The claim comes from a study “by the team behind Men’s Health magazine”. As you will be able to see from the link, the article lists 21 items and suggests that you swap one for the other. Examples include:

- Have crunchy nut cornflakes instead of Special K honey clusters to save 54 calories;

- Have half a Tesco simply peperoni pizza instead of half a Tesco cheese feast deep crust pizza to save 40 calories;

- Have a Flake instead of a Snickers to save 161 calories. You’ve got the idea.

The 21 items add up to a saving of 2,205 calories. The article then says that – if you save these each week you could lose two stone in a year!

Here’s the maths – 2,205 * 52 weeks = 114,660 calories. It is then wrongly assumed that one pound = 3,500 calories and so 114,660 is divided by 3,500 to assume that 32.76lbs would be lost in a year. The calorie theory (as this 3,500 assumption is known) is also supposed to be about fat lost alone. Hence, if you believe the theory, people should lose 32.76lbs in fat alone and more on top in lean tissue (sadly) and water – approximately 15% on top – so nearer 38lbs in total.

Here are a number of ways in which this is stupider than a very stupid thing!

1) One pound does not equal 3,500 calories. See here to save me duplicating the summary. Write to Men’s Health/The Daily Mail and demand evidence for this formula – can they succeed where seven UK public health and obesity organisations failed?

2) You will not lose 1lb for each deficit of 3,500 calories (and nor will you gain 1lb for each surplus of 3,500 calories). See here to save me duplicating the summary. The figure of an average of 11lb vs an expected 100+lbs has been confirmed in a few recent studies. This shows the sources of some of the 11lb examples. Hence you may lose a tenth of what you expect – in this case approximately 3-4lb – not 30-40lb!

3) Assuming that every deficit of calories is matched to the single calorie by the body giving up the equivalent in body fat is beyond absurd and yet it is assumed by this article and 99% of people working in the field of weight loss.

a) The body has to be in the biochemical state that it can break down body fat and this won’t happen if glucose is available in the bloodstream, or stored as glycogen, to use for fuel instead.

b) The body can and does adjust. If we put 100 fewer calories in to the body, it can adjust both our basal metabolic activity for the day and/or our energy used above the basal metabolic rate for that day. Put in 100 fewer calories and the body can just cross “keeping you warm” or “building bone density” off the’todo’ list for that day; the body can also make you tired and slow you down so that you use up 100 fewer calories being active. To assume that the body cannot and does not adjust at all – let alone by a single calorie, I’m sorry but there’s no other way to put this – is totally naive and stupid.

4) A calorie is not a calorie – as Jequier’s thermogenesis work showed (Eric Jequier, “Pathways to Obesity”, International Journal of Obesity, (2002).) Jequier found that the thermic effect of nutrients (thermogenesis) is approximately 6-8% for carbohydrate, 2-3% for fat and 25-30% for protein. Hence any 100 calories eaten is no longer 100 calories the minute it enters the body. Men’s Health would need to adjust for every macro nutrient for every food compared and even then points 1, 2, 3 and 5 here render the whole study nonsense.

5) Some calories have a job to do. Fat and protein calories to be precise. Let us say our average man needs 2,605 calories a day (as the government has decided), if he exercises 1-3 times a week, the Harris Benedict Equation tells us that approximately three quarters of these calories will be for basal metabolic needs (the BMR) and a quarter for energy/activity over and above this. The BMR needs fat and protein. Hence approximately 1,900 calories are needed for the BMR and approximately 700 on top of that for other activity for the day. This means that Mr Average needs to eat 1,900 calories in the form of (quality) fat and protein and 700 in the form of carbohydrate (or fat – fat can equally be used for energy – protein can too, but it’s less efficient).

So, back to Men’s Health, if our person eats 8.8 Snickers, at 296 calories each this will deliver the 2,605 daily calorie intake. If Mr Average eats 8.8 Flakes instead – they have ‘saved’ 1,416 calories and Men’s Health assumes that this will deliver a weight loss of 1lb for every time two and a half times that this 1,416 saving is made (3,500 calories). This is nonsense. Mr Average only needed 700 carb calories (he actually needed zero, as he could have fueled on fat, so I’m being generous). Empty junk confectionery calories can do nothing to build bone density, fight infection, repair cells (BMR) etc. Hence, eating Snickers, Mr Average consumed 1,900 effectively useless calories, which can only be stored as fat and thereby make him fat. With the Flakes, Mr Average still consumes more carbs than he needs and still gets fat. Mr Average also gets sick by the way -  with either option – Men’s HEALTH!

The final point to make is that virtually every food on this “Eat this, Not that” list is complete junk – the tuna in water is the only decent product out of 42 products. Tuna doesn’t come naturally in vegetable oil! Men who care about their health shouldn’t even get lamb from Tesco – they should get grass grazed quality lamb from their local butcher. Pizza, processed ham, oven chips, confectionery, Quavers, Discos, Mr Kipling rubbish, Magnums, Vienettas have no place whatsoever in a health diet – for men or women.

If you want to lose weight – eat real food and nothing but real food – meat, fish, eggs, veg, salad, dairy products should be the staples and then nuts, seeds and fruits in season in moderation. Grains – ‘whole’ or otherwise – are just glucose with a few or very few vitamins and minerals. Animal foods will always beat a starchy carb in any nutrition contest.

The advert (three minutes and 10 seconds long) is fronted by Alesha Dixon who has never had a weight problem in her life, but wrote the song for the advert. The cost of the New Year’s Day ad alone is estimated to be £15 million – to make the advert and to air it.

I open my book “The Obesity Epidemic: What caused it? How can we stop it?” with the following passage:

“In a study of formerly obese people, researchers at the University of Florida found that virtually all said that they would rather be blind, deaf or have a leg amputated than be obese again (Ref 1). That is the extent of our desire to be slim and yet two thirds of people in the UK, USA and Australia are overweight and one quarter obese. Why?”

People do so desperately want to be slim and I would encourage people to try anything (safe and healthy) that will work. However, the evidence does not support the claim that calorie deficit diets work. Indeed we have known the following since Stunkard and Hume quantified the failure rate in 1959:

“Most obese persons will not stay in treatment for obesity. Of those who stay in treatment, most will not lose weight, and of those who do lose weight, most will regain it.” Stunkard and McLaren-Hume’s own statistical study showed that only 12% of obese patients lost 20 pounds, despite having stones to lose, only one person in 100 lost 40 pounds and, two years later, only 2% of patients had maintained a 20 pound weight loss. This is where the often quoted “98% of diets fail” derives from. (Ref 2)

The Mail article about the New Year’s Day advert ends with this sentence: “The company launched its ProPoints weight-loss plan last year and in just 12 months its one million members in the UK have lost more than 11million pounds between them.” The maths is easy – one million members losing c. 11 million pounds between them means an average 11 pounds per member – in one year.

The famous calorie formula (which I show to be wrong at every level here and here) claims that, if we create a deficit of 1,000 calories a day (which is approximately the goal with Weight Watchers) we should lose 2lbs per week (7*1,000 = 2*3,500). And – that should be fat lost alone. More should be lost on top in water and, sadly, lean tissue/muscle. Hence, the precise weight loss for every single person, who stuck to weight watchers for the year before this advert, should be 104lbs in fat and approximately 15% more in water/lean tissue – i.e. 120lbs in weight. The actual weight loss was 11lbs per person – less than one tenth of what ‘should’ have happened.

This 11lb number keeps popping up. In a study funded by Weight Watchers and conducted (appallingly in my view) by a government body – The Medical Research Council (MRC) – it was found (for a fee of “almost £1 million” Ref 3) that dieters doing Weight Watchers lost an average of 11lbs in a year. (The link to the blog gives full details of this study and links to the original data from the MRC study).

When I wrote to seven UK government and obesity organisations (National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE), National Health Service, Department of Health, National Obesity Forum, Association for the Study of Obesity, British Dietetic Association and Dieticians in Obesity Management) asking from whence the calorie formula came (the 3,500 theory) and asking for proof that it was true, the only study that was sent back to me was this one:

The NICE document Management of obesity: Full Guidance, December 2006 was offered as proof of the formula. Table 15.14 in this document contains results of one study of 12 people, given a deficit of 600 calories a day, where the outcome was “a change of approximately -5 kg (95% CI -5.86kg to -4.75kg, range -0.40 kg to -7.80 kg) compared with usual care at 12 months. Median weight change across all studies was approximately -4.6 kg (range -0.60 kg to -7.20 kg) for a 600 kcal deficit diet or low-fat diet and +0.60 kg (range +2.40 kg to -1.30kg) for usual care”.

