In the latest Real Men Eat Plants Podcast episode, Bryan teams up with plant-powered champs Brett Nyquist, Geoff Palmer, Paul Chatlin, and Tom Kramer for a juicy chat on why ditching meat is the way to go. This isn't just another health chat; it's a deep dive into why swapping steaks for kale isn't just for the planet but for our health and ethical peace of mind.
The episode starts with a hard-hitting reality check: a live counter showing the staggering number of animals lost to our diets since the podcast began. It's a wake-up call that has everyone leaning in closer. Each guest then enters the spotlight, sharing their plant-based dinner picks, from Paul’s tasty spring rolls to Tom’s mega chopped salad that packs in more veggies than you thought possible. Geoff dives into the science, spilling the beans on why plants trump meat for your health, and Brett talks up the green life, highlighting its extraordinary impact from the gym to the environment.
But it's not all recipes and dinner plans. The crew gets into the gritty details of lab-grown meat versus natural, whole-plant foods. Sure, it's pretty better for the planet, but it still messes with animals and doesn't sit right with their vegan vibes. Geoff Palmer, the vegan nutrition whiz, breaks down the science, explaining how plant nutrients outshine their meaty counterparts for our health. Meanwhile, Paul Chatlin shares his victory over health issues by embracing plants, lending a real-life testament to the power of a veggie diet.
The discussion takes a turn to the ethical dilemma of lab-grown meat. It's a step away from conventional meat production, but does it align with vegan values? Brett Nyquist calls it straight – exploiting animals for our gain, lab-grown or not, just doesn't cut it. He then calls out to all men: going green doesn’t just pump up your energy; it’s a total game-changer for your life.
This episode is more than just talk; it's a wake up call for men everywhere to bust the myth that masculinity and meat go hand-in-hand. It's about showing that real strength lies in making choices that are kind to our bodies, the animals, and the planet. The RMEP crew invites you to rethink what's on your plate, showing that going green is not just brilliant; it's downright heroic.
Ready to join the plant-powered revolution? The RMEP crew’s got your back, showing you that eating your greens is not just good for your health but for the animals and the environment.
Listen to the episode here: Real Men, Real Greens: Breaking the Ethical Dilemma of Lab-Grown Meat
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>Podcast Episode’s Transcript
Please understand that a transcription service provided the transcript below. It undoubtedly contains errors that invariably take place in voice transcriptions.
Bryan (00:00.751)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Real Men Eat Plants podcast. I'm your host today, Bryan Dennstedt founder with Real People Eat Plants. That's our new name of that company. And I'm excited to have a whole bunch of real men hanging out with me who are eating some plants on a regular basis. And so I just wanted to say thank you and welcome everybody. I want to go into some introductions, but before I do, I wanted to sort of set the stage with today's topic, which is really around, I wrote it down,
here, lab grown meat in particular, but I just wanted to unpack meat as a topic for us. Cause I'm sure as men in the world, we get asked about the meat all the time and we've got a wide variety of answers that we throw at them. Um, so I want to unpack that topic in a couple of different ways, but I thought first and foremost, I just start with some statistics cause I found this really interesting. I found this website a couple days ago. I've seen versions of it before, but this one was
Really, really impressive. So if I share my screen and I pull up this chart here, I'm gonna refresh this, because it's gonna go back to zero. And so it just went back to zero. We're starting the podcast episode. And this is the best guess estimation of how many animals have died since we started this podcast. So.
I'll keep this up here for a minute or two and then we can show it again a couple of times throughout the podcast. But this is, this is the topic of meat today. And so I wanted to let each of our guests say hello, introduce themselves and sort of, uh, with a little bit of a twist. I'm curious, tell us who you are, where you're from and, uh, tell me what you had for dinner last night. What was on your plate last night for dinner? So who wants to go first?
paul chatlin (01:54.959)
Hi, my name is Paul Chatlin. I'm the founder of the Plant -Based Nutrition Support Group and the co -founder of the Sage Circle Alliance. For dinner last night, I made spring rolls. So I used rice flour, spring roll, and then threw in tofu, angel hair, rice pasta, along with some carrots, celery, and onions. And it was very tasty.
Bryan (02:20.431)
Awesome, thank you Paul for being here. Tom, I saw your hand go up. Welcome to the show.
Tom Kramer (02:24.603)
Yeah, okay. So yeah, Tom Kramer is my name and I am the producer editor of the Nutmeg Notebook Whole Food Plant -Based Lifestyle Cooking Blog slash YouTube channel. And for dinner last night, I had one of our famous big beautiful chopped salads, about nine cups of it worth. And it has...
over a dozen different vegetables in it. I couldn't eat them all, it would take too long. But we knock out the, who was it, Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen in one meal with that one. And I have said many times, I love that meal. I look forward to that meal because you get to eat it for a long time. It's about a 40 minute graze eating what I kindly call my human silage. So.
Bryan (03:18.832)
I love it.
Tom Kramer (03:20.091)
So I love that meal because it's got everything in it.
Bryan (03:25.2)
Awesome. Thanks for being here, Tom. Geoff Mr. McVegan.
Geoff Palmer (03:29.425)
Yes, so I thought it was the appropriate shirt for it to wear for this topic. Yeah, so we can adopt things to our diet. My name is Geoff Palmer. I am the CEO and founder of Clean Machine. It's a vegan fitness nutrition company. Also the founder of the World Vegan Bodybuilding Championship, the first 100 % drug -free vegan, all vegan bodybuilding competition in the world.
And lately I've been in a tear, we're working with some of the top Omega researchers in the world to show that human beings are designed to consume plant -based Omegas and not fish oil, which you'll see from the counter are the most persecuted species on this planet. Last night for dinner, my wife made amazing barbecue portabellos.
Bryan (04:22.672)
That's for sure.
Geoff Palmer (04:28.437)
And then homemade Beyond Meat stuffed empanadas with a vegan coleslaw. So it was a picnic style dinner and it was amazing.
Bryan (04:40.464)
Actually, now that you say that, I think I saw a picture of that online someplace. So yeah, it looked pretty good. So that's awesome. Thanks for being here, Geoff. And last but not least, Brett.
Geoff Palmer (04:46.075)
It was so delicious.
Thank you.
