Tim Shieff, 30, ate salmon for the first time in more than six years.
And then he ejaculated.
The vegan campaigner, with more than 175,000 YouTube subscribers, once said: “Nothing has benefitted me more physically, mentally and most important spiritually, than adapting to a vegan diet. It’s the best decision I have made as a human for me and the planet.”
He built a following on preaching the wonders of veganism, telling his audience that it cured his tendinitis, and before cutting out animal products, he “didn’t understand what it meant to be an athlete”.
“I was big, muscularly, but I was swollen; it wasn’t ‘healthy big’. Now I’m leaner, sharper, quicker, and my mind’s sharper too’,” he said.
The Quick talk about why the world of vegan YouTubers is imploding. Post continues below.
But in February, 2019, Shieff uploaded a video to his YouTube account announcing to his audience that he was no longer a vegan.
In the 16 minute video, he explained he’d been struggling with “fatigue, brain fog, depression, a lack of recovery, lack of energy, yawning all the time, waking up stuff and muscles becoming really fragile”.
He added, “I was getting injured doing yoga”.
Shieff said he began to question whether veganism was “limiting” and so made a decision to reintroduce animal products.
“The first night I had salmon I had a wet dream,” he told viewers.
“I hadn’t ejaculated in months. That turned something on within my body.”
Dr Brad McKay told Mamamia he had never heard of a case like Shieff’s and salmon certainly isn’t know for causing wet dreams.
“Veganism wouldn’t be as popular if it stopped you from having orgasms,” he said.
“It’s healthy and admirable to have a vegan diet, however you need to carefully include food that contains enough iron, Vitamin B12, and calcium. You can be guided by your doctor or dietitian.”
Dr Graham Lyons, a Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide specialising in human and plant nutrition, echoed Dr McKay’s sentiment.
“I’ve never heard of anything like it…” he told Mamamia. Though salmon has omega three and fatty acids in it, Dr Lyons said, “I can’t see how one meal would have such a result. If it did, I’ll tell you what, it could start a whole new industry.”
In terms of veganism more broadly, Dr Lyons likes the idea of a “balanced diet” and from his work thinks we probably evolved to be omnivorous.
“The way out teeth are arranged and shaped, it would suggest that human evolved to eat meat. I’m not sure it’s a solution to exclude any animal or fish or dairy products.”
With that said, Dr Lyons believes there is no inherent problem with adhering to a vegan diet, as long as you get enough B12 and iron.
Simply, he explained, “The problem is people eat too much of certain things. That’s our problem in Western society. Too much rubbish…”
It was probably a coincidence that Shieff had a wet dream after consuming salmon for the first time in months.
Top Comments
People, we can see what is going on here. The wellness industry is booming and creating a significant threat to another industry who has a lot of money and power to control the media and therefore, how we think. Let's just continue to quietly push along in our quest for wellness and keep making our own informed decisions about our health and not buy into the scaremongering that tries to pit us against one another. The fear-mongering will continue to escalate and that's ok. We will continue to focus on improving our wellbeing via increased learning about preventative health principles.
Please don’t give these narcissists any publicity. They were never vegan in the first place and only did it for the follows/numbers on social media. They starve themselves and Tim Shieff drinks his own urine. Of course you are going to feel crap!
Lots of healthy vegans out there but unfortunately these twits get all the attention because so many people want to have an excuse not to go vegan and the media likes to paint vegans as “extreme” and “militant”.
Please check out the documentaries What the Health and Forks over Knives. Also Cowspiricy and Dominion.
Oh blame the media! Just rubbish! It isn't the media that paints vegans as extreme and vigilant, you are blaming the messenger instead of the extreme and militant vegans. If they didn't exist, the media wouldn't be able to cover them. And these militant extremist vegans post their own photos of their stunts on their own instagram accounts. So they are advertising their own extremism and militancy. It is quite extremist and militant to blame the media and everyone else BUT the extremist and militant vegans. Not to mention PETA's mistreatment of animals and killing of animals and their stunts. Being vegan by virtue of itself, is militance and extremism. Vegan is militance and extremism. They are very, very dangerous people, but I believe it is the lack of nutrition that causes them to be dangerous, unstable and militant. Vegans tend to be malnourished and unhinged. They go hand in hand.
I don't believe there are any healthy vegans as it is a very unhealthy lifestyle. No one needs an 'excuse' not to go vegan, common sense simply says you shouldn't do that. You need an excuse to be vegan, or young, immature, wreckless with your health and stupid going through a phase. Those that do go vegan usually do it for attention anyway, in my experience, no matter who they are. It's just a fad. If they don't grow out of it (as I did with my vegetarian phase, although vegetarianism is at least very healthy, compared to vegan, as we NEED animal products but not flesh), they will have serious osteoporosis by their early 40s, along with a myriad of other health issues later in life. It WILL catch up with you. Anyone who is vegan really needs to be helped to grow out of the phase, for the sake of their own health. Vegans are like smokers, wrecklessly endangering their life and not realising that you may feel 'healthy' now, but I promise you, the affects of malnutrition WILL CATCH UP WITH YOU. Your body WILL pay for it, whether sooner or 30 years down the track. Vegans need help/interventions to get healthy mentally and physically, not encouragement to continue being vegan. It is a sickness, a very dangerous fad that should never be encouraged.
jesus... pal, you need to take a step back and relax. yes, there are militant and extremist vegans. that's because in our society, which so heavily relies on animal products, cutting them out completely can be a bit of an extreme choice. people that are extremists by nature are simply drawn to extremes, whatever they may be... like this shieff guy that drinks his own urine and does water fasts and (i think?) is a flat earther. people like that exist, and they can happen to be vegan or become interested in veganism, a movement that goes against the grain. those people, in turn, get attention. yes, there are people that go through "vegan phases", but there are those that maintain the lifestyle for decades and have a completely normal health. you don't hear about those kinds of people because no one that feels "fine" or "okay" or "pretty good" is going to make any headlines. the people that are vegan and don't talk about it aren't going to make headlines, you know?
there have been countless studies done on whether or not vegans are malnourished, unhealthy, or lack any sort of nutrition, and the consensus is that it is very possible to have a healthful vegan diet, so i don't know where you're coming up with this idea that it's in any way unhealthy? if you're trying to cite "common sense", then "common sense" would mean you make your decisions logically, based on scientific evidence, which by and large asserts a well balanced vegan diet is by no means unsustainable or leads to disease or disorders
so i just don't know where you're getting the idea that veganism leads to osteoporosis. i searched scientific literature for quite awhile to find a correlation between cases of osteoporosis and veganism and came to nothing conclusive. however, i can tell you that the west (which has a diet that relies heavily on dairy) has an incredibly high rate of osteoporosis, compared to east asia has had the lowest rates historically (and consumes little to no dairy in their traditional food). so just like with your last claim, i'm going to have to assert again that there are different types of vegans. plant based diets and diets high in calcium/vitamin d are not mutually exclusive, so there's no support for your claim that a vegan diet would lead to a lower bone density.
tbh, i think you're a better candidate for that intervention you mentioned. you're going on this mad rant (#triggered?) with absolutely no basis is reality. making those kinds of statements is not only dangerous, but flat out wrong. if you're going to make claims against something you don't believe in, at least do your research first, my friend.
take care and have a great weekend!
This is ....anti vegan hate speech? Super weird, you need to chill. Do you own a cattle farm or something?
You must be either a doctor of mainstream medicine, pharmacist, butcher, cattle farmer … or did your partner leave you for a vegan? Why so bitter, friend? What threat is veganism to you?