Peat's Surprising Response To My Email. A "Ray Peat Vegan" Is Possible

[Daimyo]

post 115554 Here in NZ we have poisoning of the rivers and ground water with e-coli and nitrogenous waste from dairying, and also issues with too much water being taken from the rivers for irrigation - dairy cows eat a lot

Just saying.... If it wasn't the cows, farmers would grow something else to make a profit. It's not as you don't have soil erosion or no water pollution where you don't raise animals.

post 115554 The calves are 'waste product' and are treated as such. Most go to petfood within a few days of birth, causing a distressing scene when they are taken from their mothers. I see them in their cages on the side of the road, awaiting pickup for slaughter and it's quite heartbreaking.

It depends on the goal of certain farmer, but a lot of cows are inseminated by meat producing type of cattle, so offspring (regardless of sex) will have reasonable good genetics and hybrid vigor to gain some weight an be... profitable slaughter later.

 

[Zachs]

Goat milk is much higher quality than cow milk anyway. I know not everyone is fortunate enough to have goat dairy operations close by but if you do, switch. My local source not only is organic and raw but they don't slaughter male babies, they sell them as pets. Yes some probably get bought to get slaughtered by others but it's the best they can do.

As for b12, it's very possible that it will be produced in the gut, other b vitamins as well. You won't know until you drop animal products and monitor b12 levels. Or like Westside said, just supplement, there are plenty of vegan b12 supps, don't know why people are so incredulous about vegans supplementing. As a whole, vegans supplement less than any other diet lifestyle.

 

[PTP]

post 115363 No animals have to die when eating milk and cheese. .

I don't think that's true, I'm not expert on farming, but I believe that the offspring of dairy cows are regularly slaughtered so that the milk goes to the farmers not the calves. I never understood the ethics of vegans avoiding honey, considering how many bees have to die to pollinate crops.

I'm also curious about b12 and zinc, it always seemed to me that an ostra-vegan diet, or one that included all/most shellfish, was more likely to cover all nutritional needs. As for healthy, fit vegans, I have seen them on youtube, Frank Medrano being the most obvious example, but whenever I meet them irl they almost always seem underfed and anaemic. When I meet vegans in better shape, they tend to be the ones that cheat on their diet/principles occasionally. That's my perception, but if Dr Ray thinks it's feasible, I'm sure he has a better understanding than me.

 

[Vinero]

I mean you don't directly contribute to the death of an animal by eating it's milk and cheese. The death of an animal is a direct consequence of eating meat, but not when just drinking it's milk.
The fact that the offspring is treated as a waste product because the cows have to be pregnant is not my fault, but the fault of the industry. I can't be blamed for any cruelty that's done to those animals, eating dairy should be a karma-free food.

 

[Such_Saturation]

post 115580 I can't be blamed for any cruelty that's done to those animals, eating dairy should be a karma-free food.

You are to blame for not trying to changing the industry. Or disestablishing the industry. Buying means approving of a certain product, which contains inside of it all the steps that gave birth to it; otherwise there would be only one brand for each product...

 

[Amazoniac]

Location: Neverland?

 

[Such_Saturation]

Location: at least I know that I'm sinning...

 

[SaraNZ]

post 115565
Just saying.... If it wasn't the cows, farmers would grow something else to make a profit. It's not as you don't have soil erosion or no water pollution where you don't raise animals.

Thanks for your reply Daimyo, I like the soil links at the bottom of your posts. Really interesting.

I can only speak for NZ, so things might be different in other countries. It was part of my job for a few years to sample water across the country and I can tell you without a doubt that dairying is the most polluting thing for the waterways. You can have beef or sheep farming with very little water pollution or excessivewater use. Introducing intensive dairying to NZ, and locating it in one of the driest parts of the country was a very bad move and the govt is having a hard time legislating it to protect the environment because, well, the country needs the money from dairying. It's our primary industry.

It depends on the goal of certain farmer, but a lot of cows are inseminated by meat producing type of cattle, so offspring (regardless of sex) will have reasonable good genetics and hybrid vigor to gain some weight an be... profitable slaughter later.

I have visited a large number of dairy farms and only seen this once, on a small holding 'raw milk' farm where they let the calves stay with the mothers for a few months, then sold them. Mostly, farmers need to dispose of the calves as quickly as possible so that they don't drink too much milk. On 'humane' farms they may let the calves nurse for day. One of my colleagues went to a goat milking farm where they were literally killing the kids as they were born at the rate of 100 a day over the season.

Again, this is my direct experience in one industry, in NZ, and of course, I haven't seen every farm in the country, but I do know the legislation inside out and it's unlikely that farmers are doing things that aren't strictly required and that would cost money. Of course, your experiences/expertise may be more relevant to your country. Are you involved in dairying?

 

[Waremu]

Interesting. I suppose if someone wanted to do a vegan version of the Ray Peat diet and are concerned about getting calcium they could try nettle tea? I think just one cup of infused nettles made into tea has like 400-500mg of calcium. I have heard Ray Peat recommend nettle tea for calcium too. Perhaps one could throw in kale with it too..

 

[Forsythia]

SaraNZ why haven't you mentioned all the animals that die in the production of vegetables?

Nothing can live without something else dying. There is no exception to this universal law.

 

[SaraNZ]

SaraNZ why haven't you mentioned all the animals that die in the production of vegetables?

Nothing can live without something else dying. There is no exception to this universal law.

Because that is not my field of expertise at all (did I somehow give the impression I know about that stuff?). I have no idea how many die and don't have the time right now to dig up any real data, assuming it even exists. I'm a scientist and try only to talk about what I actually know. My post was in response to someone asking about the issues around dairy and why vegans don't drink milk. So, I answered that.

