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On today’s episode of the podcast, I am featuring my conversation last year with Nicolette Hahn Niman just before the launch of the update of her book Defending Beef: The Ecological and Nutritional Case for Meat.
Nicolette is an author, lawyer, rancher, and one of the many environmental experts featured in the film, Sacred Cow.
In this episode, we dive into why well-raised cattle actually improve ecosystem function and how removing them from our food system would create a gaping hole for us, both nutritionally and environmentally.
We also get into:
- How Nicolette got involved with ranching and how that lead to meeting her future husband, Bill Niman of Niman Ranch
- Why Nicolette wrote Defending Beef
- The miscalculations and misattribution of methane to climate change
- Why it’s so hard for women to eat meat and why they should
The updated version of Defending Beef is out now, so be sure to check it out.
Resources:
Defending Beef: The Ecological and Nutritional Case for Meat
Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms
International Panel on Climate Change
PNAS study: Nutritional and greenhouse gas impacts of removing animals from US agriculture
Ominivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us about Dediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom by Fred Provenza
CBC podcast: The Matter of Meat: A history of pros and cons
CBC story: Meat of the table: Can we justify consuming animals?
Connect with Nicolette:
Facebook: Nicolette Hahn Niman | Defending Beef
Twitter: @defendingbeef
Episode Credits:
Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connelly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners.
If you’re ready to take your support for a nutritious, sustainable, and equitable food system to the next level, join my Global Food Justice Alliance community on Patreon. You will have access to ad-free podcasts, exclusive videos, a discussion community, and much more. Go to sustainabledish.com/join to support my work.
Today’s podcast is sponsored by Alec’s Ice Cream, the first and only verified regenerative, organic ice cream and the best-tasting ice cream I have ever had. They are Certified Humane and use 100% A2 dairy, so even for those of you who are sensitive to dairy, you may find that Alec’s is a treat for your tastebuds and your insides. Check it out by going to sustainabledish.com/icecream and use code DIANA for 20% off your order.
Join me September 29 – October 2, 2022, for a fun and informative weekend getaway at White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia. You’ll learn about regenerative farming and nutrition, plus participate in farming activities and enjoy incredible food. To learn more, visit sustainabledish.com/events and get your tickets today before they sell out.
Quotes:
“The bottom line that I realized was that the idea that you shouldn’t eat meat because of methane is really a red herring.” – Nicolette Hahn Niman
“Let’s not just accept the slogans of the animal rights community telling us how to farm and how to eat; let’s actually look at the science.” – Nicolette Hahn Niman
“Women tend to make more emotional decisions about food than men. We are told that we should be restricting our food intake in order to maintain a certain weight, and it’s just sort of accepted that you’re going to be hungry and skinny.” – Diana Rodgers, RD
Transcript:
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connelly who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now on to our show.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Hi, everyone, Diana here, and because I’m doing so much travel for the Global Food Justice Alliance, I’ve dipped into the archive and selected some of my favorite shows for you in order to keep my content flowing on a weekly basis. If you’d like to keep up to date on the travel and advocacy work I’m doing, please join my growing Patreon community. You’ll get access to a discussion community, ad-free podcasts, exclusive interviews, and you’ll be helping to spread the word about the importance of livestock to our global food system. Visit sustainabledish.com/join, and thank you so much for your support.
(Alec’s Ice Cream Ad) Diana Rodgers, RD
Today’s podcast is sponsored by Alec’s Ice Cream, the first and only verified regenerative, organic ice cream and the best-tasting ice cream I have ever had. They use Certified Humane, 100% A2 dairy so even for those of you who are sensitive to dairy, you may find that Alec’s is a treat for your tastebuds and your insides. So if you want an out-of-this-world, delicious, and creamy ice cream that’s also earth and gut-friendly, give this stuff a try. My favorite flavor is the Matcha Chocolate Chip, but they also have a bunch of delicious options. So go to sustainabledish.com/icecream and use code DIANA for 20% off your order. That’s sustainabledish.com/icecream, and you can get 20% off with my name D-I-A-N-A. And now on to the show.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. Today I have with me again Nicolette Hahn Niman. I believe Nicolette, this might be our fourth podcast together, or third or fourth, on the Sustainable Dish.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
Yeah. I think the third but it could be the fourth.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, because we did one in a hotel room one time talking about “eat less meat” and the implications of that.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
And meat is not a condiment.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Meat is not a condiment, because we were all like pissed off at a conference that we were at. And so we ran upstairs and just recorded it. So you have a new version, an updated version of Defending Beef coming out. And so wanted to have you on the podcast just to, you know, for folks that didn’t hear the first version and don’t know much about you, why don’t you just kind of explain your background, how you got into this, where you’re living, etc.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
Yeah, well, I’m Thank you, Diana, first of all, it’s a pleasure to be back with you. I always enjoy talking to you. You have such, you know, broad knowledge. And we’re working in such similar issues. So I appreciate the invitation. My background is I started out as… I went to college and studying biology, so I had kind of a science background. I went to law school, I became a lawyer. And then, I worked for environmental groups. And the last job that I had, as a lawyer – I was a lawyer for about 10 years practicing lawyer for 10 years. And the last job I had was for Bobby Kennedy, Jr, the Waterkeeper. Alliance group in New York. And he was the one that got me on this path of looking at animal agriculture, and really focusing on that, because he was working with environmental groups around the country, and even around the world that were fighting against big industrial operations, especially pork and poultry operations. And he wanted me to focus on that full time. And you know, I was a little hesitant at first because I knew that meant focusing full time on manure. But I did decide to do it because I started looking into it and meeting with people in these different communities that were really affected by these big industrial facilities. And it was a pretty dramatic situation, really bad pollution and very little action being taken