Louder with Crowder - Vegan MYTHS Debunked with Lierre Keith || Louder With Crowder

00:00:02.000 We are back with a guest who actually, it's funny, I'm a big fan of some of the stuff she's written and she's done.

00:00:09.000 We certainly don't agree on a lot.

00:00:11.000 But on some things, she's incredibly informative.

00:00:13.000 And I'm really glad to have her on Author of The Vegetarian Myth.

00:00:17.000 Right off the bat, we're bound to get some letters.

00:00:21.000 Leah Keith, thank you so much for being on with us.

00:00:24.000 Oh, well, thanks for having me, Stephen.

00:00:26.000 Well, good.

00:00:26.000 So, listen, this book I've been reading for a while now.

00:00:29.000 I'll be honest, you know, I've probably read about two-thirds of it, two-thirds of the way through.

00:00:33.000 You make some, first off, for the audience who may not be familiar with you, why don't you tell them your story as to how you came about writing this book?

00:00:42.000 So I spent 20 years as a vegan.

00:00:42.000 Right.

00:00:45.000 I became a vegan when I was 16.

00:00:47.000 The way that most people become vegans, which is I had a friend who was a vegan.

00:00:50.000 And she and her family were really into being vegan.

00:00:53.000 And within two weeks of knowing her, I was completely convinced that I had to do this.

00:00:56.000 And I was one of those people who did not give up.

00:00:59.000 Most people actually who try it give up in three months.

00:01:01.000 That's what the studies show.

00:01:03.000 And I did not give up for 20 years.

00:01:05.000 And in the process, it completely destroyed my health.

00:01:08.000 It was just an utter collapse.

00:01:10.000 So when that happens, especially when you have clung to an ideology that strongly, it's really hard.

00:01:17.000 Your whole world sort of collapses around you because nothing makes sense anymore.

00:01:21.000 And you don't even know who you are anymore at that point.

00:01:23.000 So I spent a good four or five years after that trying to figure out what had I done wrong because I hadn't done the diet wrong.

00:01:31.000 So why did this go so wrong?

00:01:32.000 So I had to look at a whole bunch of information that I had shuttled aside in service of this ideology.

00:01:39.000 And then a whole, just a huge realm of information was then open to me.

00:01:44.000 There were all kinds of things I could explore.

00:01:48.000 It's crazy because, listen, it's no secret with people listening here, whether online or terrestrially, that I have a...

00:01:57.000 I have a passionate disdain for veganism, but sometimes for different reasons.

00:02:02.000 I mean, let's be clear here.

00:02:04.000 You were a little bit nervous about coming on the show because obviously I'm one of those right-wing kind of nutjobs.

00:02:08.000 You are certainly not by any means a right-winger as you write this book against veganism.

00:02:15.000 No.

00:02:16.000 I mean, I come at this from a very sympathetic perspective.

00:02:18.000 I was in that world.

00:02:19.000 I understand the values of that world.

00:02:21.000 And I don't intend to give up the values of that world.

00:02:24.000 And this is why the vegans hate me, is because I still claim the same moral ground.

00:02:29.000 I won't give it up.

00:02:30.000 And they're really mad that I could come to different conclusions.

00:02:33.000 And this is where you bump into the fundamentalism of any ideology.

00:02:37.000 You cling so tightly that it becomes wrong, even if it starts out in a good direction.

00:02:42.000 You can't hang on to anything that tightly and have it turn out okay.

00:02:46.000 Well, you know, I really hate that, and this is kind of where we can find some common ground.

00:02:50.000 I hate this idea that if you eat animals, you hate animals.

00:02:53.000 I mean, we have a dog.

00:02:54.000 He's actually sitting right here.

00:02:55.000 We'll bring up the hopper cam for people watching online.

00:02:58.000 We adopted a 90-pound, looks like the world's biggest, meanest pit bull who was balding.

00:03:04.000 He had alopecia, broken leg, Lyme disease.

00:03:07.000 Because we love it, we're animal lovers.

00:03:09.000 But I don't see it as something that is unnatural or goes against nature or in any way displays hatred because of the way we are designed as human beings.

00:03:18.000 You talk about that a lot in your book.

00:03:21.000 Tell me a bit about that, and as someone who is really more of an environmentalist and more of an animal rights person, how you sort of rectify that.

00:03:29.000 So I have a 90-pound dog, too.

00:03:31.000 What kind of dog?

00:03:31.000 Oh, there you go.

00:03:32.000 I have a Great Pyrenees.

00:03:33.000 Oh, well, you know what?

00:03:34.000 This is a Doggo Argentino, and if you're familiar with the breed, Great Pyrenees gives them the big square head.

00:03:40.000 Absolutely, yeah.

00:03:41.000 No, I mean, I got my dog for protection, so she's fabulous.

00:03:44.000 Anyway, I put her outside. 0.99

00:03:45.000 Wait, wait, protection from vegans?

00:03:47.000 Yeah, well, yeah, I get a lot of death threats.

00:03:50.000 I mean, they're not going to be able to follow through.

00:03:52.000 Listen.

00:03:53.000 They're too exhausted, I know.

00:03:54.000 They're too exhausted, and they're not necessarily pro-Second Amendment people.

00:03:57.000 I mean, I tell everyone, listen, I don't even invest in an alarm system.

00:04:01.000 I have shotguns out the wazoo and a 90-pound dog, but, you know, I get death threats from the...

00:04:06.000 You're looking at my alarm system.

00:04:09.000 That's my alarm system.

00:04:10.000 I want them to see that.

00:04:11.000 And I have a dog and I have a permit to carry.

00:04:15.000 I'm a big believer in the Second Amendment as well.

00:04:17.000 I think people have a right to defend themselves.

00:04:19.000 Especially when you live under this kind of constant Harassment.

00:04:24.000 There's a point past which you just have to take it seriously.

00:04:26.000 Sure.

00:04:27.000 And I do.

00:04:28.000 So they're crazy people.

00:04:29.000 Absolutely.

00:04:30.000 I was telling you about the last comments I got on YouTube right before I came on.

00:04:32.000 I can't even repeat it on air.

