Excerpt From: Mike Sheridan. “Live It NOT Diet!: Eat More Not Less. Lose Fat Not Weight.” iBooks.

It’s sad to think of the abundant evidence confirming the superiority of low-carbohydrate eating, yet the government regulated food pyramid is still dominated by whole-grain starchy carbohydrates. Even more depressing is that nutrition pioneers, like Vance Thompson, Alfred Pennington, and Vilhjalmur Stefannson, were supplying undeniable proof in the early 1900’s that eating predominantly animal protein and limiting carbohydrates was the ultimate solution for a lean physique. As Pennington writes in 1950:

“Of the twenty men and women taking part in the test, all lost weight on a diet in which the total caloric intake was unrestricted. The basic diet totaled about 3,000 calories per day, with meat and fat in any desired amount.”

Followed by:

“The dieters reported that they felt well, enjoyed their meals and were never hungry between meals. Many said that they felt more energetic than usual, and none complained of fatigue. Those who had high blood pressure to begin with no longer did.”

I underlined the points I really wanted you to acknowledge, although I may as well have underlined the whole thing. The reason they weren’t hungry is because they filled up on the 1 food their body needs to thrive (calorically dense animal protein). The reason they lost fat is because they avoided the 1 food that makes them hang on to fat (high glycemic carbohydrates). And the reason they had more energy, is because they tapped into their superior fuel source (fat).

Are you now seeing why I had you read Eat Meat And Stop Jogging before starting my program?

But more importantly, they lowered their blood pressure and improved the other biomarkers for heart disease that are commonly reduced on a low carbohydrate plan. We also see a reduction in triglycerides, elevations in HDL (good) cholesterol, and a shift to the preferred composition of LDL cholesterol particles, when animal protein is combined with a low-carb eating strategy.”

Fortunately, my program doesn’t take lowering carb intake to the extreme of Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s All Meat Diet, but it’s critical that you understand the importance of animal protein. In 1906 Steffanson went to the Arctic, carrying with him the nutritional habits of the typical North American. Upon his arrival, he was forced to adapt to the Eskimo way of life, and consume mainly meat, fish and fat. As expected, Stefannson became extremely lean and fit and his energy was incredible. But what he noticed most, and later wrote about, was that the Eskimos had no heart problems, no cancer, and their overall health was far superior to anything he’d seen in North America. According to Stefannson, Eskimo’s are also not fat, as they are commonly depicted in movies and cartoons:

“Eskimos…are never corpulent…in their native garments they do give the impression of fat, round faces on fat, round bodies, but the roundness of face is a racial peculiarity and the rest of the effect is produced by loose and puffy garments. See them stripped, and one does not find the abdominal protuberances and folds which are so in evidence on Coney Island…”

Animal Protein Supplies Essentials

Protein is the building block for bone, muscle, skin, hair, arteries, and veins. Even our organs (heart, brain, kidneys, lungs, liver) are built with tissue made of protein. Aside from structure, protein is a carrier of oxygen, fat, and cholesterol to areas of our body that need it, and is a synthesizer of key enzymes from our food. Basically, if you’re lacking protein, you’re missing out on the essential macronutrient of life.

Prioritizing protein is critical to supporting the needs of the musculoskeletal system. Failure to consume enough animal protein leads to muscle loss, which lowers your resting metabolic rate and weakens your structural frame. Calcium builds bone, but as we discussed in Eat Meat And Stop Jogging, the ‘illusion of truth’ is that additional dietary calcium means healthier bones. Unfortunately, extra dietary calcium does not add bone support if protein intake is too low. Furthermore, calcium absorption is largely dependent on Vitamin D, which is found primarily in animal protein. Older generations are not only at risk of falls and fractures due to an overall reduction in strength and muscle mass, but they generally fail to meet the animal protein requirement to maintain healthy bones.

