Are Vegans to Blame for Monocropping?
This week we talk about mono-cropping, and why the Internet thinks that all the negative consequences of it are because of vegans. We also dive into cold plunging and have a new bite sized coaching segment.
Referenced in Episode
New News:
- Sweet potato milk / Rootsii & App State announcement
- PCRM carnivore/masculinity poll
- University of Exeter meat study
Sources:
Chapters
0:08 New News and Nonsense
4:09 Carnivore Masculinity Myths
5:46 When Kids Question Meat
9:12 Defining Monocropping
10:39 Vegans and Monocrop Blame
14:50 Monocrop Problems Explored
19:43 Why Vegans Get Blamed
21:36 Corn, Soy, and Land Use
32:27 Vegan World Land Use
35:47 Smarter Farming Methods
40:08 Vertical Farms at Home
45:15 Cold Plunge Claims
49:12 Women and Cold Exposure
54:51 Ab Training Tips
58:02 Meanest Comment Readings
59:22 Book Club Announcements
How to Get In Touch
- ⭐️ Deficient Vegans Discord ⭐️
Deficient Vegans
Muscle Deficient Vegan - Fitness & Nutrition
Protein Deficient Vegan - Food & Recipes
00:08 - New News and Nonsense
04:09 - Carnivore Masculinity Myths
05:46 - When Kids Question Meat
09:12 - Defining Monocropping
10:39 - Vegans and Monocrop Blame
14:50 - Monocrop Problems Explored
19:43 - Why Vegans Get Blamed
21:36 - Corn, Soy, and Land Use
32:27 - Vegan World Land Use
35:47 - Smarter Farming Methods
40:08 - Vertical Farms at Home
45:15 - Cold Plunge Claims
49:12 - Women and Cold Exposure
54:51 - Ab Training Tips
58:02 - Meanest Comment Readings
59:22 - Book Club Announcements
Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast, episode 54. I'm the muscle deficient vegan here with the protein deficient vegan. Do you want to say hi? Hello. Hello. So this week we'll be talking about monocropping, which is something you've probably heard used as an argument against veganism. And another thing we'll be covering is cold plunges. But first up, new news.
Protein Deficient Vegan:New news.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So the first piece of news we have here is about sweet potato milk.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Very cool. I'm intrigued already. Oh, me too.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So a team at Appalachian State University received a $1.8 million grant startup that uses excess sweet potatoes grown in North Carolina to create non-dairy milks, yogurts, ice creams, and creamers.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And if you didn't know, which I didn't know before reading about it, 60% of all U.S. sweet potatoes are grown in North Carolina.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's pretty cool.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And apparently 40% of them go to waste.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That is a lot. That number really surprised me.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I was shocked. Apparently, the U.S. has a very strict grading system in which they grade these sweet potatoes based solely on their looks. The patriarchy strikes again. But essentially, only the very pretty ones, like top of their class, go to fulfill their sweet potato dream and end up at the grocery store.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. I know the ones we've tried to grow in the backyard, we're definitely not winning any beauty pageants, but they taste just the same.
Protein Deficient Vegan:They looked like gnarled hands and kind of like ginger. That's how un-sweet-potato-like they looked, but they tasted okay. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I think the ugly ones taste just as good, so this gnarled doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't feel like when I've looked at sweet potatoes in the grocery store, I don't even feel like I'm looking for that. I'm just like, which ones aren't mush yet? Maybe I guess people care.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I'm a little judgy, I guess.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Really? For sweet potatoes?
Protein Deficient Vegan:I think I'm a judgy on all vegetables.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Interesting.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Well, it's like, okay, my thing is if I'm in the grocery store and there's pretty ones and ugly ones and they cost the same, I'm probably going to pick the most attractive vegetable.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, sweet potatoes are weird to me because like even the pretty ones poke a hole in the bag. So I just grab whatever.
Protein Deficient Vegan:You just don't care. Yeah. Well, you could be a really great Instacart shopper. I'm sure the ladies would love you.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh, they're out of sweet potatoes. Let me grab some yellow onions.
Protein Deficient Vegan:No, no, that's too close. They're out of sweet potatoes. Would you like some pizza rolls?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:No, that sounds about right. So how is sweet potato milk made?
Protein Deficient Vegan:It sounded like they basically heat up the sweet potatoes to get the starches all relaxed and stuff. And then they're adding chia seeds for fiber and protein and also to thicken the mixture. so it's more you know milk like and not watery right and they're also adding a yeast derived protein so that the milk actually has a protein content which i thought was exciting because like almond milk and oat milk have virtually no protein that is pretty cool they also add a bit of oil for creaminess and i guess mouthfeel, um and then i was reading that basically the people were saying that it's a very nice mouthfeel, people are saying people are saying that it's very creamy, very nice mouthfeel. But they're also saying it's neutrally flavored with just like a teeny hint of sweetness because, you know, sweet potatoes.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that makes sense. I should have known you'd sneak a story in here that has to do with yeast-derived proteins.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I thought I did it well.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:The milk is also high in vitamin A, potassium, magnesium, fiber, and the protein. Yeah. The rest of the stuff is because it's normally a sweet potato, but they add a little bit of the extra protein in there. Yeah. It's also free of most major allergens, which is always good in a milk.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, especially because a lot of the milks are either soy or nut based, which are two major allergens. Yeah, definitely. So this could come in clutch.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's more environmentally friendly, too. They were saying, I guess they did some back of the napkin calculations, but they said that it takes about one tenth of the water that it takes to produce something like almond milk.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh, that's really cool. I know people have pretty big concerns, it seems like, about the water for almond milk specifically.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's a good selling point. Comes up a lot. Yeah. Water comes up a lot these days.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It sure does. But no one talks about it for hamburgers.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Speaking of hamburgers, the next piece of news we have here is about the carnivore diet and masculinity.
Protein Deficient Vegan:This was pretty interesting. So a new survey from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine surveyed about 1,000 U.S. adult men.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Just at random, right?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Not vegans or anything. No, they're not vegans. They're just random adult men in the U.S.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:All right. 53% of those men perceived the carnivore diet as masculine. I don't know how that works.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's unfortunate.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:49% of them considered beef, chicken, pork, and other meat as masculine. Yeah. I think it's interesting that more of them considered the diet masculine than the foods masculine. Like, what's the extra manliness in there?
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's like the most manly men really commit to this, you know?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Okay. 43% perceived a plant-based or vegan diet to be feminine.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's crazy.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. This is the power of marketing.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It is.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then 35% associated foods like soy products, like tofu, edamame, beans, and non-dairy milk also have femininity.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Unfortunate.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And then 24% of those incorrectly said that both dairy and soy products contain estrogen. So the catch there is that dairy does contain estrogen, but soy contains phytoestrogens, which has the word estrogen in it. But it is not human estrogen.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So this is interesting to you. We actually covered veganism and masculinity in a separate episode a couple weeks ago where we dug into this a lot more.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Pretty extensively.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, a lot. So go check that out if this is kind of your thing.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And then the last piece of news we have here is a study from the University of Exeter in England surveyed 1,000 young adults aged 18 to 26 and asked if they'd ever thought of giving up meat growing up.