either at the state or local, nothing at the national level. So I did that for two years, I was an environmental lawyer for the Waterkeeper group. And in the course of that work, I started to meet a lot of smaller scale grass-based traditional farmers, especially the farmers of the Niman Ranch network. And they were raising animals in a really different way than what we were fighting against. And so I began to advocate within the organization that I was working for that we should really highlight the advantages of that kind of production, both in terms of the food quality and the environmental benefits and for the animals and the people and everybody, and not just be kind of fighting against the big industrial operations. So that became a lot of what I was doing at that job. And then, after I left the Waterkeeper job, I ended up marrying Bill Niman. It’s kind of a, you know, interesting romance story, how I started, you know, to get to know Bill through the work. And he was kind of this farmer that I really admired. And I ended up marrying Bill and moving to California. Now all of this time, I was a vegetarian myself. And so it surprised a lot of, you know, people that I chose to marry a meat industry founder and a cattle rancher. But you know, love is strange. And actually, it made sense in a way because I really admired what Bill was doing, really focusing on animal welfare, really focusing on the environment, and producing healthy, delicious food at the end process. And so, you know, that was all stuff that actually really resonated with me. And when I moved to California and moved to our ranch, which is where I’m speaking to you from right now. This is our kitchen in our home, which Bill actually built – he’s kind of a renaissance man. He has a lot of skills. He built this house, among other things, but I was still vegetarian. I was environmental lawyer. I thought I would, you know, continue in that work here in the San Francisco area. But I started working on our ranch, and I started a little bit here and there, and then I start doing more and more of it. And I actually ended up beginning pretty much to work full time on the ranch. And I did that for almost seven years and wrote a first book called Righteous Porkchop, which was about sort of making the argument that meat is valuable to the food system, that animals are valuable to the sustainability of the food system. It’s important, nutritionally, etc. But that we should fight against sort of industrial meat, you know, that we should reject it. And so that was my first book. And then because of the work that I was doing, I kept talking to people who would say things like, “Oh, I read your book, and now I’m vegetarian.” And I was kinda like, Oh, crap, is that really what you got out of the book?” Because that was not the message of the book at all. Even though I was still myself a vegetarian at that time, but I started realizing that people were not really making good distinctions about farming and food, and people were hearing “meat bad,” therefore, I stopped eating meat kind of that was the thrust of what people were getting, that was coming through all the noise and all the stuff that’s floating around out there. So I wrote a second book called Defending Beef. And that was both a personal, you know, kind of exploration of my own experiences working on our ranch and around the world on these issues. But it was also my own kind of manifesto for the idea that beef in particular has really been singled out, as you know, that’s, I think, why you made Sacred Cow being the title of your work, recent work, because it just has kind of, I think, because it was the most consumed meat in the United States. And because it was, you know, kind of the most expensive, it was kind of really sexy to attack beef and cattle. I think that’s kind of my theory on it. But I decided to write a defense of raising cattle and of beef as food. And so I wrote the second book Defending Beef. And that was, you know, six years ago now. And the publisher came to me about a year ago and said, “This issue is more topical than ever. Could you do an updated version?” And I said, “Sure, I would love to because I agree, it’s very topical.” And I thought I could do it in a couple of months. Well, I started getting into it. And I wanted to do more and more to the book. And so I ended up taking about a year to do the rewrite, really adding a lot of new data and studies but also changing the emphasis of the book quite a bit. And so it’s quite, in my view, it’s really quite a new book. So I have this new version of the Defending Beef book coming out on July 20.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Excellent, excellent. So let’s dig into that a little bit. So I know we already did a podcast on the first book, but there’s there’s so many new things that you’ve added to this book. And there’s new science that’s come out. So let’s talk about some of the just in the last six years, some of the changes that you’ve seen, and also some of the changes in just this dialogue about me that you’ve noticed.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
Yeah, well, one thing that I started realizing I would have conversations with people and they would say something like, “Oh, well, I’m, you know, I’m not a vegetarian, I eat chicken or whatever, I eat fish. But I never eat red meat.” And I was always intrigued by that, like, why? Because having been, you know, around a lot of ranching and farming, from my perspective, the grazing animals had, like the highest quality of life. And the more I learned about the nutritional side, the more I realized that there’s, you know, particularly nutrient-rich food there to get from, you know, especially grass-fed grazing animals. One thing that came up over and over again, from people was well, because of the methane. And so I thought, wow, it’s strange. I just find the way people choose to eat fascinating because they glom on to one thing or another, sometimes totally inaccurate, you know, ideas. And sometimes, you know, something based on a childhood experience, or whatever, you know, but methane, it turned out, I realized was more and more coming to the surface of as far as what people were using to make decisions about whether or not to eat, especially beef, but all the ruminant animals. And I started looking more deeply at that between the last book and this book. And also, fortunately, because there’s a lot more, you know, examination of the methane issue from scientists and, you know, sort of both on the agricultural side, and generally speaking, there is a lot more known about methane. Now, I think one of the things that people don’t realize is that there’s a lot of debate among scientists, even people working on this full time about the causes the sources of methane, and how much is actually, you know, getting into the atmosphere, and how much is actually contributing to global warming, and so forth. But the most important thing is, I think, you know, the sort of bottom line that I realized was that the idea that you shouldn’t eat meat because of methane is really a red herring. So one of the things I go through in the book is just the whole way methane is accounted for. And I go into it in quite a bit of detail. In fact, my editor said, “You know, maybe this is a little too detailed.” And I said, “No, I really want to have that in there because I hear this issue about methane so