The Great Plant-Based Con: Why eating a plants-only diet won't improve your health or save the planet

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While vegans can have a healthy diet without dairy, he says they have to work harder to get vitamins such as B12 from synthetic sources. He flags up one worrying demographic, adolescent women, whom studies show to have very low intakes of calcium, magnesium iodine and iron, consistent with following a vegan diet. “One of the big issues in that period of life is bone development.” I have a degree in chemistry. I have also engaged in survey research for a working lifetime. So I can distinguish good research from bad. And I know very well how research, especially survey-based research, can be manipulated to produce the answers that suit the argument. Jayne Buxton has made the effort to investigate and, in this book, to demolish the case for “plant-based” diets – based, as it is, on weak, misrepresented or often non-existent evidence. Here are some of the key points: Challenges the 'plant-biased' narrative. Buxton alerts the readers that plant-based is not based on science.

The Great Plant-Based Con by Laurel Lefkow | Hachette UK The Great Plant-Based Con by Laurel Lefkow | Hachette UK

Red meat gets lumped in with processed meat, which some studies have proved to be harmful. However, recent studies in the Annals of Internal Medicine [2019], which conducted a meta analysis of the full body of research, concluded that there was insufficient evidence to recommend reduced consumption of red or processed meat,” says Buxton.

In recent years more exposure has been given to the meat and dairy industries to how harmful they are to the environment, including increasing carbon emissions. But a diet comprised solely of plant-based foods - in particular, processed meat-free alternatives - is not the way forward, claims Jayne Buxton. Lost of people will disagree with this as they are caught in the old paradigm of 'fat is bad' and 'cholesterol is bad' and 'carbs are good'. All wrong!

The Great Plant-Based Con by Jayne Buxton | Hachette UK

Unlike some reviewers, I have never been a food faddist or a vegetarian or a vegan. I always thought 'how silly'. But at the same time I thought 'fat is bad' and 'cholesterol is bad' and 'carbs are good' – for no better reason than we're always being told to eat '5 a day'. I simply assumed that these were established scientific facts. I also swallowed apparently sound claims that farming for meat had to be curtailed to stop global warming.I do need to be presented with consistent arguments though, and the author fails to give them. One minute, almonds and avos are the good guys, the next minute, they are the bad guys. Can't have it both ways. Professor Ian Givens, director of the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health at the University of Reading, says cow’s milk is nutrient dense and an easy source of vital vitamins. A study published in 2021 by his colleagues, which analysed the nutritional value of milk substitutes, showed plant-based milks to have a much lower protein content. Legume substitutions such as soya had the highest protein content of the lot but, says Givens, “it was still significantly lower than cow’s milk, which is not a big issue for adults but is one for young children”. The team examined more than 200 plant-based milk alternative products, comparing the nutritional profile of various substitutes, like almond, oat, and soy milk, amongst each other and with cow’s milk. I don't need to be convinced about LCHF (I not longer carry around 40kg of fat or have T2 diabetes, because of this,) a diet I've followed for over a decade, or about the lunacy of 'healthy' veganism. Praise for The Great Plant-Based Con: Why eating a plants-only diet won't improve your health or save the planet

The Great Plant-Based Con: Why Eating a Plants-Only Die…

Buxton searched for the answers to these questions: is a plant-based diet better for your health? Will it save the planet? Who is pushing the plant-based diet and why? And how should we eat? However, he and Buxton agree that pasture-fed dairy can not only minimise carbon emissions but they can sequester carbon. “That’s really the holy grail that we should be looking for in the future,” says Buxton. I remember reading Lierre Keith's (20 year vegan) book and although it was quite emotional, she asked some very good questions that will get you thinking. My very old review is here: https://readandsurvive.com/2019/01/13...For Buxton, it’s a sign that as a society we’re rethinking how a healthy diet might be one that is balanced, fresh and unprocessed. “Eventually, I really firmly believe that if we pursue the regenerative path, we will eventually see fully sustainable, healthful meat available for reasonable prices.” Is a plant-based diet actually healthier? Medicine and nutrition are making a turn for the better, and this book is a fantastic starting point. In part two Buxton considers, inter alia, “the truth about carbon dioxide, methane, and all those cow burps;” draws soil-related biochemical and biological concepts into a comprehensive and comprehensible narrative explaining the benefits of regenerative agriculture and nutrient-rich animal-sourced food; and shows how these strands can be sustainably incorporated into a planet-friendly strategy. The Devenish Lands, Dowth, Co Meath is cited as an example, with “peer-reviewed studies… [showing]… that Dowth currently sequesters 665 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year”.

The Great Plant-Based Con by Jayne Buxton | Waterstones The Great Plant-Based Con by Jayne Buxton | Waterstones

Bekieboyd explained: "Why do we call cows milk ‘ordinary milk’? Why did we choose a cow out of all animals to give hormones to make them produce milk for us all the time to drink. It’s not natural. It’s weird. No wonder people are embarrassed to ask for it." It used to be a simple choice between gold and silver top: today, a shopping catalogue wouldn’t go amiss when deciding what milk to buy.

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Plant-based milks require fortification with calcium and other vitamins; breastfeeding vegan mothers are encouraged by the Vegan Society to take supplements of B12, iodine, vitamin D and omega-3, and to increase their intake (requirements are 80 per cent higher than for other adults) by eating calcium-fortified foods and calcium-set tofu. When we approached the Vegan Society for comment, a spokesperson said: “From a health point of view, a well-planned vegan diet can support healthy living in people of all ages, including during pregnancy and breastfeeding.” Title: The Great Plant-Based Con: Why eating a plants-only diet won’t improve your health or save the planet.