REPLAY: Veganism and Masculinity

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast. I'm the muscle deficient vegan here with the Protein Deficient Vegan. Do you want to say hi?

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hi, everybody.

Veganism, Masculinity, and the Marketing Behind Meat

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So we replayed an episode last week and said that there would be a new one coming out this week, but that ended up being overly ambitious during our break. What we have for you this week is a replay of our fiftieth episode, and we'll be back to our regularly scheduled program next week. We hope you had a happy Halloween if you celebrate it, and thank you for listening. Now here's the show. So for our 50th episode, we're going to be covering veganism and masculinity. And since I have a lot of opinions on this, I'll be giving you way more than my two cents, more like my fifty cents.

SPEAKER_05 0:33

We're gonna party like it's your birthday. Get it? Fifty cent reference? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. In the club.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Hello, fellow students. Also, we will talk about our myth of the week this week, which is that you don't need to care about complete proteins at all.

SPEAKER_05 0:56

I've heard this one.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

What do you think?

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We'll find out.

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All right, let's get into the main segment here. We're gonna talk about kind of the intersection between veganism and masculinity because that exists for some reason. Uh and specifically how being vegan is often seen as less masculine.

SPEAKER_05 1:14

Spoiler alert, you can thank the patriarchy.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

I think most things fall into that category.

SPEAKER_05 1:19

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Uh the general argument here is usually something like men evolved as hunters, meat delivers cholesterol, B12, zinc, creatine, uh, complete proteins.

SPEAKER_05 1:31

Really good for their man brains and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, man brains are important. And then also plant estrogens feminize the body is one of the arguments.

SPEAKER_05 1:40

I actually have a funny story here.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:43

I just got a comment on one of my videos that said that basically my video was about how people keep saying that T VP is prison food.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Right?

SPEAKER_05 1:54

So, like, then I have this lady that was like, I was in prison and actually we sued the prison because the TvP made the men lactate.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Yeah, I'll take things that never happened for a thousand Alex. Or Ken. Ken Jennings. Uh and yeah, the last argument they typically use is something really vague, like modern men are softer than their grandfathers or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 2:16

Maybe that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

So you've probably heard the term soy boy when talking about vegan or vegetarian men before. So in a little bit we'll talk about kind of where that came from, but that helps set the frame for like this general idea, right? And uh, you know, now a lot of us have also reclaimed that and proud soy boys and whatnot.

SPEAKER_05 2:34

Save a cow, ride a soy boy.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

There you go. Uh and the real question uh in all of these conversations isn't even really is veganism healthy or can vegans build muscle? Like those are different conversations that we've also uh approached. But it's really like why is veganism ever framed as a masculinity?

SPEAKER_05 2:51

Yeah, why is there like a gender assigned

Selling Food as Masculine

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to food?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah. I'm like, where did that come from?

SPEAKER_05 2:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

So uh like with most modern cultural ideas, it's the answer is marketing. So uh there's like a long history of framing specific foods and products as masculine to try to sell to men. Uh one of the earliest examples of this is actually a really interesting one from 1954, the Marlboro Man. So originally Marlboro cigarettes were uh launched to be a woman's product, basically filtered cigarettes. And uh after a while, the health uh implications of cigarettes started coming out, so they wanted to try to sell filtered cigarettes to other people because they were, uh I guess slightly more healthy.

SPEAKER_05 3:31

Quote unquote healthier.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Right. Um, but they had a real problem because this was seen as like a woman's cigarette. So they launched the Marlboro Man campaign to try to sell filtered cigarettes to men. And uh, you know, it it worked. Um basically they created their campaign around the cowboy and all the cowboy imagery and all that stuff, like a rugged blue-collar man to convince men that like it was okay to use filtered cigarettes that were previously a woman's thing.

SPEAKER_05 3:59

That's crazy that that worked.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yeah. It worked like gangbusters because their uh sales tripled. They went from being like less than one percent of the cigarette share to uh number four overall for cigarettes.

SPEAKER_05 4:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

So this is like one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all time.

SPEAKER_05 4:16

Just because they put a cowboy there. Yeah. And they were like, no, no, it's not a more safe cigarette. You're still dangerous. You're still a rugged cowboy.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, and a lot of their competitors at the time were leaning into like, this is how we're making ours a little healthier, or like the technology of the filters and all that stuff. And Marlborough was just like, we're gonna go a totally different direction. We're gonna put a cowboy man on the screen. And uh it worked.

SPEAKER_05 4:40

So I think that we need a vegan food creator to dress up like a cowboy when they cook.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

There you go.

SPEAKER_05 4:48

Flip an eggplant on the grill in their cowboy hat.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Are you volunteering?

SPEAKER_05 4:52

No, I can't be a cowboy.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

We'll have to put some feelers out, see who's down for that. Um and then, you know, this led to other marketing campaigns kind of leaning into this type of thing in the future. And 1973, Hungry Man Dinners. You've probably heard of Hungry Man. This is a really popular one. Uh, the box literally said eat like a man in capital letters. And they had a lot of pro athletes as spokesmen. Um, their foods in their eating like a man is apparently Salisbury steak, fried chicken, meatloaf, things like that.

SPEAKER_05 5:23

This is funny to me because uh I think basically the opposite of that in the frozen food space is like lean cuisines, which are mostly marketed to women, where it's like all you need is 350 calories a meal, girl. I know. You gotta keep thin.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Or weight watchers. Yeah. They have frozen meals, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:40

But men are like, you need to eat because you got strong man things to do.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's always very vague. It's just like eat this and you'll be a man, and you're like, okay, yeah, I want to be a man. That sounds pretty good.

SPEAKER_05 5:56

You've got like really cool man shit to do, like watching dinner while eating this hungry man meal, and you need calories.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Uh next in 2006, Burger King had their eat like a man man commercials. Uh their commercials talked about not eating kick food, and instead you should eat the Texas double whopper.

SPEAKER_05 6:16

You know, honestly, those weren't as bad as the Carl Jr.'s ones, which were like, oh, let's just exploit women's bodies to try to convince men to eat meat.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Right. Yeah. I don't really understand the logic there, but I guess it works. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 6:31

Somehow it works. You guys should think about why that works.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

And then we had two big things in 2011. One was really interesting. It only lived for a couple of years, but Dr. Pepper 10 was a thing for a while.

SPEAKER_05 6:42

I don't even remember that.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

I think it was out for like six years. And it was Dr. Pepper, there was 10 calories, so it was basically diet Dr. Pepper, right? But diet drinks are for girls. So Dr. Pepper 10 was marketed as it's not for women. And it was like a gunmetal gray can. And they had a man-only Facebook page.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

And a bunch of typical macho man advertising. But it was to get men to buy a low-calorie soft drink without saying, like, you're on a diet or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 7:13

Ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yeah. Also fairly effective, but it wasn't around very long.

SPEAKER_05 7:16

They should have just said, if you drink Dr. Pepper 10, you can go eat more hungry man dinners and Burger King Whoppers.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

While you smoke your Marlboro cigarettes in cowboy boots. 2011 also had the man crates come out.

SPEAKER_05 7:38

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

So there's

The Rise of the “Soy Boy”

SPEAKER_00 7:39

just a lot of marketing around like stuff men do.

SPEAKER_05 7:41

That's how you wrap presents as a man.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah. And so that leads us to 2017, where the term soy boy, while it was already kind of around in like in real life a little bit in certain areas, it be really jumped on the scene online and turned into a meme where it it was basically like a dismissive term for men who lacked masculine characteristics. Right. And just in general, it encompasses everything.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Um, but it's you know really heavily used to describe vegan vegetarian men now. So uh fun fact, one of the earliest documented uses of the term soy boy was actually in Kurt Cobain's diaries that they uh found after he died.

SPEAKER_05 8:18

Hmm. Wouldn't have expected that from you, Kurt.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah. It was it didn't seem super derogatory at all. Yeah, yeah. It was kind of a weird picture.

SPEAKER_05 8:25

Also, you probably didn't think anyone was gonna be like going through his diary. Honestly, if I died and people went through I don't keep a diary, but if they went through my diary, I'd be kind of pissed.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:33

Like you're commercializing my diary.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Right.

SPEAKER_05 8:36

That's fucked up. How do you even get permission to do that?

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, I don't know. I think they're in some museum or something now, which would be a nightmare.

SPEAKER_05 8:42

Yeah. Everyone reading your personal thoughts and stuff, you how do I make sure that doesn't happen?

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yeah. And apparently Katie Perry also used it in a really terrible music video from 2008.

SPEAKER_05 8:54

We suffered through this music video to give you this information.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:59

It was like the cringiest movie music. I don't even use the word cringe, but that was cringy.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Yeah, it was pretty awful.

SPEAKER_05 9:05

Yeah, and she was saying stuff like, uh, what is it like, um, you don't eat meat and you're gay, basically.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah, that was actually the hook, I think.

SPEAKER_05 9:13

It was really stupid.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

So anyway, uh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:18

Thanks, Katie Perry. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

So that was in 2008. It kind of that was the first online use of it that they that's been seen. And then later on in like 2017, it came up on the 4chan forums, and then some uh like political, you know, influencer guy caught on to it, and then it just kind of took off and it's been in mainstream use since then. So the theme of all this is that the implication is I guess if you're not helping your cardiologist retire early, you're not a real man.

unknown 9:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:45

That's the best thing you can do as a man.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah, it's just it's just a general idea of like if you care about your health, that's not manly.

