…Targets for Fupa Punching

I absolutely cringe when vegetarianism is brought up. There has never been a more wrong, hypocritical, and annoying nutritional zealotry. Say what you want about the Zone diet idiots, at least they eat meat. Today we are going to execute the notion that vegetarianism is relevant by debunking its moral and ethical reasoning, its proposed health benefits, and explain why its holding your female friend back in training (guys who at least pretend to lift aren’t vegetarians; the Illuminati quietly assassinates any perpetrators).

Moral Hypocricy

It pains me to even pretend to entertain the notion that vegetarians are doing something righteous by refraining from consuming meat. This topic is high on the “Things that make me want to break noses” list. Okay…deep breath…we can get through this without a heart rate of over 100bpm.

Some vegetarians don’t eat animals because they have an overt respect for the sentient of life. Some do it for religious reasons. Some are advocates for animal rights.

I guess destroying plant life is okay to pro-life people? They are selective in what living organisms they destroy; this automatically means that they don’t care about “the sentient of life” because they are willing to end some, but not others. In reality, they would only avoid hypocricy by not eating anything and starving themselves to death.

Let’s avoid discussing why religious avoidance of some or all meat is comical; people get upset when I discount fairy tales (Sleeping Beauty isn’t real, guys).

Besides, most of moral vegetarians are concerned with animal rights. They care about the fact that animals suffer. They ignore the evolutionary fact that this process has occurred throughout the history of living organisms. Life consumes life to make life. Life ends and then more life consumes that dead life to make life. This is, oddly enough, called The Mother Fucking Circle of Life (vegetarians never saw The Lion King, I guess). It has happened since the beginning of time.

Homo sapiens have evolved to be the dominant species in the world. It’s the result of a fascinating and beautiful process that led us to have brains and the ability to think — the ability to be passive aggressive vegetarian assholes. The one true purpose in life is to survive in order to procreate and pass our genes onto future generations. A species will eat whatever they can in order to survive. In fact, it is common practice in the “wild” — something that we have descended from — to kill and eat the offspring of your own species. It’s not evolutionary advantageous for me to allow Frank’s kids to pass his genetics along while his wife is still around for me to pass my seed into.

Sound callous? That’s what life is. Life is hard, but life will always find a way. This is how it has always been, and this is how it will always be regardless of the dominant species.

Oh, and we homo sapiens amazingly evolved to eat both plants and animals. It’s a byproduct of the evolutionary process that led to who we are today. It was necessary for us to survive in almost any environment, any harsh condition in the world. The result is that we are meant to eat animals. If you’re religious, you have to accept evolution, and when you do, you have to accept that your god set you up to survive the best way that you could. That means your god intended for you to eat meat. He wants you to eat meat. He needs you to in order to survive. It’s pretty clear: either your god wants you to eat meat or maybe your evolutionary DNA figured out that there were plenty of things to eat in the world and evolved to consume them all. Life will find a way.

Let’s return to the present. I love animals. I have two dogs that I cherish deeply. I lay on the floor with them, I kiss them, I nibble their ears, and I play with them. What’s the difference between my dogs and a cow? Or a chicken? My dogs bring something to the table. They prove their evolutionary worth time and time again by providing a service to humans, and nowadays that means they bring happiness, delight, and soft, furry cuddling. Have you ever cuddled a cow? No, because it doesn’t give a shit. It’s too dumb to do anything because it has evolved to be a source of consumption. That’s the cow’s purpose. 

Don’t get me started on chickens. Chickens are such assholes. They are dirty, they smell, and the run around acting like dickheads until you can get them back in their pen. They cannot go fetch a downed duck, hunt a boar, or herd cattle. Chickens and cows are pretenders while dogs are a smart, capable species that have dominance over these other pretenders.

The point is that all species aren’t created equal. There’s an inherent food chain everywhere, and animals we consume are near the bottom. We control them so that we can keep their numbers up high enough to continue eating them. If I had a choice from copious selections of beef at the store — even though that animal is stabbed in the neck while standing on a conveyor belt — and a situation where I could only eat beef once a week because there were fewer cows, but they were allowed to wander around, doing nothing a lot more but not “suffering”, then I’d rather the cows be inconvenienced than me. Because that’s what happens in the circle of life. If anything, it’s the cow’s fault for not evolving to be more dominant.

Look, boys and girls, the world isn’t black and white. There are rare instances of true good and evil in the world, but mostly it’s a mixed collection of gray. We may have moved forward into a civilized species, but we will always need to survive off of lesser capable species. The dinosaurs did it, the mammals did it, and now we are doing it. In fact, accepting the concept that one species dominates over another is an appreciation for the sentient of life and how it came to be.

