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Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. Recently I released
my second interview with long-time vegan, ultra-athlete, and registered dietitian Matt
Ruscigno, wherein we discussed the problem of exaggerated vegan health claims, as well
as Matt’s simplified approach to nutrition. In that video, Matt said a couple of things
that didn’t go over too well with many of you, some of which were interpreted as a license
to eat animals and their byproducts.
As the video didn’t really give adequate context to or time for Matt’s thoughts,
which is on me, we wanted to do a follow-up video delving deeper into his arguments for
accuracy when it comes to vegan health claims.
Before we get into it, I wanted to address something important. A good number of the
comments on Matt’s last video were personal attacks against him, some very scathing in
nature. Now I am never in favor of censorship, nor do I feel I have the right to tell anyone
their opinion, but I would ask that even if you disagree with a guest of mine, which even
I do sometimes, to please phrase your disagreement without personal attacks.
The people I have on my channel are giving their time freely to share their expertise
and insights. You may not like or agree with what they or I say, but I’d simply request
respectful discourse. This being YouTube, I’m aware that isn’t necessarily going
to happen, but I wanted to at least put it out there. As a consolation, perhaps, you
are free to write whatever attacks against my character you desire. Enjoy.
Now let’s dive into the discussion of the dangers of exaggerating vegan health claims.
Emily: Matt, I wanted to thank you for coming back on to the channel and taking time out
of your schedule to be here and to go into some more depth about some of these concepts.
Matt: Yeah, I’m happy to be here and love chatting with you and love talking about this.
Emily: What to you is the danger of exaggerating health claims when it comes to the goal of
creating more vegans in the world?
Matt: Sometimes it looks like vegans will say anything to convince people to be vegan
and that I think is problematic. Let's point to the evidence when
people say “Well can I be healthy?” Yes you can. Here is the evidence that shows you
can get the nutrients you need and you can even reduce your risk for disease. Getting
people to eat healthier is a multi-billion dollar industry. We have all these
supplement companies and Naturopaths that want to sell you
all sorts of goofy mushrooms from South America and essential oils that absorb through your
skin and make all sorts of health claims and I don't want veganism to be in that category.
So let's get veganism out of that world of making crazy health claims. I'm
wearing two hats because I'm first and foremost an ethical vegan, I have
been vegan almost 20 years now and I have also been in the nutrition field for another
12 or so. The reason that I find this so interesting
is that science is very complicated and there are a lot of factors to take into
consideration when we are talking about diet and health outcomes and we have lots of evidence
that eating plant based has benefits and I do a lot of talks with non-vegans at
professional conferences and what not and I say look we are really lucky we have decades
and decades of research, you know, longitudinal studies like the Adventists health study and
then also some short term studies showing what mechanisms of plants are beneficial:
the fiber, the antioxidants and the nutrient density. We have all this evidence that points
to eating more plants is beneficial. But a distinction is that doesn't equate to veganism
they're are not the same and that's the point that I try to make.
Emily: So even if these studies aren't speaking to strict veganism we also have
a good number of studies even going back quite some time looking at the negative
impact of animal products on health and with those, even if we have the studies that you
are talking about these longer term studies aren't saying necessarily strict veganism
with these other studies and of course we have now the world health organizations has
come out with classifying processed meat as a carcinogen how can we look at those studies
then at least from the health perspective and not say that okay eating any animal products
is bad and is unhealthy and thus veganism is the ideal from a health perspective
Matt: I think like the WHO report is really helpful in showing that animal products aren't
health foods. They may supply some nutrients that people need and that is
true and this is what the meat industry loves to point to it's an important part of a healthy
diet, blah, blah, blah. What they leave out is that you can easily get these nutrients
from plant foods, but what the evidence points to is something like the WHO is that
these products should be reduced. Let’s say you eliminate processed meat and
red meat, your average person who isn't a vegan or thinking about veganism is going
to say: ok then I will eat more chicken, turkey, eggs, I'll drink dairy.
That’s how they interpret it, my point is to vegans and advocates of veganism
to make sure we are not seeing this only through our vegan lens. That there is an important
distinction because people want to continue doing what they are doing and that is eating
animal products they want to keep eating animal products. How do we get them to not? Well,
I think we point and focus on the ethical argument and then when they ask questions
about health we can say: well, we have all this evidence that says vegans are very healthy
and that veganism can even help reduce chronic diseases because we do have that evidence,
does that make sense? So, that is where ethics comes in, you can't argue against the suffering
that animals go through in order to produce food, you know, that is something that we
can always point to and to me a much stronger argument and that ethical veganism is different
than plant based for health, they are different things and I think that a lot of people know
this and understand it but sometimes in promotion the two get confused. I will give you an example,
like Dr. Esselstyn has done fantastic research as well reducing heart disease and he has
the papers to back it up, he has been doing this a long time but his plan doesn't include
oil, he is very much against oil, olive oil, any oil. So, as vegans do we point
to this and say: Hey look go vegan and that means no oil. Do we need to be that strict?
