The Shady promotion of Vegan content

Why are big names like Vox and Netflix incentivized to keep promoting the vegan diet with shaky science?

Netflix’s various plant-based diet promoting shows.

When I was in High School, I was vegetarian for about a year because my girlfriend was vegetarian. At first, I didn’t really give it much thought - I figured since I could still eat cheese and eggs, it wouldn’t be too hard. Sometime after I started the diet I started actually reading about the diet. This lead me to watching the pro-veganism documentary Forks Over Knives. If you’ve seen Netflix’s pro-vegan What the Health or The Game Changers - they’re basically the same message: “Did you know that you’ve been lied to your whole life? A healthy diet doesn’t contain meat… but they don’t want you to know that.”

I’m a bit embarrassed to say that it totally convinced me. After watching that documentary I believed that plant-based was definitely the way to go. The whole “contrary to what they would have you think…” narrative was particularly effective on me because it did seem like the plant-based diet was some kind of hidden secret because around 2007 or so you didn’t hear that much about plant-based or veganism.

I ended up quitting the diet because I had lower energy and ironically, even my vegetarian girlfriend said it was better that I quit because she didn’t like that my muscle mass was decreasing.

Many years later I finally started properly digging into the research on saturated fat, cholesterol, red meat, the evolution of human anatomy, how agriculture affected human physiology and so on and so on. I was shocked to realize just how shaky the “science” behind Forks Over Knives was.

Nowadays, veganism and “plant-based” are everywhere. Adding to its growing list of vegan promoting documentaries, Netflix recently released Live to 100, Secrets of the Blue Zones. Which tells the story of the so-called “Blue Zone,” areas where vegan advocates claim people are mostly plant-based and live unusually long. Except, this narrative is mostly fabricated. As I’ve laid out in my post on the history of vegan diets, the people in the “Blue Zones” eat plenty of meat. In fact, 5 years ago I debunked this ludicrous idea that the traditional diet of Okinawa, a Blue Zone, is dominated by purple sweet potatoes. Go to the Okinawan prefectural website and you’ll find that they say “Okinawan cuisine begins and ends with pork.” The “data” for the idea that the Okinawan traditional diet is loaded with sweet potatoes comes from 1949. This was just 4 years after the war decimated the Okinawan pig population by 90% and left the Okinawan people starving and with not much else to eat other than sweet potatoes.

Of course before this, Netflix released the pro-vegan The Game Changers documentary which is notorious for being riddled with scientific inaccuracies and half-truths. Just this January, Netflix put out yet another pro-vegan program: You are what you eat A Twin experiment. As we’ll discuss later, an unimpressive vegan vs. omnivore study was somehow spun into a 4 episode series.

Now, pretty much any news outlet you look at is posting pro plant-based diet articles. But, is this because all these different unbiased documentary makers and news outlets are independently waking up to how plant-based is the perfect diet? To get an idea of what’s going on, let’s start with Vox’s recent article You’re probably eating a lot more protein than you need … which concluded by subtly promoting a plant-based diet.

Vox: Vegan propaganda outlet?

Vox recently tweeted this article of theirs:

For a while there was a community note pointing out why this is a terrible recommendation but it was taken down for some reason.

I’ve made three different videos on why this “you don’t need that much protein” narrative is completely wrong.
・You probably need more protein
・Are you too fat or just too weak?
・Will eating less protein make you younger?

I’ve also made a video explaining why plant protein isn’t as effective of a protein source as animal protein.

In that Vox article, author Kenny Torrella writes:

The National Academies of Sciences’ more nuanced guidelines break down suggested protein intake by body weight, recommending 0.36 grams of protein per pound of weight every day (pregnant and elderly people should consume more, along with highly active individuals). For the average American man, weighing just under 200 pounds, that’s 72 grams. For the average woman, weighing just under 171 pounds, that’s 61.5 grams. American men exceed that recommendation by 31 percent, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey data; women exceed it by about 12 percent.

