Authors: Rip Esselstyn
Fortunately for meat-eaters, this highly odiferous gas is immediately transported to the liver, which converts it to a chemical called TMAO. Do a Google search for TMAO and one of the first things that pops up is “texting my ass off.” That’s not what this TMAO is. In the body, TMAO stands for the organic compound trimethylamine
n
-oxide.
Unfortunately for meat eaters, the clinic’s three-year study, in which more than four thousand people participated, revealed that high levels of TMAO proved to be a stronger predictor of heart disease than high blood pressure, smoking, or even cholesterol. It turns out that TMAO changes how cholesterol is managed and makes it easier for cholesterol to attach to blood vessels and more difficult for the liver and intestines to rid themselves of it.
In the study, participants with the highest levels of TMAO were found to have two and a half times the risk for a coronary incident (heart attack, stroke, or death) than those with the lowest levels of the chemical.
One of the most interesting findings of this study was that when vegetarians and vegans are given a steak (and forced to eat it!), the bacteria in their guts do not produce TMAO. Plant eaters have different bugs in their guts than omnivores, and the plant eaters’ bugs don’t make TMAO.
However, if a vegetarian or vegan switches to eating animal products, the gut may cultivate new bacteria that are readily capable of producing TMAO.
In addition to red meat, carnitine is also found in fish, chicken, and dairy products, although meat is the primary source in most diets. (Many energy drinks and pills also contain the substance—so be sure to read your labels carefully!) A further study at the Cleveland Clinic showed that another substance also raised levels of TMAO: lecithin. Lecithin is found in eggs as well as in milk, liver, red meat, poultry, and fish. This finding means that eggs may be as dangerous as red meat when it comes to the production of TMAO—and your risk for heart disease.
Text your ass off if you want, but keep TMAO out of your body by eating a plant-strong diet.
H
ere is another objection to a plant-based diet that comes up often: “If people shouldn’t eat meat, why do we crave it?”
The fact is, there are times when craving something does mean you need it. When you’re tired, you crave sleep, and you need it. When you’re thirsty, you crave water, and you need it. Cravings are often signals to which we should listen. But is this true of
all
cravings?
Common sense tells us right off that not all cravings should be honored. An alcoholic craves alcohol. This is a self-destructive craving. A gambler craves gambling. A cocaine addict craves cocaine. Also self-destructive. These drives have been created by artificial, rather than natural, stimulation. Cocaine, for example, artificially causes the dopamine system (the reward center in the brain) to become hyperactive. Cocaine causes an artificial high that is more intense than humans were designed to experience, which is very dangerous, because once you experience it, you crave it again. This craving is the root of addiction.
All cravings were not created equal. Some, like cravings for water, food, sleep, and sex, are natural and normal and generally don’t cause trouble. But cravings for unhealthy things can cause trouble.
What about cravings for meat? Are such cravings natural, or are they artificial? And if they are natural, does this mean that we should honor them?
Cravings for meat are, for the most part, artificial. To some degree this is because often people don’t even crave meat when they think they do. For example, they may say they crave barbecued ribs, but those ribs have been ingeniously prepared with extra fat (oil, butter), salt, spices, and sugary sauce. When they say they crave chicken, they don’t crave
a piece of a bird. They crave something that has been fried in oil, and spiced up with salt or maybe a sugary sauce. In other words, most people’s meat cravings aren’t really for meat, but for a whole package of food that has been doctored up to become an artificial, high-sugar, high-fat, high-salt product. No wonder they crave it! Most meat is about as artificial as a donut or candy bar!
Is there any part of this meat craving that is real? I believe the answer is “no.” Here’s what my friend, eminent evolutionary psychologist Doug Lisle, says:
Our ancient ancestors lived in a world where food was difficult to find. As a result, at some point in the distant past they evolved from a diet of plant foods to a diet that could accommodate some animal foods. Humans weren’t designed to eat animal foods, but because of the threat of starvation, we adapted the capacity to use them. Think of cars that were designed to run on gasoline, but could also use alcohol. It wasn’t a perfect fit, but it could work.
When our ancestors started using animal foods, it caused problems because it wasn’t the best fuel. It was
dirty
fuel. It clogged arteries, and it fed cancer. But at the time, this was better than starvation.
Likewise, if you are dangerously dehydrated, you are not going to be very fussy about the cleanliness of any water you find. Even if it contains dangerous microbes, you will drink it. If you don’t, you die.
Similarly, it was a better move for our ancestors to include a dirty fuel, meat, into their diets than to starve. Better to live to sixty and die of a heart attack by eating some meat than to forgo all animal foods and have perfectly clean arteries but to die of starvation at forty.
So our ancestors developed a modest craving for meat, not because they needed it, but because they needed to be forced to eat it if they were seriously hungry.
Fortunately, we don’t face starvation today. So, if we’re smart, we don’t have to honor any cravings that encourage us to eat the dirty fuel.
In order to live long, live healthy, and prosper, we need to keep our diets clean and eat green.
Fact: Once you give up meat, you will stop craving it. People who’ve gone on the Engine 2 diet tell me that they couldn’t believe that they would ever
not
want to have a burger. Today, just the thought of one makes them feel sick!
