You Will Suffer - If You Carelessly Make This Eating Mistake

April 16, 2011 | 69,903 views | + Add to Favorites

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Total Video Length: 01:11:00
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In this video, Dr. Gabriel Cousens and I discuss the merits and flaws of a wholly vegetarian or vegan diet.

 

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Overall, Dr. Cousens and I are mostly in agreement when it comes to what constitutes health, and our teachings are quite similar on many health topics.
This discussion came about after Dr. Cousens wrote a long letter in response to my publishing a couple of rebuttals of the China Study. He wasn't the only one with objections, of course. There were many in the vegan community who commented on those articles. However, I was impressed with Dr. Cousen's clear intention of getting to the truth, so I agreed to this discussion.
I hope you will take the time to listen to it in its entirety, or read through the transcript.
To summarize my objections to the China Study: I'm not opposed to vegetarianism; I'm opposed to any position that preaches one specific diet for everyone, and that's the foundation of the China Study. It claims no one should eat animal protein.
I actually do NOT claim the converse—that everyone should eat meat. I believe your diet must be individualized. Some can thrive on very little animal protein, but when you remove ALL animal proteins, you can easily run into trouble. You have to be very vigilant and keep close tabs on your health when you make a decision to exclude all sources of animal protein from your diet.

What Makes a Diet "Ideal"?

I've adopted and have been teaching people about nutritional typing for well over a decade now. The underlying guiding principle of nutritional typing is to teach you to listen to your body. Quite simply, your body will give you the feedback you need to select the foods, the fuel, that will help you thrive and optimize your health. And this optimal fuel varies from person to person.
In many ways, nutritional typing is similar to ancient traditions like Indian Ayurvedic medicine where they have different doshas. In nutritional typing, there are also three different types:

1. Protein types, who require large amounts of protein and fat, and relatively smaller amounts of carbs
2. Carbohydrate/Veggie types, who require high amounts of healthful carbs, and lower amounts of protein and fats
3. Mixed types, who fall somewhere in the middle

Nutritional typing is a process; it's not a one-time test that offers up a magic designation. Rather it's a process based on listening to your body for feedback.
Dr. Cousens agrees with the benefits of this system. He too was discouraged when, in the early 1980's, he realized that about 40 percent of people were not getting good health results on a vegan diet.

"Then I got into studying with Dr. Crystal and William Walcott," he says, "who really got into metabolic typing and it was like "Bingo!" I got it. So then I could see what the problem was. Traditionally, vegans are eating high complex carbohydrates, low fat, and medium protein, which only works for 40 percent of the people.
The minute I made that breakthrough, it all opened up… [E]ating according to your constitution, which pretty much is a genetic thing, is absolutely key for being close to 99 percent successful on a plant-source only diet. It's critical. I completely agree. Actually, that was the breakthrough that made me say I can make this work for everybody."

However, this is where our recommendations diverge. Whereas I believe some organic animal products are more or less an essential for some people, particularly strong protein types, Dr. Cousens is convinced you can still avoid an animal-based diet even if your ideal fuel is protein.

Can a Protein Type Thrive on a Meat-Free Diet?

First, it's important to realize the dangers of consuming too many carbs—grain carbohydrates should not be used to fill the gap should you decide to abstain from meat. Dr. Cousens and I fully agree on this point. A low carbohydrate diet is essential to prevent obesity and diabetes and to promote longevity.
When we talk about carbohydrate types needing high amounts of carbs, we're talking about low glycemic carbs primarily from vegetables.

"I'm finding people in general (and this is more from my work with diabetes) need 40-45 percent of high, long chain omega-3 type fats, like avocados, purslane, nuts and seeds that are omega-3," Dr. Cousens says.
"The protein is pretty simple. Paavo Airola is one of my mentors for seven years. In his book, Are You Confused?, he cites 10 studies where people did well on 20 grams of protein. I'm going to have to say that seems a little low… I think most people need closer to 45 grams a day, which is still pretty easy.
You want to go to spirulina. You got your nuts and seeds, which are 20-30 percent protein, and chlorella (blue green algae). You have sources that really do the job. If you do a tablespoon of spirulina, you're getting 4.5 grams of a highly assimilated protein.
… Spirulina and chlorella are 40 percent assimilated. Red meat, fish, chicken are somewhere between 15 and 18 percent assimilated. Really, you're getting a lot of protein from these highly concentrated foods. Egg, which is a very good protein, is 44 percent assimilated—that's the best.
I find that when I put people on that—whether I'm putting in one tablespoon three times a day with their meal, or two tablespoons of spirulina or chlorella, we solve the problem… Also, bee pollen is 20 percent highly assimilated protein and 15 percent of your high quality fats that are good for brain building.
That's kind of how I do it. Clinically, in 38 years, I have not really had a problem using that kind of focus."