So, let me understand this, the people on the 600 calorie-a-day deficit (the NICE recommendation) were 5 kilograms (11 pounds) lighter than those not doing this “at 12 months.” Applying the basic maths formula, these 12 people should each have lost 600*365/3,500 = 62.57 pounds of fat. Not an ounce (of fat) more or less. AND, there should have been no range of results – everyone should have lost exactly the same (that’s what happens with a mathematical formula). The least anyone lost (let’s put it all into pounds) was 0.8 pounds and the most anyone lost was 17.2 pounds. Even the highest weight loss was 45 pounds lower than it should have been. This is also all about fat – we haven’t even started looking at muscle or water loss. This is also a study of 12 people. There are 1.5 billion overweight people in the world and we can’t prove a formula using 12 of them.

The other bit that the advert won’t tell you is the well documented regain with calorie deficit diets – the 98% failure rate – known about for at least 50 years. In the Weight Watchers funded study – the press release omitted to mention that regain was starting to show at approximately 9 months (see slide 8).

There is an excellent and exceptionally useful review presented in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (2007). (Ref 4)  Marion Franz and seven colleagues performed a systematic review of 80 weight loss studies, grouped into eight different categories, including only those trials with a one-year follow-up. The studies were all from the period January 1997 and September 2004. 26,455 participants were enrolled in the studies. At the one-year follow-up, the attrition rate was 29% across the studies. Overall attrition was 31% at study end regardless of follow-up timing. The graph of results is shown in this thread in our club here. Notice, again, the regain at 6-9 months in all calorie deficit methods (the post explains the anomaly for the now withdrawn Sibutramine – the dark brown line).

Hence the evidence confirms that you are most likely to lose less than a tenth of what you expect – less than a pound a month over time, not 2lbs a week. You are also highly likely to start regaining at around six months. My book “Stop Counting Calories & Start Losing Weight” explains why.

If you have been doing calorie deficit diets (Weight Watchers, Slimming World, Rosemary Conley etc) for some time and are either a) not at your natural weight or b) one of the ‘lucky’ 2%, but finding you have to starve and obsess about food to stay there – you need to try something different. There is a way to lose weight and keep it off, without cravings or hunger and without feeling deprived. It is super healthy – focused on giving you optimum nutrition and no empty calories/processed food. You will understand why you have craved food in the past and how to ensure that you never do so again.

If you’ve been doing calorie deficit diets for some time and are not where you want to be and are planning to continue – you are mad! The definition of madness is doing the same thing again and expecting a different result. Come and see what the people losing weight and keeping it off are doing – it’s called The Harcombe Diet. Oh, and by the way, you have a good chance of losing 11lb in the first week or two and going on to lose a lot more and keeping it off.

References:

Ref 1: Colleen S.W. Rand and Alex M. C. Macgregor, “Successful weight loss following obesity surgery and the perceived liability of morbid obesity”, International Journal of Obesity, (1991). (The study results are presented in the summary of this book).

Ref 2: Stunkard A. and M. McLaren-Hume, “The results of treatment for obesity: a review of the literature and report of a series”, Archives of Internal Medicine, (1959).

Ref 3: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Health/article359154.ece The Sunday Times 1 August 2010.

Ref 4: Marion J. Franz, Jeffrey J. VanWormer, A. Lauren Crain, Jackie L. Boucher, Trina Histon, William Caplan, Jill Bowman, Nicolas Pronk. “Weight Loss Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Weight Loss Clinical Trials with a Minimum 1-Year Follow-Up”, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, (2007).

The final bullet in the snippet is entitled “Coeliac readers” and says “Coeliac readers may want to know that YOU testers voted Genius gluten-free mince pies “absolutely delicious”. £2.19 for four, at selected supermarkets. Find your nearest one at geniusglutenfree.com (tel: 0845 874 4000)” The credit “By nutritionist Zoe Harcombe” immediately follows this apparent endorsement.

I did not know that YOU testers had been polled, let alone what they had voted. I had never heard of Genius or their products. I have no idea or interest how much they are or where you get them from. I never said any of these words and never would. Anyone who knows me knows that I abhor conflict of interest and will never endorse any product or even accept any advertising on any of my sites – no matter how lucrative this would be.

After seeking to understand how this happened, I have received an explanation and an apology.

I have looked at the genius web site as a result of this shock upon opening the magazine this morning and here are the ingredients for this gluten-free mince pie concoction:

Gluten Free Pastry: [Maize Starch, Vegetable Oils, Vegetable Margarine; (Vegetable Oil, Water, Salt, Emulsifier; (Polyglycerol esters of fatty acids), Flavouring, Colours; (Annatto, Curcumin)), Water, Sugar, Dextrose, Whey Powder, Whole Egg Powder, Modified Potato Starch, Stabilisers; (Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum), Raising Agents; (Sodium Bicarbonate, Disodium Diphosphate), Rice Flour].

Mincemeat (49.6%) : [Sugar, Sultanas, Bramley Apple Puree; ( Bramley Apple, Preservative; (Acetic Acid)), Currants, Humectant E422, Vegetable Suet; (Palm Oil, Sunflower Oil, Rice Flour), Modified Maize Starch, Orange Zest, Mixed Spice, Raisins, Lemon Zest, Orange Oil]

Sugar Topping: [Glucose, Maize Starch, Vegetable Oil].

OMG! That is truly gross. My recommendation, never having heard of these fake foods before, is don’t touch them with a barge pole. If you even know what all those ingredients are, you’re a step ahead of me.

My original article filed by the way was as follows:

What’s the deal with dried fruit & Christmas?
Fresh fruit is not naturally available in winter, so festive cakes and puds are traditionally based on dried fruit.

Is it healthy?
There are some useful nutrients in dried fruit – carotene, iron, potassium – but there are richer and less sugary sources for all vitamins and minerals.

What’s the sugar issue?
Dried fruit is approximately 30% water and 70% sugar. Different dried fruits have different proportions of glucose and fructose, but you’re essentially eating sucrose (table sugar) with a mild vitamin tablet.

Is this unique to dried fruit?
All fruit is a mixture of glucose and fructose, but dried fruit is especially dense, having lost water. You wouldn’t eat a dozen apricots, but you could easily eat the dried equivalent.

What’s the best way to enjoy it?
Ideally with real food and not in puds or pies. A handful of raisins with nuts, or cheese and dried apricots will be delicious, nutritious and the protein can help mitigate the sugar load.

“Britain is seeing a boom in ‘silver separations’”, read the first line.

I wonder if they do with other headlines what they do with drug and disease headlines?

The article soon gave some numbers – 11,500 over-60s were granted a divorce in 2009. It takes a 30 second google search to get a recent enough figure for the number of over-60s in the UK. An article from August 2008 says: “The Office for National Statistics revealed that 13,262,256 people were 60 or over in mid-2007 – up from 12,928,071 the previous year.” So, the 2009 numbers are almost certainly higher still, but let’s go with the 2008 known number.

11,500/13,262,256 is 0.086% – not even one tenth of one percent. Not even 1 in over a thousand over-60s got a divorce in 2009. This was up 4% on the previous year said the Daily Mail article – not quite a surge really is it? That means that there were 0.083% of over-60s divorcing in 2008 and then 0.086% in 2009.

Hardly “Hold the front page” now eh?!

I have the following points to make:

1) Association vs causation:

This study makes the usual and unforgiveable mistake of assuming that association means causation. To give an example, we can observe that people in the bath may be singing. This means that we could say singing may be associated with being in the bath. However, we can no more say that bathing causes singing than we can say that singing causes bathing!

If the study had measured sock colour, these men may also have worn blue socks – would the headline then be “wearing blue socks increases the chance of men getting prostate cancer?” Yes, it really is as daft as that. To jump from observed association to causation and risk is the most outrageous bad science and yet studies do it every day and the media amplifies it every time.

2) How risk is calculated:

Notwithstanding that association can say nothing about risk or causation, here is how ‘risk’ is calculated between two studies…  If in one study people ate no eggs and 1 in 100,000 people died and in another study people ate eggs and 2 in 100,000 people died – they will say “Eating eggs doubles your risk of dying”. They always ignore the denominator (the bottom number in the equation – in these cases the study size). The second group still only had a 1 in 50,000 chance of dying full stop and yet the headline tells you you’ve got twice the risk – this is indefensible scare tactics.

The summary of the original research article is here. The study followed 27,607 men over a 14 year period from 1994 – 2008.

