21 - The Great Plant Based Con Part 1 with Jayne Buxton

In this episode I spoke with author Jayne Buxton about whether eating a Plant-only based diet is optimal for health. In the next episode we discuss whether a plants-only based diet is necessary to save the environment.

We discussed:

11:02

Is a Plant-Based Diet Better for Your Health?

12:57

Anti-Nutrients

16:40

Biochemical Individuality

32:46

Nutrient Deficiencies

35:14

Not All Proteins Are The Same

37:30

Does Read Meat Increase The Risk of Cancer & Heart Disease?

47:04

The Problem with Epidemiology and Confounding Factors

51:37

Animal & Human Welfare

57:25

Potential Disasters of a Plant-Based Only Future

You can find Jayne and purchase her book @
www.jaynereesbuxton.com
Twitter: @jaynereesbuxton

Transcript

[00:00] Jayne Buxton: There are number of issues with that diet in terms of lack of some nutrients, an over abundance of some anti nutrients. So there's too much of some things and protein inadequacy. So it's on those three levels, really, that I started to explore why this might not be doing you any favors if you take that dialogue. Anti nutrients are things which are found in plants. Like a couple of categories are oxalates and phytates. They're the most common ones. They're found in abundance in some plants. And what they do is they cause, they disrupt the body's ability to process other nutrients and they sometimes inhibit the absorption of other nutrients such as iron and zinc. So the most important one for me, the one that I came across first was oxalates. And I remember first reading about them about the time that Liam Hemsworth got his case of kidney stones from his vegan diet because he'd been having spinach smoothies with almond milk every day and really piling on those foods which are high oxalate. So spinach and almonds are two very, very high oxalate foods. My research suggests that the research around that has been greatly skewed and greatly misinterpreted in order to create the narrative that red meat causes cancer and heart disease. And in fact, the first sort of jolt in recent years to that scaremongering belief came from the annals of internal medicine, which produced five studies back in 2019 which more or less exonerated red meat and even processed meat, did not find enough reason and enough quality research showing harm in order to recommend that we consume less. And that caused a huge uproar. Of course, the plant based camp that didn't want to believe that and it became much disputed for a good two years running after those studies came out.

[02:20] Announcer: Welcome to the Radical Health Rebel podcast with your host, Leigh Brandon. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a five star rating and the warm review. Your opinions are important and your ratings help grow the podcast and help educate people to lead a healthier, more productive, fulfilling and happy life. This video is your thing. Please check out the Radical Health Rebel YouTube channel where you'll find Fun Bitesize clips from each episode. And now here is Leigh, the Radical Health Rebel with this week's podcast.

[03:00] Leigh Brandon: Welcome to episode 21 of The Radical Health Rebel Podcast. This episode is entitled The Great Plant Based Con with Jane Buxton part One, and it's such a big and important topic that I felt it beneficial for you, the listeners and viewers to split across two episodes. A major question that we will be discussing in this episode is whether a plant's only based diet is truly the best way forward for health that is being pushed by world leaders, even though it's not the diet that they consume themselves. In episode 22 next week, we will share part two of the interview where we discuss whether a plant's only based future is good for the environment andwill help to prevent global warming.

[03:45] Leigh Brandon: I highly recommend that if you have any interest in health or the future continuation of the human race, you watch or listen to these episodes as it will help you be informed so you can make the best choices. For your health based on your own personal values and be aware of what impacts your choices are on the environment and the future of humanity. So do enjoy part one of the interview with author Jane Buxton. 

Jane Buxton. Welcome to the Radical Health Rebel podcast. How are you?

[04:17] Jayne Buxton: I'm very well, thank you for having me.

[04:19] Leigh Brandon: I'm really looking forward to speaking to you on this really important topic today. So today's episode is entitled the Great Plant Based Con with Jane Buxton. Over recent years, following documentaries such as Game Changers and Cowspiracy, it's become established as fact in the consciousness of most of society that a plant based diet for all will improve health and help save the environment. However, there are experts who disagree with this view and believe an omnivorous diet is not only essential for human health, but also for the environment. So which views are true? Now to help answer those questions, I'm really excited to have Jane Buxton, author of The Great Plant Based Con: Why Eating a Plant's Only Diet Won't Improve Your Health or Save the Planet.

[05:07] Leigh Brandon: To help answer those questions, and I.

[05:09] Leigh Brandon: Have to say it's one of the best books I have ever read and I've read a lot of books, especially on nutrition and soil science. Now, whether you're a carnivore, omnivore, vegetarian, vegan or breatharian, the information that we will be discussing is crucial to your future health, the future of plants and animals across the world and the future of the planet. Now, I'm sure I can speak for Jane when I say that we're not here to preach to anyone or to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do and that we encourage people to make their own lifestyle choices. But we are here to share solid evidence from which people can make their own decisions in alignment with their own values. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation with you Jane. I'm really looking forward to looking into where these beliefs and theories came from and how to investigate how accurate they are. So to kick things off, can you share with the audience a little about you, your background, your career to date and how you became interested in the plant based phenomenon?