00:04:34.000 That's horrible.

00:04:35.000 Yeah, very anti-Semitic, very homophobic, even though I'm not Jewish or gay.

00:04:40.000 It doesn't matter.

00:04:41.000 It doesn't matter.

00:04:42.000 They can at you and hope that some of it sticks.

00:04:44.000 That's what they want is just to hurt you. 0.63

00:04:45.000 And I've read the most horrible things about you to the point that honestly when I first heard about you...

00:04:49.000 I thought like, oh, this has got to be like a right-wing Sarah Palin, a hunting wolves kind of chick who the vegans are just furious with. 1.00

00:04:58.000 That's not the case at all.

00:04:59.000 How did this transition occur?

00:05:01.000 And do you think that even makes them more mad because it's kind of like a Muslim convert who needs to be executed? 1.00

00:05:06.000 I'm an apostate.

00:05:08.000 Yeah.

00:05:09.000 That's exactly it.

00:05:11.000 So, yeah.

00:05:12.000 So you had this other question, a real question, that it was about environmentalism.

00:05:12.000 All right.

00:05:15.000 So the thing that I did not know when I was 16, there's two parts to this.

00:05:20.000 One is that agriculture is the most destructive thing that people have done to the planet.

00:05:24.000 And I can walk you through that if you want to hear about it.

00:05:26.000 So I thought that I was eating this peaceful, loving, sustainable, you know, totally compassionate diet.

00:05:32.000 And it's not true.

00:05:33.000 It is the most destructive human activity.

00:05:35.000 And those were the foods I was eating as somehow thinking that this was peaceful and compassionate.

00:05:40.000 It's biotic cleansing is what it is.

00:05:40.000 It's not.

00:05:42.000 And we've wiped out 98% of the all-growth forests and somewhere around 90% of the world's prairies have been destroyed, mostly in the service of agriculture.

00:05:51.000 So for anyone to say that wiping out the massive amounts of habitat for every living creature that needs a home, there's nothing that's environmentally sound about this.

00:06:01.000 In fact, I've got all kinds of wonderful quotes from very serious people about the fact that this cannot be done sustainably, that it's an absolute oxymoron to call anything sustainable agriculture.

00:06:11.000 The only thing that sustains it is petrochemicals, plows, and fences and subsidies, federal subsidies.

00:06:17.000 That's what keeps the whole system going at this point.

00:06:20.000 And so there's nothing environmental about this.

00:06:23.000 It's been sold to us as the way to eat green, and nothing could be further from the truth.

00:06:27.000 Now, the part where we can disagree is about factory farming, because I think everybody can see that, A, these poor creatures are just living horrible lives.

00:06:35.000 And B, it is absolutely just a total waste of everybody's energy, from calories on up, to feed bizarre things to animals that were not designed to eat them.

00:06:47.000 And it is very energy intensive.

00:06:49.000 Cows are not designed to eat corn.

00:06:50.000 They should not be eating corn.

00:06:52.000 It kills them.

00:06:53.000 It makes us unhealthy when we eat them.

00:06:55.000 I hate to cut you off, but I want you to hold that thought because I'm with you here.

00:06:58.000 Lotta with Crowder will be right back after the break.

00:07:00.000 We are back with who I think is a fascinating guest, Leah Keith, who is talking right now just about factory farming.

00:07:06.000 So, to be fair, a lot of problems with the other things that you said, but I agree with you on the federal subsidies and the factory farming.

00:07:12.000 Listen, I just wrote a piece in the Blaze magazine that went up this week.

00:07:17.000 The scam of the FDA and USDA, or first off, supplements, it was an all-encompassing piece, but also the organic food scam.

00:07:24.000 I actually went down, and I buy locally from farms.

00:07:28.000 I buy lamb, I buy eggs, and they will never be certified organic because they can't afford it.

00:07:33.000 The subsidized mega farms can afford the right fence posts, or they use the right chemicals, even though there's plenty of pesticides and chemical fertilizers that are used in organic food.

00:07:43.000 Tell us a bit about that and the sort of the shell game that is factory farming and why people of all political walks should know about it.

00:07:51.000 Okay, so back and way up, 1950, factory farming is invented because they took all the ammunition plants from World War II and they converted them to nitrogen fertilizer.

00:08:00.000 Since that point, we've been eating oil.

00:08:03.000 Okay, that's what the entire thing is based on.

00:08:05.000 And what that created was a mountain of corn, just a vast amount of corn.

00:08:09.000 There was no way to sell that much corn, to eat that much corn.

00:08:13.000 What were they going to do with all that corn?

00:08:14.000 And the answer was, hey, let's put animals in really hellacious conditions and Essentially make them live in cities on concrete floors inside steel buildings, and we'll force feed them corn and make them get really fat really fast, which makes the meat cheap, but it also makes the animals really sick, and it makes us really sick.

00:08:29.000 This is not the meat we were designed to eat, and it's not the native diet of a cow.

00:08:33.000 And the only reason this is possible is because of the farm bill every year that subsidizes the growing of that corn.

00:08:40.000 There we go.

00:08:40.000 And what it's meant is that all of these poor farmers are essentially serfs to the six corporations that control the world food supply.

00:08:47.000 So they're hand in glove, and that's our tax dollars are going to pay for this stuff.

00:08:52.000 And by making those subsidies every year on things like corn and wheat and soy, it means that the cheapest calories out there are this crap carbohydrate.

00:09:01.000 And that's why America's got fat, especially poor people, because it's all they can afford.

00:09:05.000 And the only reason they can afford it is because that's what's subsidized.

00:09:08.000 We're not subsidizing the real food.

00:09:10.000 We're not subsidizing the farmers.

00:09:11.000 We're subsidizing corn that's grown with fossil fuel.

00:09:14.000 Well, there are so many points there to even get it to.

00:09:17.000 Firstly, I will tell you that half the world's corn supply is consumed by French Canadians when they have a big corn roast. 1.00

00:09:23.000 Literally, all it is is bowls of corn.

00:09:25.000 You roll it in a stick of butter and put salt on it, and people will eat literally 20 ears of corn each.