frequently,” that I said, “Let’s really dig into this a little bit.” And basically, primarily, I’m basing this on the work of Dr. Myles Allen, who’s a physicist at Oxford University, and who I had to read some of his works. And I had seen some of his lectures on YouTube. But then I met him in person in England in 2019. And I was able to speak to him one on one about this. And he’s, you know, he’s incredibly knowledgeable about this. He was on the scientific committee for the International Panel on Climate Change, that, you know, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I think IPCC that makes the recommendations to all the governments about what to do about climate change. And he said, what he said to me was, and I quote him in the book, “The way that we’re conventional, the conventional system right now for accounting for methane is completely wrong.” And the really amazing thing that he said to me was, “People in the field who know the science, who really know the science of this, all know this, but no one wants to address it because it would have such huge policy implications to change it.” And so that was really shocking to me to find out because basically, what he said is we have this system of making carbon equivalence. We say, you know, we have carbon dioxide emissions. And, you know, if you’re, you know, emitting carbon dioxide from your car, or let’s say, in agriculture from your tractor, that’s a certain amount of, you know, contribution to global warming. And then, if you have methane, we’re just going to make an equivalent. So they have this whole carbon equivalent system. And they actually have this thing called the global warming potential (GWP). And that’s kind of the system that’s used for accounting for all of the greenhouse gases. And what he said is, “You actually cannot make this equivalence, because when you have global warming from carbon dioxide, that is, in fact, those emissions, in fact, contribute to global warming. But because methane is so short-lived, because carbon dioxide – it actually lasts in the atmosphere for over 100,000 years.” So as he says, it’s essentially forever. When there’s an emission of carbon dioxide, that’s actually, you know, building up in the atmosphere, it is contributing to global warming, everybody recognizes and agrees to this. But he said It’s completely different from methane because it’s so short-lived. The life of methane is about 10 years in the atmosphere. And what’s happening is, it’s continually cycling. And especially when you have, you know, this is sort of Dr. Frank Mitloehner, at UC Davis, his point, and I know, you know him really well as well. He talks about this old carbon versus new carbon and the sort of the stuff that’s actually just kind of recycling through the natural world. And that is the old carbon. And that’s where the methane that’s coming from cattle is essentially going. It’s kind of recycling through the atmosphere. And the old carbon or the new carbon, rather, it’s the stuff that we’re pulling out of the ground. And that is then contributing to global warming. So that’s why you would focus in the methane context, on the leaks from natural gas production, which, you know, more and more evidence is showing that that is, in fact, a huge problem. There’s a huge amount of leaks happening uncapped, you know, leakage from all kinds of oil or gas, drilling facilities, and refineries. And this is well known, it’s also the same thing in Europe. They don’t even regulate them, they don’t measure it. And now they’re finding out that this is a huge source of methane. At the same time, though, you have cattle; everybody’s looking at them. They see them on the landscape. They’re hearing about methane, and they’re blaming cattle. And you know, what Dr. Myles Allen said is essentially, because the life of the methane is so short-lived, that cattle are not really contributing to the warming of the planet at all unless the herd size is increasing. And so this is a really important distinction. And he said he – I go through this in a lot of detail in the book, but he said that, if you moderately reduced the herd size, if you keep it stable, you wouldn’t increase potential, the warming and if you moderately reduce the cattle herd, you would actually begin contributing to cooling of the planet. So it’s a completely different issue. You can’t look at a cattle herd and landscape and say, well, they’re contributing to global warming because that’s actually not what the science shows. So that to me, you know, that’s a really important fundamental point that is not coming through. It’s kind of scientifically complex, but it’s not – so I think that’s why it’s not breaking through in the public discussion. But it’s just I think, really important. You know, the thing I keep coming back to is, the methane issue is being misunderstood. It’s being wrongly attributed to cattle. It’s being misaccounted for. It’s being misunderstood. And we basically just need to think of methane as a kind of a red herring, that whole issue. And so that’s one of the key points that go into a lot more detail in the book. There are other things to say about methane as well. There’s a lot of research being done about ways to mitigate it in cattle feed like seaweed is you know, shown to reduce you know, methane emissions by as much as 99% when you add a little bit seaweed to cattle feed. There are all kinds of approaches. I don’t think necessarily one right answer is out there. But there’s lots of researchers, lots of work being done on it. And so the idea that you shouldn’t eat beef because of methane, to me is just false, unless you’re also going to stop eating rice and all kinds of other foods.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Exactly, and stop driving cars and actually just stop living. Right. All together.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
And I think that definitely don’t use your stove, you know, because natural gas and you know, all these things, you know, and those are actually things that really do contribute to, you know, we know that, you know. There’s the guy at Cornell, Dr. Robert Polwarth, who’s focusing on fracking, it’s impact. And he actually analyzed all the satellite photos that had previously been said to show that cattle are causing methane. And he said, “No, actually, there’s no way those are actually, that methane is from cattle. That’s from fracking.” So, you know, the science is really kind of beginning to show that the whole argument against beef and cattle from, you know, the really… it’s the… I think this comes because of this idea that there was this “meat is murder” argument for decades that never broke through. There was only a tiny percentage of people that were willing to stop eating meat, because meat is murder. And so it was kind of an idea, you know, and you know, all about this Diana. It was a sort of conscious pivot away from that argument towards something else, from the animal rights community. The idea that you could attach, you know, meat to climate change, and get people to quit eating because of that, I mean, it’s having some success, but it’s really, it really doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. So you know, that’s one of my main messages is like, let’s not just accept the slogans, you know, of the animal rights community telling us how to farm and how to eat, let’s actually look at, you know, the science.