Y
ou’ve probably heard of the Paleo diet, in which people are encouraged to eat like a he-man or a she-woman cave dweller from Paleolithic times.
Here’s what Jeff Novick has to say about this diet: If you are trying to eat as though you were a meat-eating cave person, then you’re not following the best approach for optimal health through diet. Who’s Jeff Novick? He’s not just a good friend of mine, he’s one of the country’s leading dieticians and nutritionists.
So what’s wrong with all the Paleo diets being promoted today? For one thing, our early ancestors didn’t eat just meat. Up to 80 percent of their diet was actually plants. And it was these plants and the ability to cook starches and root vegetables that caused the great explosion in human growth and brain size.
The reality is the people in the Paleolithic Era ate more than 75 grams of fiber per day, or double that of the average plant eater today.
Next, it’s estimated that the animal that would most resemble those consumed by Paleo types would be the antelope, whose flesh contains about 5 percent fat, hardly any of it saturated fat, and no added hormones or antibiotics—an animal far different from those that Paleo-pretenders eat today. (And don’t forget that to eat a true Paleo diet, you’d also have to give up salt and sugar—which no Paleo dieter advocates.)
Interestingly, when researchers studied the hunter-gatherer tribes surviving today, they discovered that these people don’t rely on meat at all—they eat whatever is available, and most of that is plants.
There are two populations today that still eat large amounts of meat. First, the Maasai tribe of East Africa, who basically live on blood, milk, and meat. Although many people think these people are free of
heart disease, it’s not so. In a study published in the
American Journal of Epidemiology
, Harvard’s George Mann conducted fifty autopsies on the Maasai in the 1970s and found their bodies were loaded with heart disease—but unlike the arteries of Americans who eat a great deal of meat, the Maasai arteries were also dilated, allowing for more blood flow, due to their high degree of physical activity.
Second, the Inuit people in the northern parts of the Western Hemisphere eat a great deal of fish, blubber, and meat. Again, autopsy studies (done as far back as the 1920s) have confirmed the Inuit suffer from arterial plaque. In later research, American scientist Ancel Keyes also found the Inuits’ arteries were severely clogged, their cholesterol levels high, and their bones weak because their high-protein diet had leached calcium from their bones. This demineralization was so severe that it was common for Inuits as young as forty to break a leg or hip bone while just walking. According to pathologist Arthur Aufderheide, “the spines of many [Inuit] women who died 8,000 years ago, nearly all before age forty, look like the hunched backs of eighty-five-year-old American women today.”
If that doesn’t turn you away from eating like Fred Flintstone, according to a major study designed to analyze the health and eating habits of more than 110,000 adults for two decades (published in the
Archives of Internal Medicine
in March 2012), eating
any
kind of red meat appears to “significantly increase the risk of premature death.” Adding just one 3-ounce serving of unprocessed red meat to the daily diet was associated with a 13 percent greater chance of dying during the course of the study—and adding an extra daily serving of processed red meat, such as a hot dog or bacon, was linked to a 20 percent higher risk of death.
To defend their lifestyle, the Paleo people will often throw in the side argument that whole grains weren’t part of the human diet in 100,000 BC. Well, neither were many other wonderful and healthful plants, such as broccoli, artichokes, lettuce, grapefruit, and most of the other produce we love today. And since countless studies have shown that increased consumption of whole grains is related to increased longevity and decreased obesity and heart disease, it’s hard to argue against eating grains.
Don’t rely on a speculative hypothesis to create your healthy diet. Rely on plants, and you’ll be as strong as a caveman, and live three times as long.
At the end of 2011,
U.S. News & World Report
released its second annual ranking of the top twenty-five most popular weight-loss diet programs. The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) Diet, endorsed by the federal government, came out on top in several categories, including the lists of Best Diets Overall, Best Diets for Healthy Eating, and Best Diabetes Diets. At the drop-dead bottom of the list? The Paleo diet. The report notes that “Regardless of what a dieter’s goal is—weight loss, heart health, or finding a diet that’s easy to follow—most experts concluded he or she is better off looking elsewhere.”
A
fter traveling around the country for the last few years talking about the Engine 2 diet, I have heard just about every argument possible against a plant-based diet, and every excuse for not eating one. Excuses are like belly buttons—everyone has one.
A belly button that often comes up, usually at the very end of a talk, after all the others have been addressed, is this one: “But Rip, it’s just too
hard
to eat a plant-based diet.”
Come on, now! What’s hard is
not
being healthy. What’s hard is feeling run down 50 percent of your waking hours. What’s hard is not being able to empty your bowels of little pebbles of bulkless, putrefying stools. Eating healthfully from a cornucopia of foods that come in all the colors of the rainbow and are filled with water, fiber, bulk, vitamins, minerals, plant chemicals, carotenoids, and antioxidants that promote exceptional health, energy, and vitality while keeping your dumps as regular as a Swiss commuter train is easy and fun.
Yes: It’s super easy to eat a plant-strong diet, unless you’re a troglodyte living thousands of miles away from all stores and without Internet access. For most people, eating plants is as easy as shopping at any market in America—not just health food stores, but also places known for their meat and dairy offerings.
Here are some easy tips for making the Engine 2 plant-savvy lifestyle work at any grocery store in America: