kind of numbers that the US
Speaker 1: is a meat based culture. I mean, plenty of people
Speaker 1: here do not take part in that kind of thing, obviously,
Speaker 1: but as you'll see, many cultures around the world historically
Speaker 1: have plant based diets and still have plant based diets.
Speaker 1: Depending on who you ask, they might say there's about
Speaker 1: two billion meat based eaters in the world and about
Speaker 1: 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 1: I'm saying two billion and four billion. I'm not weighing
Speaker 1: 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 1: Yeah, I mean it's in some cases were actually in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, especially historically speaking, and still in
Speaker 1: some places today, it's sort of the de facto diet
Speaker 1: because that's what you have and you may not have
Speaker 1: the kind of money to like go get really good
Speaker 1: meat or something like that. So if you look back
Speaker 1: through time and you go back to say like Ireland
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, before the potato famin, they were
Speaker 1: eating tons of potatoes there, or a lot of poor
Speaker 1: people in iron that were like, hey, we can grow potatoes,
Speaker 1: they have some vitamins and minerals. Maybe we can milk
Speaker 1: a cow and eat a little pickled herring, but other
Speaker 1: 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 1: Yeah, had a lot more land, asterist, right, and yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone knows what we mean by that. Yeah. And you
Speaker 1: know there's who helped us with the original version of this.
Speaker 1: Was it Libya No Laura all right? The claw Claw,
Speaker 1: doctor Claw. She dug up a grapt basically about how
Speaker 1: Italians eat and prior to well, not that long ago,
Speaker 1: they ate what you would call the Mediterranean diet now,
Speaker 1: and they just called it what we eat because that's
Speaker 1: what's around here, the diet. Yeah, exactly, fruit, vegetables, olive oil, lagomes, fish, cereals,
Speaker 1: not a ton of dairy or meat. But they after
Speaker 1: I believe after World War Two, they started eating a
Speaker 1: lot more meat. Before that, it was basically a plant
Speaker 1: based diet because as you'll see once again, no, no,
Speaker 1: no choke, they're eating lots of fish. Plant based diet
Speaker 1: is we're talking about meat here. The fish get a pass.
Speaker 1: I guess as far as plant based diet goes, it
Speaker 1: does 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. Yea, almost, it's
Speaker 2: almost to a country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which you know, a cynic might say, well, if
Speaker 1: every nation was prosperous, everyone would just eat tons of meat,
Speaker 1: and it sounds cynical, but like the data sort of
Speaker 1: says what you just said, right. You know, if you
Speaker 1: look at the US in the nineteenth century, they were
Speaker 1: roundly encouraging the people eat lots and lots of meat.
Speaker 1: There was a cholera outbreak in eighteen thirty two in
Speaker 1: the US government said eat more meat and drink more
Speaker 1: alcohol and lay off the fruits and vegetables, obviously because
Speaker 1: of cholera, but there was also just this idea in
Speaker 1: America early on that like, you know, we're well fed
Speaker 1: and we're well bred because we eat red meat and
Speaker 1: we growing big here in the States. We're not sitting
Speaker 1: 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 1: Yeah, and hey, what a great time to set up
Speaker 1: where countries are now because remember those numbers I told
Speaker 1: you about the United States. We're going to walk you
Speaker 1: around the world. Everybody not in the way back machine.
Speaker 1: What do we call this when we're just currently go
Speaker 1: far machine? Yeah, the go far and wide machine. Modern day,
Speaker 1: Jump in the go far and wide machine and come
Speaker 1: with us at first to Africa. If you get continent wide,
Speaker 1: the stat is about sixty five grams. I'm sorry, sixty
Speaker 1: five kilograms of meat per capita. I wonder about that
Speaker 1: number because if you break it down per country, South
Speaker 1: Africa they eat about sixty five point two kilograms compared
Speaker 1: to let's say, the Democratic Republic of Congo at just
Speaker 1: over four kilograms. Who's eating more red meat in Africa
Speaker 1: than South Africa to make that average 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 three 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 1: Well, no one's ever asked me how much meat I eat.
Speaker 1: I could skew that. Oh really have you?
