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I recently had the pleasure of appearing on the Realfoodology podcast with Courtney Swan.
Courtney is an integrative nutritionist and “real foodist” with a passion for changing the way America eats.
Like me, Courtney cares about where food comes from and wants people to eat a nutrient-dense diet – which includes animal-sourced foods. She and I get in deep with the anti-meat narrative and the 3 main topics that drive these discussions: nutrition, ethics, and the environment.
The conversation was so good; I just had to share. Listen in as we chat about:
- Regenerative agriculture and why rotational grazing is better than continuous grazing
- Why “less meat better meat” is elitist
- The problems with nutrition research
- What the real driver of health is? Hint: It’s has nothing to do with meat.
- The long-term effects of the Meatless Monday campaigns
- How water holding capacity works
- The environmental argument for meat
- Ways you can get involved
Resources:
Joe Rogan Experience Episode #1784: Diana Rodgers & Robb Wolf
The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith
Study: Meat Supplement Improves Growth, Cognitive, and Behavioral Outcomes in Kenyan Children
Sustainable Dish post: Avoiding Meat to Live Longer? A Breakdown of the “Blue Zones”
Sustainable Dish post: Meat is Magnificent: Water, Carbon, Methane & Nutrition (Graphic for methane)
PNAS study: Nutritional and greenhouse gas impacts of removing animals from US agriculture
Global Food Justice Alliance: Website | Instagram | Patreon
White Oak Pastures Farm & General Store
Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm by Isabella Tree
Connect with Courtney:
Website: Realfoodology
Instagram: @realfoodology
Podcast: Realfoodology
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.
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:
“Telling people to eat less meat is not going to change the food system, and it’s certainly not going to help their health.” – Diana Rodgers, RD
“A steak from an animal that was finished on grass, versus an animal that was finished on a feedlot are nearly identical.” – Diana Rodgers, RD
“[Death is] just the unfortunate reality that all of us have to face at some point It’s not comfortable, but it’s part of what we have to do while living on this planet… we just have to reconcile with that death is also part of life.” – Courtney Swan
“So when they’ve looked at people that shopped at health food stores overall and compared the ones who eat meat versus the ones who don’t eat meat, they found absolutely no difference at all in health and longevity.” – 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
Hey, everyone, Diana here and as you might know, I’ve been traveling a ton and doing a lot of speaking for the Global Food Justice Alliance. So for today, I’m releasing a show I recorded for another expert which I thought you’d enjoy. To join my mission at global food justice, please visit sustainabledish.com/join, and you’ll get access to early ad-free podcasts, the full video versions, exclusive downloads, and a community discussion group. So head over to sustainable dish.com/join and support the work I’m doing to push back against the anti-meat narrative. Thanks so much, and enjoy the show.
(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.
Courtney Swan
Diana, I’m so excited and so happy that we finally got connected; as I was just telling you before we started recording, I’m such a huge fan of your Instagram. I was so relieved when I found it. Because there has been such propaganda around, you know, these fake meats like Beyond Burger and all this stuff and just trying to convince everyone to go vegan and vegetarian because they’re, you know, trying to tell us that this is better for climate change and all that. And your Instagram is so refreshing because you’re you have this way with like putting it into words. And I’m just like, Yes, this is, this is the truth. And this is really what people need to hear. Because it’s so much more complicated than just, we just have to cut out meat. You know, like there’s so much of the conversation is not happening. So anyways, before we go into all of that, I want to let you just kind of tell everyone a little bit about what you do. I know you call yourself a real food nutritionist which I was like kindred spirit, I call myself a real foodist. So yes, if you want to kind of tell people a little bit about your background.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Sure. Well, I am a registered dietitian. And I started my practice just doing one-on-one consults, I was already sort of eating like a paleo-type diet when I became a dietitian. And I started, I was living on an organic farm, I started noticing how responsive everybody was to my more farm-related Instagram posts. And everyone wanted to see baby goats, and they wanted to learn more about life on the farm. And it seems so normal to me, but everyone was, like, just super interested in wanting to know more about that. And so I started just posting more about the farm. And, you know, this is how asparagus grows, you know, comes straight out of the ground. And a lot of people just are so disconnected. They don’t know, you know, they haven’t seen that. And then I slowly started just getting more political with my podcast. So now, if I do post, like a beautiful recipe or an image from a farm, it gets like no feedback at all. Everyone wants to learn more about, you know, meat and climate change and ethics and nutrition. And so I had wanted to write this book about meat for a long time with my friend Robb Wolf, who he was my original, like, entrance into eating paleo. And he kept pushing me off and saying it’s not the right time yet. It’s not the right time yet, you know, like you and I would be the only ones reading this book right now. And we did notice that at conferences, you know, like, half the room would be full. And, you know, I kept talking to him about like, Well, why isn’t anyone else in here? Like they’ve already heard processed food is bad, and like, you know, all this other stuff. But why aren’t they like learning about sustainability? Because Robb and I were so passionate about it and really felt like this was the next thing. And there’s other leaders in the area that in the food space that, also like Chris Kresser has been hugely supportive, and Mark Sisson, but I don’t think the general public, it wasn’t on their radar for a while. And now, with all of the vegan films that are out there, and all cities have schools cutting out meat or reducing meat, the global dialogue has really shifted, and as people are talking about, you know, how are we going to feed the planet moving forward? There’s really no one else out there defending meat from a environmental and nutrition, and ethics perspective. So I definitely did not set out to be like the dietitian on the crusade to get everyone to eat meat. I personally don’t care if someone chooses not to eat meat, that’s fine personally, but we do have major problems in our food system, and grazing animals, in particular, can be one of the best solutions to fixing climate change and also to now urge people with real food.