Proteinaholic Quotes

“Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.” —MARK TWAIN”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Let me make this abundantly clear: carbs do not make you fat, unless you are eating too many calories. In fact, the body is very resistant to turning carbs to fat. We are designed to burn carbs. Every cell in our body utilizes energy from glucose.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“The egg industry tells us eggs are good because they are high in protein, but I have already shown you we don’t need the protein, and in fact the FDA does not allow the egg industry to advertise that eggs are a healthy food. Both because even one egg exceeds the recommended daily allowance for cholesterol, and because so many eggs harbor harmful salmonella bacteria, eggs are barely this side of legal.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Recently the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine to assess the health of Americans versus the rest of the world. Their findings were shocking. Despite being the richest country with one of the most advanced health-care infrastructures, and despite spending more money on health care per capita than any other country in the world, we have the worst health. We die at an earlier age, have more obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and lead the way in many cancers. Our advances in medicine have limited our cancer deaths but only slightly.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“A number of popular and misinformed nutritional “experts” promote a fantasy they call “bio-individuality,” meaning that we’re all different and need to eat based on our body’s own inner wisdom. That’s fine in theory, but in practice it usually means choosing the foods we crave over the ones that can heal us. Imagine telling a cocaine addict to listen to his body. He’d be bent over a mirror with a glass straw up his nose as soon as his current high started to fade.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“It’s a common misconception that humans are carnivores. It’s one of the first things people say to me when they want to argue with my food advice (after the obligatory protein rant). Are we carnivores? Feel your teeth. Look at your hands. Can you chase down an animal and rip its hide off with your bare hands and teeth? Do you look anything like a lion? We are omnivores; our intelligence and anatomical adaptation has allowed us to survive harsh situations by being able to eat anything, but that does not mean what we eat is the best thing for us!”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“After years of intense research, I could come to only one conclusion: People whose diets are high in animal protein have significantly higher rates of chronic diseases: hypertension, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and many, many others, including cataracts, diverticulitis, diverticulosis, inflammatory bowel disease, gall bladder disorders, gout, hypertension, irritable bowel syndrome, kidney stones, and rheumatoid arthritis.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Imagine, he wrote, a cliff where people keep falling off and dying. Instead of erecting a warning sign at the top of the cliff telling people not to approach, modern medicine just places ambulances at the bottom (Burkitt 1991).”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes”(Craig, Mangels, et al. 2009).”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Do you look anything like a lion? We are omnivores; our intelligence and anatomical adaptation has allowed us to survive harsh situations by being able to eat anything, but that does not mean what we eat is the best thing for us!”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Albert Einstein, once said, “Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“A lower-protein (and low-fat) diet is the most effective way to lose weight, improve your health, and prevent future disease.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“You may have tried a diet strategy that has become popular lately, that of the “cheat meal.” If you eat good, healthy food all week, but get to eat a hamburger on Saturday, the hamburger lives on a pedestal in your mind. You don’t allow yourself to appreciate the good food because you cannot wait to get to that juicy hamburger.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“There are many myths about vegan diets propagated by people who don’t know the research. The most common one asserts that a vegan/vegetarian diet is deficient in essential vitamins, which proves that it’s dangerous and unnatural. I find this myth ironic in the extreme, given that I run lab tests on thousands of meat eaters and most of them are extremely vitamin deficient. I diagnose B12, thiamine, iron, and especially vitamin D deficiency in meat eaters on a regular basis.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“The article concluded, “I suspect the single injunction ‘do not eat animal products’ has the potential to do more for world health than all of the abstruse wisdom in all of the world’s medical libraries” (McCarty 1999).”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“I’m on Facebook pretty much every day, and I’m known for posting rants about food and health. One thing I’ve learned from reading the comments to these posts is that when people have strong beliefs, facts are pretty much irrelevant”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“There’s absolutely no way you could eat sufficient calories of a varied plant-based diet and become protein deficient.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“In their zealous pursuit of weight loss, low-carb dieters risk “compromised vitamin and mineral intake, as well as potential cardiac, renal, bone, and liver abnormalities overall” (St Jeor, Howard, et al. 2001).”