Watched about a half an hour of Eating You Alive. It really bummed me out. I stopped watching when it showed animals being prepared for slaughter and their mistreatment. From what I gathered, it was promoting a plant based whole foods diet. It featured several individuals who had stage IV cancer and completely reversed it by changing to a plant based diet. Samuel L. Jackson was on talking about following it and how it healed his severe gastrointestinal issues, and how bad they had become when he resumed eating his former diet. The main culprits were meat and dairy (especially cows’ milk), but also included oil, nuts, and some other stuff I can’t remember. I wound up being very confused and afraid. I enjoy the low carb high fat way of eating, but now I am wondering if we are doing the right thing??? Has anyone else seen it?
Documentary Eating You Alive
I haven’t watched the documentary, but note that it is owned 100% (i.e., the film rights) by the Purjes Foundation - a private foundation created by Dan & Edna Purjes - who are the only two trustee/officers of this tax-exempt entity they created.
It would appear that they are plant zealots, as indicated by their other affiliations. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but ought to be relevant to absorbing the agenda promoted in the documentary, which was fully funded by their tax-exempt foundation and valued at $225k (as an intangible asset).
Not having seen the documentary itself, it wouldn’t surprise me if it were skewed in its fact-selection and significantly biased in its presentation of “science.”
EDIT: I will add that in the most recent 2021 Form 990 filing, they show a sudden increase of “non-charitable use” assets of $10,000,000 ($10 million) in stock investments. It would seem that the Purjes family may begin using its private foundation as a platform for something quite different than how it describes its public purpose. Meanwhile, the foundation made just under $80,000 in contributions to other causes while holding onto the rest of its assets.
Perhaps this is simply evidence of a significant family tax-deduction enjoyed by putting $10 million of family funds into a private foundation that they also control? Time will tell.
Just my quick take. Perhaps I’ll get around to watching the film someday and will edit this post accordingly.
Meanwhile, here’s more on the public filings of the Purjes Foundation:
This has been a scare tactic for decades. I eat plenty of vegetables, fruit, nuts, dairy, and all types of meat and seafood. I am 75 I grew up on the farm, I have seen and even done my share of harvesting all of the above. And now I get as much of all of the above from local Amish farmers. I have watched my sister in law suffer through cancer and finally die from cancer while sticking to her beliefs that being a vegetarian would heal her cancer. I have also seen my great grandfather, grandmother, grandfather and other family members live to an extremely old age eating nothing but real food grown by local farmers and processed by the local farmers.
I watched one by Linda McCartney several years ago. It included videos and filming of the actual slaughter houses.
I remember a quote: If slaughter houses had glass walls, we’d ll be vegetarian. It was horrendous and atrocious and did indeed turn me into a Vegetarian for many years. If I were to watch it again, I’d probably be horrified again… instead I have pushed it out of my mind.
Industries and warehousing taking over from family farms/ranchers etc, was the beginning of 0ur downfall and moral ethics, when it comes to our treatment of animals.
I can’t justify it.
And if you saw those big industrial farms handle vegetables and fruit you would say the same about your vegetables and fruits, but it is all of the poisons they spray on the plants that would turn your stomach. Now in some cases hydro farms can be fairly safe.
My personal: 1. Yes, commercial large scale animal farming can be, and often is, ethically atrocious. This is a separate issue from whether eating animals is healthy. 2. There’s a big health difference between processed animal “food like substances” and actual animal products, and people ethically opposed to eating animals are Great at blurring that line. Spam and ham are not the same!
Um… no. I would not feel appalled by the treatment of vegetables. I might not like additives, pesticides, etc. But vegetables are not being abused.
Don’t get me wrong, I eat a LOT of meat. But I consider myself a hypocrite to eat animals that have lived their entire lives in warehouses and been mistreated. And I don’t have access to anything but our grocery store.
I do not condemn carnivores or meat eaters. I just have to answer to myself.
Oh you have no idea about the dna altering that is happening to our fruits and vegetables, and the poisons that are used on the plants, to prevent insects, and the chemicals used to make them grow faster and even out of season. None of the chemicals are, human safe. And the government inspectors get their pocketbooks greased to look the other way.