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s really concerning to see kind of where the dialogue has gone, because I remember so when I was getting my master’s in nutrition, I mean, this was, I actually originally was on the RD track. And then, I went a different route because I wanted a more holistic approach. But I’ve great appreciation for the RD track. But I remember when I was going through that program, there was such an emphasis… In the beginning, it was interesting, there was such an emphasis on going vegan, going vegetarian. And then as we got more into it, and more into my classes, I had a lot of professors that were actually saying the opposite where they were like, you know, you need to be careful because we see a lot of women that go vegan and vegetarian have hormonal imbalances, etc. And just like you, I like to stress this a lot with people and say, you know, at the end of the day, everyone needs to decide what’s best for them. I’m not here to say, like, don’t go vegan or vegetarian. However, I feel like there’s a lot of truth that’s being omitted right now in this conversation. And I mean, I was duped for a long time. And I was so grateful to find your work. I also found, you know, Kiss the Ground that really opened my eyes to this sustainable way of farming because, unfortunately, everyone is being led to believe that we just need to cut animals out entirely. And that’s going to be the solution to climate change. And that this is the more healthy, sustainable, and ethical way of doing it. And it’s just not true. So I wanted to really, I felt like you were the perfect person to come on, and really, like help break this down and help people understand better from all these different viewpoints. So maybe we can start out first of all, maybe like what regenerative farming is, and like why soil health is so important and the role that animals play in that?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Sure, yeah. And there are a lot of great organizations out there that are doing really important work in the regen ag space, not as many that understand the nutritional importance of meat. And so I just want to stress that this idea that we should be eating “less meat, better meat” is actually not where I’m coming from at all. And that’s where most of the other organizations are coming from. Only because, as a person who really cares about public health and micronutrient deficiencies, telling people to eat less meat is not going to change the food system, and it’s certainly not going to help their health. So we’re already protein and micronutrient deficient. And so I tried to tell people eat the best meat you can afford; if you can get regenerative meat, great. But if you can’t, you should still be eating the best food you can get your hands on. So that’s just where I differ a little bit from some of the other folks in this space. And it can cause, unfortunately, some ripples. People get really stressed out when I start talking about these nuances, but I think they’re very important. So regenerative agriculture, the word regenerative, has become a little bit of a buzzword. And unfortunately, some groups are using it a little bit as a form of greenwashing. So, I mean, really, the, you know, the “back to the land” folks that you know, wanting to do organic farming, starting in the 60s and 70s, their goal was to improve the land. The idea of sustainability was actually, you know, let’s improve the land while we’re farming it. And so some people say, well, regenerative is the only solution. And that’s not true. You know, anyone who’s growing food and improving the ecosystem while they’re doing it is doing a great job. So I don’t believe that it has to be, you know, quote, unquote, regenerative or nothing. And so, but the idea behind the word regenerative is that it’s not just sustaining, it’s actually improving. But again, that was the goal of everybody who got into this movement, you know, from all along. And you can’t have a truly regenerative food system without including animals in that system because you need some way of putting nutrients back in the soil. And on small garden-type areas like backyard garden, or maybe on an urban garden plot. It is possible to grow plants with, you know, just compost and things like that. But at any sort of scale, you have to have animal inputs, whether that’s horse manure from the horse farm up the street, or animals actually grazing on the land, you absolutely have to have some type of animal input in order to really produce food at scale. And the most efficient way for us to be getting our protein is really from animals anyway. So the type of grazing underneath the regenerative ideals are to not do what we call continuous grazing. So if you imagine you have 100 head of cows and 1000 acres, right, so typically, a rancher might just let them out in the field for the whole entire season, and they would just go around grazing. However, in this type of regenerative managed grazing, you would section the field into much smaller paddocks. And intensively graze each section at a time allowing the cows to like mow the grass but then moving them. Sometimes once a day, sometimes farmers will do it multiple times a day, sometimes it’s every three days just depends on where you are, what the land quality is, what the pasture quality is, how many animals you have, you know, but the idea is that you intensively graze and mow everything down, and then you move them off and allow that land to rest. And this does a few things. Number one, it ensures that everything gets eaten. Because just like a salad bar, or you know, buffet line, some people will go for their favorite tasty things and leave other things, right. And the problem is, if you allow the cattle to graze only their favorite plants, they’re going to graze them all the way down on the ground and kill them and actually reduce the health of that pasture. So by forcing them to eat everything all at once and then moving them off, they’re actually getting a more balanced diet, and you’re maintaining the diversity of forage that’s in there because a pasture isn’t just blades of grass; it’s all kinds of things that are out there. So it’s healthier for the animals because they’re getting a more balanced diet, but also, they’re less likely to get infected with parasites, because if you have