WEBVTT 00:00:00.170 --> 00:00:04.990 Are you run down? Uninspired? Overweight? Loosing your hair? Not smelling too fresh? 00:00:04.990 --> 00:00:10.350 Malnourished? Overnourished? Too fat? Too thin? Too old? Too slow? Has your head come 00:00:10.350 --> 00:00:13.960 off? Well worry no more! Because now, for a limited time, when you go vegan you’ll 00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:18.029 be better, faster, stronger, thinner, younger, more attractive than every before, and markedly 00:00:18.029 --> 00:00:23.330 less decapitated! But don’t just take my word for it! Check out these studies! No time 00:00:23.330 --> 00:00:28.619 for the fine print? They say go vegan! Veganism: the blanket solution for everything that’s 00:00:28.619 --> 00:00:30.599 every gone wrong in your life and the world ever. 00:00:36.420 --> 00:00:41.620 Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. Recently I released 00:00:41.629 --> 00:00:46.659 my second interview with long-time vegan, ultra-athlete, and registered dietitian Matt 00:00:46.659 --> 00:00:51.619 Ruscigno, wherein we discussed the problem of exaggerated vegan health claims, as well 00:00:51.619 --> 00:00:56.379 as Matt’s simplified approach to nutrition. In that video, Matt said a couple of things 00:00:56.379 --> 00:01:01.389 that didn’t go over too well with many of you, some of which were interpreted as a license 00:01:01.389 --> 00:01:03.239 to eat animals and their byproducts. 00:01:03.239 --> 00:01:08.060 As the video didn’t really give adequate context to or time for Matt’s thoughts, 00:01:08.060 --> 00:01:13.100 which is on me, we wanted to do a follow-up video delving deeper into his arguments for 00:01:13.100 --> 00:01:16.000 accuracy when it comes to vegan health claims. 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:19.880 Before we get into it, I wanted to address something important. A good number of the 00:01:19.880 --> 00:01:24.539 comments on Matt’s last video were personal attacks against him, some very scathing in 00:01:24.539 --> 00:01:29.630 nature. Now I am never in favor of censorship, nor do I feel I have the right to tell anyone 00:01:29.630 --> 00:01:34.460 their opinion, but I would ask that even if you disagree with a guest of mine, which even 00:01:34.460 --> 00:01:39.329 I do sometimes, to please phrase your disagreement without personal attacks. 00:01:39.329 --> 00:01:43.100 The people I have on my channel are giving their time freely to share their expertise 00:01:43.100 --> 00:01:49.749 and insights. You may not like or agree with what they or I say, but I’d simply request 00:01:49.749 --> 00:01:54.530 respectful discourse. This being YouTube, I’m aware that isn’t necessarily going 00:01:54.530 --> 00:01:59.210 to happen, but I wanted to at least put it out there. As a consolation, perhaps, you 00:01:59.210 --> 00:02:04.769 are free to write whatever attacks against my character you desire. Enjoy. 00:02:04.769 --> 00:02:09.460 Now let’s dive into the discussion of the dangers of exaggerating vegan health claims. 00:02:09.460 --> 00:02:13.780 Emily: Matt, I wanted to thank you for coming back on to the channel and taking time out 00:02:13.780 --> 00:02:17.739 of your schedule to be here and to go into some more depth about some of these concepts. 00:02:17.759 --> 00:02:21.980 Matt: Yeah, I’m happy to be here and love chatting with you and love talking about this. 00:02:21.989 --> 00:02:29.459 Emily: What to you is the danger of exaggerating health claims when it comes to the goal of 00:02:29.459 --> 00:02:31.500 creating more vegans in the world? 00:02:31.500 --> 00:02:36.870 Matt: Sometimes it looks like vegans will say anything to convince people to be vegan 00:02:36.870 --> 00:02:42.120 and that I think is problematic. Let's point to the evidence when 00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:46.220 people say “Well can I be healthy?” Yes you can. Here is the evidence that shows you 00:02:46.220 --> 00:02:50.569 can get the nutrients you need and you can even reduce your risk for disease. Getting 00:02:50.569 --> 00:02:57.019 people to eat healthier is a multi-billion dollar industry. We have all these 00:02:57.019 --> 00:03:02.750 supplement companies and Naturopaths that want to sell you 00:03:02.750 --> 00:03:08.500 all sorts of goofy mushrooms from South America and essential oils that absorb through your 00:03:08.500 --> 00:03:14.709 skin and make all sorts of health claims and I don't want veganism to be in that category. 