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I am popping in your feed for a special episode. NYC schools just announced that in addition to their Meatless Mondays, they will now be serving all vegan meals on Fridays.

As you may imagine, I am pushing back hard on this. To discuss the problematic policy and its consequences, I have the perfect guest, Ede Fox – better known as The Black Carnivore.  Not only does Ede promote a meat-inclusive diet but she also knows firsthand the landscape of New York, its politics, and the children that will be directly impacted by this change.

Listen in to find out more about how taking meat out of schools will have devastating effects on some of the most vulnerable kids. 

Resources:

Randomized Control Trial: Meat supplementation improves growth, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes in Kenyan Children

Connect with Ede:

Podcast: The Black Carnivore 

YouTube: Black Carnivore

Instagram: @blackcarnivore

Twitter: @edefox

LinkedIn: Ede Fox

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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.

Transcript:

(Intro) 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 onto our show. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Okay, everybody, I have a breaking news podcast, a special edition, I direct messaged my friend Ede last night because I found out that New York City public schools are now vegan on Fridays. And this is in addition to Meatless Mondays, which is already something happening. So I thought I’d go straight to New York, in the middle of… we’re having an ice storm. I don’t know about you, but we are here. There may be beeping noises and plows outside today. But anyway, we’re going to get this up right away, and just kind of chat about… the new mayor’s vegan bias and the unintended consequences of this program. So welcome.

Ede Fox  

Thank you. Thanks for having me. And, yeah, I definitely think this is a conversation that needs to be had. I’m disappointed and not surprised. But you know, so still disappointed. I just don’t think it’s the right approach. And it’s, you know, and it’s not the school district’s place to make decisions about nutrition like that. I don’t think that you know, there isn’t the evidence to support it. And, yeah, so not happy about that. So…

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Oh, and why don’t we just back up? For folks who don’t know you? I’m sorry, I did not give you a proper introduction. Why don’t you go ahead and just let folks know who you are?

Ede Fox  

Sure. Yeah. So my name is Ede Fox. And I have a YouTube channel and podcast called The Black Carnivore. And so many years ago, I guess it was in 2015, I started following a keto diet, I lost about 80 pounds. But I still had some nagging health problems that didn’t resolve and I decided to try the carnivore diet and was just blown away by how impactful it was for my body. And so I decided to keep doing it, talk about it to people, start a channel and, you know, sort of dig in and try to understand the research and understand why this was so helpful for me. And I try to help anybody else who’s interested in achieving the same results. So that’s who I am. And then separately from this, I live in New York, and in my former life before, you know, this, social media carnivores stuff, I also worked for the city of New York, I worked in politics. I worked for a lot of different elected officials. And in fact, Eric Adams, who’s our current mayor was also my state senator for a long time. And somebody I knew and worked with and worked on his campaigns, and, you know, so yeah. So I know who he is.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

All right. And so for folks who don’t know, Eric Adams recently was elected. And he’s very vocal about the fact that this vegan diet saved his health, which I fully advocate for people to make their own choice when it comes to nutrition and diets that will save them. But well, you and I were talking briefly before we started recording. You just kind of went into his background a little bit, which I didn’t know. So why don’t you help everybody out with just a little more context here about him? 

Ede Fox  

Yeah, I mean, he was always as far as I knew him, a fitness buff. Like, he loved to work out and ride his bike, and he did a lot of physical activity. So if you might have imagined him, you know, as a diabetic who was very obese and ate a lot of junk and a lot of candy. Like, that was not him, he was a fitness person. So it was actually quite surprising to hear that he was diagnosed and I think it was really bad. Like, I think the story he said was… he woke up and he couldn’t see and everything was blurry, and he kind of passed out. So it was like, you know, his diabetes had progressed really, really far before it was actually diagnosed, and he did something about it. So, it’s important to know that you got to stay on top of this stuff like it can go a long time before any medical professional steps in and it can happen to anyone and so to understand why it’s happening, you know, it’s not just the people who are very overweight and not active and stuff. It’s, everyone and so, we really need to understand how the role that processed foods, carbohydrates, you know, play in and sugar play in causing this for us.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, and there’s a lot of populations where type two diabetes is going really under-diagnosed, because the assumption is that you need to be, you know, morbidly obese in order to get it. So when I had Dr. Tony Hampton on, we talked about the many populations that are going undiagnosed, just because they’re not fitting that classic assumption that people have about people with type two diabetes. And especially in Asian populations, the rates are skyrocketing. But their body shape is not changing so much. Their diet has changed a lot, right? It’s going more towards ultra-processed carbohydrates, noodles, and rice, and sweet things. And it would be interesting to see what his diet looked like, even though he was so fit because looks aren’t everything. And you can still be suffering some pretty bad health consequences, even though you might look like the picture of health. 

