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The Great Plant-Based Con

Why Eating a Plants-Only Diet Won't Improve Your Health or Save the Planet

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The Great Plant-Based Con

Written by: Jayne Buxton
Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
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About this listen

Plant-based is best for health, go vegan to help save the planet, eat less meat.... Almost every day we are bombarded with the seemingly incontrovertible message that we must reduce our consumption of meat and dairy—or eliminate them from our diets altogether.

But what if the pervasive message that the plant-based diet will improve our health and save the planet is misleading—or even false? What if removing animal foods from our diet is a serious threat to human health, and a red herring in the fight against climate change.

In The Great Plant-Based Con, Jayne Buxton demonstrates that each of these 'what-ifs' is, in fact, a reality. Drawing on the work of numerous health experts and researchers, she uncovers how the separate efforts of a constellation of individuals, companies and organisations are leading us down a dietary road that will have severe repercussions for our health and wellbeing, and for the future of the planet.

The Great Plant-Based Con is neither anti-plant nor anti-vegan—it is a call for us to take an honest look at the facts about human diets and their effect on the environment. Shocking and eye-opening, this book outlines everything you need to know to make more informed decisions about the food you choose to eat.

2023, Guild of Food Writers Award - Investigative Food Work, Winner

©2021 Jayne Buxton (P)2021 Hachette Audio UK Alternative & Complementary Medicine Diets, Nutrition & Healthy Eating Engineering Environmental Fitness, Diet & Nutrition Health Vegan Plant-Based Diet Solar System Nutrition Healthy Diet

What the critics say

The most incredible book (Delia Smith)
How I have waited for this book! A much needed, fact-packed, lucidly argued demolition of pervasive, endlessly recycled, anti-animal source food propaganda, and a very welcome, closely argued, well-reasoned defence of our traditional omnivore diet (Joanna Blythman)
THE GREAT PLANT-BASED CON is persuasive, entertaining and well researched ... the book will help to alleviate the guilt many of us feel about our diets (Louise Eccles)
[A] forensic examination of the evidence ... Buxton is brilliant at reminding us of some basic statistical truths, ones that are usually forgotten these days ... It's refreshing to read a book which recognises that life is complicated (Mark Mason)
A calm, incisive dissection of veganism's salvationist claim to protect human health and the planet (John Lewis-Stempel)
THE GREAT PLANT-BASED CON is absolutely exceptional. When you've read works of Gary Taubes and Nina Teicholz, you'll need to add this to your essential reading list. I was ignorant of so much that is so elegantly explained (Professor Tim Noakes)
With incredible skill, Jayne Buxton captures the edifice of intellectual and cultural fraud behind today's mythology of the safety plant-based eating. Everyone needs this important and timely book (Sally K. Norton MPH, nutritional scientist and author of TOXIC SUPERFOODS)
Jayne Buxton's compelling read THE PLANT-BASED CON challenges the 'plant-biased' narrative sweeping across the globe and embedding itself into the very fabric of our society. Jayne takes a deep dive into the vested interests and religious ideology shaping the plant-based con, leaving no stone unturned ... I highly recommend this book! (Belinda Fettke, https://isupportgary.com)
All stars
Most Relevant
A paradigm shifting book. READ this book if you are thinking of going vegan or plant based or you are in the medical field. It showcases essential knowledge and education which we all need to know about plant based diets. The only negatives were very little was discussed about fibre. I would have liked to have heard a discussion about it. I wasn't a fan of the narrator of this book, but it didn't stop me from listening. Other than these things, the book is definitely the best I've read on plant based diets with an objective perspective. A huge MUST read!!

Everyone should read this book!

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Excellent book highlighting:
- the nutritional value of meat in our diet,
- the overlooked value of regenitive farming for the environment and global warning,
- the perils of solely eating vegetables, grains, carbs & sugar for nutrition
- the manipulation of public opinion from pro-vegatarian groups and their persuasive infiltration into big Food companies, our educational system, Big Pharma, govt agencies etc

My only con was the pronunciation of certain words in the audible book like Methane! It's meh-thayn NOT Me-thayn !!!!!

I now need the hardcopy of this book for notes & my library!!

A must read for healthcare workers, dieticians and anyone invested in their health & the health of the planet!!!

WELL RESEARCHED & INFORMATIVE

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This book was fantastic. It was well researched and well presented. The audio was well spoken and I learned a lot. I was happy to see that all of the references are available on the author’s website so you can look further into the topics by looking at the original research. Highly recommended

Entertaining and very educational

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Loved it. Very important book in this day and age. There's a lot of misinformation about how to eat and the food industry as a whole. This book shines a light on that misinformation and makes sense of how we should be feeding ourselves for health, environment, and vitality.
It also exposes a lot of "behind the scenes" action leading to this misinformation.

Much needed book.

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this book is great if you engage your confirmation bias.
Written like a university paper, where one is just looking for sources to defend a topic. most of those sources are anecdotal from the same handful of individuals/research papers. Drs Saladino, Baker, Van Fleet come up over and over again. Saladino has a book - Carnivore MD which is the lowest rated book on nutritional studies on Red Pen Reviews.com so I'm skeptical about these reoccuring sources and their legitimacy. I suspect they make better influencers than reliable resources.

the author many times expresses how epidemiology is poor evidence, but does not hesitate to turn to epidemiology to support a point she is making.

The author slips deceptive language to frame an argument. i.e. "grassland is better than SOME trees at carbon sequestration" - what is "some" trees? how many? Some is not the majority either. it's very misleading and ambiguous.

I stopped listening with about 3 hours to go. She begins to take a populist turn about how religion and "global elites" are pulling strings behind the global nutrional curtain. I am familiar with the Dairy and Egg industry and some of their lobbying efforts, but I have never heard of big broccoli paying off congressmen.

this book will appeal to a targeted audience. I'm not sure it will age well once reviewed by nutritional researchers, as I question some of the sources used.
I think this book is best used for a handy reference guide to antagonize vegans in social media debates, but that's about as far as it goes

Not very good at all

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