Vitamin D, EFAs (essential fatty-acids), Iron, B12, and essential amino acids, are a few of the key nutrients that can only be obtained from animal source foods. Yes, these substances are available elsewhere, but they lack the quality and absorbability found in meat and fish. Essential means ‘only obtainable from food,’ so if you’re not eating the foods they come in, you’re not getting them. Vegetarians are a classic example, as they’re notoriously deficient in omega-3s (essential fatty-acid). Unless they’re eating fish they only obtain the plant source (ALA) of omega-3, which is difficult to absorb and convert to the usable and beneficial format (DHA). Iron deficiency is also very common as non-heme (or ferric) iron from vegetable sources is not easily absorbed, while heme (or ferrous) iron from animal sources is.

As Lorne Cordain and fellow researchers discuss in a paper from the year 2000 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a high-protein and low-carbohydrate diet is what the majority of us have evolved from:

"73% of the worldwide hunter-gatherer societies derived >50% (≥56–65% of energy) of their subsistence from animal foods, whereas only 14% of these societies derived >50% (≥56–65% of energy) of their subsistence from gathered plant foods"

And for the record, the plant foods he’s referring to are the low-glycemic (low-sugar) variety, and the only high-carbohydrate foods consumed by these hunter-gatherer tribes were nutritionally dense squashes, and tubers.

Not Grains!

Similarly, as anthropologist, Mark Cohen discusses in his book ‘Health and Rise of Civilization,’ the strongest and healthiest lived in parts of Africa where there was the most ‘Big Game.

“As in ‘Big Large Animals to hunt.’

Although ketones are the driving fuel source in Live It NOT Diet!, protein and amino acids play a considerable role in determining our daily energy and wakefulness by activating key neurotransmitters in the brain. Not only stimulating them, but inhibiting any glucose that would otherwise block them.

Animal Protein Supports Muscle

Research suggests that aging is associated with a reduction in muscle, which stems from a reduction in protein synthesis and absorption. As it turns out, the lowered protein absorption (or synthesis) seen in the elderly, is due to changes in the amount and activity of lean tissue. Meaning, the elderly have less muscle, and their bodies have a slower metabolic rate. Although many equate this physical outcome to ‘aging,’ research has proven that elderly with the same muscle as younger age groups absorb protein just as effectively. For instance, when you compare lean tissue pound-for-pound, as opposed to individuals with equal body weight, the absorption rates between the young and old are equivalent.

The lower protein absorption seen in the elderly has less to do with ‘natural aging’ and more to do with an inadequate intake of animal protein.

This was demonstrated nicely in a 2012 study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology where researchers originally found less muscle development from weight training in the elderly when compared to a younger age group over a 21-week training phase. What they later concluded, was that it wasn’t because of greater synthesis or growth potential in the youth, but rather the old guys were barely consuming half the protein (0.8g/kg) of the young bucks (1.6g/kg).

Failure to facilitate muscle maintenance with nutritionally dense animal protein results in less muscle and a slower metabolism, especially as we age. Unfortunately, this is extremely common in the baby-boomer demographic, as this group has lived through the recommendations to eat low-fat, increase whole grains, do cardio, avoid saturated fat, restrict calories to lose, and limit meat to prevent cancer. Realistically:

Lower protein absorption is the result of less muscle and a slower metabolism; which is because of a restriction in animal protein, NOT because of age!

We must get essential amino acids from our diet, or we put our daily performance, body composition, and long-term health at risk. Largely because animal nutrition sources (meat, dairy, organ meats) are the only ‘complete’ proteins, which means they include all 9 essential amino acids. By consuming them on a daily basis, we not only give our body exactly what it needs, but we improve the bioavailability of these essential amino acids and facilitate muscle protein absorption. A biomarker that can drastically decline with age…if you let it!

Animal Protein Promotes Fat Burning

Research has shown a direct correlation between the essential amino acids found in animal protein and one’s ability to burn fat. A diet deficient in the amino acid Lysine has been tied to fat accumulation and fat in the liver, while a diet high in the amino acid Leucine associated with fat loss. Both amino acids must be present in order to experience these favorable results in body composition.

