Why Vegans and Primal-Paleo Dietary Types Should All Just Get Along

I hate my chin.

Seriously. I have a weak chin. And I really don’t like it.

That’s why I’m not a big fan of rooms with mirrors on three walls. I’m thinking of the dressing room at Macy’s, and the place where I get my hair cut, and the bathroom at the YMCA where Cate and I go every week to swim laps.

Standing there in the Y bathroom in my goofy swim trunks, seeing myself from this So this is how others see me perspective, I’m usually able to convince myself that my shoulders are sort of wide, and that maybe all the running and swimming and better eating are paying off.

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It helped. I feel great.

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Kobe Bryant

NBA baskeball player

This has been life changing

"Let me tell you this has been life-changing. I have all of her books, in audible and ebooks! I have gotten rid of all the hateful 8 oils. I have trained my body to eat its own previously toxic body fat. Download that pod it's a game changer!"

Megyn Kelly

Broadcaster / The Megyn Kelly Show

Life changing

Deep Nutrition changed my life.

Jesse Watters

Fox News Primetime host

Saved my life

I would like to thank you for literally saving my life. Back in February, I had to be hospitalized while on vacation in Phoenix with an A1C of 11% and had to start taking 2 types of insulin and 2 other meds. I read the Fatburn Fix in April, and followed the program to a tee, and I’m down by 15 pounds, 6.8 A1C, and only one once weekly diabetes medicine. Prior to reading the book, it was almost impossible for me to lose weight as a diabetic. 

Leontyne Tompkins

I feel free

For the last month, I have really been reading all labels on everything. I have completely remove those 8 oils you talk about. I must tell you, I feel great! I have more energy and I am now 197 lbs (have always been around 205 to 210lbs). I eat potatoes with real butter, grass fed steak, pasta with the right toppings. I eat everything! I seem to crave less sugar. I love it! 

Robert Kirkendall

I feel so much better

I had terrible aches and pains everywhere in my body, my hands, shoulders and knees. I feel so much better and the way I feel is motivating me every day! Thank you

Mike Deb Wootan Burcin

Better than ever

I am an anesthesiologist in Orlando and a huge fan of both of your books! I have been incorporating your principles for the last 10 months and feel that my health is better than ever.

Marnie Robinson, MD

My allergies disappeared

The biggest difference for me (and a surprising one) is that my allergies have almost completely disappeared! This is a big deal for me, because I’ve had allergies most of my life and they have often affected what I do which is a teaching music in [a public school district].  In general, I feel much better and have more consistent energy throughout the day.

Erica Turrell

Heart Palpitations have Stopped

I’ve lost 20+ pounds (also fasting 16-24 hours daily) and haven’t had palpitations except for one occasion — I had a mini bag of Fritos for the first time in July. And, I feel better now on a daily basis than I ever did all through college.

Mike Wright

Deep Nutrition and Fatburn Fix reader

I’ve lost over 50 pounds

I’ve lost over 50 pounds. I’m 56 years old. Cutting processed food and unhealthy fats from my diet was one of the first things I did on my health recovery journey...I went cold turkey off the bad oils. Emptied my pantry into the trash and just started eating real food

Mitzi Wilkinson Champion

Knowledge I didn’t know I needed

Your Fatburn Fix book is amazing, my friend. Thank you! I’m an Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and I know my stuff. This is the extra layer of knowledge I didn’t know I needed. Well done!

Jennifer Dillman

Fatburn Fix reader

Lost a solid 20 lbs and my bloodwork is great

I have lost a solid 20 lbs and my bloodwork (after 3 months of eating your way) was even better! I was metabolically healthy (per your book) before I read your book, but barely. Lowering my weight, sealed the deal! I have been talking about you and your book to anyone who will listen...Thank you for all you’ve done and what you continue to do! You are changing lives for the better!

