Plant-based vs. Animal-based diet: My thoughts

Lately, I’m sure you’ve read a lot about people going “vegan”, and people going “carnivore” and why they’ve made these food “choices”. You may have even read about people that decided to go back to eating meat after being vegan/vegetarian for a while, and many people who’ve decided to stop eating meat, even though they’d eaten meat all their lives.

Both sides of the spectrum have expressed their reasoning and some at times even get into quite heated debates. Both sides try to prove their points with scientific and ethical reasoning. You may find yourself considering one of these, or you may have very strong opinions one way or the other.

Ultimately, it comes down to “choice” and everyone should be entitled to their own opinions. Further, it’s also perfectly acceptable to change your opinion as you experiment to find out “what works for you”. Things get heated and complicated when one side tries to “impose” its choice on others, or worse, condemn the other side for their individual choice.

It’s important to note that even though there is a growing number of people going “vegan” as well as “carnivore”, the great majority of the population is still “omnivore” (meaning they eat plant AND animal based foods) for a great many reasons. And many of these people also have very strong opinions about why this might be the ideal diet for humans (including the fact that it’s easier to get all your essential nutrients this way).

It’s not that vegans, or the carnivore crew, “can’t” get all their essential micro and macronutrients from their preferred diet, but it does take a whole lot of education and effort to make it work, long-term.

My opinion, and I believe that of theFastingMethod.com overall, is that “whatever works for you” is really what matters most. I leave with you another factor: “how you eat” may actually be much more important than “what you eat” (so long as you’re eating “real food” as opposed to processed “fake foods”).

Also to note, that if your dietary choices leaves you feeling “less well” and it requires lots of supplementation, it might be something to consider. We also don’t have a lot of long-term data on either of these two spectrums. Therefore, it makes sense that even for any one individual this should be a “process” and a “work in progress” as opposed to a finite and complete decision. And again, what works for “some” may not work for “all”. Consider age, gender, fitness level, health status, not to mention ethnical and genetic differences.

When I say “how you eat” I mean “how often you eat” and “what time you eat”. These are important factors to address no matter “what you eat”. That’s what the Fasting Method focuses on first and foremost. We pride ourselves in being an “inclusive” community that respects and helps guide people individually, independent of dietary choices.

*I chose a picture of my Potato 🐶 that I took yesterday at the beach 🏝 because we’ve chosen to feed him primarily a carnivore raw food diet.