What he’s saying is that we should follow the RDA of 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight. The issue is that the RDA is the minimum required to keep yourself from getting sick. It is not the optimal amount of protein we should be eating.

“Don’t worry sir, you’re healthy enough. Though, not as healthy as you could be.”

Just to think about “minimum versus optimal,” let’s imagine you go to your doctor and you ask him if you are feeding your child enough nutrients. The doctor says not to worry, your child won’t have any overt symptoms of nutrient deficiency and that his height will be “reasonable.” You stop him and say “wait, I want him to be as tall as possible, not ‘reasonably’ tall. Will this amount of nutrients get him to the optimal height?” The doctor says “Well… No, he’ll be tall enough, but not as tall as he could be. Based on my calculations, he will be 3 inches shorter than his maximum potential. But he’ll be totally healthy.”

The RDA for protein isn’t like lego bricks. Articles like this Vox one would have you believe that you just need 15 lego bricks per day. This would replace the 15 lego bricks that fall off of your lego house each day and anything over those 15 bricks is just excess that your lego house can’t use. In reality, protein has various beneficial effects for muscle mass, appetite reduction, weight loss, immune system function, hormone production, bone health, skin health, cartilage health and so on. So, you’d want to make sure you’re getting the optimal amount of protein for health, not just the minimum.

It was pointed out several years ago in a 2016 article that at least 0.55g-0.73g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day is better for health. Meaning you should get at least 2X the RDA of protein every day. In fact, an amount of protein that is “too much” has not been established. Studies looking at people eating even 4x the RDA 1.5g/lb/day did not find any negative effects. Check out my videos above to get an idea of just how dumb this narrative that ‘we’re so greedy because we eat more protein than the RDA’ is.

The Vox article quickly transitions into pushing a plant-based narrative - saying our protein habits are destroying the planet and that we eat too little plant-based protein. This isn’t elaborated on too much, it’s pretty much just presented as a given that eating more animal-based protein than plant-based protein is a bad thing.

Excessive protein consumption is also wrecking the planet, with meat and dairy production accounting for upward of one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions.

…Americans and Canadians eat the least amount of plant-based protein — instead, they get it from animal meat, dairy, and eggs.

The US Department of Agriculture reports that most Americans meet or exceed protein recommendations for meat, poultry, and eggs, but most fail to meet recommendations for nuts, seeds, seafood, and soy products.

This explains why one of the first questions people ask when they learn someone is vegetarian, or just reducing their meat intake, is “Where do you get your protein?” But there are many plant-based foods high in protein, like beans, tofu, tempeh, lentils, peanut butter, plant-based “meat” products, nuts, and soy milk.

They then point out that protein on a plant-based diet isn’t something to worry about and recommend several plant-based sources of protein. After that, the article discusses why fiber is so great, and some things to know for aspiring vegans.

The article is more or less one big sales pitch for going plant-based. It was written by Kenny Torrella who of course is the author of “Meat/Less, a Vox newsletter designed to help readers incorporate more plant-based foods into their diets.”

This isn’t surprising as the founder of Vox, Ezra Klein, is a 10 year vegan.

Ezra Klein also wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times pushing for lab-grown meat which as I’ve argued in a previous video is an utter pipe dream.

See my video Lab Meat. The $1 Trillion Ugly Truth to see why I say it’s a complete pipe dream.

The other thing about Vox is that they share journalists Jenny Splitter, Marina Bolotnikova and Sophie Kevany with Sentient Media. (Jenny Splitter is actually Sentient Media’s managing editor).

Dr. Frederic Leroy lays out Sentient Media’s plant-based slant in his blog post Activist tactics and the discrediting of scientists.

