16 ms·

A Vegan No More

216 points by abraham 16y ago

burgerbrain 16y ago
"You once were a ve-gone, now you will be-gone." --Scott Pilgrim vs The World
- tptacek 16y ago
  Who knew iron pills broke vegan edge?
  - hartror 16y ago
    I'll tell you one thing iron supplements do and that is stop up your pipes >.<
kadavy 16y ago
I've never been a vegetarian, but I used to eat very little meat. The one mineral I rarely hear about when talking about a vegetarian or vegan diet is Zinc. It is nearly impossible to get enough Zinc without eating animal products. You can either eat nearly 3 pounds of peas, or little more than .5 ounces of canned oysters to get enough Zinc in your diet. Being low on Zinc weakens your immune system, and your libido, so yeah - it's important. YMMV, but I am feeling much better now that I've made it a point to eat more (local, organically-raised) meat.
- daviday 16y ago
  Oysters are an outlier in terms of zinc. http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/ http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/ From NIH "Oysters contain more zinc per serving than any other food, but red meat and poultry provide the majority of zinc in the American diet. Other good food sources include beans, nuts, certain types of seafood (such as crab and lobster), whole grains, fortified breakfast cereals, and dairy products"
- abeppu 16y ago
  Oysters are actually a weird case for some vegans, in that a lot of the arguments made for veganism don't really apply. They don't have brains, so there's not really a chance for suffering, and they can be farmed in an eco-friendly way. Peter Singer, the animal rights philosopher that vegans are always quoting, has at points said that he doesn't object to eating oysters. http://www.slate.com/id/2248998/ http://www.slate.com/id/2248998/
  - steve19 16y ago
    Unfertilized chicken eggs don't have brains either, right? They are still "unclean".
    - kadavy 16y ago
      The issue with them for most vegans is probably that hens are usually kept in inhumane conditions.
    - abeppu 16y ago
      I eat eggs sometimes, but I'm not proud of it. The moral considerations are very different from oysters because of how they're produced. Producing a lot of eggs requires a lot of hens. Having a lot of hens (and not roosters) involves killing a lot of male chicks. Producing any volume of eggs economically requires having a lot of hens in not that much space, which typically involves things like clipping beaks. This also produces a lot of concentrated waste which can often cause environmental damage. Keeping a lot of hens fed requires that you give them a lot of feed, which requires agricultural resources which might otherwise have produced food to be eaten by people. So eating eggs entails killing and torturing birds, producing toxic waste and using agricultural resources inefficiently.
    - flogic 16y ago
      I think that has to do with the manner in which the layers are cared for. Chickens and cows don't produce eggs or milk at the same rate throughout their lives. So farmers cull them once their production drops below the economical point. Also the majority of the males are culled since they're not producers. My grandfather thought it might be worth while to breed dairy cows with a meat producing aspect due to the 25% yearly cull rate.
- Egregore 16y ago
  You can get a lot of Zinc from plant based sources: http://food.vegtalk.org/minerals/spices-fats-fruits-vegetables-nuts-legumes-cereals/zinc.html http://food.vegtalk.org/minerals/spices-fats-fruits-vegetabl...
- lwhi 16y ago
  Pumpkin seeds have a load of zinc in. A handful on salad does the job.
  - kadavy 16y ago
    You would have to eat nearly 1.5 cups of pumpkin seeds to get 100% DRV http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3066/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/30...
dejb 16y ago
> I never expected this post to get so much attention. There is nothing more popular than an anecdote that appeals to people's pre-existing biases. Unfortunately there will be many for which this one story will provide the same weight of evidence as the entire China Study.
- abeppu 16y ago
  I concur. It bothers me that at the top of part 4 she says she regrets having decided to become a vegan through being swayed by graphic images of factory farms rather than having "adhered to the rigorous academic standards" that she claims to use in all other decisions -- and yet this anecdote turned polemic will surely be used by others in hastily making up their minds that veganism and possibly vegetarianism are not viable or beneficial to either the individual or society.
- zaphar 16y ago
  The point of the story is that not everyone can do a Vegan diet and still be healthy. While this is just one example it does demonstrate the principle that meat is a necessary and vital part of some peoples healthy eating. I sometimes wonder if Vegans worry about Lions on the savannah eating antelope. Do they want prevent that as well. Humans are Omnivores. We are built to get nutrients from both meat and plantlife. Our metabolisms work best when we eat both in moderation. A Vegan lifestyle makes it harder to eat healthy not easier and for some it makes it impossible.
  - abeppu 16y ago
    Humans are Omnivores. We are built to get nutrients from both meat and plantlife. Our metabolisms work best when we eat both in moderation. Please let's not resort to "appeal to nature", because that can certainly be abused both ways (and frequently is). There are certainly all sorts of sketchy vegetarian and vegan bogus arguments about why not eating animals is natural (and certainly eating dairy and chicken eggs isn't natural). We weren't built for anything, and just because something is natural, doesn't mean that it's good or right. If we ruled our lives by what was natural, we'd die in our thirties, have high infant mortality, and while we would eat meat, we would also chase after it with sharpened sticks, and more of us would die from starvation. Agriculture is unnatural; it's technology. Yes, our ancestors ate meat, but that alone doesn't mean that we need to. The OP's system couldn't handle her vegan diet, so she needs meat, but that doesn't mean everyone needs meat. If you want to eat meat, eat meat. That's reason enough. If you find that you personally physically need to eat meat, then please eat meat. But neither the omnivore nor the vegan who claims that one diet is universally nutritionally or morally optimal in virtue of being natural is making a solid justification.
scottshapiro 16y ago
I know that the lipid hypothesis is completely fallacious, these animal foods won’t hurt me or cause me ill health in anyway, in fact, the vitamins and minerals they provide, along with the nutritious cholesterol and wholesome saturated fat, will restore my health. Great to hear that she sees the forest from the trees.
jacquesm 16y ago
It's interesting how strong peer pressure is in groups like vegans to continue to press someone in to a lifestyle that clearly is not to their best interest. It reminds me of religious cults, and other 'us or them' styled groups. Very scary.
- muriithi 16y ago
  She even says that she and her family has received threats! What would make someone do that simply because the lady has started eating meat?
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    It's psychologically complicated but it has to do with people telling you that you yourself are living a lie, and exposing that lie. That ties right in to 'ego' and self preservation. People do not like to have their core beliefs challenged in a credible way.
    - dan00 16y ago
      Yes. It's strange that people really think that what they're doing isn't connected in a way with their self-esteem, especially if they claiming all the time that they're doing it only for a better world. Wouldn't it be funny, if at the end there's no much difference between the SUV driver and the vegan.
      - widgetycrank 16y ago
        I think people buy large SUVs under the false assumption of crashworthiness. For the price range they could have gotten sedans of similar prestige.
        jacquesm 16y ago
        And of better crash-worthiness!
    - 16y ago
autarch 16y ago
Ginny Messina, who is a dietitian and actually has some qualifications to talk about this stuff, wrote a great response to this blog post - http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-vegans%E2%80%99-stories-make-the-case-against-vegan-diets.html http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-vegans%E2%80%99-stor...
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  >That doesn’t mean I think she has made any of this up. She has an awfully weird way of expressing this. The first few paragraphs of her post are dedicated to implying as hard as she can that this blog post is some sort of meat industry propaganda. For example: >There is so much that is eerily parallel in these stories—not just the vague descriptions of the health-related experiences but also the evolving philosophy regarding food justice, and some very, very similar language.
  - autarch 16y ago
    I think Ginny's saying that the the author of the blog post is simply echoing things she read elsewhere. That doesn't mean it's some sort of propaganda effort on the part of the blog poster.
    - burgerbrain 16y ago
      I think that's definitely how she's trying to spin it "officially", but her actual intent is pretty clear. >I have to admit I’m always a little suspicious when an ex-vegan dives headlong into a love affair with meat. I mean come on, what else is that supposed to mean? Is she "suspicious" that the author is simply echoing a new-found respect for meat? That doesn't even make sense.
      - autarch 16y ago
        Sheesh, you really love your conspiracy theories. Ginny's post is primarily about debunking the ridiculous health claims in the original post. She's "suspicious" of the claims because they're ridiculous, and the amount of fervor that Tasha shows suggests that there's something going on besides nutrition.
dasil003 16y ago