00:03:14.709 --> 00:03:20.010 So let's get veganism out of that world of making crazy health claims. I'm 00:03:20.010 --> 00:03:24.189 wearing two hats because I'm first and foremost an ethical vegan, I have 00:03:24.189 --> 00:03:29.489 been vegan almost 20 years now and I have also been in the nutrition field for another 00:03:29.489 --> 00:03:36.269 12 or so. The reason that I find this so interesting 00:03:36.269 --> 00:03:44.140 is that science is very complicated and there are a lot of factors to take into 00:03:44.140 --> 00:03:50.469 consideration when we are talking about diet and health outcomes and we have lots of evidence 00:03:50.469 --> 00:03:55.469 that eating plant based has benefits and I do a lot of talks with non-vegans at 00:03:55.469 --> 00:04:00.530 professional conferences and what not and I say look we are really lucky we have decades 00:04:00.530 --> 00:04:05.750 and decades of research, you know, longitudinal studies like the Adventists health study and 00:04:05.750 --> 00:04:10.549 then also some short term studies showing what mechanisms of plants are beneficial: 00:04:10.549 --> 00:04:16.410 the fiber, the antioxidants and the nutrient density. We have all this evidence that points 00:04:16.410 --> 00:04:25.010 to eating more plants is beneficial. But a distinction is that doesn't equate to veganism 00:04:25.010 --> 00:04:27.800 they're are not the same and that's the point that I try to make. 00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:35.060 Emily: So even if these studies aren't speaking to strict veganism we also have 00:04:35.060 --> 00:04:40.830 a good number of studies even going back quite some time looking at the negative 00:04:40.830 --> 00:04:48.440 impact of animal products on health and with those, even if we have the studies that you 00:04:48.440 --> 00:04:54.420 are talking about these longer term studies aren't saying necessarily strict veganism 00:04:54.420 --> 00:04:57.780 with these other studies and of course we have now the world health organizations has 00:04:57.780 --> 00:05:03.670 come out with classifying processed meat as a carcinogen how can we look at those studies 00:05:03.670 --> 00:05:09.160 then at least from the health perspective and not say that okay eating any animal products 00:05:09.160 --> 00:05:14.220 is bad and is unhealthy and thus veganism is the ideal from a health perspective 00:05:14.220 --> 00:05:23.450 Matt: I think like the WHO report is really helpful in showing that animal products aren't 00:05:23.450 --> 00:05:29.650 health foods. They may supply some nutrients that people need and that is 00:05:29.650 --> 00:05:33.960 true and this is what the meat industry loves to point to it's an important part of a healthy 00:05:33.960 --> 00:05:38.100 diet, blah, blah, blah. What they leave out is that you can easily get these nutrients 00:05:38.100 --> 00:05:44.460 from plant foods, but what the evidence points to is something like the WHO is that 00:05:44.460 --> 00:05:49.560 these products should be reduced. Let’s say you eliminate processed meat and 00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:55.520 red meat, your average person who isn't a vegan or thinking about veganism is going 00:05:55.520 --> 00:06:00.830 to say: ok then I will eat more chicken, turkey, eggs, I'll drink dairy. 00:06:00.830 --> 00:06:07.170 That’s how they interpret it, my point is to vegans and advocates of veganism 00:06:07.170 --> 00:06:13.010 to make sure we are not seeing this only through our vegan lens. That there is an important 00:06:13.010 --> 00:06:17.270 distinction because people want to continue doing what they are doing and that is eating 00:06:17.270 --> 00:06:22.860 animal products they want to keep eating animal products. How do we get them to not? Well, 00:06:22.860 --> 00:06:27.490 I think we point and focus on the ethical argument and then when they ask questions 00:06:27.490 --> 00:06:32.720 about health we can say: well, we have all this evidence that says vegans are very healthy 00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:37.180 and that veganism can even help reduce chronic diseases because we do have that evidence, 00:06:37.180 --> 00:06:43.460 does that make sense? So, that is where ethics comes in, you can't argue against the suffering 00:06:43.460 --> 00:06:50.080 that animals go through in order to produce food, you know, that is something that we 00:06:50.080 --> 00:06:56.930 can always point to and to me a much stronger argument and that ethical veganism is different 00:06:56.930 --> 00:07:01.270 than plant based for health, they are different things and I think that a lot of people know 00:07:01.270 --> 00:07:07.300 this and understand it but sometimes in promotion the two get confused. I will give you an example, 00:07:07.300 --> 00:07:14.610 like Dr. Esselstyn has done fantastic research as well reducing heart disease and he has 00:07:14.610 --> 00:07:20.830 the papers to back it up, he has been doing this a long time but his plan doesn't include 00:07:20.830 --> 00:07:28.240 oil, he is very much against oil, olive oil, any oil. So, as vegans do we point 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:33.880 to this and say: Hey look go vegan and that means no oil. Do we need to be that strict? 