The study looked at the 3,127 men initially diagnosed with what is called “non-metastatic prostate cancer” (“non-spreading” or localised prostate cancer) and then reviewed those who went on to develop, as they called it “lethal prostate cancer”. (I assume “terminal” would be a word we would more typically use). The findings were “we observed 199 events during 306,715 person-years”. That’s an incidence rate of 0.0649%. That’s a 1 in 1,541 incidence. To put this in perspective, our chance of dying in a car crash was put at 1 in 200 .

The summary stated: “Men who consumed 2.5 or more eggs per week had an 81% increased risk of lethal prostate cancer compared to men who consumed less than 0.5 eggs per week (HR: 1.81; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.13, 2.89).”

There are three things wrong with this:

i) The completely unjustifiable leap from association to risk must be reiterated. For researchers to claim “increased risk” from an observed association is simply not valid. This is the kind of food survey that Harvard Public Health use in studies like this (if not the same one). This shows how many foods are being studied, in how many different quantities, relying on subject recall of what they have eaten – and that’s just the food, let alone other lifestyle factors – smoking, exercise, stress, location, marital status, financial circumstances etc.

ii) The study is claiming that in amongst the overall incidence of 0.0649%, those people eating 2.5 or more eggs per week had almost ‘double the chance’. As an example, those eating more than 2.5 eggs a week could have had a 0.09% incidence rate and the 0.5 egg group could have a 0.05% incidence rate (there’s a difference of 81% between those two percentages and the overall incidence can still be 0.0649%). Can you see the absolutely tiny number behind the 81% risk massive headline?

PLUS – this is critical and irresponsible not to have highlighted – after the number 1.81% the 95% confidence interval is given as 1.13 to 2.89. What this means is – the researchers are 95% confident that the observed differences between the higher and the lower egg consumption were somewhere in a range between 13% and 189% – that’s one heck of a range. This means that they cannot even establish an association within a fourteen fold range, let alone make a claim of 81% with any degree of accuracy.

iii) There is a very good NHS review here. This suggests that the NHS have obtained a full copy of the report (not just the summary) and they have been able to see that “Men who consumed more red meat or eggs tended to exercise less and have a higher BMI, and were more likely to smoke and have a family history of prostate cancer.”

Do you wonder if smoking, exercising less, having a higher BMI and having a family history of prostate cancer was more relevant that any egg consumption?!

Why would so called researchers mislead the public in this way? Academics have egos and they want their ‘research’ widely published and talked about. The headline “Smoking causes cancer” is not new; “Obesity causes cancer” has been said before (whether correct or not is immaterial – it’s not new news). How about “Family history of prostate cancer increases your risk of getting cancer” – hardly surprising. So, pick the one headline that would be new. “Wearing blue socks increases the chance of getting prostate cancer?” That would be new – but absurd, so let’s pick the one vague association that will get the Daily Mail headline – it must be the eggs!

Even if the eggs have any relevance at all – what else could be happening at the same time? Were the egg eating men Paleo dudes, or were they egg and soldier addicts (blame the bread), or egg and brown sauce addicts (blame the sugary gunge), or even egg and bacon addicts who hadn’t selected their bacon carefully enough (blame the processed meat).

3) Cholesterol is vital not evil:

The suggestion from the ‘experts’ that cholesterol could be the cause of harm is laughable. Cholesterol is protective – one of its most important functions is to repair cells – not attack them. The longevity facts associated with high cholesterol are related in major part to the protective benefits that cholesterol has for cancer (cell repair – it should be obvious). My book, The Obesity Epidemic: What caused it? How can we stop it?, has many studies showing the benefits for cancer and cholesterol. The body makes all the cholesterol it needs (cholesterol in food makes no difference), but you never know what survival signals the body could send out. Should the headline have been “men with prostate cancer crave eggs!”?

4) Common sense:

Would nature really put both the essential fats (omega-3 and omega-6), amino acids, complete protein and the most phenomenal range of vitamins and minerals in the tiny, humble egg if it were trying to kill us at the same time? By the way – the reason why eggs contain so much cholesterol is because it takes a lot of cholesterol to make a healthy chicken. It takes a lot of cholesterol to make a healthy human as well!

5) Conflict of interest:

Finally – always follow the money – remember who stands to gain if we demonise eggs – the sugary cereal companies. The Kellogg’s and General Mills who sponsor the American Dietetic Association , to make sure that dieticians are ‘on message’.

Eggs have only recently been exonerated for being harmful for cholesterol even though Ancel Keys, the man who started the war on fat and cholesterol  declared years ago “Cholesterol in food has no impact on cholesterol in the blood and we have known that all along”. No sooner have eggs been let out of jail for containing cholesterol – they need to be put back in jail or (heaven forbid) people will start eating eggs again for breakfast and not coco-pops.

Andy and I have just had a three egg omelette each for breakfast. Enjoy whatever real food you guys have!

This is a review of  The Vegetarian Myth and the Amazon reviews confirm that it is the marmite of the book world – people love it or hate it. (Hopefully not about to be banned in Denmark however!) I have to confess that I loved it because it raised some huge issues – you don’t get much bigger than how can we feed the human species and neither ‘side’ has an answer to this one – we have way too many people already on this planet for any sustainable option and things are continuing to get worse.

This review is intended to provide a useful and convenient summary – reading the book for your self is still highly recommended. I will quote Keith verbatim where possible – her writing style is quite beautiful and should be read first hand.

Gary Taubes has his critics on the internet, but they pale into insignificance compared to those queuing up to attack Lierre Keith. In Chapter 1 she says: “I got hate mail before I’d barely started this book. And no, thank you, I don’t need any more.” There are many similar ‘cute’ comments and humour throughout the book, which I really enjoyed.

I also enjoyed the feminist passages in the writing, for which Keith has also been attacked. It took me back to my days at Cambridge when I saw an article written by the Student Union president referring to ‘she’ and ‘her’ all the way through. Why does this only apply to women, I wondered? And then, of course – silly me – this article does apply to both genders, but then so does every article talking about ‘he’ and ‘him’ and yet nothing ‘jars’ when we read that. Keith uses the female third personal singular a couple of times – just to keep you on your toes. She also gets (appropriately in my view) angry with those who think it has been OK to trash the planet during their infinitesimally small time as guests here – for their own greed and personal gain. They tend to be male (CEO’s, world leaders, lawyers etc) and they are certainly ‘macho’. Go girl!

Attacking the vegetarian

In Chapter 1, Keith notes exactly why her book has attracted the anger and outrage that it has. “’Vegetarian’ isn’t just what you eat or even what you believe, it’s who you are… I’m not just questioning a philosophy or a set of dietary habits. I’m threatening a vegetarian’s sense of self.”

Keith herself was vegan for 20 years and describes the health complaints that she has been left with, as a result of her dietary choice: from degenerative spine disease (irreversible) to depression and anxiety (much improved since ceasing to be vegan). She still suffers nausea and serious digestive problems and pain, which make it difficult for her to eat in the evening (if she plans on sleeping that night). Keith explains the chosen route was an obvious one made by her and friends when young: “All the friends of my youth were radical, righteous, intense. Vegetarianism was the obvious path, with veganism the high road alongside it.”

She pleads in the opening chapter: “You don’t have to try this for yourself. You’re allowed to learn from my mistakes… I’m asking you to stay the course, read this book, please. Especially if you have children or want to. I’m not too proud to beg.”

Keith ends this introduction with the humble statement: “Ultimately I would rather be helpful than right.” I was very little way into the book before I realised she is both.

The three arguments for (and against) vegetarianism

(Please note – the terms vegan/vegetarian can be used virtually interchangeably throughout the book – Keith applies the same arguments to both views. One just draws the line in the sand in a different place).

The book is perfectly structured. There are three arguments that vegetarians make as to why we should all be vegetarian and Keith structures the book in three parts to reflect this:

1) The moral argument – we should not kill;

2) The political argument – we can only feed the world if everyone is vegetarian;

3) The nutritional argument – it is healthier to be vegetarian.

The only thing that I won’t be able to answer, while writing this review, is how I would have responded reading it, had I still been vegetarian at the time. It would be wonderful if any vegetarians could try this and share their views. I know that there would have been a time when I would have been as angry as many vegetarian and vegan readers of the book have been. I don’t know, however, how I could have countered Keith’s arguments.

I do know that I never believed that there was a nutritional argument for being vegetarian. I have known enough about nutrition, for long enough, to know that liver, meat and fish are incomparably nutritious. This is why I never considered becoming vegan. I could not think how I could get vitamin A, B12, D, iron, zinc etc in anywhere close to sufficient amounts without supplements and it never felt right to be taking nutrients in a tablet when food could provide them.