Whether or not it’s the amino acids responsible for the fat loss, there’s a considerable amount of scientific support suggesting that an increase in animal protein ‘alone’ promotes fat burning. For instance, a study from the journal of Nutrition and Metabolism gave one group of subjects 1.6g/kg bodyweight, and another 0.8g/kg, with an equal amount of daily calories. Although the weight loss was nearly equal, the high-protein group lost almost entirely fat.

When protein intake is adequate, fat loss is maximized without a reduction in muscle. In fact, when daily protein consumption is above average (as will be the case with Live It NOT Diet!), there’s the potential to gain muscle. This not only means a more attractive physique, but this translates to an increased metabolic rate, which means a higher daily burning rate.

By simply swapping a high-carb meal for a high-protein one, we experience a 100% greater increase in metabolism and this increase continues for 2.5hrs after eating!”

When we consume animal protein regularly it has a profound effect on our body, as we burn more fat and build more muscle. And fortunately, your current body composition has no negative effect on whether or not your metabolic rate increases from a high protein meal. Meaning, there’s still hope for individuals with a higher body fat to benefit just as much from the additional protein absorption and energy burning boost that comes with a high protein and low carbohydrate meal.

By making this minor adjustment a daily practice, we not only burn fat at a faster rate, but over-time we prevent the slow metabolic rate and muscle loss that’s normally associated with aging.

Animal Protein Improves Hormones

Animal Protein is the only food I classify as ‘mandatory’ on my program because without it we may survive, but the long-term deterioration to our health, and increased risk of disease, make it impossible to thrive. As illustrated in Eat Meat And Stop Jogging, when we limit protein intake for the sake of calories our muscles suffer and so do our hormones. Ghrelin goes up and leptin goes down, which makes us consistently hungry and more likely to store what we consume as fat. And we experience significant muscle loss and a reduction in our metabolic rate, similar to what you’d expect with aging.

But that being said, filling up on animal protein is essential from a practical standpoint, because it’s the best way to control hunger. Experience tells me that those who leave the house without eating breakfast, or don’t have a plan for lunch or snacks throughout the day, set themselves up for failure.

No matter how disciplined you are, hunger finds a way to win in a head-to-head battle with the dessert bar in a coffee shop line.”

But if you follow the plan and eat meat at main meals (as you’re instructed), you won’t have any issues. Because unlike your calorie-restricted counterparts, you’ll satisfy hunger with calorically dense meat that elevates leptin, balances blood sugar, and keeps you satiated for hours.

By eating a good quantity of animal protein, you will not only improve your health and look fantastic, but it will never feel like a diet. You’re welcome to eat as much food as you want, hunger is discouraged, and the only thing worth counting, is how many grams of steak you had for breakfast.

Animal Protein For Breakfast= Critical

Although you’re instructed to consume animal protein at “All Main Meals,’ breakfast is by far the most important. Prioritizing animal protein at breakfast ensures a gradual and sustained increase in blood sugar, which means a consistent nutrient supply to the brain and the muscles. This not only keeps you satisfied longer, but it has a significant impact on the neurotransmitters that control hunger, brain function, metabolism, and overall energy levels. For instance, a study from the International Journal of Obesity in 2010 divided young students into 3 groups:

Skip Breakfast – 0g
Normal Protein – 18g
High Protein – 49g

The high protein group reported more satiation and less hunger at varying test times throughout the day.

It can be difficult to adjust to at first, but once you experience the increase in productivity and alertness they’ll be no looking back. And experience with clients (from all walks of life) tells me that this one change can have the most profound effect on your results. The best strategy seems to be cooking extra dinner the night before and eating leftovers at breakfast; since most of us don’t have time to put a steak on the BBQ at 6 in the morning.

Eggs have proven just as effective in elevating satiation and decreasing total caloric intake throughout the remainder of the day (compared to crumby cereal or toast breakfasts), but it’s essential that you get used to eating meat for breakfast. Sure, the ‘incredible edible egg’ gives you a variety of options to keep breakfast exciting, but it can get boring and bland pretty quickly. So, it seems the best strategy is prioritizing leftover dinner and using eggs as your fall back breakfast.