Speaker 3: 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 1: No, no, no, I mean like an official study, like
Speaker 1: I don't know, I know, I'm just kidding do any
Speaker 1: of that stuff. It's sort of like weird black magic
Speaker 1: to me. But we do know that generally speaking, West
Speaker 1: African nations eat a little more meat. It's a little
Speaker 1: more meat heavy than East African nations. But even in
Speaker 1: West Africa, that's again, I mean, if the average per
Speaker 1: capita was sixty five kilograms, that's like less than half
Speaker 1: 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 bonolith, 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: eat more, some eat less, and you get all sorts
Speaker 2: of weird little statistical blips that come up from that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. If you look at the top ten countries around
Speaker 1: the world with the highest rates of vegetarianism, India and
Speaker 1: Taiwan are on there. So two of the top ten
Speaker 1: are in Asia. Japan and China. They aren't on the
Speaker 1: list of top ten percentage vegetarian wise, but they eat
Speaker 1: a lot less meat than the US at an average
Speaker 1: 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 1: Yeah, and this is another like if you look at Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Minimar, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Speaker 1: and Vietnam, they're all under twenty kilograms and Thailand is
Speaker 1: it like twenty five and Laos at thirty, So, I
Speaker 1: mean that's way less than the seventy five average in
Speaker 1: 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 there too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which we'll get in. Well, actually take a break
Speaker 1: before you do that, but we'll talk about India real quick,
Speaker 1: because they have the highest proportion of vegetarians in the world,
Speaker 1: close to forty percent thirty eight percent. Thirty nine percent
Speaker 1: are vegetarian in India for you know, obvious reasons, and
Speaker 1: six point six kilograms of meat per capita compared to
Speaker 1: as many as one hundred and fifty for the US. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's very low.
Speaker 2: It is very low. I say we take a break.
Speaker 2: We're going to come back to the studio away from
Speaker 2: the what was it, the far Go far and wide machine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. We're still inventing new ways to
Speaker 1: travel in you're seventeen.
Speaker 2: It still has that new imaginary machine smell uh Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 2: we're going to take a break everybody, and we'll figure
Speaker 2: out what we're going to talk about next.
Speaker 1: Learn and stuff with Joshua job stuff fu shine up.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back, and we promised talk of religion
Speaker 1: because who doesn't love that? But this is religion as
Speaker 1: it relates to diet, because depending on your religion, there
Speaker 1: may be a lot of you know, rules and restrictions
Speaker 1: on what they say you should eat because of a
Speaker 1: bunch of reasons. It can sometimes it shows like purity.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's like no, it shows how dedicated and faithful
Speaker 1: you are. Sometimes it's like, hey, you get at following rules,
Speaker 1: don't eat this on this day, and let's see how
Speaker 1: you do with that. But for whatever reason, there are
Speaker 1: plenty of religions that have rules sort of surrounding meat,
Speaker 1: 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 alloutter 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 1: Yeah, and if you're wondering, like, well, how does that
Speaker 1: affect the rate of vegetarianism in Israel, they are second
Speaker 1: behind India. That's not the only factor, of course, but
Speaker 1: I think the highest percentage of veganism is in Israel too,
Speaker 1: which is Yeah. I don't know why that surprised me,
Speaker 1: 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 1: I wonder one hundred and sixty five days a year
Speaker 1: they just party down on some steak probably what Seventh
Speaker 1: Day Adventist. It's not a requirement to be a vegetarian,
Speaker 1: but they're like, it's not a bad way to live.
Speaker 1: 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 1: Yeah, they endorse the movement generally, but about thirty six
Speaker 1: percent end up lacto ovo vegetarians, and then sixteen percent
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, an additional sixteen percent eat plant based diet
Speaker 1: with maybe 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 you're your religion forbids violence, you can't really
Speaker 2: cut the head off of a chicken and eat it
Speaker 2: very easily. People still do in Buddhist countries, but it's
Speaker 2: much more or it's much less common and frequent, and
Speaker 2: in fact, apparently in Japan from six seventy five to
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy two, meat was essentially banned in that country
Speaker 2: because of the influence of Buddhism and Confucianism.
Speaker 1: You gotta weight on that chicken to die of natural causes.
Speaker 2: Just follow it around like a buzzard.
Speaker 1: He's not looking so good.
Speaker 2: He looks a little pekin Hindu is.
Speaker 1: I love that word, by the way, good I'm going
Speaker 1: I used. I heard that word last night on the
Speaker 1: TV show The Pit, and I realized, I just don't
Speaker 1: use it much.
Speaker 2: You know what, I like? That's similar. It's peckish.