one animal that has worms, and that happens, the other animals, if they’re eating constantly over the areas where that one that has the parasite pooped, then now everybody has a parasite problem. If you’re moving them constantly, they’re less likely to be regrazing those areas, and the parasites won’t live as long. And because the birds come and they, you know, eat through everything, and pick out all the worms and things like that. And then also, this is much healthier for the biodiversity of the soil because it allows the land to rest after it’s been heavily grazed. And that’s really when the carbon sequestration can happen. It’s during that rest period. So grass has a root system that is usually about as deep, the roots go as deep as the grass is tall. So what happens is the cow is grazing down. And that actually kills the roots at the bottom but then actually stimulates new growth. And so if you’re just going to have a pasture with no animals grazing, there’s nothing to stimulate new growth again. And so it needs to be biologically chomped down by an animal, and then allowed to regrow and then fertilized with the manure from that animal. That’s how you have the healthiest ecosystem. And that’s how you end up having more diverse not only plant life but fungal and bacterial life underground. And also, in those areas, you have wild birds come back, you have much more diversity of all kinds of creatures on that land. And the healthiest ecosystems are the most diverse ecosystems.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, that’s really important. I think that right there has really been lost on people. And also, I think it’s important to note too, is that our food that we’re growing on that land is only as healthy as the soil is. And if we are completely, you know, ruining that topsoil we’re tilling or spraying with pesticides, instead of allowing that diversity and allowing, you know, at a time to rest from being grazed on and all this stuff, then our foods not going to be as healthy because our soils not as healthy.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Right. Exactly. Yeah. And so the problem with tilling and planting crops is that by putting a machine in the ground and churning up, breaking up that soil, you’re actually releasing carbon number one, but you’re also killing all the fungal networks and all the bacteria that’s living in the soil. And so that’s why the idea of monocropping is so dangerous because you have to kill an entire ecosystem. Whatever was living there needs to die in order for you to come in with these tractors plow up the ground, plant only one type of plant – rows of soy or rows of corn or rows of wheat. And then how are you going to fertilize it you need to come in with chemical pesticides and fertilizers and you know and make sure that no weeds come up. No invasive insects come in. So the process of growing plants is actually quite harmful compared to just grazing animals leaving the land unplowed, untouched.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, yeah. Okay. And you touched on a couple different things that I want to start getting into. First and foremost, I meant to say this, and I forgot I’m so glad that you touched on the quality of the meat because I personally, as a nutritionist, and you know, I consider myself an educator in the space. I spent the last – so I would say, you know, probably 12 years telling people if you can’t get really high-quality meat, just eat vegetarian out, and I am more recently have been reading… I heard you say this on I think it was Joe Rogan’s podcast recently, I’ve heard some other people, some other experts in the field that are saying, you know, it’s better to just have the meat, if you can’t get your hands on, you know, the organic regenerative, obviously buy it as much as you possibly can. But we really should be focusing on eating more meat, not cutting it out and eating less, which I think is really important to note. And I don’t know if there’s anything else you wanted to say on that.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I mean, one of the most controversial pieces of the book, Sacred Cow is that we looked at all the research that was currently out on the differences between grass-fed beef and typical beef that you would get in a grocery store. And the reality is, there’s not that much difference, like when it actually comes down to it. A steak from an animal that was finished on grass versus an animal that was finished on a feedlot are nearly identical. They’re not, it’s not going to really change your overall health to just switch out, you know, for different types of meat. You’re not going to be eating any extra pesticides any glyphosate; the fatty acid ratio is a little bit different in some samples, not consistently in all samples. And also, you know, so you’ll hear people say, well, grass-fed beef has a better omega three to six ratio, right? But the problem is, you have to look at the overall diet of somebody and look at their omega six to three ratio, right, and just swapping out typical beef for grass-fed beef is not going to… you know, it’s like saying, well eat this one blueberry, and that’s gonna like change your life, you know. You would still have to eat about eight pounds of grass-fed beef to get the same omega threes that you can get in a small piece of wild salmon. And so, if you’re looking for omega threes and want to improve your ratio, the best thing is to eat fatty fish like wild salmon, which has its own sustainability issues, right? And cut down on ultra-processed foods and just eat more real foods. And so, just overall, cut out your omega six. So there’s new stuff coming out now about polyphenols and different compounds that we’re seeing in grass-fed beef, which is great. I’m certain that there is more that we don’t know. However, there is no RDA for polyphenols; we don’t really know what they do in the body, or how much we need or anything like that. And so, you know, and a lot of people also will think, “Well, for the environment or for, you know, animal welfare. I don’t want an animal that was raised in a confined feeding operation, right.” But what most people don’t know is that all cattle are grass-fed. They all start on a pasture. Like a calf-cow operation out in usually in America, it’s somewhere in Colorado or Montana. And then they’re either finished on a feedlot for about three months or so or they continue on grass. So it’s really just about three months out of their life that they would be on a feedlot and compared to chicken and pork, where they spend their entire lives indoors in a factory setting. Cattle, relatively speaking, typical cow have a much better quality of life than a factory farm chicken or a pig. And it’s healthier meat as well, overall.
