Veganism is everywhere. According to a survey in 2021, 1 in 10 of the US population now identifies as a vegan[1]. A vegan diet is one that excludes not just meat but all animal food products including dairy, eggs and even honey, in an attempt to limit the cruelty and exploitation of animals as much as possible. Over the past decade the popularity of this diet and ideology has boomed, and is now a multi million pound industry. Despite its exponential rise within the culture, the vegan diet is stull dividing the opinions of those within the wellness space. In this essay I will look to explore whether this diet trend really is the holy grail of optimum health, or actually a really bad idea.
Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”[2] According to Albert, and the vegan community on a whole, it is the healthiest diet in the planet. This way of eating will lower your cholesterol, cure any cancer and give you the most diverse microbiome that ever there was. According to Katherine Wrnitzwer “The first athletes on strict plant-based diets were gladiators,” she says. “Roman scripts report that all fighters adhered to gladiatoriam saginam, which was based on plant foods, including large amounts of legumes, pulses and grains, and contained little or no animal protein”[3] With their aspirational bods and super human strength – this must be the very best diet surely? What I’m sure she doesn’t realise is that gladiators were in fact slaves, literally fighting for their lives with no other food to choose from.
Another argument is that the vegan diet will help save our planet. It is said that cattle are killing the Oxone with methane, and therefore cereal grains are the super foods that will reduce water and save the planet. Unfortunately, this “hypothesis” is based on the Industrial factory farming, meat industry of corporate America, which, no matter which side of the vegan debate one sits on, we can all agree is a way that most of us, even the most avid steak eater, morally, ethically and spiritually would deem as a terrible way to create the food we eat.
This form of industrial meat farming practice was birthed in the 1950’s. As the “green crop” (aka genetically altered corn grain), with less foliage and more corn, boomed. This crop, compounded with a surplus of cheap oil and gas meant the farming industry was left with an abundance of corn with no-where to sell it. Humans didn’t want it any more, so they decided to feed it to cattle. For the first time in the history of agriculture, farmers pulled livestock from their natural habitat, and put them in industrial city farms and fed them …. corn. In this environment they are indeed huge consumers of water and grain – but with this, they were out of their natural habitat, and this “dependency on grain” a. is not their natural diet and b. is a environmentally devastating practice of mono crop farming that was created. This is still in practice, headed by a small group of corporate businesses who STILL control the majority of the worlds’ food supply.
This mono-crop culture, that industrial farming depends on, is hugely negative to the environment, and yet the vegan staple – soy is doing exactly the same thing. In order to produce an abundance of these mono-crops, the farmers effectively create biocide. As farmers clear fields of pre-existing crops, even down to the bacteria, causing chaos for the environment. The cereals and grains that are apparently saving the world are yearly crops. Meaning that every year, this process must be done over and over again, depleting the soil and reducing the nutritional profile of the food we eat. These corporations repeatedly drive down the price of corn and other grains, causing farmers to keep producing more and more in an attempt to gain any profit. This over-production of the crop is compounded by a Ferris wheel of poor farmers, who are struggling to survive, fossil fuel guzzling machines and tractors, big energy needs and an abundance of toxic pesticides to maintain this level of food production. This inappropriate use of agriculture is killing the planet … it isn’t the cows.
The reality is that no society in the history of the world has existed on a vegan diet. Low protein, yes – however that was rarely a choice, but a last resort when there was nothing else to eat. Even poor Einstein didn’t elect this diet out of choice, but was plagued by such terrible digestive issues that he was in fact unable to tolerate animal protein. Over the past 6 months as I have been working though my clients, I found that there is a common denominator with those that are struggling the most with their health… They are all vegan. Most are women in their 20’s who have been brain-washed by the propaganda that the vegan diet will save the planet, optimise your health, and get them to their best body ever. It is said in the Nei Jing, that the female body runs in cycles of 7 years. What is interesting to me is that the vegan females in my clinic are all between the ages of 21 and 35. I wonder if during this time the female body becomes hyper focused on one thing, procreation. It’s during this time that the female bodies metabolic base line accelerates exponentially in order to prepare the vessel for the possibility of childbirth, requiring more nutrient density, minerals, and day to day fuel than a vegan diet can appropriately offer. A theory that is compounded by the fact that so many pregnant vegetarian women end up salivating over burgers! Perhaps the most difficult issue for these clients is that any argument against their diet becomes an affront against not only what they eat, but indeed who they are. Making any conservation against this ideology extremity difficult to wrangle with[4].
The most common symptom that I see in my vegan patients is digestive issues. From a TCM perspective, a diet that lacks animal protein and is abundant with cold and raw fruit and vegetables, salads and smoothies will weaken the energy of the spleen. When weak the spleen will be unable to hold energy in place resulting in frequent, urgent, and runny stools. Often accompanied by abdominal pain and discomfort. When weak, the spleen is also more susceptible to becoming invaded by the liver. When the liver becomes the dominant energy in the middle jaio, invading the spleen, symptoms such as constipation, alternating diarrhoea and constipation abdominal distension and hypochondriac pain will predominate.