SPEAKER_05 9:52

Yeah. Uh and um, you know, if you care about like what people think, that's not manly, a lot of that kind of Which is funny because obviously you care about what people think if you're letting these commercials like convince you that eating a whopper is gonna turn you into a man.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Right. Yeah, exactly. So I I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 10:07

I think the also the implication is like um if you eat in any way that it's perceived women eat, then basically you're a loser and not a man.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Aaron Powell Yeah. Men are apparently terrified to not be thought of as

Does Soy Affect Testosterone?

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manly.

SPEAKER_05 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

So marketing is highly effective. Just a couple of the scientific things that refute a couple of the things that people typically argue about. Uh first of all, soy and testosterone. Um, so there's a really common refrain online that soy will make you uh basically will feminize men, which typically means lower testosterone, increased estrogen.

SPEAKER_05 10:43

Make you lactate.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yeah. Well, that would be uh Impressive. Very impressive.

SPEAKER_05 10:49

If a man is lactating, they should be making some money off that.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:52

Man milk. You could sell man milk.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

So there have been over 40 controlled studies that show pretty definitively that soy and isoflavones, which are the things from the phytoestrogens in soy that people are concerned about, do not lower testosterone in men. Like it just it doesn't happen. It has no difference. Uh estrogen's a little more nuanced, um, but basically there's if you look at um a group of like average studies, it shows no difference in estrogen. There was one analysis that was like a dose response analysis, which basically looked at like how much soy or how much isoflavone intake uh will it take to move estrogen levels, basically, in men. So they saw that there was a really small estrogen bump of like 6.5 picograms per milliliter at around um 72 milligrams a day of isoflavones, which is like two to three servings of tofu. So 6.5 picograms or whatever. A typical reading for a man is like 10 to 40, so that's not really a a big jump in the range. You're still well within normal range. Um, it doesn't do anything to your testosterone, it doesn't do anything for your performance. He won't even notice it. And then there's the aspect that estrogen is actually kind of cardioprotective. So having even if it did cause slightly elevated estrogen, that would probably be a net benefit, and it definitely wouldn't make you more feminine.

SPEAKER_05 12:14

Yeah, it's not gonna make you feminine though.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:17

Also, um, but doesn't say grace have the isoflavones removed?

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Say grace specifically, which is like the concentrated soy protein product.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Um they basically have a process that strips out all the isoflavones. So you know, normally you would think like the more concentrated the soy product is, the more this might theoretically be a problem. But that's like the most concentrated high protein soy product on the market, and they just completely strip them out, so they don't have to have this argument with people basically. And that's actually what their website says. Like we don't want to have the argument, so we're taking it out.

SPEAKER_05 12:50

Say grace is for the manliest of men. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

So the cherry-picked counter evidence that basically is the entire reason this argument comes up over and over, is because one case study from a while back where a 60-year-old man was drinking three quarts of soy milk every day.

SPEAKER_04 13:08

That's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah. Uh, and had basically gonecomastia, which is where you have extra uh fatty breast tissue.

SPEAKER_04 13:16

Isn't that almost a gallon? That's like 75% of a gallon, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, it's highly it's a high volume. And the study was actually called an unusual case of uh of gonocomastia associated with soy product consumption.

SPEAKER_05 13:30

And then we're gonna base everything off of that.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Right. It like it doesn't happen. It's not been recreated ever. This one guy had this happen and he and he did, he stopped drinking the soy milk and it started to recede or whatever. But this was like uh basically an unusual case. This is not what actually happens when most people have this. I mean, I don't also most people obviously aren't drinking three quarts of soy milk a day, but I think even if most people did do that, they would not necessarily run into this issue.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:57

He was an outlier.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Right. We're talking about one guy and one study versus over 30 controlled trials over the history of researching the with more than one guy. Right. And because of that guy, this has been researched several times and it's it's not a thing that comes up. I mean, just in in the science itself, this is a complete non-issue, but it keeps coming up over and over. And you know, uh I mentioned that the isoflaybones come from phytoestrogens, which is basically plant estrogen, which is not the same as human estrogen. It's a much weaker form. So a lot of people hear phytoestrogens are in plants, and they're like, oh, I'm eating estrogen, which will increase my estrogen or something, which it's is a totally different thing. It just happens to have the same word in it.

SPEAKER_05 14:38

I also think it's funny how I I feel like most people that are freaking out about this don't even understand what estrogen is. No, yeah, or like how that impacts your body.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

No, they just know estrogen means woman.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

Estrogen girl, man testosterone, estrogen pad.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

If soy were doing what the meme says, uh basically half the Asian continent would be growing breast tissue out of nowhere. They're obviously not. And the average Japanese adult eats like 25 to 50 milligrams of iflay bone every day, which is well above Western uh intake levels for most people, not for vegans probably, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:12

Also, if soy just gave you big boobs, then I mean, definitely like magazines like Cosmopopolitan would have picked up on this and be telling women to eat soy all day.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:24

Because they tell us a lot of random tips to get men. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

And there are also, you know, different situations where people might be on like hormone replacements and they're taking estrogen injections or taking estrogen.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

And uh soy milk's a lot cheaper. So they'd probably just go that route if this was reliable enough.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

So yeah, I mean, a lot of reasons where this is like obviously not the case.

Vegan Athletes Break the “Weak” Stereotype

SPEAKER_00 15:43

And then um, you know, another one is the complete protein we talked about or we briefly mentioned. We're gonna talk about that a little bit in the myth of the week. So I'm gonna save that for there. But there are also, you know, a ton of high performing vegan athletes out there that really dispel this like performance issue with uh soy or you know, the vegan diet in general. And there's a great website uh links people to all the time called rateveganathletes.com, where it's got people from all kinds of different sports that like our elite levels in their sports. So I've got a couple here that I wanted to mention to just highlight. Uh so Patrick Babumian, um, he's been vegan since 2011. He's basically a strongman competitor. He holds the Guinness verified yoke walk record, which is where you carry a big thing like up on your traps on the top of your shoulders and you walk with it.

SPEAKER_05 16:29

He was doing that in game changers, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah, he was in game changers. He did that in game changers. Uh he carried uh 1,224 pounds over 10 meters. Uh and he set that at the Toronto Vegetarian Food Festival in 2013.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

And then he broke his own record with 500 and so that was 555 kilograms. He broke his own record with 560 kilograms again in 2015, and he's still vegan.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah. Uh there's also Lewis Hamilton, who people probably have heard of. Um, a lot of people have heard of. He is a seven-time Formula One world champion, so that's uh racing in cars.

SPEAKER_05 17:04

Yeah, I don't watch racing, so I didn't know what that was.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Um he's been vegan since 2017, and he's still vegan, and he talks quite a bit about it.

SPEAKER_05 17:12

He can drive the car real good.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah, it's it's hard. It's it's like over a hundred degrees in the car. They have to do neck exercises because of the G force on them when they're driving at high speeds. Uh and you know, they gotta control the car. There's no power steering. It's actually pretty physically taxing. Uh there's also Novak Djokovic. He's 24-time Grand Slam champion in tennis. He's been plant-based since 2010. He doesn't use the word vegan, but it looks like he does follow a vegan diet.

SPEAKER_05 17:41

So I think there are a couple other tennis players. Is one of the Williams sisters? No, one of the Williams sisters was kind of famous for a little vegan?

SPEAKER_00 17:48

I don't think so. Yeah. Want yeah. Um, there's also Carl Lewis, nine-time Olympic gold medalist across four games. He went vegan in 1990 and then credited his 1991 world championship season at the peak of his career to the dietary chain specifically.

SPEAKER_04 18:03

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

The quote from him was my best year of track competition was the first year I ate a vegan diet.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Yeah, Carl.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Uh, and then the last one I have is Scott Jurik. Uh, I think he was also in Game Changers, if I remember right. Ultra Marathon Legend, seven-time consecutive Western States 100 champion. But he's been vegan since 1999. He wrote a book about it, and he's like famously vegan. So, yeah. I mean, a lot of people obviously at the literal top of whatever they're doing on a vegan diet. So I think that would dispel any, you know, conversation about you can't be a highly performant athlete on a vegan diet.

SPEAKER_05 18:37

And look how manly they are.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:39

So manly.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Yeah, Patrick Baboomin looks like some kind of mix between he's like a combination of the Hulk and Wolverine.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah. He's huge. All right. Uh yeah. Pretty much all right. So this vegans are weak meme just keeps running into all these vegans who are definitely not weak. Yeah, yeah. It's hard to hold up. Um

Meat, Masculinity, and an Imaginary Past

SPEAKER_00 18:59

and then the the entire kind of framing of masculinity is based on a lot of bullshit in general. Right. So uh modern American meat consumption is unusual historically, like the amount of meat we eat now. Um, if we go all the way back to like hunter versus gatherers in the caves, uh most of the food was gathered.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Like you had meat every once in a while. If you happen to see an animal come across or you happen to have a good day on the hunt or whatever, but most of the stuff you're eating day to day was the gathered food.

SPEAKER_05 19:30

Aaron Powell Right, because it was reliable. It was like a reliable source of calories. You knew how much you could have each day.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Right. Also, um going forward in time to more modern times, the U.S. per capita meat availability has nearly doubled since 1909 based on the USDA economic research service data.