Courtney Swan
Talk about first so you had mentioned that fertilizer that’s used on these farms often will have you know, like the manure from animals or they also throw in like bone meal, blood meal, feather meal. This is something that was very mind-blowing for me when you started pointing this out is that there is no such thing as a bloodless diet. So we have always vegans and vegetarians – this is not to like, talk crap on them. But I’m just saying that everyone is, you know, like the animals, animals. Well, what about all the little ground critters that are getting destroyed by the mono-crop farming? And this is what drives me so crazy about these like Beyond Burgers, right and Impossible, is everyone saying like, “Oh, eat these fake meats, and it’s better for the environment. It’s better for the animals.” And like this is literally contributing to the mono-crop farming that’s also destroying the lives of all of these little ground animals. Are we not concerned about all those?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Right. And it’s not just ground animals because then when you’re killing all the insects, the birds have no food and we’re seeing a huge decline in bird populations because they have nothing to eat as they’re migrating. And so actually the Audubon Society is working with ranchers now to try to increase more great ranching so that there’s habitat for the birds as they fly across the US and go south for winter. They have no…
Courtney Swan
Bees?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, bees, plus everything that is required underground in order to keep everything healthy. So again, the healthiest ecosystems have the largest diversity of life in them, and that should be the goal is actually the opposite of a monocrop. You want as many different things growing there as possible. And so actually, the healthiest farms too, are the ones that are, you know, raising cattle and then following it with chicken, and then they’ve got pigs and I mean, just like if you picture your health or, you know, your farm as a diversified portfolio, right, it’s very risky to invest in just one stock. You want to hedge your bets and diversify. That way, you’ll get, you know, if you think about it, in terms of nutrition, you’re gonna get a little bit of different micronutrients from, you know, these types of fruits or plants or berries or whatever. Same deal with farms, you want to have as many different things as possible, that’s going to be the healthiest solution.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, it’s so interesting when I was watching your documentary, Sacred Cow, which is amazing, by the way, and I was really touched by there was a vegan who was talking, or I think she was a previous vegan where she was saying, this is when she really turned the corner because she realized like, okay, no matter what animals are going to die at the expense of farming and at the expense of me eating. So there’s really no choice left but to just do it well and to support the farmers that are doing it right.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yes. And so she talked – this is Lierre Keith. And she wrote an amazing book called The Vegetarian Myth. And so she says, in the film, “You’re going to be a part of death. So you can either be a part of the death that kills things like monocropping, or a part of the death that brings more life.” So if you picture one cow can provide about 500 pounds of meat, while increasing the ecosystem function of that land, while you know bringing back bird populations while providing habitat for bunnies and frogs and all the things and healthier waterways and all of this, that should be the diet of least harm, not a diet where you’re just eating packaged foods and pretending that nothing died.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, absolutely. This is what really like really blew my mind when it came to all this, this whole conversation because, you know, at the end of the day, it’s a circle of life. And it’s just the unfortunate reality that all of us have to face at some point, you know, it’s not comfortable, but it’s part of what we have to do while living on this planet is that we have to break or we just have to reconcile with that death is also part of life.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Exactly, exactly. It just is. Yep.
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Courtney Swan
So let’s go a little bit into the health aspect of this, because I think there’s kind of three – well, there’s three main things happening right now in this whole conversation, and they’re coming at it from, you know, an ethical standpoint, which we just covered. And then there’s also the health standpoint, and then, of course, the climate. So, you know, there’s all this propaganda right now saying that it’s better for your health, it lowers your cholesterol by cutting out meat. We would all do better with eating less meat. Can we talk about that a little bit, because this drives me nuts. I feel like we are now blaming all of these foods that we’ve eaten for 1000s of years – think like eggs, meat butter, you know, we’re blaming all of these chronic modern diseases on those foods that we’ve been eating for 1000s of years. And I’m like, no, this is not right.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. So the problem is, it’s really hard to do nutrition research. You can’t lock people in a lab for 30 years, feed them one diet, and then have people in a different room feeding on the same diet, but just chicken instead of beef. Right. And it takes a long time to develop cancers, for example. And so what most nutrition research is, is population observation. So they’ll look at people who live in Mexico, and then people who live in Finland and notice, okay, we’ve got more cancer in Finland, and oh, they eat more meat, it must be the meat. And that’s just so correlation does not equal causation. So that’s just a basic fundamental of statistics. You can’t compare people in Finland to people in Mexico, there are so many different variables there. There’s a difference of socioeconomics for one, which is the biggest driver of health there is. So people who have more money are healthier, they have better access to health care, they have less stress in their life. They have the privilege to worry about long-term health, being concerned about diet quality, and long-term health is a position of privilege that a lot of people don’t have. And so telling certain people that meat is bad is basically an elitist position. Because pulling meat away from people that can’t even afford to push away meat in the first place is unethical. So meat is a nutrient-dense food. There’s only been one randomized control, like experimental study looking at meat versus less meat, and it was done in Kenya, out of school at 12 different schools. And one group of school kids got a meat snack at school, one group got a milk snack. One group got extra calories just overall calories. And then there was a control group that didn’t get any snack, unfortunately for that group. And the meat group did the best: they did the best academically, they did the best physically with their muscles. And then also, behaviorally, they did the best. And so we know that more meat to, at least these school, children is a better thing. But the studies showing like Blue Zones, I actually have a blog post coming out soon about why the blue zone study makes no sense. Just overall, you know, looking at different populations and saying, “Oh, well, these people ate the meat, so it must be the meat.” You know, when they’ve looked at populations, for example, that shop at health food stores. So they’re – you sort of adjusting for lifestyle, you know, people, if you picture a typical vegetarian in America, you might imagine that they’re probably doing some yoga, meditating, eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables is always a good thing. And you know, maybe they take some supplements. They drink filtered water. They go to, you know, the smallest little sign of any kind of blip in their body, and they’re running to the doctor to get checked out, right? You compare that to your typical like tailgating dude who’s drinking six packs all the time and also happens to eat hotdogs. It’s not the meat that’s the problem there. It’s not the burgers or the steaks, right? And so when they’ve looked at people that shopped at health food stores overall and compared the ones who eat meat versus the ones who don’t eat meat, they found absolutely no difference at all in health and longevity and actually negative outcomes with vegans in those populations.