Missy Cramer

FatBurn Fix reader

Lost 20 lbs I could never shed

I love your Fatburn Fix!  Has helped me so so much!  I have had the dreaded weight all my life - 20 or so pounds I could never shed.  I have lost that now. I only eat 2 meals a day lunch and dinner with a glass of milk or cappuccino around 4 to hold me over. No snacking and not bad oils.  It has been the key to unlocking my fatburn.  I work out in the am and believe I am burning fat for energy not from food!

Lauren Smith

http://mcmahonmed.com

I feel great

My waist is four inches smaller. I feel great and many of the minor aches and pains that I had (knees and lower back) are gone. Also, my muscle tone is amazing, even though I have not increased my workout routine.

Richard Janelle

Completed Dr Cate's online course

The go-to for strength and conditioning coaches

Whenever I advise my clients about eating to perform I go straight to what I have learned from Dr. Cate. Her book Deep Nutrition has become the go-to for strength and conditioning coaches across the country.

Kent Matthes

Major League Baseball Agent with WME Sports

Dismantles the lie

Dr. Cate dismantles the lie that seed oils are healthy, which may the biggest lie about nutrition and health because it’s so insidious.  

Ken D Berry, MD

Author of Lies My Doctor Told Me

She knows the chemistry

Dr. Cate alerts us to the harms of seed oils and she’s convincing because she knows the chemistry better than anyone.

Dr. Drew Pinskey, MD

Globally recognized internal medicine and addiction medicine specialist, media personality, LoveLine Host, and New York Times bestselling author

No one is better at communicating nutritional truth

Dr. Cate has had the single greatest impact on how we talk to people about fueling for both performance or durability. While we all are a little unique, the foundational principles of human nutrition are immutable. If you are looking to create a more durable, resilient body, no one is better at communicating nutritional truth than Dr. Cate.

Dr. Kelly Starrett

Physiotherapist coach and New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author

Highly recommend The Fatburn Fix

Dr. Shanahan has had a significant impact on my practice of medicine. I am known as a Low Carb Doctor, but I never really appreciated the negative effects of processed seed oils on the health of my patients. I highly recommend The Fatburn Fix to my patients and have a loaner copy in my waiting room. It is amazing how quickly blood sugars and overall health improves with cutting seed oils. It is not just about the carbs!

Dr. Brian Lenkzes, MD

CEO of LowCarbMD San Diego, co-host of Low Carb MD Podcast and host of Life's Best Medicine Podcast

Respected in the sports world

Dr. Cate reordered my diet when I was with the L.A. Lakers, and the benefits, for me personally, were felt immediately and have served me to this day. I’ve come to take real food so seriously I started a small family farm. I know of no M.D./nutritionist more respected in the sports world than Dr. Cate Shanahan.

Chris Kaman

NBA Player

Brought seed oil issue front and center

Cate brought the seed oil issue front and center. Healthy fats matter. So much so that I created an entire product line to swap out bad fats with good.

Mark Sisson

Founding Father of the Primal/Paleo Movement

Optimal health starts with food

If you want to understand how optimal health starts with food, start with Dr. Cate. Her book Deep Nutrition leaves you with an appreciation of the profound relationship between our genes and the planet, inspiring us to be good shepherds of both.

Dallas Hartwig

Attribution author of The Whole 30

Helped me with endurance

Deep Nutrition really helped me with endurance. I started to feel better as a player. I was able to run more, I was able to be more active …and I just decided to keep going with it to this day.

Dwight Howard

NBA Player

Silver bullet for me

Dr Cate’s teachings helped me lose 60 pounds like it was nothing. It was like a silver bullet for me.

Paul Grewal, MD 

Dr Grewal Internal Medicine, MD, author of Genius Foods

Radically improve your health…

Dr. Shanahan has provided a solid reference that deserves a place in the library of anyone who is seriously interested in nutrition. Her perspective on the vital role that healthy fat has in our diet is novel and, if implemented, can radically improve your health.

Dr. Joseph Mercola

Author of Fat for Fuel and Founder of Mercola.com

Pull up a chair…

I have based my work on the idea that getting the right kinds of healthy fats into your body and avoiding the worst fats is essential to optimal health. I've interviewed dozens of the world's top experts about this, and I know of no one who speaks more eloquently on this topic than Dr Cate. If she’s talking fats, pull up a chair. Take notes.