Brett Nyquist (04:52.031)
I love it, Geoff, you're gearing up for summer already. I love it. Yeah, so my name's Brett Nyquist. I've been a real man who eats plants since 2015. I am the director of technology for the plant -based nutrition support group and recently founded the company Green Sprout Marketing, where I try to help other plant -based organizations drive their mission forward. So.
Geoff Palmer (04:54.313)
Indeed. Florida.
Brett Nyquist (05:19.689)
Last night for dinner, it was my go -to quick meal, which is some brown rice pasta noodles. And then I make my cashew cheese, kind of like a macaroni and cheese sauce. I dump it over the pasta, throw in some broccoli, and it's quick, easy, delicious. That was it. Yeah.
Bryan (05:40.496)
Awesome. Well, thank you all for sharing your insights. I last night made up some gnocchi I had some amazing gnocchi and then I have a hydroponic garden and so I just trimmed off some cake I have like seven different kinds of lettuce. I trimmed off a whole bunch of different kinds of lettuce and Make that all up into a really nice salad with some carrots pumpkin seeds the newt I love to sprinkle a little newt on their nutritional yeast
What else did I put in there? I put a few olives in there and I don't know, just a nice smorgasbord of it. So it was a big side of salad and some gnocchi was pesto gnocchi. So I popped a little pesto on the gnocchi and it was delicious. So thanks guys for sharing that. So like I want to share the counter again as I sort of set up the topic just so we can keep looking at it a couple of times throughout the show here. But you know, for those of you that are listening,
Since we've started the podcast, almost one million marine animals, half a million chickens, 25 ,000 ducks, 13, 14 ,000 pigs, 10 ,000 rabbits, 8 ,000 turkeys. Where's the cows? The cows, about 3 ,000 cows, and it always goes down to camels. 22 camels have died since we've just started this podcast, and we're about, I don't know, seven, eight minutes in on that.
So as we, as we unpack this topic, I really wanted to, I was trying to think like, how do we approach just talking about meat? Cause I guess in my head, I kind of think of meat in like four or five categories. Like there's meals that I have that are just plants. Like they aren't pretending to be anything else. It's just potato, gnocchi and some salad last night for me. And then like I go up one level and it's like, okay, I've got my mushrooms. Like I think Geoff was saying like mushrooms with some barbecue sauce on them. So.
you know, I miss the barbecue flavor a little bit. So like there's just plants that have got some coatings or some things that maybe give us some reminders of meat. And then like, I feel like you take a step up to like tempeh, seitan, maybe some bean burgers, like what, what Tom and his wife put together kind of thing where you take, take some plants and you just sort of smush them together to in the shape of a meat basically. And then you go up from there into like, I feel like, like,
Bryan (08:04.944)
the more processed foods where it's like the Beyond Meat or Impossible Burgers where they're still all plants, but they process them. They're more heavily processed than normal. And then I feel like then we've probably got this gray zone of lab -grown meat, and then you've got real meat, right? I don't know, that's the tier structure I see. How do you guys unpack it or define it in your heads?
Brett Nyquist (08:32.031)
I mean, that was pretty accurate. I got to say that. Yeah. Go ahead, Tom.
Tom Kramer (08:32.347)
jump in on.
Tom Kramer (08:36.379)
What they're kind of a category thing, you know, the eating plants as plants, not pretending to be anything else. And that is typically how we do eat at home. We're not trying to emulate anything from the past. And then I would, you know, we do make the bean burgers, but we don't think about them as a meat substitute being a burger is a burger and it's made of beans in our world. Now, 10 years later, we're not thinking back to what I used to get it at McDonald's.
But in that stepping up from there and we I used to do these you know ten years ago my transition food was the Tofurky, the field roast sausages, brats and Polish. I have to credit that stuff with transition with successful transition stepping away from real meat and getting something plant -based as I became more educated and saw the oil pouring out of those things as I was cooking them. Then I
moved off of them for obvious health reasons. You know, the lab meats and stuff is a thing that occurs for me when we're out somewhere. You know, one of the guys mentioned the Beyond Meat. You know, if we're at some restaurant and they've got a vegan thing for Tammy and they have that vegan burger, you know, I would order one of those. That's a rare thing, but that's the one, I think, of the two.
fake burgers that would be better because that one's made out of pea protein. The other one is the very interesting heme added soy, highly genetically modified concoction, which is, you know, don't know what to think of that one. That's kind of the extreme end and then on up to the lab grown meats. I haven't explored those yet that are actually emulating, you know, tissue -wise, what you might call real meat.
Bryan (10:31.62)
Yeah. Yeah. It's and it's interesting. I'm curious what other people did was the what Tom and I said. Interesting or to define it, define it well enough for all of us as we explore some other pieces of the topic. Geoff or Paul Brett, any.
Geoff Palmer (10:47.657)
Yeah, I think you need to look at it in a couple different lenses. Obviously, the effect it has on the planet, the effect it has on human health, and the effect that it has on the animal. So obviously, lab -grown meat is better than meat because it has much less impact on the animal. There's little to no animal endangerment at that level. And then, of course, much...
Bryan (10:59.888)
For sure.
Geoff Palmer (11:16.467)
better improvement on the environment as you're not paying for that cow to be raised and having their impressions of methane and all that is removed. So in human health, I think we have to be careful of this word processed being misused. Process means simply changing something from its natural state or its whole food state. Okay, all cooked food is therefore processed food.
But human beings don't think of cooked food as processed food. You ask somebody if they're on a whole food plant -based diet, they say, yeah, I don't do processed foods. I say, oh, you don't cook your food? And they're like, okay. So we got to be careful with this terminology because we tend to demonize a specific, use a term for demonization of a category without truly understanding what it encompasses. I think we need to be careful because the...
Bryan (11:56.272)
Right.
Geoff Palmer (12:13.435)
processed label is now getting a really, really bad rap. Beyond Foods just modified their Beyond Burger and made it way less processed, reduced the saturated fat by 75 % because they got hung with a label of ultra -processed food and it's really hurt their business model. But hey, would I rather have somebody eating an ultra -processed food than an animal food? 100%, there's no animal killed in the process.
Bryan (12:33.07)
Yeah.
