In search of answers and proof for the doubts I had, I followed several courses. At the Wageningen University and Research I followed a MOOC entitled “Plant Based Diets – Food for a Sustainable Future”. At the European Academy for Natural Healthcare in Antwerp I became a food coach. With the online courses of PNI Europe and Natura Foundation I delved into the evolution of Homo sapiens, explored the insights provided by orthomolecular medicine and by clinical psycho neuro immunology (cPNI). Today I present the conclusions I reached after this journey.

The Evolutionary Perspective

The most important insight I developed the past year is to take an evolutionary perspective to understand how we should live. The modern human arose about 300,000 years ago in Africa. Our DNA has not evolved much since then. To comprehend our dietary requirements, we must look at our evolutionary roots. Throughout our history, animal proteins have played a crucial role in shaping our physiology and cognitive development. As hunter-gatherers, our ancestors relied on animal sources for sustenance, which provided essential nutrients, such as complete proteins, long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, iron, and vitamin B12, that were vital for our survival and flourishing. Red meat became only relatively recently a frequent source of protein. This also applies to grain-based foods like bread.

Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine emphasizes the significance of optimal nutrition for achieving and maintaining good health. It recognizes that everyone has unique biochemical needs so a one-size-fits-all approach does not suffice. The Natura Foundation also promotes an evolution-based approach in which animal proteins offer a highly bioavailable and complete source of essential amino acids. Proteins are the building blocks of life, enabling numerous vital functions in the body, including tissue repair, hormone synthesis, and enzyme production. The course I followed strongly encourages the consumption of vegetables and fruit in combination with fish and other seafood as well as of eggs and poultry.

Clinical Psycho Neuro Immunology

Clinical PNI (or “KPNI” in Dutch) explores the intricate interplay between the mind, body, and immune system. I love the holistic approach of this school of thought and its strong basis in science. It highlights the impact of psychological and emotional well-being on overall health. While plant-based diets can certainly provide adequate nutrition, it is crucial to consider the potential psychological and emotional effects of dietary choices. cPNI highlights several potential health risks associated with the consumption of soy and legumes (e.g. Anti-nutrients and digestive issues). For some individuals, the inclusion of animal proteins in their diet may positively influence their mental health and overall well-being.

Stay Off Mammals

Both cPNI and orthomolecular medicine raise concerns regarding the consumption of red meat and dairy because of Neu5Gc (N-Glycolylneuraminic acid). This is a type of sugar molecule found in these animal products. Neu5Gc is considered a non-human antigen as our bodies do not naturally produce it. When you consume red meat and dairy products containing Neu5Gc, your immune system may recognize it as a foreign substance, potentially leading to chronic inflammation and triggering autoimmune responses. Red meat and dairy are also known for increasing other health risks. For one I’ve chosen to stay off red meat and considerably limit my consumption of dairy… even cheese !

Ethical Dilemmas and Considerations

I have great respect for those who live a vegan life. Ethical concerns surrounding animal welfare have prompted many to adopt this lifestyle. The ethical argument against the consumption of animal proteins is compelling, as factory farming practices often involve cruelty and environmental harm. Acknowledging these concerns, it is essential to promote ethical and sustainable farming practices that prioritize animal welfare, such as free-range, grass-fed, and organic farming.

Striking a Balance: A Healthy and Sustainable Approach

While acknowledging the ethical dilemmas surrounding animal protein consumption, and the implications on the environment, it is in my opinion realistic to consider the negative health aspects of veganism. A healthy and sustainable approach to diet should consider individual biochemistry, cultural diversity, as well as the environmental impact of our choices. Incorporating a variety of protein sources, including both plant-based and animal options, can provide the necessary nutrients for optimal health while minimising ecological impact.

Conclusion

The question of whether the human diet needs to include animal proteins is multifaceted and requires careful consideration. Exploring the evolutionary perspective, orthomolecular medicine, and clinical psycho neuro immunology reveals the significant role that animal proteins have played in our development as a species.

To achieve optimal health while fostering a more sustainable future, my recommendation is to embrace a diverse diet that focuses on the following basic rules:

• Eat natural: steer away from processed foods.
• Eat the rainbow: consume mostly foods that are alkaline (ph > 7), veggies and fruits.
• Mind your proteins: limit your consumption of acidic foods (ph < 7) but make sure you get enough proteins.
• If you eat animal proteins, ensure the inclusion of ethically sourced produce, preferring fish, eggs and poultry.
• Minimise dairy, avoid eating red meat altogether (for many reasons, more than mentioned above).

Apart from all this: relax, take enough rest, sleep well (check out “the healthy big five“)!