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, well, I’ve recently read a study that showed that lower consumption of meat in women specifically they found a higher incidence of anxiety and depression.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yep. And you see higher incidence of bone fractures. Overall, in men and women in vegans, there just are nutrients that are either completely unavailable or very hard to access from plants. Anytime you have a nutrient that’s in a plant or an animal-source food, the body always prefers that animal-source version. So, for example, vitamin A, you can get that from eating a sweet potato, but it comes in the form of beta carotene, which your body needs to convert to vitamin A, and animal source foods, it’s already coming in the form of retinol, which is the active form of vitamin A. And about 50% of all humans genetically can’t make that conversion very well. So that’s why we see some people doing a little bit better on plant-based diets than others. And some people, you know, go straight downhill, other people seem to do better for a period of time on a plant-based diet, you still need lots of supplements, you still need a lot of planning, and it is still a diet or privilege.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, well, exactly. I mean, I think about the poor kids in New York, who now they’re being forced to have, I believe it’s meatless Mondays and Fridays now, and you think about the kids in the lower socioeconomic families where some of the only meals that they get are at school. And so now they’re depriving them of meat, which is really sad, because I mean, what you just brought up is that one of the favorite arguments for vegans is like, Oh, you can get every single vitamin and nutrient that you need through your food, even when you’re vegan, like through plant based foods. And I’m like, that’s just absolutely not true. And not all the forms are bioavailable like you said, and also, B12 only exists in the form of meat. So if you’re not eating meat, you have to supplement and to me, I’m like, That is a place of privilege. If you’re having to then take supplements on top of your normal diet like not everyone even has access to get supplements.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Right. And I think the the bigger problem, too, is that these meat-free campaigns in schools are telling kids that it’s immoral to eat meat, that it’s bad to eat meat. It’s unhealthy, it’s bad for the environment, and you’re just kind of a bad person to eat meat. And that has a ripple effect, because the most favorited foods by kids are pizza, mac and cheese burgers, a Subway sandwich, you know, so what are they just going to go to – they’re not going to go and get an $18 Kale and quinoa bowl at Sweetgreen, right? They’re going to… their choice is to, you know, go to Subway and get a sandwich without the meat on it. Like, that’s the reality of what this is, and also the information that they’re feeding them – especially the Meatless Mondays campaign. And I get a lot of flack for this, but it’s inaccurate information. So, Meatless Mondays has a big series of infographics that you can get from their website to post in your kid’s school or whatever. And it’s all misleading and misrepresentative of, you know, negatively towards the livestock industry. So they might say, you know, decrease your chance of diabetes by 15% by reducing your meat and eating more bean soups. It’s like okay, well a 15% decrease in a risk is actually statistically insignificant, number one. Number two, there is no cause it’s just an association. So again, it’s like well, these people ate bean soups, and these people ate meat and we saw a 15% less incidence of diabetes in these people. I mean, it’s just ridiculous. They might say, you know, your burger takes 10 bathtubs full of water to make as if all of the moisture that that cow was eating through the grass, which is the majority of their water, footprints, just moisture that’s in grasses rainfall, that would be there whether or not the cow ate it or not. And it’s saying basically, that, you know, that competes with us for drinking water. It does not. So it’s, it’s really terrible these messages.
Courtney Swan
Well, I mean, it’s lying. It’s propaganda. And what is it? I always forget what this is, but um, what is it with regenerative farming that causes? Like, I’m gonna mess this up, but it’s not about how much rain you get, it’s how much you retain. Is that right?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, yep. So a good example of that is the Chihuahuan desert, or even just the rainfall simulator that we filmed at Michigan State University, where they’re doing a lot of really great regenerative agriculture research right now. And so, in the film, we do a rainfall demonstration where we show basically bare soil that’s been tilled. And so when the rain comes down on it, it just washes away, like the rain doesn’t actually seep into the ground, versus a thick carpet of grass, the rain is going to go into that thick carpet of grass. And so what you need is a thick carpet of grass. You don’t want hard compacted soil that’s going to run off or you know, is going to be like cement, and the water is just going to evaporate away. So properly grazing animals actually increased the water holding capacity of that soil. So you think of like a plush carpet versus a concrete floor. Basically, you want the plush carpet, so if you spill something on a carpet is gonna go in there, right? You can’t like mop it up. So that’s kind of what it’s like.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, I mean, and this is why again, it’s so important to have these conversations about all the nuances because, you know, people are just reading or kids are reading this at school thinking like, “Oh my god, it’s taking 10 bathtubs of water for my burger,” when in reality, like what you just said is that if they have if the soil is managed properly, we don’t have to worry about that so much because it’s retaining a lot of the moisture. So it’s not like it’s taking the water away from us specifically. This is where I really have a hard time and then, you know, back to the vegan conversation a little bit what I really struggle with, and this is I went through this personally so I have my own anecdotal evidence of this, but I was vegetarian for five years. And what happens often not always, is that veganism, vegetarianism becomes part of your identity. And what I really I struggled with this I remember, you know, I was like, so very, very beginning of being vegetarian. I was like, This is great. I lost weight. I didn’t even mean to I feel great. I’ve energy all this stuff. Okay, well, fast forward to five years in I am having aggressive dreams about meat because I’m craving it so bad. I am so fatigued. I’m you know, almost 40 pounds heavier than I