SPEAKER_05 19:47

Aaron Powell, probably think factory farming for that.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Oh, yeah. Uh so your great-grandfather probably ate about 75% as much meat as you do. And so that's um pretty unfortunate data for people who think meat consumption is closely tied to testosterone, which you also see a lot. People eat steak to raise your testosterone or whatever. And some going back to the soy boy thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Because our ancestors had higher testosterone levels. That part is true, uh, but they have much lower meat consumption. And so our our lower testosterone levels now are linked in studies more to things like obesity, uh not getting as much sleep, stress, uh, and environmental issues, things like that. So the the whole like uh ancestral masculine diet framing is just comparing to some imaginary past. It's not something that actually existed in the way that people like to spout it off.

SPEAKER_05 20:35

Yeah, I feel like they're looking at old tiny movies and taking that at face value of like that's how people live, the cowboy movies and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:43

It's like that's probably not real.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Right. And I mean, I'm not saying they weren't eating steak, and actually a lot of the increased meat consumption or even a meat availability both uh over the last hundred years or so is mostly from the increase in chicken. So like back then they were eating more meat than they were chicken, but they were eating less total meat. So probably were steaks, but you weren't eating steak every night.

SPEAKER_05 21:05

So I thought cowboys were like notorious for eating beans. Why do I think this?

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Yeah, there's always like the scene in Westerns where they're sitting around the fire with their pride open can of beans they open with their knife or whatever. I mean, that's probably most of what people ate beans and bread and whatever.

SPEAKER_05 21:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:22

So you just need like a bean-eating vegan cowboy.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Meat doesn't travel very well. No, not on a horse anyway. Not a lot of r horse-mounted refrigerators back in the old west.

Who Profits from Male Insecurity?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Um, yeah. So who benefits from some of this gender-coded food stuff?

SPEAKER_04 21:40

Capitalism.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Yeah, but specifically the meat industry does a lot, obviously. Uh the supplement industry, and then all of these bullshit alpha branded products.

SPEAKER_05 21:50

Like your Oh my god, the manosphere shit.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yeah, Alpha Man, you're gotta be an alpha. I think now there's like Sigma and vegans or betas. I don't fucking know. I think if you're if you're out there calling people alphas and betas, you're probably not whatever you think an alpha is. That's what I think. There's an entire influencer economy out there that monetizes this male insecurity, like you just kind of mentioned the manosphere.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Like that is basically entirely built around making you feel like you're less of a man, whatever that means to. It's not even what it means to you. It's what they tell you it means. Yeah, unless you do what they tell you. Right. You're only a man if you pay me $29.99. I don't fucking know. So anybody telling you that food is gendered specifically is either selling you something or they're just repeating something somebody else sold to them. Like it's it's not. I don't know how to put it any more plainly. Like if you think you're not a man because you eat beans instead of steak, you're just like so far fucking. You're very lost. You're very lost. Yeah, and I mean most of this stuff is just men performing for other men, right? So though they've got the you know the influencers who are trying to push them stuff, and then they have these communities where they're all just uh talking to each other about how the how manly they want to be. Uh I don't know. This sounds like Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_05 23:06

I think it's funny because a lot of the stuff I see, it's like these are straight men, right? That want to date women who refuse to listen to women, treat women like objects, yeah, right? And then just listen to what these like influencer douchebags say on how to get women. And I'm gonna let you know it's not gonna work.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:30

But it's like the same thing, like if they don't know how to get women, but they're trying to sell you how to get women, why do you think they know what manly is?

SPEAKER_02 23:37

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:38

It's giving male loneliness epidemic that we created in the manosphere.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:42

You know?

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Yeah, I mean I they profit off of keeping that going.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Yeah. Um, and you know, the the people that mock a guy for ordering the veggie option is the other guys at the table when they order it. I I've experienced that, you know, with my friends even even a long time ago. It's like, you know, we'd be out getting chicken wings or something, and I get something that's not chicken wings. I get a salad or whatever, and it's like, holy shit, I've got to deal with 30 minutes of, you know, just getting razzed now because I ordered a salad and you're not allowed to do that with a group of men or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 24:15

I will let you know that that is not just a male experience. Like me, I've been a vegetarian I like haven't eaten meat since I was 12, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:23

And so like going on dates with people or like being in groups of people, you get like shit on for ordering salads in general.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:32

It's like, uh she eats salads.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:34

You know, like get that girl a steak. Like, like it's not just a man thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:38

But Does that happen when you're with a group of women?

SPEAKER_05 24:41

No.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 24:42

I know. It's because men hate women, and like ordering a salad is seen as a female thing.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:48

You know?

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:49

Or like you hear like men that are like, I just want to date a girl who eats steak and drinks beer. Yeah. And it's like, are you sure you don't want to date a man?

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:58

I don't know. Not to say there aren't women that do that, but like it's just weird.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah, definitely. I think it's just, you know, this whole thing is just a big circle jerk of insecure guys trying to impress each other and that don't exactly know what the end goal is, but uh it doesn't seem to be going very well.

The Psychology of Proving Your Manhood

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Uh and you know, psychologically, there w there was a a study, um I'll put it in the show notes, but you know, the un when men's masculinity gets challenged or they feel like they're in a lower status than the other men around them, they'll compensate for that by like taking more risk to try to prove themselves. And that even extends to including things like uh just eating more unhealthy foods. So basically, you you feel like you're not as manly as somebody else that you're around or you look up to, I guess. And so you if you're already not feeling manly, you can't order a salad, you're gonna feel less manly. So you've got to go order like the fried chicken or whatever to try to make yourself either feel or try to convince somebody else that you are actually manly. And you know, I I hope all this sounds ridiculous because it's really ridiculous.

SPEAKER_05 26:08

Is this why like men will pick fights at bars and shit?

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Yeah, it's the same kind of thing.

SPEAKER_05 26:12

Same thing.

unknown 26:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Yeah. Men will pick fights with basically people who they feel like they are lower status than to try to compensate for that.

SPEAKER_05 26:19

Oh my god, it's just like werewolves in the supernatural shows we watch.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:24

I'm the alpha, I'm gonna fight you to claim the throne as alpha.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 26:30

Okay. That you know, having the werewolf context really helps.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Right. Yeah, and so a self-styled like alpha influencer economy, like monetizes the loop. You don't feel manly, you keep trying to do stuff to feel manly, whatever the hell that means to you. You still don't feel manly, so you try to do some more stuff, and for some reason, those things you're trying all make them money, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:51

So weird.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Yeah, you're watching their videos, you're buying their guides or their courses, or like don't even get me started on the pickup artist bullshit.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

They basically keep guys anxious about other guys' opinions, so they can just sell them, you know, their protein powder, their supplement stack, their manly lifestyle thing, whatever it is. Um, specifically, one that stands out here is the testosterone booster stuff. So the global testosterone booster supplement industry is uh approaching four billion dollars. Wait. And I've got news for you testosterone boosting supplements flat out don't work. Like I'm it's it's insane. There are a couple of things like um Should we start selling a vegan one? No, I don't think so. I mean, they're just like there are some in a study, it's like they show a very minor increase or whatever, but like uh basically none of them do anything measurable. Like if you increase your testosterone up 10 points, that's that's not gonna change anything. Maybe it actually happens. But there's an entire industry around selling things that say that they boost your testosterone.

SPEAKER_05 27:52

And you buy it because it says like manergy or something on it.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Right. And then, you know, there's a lot of guys who are on TRT now, which I think is interesting because we're so worried about estrogen, but getting on TRT is one of the most reliable ways to increase your estrogen. Like that's a side effect.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

So any anything you're doing to try to boost your testosterone could also potentially boost your estrogen, which you're apparently worried about in soy, but you're not worried about from trying to directly increase your testosterone.

SPEAKER_05 28:16

So well, yeah. I mean, it's cooler to shove needles in than it is to eat soy.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:23

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah. So I mean, I think making you feel anxious about not being a man is their entire business

Be Yourself, Not Someone Else’s Idea of Manly

SPEAKER_00 28:30

model. So I recommend if you're you find yourself caught up in this loop and you're uh often worried about how manly you are, you probably just need to step away from that particular portion of the internet for a while.

SPEAKER_05 28:43

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't really have much of an opinion on this, but what I will say is like, I don't know, I just kind of like I feel like uh the manliest man, I don't really know what the term manly means, but like most confident type of guy I've seen is the one that like just doesn't give a shit about like what other people, including men, think.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:02

You know, they just kind of do their own thing, they do the things they enjoy, they listen to the music they like, they watch the shows they like, you know, they have the activities that they enjoy, they eat whatever the hell they want.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Jam out to some Taylor Swift.

SPEAKER_05 29:14

Yeah. Yes. Men that will listen to Taylor Swift. That's that's hot guy shit. I'm sorry. Do what you like.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Right. So if you're defining your like masculinity or your strength as how well you're conforming to your peer group's diet or opinion, then you're a little bitch.

SPEAKER_05 29:32

Right.

unknown 29:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

But you're you're in that case, you're defining your strength as how susceptible you are to peer pressure. Is that how you want to measure yourself and how you want to define yourself?

SPEAKER_05 29:42

Are you wait, is this whole podcast like a don't do drugs campaign?

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Well, yeah. I guess if the drug is like letting yourself be told what manly is, it is being a vegan guy or a vegetarian guy or whatever else goes against kind of this masculine stuff, is it does have a real social cost. Like you get mocked, you get policed, that stuff really does happen. But like that cost you're paying is is based on the fact that you're exerting your willpower. Like that's the price you pay to feel like you're in control and you have freedom and you can do what you want. The price you pay is people are gonna mock you, or people are gonna police you, and they can have their own opinions. Um, but you know, that's just the way it has to be. Like if you're a weaker person, you can take the easy road where nobody's ever gonna give you like any shit about the choices you make, and that's fine. But you know, I don't know that you'd be very happy living like that long term.