Guidelines for Using Chlorella and Spirulina

Keep in mind that some people have trouble tolerating algae-based supplements like spirulina and chlorella, simply because they are potent superfoods that also greatly assist with detoxification of heavy metals. Depending on your current toxic load, you may experience some discomfort at first.
Dr. Cousens typically start people out on one tablespoon of spirulina or chlorella three times a day to evaluate how they fare. Some prefer one over the other taste-wise, or one may make you feel better than the other. So you may have to experiment to find what works best for you.
According to Dr. Cousens, chlorella has more of the purine proteins than spirulina.
Keep in mind however that chlorella is also very high in iron, even though that's not stated on the label, so you need to be careful to not go into iron overload. Adult men and post menopausal women do not do well with high amounts of iron and will typically benefit from removing some iron from their system on a regular basis. Dr. Cousens regularly checks iron levels in his patients and claims that although very high in iron, high amounts of chlorella does not appear to adversely affect ferritin levels.

The Importance of Animal-Based Protein for Proper Muscle Building

Still, I believe plant-based protein only may be insufficient for people who exercise regularly.
Strength training and other forms of exercise like Sprint 8 and vibrational exercise using a Power Plate are very important to combat osteoporosis, osteopenia (weak bones), and sarcopenia, which is a loss of muscle as you age. In my understanding, you can provide the stimulus and do the proper strength training exercises, but unless you provide the proper fuel (protein) at a crucial threshold, which is usually within an hour after exercise, you're not going to be able to build muscle.
It's important to remember that weight alone is a relatively poor indicator of optimal health. More critical measurements are your percentage of body fat and percentage of lean muscle, so muscle-building is an important aspect of optimal health.
According to Dr. Cousens, it again comes down to constitution. Some may still be able to maintain peak performance without high amounts of protein. Those who DO need more may still be able to get sufficient amounts using chlorella and spirulina.

"If you had two heaping tablespoons of spirulina and chlorella per meal, you are probably getting up to 30 grams right there. Nuts and seeds are going to give the other 15 grams. So you're pretty easily able to go to 45 grams," he says.

I'm not convinced though, because it's not just about the total grams of protein. It's also about the mixture of amino acids in the protein. For example, Ori Hofmekler, who is an expert on the science of nutrition for muscle building, has found clear evidence of the importance of leucine to trigger muscle growth. Based on nitrogen-balance measurements, the requirement for leucine to maintain body protein is 1-3 grams daily. And to optimize its anabolic pathway, it has been estimated that leucine requirement should be about 8g - 16g daily.
The foods that contain the highest amounts of this amino acid are primarily animal-based foods:

Leucine Content in food / per 100g

Whey Protein Concentrate	8.0g
Raw Cheddar Cheese	3.6g
Lean Beef	1.7g
Salmon	1.6g
Almonds	1.5g
Chicken	1.4g
Chick Peas	1.4g
Raw Eggs	1.0g
Egg Yolk	1.4g
Sheep Milk	0.6g
Pork	0.4g
Cow Milk	0.3g

So, I'm not convinced that chlorella and spirulina are ideal as a primary source of protein, particularly if you're concerned with maintaining muscle.
You could use eggs, of course, which Dr. Cousens agrees is a phenomenally complete food and is relatively amenable to most vegetarians since it does not involve killing an animal. I personally have a minimum of two eggs a day; more typically four. The key to consuming them is eating them raw, which is another guiding principle for healthy eating.
Living raw foods contain the biophoton light energy your body needs. Every living organism emits biophotons. It is thought that the higher the level of light energy a cell emits, the greater its vitality and the potential for the transfer of that energy to the individual who consumes it. The more light a food is able to store, the more nutritious it is. Naturally grown fresh raw vegetables, for example, and sun-ripened fresh fruits, are rich in light energy. The capacity to store biophotons is therefore a measure of the quality of your food.
The greater your store of light energy from healthy raw foods (this should not be confused with your vitamin D status, which is produced by the sun on your skin), the greater the power of your overall electromagnetic field, and consequently the more energy is available for healing and maintenance of optimal health.