(White Oak Pastures Event Ad) Diana Rodgers
Looking for a fun and informative weekend getaway at one of my favorite regenerative farms? Come join me with celebrity farmer Will Harris at White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia September 29th through October 2nd. You’ll meet some really cool people, participate in farm activities, learn about regenerative farming, plus have nutrition classroom time with me. And, of course, enjoy incredible food. To learn more, visit sustainabledish.com/events and get your tickets today before they sell out.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And it’s so hard to get across. And I think… this is the thing we focused on in the film, too, was actually the animation that we had showing the circular nature of the biogenic carbon cycles, and people don’t even know what carbon is. So you know, the cows are eating carbon – grass, which would emit greenhouse gases if nobody ate it, and it just oxidized anyway, right? So we have to acknowledge that. That these cattle are actually upcycling for us – food that we can’t eat, on land we can’t crop, and turning it into the most valuable food to humans that we have, which is animal source proteins. And as you said, in the film, if we remove the cattle from the landscape, then we would just have a massive gaping hole of food and not just food, but the most important food. It’s really unfortunate that people don’t like to read and that we don’t, you know, we’re teaching to tests and not actual critical thinking. And I mean, there’s so many reasons why nobody wants to dig a little bit deeper. And it’s certainly very convenient for the oil and gas industry. If we can blame cattle instead of natural gas, which is really cheap and really convenient for everybody these days. So there’s just so many forces at play happening.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
Exactly. Yeah. In fact, I really appreciated in the primary season. I remember Elizabeth Warren got asked in a town hall meeting, and she said – she was asked about meat specifically, I don’t know if you ever saw this clip, Diana, but she was being asked about it. And she said, and people said, you know, basically, how do you feel about, you know, meat? And, and she said, “You know what?” She said, “That’s actually a question that the oil and gas industry wants you to be asking me.” And she said, “They are deliberately redirecting public attention to cattle and to what we’re eating, you know, our straws,” and not that we shouldn’t worry about plastic straws, but she was basically saying they’re trying to make us feel like we individuals through our diets are the ones causing the environmental problems. When it’s very clear, as Myles Allen said, as well, to me, he said, everybody knows that the you know, 100 billion pound elephant in the room is the emissions from fossil fuels. And that urgently has to be addressed and really can only be addressed through government policy. But if we talk about what we’re all eating, and it puts the responsibility on our shoulders, and we’re convinced that somehow we have to through our food choices. I mean, not that we can’t. I always want to make the important point: I agree that our food choices really matter in a lot of different ways. But we are never going to solve climate change through our food choices. I’m positive about that. And we are definitely not going to have any positive impact on climate change by stopping to eat meat, as you know, you know very well, that, you know, recent analysis that was done in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that less than 3% of global warming emissions would be affected if everybody stopped eating meat. That’s a really tiny little dent in a very big issue for a really dramatic change in diet. And then, of course, it also said that nutritionally we would be deficient if we did that. It’s a very damning analysis, I thought.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, so we would be, and we’ll put a link to the PNAS study on the nutritional deficiencies. We have a graphic about it with a big plate, we show essential fatty acids, vitamin A, and other key vitamins that we would be deficient in. And then also at the same time, we have a massive problem already in the United States. And this is a nice segue into the nutritional argument, but where people are overfed and yet vitamin deficient at the same time, so we’ve got… you know, it’s easy to think, “Okay, well, maybe we shouldn’t pull meat away from those developing countries that are hungry, and they really rely on that.” And maybe they don’t have access to the supplements and all the different variety of fruits and vegetables and things that would constitute maybe a healthy, well-planned vegan diet, right? Like, clearly, there are places all over the world where people just can’t get their hands on all those things. But here in the US, we can and we should, right? So there’s this perception, especially from each coast, especially, you know, urban millennials thinking, well, we should because we can. And but what we were not talking about is that one of my tools in my nutrition practice when I’m trying to help someone lose weight, and gain vitality, is actually to bump up their protein consumption, because it’s filling, it’ll prevent them from eating empty calories of other foods, and it also has the most nutrients. So you can, you know, you can get 30 grams of protein from about 200 calories worth of beef, or you would have to eat 750 calories worth of beans and rice and get all those carbs, and you would still not have the same vitamins and minerals that you would get from the beef.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
So yeah, I love that part of your book that you have that awesome – those charts, which I was just looking at the other day, about the different kinds of protein, and you say not all proteins are equal. And that’s just such an important point. And, you know, I was a vegetarian for 33 years. So I know that I was always kind of seeking protein and always feeling hungry for 33 years. And as someone who turned 50, a couple of years ago, I began to really like look at what I was eating and say to myself, is this the diet that I want to rely on to remain in sort of vibrant health? You know, I don’t want to limp into my older years. I want to run there and be strong and be energetic, you know, and I’ve always been really physically active, I used to be a very involved triathlete for many years – a biker, a swimmer, a runner, I do all kinds of other, you know, activities. I have two young boys. And so I’m always like, incredibly active with them, you know, soccer, baseball, whatever, we do it together. And it just clicked in my mind that I had been hungry for decades, and that I was probably going to begin having health problems. You know, just like sort of the typical American