00:07:33.880 --> 00:07:37.810 Well, that is where it gets complicated. 00:07:37.810 --> 00:07:42.240 Emily: One of the concerns that came up in the comments section of your previous video 00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:48.350 was you had mentioned something about how you have seen there is evidence 00:07:48.350 --> 00:07:52.760 of people that have been on paleo diet even and reduced cholesterol. One of the concerns 00:07:52.760 --> 00:07:58.600 that came up was this could be number one a momentary reduction, the cholesterol 00:07:58.600 --> 00:08:03.580 could go down but what are really the long term effects? 00:08:03.580 --> 00:08:08.680 Cholesterol levels are one indicator of health or they are a biomarker 00:08:08.680 --> 00:08:14.510 they are not necessarily talking about disease outcome. Do we have any studies on the 00:08:14.510 --> 00:08:20.290 long term impact of either paleo or eating animal products in general 00:08:20.290 --> 00:08:27.030 versus the long term effects of veganism and a more holistic perspective on that? 00:08:27.030 --> 00:08:33.429 Matt: Got it, So when I bring up paleo in these kind of talks my point is that when 00:08:33.429 --> 00:08:39.659 paleo folks can also see research through their own lens and they can point to peer 00:08:39.659 --> 00:08:44.980 reviewed studies that show look lower cholesterol levels, lower weight, all sorts of things 00:08:44.980 --> 00:08:49.529 are reduced and this is legitimate research that is showing this but an important 00:08:49.529 --> 00:08:55.540 difference is with vegetarianism and veganism we have decades of research paleo does not 00:08:55.540 --> 00:09:05.389 have that. Almost no other dietary pattern has the depth of research that vegetarianism 00:09:05.389 --> 00:09:09.670 has. You know, veganism on a lesser scale. We look at the first Adventist health 00:09:09.670 --> 00:09:16.220 study which followed folks a few decades ago and about half of those people were vegetarian 00:09:16.220 --> 00:09:21.850 and that's where the evidence points to: look these folks live longer, their life expectancy 00:09:21.850 --> 00:09:26.970 is being increased if they are vegetarian and that is great evidence but only a 00:09:26.970 --> 00:09:32.319 very small percentage of them were vegan. Now we have the Adventist health study 2 00:09:32.319 --> 00:09:39.730 which follows 100,000 people it's a humongous cohort, maybe the biggest that has ever existed. 00:09:39.730 --> 00:09:45.160 Now 10% of that group is vegan, which is great, because we have shown an increase 00:09:45.160 --> 00:09:49.360 in the number of vegans within Adventists and I think they are ahead of the curve with 00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:52.910 plant based nutrition so it's great to see that there is an increase there and we will 00:09:52.910 --> 00:09:58.170 see that in the rest of the population and so we can actually say: it's not just cholesterol 00:09:58.170 --> 00:10:03.949 levels which are one risk factor but it's all of these risk factors are adding up to 00:10:03.949 --> 00:10:10.860 point to longevity. This all points to lower rates of these chronic diseases. 00:10:10.860 --> 00:10:18.279 Another important consideration is the concept of risk. There are many risk factors 00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:25.560 and what we can do by eating plants and good nutrition, is reducing those risk factors. 00:10:25.560 --> 00:10:32.170 That doesn't mean that you won't get that disease, it means you are much less likely 00:10:32.170 --> 00:10:38.240 to. Do some vegans get cancer? Yes. Do some vegans get heart disease? Yes. Is the risk 00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:43.499 reduced for the population? Absolutely. But those are two different things, you know, 00:10:43.499 --> 00:10:47.680 we can't make claims that are absolute and that's an important distinction because I 00:10:47.680 --> 00:10:48.930 see vegans doing that too often. 00:10:48.930 --> 00:10:54.720 Emily: Personally I always say I can eat really well, I can do my fitness routine and things 00:10:54.720 --> 00:10:59.320 like that and I would not be surprised if I died early because of stress, 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:01.149 even as a vegan. 