Protein Deficient Vegan:This I think this survey was even more interesting than the manly carnivore diet thing.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So 48% of those surveyed had considered giving up meat before finishing secondary school or what we call high school here.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That one confused me. I didn't know secondary school meant high school in the UK. I thought it meant college because like in the U.S. we say a secondary education would be college.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Anyways, so 48% of all the people surveyed had thought about giving up meat before they finished high school at some point.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that is interesting. So based on the survey, if they thought about it when they were younger, some of the reasons mostly centered around like the disgust or shock that meat comes from animals. Because, you know, sometimes that gets glossed over to the point that kids don't even really think about it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a certain point where you kind of realize, oh, where does my food come from? But then if you don't really stop there, you kind of like run past that pretty fast.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, definitely. And then for the ones that considered it a little later, like as teenagers or older children, they... Their reasons shifted into environmental or health concerns, which kind of tracks with how adults do it mostly.
Protein Deficient Vegan:The study found that the initial thoughts about giving up meat happened on average around age 11.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Does that sound familiar to you?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So mine happened at 12. And it's actually interesting timing because I think a couple of days ago we started having a conversation in Discord. And people were talking about when they went vegetarian. And then, you know, they're now vegan. But a lot of us went vegetarian between like 11 and 12. So that really lines up with the survey, too. So it does seem like 11, 12, 13 seems to be like the average age where someone might give up meat if they're a kid. But the survey also found that 50% of those who considered it actually followed through with it. But the majority of them who gave up meat young eventually ate it again. And that was mostly due to like convenience, social pressure, maybe family wasn't very supportive. And they found that parental support is actually the strongest factor in whether or not someone will stay meat free.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's a really interesting point. We had an episode a while back now about, you know, you have a kid that wants to go vegan. Here's how you can help. So, I mean, parental support is definitely big. And we see that a lot on like threads and Reddit and these online communities. People are like, I want to go vegan, but I still live with my parents and they are not having it. So what do I do? And it's like, you're in a tough situation.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. You got to stay safe, first of all. But and yeah, it'd be nice if parents would step up in and at least give people food so they don't have to eat animal products.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It is interesting to me that the younger kids wanted to stop eating meat for the animals. And then just a few years later, they're desensitized enough to that that their motivation shift to the environment or health.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, it's kind of crazy how quickly you can be desensitized. And then I think maybe like a big overarching question that we as like a group of vegans should consider is how can we as vegans reach the feelings that people had when they were children? Like the feelings that eating animals was wrong. How do we get them to think about that again? Yeah. Because I think that's the key to getting them to move into veganism. Yeah, definitely. It's like, bring you back to your childhood. Why'd you think it was wrong in the first place? Why'd you stop thinking it was wrong?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You got to get everybody watching Babe and Charlotte's Web some more.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Yeah. I still cry at those.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:All right. So now let's get into the main topic, monocropping. So you might be wondering what monocropping is and why it's associated with a vegan diet. So monocropping is, or monoculture agriculture is- The fancy term.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's when you grow a single crop on the same piece of land over and over.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So a classic example of this would be like a cornfield in the U.S. Midwest. If you've ever driven through Iowa, you probably know what I'm talking about. I used to drive through Iowa a lot at my previous job because I worked at an ethanol plant. We had a lot of training in Iowa. So I've seen Iowa a lot.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. I've never been to Iowa, but I know Iowa is very heavily associated with rows of corn.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's basically got corn and slipknot, and I think that's all Iowa has been known for.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, so it was corn last year, and it'll certainly be corn for many years to come.
Protein Deficient Vegan:He who walks behind the rows. Have you ever seen Children of the Corn?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I haven't actually seen Children of the Corn.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Are you sure I've never made you watch that?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, we keep talking about it, but we haven't done.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Okay, well, we'll have to watch that. Yeah. Anyway, if someone walks behind it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I'm assuming that it's a line.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's a line from Children of the Corn.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I bet almost everybody who's listening probably seen that. I'm just really lame. Some other examples of monocropping are soybeans in Brazil and the U.S. And then, like, generally wheat fields that span, like, thousands of acres are just, like, growing wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat.
Protein Deficient Vegan:All the way home.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Good job. Yeah, I mean, it seems like everybody keeps talking shit about monocropping, so why do we do it?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, do you want some examples of people talking shit about monocropping and veganism?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I'd love to hear that.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Okay, let me find some. Here's one from six days ago. Quote, unquote, no animals died for the food I eat. The fantasy falls apart the second you look at what monocrop farming destroys. Cute slogans don't erase reality.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Wow, that's pretty aggressive.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Here's another one monocropping which vegans rely on is very damaging to the environment and animals.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Okay interesting so
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah i mean um basically everyone thinks vegans are responsible for all the monocropping that's what you need to.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Know so they think monocropping is for vegans yes and vegans require monocropping correct all right that's interesting let's talk about that So monocropping took off around the 1950s or 1960s as a way to address world hunger by increasing agriculture production. The plan, generally speaking, was to develop effective pesticides and herbicides, use new synthetic fertilizers, and breed high-yield varieties of these crops, and also invent highly efficient farm equipment. So basically, if you can specialize around a single crop, you can kind of optimize everything that goes into farming that crop itself.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So for all of this to work together, we had to change how we used the land. Before, farmers were planting a variety of foods. So grains, pulses, nuts, vegetables, fruits, and herbs. But the way the new technology works at scale, you kind of have to plant the same crop. Similar to like how you would run a production line. You know, you get highly specialized in like one piece of the big puzzle.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. I mean, the big expensive machines that farmers use are specialized mostly for one crop. So you had to specialize. You couldn't afford a bunch of different machines. You know, you got like the hay balers and the combines. I mean, those can be configured to do different things. But even if you can use the same machine and reconfigure it, that's going to take a lot of time and, like, the parts you need for configuration and things like that.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right. And then I think, you know, part of that is if everyone is going towards this highly efficient way of farming and you're not, then you're not going to make as much money.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh, definitely. Generally, the farmers increase their acreage, specialize in one crop and produce more food with less labor, which is like higher yields and higher profits, lower costs. I mean, kind of the capitalist dream, but also they produce quite a bit of food this way.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right. It also helped with, yeah, just producing food for the world.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Monocropping's rise actually went hand in hand with the rise of factory farming, which started in the 1920s but didn't include cows until the 1960s or 70s. So if you don't know, factory farming relies very heavily on concentrated feeding operations. And the majority of the world's corn and soy, which are monocrops, is fed to livestock.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that is interesting. So most of the monocrop from those two goes to animals, not people.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yep.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So, monocrops also are almost always the crops the government subsidizes. And so that further encourages the practice because you want to grow the thing that gets the subsidy.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Well, yeah. Especially, I read it was one in every $5 earned by a U.S. farmer comes directly from government payouts. Which, if you think about if you just have a bad year or like... a bad harvest or the market around whatever you're producing crashes, you kind of need that buffer.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Some fallout in trade negotiations or something like that.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right. It just reduces the risk that you might not bring any money this year. Because farming is kind of a high risk thing. You don't know if there's a drought or there are diseases that happen with certain crops. You might get pests that just ravage your shit.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, like the screwworm thing. I mean, this isn't crops, but the screwworm thing going on right now with cattle farming, I mean, stuff like that comes out of nowhere.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. I mean, just think about when you're growing a garden at home, like how many things can go wrong with just growing a garden at home.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So now that we covered how monocropping kind of came to be and how it's used, I think it's pretty obvious this isn't something invented by vegans. But what are the actual issues with monocropping?