pattern, if I did not eat a diet that was not just okay, but kind of closer to optimal. And, you know, even in the original Defending Beef, I said in there, it’s probably optimal to include meat, but I’m going to continue being a vegetarian because it’s kind of what I’m more comfortable with. That’s not true anymore. I got to the point, you know, the balance was tipped for me when I had my bone density tested. And I found out that I was already experiencing bone loss, bone density loss. I read a couple of books about bone health and understood much better how the regeneration of the bones happened and how that’s reliant not just on calcium that you’re eating, but other nutrients like vitamin K2, which is, you know, animal foods are a good source for, but also that connection between muscle mass and bone density. And so I realized I wanted to have make sure I was maintaining my muscle mass. And so I made a really conscious decision to move from a vegetarian diet. I was never vegan, but I was vegetarian for a long time, to an omnivorous diet, because I wanted to stay really healthy, in you know, the next few decades, and I felt that meat was going to be important for doing that.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and when most women I know don’t want to increase their calorie intake as we get over 40, right? And yet, we know right starting at 40, we really stopped being able to generate new muscle tissue; we need to be maintaining what we have. And so sarcopenia which is age-related muscle loss starts happening. If you’re not taking in the right amount of protein, your body is going to start taking it from you and it’ll start with your muscles first because it wants to spare your organs and so really the best thing you can be doing is increasing and also our absorption of protein goes down too, right. So we start to lose the stomach acid and the other factors that we have in order to properly digest and absorb the protein, so you actually have to increase your protein intake. And I’m not the only wild one that says this, there was an article in The New York Times talking about how everyone over 40 needs to be starting at about double the RDA of protein, which is, so the RDA is .8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. So they were, you know, twice that would be 1.6. So, really, when you’re looking at, like, what does this mean, for the average listener here, I start women in my nutrition practice at about 100 grams starting of protein per person per day. And what that looks like, is about four or more ounces of animal source protein per meal three times a day, plus maybe two ounces at a snack. That’s where I start people. If there’s major weight to be lost, I actually jack that way up. And, you know, start them at 150 grams of protein. And it is the most magical thing because, you know, there’s lots of ways that you can lose weight in a lab where you’re controlled, and you’re only, you know, dished out a certain amount of food. But out in the wild, people eat to satiety. It’s just what people do. And so the biggest gift I can give them as a dietitian is a diet that won’t make them hungry. We have got to just be satiated and happy. And you can really only do that if your protein is optimized.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
Yeah. Because even if you, you know, restrict your calories dramatically. And you allow yourself, you know, through a lot of self-discipline and self-denial for several months to feel hungry all the time, you’re gonna rebound because you’re going to eventually give up because you’re feeling hungry all the time. And you just don’t want to live in a constant state of deprivation. And I say this, like through my own experiences, as well, as you know, from a lot of reading and research. But I’ve realized one of the things that’s very interesting about this whole meat thing is that people go into a state of almost like a cognitive dissonance, like, they know that they have nutritional problems. They know that they’re gaining weight, they know that they’re losing muscle mass and all these things. I recently had a conversation with a woman that I know in town who’s quite overweight, and you know, she’s in her 60s. And she told me she was anemic. And I said to her, I said, “Well, you know, do you eat meat?” And she said, “Yeah, but I tried, you know, not to eat it very often.” I said, you know, I hate to tell people what to eat. I try not to be like, pushy, but I said, “Well, you know, red meat is the best source of iron, you know,” and she said, “Yeah, I know that, but kind of tried to avoid it.” And I was kind of like Jesus people. I mean, I kind of was doing the same thing, in a way. You know, for all these years. As a vegetarian, I struggled with anemia in my pregnancies and stuff. But I had, you know, really carefully monitored by Kaiser Permanente, and I took all the supplements, and I told, you know, my husband, like, if I can’t get the iron high enough, I will begin eating meat again. And I never ended up needing to do that at that time. But the reality is that, especially as we get older, all of these things are more difficult for our bodies to absorb. And so the idea that you need the right source, the best source for this becomes more and more important. And that’s why I decided I don’t want to be anemic. I don’t want to have bone loss. I mean, you know, I might have some bone density loss, but I don’t want to get osteoporosis. I don’t want to be overweight. I really want to be really healthy without a ton of like drugs and, you know, other interventions. I want to just sort of give my body what I believe that it evolved for. And I was quite healthy for those decades that I was a vegetarian. But I suspect once I feel like when you’re a child, and as you get older, those are the two times when you really, really are going to struggle without a lot of supplementation and other, you know, interventions, if you’re really trying to be healthy on a real food diet, it’s going to be almost impossible if you’re not including, at the very least, you know, eggs and dairy, but preferably meat as well. I mean, that’s kind of that’s more and more where I’m thinking, and I kind of knew it, you know, for a long time. So when I first started, you know, you filmed me, here is the first piece of meat. You were thinking maybe would go in the film and everything. But it was a weird feeling. Because I thought, “Oh God, am I going to regret this? You know, I’m like putting the hamburger up to my mouth. And then it was like, strange. It was like, not at all a sense of discomfort. It was a sense of relief because I realized that I was beginning to eat for the first time in a way that I intellectually thought I shouldn’t be eating. And so I had been telling myself all these years, like, well, it would probably be better to be having some meat in my diet, but I’m okay without it. And then finally, it got to the point where I said no, actually, I don’t think I’m going to be okay without it. And so I’m gonna go ahead and make that shift. And then when I did, rather than remorse, I felt relief. It was super interesting, and that’s like been a couple of years now. It’s been a couple years, I’ve been eating meat again. And that’s I’ve felt that way all along, just, you know, more and more. Like, this was definitely a good decision.