I became vegetarian for the moral argument. I subsequently strengthened my belief by adopting the political argument. The essence of my belief was that I could be healthy enough without eating animals and animals would be better for this decision. I knew that I could not be optimally healthy, but felt that I was making a moral sacrifice in an age when humans were in a position to ‘do the right thing’.

Keith knocks down all three beliefs as follows:

The moral argument

I am covering the arguments in the order that Keith does and I could not believe how quickly Keith changed my views in this first part of the book. Even though the Barry Groves and Sally Fallon Morell presentations at the Weston A Price Foundation conference in March 2010 had ended my 15 year period of being vegetarian, I still believed that there was a clear line in the sand on ‘killing for food’ and that vegetarians were on the right side of the line. Oh boy!

In a nutshell the moral vegetarian argument is “we should not kill”. Keith’s response is:

a) There is absolutely nothing, nothing at all, that even a vegan can eat that something has not died for (several living things in fact);

b) Man is not at the top of a food chain – that is an arrogant view that only ‘man’ could hold. All humans are part of the circle of life. Our bodies end up as food for the soil, just as every other animal that dies (ideally on the prairie) leaves their nutrients and minerals to go back into the soil for new life.

a) When Keith expanded upon the first point, I was kicking myself within seconds. How could I have been so naive? Keith shared her original vegan view: “I wanted to believe that my life – my physical existence – was possible without killing, without death. It’s not.”

Before long, the examples came thick and fast and became irrefutable. How many slugs are killed for a lettuce? How many millions of species in a tablespoon of top soil are trashed every second by Cargill? How many rabbits and mice are killed in cultivated fields by industrial size farming equipment? How many fish die, so that rivers can be diverted to irrigate the vegan’s grains? How many wolves and bison have been killed because we turned their homeland into farmland – for grains and plant food? Keith answers the last one: “There were somewhere between 60 and 100 million bison in the United States in 1491. Now there are 350,000 bison and only 12 to 15,000 of those are pure bison that were not cross bred with domestic cattle. The land held between 425,000 and a million wolves; only 10,000 now remain.” “The North American prairie has been reduced to 2% of its original size and the topsoil, once twelve feet deep, can now only be measured in inches.”

b) Point (b) is so integrally linked to (a) – one of the reasons that no life is possible without death is that the soil upon which life depends relies upon death to return nutrients to the land. Keith explains her first hand experience of trying (and failing) to grow her own food without anything needing to die… (Any vegan that argues that they can grow their own lettuce, with nothing having to die, has to read the whole of this moral section of the book. Keith tried it and then some! The full story is funny and powerful at the same time).

Organic Gardening magazine soon explained to Keith that the first commandment of organic growing was “feed the soil, not the plant.” She learned that Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium was the “triple Goddess of gardeners.” All three are minerals given back to the land when animals (including humans) die. (Calcium is also a limiting factor for soil – also found in the bones and remains of animals that die and so generously give back their nutrients to the land). We can get nitrogen from fossil fuels, or nitrogen can be given back to the land by the circle of life and death. We are not far from the time (peak oil and all that) when we have the stark choice – use fossil fuels for fertiliser for food or for running the power upon which modern life has come to depend. What do we do when the oil runs out? Manure and carcasses or fossil fuel for fertiliser? – that’s our choice.

As this part of the book unfolds, Keith hits you with one stark fact after another:

- “70% of all water from rivers and underground reserves is being spread onto irrigated land that grows one third of the world’s food,” writes Fred Pearce in When the rivers run dry.”

- “Of China’s 23,000 miles of large rivers, 80 percent don’t support fish anymore.” “Set aside the fossil fuel for the fertilizer and transportation. If you live in Vermont or California and eat vegan brown rice – this is what you’re eating: dead fish and dead birds from a dying river.”

- “We’re out of topsoil, out of water, out of species, and out of space in the atmosphere for the carbon we can’t seem to stop burning.”

You come to realise that the ultimate role that we (humans) can play in this universe is to continue to be a part of the universe when we die. Whatever happens to our soul, our body is food for worms, which are food for birds, which are food for cats, which are food for their predators and so on. Humans often look for significance – for a sense of purpose in life. Our purpose is as part of the whole circle of life. All of us have this part to play.

Keith continues, “The native prairie is now 99.8% gone. There is no place left for the buffalo to roam. There’s only corn, wheat and soy.” With all that land cultivated for vegetarian food, which was once home to free roaming animals, there is also no natural process by which the top soil can be rejuvenated. There is only so much that fossil fuel fertiliser can do to repair the damage being done by overworking our scarce land in the name of profit. No wonder (GM) Genetically Modified crops became a necessity – we have to modify crops when we have destroyed the earth to the point that it cannot yield ‘normal’ crops.

“’You can look a cow in the eye,’ reads an ad for soy burgers. What about a buffalo?” asks Keith. “Five percent of a species is needed to ensure enough diversity for long-term survival, and less than 1 percent of the buffalo are left.”

Keith concludes: “It is my conviction that growing annual grains is an activity that cannot be redeemed. It requires wholesale extermination of ecosystems – the land has to be cleared of all life.” We use 5.6 billion pounds (weight) of pesticides per year (a statistic I found elsewhere) – pesticides being designed to kill any living thing that also wants to feed on (our) growing food.

I realised in this part of the book that it comes down to black and white and shades of grey. To the vegan, the world is black and white – “meat is murder.” Keith describes this as “a simple ethical code… but it is the black-and-white thinking of a child.” This is a critical part of the book and one with which I resonated very strongly. I was far more black and white in my 20’s. Things were right and wrong. (Good days and bad days!) This is very child-like thinking. The simple world of a child is right and wrong. The more mature world of the adult has many shades of grey.

The shades of grey in this killing debate are inescapable – you may draw the line at eating cows, but not dogs; you may draw the line at eating chicken, but not red meat; you may draw the line at eating fish, but not meat; you may draw the line at eating eggs, but not the flesh of animals; you may draw the line by wearing leather shoes, but eating nothing from an animal; you may have a vegan diet and wardrobe – but bison, birds, fish, rabbits, mice and thousands of living creatures in top soil have died for your soya burger and lettuce.

It’s not that vegans are right and vegetarians are wrong, or vegetarians are right and omnivores are wrong, or omnivores are right and carnivores are wrong – it’s about where we each choose to draw our line. Better still, to return to the arrogant view that ‘man’ thinks he is at the top of a food chain, Keith concluded “I’m not going to draw a line. I’m going to draw a circle.” We are part of the circle of life, just as any other animal is. They and we need to live and die to give back to the land, so that birth and death can continue.

I remember non-veggies saying to me when I was veggie “If we didn’t eat the animals they wouldn’t be here” and I just couldn’t comprehend the point that they were making. Would that be such a bad thing? Surely the animals would be better off not living if they were just going to be killed for food? (‘Better to have loved/lived and lost, than never to have loved/lived at all’ kind of thing. That’s a massive philosophical argument in itself – we’re all going to die – is it worth being here at all?!) Couldn’t we keep animals and not kill them? I just didn’t think of the practicalities that no farmer keeps ruminants (that’s the collective term for grass grazing animals – cows, sheep, goats etc) as pets. Animals are kept for food and they always have been within communities throughout history. Each settlement would safeguard the delicate balance between the ‘goose and the golden egg’ – to protect any givers of eggs/milk and the time when it comes to eat the giver of these vital foods. I don’t want a world without sheep & lambs, or cows & calves, in the fields. I want natural manure from these grazing animals nourishing the land naturally. I don’t want oil used to mow the grass, which ruminants could have eaten and then more oil used in fertiliser instead of manure. Animals are a vital part of the circle of life, not a line that modern, arrogant, man thinks he can draw on the land. This brings us nicely on to…

The political argument

The political vegetarian argument is that we can only feed the world if everyone is vegetarian. Keith quotes Jim Motavalli, who, in turn quotes the British group Vegfam: “a 10-acre farm can support 60 people growing soybeans, 24 people growing wheat, 10 people growing corn or only 2 producing cattle.” The maths behind this is not provided and Keith can’t work out where it could come from, but she notes that any such statistics will always find against cattle because they start from the premise that the cattle is fed grain. Hence, of course land would produce more grain to be eaten as grain than if that grain were fed to cattle and the cattle output were subsequently calculated. What Keith (and every real food person) argues is – we should not be feeding grain to cattle. Not ever. Not in any circumstances. The maths then falls over.

