Sacred Cow: The Case for (Better) Meat: Why Well-Raised Meat Is Good for You and Good for the Planet Hardcover – July 14, 2020

I just watched the Lion King. In an eloquent and shockingly succinct dialogue, Mufasa explains to Simba the concept of the circle of life: how the lions eat the antelope, and the antelope eat the grass, and when the lions die, they become the grass. Simba’s mind is essentially blown. Little did he know that today we’d face vehement wars gone woefully awry, in which trying to hack the natural system has lead to something more akin to an elephant graveyard. I lament these wars, as I believe they come from a place of seeking truth, goodness, health, and least amount of harm. Yet they are often wedding to ideologies which blindsight us to the actual implications of our choices. Even worse, it can be hard to get a clear understanding even if you want to, as the majority of the rhetoric filters through the lenses of hidden agendas, which refuse to budge in the wake of truth.Thank goodness for Sacred Cow.If you are at all concerned with the sustainability of our present food system, and seek unbiased, non-cherry picked information concerning the actual implications of our farming systems on both our health and the future of our planet, this book is for you. Robb and Diana have done a fantastic job of thoroughly considering the nutritional, environmental and ethical components of a livestock-inclusive system. In a brilliant (dare I say, “fun”) analogy, they explore a mythical “Grassworld,” revealing the implications of an ecosystem (or lack thereof) without adequate diversity of species to sustain itself.While I rarely use the word facts,” Robb and Diana dive deep into the nutritional “facts" of meat. (While we can debate ethics and sustainability implications all day long - Joe Rogan style - it’s hard to argue the literal amount of nutrition in a food. Though people do it.) They make a compelling case that a meat-inclusive diet provides the maximum bang for your buck nutrition wise, and analyze the nutritional pitfalls of a plant-only diet. They comprehensively analyze the many meat attacks, such as cholesterol, cancer, high protein diets, TMAO, AGEs, etc. In perhaps a shocking turn, they scrutinize the nutritional benefits from conventional and grass-fed meat, and well - let’s just say they may ruffle the feathers of a few carnivores, and even those in the regenerative farming or “Paleo” system. (I actually have some questions I’d like to further discuss with them, on this particular topic.)Today’s modern zeitgeist is painted with talk of spoil depletion and methane emissions. It’s pretty in vogue to fill your vernacular with words like “greenhouse gasses” (or if you want to get really fancy, "“carbon sequestering.”) But do we actually understand what these literally mean? I sure didn’t! But after reading Sacred Cow, not only do I now have a more appropriate grasp on the subject matter, I feel like my eyes have been opened to the misleading stance of removing livestock to save the planet from global warming. Yikes. You’ll also learn everything you ever wanted to know about topsoil, how much land/water/feed cattle require, what monocropping does to our world, and more.If you’re looking for a meaty discussion of ethics, it’s all here. Robb and Diana consider all aspects of ethics in our eating system: Why did meat become taboo? How are we separated today from nature and death? What "type" of animal death is most humane? What system (plant based or animal-inclusive) actually yields the least amount of harm? What role should government policies play? And perhaps most compelling (at least to me): how does privilege in in mandating certain dietary approaches, lead to silent and sinister racism and elitism?Sacred Cow also also manages to touch on essentially every “random” topic lying in a responsible foodist’s treasure trove of interests: from insect protein to GMOs to fossil fuels to lab grown meat to raising camel to veganism and sexual health… it’s all here!And lastly, if you don’t have adequate time at present to read the entire book, and just want to be told what to eat to make the best changes for your health and the future of our world, they’ve got a quick guide to that. (I imagine likely encouraged at the urging of their publishers, because some people just want to be told what to do now. That said, if you do “skip to that section,” I urge you to consider ultimately reading the book in its entirety.)It’s easy to live in blissful ignorance or - on the flip side - subscribe to an immutable agenda which requires no further questioning or reanalyzing of the subject. But comprehensively reviewing and considering all factors, even if they challenge previously held ideologies tied to identity… that’s hard. I want to thank Robb and Diana for providing this exhaustive information and treating us with intelligence and respect. They are not preaching, they are educating, so that we may consciously make choices which support the greatest good, of both ourselves and the planet.

I understand whoever might be reading this might already been practicing effectively Keto or carnivore diet in some way. I have been doing IF with mostly steak based keto diet mixed with fruits. So call me biased. But I have noticed my ming getting clearer, my fitness level improved and skeleton muscle growth even during pandemic lockdowns during which I injured my knee due to excessive running so have to reduce cardio activities. I found it helped my recovery, reduced inflammation, reduced my blood triglycerides even I have high HDL and LDL. I found I'm performing better at Boxing, BJJ and regular weight lifting later. Although I have some depression from all kinds of stress, well, food cannot solve all life problems...What gets me to write the review is the fact that the authors' voice is so suppressed: shutdown by publishers, rejected by Netflix, hide by NYTimes. But the truth is so simple: there is too much money to be made in the food industry with processed food, and so called healthy lifestyle. What gets me is if FDA is so wrong so consistently without acknowledging these mistakes, what else could they be wrong about?What's more important is how much government have the control over personal freedom, and dictating what's best for people. Coming from a socialist country, I know very well that when no one examines the truth or if dissents were suppressed because the truth or controversy is too inconvenient. It's a slippery slope for citizens to giving up freedom, little by little.Since I'm avid about researches regarding nutrition, and have been following Dr Ken Berry, Dr Paul Saladino, Dr Robert Lustig, Dr Jason Fung, Nina Teicholz and others. I've already been educated with each topic in this book. I'm buying and re-reading again just to support the brave authors who speaks the truth. It took me 10 years to migrate to US from ground zero. I wish that the people of bravery and the land of freedom comes back.