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. And I think for women in particular, it’s really hard. Women tend to make more emotional decisions about food than men. We are told that we should be restricting our food intake in order to maintain a certain weight, right, and that, you know, it’s just sort of accepted that you’re going to be hungry and skinny is ideal. I mean, there’s so much going on there. And there’s so much energy put towards if you’re a clean eater, then that means no meat if you’re pure. I mean, there’s a lot of weird, you know, stuff that comes from like the Seventh Day Adventist background that’s, you know, really permeated our society. And it’s unfortunate that women and children were the ones that were denied the meat all throughout most of history, but yet, were the ones that needed the most. And iron and B12 are the most common nutrient deficiencies worldwide, best found in meat. So I think there’s a lot to unpack there. It’s really complicated. And I always try to, if I have a guy in my nutrition practice, and I tell him to eat a steak, he’s like running out the door before I can even finish the sentence. And when I tell a woman to eat more meat, it’s hard for them to hear, but I see it even at school pickup. I can tell the vegetarian moms, and you can see it just in someone’s face, the protein deficiency and you can hear it in their mood when they’re not happy from being calorie deprived, or protein deprived, you know. There’s no reason to be tired. That’s not a normal part of aging to feel exhausted every day.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
And that sallowness that you see so often. It’s really interesting because my sisters are both medical doctors MDs, and they’ve always said they can pick out a smoker across the room, like they can, you know, literally from 50 yards away, just by physical appearance. And I’ve always thought that was super fascinating. And I’ve kind of gotten to the point, I’m sure you’re the same way. Like I could enter a room, guess who the vegans are a lot of times, because it’s especially certain ones are really clearly vegan. And there’s, it just tends to, I mean, obviously, there are people that don’t look this way that are vegan, but there are many vegans who have a real sallowness to them. And it’s, and the idea that that’s healthful is just, you know, so bizarre to me. I mean, it does relate to a lot of this weirdness that we have towards food. And this idea that I remember, you know, this is going a little bit off-topic. But a few years ago, I read this article, and, you know, sort of a magazine that was, you know, the kind you pick up at free at the grocery store, but it was one that’s kind of in the Bay Area. It’s called Common Grounds. And it’s kind of all about wellness. And there was an article in there from a kind of a spiritual leader, I suppose, purported, a spiritual leader. And he was basically saying that any pleasure that you get from food is essentially sinful. And I was just so shocked by that. I was like, wow, that is a bizarre notion. But then I thought about it more. And I realized that, you know, whereas I, although I do believe fasting is part of a healthy regimen, and I have nothing against fasting, and I do it myself as well. But I realized there is a long connection between this idea that somehow, enjoyment from food is something that you should deprive yourself of, if you’re pure, if you’re morally righteous, etc. And I’ve been noticing it even… I go to church every Sunday, and I, you know, I’ve been listening, sometimes it’s in the lesson, like in Paul’s writings, he basically says, you know, anything of the flesh is something you should be depriving yourself. And that includes food. And so there’s this weird and very long history, kind of tortured history that we have, you know, our human relationship with food. And I’ve come to realize that meat is very intertwined. And all of this because meat is so satisfying to eat. It’s so you know, just delicious on kind of an objective scale. And I have to say, you know, I keep saying this to my husband, Bill, he was really good. He was never pushy with me at all about eating meat. He was always super cool about, you know, whatever your choices are, that’s fine, but he’s very excited that I’m eating meat now. And that I’m enjoying it with him and that I can discuss it with him and so forth. But one of the things I keep saying to him is, I’m really surprised how much I enjoy eating it. Like, I love it. I’m not just like, you know, I’m eating this because it’s good for me. I’m like, this is delicious, you know, and I’m really enjoying it. And interestingly, especially the red meat, so like the lamb and the pork and the beef. And I like the chicken. We have some really good pasture-raised chickens that we get, and it’s delicious, but, and I’ve been eating fish too and I like fish, but for me, it’s that red meat that is the most kind of viscerally satisfying. And I mentioned this to Chris Kresser when I was talking to him recently, I have found that especially when I eat the red meat, I lose my cravings for sweets. So there’s this kind of really satiating feeling that I get where I, you know, I always, especially during those 33 years of vegetarian as a vegetarian, the minute I was halfway through my meal, I would start thinking about the dessert, you know. And now I’m kind of like, I will have a nice meal with meat, you know, especially beef or lamb, or pork, and I will be done with it. And I won’t even think about dessert. So it’s super interesting, all the, you know, ramifications. Like, if you’re really satisfied, if you’re really satiated, you won’t necessarily even crave the sweets. That’s been my experience.
Diana Rodgers, RD
For anyone who’s just listening to this, I encourage you to just check out the video link on our website to just look at Nicolette’s face right now. And because you did not look over 50. And I think it’s something that I really want to focus on in the future is giving women permission to eat meat and permission to love their food and not be addicted to it, you know, like, like a sugar addiction and to satisfy like real cravings. And listen, you know, there’s a lot right now about intuitive eating and not to, you know, vilify certain foods, of course, but I think we’ve really gotten away from like, what are we actually craving versus what are we, you know, programmed by the food industry to crave on purpose?
