Why vegans have smaller brains

Part 1 - Diet

In this conversation, Zoë chats with three experts, Dr Anita Tagore, Alison Morgan and David Ellis about their book, 'Why Vegans Have Smaller Brains and How Cows Reverse Climate Change.' They discuss the interconnectedness of diet, health, and the environment, critique current dietary guidelines, and explore the benefits of a meat-based diet. The guests share their personal journeys into nutrition and farming, emphasizing the importance of animal-based foods for both human health and environmental sustainability.

Questions asked in Part I – the diet podcast

As is usual with my podcasts, I try to let the guests do almost all of the talking. These are the questions I asked with the time stamps so you can jump to your area of interest.

02:30 Please can one of you say how you got together (Dave), one of you say how you came to write the book (Anita) and one of you give the elevator pitch for the book (Ali).

09:35 Why do vegans have smaller brains?

12:30 Has the title upset people or have you got away with it?

13:50 Can you give us a potted history of why the dietary guidelines are so bad. Why do we have this situation in 2025 when we're telling people to eat ‘upside down’?

19:00 The diet recommended in the book (The Sapiens Diet) comprises 15% animal protein, 70% animal fat, including offal, maximum 10% carbohydrate. No grains, no dairy, no legumes, no seeds, no nuts and of course no vegetable oils. Do you think we need to add fat to food to get those ratios?

21:20 Why no dairy? Why no grains? Why no legumes? Why no nuts and seeds?

23:20 One that I get asked all the time, so this is quite fun for me to ask of someone else who's worked in this arena, but we need fibre, don't we? You seem to have cut out lots of foods that have got fibre.

25:40 Where are you generally on fruit?

26:30 You touched on this one when you talked about some of the harms of plants. Where are you on lectins, oxalates, this whole idea that plants are ‘out to get us’.

32:00 There was a nice little phrase in the book, “we didn't evolve to eat meat, we evolved because we ate meat”. Please can somebody talk more about that.

34:50 People say we haven't got the make-up to be eating animal foods. Our teeth are not right and our digestive system isn't right. What do we say to that?

36:00 What moved us away from what Dave has just described is the agricultural revolution. Suddenly we didn't have to tend the land and only the animals that were around us in our community. And then suddenly we have the cultural revolution so we can write and we can make music and we can do art and we can do all the rest of it. So, has it been a good carbohydrate revolution on balance or has it caused as many problems as it's alleviated?

41:30 When we talk about carbohydrates being a problem, people say what about the Chinese and what about the Indians? Because they're eating a huge amount of rice. What's the retort to that one?

42:30 People have been working in this field, not least me, Gary Taubes, all the people that you very kindly mentioned in the book. Do you think it's ever going to change? Do you think your book is going to make a difference?

44:10 You tried the diet, Ali. How did you get on?

In the diet podcast, I promised to reference the Veganuary post (Ref 1) and the post about the evidence for five-a-day (Ref 2).

When I asked “Do you think it's ever going to change? Do you think your book is going to make a difference?” Anita replied “That was the point of writing the book, to add to all the evidence that's out there already. There's Sacred Cow, which is an excellent book, The Great Plant-Based Con. Both these books say the same thing. We just have to keep at it until thinking changes. The dietary guidelines have to be changed. They're just so wrong.” Anita is right that the guidelines are so wrong. I would love to think that she’s right on the “the guidelines have to be changed.” We need to keep praying that Dr Nina Teicholz gets a key role within the dietary guidelines’ framework in the new RFK administration.

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(Ref 1) https://www.dietandhealthtoday.com/2020/01/is-veganuary-healthy/

(Ref 2) https://www.dietandhealthtoday.com/2021/03/the-evidence-behind-five-a-day/

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Part 2 - Farming

In part 2, Zoë conversation explores the themes of farming, diet, and sustainability, focusing on the misconceptions surrounding plant-based diets and the importance of livestock in regenerative agriculture. The guests discuss the detrimental effects of modern arable farming on soil health and climate change, while advocating for a balanced approach to food production that includes both plant and animal sources. They emphasize the need for a shift in dietary guidelines and public perception to support sustainable farming practices.

Questions asked in Part II – the farming & environment podcast

01:08 Please, Ali, can you explain the terms in the book, arable farming, livestock farming, regenerative farming etc.

14:10 It's kind of like the diet question, isn't it. This is so upside down. How did we get this so wrong?

23:30 That carbon cycle that I learned about at school, has that all just been thrown out of the window now? Do they not get taught that anymore?

26:40 One of the questions you get asked when you talk about keto diets or low carb diets or the Sapiens diet is yeah but you can't feed the world on the Sapiens diet so who wants to take that one?

33.45 I can imagine your response to this but what are you doing talking about putting cows in fields? The fields should be full of solar panels and wind farms. What say you?

35:45 Dairy farming – Anita nicely explained the leaky gut and autoimmune conditions related to dairy – where are you on dairy farming?

39:00 Tell us more about Rachel Carson's book, “Silent Spring”. Share some of the sentiments that come from that, things that we should have learned a lot sooner than we have.

42:10 Why is this happening? It’s like the diet and the food – it is so completely and utterly mad. Is it incompetence or conflict?

43:50 The whole plant-based agenda, the anti-meat, the cows are burping, cows are destroying the planet without looking at, hello, there's a massive factory over there making cereals with fortified nutrients in because they're so nutritionally deficient, we need to add some nutrients back in. It's like you live in this mad, insane world and you're the only one who's banging your head against the wall going, hello, am I the only person seeing all of this?

48:40 You say wheat is murder, not meat is murder, Anita explained earlier why wheat is so uniquely bad in terms of the permeability and human health. Is there anything else to add about wheat?

55:00 The final thing I ask people, is there anything I've not given you the chance to say that you would really like to say? I got some great answers to the final question from the three authors. Anita, the family doctor, talked about the importance of nutrition for women who are planning a family. Ali raised the issue of pastoral people. There are 1.3 billion pastoralists around the world who live on marginal lands. People like the Mongolian herders, the Maasai and so on. They are highly threatened by this anti-meat lobby. Anita added another point – that regenerative farming can reverse desertification (as Allan Savory came to realise). Dave raised an author he much admires – Chris Smaje. Smaje wrote a book called “A small farm future”, which was a counter to George Monbiot's book “Regenesis.” A central theme of Smaje’s book was that the modern idea of progress is that we have to throw more and more technology at things. Farming needs to be traditional, but that's not seen as progressive.

Here are the videos of the discussions