It's an interesting topic though. How many animals die during the production of vegetables, fruit, grains, beans etc? Do you know? If so, can you enlighten me?

 

[Daimyo]

post 115644 Are you involved in dairying?

I do a bit of ag consulting as my side income. Although it's more about soil, that dairy particular, and most of my customers aren't "conventional" farmers...

 

[Daimyo]

post 115566
Goat milk is much higher quality than cow milk anyway.

Why do you think it is?

 

[Daimyo]

post 115681

post 115681
It's an interesting topic though. How many animals die during the production of vegetables, fruit, grains, beans etc? Do you know? If so, can you enlighten me?

It depends how you count and what you count... For example:

If you grow root vegetables, like carrots or potatoes, you pretty much need to plow the soil. I read some estimates, that on average you kill about 50 rodents per hectare per year. It's similar if you grow grains/legumes. If you do no-till, then the plowing isn't killing rodents, so you need to kill then chemically. I am talking about commercial scale and how it is actual done. What people do in their gardens or 0.5 ha plots might be different.

Saying that, in most cases, you need bigger area to grow the fed for livestock than to feed the people directly (soybean, grains, potatoes...). On the other hand if law (for example in certain countries like EU states) would allow to feed pigs or chickens with food scraps, it would be more efficient, than "pure" vegan agriculture.

 

[Lightbringer]

post 115371

post 115366

post 115306 A vegan diet based on fruit, potato, other well cooked roots (parsnip, turnip etc), the many varieties of mushroom (many available in Asian groceries), and the many kinds of green leaves...you'd be so regular thats it would take getting used to. Goitrogens are deactivated by cooking.

Do you eat the mushrooms or drink the water as with greens ?

I'm just getting into mushrooms since Peat's newsletter on them so I'm still a shroom noob. But I've been putting them in soups and eating the mushroom fiber and drinking the veggie broth.

I got this clarified and he feels its important to have both the solid and liquid parts:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8968

 

[Vita3]

post 115363 No animals have to die when eating milk and cheese. .

I don't think that's true, I'm not expert on farming, but I believe that the offspring of dairy cows are regularly slaughtered so that the milk goes to the farmers not the calves. I never understood the ethics of vegans avoiding honey, considering how many bees have to die to pollinate crops.

I'm also curious about b12 and zinc, it always seemed to me that an ostra-vegan diet, or one that included all/most shellfish, was more likely to cover all nutritional needs. As for healthy, fit vegans, I have seen them on youtube, Frank Medrano being the most obvious example, but whenever I meet them irl they almost always seem underfed and anaemic. When I meet vegans in better shape, they tend to be the ones that cheat on their diet/principles occasionally. That's my perception, but if Dr Ray thinks it's feasible, I'm sure he has a better understanding than me.

Mushrooms are rich in zinc and lots other vegan source.

 

[Zachs]

post 115689

post 115566
Goat milk is much higher quality than cow milk anyway.

Why do you think it is?

The majority of commercial milk comes from a breed of cow that produces a protein that causes issues with a lot of people. Goats as well as other lesser used varieties of cow do not. Also composition of goat milk and the size of goats just produce a more similar milk to human milk.

 

[Zachs]

post 115691

post 115681

post 115681
It's an interesting topic though. How many animals die during the production of vegetables, fruit, grains, beans etc? Do you know? If so, can you enlighten me?

It depends how you count and what you count... For example:

If you grow root vegetables, like carrots or potatoes, you pretty much need to plow the soil. I read some estimates, that on average you kill about 50 rodents per hectare per year. It's similar if you grow grains/legumes. If you do no-till, then the plowing isn't killing rodents, so you need to kill then chemically. I am talking about commercial scale and how it is actual done. What people do in their gardens or 0.5 ha plots might be different.

Saying that, in most cases, you need bigger area to grow the fed for livestock than to feed the people directly (soybean, grains, potatoes...). On the other hand if law (for example in certain countries like EU states) would allow to feed pigs or chickens with food scraps, it would be more efficient, than "pure" vegan agriculture.

Putting aside the fact that their are 100,000,000,000 animals on this planet that are grown for human consumption, and that not eating animals would free up a massive amount of resources, mainly water and land. Those animals are also fed the majority of plants grown on this planet. So eliminating those animals and feeding the world in plants only would actually vastly reduce the amount of animals killed due to agriculture.

And then if we got rid of commercial agriculture and started feeding the world from an organic permaculture design, there would be little direct animal deaths at all.

 

[XPlus]

Besides the arguments presented by mt_dreams, to discuss the ethics of eating animals is to discuss the ethics of life.
There's no doubt that intensive modern agriculture practices are degenerate but turning vegan doesn't simply move us down the food chain.
The vegan presentation often seems to depict life itself as a sin and sometimes can be another form of extremism.

Why don't we simply accept who we are. From there, we could definitely figure out ways to become better.
If most people were aware of Peat, there will be a lot less need for eating meat - and urbanisation in general.
People will start reconnecting with nature again, focusing on growing and finding their food rather than spending their lives locked in office and apartment cells, being somebody else's slaves, figuring out ways to rob other people of their resources and requiring lots of cheap subsidized food all year round.

The fact - for example - that someone chooses to be vegan and then goes the grocery store to buy something that took the energy of 100's of poor slaves who's got their resources stolen by some corporation that also destroyed the natural habitat of a million animal in their homeland, is itself contradictory.
I've vegetarian friends who keep pets. Some feed them meat and some believe their fat Garfield is happy on vegan cat food.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Yes... Peating

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