Ede Fox  

Mm hmm. Yeah. I don’t know. I didn’t watch him eat all that often but all the times I’ve seen him eat, I mean, it was, you know, regular, like chicken, rice, salad. So from what I could tell, he seemed like a person who cared about health. And so he aimed to eat the things that we’re told are healthy. And so, you know, he had a, whatever balanced diet, as far as I could see, in terms of the plates that I’ve seen him eat.  But who knows if he was sitting in his closet at night, you know, eating bags of M&Ms. 

 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah. So, let’s talk about… so the role of school lunches, in New York City public schools, and the evidence for pulling meat away. So I went and looked at the school lunch menus. I can talk to the evidence for sure and say that we have no evidence at all that removing meat from children’s diets is going to result in positive health outcomes. There’s absolutely no study that shows that. There’s one randomized control trial, it’s out of Kenya, where they took kids in schools – one group got a meat snack, one group got just extra calories. And one group got a dairy-based snack, some extra milk, and then they had a control group. And the meat group excelled in all three areas they were measuring- so academically, physically, and then also behaviorally. So that is the only randomized control trial to my knowledge, that looked at meat versus less meat in children, and showed that meat in this population of kids, was critically important. And so when we look at the population of the kids in New York, I mean, do you want to talk about what the landscape is looking like in New York? 

Ede Fox  

Well, that was the first study that I actually thought about when I heard about this, because, we want to give our kids the best opportunity to do well in school. And if we’re not providing that nutrition, that’s a major problem. Our rates of homelessness and all kinds of problems and food insecurity are high. And so, you know, there’s a lot of kids in school, for whom, the meals that they’re provided might be the best quality food they get in a day. And so it’s important that what we’re providing is the best quality possible. And taking out like the most nutrient-dense part of the meal is the worst possible thing to do. I mean, certainly, in my work, when I worked for the city council, it was really hard to see, how many kids were growing up, not only first but second generation, growing up and living entirely in shelters and kind of moving from shelter to shelter. So there’s a lot of,  a lot of our public school kids that don’t have stable home lives and stable sources of food. And that’s not to say that people don’t have access to food, but they may not have access to good food and you have to remember, you know, we talk a lot and certainly, in New York, there’s a lot of talk about getting your natural vegetables and cooking it and preparing food and all of that. But you can’t do that if you don’t have a fridge. I mean, you can’t do that if you don’t have a whole lot of money, because vegetables and fruit are expensive. They go bad pretty quickly. And when you’re preparing them, there’s a lot of it that you pay for, but don’t eat. Like, if you buy broccoli, you’re throwing away, well, some of us throw away the stalk, some of us eat it. So, it’s expensive, and it may not be a real option, especially when you’re talking about a family who is moving around, doesn’t necessarily have a stable place to store food, maybe has parents who are working multiple jobs. You know, you have to think about that. And I think the school lunches are just super important for the kids whose lives are a little bit more unpredictable at home.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Right. And I was doing a little research before we got on this zoom and found out that… so right, now currently, one in three children in New York City is food insecure. And the definition of food insecurity just means not having access at all times for nutritious food, right. And that number had been getting better for a while. But then when COVID hit, the biggest shift was that these kids weren’t going to school. So school lunches are really critical for a lot of these kids and 22% are falling below the federal poverty line. So that’s pretty alarming. So the numbers went from one-quarter of children to 1/3 as food insecure, and 1 in 10 Kids… 100,000 kids in New York City are homeless.

