My "Beef" with "Plant Based"

By Ashley Miers

Everybody knows… You’re supposed to go vegan to save the planet and be healthy. Right?

Not so fast.

I've done a lot of studying up on nutrition, and I am a big fan of Dr. Mark Hyman's work.

I highly recommend his books:

"Food: What the Heck Should I Eat" and "Food Fix" 

(If you want to do a deep dive on this topic.)

Based on my studies and my experience, I do believe that clean meat and seafood can be part of a healthy diet. If you're not eating meat or seafood for ethical reasons, that's a different discussion. But that being said, I definitely believe in a produce-based diet first and foremost...  Meaning mostly vegetables and a little fruit.  

I don't say "plant-based" (a popular buzz word) because a lot of times "plant-based" eating incorporates a lot of grains.  I personally limit my grain consumption to one or two servings per day, and I often consume buckwheat (actually a seed, not a grain) as an alternative instead. You can totally be “plant-based” and be overloading on inflammatory grains like wheat, and GMO crops (typically sprayed with tons of pesticides) such as corn and soy. That’s not going to do your body (or the planet) any favors. What we want to be eating (and this is the one thing everyone in nutrition science agrees on ) is VEGETABLES.

I don't subscribe to any particular "diet" camp, but there are things I like and resonate with from several:

Vegan/Vegetarian - At least half of my meals are "produce-based" and would fall under this category.

Paleo - I eat mostly this way - produce, clean meat and seafood, raw nuts and seeds, minimal grains.

Keto - In my experience, low to moderate carb intake and a high intake of healthy fats supports optimal metabolism and keeps my body feeling and functioning at its best.

But back to debunking beef...

Here's the thing.  I 1000% do NOT support factory farming and industrially raised meat.

I DO support regenerative agriculture and moderate consumption of organic grass-fed ruminants as well as organic pasture-raised poultry, and sustainably sourced wild seafood.  Again - read up on the topic - especially Dr. Hyman's books - if you want to understand my reasoning.

For one thing, it isn’t meat per se that is causing our health problems. It’s sugar and inflammatory fats (mainly from processed vegetable oils). And it’s the industrial mono-farming of crops such as corn and soy to produce these products (corn syrup and soybean oil, respectively) that is contributing in a massive way to the devastation of our planet. Oh, also - mono-farming is what produces grain to feed industrially raised cows (and cows are supposed to eat grass). If the picture isn’t starting to make sense yet, it’s because it doesn’t. Our current food and farmings systems are completely bass-ackwards.

In short, regenerative agriculture (feed cows grass, keep a sustainable amount of animals on any given piece of land, don’t use antibiotics or chemical fertilizers, and instead allow the cows’ manure to fertilize the soil) improves the environment, improves the fat content and quality of the meat we do eat, sequesters carbon, and our support of it can lead to not only supporting the welfare of the planet, but also restructuring our broken food (and farming) system to create massive and much-needed shifts across the food industry AND the medical and mental health spaces as a downstream effect.