SPEAKER_05 30:41

Yeah. You gotta live authentically to be happy.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:47

Also just get away from those people. Like if you're around a bunch of toxic people making fun of you for like eating a salad, yeah. Get new friends. Like, what the fuck is that?

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Yeah, you you need friends that don't want you to just be like a carbon copy of everybody else.

SPEAKER_05 31:00

Yeah, who wants that?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Right. I mean, I I think you know, we need to go back to we we had the uh the punk rock documentary a while back. We need to go back to like independence and nonconformity.

SPEAKER_05 31:10

Nonconformity. Yeah, do what you want to do. Don't do what people tell you to like.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:15

Yeah. I think that's a really important thing to to do.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:19

Whatever the hell you want.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

We're very homogenized in uh modern American culture right now, it seems like.

The Health Costs of the “Manly” Diet

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Some of the more male-focused health concerns are things like cardiovascular disease. It's the number one killer of men in the U.S. Obviously, this also kills women, but um men develop cardiovascular disease on average seven to ten years earlier than women do.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

And about one in four men die of cardiovascular disease. So uh meat-heavy dietary patterns are very strongly associated with cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes across, you know, many, many major studies. Um there was a study from Epic Oxford that found 22% lower heart disease risk in vegetarians versus meat eaters.

SPEAKER_05 32:17

Wow, that's a big difference.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Yeah. You know, a lot of that comes from meat eaters mostly eat meat that's high in saturated fat and things like that. So there are arguments that, like, maybe if you just eat lean meats or whatever, but that's just that's not what most people eat, so that's not really even the conversation. Um also erectile dysfunction, largely a vascular disease, the same dysfunctions that drive heart disease also impair blood flow to the parts you care about.

SPEAKER_05 32:41

The penile blood blood flow?

SPEAKER_00 32:43

The penile blood flow. Um, in a study, men that were 60 to 69 years old with the highest adherence to a healthy plant-based diet had an 18% lower risk of uh erectile dysfunction versus the lowest adherence group.

SPEAKER_05 32:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Pretty big difference.

SPEAKER_05 32:58

This is funny because there's that that part in game changers where they're like measuring erections and uh penis circumferences and stuff while they're sleeping. That was like the first piece of vegan propaganda I sent you when we started dating.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

I've got to be honest, early on it was one of the more effective ones.

SPEAKER_05 33:17

Weren't you like in the car with your friend and you're like playing it?

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:23

And they're like, what the hell are you watching?

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think he's vegan yet, but I gotta keep working on it.

SPEAKER_05 33:31

Yeah. Just keep selling the penis thing. Um, yeah. So if you're a girl dating a non-vegan guy, I would say that's the clip to send them.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Yeah, especially if, you know, they're going through some stuff.

SPEAKER_05 33:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Um also the manly diet is kind of putting men in the cardiac unit at 55 years old, putting them on uh erectile dysfunction medications 10 years earlier than that. Um and the vegan and even Mediterranean style diets show up consistently on like better endothelial function, better blood vessel function um in the studies and stuff, including, you know, again, that part you really care about getting the blood flow to. But you won't ask your doctor about if something goes wrong. So if you don't want to go to the doctor for that, eat more plants, see how that goes.

SPEAKER_05 34:13

Yeah. Plus, don't you want to be able to get it up whenever you want?

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:16

I think you have to like take it. I mean, I've never taken it.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

What are you talking about? The medicine? The medicine.

SPEAKER_05 34:21

Don't you have to like take it in advance of uh activities?

SPEAKER_00 34:24

I guess. Yeah. That's what they say on TV.

SPEAKER_05 34:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

You have to pre-plan.

SPEAKER_05 34:29

Yeah, yeah. And it's like, oh, and if it stays erect for more than six hours, you need to go to like the ER or something. Which would be crazy. Yeah, that'd be pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Yeah. You're talking about these health things, we're talking about masculinity. So if provider and protector are part of how you think about masculinity, the most basic version of that is staying alive long enough to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

So the the manly diet that's being sold to you by all the guys who are trying to sell you something is actively making sure you don't stay alive as long as you possibly could.

SPEAKER_05 35:00

Yeah. And I would and like to just pounce on what you're saying about protector is like animals are are innocent and they can't speak up for themselves. So if you're like this big manly protector, like why aren't you using your voice to like protect the animals?

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Yeah, definitely. Also, uh, if you're interested in more ways plants can help you not die, Dr. Greger wrote the book How Not to Die. That's just exactly

Gender Norms and Who Becomes Vegan

SPEAKER_00 35:26

about this. And it's a great book. Yeah, go check that out. So now we wanted to shift into talking a little bit about kind of gender norms in general around veganism and this whole masculinity thing. So some statistics here. 65 to 80 percent of vegans are women.

SPEAKER_05 35:41

What go women?

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Right, which I think is a big part of why like veganism is seen as a woman thing, because it's mostly women, kind of like the cigarettes were from Marlboro. Um, a US study, so that was globally. A US study found that 75% of US vegans are women.

SPEAKER_05 35:56

I feel like that tracks based on my own personal experiences of like I really haven't met like a guy in the wild that's like, oh yeah, I'm vegan, or like I limit my plant foods, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

I met I think one he was definitely vegetarian, maybe vegan in the wild.

SPEAKER_05 36:10

Really?

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:11

No, no, now that I'm thinking about I have met a few vegetarian men. Um they're usually Indian.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

No, yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I've probably no idea.

SPEAKER_05 36:19

Which is, you know, like more a common diet in India. So, but like I'm thinking like American men that are like vegan for the animals. I have like not really met any of those in the wild.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Right. Uh the age range is typically 18 to 34 for a vegan. That's the main range there.

SPEAKER_05 36:33

That makes sense because like you're moved out, like you're able to like start cooking.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:37

Also, I feel like um just like veganism in general, I think is more appealing to a younger generation because it kind of goes against the mainstream.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

And then a bonus fact 73% of vegans are apparently atheist or agnostic.

SPEAKER_05 36:52

I thought this one was really interesting, but I kind of feel like it makes sense because veganism goes against mainstream culture. Yeah. Right. Like, and I kind of feel like going against mainstream culture in any way the first time is kind of hard.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 37:06

You know, because like you're gonna catch flack and and in like you're not sitting into that like perfectly curated box that society wants to put you in.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:14

Right. So, but like once you step out of that box, I feel like you're more likely to like look for not necessarily other ways to become not like normal, but like you're more open to just ideas in general and you're more willing to do like what feels good for you or like think on your own.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Yeah. I mean, once you take one leg out from under the table and gets pretty wobbly.

SPEAKER_05 37:37

Yeah. So I will say it's funny because uh the average vegan in these statistics is me.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Yeah.

unknown 37:44

That's true.

SPEAKER_05 37:45

I think I also read something about it is like way less likely that you would be a vegan if you live in rural areas versus like urban or suburban areas.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:54

Which I c I think also makes sense just like not just from like a grocery store perspective, but also like being around different people and like having more diversity that you're exposed to and hearing different ideas.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

I think a big part of it, just uh personally, because you know, I grew up in a rural area and I think it's probably hard to feel strongly against the farming industry when you're constantly interacting with farmers.

SPEAKER_05 38:14

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

So there there's a little bit of that.

SPEAKER_05 38:16

Yeah. I also read that it was like majority um liberal left-leaning, and then also there's a higher percentage that are like college graduates.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:26

So just like some more random statistics. Yeah. On the average vegan.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Yeah. Pretty much all the things that like expose you to more ideas than your tiny circle.

SPEAKER_05 38:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Well, make you more likely to be a little more counterculture.

Hunting, Masculinity, and Childhood અનુભવ

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Yeah. Makes sense. Um, there's also so we were talking uh gender norms, hunting specifically, since that kind of relates to food. Um, 70% of the children that are taken hunting are males, which makes sense. Uh, adult hunters are typically like 89% male. It's a highly male-dominated thing.

SPEAKER_05 38:55

Yeah. I also feel like hunting at a young age kind of desensitizes children to like like animal suffering and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And then like oftentimes like hunting or fishing is seen as like a father-son bonding activity. And so, like, I think a lot of times, like, even if a child would have hesitations on wanting to participate, they're gonna kind of gonna go along with whatever their parent wants them to do to make them happy.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:18

I don't know, did did your parents take you anywhere as a kid?

SPEAKER_00 39:22

My grandfather took me fishing a lot and it was like a bonding thing. Um, I went fishing with my dad a few times, like in the family, like we all kind of went a few times. But yeah, it was like a thing I used to do with my grandfather on his boat quite a bit.

SPEAKER_05 39:35

Do you remember ever as a kid thinking like I don't want to do this? Like when you first started going, do you like remember having that feeling at all?

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Not because of the fish or anything. It was like, well, I'm just like on a boat for a while. It took me a while to like come around to it, but then it was just like I got to hang out with my grandpa. But yeah, no, I never really had those thoughts, but like, you know, I I grew up and my grandpa had like heads on the wall from deer and stuff. So you're kind of already desensitized.

