7 ms·

The great vegan diet ‘con’

19 points by elorant 4y ago

vangelis 4y ago
Paywalled... https://archive.ph/VD3ds https://archive.ph/VD3ds
derbOac 4y ago
It's good to see skeptical criticism of some of these claims, which often oversimplify and exaggerate, but I think misinformation goes both ways. The amount of unsupported claims about going on a plant-based diet is amazing to me. It seems as if there's a defensiveness about diet in general, and meat or lack thereof especially. Like a lot of things now I shouldn't be surprised, as it intersects with a lot of cultural issues and politically charged topics like climate. The term "con" should raise red flags — a more neutral approach to the topic would be more helpful but then that wouldnt increase sales.
- missingrib 4y ago
  To be honest I don't know if a lot of vegans would like to even argue that the diet is healthier. Most vegans I've met would argue that its morally important to eat vegan even if its less healthy than eating meat. YMMV though.
  - PretzelPirate 4y ago
    This is an important comment. Vegans would tell you that veganism isn’t a diet, it’s a lifestyle choice. I’ve been vegan for over 10 years and it’s never been about health for me, it’s been about not exploiting animals.
    - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
      Another angle on your and GP's comment is environmental. The most environmentally friendly meats come from the most mistreated animals, particularly broiler chickens in warehouses, but most veg*ns aren't going to say, well, if you absolutely have to eat meat, you should eat those.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- codefreeordie 4y ago
  The whole meat vs plant-based thing has become just as polarized as the rest of politics. Actually, it's super weird how actually political partisan diets have become. Make a list of left/democrat foods and a list of right/republican foods. It's not hard. It's super weird that this is not hard.
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    This is because veganism is an extreme and the argument thus goes into 'meat' versus 'no animal product at all' (veganism). In the West we probably eat too much meat (from a health perspective at least) so we should probably try to eat less of it, which can be as simple as not eating meat every day or at every meal. That's it, not very controversial and, yes, you can still eat 'proper' burgers when you go out.
    - codefreeordie 4y ago
      In the West, we used to believe in individual liberty, which meant that there was no amount of meat that you should be able to tell me is enough or too much, because what I eat is not your business.
      - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
        Could it be someone else's business if you, say, killed a dog or cat every day, or are saying that you should be able to do literally anything you like to any animal in the privacy of your home?
        codefreeordie 4y ago
        Whose dog or cat is it?
        sky-kedge0749 4y ago
        You raise an interesting point -- which you may not have intended, I don't want to put words in your mouth -- that once you treat sentient animals as disposable property, it becomes difficult to draw ethical lines. Surely a chicken and a cat have approximately the same moral worth, and in the U.S. you can buy whole cooked chickens at the store for $5. Buying a chicken and throwing away the meat is just as pointless as killing a cat, and a factory chicken's life is torture from beginning to end. So any difference between the chicken and the cat is sentimental at best.
bigger_inside 4y ago
of course not. Like the "YOU picking straws kills the planet"-narrative, it was always neoliberal redirection to reframe structural problems as individual choice-problems, which can then be marketed to...
- esquivalience 4y ago
  Isn't it rather that the market will follow individual choices? Such that if you can change the individual, the market will follow (and in this case, has done).
  - mc32 4y ago
    Municipalities enacted bans, not individuals. Though some individuals may have prior to any bans decided by themselves they prefer not to use straws.
jshaqaw 4y ago
I am not a vegan but this article conflates a bunch of issues. Shocker- the consumer packaged goods industry has latched onto veganism to sell more high margin processed food. As to arguments about the need for supplements to get vital nutrients missing even in a whole food vegan diet that may have more heft. I will say as a sample set of one I’m a vegetarian but I eat lots of eggs which I try to buy from humane sources. Middle aged in my late forties. I have a very scientific test of my physical status. If I can still hold my own against someone 20 years younger who weighs 50 pounds more in martial arts then don’t tell me my diet makes me weak!
- andreilys 4y ago
  Yes but how about your cognitive performance? Surprisingly, the children who were given the soup containing meat each day seemed to have a significant edge. By the end of the study, they outperformed all the other children on a test for non-verbal reasoning. Along with the children who received soup with added oil, they also did the best on a test of arithmetic ability In fact, there are several important brain nutrients that simply do not exist in plants or fungi. Creatine, carnosine, taurine, EPA and DHA omega-3 (the third kind can be found in plants), haem iron and vitamins B12 and D3 generally only occur naturally in foods derived from animal products https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200127-how-a-vegan-diet-could-affect-your-intelligence https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200127-how-a-vegan-diet...
  - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
    I mean, the person is eating lots of eggs which contains a lot of good brain nutrients.
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      Eggs are neat in that they contain everything needed to construct a living organism. It's hard to find a more nutririonally well rounded food. Granted humans aren't chickens, but we're closer to chickens than chickpeas that's undeniable.
ellopoppit 4y ago
For anyone wanting to learn more about the dodgy science behind pro-vegan/anti-meat interests, the book Sacred Cow is a great place to start: https://www.sacredcow.info/book https://www.sacredcow.info/book
- lupire 4y ago
  Great book on the dodgy science behind pro-meat interests pushing the myth that sustainable cattle farming can satisfy meat demand. Look a this demagoguery of lopsided comparisons: > A vegan diet may destroy more life than sustainable cattle farming. > Regenerative cattle ranching is one of our best tools at mitigating climate change.
  - ellopoppit 4y ago