Bryan (12:40.206)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Geoff Palmer (12:42.249)
So we need to look at it through separate lenses and clarify how are you defining those tiers based on One what you words were using and to their impact on humans animals and the environment?
Bryan (12:59.632)
I agree. Like, and I want to I want to unpack those three topics a little bit more detail. But like the anecdote that you threw in my head is I think the English language is one of the most robust on the planet and therefore why it's so dominant. But it is kind of silly. We only have the one word for love versus like the Eskimos or some other languages and stuff. And I do think we have to better define processed into the truer nature of it. So I'd be curious on that. Is there anything else like just on the
On the definition side of it, Brett or Paul, you would add?
Brett Nyquist (13:31.775)
I was just going to say that if it wasn't for like, you know, when I first started, the first thing that turned me onto this lifestyle was cow -spiracy. So when I first started Beyond Meat and I don't even know if Beyond Meat was even released in stores yet back in 2015 when I started, I don't remember, but I just went straight to Beans and Whole Foods because that stuff wasn't even around. So when it did come out, I was obviously curious to try it and
I liked it, but it didn't transition me. But I think that as Tom said, they're really good transition foods. I'm a big in this space. I'm more focused on health, but obviously animals and the environment are super important, too.
So I would hate to see that somebody's eating like a Beyond Burger for every meal without the added whole foods. But I don't think I don't think a lot of people are doing that. But man, without those foods, I think that some people wouldn't even transition to this lifestyle. So I think they're really important.
paul chatlin (14:41.327)
Yeah, I guess a couple thoughts. One is, I've always believed that we have to make the humans right before we could worry about the animals and the planet, even though I'm an animal lover and I'm really worried about the planet. We're just selfish beings, so we've got to make us right. For me personally,
I can tell you, I've never had a Beyond Burger or any of that stuff. I got my head around the idea for health reasons that I was not going that route and I am whole food plant -based, no oil, period. So my line is drawn much lower. Don't think for a moment that I don't look at that food even to this day, 12 years later, wish I could have it at times.
but I also know from a health aspect. And you know, this is that the real man part of this equation, which is it was everything it to this day, it's still darn difficult to say no, when everyone around me is eating their burgers and their steaks and their and their lobsters or whatever they're eating. But the real man part of me says, I know what it did to me. I'm not going to be in that space ever again. And here I am. So, you know, I, I would say the last little thought is,
Twice I've been wheeled in for bypass surgery and twice haven't had to have it and I owe it to a whole food plant based lifestyle so
Brett Nyquist (16:07.337)
I gotta add to that too, I'm 35, I'm a little younger I guess you would say, but my blood tests and I've had a calcium score and all that and everything seems pretty perfect. Obviously people with heart disease would be different on this topic, but like I said, I've eaten a lot of Whole Foods, but I've also dabbled in Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers and you know.
There's jack -o' -nanis, like jackfruit chicken tenders, you know. So the processed food I have eaten countless times in my plant -based journey. There's no doubt about it. And I wouldn't, I would hate for people to like not do this lifestyle and avoid those transition foods thinking that it's going to be worse for their health. I mean, you know, that would be the wrong way to go to get them into this lifestyle. And Geoff, I wanted to back that up. I'm actually pretty excited to try that avocado oil.
Beyond Burger that they're coming out with, because that seems pretty interesting.
Geoff Palmer (17:07.337)
Me too.
Bryan (17:11.615)
And I feel like we should start, I want to come back to the health side of it, because I think that that's a key one. But like if we start with that environmental piece of it, right? Because like lab grown meat is touted as more sustainable alternative to conventional, but it still requires a significant amount of energy and technology and resources.
because it's still, in my opinion, meat. Therefore it needs the blood in and the nutrients in and the crappy stuff out of the cells back out. So I still feel like it's, it's going to, from an environmental perspective, it's definitely a step up. It's not going to take as much land, as much grain, as much, you know, the ethical side of it too. But like, I still, I don't know how much of that's going to move the needle towards saving the planet, right? You know, there's no planet B. So like,
Let's unpack the environmental side of it, because I think the environmental side to what you just said, Brett, is very much so tied into the whole earth coming together on an economic level in some fashion to really figure this out. We have to vote with our wallets. That's the only real way to change this planet is by making sure you buy Geoff's product or you support Paul or you support Tom with our initiatives. And that means we do have to support Beyond Meat.
whether we think it's in that gray area a little bit where we have to buy those burgers and help them beat the meat industry kind of thing. I don't know. So talk to me about the environment and economic things.
Brett Nyquist (18:42.943)
Well, I just wanted to piggyback off that real quick before my thought went away, where I wish that we could all just eat 95 % whole foods and then we wouldn't even need that lab meat and the 5 % could be the Beyond and the Impossible Burgers. Right? Like I'd rather see that than having to go to lab meat at all. Like if you want to have that meat taste, just have an Impossible Burger. That's my opinion.
Bryan (18:59.458)
I love it. Let's do it.
Bryan (19:04.386)
Right.
Bryan (19:08.802)
Yeah. Other thoughts?
Geoff Palmer (19:12.873)
Yeah, my biggest concern with lab meat is I'm an ethical vegan, so I'm compassionate to all animals, including the human animal. Humans are just another animal. Yes, we're an extraordinary animal, but there are a lot of extraordinary animals on this planet that we share our home with. And I think for me personally, why health is so important,
Tom Kramer (19:13.049)
I'm...
Geoff Palmer (19:40.745)
in that aspect is because I'm trying to care for the human animal as well. I am concerned about their health, human health as well as a human animal. I don't want to cause harm to an animal and then say it's okay to cause harm to a human animal. That's speciest and that's not in line with my thinking. When you look at lab -grown meat, it still has high methionine, which is linked to shortening lifespan and increasing.
We know that all cancers are now methionine dependent. They depend on methionine. The higher methionine you have in the foods you eat, the lower the lifespan and the higher the risk for feeding and growing cancers. We know it has heme iron in it. That's why I've never eaten an Impossible Burger, even though the heme iron is leg heme iron, which is different and has never been proven in research to have the same effects as heme iron.
Keem iron is a known carcinogen. It is the strongest link to colon cancer of anything we have pretty much in our food system. We know that. So there's not any debate about this. So yes, I love from an animal point of view, love that the animal is not being killed in the process. And I do think the environment, hey, look, if we lose the planet, all life goes away. So that's gotta be start number one.