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Ready for the diet and lifestyle recommendations of the most comprehensive review of the literature by an unbiased panel of the best-regarded experts in the world? Here goes: 1. Be as lean as possible, within the normal range of body weight. [Aim for the lower end of normal body mass index (BMI). In this book, we have seen that a plant-based diet is the best way to maintain low body weight.] 2. Be physically active as part of everyday life. 3. Limit consumption of energy-dense foods. Avoid sugary foods. [In other words, eat foods low in fat and high in fiber and water content. Foods low in fat and high in fiber are plant foods, not animal proteins.] 4. Eat mostly foods of plant origins. [The personal recommendation within this public health goal is to have at least five servings of fruits and veggies each day, and include pulses and unprocessed cereals with every meal.] 5. Limit intake of red meat and avoid processed meat. [The public health goal within the recommendation is to consume less than 300 grams (2/3 of a pound) per week. Being completely vegetarian does reduce cancer risk, but we can’t rule out the possibility that the difference is due to other aspects of a healthy lifestyle.] 6. Limit alcoholic drinks. 7. Limit consumption of salt. Avoid moldy cereals (grains) or pulses (legumes). 8. Aim to meet nutritional needs through diet alone. [That is, without dietary supplements.]”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Research has shown that restricting methionine increases longevity in rodents. It’s been known for a while that caloric restriction increases life span; now we’re starting to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms. It’s not all calories, but those from animal foods, that tend to shorten life.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Analysis shows that most long-term successful “losers” have a few things in common. They get moderate exercise, they don’t skip breakfast, they don’t go on crash diets, and, importantly, they focus on low-fat diets (Shick, Wing, et al. 1998). Yes, many low-carb diets show better initial weight loss, but what we should be focusing on is the long term. After all, do you want to be lean for six months, or for the rest of your life?”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Typically what you will find is that the so-called low-fat diet group was never on a low-fat diet. Many of the studies showing that low-fat diets don’t lead to weight loss define low fat as 30 percent of calories, which is actually quite high. Typically, the participants’ baseline diet contains 35 percent fat, so they are not making significant changes to their diet. Practically, they’re probably just substituting a packet of fat-free cookies for a serving of fries. Meanwhile, the low-carb groups are making huge changes by severely limiting the amount of carbs they ingest. This limits their menu and food choices, which means they will eat less calories. In every low-carb versus low-fat study I have read, the low-carb group eats fewer calories. Again, keeping it simple: if you eat fewer calories, you will lose more weight. There’s nothing earth-shattering about this finding; it’s basic thermodynamics.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Pizza and donuts are considered carbs despite the fact that they contain as many (or more) calories from fat as carbs.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Obesity: It’s Not About the Carbs Can you believe people actually avoid fruit in an attempt to lose weight? There has never been a single credible study showing that fruit consumption leads to weight gain, and yet this concept is as prevalent as any nutrition dogma.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“The evidence to support cutting out meat consumption is very strong. From studies showing pathophysiologic changes (doctor-speak for “bad stuff happening in the body”) associated with animal consumption that hypothetically could cause heart disease, to epidemiologic studies to randomized control trials, it’s easy to see that the less animal protein, the happier your heart.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“You almost have to wear a hazmat suit to handle a raw piece of chicken because of fear of getting a bacterial infection like salmonella. According to a 2014 Consumer Reports study, 97 percent of chicken breasts purchased at American supermarkets contained such hazardous bacteria. Cooking at a high enough temperature kills the bacteria, but does not destroy the endotoxin produced by the bacteria, which is embedded in the muscle (protein) of the animal.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“Maybe it’s a good time to ask the question again: How is our meat-rich, carb-poor diet working for us? We are currently experiencing a diabetes epidemic, and the affected people are eating more meat and cutting out fruit. Are they doing any better? From what I see in my office, absolutely not.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“After following thousands of people for twelve years, the EPIC researchers concluded that meat, and especially processed meat (bacon, lunch meats, etc.), is significantly associated with the development of type 2 diabetes, and fruit and vegetable consumption is associated with a decrease in diabetes development (Consortium 2013, 2014).”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“​5. Denialists misrepresent data.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

“​4. Denialists create impossible expectations of research.”
― Garth Davis, Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It