Speaker 1: I like peckish as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: 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 1: But everyone would be like who's peaked and who's peckish?
Speaker 1: Like I think Josh is peaked and Chuck is peckish.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't matter. We can both be would It would
Speaker 2: depend on our mood on any given day?
Speaker 1: Or perhaps we are both peaked and peckish. Yeah, at
Speaker 1: all times. We're always hungry and we're always not looking
Speaker 1: so good. Hinduism, at almost eighty percent, eats a plant
Speaker 1: based diet, but they again, it's not required. It's just like, hey,
Speaker 1: why don't you do this? That kind of thing. Heavily suggested.
Speaker 2: Maybe yeah, it's also I mean, especially since the Hindu
Speaker 2: nationalist ruling party took over the Baratiya Janata Party BJP,
Speaker 2: they have been enforcing like really strict rules that are
Speaker 2: Hindu in nature against eating meat, so much so that
Speaker 2: people have been beaten. I think one person at least
Speaker 2: has been lynched. For eating meat or being associated with
Speaker 2: the meat trade, specifically beef, because cows are considered sacred
Speaker 2: in Hinduism, and also similarly in India, vegetarianism is linked
Speaker 2: to social status, in basically complete contradiction of what it's
Speaker 2: like in say the West, where eating meat has long
Speaker 2: been associated with being an elite or having high status.
Speaker 2: Vegetarianism is in India.
Speaker 1: 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. Jans. These
Speaker 2: are the people who are so against herting 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 bud. Ninety
Speaker 2: two percent of them and fifty nine percent of Sikhs
Speaker 2: in India are all vegetarians.
Speaker 1: And I guess eight percent of Jains are bad Jaans.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 2: So I mean, like, how would you show up to
Speaker 2: like the Jain meeting and show your face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or show up to a Jaine party with a
Speaker 1: raka ribs. That's probably not it's probably frowned upon.
Speaker 2: I would say, I would think so.
Speaker 1: All right, so if and of course I'm kidding no
Speaker 1: offense to any Jane's out.
Speaker 2: There, No, of course not. I'm sure they'd show up
Speaker 2: and be like natural causes everybody be all check.
Speaker 1: So, if you're gonna eat a plant based diet, it
Speaker 1: can look at like a It can look many different
Speaker 1: ways depending on what you're into. We found some information
Speaker 1: from Harvard Health. And obviously one thing that you're gonna
Speaker 1: do is eats of veggies like Emily does. They say, like, hey,
Speaker 1: fill half your plate up with veggies and vary the color.
Speaker 1: Don't eat just like a bunch of green veggies. Like
Speaker 1: eat veggies of all stripes and colors.
Speaker 2: Get you some anthracyanins, why don't you.
Speaker 1: 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 1: Yeah, I'll have the cream spinach, side of bructli and
Speaker 1: a 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 1: For like, that's the healthy way to eat meat. Yes,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've heard that, but oh okay, I
Speaker 1: could see that.
Speaker 2: So not just that. If you cup 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.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: There's a name for all this. It's called the zimbabwe
Speaker 2: hand jive.
Speaker 1: I can I've done that dance, but I did not
Speaker 1: 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 1: It's a great name. What I do We host a
Speaker 1: lot of especially in the spring and summertime, of people
Speaker 1: when we go to the lake and just at our
Speaker 1: house here we have we throw dinner parties. We just
Speaker 1: do a lot of that kind of stuff. And aside
Speaker 1: from being exhausting, one thing, I'm just kidding, it's actually
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. But one thing, yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: And this goes along with like how you think about
Speaker 1: meat and how much meat you have is I don't
Speaker 1: cook up, like, you know, twenty chicken breast. If there's
Speaker 1: twenty people there, I cook up a bunch of you know,
Speaker 1: whatever kind of cut of chicken and or steaks. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they'll do a couple of meats and I will just
Speaker 1: I will slice it all up on a big platter
Speaker 1: and then you can just get a portion of something
Speaker 1: rather than saying, like, here's a gigantic chicken breast on
Speaker 1: your plate that you now feel responsible for. Right, And
Speaker 1: people seem to really like that, you know, like maybe
Speaker 1: I'll have a little bit of this and a little
Speaker 1: bit of that and then the rest is our veggie sides.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: 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, right, Yeah, that'd save
Speaker 2: you a bunch of money totally. So let's see what
Speaker 2: else Oh. Another good one is to choose different fats, avocados,
Speaker 2: olive oil, stuff like that, and then just cook at
Speaker 2: least one vegetarian meal per week. Dip your toe in
Speaker 2: the Yeah, and if you start doing these kind of things,
Speaker 2: it's actually really easy to find yourself down the road,
Speaker 2: like just doing it without thinking about it, and more
Speaker 2: and more meals throughout the week become vegetarian. Because we'll
Speaker 2: talk in a minute about why people do this, but
Speaker 2: a lot of people stop eating as much meat for
Speaker 2: health reasons or because they want to lose weight. And
Speaker 2: if you just kind of start, like you said, dip
Speaker 2: your toe in like this, it just becomes kind of
Speaker 2: second nature over time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can get used to something like that. And
Speaker 1: I think what you'll find if you think you need
Speaker 1: meat because like it's more filling, that's just not true.