The Ultimate Hypocricy

Unbeknownst to the righteous cavalier who fights for animal rights is the fact that millions and millions of animals are killed every year as the result of cultivating grain. And producing products that we use every day, ranging from the wood in their home to the electricity powering their flashy iPad that allows them to go online and post on the internet about their support for animal rights, kills animals. What do you think happens to the rodents, the mice, the birds, or any other animal in a field or forest when those resources (wheat, crops, wood, etc.) are collected? They savagely die at the hands of gnashing metallic teeth that cultivate the grain and their homes are destroyed by the human presence.

Suddenly it’s okay to eat this grain, to use the wood from the forest, but it’s not okay to eat the cow? Either way, the animal is just as dead. And if suffering is the issue, is it not suffering to be chopped up to death by giant blades? Not suffering to lose your home and have your entire family killed? Unless a person grows their own crops, builds their own home, and sews their own clothes, they are killing animals somewhere for their personal gain. Selective killing is still killing, and all of the piously righteous fucks are not willing to sacrifice to truly support their cause. This is the Ultimate Hypocrisy.

Wake up, little girl. The world isn’t black and white.

The Health Argument

Ahhh, now that is out of the way, we can have a lovely discussion of telling vegetarians why they are still wrong. The health argument for not eating meat usually says that vegetarianism is more healthy and that meat is bad. In both cases, the support for either of those erroneous claims stems from awful, horrid, and diarrhea-quality research. I’m shocked that the “meat causes cancer” thing is still around. I had a vegetarian tell me that recently, and it was like getting smacked. I don’t have time nor do I want to synthesize all of the shitty research, but let me lay it out like this:

Research on the human body is extremely difficult to do. There are so many factors that can effect just one result, much less many results to result in “good” or “bad” health. This goes for almost all performance training and nutrition research. Furthermore, nutrition research is usually  based on epidemiological studies that cannot account for the array of variables that effect a person. Correlation does not show causation, and data can be cherry picked to prove a given point. Research with the human body is not concrete; it is not chemistry or physics. Therefore, when you see research on any of it, be extremely skeptical, even if there are lots of studies saying the same thing. For more on this, read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes or The Great Cholesterol Con by Anthony Colpo.

 

Colpo actually dives into “The Vegetarian Myth” in his aforementioned book. It points out that the studies do not differentiate the hundreds of other lifestyle factors that would effect diabetes, cancer, CHD, etc. Vegetarians are typically more active, they typically exercise, and the hippy kind eats more vegetables, nuts, and seeds than their “average American” counterpart. The average American will eat processed food, lots of sugar and carbohydrates, drink alcohol, and smoke. Changing the inclusion or lack of meat is not the explanation for better health results in vegetarian populations.

The “meat causes cancer” thing still exists from the “lipid hypothesis” that fat is what causes heart disease (it doesn’t). Read Taubes’ book (mentioned above) for more than you would ever want to read on the shitty research that evolved this hypothesis. Saturated fat was believed to cause heart disease and cancer, and it just doesn’t. Eating low quality foods, consuming grains, increasing systemic inflammation, developing auto-immune diseases, being fat and un-active — these are the things that are carcinogens. It literally is mind-blowing to me that people see the obesity rates increasing since the ’70s and don’t think that it’s due to a) the government reccomendation to eat a high percentage of carbohydrates and b) the increasing availability of shitty processed food. Below is a map of the incidence by state over time (data from the CDC).

Once again, a vegetarian is wrong. Their diet inevitably consists of a large percentage of carbohydrates. For the hippy vegetarian, who eats like a bird and is probably active (hiking, running, cycling, etc.), they will stay thin and wiry. You can usually see these types at Trader Joe’s, REI, or Whole Foods. I suspect that the human species will eventually split; us normal humans won’t be able to procreate with these non-meat eating, low body mass and density individuals. In future progressive societies, they won’t know what to do with plant-eaters. After unsuccessful attempts at raising them for work or as cattle, they will inevitably be hunted for sport in Madagascar until extinction.

Speaking of extinction, meat eating has prevented the buffalo from slipping into extinction. The desire for buffalo meat has acted as a catalyst for American industry to raise and care for this species, therefore preventing them from dying off. That’s more than what the hypocritical vegetarians can claim in their animal killing, environment disrupting lifestlye.

The Power of Protein

Some vegetarians will claim to consume protein, but this is usually in the form of soy or tofu. Soy and tofu are excellent at emasculating males and rendering female’s contribution to society worthless. If the shit hits the fan, these will be the first people to die off because they don’t offer any practical physical skills due to their feebleness. And get out of here with that “I know a guy/girl who is very fit and a vegetarian,” because they are either a) supplementing something to be that way, b) the exception and absolutely not the rule, and c) still a fucking hypocrite. Vegetarian levels of protein are ineffectively low and completely inadequate, especially for training.