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Nicolette Hahn Niman
You know, yeah. There’s so much that I’ve realized the food industry has very cleverly designed food. You know, they’ve created, they have done tons, decades of research into what it is that we crave. And you know, Michael Pollan was really good about talking about this in Omnivore’s Dilemma that we and his other books, you know, that we basically have, we’re driven towards, for example, sweetness, because it indicates ripeness, and goodness and foods, and that, essentially, there’s no ripe fruit in nature, that isn’t sweet, you know. When it’s ripened, and it’s not nearly as sweet as the modern varieties. But nonetheless, that’s our signal telling us that you know, the smell of it, and then the look, and then the taste tells us this thing is ready to eat. And that’s when it’s optimal, nutritionally, and for our health, but also for enjoyment. So there’s this whole sort of – Dr. Fred Provensa’s book, Nourishment, does this amazing job of kind of connecting this whole idea of, we recognize goodness, and what our body needs through the flavor. And that kind of reinforces back to our bodies, like, “Oh, this is a good thing.” And this is something I need. And our body tells us what we need through that craving that we have, if it’s a real craving, because if it’s for real food. So the food industry has taken all this information, and has engineered foods very cleverly, to tap into those things like sweetness, but not just sweetness, and figure out what we need. For example, salt is another thing that you absolutely have to have as a you know, as a mammal. You have to have a certain amount. And so it’s very rare in nature. So we sort of seek it out in nature. And we just got a tiny bit from a lot of different sources. And then that satisfies our body’s need. But the food industry has taken that craving just like the sweet craving and engineered foods to have us say, “Oh, yeah, this is a good food,” but it’s tricking us, you know. So this whole idea of real foods, and actually, this is a lot of what I talk about in the new version of Defending Beef. I’ve really shifted a lot of the discussion to focusing on the real foods and what we’re really craving. And having that be kind of the basis for healthy discussion about food is what you know, what real foods do we need, and do we crave and what will satisfy us and keep us healthy? And focusing more and more on the villain of the whole thing being the processed foods, the highly processed foods, the industrial farming, and the highly processed foods. It’s all kind of, you know, I think of it as the industrial food connection that creating foods that were farmed in ways that are damaging for the environment, you know, damaging for the earth. And then you’re putting it into a chain, a food chain, basically, that’s processing the food, and it’s getting to the consumer in a form that’s basically unrecognizable, for you know, our body which is you know, knows how to recognize what we need, but it can’t identify any of this stuff. And these kinds of dead – biologically dead food that is created from a lot of different components that the food industry has figured out that we crave. And so you know, it’s a whole different way of thinking about healthy eating and the whole food pyramid where we’re told you need this, and this doesn’t even make any sense when you think of processed food as the villain and real foods as the solution.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and I liked how you showed me with your hands like this food chain because I was picturing you know how much I dislike these fake meat products right and all the different components that need to happen to go into that. All those different beads on that chain versus you know sun, grass, cow, steak. That’s all. So there’s a new project that I’m going to be working on actually is just hammering that home to people because I feel like younger people these days aren’t really digging into the science as much and are making again, very, like emotional decisions based on headlines. And so it just feels bad to eat meat. And, you know, partly, that’s because they’re living in cities, and they don’t see everything out there. But just trying to remind them that, you know, there’s real food, and then there’s these biological dead foods. And there’s a really good paper, you might be interested in talking about a cellular carbohydrates and their impact on gut microbiome. And so the idea was that, you know, something that actually still has a cell wall, when we ingest it that actually feeds the good bacteria. But when we’ve processed that, and people don’t always associate like flour with processed but pasta and breads or ultra-processed foods, dead biologically dead foods, and when we’re eating something that no longer has a firm cell wall like that, it actually disrupts our microbiome, and this is why livestock are given antibiotics in the industrial food chain. One is to prevent them from getting sick. But the other is that when you disrupt the biome like that, they’ll gain weight. And I don’t think a lot of people know that piece. And so what we’re doing is basically disrupting the biome of all humans. And it’s almost impossible not to be overweight in our modern food environment. And, of course, this is all stuff we say in the film.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
But this whole idea that one thing that just clicked in my mind a few years ago, sort of as I was approaching 50, was that there was an expectation in Western culture, especially, you know, in the US, particularly, that as you get to a certain age, you begin to look a certain way, you know, and you’re, you know, but you have a lot less energy, you have less muscle, your skin starts to look, you know, sag all this stuff. I mean, obviously, your body does change as you age, there’s no doubt about that. But you look… I know, you know, that book of trying to think of the name of it, the one about the final, you know, pictures from around the world of people in traditional cultures that are really…
Diana Rodgers, RD
Nutrition and Physical degeneration by Western A. Price?
Nicolette Hahn Niman
Not that well. A newer book is…
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh, the one with the pictures of everyone and what they eat?
Diana Rodgers, RD
It’s right in my living room. It’s beautiful, it’s called…
Diana Rodgers, RD
You can email it to me, and I will have Meg put it in the show notes.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
But it’s about people from around the world. And what’s really interesting is, you know, these are people that are living in still in the traditional way still, so they’re eating primarily, you know, hunted and gathered food basically. And not only what’s kind of shocking is how similar they all look from around the world. They have very strong bone structure. And they’re just really different looking than this sort of, you know, modern, you know, American looks. And when you look at the older people in the culture, they look really different than we do in the US as we get older. So that was one of the moments where I started to think, Wow, this thing that we think of is aging, this is not necessarily the inevitable process that our body goes through, right, this is aging under the modern American, you know, standard American diet kind of thing. And that’s when I started really rethinking, you know, my own diet and what we were eating here, and, you know, we do eat bread and pasta, but we eat very, very little of it compared to what I did 20 years ago, especially, and we eat a lot of, you know, I was talking about the meat and that fish and eggs and stuff earlier, but also cheese and yogurt and lots of vegetables, lots of fruits. And that is kind of, you know, more and more my idea that I want to provide a lot of nutrients, you know, really nutrient heavy foods, you know, yeah, and but also always focusing on the enjoyment of the food and eating things that are delicious and tastes really good.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, and I should I should mention, too, that I’m not anti-pasta, anti-bread 100%. You know, I think people should enjoy…there’s beautiful breads out there. And if you aren’t gluten-sensitive or celiac, and you’re out to a beautiful dinner, and there’s some crusty bread on the table, please eat it and have the beautiful salted butter, right?
