Ex-Vegan Argues We Should Be Eating Better Meat And More Offal

A former vegan has argued that eating meat - specifically more offal - is good for you, and that people should be more concerned with where their meat comes from, rather than the idea of eating it.

Robb Wolf, a former vegan and ulcerative colitis sufferer, has even written a book on the subject in partnership with nutritionist Diana Rodgers.

In Sacred Cow: The Case for (Better) Meat they argue that we didn't evolve to be vegan, and that our teeth and colons are adapted for eating and digesting meat.

This means that - unlike other animals - if we cut out meat we don't have as rounded a diet. Robb and Diana argue that the average woman would have to eat 510g of chickpeas to get as much iron as she'd get from 80g of pork liver.

That's a hell of a lot of chickpeas to be eating.

Also, offal is cheap and full of nutrients, making it pretty perfect for a healthy diet.

Furthermore, the body is able to absorb more iron from meat than from plants. Rodgers argues: "Animal protein is healthy, and it needs to be consumed."

While Wolf was following a vegan diet around 20 years ago, he suffered from the bowel condition ulcerative colitis.

Speaking to The Telegraph, he explained: "I'm about 175lbs (12st 7lbs), but then I was so bad that I was down to 130lbs (9 st 4lbs) from malabsorption issues. My hair was falling out and my nails were split."

Rodgers has also suffered from digestive illness, in her case coeliac disease. She remedied that by eating gluten free food, but it didn't help.

Basically, they admit that while going vegan is OK for most people, the real leap is to stop eating processed foods.

They said: "By simply cutting out nutrient-poor, ultra-processed foods that stimulate us to overeat, people will naturally lose weight.

"Better than swapping steak for salad would be buying less single-use stuff'"

However, they also present a message about eating better meat that is grown sustainably and in natural circumstances - particularly with regard to pigs and cows.

They point to a 2018 study that says that cows offset their carbon throughout a lifetime with the carbon that they put back into the ground through their leavings

That only works if they're fed properly, and cows produce more carbon dioxide if they're fed - as many cows are - on soybean based food.

The book goes on to argue that while the mass-farmed eat business is certainly an issue for the environment with regards to climate changes, there could be more done to mitigate the effects of other practices such as single-use plastics than on sustainably and well-raised meat products.

"It's not the cow, it's the how," they contend.

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Topics: Science, Food, Food And Drink

Tom Wood

Tom Wood is a LADbible journalist and Twin Peaks enthusiast. Despite having a career in football cut short by a chronic lack of talent, he managed to obtain degrees from both the University of London and Salford. According to his French teacher, at the weekend he mostly likes to play football and go to the park with his brother. Contact Tom on [email protected]

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