[06:16] Jayne Buxton: Wow, that's going to take me back a bit. But my background is actually in business, so I spent a long time in management consultancy working with corporations on their strategies and their go to market strategies in particular. And I did that for quite a long time until I a topic caught my interest in the late ninety s and I wrote a book about that that was about the issue of work and parenting and families, which at the time was a very new topic. People weren't talking enough about this whole thing we take for granted now called work-life balance. And so the corporate world looked very different then than it does now. So that gave me a taste of what it was like to write and to dig into to research an issue and then put it together, put the discussion together in a way that would appeal to and educate a border group of people. I then set off on that path of writing. And I wrote fiction as well. I started a couple of nonfiction projects. And then this topic caught my eye about four years ago. I had been already interested in it. I'd read a couple of books which had really piqued my interest in human health and environmental health, and one of those was Leah Keith's wonderful book called The Vegetarian Myth. So I was already starting to look at research in a kind of loose way, educating myself. And it was because I had that background of reading that I started to notice that the debate, the public debate, was deploying the advocacy. The plant based advocates, rather, were deploying data which I didn't recognize, data which was contrary to that which I had come to understand. So the more I dug, the more I realized just how much misinformation there was around this topic. And I felt compelled to write something, and I was particularly compelled. A sort of tipping point was the game changers movie which you mentioned in your introduction, because I felt that that was another step up in the misinformation level. And it was a step up in the appeal to young people in particular. And it worked. People were deciding to convert in droves and try veganism on the back of that film. So really, that was the start of my research process intensely and putting together a rather long book, I've got to say. So I'm glad you made it through the book. It was rather long.

[09:08] Leigh Brandon: I read it in about two weeks, which is quite quick for me.

[09:11] Jayne Buxton: Yeah, pencil in hand. I always have to read with a pencil in hand. My books are all a mess. They're full of marks.

[09:23] Leigh Brandon: As much as I don't normally I don't like to, actually, because I was time pressured in terms of when we were first booked in to speak, I actually got a kindle version just so I had it quicker. Just so I had an extra day to read. A bit limited.

[09:38] Jayne Buxton: Yeah.

[09:39] Leigh Brandon: It was just such a fantastic read. And it's clearly so well researched as well. Based on the hundreds of books I've read on nutrition and some as well on soil science and things like that as well, it's clear to me that it was just extremely well researched and extremely well written and very easy to read as well.

[09:59] Jayne Buxton: Thank you.

[10:01] Leigh Brandon: You don't have to be an expert in nutrition or the environment to understand the book. It's very easy to read.

[10:08] Jayne Buxton: Well, that was my one of my goals was to write something for lay people. I wasn't really speaking to scientists who speak to themselves all the time, or not, as the case may be. And I wasn't writing for physicians per se, but I'm glad to hear that a lot of physicians have read it and found it useful. I started out as a layperson, and I wanted to write something that would enable other lay people to really understand this issue, because on some levels it is very complicated, and other levels it's dead simple. So I wanted to try and simplify and get those messages out.

[10:45] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, I certainly think you achieved that. So I guess the first real question I have for you is, based on the research that you did, would you say a plant based diet is better for your health?

[11:01] Jayne Buxton: Short answer no. I would say no. Do you want me to go into the longer answer? Great interview.

[11:10] Leigh Brandon: That was a great interview, Jane. Really. I appreciate your time today. Thanks very much. Please go in for the long answer.

[11:18] Jayne Buxton: Yeah. So the long answer I covered over several chapters, but one of the basic first places to start and why it's not better for us is, I think, on the nutrition front. And I think that a plant only diet, and I do use that word carefully, because plant based has become kind of adulterated. Nobody knows what plant based means anymore. Some people it means quite a few plants, along with all their fish and their meat and their eggs. And for other people, it means none of those things and everything in between. So when I say plants only, I mean that's a vegan diet. There's no animal sourced foods. There are a number of issues with that diet in terms of lack of some nutrients, an overabundance of some anti nutrients. So there's too much of some things and protein inadequacy. So it's on those three levels, really, that I started to explore why this might not be doing you any favors if you take that dialogue word.

[12:30] Leigh Brandon: Yeah. So can you talk a little bit more about anti nutrients?

[12:34] Jayne Buxton: Yeah, it's interesting that you start with that, because anti nutrients are incredibly ignored as a concept, and a lot of people don't even know they exist. So anti nutrients are things which are found in plants, like a couple of categories, or oxalates and phytates. They're the most common ones. They're found in abundance in some plants. And what they do is they cause they disrupt the body's ability to process other nutrients, and they sometimes they inhibit the absorption of other nutrients such as iron and zinc. So the most important one for me, the one that I came across first was oxalates. And I remember first reading about them about the time that Liam Hemsworth got his case of kidney stones from his vegan diet because he'd been having spinach smoothies with almond milk every day and really piling on those foods, which are high oxalate. So spinach and almonds are two very high oxalate foods, and that gave him kidney stones, and he had to stop eating that way. I don't know whether he stopped being vegan, but he had to stop eating that way. And it strikes. What are the other symptoms? There is kidney stones, but there's also build-up of these oxalate crystals in your joints. So you can get joint pain, you can get gastro distress. There are a lot of side effects which people maybe aren't aware of, and they may be experiencing those side effects as we speak, but not know that it's the oxalates that are possibly the culprit. And I was just reading another article today which was quite interesting, which was talking about those foods. And oxalate overload is not a big deal. It's not a big problem so long as you're eating a balanced diet and you're not eating an excess of certain foods. But of course, a vegan diet has an excess of certain foods. So a lot of vegans look to spinach for their iron, right? And then they might look to tofu soy products have a lot of oxalates in them. So if we're suggesting a shift to soy proteins, it descends to reason that we may get a significant uptick in the number of people suffering from oxalate overload. So that's just one example. Then there's phytic acid is found in things like nuts, grains, seeds. And it is acknowledged that, again, phytates in small quantities are probably going to be okay for most people. Phytates in large quantities will inhibit the absorption of zinc, and that's very dangerous if you get a zinc deficiency. There are numerous outcomes for that, including mental lethargy and stunting poor growth retardation. And again, you know, we're encouraging, you know, in this big push to steer away from from plant animal proteins and move towards plant proteins. We're pushing people towards the nuts, grains and seeds. I mean, how often do we hear, eat more nuts, grains and seeds? That's where the excess phytates is going to come from. So it's very dangerous to get our balance of intake so out of whack with a very sort of imbalanced diet that includes too many of these foods.