But I think as a true ethical vegan, I cannot condone hurting human beings, knowingly causing death and suffering to human beings as a compassionate vegan. It's just not in line with my things. And I've seen some of these groups even get vegan certification for animal products.
And I'm not for that at all because it's not in line with the true keeping of the definition of do no harm to animals. Yeah.
Bryan (21:40.518)
Yeah. Tom or Paul, some thoughts on the environment side?
Tom Kramer (21:43.899)
Well, you know, out here in California, we have very large cattle production facilities and you can detect them from miles away. So, and then to, you know, we recently made a trip to Southern California driving down Interstate 5 and we're reminded once again of the massive quantity like your counter, you know, I see there's thousands of cattle out there in this disgusting environment.
And so yeah, the gases are getting out there because you can smell them miles away. So to have that evidence like right in your face is a strong reminder of that piece of it. And kind of what the two gentlemen before me had touched on a little bit, what I can't wrap my head around with the lab -grown meat or even the Impossible Burger in particular because of the heme component.
Why would you keep throwing, if you, 10 years in, I've developed a completely different habit set in terms of what I desire, what I crave, what I want. You know, I look forward to getting something with a variety of beans in it or some tofu cubes or, or a bean burger, whatever. I really desire, you know, you learn to desire what you habitually eat. Why would you go back and tease that old habit set?
habit from 10 or whatever, however many years ago, was something that very closely resembles something that you worked so hard to move away from. Why would you, when you quit smoking, you either are, you've quit smoking. You don't go back and sample a cigarette every three or four months just because you like, you know, you like. Yeah. So, so I'm kind of like, why do that yourself? I mean, I tried the, uh,
Bryan (23:32.391)
There's some new cigarette out, we have to try it.
Brett Nyquist (23:36.447)
Yeah.
Tom Kramer (23:42.299)
the Impossible Burger at some restaurant. And it truly kind of freaked me out when I bit it and what looked like blood started oozing out. You know, the Beyond Burger is the one with the pea protein is, you know, a little less in your face that way. Again, I ordered that when there's really not a more desirable item on the menu. I know that that's vegan. And so that then I can share that meal with folks. So anyway, I guess my big question on the whole subject is why?
Why bother with these things?
Brett Nyquist (24:14.303)
I gotta say Tom, I gotta agree with you. If you know how to cook tofu right, like I do this Kentucky fried tofu in my air fryer, and alls it is is you freeze the tofu, you thaw it, you freeze it again, and then you thaw it, and you have this amazing texture, you break it off, break it off into what looks like little popcorn chicken pieces, bread it in flour and spices, throw it in the air fryer, and it's like, I think it's better than any of the processed chicken, like vegan chicken that I've tried.
Tom Kramer (24:28.347)
Right.
Tom Kramer (24:32.635)
Uh huh.
Tom Kramer (24:39.515)
Yeah. Yeah. And you can look forward to that for what it is and not what it's pretending to be. I don't need to have my food pretend that it's meat. I just am past that.
Bryan (24:53.609)
Yeah. Well, make sure Brett, you get us that recipe. We can pop it in the show notes. And I was going to say, Paul, like Paul, like something you and I talked about a week or two or three back, I think is still stuck with me at several business events that I've been to is I would probably go for one of the alternative meat proteins like the impossible or beyond or whatever kind of a thing. But like, but honestly, I could probably stand to lose a pound or two. I just I've taken your advice and just I'm just going to skip it.
paul chatlin (24:54.165)
And I.
Geoff Palmer (24:57.065)
Yeah.
Brett Nyquist (24:57.727)
It's really good. Yeah.
Bryan (25:23.561)
I'll be a little bit hungry and I'll make it up at dinner time. I'm not worried about it. So I know that's harder for you on the, on the no oil side of it, but do you have any thoughts on the environment pieces? I know we all want to get to the health side of it.
paul chatlin (25:32.711)
You know, yeah, on the environment side, you know, I just, you know, I, maybe I look at it differently. I look at it like for us to make a difference, somebody has to lead the way. So maybe it's the United States, but realistically, until we get China and some of the, and India, which is what two thirds of people on the planet.
You know, like what are we doing? Like we're not moving their needle too much these days. That's no reason for us not to do it. So I kind of want to go at it, me personally, from a whole different angle, which is simply we need to create a vegan voice, a louder vegan voice. So then we could be in, we can be more, you know, an influencer of sorts. And how are we going to create a bigger voice? Well, it's like the
five of us right here. We need to get five more and five more on top of that and continue to grow because good luck going against the meat industry or the dairy industry. Good luck. You never hear a peep from them because they're doing great. Their profits are off the charts and everyone's happy. We need to create something so we can at least refute some of the things that they're doing. So I just look at it differently. Yes, I want to change the planet environment. We only, as you said Bryan, we only have one planet.
So, but the fact is we gotta make it, we gotta do things now because by the time we all get together and do have a voice, it might be too late, who knows?
Bryan (26:57.834)
Right. And it's so interesting. So like, let's, let's pivot over to the health one because I think there's plenty to unpack there. And the anecdote that I will give is just like, you know, how do we, at least in the United States, get the government or the FDA or whoever to just outlaw certain things that we know are bad for us. Other countries have done this. I was so surprised. A friend of mine had to take their blood sugar test and they had to drink that nasty drink and it was bright orange.
and you read the ingredients and it has the red dye number 40 in it. Like why does it even need to have red dye number 40 in it when I'm taking just a simple glucose test? Kind of a thing. That just still blew my mind. And I made a note to speak to the doctor about that just to sort of say, Hey, like what's going on? Like that doesn't even need to be in a simple test like this. It can be any color it needs to be. And then Geoff mentioned a few things, you know, that are known cancer causing things that are hiding in.
some of the foods that we eat. Like we just have to rally. And if we can't vote with our wallets, we have to get it outlawed in some fashion or another. But like let's unpack the health side of it a little bit more. So Geoff, you want to hit us with some facts that we can react to?
Geoff Palmer (28:09.981)
Yeah, but before I want to talk about this one little subject which is, is labgrove meat a stepping stone or is it a pacifier against change, real change? So I'm conflicted with that myself. I'm conflicted with that themselves. In some ways I want to applaud that there's movement at all because.