Livro incrível! Recomendadíssimo para todos aqueles que tenham dúvidas a respeito da cadeia produtiva da carne. Livro que esclarece que a pecuária pode sim ser sustentável e contribuir para a manutenção do meio ambiente! Livro baseado em ciência e não achismo!

Great book with thought provoking content of the current notions of eating meat.

I really enjoyed this book so far, cards on the table, I haven't yet finished but am so impressed and wanted to review it to where I'm at now and will update accordingly. As someone who has personally embraced the Paleo/Primitive lifestyle and had such tremendous health improvement, finding another resource to "backstop" the results with scientific evidence is really edifying. I really appreciated the manner in which the book is laid out in which it starts with the history of the "anti-meat" movement, then tracks the key points at which our health systems really "lost the path" as it were and introduced incredibly wrong and damaging information into the "standard diet recommendations". There is an incredible response to the vegan/vegetarian message that is being pushed on our society and children at every turn with a systematic question/response to all of the commonly raised statements in the movement. It is really powerfully written but, it is backed-up with copious footnotes (all hyperlinked in the Kindle version) for further research and personal confirmation. The fundamental question of calories vs. nutrition is laid out with great depth, showing a frightening lack of vital nutrients for human growth should someone decide to follow a strictly vegan diet. The next section dives into the morality/ethics of diet and points towards the importance of cattle within the concept of regenerative agriculture. I love the slogan: It's not the cow, it's the how. My oldest son used some of the pre-launch information from this book, along with other research to produce his final high-school presentation of the year. His vegetarian teacher who was firmly against the concept of "ethical beef" was actually brought completely around to reconsider her thought patterns after being exposed to the concepts discussed in this book. So far, I'm really loving the depth of the details in the book, along with the often declared desires to "follow the evidence" even when it may be problematic or contradict "paleo/primitive" "sacred-cows" as it were. If you are at all interested in the current debate on diet and agriculture in our society, this really is a MUST HAVE for your library. Highly recommended.

A l'heure où :- les aliments gras, et surtout saturées, d'origine animale, ainsi que le cholestérol ont été diabolisés au tournant des années 50- le slogan Manger Bouger martelé par les pubs (sur obligation légale) tient de la dystopie maternaliste- Manger 5 Fruits ou Légumes par jour est une approximation grossière et même pas juste du travail de diététicien...et sans doute contreproductive- où les gens se pâment pour les Zones Bleues où soit disant les peuples qui mangent plus de viande ont plus de centenaires- où le slogan "on mange trop de viande" semble couler de source, sans réel consensus dessus- où la viande de bœuf est devenue l'ennemi public numéro 1 de la planète (le fameux bœuf émissaire), sans réelle prise en compte (ou alors en le minimisant) du potentiel de capture de carbone des prairies, terres non cultivables en l'état- où seule la B12 serait la seule carence vegane admiseAlors ce livre remet les pendules à zéro, et ce que l'on vous a vendu comme étant le consensus scientifique n'est qu'approximations, bruits de couloirs amplifiés et déformés ou même faussés (le fameux gag sur les 15 000 L d'eau repris ad nauseam sans réelle réflexion ou fact-checking sérieux, cf la vidéo de 2016 de Data Gueule "Quand la boucherie, le monde pleure")Salutaire et réellement zététique, même si le mouvement zététique français est en retard sur la question (Fainéantise ? Besoin de bien se placer sur le marché de la vertu pour ne pas heurter les tendances des lecteurs ? Nécessité de plaire à des faiseuses de fiches ?)Dommage qu'il n'existe pas en français.Dans le même esprit, lire le blog de Aleph2020 (sur la plateforme blogspot)

A brilliantly written and easily accessible book. This extremely well researched text offers a surprisingly concise compendium of evidence led responses to what, all too often, have amounted to what I see as "faith based" pseudo-religious claims made by dogmatists with a particular vegan or vegetarian centric puritanical lens. It could, of course, turn out that many or even all the claims made in this book by Rogers and Wolf turn out to be falsified as new evidence emerges to the contrary. However, this would not be a bad thing: it would mean we are getting less wrong and closer to the actual truth (which is always the goal for a person humble enough to recognise the inescapable infinity of their ignorance in the face of the complexity of the Nature within which we exist). In the meantime, a gauntlet has been laid down by this work that is hard to ignore.