I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity. Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying the premium for more sustainably raised meat. Opting out of meat entirely does nothing to change the industry, because most people will always eat some meat if they can afford it. Meanwhile, as vegans focus on the elimination of meat from our diets, they practically ignore the industrialized food that wreaks direct reproducible havoc on our metabolisms causing epidemic obesity and diabetes. Consider the effect of refined and reconstituted carbohydrates made from federally subsidized crops that make the most devastatingly unhealthy food items also the cheapest. Just the effects of soda pop alone are worthy of an international movement.
- cjbprime 16y ago
  > Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. There are, you'll be pleased to hear, many vegans with stronger ethical arguments than "meat is murder". Such as, in summary: * unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable. * some non-human animals (notably the ones we eat most of) are as capable of suffering at the physical level as humans are. We shouldn't discount their suffering just because they aren't members of homo sapiens. * factory farms raise most animals in conditions of unnecessary extreme suffering. * therefore, it is ethically wrong to eat those animal products. (This is actually an argument for eating humanely-raised meat instead of veganism, but finding verifiably humanely-raised meat is difficult enough that I'm not sufficiently interested to bother, and there are practical advantages in eating a predictable diet. So I just eat vegan.) By the way, I hate the federally subsidized crop situation too. I wish I could do something substantial about it. It's disingenuous for you to say that vegans are uninformed about health issues or industrial practice or the farm lobby just because they don't "focus" on it; that doesn't match my experience of other vegans at all, and it's obviously untrue that someone can only pay attention to one issue.
  - Evgeny 16y ago
chipsy 16y ago
I do know, anecdotally, of someone who is literally unable to eat meat(causes digestive problems). A rare case, and I'm pretty sure ovo-lacto vegetarianism is still OK. For my part I'm definitely one of the meat-eating types, though I have my limits. A bit more OT diet-related: As the months have grown colder I recently noticed a dangerous binge-type craving for sweet stuff. So I decided I would go low-carb and high-fat for a few days leading up to Thanksgiving just to see if it could change my appetite. It's made a very obvious difference. One daily Starbucks venti breve latte just obliterates the problem, though it's a bit hard to digest and tiresome to drink.
robryan 16y ago
Hmm, in the same way that this girl strongly was able to have a strong moral stance for being a vegan before she has also been able to justify a strong moral stance against it, pointing to large scale farming now as the enemy. I'm all for the overall feeling but it does show that people can very easy justify contradictory stances at different times.
- davorak 16y ago
  It did seem like that the author should examine her decision making/philosophy adopting process along with her dedication to veganism.
araneae 16y ago
That was kind of eye-opening. Not because it shows how bullshit veganism is; I knew that already. But because it reminds me of this friend I have, who is always complaining that she feels tired and weak. She goes to the doctor at least monthly, who diagnosis her with some new deficiency. She's always taking some new pill or food type. I always thought she was a hypochondriac. But it just occurred to me that she might not be, because she's a vegetarian.
- chaitanya 16y ago
  > because she's a vegetarian. There's a difference between a vegan and a vegetarian: a vegetarian doesn't consume meat, but does consume diary products and eggs (egg-but-not-meat eaters like me are sometimes also known as eggetarians). A vegan, on the other hand, doesn't consume any animal products at all. I have been vegetarian (or rather eggetarian) all my life, and I have had no such problems. Also, I know many vegetarians (lots of them here in India), who face none of these problems. I believe being a vegetarian is a fairly healthy lifestyle. Being a vegan, maybe not.
  - araneae 16y ago
    Yes, I know the difference. I was merely saying that her symptoms sound identical to my friend's, that's all. Just like some people seem to be successful as vegans, others may be unsuccessful at being vegetarians.
    - numix 16y ago
      And others are unsuccessful at being omnivores. There are a host of other nutrition problems that may be completely unrelated to whether meat is in one's diet. It's not very fair to blame vegetarianism, which is usually considered a pretty safe diet.
    - chaitanya 16y ago
      I have never known anyone who's been unsuccessful at being a vegetarian (and about half my friends and family are vegetarian). Edit: the only time I have known someone switch to a non-veg diet (after becoming an adult) is when they started going to the gym and were keen on building muscle mass.
mmaunder 16y ago
I eat meat, I fish and I've hunted. My wife has been a vegetarian for 20 years, since age 19. By vegetarian I mean she eats eggs and drinks milk, but doesn't eat meat of any kind. It's outright weird how the author swings from one extreme to the other, both emotionally and nutritionally. Why not try adding eggs, milk, cheese and full-cream yoghurt to your diet first? Or even add shellfish or chicken once or twice a week? She seems to swing from the most militant form of vegetarianism to maniacal flesh gorging with an indictment of the vegan community to boot. The range of diets that incorporate or exclude meat or animal byproducts is wide as is the impact each variation has on our environment. A productive approach would be to find a meat-veggie balance that works for your nutritional needs and then spend the time to find environmentally friendly and humane sources of the ingredients you need.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  >Why not try adding eggs, milk, cheese and full-cream yoghurt to your diet first? Or even add shellfish or chicken once or twice a week? ... A productive approach would be to find a meat-veggie balance that works for your nutritional needs Did you even read her article? That's pretty much exactly what she did... it's not like she's engaging in an all-meat diet now or something.
- alextp 16y ago
  Agreed. This was a really creepy read precisely because of her black-and-white perspective, and the overemphasized near-religious importance her past self put on not eating meat (to the point of considering eating only bad meat, as if pleasure itself is evil or immoral). I think a hidden problem that was not mentioned enough in this thread is that vegetarianism for many people (the author included) became a clear derivative of christianism (she herself ate vegan as a way to both free herself and the planet for our sins as humans).
crazydiamond 16y ago
Perhaps those who eat meat should slowly introduce vegetarianism into their diet (if they wish to) rather than going vegan straight. I turned veg about 15 years back (but still ate an egg). My haemoglobin count actually went up by a point (a year later). About 5 years ago, i gave up eggs too. A year later my Haemo was up by another half point. I do have a small amount of milk in tea/coffee. In India, there are millions of vegetarians who live without health problems. Veganism seems a little extreme to us.
gfunk911 16y ago
It sounds like she was getting very little fat and protein in her diet. When you demonize fat, and don't eat much protein, you have no choice but to fill the void with carbs, if you can fulfill your csloric needs at all Also, Leafy vegetables are wonderful sources of nutrients, but terrible sources of calories. It seems like she was trying to fill her caloric needs with leafy vegetables, which simply isn't going to work.
- astine 16y ago
  The article specifically mentions iron and B12. There is no natural way for a human to get B12 without some kind of animal product or a supplement (usually made from an animal product) and this woman developed a nutritional deficiency as a result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Sources
shaunxcode 16y ago
It is impossible for me to say this person is "wrong" but I figure I may as well throw my data points into the graph - I've been vegan for 11 years and I am more healthy on every level than I've ever been. I went vegan in my late teens when I was done growing, my younger brother went vegan at 12 a year after me and is now taller/broader than me. I know many people who have been vegan over 20 years who are in great health. Obviously that doesn't just apply to vegans but regardless, the secret is this: you have to hack your diet! You have to learn about nutrition in general and then in relation to YOUR body and experience. There is no silver bullet and I am glad there isn't: life should be a constant practice of critical thinking and mindfulness. "Practicing" veganism is a great way to constantly engage with the world in an active manner.
erikpukinskis 16y ago
For what it's worth, I don't think of people who eat diets supposedly free of animal products as "vegan". I think of them as "fundamentalist". To me, veganism is about creating a culture where we don't abuse animals. It happens that part of that work for me involves mostly not eating meat. But sometimes eating meat is exactly what I need to do. Eating meat, in specific ways, can be a way to connect with people, a way to nourish myself... there are lots of ways in which eating meat can lead directly or indirectly to my helping to lessen animal abuse. And I think that's profoundly vegan. I think the OP feels the same way, but she's apparently not as comfortable hijacking the word "vegan" as I am. The way she uses the word, and the way most people use the word, makes it useful only to marginalize people. What a waste of a word. I'd use it to inspire people. Like the mormon who might occasionally share a beer with their sister, in the spirit of love and family and togetherness (important mormon values)... a vegan can eat meat. These labels do not have to be so cut and dry.