1. Live healthier by following a 100% plant-based lifestyle
2. Reduce in the process our impact on the planet’s resources
3. Eliminate animals’ suffering and stop the huge scale production of animal protein. 

The win-win-win is ideal in multiple ways. For instance, by cutting our consumption of animal proteins, we reduce the impact of massive meat production on the environment such as deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions AND we improve our health e.g. lower the risks of heart-related diseases and cancer. Also, by reducing the massive scale of animal farms, we reduce the risks of pandemics for humans AND we improve animal welfare.

Hence, my reasoning has been: “let me demonstrate that I become healthier on a plant-based diet and hopefully in the process I’ll inspire others to contribute to the triple win.” 

To validate this reasoning I went back to school, graduated as a food coach in June 2022, and followed a course from PNI Europe (introduction in “clinical psycho neuro immunology”, “KPNI” in Dutch). Both courses have convinced me to revise my standpoint to some extent.

I still do not eat meat!

However, I have reintroduced animal protein in my regimen. This is a departure from my idealistic win-win-win standpoint, so I feel the need to explain what and why I changed.

What Has Not Changed: A Solid Plant-Based Foundation

I still believe that a mostly plant-based approach to life is the way to go. From a human health point of view, our menu should be based on 80% alkaline ingredients, vegetables and fruits! This still needs to form the bulk of man’s diet. Why is explained here.

Considering the amount of unhealthy crap (sorry!) in processed food, I still believe that organic, pure, non-processed food is the way to go. Please read the ingredients of what you buy before you put in your mouth. Wheat? Avoid – see why here. 

Vegetable oils, like sunflower and peanut oil, beware! They contain Omega 6 fats which are responsible for low-grade inflammation.

To lower the logistics impact of the food system, I still go for mostly seasonal and local produce. That’s why I’m a customer of Boerschappen.

Still No Steak For Me!

Red meat like beef, pork, lamb… are still on my black (or red) list. I strongly advise against eating these foods. The biggest issue: they contain a molecule, Neug5Gc, which humans cannot synthesize, and that presents many issues. The largest risk is that Neu5Gc results in low-grade inflammation. See for instance “A red meat-derived glycan promotes inflammation and cancer progression”. Or just Google “Neu5Gc”.

Additionally, the molecule resembles the human Neu5Ga and that means that pathogens (viruses and bacteria) can sneak in our bodies and make us sick.

Bottom-line: red meat lowers your immune defences. 

Not Fake Meat Either!

I occasionally order a veggie hamburger in a restaurant but I don’t buy the fake meat products you find in supermarket. That’s 100% processed food, and the ingredients are most often unhealthy. 

Only exception: tempeh because it’s mostly pure and it is fermented. Fermented vegetables contain bacteria that are good for one’s microbiome.

What Has Changed: Some Animal Protein

This has been months in the making but here it is… I am no longer a vegetarian. Let alone that I have adopted a vegan lifestyle. I have not joined the dark side completely either. I still don’t buy meat and I very rarely eat it. However, I am back eating animal protein: a bit of cheese, eggs, fish, and seafood. 

Note, by the way, that the awful Neug5Gc molecule is also present in milk and cheese, in high quantities in goat cheese. Eating that from time to time is a risk I’m willing to take occasionally. Cheese 🧀 and wine 🍷remain my drug of choice. Oh yes, and chocolate 🍫 as well.

What Happened?

Let’s go back to the beginning. When I engaged on my “French Food Philosopher” journey I was convinced that going vegan was THE solution for the sustainability challenges our planet is facing. A great win-win-win was the ideal that motivated me: better human health through good food, much lower impact on natural resources, far less animal suffering.  

Doubt however was gnawing at me. My professors made it clear that vegans do not get enough vitamin B12 and Omega 3 fatty acids. And as I’m against industrial, processed products, I found it weird that one of the “wins” meant compromising with an important principle: having to eat processed foods. 

Furthermore, I found that eating legumes (beans, lentils, chickpeas) to get to my daily intake of proteins felt unpleasant. After all, flatulence is not only socially awkward, but also a sign that your body is struggling to digest something. And in my case, there is a clear indication that I struggle to digest legumes. One of the reasons for that can be found here.

The PNI course has made it clear to me that lectins, one of the substances contained in legumes, are not a human’s friend. See for instance “The Problem With Lectins” in this article.  

As always, it’s not an “all of nothing” law. The point is that we cannot rely on legumes, grains, seeds and nuts to live healthy lives. We also need some intake of animal protein.

Changed Menu

Long story short: everyone’s body is unique. It’s up to you to find out what best works for your health. I won’t deny that animal proteins can be needed in a human’s diet. In my case I eat fish or seafood twice a week. Poultry? I’m still seating on the fence.  