[16:12] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, there's something that I might bring up a few more times as we go through, but I don't know if you're familiar with metabolic typing.

[16:20] Jayne Buxton: Yes, I know the book, and I mentioned that book. Yeah.

[16:24] Leigh Brandon: Yes. So I'm a metabolic typing adviser. I've been using metabolic typing to help advise people with their dietary intake since 2004. So that's what, nearly 19 years? And one thing we know is that there are certain people. So we're all individual. None of us require the same nutrients. And that's why some people can do better on a vegetarian diet, whereas other people can't do a vegetarian diet at all. And one of the things about oxalates is that there are certain types of people who have naturally kind of high levels of oxalates already in their body and if they eat too many plant based foods, their oxalate levels goes too high.

[17:10] Jayne Buxton: Right.

[17:10] Leigh Brandon: And it isn't just what you mentioned, it actually affects at a cellular level right down to energy production. Now, if you can't produce energy at a cellular level, that affects everything in the human body. So I'm what's called a fast oxidizer. So I have to be really careful to eat a low oxalate diet. Now, from my experience of working with hundreds of people over the last 19 years, probably more than 80% of the people that I've worked with, and I've worked with people of all ethnicities, it's not just because I'm working from London. I would say at least 80% of people I've worked with are fast oxidizers, which means they can't eat a high oxalate diet.

[18:03] Jayne Buxton: Wow, that is fascinating.

[18:05] Leigh Brandon: It's probably more than 80% of people that I've worked with and you know, it's again, we'll come back to this, I'm sure, but what I just want to get across is that there is no one diet that fits everybody. We do know people that certainly appear very healthy on a vegetarian diet, but I just want to say this one thing and then we'll carry on when I'm working with people, so when I'm teaching someone to work out what food is right for them, what we know from eating food is it affects three things. First of all, our society or our appetite. It affects our energy levels and it affects our emotions. Now, when we eat, if one to 2 hours after we've eaten, we still feel full, our energy levels are still good and our emotions still feel good, you kind of know you're eating the right kind of food. If you're hungry, you're not feeling good emotionally, you're feeling tired. You know, there was something wrong in what you ate. OK, now, from the hundreds of people I've worked with so basically what you do is it's basically called fine tuning. So what we do is we fine tune the amount of fats, proteins and carbohydrates that people need to eat from meal to meal, day to day, week to week. That can change. It's stuck in stone.

[19:39] Jayne Buxton: With life-stage, you mean?

[19:40] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, well, yeah. So for females, for instance, through the menstrual cycle, it will change. And most women will tell you they know when they're pre menstrual, they generally crave carbs. Right. But the environment affects what's right for you as well. So in colder weather, you generally go for more broths and stews and more kind of meaty kind of foods, whereas in the summertime you might go for more salads, more fruit, for instance. And it's a method of teaching you how to tune into what your body needs. Now, some of it is genetic, but it's also environmental. So having worked with so many people let me ask you this question, Jane. How many people, when they've worked through the system do you think I've ever worked with that felt at their best when they had a plant only diet?

[20:37] Jayne Buxton: How many people? I'm going to say maybe 10%, maybe less, maybe 5% of the people you've worked with. Am I on the right track?

[20:49] Leigh Brandon: No. So I'm guessing I don't know exactly how many people I've worked with. I haven't added it up, but let's say it's 800 people. Not one felt at their best on a plants only diet. Not one.

[21:04] Jayne Buxton: Not one.

[21:05] Leigh Brandon: Not one. Now, I've worked with vegetarians, but then obviously they don't eat any animal based foods or depends on what kind of vegetarian they are. So vegan, for instance, they won't go near any kind of animal based foods, and then you just got to make the best of it.

[21:22] Jayne Buxton: Okay.

[21:22] Leigh Brandon: And then obviously, the other thing we know, and I know you're familiar with the work of Western A Price, and obviously he traveled the world and he didn't find any healthy native tribe that didn't eat any kind of animal foods. And again, they always ate what was local, what was local to them. And if they moved away from whatever foods was natural and local to them, then they started to get sick. And then if they went back to where they were originally from and they ate their native diet, they got well again. So if you're from, if you're from Canada or Siberia, you're not going to do well on even a moderate amount of plant based food. You're probably going to get quite ill because that's not how your body has evolved.

[22:11] Jayne Buxton: Yeah, absolutely. And you wouldn't be able to find that food anyway. So there's another practical problem.

[22:18] Leigh Brandon: Exactly.

[22:22] Jayne Buxton: That's fascinating. And you obviously know your depth of understanding of that metabolic typing is much, much deeper than mine. I just really touched on that. But it makes complete sense to me and I guess to most people that we are also completely different. I don't know how many types there are. Is it ten types? Ten types? There may even be more.

[22:44] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, actually, your spot on there is ten. Yeah, well, it depends. It depends how you look at it. But there's six main types, but then there's another type called variable type, so that's kind of seven. But yeah, it's getting a bit more frequently. Go beyond that.

[23:01] Jayne Buxton: Yes.

[23:05] Leigh Brandon: Even within each metabolic type, everyone is still different.

