4 ms·
I think that’s quite a straw man. In order to say we don’t require meat, we have to know what the correct diet for humans are, which we unfortunately don’t. Nut
by spacephysics 6y ago
I think that’s quite a straw man. In order to say we don’t require meat, we have to know what the correct diet for humans are, which we unfortunately don’t. Nutrition literature is littered with contradictions, debates, and mostly recommendations based off of correlation (epidemiology) studies.
Not throwing everything that’s been studied in nutrition by any means, but research areas like the gut micro biome are in their infancy, and we’ve yet to really study the effects food has on this complex system. We’ve had instances of saturated fats being painted as causing heart disease, red meat causing cancer, or sugar not being that bad for you. Each either having a perverse financial incentive to get specific results, or they used poor methodologies.
This also assumes a plant based diet is the most optimal diet for humans, which I’d disagree with, especially on the account that most plant-based diets lack nutrients that are only derived from meat based products. Yes you can supplement, but now the bioavailability is changed, and typically supplements target a single or few nutrients, and rarely has the full spectrum of what the particular food has for nutrient ratios.
For instance, what’s the effect on the gut microbiome when we use a supplement vs the nutrient “from the source”? We know there exists a difference in how our bodies react, just not the full picture of effects.
If your ethics supersedes what could (emphasis) be a more optimal life, or if plant based diet works better than meat based anecdotally, then have at it. But we shouldn’t be dictating policy or pushing for cultural changes on things we don’t have a full understanding on, especially when we don’t know the full implications of any one human diet.
Comparing meat eating to, if I’m reading between the lines correctly, hedonic pleasures of Netflix and alcohol, is fallacious, perverse, and dogmatic. I would go so far as to say restricting meat consumption on a policy level is unethical.
- simoom22 6y agoI'm not aware of any essential nutrients lacking from a plant-based diet, aside from maybe B12, which is supplemented in animal feed and besides would probably be provided by soil bacteria if agricultural soil was healthier and our produce wasn't washed so well. A few amino acids like taurine aren't in plants but are synthesized from others in the human body.
- mike00632 6y agoThe concept of "bioavailability" might be too simple when talking about nutrition. Heme iron from animal products and vitamin A from liver are bioavailable to the point of being toxic. With the example of iron, our body has variable absorption rate based on how much we need; heme iron bypasses this mechanism and gives us extra iron.
- claudeganon 6y agoHundreds of millions of Indians have been vegetarians for centuries without any meaningful difference in health outcomes. Any claim about adverse health effects needs to account for that history. I have a very bleak view about humanity’s ability to overcome the senseless, mass slaughter and consumption of animals, even in spite of the existential risks of pandemic disease and environmental collapse that continuing to do so poses. But the idea that it’s a biological necessity (outside of a very small percentage of people with specific health conditions), seems easily disproven.
- distant_hat 6y agoMalnutrition is rife in India with some 40% of children malnourished and stunted. Indian diet is not very nutritionally balanced and as a result, lifestyle diseases like diabetes and heart disease are quite common in the upper income brackets and malnutrition in the lower income brackets.
- triceratops 6y agoI love meat but by no means is it necessary for living. About 40% of India is ovo-lacto vegetarian and India is in the top half of the life expectancy table compared to other countries with a similar GDP-per capita.[1] I'm personally down to eating meat once or twice per week. Mostly because it's delicious. I feel no different from when I ate meat every day, and I've lost some weight. Most of the resistance to vegetarian diets in the Western world is for cultural reasons. There isn't widespread knowledge of how to feed oneself healthily on a vegetarian diet - people picture endless salads with no fat or protein or taste. And there's the perception of vegetarian sources of protein - beans, legumes, lentils, peanut butter, eggs, tofu, yogurt, paneer - as either foreign or "poverty" foods. There are also notions of masculinity tied up with meat consumption. I have no truck with any of that, but it's silly to try to use faulty nutrition science to defend cultural mores. 1. https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#life-expectancy-and-gdp https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#life-expectancy-a...
- dtech 6y ago> I think that’s quite a straw man. In order to say we don’t require meat You're missing my point. I'm not arguing for/against eating meat or whether its necessary, just observing that there is an economic demand for meat which is unlikely to change in the near future. To supply this demand you need to kill animals. I'm arguing that current ethics on killing animals are that way because of otherwise we cannot get meat. Once we get clean meat and you don't need to kill animals to get meat, societal ethics will rapidly shift towards killing animals no longer being ok.