Protein Deficient Vegan:So I think the first one that gets brought up is like soil degradation. So repeated planting of one crop depletes the nutrients and reduces organic matter and also increases erosion.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Okay.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Which, you know, isn't great.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Continuous corn production. Continuous.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Continuous.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Continuous corn production specifically usually needs substantial fertilizer inputs to maintain yields. The degradation and erosion makes climate change worse because the land loses its ability to retain soil and water. And that also makes it less able to withstand fires, pests, and extreme weather.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that kind of makes sense. I know my parents, they kind of live on very weird, hilly land. Yeah. So one of the parts of their land is like a quite a drastic slope, you know, going down to their driveway.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's an understatement. Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Well, they're having problems with like when it would rain, it would just like just so much dirt would like wash off. Yeah. So then they just planted a bunch of trees and stuff.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:But so I think that kind of goes hand in hand. And it's like if you're if you don't have like any of the natural crops or natural trees, any of the natural wildlife that would be there.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It changes the way that your land can deal with that kind of thing.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, definitely. Another problem with it is increased pesticide dependence. So having one crop focused in an area attracts specialized pests that really like that one crop. So the farmers kind of have to use pesticides because they're getting a high concentration of the specific pest.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right. And pesticides can harm pollinators, beneficial insects, and also soil organisms. And the weird thing about pesticides is it's kind of similar to antibiotics where the pests end up developing a resistance. So there's like this constant cycle of engineering new and more aggressive pesticides.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. I mean, we've definitely seen that become an issue with antibiotics and it's the same kind of issue with pests.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Pesticides. And because there's no diversity in what's being planted, it can be risky for the farmers to go the no pesticide route because, I mean, it can be a huge disaster if they get the pest that they could have had the pesticides for. Right. And it just like wipes out a big portion of the crop. And that is, you know, where food comes from. So. Right. There are definitely some concerns.
Protein Deficient Vegan:A ton of money, loss of food. But yeah, I mean, all of this is kind of because of monocropping. Right. Because we're specializing in one specific thing, and a pest could wipe out the entire population of that one crop.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. For pollinators specifically, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, over one million plant and animal species are endangered, including many insect pollinators. Out of the 20 fastest growing crops, 16 of those require pollination. this also hits developing regions like africa asia and south america the hardest that's pretty interesting yeah
Protein Deficient Vegan:Save the bees.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah oh for sure yeah it's it's interesting to think about like all the technology we have we still require the pollinators for most of the crops
Protein Deficient Vegan:Where are the robot.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Bees birds aren't real
Protein Deficient Vegan:I've heard real people say that.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:People really think that.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:There's also a biodiversity loss. Replacing the diverse native ecosystems with corn, soy, and wheat creates biological deserts and pushes animals and native plants out of their habitats. So when we take all the flourishing wildlife, all the different things that are usually in one area and make it all corn. Right. It really changes the environment.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's actually like similar to plopping a subdivision where wildlife used to be. And then there are water issues. So you have increased runoff, fertilizer pollution, and dead zones. One example of this is the hypoxic dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Not America. It's heavily influenced by nutrient runoff from the Mississippi watershed. So, you know, that's bad for humans and animals if we have horrible water.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Hypoxic dead zone does not sound great.
Protein Deficient Vegan:No. I don't want a hypoxic dead zone in my backyard.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then the last problem we're going to cover here is a genetic uniformity risk. So with only a handful of crops grown, a single disease can wipe out an entire food supply. So not only do you have like the specialized pest, but also you mentioned the diseases that come across plants and crops and stuff like that. If your entire field is corn and you've got the corn killer 3000 disease, you're not going to have a very good season. We have, for better or worse, I would just say for worse, we rely so much on animal products currently in the world. These issues with crops that turn into animal feed are a huge problem. So, yeah, it's very risky.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Now that we covered all the issues, why do vegans keep getting dragged into this over and over again?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's a great question. So the most basic argument people have for it is it kind of goes like this. Soy destroys the rainforest. Vegans eat soy. Vegans are driving monocropping. Did you follow that?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Vegans are actually the only ones that eat soy and also avocados and almonds. That's what I've heard.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's crazy.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I know. I didn't know this. I was eating a lot of those before I went vegan.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Kind of goes back to people not actually knowing what's in their food.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, for sure. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That flow misses a lot of relevant information, but that's pretty standard for the internet and social media these days.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Other things you might hear are harvesting crops with big machinery kills animals, so plant-based isn't actually cruelty-free anyways.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That comes up so much.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right, because it drives me insane because it's like, oh, what's that? Like, oh, I dumped some water on the floor. I guess I need to dump, like, the whole tub or something.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:We had an old coach named Ben who used to say basically like, if you get a flat tire, you shouldn't drive the car off the cliff.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, yeah. Or like go pop the other three tires. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's how it feels to me. It's like, okay, so there's like a little bit of animal cruelty that like in the current agricultural setup, we can't get away from, so we should just do more.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right, yeah. Another thing you'll hear is that a vegan world would require way more crops, specifically monocrops, to be grown.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Or that every couch pasture will become a soy field, and that would be horrible.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That sounds pretty nice.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I think it sounds good. We can just go pick some soy. We won't steal your crops, we swear.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:All of these assume that vegans are the only one eating monocrops like soy and corn, which obviously doesn't make any sense.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, but I mean, the vast majority of people are oblivious to how our food systems actually work and what our crops actually get used for.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So let's talk about what the data shows.
Protein Deficient Vegan:This one's fun. I like, can I talk about the corn one?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Talk about the corn.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Okay. I worked at a corn ethanol plant, so I'm all about the corn.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You know you got the hard on for corn.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So, this is U.S. corn data from 2020. Animal feed takes up 39% of all corn usage in the U.S.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's a lot.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Ethanol takes up 27% of all corn usage in the U.S. Exports are 17%. This is interesting because ethanol byproduct becomes dried distiller's grain, which is used for cow feed. So, that takes up 7%.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Are we to the point yet where the vegans are eating the corn?