SPEAKER_05 40:02

I mean I remember like my dad used to take me fishing, and I like really vehemently remember having a big hang up around like the worms, like killing worms. Like I really like did not want to do that. And I also was like completely against us like taking fish home.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:18

Like I just remember like kind of like throwing a fit about that kind of stuff. But but also like when you know how it rains and like the worms all come out to play on the concrete. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then like the sun comes out and they all like they die.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:30

Yeah. I used to have like mass funerals for worms when I was like four or five years old. Like I'd have like a I'd like dig a hole and like bury them in mass and do a ceremony. So like that checks out. Yeah. It's kind of like I kind of feel like, you know, if you're a parent and your kid's doing that, maybe don't take them fishing.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

I feel like you're like a real life snow white. So we talked a little bit earlier about the hunter-gatherer situation and how most of the food was gathered. We're talking back in those days, the estimates are like 50 to 80 percent of the total diet was comprised of plant foods. Um, and so we're talking about the hunter-gathering thing, but some of the more interesting data indicates that women uh actually

Hunting, Gender, and the Caveman Myth

SPEAKER_00 41:10

did hunt pretty often.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Which I mean, it it kind of makes sense because you know, there are a lot of things about hunting that doesn't necessarily need a man. And also, like, whoever is able-bodied in a starving village is going to find food one way or the other.

SPEAKER_05 41:24

Yeah, and like what I was reading is a lot of the women were responsible specifically for like like fishing, hunting, that kind of thing. Like so, yeah, I just think it's interesting that some a lot of this kind of comes back to like, oh, men are manly because like we hunted back in the cavemen days. Yeah. But like now it's kind of like coming to light that most of the food that they were eating wasn't even A, it wasn't even meat. And then like B, women were also hunting. So like the whole crux of this being like the argument we're resting masculinity on is kind of weird.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Also, like every like there there are so many arguments in fitness and nutrition that go back to like ancestral stuff or caveman stuff.

SPEAKER_05 42:07

Yeah, or evolution.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Yeah, and for me, it's like why do we care how they used to do it in the caves? Like it's interesting historically, obviously, but why would we try to recreate the way they did that then in our modern life? Like, we have totally different options. Like they were doing that because it was their only choice to survive.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Yeah, food scarcity.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

We don't have to do that stuff anymore, luckily. I mean, obviously, that's great. But so why would we try to like live the way they lived? Like, also, they didn't live very long.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Most of the time, like we're like, oh, they eat meat, even if they eat meat all the time, like the life expectancy was like 30 years old. They didn't even live long enough to run into cardiovascular disease and things like that. It was a non-issue. Yeah. So, I mean, there's just there's a lot of reasons why. Like, I think it's really interesting historically. It's nice to like you know, think about how we came up as a species and stuff, but I don't know why you would say, I should do this today because humans did this thousands of years ago.

SPEAKER_05 43:02

Yeah, I also think it's weird because um basically I was looking at statistics. Most people don't even hunt anymore. So, like most of the people that you're hearing these arguments from, they're like, oh, you know, we hunted and meat is manly and meat is what humans need to eat. It's like, you're not even hunting. You're going to the grocery store or going to Burger King.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Right. And hunting, I just, you know, I grew up around a lot of hunters. So uh I'll keep it pretty simple, but like hunting now is not the same as hunting with a spear thousands of years ago.

SPEAKER_05 43:32

Yeah. Yeah. Like you're not that manly. Like the precision of hunting stuff nowadays, it's just like not that impressive, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

Yeah, and then some of the other things that like boys grew up with instead of girls, like BB guns versus Barbies again. The guns, the hunting, the masculinity.

SPEAKER_05 43:49

Or like girls get a bunch of stuffed animals that are like cutesy and like animal focused, and then boys are like, I'm playing with army guys and like action figure heroes. Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Yeah, yeah. And I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with that. Like we've got uh family members we've gotten that kind of stuff for. Right. It's just interesting how like that is split from such a young age.

SPEAKER_05 44:10

My dad actually uh he used to be a carpenter and he actually like made me my own little like mini kitchen out of wood and stuff. So like that was like one of my toys that I had growing up that my dad made me.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:22

But yeah, uh my brother didn't get one.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

Yeah, we have we have we have a niece we got a kitchen set thing

How Childhood Teaches Gender Roles

SPEAKER_00 44:27

for. She loves it.

SPEAKER_05 44:27

But she but she said she liked that stuff. So like you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:31

I probably wouldn't go out of my way to like gender norm gifts unless like they asked. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

So girls are kind of taught early in society that they should nurture and care for things and then people give them shit when they're adults because they care about things.

SPEAKER_05 44:45

Yeah, I know. It's like, oh, here's this baby doll. It looks just like a real baby.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:50

Make sure it stays alive and you need to feed it and change its diaper and all this stuff, and you're like two, three years old doing this and like learning how to care for things, or like, um, yeah, or like you just have like stuffed animals that are like so animal-like.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:05

And you're learning how to love and care for those things. And then it's like, well, why do you care for things? That's so girly.

SPEAKER_00 45:11

Yeah. And then a lot of those girly things are later used as like an insult towards men or boys. So it's basically you're just kind of mocking women by telling men they do things like girls.

SPEAKER_05 45:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Like uh, you know, boys don't paint their nails, boys don't wear pink.

SPEAKER_05 45:26

The the most annoying ones to me are like, you throw like a girl, or like you run like a girl.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

You get a little bias here since you were uh you you threw a ball in high school for a sport.

SPEAKER_05 45:37

Yes, it has always pissed me off.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:39

Because it's just like and I will say the one that pisses me off the most is like a dad of that has both gendered children.

SPEAKER_02 45:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:48

And they're like telling their son within listening distance of their daughter that he throws like a girl. Yeah. Like that's not as insulting as you think towards your son. You're telling girls that girls aren't strong, that they can't be athletic. Right. You know, like you're insulting girls and women, yeah, not really boys.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

Right.

SPEAKER_05 46:08

It's just basically implying that like the worst thing you can do as a boy or the worst thing that you can do in general is to be a girl.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:16

You know, which is like, I don't know, pretty fucked up. It is fucked up. Did you ever see that dove ad?

SPEAKER_02 46:21

Um, I've heard of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:22

Okay, so basically there's this dove ad, right? And it has um

Compassion, Masculinity, and “Like a Girl”

SPEAKER_05 46:26

basically like a handful of adult women and then a handful of like young girls. And they like take each woman in and they're like, Show me how to throw like a girl. And then they demonstrate how to throw like a girl, and they're like, show me how to run like a girl. And then they demonstrate how to run like a girl. But what's interesting is the adult women are all like, even though maybe they've played sports growing up, they like over-exaggerate like this really quote unquote girly way to run where they're like Uncoordinated, or yeah, uncoordinated, like silly, like flapping their hands, or like they do the throw and it's like really like lame and it's like, what is that? You know, but then they ask the little girls who haven't like grow they haven't heard all these things yet, right? So when they're told to throw like a girl, they throw like as hard as they can, right? Yeah. And when they're told to run like a girl, they run as fast as they can. And then like basically the punchline is like, when did we learn as women that like being a girl is stupid or something, you know?

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:24

But like this is when, like when you're a kid, it's really sad.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Yeah, it's interesting. Also, you know, this also extends to compassion. Like, compassion is seen as very not masculine. Yeah. You can't be compassionate about things, god forbid. Um, this one's interesting because you would think compassion is just like a basic thing that all humans would have, but it definitely seems like compassion has seen like a feminine tree.

SPEAKER_05 47:46

Yeah, or like empathy.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:47

Like men can't have empathy.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

Right. And so that extends to stuff like women shouldn't be bosses or presidents or whatever, because they're not tough enough to need to do what needs to be done or they're too emotional.

SPEAKER_05 47:58

I've definitely heard this shit in the workplace.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:01

Of just like questioning female bosses for like being too nice or like not being tough enough to like like manage a project or run a turnaround. Like, you can't have a woman do that. They'll get too emotional and they won't they won't be able to fire someone, they won't be able to do what needs to be done.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Right.

SPEAKER_05 48:17

And it's not said in a kind way, it's said as like you're not enough.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

Right.

SPEAKER_05 48:21

You know?

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Yeah, we need a man.

SPEAKER_05 48:23

Yeah, we need a man to do this.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:25

Women are too soft.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:27

And then, like, I don't know, you know, I I haven't eaten meat since I was 12, so I've had these conversations a lot, but I've had a lot of conversations with people. When I tell them I don't eat meat, like I'm not going out of my way to say this, but like maybe at a lunch or something. Yeah. And they're just like, Oh, you're so soft-hearted, or like you're such a little tree hugger. And it's said in like such a condescending way that it's like, you know, they say it like a compliment, but it's like a veiled like diss, you know?

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:56

Because like the guys that have said this to me, if I said the same thing to them, if I was I was like, Oh, Paul, you're so kind hearted, he'd be pissed.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

No, the guys at the refinery don't like being called soft-hearted.

SPEAKER_05 49:06

No.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

Surprising.

SPEAKER_05 49:08

So it's like, it's actually like not a compliment if you yourself wouldn't want to be called it, you know?

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Yeah. Yeah. And I think any men who empathize with anything or show compassion are seen to be feminine.

SPEAKER_05 49:19

Yeah. Or even or even like gay. Yeah. Like it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:24

Because I just see those as like you're a good person.

SPEAKER_02 49:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:28

You know how to think about other people's feelings and you care about others. Right. That's just that should just be the basic requirement of a good human.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

Yeah.

unknown 49:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

So, like, you know, hold up all these stereotypes and it it doesn't help men out, but it also hurts women because telling them that you're telling them that being feminine is like the worst thing you can be. And we're being we're harming men by who are compassionate by telling them that it's wrong and stupid.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

And so it's kind of hurts society as a whole because you're holding up these gender norms. Uh, you got half the population who feels like they're not allowed to care about anything.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

And the other half of the population who's, you know, uh worried they're gonna get, you know, uh judged or picked on if they care about something. Yeah. So who's left to care about things?