Bryan (28:25.996)
I agree. I feel totally pacifier.
Geoff Palmer (28:36.035)
especially males are so entrenched and addicted to this habitual behavior on societies, pushed to be meat as masculinity, that even taking a little step, I'm like, yes, yes, now keep going. But at the same time, is it a pacifier? It's like, oh, well I've got lab -grain meat, so I don't have to change eating meat. It's like, oh, you know, I'm like.
Bryan (28:58.317)
Yeah. If the lab -grown mean helps us save the planet and helps stop the animal killing and you still want to ruin your health, like, I guess that's a personal choice, but I think of it as a pacifier. Like, I'm going to take care of my health and my body, and I know that's not good for me. But if you want to do you, as long as we're fixing the planet, that's what I, as a society, we're moving forward. I'm okay with that.
Tom Kramer (29:08.699)
You
Geoff Palmer (29:24.457)
Yeah, but on the health side, it's so abundantly clear. I'm writing a book now because I've been pulling together research for, you know, well, on March 15th, it will be 40 years. That began my 40th year as a vegan. So, I've been at it for a little while, but I was a biopsych major in college and I started reading the research and I just got fascinated because I was trained well in reading studies.
and the language and stuff. And I'm like, well, we're discovering all these things, but it's never making the mainstream. You know, it's staying in circles of academia and the scientific community and nobody's talking about it. Why? Because there's vested interest in profiteering from people being not healthy. Doctors are making money, pharmaceuticals are making money, insurance companies are making money, and hospitals are making.
trillions of dollars off of our ill health. And that's why they don't want this information out there. And I hate to sound so cynical or, and I hate conspiracy theorist stuff. I'm not that at all. I'm a science -based person, but you have to understand human beings like their profit. They rationalize it by, hey, I got to feed my wife and children. I have the right to make my own money. But I think we need to get back to health being health, not health being.
Sick care.
Bryan (30:52.302)
I agree, but at a macro level on the economic side of it to get to help people's health. Like I had a really interesting chat with Paul Shapiro. He's the CEO of Better Meat Co. And he's doing the mycelium meats. And him and I were talking about the only like he tried to go down the advocation route and the lobbying and all that route. And his story was really like the moments of change that has helped the animals and helped our health.
has been through technology, right? The advent of the car stopped all the horse suffering, right? The advent of the fountain pen stopped all the ducks, you know, and you watch his Ted talk, like I totally loved his Ted talk. So watch Paul Shapiro's Ted talk on that. Like the technology throughout the thousands of years we've been evolving with technology and stuff has what's changed the paradigm. So like, is the lab grown meat?
that paradigm shift at least helps it and then we can figure out how to make healthier lab -grown meat or make the meat without the silly bad stuff. Like, I don't know. Is there any, is one meat healthier than another? I mean, that's a debate for the meat eater side of the fence, but like, yeah, I don't know. Just, I had to throw that out there, so.
Geoff Palmer (32:05.481)
Well, let's just take meat and break it down. So one, there's saturated fat in it. Saturated fat is a known cause of type two diabetes. Two, there's cholesterol. Cholesterol is the leading cause of atherosclerosis, the number one cause of death of everyone on the planet globally. Number three, it has heme higher. Number two, when you put meat in a digestive tract, it forms TMAO. TMAO forces that cholesterol into the arterial walls and causes blacking.
These are all causal in death. Methionine levels, causal for feeding cancer. All cancers are methionine dependent, the higher the methionine. Longevity itself is methionine dependent. You can reduce methionine and extend the life of every single animal on this planet, except carnivores. They don't seem to be bothered by it because that's their natural food source. So it's really clear that you would have to change almost everything about the...
lab meat to make it actually non -cancer causing, non -life shortening, non -disease causal. And like at that point, why not just eat the dang plant? They have a right.
Bryan (33:14.803)
I agree. And it goes back to what we were saying a few minutes ago. The taste in our mouth drives the economy, not the long -term benefits of it, right? So Paul, you've been quiet over there. Way in.
Brett Nyquist (33:14.879)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah.
paul chatlin (33:27.279)
No, no, no, I mean, and Geoff thank you for all that. And what I could add to what Geoff said was.
You know, for me, I was a meat eater, you know, 12, 13 years ago. And when I had to make the choice to make the leap with the lifestyle change, I said, I could, I could do anything for 60 days. So I'm going to go all in. I'm not touching any meat, dairy, oil, but I was eating foods I didn't like. I did not grow up enjoying vegetables. Okay. But here's the beautiful thing. After about 14, 16 days, my taste buds changed.
Now, do I love beans? No. But I eat them now. You know what saying? I didn't grow up eating them. I didn't like them. But now I eat them and they're okay. So I'm just saying that like, you know, since this is the Real Man show, like anybody should man up. Give it a go for 60 days. Everyone says 21, 14, 7 days, 1 day. Go 60 days. And I've always said this on other podcasts. You do a lipid panel before. You do a lipid panel.
man up for 60 days and guess what will happen? You'll lose 15 -20 pounds, your numbers will be great, your taste buds will change. Man up, you know, do it because all you're gonna do is be a beacon for your family, all the loved ones you have, you'll be able to talk to people a lot because they'll say, wow, you look great and you know, you'll be able to feel better, a lot better.
Bryan (34:44.307)
That's right.
Bryan (34:55.955)
Yep. Yep.
paul chatlin (34:56.227)
You know, let's not wait around until there's global warming that hits this planet and that's what makes the change in people. You know, I mean, that's what scares me. It's got to be a cataclysmic moment wherever the world gets together and says, okay, we've got to stop doing this stuff. How many people will die when that happens? How life will be altered? Again, I go back to simply saying with all the facts that Geoff has shared, Tom and everybody else, at the end of the day, we are a whisper, not even a whispers.
to this world right now, us vegans. Okay? So we have to change what we've been doing. And how do we do that? By working together.
Bryan (35:35.861)
Yep, absolutely. Brett, Tom, anything you want to add on the health side of it before we let's talk about the ethical side a little bit.