Dave Asprey

Author of the Bulletproof Diet

The key to unlocking my fatburn

I love your Fatburn Fix!  Has helped me so so much!  I have had the dreaded weight all my life - 20 or so pounds I could never shed.  I have lost that now. I only eat 2 meals a day lunch and dinner with a glass of milk or cappuccino around 4 to hold me over. No snacking and not bad oils.  It has been the key to unlocking my fatburn.  

Lauren Smith

Saved my life

I would like to thank you for literally saving my life. Back in February, I had to be hospitalized while on vacation in Phoenix with an A1C of 11% and had to start taking 2 types of insulin and 2 other meds. I read the Fatburn Fix in April, and followed the program to a tee, and I’m down by 15 pounds, 6.8 A1C, and only one once weekly diabetes medicine. 

Leontyne Tompkins

> Tears of joy

 I'm crying tears of joy and appreciation for all you've done for me and my health! Without Deep Nutrition and Fatburn Fix, I would literally still be in the vicious cycle I'd been fighting all my life! In a nutshell - I am no longer a compulsive overeating addict suffering under the crushing 'thumb' of all food and alcohol.     

Penni Wicks

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But then I find myself looking at my chin, and I realize how I’ll never swim my weak chin away. There it is. It will always be there. And there’s just no avoiding all those mirrored rooms waiting to remind me.

I bring this up so that you’ll understand that I really do get it when people get all fired up over the opening chapters in our book Deep Nutrition, which deal in part with the way our looks (Cate would say “our anatomies”) are affected by dietary choices. Politics, race, religion, physical appearance—such third-rail topics cut close to the bone, and we take these things so personally because they can so powerfully govern our life experience, everything from what we choose to do for a living to the people we count as friends. In various degrees, they help define who we are.

But what I’m a really confused about is why, just recently, we’re all starting to take our dietary choices so personally. If you read the nutrition blogs, you’ve seen how vicious people can get: “The author claims to be Paleo, but he’s obviously Primal! What a FAKE!” “Good for him, being a ‘conscientious’ vegetarian. I see he still recommends eggs! MURDERER!” “She acts like she came up with the whole idea of linking anatomy with health herself! Weston Price came up with that WAY before she did!!! And she doesn’t give him ANY credit in her book!!!”

I recently watched a Youtube video of a well-known vegan commentator (an Australian fellow who, I swear, sounds just like the Geico Gecko) doing a slide-by-slide hit-list presentation of his nutritional enemies and indicting each one for not looking “buff” enough.

The reason I’ve brought all this up is that, just this week, I almost fell into the same trap. I almost took this nutrition stuff personally.

Here’s what happened: I was reading Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s best-selling book, The China Study. The thing is, I’ve got this vegan buddy and he’s a super guy and very, very smart. While we were chatting he brought up something from The China Study—a book I’ve read—and I couldn’t remember the data he was referencing, so I felt I should probably read it again.

Which I did.

But then, on page 59, I got angry. I ran into a section entitled “NOT ALL PROTEINS ARE ALIKE,” one of many sections in The China Study suggesting that animal proteins are extremely unhealthy. Here’s a quote: “Controlling cancer through nutrition was, and still is, a radical idea. But as if this weren’t enough, one more issue would yield explosive information: did it make any difference what type of protein was used in these experiments? For all these experiments, we were using casein, which makes up 87% of cow’s milk protein. So the next logical question was whether plant protein, tested in the same way, has the same effect on cancer promotion as casein.”

Which made me wonder, “Did it make any difference what type of protein was used in these experiments?”

For example, why is casein used to represent all animal protein? “Casein…makes up 87% of cow’s milk protein”? Really? Milk from where? What breed of cow? What was the cow fed? At what time of the season was this milk collected? Was the milk pasteurized or otherwise processed? How was the casein isolated from the milk? What was the full nutritional context in which this isolated casein was introduced (to the rats)?