00:09:31.000 It's a cultural thing.

00:09:33.000 But, you know, you're right, and it's funny because I know you would obviously align yourself more to the left.

00:09:37.000 But I couldn't be more against subsidies for farmers.

00:09:41.000 I hate it when politicians on either side, and of course what they do is they do it under the guise of, oh, we have to help the American farmer.

00:09:47.000 The poor little American farmer, you know, weather is so volatile and seasons change and they don't know their crops aren't so consistent.

00:09:54.000 We have to subsidize them because we have to save the American farmer. 0.84

00:09:59.000 And that's not the case.

00:10:00.000 Whether you're a vegetarian, a vegan, or liberal or conservative, I think it's a point that's missed on a lot of people.

00:10:07.000 Just like with banks, the Federal Reserve, when you pick winners and losers in any industry, and it's a centralized power from the federal government, it always favors the big guys.

00:10:17.000 And in this case, like you're talking about, in the United States, it favors the big farms who can afford the lobbyists who can manipulate policy.

00:10:24.000 And you've talked about that in your book, and that's something that I can completely agree with and I'm on board with.

00:10:30.000 So, you know, and the other environmental problem, of course, is that none of this is ultimately sustainable.

00:10:35.000 You know, every single civilization that's ever sprung up around agriculture, it's the basis of civilization is agriculture, collapses, and it's because it wears out the topsoil.

00:10:44.000 You can't clear all the life off the land.

00:10:47.000 Plan it to nothing but what humans are going to eat and expect that to last.

00:10:51.000 So civilizations last between 800 and 2,000 years, and then they collapse.

00:10:55.000 Because that's the exact point when the soil gives out.

00:10:57.000 I mean, you can predict it.

00:10:58.000 It's been 800 and 2,000 years.

00:11:00.000 The soil will not last longer than that.

00:11:02.000 And, you know, they die essentially eating each other.

00:11:05.000 You find human remains in the cooking pots, and that's the end of it.

00:11:08.000 You know, it just returns to dust.

00:11:10.000 Because this is an activity that cannot be sustained, that's the problem.

00:11:14.000 So basically, if we go vegan, fast forward a couple hundred years, we're Lord of the Flies, smacking chubby little piggy for his glasses to create a fire.

00:11:22.000 Yes, we are.

00:11:23.000 That's a very bad place to end up.

00:11:25.000 Let me ask you this.

00:11:26.000 So you consider yourself, I don't want to misrepresent you, but you consider yourself an environmentalist.

00:11:31.000 Yes.

00:11:32.000 So pro-Second Amendment, good.

00:11:33.000 Pro-meat, good.

00:11:35.000 Now you talk about these problems as far as environmental sustainability.

00:11:38.000 So let's go with that premise.

00:11:39.000 I have some problems with it, but let's go with it for time.

00:11:43.000 Here's my main issue.

00:11:44.000 Having been to the climate summits, Copenhagen, Cancun, watched the speeches from Ted Turner, do environmentalists see, or let me just ask you, do you see an irony in obviously condemning big government and their cozy relationship with big business, completely on board, but then a lot of the solutions that are offered by people that tend to involve the government or needing some sort of government policy if we can't trust them right now with their food supply if we can't trust them right now to enact sensible food policy

00:12:12.000 why would we entrust them to you know save the planet well i think the only way we ever get a government that works is by just constant pressure applied constantly it's You can never be not vigilant in the case of people in power.

00:12:28.000 So I don't think we can ever give up.

00:12:29.000 It's not like, oh, here, fix this for us.

00:12:31.000 It just means constant struggle against those in power to try to get them to do something right.

00:12:35.000 And I think that at this point the problems are so gigantic and so systemic that we need every solution anybody can think of to try to turn this around before it's too late.

00:12:46.000 But do you really think that solution can come from the government, or even if we bring it to the government, that they wouldn't screw it up?

00:12:50.000 I mean, that's my endgame.

00:12:52.000 Listen, I think we all want a cleaner Earth, and I just certainly don't want to get off into the areas that we disagree too much, but I'll just leave it at that, then.

00:12:59.000 It's one of those things where I do not trust the government with something as mammoth as saving the planet.

00:13:04.000 If I can't trust them with a checking account, I don't know why I would trust them with the ozone layer. 0.94

00:13:09.000 But back to the meat thing.

00:13:10.000 So, you know what's funny?

00:13:11.000 I've got a personal story with that.

00:13:13.000 I got convinced.

00:13:15.000 To do the green smoothie thing for a while.

00:13:17.000 And, you know, a good friend of mine, actually, is Rob Wolf.

00:13:19.000 He'll be on the podcast radio show.

00:13:21.000 That's great.

00:13:22.000 Yeah, a few weeks from now.

00:13:23.000 And he's just, like, hardcore libertarian, so I'm kind of between you and him.

00:13:27.000 But he was one of the first guys that said, like, ooh, yeah, you should stop doing that, right?

00:13:31.000 And we see it everywhere right now, you know, greensmoothieblog.com.

00:13:34.000 Well, I also happen to have hypothyroidism, which is very rare for a young...

00:13:38.000 Me too.

00:13:39.000 Yeah, it's unusual for a man.

00:13:41.000 Exactly.

00:13:42.000 Usually pre-diabetes.

00:13:44.000 It's a sign of that.

00:13:44.000 And my doctor said, well, yeah, you know what?

00:13:46.000 If you're doing all the raw spinach and the kale, which we've all been told is the best thing for you in as much as you can stuff in a blender, it's not.

00:13:55.000 Tell us just, if only to save one thyroid gland out there, why the whole green smoothie, green juice thing might not be as good for you as you think.

00:14:05.000 Yeah, a lot of those vegetables are really hard on your thyroid.

00:14:09.000 They just are their goitrogens, and they're going to do damage really hard on your thyroid to deal with all the compounds that are in those vegetables.

00:14:16.000 A lot of vegetables are not particularly edible until you cook them, first of all.

00:14:20.000 You know, a lot of people want you to believe, a lot of those sort of vegan, raw vegan people, oh, if they cook it, it's bad.