Speaker 1: You get plenty full eating all that other stuff, So
Speaker 1: you know, you can give it a whirl. I do
Speaker 1: that stuff every now and then. Whole grains at breakfast
Speaker 1: is great. This is basically again what Emily does. A
Speaker 1: lot of oatmeal, buckwheat, barley, quinoa eat like a horse,
Speaker 1: 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, no,
Speaker 2: I have to have something sweet. Oh really, I just
Speaker 2: can't not do it. My brain's just as wired that
Speaker 2: way I am too. Yeah, okay, So if you just
Speaker 2: eat like an apple or some strawberries or something like that,
Speaker 2: it just short circuits that. It does it for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have just retrained my brain to where I
Speaker 1: don't seek that. And it's not like I was eating
Speaker 1: dessert every night. Like the only time I literally have dessert,
Speaker 1: like a dessert is kind of either if a bunch
Speaker 1: of people are out to eat and it's an occasion
Speaker 1: or maybe on vacation or something like that. But it's
Speaker 1: not like even eating out in a restaurant. We never
Speaker 1: eat dessert like that. But I have found just one
Speaker 1: square of dark chocolate scratches that itch in a nice way.
Speaker 2: It always feels like a punishment to me because it's
Speaker 2: just one, just one, and it's dark chocolate.
Speaker 1: Oh you don't like dark chocolate.
Speaker 2: It's fine, but it's not going to short circuit that dessert.
Speaker 1: You know what. I used to not be into dark chocolate.
Speaker 1: 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: going to cut the legs out from under you in
Speaker 2: a little while then.
Speaker 1: But I don't do that every night, but I'll still,
Speaker 1: you know, when I want that, When I find myself
Speaker 1: like God, I gotta have the sweet thing the night,
Speaker 1: I'll do one square, sprinkle a couple of little dabs
Speaker 1: of sea salt on top, and that that does it
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: My God, why don't you live in Brooklyn?
Speaker 1: I know, because I don't have a manny store. Greens too, obviously,
Speaker 1: like leafy vegetables, salads. Just eat as much stuff like
Speaker 1: I love a salad. Emily make you know. She grows
Speaker 1: that stuff and prepares fresh salads, makes her own salad dressing.
Speaker 1: She's gotten more into cooking. She never used to do
Speaker 1: stuff like that at all, but she's that. I found
Speaker 1: 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 a vegetarian meal
Speaker 2: once a week, eat a salad for dinner. This is
Speaker 2: actually the key to the whole thing. Go to bed
Speaker 2: really early so that your normal breakfast will come much
Speaker 2: more quickly.
Speaker 1: I don't eat breakfast. But yeah, that was a joke,
Speaker 1: by the way, I know, I get it.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, thanks for the laugh.
Speaker 1: Support.
Speaker 2: You want to take a break and then come back
Speaker 2: and talk about why people become vegetarian vegan? Sure, okay,
Speaker 2: Well we'll be right back again.
Speaker 1: Learn and stuff with Joshua job.
Speaker 3: Stuff you shine up, Okay, Chuck.
Speaker 2: I think I promised before we left that we talk
Speaker 2: about why people become vegetarian. I already said health reasons,
Speaker 2: which we'll get into more in a little while. But
Speaker 2: a lot of people just do it because it's just healthier.
Speaker 2: Like if you want to eat healthier, most people don't
Speaker 2: like double or triple down on fried chicken, like you
Speaker 2: instead start turning to plants, you know, like people just
Speaker 2: start eating more plants, And it's almost intuitive. I don't
Speaker 2: think it even has anything to do with the nutritionists
Speaker 2: set in the United States convincing people like plants are healthy.