was when I started out. I am constantly eating constantly starving, just craving so much sugar. I also had really crazy cystic acne because my hormones were just like, oh, like all over the place. And I had a nutritionist tell me in her office, she looked me straight in the eyes. And she goes, “Courtney, you have to eat meat.” And I I left her office sobbing I called my mom. I was like, She’s so mean, like, this is horrible, because I had made vegetarian my identity. And I was like, I’m going to be vegetarian for life. And I was not… I was ignoring all the signs of my body completely screaming and I kept, you know, reading and thinking, Oh, I’m just not vegetarian enough. Or I was being told you’re just not doing that vegetarian right. I had done it for five years. I was also studying nutrition at the time. So I was doing quote, unquote, all the right things, the best of my ability. And then the second that I started eating meat again, I was like, oh my god, I just needed to eat meat and I didn’t need to be more vegetarian. And this is what I don’t like is that now we’re telling people to ignore all the bodily symptoms and signs if you are vegetarian or vegan, and you are thriving and you feel great, and you have energy and like, you feel good, I love this for you. But if someone is vegan or vegetarian, and they’re just being told that this is the healthier way, and you just got to keep forging through while ignoring your body’s screaming and telling you that needs something, this is where this is where I have the problem with it.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Definitely and yeah, so the average vegan only lasts I believe, three months before they go back to eating meat and we know that the meat, the fake meat sales are not doing Well, they’re sort of almost being subsidized to be on the shelves to make it look like it’s more successful than it is. It takes a lot of energy to produce those products when you can just have a cow on grass. And so it’s just incredibly misguided. And it’s actually doing more harm than good.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, yeah. Because like I said, unfortunately, it’s causing people to ignore the signs and symptoms of their own body. And this is exactly goes against what you and I preach, where it’s like, you got to figure out what works best for you listen to your body. It tells you what it means most of the time, you know. So I want to go over the last component of this, we kind of touched on it a little bit, but I’ve heard you say, in Sacred Cow, and also like on your Instagram, “It’s not the cow. It’s the how.” And there’s all this conversation right now saying like, Oh, cow farts are causing all the carbon in the atmosphere. And this is the biggest driver of climate change and all this stuff. But what about the cars on the road? What about the fossil fuel manufacturing? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, well, first of all, it’s a very complex thing. And there’s two different – number one, the methane produced by cattle worldwide is only 5% of methane emissions. So it’s not the biggest driver, if the numbers are way, way, way higher for transportation, for consumerism, all that kind of stuff. So cattle are 5%. In the US, it’s about two and a half percent of our emissions. But that’s because we have a higher ratio of cars to cows here than in other less developed countries. But also, the methane that comes from cattle is actually part of a biogenic cycle, as opposed to the fossil fuel burning, which is a one way situation and it’s a little bit easier to look at one of my graphics and or to watch the film and see the animation that I do. But basically, if you were to imagine a cow on grass, it’s not farts, it’s actually it’s belching. So they have a lot of bacteria in their stomach chambers. And it as it is breaking down the grass and the other stuff, that the cow is eating, methane gets produced. Same thing, like when things just decompose like a peat bog or something, there’s a lot of methane that comes from that. The methane goes into the atmosphere for about 10 years. And then after 10 years, it gets converted to water and CO2. So the water becomes part of the rain cycle, and the CO2 goes back in to the plant life through photosynthesis. The plants give off oxygen, which is what we need to breathe. And then the carbon becomes part of the grass, the roots, and some of it can even get sequestered in the ground. So there’s a constant gas exchange happening. It’s a circle. In the burning of fossil fuels, it is just pumping carbon dioxide and methane strain into the atmosphere. And there’s no natural other side of the equation to absorb it. So by far, the biggest contributor to the increase that we’re seeing in climate change is the burning of fossil fuels. And in North America, we don’t have more methane-producing animals than we did before we got rid of the bison, so so they’re anywhere between the most numbers look, consider about 60 million bison were here. But then you have to think about all the other wild deer, goats, all of the other large animals grazing animals that were in North America before we ripped everything up and killed everything and turned it all into corn, right? Today, we have more cows, but we actually… the overall number of our beef cattle herd is not more than the number of grazing animals we had in the 1600s. And so we don’t have net more methane-producing animals right now than we did.
Courtney Swan
That’s really interesting. I hadn’t heard that and just for people listening, and also I want clarification of this too. So when you say sequestering carbon, this act of doing regenerative farming, which means that we allow the cows to graze and do as nature intended, the sequestering carbon means that it actually pulls the carbon out of the atmosphere and back into the soil. Is that correct?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yes. And so what happens is the, all plants are are taking in CO2, that’s what they need and water, in order to grow in sunlight and through the process of photosynthesis. They give off O2, which is oxygen. And then the CO that – or sorry, the C, the carbon. Carbon is life. So we are made of carbon plants are made of carbon. The plants then take in the carbon, it becomes the plant it becomes roots, but then it’s also dripping little – so carbon is basically sugar molecules that are that are going down into the soil. And plants need all kinds of nutrients, but they can’t, their roots can’t access all of the nutrients they need. And so what happens is they’re leaking down carbon. And then the bacteria are eating the carbon and exchanging the carbon for nutrients that the plant needs. And then there’s fungal networks too that are long branches of little fungal networks that are going down and mining minerals from the rocks, and bringing that to the plant in exchange for the carbon because the fungus needs the carbon. And so there’s this whole symbiotic relationship happening underground. And then as the roots die back, that carbon from the roots, along with all other dead stuff that’s in there, just through the cycle of life, is the carbon that can get locked in and building new soils, also extra carbon. And so that’s how the Great Plains were… that’s why it’s so fertile in our breadbasket. It’s because bison were grazing and pooping. And this whole process was happening building soil over 1000s and 1000s of years. And that’s what can happen on a regenerative farm.
Courtney Swan
That’s amazing. I mean, it’s just a reminder that, you know, nature has everything that we need nature, has this all figured out. Why are we coming in and trying to destroy all of these amazing things that are already in place? And we’re only causing more harm right now.