Interestingly, a 2006 study from the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported an 11 percent reduction in total food intake by consuming fish for breakfast…and this was compared to beef!”

Although there’s considerable evidence that more protein at a sitting increases protein synthesis, the best approach is listening to your body when it comes to quantities. Focus on a decent serving at main meals instead of loading up at one and skipping the rest. Not only because meal skipping has been linked to insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome, but good judgment appears to fail us when we let ourselves get too hungry. Your best approach is setting the tone for the day with a Vilhjalmur Stefannson type breakfast, as described by his wife Evelyn:

“…a rare or medium sirloin steak and coffee. The coffee is freshly ground. If there is enough fat on the steak we take the coffee black, otherwise heavy cream is added. We have no bread, no starchy vegetables, no desserts….We eat eggs for breakfast, two for Stef, one for me, with lots of butter.”

Notes from Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith

athletes they are the ones setting the parameters for training and conditioning. That is not necessarily problematic except when you consider that most of us in the fitness industry fields of rehabilitation don’t work with athletes. In fact, although many of our clients may participate in recreational activities, our clients are anything but athletic, yet, much to their detriment, we have been encouraging them to adopt the training programs and strategies of the higher level athletes. They don’t have the genetics, the motor control, the training habits, the mental aptitude, or the recuperative habits of the
The transition to agriculture “has long been celebrated ... as a major advance in civilization, but ... health deteriorated during the changeover.” 28 The advent of agriculture leaves almost forensic traces in bones and fecal remnants, evidence of crimes against the basic human template: “malnutrition, osteomyelitis and periostitis (bone infections), intestinal parasites, yaws, syphilis, leprosy, tuberculosis, anemia (from poor diet as well as from hookworms), rickets in children, osteomalacia in adults, retarded childhood growth, and short stature among adults.” 29 Medical anthropologists can look at a bone and tell in a glance whether the subject lived in a hunter-gatherer or an agricultural society. The hunters look great. The farmers are falling apart.
with agriculture comes the “diseases of civilization.” Understand that no one speaks of the “diseases of hunter-gatherers,” because they are largely disease-free. Not so the farmers, who have destroyed their bodies along with the planet. The list of diseases includes “[a]rthritis, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, depression, schizophrenia, and cancer,” as well as crooked teeth, bad eyesight, and a whole host of autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. 10 T hese diseases are ubiquitous amongst the civilized and “are absolute rarities” for hunter-gatherers. 11 Writes Dr. Loren Cordain, in his article “Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword”: Cereal grains as a staple food are a relatively recent addition to the human diet and represent a dramatic departure from those foods to which we are genetically adapted. Discordance between humanity’s genetically determined dietary needs and his [sic] present day diet is responsible for many of the degenerative diseases which plague industrial man.... [T]here is a significant body of evidence which suggests that cereal grains are less than optimal foods for humans and that the huma
genetic makeup and physiology may not be fully adapted to high levels of cereal grain consumption. 12 T he archaeological evidence is incontrovertible, as is the living testament of the last extant eighty-four tribes of hunter-gatherers. T hey are eating the diet that all humans evolved to eat: “meat, fowl, f ish and leaves, roots and fruits of many plants.” 13 We are eating foods that didn’t even exist until a few thousand years ago: domesticated annuals, especially grains, and even more their industrial endpoint of refined flours, sugars, and oils. As Cordain points out, “More than 70% of our dietary calories come from foods that our Paleolithic ancestors rarely, if ever, ate.” 14 Our own bodies, with their degenerative diseases and overgrowth of cells, are all the evidence we need that this diet is unnatural. So this is how we know what our ancestors ate: our teeth are made for meat, not cellulose; our stomachs are singular and secrete acid; both the tooth enamel and the art of our ancestors say so; human butchering tools are found beside butchered bones; and, to state the obvious, contemporary hunter-gatherers hunt.