- Tichy 16y ago
  There are lots of reasons for being vegan. What if you can not digest animal products very well, or just think it is healthier to eat vegan. YOur world view seems rather black and white. Also I don't understand the part about connecting with people - so if you don't eat meat, you have troubles connecting (if you eat something else)? How so? Also, does eating meat also help you to connect with vegans, or maybe not? All in all, I call bullshit.
  - erikpukinskis 16y ago
    There are lots of reasons for being vegan. What if you can not digest animal products very well, or just think it is healthier to eat vegan. That's great. I think those are wonderful reasons, and am happy for those people to include themselves under the umbrella of veganism. YOur world view seems rather black and white. Why are you attacking me? if you don't eat meat, you have troubles connecting (if you eat something else)? How so? When I went to Spain, there were often situations where I could either eat Spanish food with Spanish friends, or I could sit and not eat anything with them, and then go home and cook my own food. I chose to share in their culture and participate. I didn't really eat much meat, but I did eat some vegetarian food. And I did try some of the meat. does eating meat also help you to connect with vegans, or maybe not? I don't recall a situation where eating meat helped me connect with vegans. I generally connect with vegans by eating vegan food with them, or talking about vegan food. All in all, I call bullshit. Why are you antagonizing me? I'm just honestly expressing my thoughts about something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. Please be a little nicer to me.
davidmathers 16y ago
This post has some great lines in it: * As a revolutionary feminist and anti-imperialist, veganism seemed to be yet another way I could fight the injustices we are facing. * Capitalism has turned food, and especially grains, into a commodity, a weapon of war, and a way to make a profit, instead of the inalienable right it should be. The way to prevent hunger is not to feed the starving masses the food we currently feed to animals (excess food production and the resulting food dumping is one of the causes of hunger in the first place), but for the chronically hungry people to throw off the shackles of neo-imperialism and to gain back control of their local food systems. * It was shocking to realize I had been expounding on the need to transform agriculture and farming without even knowing the bare minimum of what it takes to keep an ecosystem healthy. Really? Was it really shocking? Really? I feel like I'm in a missing scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian. On the other hand her 3 paragraphs about the 3 kinds of bad people (the frauds, the foolish know-it-alls, and the evidence deniers) sparked instant recognition and made me realize that those are the exact people that irritate me more than just about anyone else in this world.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  > On the other hand her 3 paragraphs about the 3 kinds of bad people (the frauds, the foolish know-it-alls, and the evidence deniers) sparked instant recognition and made me realize that those are the exact people that irritate me more than just about anyone else in this world. She seems to qualify for at least two of those three categories.
  - davidmathers 16y ago
    Instant karma's gonna get you! Really though, it's the people who take knowing-it-all and evidence denial to a personal level who deserve a special place in hell.
gxti 16y ago
This is a perfect example of why one must use the utmost caution in allowing a choice to become part of one's identity. When the time comes for that belief to be challenged you will fight not because it is true, but because it is perceived as an attack on the self. You will ignore reason and fight to save that piece of yourself from annihilation like a feral animal cornered by a predator. You are not a vegan. You are not an atheist. You are not the car you drive or the contents of your wallet. You are a human being, and nothing that is within your power to change should be exempt from introspection.
- elblanco 16y ago
  I've added this to my personal collection of awesome quotes.
MikeCapone 16y ago
Personally, I can't wait until we grow meat without having to kill animals who can feel pain, distress, etc, to get it. It won't come one day too soon.
manish 16y ago
I simply can't understand why eating meat is wrong, when eating plant is not wrong. I feel they are same.
- tomstuart 16y ago
  Is eating a human the same?
  - philwelch 16y ago
    No, because humans are capable of reciprocating moral obligations. Veganism is really difficult to avoid if you're a utilitarian, and really easy to avoid if you're not.
  - manish 16y ago
    This is same question many of my veggie friends ask. I think no, it is not the same for humans. For other carnivores, it does not make any difference.
- davidj 16y ago
  Yes, I've always said when you eat fruits and nuts, you are eating the plants babies. Why all the hatred towards plants ..
- Egregore 16y ago
  Plants don't have nervous system, animals have, and it allows them to be able to suffer. But even if you think that plants can suffer, still being vegan is more ethical, because overall suffering will be reduces, there are less plants needed on vegan diet than feed to animals to be eaten.
pyre 16y ago
There's a (somewhat) rebuttal to this here: http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-vegans%E2%80%99-stories-make-the-case-against-vegan-diets.html http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-vegans%E2%80%99-stor...
sh1mmer 16y ago
Reposting my thoughts from Reddit: As a vegan I'm sad on two fronts. a) That some vegans see the need to attack someone in this way. I know some vegans consider (including myself) see it as a deeply moral issue. However, I'd rather be like Ghandi than a fundamentalist. First and foremost, we can't help how we are made. I can't understand how it is immoral to care for oneself first. That said I personally haven't suffered adverse health (quite the reverse). b) The fact that my choice for me causes some people to want to knock me down. Time and time again, I find my veganism attacked by people who aren't vegan. Whether they make a joke of waving their meat meals in my face, or attack my moral/ethical/dietary stance. It seems like a lot of people who are omnivorous either feel guilty about it or simply don't like the idea that I have chosen a moral stance stricter than their own. I find it disappointing, both in the title and the comments of this thread that people seem to want to take me down a peg for my beliefs.
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  Well, if you rationalize your beliefs, and folks poke holes in those rationalizations, then it isn't wanting "to take me down a peg for my beliefs", its debate. And when you are wrong in debate, its not quite fair to wrap yourself in religion and claim foul.
- DanielStraight 16y ago
  Maybe people just don't like being told that their moral stance is less strict than yours when they don't feel they're doing anything wrong. Your post is almost literally asking, "Why are people upset when I have a holier-than-thou attitude?" What is really the difference between, "I have chosen a stricter moral stance," and holier-than-thou?
  - sh1mmer 16y ago
    Stricter implies that I am applying more conditions to myself, 'holier-than-thou' implies that I'm somehow applying them to you too. I've chosen my morality for me, I'll happily advocate it if you are interested. However, my act of choice in no way threatens your own act of choice. What I find frustrating is that because I've made a choice for me people choose to assume I'm judging them.
tomstuart 16y ago
Look, veganism is a preference, not a religion. For me, the salient facts are that eating animals and animal products is a) ethically questionable and b) avoidable. But it's just a choice. If I go round someone's house and they've cooked me an otherwise vegan meal but put cheese on top, I'm not going to be a dick about it, I'm going to eat it. Food isn't magic. Maybe this makes me not really vegan, or a "bad vegan" or whatever, but I don't know or care what the rules are. I don't even know any other vegans. It's nobody else's business. I know it's a privilege to be affluent and healthy enough to be able to be selective about what I eat, but I choose to exercise that privilege, just as I choose to exercise other counter-evolutionary privileges like using contraception and not murdering people who annoy me. Could I do more? Could I be a better person? Certainly. Always. But doing this much is so easy that it's a no-brainer, so that's how much I do. Maybe I'll do better tomorrow. I feel kind of shocked and alienated by how aggressively negative some of the posters here are being about that choice.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  > "Look, veganism is a preference, not a religion." The line between preference and religion can be awfully thin. See: Urban vs. suburban, Nikon vs. Canon, Vi vs. Emacs, etc. All of the above are contentious issues that are, at the end of the day, incredibly asinine to argue about. And all sides in the above suffer from incredibly poor signal to noise ratio - both defending their ego more than they are any notion of reason.
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  You don't get emotionally wrecked when your preference is defeated. "Wracking sobs and tears" - that's a reactopm tp a firmly-held lifelong belief being deconstructed - so for her it was religion.
Void_ 16y ago
It's normal to eat meat. People who don't, look kinda sick, you can tell.
linuxhansl 16y ago