Diana Rodgers, RD
The more plant-based we go, the more harm it’s going to be, you know, to our health, because we’ll be nutrient deprived. So there was one study that looked at what would happen if we eliminated all animals from our food system in the US. And they found that our calorie intake would go up, our carb intake would go up. So we don’t need that right now. So we’ve got 70% of Americans are overweight or obese. And you know, our crisis with Type 2 Diabetes. Plus our nutrient deficiencies would go up in multiple nutrients: calcium, vitamin A, B12, and then essential fatty acids. So we need animal source foods to thrive as humans. We’re omnivores. And that’s just how we evolved. And, interestingly, we also need animals in the mix on any farm that claims to be sustainable.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, and we can’t supplement our way out of this.
Diana Rodgers, RD
No,because the supplement industry has its own problems. We have to mine minerals we have to grow the B 12. Like, it’s not like they just magically kind of get plucked from a supplement tree.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, absolutely. And you touched on something really important about our health is, and I mean, I experienced this myself. What’s so funny is that we’re, you know, we’re already having this chronic obesity crisis. And then we’re having this crisis with Type 2 Diabetes as well. And then we’re encouraging people to just eat more carbs right now, and reduce their meat. And we need to be doing the exact opposite. Because we know that especially if someone is already dealing with insulin resistance, which is Type 2 Diabetes, they’re having a hard time controlling their blood sugar. We don’t want to throw more carbs in the mix. We want to throw more protein and fat in the mix.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Right. Right. And the fats, unfortunately, are coming from ultra-processed seed oils, not natural good fats that are what we need to be eating. So yeah. And the more protein people eat, the more satiated they are and the less likely they are to over-consume calories. So my recommendations for meat intake are much, much higher than the RDA for meat.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, I mean, I eat I don’t know if you know, Paleovalley, there are grass-fed beef sticks.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I love Paleovalley.
Courtney Swan
I love them. I make jokes on them all the time on on Instagram, that they’re like my supplement. I eat them like a supplement every day, because they’re so good. And they’re so good for you.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I and they’re also just an awesome company. They’ve been hugely supportive of my work from day one. I mean, like, from from the day I first met them, they were huge sponsors of my film. They’re just really, really good people. And I’m excited about the new stuff that they’re coming out with. And I’m going to be doing some some partnerships with them moving forward. So it’s funny, you brought them up, because, you know, not only do they make a delicious, healthy product, but they’re just like really good people, too.
Courtney Swan
Yeah. I’ve had a couple of calls with them as well because they’ve been sponsoring the podcast and my Instagram. So yeah, I love them. Huge fan. So now that we’ve kind of covered all this, then I’m sure everyone’s kind of going. “Okay, well, what do we eat?”
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. Yes. Well, I have a solution to that. So in the back of the book, Sacred Cow, I do have a nutrition plan that is basically sort of like a Whole30 paleo type challenge. I do have an emphasis on micronutrient density, so really paying attention to food quality. I teach people how to track their micronutrient intake through an app and also how to calculate their protein needs because it is much higher than what most people think. So I’ve never once had someone walk into my nutrition practice eating what I consider is adequate protein. So, but I actually have a course that I developed called Sustainavore. So it’s on my website, or they can just go to sustainavore.com. And I take them through from the very start, how people can just learn the boot camp basics about real food nutrition, how to calculate their protein track their protein intake, their micronutrient intake. And then in the subsequent chapters, I tell them why. So they just right off the bat, they just start on their nutrition challenge. And then I go through everything you and I talked about plus so much more. So it’s like, nine or 10 chapters long. And they learn everything about the environment about plant production, about greenhouse gases and water. And I have a whole chapter on ethics. I talk about what happens when people eliminate all plants and just, I mean, eliminate all meat and just eat plants. And so it’s been really, really popular. But they can also just check out like the the shorter version of it in the book, Sacred Cow as well.
Courtney Swan
Okay, amazing. Well, these are all great resources. So we’ll we’ll link all that in the show notes so everyone can get to it. So I’m sure before we wrap this up, people are also wondering how can they better support this? So how can they support these farming practices? Where should they look for their meat? If they want to support the regenerative farming? Like kind of where? How do they get involved if they want to get involved?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, so I started a nonprofit group after I did the film called the Global Food Justice Alliance, and that has its own Instagram feed and website, and people can join the Patreon there. And that is more dedicated to making sure that global food policies allow for the choice to have animal source foods. And so it’s a lot of academics and doctors and nutritionists that are on the advisory circle. And I am going to be flying around the world like a different country every single month between now and the end of this year, just talking to governments, you know, different politicians, press and at conferences, all about the inequities of pulling meat away from people and why it’s so dangerous. And so I do have organizations on there, I’m a big fan of Savory Institute that teaches farmers how to do regenerative grazing, I’m a huge fan of Heifer International. They’re the ones that Christmas time that you can like, buy a water buffalo for a family in Vietnam or whatever. But they actually it’s a very creative campaign, but they’re actually doing really incredible important work. Because, for example, you probably don’t know this. I didn’t know this until I started looking into it, that in about half the countries in the world, women can’t own land, but they can own livestock. So being able to have some chickens or some goats is hugely liberating, not only nutritionally for the family, but also economically for these women. So Heifer has done some amazing work, especially in Nepal around all that. And I am trying to think I mean, you had mentioned, you know, Kiss the Ground is doing some good stuff. So there’s a there’s a lot of regen ag organizations out there – not as many defending the nutritional rights for people to have meat and to push back against these gigantic corporations and people like Bill Gates. And so that’s what my main focus is right now.