Protein Deficient Vegan:No, no. Okay. Okay, now we're getting into food. Okay. 5% of the corn is used in sweeteners. I'm pretty sure vegans aren't the only ones that use things with corn syrup, right?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:No, I don't think so.
Protein Deficient Vegan:2% is for cornstarch.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Okay.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Man, I can't remember the last time I used cornstarch. 1.5% is for cereal.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Okay, this one I do eat.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I do eat cereal sometimes. And then 1% is for beverages.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Okay.
Protein Deficient Vegan:What beverages use corn? I don't even know.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I think there must be some corn drink out there we don't know about.
Protein Deficient Vegan:We've got to look into that. I feel like very stupid that I don't know what beverage would use corn, but I must be missing something. Yeah. So, I mean, I think what we can say is that, what is that, uh... And less than 10% of all the corn in the U.S. is going to human food.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:What percentage of that goes to just, like, corn on the cob? Like, where does that fall in? Starch?
Protein Deficient Vegan:I don't know. Maybe.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's interesting.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, it didn't have that. Must be small. Must be pretty small. Must be pretty small.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Apparently just eating a cob with corn is the very least popular way to use corn.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I'm trying to think of, like, when's the last time I had corn on the cob? It's been a while. Yeah. I like corn on the cob. Like, to shuck the corn. but you you want to know what's kind of funny so i worked at the ethanol plant as i mentioned a thousand times but something that i got told a lot was like oh ethanol is stealing all the corn from humans and ethanol is evil and ethanol is bad and i'm just like holy shit like the numbers are worse for animal feed i've never heard a single fucking person say that about animal feed yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:The cows are stealing the
Protein Deficient Vegan:Corn the cows are stealing the human corn not that.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:They want to
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, they don't want to be there. They just want grass. They want grass. They want a free roam. They want to be free.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So that's, thank you for the corn education. Yeah. Now we can talk about soy. There was a study from 2017 to 2019. It looks like 20% of soy that's grown goes directly to human food.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Only 20%?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:20%. The breakdown of that 20% is 13% goes to oil.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, and only vegans eat soy-based oils, right?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, definitely. 2.6% goes to tofu.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I will take credit for that.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Definitely. And Asia, you know.
Protein Deficient Vegan:But whatever.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Um, 2% goes to soy milk.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I drink a lot of soy milk.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That one is probably mostly us. I agree with that. So we're part of like the 4, 5%.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, yeah. We're contributing.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then 2% other, stuff like tempeh.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I don't eat tempehs. TVP probably falls in there. TVP, yeah. They do eat a little bit of TVP.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So yeah, 20% of the soy that is grown globally is gone to human food.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Okay. I want to pause there because I think it's crazy. If you take out oil, right, you're looking at about 7% of all the soy that is grown globally is going to products like tofu, soy milk, tempeh, TVP. So like vegan protein sources that are soy based. Right. Think about how many countries and think about which countries I'm talking about, which is like India.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:With a lot of people.
Protein Deficient Vegan:With a ton of people that are eating tofu. Yeah. It still only makes up 7%. of all the soy.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that's pretty insane.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's crazy to me. Yeah. So we're already feeding all of the vegetarians in the world and all the vegans in the world with only 7% of all soy production right now?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's insane.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So 76% of the soy grown globally goes to animal feed.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's wild. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:The breakdown of that is 37% to poultry feed, 20% to pigs, 5.6% to aquaculture, fish stuff. And the rest goes to other animal agriculture that are varied.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And then 4% is like biodiesel and lubricants.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Bow chicka wow. Are those soy-based? Probably not. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I don't know.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I don't know.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So yeah, 76% to animal feed. So we're growing a whole lot of soy just to inefficiently turn animals into less calories,
Protein Deficient Vegan:Basically. Right. But then like all the vegetarians and vegans for the world can survive on like 6.5% to 7% of soy production globally. Yeah. That's just blowing my mind, that number.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, definitely. So the takeaway here is that vegans are not the only ones consuming monocrops. The animals in agriculture are mostly consuming the monocrops. So when you hear the more people go vegan, the more monocropping we need, it's actually the opposite of that. The more meat and dairy that we consume in the world, the more monocropping we need because that's what the animals are being fed.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And it's a very inefficient process. Oh, absolutely.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:The next topic we can talk about here is land use for these monocrops.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Not only does animal agriculture require more monocrops than a plant-based diet, but it also requires significantly more agricultural land. Which is another point that gets brought up in the conversation. They're like, vegans are killing the Amazon rainforest. If the world went vegan, we just wouldn't have enough land for all the crops. Yeah. That's a direct quote.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So research from Joseph Poore and his colleagues found that animal agriculture uses the most agricultural land while producing the least amount of global calories. Which we've talked about this a couple times. It should be like super freaking obvious if you just think about how you turn plant calories into meat calories.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yes. Do I want the cow or all of the food the cow's ever eaten? Right. I think it's pretty obvious. Yeah. So if you're a data nerd, you can go check this out. But Our World in Data actually has a lot of really interesting data on global land for agriculture. So only 29% of the Earth's surface is land. The other 71% is ocean, which you probably knew if you had like third grade science. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I've been wondering why we don't just take dirt and fill up the ocean.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:No, it seems pretty easy.
Protein Deficient Vegan:This is the easy solution. So 76% of the land is habitable. The rest is like glaciers or barren land like deserts. So people can't live there. Crops can't live there. 45% of all habitable land, is used for agriculture.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:45% of all habitable land. Wow.
Protein Deficient Vegan:These numbers are kind of crazy because, like, I don't know. I just wouldn't have really expected them. Yeah. But the remaining land is 38% is forests, 13% is shrub, 1% is urban or built up like cities. Okay. Only 1%. That just seemed really low to me. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:They're pretty concentrated though, I guess. I think about it. So, yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And then 3% is like additional bodies of water, like lakes, rivers, blah, blah, blah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Things that aren't ocean, but are water. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:13% shrub.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's interesting. I don't know. So, of the agricultural land, 80% of it is used for livestock.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Wow. That's a lot. 80%. And that includes the land they use for the feed for the animals. Right. The crops and stuff we were talking about.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So, 16% is used to make crops for human food.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. 16% of all agricultural land is used to make crops for human food.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right. Okay. So, then 4% is used for, like, non-food crops, like your biofuels. Okay.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Corn.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Corn. Yeah. And so just to recap, 45% of habitable land is agriculture. 80% of that habitable agriculture land is livestock. So 36% of all the habitable land on earth right now is used for animal ag.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's a big number.
