Tastes Like Chicken

Fake meat's been in development for a long time, and faux animal products have been popping up in supermarkets for years. (Quorn, anyone?) These laboratory-concocted Frankenfoods are beloved by many vegetarians and vegans -- the ones that don't mind ingesting massive doses of highly-processed soy, wheat, and corn -- but up 'til now, meat-eaters have turned up their noses. Yuck, they say. Tofurky tastes nothing like turkey.

But hold onto your hats: Fake meat may have just turned a corner.

Yesterday, Slate published Farhad Manjoo's review of "Beyond Meat" -- a soy product that's been engineered to mimic chicken meat. And his verdict? It looks and tastes JUST LIKE CHICKEN. In fact, Manjoo says, "I thought they resembled chicken breasts that have been prepared sous vide -- the process of cooking food at low temperatures for a long time, yielding extremely tender results." The only difference is that Beyond Chicken "breaks apart in your mouth more easily than real chicken, so you won’t get strips of it stuck in your teeth."

Well, there are other differences, too. For one, it's not actually meat.

But if the makers of "Beyond Meat" are right, this stuff's eventually going to be everywhere. As "Beyond Meat" founder Ethan Brown told Manjoo:

“Once, we had the horse-drawn carriage, and then we had the horse-less carriage, and then we had the automobile,” he says. “I’m firmly convinced we’re going to go from beef and chicken products that are animal in origin to those that are made with plants -- and at some point in the future you’ll walk down the aisle of the supermarket and ask for beef and chicken, and like the automobile has no relationship to the horse, what you get will have nothing to do with animals.”

Riiiight. Instead of beef or chicken, we really ought to get chemically-processed soy products instead.

On the bright side, at least this chicken substitute isn't made of human excrement.

Vegan Bodybuilding?

Our buddy Kevin pointed me to a recent piece in The New York Times about vegan bodybuilders. According to the article, the website veganbodybuilding.com has "more than 5,000 registered users," and vegan bodybuilders have been a "steady, small presence" in the International Natural Bodybuilding Association for years.

This is fascinating. Bodybuilding's not my thing, so I can't profess much knowledge about bodybuilders' diets -- but developing muscle on a vegan diet can't be easy.

“Is it possible to be a good bodybuilder and be a vegan? Yes,” said Jose Antonio, the chief executive of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. “But is it ideal? No.” 

Vegan bodybuilders may face challenges getting sufficient amino acids, found in meats, Antonio said, adding that although protein can be found in vegetables and nuts, they must be consumed in greater quantities to get the same amount as their counterparts in meat. “The amount of rice and beans you need to eat would fill up a Mexican restaurant,” he said. 

Other nutritionists and bodybuilders have argued that a disciplined vegan diet, consisting of things like hemp-based protein supplements, peanut butter, nuts, vegetables and legumes, can yield similar, if not better, results than a meat- or dairy-filled diet. Carefully monitored, vegans can get the same amount of protein with less fat or toxins, they argue. (For a midafternoon snack, [bodybuilder Jimi] Sitko sometimes eats 10 bananas.)

What? Rice? Beans? Peanut butter? And just how does eating 10 bananas provide a bodybuilder with "the same amount of protein with less fat or toxins"?

Of course, there are a good number of athletic folks who say they're thriving on vegan diets (see, e.g., the Old Spice Guy, Mike Tyson, elite ultrarunner Scott Jurek, the folks in the vegan and vegetarian CrossFitters' Facebook group, etc.). While I'm sure many of them choose veganism primarily due to ethical or environmental beliefs (which I won't bother to address again here, other than to point to Lierre Keith's book) -- some also attribute their fitness and athletic successes to veganism itself. But isn't it just as likely (if not more) that these athletes have accomplished their physical achievements despite their veganism? I wonder how much better they'd perform if they started eating some animals.

On the plus side: More meat for me, I guess.

Common Ground

We are all caffeine junkies.