Ede Fox  

Hmm. Yeah. That I mean, the numbers are really astounding. And I remember when I first discovered how many of those are multiple generations. So that means that likely their children will also be living in the shelter system. And so that means that we need to… we have an extra responsibility to the kids who are living in that environment to help them have the toolset to be able to forge a different path going up. And first and foremost, that means proper nutrition, so you can pay attention in class and do well in school. And, you know, that’s step one. And that’s, that’s lunch, right.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

I also looked… so in some schools, they can get breakfast as well. And on the vegan days, the breakfasts were, you know, bagel with jelly, or toast, or cereal. The schools are mandated to serve milk. So the schools aren’t technically 100% vegan. And they’re touting that that is the choice that the children can make. If they don’t want to be vegan, they can choose to also include milk in their lunches, but that is just not going to help them hit 1/3 of their caloric nutritional needs. So when we look at food, especially when we consider children who have smaller stomachs, the volume of plant-based foods you need in order to reach those nutrient requirements is a lot of plant-based foods. It’s not just like, you know, having a little bit of broccoli is going to solve that iron problem, or a little bit of spinach. It is bags and bags and bags of spinach to meet the iron requirement. And so pulling meat out is is only going to make these nutrient deficiencies much worse. And I did pull up US statistics, I couldn’t find New York ones. But I have reached out to a hunger-relief organization in New York to try to interview them to see if I could get more New York-specific statistics, but we’ve got iron deficiency… yeah, iron and B12. We’re not going to get any B12 on these vegan school lunches. Vitamin A, but we need that in the form of retinol, which is only from animal source foods. I mean, and it’s well documented that people who follow vegan and vegetarian diets are much more likely to be nutrient deficient than people who are omnivores. I mean, even in the junk food setting, and I think that that’s something we need to be looking at, like, what are the typical foods that kids like? It’s mac and cheese, pizza. And it’s burgers.

Ede Fox  

Look at it that way. Because, you know, these kids also, like all kids, like candy and junk. So, right.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

So let’s… I was thinking of those photos ‘what the world eats’ you know, that guy that I think did a big data thing for Time magazine right? And let’s zoom in on a typical us kid, right? Because there is no perfect, right? So a typical us kid is eating… I looked it up – chicken nuggets, burgers, mac and cheese, and pizza. I mean definitely, broccoli, kale, and green salads were nowhere even on that list. And that doesn’t mean that, it might not be a good thing to encourage them to eat that kind of stuff. But it’s just not the reality. It’s not happening. They’re not taking iron supplements, they’re not taking a multivitamin. None of them are right. And so as a dietitian, if I were to look at the current status of what kids are eating, what’s the most nutrient-dense thing in there? It’s the chicken in the chicken nugget. Even if it’s a crappy chicken nugget, it’s still the chicken nugget. It’s that burger on the burger patty in that burger meal with the fries and the soda. But we’re blaming it on the meat in the burger. And it’s the cheese on the pizza, to be honest. That’s how they’re getting their calcium. And so when we remove all the animal source foods and just give them plant-based alternatives, we’re not healthy.

Ede Fox  

I mean, really, just like bread and Doritos. Well, you know, or some kind of chips. That’s really what it’s gonna be. And that’s not food.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Right. And so, unfortunately, when we’re talking about the population of at-risk kids in New York, it’s 94% of the homeless students are Black or Hispanic. They’re the ones who need this iron, who needs an extra leg up in the world. And when people who have the privilege to construct this beautiful vegan diet, have all their fancy nuts and sprouts and everything that they’re doing plus their nutrients but then telling other people that meat is bad. They might hear meat is bad and then just like you said, you know, take that burger bun and just shove it full of Fritos, right?