Keith opens the political argument section with a detailed description of the digestive system of a ruminant. The term ruminant means a cud-chewing animal, characterised by having four stomach compartments – the first being called a rumen. Keith describes how a cow, for example, is entirely reliant upon a magical internal ecosystem comprising bacteria, fungi and multiples of microbial cultures. The cow is feeding on the bacteria and the microbes are living within (feeding upon) the cow – it is the way of life for/in a ruminant. Grains turn the normally neutral rumen (first stomach) acidic, which makes the cow sick and bloated (not dissimilar to the effect that grains have on many humans!) Hence we should not be feeding ruminants grains. Ruminants, by definition, need to chew on cud – grass.

Joel Salatin (one of the role models of the local sustainable model) then does the maths for his 10-acre farm in Virginia. He produces 3,000 eggs, 1,000 chickens, 80 hens, 2,000lbs of beef, 2,500lbs of pork, 100 turkeys, 50 rabbits and a few inches of topsoil. No fossil fuels needed whatsoever. The chickens get a bit of supplemental grain (they can ‘stomach it’, literally) and everything else eats grass. Keith compares the calories and nutrition from this organic farm vs. the malnutrition, pellagra and fatal disease that the soy, wheat, corn community would end up with. It is incomparable in favour of eating the sustainable (animal) way.

The arguments against the political vegetarian are numerous:

a) Agriculture (turning the little arable land that the world has into grain and soy fields) is destroying the planet. It ‘murders’ the top soil and is completely unsustainable, in that nothing is being done to reverse the damage. Instead – food manufacturers are looking to create GM ‘frankenfoods’, which can still grow when all life and health has been removed from the land. As Keith says: “Who cares if more food can be produced by farming when farming is destroying the world?”

b) Manure and animals living and dying on land is the natural way to fertilise – to replenish the top soil so vital to life. To replace animals in the food chain with soy and grain is to destroy the entire circle of life. This is also completely unsustainable. There is a finite amount of fossil fuel in the world to use for fertilisers. There can be a sufficient amount of manure from the right number of animals occupying the right land space.

As Keith challenges: “Political vegetarians need to answer this question – what is going to feed your food? Fossil fuel or manure?”

c) It is nonsense to say that we are feeding grain to cattle, which could be used to feed humans. We are feeding grain to cattle, which they cannot digest, because grain is so cheap and so subsidised, that grain manufacturers have to dump it somewhere. Grain to America is the butter mountain of Europe. If grain production were not so lucrative and well subsidised, there is no way that cattle would be fed grain – they might be left to eat the grass that they are supposed to eat. I say ‘might’ because grain also causes cattle to fatten quickly (as it does humans) and this makes the cattle heavier, quicker and thus makes the animals more lucrative in the process. Win win for Cargill. Lose lose for the ruminants and the earth, which they have not been allowed to renourish.

d) When we factor in all the water and oil and fossil fuels used to ‘feed’ the land in the way that animals would do naturally, the price of grain is the planet itself. Richard Manning is quoted as saying “A typical farm in 1940 produced two calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil energy used. By 1974 that ratio was 1.1. As of now, it takes more than a calorie of fossil fuel to produce a calorie of fuel for a human – somewhere between four and ten calories of fossil fuel for a calorie of food.” When fertilisers, pesticides, machinery, harvesting, transportation and so on are taken into account, an acre of corn requires about 50 gallons of oil.

e) What limited land there is in the world suitable for agriculture, America has more than its share. Encouraging the world to eat grains and soy (the USA food pyramid, the USDA dietary guidelines) makes the world dependent on America for its food – the ultimate dependence. Western countries support the giant food producers with subsidies totalling $360 billion. This substantially reduces world prices. As Oxfam has observed: “Exporters can offer US surpluses for sale at prices around half the cost of production – destroying local agriculture”. US aid is anything but – it is destroying local farmers and communities – making the world dependent on America to eat.

As Keith says “This is why there are no international aid agencies that suggest vegetarianism as a solution to world hunger: it isn’t one.”

Gary Taubes once joked “My wife says I blame everything on carbohydrates.”

In my view, the most serious thing that we need to blame on carbohydrates is that we have exploded the world population to completely unsustainable levels as a direct result of carbohydrates. When communities were based around sustainable, local, lands and foods, the population of the world could only ever be a number that could be sustained.

Agriculture and grains have enabled an unsustainable explosion in the number of people that we could feed, but this has never been done in a sustainable way. I thought I was a lone voice in thinking this until I read the following in The Vegetarian Myth:

“Breaking our dependence on the sun and nature’s fertility meant an explosion in grain production and a concomitant expansion in the human population. There are now over 6 billion humans. Understand: billions of us are only here because of fossil fuel, because we figured out how to transform stored energy into edible energy. As the natural gas and oil get more expensive, and then prohibitively expensive, there will be no way to keep that grain coming. And then? It doesn’t sound like a party I want to attend.”

The world population is due to reach 9 billion by 2050, about the time that the oceans are forecast to be empty of fish and long past peak oil. Keith estimates that we already have multiples too many people in the world – at least 10 times too many, maybe 100!

The stark reality is that this is an argument that neither the omnivores nor the vegetarians can win. There is no sustainable way to feed the current population – let alone the level that is forecast within the next 40 years. Grain, soy and agriculture are completely unsustainable, for any population level, as they destroy the planet without replenishing it in any way. Meat, fish and eggs are equally unsustainable, for the current population level, as there is not enough grazing land in the world for enough animals to feed us all and we have polluted and raped the oceans of their bounty. Had we not destroyed pastures for grain, the world population would have grown naturally and sustainably to sustainable levels.

Toward the end of this part of the book is a blunt message – forget peak oil. “Peak soil was ten thousand years ago, on the day before agriculture began.”

We then move to…

The nutritional argument

Even though I never bought this argument, I’ll cover it for completeness and because it is a very interesting part of the book and because many people do use this as a reason for being vegetarian. Unfortunately, dieticians and many charities (World Cancer Research Fund, British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK) seem to be on hand to encourage this position. The nutritional arguments are as follows:

a) Humans evolved to eat plants and not animals;

b) Animal foods contain cholesterol and this will kill us;

c) Animal foods contain fat and this will kill us;

d) Vegetarian and vegan foods are healthy;

e) Animal foods contain fat and this will make us fat.

Keith devotes over 100 pages to this, Part 3, of the book and the attention that she devotes to each argument is impressive. As an example, I address the ‘what did we evolve to eat’ debate in Chapter 12 of The Obesity Epidemic, but Keith goes into it in far more detail. She goes through three roles of teeth, four actions of the jaw, four digestive processes, nine activities of the stomach, two of the gall bladder and every detail on gut flora, the colon and even the length of the small intestine to compare humans, dogs and sheep. She quotes Dr.s Michael and Mary Eades to provide the conclusion: “In anthropological scientific circles, there’s absolutely no debate about it – every respected authority will confirm that we were hunters. Our meat eating heritage is an inescapable fact.” I concluded the same from anthropological research.

I also looked, as Keith did, at the possibly of getting sufficient vegetarian food for the 3.5 million years since ‘man’ first walked upright. Notwithstanding the 30,000 years of ice age endured 40,000-10,000 years ago, when no vegetation would have been available, there is simply no evidence that our planet could have yielded sufficient vegetables and fruit for man to have consumed sufficient calories to survive. Grains were not available until the emergence of agriculture. Half the vegetables possibly available to our ancestors would not have been edible without cooking and fire was not discovered until somewhere between 1.5 and 0.5 million years ago. Let alone the seasonality of vegetation and the likelihood that nothing would have been available in certain parts of the world and for many months anywhere else.

That’s as far as I went. Keith also goes into the enzymes in plants and the toxins that they emit – in an effort not to be consumed and to survive – as any living thing tries to survive. She then picks up the argument – OK – should we have become vegetarian when grains did appear – notwithstanding the fact that we never had them before? She presents a compelling argument that we have simply not evolved to eat grains (this is the mainstream Paleo view) and that they are seriously harmful to human health. Lines such as these are punched out on successive pages:

- “Grains are essentially sugar with enough opioids to make them addictive.”

- “The diseases that insulin affects directly are the cause of the vast majority of death and disability in the US today. Heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes are all caused by the insulin surges that grain and sugar demand.”

- “You can call it complex carbohydrates if you want, but it’s sugar.”

- “According to the USDA, we should be eating a diet that is 60% carbohydrate. Your body will turn that carbohydrate into almost two cups of glucose and each and every molecule has to be reckoned with.”

- Quoting the Eades again: “The actual amount of carbohydrates required by humans for health is zero.”