Additionally, I use ghee (clarified butter) to cook – next to coconut and olive oil. And you’ll find butter, a bit of cheese and a little dairy on my menu. Not a humongous change, but a departure from my ideal “win” based on a 100% plant-based lifestyle. 

Should you want more information, scientific sources or otherwise, please drop me a note.

Luckily relatively new bodies of science show us that what once seemed inevitable is not. As you grow old you don’t have to get sick. Epigenetics for instance even tells us that heredity does not equal fate: “Your genes play an important role in your health, but so do your behaviours and environment, such as what you eat and how physically active you are.” Another example: research around Alzheimer clearly indicates what the main risk factors are of this disease (later more on this topic). You can do a lot of things to prevent many health hazards. 

To prevent is better than to cure

Add more life to your years

For me the benefit is not so much adding years to my life but much more adding life to my years. This last sentence is based on a quote I came across during my reading about the Blue Zones. Reminder: the concept of “blue zones” is based on five areas (in Italy, Greece, South America, North America and Japan) where people live significantly longer than in the rest of the world. 

It turns out one of the well-known users of the quote “exercise not only adds years to your life but life to your years” is Ralph Paffenbarger Jr. “Paff” was an epidemiologist who taught at the Harvard School of Public Health from the 1960s to the 1990s. His research demonstrated that “every hour of vigorous physical activity earns the exerciser an extra two or three hours of life.”

My aim to stay healthy as long as possible led me to make changes to my lifestyle. As you know if you read my blog eating healthier is top of my list. Another change I made was to exercise more. In turn I challenged myself to run long distance races and take part in walking events such as “the walk of the world”.

Do not do like me!

That’s where you can draw the line. Hence the “do not do like me”. What I do is not necessary to stay healthy. I wrote “Do not do like me, not quite” because, as mentioned, earlier it is demonstrated that exercise is good for you. A question you may have: how much exercise do I need, and what kind of exercise?

… Not quite!

These are tough questions to answer. For one thing: your metabolism is not the next person’s. And there are many factors that come into play. Unfortunately, scientific research is rarely conclusive where it comes to complex, holistic behavior changes. In any case, it is clear that “Leading a physically active lifestyle can have a significant impact on the wellbeing of people with dementia.” Even better: “regular physical exercise can reduce your risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease by up to a stunning 50%.”   

Setting Alzheimer aside and looking at your immune system in general it is clear that regular physical activity plays a role in preventing illnesses.

Sitting is the new smoking

Evolutionary speaking, we have been designed for movement to survive as hunters and gathers. Progress unfortunately is not always good: in the Western world our living environment has changed so that many of us often find ourselves sitting for hours on end. One you wake up, you make your breakfast and sit to eat it, or do that while sitting in your car. You sit behind your desk or at meetings. Drive of commute back home sitting. Sit for dinner. Sit on your couch to watch the latest series on Netflix of whatever, then you go to bed. 

Facts:

• The Dutch have been European sitting champions for a few years in a row (Note: unfortunately less than a third of all countries report sitting time)  
• Sitting increases the risks for cardiovascular disease, lowering HDL (Good Cholesterol) Cholesterol, insulin issues which could lead to type 2 diabetes, obesity and a variety of cancers.

In other words: get out of your lazy chair!

So, how much exercise do you need?

All the sources I consulted give different answers to the question “how much exercise does one need?” My advice: 

• Do 1 hour of moderate-intensive aerobic exercise (walking, cycling, slow jogging, yoga);
• Spread those sixty minutes over two of three times twenty minutes;
• Do that at least 5 times a week. 

Sounds like a lot? Come on! Be honest and face the truth: if you’re an average person you probably spend 2 or 3 hours per day on your butt watching TV, scrolling your social media feed, talking to friends on the phone… And you really can’t find 20 minutes for a quick walkabout? 

A serendipitous event: a week or so prior to Valid’s Vitality week I had the pleasure to follow a lecture by Ekaterina Griga. Ekaterina is among other things a therapist and teacher in “Healing Food”. She discussed the Big 5 of healthy living. The bottom-line is: being healthy is a holistic endeavour. These Big 5 summarise what can do to remain vital: Breath, Hydrate, Eat,  Exercise, Rest. These Big 5 resonated in my mind during the whole Valid’s Vitality week.

Below follow some tips based on each of the Big 5. 

Breath!

Obviously the biggest of the 5 is ensuring that you keep breathing! In our modern life we are surrounded by a lot of stressors: all sorts of alerts from our smartphones – instant messages, social media messages, e-mails, breaking news… – loud urban noises, a never-ending list of things to do, etc.