Speaker 2: I just feel like we just intuitively know that that
Speaker 2: is healthier than eating like a steak or again fried chicken,
Speaker 2: which I feel like there's a place for fried chicken.
Speaker 1: I'm not knocking that I mean, as you know, it's
Speaker 1: my favorite food, and I just you know, I heard
Speaker 1: you got to pick and choose of that stuff. But
Speaker 1: it's not removed from my life, thank goodness. But you're
Speaker 1: gonna get lots of vitamins and minerals and fiber and
Speaker 1: antioxidants in your veggies if you eat legumes you eat
Speaker 1: if you're a vegetarian, you probably eat lots of lagomes
Speaker 1: and chick be's and lima beans and stuff like that. Soy,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get lots of protein, amino acids, lots of
Speaker 1: fiber and antioxidants there and also no cholesterol, which is
Speaker 1: you know, I have cholesterol problems genetically speaking, so and
Speaker 1: a lot of people do. So that's a good way
Speaker 1: to get your 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.
Speaker 1: The status lagom have.
Speaker 2: An acronym for n ul's right, And there's apparently a
Speaker 2: ton of legrooms that are found around the world that
Speaker 2: are known to like local cuisine that they're just waiting
Speaker 2: to be adopted to kind of make the plant based
Speaker 2: diet even more varied.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's twenty thousand. I probably have had five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually maybe more, but no, no, no.
Speaker 2: I no, I know it to mean, Yeah, I just
Speaker 2: had a night. So one of the one of the
Speaker 2: ones I found was the Bombara ground nut. You would
Speaker 2: make a trillion dollars if instead of a mayonnaise operation
Speaker 2: you opened a Bombara ground nut operation in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: I mean you would make so much cash, dude, overnight.
Speaker 1: People just like saying ground nut.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that Bombara really sells the ground nut if you.
Speaker 1: Ask me, Yeah, for sure. Obviously. You know, we've mentioned
Speaker 1: the concerns with red meat, but with beef and pork,
Speaker 1: people have been you know, calling for years for less
Speaker 1: of that in your diet, and you know, health practitioners
Speaker 1: and doctors because obviously you know, heart attack, stroke, cancer,
Speaker 1: all the things that can lead you in that direction
Speaker 1: once you eat 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 1: Yeah, for sure. Another big, big reason is is animal
Speaker 1: welfare and just maybe your moral values as a human.
Speaker 1: That is a lot of people switch over to vegetarianism
Speaker 1: or veganism because the modern factory farming system in the
Speaker 1: United States is a horror show and everybody knows this.
Speaker 1: Some people some people do it anyway, but it's a
Speaker 1: big reason, you know, Like vegans are like, no, all
Speaker 1: animals have a right to life and a right to freedom,
Speaker 1: and we're not doing it right here in the United States,
Speaker 1: 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 normal,
Speaker 2: and vegans are like, no, that's not true. So I
Speaker 2: found that fascinating. I kind of wanted to get into
Speaker 2: it a little more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I'm not gonna tell that story. Mindful
Speaker 1: eating is another one, which is I mean exactly what
Speaker 1: it sounds like, just instead of like falling into a
Speaker 1: pattern and I just I'll just eat that because that's
Speaker 1: what I've always eaten, or you know, grabbed that thing
Speaker 1: that's quick and brainless to put in my mouth.