We are told to up our fruits and veggie portions exponentially, however for some people this is a recipe for IBS. Humans developed as omnivores, our teeth combine flat, plant chewing molars and flesh ripping incisors. The human gut or intestinal tract is somewhere in between carnivore (lion) and herbivore (cow) suggesting that we, as a species will thrive only when combining these two dietary choices. Most herbivores, aka ruminant animals, have 2 stomachs, a lengthy chewing habit and possibly a caecum, so they are able to eat, digest and assimilate protein from plant matter. A process that we, alas, do not have the equipment to facilitate this. We are unable to digest cellulose, We are not ruminants. Any protein from plants, unfortunately, is wrapped in cellulose. So yes, in a lab plants may contain some protein… however we do not have the infrastructure able to assimilate any of it. Unfortunately, the protein of a vegan diet is not nutritionally viable for sustaining human life. In addition, modern farming practices have changed considerably over the past few decades, depletion of soil, the use of pesticides and GMO have transformed many plant food to something our system can no longer recognise.
This over abundance of plant materials as well as causing digestion upset, can also cause constipation. Whilst this is sometimes caused by the liver stagnating gut motility and inhibiting peristalsis, It can also be due to the lack of blood nourishment. Meat helps to build blood, which in turn is pumped around the body providing nourishment and energy – aka Qi flow. When blood is deficient, there is a lack of Qi, causing energy, and bodily functions to grind to a halt. We are told that eating more fibre will cure constipation, however according to digestive disease statistics there were 63 million reported cases of constipation in 2000 with laxative sales reaching around 1 billion every year. Clearly indicating that plants, are not coming to anyone’s rescue when struggling with constipation.
In addition to constipation, Symptoms of chilliness, cold hands and feet, frequent urination and fatigue are another common symptom in my vegetarian and vegan clients. A combination of Kidney and Spleen Yang that are 2 diagnoses that work symbiotically with one another. Meat, and dairy are foods that are full of yang energy, creating heat, energy, and vitality to those that consume it. Biologically speaking, animal foods are incredibly nutrient dense with easy to digest protein, B vitamins and a whole other spectrum of vitamins and minerals. Having come from an animal whose digestion is designed to extract the minimal nutrition from plants and grasses, ‘chewing the cud’ for days on end so that our system doesn’t have to. Animal foods are of great bang for one’s buck when it comes to energy assimilation.
When preparing to hibernate animals such as bears will consume an abundance of plant foods such as nuts and seeds to prepare themselves for a winter asleep. This consumption of poly unsaturated fats, or “PUFAS” will have a thyroid suppressive effect that will help them survive a winter. By down regulating their thyroid, reducing their activity level, decreasing their gut function, so they don’t need to eat or indeed defecate so much, lowers body temperature and effectively puts them to sleep for the winter. This elective process will put their body into survival mode. They are not thriving, but downregulating themselves out of necessity. This is the same state that my vegan clients are ending up in. By overconsuming PUFAS, and hard to digest plant foods – without the necessary Yang nutrition that meat and dairy provides, their metabolism starts to slow, lower body temperature and lower the pulse. The human body is incredibly adaptive and will also do its best to downregulate itself in order to sustain itself on the shoestring budget that a vegan diet provides.
Ancient modalities such as Chinese medicine warn of the dangers of a low protein diet and the over consumption of cold and raw foods especially vegetables, as they can contribute to the formation of damp in the body. Damp is seen as one of the most difficult to treat external pathogens, that if left untreated for too long, combined with heat, often due to a pre-existing kidney yin deficiency, will result in the formation of phlegm.
Before the damp turns to phlegm, the friction caused as the body tries to move the phlegm along will create heat and cause damp heat. Usually for my clients and anecdotally from other practitioners, this damp heat will land in the lower jaio, especially into the bladder, causing bladder infections, cystitis, and other uncomfortable hot and itchy syndromes in the lower jaio. What is interesting to me is that western research is now showing the link between low protein diets and the overconsumption of plant compounds entering various tissues of the body, especially the bladder and vulva, which contribute to the instances of interstitial cystitis and vulvodynia.
When phlegm is retained for a long time, it itself becomes a cause for disease. Phlegm falls in to two categories, substantial and insubstantial phlegm. I have already mentioned how the vegan diet contributes to both spleen and kidney yang issues, over time, with an abundance of fluids unable to transform in the system, this will eventually become substantial phlegm. This substantial phlegm can be seen in sputum that collects in the lungs, and from the nose. Non-substantial phlegm is the more serious pathogen and can collect in the gallbladder kidney and bones, causing bone issues, gall stones and kidney stones. Several of my vegan clients have gall bladder inflammation, recurring gall stones and gall bladder pain attacks. It was my experience as a vegetarian of 15 years that resulted in the formation of chronic kidney stones. The doctors I worked with had no idea of why this was happening so often, it was only until I started working with a TCM practitioner that it became clear that my vegan diet was doing more harm than good.
