{"id":3656,"date":"2023-05-12T14:38:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T07:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/the-first-studies-on-vegetarian-vs-meat-eating-athletes\/"},"modified":"2023-05-12T14:38:46","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T07:38:46","slug":"the-first-studies-on-vegetarian-vs-meat-eating-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/?p=3656","title":{"rendered":"The First Studies on Vegetarian vs. Meat-Eating Athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Meat-eating athletes are put to the test against vegetarian athletes and even sedentary plant-eaters in feats of endurance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn 1896, the aptly named James Parsley <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/3046304\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">led<\/a> the Vegetarian Cycling Club to easy victory over two regular clubs. A week later, he won the most prestigious hill-climbing race in England\u2026.Other members of the club also turned in remarkable performances. Their competitors were having to eat crow with their beef.\u201d Then, a Belgian researcher put it to the test in 1904 and found that those eating more plant-based reportedly lifted a weight 80 percent more times. (I couldn\u2019t find the primary source in English, though.) I did <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/title\/influence-of-flesh-eating-on-endurance\/oclc\/38235402\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">find<\/a> a famous series of experiments at Yale, published more than a century ago, on \u201cthe influence of flesh eating on endurance,\u201d which I discuss in my video <a href=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/video\/the-first-studies-on-vegetarian-athletes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>The First Studies on Vegetarian Athletes<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Yale study <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/title\/influence-of-flesh-eating-on-endurance\/oclc\/38235402\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">compared<\/a> 49 people: meat-eating athletes (mostly Yale students), vegetarian athletes, and sedentary vegetarians. \u201cThe experiment furnished a severe test of the claims of the flesh-abstainers.\u201d And, \u201cmuch to my surprise,\u201d wrote the researcher, the results seemed to vindicate the vegetarians, suggesting that those eschewing meat \u201chave far greater endurance than those who are accustomed to the ordinary American diet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As you can see at 1:12 in my <a href=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/video\/the-first-studies-on-vegetarian-athletes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>video<\/strong><\/a>, the first endurance test <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/title\/influence-of-flesh-eating-on-endurance\/oclc\/38235402\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">measured<\/a> how many continuous minutes the participants could hold out their arms horizontally: \u201cflesh-eaters\u201d versus \u201cflesh-abstainers.\u201d The meat-eating Yale athletes were able to keep their arms extended for about ten minutes on average. (It\u2019s harder than it sounds. Give it a try!) The vegetarians did about five times better. The meat-eater maximum time was only half the vegetarian average<em>.<\/em> Only two meat-eaters hit 15 minutes, while more than two-thirds of the meat-<em>avoiders<\/em> did. None of the meat-eating athletes hit half an hour, while nearly half of the plant-eaters did. This included nine who exceeded an hour, four who exceeded two hours, and one participant who kept going for more than three hours.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-91358\" src=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1-12.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1050\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1-12.png 1920w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1-12-960x525.png 960w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1-12-1024x560.png 1024w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1-12-768x420.png 768w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1-12-1536x840.png 1536w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1-12-1200x656.png 1200w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1-12-720x394.png 720w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/1-12-540x295.png 540w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>How many deep knee bends can you do? One meat-eating athlete did more than 1,000, with the group as a whole averaging 383, but the plant-eating athletes creamed them, averaging 927. Even the sedentary vegetarians performed better than the meat-eating athletes; they averaged 535 deep knee bends. That\u2019s wild! \u201cEven the <em>sedentary<\/em> [meat] abstainers surpassed the <em>exercising<\/em> flesh-eaters\u201d in performance. In most cases, the sedentary plant-eaters were physicians who sat on their butts all day. I want a doctor who can do a thousand deep knee bends! <span class=\"notion-enable-hover\" data-token-index=\"0\" data-reactroot=\"\">As you can see at 2:15 in my <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/video\/the-first-studies-on-vegetarian-athletes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">video<\/a><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-91360\" src=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/2-15.