Oh, but I DO know this.
That has nothing to do with my concerns about a totally different subject: the treatment of the animals we eat.
One does not exclude the other.
I understand and respect your concerns.
They do not negate mine.
Yes there are places that miss treat animals and others that have learned that miss treatment of animals cause stress and tension that ends up causing tough meat, and causing people to stop using their products. This is the reason I will send more to get my meat from the local small farmers. Which really need our support.
Arthur C. Clarke has a short story, in which it is mentioned that the people of his fictional future society were ashamed of their plant-eating ancestors, because they took the lives of poor defenceless vegetables, instead of eating food synthesised from nice, clean minerals.
Everything alive on this planet eats something else that is alive. Where in that food chain do you draw the line? Is it size? What about a mouse, don’t you think it loves it’s offspring and it suffers like we do? It’s a mammal like us, with hormones and central nervous system just like us. And like Paul mentioned, what about the dislocated small animals on plant farms?
It is just how the world has evolved, and you can’t help being a part of it. I know, I cannot stand watching anything suffer either. But we have to live with it, it’s all like that.
I agree with your central point: there are literally trillions of animals that get killed each year as a result of fruit and vegetable farming… way more than the number of animals killed for meat. The vegetarian propaganda conveniently ignores this key point.
However, I disagree with your last point: there is a different way, and I believe us carnivores have a duty to follow the alternative as much as possible: regenerative farming, local livestock farming, sourcing meat locally from pasture raised local herds. I recognise this could be more expensive, and it is harder than simply buying meat at the supermarket. But if you care about animal living and dying conditions, then there is a way to encourage the people who are doing it right.
I buy all my lamb from a local smallholder who I know, and I know how she manages her animals, and how they are slaughtered, and it is only slightly more expensive than supermarket bought lamb, and I tell yer… it is sooooooooo much nicer tasting and probably richer in nutrients (although I can’t know that). Well worth both the extra cost and trouble. I buy a whole lamb each time she slaughters some, and I put it in the freezer. To be clear, what I get is all the normal chops, joints and mince you get from the supermarket but it is from this local herd. The smallholder gets a professional butcher in and then does the packaging herself.
I have yet to do the same about steak, but I should.
Films are made to invoke a response from the watcher as well as to manipulate the mind. The filmmakers will propagandize what they want you to see in order to put forth their agenda. Anyone can make film that tells only the story they want you to hear.
Doctors lie to every day so we have to do our own research and make up our own minds, based on common sense and logic, as to what the truth is. You must do the same with what you watch produced by someone with an agenda.
My common sense tells me that when I ate a diet of seeds and vegetables I had terrible gastrointestinal issues and the joints in my body hurt so bad that I couldn’t hardly walk to the mailbox without support but when I started eating an animal based diet all of my pains and issues went away. GONE! CURED!
This tells me who’s been lying to me and who hasn’t.
I raise much of the meat I eat and I’ve personally slaughtered many. I also hunt much of my food also. I know what it takes to kill and butcher an animal. I suppose that if someone wanted to film me doing what I do they could skew their film to fit any narrative they wanted to regardless of how I do it.
Don’t believe everything you hear and only half of what you see.
A couple of American researchers who study regenerative methods say that not only does the meat from animals farmed by regenerative methods taste better as the soil improves, but the nutrient profile of the meat improves as the grasses on the improving soil become more diverse and more nutritious. This is certain the experience of farmers such as Greg Judy and Joel Salatin, and I’ll bet it applies to your local lamb farmer as well.
Yeah, there are problems with the production of every source of food out there. I do think that the mass production of grains, fruits, and vegetables not only destroys the homes of wildlife, but tilling destroys the soil and its microbiome, resulting in the loss of top soil. The damage done by herbicides and insecticides not only to the environment but mostly likely to us and the rest of nature is even more insidious. Can we add in the hard lives of the migrant workers who work out in those vegetable fields? So, yes, fruits and vegetables are not being abused, but there are a lot of other things that are abused because of them.