- And my favourite: “you’ve (vegetarians) damaged your digestion, from too many blood sugar highs and lows, and too much adrenaline. It can be fixed, but you’re going to have to eat real protein and fat and not sugars. You need to leave adrenaline for emergencies only; can we agree that breakfast shouldn’t be one?”!

b) The cholesterol argument has been covered more extensively by Kendrick and Ravnskov (and me in The Obesity Epidemic). Keith mentions a couple of the key points, and nails it beautifully with the following one liner: “One of the main functions of the liver is to make cholesterol, not because your liver wants you dead, but because life isn’t possible without cholesterol.”

c) The book provides another really nice summary on the position on fat. I go into this in more detail than I’ve seen it elsewhere with my original analysis of the Seven Countries Study and an assassination of the Truswell article, which is a summary of all the evidence relied upon by government authorities telling us that fat is a killer. (I also point out that when our governments talk about fat, they are in fact talking about refined carbohydrates, but that’s another story).

Keith’s summary is very clever. She explains that fat consumption declined almost 25% in the past 15 years (the book was published in 2009) and, at the same time, type 2 diabetes has increased by a factor of more than ten; cardiovascular disease recorded at time of hospital discharge has increased 25%, the incidence of stroke is rising and cancer “continues its relentless and increasing toll.”

Keith also covers the fat soluble vitamins, essential fats and other nutrients in real fat vs. the unnatural levels of omega-6 to 3 ratio, as a result of our obsession with cheap vegetable oils. “You tell me what to blame: the saturated fats we’ve always eaten – for four million years – or the industrially manufactured oils that until recently were used in paint.” Quite so!

d) Sugary cereals, soy (as it is called in the USA – it’s called soya in the UK) and vegetable oil spreads/margarines are promoted as healthy by the food industry. Of course they are – they are phenomenally lucrative. Kellogg’s alone is a $13billion company. They are new products, only introduced to the food chain in little more than the past 100 years in the case of cereals and in nearer 20 years in the case of modern soy and vegetable oil products. Keith states: “The food industry has developed over 100,000 new processed foods since 1990.” That is staggering and surely ‘foods’ should be in inverted commas!

These ‘foods’ rely as much on knocking real food, as they do on promoting themselves as healthy. Vilify eggs and promote sugary cereal as the alternative. Attack butter and hydrogenated margarine can come to the rescue. Lie about hormones in cow’s milk and everyone will turn to soya in their Starbucks. It is horrific to think that big business can get away with it. As Keith says “Try to comprehend the scale of this: food companies spend $33billion a year in advertising.”

Keith dedicates a few pages to a horrifying review of the health concerns surrounding soy(a). Quoting Dr Kaayla Daniel (one of the speakers at the March 2011 Weston Price Conference), author of The whole soy story: the dark side of America’s favourite health food the allegations unfold. Soy(a) is delivering hormone doses not dissimilar to the contraceptive pill (in snack size portions of soy – let alone the levels eaten by vegans). Soy(a) is implicated in serious thyroid disturbance (think thyroid, think weight). “Those who ate tofu at least twice a week had accelerated brain aging, diminished cognitive ability, and were more than twice as likely to be clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.” “In fact, the more tofu eaten, the more cognitive impairment and/or brain atrophy.”

We had a vegan in our online club who said something about ‘you only ever get animal illnesses’ – bird flu and mad cow disease? Keith’s humour appears again when she closes the section on soy(a) with: “According to a vegetarian bumper sticker ‘There’s no such thing as mad tofu disease.’ You might want to rethink that”!

Food manufacturers must love vegans – virtually all vegan calories must come from food manufacturers. There’s very little that the vegan can get from the local farmer. That alone is reason enough for me to not want to be vegan!

e) The final argument was very interesting – especially people interested in weight loss. One of the arguments for avoiding animal foods is that fat contains (approximately) 9 calories per gram and carbs approximately 4. Hence many dieters become vegetarian as a convenient way of avoiding higher calorie foods. (The fact that these foods are zero carb doesn’t matter to calorie counters). Keith notes that “Somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of the girls and women seeking treatment for anorexia and bulimia are vegetarian.” Keith says “The overlap in my life is a perfect 100. Everyone I’ve known with an eating disorder has been a vegetarian and that includes two anorexic men who were both vegans.”

There is an interesting ‘chicken & egg’ argument – the dieter likely chooses to avoid animal foods to avoid calories but, also, vegetarian diets are typically low in tryptophan, which is the precursor of serotonin. Hence vegetarian diets can also cause depression, anxiety and eating disorders. “Veganism, I quip, is one part cult, one part eating disorder. I hear those words and I wish they weren’t true because of what they mean about me.” That’s what Keith said. I could have said the same.

Note on all 3 arguments

We need to make it clear that real foodies abhor factory farming every bit as much as vegans and vegetarians. We want it abolished. It is heinous – unhealthy for the animal and the human. It fails all three arguments. There is no moral argument for keeping animals in factory farms – their role is to graze freely on grass and to feed the soil with their manure and digestion. There is no political argument for factory farms – feeding grain to ruminants, who cannot digest it, is a terrible use of the world’s resources and is inevitably less efficient than feeding grain to humans (notwithstanding the harm that this could also do). There is no nutritional benefit in eating an animal that has never seen grass, let alone grazed freely on it. Much of the arguments made by vegans and vegetarians use the extreme examples of factory farming to make their case. We hate that too. Where we differ is on the value – morally, politically and nutritionally – of animals living freely and providing food for others in the circle of life, as they always have done.

The summary

The summary chapter in the book is a tour de force. Exquisitely written, it builds on a theme “what do I have for breakfast?” and all the things that we should think about to answer this question. We may not want to face the facts, but Keith sees this as no excuse to stay in denial. If delivered as a speech, you could see that no one in the audience would be sat down at the end. I have never seen such rousing prose.

The questions to be asked of vegetarians become these:

1) Moral – what do you think that you eat for which nothing has died? (I can understand that you may draw your line at not eating animals, but animals died for your food nonetheless. Please stop telling children “meat is murder” when bison, wolves, buffalo and rabbits died for your grains, as did the soil alongside).

2) Political – how can the agriculture that has destroyed, and continues to destroy, the planet be a sustainable way to feed the world? Without ruminants performing biological functions of soil, plants soon die as the soil structure is destroyed. Are you OK that your food is made from oil, not soil? What will feed your food when the fossil fuel runs out? (Let us work together to abolish the factory farming that we both abhor, and let us work together on the only sustainable way to feed the world – dramatically curtailing the world’s population).

3) Nutritional – (particularly for vegans) pick any non-animal food and let me pick any animal food and let’s compare vitamins and minerals. Where do you get retinol? B12? D? K2? Iron? and zinc? – to name just the most obvious nutrients provided by animal foods (some of those, exclusively so). What do you think we have eaten since time began? What did we eat during the 30,000 years of ice age? If there is any nutritional argument for being vegan, why would supplements be life critical? (not least, B12).

I sincerely hope that no one is vegetarian for nutritional reasons alone i.e. that the animal arguments are of no matter to them – they simply think that it is best to avoid real meat and fish and maybe eggs and dairy. If anyone is, they should be the easiest to return to healthy eating. If people choose not to eat animals, because of animals, then the question becomes – are you prepared for your health to suffer, as a result. Because it is less healthy to eat soya and grains than it is to eat meat and fish. Remember – in all of this – factory farmed meat and eggs don’t count. We are not talking about processed meat. That’s as bad as any processed food. We are talking about “Ermentrude”, grazing in the fields.

Keith pulls no punches in this final section: “You can’t have it both ways, vegetarians. If you want to save this world, including its animals, you can’t keep destroying it. And your food destroys it.”

Keith presents three questions to help answer the question – what should we have for breakfast?:

i) Does this food build or destroy topsoil?

ii) Does it use only ambient sun and rainfall, or does it require fossil soil, fossil fuel, fossil water, and drained wetlands, damaged rivers?

iii) Could you walk to where it grows, or does it come to you on a path slick with petroleum?

She gets stronger: “Despite the deepest longest of your hearts, vegetarians you are wrong. To save this world, we must know it, and then take our place inside it. As long as I believed the annual grains of a plant-based diet would save the world, I couldn’t see that they were destroying it. This exact moment – reading those words – will take courage. I know you’ve got it. Are you willing to use it?”

“What separates me from vegetarians isn’t ethics, or commitment. It’s information.” Lierre Keith.

And with that line, and with this book, we can no longer be in denial.

The story on red meat and cancer has to take the biscuit, however…

The story started to break on 20 February 2011 – we were forewarned that a report from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) was about to be released. “Red meat does increase cancer risk, new report will confirm” screamed the Daily Mail headline. The article opened with the following three sentences:

“Britons should cut their consumption of red and processed meat to reduce the risk of bowel cancer, scientific experts are expected to recommend in a report.”

