Thoughts on Jordan Peterson

[mfckrz]

You can, it's just that without carbohydrates, your body starts to get its energy from fats and not sugar.

Interestingly, neurons process ketones more efficiently than glucose. Really makes you think (or at least it should).

Just because you can run on all-meat diet, doesn't mean that you should. There's just no reason why should going all-meat be better than other diets with nutrients, vitamins and fiber. The benefit may be that you're cutting out all the bad stuff that you were eating before, but you're throwing out all the good stuff as well.

If non-meat food makes you sick, then that's a self-evident reason to ditch it.

Since humans are natural omnivores, the best diet seems to be an "all-rounder" balanced diet. Mostly fruits and vegetables, fish and poultry, and only some red meat. You are going to be needing vitamins and fibers in order to be healthy, especially in the long term. You are also going to need to be considerate of how your body digests and deals with the food that you ingest. And what kind of food that you need to ingest in order for your body to be working properly over time.

Re: vitamins/minerals, all essential ones are abundant in meat and other animal-derived foods—anyone who believes otherwise hasn't checked the nutritional data of a good steak. I suspect consuming organ meats/etc is prudent also; basically if one could grind up an entire cow (or other ruminant) into a mixable powder, it'd likely net a complete nutritional profile for human health.

What's available in fruits/vegetables isn't very bioavailable to the human body, and there's plenty evidence that vegetables in particular act as antinutrients which could make existing deficiencies even worse.

Hard to say we're "natural omnivores" when many of the metabolic genes for utilizing non-meat foods are relatively new in the human genome—albeit not evenly distributed (e.g. https://www.dietdoctor.com/study-gen...s-dont-have-it). Similar to how adult lactase production is a recent emergence in certain parts of the world:


Obviously these are useful adaptations to have for sparing a population from starvation. But it doesn't mean regular consumption is necessarily optimal to human health.

Heart diseases are caused by fats clogged up in the arteries from too much fat intake, and diabetes are caused by too much sugar intake and the insulin regulator getting messed up over time.

Heart disease wasn't all that common prior to the mass availability of vegetable/seed oils, which appear to facilitate a critical imbalance between n3/n6 fatty acids and lead to the symptoms recognized as heart disease. A major factor in why supplementing with fish oil is helpful.

Likewise diabetes being less common before everything got inundated with sugar. But consuming too many carbs in any form can induce diabetes just as well. Was common to put diabetics on low/no-carb diets in the decades prior to the inception of artificial insulin, and it worked.

[Singu]

If non-meat food makes you sick, then that's a self-evident reason to ditch it.

Re: vitamins/minerals, all essential ones are abundant in meat and other animal-derived foods—anyone who believes otherwise hasn't checked the nutritional data of a good steak. I suspect consuming organ meats/etc is prudent also; basically if one could grind up an entire cow (or other ruminant) into a mixable powder, it'd likely net a complete nutritional profile for human health.

What's available in fruits/vegetables isn't very bioavailable to the human body, and there's plenty evidence that vegetables in particular act as antinutrients which could make existing deficiencies even worse.

Fiber isn't available in animal products, which reduces the risk of diabetes, heart disease and some types of cancer by encouraging healthy microbe environments, reducing cholesterol, aiding the control of blood sugar levels and normalizing bowel movements.

This whole going all-meat just seems like a terrified reactionary movement: it got alarmed by all the new and unhealthy things that we consume, so it decided to overreact and go to the extreme and cut off everything else but the absolute bare minimum. What we should be doing instead is to simply rationally analyze what is good for our bodies and what is not. We don't need to throw the baby out of the bathwater by throwing out everything, including the things that would be good for us.

We don't need to "go back to being like cavemen" in order to be healthy (although it's doubtful that cavemen ate meat all the time: hunting was difficult and it took a lot of energy and planning. Humans are comparatively very weak and aren't very good hunters. We traded brute strength, strong jaw muscles and aggression for bigger brains and inventiveness. Our Neanderthal cousins were much stronger and better hunters). We can enjoy a whole variety of different foods, and not just eat the same kind of things. In fact variety is good, and unbalanced diet isn't good for our bodies.

Heart disease wasn't all that common prior to the mass availability of vegetable/seed oils, which appear to facilitate a critical imbalance between n3/n6 fatty acids and lead to the symptoms recognized as heart disease. A major factor in why supplementing with fish oil is helpful.

Likewise diabetes being less common before everything got inundated with sugar. But consuming too many carbs in any form can induce diabetes just as well. Was common to put diabetics on low/no-carb diets in the decades prior to the inception of artificial insulin, and it worked.

Saturated fats and cholesterol are also contained in animal meats (beef, pork, lamb), whole-milk dairy products (butter, cheese, milk), and poultry skin. While beneficial in small amounts, too much of it isn't good.

You can get healthy omega-3 fats from fish, extra-virgin olive oil, avocado, dark green leaves, nuts, beans, seaweed and tofu.

It may be beneficial in cutting out excessive omega-6 fats, sugar and carbohydrates that are abundant in modern diet. But you're also throwing out all the other things that you can get from non-animal products that are helpful for our bodies. Too much animal meat definitely isn't good, and too much protein can put a burden on kidneys.


So both vegetarianism and all-meat diet are both extremes in another direction. Unbalanced diets aren't good for our bodies.