    Did you read the book, or any of their arguments for those claims; or did you just dismiss them automatically?
Slippery_John 4y ago
The idea that you shouldn't do a helpful thing just because it won't entirely solve the problem all by itself nuts. Even assuming that the estimation method used here is entirely without flaw, they estimate a 6% per capita savings. That's not small! Just because there are more impactful things you could do, doesn't mean you shouldn't also do this. Another variant of this that's no less infuriating is the classic "corporations do most of the polluting, so I'm entirely absolved of responsibility".
myshpa 4y ago
What a terrible article. It feels like a desperate attempt of the meat industry to delay the inevitable, not too different from cigarette and oil industry tactics we've all seen in the past. They also had a plethora of experts to convince the public it's a good thing to smokwe. Food industry is powerful and it will go down kicking, that's for sure. > When the documentary Cowspiracy came out and said 51 per cent of emissions are from livestock, I knew that was not true. I knew that the official global number was 14.5 per cent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. And even that is an exaggerated number. If you want to learn more, and why the contribution of meat production may be even higher than 51%, see the following paper: https://climatehealers.org/the-science/animal-agriculture-position-paper/ https://climatehealers.org/the-science/animal-agriculture-po... One thing from the article I can agree with. Don't eat highly processed food. Not all vegan diets are healthy diets. If you want to stay healthy, eat whole plant-based foods, minimum fat. Whenever someone has health problem, doctors will recommend plant based diet - like with cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular illnesses, gallblader & pancreas, kidney, endometriosis ... it's easily verifiable. In fact, 15 top killer diseases are preventable with plant-based diets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXXXygDRyBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXXXygDRyBU If I had more time, I would have written a better comment. Sorry.
- wortelefant 4y ago
  In addition to the omission of studies about plant based diets, it glosses over the main concern. "Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals." https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism You could make a similar argument about slavery, the reason we abolished it has nothing to do with productivity estimations.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  If eating a plant-based diet is good for you, why are there no healthy vegans?
doomrobo 4y ago
The author claims that veggies aren't cruelty free because among other things: "In New South Wales, Australia, over a five-year period up to 2013, rice farmers killed nearly 200,000 native ducks to protect their rice crops from the birds." Very brave, though the author forgets to compare to literally any other numbers. A quick check reveals that Australia slaughtered ~1.5M chickens PER DAY in 2013. Currently it's ~2M per day [0]. So the author argues not to avoid cruelty because it only reduces cruelty by 99.9932%. This is garbage. [0] https://www.chicken.org.au/facts-and-figures/#Production https://www.chicken.org.au/facts-and-figures/#Production
- whataboutery 4y ago
- irthomasthomas 4y ago
  Meat comes from animals, you say? There is a big difference between killing farm animals bred for the purpose, and killing wild animals. Most egregious is the killing of endangered orangutans and monkeys [0][1]. Also, most people are aware that meat comes from animals, but few are aware of how many animals and their habitats are destroyed to grow crops. And did you know that fires set by the agriculture industry in Indonesia puts out more CO2 than America, some days? [2] And that's just Indonesia. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45146581 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45146581 https://savetheorangutan.org/threats/palm-oil/ https://savetheorangutan.org/threats/palm-oil/ https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/indonesia-fires-amazon-carbon-emissions-peatland/ https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/indonesia-fires-amazon-car...
  - 0daystock 4y ago
    Yet most crops are grown to feed farmed animals. Remove the farmed animals inefficiency coefficient from the equation and suddenly the world is overwhelmed with an abundance of food, most of which is healthier anyway.
    - belorn 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
telesilla 4y ago
I belong to a farm co-op, every year we're offered a goat or sheep for slaughter, in return for helping pay for these animals to be farmed we get to buy a supply of cheese and yogurts that is beyond this world. It's as close to being a good earth citizen as possible while ethically eating a variety of meats. Some of us make vegan cheese to sell to each other, some fruits or vegetables, wine, bread - whatever they decided they want to make a living on. Then some of us who have time contribute with small home goods like hummus or cakes, each week offering what we can to sell to the group. I want a source of unprocessed vegan meat, and I'm looking at recipes to encourage me to make them regularly and freeze and resell, rather than buy. Recipes welcome!
- lupire 4y ago
  What is unprocessed vegan meat? Making vegan meat requires a "process". Cheese is processed milk. Buy super firm tofu blocks, portabella mushrooms.
  - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
    Also lentils are filling and have a lot of protein. Boiled lentils with salt and other seasoning taste fine, are easy to make and as unprocessed as it gets.
  - telesilla 4y ago
    Vegan meat from the supermarket is delicious but not a sustainable option for a weekly diet: too much salt and preservatives. Recipes such as black bean & beetroot burgers are superb. I'm on the lookout to more classic recipes, maybe using soy protein or even anything more complicated as long as it doesn't need an industrial kitchen. https://itsavegworldafterall.com/black-bean-beet-burger-recipe/ https://itsavegworldafterall.com/black-bean-beet-burger-reci...
- 0daystock 4y ago
  Those animals are literally raped (euphemistically: "artificially inseminated") so you can eat the food meant for their children, which you know as "cheese" and "milk". I challenge you to be there to hear a mother cow's cry when her child is taken from her to "make veal". How anyone can consciously frame this behavior as moral or ethical on any level remains a mystery to me. Animal products aren't necessary for human health and commodifying them for our selfish purposes has karmic effects which are so obvious.