[23:08] Jayne Buxton: It's very interesting that you talk about who does well on a vegetarian or vegan diet, and I did quite a lot of reading on this about what might define it. And even the way we process something like vitamin A is one of the key nutrients that differs. Some people can process that, the carotene that comes from the vegetables, the carrots, and convert that into proper vitamin A. Other people can't, or they can't do it very efficiently. So right there you'll have a big group of people who will be suffering from vitamin A deficiency if they're on a vegan diet, and then there are the enzymes in the stomach that process carbohydrates, which are all very different. So if you're not somebody who can process carbohydrates really well and easily, you're not going to do well on those high carbohydrate protein foods like the beans, which you have to eat in absolutely huge amount, huge quantities to get your protein. So I think it's fascinating, and I take my hat off to anyone who is doing well, genuinely on a vegetarian or a vegan diet. And if they're really listening to their bodies, and they are one of the rare cases of individuals who can thrive, great, that's fine. But we shouldn't be recommending it to everybody as a standard, across the board, all ages, all life situations kind of diet.

[24:40] Announcer: You're listening to the Radical Health Rebel podcast.

[24:45] Leigh Brandon: Are you regularly suffering from painful bloating and wind that can be smelly and embarrassing? Are your bowel movements not as they should be, either constipation or diarrhea or possibly alternating between the two? Do you find the pain is bad enough, but the bloating and cramps make you feel awful and are affecting your everyday life? Do you sometimes feel you can't eat properly because of the wind, bloating, and pain? And has your doctor told you that you have IBS but unable to help find you a solution? Do you feel right now that you simply don't know what's causing your symptoms and whatever your doctor has suggested hasn't worked and you feel frustrated that you're still far from having a normal, flat, comfortable tummy? Have you invested a lot of time, energy and money into improving your symptoms and don't wish to waste anymore? Do you feel frustrated and depressed and don't feel like you can take part in all the activities you enjoy and sometimes have to cancel attending events because of the way your tummy feels? Do you fear that if you don't get this sorted, you could end up with a much more serious gastrointestinal disease? If so, what would help you right now is to understand the root cause of your digestive condition rather than continuing to try to mask the symptoms with over-the-counter or prescribed medications. You need help understanding how factors such as nutrition, gut health, stress and toxicology affect the digestive system and how to optimize these factors. You need someone who can advise, motivate, and support you every step of the way, someone who has walked the path before and taught many others to do the same. What you need is my overcome your digestive issues program. My Overcome Your Digestive Issues program can help you in the following ways I will help you understand the root causes of your digestive problems and teach you how to approach the condition holistically via expert advice on nutrition and lifestyle factors to overcome your digestive issues.

[26:50] Leigh Brandon: Program will start by ensuring you are on the right diet for you based on your genetics or metabolic type, and one that avoids the foods that are known to exacerbate your condition. We'll go on a journey, step by step, learning all the necessary lifestyle changes required to achieve a flat, comfortable, pain free tummy. Each weekly 30 minutes coaching session will include advice, support and guidance specifically tailored to your needs and at a speed.that is right for you.

[27:21] Leigh Brandon: Once you're eating right for your metabolic type, you will begin to see changes in how your tummy feels. And we will also uncover all the necessary blocking factors that you may have. And you'll be taught how to reduce, replace or eliminate all the factors that are causing your digestive problems. Ultimately, this program will enable you to achieve a flat, calm and comfortable tummy every day for the rest of your life. For more information about how to improve your gut health and to claim a complimentary no obligation gut health consultation, please go to www. Dot body check dot co UK that's bod ychek and fill in the request form at the top of the home page and we'll be in contact to arrange a convenient time. Now, back to the podcast.

[28:08] Leigh Brandon: Are you familiar with Dr. Roger Williams?

[28:12] Jayne Buxton: Not very, but yes, I think I covered some of his research as well in connection with this. Yeah.

[28:18] Leigh Brandon: So he wrote a book called Biochemical Individuality.

[28:21] Jayne Buxton: That's right, that's right, yeah.

[28:24] Leigh Brandon: Yeah. So, like you were saying, we all absorb different nutrients in different quantities. For instance, we know that people from colder climates, our digestive tracts are shorter, whereas people that, say come from somewhere like Central America where it's lots of forests and there's no big game meats, their intestinal tracts are much longer because they need to be longer to be able to extract the protein from the plants. Whereas if you're eating an animal based diet, it's much easier to absorb the protein because it's more bioavailable. So someone like me, I would guess, I've never measured it, but I'd imagine my digestive tract is pretty short because I know I flourish on a very high protein, very high fat, very low carbohydrate diet. Whenever I've moved off of that, I notice I don't feel very good.

[29:22] Jayne Buxton: Right, yeah.

[29:24] Leigh Brandon: So, yeah, you're absolutely right that we can't all eat the same way and expect for everyone to be healthy. It's just not how nature works.

[29:33] Jayne Buxton: Yeah. And you know, I might be jumping ahead a little bit here, but this fact is appreciated even by those who recommend a near vegan, near vegetarian diets such as the Atlantic Commission. So their planetary health diet, which is at its most extreme, has no animal foods in it whatsoever, so their lowest level of healthy intake is zero for those foods, they are pushing the whole concept of getting protein from beans and nuts and seeds. And there's grains, whole grains are everywhere in that diet. And that's supposed to be their view of the healthy diet across the board for everybody. But then they admit in the finer print of their document that it's not good for everybody and that it's not recommended for children or for teenagers or for pregnant women, or for the elderly or for the frail. So there's a whole host. I mean, I really don't know. There's a very small group of people that it would be appropriate for. So it's interesting that even in their documentation there is the admission that not everybody can eat the same diet and that near vegan will not suit most people and will result in deficiencies, nutrient deficiencies.

[30:57] Leigh Brandon: Which is why, again, most people that are vegetarian or vegan will supplement because the diet is deficient. They have to supplement if they want to be healthy yeah and I don't.