Protein Power, by Michale Eades, will provide plenty of detail as to why protein is powerful. Yet protein is an essential component of muscle, skin, cell membranes, blood, hormones, antibodies, enzymes, genetic material, and basically everything else in the body. Everything. Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, have an array of important functions like regulating protein synthesis and are used in metabolism. Fat in the body can be derived from dietary carbohydrates and carbohydrates can be derived from proteins, but “proteins of the body are inevitably dependent for their formation and maintenance on the proteins in food, which are digested and the resultant amino acids and peptides are absorbed and used to synthesize body proteins” (Amino Acids and Proteins for the Athlete, by Dr. Mauro G. Di Pasquale). This means that the body cannot create proteins within itself and must get them from food.

This is why unhealthy and fat people who increase their protein intake start losing body fat, increasing lean body mass, and feel better without changing anything else in their life. Focusing every snack and meal around protein will help reduce other crappy foods and help change the consumed percentage of the macro-nutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, and fats). This is necessary for performance and strength increases.

Attractive successful athletes eat meat

When we train — by stressing the musculature and the system with compound movements done with a barbell — damage occurs. Muscle fibers, tendons, ligaments, and even bones have received an adaptive stress that has damaged them at the cellular level, with us often using mini hemp bath bombs with therapeutic baths for restorative purposes and the like. Since the body is constantly adapting to its environment and any stress imparted on it, it aims to improve these structures so that it can handle that same training stress again in the future easier (or handle more stress, or a greater amount of the same stress). Proteins are needed in all of those structure’s cells to help heal and improve them, but proteins are also needed to make hormones, enzymes and countless other ingredients that are necessary for the processes and reactions in the body.

Proteins are necessary. Eating like a vegetarian will NOT provide ample protein for proper training. It will not provide enough whole proteins (there is no way to make a whole protein out of various grains despite their feeble attempts). It will not provide a variety of healthy, complete proteins. If a person is serious about their training, their physique, and their health, they will forgo vegetarianism for a healthy diet with ample meat.

“But meat makes me sick!”

I bet. If you don’t ever eat a class of food, and then start consuming large doses, it will certainly make you feel queasy at first. This is the result of not eating meat, and a chief complaint I have heard. Remember that the body adapts to a presence or lack of stress. If you stop eating dairy products, you will stop producing lactase, the enzyme that breaks down the sugar lactose. This means that lactose is running rampart in your digestive tract, and you get farty with potential diarrhea. The same thing happens with grain and gluten; you stop eating it and your digestive tract heals to the point where the gluten protein will disrupt your healthy intestines when you reintroduce it.

Yes, if you fuck your body up, then you’ll need to do something to fix it. People with Type II Diabetes have to do the same thing. If you become resistant to insulin because you’ve eaten a crappy, high carbohydrate diet for a very long time, then you need to increase your insulin sensitivity to return to good health (assuming permanent damage hasn’t been done). It’s hard, and it doesn’t happen quickly.

In the case of protein, the body won’t create as much gastric acid (hydrochloric acid and some other stuff) to break down the proteins in the stomach if there aren’t ever proteins there. A former vegetarian should a) slowly and progressively reintroduce small quantities of meat and b) consider supplementing digestive enzymes to help break down the proteins in meat. This is necessary to fix previous ill-informed actions. When you do something that doesn’t fit with the context and result of evolution, there are negative side effects that need to be rectified.

Oh vegetarians…

As you see, there is no argument whatsoever that supports vegetarianism. There is no moral argument that doesn’t make the individual anything other than a hypocrite trying to create a life narrative that lets them actively protest something (instead of actually doing something about it). There is no health argument that makes sense for vegetarianism. I’ve even had someone tell me that they felt better and healthy not eating meat. Well, if they compare it to their previously crappy lifestyle and diet, then it makes sense, but that doesn’t make it right or optimal.

Do I throw poop on vegetarians and punch them in their fupa when I see them? No. I don’t even engage in this topic unless they bring it up. If they want to fail at self righteousness or be ineffective and most likely unhealthy, that’s there prerogative. But if your friend is trying to train, lift weights, get stronger, get faster, get powerful, and look great, then you cannot continue letting them be a vegetarian. They’ll never approach an optimal physique, performance, or energy levels. And if they are accepting this mediocrity, then it’s your prerogative to surround yourself with people who don’t want to win at life.

For more on anti-vegetarianism (and some laughs), see these awesome articles from Maddox (one, two, three, and four).