Sentient Media, a journalistic cell within a wider animal rights activist network, defines itself as a 'non-profit news organization that is changing the conversation around animal agriculture across the globe' … Sentient Media is funded by Unovis' New Crop Capital Trust, a prominent investor in the vegan-tech food industry; the Quinn Foundation and Stray Dog Institute, two affiliated organisations funding vegan activism; the Greenbaum foundation, founded by the executive producer of vegan activist documentaries, such as Cowspiracy and Game Changers …

Leroy also notes that Vox receives funds from Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), which was founded as Effective Animal Activism in 2013 in Oxford, England. ACE also provides funds to several plant-based promoting organizations like GFI, New Harvest, Faunalytics, Dharma Voices for Animals, Compassion in World Farming, and The Humane League [ACE 2022, 2023].

Moreover, ACE used to manage the now discontinued Animal Advocacy Research Fund, which had funded many academic studies that are favourable to animal rights advocacy and the transition to 'plant-based alternatives' [AARF 2024].

Vox: Beef is destroying the planet

Vox has also been a big part of the ‘eat less meat to save the planet’ narrative with three popular Youtube videos demonizing cows. (If you haven’t seen it already, make sure to take a look at my Eating Less Meat won’t save the Planet video)

Of course their Why beef is the worst food for the climate video was based on this chart from Our World in Data.

I’ve covered the funding that encourages Our World in Data’s plant-based slant in a previous post, but let’s recap. That post is mainly about the huge (21.8 million subscribers) Youtube channel Kurzgesagt as well, but it’s worth recapping on them too as it’s interesting to see how the plant-based funding’s tendrils reach all over.

・Kurzgesagt, which has received at least $570,000 in funding from Bill Gates, has been working with Our World in Data, which has received at least $1.8 million in funding from Bill gates.

・To make their video “Is Meat really that Bad?” on why meat is bad for the climate, 4/5 of the experts Kurzgesagt consulted with are of Oxford University and these experts have all written articles or research justifying the reduction of meat (or cow rearing) for the health of the planet.
*Note: The little plant symbol means they actively dvocate for reducing meat consumption.

・EAT Lancet commission (which is part of EAT Forum) was founded by plant-based Norwegian billionaire Gunhild Stordalen who is an animal rights activist. This EAT Forum is a very big organization that gathers many influential people and receives funding from many big name companies. The EAT Lancet commission is trying to get the public to follow a “planetary health diet” which is about 90% vegan. They want us eating less than 14 grams of meat a day. EAT Lancet is of course supported by WEF, the World Economic Forum.

Only 14 grams of meat per day for you on the ‘planetary health diet’

・One of Kurzgesagt’s experts, Tara Garnett founded Oxford University’s Food Research Climate Network (FRCN). FRCN is a partner of the Eat Lancet Commission. Tara Garnett was an author on a large paper attempting to justify the EAT Lancet Commission’s mostly vegan diet.
・Multiple studies justifying this planetary health diet are funded by Bill Gates. Bill Gates has invested in multiple plant-based protein sources since 2013 and would stand to benefit directly from the public assuming the best way to stop climate change is to stop eating meat.

So, to recap:
・Bill Gates is heavily invested in various angles supporting plant-based diets
・Our World in Data has received at least $1.8 million in grants from Bill Gates
・Vox’s popular Why beef is the worst food for the climate video is based on an article from Our World in Data

Now, this doesn’t mean that Vox was told to make that video by Our World in Data or that they received funding from Our World in Data. Rather, it just illustrates how this plant-based narrative quickly makes its way around.

New Netflix show vegan twin study: vegan versus omnivore

Christopher Gardner

Of course Netflix’s third vegan-promoting program titled You are what you eat: A twin experiment just came out this January. It’s based on a twins vegan vs. omnivore study done by Stanford researcher Christopher Gardner (head of the Stanford Plant Based Initiative), who has received funding from the plant-based meat company Beyond Meat. The vegan cohort in the study consumed Beyond Meat products. Funding for this vegan study came from vegan tech entrepreneur Kyle Vogt’s foundation. Vogt is part of the so-called “vegan-mafia,” a group of Silicon Valley tycoons who invest in vegan companies. Vogt also provided funding to the Netflix series that based on this vegan study. Vogt also spent over a million dollars on Netflix’s previous installment of pro-vegan programming, The Game Changers. Of course, the director of The Game Changers, Louie Psihoyos, a vegan, was also the director for this new vegan twin study Netflix show.