19 points by elorant 4y ago

Paywalled... https://archive.ph/VD3ds https://archive.ph/VD3ds

It's good to see skeptical criticism of some of these claims, which often oversimplify and exaggerate, but I think misinformation goes both ways. The amount of unsupported claims about going on a plant-based diet is amazing to me. It seems as if there's a defensiveness about diet in general, and meat or lack thereof especially. Like a lot of things now I shouldn't be surprised, as it intersects with a lot of cultural issues and politically charged topics like climate. The term "con" should raise red flags — a more neutral approach to the topic would be more helpful but then that wouldnt increase sales.

missingrib 4y ago
To be honest I don't know if a lot of vegans would like to even argue that the diet is healthier. Most vegans I've met would argue that its morally important to eat vegan even if its less healthy than eating meat. YMMV though.
- PretzelPirate 4y ago
  This is an important comment. Vegans would tell you that veganism isn’t a diet, it’s a lifestyle choice. I’ve been vegan for over 10 years and it’s never been about health for me, it’s been about not exploiting animals.
  - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
    Another angle on your and GP's comment is environmental. The most environmentally friendly meats come from the most mistreated animals, particularly broiler chickens in warehouses, but most veg*ns aren't going to say, well, if you absolutely have to eat meat, you should eat those.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
codefreeordie 4y ago
The whole meat vs plant-based thing has become just as polarized as the rest of politics. Actually, it's super weird how actually political partisan diets have become. Make a list of left/democrat foods and a list of right/republican foods. It's not hard. It's super weird that this is not hard.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  This is because veganism is an extreme and the argument thus goes into 'meat' versus 'no animal product at all' (veganism). In the West we probably eat too much meat (from a health perspective at least) so we should probably try to eat less of it, which can be as simple as not eating meat every day or at every meal. That's it, not very controversial and, yes, you can still eat 'proper' burgers when you go out.
  - codefreeordie 4y ago
    In the West, we used to believe in individual liberty, which meant that there was no amount of meat that you should be able to tell me is enough or too much, because what I eat is not your business.
    - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
      Could it be someone else's business if you, say, killed a dog or cat every day, or are saying that you should be able to do literally anything you like to any animal in the privacy of your home?
      - codefreeordie 4y ago
        Whose dog or cat is it?
        sky-kedge0749 4y ago
        You raise an interesting point -- which you may not have intended, I don't want to put words in your mouth -- that once you treat sentient animals as disposable property, it becomes difficult to draw ethical lines. Surely a chicken and a cat have approximately the same moral worth, and in the U.S. you can buy whole cooked chickens at the store for $5. Buying a chicken and throwing away the meat is just as pointless as killing a cat, and a factory chicken's life is torture from beginning to end. So any difference between the chicken and the cat is sentimental at best.