Nicolette Hahn Niman
But I have one piece, you know what I mean? Yeah, like it’s something that I view as something more like, you know, it should be rather than meat as a condiment. It’s like bread is a condiment. There, we just came up with a better slogan.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I think so too. And you know what I wanted to also ask you before I forget, because you’re on a really great podcast with I think the CBC many, many years ago. Do you remember the name of that because I want to put that in the show notes too, because it had many other experts on it and they were talking about humans relations. And to me, it was about, you know, should we eat meat or not eat meat? And there were different views on there. But it was a really great podcast.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
I did. I’ve been on there a couple of times. Yeah. And so I, there was one that I did. Yeah, I’ve done to kind of longer discussions on on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio network. One of them was a one on one debate with Gary Francione from Rutgers University. And that was actually fascinating.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh, I’ve not heard that one,
Nicolette Hahn Niman
Anyone that wants to hear the kind of animal rights argument in its rawest form, you should listen to that, because I thought it was really clearly laid out in that discussion by him. And I was, of course, refuting it. Even though I was still a vegetarian at the time, which was kind of…
Diana Rodgers, RD
And you were the captain of your debate team in college. Correct?
Nicolette Hahn Niman
In high school, yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
In high school and so I actually never agreed to do debates because I’m not skilled as a debater. I get a little anxious when the words aren’t coming to my head right away. But also, these emotional arguments that ended up getting used over and over again, make me feel very frustrated. But you’re it, so I’m very excited to listen to that one.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
Yeah. I did a big one against Howard Lyman too and against, in a, you know, in a big audience, live audience in Berkeley, long before COVID time. So you know, the room was packed, in fact, was completely sold out. And it was at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, which is a big place, and I enjoy it, you know, so yeah, it gets my juices flowing in a positive way. Because there’s so much first of all, just internal inconsistency in their argument. And the idea – and one of the things that was super interesting in the Gary Francione debate was, he kind of wanted to suggest that it’s perfectly healthy to be a vegan for a long time. But he never answers the question whether he supplements his diet or not at all. And I think it’s very obvious that he did because he said, “See, I’ve been a vegan for a long time and I’m perfectly healthy,” which actually, I doubt but in any event, that’s another matter. But he wouldn’t acknowledge whether he takes any supplements or not, you know, and I thought that was super interesting because the vegans are – a lot of vegans are afraid, especially, you know, in the animal rights part of the vegan community, they don’t want to say that they need to take supplements, or that they do take supplements because they think that’s acknowledged as a flaw in the argument that the sort of perfect human diet is a vegan diet. And I think that – I thought that was super interesting because even the Vegan Society in the UK said, you know, it urges everyone to take supplements, you know, it’s like, we want you to be a vegan, but definitely take supplements. That’s what you should do to be responsible and to stay healthy. But this was an interesting – there were lots of interesting moments in that debate. But to me, that was one of the most interesting moments because he did not want to admit to taking supplements himself, because he knew that would admit, you know, that the diet is lacking. You know, and that’s kind of to me, the bottom line is, what do our bodies need? What do they crave, because they need it, you know, and what will fully satiate them nutritionally speaking. And, you know, from a satisfaction standpoint, like we’ve been talking about from a pleasure standpoint, and meat, you know, it’s not a dirty word to say, this is delicious. This is something I enjoy eating, this is something I’m craving, you know. If it’s a real food and you’re craving it, it’s probably for a good reason, you know. It’s probably something that will help you in terms of your health and, and your enjoyment.
Diana Rodgers, RD
You know, we’re coming up at the top of the hour, and we didn’t even get to some of the things that we were going to talk about, but this is why everyone needs to run out and pick up the new version of Defending Beef, which is available July 20. And then, they can follow you on social media. They can look up Defending Beef, which on Twitter… are you on Instagram yet?
Nicolette Hahn Niman
We have – no, we don’t, I should get an Instagram account. One of these days, I will. But we have a very active Facebook page and also a Twitter account. So yeah,
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. And then check out the show notes; we’ll put a link to both CBC interviews that you did. We’ll link to that PNAS paper about the model of what would happen if all Americans gave up all animal-source foods, which is my most commonly cited paper I’ve got in my arsenal. And whatever else that I remembering that we are forgetting that we talked about that Meg will remember to put in the show notes. So thank you so much for your time and for doing this. And it’s always a pleasure to talk to you. And hopefully, I’ll get to actually see you in real life one of these days soon, so
Nicolette Hahn Niman
I hope so too. Diana, thank you so much.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thank you. All right. Have a great afternoon.
Nicolette Hahn Niman
You too.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thanks so much for listening to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. If you liked the show, please leave a review on iTunes. And if you’d like to support the work I’m doing on Patreon, please visit sustainabledish.com/join. As a Patreon subscriber, you’ll get access to ad-free podcasts, plus exclusive video podcasts, never before seen interviews, and a discussion community. Go to sustainabledish.com/join, and thank you for your support.
