What is this crazy 'antivegan' diet I saw, and is there any science behind it?

September 18, 2007 12:55 PM

What is this crazy 'antivegan' diet I saw, and is there any science behind it?

I saw a family on TV last night that zealously followed the most insane diet I've ever seen. The only way I could describe it is almost the opposite of vegan. They owned a farm and seemed to subsist entirely on their animals and animal products, but nothing could be cooked. They ate tons of raw meat, uncooked eggs, lots of raw milk. They claimed that cooking produces 'toxins' although they never specified what these toxins are. They drank very little water and (my favorite part) claimed that water would dehydrate you 'because it's a solvent'. They were also big on fermentation; they drank fermented milk and what appeared to be rotten meat. Also, they brushed their teeth with clay and butter. When pressed on their strange ways, they claimed that there was all kinds of research that backed it all up. I'm a fairly open-minded person but the whole thing seemed loopy, especially the part about water causing dehydration. Can anybody tell me if this philosophy of diet has a name, and point me to any data that backs up the various tenets (raw food, little water, fermentation/rotting, etc.)?

posted by mattholomew to Food & Drink (29 answers total)

I saw that too and had to turn it off. They were cranks, pure and simple. They seem to have amalgamated many different strains of food crank-ism (raw foodists, paleo-diet folks, anti-fluoride folks, homeopathic "germs are good" stuff) into one sinking miasma of paranoid mental illness. I think pretty much everything you need to know about the science behind it comes from their claim that "We don't drink water. We're mostly fat, so we get our water from fat," or whatever the hell they said that was like that.

(It's worth pointing out that even while drawing from some of the crank-iness listed above, they seem to have their own particular brand in almost all cases. In other words, it would be unfair to judge raw foodists or homeopaths on the basis of this crazy family, even if there are other reasons to suspect that the notion that raw food, for instance, is inherently better than cooked food is cranky.)
posted by OmieWise at 1:04 PM on September 18, 2007

Response by poster: OmieWise, you summed up why I was fascinated by the whole thing -- they seemed to touch on all these different strains of 'alternative' diets but then veer off into the stratosphere with it. I'm a sucker for off-the-grid whackos!
posted by mattholomew at 1:08 PM on September 18, 2007

I wanna know what the research is, too! My favorite part was when the father-figure ate the rotten meat and said it had a little "wang" to it. (That IS what he said, right?) It was a little disconcerting to watch him completely break down after his kids had some cooked meat, though.
posted by lauranesson at 1:14 PM on September 18, 2007

FWIW, this was an episode of Wife Swap, I believe.

ashamed.
posted by nitsuj at 1:14 PM on September 18, 2007

Whaaaaaaaaat!

This is fascinating. Were they healthy? Did they literally eat no vegetable matter at all?
posted by thehmsbeagle at 1:15 PM on September 18, 2007

Here's a study suggesting that well-cooked meat is more carcinogenic. I doubt they read it.

Here are some links to a guy called "PaleoGuy" talking about making and eating "high meat."
posted by OmieWise at 1:18 PM on September 18, 2007

A raw organ meat diet?

High meat is best when it's slimy?

OKAY. This is officially my favorite-ever weirdo food subculture.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 1:20 PM on September 18, 2007

The family was the Haigwood family, if that helps with Googling.
posted by OmieWise at 1:22 PM on September 18, 2007

Okay, to compound the shame, here's some quotes from the mom that I found on the Wife Swap website. Stop looking at me.

"You would think that by eating our meat raw we would save time, but the process of killing, draining, skinning, and filleting a chicken takes a long time."

"We don't eat the same meals because we each require different nutrients in our bodies at different times and have personalized the diet accordingly. For example, when Lee wakes up, he eats cheese and honey butter followed by 4 raw eggs eaten in intervals during the next hour. An hour later he eats a raw meat meal. When I wake up, I have homemade coconut cream and 8-12oz of vegetable juice. An hour later, I eat a raw meat meal. Because timing is very important in our diet, I have to constantly remind the kids and Mike when it's time to pop a raw egg or have a spoonful of raw honey-butter."

"I get up twice every morning. My alarm goes off first at 2AM so that I can get Mike and the kids up to eat a cup of yogurt or kefir. If we don't eat every 5 hours each of their bodies will go into an anorexic state and start eating itself. We may be half asleep, but we know it's important for our health. "

"We aren't able to go out as much as we'd like. We have so much work on the farm, and so much to do to maintain our diet, that it's hard to leave."

