One became vegan and the other ate meat: who is “healthier”

The twins Ross and Hugo Turner, better known as The Turner Twins, have become famous for their adventures and multiple expeditions to the most remote and inaccessible places on the planet. His latest challenge more homely, but very revealing: decided to compare the vegan diet with the omnivorous one.

Genetically identical and in very similar physical conditions, they were perfect for this experiment they conducted together with researchers from King’s College: For 12 weeks, one of them will follow a strictly vegan diet and the other an omnivore, with similar calories. In parallel, both would make a physical training plan and monitor basic health metrics such as weight, cholesterol and muscle mass.

When they finished, they found that Hugo, who had opted for the vegan diet, had lost weight and his body fat index had dropped significantly, losing ten pounds of weight. Hugo said his energy levels went up and he felt much more active during the lunchtime exercise sessions than in his typical routine.

His brother Ross, who was on an omnivorous diet, slightly increased his body fat, but the main weight gain was due to increased muscle mass, of which he gained about 4.5 pounds.

Ross ate a macronutrient-balanced meal of chicken, fish, red meat, vegetables, dairy, and grains. His cholesterol levels remained stable.

“We wanted to eliminate prejudices and opinions, bring them to the genetic level (…) We are genetically identical and can confront each other in extreme environments,” Ross explained to the Insider site.

vegan diet

Before starting the vegan diet, Hugo weighed almost 84 kilos and had 13% body fat. After about a month of going off animal products, the twin lost nearly five pounds (even though he gained some back during the rest of the process).

At the end of the experiment, he weighed 180 pounds, while his body fat had dropped to 12%. Her cholesterol levels have also dropped. “When you’re on a vegan diet, you have to compensate, so I was eating foods that I wasn’t really used to,” she explained.

Hugo has also perceived improvements in his condition. “On a vegan diet my mental focus was much better, I didn’t have the mid-afternoon energy dips and I felt a little more energized,” he acknowledged. However, she has also noticed that her libido has dropped dramatically. “I lost it, I really don’t know what happened,” she said, warning that her experience may not be the same for everyone.

This diet also caused big changes to Hugo’s gut microbiome, as his usual animal-based proteins were replaced with things like tofu, tempeh (fermented soybeans), and jackfruit.

Ross

At the start of the experiment, Ross was about 13 percent body fat and gained 10 pounds of muscle. This brought his overall percentage up slightly to 15% and his final weight to 85 pounds. Likewise, their cholesterol levels remained constant during the 12 weeks of the experiment.

As for his diet, the twin described consuming a variety of chicken, fish, red meat, vegetables and dairy products. Before, I only ate toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and protein for dinner.

But to their surprise, the twins saw a decrease in their microbial diversity, or in the number of different species of bacteria in their gut. This is related to lower resilience against some types of chronic disease.

Ross, for his part, said meat eaters tend to be reluctant to try vegan foods and he hopes this experiment will encourage them to diversify their eating habits. This is considering that many substitutes, such as soy burgers, are similar in taste and texture.

At the end of the 12 weeks, the results for Hugo and Ross weren’t significantly different, even with very different diets. In conclusion, the Turner twins have explained it the optimal diet is based on a mixture of foods of plant and animal origin.

However, these findings cannot be extrapolated to the entire population because these are high-performing athletes with very strict training routines and diets, where a simple change can lead to better or worse sports performance.

However, the brothers recognized that a 12-week period is not enough to do a diet study. If they could do it again, they’d do it for six months to a year to get better data.

“Having a vegan diet has benefits, as does eating meat. I don’t think any of them will outdo the other here,” Hugo said. both worlds,” concluded Ross.