First, plants produce enzyme blockers, which act as a pesticide against insects and other animals, including us. Our digestive systems
utilize many enzymes to break down and absorb food. When the food is seeds (beans, grains, potatoes), the seeds resist by blocking those enzymes. The most common enzymes that grains try to disrupt are proteases, which digest protein. Proteases include the stomach enzyme pepsin and the small intestine enzymes trypsin and chymotrypsin. Other chemicals interfere with amylase, the enzyme that digests starch, and hence are called amylase inhibitors. Beans, grains, and potatoes also use lectins, which are proteins that fill a huge variety of functions in both plants and animals, though the exact function of many lectins is still unknown. In order to understand the damage that these substances can do to the human body, you first need a basic primer on human digestion. Our digestive tract has a tough job: it has to sort through a huge array of foreign substances—the things we swallow—and decide what’s a nutrient and what’s a danger. The ones deemed nutrients have to be broken down into the smallest possible components and then absorbed. T his work is so labor intensive that your intestines measure twenty-two feet. To increase the work capacity, the intestines are folded up into compacted gathers called villi. “In fact,” explain the Drs. Eades, “the folds are so tightly packed that if you were to flatten them into a sheet, a single centimeter (less than half an inch) of intestinal lining would cover a doubles tennis court—an astounding bit of origami.” 18 Microvilli are even smaller folds. They comprise what’s called the brush border, the area where digestive enzymes break proteins down into their constituent amino acids and starches down into sugars. Once food is completely broken down, the lining of the gut lets nutrients into the bloodstream through what are called tight junctions. T hese are specialized seals between the lining cells. We need to be protected from all sorts of contaminants and toxins that travel from the outside world, past our teeth, and through our stomachs. The tight junctions are the place where substances are either absorbed or rejected. Too big, too scary, or too foreign and they can’t get through the tight junctions. But anything small and simple—water, ions, amino acids, and sugars—gets a pass.
Eating grains causes three problems. The first is that a grainbased diet will include too many starches and sugars, which will overload the intestines. The gut in turn will pass them on undigested to the colon. These sugars create “a veritable bacterial picnic,” and the colon’s normal population of bacteria experiences exponential growth. 20 This over-productive fermentation can then surge back into the gut, causing an inflammatory response which “blunts its bristly microvilli, impairs proper digestion and absorption, and, in the beginnings of a vicious cycle, sends even more incompletely digested foods downstream.” 21 Most crucially, the tight junctions are damaged, letting substances like lectins pass through into the bloodstream. And the lectins themselves may bind to the wall of the intestines, altering their permeability and their function.
exponential growth. 20 This over-productive fermentation can then surge back into the gut, causing an inflammatory response which “blunts its bristly microvilli, impairs proper digestion and absorption, and, in the
Eating grains causes three problems. The first is that a grainbased diet will include too many starches and sugars, which will overload the intestines. The gut in turn will pass them on undigested to the colon. These sugars create “a veritable bacterial picnic,” and the colon’s normal population of bacteria experiences exponential growth. 20 This over-productive fermentation can then surge back into the gut, causing an inflammatory response which “blunts its bristly microvilli, impairs proper digestion and absorption, and, in the beginnings of a vicious cycle, sends even more incompletely digested foods downstream.” 21 Most crucially, the tight junctions are damaged, letting substances like lectins pass through into the bloodstream. And the lectins themselves may bind to the wall of the intestines, altering their permeability and their function.

Vegetarian Deficiencies

Based on comprehensive metabolic profiles and amino acid profiles, vegan clients score poorly on

B12,
zinc,
carnosine,
taurine and of course
carnitine.

Therefore, you can maximize their training response by supplementing those nutrients. Typically, 180 mg of a great zinc chelate for at least 6 months is needed to restore that mineral. The B12 can simply come from a well designed multi, usually 2-3 months of it suffices to restore it.