This all makes me feel very strange.
posted by lauranesson at 1:23 PM on September 18, 2007

Oh yeah. Link.
posted by lauranesson at 1:24 PM on September 18, 2007

Apparently, ABC was deliberately looking for a "Raw Food" family. I never knew this subculture existed until I saw the show last night. Mark me down as fascinated.
posted by studentbaker at 1:25 PM on September 18, 2007

Here is a bunch of stuff about raw food diets which contain meat products.

More specifically here.

It bears repeating that there is a big difference between most raw foodists, who don't eat meat, and these folks. The former have a particular diet quirk, the latter seem to be around the bend.
posted by OmieWise at 1:29 PM on September 18, 2007

You know, the fact that they're not all dead is a testament both to the flexibility of the human animal, and the hyperventilating wreck that is the modern FDA. Did you realize raw chicken won't instantly kill you?
posted by mek at 2:30 PM on September 18, 2007 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Oh, I'm certain that non factory-farmed chicken, consumed raw, would probably not kill you and could in fact be good for you under the right circumstances, I just want to understand more about these supposed 'toxins' that get into it when it gets cooked. And why washing it down with water will dehydrate me.
posted by mattholomew at 3:00 PM on September 18, 2007

A lot of scientific evidence is cropping up showing that being too clean is the cause of a lot of health problems like asthma.

I actually eat a less extreme version of this diet because it has worked so well for my health problems. Most of meat I eat, except for sushi and cerviche, is cooked though. Cooking has been around for awhile and there is a lot of evidence that we have adapted to it through microevolution.

Kefir is very good for you, though I realize it's an acquired taste...akin to kombucha made with milk. Coconuts, cooked eggs, raw almonds, and other high-fat foods are a big part of my diet. Greens are pretty important too. But I'm flexible. When I eat out I eat normally.

I know...this is a bad diet right? But no, I have low cholesterol, I feel better than ever, and I remain a size 1. These people might be crazy, but don't knock all alternative diets because of them.
posted by melissam at 3:09 PM on September 18, 2007 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: melissam, I absolutely support what you're doing and have issues in my own family requiring some strange diet contortions so I'm the last to cast stones. I'm not a vegan myself, but I understand conceptually why it's healthier and better environmentally. But the idea that raw meat is better than cooked seems completely fabricated. And again, I just can't get over the water thing. I would just love to hear the explanation, is all.
posted by mattholomew at 3:18 PM on September 18, 2007

Best answer: I think the explanation is that people get into diets and treat them like religions and say: "I am in magnificent health! See! My diet is WORKING!"

(Conveniently ignoring the fact that unless you abuse it pretty badly, the human body can digest and extract nutrients from lots of weird things.)
posted by thehmsbeagle at 3:25 PM on September 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Here's a webpage about a "Human Raw Meat Diet," it does however resemble timecube, but for nutrition.
posted by mek at 3:33 PM on September 18, 2007

Best answer: I just want to understand more about these supposed 'toxins' that get into it when it gets cooked. And why washing it down with water will dehydrate me.

When you drink more water you pee more and it's a lighter colour, I've known people who claim that the water is therefore dehydrating them (but I'm peeing more!). This is not backed up by science (the water hangs around in your body doing it's thing before you pee it out) and I don't know if it's where these guys got the idea.

And as already mentioned some forms of cooking does increase carcinogenic compounds in your food, which may be the toxins this guy is on about. But that doesn't mean cooking your food is bad for you or actually makes it toxic, or that there is 'lots of research' agreeing with this stance.

I'm not a nutritionist but I do work in nutrigenomics, so have a lot of contact with nutritionists and have been reading a lot of literature in this field. These guys may well have some good ideas or who knows, they may have it all 100% correct, but the current scientific viewpoint doesn't support this and the scads of research this guy keeps talking about doesn't really exist. So looking for the actual research isn't going to work. The best you'll find are studies here and there supporting the beginnings of their diet (i.e. there is some research to support the raw food idea although the movement as a whole is not supported by mainstream science and the studies generally don't deal with raw fermented meat). I doubt this family are even very familiar with the actual research out there that can be tied back to what they do, in my experience people generally take half heard/badly reported media stories and cobble together their own ideas about nutrition anyway.
posted by shelleycat at 3:39 PM on September 18, 2007

I can't find more information about this because I have no idea what to google, so this is totally second hand, barely remembered information (and I use the word "information" loosely), but maybe it will ring a bell to someone else:

An anthropology professor of mine once said that there was a tribe of people (in Asia? Africa?) that raised cows and claimed to subsist entirely on three foods: milk, blood taken from live cows, and milk mixed with blood. He also said that when they were observed, it turned out that they actually did eat some other things, too. Maybe someone's done some studies on them?
posted by lampoil at 4:22 PM on September 18, 2007

please tell me this is on youtube
posted by genmonster at 4:33 PM on September 18, 2007

I have no good answers, just anecdotal info. I know someone who followed an all-raw diet when diagnosed with cancer--don't have any info as to why this was the theory she chose to follow and what science was behind it; just thought it was interesting. She felt it was quite successful.

