Dad was vegetarian since the '70's, yet even in the last weeks of his life he used to joke that he'd quite fancy a steak. He never did though. At that stage, he couldn't imagine eating an animal, let alone believe it'd be good for him. We laughed at my slightly odd uncle who had him and his wife on a carnivore diet. Imagine, we thought, not eating vegetables. We grew up eating the rainbow, preferring organic and home grown vegetables to supermarket bought, and we learnt about the various plant proteins that gave you energy, how vitamin c helped with iron absorption, and so on. We were vegetarian through and through - I only started to eat the occasional meat in my late '30's, for reasons I can't be bothered explaining. But it's vegetables that I love.

But what if all these years we were wrong? What if we should have been eating meat all along?

Out surfing today I ended up in a conversation with a stand up paddleboarder about diet. A trained nutritionist with a wife diagnosed with non hodgkins lymphona some five years ago resulted in them trying the meat only diet (plus eggs and butter). Nope, nope, and nope. I thought. But he had some pseudo convincing arguments, some of which I found rather odd - that we didn't need fibre? That we got every nutrient we needed from meat? That plants aren't meant to be eaten? Hm. I was willing to listen, but I couldn't agree with him.

When I got back from the surf, I had a beautiful salad, mostly from the garden - beetroot, lettuce, sunflower seeds, fresh eggs from my loved chooks, with a fetta, olive oil, lemon juice and herb dressing.

There's no way I could eat that much meat. Eggs and bacon for breakfast and rissoles for dinner? It kinda made me want to vomit. All those polysterene plastic meat wrapped trays in the supermarket made me gag. I have friends who eat a lot of meat but they raise their own animals and slaughter them, and they have vegetables too, so that I could be okay with. But only meat? Sorry mate, but I couldn't do it. He kinda smiled at me and said one day my eyes will open.

Really?

The two major benefits of a meat based diet that I can get my head around are that by focussing on a met only diet, you're inherently getting rid of processed and sugary foods, which are linked to inflammation and chronic diseases. But you could almost say that about a lot of diets. There is some anecdotal evidence that people with IBS or other autoimmune disorders fare better on a meat based diet because they're removing plant based triggers like lectins and oxalates. We agreed that perhaps the FODMAP diet would eliminate such things or at least reduce them - he seemed to think FODMAP was as best as you could get it if you refused to eat meat. I did have qualms about him saying that our ancestors largely ate meat as I know this to be untrue - there's a lot of anthropomorphical scientific evidence that shows our ancestors were omnivores.

I think I'd just feel bad, personally - I can't get my head around eating so many animals and supporting intensive agriculture. A lot of my vegetables come from my garden, and I don't eat a lot of processed food, if at all, so I don't worry about pesticides and herbicides which I know goes into a lot of vegetables you buy from the supermarket. I would definitely feel ethical qualms about eating so much meat - let alone the cost of it, especially as I'd only be able to eat kindly raised and slaughtered animals (and even then, I feel I'm just talking myself into it by pretending there's a humane way to take a life).

I do think we're a diverse species and there's not a one sized fits all approach to diet. I know I feel better when I eat a diverse range of foods, limit meat and sugar and alcohol, and make sure I'm not eating crap ingredients. This works for me. It worked for Dad. I don't think his cancer was due to eating plant based most of his life - it was due to asbestos and the Vietnam war. He was super fit and healthy til then.

Not eating that steak wasn't what killed him.

And I don't think it's going to kill me either.

With Love,

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