Ede Fox  

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that is really the major problem here. I mean, one making this decision really gives a value judgment on meat. And so now, the New York City school system is saying to a million kids, that a vegan choice is the preferred way to go even though, that might be the right choice for some of them. But for many others, it may be totally the wrong choice. And, they’re certainly adults that are thriving on a vegan diet. And so I say, great, you know, if that’s you, that’s great. That’s your choice. But I know that I don’t thrive that way. And I see a lot of people who don’t thrive that way. And I want to make sure that there’s another option. So by making this choice to make everyone do that on Fridays, it really is making the statement that that is the right way to go. You know, I don’t see a problem with having a vegan offering for every lunch that you can choose if you want to, but it shouldn’t be that everyone has to do this, because that is going to make some people’s situations worse. And of course, we’re seeing rising rates of obesity in kids, rising rates of diabetes in kids, which is totally disheartening. And so adding a diet that is really focused on processed grains and sugar is only going to exacerbate an existing problem that, I mean, really, I don’t think as a society, we’ve got any control over it. It’s just getting worse. So that would be my concern about making this choice. And I just really, you know, and I don’t know. I don’t feel confident that there is good education about, you know, to these kids about how to do a vegan diet. Because yeah, like you were saying like, if I were… when I also tried to do a vegan I kind of was like, Huh, okay, so meat is the problem. So I go to Subway and they say, Okay, let me have a sandwich. You just don’t put any meat or cheese on it. So it’s you know, a big white bread which is full of like lettuce, tomato, and onion. You know, not a great choice. So, I don’t know. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, I brought up the messaging, I was just gonna mention that part. So I have a huge problem with the Meatless Mondays propaganda that they have in the schools. You can go to their website, meatless mondays.com, to the resources section, you can download these, those infographics to, you know, spread all over the internet. And they’re incorrect. They’re completely misleading. You know, talking about how you’re going to reduce your chance of type two diabetes by 15% if you just don’t eat meat. There were also environmental claims that were completely misleading and overblown and incorrect. Also, about your quarter-pound burger takes 10 bathtubs full of water. That is incorrect. That’s not true. And nobody’s fact-checking these guys, because, you know, it just seems like it’s the virtuous solution. But no one’s looking at the unintended consequences, which are, we’re now raising kids in New York, from kindergarten through grade 12 who daily are seeing these Meatless Mondays messaging, and now they’re getting it reinforced on Fridays, that meat is bad for the environment and bad for their health. And something that should completely be avoided, or at least should be looked at as gluttonous and sinful.

Ede Fox  

Yeah. And it’s… and nobody’s asking the question, well, you know, how much water does several vials of insulin take? How much money are you spending on all of that insulin? And that’s a real vital question that isn’t being asked.  But yeah, it’s frustrating the information that’s being put out there and really not questioned. Not questioned at all.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

And like, so many things, if you do question it, you’re put in this category of people that should just be silenced. Right? 

Ede Fox  

Yeah. Or, you know, I get really tired. I mean, I try not to engage too often. And these kinds of arguments with people who have different dietary views, because really, my goal is to provide support for anyone who has decided that the vegan path isn’t working for them. So I’m not actively going trying to convert vegans, but every now and then somebody will start fighting, and I always ask them, like, where… tell me where you got this information. Send me the study, send me whatever, and they send me like, Cowspiracy? Or they’ll say, well, everybody knows, and I’m like, no, no, no, I, I’m not letting you off like that. You go find me the study, bring it back to me, and we’ll continue to have the conversation, but I’m not having this, you know, a discussion about ideology. We can have a discussion about science and studies. But the reality is that I see people get remarkably better very quickly by including more animal products into their diet. I don’t see the exclusion of animal foods helping in the long run. I think that you know, and my focus and interest is on long term health, longevity, you know, a lot of people sort of try to dismiss me as like, oh, you know, you’re just concerned about weight loss. And weight loss is important, and it definitely is a thing for some people, but… 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Let’s face it. It is the trigger that gets people motivated to shift their diet. I mean, not everybody, but the majority of people, I can say that as a clinician, I need to lose weight, and they end up changing their whole life and being more productive at work and having better relationships and just having a more fulfilling life. But it’s the weight loss, that is the number one entry point.