SPEAKER_05 50:08

Yeah, I know. It's just it the patriarchy and upholding this kind of stuff is just like not good for anybody. It doesn't help

The Tofu Test for Toxic Masculinity

SPEAKER_05 50:16

anybody.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

Yeah. You were telling me about a uh like a litmus test they're doing online where you can gauge a guy's potential or whatever based off of whether or not he he will eat tofu.

SPEAKER_05 50:26

Yes. Okay, this has been going pretty viral on TikTok. I've seen like a lot of videos around this, and I think it's it's really similar to the one they they were using before this, which is like like ask a guy how he feels about Taylor Swift, because she's like the biggest female pop artist, and like oftentimes like red flag guys will just be like, oh, she only sings about breakups and and and then discredit her worth as a person. Um, so this is like kind of similar. Yeah. Um, so it's basically like ask a guy if he'll eat tofu and like his response to that kind of tells you everything. Like if it's a if it's like a strong no, you're like, oh, toxic masculinity.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:06

Pass.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

This makes complete sense to me based off of being around guys my whole life.

SPEAKER_05 51:10

Yeah. I mean, I just remember when I brought up tofu to you, you had like no judgment on it.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:15

You're like, yeah, it's food, so of course I'll try that.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

Yeah, I remember I like I tried it once and it wasn't good. So my only take was really like, I don't think I like that, but I'll try it.

SPEAKER_05 51:26

Yeah, like, but then you tried it again and again, you know?

SPEAKER_00 51:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:28

Yeah, but it was never like, oh, I can't eat that. That's like girly stupid food, you know?

SPEAKER_00 51:33

And there are definitely guys who feel that way. Like, you know, I've had some conversations with people since going vegan, and you bring up tofu and it's like I I don't know, man. It's like I said, I'm yeah, chopping off my dick or something.

SPEAKER_05 51:45

I can't eat that. I have a penis.

SPEAKER_00 51:47

Right.

SPEAKER_05 51:47

Yeah, it's interesting. And I think like, okay, so I think, you know, the main thing with this tofu situation is that it kind of like shows you if you're like flexible or if you are like have fragile masculinity.

SPEAKER_02 52:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:02

You know, because like a guy that's willing to eat tofu kind of proves that they aren't controlled by how society views them and by how other men view them. They just kind of like do what they want.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

Yeah. Also helpful to see that you're like open to new experiences, open to different cultures, kind of shows empathy and interest, and it also shows like how like how far you are outside of I guess like an echo chamber. Because if you're willing to try a bunch of different things, you're probably not in some weird like he man woman hating club or something like that.

SPEAKER_05 52:31

That's a great point.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:33

I think the other one that I I kind of think is interesting going through life as someone who doesn't eat animals, is like I think it really goes to show like how respectful you are and open you are to like other people's opinions and lifestyles. Um because like I've had a lot, and I mean a lot of people, including my dad, make jokes about like hiding meat in my food.

SPEAKER_02 52:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:56

Which is like I think is really shitty in a way. And I feel like if you're making that joke, it kind of shows that you're unwilling to have empathy for someone who doesn't eat meat.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:07

You know what I mean? Cause it's like that's a hard moral boundary for me. Like, I don't eat animals for ethical reasons. So just be like just having someone that's like respectful and understanding of like my personal belief system, yeah. I think is I think is a manly thing. And it's also being

What Men and Women Believe About Meat

SPEAKER_05 53:25

a good person.

SPEAKER_00 53:25

Yeah, definitely. So there was uh an interesting study about a lot of this stuff actually back in 2012. It was called Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, and it was like vegetable quiche was in parentheses. So Real Men Don't Eat Vegetable Quiche. And it was all about like uh men versus women and thinking about different foods and uh eating animals and stuff like that. So there are a couple of interesting insights from there, and I'll link the study in the show notes. Um, but one of the big takeaways was that uh men and women really approach the idea of eating animals totally differently. So women were more willing to believe that animals did suffer, but they kind of disassociate from it and they prefer not to think about it. And that's kind of how they deal with eating the meat.

SPEAKER_05 54:05

Yeah. I thought that was uh pretty interesting. And I think if you're someone who's interacting with people that aren't yet vegan, pre-vegans, if you will, yeah, like this is an interesting point because it kind of can um inform how you might interact with those people or like things that you might say to get them to flip the switch kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:27

I also, as a woman in society that hates us, I think this kind of makes sense to me because like um you know, like just women medic, like medicine around women is health and healthcare around women is is very, very bad, particularly in the US. I don't live anywhere else, so I can't speak for that.

SPEAKER_02 54:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:45

Um, but it's like I'll just give an example of like you're having really bad periods, right? Like you're having like debilitating pain, like you can't get up five days of the month and like it's horrible. And then you'll just have a doctor be like, yeah, I don't really believe you, but here's some mitol.

SPEAKER_02 55:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:00

Do you know what I mean? And like they don't want to go any further and figure out like what's wrong with you and stuff. And so I feel like as a woman, like it's it's very easy for me to recognize that like animals are suffering.

SPEAKER_02 55:11

Right.

SPEAKER_05 55:11

And even if we're not willing to acknowledge that as a society, because like as a society, we also don't acknowledge that like women suffer in like healthcare. Like healthcare is very behind.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:21

So like that kind of made that part made sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Yeah. And now men, on the other hand, when they were talking about like how they thought about eating meat, they were more likely to really lean into like pro-meat idealism. Like they would basically deny that animals suffered at all. They were more willing to believe that animals were just like beneath humans, they were fated to be eaten by humans, like that's just how it's supposed to be. Um, they're even more likely to provide religious and health justifications. Like the women didn't really get into that.

SPEAKER_05 55:50

I actually think that makes so much sense, especially when we think back to the statistic about like 70-ish percent of vegans being like atheist, agnostic, or like they just don't have religious opinions. Yeah. Because I see the religious opinion around eating meat a lot on social media. Like that seems to be one of the things people are saying.

SPEAKER_00 56:07

Well, there are a lot of religions where it's like they have ceremonies and rituals and like really strong um practices around eating meat specifically.

SPEAKER_05 56:16

So I thought that one was kind of interesting because like if you're not religious, obviously you're not gonna have those thoughts. But I also thought it was kind of interesting, the hierarchy piece I found kind of interesting as a woman, because like a lot of society, at least in the US, revolves around the idea that women are are like somehow beneath men.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

I don't think that's specific to the US.

SPEAKER_05 56:35

Yeah, that probably isn't, but like I feel awkward speaking about other countries I haven't personally experienced.

SPEAKER_02 56:41

That's fair.

SPEAKER_05 56:42

Um, but like, you know, it's like male opinions matter more and men should automatically be in positions of power over women, like whether in the workplace or like at home. Uh here's a great example. Before you had officially moved in and I owned our house all by myself. My name is the only one on the deed. I bought our house. Yeah. This motherfucking man comes up to the house trying to sell some bullshit and was like, who's the who's the what king of the castle?

SPEAKER_00 57:12

King of the castle.

SPEAKER_05 57:13

Oh man, that really pissed me off. But like that's true, just like in general. Like, if you had like when I was like living alone, like I'd have like like an electrician or something come over and it's like, well, where's your husband? Can I speak to him?

SPEAKER_00 57:26

Or like Yeah, well, we've had, you know, issues with our gas and stuff, and the gas gas will come out and they basically you're a fucking refinery engineer and they'll barely even talk to you, and they want to tell me a bunch of stuff I don't understand.

SPEAKER_05 57:37

I know, and like I'll try talking to them and they won't even make eye contact with

Challenging Gender Norms and Meat Culture

SPEAKER_05 57:41

me. Yeah. They're like locked in talking to you.

SPEAKER_02 57:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:44

But like that's just like how it is in society. Like, if you're a woman, like you get talked down to, and like, you know, like men are just automatically seen as like smarter, more capable, stronger, whatever. So, like, this doesn't surprise me at all that men also think they're above animals.

SPEAKER_00 57:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:58

You know?

SPEAKER_00 57:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:59

That makes total sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

Yeah. So, you know, that's a lot of pretty depressing information. So uh what can we do? The study actually did have some kind of uh, I guess, suggested approaches to trying to get men to come around to eating less meat, more plants. One of them was that men are more likely to listen to women they're close to, like a significant other or a parent. Yeah. So it recommended enlisting women as change agents to help uh men. And I think this is probably how most of the men that are vegan ended up there, to be honest.

SPEAKER_05 58:28

Yeah. It's like they had a girlfriend or a wife or a partner, maybe their mom raised them in a more like vegan vegetarian kind of way.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

And it has to be somebody who already has influence on them.

SPEAKER_05 58:39

Yes. Basically, it was saying like obviously, like, men just in general aren't gonna listen to like a random woman. Right.

SPEAKER_02 58:45

Like definitely not about this.