In short, these people somehow spun a vegan study with very unimpressive results into an entire Netflix series. There are several reasons why the study was unimpressive. I won’t go into them all here but let me point out two big ones. They brag that the vegans lost more weight, but the vegans were eating less calories. Of course you’re going to lose weight on less calories.

Even then, who cares if you can lose weight with a vegan diet?

There have been multiple studies finding a vegan diet is better than some random omnivore diet for weight loss(S1,S2,S3,S4,S5,S6) for reducing blood sugar and for reducing inflammation.

But again, who cares?

・You can lose weights on all types of diets. A carbohydrate restricted diet (which is going to be higher in fat and meat) has been shown to be better than low-fat diets (which vegan diets often are) at weight loss.
・Studies suggest you can better lower your blood sugar (HbA1c) on a carbohydrate restricted diet which again is likely going to be higher in animal products.
・Further, if you lose weight you’re likely going to lower inflammation. Which is why you see significant reductions in inflammation on a ketogenic diet as well (which again is going to be even higher in fat and meat.)

Further, one huge detriment of doing the vegan diet in this study was that the vegans lost more muscle mass. In fact, this lead to a higher body fat percentage at the end of the study in several of the vegans. If you take a look at the above image you’ll see that the vegans in fact didn’t even perform that well in general. Two of the three omnivore twins lost more body fat than the twins and all three of the vegans lost more muscle.

Of course, tons of ludicrous claims like ‘humans historically did not eat very much meat’ are made over the 4 episodes of the show, so I’ll have to do a proper post digging through it when I get the time.

Vox went on the defense to publish an article promoting Netflix’s new pro-vegan program and echo its message. Of course, it was written by the earlier mentioned author of Vox’s ‘don’t eat too much protein’ article Kenny Torrella. In the article, he actually addresses how the funding for the show and the funding for the study its based on leads to a clear vegan bias. However, he basically says not to worry - regardless of this clear bias, Harvard’s Walter Willet still says the vegan study is sound.

To cap off, let’s take a look at the prestigous Walter Willet who was the chair of Harvard’s department of nutrition for 26 years. Remember that World Economic Forum and Bill Gates supported EAT Lancet commission I mentioned earlier? The one that wants us eating no more than 14 grams of meat a day?

Well, Walter Willett is the co-chairman of the Eat Lancet commission. Willett authored a paper for EAT Lancet that would act a justification for their plant-based “planetary diet” they are trying to push onto the public. In 2019, Walter Willet laid out in a presentation what the EAT Lancet diet would be.

Walter Willett recommending a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet in 2019

Most of the calories on this diet come from carbs, you’re allowed almost no meat but you get a tiny bit of dairy. More specifically, he recommends 850 calories of carbs from grains and potatoes, 204 calories of carbs from fruit & vegetables, the legumes and nuts would offer about 232 calories of carbs, and lastly Willett is saying we should have 120 calories of sugar. Yes, he recommends more calories from pure sugar than Beef, Chicken and Eggs combined.

So over half of your calories on this diet will come from carbohydrate. What’s wrong with that? Well, Walter Willett knows exactly what’s wrong with that. He explained the issue with so many carbs himself just 7 years before in 2012 in this video from videocast.nih.gov:

“That had been part of the belief that fat in the diet is what makes you fat … I grew up in Michigan in a rural community and I can tell you farmers have known for thousands of years that if you want to fatten an animal up, what you feed them is grains and high carbohydrate diets and you put them in a pen so they don’t run around and they get fat very predictably. …It’s very clear from randomized trials that low fat diets, that fat is really not a determinant of body- … a lot of evidence is suggesting it’s easier for many people to get fat on low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets. If anything, that’s what the literature is suggesting. It is interesting that fat in the diet that has almost nothing to do with fat in the body. We can get very fat on lots and lots of carbohydrates.”

Walter Willett explaining that a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet will make you fat in 2012