There was exciting plant-based news last month when the Independent reported that an open letter had been signed by Tim Spector and many other health care professionals, myself included, urging every healthcare trust in the country to implement a ‘plant-based by default’ approach to catering. Whilst the health benefits of this approach have been recognised by many who signed the letter, it wasn’t just health experts who endorsed it, but climate campaigners like Chris Packham and George Monbiot also got involved.
The health benefits of eating plant-based are becoming more widely accepted, reducing our risk of cancers, type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases and more, but , as the open letter points out, a plant based meal can use 75% less land than one that contains meat, and that 70% of the UK’s food-related emissions come from red meat and dairy. If this isn’t enough to convince our decision makers that healthcare providers should be offering plant-based meals as the standard, then perhaps they could be persuaded by the results of a modelling study which showed that £74m could be saved each year by the NHS if they offered ‘plant-based by default’ meals in hospitals. In a progressive move in the same direction, the Royal College of General Practitioners chose to provide plant-based meals at their annual 2-day conference earlier this month. While it was well received by many, my colleagues and I have also heard a lot of criticism from GP attendees who felt they weren’t catered for.
Whilst a plant-based diet is almost entirely inclusive – it can be eaten by vegans, vegetarians, omnivores and halal and kosher diners – this backlash that attendees of the conference ‘weren’t catered for’ highlights a common problem amongst the UK’s general public; too many people just don’t want to make the necessary changes to save our planet, improve human health, and end global famine. But what worries me most is that this wasn’t the general population. This was a group of over 2000 General Practitioners.
As a GP and a long-time vegan, I’m well aware that doctors aren’t very well educated when it comes to nutrition. In fact, I’ve bolstered my own knowledge with further postgraduate study in Clinical Nutrition, because I believe that this underpins everything GPs are doing, or should be doing. Most of my day is spent treating individuals with raised blood pressure, high cholesterol, recent heart attacks or angina and, most frequently, obesity. The evidence for a healthy plant-based diet, or at least a plant-dominant one, in managing all of these conditions is very strong, indeed. So why aren’t our doctors advising patients of this eating pattern? My feeling is that most of them genuinely just don’t know enough. So, what chance has the rest of humanity got of improving our health and preventing chronic diseases, when even those who treat us don’t understand some of the simplest of ways in which we can do this? If we know that reducing meat consumption is vital to good health, can’t our doctors go one or two days without including meat in their lunches?
It isn’t even just the ‘lifestyle’ related diseases of obesity and cardiovascular disease that would benefit from cutting out animal proteins. Industrial farming of animals for human consumption has been associated with two particular situations which should be very concerning for anyone who works in healthcare; the rise of both antibiotic resistance and zoonotic infections. The evidence that emerged in the months and years after the COVID-19 pandemic points towards zoonotic spillover as being responsible, probably from a wet market in Wuhan, China. But other epidemics, including SARS in 2002, swine flu in 2009, and Ebola in 2014 were also down to our use of animals, and the UN has described that these outbreaks are becoming more common. The necessity for our global population to be eating primarily plant-based is clearer than ever, with even the UN recommending a move towards a meat and dairy-free diet if we are going to save the world from hunger and the climate disaster. But how do we persuade everyone that this is not just important, but essential, if the professionals who usually advise us on diet aren’t aware, themselves?
And even if they were aware, it would be easy to say that GPs are just human; why should they have to lead by example if they don’t want to? But what if the majority of GPs were publicly smoking cigarettes? That seems like a ludicrous possibility, doesn’t it? But the evidence that informs us that processed red meat causes cancer is as strong as the evidence that demonstrates that smoking causes lung cancer. I’m sure that you don’t have any doubt that a GP in consultation with a smoker would at the very least enquire as to whether they would like to stop smoking, and at the most try their hardest to get that patient off cigarettes. But has your GP ever advised you that something you are eating is putting you at risk of cancer, and offer to help you to stop?
I’m guessing the answer to that question is largely no. Because despite most doctors having seen this data, even if just briefly, agendas such as the association between processed and red meats and bowel cancer and animal proteins and type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease just aren’t pushed by those who write the medical curriculum, and those who design public health campaigns. I could probably write a book opining on all of the reasons why this might be, but the bottom line is that medical education is in dire need of an update if humanity and the planet are going to survive.
Thanks for reading,
Rebecca, The Vegan Doctor.
We are doing our best in the US to educate future physicians about the benefits of eating whole food, plant-based. Keep up the good work!