I went to a 10 day meditation retreat a few years ago. As you can imagine I met a lot of interesting people there. One guy actually was a body builder and vegetarian. He told me that he had problems with being anemic as well. So his doctor told him to have a steak once a month, which helped him a lot. There is a reason why we can chew and digest both plants and animal products and meat. While personally I lean towards a vegetarian diet (for reasons of health, morality, and sustainability) any such bias has to be paired with "wisdom". Generally if we know how to listen our bodies will let us know what they need. I mostly eat whatever I want, whenever I want it. It somehow naturally ends up being mostly vegetarian, with diary product, and occasionally meats and (yes) some candy. Edit: I do avoid all low fat products and products with sugar replacements.
loca 16y ago
Reminded me of a comment by Linus Torvalds [1]: Meat is kind of important to people. Young kids in particular need a lot of varied nutrients, and a balanced diet - with meat - is likely to be way healthier than the alternatives. Quite frankly, being vegetarian is like being religious: you should let the kid decide on his/her own when they are grown up and can make that choice on their own. Plus by then they've done most of their development, so your choice won't mess them up for the rest of their lives. Humans are designed to be omnivores. Don't play games with your kids nutrition. Eating meat is not at all unnatural. It's generally considered to be one of the main reasons humans could afford to evolve a larger brain - because meat is denser in nutrients than vegetarian diets. Yes, you can do a healthy vegetarian diet (and even a vegan one, although at that point you really are crazy - there's no substitute for milk), but it is certainly not at all a trivial matter. It's much saner to just say "eating meat is natural". Once you're fully grown, it's a different matter. Quite frankly, anybody who tells their kids to "don't eat meat" is kind of crazy. You're much better off telling them to not drink sodas, avoid overly processed foods etc. And yeah, I care a hell of a lot more about my kids health than I care about cows or even pigs. Deal with it. [1] http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/05/pig-lovers-oath.html?showComment=1274201279556#c6797364674668189582 http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/05/pig-lovers-oath....
- tghw 16y ago
  As a counter point, I've been vegetarian (ovo-lacto) my whole life. My parents aren't crazy, they just decided they wanted to be vegetarian, and the logical consequence of that is that my siblings and I were raised the same way. I'm 6'1", ~175 lbs, and am strong and healthy. I've never had a blood test show any deficiencies. I don't have to go out of my way to find protein: dairy, eggs, and legumes are in enough dishes to make it easy. Plus, you don't need nearly as much protein as most people get. Linus is often wrong about things, especially when they're outside his areas of expertise.
preek 16y ago
Considering how this submission got voted and how the discourse is going, this is a good example of how powerful the USA are. I wonder how the discourse will continue now that it's dark night in the USA and the day is starting for Europe and India.
jules 16y ago
> As a feminist, this body-hating rhetoric infuriated me. The willing participation in the denial and degradation of my bodily needs smacked of misogyny, patriarchal control and violence against the female body, and everything that I fight against. Huh? So somebody who willingly does not eat animal products despite the health issues is misogynistic? What does this have to do with sexes? > I refuse to play the game that so many women (vegan or not) are forced to play by our violently woman hating society; I will never feel shame or guilt for eating what my body wants and needs to be healthy. It seems like veganism is not her only problem...
alecco 16y ago
When the doctor first told me that I had numerous vitamin and mineral deficiencies, that I was almost anemic, and my B12 was so low she wanted to give me an injection immediately, I refused to believe her. That's poor diet. Vegan or not. B12 is made by bacteria (not animals or plants) and industrial meat is full of it because we feed livestock with putrified waste foods while industrialized vegetables are unnaturally clean with chemicals. Organic vegetables have enough B12. Also modern diet has anti-nutrients preventing absorption (like coffee and iron.) The broad generalizations from reactionaries like political vegans and their anti-vegan counterparts disgust me. Both groups are completely uninformed and stubborn. For them it's about confirmation bias and group think.
- Egregore 16y ago
  Actually it's recommended for vegans to take suppliments of B12, you can read more about different aspects of vegan health at http://www.veganhealth.org/ http://www.veganhealth.org/
  - alecco 16y ago
    Many foods like wheat flours are already fortified with B12 and iron. At least where I live.
RyanMcGreal 16y ago
I was never a vegan, but I was a pretty strict vegetarian for about ten years. I started to rethink it when my doctor told me I was seriously deficient in iron, B12 and folic acid. The first time I ate meat again, a lamb shawarma, it was freaking delicious. I felt my body scream "YES!" Now I incorporate some non-industrial, locally sourced meat, cheese and eggs into a predominantly plant-based diet, and it seems to be working well for my overall health. Unfortunately a bread bar (exactly what it sounds like) operated by a Slow Food chef recently opened near my house, and I find myself eating altogether too much fresh baked bread.
techiferous 16y ago
Another data point: I've been vegan for five years and haven't noticed any related health problems and I have a friend who has been vegan for 30+ years without any related health problems. Whatever your position on the subject, it's important to approach this matter with objectivity, logic, openness, sensitivity and lots of data. :)
lwhi 16y ago
I think this a case of the 'tail wagging the dog'. The author decided she wanted to be vegan for (possibly) superficial reasons. She then found she couldn't be vegan for health reasons, but rather than take a step back and hold on to some of the principles she claimed to have (and become an ovo-lacto vegetarian; and see if that worked) .. cognitive dissonance came into play and she shifted her entire world-view around to suit her new choice of meat-based diet. I imagine it must have been difficult to make the choice - but there's something about the subsequent rationalisation (and justification) that makes me feel uncomfortable.
- lwhi 16y ago
  Okay, maybe I'm being a bit harsh - but I did find the sea change in opinion a bit difficult to comprehend. Some people might _need_ to eat animal derived products to function - but that should still be able to be compatible with a desire to ascribe to vegan ideals. When a person chooses involve politics in dietary choice, pragmatism should still be able to operate. Fundamentalism at any level is a bit wrong. I don't see why the alternative - of becoming a fully fledged carnivore - was taken when there was an intermediate step.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
kwantam 16y ago
I was glad to see the food miles metric[1] tangentially mentioned in this post (when she talked about importing exotic foods to keep herself healthy). This is a notion that, in my opinion, doesn't get enough attention: it doesn't matter how great the farming practices are if the food is then shipped three thousand miles to my door. (Yes, the food miles notion is imperfect, but it's at least a reasonable first-order approximation of the environmental impact of your food.) Besides being fun, one of the best things about hunting is that you can directly observe the cost of transporting and processing food from animal to table. On top of that, the animal I hunt most frequently (feral hog) is a depredating pest in most of the southeastern US, doing substantial damage to farm and ranch land. Most of my hunting is done on land where cows are pastured, and I'm only happy to help reduce the population of hogs, protect the grazing lands, and get a little meat out of the deal. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles
- cjbprime 16y ago
  > it doesn't matter how great the farming practices are if the food is then shipped three thousand miles to my door. (Yes, the food miles notion is imperfect, but it's at least a reasonable first-order approximation of the environmental impact of your food.) I don't think so. Transportation accounts for only 11% of the environmental impact of food[1], so that's not a first-order approximation of the true cost at all. It is not only possible, but is in fact often likely, that shipping food three thousand miles from somewhere where it was efficient to produce has less environmental impact than buying food with epsilon "food miles". (Which means that the take-home message is: if you want to use food miles as a metric, you should generally only buy food that is grown as efficiently where you are as in the part of the world that grows it optimally.) [1] http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702969f http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702969f
Sidnicious 16y ago
> In the span of just a few days I received an outpouring of emails from fellow ‘vegan’ bloggers, who told me in confidence that they weren’t really vegan ‘behind the scenes’. > I even received emails from two very prominent and well respected members of the vegan AR community. One a published and much loved vegan cook book author, the other a noted animal rights blogger, their emails detailed their health struggles and eventual unpublicized return to eating meat. This pisses me off the most, and what makes veganism look like a religion to me. You learn much more from being wrong, and talking about being wrong, than from standing by a point of view because it's popular.
LikeOMG 16y ago
"A Vegan Diet" is nothing more than a diet devoid of animal products or byproducts. A vegan diet could technically be nothing but potato chips. What did this woman eat? What did she eat exactly? What sort of workout did she do every day? How many green smoothies did she rely on for energy for her workouts? This has nothing to do with veganism, but everything to do with a very confused person who did not know how to feed herself.