Protein Deficient Vegan:But okay, here's where it gets fucking crazy because plant-based foods still make up 82 to 83 percent of all the calories consumed by humans globally and animal products only make up 17 to 18 percent yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So we're using uh
Protein Deficient Vegan:Like five times as much land well we're.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Using 36 percent of all the habitable land on earth to get 17 percent of our
Protein Deficient Vegan:Calories yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That needs to be like on a billboard or something
Protein Deficient Vegan:Isn't it bullshit and And then, like, if you think about, I can't remember which documentary this was in, but there was this one phrase that really stuck with me. And it was talking about how basically the U.S. food consumption is so very meat-centric that if the rest of the world followed suit and started eating, like, the standard American diet, which is, like, very, very heavy meat, we would need, I think it said three more planet Earths.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Wow. We don't have any of those handy.
Protein Deficient Vegan:We don't. We just have the one. Although I guess they're looking at Mars, maybe? I don't know.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I don't know how that's going. Let's look at land use per 1,000 calories. So for beef, the land use is basically 119 square meters per 1,000 calories.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's big. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:1,000 calories is like, on average, half a day's food for a person.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So 119 square meters for half a day's food. Seems wrong. For one person. Cheese is 117 square meters, so pretty much the same. Poultry, 6.6 square meters. Wheat and rye is 1.4 square meters per 1,000 calories.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, yeah, that seems more reasonable.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Like about the amount of space you'd take if you lay down for a half a day of food.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So 1 one-hundredth of the space of beef. Right. Okay.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then rice is three-quarters of a square meter per 1,000 calories, 0.76.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Wow. Yeah. That's kind of nuts. Yeah. And then lots of other foods are compared in this table. If you want to check it out, it's under the Our World in Data, Land Use of Diets.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, we'll have those links in the show notes. So what would a fully vegan world look like? We can only speculate and refer to like researcher hypotheses, obviously, because we can't actually do that. But we do have numbers about, you know, what people eat now and how much land that takes up, some of the stuff we've gone over. So we can kind of extrapolate.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I feel like pretty educated guesses by researchers and scientists. If the whole world went vegan, researchers estimate... Total agricultural land use would shrink from 4.1 billion hectares to 1 billion hectares.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:What the hell is a hectare?
Protein Deficient Vegan:I don't know. What's a hectare?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:We're going to look it up. Looks like it is 10,000 square meters.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Okay.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I guess that doesn't really matter. It's a 75% reduction though. That's an area the size of North America and Brazil combined.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's a whole lot of hectares.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That is so many hectares.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So a vegan world wouldn't automatically eliminate monocropping. They're kind of unrelated, and we would eat a lot of soy in that kind of world. But it creates the opportunity to reduce it, at least.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Since there's less land overall used, that means less feed production, less pasture, potential for rewilding.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Rewilding?
Protein Deficient Vegan:You know, letting shit get wild again.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I like that. Like in that movie, I Am Legend, where the town just, like, all the trees grew back into the buildings and stuff.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Is that the one where he wore Converse shoes?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh, I don't remember that detail.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's all I remember. Wait, is that the one with the dog?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I think there is a dog
Protein Deficient Vegan:And I don't really remember isn't that I think there's something with a dog and that's why I've never watched it again yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Okay but the trees grew through the buildings and the deer were back in the middle of the city and stuff
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's nice yeah wait is that the robot one or the plague one you're.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Thinking not a robot it's the plague
Protein Deficient Vegan:One which one is the dog one.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I think it's probably I'm Legend
Protein Deficient Vegan:I think the dog dies.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Okay. Well, that would be sad.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Don't watch it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Also, we could have more crop diversity in that scenario. Instead of just growing corn and soy, you could also grow beans, lentils, peas, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. And by that, I mean all on the same farm.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's still soy, though. Yeah. I still want my soy. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, it could be all on the same farm. So you don't just have monocropped fields of soy. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:A human plant-based food system needs a lot more crop diversity than just feeding billions of land animals corn and soy.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's true, because, like, humans eat a more diverse diet. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Using less land also leaves more room for regenerative practices, which is basically like keeping the soil healthy.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Crop rotation, which would be planting different crops sequentially in the same area over multiple years or seasons. Apparently, that's better for the soil. I'm not a farmer. We're just going by the research. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Also something called cover crops, which are grown to benefit the soil itself rather than to be harvested at all.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I saw an example of this was clover.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that makes sense.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I wish we could do, I saw this thing where people were just making their whole yards clover. Yeah. Clover. And I brought this up to you and you said no. Well, is that because of the HOA? Because you're scared? Are you scared of those loser HOA people?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I don't think we have a rule against that. I don't know. I've never seen the goddamn bylaws.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I haven't either. Okay, so then if I make the yard clover, are you going to be upset?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Well, how would you make the yard clover?
Protein Deficient Vegan:I'm going to rip off all the grass and turn it into clover.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I have a feeling that's not actually how you make the yard clover.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It is. I've watched TikTok videos and like, how else could I learn?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:We've got to get you off the TikTok. Next up is agroforestry. This is integrating trees and shrubs with the crops and in some cases livestock.
Protein Deficient Vegan:There's also wildlife corridors that could be built. So it takes strips of underdeveloped land and connects them to isolated habitats so that animals can migrate, find food, and mate. They can fuck safely.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I just saw an example of this. Actually, I didn't realize we were going to be talking about this, so I didn't like remember the details, but they built some kind of deer bridge. And I guess like 18 hours after they finished the bridge, a deer found it and used it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, I know. I've seen them where they like, they go over the highways. It's so cute. I wish we had one everywhere.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Also integrated pest management. This is increasing biodiversity. So pests have natural predators instead of trying to eliminate the pest species. So basically if you grow a bunch of different stuff, there's a bunch of different kinds Yeah. We would also like to see more government subsidies shift away from corn and soy, which are mainly used for animal agriculture, again, towards more diverse crops or maybe just any crop.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Like if you plant crops, you deserve subsidies because you're feeding the world. And if shit goes bad, you've got some safety. Yeah, definitely. And then I think it's like, could monocropping still exist in a vegan world? Yeah. But the reasons have nothing to do with veganism.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Most of them are like corporate greed, really.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You know profit incentives
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh right okay the pc version, yeah i think it would be if profit incentives stayed in place from the government subsidies or something um and maybe they were only in place for monocrops so it made people want to monocrop corn or soy and.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:There could be you know situations that would arise for this like if everybody started growing really diverse things but then like the demand for soy or something was much higher than the supply, then maybe it would make sense to incentivize growing soy, something like that. So I could see reasons why subsidies would be kind of strategically used, but not just to feed all the animals.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right. In my brain though, like, okay, so not only are you saving land, but I have to imagine that reduces like how many farmers can be in the game. Yeah. Right. So in my mind, it's like, why wouldn't we go back to like a more natural way of raising food? Maybe it's like more labor intensive, but like, does that matter when we don't need as much food. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. No, that's interesting.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And then more people stay employed. I don't know.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Just a thought.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Plus the farmers that are there probably get paid better.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Another reason monocropping might still exist is just if industrial agriculture kind of stayed the primary model, which prioritizes efficiency over the environment.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right. Which is kind of like what I was mentioning is like if we did things the right way, you could employ the same amount of people potentially. But you'd have better, safer foods that were better for the environment. and, you know, everything would be great. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And you really only need to... heavily optimize or industrialize it if the natural ways can't keep up with the food demand. So there's probably a balance there that is not having to like pump out tons of corn and soy for animal feed.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. The supply only needs to match a little more than the demand, right? Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So you could still have soy, wheat, and corn monocultures potentially. So some of the proposed solutions if we did move toward a fully vegan food system that have been investigated by researchers are some things like crop rotations.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. That would reduce pests, improve soil health, and lower fertilizer needs.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Also, cover crops, like we talked about, clover and also rye. Those protect the soil, add nutrients, and reduce erosion, kind of like you were talking about, plant things to keep the erosion from just washing all the dirt away.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Which seems like a good idea, especially with climate change, right? Yeah. Intercropping, growing multiple crops together for biodiversity and pest control.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, this one seems like a pretty big one. And a lot of people, when they plant their gardens in their backyard, they do this. Like you plant...