I love you, coffee. (But only before noon.)

A Friendly Note From Your Vegan Roommate

(Click the images below to embiggen.)

[Source]

Someone Likes Fruit

Ultramarathoner Michael Arnstein calls himself "the Fruitarian." He eats nothing but fruit. I would elaborate, but I think these videos speak for themselves.





I don't even know where to begin, so I think I'll just stop here.

Stalking the Wily Vegans of Park Slope

This just about sums it up -- except that those vegans look suspiciously healthy...

(Click for higher resolution)

[Source]

Good Meat is Dead Meat (Not Meat That Was Never Alive)

PETA has announced that it's offering a $1 million reward to "the first scientist to produce and bring to market in vitro meat."

According to PETA, test tube meat would be super-awesome because it'd "mimic flesh and could be cooked and eaten" without hurting any animals. Of course, only the unwashed meat-addicted hordes would need to eat the stuff:

[H]umans don't need to eat meat at all -- vegetarians are less likely to get heart disease, diabetes, or various types of cancer or become obese than meat-eaters are -- and a terrific array of vegetarian mock meats already exist. But as many people continue to refuse to kick their meat addictions, PETA is willing to help them gain access to flesh...

(Wrong, wrong, wrong. But I digress.)

I can't wait to supplement my "terrific array" of Tofurky patties and Quorn chunks with a big, juicy slab of lab-generated, vat-grown, 100% processed "meat." I mean, who could resist a steak that looks this appetizing?

Who's with me?

I Told You Sandwiches are Offensive

As a dyed-in-the-wool Paleo eater, I find sandwiches generally distasteful. But even if you don't eat like I do, I'm guessing your eyebrows would shoot up if you flipped open a menu and saw sandwiches named "Gay Boy" and "The Illegal."

I think it's safe to say that this particular restaurant owner isn't fond of non-meat eaters. Or Mexicans.

Still, I'm left scratching my head. The Gay Garden Boy sandwich clearly aspires to veganism -- so why throw an egg in there? And why is it more expensive than the other sandwiches? Is vegetarianism the critical distinction between a Butter Face and a Foxi Lady? If so, why would avoiding meat give you a hot body and an ugly face? Is a "white egg" supposed to be the same as an "egg white"?

These are the kinds of questions that keep me up at night.

(Source: Buzzfeed)

We Are Not Cows

Except maybe these people.

At some point, you've probably come across the claim that vegetarian diets are better for you because "meat humans can't digest meat -- it just rots in your colon and causes colon cancer." Humans, the argument goes, are natural herbivores.

But science says otherwise. Even in studies dating back almost a hundred years, it's been consistently shown that meat doesn't rot in your colon. Beans, grains and vegetables do.

It turns out that pepsin, trypsin, chymotrypsin, and our other proteases do a fine job of breaking down meat protein, and bile salts and lipase do a fine job of breaking down animal fat. In other words, meat is digested by enzymes produced by our own bodies. The primary reason we need our gut bacteria is to digest the sugars, starches, and fiber -- found in grains, beans, and vegetables -- that our digestive enzymes can’t break down.

The digestion of sugars, starches and fiber also make you fart more. (Between you and me, since going Paleo over a year ago, I've noticed a drastic reduction in my personal methane emission levels. Who says I'm not doing my part for the environment?)

Humans aren't herbivores. We're omnivores -- though we're "primarily carnivorous":

[W]e have a limited ability to digest some plant matter (starches and disaccharides) in order to get through bad times, but we cannot extract meaningful amounts of energy from the cellulose that forms the majority of edible plant matter, as true herbivores can. We can only eat fruits, nuts, tubers, and seeds (which we call ‘grains’ and ‘beans’) -- and seeds are only edible to us after laborious grinding, soaking, and cooking, because unlike the birds and rodents adapted to eat them, they’re poisonous to humans in their natural state.