A Vegan No More

216 points by abraham 16y ago

burgerbrain 16y ago

"You once were a ve-gone, now you will be-gone." --Scott Pilgrim vs The World

tptacek 16y ago
Who knew iron pills broke vegan edge?
- hartror 16y ago
  I'll tell you one thing iron supplements do and that is stop up your pipes >.<

kadavy 16y ago

I've never been a vegetarian, but I used to eat very little meat. The one mineral I rarely hear about when talking about a vegetarian or vegan diet is Zinc. It is nearly impossible to get enough Zinc without eating animal products. You can either eat nearly 3 pounds of peas, or little more than .5 ounces of canned oysters to get enough Zinc in your diet. Being low on Zinc weakens your immune system, and your libido, so yeah - it's important. YMMV, but I am feeling much better now that I've made it a point to eat more (local, organically-raised) meat.

daviday 16y ago
Oysters are an outlier in terms of zinc. http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/ http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/ From NIH "Oysters contain more zinc per serving than any other food, but red meat and poultry provide the majority of zinc in the American diet. Other good food sources include beans, nuts, certain types of seafood (such as crab and lobster), whole grains, fortified breakfast cereals, and dairy products"
abeppu 16y ago
Oysters are actually a weird case for some vegans, in that a lot of the arguments made for veganism don't really apply. They don't have brains, so there's not really a chance for suffering, and they can be farmed in an eco-friendly way. Peter Singer, the animal rights philosopher that vegans are always quoting, has at points said that he doesn't object to eating oysters. http://www.slate.com/id/2248998/ http://www.slate.com/id/2248998/
- steve19 16y ago
  Unfertilized chicken eggs don't have brains either, right? They are still "unclean".
  - kadavy 16y ago
    The issue with them for most vegans is probably that hens are usually kept in inhumane conditions.
  - abeppu 16y ago
    I eat eggs sometimes, but I'm not proud of it. The moral considerations are very different from oysters because of how they're produced. Producing a lot of eggs requires a lot of hens. Having a lot of hens (and not roosters) involves killing a lot of male chicks. Producing any volume of eggs economically requires having a lot of hens in not that much space, which typically involves things like clipping beaks. This also produces a lot of concentrated waste which can often cause environmental damage. Keeping a lot of hens fed requires that you give them a lot of feed, which requires agricultural resources which might otherwise have produced food to be eaten by people. So eating eggs entails killing and torturing birds, producing toxic waste and using agricultural resources inefficiently.
  - flogic 16y ago
    I think that has to do with the manner in which the layers are cared for. Chickens and cows don't produce eggs or milk at the same rate throughout their lives. So farmers cull them once their production drops below the economical point. Also the majority of the males are culled since they're not producers. My grandfather thought it might be worth while to breed dairy cows with a meat producing aspect due to the 25% yearly cull rate.
Egregore 16y ago
You can get a lot of Zinc from plant based sources: http://food.vegtalk.org/minerals/spices-fats-fruits-vegetables-nuts-legumes-cereals/zinc.html http://food.vegtalk.org/minerals/spices-fats-fruits-vegetabl...
lwhi 16y ago
Pumpkin seeds have a load of zinc in. A handful on salad does the job.
- kadavy 16y ago
  You would have to eat nearly 1.5 cups of pumpkin seeds to get 100% DRV http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3066/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/30...

dejb 16y ago

> I never expected this post to get so much attention. There is nothing more popular than an anecdote that appeals to people's pre-existing biases. Unfortunately there will be many for which this one story will provide the same weight of evidence as the entire China Study.

abeppu 16y ago
I concur. It bothers me that at the top of part 4 she says she regrets having decided to become a vegan through being swayed by graphic images of factory farms rather than having "adhered to the rigorous academic standards" that she claims to use in all other decisions -- and yet this anecdote turned polemic will surely be used by others in hastily making up their minds that veganism and possibly vegetarianism are not viable or beneficial to either the individual or society.
zaphar 16y ago
The point of the story is that not everyone can do a Vegan diet and still be healthy. While this is just one example it does demonstrate the principle that meat is a necessary and vital part of some peoples healthy eating. I sometimes wonder if Vegans worry about Lions on the savannah eating antelope. Do they want prevent that as well. Humans are Omnivores. We are built to get nutrients from both meat and plantlife. Our metabolisms work best when we eat both in moderation. A Vegan lifestyle makes it harder to eat healthy not easier and for some it makes it impossible.
- abeppu 16y ago
  Humans are Omnivores. We are built to get nutrients from both meat and plantlife. Our metabolisms work best when we eat both in moderation. Please let's not resort to "appeal to nature", because that can certainly be abused both ways (and frequently is). There are certainly all sorts of sketchy vegetarian and vegan bogus arguments about why not eating animals is natural (and certainly eating dairy and chicken eggs isn't natural). We weren't built for anything, and just because something is natural, doesn't mean that it's good or right. If we ruled our lives by what was natural, we'd die in our thirties, have high infant mortality, and while we would eat meat, we would also chase after it with sharpened sticks, and more of us would die from starvation. Agriculture is unnatural; it's technology. Yes, our ancestors ate meat, but that alone doesn't mean that we need to. The OP's system couldn't handle her vegan diet, so she needs meat, but that doesn't mean everyone needs meat. If you want to eat meat, eat meat. That's reason enough. If you find that you personally physically need to eat meat, then please eat meat. But neither the omnivore nor the vegan who claims that one diet is universally nutritionally or morally optimal in virtue of being natural is making a solid justification.

scottshapiro 16y ago

I know that the lipid hypothesis is completely fallacious, these animal foods won’t hurt me or cause me ill health in anyway, in fact, the vitamins and minerals they provide, along with the nutritious cholesterol and wholesome saturated fat, will restore my health. Great to hear that she sees the forest from the trees.

jacquesm 16y ago

It's interesting how strong peer pressure is in groups like vegans to continue to press someone in to a lifestyle that clearly is not to their best interest. It reminds me of religious cults, and other 'us or them' styled groups. Very scary.

muriithi 16y ago
She even says that she and her family has received threats! What would make someone do that simply because the lady has started eating meat?
- jacquesm 16y ago
  It's psychologically complicated but it has to do with people telling you that you yourself are living a lie, and exposing that lie. That ties right in to 'ego' and self preservation. People do not like to have their core beliefs challenged in a credible way.
  - dan00 16y ago
    Yes. It's strange that people really think that what they're doing isn't connected in a way with their self-esteem, especially if they claiming all the time that they're doing it only for a better world. Wouldn't it be funny, if at the end there's no much difference between the SUV driver and the vegan.
    - widgetycrank 16y ago
      I think people buy large SUVs under the false assumption of crashworthiness. For the price range they could have gotten sedans of similar prestige.
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        And of better crash-worthiness!
  - 16y ago

autarch 16y ago

Ginny Messina, who is a dietitian and actually has some qualifications to talk about this stuff, wrote a great response to this blog post - http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-vegans%E2%80%99-stories-make-the-case-against-vegan-diets.html http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-vegans%E2%80%99-stor...

burgerbrain 16y ago
>That doesn’t mean I think she has made any of this up. She has an awfully weird way of expressing this. The first few paragraphs of her post are dedicated to implying as hard as she can that this blog post is some sort of meat industry propaganda. For example: >There is so much that is eerily parallel in these stories—not just the vague descriptions of the health-related experiences but also the evolving philosophy regarding food justice, and some very, very similar language.
- autarch 16y ago
  I think Ginny's saying that the the author of the blog post is simply echoing things she read elsewhere. That doesn't mean it's some sort of propaganda effort on the part of the blog poster.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    I think that's definitely how she's trying to spin it "officially", but her actual intent is pretty clear. >I have to admit I’m always a little suspicious when an ex-vegan dives headlong into a love affair with meat. I mean come on, what else is that supposed to mean? Is she "suspicious" that the author is simply echoing a new-found respect for meat? That doesn't even make sense.
    - autarch 16y ago
      Sheesh, you really love your conspiracy theories. Ginny's post is primarily about debunking the ridiculous health claims in the original post. She's "suspicious" of the claims because they're ridiculous, and the amount of fervor that Tasha shows suggests that there's something going on besides nutrition.