Courtney Swan
Oh, that’s so amazing. Well, your voice is so needed and so important. And I just want to, you know, give you recognition for that and say, Thank you for doing what you’re doing. It’s really important. Yeah, it’s amazing. I will also want to add on that too, if you know if you can go to farmers markets and find farmers in your area that are doing these local providers that are doing these amazing practices like regenerative farming, I know Force of Nature, you can order them online. I do I love their meat a lot. It’s comes from a regenerative farm in Fredericksburg, Texas.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And then they’re they’re awesome people to White Oak Pastures is amazing. Yeah, there’s definitely some really good options. Or people can find a local farmer. There’s on eat wild.com or localharvest.org are two other places where you can actually just go enter your zip code, and you can connect with a local meat producer.
Courtney Swan
Oh, that’s great. Okay, well, we’ll put all those links in the show notes. If anyone wants to go look, those will be in there. Also, is there anything else about this conversation that we haven’t gone over that you think is really important for people to know?
Diana Rodgers, RD
I mean, it unfortunately, it’s just a massive game of Whack a Mole because you know, once you start talking about why meat doesn’t actually cause cancer, and it takes a while, right. It’s not like well, this study proved it, you know, you have to explain the problems with nutrition research and causation and correlation and all that. But then they’ll say greenhouse gas, so then you explain the greenhouse gas, and then they’ll say water, well, then they take up too much land, well, then they eat too much feed, and we should just be eating the food directly, you know, so or it’s wrong to kill animals. It’s just wrong, you know. And so in the beginning of the Sacred Cow book, we actually have sort of a choose your own adventure guide, where we actually take all the top questions just because I know them so well now, and tell you Okay, does me cause cancer page 62. You know, and you can just kind of go through. So the… I do want to mention the book and the film are extremely different. So the film, it’s a great hour and a half. It’s narrated by Ron Swanson. Nick Offerman, who is is an amazing person. It’s a story. It just shows the stories of people who are doing this, the farming. With the book is like, your logical antidote to all of the anti-meat messaging, and it’s very well cited. And people do tend to get a lot more out of the book than from the film. The film was great. And I’m glad I did it. It’s really helpful for like high school science teachers. But I but if anyone’s really interested in this, I highly recommend the book.
Courtney Swan
Yeah, absolutely. It’s a great resource to have. So we’ll also leave a link for that. And I want to ask you, so I ask all my guests this at the very end. I know you’re busy. You said you’re going to be traveling a lot in the next couple months. What are some practices and things that you do for yourself that are, for your health, non-negotiable? So no matter how crazy your day is, these are things that you prioritize for your health. It can be like eating habits, you know, lifestyle, whatever it is things that you prioritize.
Diana Rodgers, RD
It can be hard, especially because I’m celiac. So when I travel, I often have a hard time with cross contamination and ended up getting sick. So good sleep is a non negotiable, absolutely have to have a dark room and quiet. So I request like if it’s a hotel room at the end of the hall, not near the elevator, I bring blackout tape with me to cover any of the little lights that are coming from the smoke detectors or the TV. Eat a protein-rich meal, like just, I mean, it’s kind of helpful to be allergic to the airport, basically. And like I have to bring my meat sticks with me. And it’s actually funny when I was stuck in for the Joe Rogan podcast, the initial taping was supposed to be a year earlier. And I got stuck in those ice storms in Austin. And I was living on like Paleo Valley meat sticks. It was really funny. I always have a good book on me. Right now I’m reading an amazing book called Wilding, by Isabella tree. And I have it on Audible and the in the book form so I can alternate between. I always try to move, whether that’s the going for a walk or the hotel gym, but moving. It’s definitely traveling is can be rough on my body. But yeah, you know, not crazy flight hours. You know, I’ve learned at direct flights no layovers it as much as possible.
Courtney Swan
Yeah. Well, so I used to, I traveled with a popstar for four years as her nutritionist and she’s European. She’s from Sweden, and we used to go all over Europe. So if after this, we can chat and I can send you some restaurants over because I’m also gluten-free. I’ve been I was diagnosed with a wheat allergy, like 12 years ago, and I have tons of restaurants that I can send you in different areas, depending on where you’re going. So…
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh, awesome. Yeah, I’m gonna be Brazil, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina. I mean, this is all like, it’s kind of unbelievable. All these things, and I’m lining up – Wales, Ireland. Yeah. So yeah, that would be great. I’d love to see it.
Courtney Swan
I’ll send you the list of all the gluten-free finds that I’ve found. So anyways, well, thank you so much for this, please tell everyone where they can find you.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Okay, so I have a sustainabledish.com is my main website. And that’s where you can find the course and more information about me. The Global Food Justice Alliance is that global food justice.org. And then on Instagram, I’m most active on Instagram, it’s @sustainabledish, or @globalfoodjustice. I’m on Twitter, but I don’t really love Twitter because it’s usually just vegans trying to argue with me. So I try to avoid Twitter. And then, if people want to go just straight to Amazon, you can watch the film in the US on Amazon Prime. In other countries, it’s often on iTunes, but every country is a slightly different with their licensing and everything. And then of course, the book Sacred Cow. So that’s it.
Courtney Swan
Amazing. Thank you so much. I loved this conversation. It was so informative.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I really appreciate you having me. Thank you so much.
Courtney Swan
Thank you for coming on.
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.
