Let Them Eat Plants!

Once upon a time, in eighteenth century France, a courtier breathlessly told Queen Marie Antoinette that the peasants were starving. They had no bread to eat.

Purportedly, the Queen responded: Let them eat cake! In French, the phrase is: Qu’ils mangent de la brioche, which, whatever it means, does not mean: Let them eat cake. It means: Let them eat brioche, which is a form of bread, not a piece of cake.

Anyway, to bring the story up to date, in today’s America food inflation has especially hit eggs and meats. So, the sanctimonious twits who are out trying to save the world, have an answer: Let them eat plants!

Guess what: you might half-starve, but you will be saving the planet. How do we know? Simple: the difference between plant and planet is one single letter-- an e. 

Go out to your garden and pick a few plants; it might not provide very much nourishment; it might deprive you of the nutrients your body needs; but you will be saving the environment. As you know, the atmosphere is being polluted, not just by private jets, but by cow farts, and we can reduce the number of cow farts by stopping eating meat. As for eggs, we will leave it to Col. Sanders to solve that one.

In short, we can save the planet if we all go vegan!! And yet, those of us who know very little about nutrition do know that you are what you eat. How many times has that pithy axiom been floated through the Zeitgeist. That means, if I may extrapolate, that if you eat too many vegetables, you are going to become a vegetable. It might also imply that if you eat too many fruits, you are going to become a fruit. I am not sure what that means, but take it for what it’s worth.

Anyway, we now read, in the New York Post, (via Maggie’s Farm) of a seriously scientific study, performed by one Jayne Buxton, and soon to be a real live book, to the effect that a plant-based diet is not very good for your health. The investigative journalist even discovered that your plant-based diet is not even very good for the planet. Uh, oh.

When it comes to protein, animal proteins are far better for you than plant proteins. It’s all about the nutrition. 

Take protein. Not only does food need to contain protein, the protein needs to contain essential amino acids (EAAs). Animal proteins are effective in delivering them, while plant proteins may be missing some. A lack of EAAs may mean that plant proteins aren’t synthesized in the body as effectively.

In order to find the right amino acid levels, people would have to eat much larger quantities of plant proteins to achieve the desired effect, Buxton argues. She explains that hitting your daily EAA target with plant-based protein exclusively would mean eating 1.5 pounds of chickpeas or six cups of quinoa. Meanwhile, one egg provides 11% of protein needs for the day.

And then there are egg-replacement products. Buxton selected one at the supermarket, and pointed out that it is filled with, you guessed it, sugar. Not necessarily what you need with the morning coffee.

And then there is the science. Buxton says that in this area is it a good idea not to trust the science. Environmental activists have taken over much of the field and are pushing their own ideology, the better to save the planet, even if it costs you your health:

Every day, new headlines emerge about how bacon is bad, eggs are awful, and even fish isn’t as heart-healthy and nutritious as you might have thought. But Buxton found that, often, the research used to anchor these studies was either a small sample study, based on self-reported food diaries — which have the potential for inaccuracy — or anchored in correlation, not causation.

She cites one example, where a major newspaper reported on a study that found eating leafy greens could reverse aging by two years. Not included in the reporting: The subjects studied had also eaten three weekly servings of liver and up to 10 eggs a week.

If that does not brighten up your day, nothing will.

But, you will ask, can’t we save the planet by slaughtering herds of cattle? Surely, that would be a virtuous action. Not so fast, Bruxton notes:

Buxton devotes the second part of her book to how consuming meat, chicken, dairy and fish affects the planet. What she found: Greatly reducing animal products has a minimal effect on the planet’s well being.

The 2015 documentary “Cowspiracy” cited that livestock and their byproducts accounted for 51% of worldwide methane gas emissions. While that number was later debunked, Buxton was shocked to see how low the actual amount may be.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock contribute 14.5% of total annual greenhouse gas emissions, but Buxton also found many scientists believe methane acts differently than other harmful gases, like CO2 — overestimating the impact of methane on global warming and underestimating the harmful effects of fossil-fuel based carbon dioxide emissions.

For those of us who are less scientifically inclined, the debate over methane emissions involves cow farts.

And then there is the question of your food footprint-- it’s a nice way to open the door to your kitchen-- and to see it invaded by government bureaucrats.

In other terms, it’s ineffective as far as the planet is concerned, but it is good for your virtue signaling:

Buxton says that people often want to cut out red meat because they feel they’re doing something productive for the planet, but this “virtual signaling” can cause them to misunderstand the impact on the environment.

“I have friends who told me they had given up red meat, and I asked why, and they were like, ‘Well, this is the one thing we can do.” And I responded, ‘Okay, that’s great, but you could eat a six-ounce steak three times a week for a year, and your emissions will be one-sixth less than that flight you just took across the Atlantic.”

She has also cited cutting dairy for milk alternatives; as the Telegraph pointed out, if a person’s “food footprint is a maximum of 16% of the total individual footprint and milk is a tiny proportion of that, the reduction of greenhouse gases is miniscule.”

Now, as far as our guilt over producing the wrong kind of gasses, aside from the obvious solution, which would be for all of the environmentalists to stop polluting the atmosphere with their carbon dioxide emissions-- by not exhaling-- Buxton also addresses the issue of food waste:

In her research, she found food waste to be a larger issue as well. “At least 30% of the food we produce is wasted in our homes, and I think we can really address the whole environmental emissions associated with food waste if we address that problem.”

Currently, data shows that food waste in the United States produces as much carbon dioxide emissions as 42 coal-fired plants. This is due to the production, transportation, and processing of food, as well as the methane it produces as it decomposes in landfills.

Think what you will about food waste, especially at a time when people cannot afford to buy bacon and eggs, at least Buxton suggests that we all get back in touch with our omnivorous side and stop pretending to be rabbits and cows, capable of surviving only by eating plants.