Also, I think there was a WSJ article recently about certain carcinogenic effects of grilling meat, but I can't access it to confirm b/c I don't have a subscription. But even if true, that wouldn't turn me to a life of raw chicken!
posted by ubu at 5:47 PM on September 18, 2007

This guy has probably heard about benz-alpha-pyrenes, which are formed when meat is charred, like on a grill. That factoid has been around for quite a few years, and he probably stretched the idea to encompass all cooked food.

Benz(a)pyrenes are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which are common products of incomplete combustion - your typical smoky smoldering fire like a cigarette, barbecue grill, pile of autumn leaves, etc. Some PAHs are carcinogens which is a pity since grilled and smoked foods are so darn tasty!
posted by Quietgal at 7:12 PM on September 18, 2007

An anthropology professor of mine once said that there was a tribe of people (in Asia? Africa?) that raised cows and claimed to subsist entirely on three foods: milk, blood taken from live cows, and milk mixed with blood. He also said that when they were observed, it turned out that they actually did eat some other things, too. Maybe someone's done some studies on them?

The Masai
posted by atrazine at 1:10 AM on September 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

I saw the show too. Here are a couple of tidbits I remember:

- No one in that family (neither the parents nor the children) had any formal education.

- They were consulting a "nutritionist" (not to knock nutritionists -- my sister is one -- but there's a lot of potential for quackery and the fleecing of pigeons, especially among the naturopaths).

- The mother cleaned the floor by licking it.

- They were very well prepared for any natural disaster or nuclear attack that might hit Iowa.

It seemed to me that they were all living this lifestyle out of loyalty for their total whackjob of a mother.
posted by Reggie Digest at 8:56 AM on September 19, 2007

(...who in turn was probably just looking out for her family on the advice of a whackjob naturopath.)
posted by Reggie Digest at 9:02 AM on September 19, 2007

And for what it's worth, the Masai eat meat, too. Cooked meat.
posted by Reggie Digest at 9:07 AM on September 19, 2007

YouTube
posted by Reggie Digest at 9:11 AM on September 19, 2007

Best answer: Coming late to this thread, I can provide some information on the raw meat philosophy.

From a Straight Dope article on Why the Inuit people don't get scurvy:

Much of what we know about the Eskimo diet comes from the legendary arctic anthropologist and adventurer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who made several daredevil journeys through the region in the early 20th century. Stefansson noticed the same thing you did, that the traditional Eskimo diet consisted largely of meat and fish, with fruits, vegetables, and other carbohydrates--the usual source of vitamin C--accounting for as little as 2 percent of total calorie intake. Yet they didn't get scurvy.

Stefansson argued that the native peoples of the arctic got their vitamin C from meat that was raw or minimally cooked--cooking, it seems, destroys the vitamin. (In fact, for a long time "Eskimo" was thought to be a derisive Native American term meaning "eater of raw flesh," although this is now discounted.) Stefansson claimed the high incidence of scurvy among European explorers could be explained by their refusal to eat like the natives. He proved this to his own satisfaction by subsisting in good health for lengthy periods--one memorable odyssey lasted for five years--strictly on whatever meat and fish he and his companions could catch.

A few holdouts didn't buy it. To settle the matter once and for all, Stefansson and a colleague lived on a meat-only diet for one year under medical supervision at New York's Bellevue Hospital, starting in February 1928. The two ate between 100 and 140 grams of protein a day, the balance of their calories coming from fat, yet they remained scurvy free. Later in life Stefansson became a strong advocate of a high-meat diet even if you didn't live in the arctic; he professed to enjoy improved health, reduced weight, etc, from meals consisting of coffee, the occasional grapefruit, and a nice steak, presumably rare. Doesn't sound half bad, and one might note that until recently the Inuit rarely suffered from atherosclerosis and other Western ailments.

For follow-up with primary sources:

Stefansson's article in Harper's about his life amongst the Inuit and his observations on and experience with their diet.

And a reference for the medical study on the health effects of his year-long meat only diet:

Lieb, Clarence W.: "The Effects on Human Beings of a Twelve Months' Exclusive Meat Diet," Journal of the American Medical Association, July 6, 1929
posted by Sitegeist at 6:02 AM on April 20, 2008