dasil003 16y ago

I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity. Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying the premium for more sustainably raised meat. Opting out of meat entirely does nothing to change the industry, because most people will always eat some meat if they can afford it. Meanwhile, as vegans focus on the elimination of meat from our diets, they practically ignore the industrialized food that wreaks direct reproducible havoc on our metabolisms causing epidemic obesity and diabetes. Consider the effect of refined and reconstituted carbohydrates made from federally subsidized crops that make the most devastatingly unhealthy food items also the cheapest. Just the effects of soda pop alone are worthy of an international movement.

cjbprime 16y ago
> Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. There are, you'll be pleased to hear, many vegans with stronger ethical arguments than "meat is murder". Such as, in summary: * unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable. * some non-human animals (notably the ones we eat most of) are as capable of suffering at the physical level as humans are. We shouldn't discount their suffering just because they aren't members of homo sapiens. * factory farms raise most animals in conditions of unnecessary extreme suffering. * therefore, it is ethically wrong to eat those animal products. (This is actually an argument for eating humanely-raised meat instead of veganism, but finding verifiably humanely-raised meat is difficult enough that I'm not sufficiently interested to bother, and there are practical advantages in eating a predictable diet. So I just eat vegan.) By the way, I hate the federally subsidized crop situation too. I wish I could do something substantial about it. It's disingenuous for you to say that vegans are uninformed about health issues or industrial practice or the farm lobby just because they don't "focus" on it; that doesn't match my experience of other vegans at all, and it's obviously untrue that someone can only pay attention to one issue.
- Evgeny 16y ago

chipsy 16y ago

I do know, anecdotally, of someone who is literally unable to eat meat(causes digestive problems). A rare case, and I'm pretty sure ovo-lacto vegetarianism is still OK. For my part I'm definitely one of the meat-eating types, though I have my limits. A bit more OT diet-related: As the months have grown colder I recently noticed a dangerous binge-type craving for sweet stuff. So I decided I would go low-carb and high-fat for a few days leading up to Thanksgiving just to see if it could change my appetite. It's made a very obvious difference. One daily Starbucks venti breve latte just obliterates the problem, though it's a bit hard to digest and tiresome to drink.

robryan 16y ago

Hmm, in the same way that this girl strongly was able to have a strong moral stance for being a vegan before she has also been able to justify a strong moral stance against it, pointing to large scale farming now as the enemy. I'm all for the overall feeling but it does show that people can very easy justify contradictory stances at different times.

davorak 16y ago
It did seem like that the author should examine her decision making/philosophy adopting process along with her dedication to veganism.

araneae 16y ago

That was kind of eye-opening. Not because it shows how bullshit veganism is; I knew that already. But because it reminds me of this friend I have, who is always complaining that she feels tired and weak. She goes to the doctor at least monthly, who diagnosis her with some new deficiency. She's always taking some new pill or food type. I always thought she was a hypochondriac. But it just occurred to me that she might not be, because she's a vegetarian.

chaitanya 16y ago
> because she's a vegetarian. There's a difference between a vegan and a vegetarian: a vegetarian doesn't consume meat, but does consume diary products and eggs (egg-but-not-meat eaters like me are sometimes also known as eggetarians). A vegan, on the other hand, doesn't consume any animal products at all. I have been vegetarian (or rather eggetarian) all my life, and I have had no such problems. Also, I know many vegetarians (lots of them here in India), who face none of these problems. I believe being a vegetarian is a fairly healthy lifestyle. Being a vegan, maybe not.
- araneae 16y ago
  Yes, I know the difference. I was merely saying that her symptoms sound identical to my friend's, that's all. Just like some people seem to be successful as vegans, others may be unsuccessful at being vegetarians.
  - numix 16y ago
    And others are unsuccessful at being omnivores. There are a host of other nutrition problems that may be completely unrelated to whether meat is in one's diet. It's not very fair to blame vegetarianism, which is usually considered a pretty safe diet.
  - chaitanya 16y ago
    I have never known anyone who's been unsuccessful at being a vegetarian (and about half my friends and family are vegetarian). Edit: the only time I have known someone switch to a non-veg diet (after becoming an adult) is when they started going to the gym and were keen on building muscle mass.

mmaunder 16y ago

I eat meat, I fish and I've hunted. My wife has been a vegetarian for 20 years, since age 19. By vegetarian I mean she eats eggs and drinks milk, but doesn't eat meat of any kind. It's outright weird how the author swings from one extreme to the other, both emotionally and nutritionally. Why not try adding eggs, milk, cheese and full-cream yoghurt to your diet first? Or even add shellfish or chicken once or twice a week? She seems to swing from the most militant form of vegetarianism to maniacal flesh gorging with an indictment of the vegan community to boot. The range of diets that incorporate or exclude meat or animal byproducts is wide as is the impact each variation has on our environment. A productive approach would be to find a meat-veggie balance that works for your nutritional needs and then spend the time to find environmentally friendly and humane sources of the ingredients you need.

burgerbrain 16y ago
>Why not try adding eggs, milk, cheese and full-cream yoghurt to your diet first? Or even add shellfish or chicken once or twice a week? ... A productive approach would be to find a meat-veggie balance that works for your nutritional needs Did you even read her article? That's pretty much exactly what she did... it's not like she's engaging in an all-meat diet now or something.
alextp 16y ago
Agreed. This was a really creepy read precisely because of her black-and-white perspective, and the overemphasized near-religious importance her past self put on not eating meat (to the point of considering eating only bad meat, as if pleasure itself is evil or immoral). I think a hidden problem that was not mentioned enough in this thread is that vegetarianism for many people (the author included) became a clear derivative of christianism (she herself ate vegan as a way to both free herself and the planet for our sins as humans).

crazydiamond 16y ago

Perhaps those who eat meat should slowly introduce vegetarianism into their diet (if they wish to) rather than going vegan straight. I turned veg about 15 years back (but still ate an egg). My haemoglobin count actually went up by a point (a year later). About 5 years ago, i gave up eggs too. A year later my Haemo was up by another half point. I do have a small amount of milk in tea/coffee. In India, there are millions of vegetarians who live without health problems. Veganism seems a little extreme to us.

gfunk911 16y ago

It sounds like she was getting very little fat and protein in her diet. When you demonize fat, and don't eat much protein, you have no choice but to fill the void with carbs, if you can fulfill your csloric needs at all Also, Leafy vegetables are wonderful sources of nutrients, but terrible sources of calories. It seems like she was trying to fill her caloric needs with leafy vegetables, which simply isn't going to work.

astine 16y ago
The article specifically mentions iron and B12. There is no natural way for a human to get B12 without some kind of animal product or a supplement (usually made from an animal product) and this woman developed a nutritional deficiency as a result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Sources

shaunxcode 16y ago

It is impossible for me to say this person is "wrong" but I figure I may as well throw my data points into the graph - I've been vegan for 11 years and I am more healthy on every level than I've ever been. I went vegan in my late teens when I was done growing, my younger brother went vegan at 12 a year after me and is now taller/broader than me. I know many people who have been vegan over 20 years who are in great health. Obviously that doesn't just apply to vegans but regardless, the secret is this: you have to hack your diet! You have to learn about nutrition in general and then in relation to YOUR body and experience. There is no silver bullet and I am glad there isn't: life should be a constant practice of critical thinking and mindfulness. "Practicing" veganism is a great way to constantly engage with the world in an active manner.

erikpukinskis 16y ago

For what it's worth, I don't think of people who eat diets supposedly free of animal products as "vegan". I think of them as "fundamentalist". To me, veganism is about creating a culture where we don't abuse animals. It happens that part of that work for me involves mostly not eating meat. But sometimes eating meat is exactly what I need to do. Eating meat, in specific ways, can be a way to connect with people, a way to nourish myself... there are lots of ways in which eating meat can lead directly or indirectly to my helping to lessen animal abuse. And I think that's profoundly vegan. I think the OP feels the same way, but she's apparently not as comfortable hijacking the word "vegan" as I am. The way she uses the word, and the way most people use the word, makes it useful only to marginalize people. What a waste of a word. I'd use it to inspire people. Like the mormon who might occasionally share a beer with their sister, in the spirit of love and family and togetherness (important mormon values)... a vegan can eat meat. These labels do not have to be so cut and dry.