Protein Deficient Vegan:We did that. Right. Plant flowers near whatever needs to be pollinated so that you can attract bees and stuff to pollinate.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And there are also things like you plant next to, I can't think of an example off the top of my head. There are things you can plant next to other things. Like I think there's something you can plant onions next to to help keep some pests away for some specific food.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right. Like certain pests don't like certain things. So you plant it next to, yeah. Yeah. Something they really like. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Exactly. There's also something called urban or vertical farming. So normally you hear about gardens in the backyard, but you can also like grow gardens kind of inside or with, like, a vertical system. This is good for greens and herbs. It reduces transport and land use because they have a very small footprint. They grow up, you know, into the air, which we have plenty of.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, and I feel like this one can be really interesting. So, like, if you think about a big city that doesn't actually have land that can be used for your classical example of farming, you could grow, like, shit tons of lettuce inside buildings. Yeah. And then you wouldn't have to transport that from, like, cities outside of your perimeter because you just have lettuce for the people to buy within your area. And honestly, like grocery stores could even do that. Maybe grocery stores start, I don't know, having vertical farming and you can cut your own lettuce at the store.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's actually interesting about this is I was on a work trip last week and the cafeteria we have there, they actually have a whole hydroponic cabinet where they grow all their own lettuce and kale and stuff for their salad bar.
Protein Deficient Vegan:See, that's what I'm talking about. Well, we do that. We actually bought this lettuce grow. So we do hydroponic gardening. Right now it's outside, although we had really bad wind in it. It was all over the ground.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, we got lettuce, kale, green onions, a couple other things out there.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, like it's really good for herbs and greens.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And then there's also the indoor herb garden type thing, the Aero Garden.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Most of the hydroponic gardens you buy, you can get a grow light attachment and then you can just take them inside and grow your own food all winter, which is what we do. Right. But I actually feel like this one could be really amazing.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, everybody can kind of grow some amount of their own lettuce or whatever.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Maybe that's where the government subsidies go. Give people kickbacks for growing some of their own food. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then kind of the last proposed solution we have to talk about is rewilding former grazing lands. So basically a return to the forest and prairie and wetlands to better support biodiversity. So things that were used for grazing can't really be used as much anymore. You just intentionally rewild those areas.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. That sounds pretty amazing. And then all this stuff is like futuristic and, you know, maybe won't ever happen. But there is some stuff that you can do right now as a consumer if you think monocropping is bad and you're concerned about it. So some tangible things you could do as a consumer, you could eliminate meat and dairy because animal agriculture uses so much more monocrops.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that's a big one. Also shop local. Farmers markets support smaller growers with a bunch of crop variety, usually much smaller operations. I'm sure there are industrial farmers that make it to the farmer market. Yeah. But typically it's smaller operations.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. The ones we've went to, it's like they're like different little stands, right? And there's this guy and he's got like 20 different things he's selling from his own farm. Right. Exactly. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And it always tastes great.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You know, I never actually thought about that until just now, how some of those stations have like so many different crops.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. They got a lot of stuff going on.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's really cool. And then you can also just grow your own food, kind of like what you were talking about. It's easier with a yard because if you have a yard, you can put an actual garden in. You've got a lot more space to use up. Yeah. And you can just use the soil and the rain and, you know, you can water it a little bit, stuff like that. But if that's not an option, you can do a hydroponic garden like the lettuce grow we mentioned or some of the other options.
Protein Deficient Vegan:They have a bunch of different options now. Yeah. With various footprints to fit inside of pretty much any house or even any small space. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And it's not like super cheap, but one, there are cheaper options. But two, lettuce isn't super cheap either at the store.
Protein Deficient Vegan:No, I think it eventually pays for itself. I will say that.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, I mean, you grow it like we just started ours a couple weeks ago and we've probably got I don't know, 12 whole heads of lettuce right now that you'd have to buy from the store for like three or four bucks each.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And not even just lettuce, like specialty lettuces, like kale and like some specialty romaine, like a lot of different varieties that would cost even more at the store than just like a head of iceberg, right?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, I think like one seedling worth of the kale is like if you go buy the organic kale at the grocery or whatever, it's like six bucks now.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, yeah. And the good thing with a lot of the lettuces is that if you cut them at the right spot, they grow back.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:For some reason, that feels like a personal attack.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I don't know why you think that. Why do you think that?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Well, I cut it at what I thought was the right spot, and I don't think that one's going to grow back.
Protein Deficient Vegan:All the way at the bottom.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Well, you know.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's just this little tiny brown nub now. It looks so sad.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, I got to work on my skills.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I'll show you. I mean, I have shown you over the last like five years, but I'll show you again.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I thought I did it right. I need a manual. I need a YouTube video. All right. So, yeah, that's basically monocropping in a nutshell. Definitely not something vegans are specifically causing. We do eat soy, but so does everybody else.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Soy does everybody else.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Soy does everybody else.