[31:11] Jayne Buxton: Know if most of them do, to be honest, I don't know if most of them do. So they might intend to, they might want to but do they? Because research came out last year. There was research or two years ago research showing that vegans and vegetarians, vegans in particular, had 2.5 times the rate of fractures, hip fractures, than omnivores. And I remember a doctor discussing this and saying, well, vegans are pretty clued up now and they do take supplements to prevent this. Well, if they're so clued up, why are they getting two and a half times the rate of fractures? So they're obviously not taking the supplements or not eating in a way that is counteracting that. So I think we need to be very careful about thinking that supplements are in any way a solution to this problem. A you know, people forget, people don't know be they can't afford them. It's very expensive to supplement your way through life so it's really a suboptimal strategy for health.

[32:24] Leigh Brandon: So I just want to go back to the beginning. So we spoke about nutrients yeah there was two other things you mentioned at the beginning, I can't remember what they were, what were the other two?

[32:33] Jayne Buxton: Nutrients? So nutrients is the number one. You know, it's a fact that there are certain nutrients that are missing if your own eating plants. So things like preformed vitamin A, B, twelve, DHA and EPA, which are those essential fatty acids for brain function and brain development, it's relatively more difficult to get iron and zinc. So there's a whole host of nutrients that you can't get other than by supplementation. And we don't know how effective supplementation is either. So that was the you know, that's just a fact and I find it interesting that that is rarely acknowledged by very strident vegan activists. So there was a debate recently between somebody called Ivor Cummins and a vegan doctor called Michael Gregor it was a very short debate held on the news and Ivor Cummins stated all of the nutrient deficiencies that might arise in a vegan diet. And Dr. Greger, rather than address those, simply switched the subject and brought up a completely irrelevant and deeply flawed study, for instance, to prove that his way of eating was better and would lead to longer lives. So there's that kind of sidestepping of this nutrition issue, which is really a constant tactic by vegan advocates, I find. I don't know if you've had that experience of debating with people who just don't want to see the nutrient deficiencies. They just don't want to admit that they're there.

[34:22] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, I certainly only don't get into debates with people. Certainly when I'm working with clients, I just say, look, the proof is in the pudding. The results will speak for themselves. In that situation, I don't need to debate, and I don't have any dogma. And that's what I say to my clients. I have no dogma around food. Because at the end of the day, your body will tell you what your body needs. I'm not here to tell you what your body needs. I'm here to show you how to work it out for yourself.

[34:53] Jayne Buxton: Yeah, that's good. Then the third thing that I mentioned earlier in terms of the whole health angle is protein. So it is often stated that you can get all the protein you need from plants. And what many people do not realize is that protein is not the same as protein. There are different types of protein, and animal sourced proteins are more complete. They have all of the amino acids that our body needs to synthesize that protein, and they are more bioavailable. And those two facts are indisputable. So it means that if you wanted your daily quota of protein, you could eat 8oz of steak. If you wanted to get that from quinoa, I think you'd have to eat two kilos of quinoa, and that wouldn't be complete protein even then, because it's very hard to get all those amino acids to the right amount. So it's very clear that proteins are not equivalent, and we really should stop talking about them as if they are. And I was even distressed by you know, I heard a lecture by Professor Tim Spector about a couple of weeks ago, and I respect his work enormously, and we have a lot of crossover in our work. In fact, I cite his book several times in mind. Then he said something astonishing to me in his talk, which was, we can get all the protein we need from mushrooms. And I thought, can we? And I went and looked it up. I thought, am I going crazy? I'm sure I know these numbers. And I went back and realized 100 grams of mushrooms will give you 3 grams of protein. Well, 100 grams of steak is going to give you 25 grams of protein. So, no, I'm sorry, they're not equivalent, and they're not even qualitatively equivalent. So it's amazing how these lazy kind of throw away comments come from even the most educated sources and it's harmful to people. It's really harmful to people who maybe know a little less and who just believe that.

[37:14] Leigh Brandon: Yeah. So I guess the next question I have for you, because this is a common belief, is that if you eat red meat, you've got an increased risk of heart disease and cancer. What does your research suggest on.

[37:34] Jayne Buxton: That? The research around that has been greatly skewed and greatly misinterpreted in order to create the narrative that red meat causes cancer and heart disease. And in fact, the first sort of jolt in recent years to that scare mongering belief came from the Annals of Internal Medicine, which produced five studies back in 2019 which more or less exonerated red meat and even processed meat, did not find enough reason and enough quality research showing harm in order to recommend that we consume less. And that caused a huge uproar. Of course, the plant based camp that didn't want to believe that, and it became much disputed for a good two years running after those studies came out. But then something was published just the other day, a study, and I forget what the journal was, journal of Preventative Cardiology or Clinical Nutrition, forgive me, I can't remember. And again, it looked that was a team of researchers who looked at 32 previous meta analyses and regressive analyses and some RCTs, and again they concluded that a lot of the research had been exaggerated. So we do have evidence that the evidence against meat is poor, but it's taking a very long time for that to work its way through the biases. I mean, the supercharger that is the whole fear of red meat and disease theory is very hard to turn around. It's going to take some time, and it is not helped by research such as came out fairly recently, the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Report. The GBD Report, it comes out every two years. It's very influential. It's used to create public policy, it's used for all kinds of things, and it's widely cited. And the 2019 report increased the risk of eating red meat by 36 fold over the 2017 report, which that in itself was an extraordinary jump. And of course, some scientists caught on to this, including Alice Sanchez, Frederick Levoy, Chris Elliott, a couple of others here in the UK. And they filed a complaint and a challenge. And although their paper was not published, their challenge, it was admitted that there were some errors in those calculations, that they were not evidence based, and that it was not right to portray red meat consumption in that light. And I think the GBD Report itself concluded that people should eat no red meat at all for their health. None. And then they admitted that that was incorrect. That's not right, and they agreed to correct that going forward. Now, the interesting thing is even the World Cancer Research Fund found the GBD conclusion to be incorrect. So the cancer Research Fund who should be most concerned about the impact that any food has on cancer. They themselves said that the risk of eating red meat had been grossly overstated and that the risk was people would give up eating red meat and miss out on all the nutrients as a consequence. So I think that's a pretty damning episode, really. And although the landscape that publishes the GBD report, they've agreed to correct the error next time, the problem is the horse has already bolted. That report has been cited 800 times at least. I noticed that it was being used as the basis of a consumer facing longevity calculator, so you can plug your diet in and get a recommendation for how to change it to live longer. And the recommendation on red meat in that calculator comes from the Global Burden of Disease report. So it's already feeding through in the commercial world and consumer facing applications. And that's why it's terrifying. That's why it's so impactful when bad research gets out there and influences our decisions.