00:14:20.000 Right.

00:14:26.000 It's not actually edible, so you apply heat, because you have to destroy what are called anti-nutrients.

00:14:30.000 Right.

00:14:31.000 And anti-nutrients, that's one of the ways that...

00:14:34.000 Plants fight back.

00:14:35.000 Plants don't really want to be eaten either.

00:14:37.000 They can't run and they don't have teeth and claws like animals.

00:14:40.000 So their only defense are chemicals and they are the original chemical warfare people. 0.78

00:14:46.000 They know how to make chemicals that can hurt you and that can protect themselves and protect their babies essentially.

00:14:51.000 So seeds are really hard to eat.

00:14:53.000 You have to do all kinds of things to trick them, to make them edible.

00:14:56.000 And most of the plant as well doesn't want to be eaten.

00:14:59.000 That's why it tastes bitter.

00:15:00.000 That's why it's poisonous.

00:15:01.000 And we have no way to digest cellulose anyway as humans.

00:15:05.000 You need multiple chambers in your stomach, tons of bacteria that can do the work, like a cow can do that. 1.00

00:15:10.000 We can't even do it.

00:15:11.000 So most of the plant matter on this planet is never going to be food for us.

00:15:15.000 But even the things we can sort of semi-digest tend to be a lot more edible when heat is applied and those antioxidants are destroyed.

00:15:22.000 I know.

00:15:23.000 And it's one of those things.

00:15:24.000 It is just one of those things.

00:15:26.000 That nobody believes when you tell them.

00:15:28.000 I'm like, I heard the raw food diet, you know, because Andy Dick's doing it.

00:15:32.000 I'm going, does Andy Dick look healthy to you, you shmohawk? 1.00

00:15:35.000 Literally.

00:15:36.000 I remember him, he was on Conan going, I'm doing the raw food diet.

00:15:39.000 I'm like, well, I'm going to avoid that.

00:15:40.000 That's actually what spurred me to look into why I thought maybe the green smoothies were bad and Rob educated me.

00:15:47.000 And now, you know, it's funny.

00:15:48.000 I do a lot of raw egg yolks and I do the fermented cod liver oil.

00:15:52.000 That's local.

00:15:52.000 Good, good, good.

00:15:53.000 Those are very good things to eat raw.

00:15:55.000 Some things are very edible raw, some things are not.

00:15:57.000 Raw organ meats, you should eat a little of those every week too.

00:16:00.000 I know we are very grossed out in this culture by this, but around the world, across human history, those are the foods that are considered sacred.

00:16:06.000 And it's for a reason.

00:16:07.000 Some of the nutrients are destroyed when they're heated.

00:16:10.000 And so raw liver, raw kidney, raw heart, a little bit every week goes a long way.

00:16:15.000 Yeah, it's amazing to hear you say this, obviously, knowing your history.

00:16:20.000 So you were vegan, right?

00:16:23.000 And then you go into this.

00:16:24.000 And you're not just, by the way, you're not just no longer vegan.

00:16:27.000 For those tuning in right now, we have Lear Keith with us, who was a former vegan, wrote The Vegetarian Myth.

00:16:31.000 great book.

00:16:33.000 You're doing like bone broth and organ meat.

00:16:36.000 They're just picturing you like 28 days later carving into a carcass.

00:16:41.000 So a pretty big 180.

00:16:43.000 What do you say to someone who might argue, obviously vegan, like you said, is ideological extremism, and now you've kind of gone the other way.

00:16:43.000 Yeah.

00:16:50.000 Do you think that maybe people who do what you do either just have a fascination with sort of self-experimentation or more extreme personalities?

00:16:57.000 Because it's pretty drastic change.

00:17:00.000 Yeah, you know, it took me five or six years to come around to all of it.

00:17:04.000 So I went really slowly.

00:17:06.000 I think, you know, when you're young, you tend to be more idealistic and the world is more black and white.

00:17:11.000 And I like to think that I've learned from my mistake, especially after the permanent damage that I did to my body.

00:17:16.000 I move very slowly now when I make a change in my diet and I really investigate it.

00:17:21.000 I do a lot of research, and not just on sites that agree with me, but all over.

00:17:24.000 And I've tried to make myself scientific just to be literate in a scientific way.

00:17:29.000 I don't have a background in science, but you have to be able to read studies and understand what's going on.

00:17:34.000 And that's not an easy thing.

00:17:35.000 We don't get good science education in this country.

00:17:37.000 And now with the Internet, you know, you can just stick to your little bubble, find people who agree with you and never get challenged.

00:17:44.000 And that presents its own problems.

00:17:46.000 So I try to be very careful as I have shifted my diet over the last few years.

00:17:51.000 But everything that I've done makes sense to me.

00:17:54.000 It makes sense from just a historical...

00:17:57.000 Just look at the scope of human history, 2.5 million years.

00:18:01.000 And there's no question to archaeologists what we ate.

00:18:04.000 There's no question.

00:18:05.000 The only people who come up with these just-so stories are people who are very ideologically driven.

00:18:10.000 Everybody else agrees.

00:18:12.000 And the evidence is just overwhelming.

00:18:13.000 You can see in the bones and the teeth of the skeletons, you can see that these people ate mostly meat.

00:18:19.000 You see the tools that they left behind.

00:18:21.000 You see the pictures they drew about it.

00:18:22.000 And then their campsites are filled with these remains.

00:18:25.000 And there's just no question what we ate.

00:18:27.000 And you can also look at contemporary hunter-gatherers.

00:18:29.000 There are still 46 tribes remaining of hunter-gatherers, and we know what they eat.

00:18:33.000 So there's no question at all.

00:18:35.000 And then you just look at how our teeth, our jaw, all the way down.

00:18:38.000 We've got one stomach.

00:18:39.000 Really quickly, because I know a question that a lot of people will have there, and I think I know the answer.

00:18:44.000 If you look at tribes hunter-gatherers, obviously their life expectancy is significantly shorter.

00:18:50.000 How would you explain that to people who would just look at those numbers in a sheet and explain context?