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1050\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/2-15.png 1920w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/2-15-960x525.png 960w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/2-15-1024x560.png 1024w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/2-15-768x420.png 768w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/2-15-1536x840.png 1536w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/2-15-1200x656.png 1200w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/2-15-720x394.png 720w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/02\/2-15-540x295.png 540w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Then, in terms of recovery, all of those deep knee bends left everyone sore, but much more so among those eating meat. Among the vegetarians, of the two who did about 2,000 knee bends each, one went straight off to the track to run and the other went on to their nursing duties. Among the meat-eaters, one athlete \u201creached his absolute limit at 254 times, and was unable to rise from a stooping posture the 255<sup>th<\/sup> time. He had to be carried downstairs after the test, and was incapacitated for several days.\u201d Another meat-eating athlete was impaired for weeks after fainting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt may be inferred without reasonable doubt,\u201d concluded the once skeptical Yale researcher, \u201cthat the flesh-eating group of athletes was very far inferior in endurance to the abstainers,\u201d the vegetarians, \u201ceven the sedentary group.\u201d What could account for this remarkable difference? Some claimed that flesh foods contained some kind of \u201cfatigue poisons,\u201d but one German researcher who detailed his own experiments with athletes offered a more prosaic answer. In his book, <em>Physiologische Studien \u00fcber Vegetarismus<\/em>\u2014looks like <em>Physiological Studies of Uber-Driving Vegetarians<\/em>, doesn\u2019t it? (I told you I only know English)\u2014he conjectured that the apparent vegetarian superiority was due to their tremendous determination \u201cto prove the correctness of their principles and to spread their propaganda.\u201d If we believe him, vegetarians apparently just make a greater effort in any contest than do their meat-eating rivals. The Yale researchers were worried about this, so \u201cspecial pains were taken to stimulate the flesh-eaters to the utmost,\u201d appealing to their college pride. Don\u2019t let those lousy vegetarians beat the \u201cYale spirit\u201d!<\/p>\n<p>The Yale experiments <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1907\/03\/22\/archives\/vegetarians-the-stronger-yales-flesheating-athletes-beaten-in.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">made<\/a> it into <em>The New York Times<\/em>. \u201cYale\u2019s Flesh-Eating Athletes\u201d\u2014sounds like the title of a zombie movie so far, doesn\u2019t it?\u2014\u201cBeaten in Severe Endurance Tests.\u201d \u201cProf. Irving Fisher of Yale believes that he has shown definitely the inferiority in strength and endurance tests of meat eaters to those who do not eat meat\u2026Some of Yale\u2019s most successful athletes took part in the strength tests for meat eaters, and Prof. Fisher declares they were obliged to admit their inferiority in strength.\u201d How has the truth of this result been so long obscured? One reason, Professor Fisher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/title\/influence-of-flesh-eating-on-endurance\/oclc\/38235402\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">suggested<\/a>, is that vegetarians are their own worst enemy. In their \u201cvegetarian fanaticism,\u201d they jump from the premise that meat-eating is wrong\u2014\u201coften bolstered up by theological dogma\u201d\u2014to meat-eating is unhealthy. That\u2019s not how science works. Such leaps in logic get people dismissed as zealots, \u201cpreventing any genuine scientific investigation.\u201d A lot of science, even back then, was pointing to \u201ca distinct trend toward a fleshless dietary,\u201d towards more plant-based eating, yet the word <em>vegetarian<\/em>, even 110 years ago, had such a bad, preachy rap \u201cthat many were loath\u201d to concede the science in its favor. \u201cThe proper scientific attitude is to study the question of meat-eating in precisely the same manner as one would study the question of bread-eating\u201d or anything else.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"et_social_bottom_trigger\"\/>  <\/div>\n<p><script>\n            !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n            {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n                n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n            if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n            n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n            t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n            s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n                'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n            fbq('init', '1582627921973608');\n            fbq('track', 'PageView');\n        <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1675549\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meat-eating athletes are put to the test against vegetarian athletes and even sedentary plant-eaters in feats of endurance. \u201cIn 1896, the aptly named James Parsley led the Vegetarian Cycling Club to easy victory over two regular clubs. A week later, he won the most prestigious hill-climbing race in England\u2026.Other members of the club also turned &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}