I don´t eat children either, and I think I wouldn´t benefit as an endurance athlete from doin it. And I don´t drive an electric car. Because of child work I still drive a diesel
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I’m also not going to pretend that there are no human welfare issues for those workers employed in non-meat agriculture. There will always be people being exploited by other people. However, even if you ignore all welfare-related arguments, the environmental impact of meat production remains.
This is the internet at it’s finest right here.
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I’m two weeks into a pescatarian diet (first time ever I am cutting out all forms of meat)…not total vegan for many reasons but I ‘feel much better’ mentally and physically both on and off the bike.
I’ll be interested to see how this change impacts my training, racing, and new-to-parenthood lifestyle.
Very thoughtful post. (Fellow scientist here, by the way.) Yes, I deliberately tried to keep a discussion about genetic components out of it, surely that’s another complication. Otherwise, we could just mimic diets of populations who live very long and be done with it.
Vegan or not, I feel for you, finding scientifically sound advice on nutrition is mind bogglingly hard. Since you have clearly invested some time into this, can you recommend certain sources for good nutritional advice? Vegan, non-vegan, doesn’t matter. Like you wrote, there is a tendency to promote specific diets, and while I am not an expert in the subject matter, my scientifically trained spidey senses are triggered by what I am reading or seeing.
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I don’t have a particular go-to source for nutritional advice. I have to admit, most of the time I just go with what seems sensible / plausible as I don’t have the time to really look into things. However, it there’s a particular issue or comment that I’d like to get to the bottom of then it’s good old PubMed or Google Scholar to try and find some decent peer-reviewed papers on the subject in trustworthy journals. Even then, it’s not often straightforward to find answers and the majority of studies are flawed in some way (due to the nature of trying to design a controlled study with human participants). Environmental impact studies are a bit easier to find, but even then you need to look at various different studies to get a complete picture, and then you’re into the realms of extrapolating results from different experimental designs.
When it comes to diet, I think that often a healthy scepticism of claims is more important than actually knowing the answers for sure. Combined with self-experimentation and guided by your own moral/ethical/practical compass, you can then hopefully find something that works for you.
I don’t think that everyone should become vegan, or even vegetarian. I do think that there are huge numbers of people that should eat less meat. I do think that meat consumption at the level it’s at now is unsustainable. I do think that veganism (currently) works for me and that (for me) there are more advantages than disadvantages.
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Excellent post. 
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One. Problem. At a time.
Every single time. In every debate. There’s always someone who brings up the funny point about
oh so and so is trying to be better by doing x to try to change y. But they still do z that does w that’s not good. So what’s the point?
Always makes me laugh. What’s great about this is you can always use this in a debate against anyone.
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Asker Jeukendrup posted this response to this movie today. I think all of his points have been covered here, but his response is well written and has points to consider when looking at this type of movie.
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I’d say that’s a pretty balanced critique. It certainly fits in with my feelings about the film. That’s not to say that I believe the film is without its merits, but it is very much plant-based propaganda material.
Despite its (many) flaws, it played a role in my recent choice to try veganism, if only because it sparked curiosity about how well I could perform on a vegan diet and caused me to look further into and/or think more about possible health benefits. This led on to me thinking more about the environmental and ethical issues, and to reassess my feelings about being a consumer of animal products. As such, I would recommend that people watch it, but that they take any claims with a very large pinch of salt.
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Ever wondered why James Cameron (Titanic, Terminator, Avatar, etc.) made Game Changers, a movie to get you to go “plant based”?
He is the CEO of Verdiant Foods, an organic pea protein company with the goal of becoming “the largest pea protein fractionation facility in North America.”
He invested $140 million.
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Excellent snooping.
Wonder what the other exec producers have to gain by churning out the worlds most expensive advert? 
Wow, this little movie must have been really confronting for a lot of people by their reactions. They’re coming from everywhere to rip it to shreds. Who would of thought a very rich guy invested enough to make a movie about plant based eating would have invested in a plant based business.
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The general consensus seems to be that this is a movie lacking science and fact, but packed with information to stir peoples emotions. I wonder if Michael Moore was involved, seems right up his alley
nope
I was being facetious simply because MM’s films walk the same line of being emotional rather than factual, portraying things in a certain way to fit their agenda. Lots of movies and documentaries do this and it’s dishonest, hell I’m a heavy MJ user and I’ve watched plenty of documentaries about it some of which made me scratch my head. Just because a film tries to validate or normalize my lifestyle or choices doesn’t mean I have to blindly agree with it like a sheep if it’s clearly flawed
maybe take the time to watch the review I posted above
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I wouldn’t class Rogan as the empirical ground truth, though I think is quest to quiz people a lot is great.
Listen to Marc Bubbs, he’s absolutely mint on all things training and nutrition.
Might be true but I’d rather him sell a few peas than battery up some chickens hehe
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