Paul Chek on vegetarianism?

Anyone a fan of Paul Chek? I used to be! At least I respected his work in functional fitness, but this changed my mind:

http://paulchek.com/Vegetarianism1.htm

I find it very disturbing that he seems to be on a mission to convert vegans/vegetarians, with no regard to their ethical concerns (aside from the fact that his arguments are sometimes really off the wall. He even cites the "secret life of plants" studies, which were discounted years ago. And even if plants DID feel pain, you'd certainly cause a lot less of it by eating lower on the food chain).

Alot of what he says actually makes sense though. Sepcifically the parts about people not eating enough healthy, fresh foods, and the cause of most health issues being high intake of chemicals and processed foods.

Alot of what he says actually makes sense though. Sepcifically the parts about people not eating enough healthy, fresh foods, and the cause of most health issues being high intake of chemicals and processed foods.

I agree. Which makes his anti-veggie stance easier to pass on. If you put some sensible info in with some of your own opinions, the opinions are more easily accepted.

Anyobe who thinks it is healthier to eat higher up the food chain is an idiot. Ergo, that guy is an idiot, from both a health AND ethical persective.

The graph caught my eye first. His interpretation of it has a major problem. He notes the increase in chronic disease over the years and says that we are worse off. The problem is that the graph also shows a marked decrease in the rate of death from infectious disease. Every human has to die of something. That's obvious. So proportions of causes of death have to add up to 1. That means that if the rates of one cause of death decreases, the rates of other causes of death must increase. As rate of death from infectious diseases has decreased over the century due to vaccines and treatment, the rate of death from other causes had to increase.

Otherwise, he basically seems to be saying that a meat-containing diet is not necessarily unhealthy and a vegetarian one is not necessarily healthy. I think that's true. But that doesn't at all support the idea that humans should not be vegetarians or that if a vegetarian is unhealthy, s/he should cease being a vegetarian. S/he could simply work on having a more healthy vegetarian diet.

here is a taste of his idiocy:

"Many vegetarians avoid eating animals because they are sentient creatures. But if you look at the research of Cleve Backster (See the book Secret Life Of Plants and Secret Life Of The Cell), you will find that plants, while less mobile, may be just as sentient as many animals! If so, then we can hardly avoid consuming sentient creatures for food. People should not be worrying about whether to eat meat. Rather, they should be more concerned about what they can contribute to society with what they’ve eaten.

PROBLEM WITH THIS ARGUMENT: As Kathryn pointed out, the studies pointing to the sentience of plants have been refuted. But let us, for the sake of argument assume that plants are sentient. We have to eat something and etaing plants that are less sentient than animals causes less suffering. veganism isnt about not causing ANY harm. That is virtually impossible. It is about causing lesser harm. And you cause lesser harm by adopting a plant based diet. The author above conveniently ignores this important nuance and misprepresents the relationship between veg*ism and morality. The last two sentences above are especially idiotic. As Peter Singer once asked, what is it that one contributes to society exactly by supporting the ruthless and wasteful exploitation of 'farm animals'?

Moreover, we can provide these animals with a better life than they might have otherwise had. Everywhere you look in nature, you will see that life eats life. If you’ve ever seen a wolf, lion, alligator, large snake or carnivorous fish kill their prey, you would be well aware that the experience of running and fighting for your life while being gashed, bitten and bleeding to death is far more brutal than any method used by a skilled meat packer!"

the typical stupid argument that we are doing animals a favour by eating them, because if we didnt, they would have it more rough out there in the big bad wild. And again, stupidly, he compares humans to non-human animals, when he knows damn well that humans have the capacity to make moral decisions when animals in the wild do not. Furthermore, while the law of the jungle may be "survival of the strongest", that certainly doesnt have to be the law that governs human behaviour and indeed it shouldnt be. Can you imagine the implications?

I could go on but I dont feel like wasting another second of my time. This article is not only inane, but it is dishonest. The author knows the ridiculousness of some of his claims, but he is hoping that people are too stupid to critically evaluate his arguments, or so selfish and missing meat that they will latch on to any excuse, however devoid of any merit, to resume eating animals.

Of course there are unhealthy vegetarians and vegans. You cannot expect to eat processed, crappy food, even if it is vegan, and food laden with chemicals and toxins and be healthy. Nobody ever claimed that you can be healthy by eating crappy vegan food. It isnt the lack of death (i.e. animals) in your veggie diet that makes you unhealthy, it is the veggie crap in your veggie diet that makes you unhealthy, or the lack of vegan balance in your vegan diet that makes you unhealthy.

So eat a healthy, well-balanced, organic vegan diet rich in whole, living foods and low in crap and you will thrive. Eating death (i.e. meat) wont make you thrive.

I have heard all the arguments this guy makes a hundred times before, and they sound stupider and stupider every time I hear them. I am amazed at how threatened people are at the thought of veganism going manistream, and the lengths they will go to try and defend meat eating. As somebody on this board once put it, when people start running out of logical, persuasive, meritorious arguments, they start grasping at straws -- and telling people that we are doing the animals a favour by eating them is clearly grasping at straws to the point of being laughable.

Today, we have many people becoming vegetarians for one or more of the following reasons:

-The greatest occurence of cancer cases and other chronic diseases in history.

-A growing concern over the health of our ecosystem.

-A significant number of people are seeking spiritual grounding in response to a rising fear of Armageddon stimulated by an almost constant, worldwide coverage of war and conflict.

I don't think someone should become vegetarian primarily for health reasons. It is possible to eat some meat and still be very healthy. The question is if vegetarianism is unhealthy. He suggests it is but doesn't attempt to prove it at all.

The "spiritual grounding" thing is kind of strange..... I don't even know what the heck that's supposed to mean.

The health of the ecosystem is a good reason and he doesn't refute that very well at all.

The "spiritual grounding" thing is kind of strange..... I don't even know what the heck that's supposed to mean.

The "rising fear of Armageddon" part is very bizarre. I am a vegan primarily for "ethical" reasons, but I'm not seeking "spritual grounding" in response to a "fear of Armageddon"! (kind of makes ethical reasons for being vegan sound really whacky, which I'm sure is his purpose.)

And did you notice the predominance of the snake symbol on his site?

I think Paul Chek is the antiChrist!