Tom Kramer (35:43.679)
Well, just echoing with Paul, my story exactly as many of us have described, you know, my wife and I both were having high cholesterol numbers, high trichloride numbers. She, you know, she drove the change. I followed, you know, through the transition period of about a year. And the cholesterol, the blood sugar, all that stuff came crashing down to surprisingly low levels because my doctor was quite surprised. It's like I...
don't know what you're doing but your numbers are really low but they're in perfect ratio so I guess it's okay. So I mean the doctor was scratching his head on how my cholesterol levels could be perfectly balanced but so low. So you know that piece is just you know echoed so many times. We have friends, clients here.
80 years old that were, you know, kind of echoing with Paul, multiple bypasses. At 80 years old, he was told to get his papers in order that he had probably 90 days to live. That was six years ago. He rides his bike several times a week now. It's one of those big tricycles with the flag, you know, but he's very physically active. It comes to all of our vegan gatherings we have here in the Sacramento area. He's living a very lively lifestyle. If he
if he was still eating meat, he would be dead. So there's that piece. And then just general in general on the subject, the correlation of the habit of eating meat for me, there's correlations. Black eye. Paul just mentioned I crave beans. Black beans are like my hamburger. You know, I used to. Yeah, I mean, I used to live in McDonald's when I was on the road in sales. But so I.
Brett Nyquist (37:13.663)
Mm -hmm.
Bryan (37:32.791)
Absolutely.
Tom Kramer (37:38.787)
covet the black beans. And edamame beans are like my shrimp, you know, because I used to eat, you know, like the shrimp cocktail. Tofu is in whatever form of cook is like my fish. I mean, I think about these things, oh, I feel like tofu today. I'm going to make some tofu things, you know. So in my head, those cravings, those desires, those wants have have all transitioned to.
you know, specific niches within the whole food plant -based arena. You know, the fake meat thing, that does happen when we're out in the world and there's not another choice that would be purely vegan. So we stay true to that by eating, you know, whatever plant -based processed or not product I can find.
Bryan (38:10.231)
Mm -hmm.
Bryan (38:18.775)
Great.
Bryan (38:28.535)
Yep. And it's so true because like I took a little vacation a couple of weeks back and I got to try, I went to a vegan resort and I got to try new wave shrimp and they are these vegan shrimp. They look like shrimp for the most part. But at the same time, like I tried it. It did. It definitely brought me back to what like that's what shrimp tasted like. But at the same time, I didn't like the taste anymore. Like.
Tom Kramer (38:43.867)
Mm -hmm.
Bryan (38:55.863)
I guess I've been doing this long enough that I'm like, it's a great transition food. It was cool to play with it and see the resort catering to that kind of a thing and supporting those plant based initiatives. But I just like, you know, great. I tried it. I don't need to have that one in my life anymore. I didn't I didn't miss it. And I would. I was craving edamame on that. On vacation. So I'm right there with you. Let's on.
Tom Kramer (38:55.867)
Hmm.
Tom Kramer (39:16.603)
Yeah, yeah, where are you guys on tofu scramble? I mean, I, you know, when we have company or something, we don't have that every day. But if there's something going on, I look forward to tofu scramble. In my head, I'm thinking we get tofu scramble. I'm not thinking I get fake eggs. That's not happening.
Bryan (39:29.975)
Great.
Bryan (39:37.591)
Right. Yes. Yeah. So it just shifts. I mean, and like Paul said, I think 60 days, you'll see all the benefits of it. And in six months, your taste buds will have fully shifted. And in two, three years, you don't, I don't even think about it. You think tofu, you don't think eggs anymore. So.
Brett Nyquist (39:39.423)
Love tofu scramble. Absolutely love it. Absolutely.
Brett Nyquist (39:58.079)
Before we get to the ethical side, I have to say one thing on health, right? People my age are getting colon cancer now, right? I mean, wake up. Like we, yeah, we, we grew up on processed foods. We grew up on a lot of meat. We gotta, we gotta start shifting that because I mean, 31 year olds getting colon cancer is just, I mean, is there anything more that we need to be like, look, we need to change our food habits. Like.
Bryan (40:05.783)
It's crazy. You're too young.
Bryan (40:25.751)
Yes.
Geoff Palmer (40:27.657)
Let me just jump in here because this is such a beautiful example of why plants are better than animal products. Okay, so heme iron is only found in animal flesh. It's because human beings, like every other animal, takes the iron from the food sources and changes it into a form called heme iron. So it's present in all animal flesh. That's fish, poultry, lamb, whatever the animal, it has heme iron in it. Okay.
Bryan (40:28.247)
Well said.
Geoff Palmer (40:56.253)
Plants produce an iron that is in beans and grains that is attached to a powerful antioxidant called phytape or IP6. Okay. Keem iron is a free iron, which means the body says, wow, I can just grab that and use it right away. So it tries to pull it in fast. Well, we used to think, oh, it absorbs so much faster than regular iron. That's a good thing. No, it's a bad thing.
What happens to iron when you get it wet? It rusts. It's called oxidation. And as soon as it rusts, it becomes cellular damaging. It harms cell tissues. So when the body pulls it in really fast because it's free, it's unattached, it says, oh my God, that's too much. So our liver produces this thing called hepcidin to put the brakes on that heme iron from getting into the bloodstream. Cause too much in the bloodstream would attract.
oxygen free radicals and damage everything in the bloodstream, including our heart and vital tissues, because blood touches everything. So our body doesn't stop that heme iron for up to 24 to 48 hours it stops it. So what happens to all that heme iron? It builds up in our colon. Okay, now you've got heme iron with a free radical oxygen attached to it, damaging tissues.
It's not only cytotoxic, which means it damages the cells, it's genotoxic. It gets inside the cells and damages the DNA. Well, what then? That's it. Then the cell starts producing bad copies from damaged DNA. That is colon cancer. We know how it's caused. It builds up nitrosamines, which are carcinogenic. Now here's the cool thing. That plant iron that's bound to that IP6, our body says only break it off.
Bryan (42:37.525)
Ahem.