00:18:54.000 Yeah, the number that you actually need, and this is going to get technical, is the mortality rate doubling time.

00:18:59.000 And what that does is it factors out all the environmental reasons that people die at very young ages.

00:19:06.000 So throughout most of human history, if you live to be five years old, you actually live to be about as old as we are now.

00:19:13.000 But early childhood was a hard time to be a human being.

00:19:16.000 Right.

00:19:17.000 And so you have to factor that out and say, okay, so if you got over all the environmental factors that made being a baby really hard in prehistory, in fact, past that, you had really, really good solid health.

00:19:27.000 That changes when people take up agriculture.

00:19:30.000 Their health declines rapidly.

00:19:32.000 It was actually a complete disaster for human health when people switch from these nutrient-dense diets based on animals to diets based strictly on carbohydrate.

00:19:39.000 And the archaeological record could not be clearer.

00:19:42.000 Their bones just crumble, their teeth fall out, and they shrink six inches almost immediately.

00:19:47.000 It sounded like National Treasure 18.

00:19:50.000 Nick Cage is going to show up because he has to pay his taxes.

00:19:52.000 Let's keep you on for one more segment because I'm fascinated.

00:19:56.000 Lear Keith, stay tuned.

00:19:57.000 We're back, Ladder with Crowder.

00:19:59.000 See, this is the thing where I am fascinated with these guests.

00:20:02.000 And I know we do mainly politics in the show, though we'll have professional athletes or actors.

00:20:07.000 But Lear Keith wrote this book, The Vegetarian Myth, which the way I found her was I thought that she was somebody very different than who she turns out to be.

00:20:14.000 And who she turns out to be is very interesting.

00:20:16.000 Lear, thanks so much for being back with us.

00:20:19.000 So you were just talking about how catastrophic agriculture can be to human health.

00:20:24.000 And listen, I'm a moderate.

00:20:27.000 I tend to believe that mainly meats and then some veggies and fruit, and I don't think oatmeal's going to kill you.

00:20:33.000 But I can understand the argument for the paleo crowd.

00:20:36.000 But I do think, like you said, it's undeniable that a lot of this, like a lot of things, is influenced through those in political power or those who can...

00:20:46.000 Those who have the most amount of cash, let's be honest, you were talking about super farms earlier.

00:20:50.000 So that's a big influence.

00:20:51.000 I mean, it has accelerated right now.

00:20:53.000 If you look at the American diet and the food pyramid, human diets have changed at a rate.

00:21:00.000 Really, would you say it's fair for me to say in the last hundred years more than they did in the thousands of years preceding it?

00:21:08.000 Yes, absolutely.

00:21:09.000 And in the last generation, most of all.

00:21:11.000 And it's exactly because of those government recommendations and the way that they put those policies forward and changed the way everybody ate.

00:21:19.000 And it was a huge experiment on public health.

00:21:21.000 And it didn't happen without protest.

00:21:24.000 There were many, many doctors who came forward and said, you cannot do this to the American people.

00:21:29.000 There's no evidence that this is going to help.

00:21:31.000 We have plenty of evidence that it might not.

00:21:32.000 And the government did it anyway.

00:21:34.000 And now everybody is sick and fat and stupid and dying.

00:21:37.000 And all of these diseases have absolutely exploded.

00:21:40.000 They've got diabetes now and children under 10.

00:21:42.000 They can't call it adult onset anymore because so many children have it.

00:21:46.000 It's horrible what's happening up there.

00:21:48.000 I mean, it's changed.

00:21:49.000 Well, they told everybody to stop eating fat and concentrate on eating grains, and that's what happened.

00:21:56.000 They switched from fat and protein to eating a diet of carbohydrate.

00:21:59.000 And we were not designed to eat a diet that's essentially sugar.

00:22:03.000 And so everybody got sick.

00:22:03.000 Right.

00:22:05.000 Well, what about people like Rob Wolf out there, some paleos who say, you know, tubers and root vegetables, things like potatoes, sweet potatoes, uh, for high performing athletes, it's actually better to have a higher carbohydrate intake provided they're not coming from processed grains.

00:22:17.000 Would you say that's a, that argument holds water or are they off base?

00:22:21.000 I would agree.

00:22:22.000 But I do think it depends on how much damage you personally have done to your insulin receptors.

00:22:28.000 I did a lot of damage to mine.

00:22:29.000 I cannot tolerate that load of carbohydrate on a daily basis.

00:22:32.000 So I have to be really careful.

00:22:34.000 I eat a lot of cinnamon.

00:22:36.000 Yes, that can help.

00:22:37.000 It's supposed to be good for you because I read it once and I think I'm a doctor.

00:22:42.000 It's funny how quickly it's accelerated.

00:22:45.000 And here's one thing.

00:22:46.000 Like I said, I don't agree with you on everything that you've brought forward.

00:22:49.000 But I do hate it when people on the other side just make simplistic arguments like, well, life expectancy is a lot longer.

00:22:54.000 Well, you know, people used to have 19 kids because 12 of them would get kicked by horses.

00:22:58.000 The difference is now they're being taken out by a few boxes of Froot Loops.

00:23:01.000 So the cause of death is very different.

00:23:04.000 And obviously there were acute, I guess you can say, environmental consequences.

00:23:08.000 The reasons is the term you used earlier, or acute causes of death were much more common, right?

00:23:12.000 But nowadays, the chronic disease is definitely a problem that I think everyone kind of acknowledges.

00:23:18.000 Just everyone tries to solve it a different way.

00:23:20.000 And the misinformation out there, I want to get back to your book, The Vegetarian Myth.

00:23:25.000 You do realize that you are considered, like you said, an apostate, but not only by vegans, but by general mainstream health right now.

00:23:32.000 You should be going to a Jamba Juice and getting a smoothie.

00:23:36.000 A majority of your plate should be salad and fruits.

00:23:40.000 How does that make you feel when you know what you've done to your body, you know the research you've put into it, and for some reason a majority of the country is just flat out wrong?

00:23:49.000 Well, you know, a lot more doctors are coming around.

00:23:52.000 This is pretty much every day in the news you can find, okay, another study that shows, gosh, saturated fat actually doesn't hurt people.