Tichy 16y ago
There are lots of reasons for being vegan. What if you can not digest animal products very well, or just think it is healthier to eat vegan. YOur world view seems rather black and white. Also I don't understand the part about connecting with people - so if you don't eat meat, you have troubles connecting (if you eat something else)? How so? Also, does eating meat also help you to connect with vegans, or maybe not? All in all, I call bullshit.
- erikpukinskis 16y ago
  There are lots of reasons for being vegan. What if you can not digest animal products very well, or just think it is healthier to eat vegan. That's great. I think those are wonderful reasons, and am happy for those people to include themselves under the umbrella of veganism. YOur world view seems rather black and white. Why are you attacking me? if you don't eat meat, you have troubles connecting (if you eat something else)? How so? When I went to Spain, there were often situations where I could either eat Spanish food with Spanish friends, or I could sit and not eat anything with them, and then go home and cook my own food. I chose to share in their culture and participate. I didn't really eat much meat, but I did eat some vegetarian food. And I did try some of the meat. does eating meat also help you to connect with vegans, or maybe not? I don't recall a situation where eating meat helped me connect with vegans. I generally connect with vegans by eating vegan food with them, or talking about vegan food. All in all, I call bullshit. Why are you antagonizing me? I'm just honestly expressing my thoughts about something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. Please be a little nicer to me.

davidmathers 16y ago

This post has some great lines in it: * As a revolutionary feminist and anti-imperialist, veganism seemed to be yet another way I could fight the injustices we are facing. * Capitalism has turned food, and especially grains, into a commodity, a weapon of war, and a way to make a profit, instead of the inalienable right it should be. The way to prevent hunger is not to feed the starving masses the food we currently feed to animals (excess food production and the resulting food dumping is one of the causes of hunger in the first place), but for the chronically hungry people to throw off the shackles of neo-imperialism and to gain back control of their local food systems. * It was shocking to realize I had been expounding on the need to transform agriculture and farming without even knowing the bare minimum of what it takes to keep an ecosystem healthy. Really? Was it really shocking? Really? I feel like I'm in a missing scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian. On the other hand her 3 paragraphs about the 3 kinds of bad people (the frauds, the foolish know-it-alls, and the evidence deniers) sparked instant recognition and made me realize that those are the exact people that irritate me more than just about anyone else in this world.

jacquesm 16y ago
> On the other hand her 3 paragraphs about the 3 kinds of bad people (the frauds, the foolish know-it-alls, and the evidence deniers) sparked instant recognition and made me realize that those are the exact people that irritate me more than just about anyone else in this world. She seems to qualify for at least two of those three categories.
- davidmathers 16y ago
  Instant karma's gonna get you! Really though, it's the people who take knowing-it-all and evidence denial to a personal level who deserve a special place in hell.

gxti 16y ago

This is a perfect example of why one must use the utmost caution in allowing a choice to become part of one's identity. When the time comes for that belief to be challenged you will fight not because it is true, but because it is perceived as an attack on the self. You will ignore reason and fight to save that piece of yourself from annihilation like a feral animal cornered by a predator. You are not a vegan. You are not an atheist. You are not the car you drive or the contents of your wallet. You are a human being, and nothing that is within your power to change should be exempt from introspection.

elblanco 16y ago
I've added this to my personal collection of awesome quotes.

MikeCapone 16y ago

Personally, I can't wait until we grow meat without having to kill animals who can feel pain, distress, etc, to get it. It won't come one day too soon.

manish 16y ago

I simply can't understand why eating meat is wrong, when eating plant is not wrong. I feel they are same.

tomstuart 16y ago
Is eating a human the same?
- philwelch 16y ago
  No, because humans are capable of reciprocating moral obligations. Veganism is really difficult to avoid if you're a utilitarian, and really easy to avoid if you're not.
- manish 16y ago
  This is same question many of my veggie friends ask. I think no, it is not the same for humans. For other carnivores, it does not make any difference.
davidj 16y ago
Yes, I've always said when you eat fruits and nuts, you are eating the plants babies. Why all the hatred towards plants ..
Egregore 16y ago
Plants don't have nervous system, animals have, and it allows them to be able to suffer. But even if you think that plants can suffer, still being vegan is more ethical, because overall suffering will be reduces, there are less plants needed on vegan diet than feed to animals to be eaten.

pyre 16y ago

There's a (somewhat) rebuttal to this here: http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-vegans%E2%80%99-stories-make-the-case-against-vegan-diets.html http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-vegans%E2%80%99-stor...

sh1mmer 16y ago

Reposting my thoughts from Reddit: As a vegan I'm sad on two fronts. a) That some vegans see the need to attack someone in this way. I know some vegans consider (including myself) see it as a deeply moral issue. However, I'd rather be like Ghandi than a fundamentalist. First and foremost, we can't help how we are made. I can't understand how it is immoral to care for oneself first. That said I personally haven't suffered adverse health (quite the reverse). b) The fact that my choice for me causes some people to want to knock me down. Time and time again, I find my veganism attacked by people who aren't vegan. Whether they make a joke of waving their meat meals in my face, or attack my moral/ethical/dietary stance. It seems like a lot of people who are omnivorous either feel guilty about it or simply don't like the idea that I have chosen a moral stance stricter than their own. I find it disappointing, both in the title and the comments of this thread that people seem to want to take me down a peg for my beliefs.

JoeAltmaier 16y ago
Well, if you rationalize your beliefs, and folks poke holes in those rationalizations, then it isn't wanting "to take me down a peg for my beliefs", its debate. And when you are wrong in debate, its not quite fair to wrap yourself in religion and claim foul.
DanielStraight 16y ago
Maybe people just don't like being told that their moral stance is less strict than yours when they don't feel they're doing anything wrong. Your post is almost literally asking, "Why are people upset when I have a holier-than-thou attitude?" What is really the difference between, "I have chosen a stricter moral stance," and holier-than-thou?
- sh1mmer 16y ago
  Stricter implies that I am applying more conditions to myself, 'holier-than-thou' implies that I'm somehow applying them to you too. I've chosen my morality for me, I'll happily advocate it if you are interested. However, my act of choice in no way threatens your own act of choice. What I find frustrating is that because I've made a choice for me people choose to assume I'm judging them.

tomstuart 16y ago

Look, veganism is a preference, not a religion. For me, the salient facts are that eating animals and animal products is a) ethically questionable and b) avoidable. But it's just a choice. If I go round someone's house and they've cooked me an otherwise vegan meal but put cheese on top, I'm not going to be a dick about it, I'm going to eat it. Food isn't magic. Maybe this makes me not really vegan, or a "bad vegan" or whatever, but I don't know or care what the rules are. I don't even know any other vegans. It's nobody else's business. I know it's a privilege to be affluent and healthy enough to be able to be selective about what I eat, but I choose to exercise that privilege, just as I choose to exercise other counter-evolutionary privileges like using contraception and not murdering people who annoy me. Could I do more? Could I be a better person? Certainly. Always. But doing this much is so easy that it's a no-brainer, so that's how much I do. Maybe I'll do better tomorrow. I feel kind of shocked and alienated by how aggressively negative some of the posters here are being about that choice.

potatolicious 16y ago
> "Look, veganism is a preference, not a religion." The line between preference and religion can be awfully thin. See: Urban vs. suburban, Nikon vs. Canon, Vi vs. Emacs, etc. All of the above are contentious issues that are, at the end of the day, incredibly asinine to argue about. And all sides in the above suffer from incredibly poor signal to noise ratio - both defending their ego more than they are any notion of reason.
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
You don't get emotionally wrecked when your preference is defeated. "Wracking sobs and tears" - that's a reactopm tp a firmly-held lifelong belief being deconstructed - so for her it was religion.

