Many people are wondering:
"But wasn't she a vegetarian?"
Yes, I was! But I went back to eating meat. And here I'll explain why:
I was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. I've always been very urban. I've always loved nature, but I didn't really understand it. To me, nature was a magical place—forests, beaches, the sea, mountains, and a refuge from my city life.
I became a vegetarian after watching those horrible films showing the intensive and industrial farming of animals. I also believed in a lot of information I heard, with convincing arguments against the meat industry, but which, deep down, weren't against meat consumption itself. And even though I still agree that this type of production isn't ideal and I still don't support it, I didn't know there were other ways of raising animals.
When we were in Australia working with a beekeeper, a book on his shelf caught my attention. It had an Aboriginal Australian on the cover and was titled "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration." It was written by Weston A. Price, a Canadian dentist who, in the 1930s, traveled the world to study the diets of indigenous peoples who ate exclusively traditional local foods. He compared their excellent health, bone and dental structure, and mental stability to the Americans of his time, who suffered from dental problems, mental illnesses, allergies, arthritis, asthma, heart disease, diabetes, digestive disorders, and cancer.
In all his travels, he didn't find any traditional people who did not consume animal products. On the contrary, he reported several stories of how these peoples valued and considered animal-based food sacred. The groups Price studied had a very different idea of nutrition. They valued foods like liver, seafood, bone broth, and butter. Price used cod liver oil, butter oil, and organ meats to provide his patients with fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) to treat various diseases and dental cavities.
One of the stories that stays in my memory was an account by Price explaining how Native Americans knew how to prevent scurvy (a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency that was affecting European explorers who didn't consume fresh fruits and vegetables during long voyages):
"In one of his observations, Weston A. Price describes a moment when he witnessed indigenous hunters preparing a moose. He noticed that the hunters meticulously extracted the animal's adrenal glands. Price was intrigued by this practice and asked the tribe's elder about its significance. The elder explained that these glands were a crucial part of their diet, especially during the winter months when fresh vegetables were not available and scurvy was a risk. Consuming the adrenal glands provided essential nutrients, including vitamin C, which helped prevent the disease. This practice demonstrated the tribe's profound nutritional understanding and their ability to adapt their diet to prevent deficiencies."
They didn't know what vitamin C was or that this disease was called scurvy. But they knew that the moose gland was what kept them healthy during the winter months when there was a risk of getting sick. It was a knowledge that had been passed down through generations.
This book brought me many questions and a curiosity to see, listen, and learn more.
My husband and I, besides studying permaculture at the time, began to travel and try to find traditional people around the world to observe, learn, and better understand everything that was written in that book. That's when things started to make sense for both of us.
We lived with Indigenous people in Tonga, visited traditional and isolated communities in Fiji, Bali, and Cambodia, lived with small rice producers in the mountains of Thailand, stayed with fishermen and rice farmers on an island in Laos, spent time with farmers on traditional farms in India and Norway, lived with a shepherd in Turkey, and visited a hunter and farmer in Bosnia. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we have few photos of these moments because we didn’t have a phone or camera during the first six years of our journey. And the truth is, we preferred to be 100% present with these people.
We also worked on many farms that practice permaculture and regenerative agriculture, and for me, they are all connected!
All of them were living in a more sustainable way than I was when I lived in São Paulo and was a vegetarian. All of them were regenerating the environment through their lifestyle or using animals for regeneration. And all of them understood that animal-based foods are truly sacred (even in India) and have unparalleled nutrition!
I'm not here to judge, and I understand the choice of those who opt for a vegetarian diet. For me, however, it’s simply a CHOICE. Some people prefer to eat meat, while others don’t. But, in my view, abstaining from meat doesn't automatically make that decision more ethical or healthier than that of someone who consumes meat.
From an environmental standpoint, it already made a lot of sense to me to have animals to regenerate ecosystems.
As Charles Eisenstein writes: “Consider, for example, a traditional mixed farm combining a variety of crops, pasture land and orchards. Here, manure is not a pollutant or a waste product; it is a valuable resource contributing to soil fertility. Instead of taking grain away from the starving millions, pastured animals actually generate food calories from land unsuited to tillage. When animals are used to do work–pulling plows, eating bugs and turning compost–they reduce fossil fuel consumption and the temptation to use pesticides. Nor do animals living outdoors require a huge input of water for sanitation.
Holistic cow management on the farm my husband is currently working on in the Alps, France, 2024.
In a farm that is not just a production facility but an ecology, livestock has a beneficial role to play. The cycles, connections and relationships among crops, trees, insects, manure, birds, soil, water and people on a living farm form an intricate web, “organic” in its original sense, a thing of beauty not easily lumped into the same category as a 5000-animal concrete hog factory.”.
Now, from a nutritional standpoint, it is not possible to compare animal-based foods with plant-based foods. For example, all the people that Price studied, who had radiant health, consumed much more vitamins A, D, and K than we do today in the modern world. And the best bioavailable sources of these vitamins are undoubtedly from animal-based foods.
I can talk about what changed in my health since I reintroduced meat (quality meat, of course) and animal-based foods back into my diet.
I was always addicted to sugar. I needed to eat chocolate (milk chocolate) after every meal. I would get stressed if I didn’t eat something sweet. I also always suffered from candidiasis and other fungal issues (like ringworm) throughout my life. I’ve also had countless urinary tract infections, one of which required hospitalization.
Sugar, fungi, and bacteria are all closely related. Fungi feed on sugar for their growth, just as high sugar levels in urine can promote bacterial growth.
When you reduce the amount of (high-quality) protein in your diet, it usually requires increasing another macronutrient. Often, we opt for carbohydrates, which end up turning into sugar in our bodies.
Since I started following a diet based on animal foods, I've increased my protein intake and managed to significantly reduce my carbohydrate (sugar) consumption.
By nourishing my body with what it truly needed, I was able to break the vicious cycle of constantly craving more sugar. Since then, I haven't had any problems with fungi or urinary infections. It's been over 8 years without needing antibiotics or other medications. I have been learning more and more about how to provide my body with the necessary nutrients so that the famous phrase "Food as medicine" is indeed applied in my daily life.
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