00:23:59.000 We were wrong.

00:24:00.000 It was even on the cover of Time, you know, where they're like, oops, butter isn't bad, you know, and it's coming round because they did try this terrible experiment on us all and it failed.

00:24:10.000 So, you know, they're having to retrench.

00:24:12.000 And I don't know how long it's going to take for the really big institutions like the USDA to come out.

00:24:16.000 The thing to know about the USDA is that they are not charged with protecting public health.

00:24:20.000 They are charged with selling commodity agriculture.

00:24:23.000 So they're going to keep pushing that food pyramid basically until they're dead.

00:24:27.000 Because that's what's the most money for those giant corporations. 0.84

00:24:29.000 So follow the money.

00:24:30.000 Let's always remember that one, too.

00:24:32.000 This is true.

00:24:32.000 I often talk about that.

00:24:34.000 And that's where...

00:24:35.000 I don't know if you want to get into disagreements.

00:24:36.000 We don't have to.

00:24:37.000 But that's where I have a disagreement.

00:24:38.000 You know, everyone points to the Koch brothers or Big Oil.

00:24:40.000 And if you look at where the actual money comes from in politics, obviously, like you said, these subsidies for farms are a big one.

00:24:45.000 But some shocking numbers that it's, you know, we've been told it's always Big Oil and Big Pharma.

00:24:49.000 And that's not always the case.

00:24:50.000 A lot of people don't think Big Farms, although their connections are obviously still to Big Oil and ethanol with corn.

00:24:55.000 A lot of people don't think Big Unions.

00:24:57.000 15 out of the top 20 donors are Big Unions, namely public sector unions.

00:25:01.000 So I've railed on that for a long time.

00:25:03.000 If you follow the money trail, and you know how you solve the money trail?

00:25:06.000 And this is where you can tell me if you think I'm out of line.

00:25:09.000 You solve the money trail by eliminating the crony capitalism, the relationship between government and big companies.

00:25:16.000 I always say everyone plays identity politics.

00:25:18.000 We're the party of small business.

00:25:19.000 We're the party of big business.

00:25:20.000 The same thing applies to food and farming.

00:25:22.000 I'm not a guy who's a small business guy or a big business guy.

00:25:25.000 I'm an honest business guy.

00:25:26.000 And if you're running an honest business, you don't need the government to step in with my tax dollars to funnel it to you.

00:25:32.000 Right, and especially with the big banks.

00:25:35.000 Yeah, I completely agree.

00:25:36.000 If they're too big to fail, let them fail.

00:25:37.000 I've had it.

00:25:38.000 No, you're right.

00:25:39.000 Well, listen, the West Indies Trading Company, I always talk about this, employed a fifth of population earth.

00:25:44.000 They were making over 20% on their dividends, and they went bankrupt.

00:25:48.000 And that's one thing, too.

00:25:49.000 I remember when people coming out saying, and this is, see, we're learning about each other.

00:25:52.000 We're finding common ground.

00:25:54.000 Everyone said, the occupiers are the first people to do this.

00:25:57.000 I was at, and I'm not a tea partier, I was at the first tea party rally.

00:26:01.000 And, you know, you may disagree with them on a lot.

00:26:02.000 The biggest signs they had from the get-go.

00:26:05.000 We're down with Wall Street and no more big banks, no more bailouts.

00:26:09.000 So this idea that leftists are the only ones against big banks, and I don't know a single conservative, not one, not one, who is a fan of the Federal Reserve or big bank bailouts.

00:26:21.000 It's one of those things, I feel like it's been pushed for some reason just this false political narrative, and I think it's maybe, I don't know why people would want to malign one world view as being with big banks when it's not the case, but We agree on that.

00:26:34.000 I think pretty much everyone in the country agrees, yeah, we need to do away with big banks.

00:26:40.000 Yep.

00:26:41.000 Anyway, sorry, that was completely irrelevant.

00:26:43.000 It had nothing to do with meat.

00:26:44.000 So let's go back.

00:26:45.000 One thing I find very interesting that you talk about, and I don't think you claim it as original, but you do articulate it, I think, in a way that is better than most people.

00:26:54.000 So you talk about animals and the domestication of animals.

00:26:56.000 Mm-hmm.

00:26:57.000 And you made a good point.

00:26:58.000 I have it written down in my book here.

00:26:59.000 I don't have the exact quote.

00:27:00.000 But you talk about how people say, you know, animals weren't designed to be this way.

00:27:04.000 And you use an example of, I think it's 10 million domesticated dogs versus, or maybe it's 50 million domesticated dogs versus 10,000 wild wolves.

00:27:15.000 It's sort of funny that we don't see that as evolution from an animal perspective.

00:27:20.000 These dogs have evolved to make themselves useful to human beings, and they live longer, healthier lives.

00:27:26.000 So this idea that domestication of animals is inherently against some animal moral code could be backwards.

00:27:32.000 Am I misquoting it?

00:27:34.000 I know the actual numbers, but I thought the point was fascinating.

00:27:38.000 Yeah, and you can say the same things about plants, that most plants don't want much to do with us.

00:27:43.000 But there's a few that figured, you know, if we work together, it's going to go better for both of us.

00:27:49.000 And it's true. 0.56

00:27:50.000 We've carried them all over the world.

00:27:51.000 We've essentially conquered, you know, the forests to plant the annual grasses that, you know, were willing to be domesticated.

00:27:58.000 So in the service of corn and soy and wheat, we've pretty well conquered the planet.

00:28:02.000 So that was very successful for corn and soy and wheat.

00:28:05.000 Most grasses aren't willing to do that. 0.98

00:28:06.000 They're not willing to change their genome enough to make themselves interesting to us.

00:28:10.000 But some plants have been.

00:28:12.000 You could look at the potato.

00:28:13.000 It's the same thing.

00:28:14.000 Michael Pollan talks about the apple.

00:28:16.000 You know, like wild apples are basically inedible, but they were willing to shift their genome enough to make themselves sweet enough that we decided we really liked them and we've planted them all over the planet again.

00:28:28.000 And it's the same with animals.