While we’re on the subject, can you tell me more detail about the “plant protein” used for comparison? You mention gluten and soy proteins: How were these isolated? From what sources, specifically? In what nutritional context were they introduced?

Here’s the “next logical question”: Do such details matter?

I think they do, a lot. That’s why science is so hard, and the reason scientists sometimes ignore, at their conclusions’ peril, Einstein’s advice to make things “as simple as possible, but no simpler [italics mine].” As one respected nutrition researcher succinctly put it, “Not all proteins are alike”! That’s a good point, made by the same man who said (on page 20 of The China Study), “We oversimplify and disregard the infinite complexity of nature. Often, investigating minute biological chemical parts of food and trying to reach broad conclusions about diet and health leads to contradictory results.”

Which is why it might prove problematic to make broad conclusions about diet and health based on an experimental contest between, say, “casein” and “plant protein.” Right?

Oh darn. Here I am getting angry again.

It’s not Dr. Campbell’s fault. It’s Cate’s. See, she’s one of those scientist types, and she can’t resist getting all huffy-puffy when she runs into what appears to be sloppy science (or sloppy scientific writing), and now she’s got me doing it. She often reminds me that, as far as she’s concerned, sloppy science is more than an aesthetic problem, like some bothersome carpet stain in one of the great halls of medicine.

Bad science can lead to bad consequences. People can get hurt.

People like Cate’s brother, who had leukemia. Or me, with my weak chin and the long list of health problems I suffered from until I got turned on to a more holistic diet—all largely due to sloppy science. My parents were both raised in an era when expectant mothers were told, by confident men in white lab coats, that they could pretty much eat and drink and smoke whatever they wanted and it wouldn’t do all that much to impair the health of their growing baby.

Bad science. Bad advice. And, for me, lots of lots of rooms with floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

And so, in the same way I understand why some readers get upset about the DN chapters on nutrition and looks, please understand why I was tempted to take what I took to be unsubstantiated scientific conclusions personally.

Which brings me to my point, about forgiveness, dialogue and—heck, as long as I’ve gone this far, I might as well go all the way—love.

Bad science happens when people take scientific conclusions personally—theirs or anyone else’s. It happens when they think they are defined by their scientific beliefs and, for that reason, refuse to expose those beliefs to the criticisms and suggestions of others.

Bad science happens when we fall so deeply in love with our beliefs that we coddle and defend them rather than release them to the wilderness of frank and open discourse.

Bad science happens when we stop listening, even, to the friendliest voices of our detractors, many of whom are just like us: Decent folks just trying to figure things out.

Dr. Campbell didn’t cause my health problems. In fact, I’ll bet if he could go back in time carrying a satchel filled with the best nutritional information, he would do his best to help me out. True, some of the science in his book drives me a little batty. But I choose to believe that, just like Cate, his earnest intention is to help people live better, healthier lives. And according to the vast majority of the folks who have reviewed his book on Amazon, his efforts have not been in vain. After reading his book, lots of folks have been effectively convinced to stop eating processed foods and to start eating plenty of (organic) veggies more, and to start cooking for themselves. And their health is now the better for it.

So while I might complain about the logical, and procedural, errors in sloppy science, you won’t catch me complaining about a good man with good intentions creating good results.

And if Dr. Campbell and I are simpatico on this whole lovey-dovey, let’s all keep the dialogue going for the betterment of science stuff, I’ll bet he will be more than happy to explain to me exactly how I have misjudged those excerpts of his book.

And I will listen.

I’ll listen, because I honestly believe I have far more in common with a kind and reasonable vegan nutrition researcher than I do with any of the mean-spirited name callers on the nutrition blogs.

That’s why I plan to thank Dr. Campbell for getting folks to pass by the processed foods on their way to the vegetable section, and to congratulate him on all his recent success. Then, if I remember, I’ll tell him how handsome he looks on the photo on his book’s dust jacket. He really does. He’s got a nice, strong chin—just one the many benefits of being raised on the traditional foods of a family farm.

Lucky guy.