Stress and breathing are very strongly interconnected. As your brain sends stress signals to your body, your heart starts pounding and your breathing becomes more superficial. This in turns triggers the production of hormones that prepare your body for a flight of fight situation. We are not usually involved in life-threatening situations, so stress-induced shallow breathing takes energy away from more important processes like digesting.

An interesting concept in relation to breathing is cardiac coherence: you can control your heart rate variability by controlling your breathing. Here is a simple article about this: “What is Heart Coherence, and Why is it so Powerful?”.  This piece contains more scientific explanations: “Cardiac coherence, self-regulation, autonomic stability, and psychosocial well-being”.

Hydrate your Body

What your body mostly need next to oxygen is water. Hence, make sure you drink enough of it! As your body needs to remain PH-neutral (see the topic acidic-alkaline balance under “Eat”), stick to water, fresh herb infusions and smoothies of fruit or vegetables. Basically, everything else is acidic. Do not worry too much about how much you drink. Drink when you are thirsty … or feel hungry! I learned that a light hunger feeling in fact is a cry for water. You are truly hungry when your stomach rumbles.

Eat Healthily

Most of my blogs are about this topic. Suffice to say here that the essence of healthy eating is about balancing the alkalinity in your food: you body needs 80% alkaline (veggies and fruit) and 20% acidic (protein-rich) foods. The older you get the more important it is to respect this basic (pun intended) premise.  See here for more information on this topic. As we explained during Valid’s vitality week, one can combine eating AND drinking healthily thanks to smoothies: there is a lot of water in fruit and vegetables so don’t hesitate to make a smoothie to get enough greens.

Exercise Brain and Heart

This is straightforward: as a species we are made to move. Our whole body needs exercise to stay in shape. Ideally, you should be active for 30 minutes every day. Walking is particularly recommended. Split those 30 minutes in 3 times 10-15 minutes if that suits you better, early in the morning, at lunch and after dinner for instance. During Valid’s week we introduced the “Ommetjes” (take a stroll) app which added a competitive incentive. Any kind of nudge helps adopting a new behaviour. That’s why we also introduced BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits concept during Valid’s vitality week.

Rest – At Least Sleep

When we rest, sleep at least, our body resets itself. Rest is vital for better mental health, increased concentration and memory, a healthier immune system, reduced stress, improved mood and even a better metabolism. Intermittent fasting is one of the ways to give your body a rest. Here’s a nice article about “The Benefits Of Resting And How To Unplug In A Busy World”. Here’s a good article – especially for students – about “The importance of rest for academic success” which explains the difference kinds of rest that you need. Do at least one thing every day to remain healthy: leave your smartphone or computer alone one hour before going to bed and get enough sleep.

Remain healthy? As easy as one through five.

Of course if you drive, don’t drink. After this public health warning, back to this French Food Philosopher’s life: health-wise, drinking wine is one of my few sins.

The past five workdays were long and intense. Still, I managed to squeeze in enough exercise, which I need to remain in balance. The week was nonetheless a bit stressful – and very warm too. Came Friday afternoon and I really longed for a cold glass of white wine… that turned into three glasses. On Saturday my training schedule was a 10 kilometer run in heartbeat zone 4. It usually takes some time and I need sprinting to reach a high heartbeat zone. Yesterday my heart reached the required high rate in about three minutes, without even trying hard.

I had noticed that phenomenon earlier: the day after I drink a couple of wine glasses my heart rate shoots up. That intrigued and kind of worried me. Although training is also about giving a good workout to your heart, as well as to the rest of your muscles, you don’t really want to strain your heart, right? So, what’s the link with alcohol?

Alcohol Link With Heart Rate

First of all: is it possible that my drinking three glasses of wine Friday evening affected my hart the morning after? Yes, it turns out. The length of the aftermaths differs, depending on your metabolism. To shorten them: eat and drink water (but avoid coffee and Red Bull).

“Surely”, you might think “moderate consumption is OK”. Or: “a glass of red wine per day is good for you, right? ” Well, I’m sorry to say but the jury is still out on those points but it looks like those are myths. As could be expected the bottom-line is that drinking wine – or any other alcohol – is detrimental to your health even if you exercise and eat healthily.

Although apparently the reason why isn’t entirely clear it has been clinically proven that drinking alcohol increases your hear rate. Furthermore, “Alcohol use is directly linked to the rate of injury sustained in sport events and appears to evoke detrimental effects on exercise performance capacity.”

Worse news: a recent study on over 100 000 people shows that one small alcoholic drink a day is linked to an increased risk of an abnormal heart rhythm.

In this piece I focused on the impact of alcohol on our heart. Unfortunately it also affects other aspects of your health: it may induce cancers, it’s bad for your brain, nervous system and liver.

Do you want to maximize your chances of living a long and healthy life? Exercise! Don’t drink. Not even French wine alas.