00:28:29.000 There's a few, not a lot, but a few that were like, let's give it a try.

00:28:33.000 And it's not, you know, us doing something horrible to them or them doing something horrible to us.

00:28:39.000 These are interdependent relationships.

00:28:40.000 And everything in nature is that kind of relationship.

00:28:43.000 That's really my point.

00:28:44.000 I mean, we wouldn't have plants all over the planet if it wasn't for the insects that actually do the pollinating. 0.92

00:28:49.000 They work together.

00:28:50.000 The insects get some sugar out of it and the plants get fertilized.

00:28:54.000 And when that revolution happened in nature, when plants Went ahead and decided to try sexual dimorphism as a reproductive strategy.

00:29:04.000 The world turned green overnight.

00:29:06.000 I mean, before it was lichen sort of creeping along at a really slow pace.

00:29:09.000 And all of a sudden, you've got insects that fly, and you've got plants making flowers, and the world just blossoms, like literally just turns green very, very quickly.

00:29:18.000 So it works, but it's because they work together.

00:29:20.000 Everybody gets something out of the arrangement.

00:29:21.000 And it's the same thing with domesticated animals and humans.

00:29:25.000 We get something out of it, they get something out of it, and we all live longer.

00:29:28.000 Sure.

00:29:29.000 Well, it's funny that you say that.

00:29:30.000 You know, you were talking about plants and sort of their process.

00:29:33.000 And I don't want to say motive because it makes it sound like we're watching a Disney film, you know, Fern Gully or something.

00:29:39.000 Someone's going to come in here and paint with colors of the wind, whatever that means.

00:29:41.000 But what I do find fascinating, this was an actual conversation with a vegan.

00:29:46.000 She was talking about how she hated meat and it was, you know, it was cruel.

00:29:50.000 And then she goes, plus, I just don't want whatever's on your plate, because that's just dead.

00:29:53.000 My food is living food.

00:29:55.000 And to me, I was thinking, you don't see the irony that your food dehydrator is the Auschwitz of asparagus. 0.83

00:30:01.000 You're right.

00:30:02.000 Yeah.

00:30:03.000 And this is dead.

00:30:04.000 You're right.

00:30:04.000 It's dead.

00:30:05.000 And it was actually picked up from the local farmer's market, and I knew it lived a good life.

00:30:08.000 I mean...

00:30:09.000 Could one argue that if you're going to sort of create this moral equivalency between animals and humans, which I don't believe in.

00:30:15.000 I don't believe that animals are on the same playing field as humans.

00:30:18.000 I believe we're smarter.

00:30:19.000 I believe we have a space program and light bulbs.

00:30:21.000 So let's start with that.

00:30:23.000 Isn't it pretty easy to then create the moral equivalency between, if we're all the same, why would plants deserve any less consideration than the animals above them or humans?

00:30:35.000 Well, this was a problem I had when I was a vegan because I didn't want to make those hierarchies, and yet I was.

00:30:40.000 So meat eaters would sort of taunt me with that question about, well, what about the plants?

00:30:43.000 And I never had a good answer because I didn't want to be the person that said, well, you know, animals count, but plants are just dead matter.

00:30:50.000 They're just insensate salads, and I'm allowed to just help myself because I didn't want to put forward those kinds of hierarchies.

00:30:57.000 I mean, this really goes back to ancient Greece.

00:30:59.000 And their belief was that there's no sentience at all in stone, and then there's dirt on top of that, and that's not really alive either.

00:31:05.000 And then you've got plants, and they're sort of alive, but not really.

00:31:08.000 And then you've got animals, and they're more like us, so they sort of count, but then finally at the top you've got humans.

00:31:13.000 That's not how nature works, in fact.

00:31:14.000 It's a cycle, and we all have a play.

00:31:17.000 And if you take one piece out of that cycle, the entire thing collapses.

00:31:20.000 If you destroy the soil, everybody dies.

00:31:22.000 If you don't have enough predators eating the ruminants, they will turn the place to desert.

00:31:27.000 Every single being in that cycle has a role to play in terms of making life more abundant and giving the entire community more resilience.

00:31:35.000 So I don't make a hierarchy.

00:31:37.000 I just say we all have a role to play and we should do that very gratefully because life is an amazing thing.

00:31:42.000 But I'm an apex predator.

00:31:43.000 That's the role that humans play, just like wolves, just like bears.

00:31:46.000 And, you know, our job is to do that well.

00:31:49.000 Well, especially if you've got your conceal and carry permit, you are at the pinnacle of an apex predator.

00:31:55.000 You're going to go Jodie Foster in that, what was that movie, Jared?

00:31:59.000 I don't know.

00:32:00.000 It was basically Death Wish with Jodie Foster where she was off in guys in a subway with a revolver.

00:32:06.000 The Brave One.

00:32:07.000 I saw that movie.

00:32:09.000 You know what I hate about those movies?

00:32:11.000 I want to get to the part where they're killing bad guys, and I know people are like, how dare you?

00:32:14.000 All life is valuable.

00:32:16.000 As far as I'm concerned, you rape a woman, you forfeit your right to live. 1.00

00:32:18.000 I hate that I have to go through Jeff Goldblum raping an innocent lady so that I have to get to Charles Bronson killing them.

00:32:26.000 And the same thing with the brave one.

00:32:27.000 I hate that I have to watch a guy get beaten up just so I can watch Jodie Foster kill them later on.

00:32:31.000 I like the revenge part, but they make those scenes so brutal because you have to hate the bad guy.

00:32:37.000 I know I'm a bit of a...

00:32:39.000 I'm too weak-hearted to watch that stuff.

00:32:42.000 No, no, no.

00:32:42.000 Don't apologize.

00:32:43.000 You should claim your heart.

00:32:46.000 It's a good thing that you feel that.

00:32:47.000 Because it's horrible that we make this into entertainment.

00:32:49.000 I'm going to push this deep down inside!

00:32:51.000 No thoughts that everyone will make fun of me for...

00:32:55.000 Listen, I know.