You can demonstrate the purpose and limits of human digestion with a simple experiment: eat a steak with some whole corn kernels, and see what comes out the other end. It won’t be the steak.

In fact, meat-eating made us human.

Fun activity: Google "meat rots in your colon" and count the number of articles arguing this point were written by PETA. Incidentally, my favorite PETA moment is when it produced a comic book for children, telling them that their non-vegetarian mommies are in fact evil murderers:

How would you feel if someone took away your kitten or puppy, stomped on their head, and ripped their skin off their bodies? It would make you feel sad, wouldn’t it? Why would someone be so mean? But there are truly terrible people who cause our furry friends to die that way every day. And guess what? One of those terrible people is your mommy.

(Source: Gnolls)

Email of the Day

I appreciate suggestions from readers (especially those who hail from other planets). But something tells me that veganism ain't the way to go.

Vegans are Aliens

From the looks of this guy, maybe vegans aren't such weaklings after all.

I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't want to tussle with a race of nipple-less Speedo-clad 30-foot-tall aliens whose brains "continually radiate anti-gravitons." Vegans may be "cowardly," but those flesh-colored "horn-like projections on the front of their skulls" creep me out.

I know what you're thinking. Don't believe vegans could possibly develop bodies of such "vast bulk"? Then you must not have heard about Mike Tyson's new diet.

(Source: And I Am Not Lying)

Hump Day Link Dump

Enjoy.

• Regis Philbin shirtless: Not even close to being as bad as you think.

• Foxhunting is so 2005. If you want to hang with the cool kids, hunt humans.

• The Captain Morgan workout video isn’t nearly as funny as: (1) it thinks it is, or (2) the actual P90X videos it's parodying.

• Looks like there’s a correlation between Wal-Mart store openings and people getting fat(ter).

• Speed up the earth’s rotation and you’ll get fat and uninhibited. And if you’re already fat and uninhibited, you’ll probably become more so.

• Is dietary fat at the root of breast cancer? Or sugar? Denise Minger breaks it down.

• Not a surprise to us barefoot fanatics, but orthotics may not be the solution after all.

• Don't be a smug vegan. (Be a smug caveman instead.)

• I prefer this subway video to this subway video.

• Shocking: The L.A. Times reports that Cocoa Krispies aren't actually healthy for your kids.

• Remember the baby-swingers? Here’s an interview with one.

Hmm.

(Source: Monsters are Everywhere)

Am I About to Drop Dead of a Heart Attack?

This morning, I attended a health fair at work and got my blood work checked for the first time since going paleo. (Unfortunately, the visiting clinic didn't offer the full panoply of tests – just the basics.)

I fully expected some big changes in my cholesterol numbers. After all, over the past six months or so, I’ve increased my saturated fat consumption by approximately a bazillion percent. (Which, by the way, isn’t hard to achieve, given that I used to abstain from eating anything with saturated fat – including meat – before converting to a paleo diet. Heck, less than a year ago, I was ordering meals from a macrobiotic society every Monday night. And now, I'm subsisting on what most would consider a high-fat diet.)

But when today's results came in, my total cholesterol count still gave me a jolt: 261 mg/dL. That's almost 100 mg/dL higher than it was last year.

A health advisor at the fair frowned at the number, and then handed me this handy chart:

“Your total cholesterol level is alarming," she began. "You may want to talk to your doctor about statins. Right now, you're clearly at risk for heart disease.”

Uh, oh. That doesn't sound too good.

More after the jump...

Food Fight

Thankfully, M and I both went paleo together. By eating the same stuff, we don't just save on our grocery bills -- we also avoid battling over food choices. Not all couples are so lucky:

Hembree and Battle started their relationship with similar eating habits and were both runners. They cooked together -- he grilled the meat, and she fixed the salad and side.

About two years ago, Battle's eating changed when he started training in a CrossFit gym and adopted a "paleolithic diet," eating only foods that ancient hunters and gatherers would eat, meaning no processed foods, no sugar and no refined carbs. Battle needs to consume lots of protein to get the benefits of his intense strength-training and conditioning program.