Geoff Palmer (42:47.721)
we actually communicate to our microbiome and tell them when to break off that IP6. Once we break it off, then it only allows enough heme iron that our body wants. It's a control mechanism. It's a stabilized, it's an antioxidant. So it prevents that iron from ever oxidating and be able to cause this damage. Now, if that weren't cool enough, that IP6 itself can go in and kill cancer cells.
it can go in and actually prevent that cell from ever becoming cancerous. But this is the coolest thing. That IP6 can go in and repair the DNA and change a cancer cell back into a normal healthy cell. That's something that no drug on this planet can do, is change a cancer cell back into a healthy cell. And plants do this every single meal.
There's such a dramatic difference between cancer causing and cancer prevention, cancer curing, and cancer reversal. Something no drugs on this planet. We're spending a trillion dollars on cancer research, and just eating beans and grains will get you better results than any drug on this market. And people don't know this.
Bryan (43:47.511)
I love it.
Brett Nyquist (44:06.719)
Geoff I gotta ask you, I gotta ask you and Bryan, you can cut this out if you want. Paul, you've explained to me how you had a pretty crappy diet, right? I mean, growing up, I mean, throughout your adulthood, pretty crappy diet. So Geoff, what's your take on like, why are people my age getting colon cancer, but Paul's, like your generation didn't get it so young?
Bryan (44:06.871)
I love it.
paul chatlin (44:18.287)
Yeah. Yeah.
Geoff Palmer (44:28.305)
adaptation. So.
Bryan (44:32.247)
I mean, I agree with you, Geoff, but I mean, I immediately say like Paul grew up with more mom and dad making the food from scratch in the kitchen, even though it wasn't healthy for you. And we went into, you and I were in this high fructose corn syrup, hamburger helper, microwave dinner thing. And Paul's just lagging behind us. I don't know. That's my quick analysis, but Geoff's the expert here.
Brett Nyquist (44:49.151)
Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
Geoff Palmer (45:00.819)
Yeah, and I don't mean adaptation as in they're not, it's because adaptation, there's a thing called hormesis, where something that's negative in a small amount will actually help the body respond or defend against that even better. So it actually improves health. If it's in a large amount, our body can't adapt to that quick enough and it overpowers and then it becomes disease causing. So what I'm saying is,
we adapted in smaller amounts. When we're eating lots of whole foods, fresh organic fruits and vegetables with our meat, okay, we can compensate, we can adapt for that. There's a room for our body to do that. When we're eating all these ultra processed foods and chemicals and pesticides, we're throwing so many negatives at the body. It says, well, I can't defend against all of that. And that's where the breakdown is kept. Yes, heme iron is cancer causing whether you eat it with vegetables or not.
Brett Nyquist (45:33.983)
Mmm.
Geoff Palmer (45:58.185)
But yes, the plants can overcome this, especially if you're not throwing other things at it on top of that.
Brett Nyquist (46:03.999)
Very well said, very well said, that makes a lot of sense.
Bryan (46:07.639)
I know we're going to run out of time a little bit. So I wanted to just spend one minute from each of us on the ethical side of it. Cause I think that's just as important. Cause in my little bit of research I was able to do, you know, all of the lab grown meat is still relying on some sort of starter. It's still running on the animal cells. Sometimes it's even the fetal bovine serum, et cetera, and things like that. And so I want to just sort of see what do you guys think?
about how those practices align with the vegan ethics and the broader goals of animal rights. So I'll let Tom or Brett, who wants to go first?
Brett Nyquist (46:43.903)
I mean they don't align, right? Because you're still using the animal. I mean simply put, right? You're still using and abusing the animal to create some product out of it when you don't need to. That's always been my preach to people my age where they're like, I need, you know, in the gym or something, like I need meat. You don't need meat. You just don't need it. So anything that you're doing that is requiring an animal that you think is required for your health or your vitamins or anything like that is false. You don't need it.
That's my take on it.
Tom Kramer (47:18.011)
I think my add -on would be, and this is mostly based on my own experience, and my transition was before the really accurate replications of meat were happening, before Impossible, before Beyond, and so forth. I used those fake meats as a stepping stone to get where I am.
So I guess I'm dabbling in the areas, does the end justify the means? I got there, I got to being whole food plant based with fake meat. So, because I didn't have the knowledge, I guess I wasn't a real enough man back then to just start eating beans straight away. I wasn't that brave. So I think it's not perfect.
Bryan (48:06.369)
I'm glad you are now, Tom.
Tom Kramer (48:11.995)
but for a lot of people that might be necessary.
Bryan (48:16.993)
Paul or Geoff?
Geoff Palmer (48:18.185)
I think there's the old Hitler analogy. Would you, if you were against killing people, would you still kill Hitler to save millions of people's lives? My answer would be yes. And so as much as I am a compassionate, ethical vegan and do not believe, like Brett said, in the abuse of any animals for any reason, like we see in animal testing in labs.
There was an animal test on a product that showed, hey, we don't need to use animals at all for something. So I'm like, okay, a few lab animals died. I don't want to see any lab animals die, but could them saving trillions of animals because of this new information be a positive? Look, I personally would volunteer my life if I could save trillions of human beings from suffering and dying. Yeah, I'd give my life, I'd do that.
Not suggesting anybody else should, but that's the book. I have to see, is the trade off for what's going to happen? Are more animals going to be saved from suffering and harm? Is the greater good better? I think so. I don't like that path, but it's the path that I think humans are gonna take anyway, so my opinion may not matter.
Brett Nyquist (49:42.847)
It's either gonna be that or it's gonna add more fuel to the fire. I'm not sure, you know? Is it gonna just create more meat?
paul chatlin (49:48.271)
You know what?
It's funny how it all comes back to us humans, like I said, we got to make the humans right.
saying all that in my heyday of bad eating, there was a restaurant by me that was a wild game restaurant and one day through a bunch of old fashions, I said, let's try everything you have on the menu. I was on an expense account, I was with my boss, let's have some fun. And I realized it was either stringy meat or stringy beef. Stringy chicken, it either chicken -like or meat -like, that was it. So if you had rattlesnake, it tasted like chicken. If you had monkfish,
it tastes like like you know I didn't care back then I didn't think about that stuff what I find interesting again is is when you bring back that count I am a dog lover a lot of us have dogs
cats and I always thought that they won the life's lottery because we covet our dogs and our cats and We eat every other animal What happens if it would have been goats and sheep that were our pets and we ate dogs and cats? You know I mean so to me it's like funny how people can disengage they love their dog and they love their pets But they'll eat you know meat or chicken or so so to me. I just find it kind of humorous Okay, but again it goes back to what?
paul chatlin (51:12.065)
I firmly believe, which is we may have all the good reasons in the world to save the planet and help animals, but until we get our human head right on this and get healthier, you know, I don't see a change, a quick enough change. But I hope...