“The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) was asked by the Department of Health to review dietary advice on meat consumption as a source of iron.”

“In a draft report published in June 2009 the committee of independent experts said lower consumption of red and processed meat would probably reduce the risk of colorectal cancer.”

So, SACN was asked to look at meat consumption as a source of iron and are going to conclude instead that lower consumption of red and processed meat would probably reduce the risk of colorectal cancer (bowel cancer)? (All the emphases are mine).

Notice how red meat has become red and processed meat – could these two substances possibly be more different? Real meat (by weight) is the most nutritious food on the planet – offal is best, red meat next best and white meat the next best for essential fats, essential proteins (amino acids), vitamins and minerals. Processed meat should not be ingested by a human being – full stop. Putting these two together is like putting drinking water and coca-cola together or sardines and sugared, breaded fish sticks. This is irresponsible and ignorant in the extreme.

Then notice the word probably - despite the fact that SACN were asked to look at meat and iron – we expect them to recommend that lower consumption will probably … No one reads that caveat – the damage is done in the sensational headline screaming out from every newspaper and on line news tweet on the 20 February.

So, 25 February 2011 arrives and the SACN report is published. All 374 pages of a report called Iron and Health - all about – Iron and Health!

The headline writers obviously don’t read the report – we know the headline already – “red meat causes cancer”.

BBC Breakfast kicks off the day of meat demonisation. Dr Alison Tedstone is the spokesperson from the Department of Health and she doesn’t slip up during the interview in her careful use of the words “red and processed meat.” She specifically says: “Our experts have said that there’s a probable link between red and processed meat and bowel cancer.” Note that probable and red and processed again. Plus note the word link - there is no causation being claimed – so, there might be a link between one terrific food and one evil food and bowel cancer? Um – I wonder which one might be the problem. The fab Susanna Reid starts to ask the right question “Why would red meat?…” and then corrects this to “why would red and processed meat be a particular problem?” Tedstone says that there are a number of “plausible” mechanisms by which “red and processed meat” “might be a problem”, “we don’t exactly know why…” But, despite not knowing why, we are then told to limit our red and processed meat consumption to around 70g per day – approximately 2 slices of meat a day. Boy, those cavemen should have been dropping like flies.

The London Evening Standard was one of the first to run the story: “Eat less meat: Government experts warn Britons.”  Experts from the SACN are expected to tell consumers to eat no more than 70g of “red or processed meat” a day. The headline says meat; the first sentence adds “or processed” in straight away. Is that because processed meat is the real killer? Does the sentence not hold if we just talk about meat?

The article goes on: “Some 1,900 cases of bowel cancer could also be prevented through cutting red meat consumption to under 70g per week.” Hang on a minute – how so?! The very next sentence describes the process by which processed meat is chemically altered. The sentence after says: “It is thought this process causes the formation of carcinogens, which can damage cells in the body and allow cancer to develop.” I have little doubt that processing meat causes carcinogens which can damage cells etc. But Ermentrude, out in the field near my house, grazing on fast growing grass in the Welsh rain and occasional sun – surely Mother Nature didn’t put her there to kill me?

The Evening Standard article ends with two telling sentences:

“Last year, experts from the Harvard School of Public Health in the US found that eating processed meats can increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes… However, unprocessed red meats, such as beef, pork or lamb, do not raise the risk, the study found.” So there is a difference between real meat and processed meat – we’ll just leave it to the end to point it out. This is disgraceful reporting.

BBC weren’t content just with TV coverage. They ran a story and tweeted on it in the morning – no doubt as a matter of urgency – I guess we need to know before we choose our lunch? “Eat less red meat to reduce cancer risk” the story instructed. First sentence? You guessed it: “People should cut back on red and processed meat to reduce their risk of getting cancer, the government says.”

Then the Department of Health tweet arrived: “Red meat link to bowel cancer.” Followed by the, now very familiar: “It  (SACN) concludes that red and processed meat probably increases the risk of bowel cancer…”

At this point it is important to go to the original source and see what SACN actually said. I haven’t read all 374 pages – I usually start any report with the conflict of interest and then look at the summary. If anything in the summary is not clear – you can always delve deeper.

The conflict of interest is always interesting. In this case we have the chairman, Professor Peter Aggett with the SACN 2008 annual report declared interests as: Astra-Zeneca; Nestec; ILSI (I cover this ‘sugar protecting’ body in my book “The Obesity Epidemic“), Wellcome; Yakult and Cadbury Schweppes. The vice chair, Dr Ann Prentice, has declared interests as: Institute of Brewing & Distilling; Mars; National Association of British & Irish Millers; Optimal performance limited; Tanita; Coca-Cola; The Beverage Institute for health and wellness (yes, really) and Weight Watchers. Professor Sue Fairweather-Tait has declared interests in Coca-Cola, GlaxoSmithKline, British Egg Information Service, Unilever and Totus Medica. Those are the worst.

The headlines of the report are then:

- In a 1998 Department of Health report, the COMA (Committee on Medical Aspects of Food & Nutrition Policy – the predecessor for SACN)  “highlighted possible links between red and processed meat and colorectal cancer”. Since red meat is an important source of iron in the human diet, SACN were asked to look at “the possible associated adverse implications of a reduction in meat consumption on other aspects of health, particularly iron consumption.” That was the brief – the possible link between processed meat and bowel cancer had been mentioned 13 years ago.

- The Terms of Reference were (and I quote) “To review the dietary intakes of iron in its various forms and the impact of different dietary patterns on the nutritional and health status of the population and to make proposals.” Hence calling the report “Iron and Health” – ‘cos that’s what it’s about.

- SACN started off the report with a bunch of excuses for why it has taken 13 years to write a report, which is so critical that the BBC needs to tell us (the wrong headline) about it twice before lunch.

- The conclusion of their task was as follows: “The modelling exercise indicates that reducing total red meat consumption (*) of consumers in the upper range of the distribution of intakes, down to 70g/day, would have little effect on the proportion of adults with iron intakes below the LRNI” (Lower Recommended National Intake).

(*) Note – in this paragraph (30) “Red and processed meat” is mentioned three times in as few lines before this summary sentence that seems to change this to “total red meat”. It is clear that red and processed meat is what we’re talking about. The title above para 30 is “The potential impact of reducing red and processed meat consumption on intakes of iron and zinc.”

Paragraph 36 reiterates that there is merely a possibility of a link between red and processed meat and bowel cancer. The logic then goes:

- “red and processed meat is a source of iron”

- “it is not possible to quantify the amount of red and processed meat that may be associated with increased colorectal cancer risk“

- “It may be advisable for adults with relatively high intakes of red and processed meat to consider reducing their intakes”

- “Modelling indicates that this would have little effect on the proportion of adults with iron intakes below the LRNI”

So, we’re not worried about population iron intake if the high red and processed meat consumers cut back.

And that’s what the SACN report was about.

But, never let the science get in the way of a good story…

Red meat is going to kill you!

Born on 17 April 1974, while Victoria’s height and weight are not public knowledge, the general consensus is that her height is 5’4″ and her weight is no more than 7 stone. If her height is 5’4″ and her weight is 7 stone, this would give her a (Body Mass Index) BMI of 16.8 – underweight – and well below the BMI of 18-19 that doctors try to help anorexics to reach while hospitalised (18.5-24.9 is considered a healthy range for one’s BMI). The on line site, handbag.com, (page 2) even suggests that Victoria’s BMI could be as low as 15.3 – this would almost meet immediate hospitalisation guidelines if this were discovered in a young anorexic.

One doesn’t need to know the precise BMI to know that Victoria is underweight. Pictures show the characteristic lolly pop head on the lolly pop stick body; the scrawny neck and the jutting collar bones and visible rib cage. I was personally very surprised to hear that Victoria was expecting another baby, as I would have put money on the fact that she was too low a body weight and too low in body fat to conceive. She may still be too low in both to have an optimally healthy baby.

What does Victoria eat?

Again – one can not know this for sure. David Beckham probably doesn’t know this fully, as their work lives often keep them apart. In an interview in The Sun the reporter noted that Victoria ate gilled fish and salad, water and peppermint tea but that she was trying to allow herself toast carbs for breakfast (but also trying to run 4 miles every day). Other on line reports are that Victoria eats strawberries, salad, fish, sushi and you won’t find much else mentioned.