[42:27] Leigh Brandon: I just want to quickly just go back. You said RCT earlier because there will be some people not knowing what RCT means. It means randomized controlled trials.

[42:35] Jayne Buxton: Controlled trials?

[42:36] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, just in case. People like, what does RCT mean?

[42:40] Jayne Buxton: No, I was going to say the opposite is not an RCT, but an epidemiological study, which is an observational study. And most of the research which condemns red meat or any meat is epidemiological. And that has a bunch of flaws which we can go into. If you think your audience would find that interesting, it cannot be used to determine a causal relationship.

[43:12] Announcer: Get the radical health rebel ad free. Head on over to our Patreon channel at www.patreon.com./Radicalhealtheebel. It's the only place where you can watch full length, completely ad and sponsor free episodes of the podcast. Plus, you can join the Radical Health Rebel Patreon community, where you can have a say in the podcast, watch exclusive behind the scenes clips as well as early access to the podcast. That's Patreon.com/radicalhealthrebel.

[43:48] Leigh Brandon: Just a brief introduction to this podcast to talk about adult Acne. 

Now, did you know that 40% to 54% of men and women older than 25 years will have some degree of facial acne? And that clinical facial acne persists into middle age in 12% of women and 3% of men? I know only too well the devastating effects that acne can have on your confidence and your self-esteem and how it can easily destroy your social life, your career and your relationships. I know this only too well because I suffered from severe cystic acne from age 13 to 31 over an 18 year period. I visited my doctor on many occasions and his only suggestions were acne creams, harsh cleansers and antibiotics that weren't working and were actually making my skin worse. After 18 years of struggle and thousands of pounds invested in treatments that didn't work, through my professional education, I began to learn that what my doctor had told me was untrue, and that diet was directly related to acne, plus other factors such as food sensitivities, toxicity, hormones, and balancing the body's microbiome. Putting what I had learned into practice, I managed to rid myself of acne over 20 years ago and have been helping others to do the same for well over a decade. By teaching people what foods cause acne, what food sensitivities each individual has, how to optimize their detox pathways, how to reduce environmental stresses and toxins, and howto balance hormones, especially those related to The mTOR pathway, a major causal factor with acne. I've been able to help many other adults overcome their acne nightmare, too. So if you would like more information on how to overcome your adult acne, please go to www.skinwebinar.com. That's www.skinwebinar.com, where you can also request an Acne Breakthrough call with me to see if you're suitable for my Eliminate Adult Acne coaching program, where you can once and for all learn how to overcome your adult acne.

[45:59] Leigh Brandon: Now back to the podcast.

[46:01] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, I mean, the first thing I would say is there's quite a few things to look at there. If you're just first of all, you're asking someone to tell you what they've eaten. Now, most people don't tell the truth when they tell you what they've eaten, but also that's discounting what they eat with it. So if you're eating beef but you're eating McDonald's with bread and French fries that have been fried in vegetable oils, well, who's to say that it's the red meat causing the problem? Could it not be the bread? Could it not be the French fries cooked in these horrendous oils that are known to cause those problems? Is there anything else more than that?

[46:53] Jayne Buxton: Yeah, so there is that problem of determining which of the factors is actually causing the problem. So we call that confounding factors. And there's another big confounding factor, which is called the healthy person confounder, which is when you ask a bunch of people what they've eaten, because we've been told for so long that eating meat's bad, you're going to have more likely to have healthy people, people who are conscious about improving their own health, who don't eat much or any red meat. So they will have a whole bunch of other healthy habits. They will probably exercise more. They're probably not overweight. They probably don't smoke or drink to excess. So all of those things will be confounding the results. In other words, it could be due to they could be healthier and living longer because of all of those factors. Nothing to do with the meat that they're eating at all. So that is one factor. The other thing which we need to understand about these epidemiological studies is that they usually report a result in terms of relative risk. You are 1.2 times you are 20% more likely to die of some disease if you eat red meat than if you don't. For example, we need to think about what that really, really means. That sort of that 20%, which is a relative risk calculation. It's incredibly small in absolute terms. It's a very small jump between in your risk. So for colon cancer, for instance, it was deemed to be about an 18% to 20% increase in risk. If you ate processed meat. Well, what it did is it rose, your 5.6 people might get colon cancer. Ordinarily if they were eating bacon every single day, six, six people might get it. Now, that jump from 5.6 to 6.6 is not very big. And a lot of people looking at that, if they really understood it, would say, well, actually, that doesn't seem very big. I don't even know if it's a causal relationship because we can't establish causation here because of all these other factors. So they might decide to ignore that risk in that study. And in fact, I think they probably should. So the range of difficulties associated with those studies, the risk factors of 121314, they do not meet what's called the Bradford Hill criteria for causality. So it's a minimum of two times the risk that you need in order to even begin talking about a causal relationship. And this is ignored day in, day out because epidemiology, nutritional epidemiology, has become an industry. It's just become something that people do and they get funding to do it and they need to produce results, and they produce these results which are really not worth the paper they're written on.