Speaker 2: Grab it by the horns.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to really just have a heightened awareness of what
Speaker 1: you're eating what's going in your body and every impact
Speaker 1: from your health to what it means to the world
Speaker 1: and to that animal. Just being more mindful is another
Speaker 1: reason that people will go to a plant based on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's how people get to that from
Speaker 2: like religious mandated diets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll put environmentalism in its own category because
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: One of the things that people figure out pretty quickly
Speaker 2: when they become vegans in particular, is that you can
Speaker 2: get really unhealthy really quick just eating food that qualifies
Speaker 2: as vegan food. There's a ton of process vegan food
Speaker 2: out there. A lot of times, a lot of sweetener,
Speaker 2: including just sugar, is added, and just basically eating packaged
Speaker 2: food or even French fries as long as they're cooked
Speaker 2: in vegetable oil, those are vegan. And everyone knows that
Speaker 2: French fries aren't really good for you. So there is
Speaker 2: like a whole kind of blind alley that you have
Speaker 2: to watch out for when you get into veganness them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not a vegan, but it's I can still
Speaker 1: say you know, word of caution if you go that
Speaker 1: route that you have to be more active in meal
Speaker 1: planning and because what you really want to do is
Speaker 1: eat whole foods and eat real foods. So if you're
Speaker 1: like I'm going to go vegan and just sort of
Speaker 1: buy the ultra process stuff that is technically vegan, you're
Speaker 1: not doing yourself any health favors. I mean, you know
Speaker 1: you're still doing and you know, as far as your
Speaker 1: moral values are concerned, you're doing right by that. But
Speaker 1: you want good outcomes all the way around, So just
Speaker 1: lean toward whole foods and the Mediterranean diet, which again
Speaker 1: people around the Mediterranean just call it eating that has
Speaker 1: roundly been shown over the years to be kind of
Speaker 1: the 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: than people who don't, especially regular meat.
Speaker 1: Eaters, Yeah, for sure. As far as the endividual, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll kind of go through a little bit about like
Speaker 1: who's deficient in what depending on what you eat. If
Speaker 1: you're looking at protein and saturated fat, you're going to
Speaker 1: have obviously, if you're a meat eater, you're going to
Speaker 1: have the highest intake among anyone, and the lowest is
Speaker 1: going to be among vegans. That's just makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. If you're a vegetarian or a fish eater,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be somewhere in the middle. And vegetarians are
Speaker 1: more likely than meat or fish eaters to have as
Speaker 1: a result, inadequate protein intake, and vegans even more likely
Speaker 1: to have inadequate protein intake, I think, more than vegetarians.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a long scene in Chestnut in like the
Speaker 2: I guess I don't want to say bodybuilding communities, people
Speaker 2: who work out like hardcore that you can't possibly be
Speaker 2: ripped as a vegan and our stuff you should know.
Speaker 2: Listener Doyle Wolfgang van Frankenstein, the guitarist for the Misfits.
Speaker 2: He is just vegan to the core and he is
Speaker 2: totally ripped, and in fact, he has his own protein
Speaker 2: powder called vegan monster protein where you can get ripped
Speaker 2: yourself if you want to and still be a vegan.
Speaker 1: I think ripped vegan is that's got to already be
Speaker 1: a band name.
Speaker 2: Oh I wouldn't. Yeah, maybe that's his sideban his folk
Speaker 2: side band.
Speaker 1: Ripped vecan. You might have a vitamin B twelve deficiency
Speaker 1: if you are a vegan, because plants don't have B twelve.
Speaker 1: I think fifty two percent of vegans are B twelve deficient,
Speaker 1: seven percent of vegetarians, and if you're a meat eater,
Speaker 1: you have a less than one percent of being B
Speaker 1: 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 1: Yeah for sure. Here's one thing though, and this is
Speaker 1: something that was controlled for BMI. Even if you're a
Speaker 1: vegetarian or vegan, you have a kind of a remarkably
Speaker 1: a remarkable statistical risk or higher risk I guess, of
Speaker 1: getting bone fracture than meat eater, and especially when it
Speaker 1: comes to your hips, the risk of hip fracture. With vegetarians,
Speaker 1: you have a twenty five percent higher risk of fracturing
Speaker 1: your hip as a vegetarian controlling for BMI again, and
Speaker 1: vegans one hundred and thirty one percent higher chance of
Speaker 1: hip fracture.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I so part of it is that B twelve deficiency,
Speaker 2: 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 1: Just my Yeah, I wonder, Yeah, yeah, I did mention cancer.
Speaker 1: You know, I think we all often talk about like
Speaker 1: heart attack and stroke and stuff like that by eating
Speaker 1: too much red meat. But cancer is another factor that
Speaker 1: I sort of briefly mentioned, but if you're a vegetarian
Speaker 1: or a vegan, you have at ten to eighteen percent
Speaker 1: lower risk of cancer than meat eaters. Although All calls
Speaker 1: All calls mortality. That's another good band name. Man, that's
Speaker 1: three band names.
Speaker 2: All Mortality, Pekish, and peakd All calls.
Speaker 1: See that can't be our band name because I can't
Speaker 1: even say it. At the end of the show, All
Speaker 1: cause mortality was not different, which is surprising between vegetarians
Speaker 1: and meat eaters and vegans.