Protein Deficient Vegan:If you have any questions about it, let us know.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Now, our next segment, another thing.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And another thing.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:We're going to talk about cold plunges. So a cold plunge is basically when you submerge yourself in extremely cold water. Usually there are like purpose-built tubs for it. I guess you could also put a bunch of ice in your bathtub. A lot of gyms just have these for some reason.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Cold plunging is my actual worst nightmare. I would die.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So they're not new, but the popularity has surged from kind of the biohacking culture and social media in general.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, because we like to watch people look miserable. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I haven't been around in a long time, though, in, like, professional sports teams and locker rooms and stuff. Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I think I remember seeing—didn't they do something with cold plunging on—, major leagues like my favorite yeah it's my favorite sports movie.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's so funny it's the first movie i think of too because there was a guy who was always rubbing ointment yeah he's like always cold plunging which actually is like one of the better uses for cold plunging we'll talk about it in a second but yeah um so some of the claim benefits of cold plunging and it's a pretty long list of claims right is uh reduced inflammation improved recovery boost immunity improved mood improved mental fortitude you burn fat a increased testosterone uh increase your dopamine.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Well, yeah, it probably does make you happy because you almost died, but then you didn't.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It probably would be increasing my dopamine. It improves focus. It decreases anxiety.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Not mine. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You don't like cold things.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I don't.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:This is something you don't even consider. This could keep you alive for 100 extra years and you wouldn't do it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Fuck that shit.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And also improves sleep.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, because you're exhausted from fighting for your life.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I think we're picking up on your stance here pretty early.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I also was told it could increase your life savings by twofold.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh, interesting. Yeah, these are the claimed benefits of the cold plunge.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That was a joke. Oh, I know. Okay.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:But let's talk about what's actually supported by the evidence. So cold water or ice can reduce perceived muscle soreness and fatigue after an exercise.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Okay. I can personally attest to this. Yeah. So in high school, I was the pitcher and basically like the only pitcher. So I pitched every game and it was, sometimes it was back to back games or like back to back nights. And sometimes it was like. On tournament weekends, it was, like, two to three games a day. Right. So my right arm always fucking hurt. And so it was, like, the one thing I'd do is I would, like, as soon as I got home, I was icing the shit out of that. Yeah. Until I went to bed.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And, I mean, if you're playing sports and you need to play again tomorrow or even maybe next week. Yeah. Then the cold plunges may help. You'll be less sore. And I'm definitely not going to say ice doesn't help. Ice definitely helps.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's just, if you're trying to maximize muscle growth, like if you're in the gym, which is actually where a lot of this comes up in conversation, cold plunges might kind of fuck up your progress a little bit.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right, because it's reducing inflammation and inflammation is needed to grow muscles, right?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's definitely part of the process.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I like to oversimplify things.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So, yeah, like the example of a pitcher is actually a really great example for when you might use a cold plunge. Because the only thing your priority is, is like my arm needs to be 100% or as close as possible before that next game. You're not like, ooh, I need to get stronger before the next game. Like, in the middle of your season as an athlete, you're just, like, recovering game to game. Right. So you did all your, like, muscular and athletic improvements in the offseason for the most part. So if you use ice to get from game to game, that's, like, 100% probably the best way to use it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Makes sense.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. The mood and alertness claims are not very well researched. It's unclear whether that's a placebo or like an adrenaline surge thing or something else. I guess if it works for you mentally, you do you, you know?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. If you like it, we're not going to tell you you shouldn't like it. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then the claims like immune benefits and weight loss just have very, very weak evidence. And, you know, weight loss specifically, I think the idea there is like your body tries to heat itself up a little bit and burns a few calories. but that's going to be like not anything noticeable or measurable. So also there's some specific considerations for women in cold plunges.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, because we talk about women on this podcast, it's also worth noting that there's limited research on cold plunges effects on men, but there's even less research on their effectiveness with women.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that doesn't surprise me.
Protein Deficient Vegan:As is so often with really anything with women in research.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, especially in sports. Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So one criticism from a female health expert is that cold plunges are a stressor, which raises cortisol and adrenaline and can even change the heart rate. For women that are already dealing with chronic stress or poor sleep, maybe they're overtraining or they have hormonal issues, they're saying that adding another stressor might not be a good idea.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. I mean, probably a lot of people fall in that category.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And then some other practitioners are recommending to adjust the intensity by your cycle phase. So if you didn't know this, body temperature naturally shifts across the menstrual cycle. And some women will report that cold tolerance varies with the cycle timing.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that makes sense. Seems like it affects like your comfortable temperature quite a bit.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, it really does. And actually, you can take your temperature every morning and kind of see where you fall in your cycle. That's a thing. I don't know all the... Ins and outs of it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Well, I think, and correct me, obviously, if I'm wrong here, but I think that's how, like, some of the fitness trackers help predict when you're coming into your cycle, right?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, I think that is true. And the heart rate. Yeah. Your heart rate drops, like, at least mine drops pretty drastically.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's like you said before, like, when you were wearing your whoop, it would be like, wow, you got the best sleep ever. Do more of that. And the do more of that was just, like, be on your period more.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Bleed. Yeah, so I just thought this was worth bringing it up because I finally got you to read a book I've been asking you to read for. I think like four years now?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Invisible women.
Protein Deficient Vegan:How was it?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It was really enlightening, actually. Yeah, I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent, but women have to think about a lot of shit that men don't.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Would you recommend it?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, I definitely recommend it. I think it's always good to get a different point of view. So, I mean, there legitimately was a lot of stuff in there that like never even crossed my mind that it seems like a lot of women have to think about more or less constantly. Yeah. It's pretty weird.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's kind of rough. It's rough out here on these streets. And I mean, just in general, the wellness industry often applies male-derived research to women without actually researching women and how it affects them. So that makes sense. Just wanted to throw that out here.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Uh, even some of the risks with cold plunge that aren't often talked about are, and these are potential risks. Like, I'm not saying this is going to happen to you if you cold plunge,
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right? Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:There are definitely people who cold plunge and they're fine, whatever. But there are potential risks.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, because, like, you could do it for too long and maybe you don't know you're doing it for too long. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So, some of the risks are, like, a cold shock response. It's like your body just freaks out and all kinds of bad things happen.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I feel like that's what would happen to me. Yeah. Uh, hyperventilation. Yeah. That would probably happen to me. That would probably happen to me.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Uh, dizziness in general. Probably happens to a lot of people on a cold plunge.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Blood pressure spikes, that can be really dangerous if you already have high blood pressure, obviously. Yep. Hypothermia, if you're in too long, if you're just like, oh, I'm going to cold plunge for an hour. Yeah. There's some TikTok challenge or something. Who knows?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. You might end up like Jack Torrance from The Shining.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, there you go. Or the Titanic guy.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Poor Jack.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You think there's enough room on the door?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Obviously. Okay.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:This is like the romance movies version of who shot first in Star Wars, right?
Protein Deficient Vegan:I mean, you think there's enough room, though, right? Yeah. They should have filmed it with a smaller door if they wanted us to believe that shit.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Four people in that door.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Absolutely. It was ridiculous.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then the last one is like people with cardiovascular conditions should be particularly cautious because of how this affects your blood pressure, your heart rate, all those different things. Your distress in general. Yeah. A lot of that stuff. You don't want to add a bunch of like instant changes to all those systems. Right. You can help it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Feels like if you have some of those concerns or... Maybe you're more on the risky side. Yeah. Why don't you just ice whatever thing you need to ice? Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And I think, you know, part of the risk here is because it's a cold plunge. You get in all at once. It's not like you sit in the tub and gradually get colder.
