[SBS Special] A silent war on the table, meat vs vegetarian! ①
Which diet is more beneficial to us, meat or vegetarian?
The SBS special aired on the 27th highlighted the fierce debate between carnivorous carnivores and vegetarian vegans with the subtitle 'Silent War on the Table, Meat VS Vegetarian!'.
Hee-jeong Lee, a high school public health teacher, has a special interest in health. He is a carnivorous carnivore. Meat is a side dish and rice, and it does not consume any nutrients obtained from rice or plants.
The fat part of the meat is preferred, and the oil left over from grilling the meat is filtered through a cotton cloth and used as natural cooking oil. And since I ate meat instead of rice, two meals a day were enough.
So, why did he choose to eat meat? He said, "I went out of nursing school and continued a healthy diet, but my health started to get worse." He said, "I was in my 40s and suffered from various inflammatory diseases, and then I accidentally found out about the Carnivore diet," he said. He also said that the more vegetables and red pepper powder he ate, the more frequent he had stomach pain, and the pain disappeared after changing his diet.
Sean, who follows the carnivore diet, said he cut out carbs and vegetables and made up 95% of his diet with meat, losing weight, gaining muscle, and returning to the weight he had 10 years ago. And he broke three world records within six months of starting the carnivore diet, especially breaking his own record ten years ago. Jim Colewell, who lost 82 kilos after starting meat eating, is also a carnivore dieter.
Carnivore experts argue that for optimal health you should eat a meat-based diet rather than vegetables and grains, in particular, they recommend eating fresh, unprocessed meat and even animal offal.
If you do not eat the intestines, various nutritional deficiencies can occur, and you can enjoy the complete nutritional benefits of animals by eating the intestines.
In response, Heejeong also enjoyed eating intestines such as cattle bones, bovine backbones, and spleens to fill in the nutrients that were lacking.
And Carnivore expert said, "80% of plants are toxic or cause problems quickly. There are only a few plants we can eat, but even these contain protective chemicals. And this interferes with the biological function of the animals that eat them. "He argued that a factor called lectin attacks the epithelial cells of the intestine and is a major cause of intestinal inflammation and leaky gut, and is a route of infection in human autoimmunity.
However, vegan expert Colin Campbell, professor emeritus of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University, said, "I do not believe the claims about lactin are correct. They are overestimated."
Carnivores who have been on the carnivore diet for as little as six months to as long as two years said that the reason for choosing meat was because they had a hard time with vegetables.
He preferred and liked the vegetarian diet more than anyone else, but the vegetarian diet caused pain or intestinal problems, which changed after the meat diet.
But Professor Neil Bernard of George Washington University said a meat-eating diet is not a healthy way and goes against normal life processes. Carnivore expert Paul Saladino said his claims were unfounded and foolish. "Animal meat and offal are incredibly nutritious for humans. A diet consisting of meat and offal is the optimal diet for humans." . But another vegetarian expert said his claims were "like the theory of flat earth in nutrition. The madness that has spread online is the exact opposite of all the science of human nutrition we know."
The two sides are clamoring for nutrients, so which of the vegetables or meat has more nutrients that our body needs? Vegetables contain all kinds of vitamins, including zinc and magnesium. However, only vitamin B12 was absent. This vitamin 12 has been shown to be a nutrient needed for nerve cell synthesis, red blood cell production and boosting immunity.
An exercise medicine expert asked, "People who are pure vegans who eat only vegetables without supplements will become seriously ill due to a lack of B12. Would a diet that requires supplements to sustain life be nutritionally ideal?"
So, what nutrients are in meat? Meat contained as much nutrients as vegetables. The only thing lacking was vitamin C. However, meat eaters argued that meat was superior in terms of quality of nutrients because adding liver to meat also filled it with vitamin C.
Nutrition consultant Judy Jo said she was a vegetarian until four years ago, but now she mainly recommends the carnivore diet to her customers. Judy explained, "While I was vegetarian, I felt extremely hungry every night. As I craved for other foods, I started to binge eat." And he said that after the carnivore diet, the habit of binge eating disappeared. He also argued that animal protein and fat are essential fuels for the body, and a lack of those fuels causes problems.