Regarding the specific amino acids, 2 grams of each, 3 times a day is necessary to bring the amino acid profile to optimal levels. From experience, 4 months of use is necessary to restore the profile to acceptable levels

Metabolism

Think of your body's metabolism as a furnace. Fill it with slow-burning logs (fat from meat, fish, nuts, dairy) and it will run smooth and strong for hours. But fill it with paper (starches from whole grains, brown rice, beans, sweet potatoes) or gas-soaked rags (simple sugars from bread, pasta, white rice, juice) and it will burn fast, hot, then quickly die out until it's fed again. A diet based on a steady supply of carbohydrates is definitely possible, but not optimal as evidenced by the epidemic rates of obesity and diabetes in Western societies over the last 50 years. Our brain and nervous system is fat based so from an evolutionary perspective, it doesn’t make sense for our body to need a constant source of easy energy because the natural environment doesn’t work like that. Ancestrally, we were able to survive in an environment where food was less certain specifically because we fueled our body’s with the "slow-burning logs" to last for long periods of time, therefore it would be inconsistent with our metabolism for us to have to eat every two hours.

Amino Acids, such as CARNITINE (only found in meat), are needed for optimal detoxification

Don’t get sucked into trying a detox program that will only make you more toxic! I bet you’re getting inundated with countless ads promoting every type of detox you can imagine. These detoxes promise many things; quick fixes with the promise of weight loss being the most popular.

The problem with quick detoxes is that they don’t work, AND they often make you even more toxic than when you started. Let me shed some light on how the three phase detoxification process really works. This will allow you to use a plan that will help you safely eliminate toxins but won’t make you sick.

Phase 1 Detoxification:
This first phase of detox occurs in the liver. Approximately one-third of your blood passes through the liver every minute. The liver filters out toxins by removing them from the blood. It is important to note that toxins are fat-soluble. This means that if you have an overload of toxins, they can only be stored in fat tissue.

Phase 1 Metabolite = Toxin (fat Soluble) + Vitamins (B3,6,12), Antioxidants (A, C, D3, E), Folic Acid, Quercetin, Milk Thistle, and Citrus Bioflavanoids.

In this first phase, the toxin is attached to a vitamin (especially antioxidants). This new compound is still very toxic and can cause a lot of oxidative damage if not shuttled into phase 2 detoxification right away. To prevent this free radical damage, it is imperative to supply the body with an abundance of those vitamins.

Phase 2 Detoxification:
This phase also occurs in the liver. The new molecule produced in phase 1 gets converted to another molecule by the addition of an amino acid or sulfurous compound. This compound is now water-soluble, which makes it easier to eliminate.

Phase 2 Metabolite (water soluble) = Phase 1 Metabolite + Amino Acids (glutamine, glycine, lysine, taurine, carnitine), Calcium-D-Glucarate, NAC, Sulfur Compounds (cruciferous vegetables), and MSM.

Phase 3 Detoxification:
This phase happens in the kidneys. The water-soluble compound is sent to the kidney for elimination. It gets excreted through the urine or through the feces.

Phase 2 Metabolite (water soluble) > Kidney > Eliminated thru Urine.
Phase 2 Metabolite (water soluble) > Gallbladder Bile > Eliminated thru Feces.

Phase 1 is rather easy, you could do it with one of those “all fruit and vegetable cleanses.” You would probably lose weight. Your body would start burning fat, therefore releasing fat cells laden with toxins into your blood stream.

Then, you would have plenty of phase 1 metabolites circulating in your system, but without the amino acids (because you are not consuming any protein on a fruit and veggie cleanse) to neutralize these toxic compounds. You would start to feel sick. Your body wants to get rid of these phase 1 metabolites so it would just send them back into storage in your fat. This is why these cleanses don’t work.

A better way to do a cleanse would be to eat all those vegetables and fruit with some healthy lean meats to supply the amino acids. Choose organic so as to avoid adding even more toxins into your body. Isn’t this starting to sound like the type of nutrition plan we recommend on a daily basis?

