Should We Eat Meat?: Evolution and Consequences of Modern Carnivory

Should We Eat Meat?: Evolution and Consequences of Modern Carnivory by Vaclav Smil

This is a very thorough analysis of the costs and benefits of meat consumption. The author tries to take a balanced approach to looking at meat. There is benefit in consumption. People tend to increase meat consumption as they gain economically. There are a healthy vegetarians as well as healthy meat eaters. 

The author provides numerous citations as he investigates the energy and land use needed to provide meat. There is also analysis of the welfare of animals and the process of meat consumption. There are costs and benefits of the various systems. Smaller animals tend to produce meat faster than larger animals. Crop use for animals requires significant energy inputs. There are also land concerns - especially with free ranging animals.

In conclusion, he advocates a reduction in meat consumption. Rich countries are already at their saturation point. It is time to move towards a less environmentally impacting form of food consumption. This would be together with a more humane treatment of animals. Meat may still play reduced role in the diet.

Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind: A Powerful Plan to Improve Mood, Overcome Anxiety, and Protect Memory for a Lifetime of Optimal Mental Health

Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind: A Powerful Plan to Improve Mood, Overcome Anxiety, and Protect Memory for a Lifetime of Optimal Mental Health by Dr. Georgia Ede MD

I had hopes that this book would be a good analysis of diet and mental health. Alas, it was a diet book pushing the keto diet. The author would proclaim that we cannot trust any epidemiological studies because they are not good randomized, controlled studies. We also could not trust pronouncements of the benefits of certain diets because they had not been studied enough. Instead, we should just focus on an all-meat diet because it is "natural". We should trust that it is good because there have been no big studies on it. Wait? Didn't we just criticize other diets as being bad because there were problems with the studies? Oh, but for keto diets, the problems with the studies mean that they missed out on it being good. It just comes across as selective analysis to push a certain diet. 

There are some good points, but even they are not without issue. It is easier to get the nutrition we eat while just consuming meat without supplementation. But if the world would do that, we would probably be driven to cannibalism after we had used up all land and driven wild game to extinction. The author tries to spin other studies on their head. The compounds that plants produce that are supposed to help us fend off bad things? Well, plants make them to fend off pests, so they must be bad for us also.

At times the author does try to be balanced. There are even some attempts at vegetarian-type keto diets. But, it does feel half-hearted. The key point is that super-processed food is not so great for us. Beyond this book just schills a diet with confused and contradictory scientific logic.