Commentary
The Paris Olympics were not without their controversies, on and off the field. The bizarre opening ceremony drew the most headlines and even a rebuke from the Pope. Then there were the boxers who appeared to have XY chromosomes but competed as women. Both won gold, in the teeth of uproar over the fairness or otherwise of biological men fighting women.
Having to bring in extra meat and eggs was an embarrassment for the organizers, of course, but it was just as disappointing for advocates of plant-based diets more generally, who were hoping for a stunning vindication of their own dietary choices. The first plant-based Olympics: See, you really can break world records without eating meat, eggs, or dairy!
Paris was intended to be the definitive test of a claim that’s made regularly now on behalf of plant-based diets, including in the 2018 documentary “The Game Changers,” which surprisingly was co-produced by a famous bodybuilder, a man who built his legendary physique with precisely the kind of foods we’re now being told we must abandon—superhuman quantities of steak, chicken, eggs, raw milk, and cream.
The Olympic athletes, by voting with their plates, reminded us of what we already know—or should know: A vegetarian, and especially a vegan diet, is maladaptive. Plant foods are not the foods we should be reaching for when we want to perform at the highest level. In fact, a diet built solely on plant foods will not make us healthy even in our day-to-day lives. Far from it.
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This was also the unmistakeable conclusion of the pioneering dentist Weston A. Price, in his book “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” (1939). I’m not alone in considering this the greatest book on nutrition ever written, although you may never have heard of it. At his practice in Cleveland, Ohio, at the turn of the 20th century, Weston Price began to notice a strange thing. More and more of his patients, especially the children, were displaying signs of profound physical degeneration. Their mouths were full of cavities, but not only that: their teeth were crowded, their jaws weren’t forming properly, and neither were their cheeks or noses. It was like their faces were collapsing, like the very structure that supports the face was being removed. The results were disastrous visually, of course, but they also had serious effects on the patients’ health. Children with narrow cheeks and nasal passages can’t breathe properly, and many of the children Price saw were also suffering from behavioral problems that until that point had been almost completely unknown.
Price, being a wise man, knew that diet was to blame. This was the age when more and more Americans were moving away from what we might call their “traditional” diets, built from whole foods locally produced, to factory-made foodstuffs produced from refined wheat and with added sugar and other novel ingredients like vegetable and seed oils: the very first processed foods. Price wanted to test his theory scientifically, though, which meant he needed a control group or groups for comparison. Would people who were not eating such diets show the same signs of physical degeneration as his patients?
Eventually, after some years, Price got the chance to find his control groups. He and his wife traveled the length and breadth of the globe, visiting small-scale societies in North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and the South Pacific. Wherever the Prices encountered peoples who still ate the foods their ancestors ate, and in particular nutrient-dense animal foods like organ meat, fatty cuts of meat, blood, shellfish, eggs, dairy, and butter and other fat products, the Prices found “physically perfect people.” Such people were beautifully well developed, physically robust, and disease-resistant—and happy too. By contrast, wherever the Prices found peoples who had deviated from their ancestral diets and adopted the “displacing foods of our modern civilization,” they also found the same ugly conditions that blighted the lives of the people back home in Ohio.
Above all, Price provided a warning about the cost of abandoning the patterns of life, especially diet, set down and followed by our ancestors for the longest part of our long history as modern humans.
If we want to keep eating the foods that sustained our ancestors in perfect health, we should milk the Paris athletes’ revolt for all it’s worth. The greatest physical specimens in the world refuse to eat anything but animal foods when it really counts. They, at least, still know what our ancestors took for granted.
It is evident that ordinary consumers are not willing to give up animal products and are reluctant to purchase plant-based meat and other alternative foods. A 2021 survey showed that over 70 percent of Australian men would choose to lose 10 years of their lives rather than give up meat.
Manufacturers of plant-based alternatives have shifted their marketing strategies to focus on social pressure and shame, as taste and health claims have not resonated with consumers. Despite this, billions of dollars are being invested in startups offering alternative proteins, such as “cell-cultured salmon” and “precision fermentation,” as well as major food companies rebranding themselves as protein providers.
The appeal of these new products to corporate food producers lies in ownership and control. Lab-grown meat can be patented, unlike traditional food items like steak. As the food industry evolves, there is a growing emphasis on corporate control over the food supply.
In response to these changes, there is a need for a political movement to protect traditional food sources. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently banned lab-grown meat in the state, citing the need to protect the agricultural industry from ideological agendas. Other states are considering similar measures to safeguard traditional food production.
Despite concerns about government intervention in the market, it may be necessary to preserve the foods essential for human development. Government action is crucial in preventing the dominance of plant-based foods and safeguarding public health.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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