00:11:01.149 --> 00:11:07.050 Matt: Right and so let's take this idea of stress and we can relate it to Dr. Ornish 00:11:07.050 --> 00:11:11.839 and his groundbreaking research in preventing and reversing heart disease. He really 00:11:11.839 --> 00:11:17.610 is ahead of the curve, amazing research, he showed that you can reverse a disease, which 00:11:17.610 --> 00:11:22.920 is a crazy concept: you have it, you do some things, you don't have it anymore, that is 00:11:22.920 --> 00:11:30.850 phenomenal, right? But, his research involved meditation and stress reducing techniques 00:11:30.850 --> 00:11:36.209 and that affects our health, like you said, and his diet also included low fat dairy and 00:11:36.209 --> 00:11:42.959 fish. That is not veganism, right? We use this to promote veganism but the diet he was 00:11:42.959 --> 00:11:46.949 using was not totally vegan. What does that mean, well it complicates things for us. 00:11:46.949 --> 00:11:50.139 The reason I talk about this stuff is because occasionally I will have someone 00:11:50.139 --> 00:11:55.160 at one of my talks say "Well, I hear all this and I see all this evidence but you 00:11:55.160 --> 00:12:00.279 have to be a raw food vegan that only eats non-GMO and organic. That is the only way 00:12:00.279 --> 00:12:05.009 to eat healthy. I'm like well...show me the evidence. Well everyone knows this, haven't 00:12:05.009 --> 00:12:10.709 you seen the vibrations pyramid? I'm like what are you talking about? You know, and 00:12:10.709 --> 00:12:16.069 these are people who are advocating for veganism and they are very very strictly defining it. 00:12:16.069 --> 00:12:23.249 I think that is problematic because what if that is the only vegan, non-vegans know, 00:12:23.249 --> 00:12:27.730 this person talking about the vibration pyramid and you have to be raw vegan to be 00:12:27.730 --> 00:12:33.079 healthy. Those things aren't true, that's not real and to me that's what problematic. 00:12:33.079 --> 00:12:38.339 Fake meat, vegan meat, whatever you want to call it, you can say oh it's processed 00:12:38.339 --> 00:12:44.370 it's not part of a healthy diet, you need to eliminate processed foods. Well, the Adventists 00:12:44.370 --> 00:12:50.120 eat fake meat in a can. It's an important part of their diet. You go to Loma 00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:56.209 Linda and the shelves are stocked with all sorts of fake meat that is in a can and these 00:12:56.209 --> 00:13:00.290 are the people where our strongest evidence comes from. Well, they are eating it so does 00:13:00.290 --> 00:13:04.160 that mean you have to eat it? Well, I wouldn't make that claim. But I would say that you 00:13:04.160 --> 00:13:08.319 can eat it, right? So let’s not get, we get caught up in these details, you know, 00:13:08.319 --> 00:13:12.509 that eating some veggie sausage with your dinner will kill you and you might as well 00:13:12.509 --> 00:13:17.199 be eating the real thing. I have heard vegans say that and it is not the case. 00:13:17.199 --> 00:13:21.290 That is the danger of this, getting too caught up in these health arguments. 00:13:21.290 --> 00:13:25.410 Emily: Alright, well thank you so much again for your time I really appreciate you coming 00:13:25.410 --> 00:13:27.980 back on and kind of going into greater depth with this. 00:13:27.980 --> 00:13:29.720 Matt: Good, happy to. 00:13:29.720 --> 00:13:34.019 I hope this deeper look into this important topic was helpful in clarifying Matt’s position 00:13:34.019 --> 00:13:36.649 and lending proper attention to the issues. 00:13:36.649 --> 00:13:40.689 As Matt said, we have decades of research on our side on the health aspects of eating 00:13:40.689 --> 00:13:46.610 a plant-based diet, and we certainly have iron clad ethics to back up any doubts. Personally, 00:13:46.610 --> 00:13:51.119 if being vegan was the most unhealthy way I could eat, I’d still be vegan, because 00:13:51.119 --> 00:13:56.309 the impact on the planet and more importantly the animals, is undeniable. Fortunately, a 00:13:56.309 --> 00:14:00.769 whole foods plant-based diet just happens to be ridiculously healthy as well. 00:14:00.769 --> 00:14:04.309 Now I’d love to hear what you think about the need for accuracy when it comes to the 00:14:04.309 --> 00:14:08.569 health side of veganism. What are your thoughts on what Matt had to share? Let me know in 00:14:08.569 --> 00:14:09.629 the comments! 00:14:09.629 --> 00:14:14.279 If you enjoyed this video, give it a big thumbs up. If you’re new here, do hit that big 00:14:14.279 --> 00:14:18.869 red subscribe button down there for more awesome vegan content every Monday, Wednesday, and 00:14:18.869 --> 00:14:22.970 some Fridays and to not miss out the on the rest of the Vegan Athlete series. If you want 00:14:22.970 --> 00:14:26.759 to help support Bite Size Vegan, check out either of the support links in the video description 00:14:26.759 --> 00:14:32.119 below or click on the Nugget Army icon or the link in the sidebar. Now go live vegan, 00:14:32.119 --> 00:14:35.369 keep nutrition simple, and I’ll see you soon. 00:14:35.369 --> 00:14:39.790 I wish veganism fixed everything... 00:14:39.790 --> 00:14:40.870 My life would be awesome...