At least most cattle do spend a large part of their lives living out in the fields, eating grass. Unfortunately, I have a feeling commercially raised pigs and chickens don’t have that “luxury.” So, yes, I can definitely feel bad about the treatment of the agriculturally raised animals, but I’m not sure if that really justifies eating more vegetables like the pro plant proponents push, specifically because mass production of grains and produce may be way worse overall.
I do want to do the right thing by the animals I eat. I would love to buy meat from my local farmers. It is soooooo much more expensive, I just can’t afford it. Maybe when I’m not paying for two kids in college and I am finally only buying food for me and my husband, I can afford the pastured pork and chicken. I’ve even considered really trying to eat fruits and veggies seasonally and grown locally. Time! Time is a problem and I am definitely a product of modern life: working in an office all day and squeezing in time to make it to a chain grocery store to buy food. At least I rarely eat out.
Maybe after all these ramblings, my actual point is that there needs to be improvements in how ALL of our food it produced, education, government policy, etc, etc, etc. Sigh. I think I’ll stop here.
I think vegetables are abused… They are living beings too. I still feel bad when weeding, I am such a softie sometimes 
While I know how life is other times. I even kill animals regularly. Very few ones intentionally but I do. Unfair just like life I know.
But I always think of the hurt animals when pesticides and the like are mentioned… And the farther the vegs come, the more animals die during the transport… Many vegans are blind, thinking their food doesn’t cause lots of animal deaths and suffering… It totally does.
I am with the ones who don’t stop eating their food just because it’s bad for other living beings - it’s unavoidable, almost whatever we do, it hurts animals - but see that of course we should aim to reduce our negative impact. Not sacrificing too much, that wouldn’t work in a human society and it wouldn’t even be right to sacrifice our health and wellbeing - but still, some effort should be done, surely some wouldn’t be so bad even from a financial standpoint…? And certain lines shouldn’t be crossed, too late of course, humans are good at crossing lines and do very unethical things out of greed, we know that very well.
It wouldn’t help me eating vegs personally. It would just add to the damage. I don’t eat less animal products if I eat a ton of vegs, it’s just extra burden. That’s how my satiation works. Vegs are carbs and carbs make me hungrier. I probably could lower my meat consumption using very much legumes and gluten but I hardly could keep it up for long (like, for 3 whole days…). Eating more plants isn’t the solution for me, no matter how I look at it. I was a vegetarian for long, I survive (I was healthy and liked my diet, even. and my body didn’t do better yet) but it’s not ideal and I hardly could go back to it (I feel bad if I wastefully overeat anyway).
I very occasionally buy meat from farms, eggs from okay sources ONLY, local food has priority, I don’t eat tons of fancy exotic things travelled from very far away… I only can do this much now.
Even if I had money for it, the nearby farms only butcher a few animals per year and the demand is high, I just can’t get proper meat galore. I can buy any amount of eggs but my woe is meatier now as that works better for me (less overeating, more satiation).
I have fruits, usually very much. Not an option, it would just raise my sugar and probably fat consumption (adding carbs always raised my fat intake too, I am unsure if it’s still the case) and make me feel worse. Wouldn’t help me out. Or the planet or animals. I already eat more fruit than ideal anyway.
When we had pigs, we did that too. The butcher came, shot them point blank, took them, made the cuts we wanted, packaged and deep froze them to order. The pigs lead happy, healthy, free lives on pasture. It’s the way to go, as you see me mention repeatedly here.
In my grandpa’s time, everything was still sustainable. People do multiply like rats and infest the world, and they all have to be fed. The more of us there are, the worse it will be for all other living things. That’s just a fact, we all have to live and eat.
I realize it tho is MY issue. I once accidentally saw a clip from a video of a dog being tortured. I clicked away as fast as I could, but it haunted me for months to the point of not being able to function without seeing it in my mind. I still can’t unsee it and sometimes go down a deep dark rabbit hole of anguish.
Just like in a movie or book, kill people and I’m good, but leave the dog and the horse alone! Not sure what this says about me. But it is what it is.
@Geezy, I have zero issues with your lifestyle of hunting and living off the land as much as possible. I would do the same if I could.