Chinese medicine emphases the importance of Blood nourishment In the diet and stresses that the female body in particular is in great need for the occasional steak. Without regular nourishment from warm and nutrient dense carbohydrates and animal proteins, the body becomes lacking in blood. Blood is Yin in nature and when blood is deficient, the calm, cool yin energies of the body will also begin to suffer. When kidney yin is deficient, heart yin is deficient. Without enough nourishment from blood, the Shen, or spirit body that resides in the heart will become dysregulated, disturbed and may even start to wander, causing sleep trouble and anxiety and even depression. A deficiency of the calm, cool water element of Kidney, is no longer to soothe and calm the blazing fire of the heart. Symptoms of agitation, restlessness, poor sleep and emotional turbulence will all be manifest as a result of deficient blood.
This lack of animal protein from a western perspective contributes to mental disturbance. The exponential rise of anxiety disorders, and veganism, seems to be happening at a similar rate. Research now shows that there are B Vitamins that can only be found in animal protein. It is now understood that a body can usually manage for 7 years (interestingly the same length of a Jing cycle from the kidneys) before alarm bells will start setting off. As the body begins to deplete of vitamins such as B12, K2, A and D, plus minerals such as zinc, iodine and calcium, haem iron, Co-Q10, all most readily found in animal products. Moreover, without the presence of fat – the ability to assimilate any of these minerals is further impacted. We need both the fat, from animals and their amino acid, mineral, and vitamin profile to support brain function and our mental health. Lierre Kieth in her book “The Vegetarian Myth” states how ‘suicide deaths are 4 times more common in people who proscribe to a low fat diet, along with violent death and murder”. To put it simply, the human brain is not stable when you don’t eat enough fat!
Another key factor that is often left out of the discussion of a low protein diet is that most plants do not want to be eaten. And to dissuade hungry herbivore for over indulging in themselves and their seeds aka their offspring will produce toxic compounds as a defence mechanism. One of the most dangerous compounds they produce is oxalate acid. Examples of high oxalate foods include beans, grain, bran, nuts and seeds, Swiss chard, beetroot, chocolate, rhubarb, and some spices like pepper and turmeric; aka the cornerstone foods of a vegan diet. The body has no way to disarm oxalic acid, but must excrete it. Cells attempt to manage the onslaught but are unable to metabolise it, using up an abundance of energy. Sodium oxalate and potassium oxalate can steal minerals such as manganese, calcium, iron, zinc and copper and is able to bind with toxic metals. This can lead to mineral deficiencies, and impair the digestive system. Often the kidneys are overwhelmed with the task of dealing with oxalates, but they can be stored into any soft tissues. This can result in inflammation, connective tissue dysfunctions, cell death and mitochondria dysfunction aka chronic fatigue along with nerve cell damage. Sally K Norton, a nutritional researcher pioneering this research on the dangers of oxalate states that the most common oxalate toxicity issues are kidney and bladder issues, GI issues, chronic pain, body pain and stiffness, fatigue and sleep issues, brain dust function[5] – aka all of the symptoms that TCM associates with a low protein diet.
In conclusion, whilst I fully respect the decision to not want to kill animals for food, a vegan diet is fundamentally dangerous long term for humans. It is not appropriate for our biology to be sustained on plant foods indefinitely, and will ultimately lead to the rapid decline in wellbeing for the individual and ultimately for generations to come. If we track back 4 million yeas to the origin of the human race, it is undisputable that we were hunters, consumers of animal protein. With the largest brain of all primates and the smallest digestive tract, it is this abundance of animal protein that helped build this massive brain. Archaeology shows that Neanderthal man was tall, strong, with all their teeth and bones free of disease until we hit the beginnings of agriculture. Then, unfortunately, we see that the skeletons shrunk around 6 inches, bones have degenerated and teeth are falling out. This has been well documented as the “disease of agriculture” aka grain and vegetable consuming humans. There are no documented disease of the hunter gathering meat consuming populations, research that celebrated dentist Weston A.Price has also proved in his research on the lack of teeth degeneration in indigenous – aka meat centric cultures. Chinese medicine promotes a diet of balance, using meat, and animal protein like medicine, and treating it with a reverence and respect that we should all aim to cultivate for the food we eat. That is all to say… unfortunately, under no circumstance do I believe that veganism is the future.
[1] https://pawsomeadvice.com/environment/vegan-statistics/
[2] https://www.foodandwine.com/cooking-techniques/albert-einstein-genius-birthday-boy-vegetarian-vegan
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/dec/29/is-veganism-as-good-for-you-as-they-say
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNON5iNf07o
[5] https://sallyknorton.com/oxalate-science/oxalate-basics/
by Harriett Hare MAA RBAF – French Pharmacy – Marylebone / Coombe Bath (Acupuncture Association Member)