Bryan (51:28.292)
Yeah, I really, really, I really, really appreciate everybody coming together. This has been an amazing discussion as always. I do want to share my screen one more time and just look at the kill counter. And, you know, we look at this, you know, we're almost an hour in and almost 10 million marine animals, almost 5 million chickens, a over 200 ,000 ducks, 100 ,000 pigs.
down to the cows, almost 30 ,000 cows. So it just goes to show how dominant of a species humanity is and how many animals need to suffer every second to help feed all of us. So as we wrap up, guys, I was just curious, what do you feel was the key takeaway of today's episode and how can we get in touch with you guys to help you with your missions in this plant -based world that we're living in?
paul chatlin (52:01.199)
Yes.
Bryan (52:28.771)
Tom?
Tom Kramer (52:30.367)
Learn to want the plants. Eat the real food first. Again, my name is Tom at nutmegnotebook .com. I can be reached at tom at nutmegnotebook .com.
Bryan (52:46.5)
Thank you, Tom. Appreciate that. Brett?
Brett Nyquist (52:49.567)
I just have a simple be a real man. I'm going to try to say this the right way this time, because the first time I said it was kind of a tongue twister because I was looking behind you and saw the logo. But I'm just going to say be a real man that eats plants. Right. I mean, I did this when I was in my 20s and I've said this before. I thought I had energy before I did this. But the energy that I gained after I went plant based was insanely.
Bryan (52:53.252)
It is a tongue twister, yep.
Bryan (53:03.844)
I love it.
Brett Nyquist (53:18.335)
higher. So, you know, everything about this has changed my life dramatically from caring about the animals, the environment and my health, but also mental health, exercise, everything kind of trickled down from just going plant based. Like my life just got insanely better because of it.
So yeah, that's kind of my spiel. Once again, my name is Brett Nyquist, Director of Technology for PBNSG, and I can be reached at brettatpbnsg .org.
Bryan (53:49.379)
Awesome, Geoff.
Geoff Palmer (53:51.913)
So I want to just put it out there. First question we get is where do you get your protein? 61 years of age, I think I got enough protein. This is a myth that all essential amino acids are made by plants and some bacteria. Animals don't make essential amino acids, it's impossible. That's why they're called essential because we need them. Same with essential fats. There's only two essential fats.
and it's not EPA and DHA. Those are non -essential because we can make our own in our own body, just like every other animal can, except for carnivores. So all of the nutrients come from plants or bacteria or fungi, all of them. There's not a single one that is made by animals. Animals are consumers. Plants are producers of nutrition, fungi and plants. So...
There is not a single nutrient that the human being needs that comes or is made exclusively by an animal, not one. So why eat them? If we're taking all these nutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids and feeding them to an animal just to kill the animal and eat them, why not get them from Costco, right? From the wholesaler, the plant.
Bryan (55:11.961)
Well said. Well said.
Geoff Palmer (55:13.577)
So you can check out my videos too. I'm on YouTube and LinkedIn and Facebook at Clean Machine Fit and on YouTube at Clean Machine Online where you can see all my podcasts on all the latest nutritional research in the plant -based and fit.
Bryan (55:31.045)
Awesome. And Geoff, as you've demonstrated numerous times, you're an expert in this space, so check out his stuff. Paul.
Geoff Palmer (55:31.049)
I'm sorry.
paul chatlin (55:31.213)
Alright.
paul chatlin (55:37.263)
I'll go as quick as I can for a couple items. One is first Geoff I would like you to be the spokesperson for the sage circle Alliance. We'll talk later. I hope Secondly, I used to be on five different pills by going plant -based. I'm on one. I don't even need that one
Bryan (55:47.205)
Heheheheh
paul chatlin (55:55.695)
but I'm appeasing my doctor because he's at the Cleveland Clinic and he knows everything. At 66 years old, when I get around my buddies, the guys I grew up with, I've known them, eight of them for 40 years plus, one thing I hear that's common is all their pain and suffering, you know, all this sore, that sore, this pill, that pill. Well, guess what? I go every single day and I'm not gonna show my arms because Geoff has got better arms, but mine are damn good for my age.
Bryan (56:22.599)
Heheheheh
paul chatlin (56:23.887)
The fact is, I'm not sore any day ever. So to me, when I'm giving up my meat...
Hey, what I get instead is recovery every day. I get to go out like I'm leaving right now for 20 miles of bike riding. Okay, so the way to reach me is paul at pbnsg .org and everyone hold on we're going to put everyone together under one big umbrella and create a voice and within the next 30 days you can go on to our website which will be the Sage Circle Alliance. So it's it's about it's been nine months working we're about ready to
Bryan (56:47.303)
Thank you.
paul chatlin (56:59.505)
to show it off a little bit. So thank you so much, Bryan and everybody.
Bryan (57:05.8)
Thank you. And so just as a reminder, everybody, the the kill counter that we were showing throughout this episode is from animals deserve absolute protection today and tomorrow. It's an acronym ADAPT and you can see that at ADAPT with two T's dot org. So check that out and support them where you can. And a big thank you to everybody. I really appreciate.
All you real men coming together and having a great topic. I couldn't do this show and get this word out without all you experts out there. So thank you all. I learned a ton just by hanging out with you guys every time. I'm going to get Geoff's speeches down pat here and I hope all you listeners out there are picking up as much as we are. We need your help. If you love this episode, we want to know what you want to talk about next. So some of these episode topics are based on your feedback and comments. So comment below.
Brett Nyquist (57:45.471)
Yeah.
Bryan (58:01.512)
on this video, tell us what you want to hear us talk about in future episodes. And if you love this, then like, subscribe, and share it with your friends and family. And hopefully we can get more real men eating plants with us. So thank you again, everybody, for hanging out with us. That's all for this episode of the Real Men Eat Plants podcast. See you next time, guys.
Brett Nyquist (58:21.183)
Thanks, Bryan. Thanks.
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