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> Chicken is a perfectly reasonable substitute for beef. This is completely 100% incorrect. Chicken is so nutritionally deficient relative to beef that it migh

by wyager 5y ago

> Chicken is a perfectly reasonable substitute for beef. This is completely 100% incorrect. Chicken is so nutritionally deficient relative to beef that it might as well be a vegetable. > There are over a 600 million people are living cheaply and safely on vegetarian diets “Cheaply”, yes, “safely” not so much. Vegetarian populations tend to be have stunted growth, have worse dentition, etc. compared to populations who eat a diet based on ruminants, fish, etc. Additionally, dietary requirements are not fungible across the human population. People whose ancestors come from different evolutionary environments will be tuned for different food sources. Lactose tolerance is probably the most well known example. A priori, all of my pre-agricultural ancestors must have had a diet completely incompatible with vegetarianism, so it’s not surprising that people of my background who go vegetarian tend to exhibit metabolic problems. Note that I am not comparing vegetarianism to the standard American diet, which is practically vegetarian already. Switching from SAD to a generic vegetarian diet might simply have the positive effect of reducing the amount of weird slop people consume. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2016/december/a-look-at-calorie-sources-in-the-american-diet https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2016/december/a-look-at...

Retric 5y ago
Vegetarian populations have different deficiencies than other populations but overall they aren’t worse lifespans than other populations with similar economic backgrounds.
- wyager 5y ago
  > they aren’t worse lifespans than other populations with similar economic backgrounds Even if this is true, it’s tremendously misleading because (globally) vegetarian populations tend to be quite poor.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    To the extent that’s true, it also demonstrates the false causality in your own claim: poverty, not the absence of meat per se, is the cause of all the things you’re blaming vegetarian diets for.
    - wyager 5y ago
      Obviously the people I’m comparing against each other are in the same social-economic stratum. Even after conditioning for other factors, the costs of bad (vegetable-based) diets are significant. And, of course, there is a bidirectional causality with poor people getting bad food, which stunts their development, which keeps them poor.
shipman05 5y ago
> standard American diet, which is practically vegetarian already Not by any reasonable definition. Americans consume more meat per capita than any nation on earth. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_cons...) I'm guessing you're basing that statement on the article you shared showing that 70% of calories consumed by Americans come from plant-based sources. 1. I believe your calorie-percentage data points more to the high amount sugar and corn syrup in the standard American diet. Those two plant-based, calorie-dense ingredients skew the data. A McDonald's chicken nugget value meal with a regular Coke has a high number of plant-based calories due to the Coke, but it is pretty far from being a vegetarian meal. 2. Calling 70% vegetarian "practically vegetarian" really stretches the definitions of both words. Most Americans consume meat with > 2 meals per day.
- wyager 5y ago
  Sweeteners are about 15% of calories for Americans which sort of undercuts your idea that it’s all about corn syrup. Your example of a single hypothetical meal is irrelevant - the data is clear that Americans are practically vegetarian, in aggregate. 70% plants is absolutely “practically vegetarian” compared to, say, a diet consistent with the pre-agricultural evolutionary environment of most Americans. Personally, in excess of 90% of my caloric intake comes from animals (and I am visibly and medically healthier than 95% of Americans, even health-focused herbivores, as are people I know who eat similarly).
  - Retric 5y ago
    Preindustrial diets where mostly plant based in aggregate. Even if you look before agriculture estimates place typical hunter gatherers at about 65% plant based with extreme variation. Which is the same ratio as Americans eat when you exclude those sweeteners. Longer term surviving examples tended to have a higher meat based ratio largely because they lived on islands or in more marginal areas. However, looking at land area and population density estimates adjusts the ratio significantly. Some of this needs to be inferred from things like Native American tribal densities and is further confused as diseases decimated native populations throwing off those density estimates. Still the idea of our ancestors eating a primarily meat based diet seems to be a mistake.

by wyager 5y ago

Retric 5y ago

Vegetarian populations have different deficiencies than other populations but overall they aren’t worse lifespans than other populations with similar economic backgrounds.

wyager 5y ago
> they aren’t worse lifespans than other populations with similar economic backgrounds Even if this is true, it’s tremendously misleading because (globally) vegetarian populations tend to be quite poor.
- ben_w 5y ago
  To the extent that’s true, it also demonstrates the false causality in your own claim: poverty, not the absence of meat per se, is the cause of all the things you’re blaming vegetarian diets for.
  - wyager 5y ago
    Obviously the people I’m comparing against each other are in the same social-economic stratum. Even after conditioning for other factors, the costs of bad (vegetable-based) diets are significant. And, of course, there is a bidirectional causality with poor people getting bad food, which stunts their development, which keeps them poor.

shipman05 5y ago

> standard American diet, which is practically vegetarian already Not by any reasonable definition. Americans consume more meat per capita than any nation on earth. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_cons...) I'm guessing you're basing that statement on the article you shared showing that 70% of calories consumed by Americans come from plant-based sources. 1. I believe your calorie-percentage data points more to the high amount sugar and corn syrup in the standard American diet. Those two plant-based, calorie-dense ingredients skew the data. A McDonald's chicken nugget value meal with a regular Coke has a high number of plant-based calories due to the Coke, but it is pretty far from being a vegetarian meal. 2. Calling 70% vegetarian "practically vegetarian" really stretches the definitions of both words. Most Americans consume meat with > 2 meals per day.

wyager 5y ago
Sweeteners are about 15% of calories for Americans which sort of undercuts your idea that it’s all about corn syrup. Your example of a single hypothetical meal is irrelevant - the data is clear that Americans are practically vegetarian, in aggregate. 70% plants is absolutely “practically vegetarian” compared to, say, a diet consistent with the pre-agricultural evolutionary environment of most Americans. Personally, in excess of 90% of my caloric intake comes from animals (and I am visibly and medically healthier than 95% of Americans, even health-focused herbivores, as are people I know who eat similarly).
- Retric 5y ago
  Preindustrial diets where mostly plant based in aggregate. Even if you look before agriculture estimates place typical hunter gatherers at about 65% plant based with extreme variation. Which is the same ratio as Americans eat when you exclude those sweeteners. Longer term surviving examples tended to have a higher meat based ratio largely because they lived on islands or in more marginal areas. However, looking at land area and population density estimates adjusts the ratio significantly. Some of this needs to be inferred from things like Native American tribal densities and is further confused as diseases decimated native populations throwing off those density estimates. Still the idea of our ancestors eating a primarily meat based diet seems to be a mistake.