00:32:56.000 And I know you're a feminist, but I have to sometimes let my man card show sometimes. 0.99

00:33:00.000 There's no way if I tell my friends that I can't.

00:33:02.000 I hate 300.

00:33:03.000 I think 300 is the worst film ever put to celluloid, and I know my man card deserves to be revoked.

00:33:08.000 How many slow-mo decapitations can you take?

00:33:11.000 I'd rather watch The Wedding Singer.

00:33:12.000 I'm not even going to lie.

00:33:15.000 Anyway.

00:33:16.000 Claim it, Stephen.

00:33:17.000 Claim it.

00:33:18.000 Like I said, not a lot of people would think this.

00:33:21.000 I'm not an anti-war guy.

00:33:22.000 I'm an anti-war 90% of the time guy.

00:33:25.000 I believe we should be slow to go to it.

00:33:26.000 I believe we should be slow to be violent.

00:33:28.000 I've never been in a street fight.

00:33:29.000 I don't need to watch it.

00:33:30.000 Although I watch Mixed Martial Arts.

00:33:32.000 We just had Chael Sonnenon.

00:33:33.000 We'll have George St.

00:33:34.000 We have a very eclectic mix of guests, but I think a lot of people think if you eat meat, you love meat, you have a concealed carry, that you're inherently a violent person.

00:33:34.000 Pierre on.

00:33:44.000 And it's just not true.

00:33:45.000 You are walking proof of that, Leah.

00:33:47.000 So, there was one more note that I wanted to get into there, but I don't think we're going to have time now.

00:33:51.000 So, if people want to find you and read more about your point of view, your work, where should they go?

00:33:57.000 So it's actually really easy.

00:33:58.000 It's just my name, lierekeith.com.

00:34:00.000 That's a joke because my name is really strange.

00:34:02.000 So it's L-I-E-R-R-E. If you can't remember that, honestly, you can just type vegetarian myth into Google.

00:34:09.000 I'm the only one with a book by that name.

00:34:11.000 You will find my website right away.

00:34:13.000 So you'll see upcoming appearances, all my books.

00:34:16.000 You can write me email if you want, all that.

00:34:18.000 I don't read hate mail, so don't bother.

00:34:20.000 But if you really have questions or you're intrigued by some of this, I can give you more resources, lots of good information.

00:34:25.000 I mean, we barely scratched the surface, obviously, in a half-an-hour interview.

00:34:28.000 But there's so much information out there that I really want people to have, both for their health and for the health of the planet.

00:34:34.000 Well, it is probably an even harder name to spell or find if you're on a vegan diet and you're not getting enough saturated fat for your brain.

00:34:34.000 Yeah.

00:34:41.000 Brain fog!

00:34:42.000 What is it?

00:34:43.000 Kierre Leaf!

00:34:44.000 That doesn't make...

00:34:44.000 Leaf!

00:34:45.000 She doesn't like Leafs.

00:34:45.000 No!

00:34:47.000 I can imagine.

00:34:48.000 I will say a lot of fat has definitely helped my brain.

00:34:50.000 So, very interesting stuff, Lear, and we appreciate it.

00:34:52.000 And even though we disagree on a lot, I always like finding common ground.

00:34:56.000 And hey...

00:34:57.000 If nothing else, right?

00:34:58.000 You are a feminist, environmentalist, but we both like a good steak. 1.00

00:35:02.000 And we certainly don't disagree on as much as I did with the previous guest, an actual terrorist who openly called for my death.

00:35:09.000 So there's that.

00:35:10.000 Yeah, no, I would never call for your death, so.

00:35:10.000 Oh boy.

00:35:12.000 Well, thank you very much.

00:35:13.000 But if I invade your house, your Great Pyrenees will probably take care of that for me. 0.68

00:35:16.000 That's what she's for.

00:35:17.000 I mean, they don't take prisoners.

00:35:19.000 It's like, you're done.

00:35:20.000 Yeah, well, 90 pounds, actually, I would have thought the Great Pyrenees was a little bit bigger than that, usually.

00:35:26.000 She's a girl.

00:35:27.000 The boys are 120 pounds.

00:35:29.000 So the girls top out at about 90. 1.00

00:35:30.000 But they're not aggressive, but they're very protective.

00:35:33.000 So they don't start the fight, but they will finish it.

00:35:36.000 If somebody is being aggressive toward me, she's on it.

00:35:40.000 But if it's not coming toward me, she's like, you people are crazy.

00:35:43.000 What are you doing over there?

00:35:44.000 She won't just run and start something.

00:35:46.000 It's more, if you're coming at me, she just turns instantly from 90 pounds of fluff into 90 pounds of fang. 1.00

00:35:52.000 Man, I could talk about dogs all day and then our audience will shut off the dial.

00:35:58.000 They're not talking about policy!

00:35:59.000 Although I just nailed Hopper.

00:36:02.000 So, you know, he sneaks up on me and I was just taking a sock off.

00:36:05.000 You know, when you take the sock off, it gets stuck.

00:36:06.000 So there's that momentum and it flung.

00:36:08.000 And I hit him in the head so hard and I felt so bad.

00:36:12.000 And he was fine.

00:36:13.000 He came up and he licked me and he thought I was going to wrestle with him.

00:36:16.000 So he wanted to start wrestling and growling.

00:36:18.000 Yeah, but I felt...

00:36:19.000 I felt so bad, man.

00:36:20.000 Jared here is a producer.

00:36:22.000 He heard it.

00:36:22.000 It was like a...

00:36:23.000 But that's the same with those great Pyrenees.

00:36:25.000 They are durable dogs and they love the rough and tumble.

00:36:28.000 They're very noble.

00:36:29.000 They are very noble.

00:36:30.000 Very smart.

00:36:31.000 Very noble.

00:36:32.000 We have to let you go.

00:36:33.000 The vegetarian myth, Leah Key, thank you so much.

00:36:34.000 We hope to have you back sometime.

00:36:36.000 Thank you.

00:36:37.000 Subscribe is what I would tell you if I knew that you liked this video.

Louder with Crowder - February 14, 2015

Vegan MYTHS Debunked with Lierre Keith || Louder With Crowder

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