SPEAKER_05 58:46

Right. Especially like if you don't even pay attention to the podcast. Like the main thing is like men listen to other men about what men should do. Yeah. So like if you're just a random woman, you're not like super, super close with this man, they're not gonna listen to you. So good luck with that.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

Yeah, definitely. And um, you can also kind of start trying to deprogram some of the the gender norm stuff in general. Um like call up call out like the insults and the toxicity and stuff, and you know, kind of a lot of what I'm trying to do with this podcast specifically, but you know, uh just getting people out of that zone where you know they're they're making these jokes, they don't even really know why they're making the jokes, but they're just making other people feel bad because they feel like that's what they're supposed to do. Like you see a guy eating a salad and you're like, oh, I'm supposed to make fun of that guy because I'm a man and like we're men and we make fun of it. Like we just, you know, we can just get away from that. That would help everybody out.

SPEAKER_05 59:39

Yeah. I think even if you're not vegan or vegetarian or ever planning on doing those things, like you can be a good supportive man and ally to other men who are by just simply not laughing at the joke.

SPEAKER_02 59:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 59:51

Right? Like, just don't laugh at the joke. I mean, I just I, you know, I'm in my spiteful, vengeful vegan era, but like back when I was like um a floor mat vegetarian, like I would just like placate people by being like, uh-huh, you know, like act like I haven't heard the same stupid ass joke 50 times. Yeah. And now I just don't. I don't laugh at it. I don't like I'm just like, wow, haven't heard that one before. Um but like also I think something really interesting that I read that I I think works pretty well, especially around sexist jokes, yeah, or like just jokes that are like picking on minorities, that kind of thing. Um like punch down jokes, basically. Is like when they're said, you make the person explain why it's funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:38

And you just like stand on business and you're like, no, tell me why do you think that's funny? And I think it takes a lot of power out of the jokes and makes them feel kind of silly and they're probably not gonna say it as much anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:47

Yeah, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:48

Nobody wants to explain why they were being a dickhead.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:51

Why their dick bag joke is a dick bag joke.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:54

I don't know. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

No, I 100% agree. Like, I think I think a lot of people just have like an instinctual reaction to like to make the joke or make the punch down or whatever. And I think if you call them out on that, then next time that comes up, their brain will be like, oh, well, last time that didn't go so well. Like then you really not only that, but you think about like, okay, why did I why did I even feel that way? Do I I don't feel that way, so why did I say that? Yeah, like then you start backing out of like, why am I saying a bunch of shit I don't actually believe?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:22

Right. And I think a lot of it comes back to like class clown energy of like, for sure. Yeah, I'm just like here to entertain and like I'm making jokes I've heard before. And like, you know, I've seen other people laugh when this other guy made this joke, so I'm gonna make this joke.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:36

But yeah, I think once you start like calling it out, it's like, oh, well, I don't want to make jokes that no one's gonna laugh at. Now we're having an uncomfortable conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:44

Right, exactly. Yeah, so when somebody says you can't build muscle or be healthy on a vegan diet, you can counter that, help deprogram that. That's basically uh what we do all day every day at this point. Um, help your bros get out of that toxic masculinity cycle. Yeah. I mean, there's it's like a cult. Yeah. And it's there's a lot of more subtle ways, like just stuff you grew up with, but then there are also guys who are like in it. They're deep in it. They're like in the manosphere, red pill, whatever the hell is going on. They're signed up in some private group chat with a bunch of other guys who can't figure out what they want in life and things like that. So also, you have a pretty good strategy, you just force guys to eat tofu and pie.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:18

I make sure they don't have soy allergies, and then when it's there's like a work potluck, I bring tofu pie, and nobody knows there's tofu in it. And then when they're like complimenting me and they're like, Man, this is like a really good pie. I'm like, you just ate tofu.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

Yeah. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:34

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

And then they have to immediately go become a eunuch because they are worthless to the world.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:40

Yes, and they have to go vomit up their tofu pie.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:43

Yeah, it's a real tragedy. All right. So uh that's pretty much it for the main topic. Hopefully, we made said some things that made sense there.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:50

Yeah, if you have any opinions, we'd love to hear them because like obviously we probably didn't cover everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

I have a feeling there are probably going to be opinions. I don't know if we'll hear them, but I guarantee there'll be opinions.

Myth of the Week: Complete Proteins

SPEAKER_05 1:02:59

I want to hear them.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:00

Yeah, for sure. Uh let's talk about our myth of the week. Myth of the week this week is that you don't need to care about complete proteins at all.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:06

Boy, um, so I've been getting this comment on a lot of my like videos and interactions with people. I know you've been arguing about it on Reddit.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:15

Every day, pretty much.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:16

But it's like for some reason, and and I do know the reason, right? But like there's a certain part of the vegan community that is like insistent on complete proteins as like just an idea is a myth.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:31

And I think it's because like they don't exist. Like they don't exist, like the concept doesn't exist. Like all proteins are equal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Complete protein, incomplete protein, that's bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:43

Um, and I I kind of feel like this comes from just like not wanting to have those conversations with omnivores that are like, well, I want to eat meat because it's a complete protein. And so like it's easier to just say, oh, that that's a bunch of bullshit, that doesn't exist, than to like have to provide data and have like longer conversations. Yes, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

It's a big overcorrection. You know, we're we want to have we have the one side that's like vegan's protein is terrible because it's not complete protein.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:10

So then we have like people on the vegan side who swing all the way back and they're like, well, complete proteins are a hoax, so it doesn't matter. Yeah. So it's like that's also not right. We need to land on like the facts here.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:19

Yeah, and I'm getting the same thing of like, um, you actually nobody can be protein deficient. Like that's impossible, which is also, you know, not true. Like it might be like an unlikely scenario, but that doesn't mean it can't happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

Sure, yeah. There's obviously some truth to it, or there wouldn't be a stigma around it.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:36

So like let's get into why

When Complete Proteins Matter

SPEAKER_05 1:04:38

that's a myth.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:38

Yeah. So the reality is, as far as complete proteins go, a lot of people can basically largely ignore that. Like if you're just if you're not really losing weight, if you don't really go to the gym, you're just eating food.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:50

Yeah, in a maintenance or a surplus.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:53

Yeah, you can probably not even think about this. Because uh and that's not because they don't exist, it's because you're gonna get the complete proteins you need anyway.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:00

Yeah. With like a few caveats though, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:03

Yeah. So there are several specific groups that should pay attention. And the problem is like just this blanket dismissal of they don't matter at all, uh, really sets them up for failure.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:13

So um not everybody, and uh, you know, I a lot of this argument is I think some people shortcut they they know some things about protein, and so they say, like, okay, I know some things about protein, and you don't need to worry about complete proteins.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:28

So the problem is like not everybody has a level of nutritional knowledge to where they can um really apply that or navigate what they need to do with their diet.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:37

Aaron Powell, especially if you're a new vegan and you've been living off of like your standard like meat and dairy protein sources most of your life. Like it there is a learning curve. You do need to learn some stuff nutritionally to be successful.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

Aaron Powell And if you know nothing nutritionally and you start being a vegan, you're like, okay, food is food. I'll eat food. I'm not hungry, like I'm not losing weight, I'm good. You're just like eating your favorite junk foods over and over, whatever. Maybe you're missing a bunch of nutrients. Maybe you're not getting any protein, but you don't know anybody. You just don't know at that point.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:03

I'll tell you what, if I so now when I was vegetarian, I didn't really eat like tofu. I just like rarely would eat tofu. Yeah. A lot of my protein came from like Greek yogurt, eggs, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:15

If I were to just simply pluck those from my diet, I would have been protein deficient. I can guarantee you that because like I was not making up that protein any other way. Like if I had just like pulled out the foods I couldn't eat and not replaced them with different foods, I would have been protein deficient.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

Yeah. Because I mean there's like very little protein in some of the other stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:35

Yeah, I mean, I was just like eating bread, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

And so definitionally, complete protein um basically means so there there are nine essential amino acids. We've covered this in some of the earlier episodes. Amino acids are what make up protein. The nine being essential means that your body can't make them. You have to get them for food. So complete protein is when you have those nine in the same or uh more of kind of a ratio to each other as human muscle, effectively. So there are some things like satan that has like eight of the nine are pretty much above the threshold, but then you have lysine, which is pretty low. So eight of the nine are fine. Lysine's pretty low. That makes satan not a complete protein.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:14

Unless you have tofu in it, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

Well, yeah, but I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:19

The most basic satan.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:20

Yeah, wheat, actually. Just generally wheat is in this situation. So wheat is low on lysine. So wheat on its own is not a complete protein. That doesn't mean that wheat is worthless because it still has plenty of all the other eight essential amino acids. So really, you would just have to make sure that you had some lysine and some of your other food throughout the day to make sure you were getting enough lysine.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:41

Yeah. And I think a lot of a lot of where this myth is coming from is that people used to say you have to have like basically you have to pair proteins at every meal and get like a complete protein profile at every meal you're eating. And that has been debunked.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:58

Yeah, for for most people, I will say if you are like really trying to build muscle, you're a bodybuilder, you're an athlete, or something like that, then you're probably going to care about something called the leucine trigger or the leucine threshold, which means you want to get two and a half to three grams of leucine in every meal a few times a day to trigger muscle protein synthesis, which is where you grow muscle. In those situations, it is probably optimal a couple times a day to make sure you have all the amino acids, like a complete protein, up to like as a vegan, probably like 40 grams at a time. So you're getting two to three grams of leucine and you're getting the other amino acids that help build the muscle along with it. Other than that, like specific scenario where you really care about optimizing, yeah, you don't really need to combine in every meal because so you have wheat for breakfast, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:45

And then you have something else for lunch. Like the lysine that you have in lunch is gonna get like combined with the the protein that didn't really have much lysine that you had for breakfast, and then your muscle is gonna be able to use all nine of those together to do some of what it needs throughout the day. Right. It's just not gonna be quite as much muscle, and we're talking about like very little every day, right? But not quite as much muscle as if you had had complete protein for breakfast, complete protein for lunch, complete protein for dinner. But you're not gonna run into like an actual protein deficiency.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:12

Right. This is more for like optimizing.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:14

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:14

But you still do need to have all of those like daily.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:17

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you you do need them all. That's why they're called uh essential. Anytime you see something in a uh nutrition called essential, that means your body can't make it, you must get it through food to not run into an actual medical issue.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:29

But like this is where

Who Needs to Watch Their Protein?