Carnosine and Muscle Growth

Dr. Cousens believes that many if not most vegans run into problems with building appropriate amounts of muscle. His research leads him to believe that this can be compensated for by most vegans using sufficient amounts of a supplemental source of carnosine.
Just what is carnosine?
It is actually a dipeptide composed of two amino acids, beta-alanine and histadine. It serves a very important role in buffering acids in the muscle and also serves as a potent antioxidant and also useful for improving anaerobic high intensity exercise performance.
I was intrigued with this concept when it was introduced so I decided to invest a few hours and scour the medical literature for evidence in support of it and unfortunately was unable to provide enough evidence to recommend it.
What I did learn is that carnosine itself is not very useful as a supplement as there are enzymes that rapidly break it down to its constituent amino acids, which your body then reformulates back to carnosine in your muscle. Since beta-alanine appears to be the rate limiting amino acid in the formation of carnosine, most studies find that if one wants to increase athletic performance with carnosine it is best to use beta-alanine.
But that brings the question on whether or not supplementation should be used at all. So I asked some world class athletes that I know about this and none of them recommended using it, despite the fact that one was actually a vegan.
My final impression is that there are a number of useful dietary dipeptides like carnosine, but it is likely best to get them from foods rather than seeking to outsmart nature and using either carnosine or its primary precursor beta-alanine. There may be some elite athletes who this is appropriate for but for the average person reading this it would seem that food sources are your best choice.

Beware of Nutritional Deficiencies

Ultimately, you have to make your own choices. Many people choose a vegan lifestyle not for health reasons but for animal rights reasons and even spiritual reasons. I don't dispute that these are valid. However, if you choose the vegan path, you have to be very careful and diligent in finding suitable replacements because there are health consequences to abstaining fully from all types of animal protein.
If you choose to forge blindly ahead, you're going to suffer.
The vegan path requires extra effort, and you have to somehow safeguard against the side effects from potential nutritional deficiencies that can develop when you exclude animal protein from your diet.
Dr. Cousens agrees.
That's not to say that meat eaters are insulated from nutritional deficiencies!
Clearly, you have to take into account your overall diet. The average American diet is atrocious; full of processed foods and sugars. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight and out of shape. So we're certainly not comparing the standard American diet (SAD) to vegetarianism. Rather we're discussing the ideal, personalized diet consisting of the proper ratios of protein, fats and carbs, to a diet devoid of all animal protein…
One issue of particular concern is the purine types of proteins, which plants do not contain in high amounts. However, Dr. Cousens asserts you can get these proteins from bee pollen, yeast, and beans.

Final Thoughts

Dr. Cousens finishes with the following advice:

"First, Dr. Mercola and I both agree, everyone is a unique individual. There is no one diet for every person. It's your personal evolutionary responsibility to figure out what's your best diet constitutionally. So your diet should be that.
… It should be organic. We know the average kid today is born with 200 toxins in its system, 180 carcinogens, 217 neurotoxins. Go organic and you're going to have one quarter to one-sixth of that in your system. You're going to get much better brain development and so forth.
If, during your pregnancy, you have just one serving of fish a month, your child will have a low Apgar score (neurological scores) and low SATs. That's how toxic it has become.
High mineral: I'm obviously going to say plant based for the total picture of it but particularly if you have spiritual interests… It should be low glycemic… minimal to no grains. High carbohydrate foods should be from greens…
Your water has to be good quality. I believe we both agree that you don't want anything plastic. Forty percent of bottled water is tap water anyway. So… well hydrated, low glycemic, high mineral, organic, fresh, local, and most important, individualized diet according to who you are as a person.
If you have spiritual interest you're going to naturally go for a slightly different diet than if you're more physically oriented. That just makes common sense.
That would be my view of how people should think about it. Treat themselves as unique. There is no one diet for everybody. That's a classic and tragic mistake."

For optimal health, I would add to that the element of regular exercise, including strength training for muscle building, and Sprint 8 type exercises to promote weight loss, muscle building and human growth hormone production—all of which promote health and longevity.
Remember, your body speaks to you. The challenge is to develop the sensitivity to become aware of what those signals are so that you can change and modify your behavior and optimize your health so that you don't have any diseases or symptoms.
If you have a health problem, it's usually a clue that some behavior or nutrient choice is not working for you.
As for whether or not you should go completely vegan, it's up to you. Just make conscious, well-thought-out decisions, and pay close attention to what's happening. If you find you're getting worse or developing an ailment you didn't have before, you need to be flexible enough to evaluate and address your nutritional deficiencies, or else you will suffer.
In other words, if you're choosing a completely plant based diet and you're having problems, then you may want to consider some animal protein. Likewise, if you're having large amounts of animal protein and you're having problems, then you want to consider going the other way and seeing what happens.
Most likely, there are people in both camps who can notice significant improvement simply because they're shifting toward a diet more appropriate for their constitution.