Which one are you? Photo: Shutterstock
In my experience on this planet, no topic I know raises as much excitement, fear, pain, avoidance, skepticism, utter confusion, anger or general disbelief as nutrition.
If you are currently a practicing vegetarian, this is not intended to simply bash vegetarianism. This is intended to bash any dogmatic or unfounded approach to food.
This is not intended to say that all vegetarianism is wrong. This is my opinion on a very tricky topic. But I can only share with you what I know to be true from having worked with people to be healthy.
So this is my approach to healthy eating. Are you ready? Here it is:
All human beings are designed to eat plants and animals. Genius, isn’t it? Why can’t all nutritional advice be this simple? So how much do you need? Well, it’s up to you to do some self experimentation to figure out.
Your digestive system adapted over two million years of evolution, long before your ego ever arrived. Your animal and plant food ratio has adapted to the availability of your natural surroundings. It’s what William Woollcott refers to as your “biochemical individuality.”
In the 1930s, Dr. Weston Price studied native populations and their health (specifically as it related to their dentition) as it correlated to their lifestyle and their nutrition. One of his many conclusions was that if people eat what they used to eat instead of something that has been heavily processed and shipped from the other side of the world, then they get on just fine. He also found that the ratio of foods that were eaten were radically different in different parts of the world. The only limiting factor to how much animal food should be in your diet was strictly availability.
So if you come from a part of the globe where big game was scarce, you have adapted better to eat more plant foods, thus making up for the lack of animal foods. If you come from somewhere with lots of animals, but where the ground froze during the winter, your ‘choice’ to be vegetarian starved you out of the food chain.
Let me get something very clear: I am just as against people over-consuming meat as I am against vegetarianism. I do not support any method of eating that makes you less healthy than when you started.
I do get asked questions by people wanting to either do my Weekend Surf Warrior Complete Package or my Boddy Language Grizzly Bear Wellness Plan who are veggie and want to know whether it would be suitable for them.
It’s probably not.
Why? Because in my opinion, I am yet to be convinced of any health-related reason that would exclude you from eating some animal-based foods, even occasionally. The purpose of my health and nutrition plan is to guide you through some self-experimentation so that you can identify the ratio of plant foods to animal foods that gives you sufficient building blocks to repair and build strong muscle and connective tissues, to help you balance your hormonal system, and run your body in such a way that gives you enough energy to do what makes life worth living.
Vegetarianism is a choice so why not choose something else for a bit? If it doesn’t work as well, you can choose to go back to what works better for you. You have lost nothing, but there is real potential to gain a lot.
I have heard many arguments on plant-based nutrition–how it contains such-and-such minerals and proteins. But can you digest that plant material enough to get as much value as you think you can? Do you have five stomachs like a cow?
Most of your nutritional value is great when studied in a petri dish, but because it’s locked up in the fiber of the plant material, you can’t digest as much of it as you might like. Plant-based material is deficient in four essential amino acids so where do you get them from? You get them from animal products: red meat, fish, eggs, liver, etc. B12, anyone?