[50:12] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, it's the same trick that's played by the pharmaceutical industry. They did the same with statins, they did the same with the COVID vaccines.

[50:19] Jayne Buxton: Absolutely. Relative vaccines.

[50:24] Leigh Brandon: Yeah. So doctors are told if you give someone a statin, they're 50% less likely to have a heart attack. Well, that's the relative risk. What's the actual or the absolute risk is 1%. And then we know from the COVID vaccines, everyone was told they were 90% to 95% effective. That was the relative risk. The absolute risk was 0.8 to 1.5%. So if it had been said on the news every single day throughout 2021 that if you take this injection, you're going to reduce your risk by about 1% rather than 95%, everyone's being told, we know what would have happened.

[51:08] Jayne Buxton: Yeah. They were never going to say that.

[51:12] Leigh Brandon: So we are aware of these dirty tricks that get played.

[51:15] Jayne Buxton: Yes, absolutely.

[51:18] Leigh Brandon: Another question I've got for you. I know several people myself who they know eating vegetarian isn't the healthiest option for them. They know that, but they still eat vegetarian. And the reason they do that is because they don't want to be cruel to animals. Can you tell us a little bit about your views on that?

[51:43] Jayne Buxton: Yeah, and I have a lot of respect for people who will listen to the nutritional arguments and they'll say, I know it's not nutritionally, a very sound diet, but I want to do it because I do not want to eat animals and I don't want to partake of that level of cruelty. Absolutely, fair enough. Absolutely fair enough. People who make that decision should be able to make that decision. And I understand it myself and others in my position, I look at the issue of animal welfare in a different way. So the first thing to realize, and that I realized, and it took me a long time to realize this, is that there is animal death and animal cruelty as part of all farming, whether it be plants or animal foods that are being farmed. So one of the most affecting stories that was told, that I came across during my research was talking to a Californian farmer who said every harvest for his avocados and fruit trees he has to kill 400 gophers. It's just a fact. And he said this happens on every farm. Farmers don't like to talk about it. So we're killing gophers, mice, rabbits, deer, bees, by the billion birds as a consequence of the use of fertilizer and clearing land and habitats. So the list of deaths associated with plant based diets is phenomenally long. And in fact, there was a very interesting study done in 2003 by somebody called Steve Davis I'm sure you're familiar with it, who said he concluded that, on balance, a concern about least harm doing the least harm to the animal world possible was best served by an omnivore diet. And that a vegan diet ended up killing more creatures. And he's not the only one to have made that calculation. So that's one really important factor. The other factor for me is I think we should be expanding our concept of welfare. Welfare needs to include human welfare as well. And human welfare is often served better by including animal source foods in the diet, especially if you're broadening your perspective from our western centric, you know, developed countrycentric perspective to one that takes in the whole world. In developing nations, they need animal source foods and their welfare is served by that. So you're constantly balancing out why do we have the right to deprive, you know, people who have anemia 2 billion people in the world suffer from anemia. Do we have the right to tell them not to eat the foods which could help fix that problem and give them some B twelve and some iron in a bioavailable form? Do you have the right to say to a child in a very poor country or poor family in a developing country that they need vitamin A? Well, they can eat twelve carrots to get their daily vitamin A, or they can eat one egg, you know, so this is where animal sourced foods are a high welfare choice. When you're talking about human health and welfare, I don't think we should ever talk about animal welfare separated from human welfare. I just think we're all creatures on the earth. And we need to be finding a way to live and to eat in a way that sustains us healthily and do the minimal within that context, do the minimal harm to the animals. So I do believe we have a long way to go to increase welfare in our factory farming systems. We need to get rid of factory farming systems. We need to be overturning all of those practices. And so I don't disagree at all with Vegans on that front. I don't disagree one bit.

[56:13] Leigh Brandon: Yeah, I agree with you as well. Before we go on to talk about more about the environment, I just want to share a little couple of stories about my own experience. And I guess it's kind of looking forward to the future of the world that certain people want to create for us. But when I moved into my current home just over three years ago, I made a conscious effort or conscious decision and thought, I want to reduce my animal intake because I do need a lot of animal food to keep me healthy. And I thought, well, you know what? Back in the used to have a breakfast of porridge oats and a protein shake. And I thought, well, I was doing okay, then why don't I go back to that? So I did. And the first thing I realized was within an hour of having that, even though I had a large amount, I was starving hungry. Yeah, like literally shaking. I was so hungry. But I kind of just thought, well, okay, I'm going to sacrifice a bit because I want to do my bit. And then certain things happen that I didn't connect with immediately. So I'll explain what happened. I started getting really fatigued. I was having to go to bed for 2 hours every afternoon just to get through the day. I started getting pain in the knee when I played tennis. Turns out it was osteoarthritis. I got tennis elbow on my right golfer's elbow on my right elbow, tennis elbow in my left elbow. I started to put on a tremendous amount of abdominal fat, which I've never had before in my life. And I was getting bloodstone and I was looking at my hormones. And there is partially a reason why that would be. I won't go into that as another episode. But I was still kind of getting by. I'd be sore because I generally play tennis at the weekend. I'll be sore on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I'm a nearby sore. My elbows will be sore. I was having to go to bed every day, 2 hours to get through my working day. And I thought, let me just try this. I was eating apples as well. So I did that fruit for about 20 years.

[58:32] Jayne Buxton: Oh, wow.

