Confessions of a Meat-Eating Vegetarian
Dr. Philip Maffetone
The bright blood-red organic beefsteak tomato was aromatic, thick, and firm with plump flesh. Romantic, really, and more meaty than expected. I grabbed a small slice to immediately satisfy my watering mouth…heavenly. Compared to other varieties, these cow-heart tomatoes as the French called them make others look, feel, and taste anemic.
High in hundreds of nutrients, a variety of colorful plant foods are far superior for health than lowly potatoes, iceberg lettuce, and celery. More color means better regulation of aging, recovery from exercise, and many bodily functions including managing good gut bacteria, also essential for the brain. These good bugs are as vital for digestion as overall health, and scientists see this microbiome as a separate body organ, especially for metabolism, fat burning, and immunity.
When eating healthy foods, vegetarians and vegans have good gut bugs associated with better health, including funny named bacteria like Raoultella ornithinolytica (say that three times fast). They grow naturally in the gut when the environment is right—some even come from the soil used to grow foods, consumed in the hidden dirt not completely rinsed away.
There may be 100 trillion bacteria in a healthy gut, much more than the number of cells in the whole body. That’s about four pounds worth, with millions contributing to the bulk of each healthy stool.
Healthy gut bacteria is hyped by marketers, luring consumers to quick-fix probiotic pills, yogurt and kefir, kombucha and kimchi. But these won’t work without the prebiotic plant foods that create the right gut environment and feed the many different kinds of good bacteria.
Globally, poor diets low in unprocessed healthy plant foods pose a higher risk of death and lower quality of life than any other risk factor, including alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and unsafe sex combined. Junk food quickly trashes the good bacteria in favor of the bad.
Healthy plants include nutrient-rich Brussels sprouts, spinach, and leeks, blueberries and strawberries, and raw whole almonds and sesame seeds. Organic versions contains even more nutrients.
In place of eating well, fecal microbiota transplants are becoming more common, a centuries-old treatment that takes a fecal sample from a healthy person and places it into the gut of the patient. The results can be interesting; for example, fecal implants from lean healthy donors can help obese people improve insulin sensitivity. However, we need not consider fecal transplants or eating dirt to be healthy—we just have to eat real food.
Moreover, being vegan or vegetarian does not automatically bestow health, even if eating dirt. Refined carbohydrates including sugar, and virtually all flour-based products, can devastate good gut bugs and promote the bad ones, not dissimilar to antibiotics. Vegans and vegetarians who eat processed foods (even animal crackers) can actually have worse gut bacteria than meat eaters.
Likewise for meat eaters. Whether keto or macho, avoid processed meats (the reason studies show meat eating is harmful). Meat eaters can have a bloated gut from bad bacteria because of junk food in the diet, just like vegans and vegetarians.
We can have the best of both. Meat eaters—omnivores—avoiding junk food and consuming a variety of colorful plants with their steak can create great gut bugs like those in healthy vegans or vegetarians.
In addition to unprocessed whole foods, real dairy products (especially organic, and those fermented from A2 grassfed cow milk) can serve as powerful unique probiotics, a reason vegetarians tend to have better gut bugs than vegans.
To complement organic grassfed meats, beefsteak tomatoes and other healthy veggies is perfect. Leeks, too, a great prebiotic; just hold the potatoes. Whether vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore, a key to a healthy gut microbiome is the same: Eat a variety of nutrient-dense plant foods while avoiding the junk. So treat your gut bugs like you would beloved pets. The world will be a lot healthier.
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