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. I think
Speaker 2: they only had like twenty five hundred in this cohort
Speaker 2: but for stroke at least, they weren't able to figure
Speaker 2: out how that affects vegan, and you would assume that
Speaker 2: it would be even an even higher percentage for me.
Speaker 2: But a hemorrhagic hemorrhagic stroke is where blood vessels in
Speaker 2: your brain start bleeding. Again, that would make sense because
Speaker 2: B twelve helps fortify sell walls, and I would think
Speaker 2: the lack of red blood cell production would have something
Speaker 2: to do with that too. So I think what we're
Speaker 2: trying to say the upshot is is it's not just
Speaker 2: like a slam dunk that you're going to be healthier
Speaker 2: or your lifetime health outcomes are automatically going to be better.
Speaker 2: But it's still I mean, it's just if your overall
Speaker 2: or sorry, if you're all dash cause mortality is going
Speaker 2: to be the same, then I don't know, I think
Speaker 2: that kind of makes an argument to eat whichever makes
Speaker 2: you feel best.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just a weird stat Yeah all dash cause Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I can't explain that. Maybe someone will
Speaker 1: have some more information on that. But earlier we did
Speaker 1: promise an entire section on the invironmental impact of eating
Speaker 1: animals because that is yet another reason and you know,
Speaker 1: obviously people have all kinds of reasons, and it's usually
Speaker 1: a combination of all these things. But we were learning
Speaker 1: just it's become plainly obvious more and more this isn't
Speaker 1: the kind of thing. I think that, especially in America,
Speaker 1: people like to look at a lot in the past,
Speaker 1: but it seems like in the last like fifteen years
Speaker 1: or so, people are sounding the alarm like, hey, besides
Speaker 1: ethical concerns and health and all that other stuff, like
Speaker 1: raising animals is to eat is kind of a or
Speaker 1: the way we do it as 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 kilogram
Speaker 2: two point two pounds of beef. Right, you can feed
Speaker 2: way more people with two point two pounds of beef
Speaker 2: than you can with two point two pounds of broccoli.
Speaker 2: So I get exactly at best. Yeah, But so some
Speaker 2: people 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?
Speaker 1: Now, I didn't kill that chocolate. You know, coffee and
Speaker 1: chocolate are two pretty notorious you know, environmental disasters as
Speaker 1: well on the 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.
Speaker 3: Overall.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 2: I found a twenty nineteen study from Sustainability the Journal,
Speaker 2: and they basically said thirty vegetarians have thirty three percent
Speaker 2: lower greenhouse gas emissions based on their diet than a
Speaker 2: vegan than meat, and a vegan diet has fifty three
Speaker 2: percent lower greenhouse gas emissions. It's just that's just how
Speaker 2: it goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if you're like, well, I like eating some meat,
Speaker 1: the biggest s afenders there are beef, lamb and mutton.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that was weird.
Speaker 1: Beef produces sixty kilograms of greenhouse gas per kilogram, and
Speaker 1: a kilogram of poultry is only six. But you compare
Speaker 1: that to a kilogram with just some English peas, that's
Speaker 1: under one kilogram of greenhouse gas emissions produced. So you
Speaker 1: might think that as far as water consumption goes, the
Speaker 1: plants would far outpace like a meat diet because you
Speaker 1: got a water vegetables. But generally there are just a
Speaker 1: few plant based foods that have a bigger water footprint
Speaker 1: than beef.
Speaker 2: Yeah, beef is just the worst offender of all, but livestock.
Speaker 2: Raising livestock in general, apparently one fifth to one quarter
Speaker 2: of all the water used by humans goes to raising livestock,
Speaker 2: which is nuts. But the reason why is because not
Speaker 2: only do you need water to keep that head of
Speaker 2: cattle alive until you decide to kill it, you also
Speaker 2: need water to grow the grain that you feed that
Speaker 2: head of cattle. So they're just consuming all over the place,
Speaker 2: especially as far as water is concerned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just so you know, there are like zero
Speaker 1: sort of vegetables that out paste beef. The two that
Speaker 1: do out paste beef that I was referring to our
Speaker 1: chocolate and almonds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and who considers an almond of vegetable? Come on,
Speaker 2: give it up.