I would expect that Victoria managed to get to an unnaturally low weight by following a very low calorie diet and that she has now ‘reached equilibrium’ at this very low calorie intake. She may be trying to live on 500-1,000 calories a day. The calorie theory (the myth that we will lose 1lb of fat for every 3,500 calorie deficit we create) can be proven wrong by Victoria alone – she should still be losing 1-2lbs a week every week at this incredibly low intake and yet she looks like she stopped losing some time ago – but she now needs to stick to this very low calorie intake to avoid regaining to a more natural/healthy weight.

Victoria caused quite a stir when she was seen carrying the book Skinny Bitch. This book is vulgar, aggressive and extremely unpleasant to read and has been called The Vegan Bible. The book is in favour of fruit, whole grains – carbs basically and is against animal products of any kind. Unfortunately for the now expecting Victoria, it is an inescapable nutritional fact that the most nutritious foods on the planet come from animal sources. Nuts and seeds are the most nutritious non-animal products, but dieters often shun these anyway due to their fat and calorie content.

All micro nutrients (vitamins and minerals) are critical for the mother’s health and the baby’s health during pregnancy. One can only be found in animal foods – vitamin B12, which is critical for the functioning of the brain and nervous system, blood formation and the entire metabolic process. Other nutrients are very difficult to get in the absence of animal foods – here’s an extract from my book: “The Obesity Epidemic: What caused it? How can we stop it?”:

“Vegetarians would need to eat 26 medium eggs each day (1,634 calories) to get 10 micrograms of vitamin D – considered an “adequate intake”. Mushrooms, which have been exposed to sunlight, are the only conceivable option for vegans. Over two kilograms of such mushrooms would need to be sourced and eaten daily to deliver 10 micrograms of vitamin D. Ideally, but not an option for vegans, these would need to be consumed with butter to make them ‘bio-available’ to the body.” A good portion of sardines would deliver the vitamin D needed far more easily.

The fat soluble vitamins – A, D, E and K – are difficult to get if one doesn’t eat animal foods. The regular reports of Victoria eating fish suggest that she wasn’t persuaded to follow the Skinny Bitch rules. However, she seems fat phobic and is likely eating sushi and white fish – not liver, red meat, oily fish, butter, cheese and eggs – which will provide the nutrients that she and baby-to-be so desperately need.

How much weight should women gain during pregnancy?

Pregnant women certainly don’t need to eat for two – a woman actually needs no more energy (calories) in the first trimester and barely 300 calories a day more than normal in the final stage of pregnancy. That’s not much more than one Mars Bar. The average baby only weighs about 7-8 lbs at birth, and the fluids around it add up to not much more than a stone, so there is no need to put on more than a couple of stone during pregnancy. Having said this – starting from the point of being at least a stone underweight, Victoria would do herself and her baby a huge favour putting on more than this – 30-40lbs would be a perfectly healthy gain for her.

Interestingly, all three of Victoria and David’s sons: Brooklyn born 4 March 1999; Romeo born 1 September 2002 and Cruz born 20 February 2005, were reported to weight 7lbs at birth. This may be a convenient ’rounding’. If precise, 7lbs is a healthy weight – the UK average is just an ounce or two above this.

I am sure that Victoria and David are wishing first and foremost for a healthy baby and then secondly Victoria is known to hope to have a girl amongst her entourage of boys. To have the healthy baby – and the healthy mother – I really would love to see Victoria eating more and better.  I would be recommending red meat – ideally liver if she can bear the thought – it is nutritionally unbeatable; fish – especially oily fish; nuts & seeds; plenty of eggs; quality dairy products; vegetables and salad. The dairy products should ideally be what we call ‘full fat’. Full fat milk is still only about 3.5% fat, so this is a bit daft – but we need fat to deliver the fat soluble vitamins so essential for the health of mothers and babies.  If Victoria fancies fruit and whole grains (brown rice, quinoa etc) then enjoy some – but they are nutritionally lacking compared to the aforementioned foods.

I hope that Victoria has a healthy and happy pregnancy and I hope that she doesn’t return to the skeletal frame to which she has returned after her previous births. She is by all accounts an amazing mother, a loyal friend, a loved wife and now an acclaimed fashion designer. Let these be her legacy – not – she managed to be underweight for her whole life. Under weight literally means under nourished and under fed and she deserves more than this. I’d love to see her nourished, energetic, healthy, happy and smiling this time next year.

SPA Future Thinking, a market research firm did a “Question of Taste” survey. They surveyed 1,534 women around the world in the following countries: Brazil,  China,  France, Germany, UK and USA. Some of the key findings were:

1) Although most adults are on a diet (defined by some kind of restrained eating) for much of the time, 34% of British women had gained, rather than lost, weight over the previous year. This compared to 19% of German women who had gained over the previous year (that’s still a lot of people on the rise in the absence of many people losing).

2) 86% of British women had not lost weight since the previous year – this was the worst ‘dieting success statistic’. This is interesting because we have known for 50 years that sustained weight loss (on eat less/do more diets) has a 98% failure rate:

“Having reviewed the literature from the first half of the twentieth century and having done their own study Stunkard and McLaren-Hume (1959) concluded “Most obese persons will not stay in treatment for obesity. Of those who stay in treatment, most will not lose weight, and of those who do lose weight, most will regain it.”  Stunkard and McLaren-Hume’s own statistical study showed that only 12% of obese patients lost 20 pounds, despite having stones to lose, only one person in 100 lost 40 pounds and, two years later, only 2% of patients had maintained a 20 pound weight loss. This is where the often quoted “98% of diets fail” derives from.” (From The Obesity Epidemic: What caused it? How can we stop it?)

This statistic is astonishingly supportive of  Stunkard and McLaren-Hume’s finding. They found that only 12% of patients lost 20 pounds. This survey is saying only 14% lost anything at all.

3) Half of the British women surveyed said that they exercised for less than 3 hours a week.  Here’s the really interesting exercise bit, however – French and American women exercised the least – with almost a quarter doing less than half an hour per week. Using the most recent World Health Organisation estimated prevalence for female obesity per country, we find the following (the WHO takes women as aged 15+):

- Brazil 24.5%;

- China 3.6%;

- France 7.6%;

- Germany 22.1%

- UK 26.3% and

- USA 48.3%

So – the most obese and closest to the least obese exercise the least. The Daily Mail article quotes “diet experts” (not named) as saying “people are simply doing too little exercise.” On this evidence it doesn’t do the French any harm. Could it be that French women eat meat, fish, dairy and vegetables and very little refined carbohydrate and American people are told to base their meals on carbs?

4)  British women were only second in reliance upon convenience food – USA ‘won’ this category with 20% reliant on convenience food. The British figure was 13%. The other countries were in single figures – France and Germany at 6%.

If you want to be a successful dieting statistic this time next year, here are my top 3 tips:

1) Eat food – real food only and no processed food;

2) Eat three meals a day – stop snacking every couple of hours;

3) Manage your carbohydrate intake. Most people should be able to lose weight successfully with just tips 1&2. If you have weight to lose and are not losing by including ‘good’ carbs in your diet – these are the ones that need to go. Very carb sensitive people are becoming increasingly commonplace (hence the 171 million diabetics in the world – WHO data again) and they often need to cut back to naturally reared meat, fish, eggs, vegetables and salads to lose weight – no potatoes or grains or fruit or even dairy products in extreme cases.

Milk is actually a poor source of B6, so the Ovaltine is the provider. But look what Ovaltine comes with:
Barley Malt Extract (45%),Skimmed Milk Concentrate, Whole Milk Powder, Fat-Reduced Cocoa Powder (6%), Vegetable Oil, Glucose Syrup, Yeast, Salt, Skimmed Milk Powder, Calcium Phosphate, Vitamins (C, E, Niacin, A, Pantothenic Acid, B12, B6, B2, B1, Folic Acid, Biotin), Magnesium Carbonate, Stabilisers (E340, E341), Sweetener (Acesulfame K), Milk Proteins, Iron, Anti-Caking Agent (E551), Flavouring.

So, the B6 is added to Ovaltine – along with a load of other things we don’t need. You may as well just take
a vitamin tablet than drink what is effectively a higher calorie version of a vitamin tablet.

Just have a bigger salmon portion and drop the Ovaltine cocktail. Or, 200g of liver would deliver all the B6 you need (and just about everything else) in one hit. Sunflower seeds are also a good source of B6 (1.3mg per 100g of seeds) but you’d need to be a Parrot or Budgerigar to get through enough for the daily allowance!

This is quite an interesting one this week to show that you need a decent amount of good food to get this essential vitamin. And, it’s a water soluble vitamin, which means the body doesn’t store it, so you need this daily.