[58:32] Leigh Brandon: And I thought, okay, let's cut out the oats and the apple, just have a protein shake and just see what happens. Well, straight away I didn't get the hunger. I went through the day, I didn't feel tired. My knee pain disappeared within two weeks, my elbow pain disappeared within a week, and my body fat around my middle reduced by about 50% in over four weeks, just by cutting out porridge, oats and apple, which is amazing. I know, stupidly looking back, it's not right for me.

[59:12] Jayne Buxton: Yeah, right.

[59:15] Leigh Brandon: And again, we'll come and talk about this in a bit more detail, but later on. But we know that there is an agenda for us to go into a plant based diet. And I know I will be in terrible trouble if that is the only option I've got, I will be in terrible trouble. And I just want to tell you another experience, because I have experienced vegetarianism myself, albeit it was only ten or eleven days, but some of this will know what the a Passionate Meditation course is. It's basically a meditation course. You do for ten days and you can't talk. You're not allowed to look at anyone. You can't have any writing materials, no reading materials, no mobile devices, you don't speak to anyone, there's no animal foods for ten days. And I thought, wow, this is going to be a challenge for me, knowing what my body needs. And yet for the ten days, I was permanently hungry, just starving hungry the whole time, even though I wasn't doing any activity. You're not allowed to do any activity apart from meditate. And so I was extremely tired the whole time. But the one thing I noticed, and this is a really important sign of human health, particularly in men, my libido was on the floor and that has never happened to me, right. And it just told me that my body needs fat to produce the hormones it needs to run that system for me. I know this isn't just me. I'm not being selfish, saying, oh, the world must not go this way because I'm going to suffer. But remember, I said at least 80% of the people I've worked with over the last 19 years have been a similar metabolic type to me, meaning they need similar nutrients. So if the world goes that way, we're going to be in a lot of trouble. From a health perspective.

[01:01:20] Jayne Buxton: We are. And people like you will be type two diabetics, or those with a propensity to get type two diabetes, are going to be in deep trouble because they cannot. I spoke to many, many type two diabetics for whom a carrot sends their blood sugar through the roof, oatmeal, sends it sky high. They would be suffering, they would be dying in droves and having limbs amputated and everything if they had to eat this sort of high carbohydrate, high sugar diet, which is effectively what you end up eating if you cut out the animal source foods. It's very hard to eat low sugar diet if you're not having animal source foods.

[01:02:07] Leigh Brandon: That's the other thing when you eat right for your metabolic type, what you're doing is you're making sure that your ratio of macronutrients, fats, proteins and carbohydrates are in the correct ratio for you. Well, if you're eating a plant based diet, you simply can't have an abundance of fat and protein compared to carbohydrate. You will always have excess carbohydrate, which is fine if that's your type. If your metabolic type is what we call slow oxidizer or sympathetic dominant, you might be okay on a vegetarian diet, maybe. But people that are fast oxidizers, parasympathetic dominance, they're going to suffer massively. The other thing when you talk about diabetes, what I was thinking was, was insulin sensitivity. We know that has a massive effect on heart disease as well.

[01:03:00] Jayne Buxton: Absolutely.

[01:03:01] Leigh Brandon: What's the biggest killer at the moment? It's heart disease. Especially after they introduced that injection a couple of years ago. Right?

[01:03:09] Jayne Buxton: Yeah.

[01:03:10] Leigh Brandon: So it's going to be an absolute health disaster. And as we know, certainly we're in the UK, the National Health Service is already on its knees. We don't need any more heart disease, we don't need more cancer and we don't need more diabetes. But that's exactly what will happen no. If we go down a plant only diet.

[01:03:32] Jayne Buxton: Absolutely. And it's why it's infuriating to hear people talk about improving our health with this diet. And in fact, you and I know there's no evidence for that, but evidence that there is no evidence was just published because a bunch of researchers looked at the eat mancet diet and they looked at its effect on mortality. How well adhering to that diet would influence mortality rates from cancer and heart disease made no difference whatsoever in a positive sense. And there were a couple of negatives as well. So there is no benefit to eating that way. So we have to nail that one, knock it on the head and start to talk about these very real differences in nutrient needs and metabolic types that people have. And that will be very ill served by a one size fits all diet, for sure.

[01:04:30] Leigh Brandon: Obesity. Obesity will go through the roof.

[01:04:33] Jayne Buxton: Absolutely.

[01:04:34] Leigh Brandon: It already did in the 80s when they first came out with this food guide pyramid.

[01:04:40] Jayne Buxton: Yeah.

[01:04:42] Leigh Brandon: One of the doctors in America who put the original formula for that, they actually turned on its head and she said, if we roll this out, we're going to end up with an obesity epidemic. And that's exactly what happened. That's it for part one of my interview with Jane Buxton on the great plant based con. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you don't miss part two next week. And if you know someone who would benefit from watching or hearing this episode, and I would suggest that everyone you know please make sure to share the love and forward it on to them. After all, the mission of this show is to help people lead a more funfilled, healthy, productive, fulfilling and happy life. And if you'd like to support the podcast, you can@patreon.com Radicalhealthrebel, where you can also receive lots of other exclusive premium content, including unedited full-length ad free, video episodes, Ask Me Anything, Q and A sessions, and Radical Health Rebel merchandise. So that's all from Jane and me for this week, but don't forget, you can join us same time, same place, next week for part two of the Radical Health Rebel podcast.

[01:05:58] Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to the Radical Health Rebel podcast with Leigh Brandon. You can find Leigh at www.bodychek.co.UK. Please hit the like button and share on your social media and with someone you feel will benefit from watching this episode. So together we can help them lead a healthier, more productive, fulfilling and happy life.