Ede Fox  

Yeah, absolutely. But my interest is in, you know, what is your mood? Like? What is your mental function? What are your blood markers doing? How do you feel? Are you able to live up to your potential, like, that’s the most important part. To be able to do whatever it was that you were born to do, to have the energy and the ability and the mental focus to actually be able to do that. And I see people really be able to thrive and do that without being like, hyper-focused on calories on counting on, you know, controlling their food and that’s what I think is different when you start including more animal products. You have to do much less focus on what you’re actually eating. Because there’s no more hunger. You know, you’re actually satisfied. You’ve got the nutrition going, and you actually have healing and all of that kind of stuff. So that’s what I see. And I really want everyone to be able to experience that. And it really… it hurts to see so many young people walking around and really struggling. And in fact, this week, I did an interview with a young man, I think he’s 24, who… he’s brought his weight down from, I think his highest weight was 370, or 380. So he’s brought it down, using a carnivore diet, but he’s been… you know, he was heavy for a long time. And he really talked about his experience, and some of the things that he was describing, the medical stuff that he was experiencing. You know, a generation ago, you would have seen that in a 45-year-old person, and a generation before that, you would have seen it in a 65-year-old person. So our young people are really suffering. And the advice that we’re being given is not working. It’s just not working.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Right? Well, I couldn’t agree more. I’m extremely concerned about this. We’re seeing more and more personal bias influence policy. And that’s where I’ve really shifted my attention lately. I’m sure you saw the New York Times opinion video that came out pinning all the problems of industrial agriculture on cattle, which was just absolutely ridiculous. We’ve got Vox news, which is soliciting people to start a vegan diet, and, you know, all the animal deaths would just go away, if we just don’t eat them, which is a lie. And so I’m just trying to point out the bias, and the lack of scientific rigor. And the beautiful thing is, is what you were talking about with satiety. You know, when people increase their protein intake from animal source foods, they naturally do feel more full, we know this. And it’s also the best source of the majority of the micronutrients that we need, probably all the micronutrients. And just about and so when you’re eating more animal source foods, you’re getting more nutrient density in smaller packages, and your caloric intake goes down. And I mean, for a lot of people, when they go vegan, their calorie intake does go down, because they’re, you know, not eating ultra-processed foods anymore. Weight loss does. in any form, however, you end up losing weight can reverse type two diabetes. But you know, there are better and worse ways to do that. Kudos to Eric Adams for reversing it. But that doesn’t mean that this is a good policy decision for New York City public school kids.

Ede Fox  

For growing people, in general. You know, a growing kid when your brain doesn’t finish developing until 25. So what does it mean to have a brain forming in the context of, you know, low nutrient food? I don’t know. Right.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

And a lot of people will cite that the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics as a properly planned vegan or vegetarian diet as appropriate for all stages of life. However,  you’re not going to get the nutrients you need. And there are many other countries that actually do not recommend vegetarian and vegan diets for all stages of life, because of the increased demand for protein, iron, and other micronutrients that are pretty hard to get from plant source foods. And, you know, even when you look at the sample vegan diets that they’re putting out from the Academy, they’re not nutrient complete.

Ede Fox  

Yeah. Yeah.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

So I’ll probably lose my license for that one, but it’s the truth. 

Ede Fox  

We have to speak the truth. And, you know, we got into this knowing that this was… this is a dangerous place to be when you’re out there speaking truth to power, but it’s important to do and I hope that you everyone who was watching this, who has had doubts or questions about whether you can sustain a vegan diet or if you feel like it’s not working for you, you know, there there is another path. Come find me. Come find Diana. Come look at this research. You know, we have books, we have research, we have testimonials to give you the sense of how to do it. And there’s like lots and lots of scientific research about a low carbohydrate diet that shows that it is an incredibly powerful tool to manage metabolic disease and your metabolic health.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, so I’m thinking about all the things I can do down in New York, like, you know, set up meatball stations on Friday afternoons, handing out meatballs to kids in New York or little pieces of steak or something. So maybe you and I can brainstorm about some kind of stunt we can do. This is absolutely ridiculous. And I hope that other people are going to be speaking out about it as well. So thank you for your time on such short notice. I really appreciate it.

Ede Fox  

Sure, no problem. This is an important issue. So I’m here for it.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah. All right. Well, have a great afternoon. 

Ede Fox  

Thank you.

Diana Rodgers, RD 

Thanks so much for joining us on the Sustainable Dish Podcast. If you like the show, please leave us a review on iTunes, and don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter at Sacred Cow dot info. See you next time. Thanks for listening