Letter To My Daughter's Teacher

Just ate a huge steak covered in butter while I wrote this letter to my daughter's teacher.
Hey *,

I just wanted to drop a note to you about the earth day lesson that you gave the kids yesterday. My daughter was concerned and I would love to pass on some scientific information to you that you might not be aware of and might be interested in.

So, she let me know that you told the class that meat eating is bad for the planet and that a plant-based diet is best for the environment and our bodies. I am a nutrition researcher by trade (masters in biochem from the U and I'm also a licensed nutritionist) and I'm actually writing a book on the topic. Although in the past, science agreed with you, the emerging science is painting a very different picture.

It turns out that our ancestors were largely carnivorous and every primitive culture that we've studied ate an animal-based diet. Not only is meat NOT the cause of chronic disease (this is commonly called the diet-heart hypothesis and was started at the U where I went to school - the science has been disproven and it is now widely accepted science that all chronic disease is actually caused by sugar and grains) but the environmental science has been off, too. I discovered during my graduate work that all nutrition science in the US is industry funded, and the U of M nutrition department is funded largely by the grain industry, as well as Coca-Cola. The system is very broken and the science disproved the links between animal fat and chronic disease long ago, but the systems in place (including Big Pharma and the USDA - corporate grain and bean farmers) hugely profit off of this misinformation.

Although animal flatulance does contain methane, this addition to climate change is miniscule compared to the carbon that is removed from the atmosphere by grazing animals. When cows eat grass (just like in the wild), they cause the grass to dump carbon into the soil (because the grass has a symbiotic relationship with the soil fungus, providing it with sugar - a 6-carbon molecule - in exchange for micronutrients) sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and creating up to a foot of topsoil/year. If the earth's grasslands were covered in cattle, it would completely reverse climate change in our lifetimes. I am including some scientific articles for you to peruse if you are interested in learning more.

Although I completely respect your right to decide to not eat meat because of spiritual or animal-welfare reasons, I want you to know that it is scientifically a much less healthy diet and ironically, mass agriculture of grains and beans is actually the cause of desertification (removal of topsoil), which has contributed more carbon to the atmosphere and climate change than ALL fossil fuel use combined. Plant based diets are actually causing climate change, and grazing cows is one of the only things that can reverse it. And red meat is actually the healthiest food for the human body. Humans aren't grainivores, we don't have a gizzard (the organ that grinds grains into flour in the animal's body) and grains are one of the newest foods to be added to the human diet.

Her dad and I wanted you to have access to this scientific information and hold no hard feelings about your teachings because we know your motives were pure and you want our kids to be healthy and the environment to be saved. We would really appreciate it if you would look over this additional research I'm sending, and please not spread misinformation in the classroom. My daughter was so upset after your meat-is-bad speech that she went in the bathroom and cried. Since our family eats a meat-heavy diet (all grass-fed and organic, of course) this was hugely upsetting to her, and us. Since I began eating a meat-based diet, I have reversed my type 2 diabetes, all of my digestive diseases (SIBO, IBS, and celiac) have gone into complete remission, and I've lost 70 pounds and kept it off for over 5 years.

Thanks so much for listening. I highly recommend watching this TED talk from the leading permaculture scientist Allan Savory, it's one of the top 100 TED talks of all time, and explains how to reverse climate change and save the earth.

https://www.ted.com/…/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s…

And here is an excellent article by one of the leading scientific nutrition researchers in the US about red meat and how it's actually the heathiest food for the human body and was the primary source of nutrition for our ancestors throughout a million years of human evolution: https://chriskresser.com/red-meat-it-does-a-body-good/ He also has an entire ebook (free) online if you want to learn more about the science behind animal-based diets.

Thanks *, we really appreciate you, but we would like you to be aware of the way our daughter was affected by your lesson and have access to the alternative scientific information.

Love, Marissa