Well, that is where it gets complicated.
Emily: One of the concerns that came up in the comments section of your previous video
was you had mentioned something about how you have seen there is evidence
of people that have been on paleo diet even and reduced cholesterol. One of the concerns
that came up was this could be number one a momentary reduction, the cholesterol
could go down but what are really the long term effects?
Cholesterol levels are one indicator of health or they are a biomarker
they are not necessarily talking about disease outcome. Do we have any studies on the
long term impact of either paleo or eating animal products in general
versus the long term effects of veganism and a more holistic perspective on that?
Matt: Got it, So when I bring up paleo in these kind of talks my point is that when
paleo folks can also see research through their own lens and they can point to peer
reviewed studies that show look lower cholesterol levels, lower weight, all sorts of things
are reduced and this is legitimate research that is showing this but an important
difference is with vegetarianism and veganism we have decades of research paleo does not
have that. Almost no other dietary pattern has the depth of research that vegetarianism
has. You know, veganism on a lesser scale. We look at the first Adventist health
study which followed folks a few decades ago and about half of those people were vegetarian
and that's where the evidence points to: look these folks live longer, their life expectancy
is being increased if they are vegetarian and that is great evidence but only a
very small percentage of them were vegan. Now we have the Adventist health study 2
which follows 100,000 people it's a humongous cohort, maybe the biggest that has ever existed.
Now 10% of that group is vegan, which is great, because we have shown an increase
in the number of vegans within Adventists and I think they are ahead of the curve with
plant based nutrition so it's great to see that there is an increase there and we will
see that in the rest of the population and so we can actually say: it's not just cholesterol
levels which are one risk factor but it's all of these risk factors are adding up to
point to longevity. This all points to lower rates of these chronic diseases.
Another important consideration is the concept of risk. There are many risk factors
and what we can do by eating plants and good nutrition, is reducing those risk factors.
That doesn't mean that you won't get that disease, it means you are much less likely
to. Do some vegans get cancer? Yes. Do some vegans get heart disease? Yes. Is the risk
reduced for the population? Absolutely. But those are two different things, you know,
we can't make claims that are absolute and that's an important distinction because I
see vegans doing that too often.
Emily: Personally I always say I can eat really well, I can do my fitness routine and things
like that and I would not be surprised if I died early because of stress,
even as a vegan.
Matt: Right and so let's take this idea of stress and we can relate it to Dr. Ornish
and his groundbreaking research in preventing and reversing heart disease. He really
is ahead of the curve, amazing research, he showed that you can reverse a disease, which
is a crazy concept: you have it, you do some things, you don't have it anymore, that is
phenomenal, right? But, his research involved meditation and stress reducing techniques
and that affects our health, like you said, and his diet also included low fat dairy and
fish. That is not veganism, right? We use this to promote veganism but the diet he was
using was not totally vegan. What does that mean, well it complicates things for us.
The reason I talk about this stuff is because occasionally I will have someone
at one of my talks say "Well, I hear all this and I see all this evidence but you
have to be a raw food vegan that only eats non-GMO and organic. That is the only way
to eat healthy. I'm like well...show me the evidence. Well everyone knows this, haven't
you seen the vibrations pyramid? I'm like what are you talking about? You know, and
these are people who are advocating for veganism and they are very very strictly defining it.
I think that is problematic because what if that is the only vegan, non-vegans know,
this person talking about the vibration pyramid and you have to be raw vegan to be
healthy. Those things aren't true, that's not real and to me that's what problematic.
Fake meat, vegan meat, whatever you want to call it, you can say oh it's processed
it's not part of a healthy diet, you need to eliminate processed foods. Well, the Adventists
eat fake meat in a can. It's an important part of their diet. You go to Loma
Linda and the shelves are stocked with all sorts of fake meat that is in a can and these
are the people where our strongest evidence comes from. Well, they are eating it so does
that mean you have to eat it? Well, I wouldn't make that claim. But I would say that you
can eat it, right? So let’s not get, we get caught up in these details, you know,
that eating some veggie sausage with your dinner will kill you and you might as well
be eating the real thing. I have heard vegans say that and it is not the case.
That is the danger of this, getting too caught up in these health arguments.
Emily: Alright, well thank you so much again for your time I really appreciate you coming
back on and kind of going into greater depth with this.
Matt: Good, happy to.
I hope this deeper look into this important topic was helpful in clarifying Matt’s position
and lending proper attention to the issues.
As Matt said, we have decades of research on our side on the health aspects of eating
a plant-based diet, and we certainly have iron clad ethics to back up any doubts. Personally,
if being vegan was the most unhealthy way I could eat, I’d still be vegan, because
the impact on the planet and more importantly the animals, is undeniable. Fortunately, a
whole foods plant-based diet just happens to be ridiculously healthy as well.
Now I’d love to hear what you think about the need for accuracy when it comes to the
health side of veganism. What are your thoughts on what Matt had to share? Let me know in
the comments!
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