Speaker 1: And I think as far as lamb and mutton go,
Speaker 1: the two other biggest defenders in the meat category, only cashews, pistachios,
Speaker 1: and hazel nuts consume more water to produce than lamb
Speaker 1: and mutton.
Speaker 2: Hazel Nuts are so great, far and away the best.
Speaker 1: 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 bombara ground nut yet,
Speaker 2: so I should wait and reserve judgment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, peanuts they grow underground.
Speaker 2: Right, Yep, they're a ground nut.
Speaker 1: I can just see Jimmy Carter holding a big thing
Speaker 1: of peanuts and roots with dirt falling off of them.
Speaker 2: All right, Pete and God bless that man.
Speaker 1: That's right. The US maintains about nine billion, nine billion
Speaker 1: livestock to get the meat that it needs or wants.
Speaker 1: I guess is the better way to say it. And
Speaker 1: if that grain went to humans, it'd be enough for
Speaker 1: eight hundred and forty million people that have plant based diets.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: And there was another thing that I came across that
Speaker 2: I was kind of surprised by totally makes sense, is
Speaker 2: if we en mass as a species, humans essentially abandoned
Speaker 2: livestock production, beef production, or meat production in favor of
Speaker 2: a plant based diet. Just basically globally, the chance of
Speaker 2: communicable diseases developing would drop drastically because seventy five percent
Speaker 2: of emerging communicable diseases are zoonotic, which means humans get
Speaker 2: them from animals, and we make our closest contact with
Speaker 2: animals through the livestock industry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a petting zeus.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, as long as it wasn't grown in
Speaker 2: a lab, you can kiss communicable diseases goodbye.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The other environment little disaster of raising livestock, and
Speaker 1: this is more and more lately, is the habitat destruction
Speaker 1: to raise all these animals. You're talking about extinction of
Speaker 1: plant and animal species and thousands more being threatened in
Speaker 1: the year's upcoming because of habitat destruction. And it's also
Speaker 1: true for some kinds of agriculture. You know, we've talked
Speaker 1: about palm oil cultivation being a big problem for a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, specifically orangutang populations or at least by example,
Speaker 1: but beef, once again, is the biggest factor. They drive
Speaker 1: forty Beef drives forty percent of tropical deforestation globally, whereas
Speaker 1: palm oil and soy, which are two sort offenders on
Speaker 1: the other side, are only eighteen percent combined.
Speaker 2: That's all just eighteen percent of deforestation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean the one takeaway here is beef
Speaker 1: beef bad.
Speaker 2: It's what's for dinner and what ruined the planet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's far and away leading the
Speaker 1: way 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 1: Yeah, I eat more vegetables now. I eat way less
Speaker 1: red meat than I used to. Yeah, for just like
Speaker 1: 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 Mayil.
Speaker 1: That was a real laugh. That was an oh Josh laugh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I love those two.
Speaker 1: All right, This this from a smithy because of us.
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, I saw this one.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, I've always had a bit of an interest
Speaker 1: in metalworking, and as of about five years ago, i've
Speaker 1: had an interest in your show. I'd say your show
Speaker 1: has been the longest running podcast of my life. Actually,
Speaker 1: I remember listening to your episode about blacksmithing four years
Speaker 1: ago and that kind of set off the domino effect
Speaker 1: of me getting really into blacksmithing as a hobby. I'm
Speaker 1: definitely one of those that like to collect hobbies, with
Speaker 1: most passing in about six months and I never pick
Speaker 1: it up again. But not true with blacksmithing. I've stuck
Speaker 1: with it since your episode came out, and I'd like
Speaker 1: to say I've come a long way with it. I've
Speaker 1: attached to a few pictures of my work, which is
Speaker 1: very good, by the way, starting with early works and
Speaker 1: all the way to the two I completed about a
Speaker 1: week ago. I thought you might be interested in seeing
Speaker 1: how your show kicked off one of my favorite hobbies
Speaker 1: I've ever had, so thanks for that. And that is
Speaker 1: from Tate Avent and you can find Tate just look
Speaker 1: up Tater makes t a I t E R m
Speaker 1: 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 getting so good at it, and we
Speaker 2: really appreciate you letting us know that we had some
Speaker 2: sort of small, tiny impact on you. We love hearing
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. If you want to be like
Speaker 2: Tate and let us know that we had some small,
Speaker 2: tiny impact on you, please send it via email to
Speaker 2: stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.