What changed after eating meat was the same for his parents. His mother said that after the carnivore diet, she stopped taking diabetes medication for over 10 years and lost 30 kilos. Judy insisted, "It's just a prejudice that meat is harmful, it's not the truth."
However, vegans began to appear, who expressed their antipathy to the meat-eating culture. They argued that being vegan was effective to combat animal cruelty and the climate crisis. And it is estimated that there are about 54 million vegans in the world who share this opinion.
After living as a trainer for about 10 years, Kim Hyun-ji said that after giving birth, she focused on a sustainable diet and started a vegan diet. The local said that he started eating vegetables of various birds in various recipes, and as a result, immunity improved and breast milk was abundant.
A diet in which a variety of foods harmonize to perfection, that is the charm of veganism and the strength that meat does not have The opinion of Ms. Ji-ho was also agreed upon. He said, "The number of dishes that can be prepared now is much greater and the table is much richer than when I had a meat or regular meal." He said, "It is not a table lacking in vegetarianism, but much richer. It's a table," he said.
Vegetarian expert Professor Neil Bernard emphasized that the fiber in vegetables lowers cholesterol levels, regulates blood sugar, and provides nutrients to nourish the good bacteria in the gut. He added that meat eaters would not be able to get out of the bathroom because they would not get fiber.
But the meat eaters argued differently. They countered the function of fiber emphasized by vegetarians, saying, "There are a lot of people who get better by reducing their fiber intake when they have gas, constipation, or gastrointestinal problems."
Lee Do-kyung was a bodybuilder who took on the challenge of building muscle with only mixed grain rice and vegetarian food. "Because plant sources contain protein, protein deficiency can never happen if you combine them in the right way. I chose a vegan diet to get protein in the healthiest way for my body," he said.
Can vegetables and grains surpass chicken breast? Lee Do-kyung, who unfortunately did not win the bodybuilding competition. The production team asked him if he thought it was because of veganism that he didn't get good grades. Then, Lee Do-kyung said, "It's not like that at all. It's true that animal protein is bad for the body, so even if I didn't win the prize, I plan to keep it for health."
All-American bodybuilder champion Derek, his source of strength was vegetables and grains. In fact, he started a vegan diet 14 years ago and has won several competitions shortly after starting the diet, overcoming everyone's concerns. His results were an opportunity to break the prejudice against vegans. He explained that the vegan diet increased his muscle mass by 9 kilograms, which he explained was the result of increasing plant-based foods rather than animal-derived foods.
It was his wife, Marcella, who recommended him to be vegan. He had been vegan for 20 years before Derek. When I first started on a vegan diet, I ate anything except animal foods, but I started studying to live a healthy life. It is important to eat a variety of vegetables, but I found that I had to eat a sufficient amount of grains at every meal and supplement the nutrients I was lacking. .
In addition, he emphasized that if you change your diet from a regular diet to a vegetarian diet, the amount of calories in food will decrease rapidly, so you have to eat much more to get the same amount of calories as before.
Doctor Michael Greger argued that it's important to get enough high-quality protein, and the quality of protein depends on how much variety you eat from natural plants. However, exercise medicine experts said that plant protein is inferior to animal protein, so there is a big difference in the amount of essential amino acids.
In fact, meat contains all nine of the nine essential amino acids, but it turns out that no plant meets all nine essential amino acids. However, vegetarians explained that eating vegetables with rice and beans provides all the essential amino acids and is safer than animal protein.
And vegetarian expert Neil Bernard said that long-term meat consumption increases the risk of cancer, including heart disease and colorectal cancer, and increases the risk of Alzheimer's. But meat-eating expert Paul Saladino said, "It's completely wrong. It's an unsubstantiated claim." He pointed out that he was making an error due to the statistical bias of the study subjects.
Vegan and Carnivore are increasingly confrontational. Therefore, the production team decided to conduct a living experiment with vegan and carnivore to find out which diet is more beneficial between carnivore and vegan. And it drew attention by announcing that the results of the experiment would be released next week.
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