Void_ 16y ago

It's normal to eat meat. People who don't, look kinda sick, you can tell.

linuxhansl 16y ago

I went to a 10 day meditation retreat a few years ago. As you can imagine I met a lot of interesting people there. One guy actually was a body builder and vegetarian. He told me that he had problems with being anemic as well. So his doctor told him to have a steak once a month, which helped him a lot. There is a reason why we can chew and digest both plants and animal products and meat. While personally I lean towards a vegetarian diet (for reasons of health, morality, and sustainability) any such bias has to be paired with "wisdom". Generally if we know how to listen our bodies will let us know what they need. I mostly eat whatever I want, whenever I want it. It somehow naturally ends up being mostly vegetarian, with diary product, and occasionally meats and (yes) some candy. Edit: I do avoid all low fat products and products with sugar replacements.

loca 16y ago

Reminded me of a comment by Linus Torvalds [1]: Meat is kind of important to people. Young kids in particular need a lot of varied nutrients, and a balanced diet - with meat - is likely to be way healthier than the alternatives. Quite frankly, being vegetarian is like being religious: you should let the kid decide on his/her own when they are grown up and can make that choice on their own. Plus by then they've done most of their development, so your choice won't mess them up for the rest of their lives. Humans are designed to be omnivores. Don't play games with your kids nutrition. Eating meat is not at all unnatural. It's generally considered to be one of the main reasons humans could afford to evolve a larger brain - because meat is denser in nutrients than vegetarian diets. Yes, you can do a healthy vegetarian diet (and even a vegan one, although at that point you really are crazy - there's no substitute for milk), but it is certainly not at all a trivial matter. It's much saner to just say "eating meat is natural". Once you're fully grown, it's a different matter. Quite frankly, anybody who tells their kids to "don't eat meat" is kind of crazy. You're much better off telling them to not drink sodas, avoid overly processed foods etc. And yeah, I care a hell of a lot more about my kids health than I care about cows or even pigs. Deal with it. [1] http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/05/pig-lovers-oath.html?showComment=1274201279556#c6797364674668189582 http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/05/pig-lovers-oath....

tghw 16y ago
As a counter point, I've been vegetarian (ovo-lacto) my whole life. My parents aren't crazy, they just decided they wanted to be vegetarian, and the logical consequence of that is that my siblings and I were raised the same way. I'm 6'1", ~175 lbs, and am strong and healthy. I've never had a blood test show any deficiencies. I don't have to go out of my way to find protein: dairy, eggs, and legumes are in enough dishes to make it easy. Plus, you don't need nearly as much protein as most people get. Linus is often wrong about things, especially when they're outside his areas of expertise.

preek 16y ago

Considering how this submission got voted and how the discourse is going, this is a good example of how powerful the USA are. I wonder how the discourse will continue now that it's dark night in the USA and the day is starting for Europe and India.

jules 16y ago

> As a feminist, this body-hating rhetoric infuriated me. The willing participation in the denial and degradation of my bodily needs smacked of misogyny, patriarchal control and violence against the female body, and everything that I fight against. Huh? So somebody who willingly does not eat animal products despite the health issues is misogynistic? What does this have to do with sexes? > I refuse to play the game that so many women (vegan or not) are forced to play by our violently woman hating society; I will never feel shame or guilt for eating what my body wants and needs to be healthy. It seems like veganism is not her only problem...

alecco 16y ago

When the doctor first told me that I had numerous vitamin and mineral deficiencies, that I was almost anemic, and my B12 was so low she wanted to give me an injection immediately, I refused to believe her. That's poor diet. Vegan or not. B12 is made by bacteria (not animals or plants) and industrial meat is full of it because we feed livestock with putrified waste foods while industrialized vegetables are unnaturally clean with chemicals. Organic vegetables have enough B12. Also modern diet has anti-nutrients preventing absorption (like coffee and iron.) The broad generalizations from reactionaries like political vegans and their anti-vegan counterparts disgust me. Both groups are completely uninformed and stubborn. For them it's about confirmation bias and group think.

Egregore 16y ago
Actually it's recommended for vegans to take suppliments of B12, you can read more about different aspects of vegan health at http://www.veganhealth.org/ http://www.veganhealth.org/
- alecco 16y ago
  Many foods like wheat flours are already fortified with B12 and iron. At least where I live.

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

I was never a vegan, but I was a pretty strict vegetarian for about ten years. I started to rethink it when my doctor told me I was seriously deficient in iron, B12 and folic acid. The first time I ate meat again, a lamb shawarma, it was freaking delicious. I felt my body scream "YES!" Now I incorporate some non-industrial, locally sourced meat, cheese and eggs into a predominantly plant-based diet, and it seems to be working well for my overall health. Unfortunately a bread bar (exactly what it sounds like) operated by a Slow Food chef recently opened near my house, and I find myself eating altogether too much fresh baked bread.

techiferous 16y ago

Another data point: I've been vegan for five years and haven't noticed any related health problems and I have a friend who has been vegan for 30+ years without any related health problems. Whatever your position on the subject, it's important to approach this matter with objectivity, logic, openness, sensitivity and lots of data. :)

lwhi 16y ago

I think this a case of the 'tail wagging the dog'. The author decided she wanted to be vegan for (possibly) superficial reasons. She then found she couldn't be vegan for health reasons, but rather than take a step back and hold on to some of the principles she claimed to have (and become an ovo-lacto vegetarian; and see if that worked) .. cognitive dissonance came into play and she shifted her entire world-view around to suit her new choice of meat-based diet. I imagine it must have been difficult to make the choice - but there's something about the subsequent rationalisation (and justification) that makes me feel uncomfortable.

lwhi 16y ago
Okay, maybe I'm being a bit harsh - but I did find the sea change in opinion a bit difficult to comprehend. Some people might _need_ to eat animal derived products to function - but that should still be able to be compatible with a desire to ascribe to vegan ideals. When a person chooses involve politics in dietary choice, pragmatism should still be able to operate. Fundamentalism at any level is a bit wrong. I don't see why the alternative - of becoming a fully fledged carnivore - was taken when there was an intermediate step.

deleted 16y ago

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kwantam 16y ago

I was glad to see the food miles metric[1] tangentially mentioned in this post (when she talked about importing exotic foods to keep herself healthy). This is a notion that, in my opinion, doesn't get enough attention: it doesn't matter how great the farming practices are if the food is then shipped three thousand miles to my door. (Yes, the food miles notion is imperfect, but it's at least a reasonable first-order approximation of the environmental impact of your food.) Besides being fun, one of the best things about hunting is that you can directly observe the cost of transporting and processing food from animal to table. On top of that, the animal I hunt most frequently (feral hog) is a depredating pest in most of the southeastern US, doing substantial damage to farm and ranch land. Most of my hunting is done on land where cows are pastured, and I'm only happy to help reduce the population of hogs, protect the grazing lands, and get a little meat out of the deal. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles

cjbprime 16y ago
> it doesn't matter how great the farming practices are if the food is then shipped three thousand miles to my door. (Yes, the food miles notion is imperfect, but it's at least a reasonable first-order approximation of the environmental impact of your food.) I don't think so. Transportation accounts for only 11% of the environmental impact of food[1], so that's not a first-order approximation of the true cost at all. It is not only possible, but is in fact often likely, that shipping food three thousand miles from somewhere where it was efficient to produce has less environmental impact than buying food with epsilon "food miles". (Which means that the take-home message is: if you want to use food miles as a metric, you should generally only buy food that is grown as efficiently where you are as in the part of the world that grows it optimally.) [1] http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702969f http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702969f

Sidnicious 16y ago

> In the span of just a few days I received an outpouring of emails from fellow ‘vegan’ bloggers, who told me in confidence that they weren’t really vegan ‘behind the scenes’. > I even received emails from two very prominent and well respected members of the vegan AR community. One a published and much loved vegan cook book author, the other a noted animal rights blogger, their emails detailed their health struggles and eventual unpublicized return to eating meat. This pisses me off the most, and what makes veganism look like a religion to me. You learn much more from being wrong, and talking about being wrong, than from standing by a point of view because it's popular.

LikeOMG 16y ago

"A Vegan Diet" is nothing more than a diet devoid of animal products or byproducts. A vegan diet could technically be nothing but potato chips. What did this woman eat? What did she eat exactly? What sort of workout did she do every day? How many green smoothies did she rely on for energy for her workouts? This has nothing to do with veganism, but everything to do with a very confused person who did not know how to feed herself.