SPEAKER_05 1:09:31

I think it kind of drives me insane, right? Because like just hand waving away the like, oh well, then it doesn't matter anymore. I think it really leaves out a group of people that like maybe their natural eating habits would not have them have all of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:47

You know what I mean? Like I'm thinking about someone who's in a deficit who's already like probably having trouble getting just the protein in general that they need every day with the limited calories, like that person may have issues getting like a complete protein in the quantity they need.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:03

Especially if you're in a pretty big deficit, like if you're not some of the new GLP1 drugs, those can have people in a pretty big deficit, and you're probably gonna want to concentrate on protein pretty hard.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:12

Yeah. Or like if in general you're just not eating much protein, anyways, like you're just kind of like on the lower end of like what you really need to eat to not go protein deficient.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:23

Yeah. If you're a vegan kind of flirting around the RDA and you're only eating wheat a lot, you might run into some issues potentially. So just try to be a little more well-rounded.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:33

And then I will say, like, there I am one of these people, someone who tends to eat the same things over and over again. And I know this is also like true in the like neuroatypical group of people. Like, you know, you might have like some safe foods that like this is all I want to eat, and I know this is all I want to eat for a month. Right. And I get like that. Like, if I didn't have a food blog, I'd be serving you those same three things for meals every day because that's just like how I am. Like, I just like get in like a food thing where it's like I just only want to eat this, this, and this. But like if you're doing that and you're not and and soy is not one of those things, like you could definitely get in a situation where you're like in a bad way, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:13

Yeah, that's definitely true. Um, also athletes who are higher protein targets. It's always kind of interesting. If you're in a situation where you have a relatively high protein target in general, you're also kind of circling back around to you probably don't have to care about this because you're probably getting enough to create what's called a muscle full effect, basically. So a couple times a day, your muscle gets all the amino acids it needs for that session of building muscle. Yeah. It's whatever kind of technical. But basically, if you're getting enough total protein a day, like you have a high target, you're back to not really having to micromanage the complete proteins because you're just getting it incidentally.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:45

And then uh anybody who really heavily relies on a single protein source, and you actually see this a lot with people who have allergies. Like if somebody has a soy allergy and like a nut allergy or something like that, there are a lot of people we see like in threads conversations and Reddit and talking to them directly and stuff where they have a lot of allergies, and for whatever reason, that it means they have to eat a lot of satan to get their protein.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:05

Or like pea protein.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:06

Right. And so satan, uh again being wheat, pea protein being pea, neither of those are complete proteins on their own. Um so if you're getting like 60 to 70 percent of your protein every day from a single incomplete protein source, um, you know, you're not really getting as much as you think you are, technically. So you you might want to make sure that there's something in your diet, like if you're somebody who eats a lot of satan every day, find a source of lysine in your diet that you can tolerate that you can have. And I would just make sure you're also eating that every day.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:36

Yeah. And I think um, so I had a back and forth with someone the other day, and they were and I was basically bringing up like, yeah, some people will eat like the same thing every day.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:46

You know, and they were like, Well, no reasonable person would do this. No, it happens all the time. And it's like, yeah, you don't have to be unreasonable to have a favorite food.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:54

Or to like not have enough nutrition knowledge to get into this situation, which is why we should stop spreading misinformation and start just providing facts that people can actually live based on.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:06

Yeah. And people with um, you know, who really want to be vegan, who have like the allergies or they have IBD or some kind of other GI thing, like they can end up in like situations where they can only tolerate a few foods. So they're they're eating basically the same uh maybe five to ten foods every day.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:23

So they need to make sure that those five to ten foods cover everything.

Why Vegan Nutrition Needs Honest Advice

SPEAKER_05 1:13:26

Right. I just think, you know, in general, we don't have to trick people into being vegan by leaving out crucial and valuable information. Yeah. Because the data is on our side. Like there are ways to handle this across the board. You know, I think we as a group need to stop spreading misinformation that could be potentially harmful to somebody that doesn't understand this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:48

Yeah. You don't have to resort to like dismissing things or saying things are important because like the the reality of things and how things are scientifically, like all the things still point to veganism as like the better choice. So you can still say, okay, yeah, complete proteins are important. And yeah, vegan protein sources are slightly lower quality than animal sources, but you can still get everything you need using vegan protein sources, and you can still be, you know, an elite level athlete with vegan protein sources. So, like, that's not really a thing we need to hand wave away. We just say, Yeah, that's a thing. Some people might need to deal with it. Here's how you deal with it. Boom, it's done.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:24

Yeah, exactly. Instead of saying like complete protein sources and incomplete protein sources aren't a thing, yeah. Give useful information on like, here's how you can get those on a vegan diet. And it's actually not that hard. You know, like and instead of saying like nobody can be protein deficient on a vegan diet or otherwise, say it's actually you know, really easy to get your protein on a vegan diet.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:48

Because we have all that data, we have all that information. Everything is backed, you don't need to like make shit up.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

And that makes people feel a lot better when they're trying to transition. Like when I was starting to look into you know the the the details of what I would maybe need or be missing when I went vegan, you know, if I had read initially that it's like, oh yeah, you don't have to care about protein, I'd be like, that doesn't fucking sound right. Like I'm I'm a little hesitant now.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:10

And if you Google it, you're gonna have like thousands of articles saying it's a real thing. So you look like a delusional crackpot saying that.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:17

But on the flip side, when I come across like when I came across the information that was like, okay, yeah, the here's how complete proteins work, here's how vegans might need to adjust their protein intake to adjust for not eating animal foods. I was like, okay, well, this is easy and it like it makes sense. So I'm this is fine. I'm fine.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:33

Yeah, and you felt a lot like more sure in your decision to try it. Like you thought, okay, I'm not gonna get sick. Right. See, that's the thing I don't like is like when we wave off these concerns and we're just like, Yeah, don't worry about that, and don't worry about that, and don't look over here. It's like that doesn't make anyone feel better. Yeah. That makes me feel like you're lying to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:49

Well, imagine if you were like in an electronic store and you were trying to buy a TV and you're like, hey, this button on the remote control doesn't work. The sales guy's just like, yeah, don't worry about that.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:57

Yeah, you don't need that button. And you're like, I don't even know what the button's for. Are you sure? Why is it on this remote?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:02

Right. So compare that to he's like, Oh, well, yeah, that button is a programmable button. It doesn't do anything until you program it to do something, but when you program it, it can do whatever you want. Yeah. Which one of those approaches is gonna make you feel better about buying this TV?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:15

Exactly. Yeah. Yes, give me all the information.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:18

We like we as a group of vegans, we need to stop pushing misinformation. It is literally just as bad as what the omnivores are doing to counter vegan arguments. Like it's just, I don't want to say unethical, but it's a little on it's a little smarmy, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:32

A little smarmy, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:33

Um you could put someone in a dangerous spot by telling them things don't matter that do actually matter.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:38

Definitely if you're talking like, because you don't know what what people's dietary situation is. So, like, there have been people where I tried to give, you know, some advice and they're like, oh, that makes sense, but I actually got this and this and this and this, and I can't do that and that and that. Right. So I'm like, okay, well, if you would have followed that first advice, like that wouldn't have gone very well. So like I'm glad this is a conversation.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:55

Yeah, exactly. I think it's just and I think um anyone who is throwing out stuff like this, saying, like, oh, complete proteins don't matter, and like you don't have to worry about protein on any diet. Like in the West, you can't be protein deficient. Think about like who is reading your comments too. Because like, especially if you have a vegan account and like you have maybe some followers or like you post about vegan content, you might have like vegan curious people who are reading your comment and like taking what you're saying at face value, and you they might have situations in which like those things do apply to them and you might be putting them in a dangerous spot health-wise.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:29

Right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:30

So stop lying.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:33

Yeah, so I mean, there are some people who need to care about complete proteins, some people who probably don't need to think about it as much. Um, just you know, determining which one of those people you are is

Closing Thoughts and Listener Links

SPEAKER_00 1:17:42

really all you need to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:43

And go from there. All right. Well, I think that's all we have for this week. Appreciate everybody listening. Hopefully, this wasn't too soapboxy for me on this toxic masculine stuff. This really grinds my gears. So yeah. Um, if you want to hang out with us in Discord, we've got our Deficient Vegans Discord down in the show notes. You can come uh tell us what you think. And also we have websites and social media down there. You can come reach out or read some of the stuff we have going on. Um if you're on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, if you could rate and review, that really helps us out a lot. And then if you're listening on YouTube or Spotify, you can leave us a comment. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:18

And if you want like a synthesized version of some of the topics we're talking about, we started posting like um posts on TikTok and Instagram that kind of uh it's like a carousel, like a bunch of different slides kind of reviewing what we talked about.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:30

That's on the deficient vegans account, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:32

Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, I think that's it. Do you want to say bye?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:35

Bye, guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:36

Bye, everybody.