To assist with the detoxification process, here are some other points you should consider.
1.   How healthy is your gut?
If you aren’t pooping more than twice per day, then toxins aren’t being eliminated! You need to take a probiotic and a fiber supplement.
2.   How much water do you drink?
Again, it’s all about elimination. Make sure you are getting plenty of water when you get up in the morning. Aim for 0.6 ounces times your body weight in pounds.
3.   How alkaline are you?
Keep your body alkaline by adding lemon juice to your water. You can also start your day by drinking a hot cup of water with the juice of one lemon. Hot water causes vasodilation in the stomach lining, therefore increasing blood flow. The sourness of the lemon also initiates the release of enzymes that detoxify the liver and gallbladder.

Everybody needs a tune up or a reset once in a while, but the key to detoxification is to provide the right environment that optimizes detoxification every day. With that being said, avoiding known toxins is crucial. Pay attention to what you put into your body (pesticides, herbicides, BPA, artificial hormones in animal food), on your skin (aluminum in deodorant, parabens and sulphates in soap, shampoos and lotions), and what you breathe (chlorine, scents that are often loaded with toxins like benzene, and paint fumes).

VEGETARIAN MYTHS

Myth #1: Human did not evolve to eat meat.

Those who claim that meat hasn’t been an important, longstanding part of the human diet seem to display willful ignorance of the considerable evidence to the contrary. Even frugivorous chimpanzees, our closest primate relatives, eat some meat. (Many primates eat insect too.) By 2.6 million years ago, our hominid ancestors were using stone tools to butcher animal carcasses. Paleolithic campsites are often littered with bones, and early human hunted numerous animal species to extinction. Stable isotope analyses of some Paleolithic hominid remains show evidence of substantial meat consumption, particularly in high latitude locals like Siberia. There are no known vegetarian indigenous population. Meat contains essential nutrients, such as vitamin b12, which are impossible for human beings to obtain in sufficient quantity from plant sources.

Myth #2: Vegetarians are healthier than meat-eaters.

Vegetarians often are healthier than meat-eaters, but not necessarily because they avoid meat or fish. Vegetarians are less likely to smoke tobacco and drink alcohol, and more likely to exercise regularly—suggesting an overall greater concern with their health. These differences make it more difficult to isolate specific effects of avoiding meat or fish. Of five major studies conducted on vegetarians, two showed lower overall mortality relative to the general population (-17% &-20%) tow showed higher (+11%, & +17%) and one showed the same (all adjusted for age, sex, and smoking status). Both of the studies that showed vegetarians to have lower overall mortality were conducted on the Seventh-day Adventists, a close-knit religious group. Yet Mormons, who are similar except for eating meat, are also healthier than the general population. So it’s hard to say.

It’s important to remember than when people make a dramatic switch to a plant-based diet, they often make many other changes to their diet and lifestyle, such as avoiding soda, vegetable oils, white flour, and refined sugar; exercising more; and getting more sleep—recommendations sure to deliever health improvements independent of whether or not the person consumes meat. Vegetarians also suffer from certain distinct health problems related to avoiding meat, such as B12 deficiency. They tend to have lower bone mineral density (a problem for women as they age), whereas consumption of animal protein has been shown to reduce osteoporosis and hip fractures. There is also some evidence to suggest that women on strict vegetarian diets are more likely to lose their period (amenorrhea) or become temporarily infertile.

there is some danger that vegetarians and those on low-protein diets may be at risk for carnitine deficiencies. Lysine and methionine, the two essential amino acids from which carnitine is made, are not easily obtainable in sufficient amount from vegetable sources. Of the common vegetable protein, corn, wheat, and rice are low in lysine; beans are low in methionine. By combining these vegetables appropriately, vegetarians can help guard against carnitine deficiency. Or, to be certain, they may supplement their diets with L-carnitine.
Epidemiologists have suggested that true vegetarian societies cannot adapt to stress as well as meat eaters for lack of nutritional advantages
Vitamin B12 deficiency and Vitamin D deficiency rickets can occur with vegetarianism