Protein Deficient Vegan:No, you're going in. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe just like throw an ice pack on whatever, you have that's sore. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:The bottom line here is if the cold plunge makes you feel better, whether that is placebo or not, do what you want. There are a lot of people who, even if the studies don't back it, they're like, hey, I like this. This makes you feel better.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right. It wakes me up in the morning. It makes me, gets me ready for my day.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Who's going to argue with that?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Not me. I'm not going to do it, but you should do it if you like it. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:If you're focused on muscle growth, definitely don't do them right after a workout. It can impact the muscle gain because like we were saying, inflammation is part of that process the muscles use to grow. So maybe do it before the workout on a different day, like a couple hours afterwards if you really insist on doing it. Kind of the same thing as like if you were taking ibuprofen or something.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Just generally be aware of the risk. You know, again, there are a lot of people who do it and they're fine, but just be aware of the things that can happen, especially if you have some medical conditions. And then if it's not something you want to do, you'll be just fine without it. There are very few evidence-based reasons to do it, other than, like we said, if you're trying to get, like, in your sports season from game to game, maybe.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And even then, you can probably just ice locally.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's what I'm saying. I feel like there's probably some local icing that you can do that would solve most problems.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, surely your entire body is not inflamed every game.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I mean, I don't know. Football looks really rough, from what I can tell.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:No, yeah, football, maybe.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I feel like football, or, like, even, what, rugby looks pretty brutal.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Or I guess, like, fighting sports.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Fighting. Yeah. Fighting sports. Yeah. Maybe you do want a cold plunge. I could see that.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So there you go. That's all about cold plunge.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Now we're introducing a very pretty small new segment around coaching, because if you didn't know, Muscle Deficient Vegan over here is a personal trainer. That's true. So we're going to like throw out a question that he's been asked and he's going to answer it for you.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Kind of a bite sized coaching segment.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So one question I got.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I'm going to ask the question, bitch. Oh, here's the question. How often and which exercises would you do for abs?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Abs. So stomach muscles, right? If you want to directly target them, which you don't necessarily have to, I would just do twice a week. And whichever exercise lets you progressively add load over time. So things like the crunch machine, if your gym has a good one, some of them are kind of awkward. A lot of them are pretty good. If you can get the main way to know is if you can get a big stretch when you go back and then you can come forward without it feeling like painful and stuff. or a kneeling cable crunch is good for this. So you just get up to the weight stack with the cable machine, get down on your knees.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I feel so awkward doing that.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. It's a little awkward.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Here's my ass.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that's true.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Anyway, continue.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Anyway, then you grab, you can use a bunch of different implements. Usually you grab the two ropes over your shoulders and then just kind of crunch down, try to basically put your nose into your belly button So you make sure you actually curve your back and crunch down and you're not just like if you're some people will do it and their back's flat and they're just kind of like bending at the hips. That's not really working your abs. So you do want to make sure you're actually bending over.
Protein Deficient Vegan:The crunch is important.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, the crunch is important. And then you can also hit your obliques, which are kind of the side of your abs with anti-rotational cable movements. Basically, you're trying to not rotate because the weight is pulling you in a rotation. So some of those are things like the pallof press, which basically stick your arm straight out in front of you. and then you just kind of twist. You'll have to look it up. It's hard to describe. Or wood choppers, which is kind of like you're holding an axe and you're just chopping wood across your body. But you also do that with a cable machine.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So all of these require machinery. What do I do if I don't have machinery? What if I'm just at home?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:If you're just at home, you can do... The problem is the stuff at home is hard to like wait progressively over time. But if it's still difficult to you and you can not do like 30 or 40 reps yet, it's probably still good for training. So you could just do like normal crunches or even like if you have one of those ab wheels you can get those pretty cheap that's a really great ab exercise
Protein Deficient Vegan:What about what about planks.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Planks.
Protein Deficient Vegan:You don't like planks?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Planks are interesting. Most people, I think you can't really hold a plank long enough for it to really challenge you after you do it for a while is the problem. Really? Because if you can hold a plank for more than about 45 or 50 seconds, it's probably not challenging you enough to really simulate growth anymore. It can be good for like stabilization and training to do planks. But it's probably not going to grow your ab muscles too much more if you can hold it for more than like 40 or 50 seconds. But if you can put, like, some sandbags or something on your back, I mean, you have to be careful because it's, like, weird, awkward to twist and all that.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, it needs to be, like, very evenly dispersed.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:If you have a very comfortable, very easy way to load them.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Like a child.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Child, sure. Planks can be okay.
Protein Deficient Vegan:All right. Thanks for that. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So, I think you get some pretty interesting comments on the social media these days. Why don't you read us, like, one of the meanest comments you got this week?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Okay. I'll give you even better. I'll give you my most frequent mean comment this week, which was gross, period. Okay. Just gross.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That is very descriptive.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Okay. Here's my meanest or oddest. Yeah. Okay. This is on my bean bowls. This person hasn't tried the recipe. That's important context.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Okay.
Protein Deficient Vegan:A half a teaspoon of seasoning? What on the blasphemous mayo mouth is this? Yes. On behalf of Texas and Louisiana, we're going to sit this one out.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I'm not entirely sure what that means.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I don't either.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I think it means you're not using enough seasoning.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, but it's actually really well seasoned, so maybe try it. Okay.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Those taste pretty seasoned to me when we eat them. I don't know.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I don't know either, man.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Is nutritional yeast not kind of seasoning?
Protein Deficient Vegan:I guess not.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh, interesting.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Maybe they don't know what that is. I'm not sure.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Louisiana's going to sit this one out.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And Texas. But I feel like I've had Texas people make it, so I'm not sure.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, I don't think she's speaking for everybody in those states.
Protein Deficient Vegan:No.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Interesting. Well, sorry we couldn't live up to her expectations. So a couple of announcements we have here. The Deficient Vegans Book Club in our Discord server starts Monday, June 22nd. You can join that via the Discord server in the show notes. The book we're going to be reading is called Eating Animals. And we're going to cover that over four weeks, basically like around 75 pages a week, which is pretty doable. And then we'll have an open discussion with prompts to keep the conversation flowing. It's not going to be like live calls or anything like that. We have a lot of different people in a lot of different time zones, so that makes it pretty awkward for that kind of thing. But we can, you know, have kind of an asynchronous conversation.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I think it'll still be fun. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:The Discord now is over 100 people. That's pretty cool. So I definitely recommend joining that down in the show notes. If you need vegan friends or just a place to ask, like, fitness or nutrition questions or ask about recipes, anything like that, really. We have several different channels for several different topics, and they're all pretty active.
Protein Deficient Vegan:We now have a music and movies channel. Yeah. We're going to create a book not part of the book club channel. Yeah. You can make a lot of friends there. We have a lot of fun people in there.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, for sure. It's growing pretty quickly. Also, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, if you could leave us our rating and review, that helps us out a lot. And then if you're listening on Spotify or YouTube, you can leave us a comment, and we love seeing those. We do. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to either one of us, whether that's in Discord or you can find our social media website information down in the show notes. You can reach out there as well. So, yeah, we appreciate everybody listening, and I think that's it. You want to say bye? Bye, guys. Bye, everybody.