Battle's ability to eat an entire pork loin and 700 calories worth of almonds "was weird to me," Hembree says. Plus, it was a major damper on her sweet tooth. But she tried a few of his paleo recipes as her olive branch.

Tension built again over the summer, when Hembree spent a month away from home training to become a yoga instructor and came back a full-fledged, eco-conscious vegan.

Yeesh.

(Source: Denver Post)

Is Meat Bad For You?

This post is going to be slightly long and geeky. If you have a short attention span or just stumbled here looking for a cheap laugh, feel free to skip this one and proceed directly to the video of the farting yoga lady.

But if you'd like to know why I'm calling bullshit on the recent hype over an epidemiological study "proving" that meat-eating is bad for low-carb dieters, read on.

The Old Spice Guy's a Vegan P90Xer

I love Old Spice Guy (and former Oakland Raider wideout) Isaiah Mustafa. He's all kinds of awesome. (If you're as big a fan of the Old Spice commercials as I am, check out this "making of" video.)

Recently, on Leno (I'm with Coco, so I didn't actually catch this live) Mustafa revealed that he's staying in shape by training with Tony Horton. P90X represent!

BUT: Tony's got the Old Spice Guy on a vegan diet:

"I’m lucky to work out with Tony Horton of P90X fame. He’s got me on this diet right now that’s absolutely ridiculous. There are 5 things you can’t do: There’s no alcohol, no caffeine, no processed sugars, nothing with a face -- no animals or animal by-products. But here’s the tough one: No gluten."

The good news is that Mustafa's eating whole foods and avoiding sugar and certain grains. But why is he joining Mike Tyson in the camp o' veganism? Lierre Keith's got me convinced that eschewing all meat and animal products ain't the healthiest, most ethical or most environmentally sustainable way to go.

But then again, who am I to argue with a guy who smells like jet fighters and punching?

8,000 Calories a Day

Legendary ultrarunner Scott Jurek (whom you may remember from Christopher McDougall's "Born to Run") somehow manages to eat up to 8,000 calories a day on a vegan diet.

“The first thing to worry about isn’t so much what you eat, but how much you eat. You have to take the time to sit at the table and make sure your calorie count is high enough. And when you’re a vegan, to increase your calories as you increase training you need more food. This isn’t an elimination diet but an inclusion diet.”
...

He focuses on three main meals. Breakfast is key: it might be a 1,000-calorie smoothie, with oil, almonds, bananas, blueberries, salt, vanilla, dried coconut, a few dates and maybe brown rice protein powder. Unless he is doing a long run, which for him is seven hours, or about 50 miles, he eats after his first workout. Lunch and dinner are huge salads, whole grains, potatoes and sweet potatoes, and usually beans of some sort or a tempeh-tofu combination.

“None of this is weird,” he said. “If you go back 300 or 400 years, meat was reserved for special occasions, and those people were working hard. Remember, almost every long-distance runner turns into a vegan while they’re racing, anyway — you can’t digest fat or protein very well.”

In case you're keeping score, Jurek ingests fewer calories than Michael Phelps, but more than Rex Ryan.

And "none of this is weird"?

Paleo Man vs. Vegan

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That settles it. If a paleo diet can help me become a better all-around Jenga player, I'm in.

P90X Day 86: Core Synergistics

Certain things just don't mix well: oil and water, nails and tires, Pop Rocks and Coke, Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson, topless women and Disney cartoons, etc.

Also? Early morning Core Synergistics and alcohol consumption the night before.

Thankfully, it's Monday, which means we get our weekly "gourmet vegetarian dinner" from the aging hippies at the local macrobiotic society. It's no cure for a hangover, but at least I don't feel like I'm eating crap.

[UPDATED: I didn't know it at the time, but I was eating crap. Macrobiotic eating isn't for me. I've since gone paleo.]