bigger_inside 4y ago

of course not. Like the "YOU picking straws kills the planet"-narrative, it was always neoliberal redirection to reframe structural problems as individual choice-problems, which can then be marketed to...

esquivalience 4y ago
Isn't it rather that the market will follow individual choices? Such that if you can change the individual, the market will follow (and in this case, has done).
- mc32 4y ago
  Municipalities enacted bans, not individuals. Though some individuals may have prior to any bans decided by themselves they prefer not to use straws.

jshaqaw 4y ago

I am not a vegan but this article conflates a bunch of issues. Shocker- the consumer packaged goods industry has latched onto veganism to sell more high margin processed food. As to arguments about the need for supplements to get vital nutrients missing even in a whole food vegan diet that may have more heft. I will say as a sample set of one I’m a vegetarian but I eat lots of eggs which I try to buy from humane sources. Middle aged in my late forties. I have a very scientific test of my physical status. If I can still hold my own against someone 20 years younger who weighs 50 pounds more in martial arts then don’t tell me my diet makes me weak!

andreilys 4y ago
Yes but how about your cognitive performance? Surprisingly, the children who were given the soup containing meat each day seemed to have a significant edge. By the end of the study, they outperformed all the other children on a test for non-verbal reasoning. Along with the children who received soup with added oil, they also did the best on a test of arithmetic ability In fact, there are several important brain nutrients that simply do not exist in plants or fungi. Creatine, carnosine, taurine, EPA and DHA omega-3 (the third kind can be found in plants), haem iron and vitamins B12 and D3 generally only occur naturally in foods derived from animal products https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200127-how-a-vegan-diet-could-affect-your-intelligence https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200127-how-a-vegan-diet...
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  I mean, the person is eating lots of eggs which contains a lot of good brain nutrients.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    Eggs are neat in that they contain everything needed to construct a living organism. It's hard to find a more nutririonally well rounded food. Granted humans aren't chickens, but we're closer to chickens than chickpeas that's undeniable.

ellopoppit 4y ago

For anyone wanting to learn more about the dodgy science behind pro-vegan/anti-meat interests, the book Sacred Cow is a great place to start: https://www.sacredcow.info/book https://www.sacredcow.info/book

lupire 4y ago
Great book on the dodgy science behind pro-meat interests pushing the myth that sustainable cattle farming can satisfy meat demand. Look a this demagoguery of lopsided comparisons: > A vegan diet may destroy more life than sustainable cattle farming. > Regenerative cattle ranching is one of our best tools at mitigating climate change.
- ellopoppit 4y ago
  Did you read the book, or any of their arguments for those claims; or did you just dismiss them automatically?

Slippery_John 4y ago

The idea that you shouldn't do a helpful thing just because it won't entirely solve the problem all by itself nuts. Even assuming that the estimation method used here is entirely without flaw, they estimate a 6% per capita savings. That's not small! Just because there are more impactful things you could do, doesn't mean you shouldn't also do this. Another variant of this that's no less infuriating is the classic "corporations do most of the polluting, so I'm entirely absolved of responsibility".

myshpa 4y ago

What a terrible article. It feels like a desperate attempt of the meat industry to delay the inevitable, not too different from cigarette and oil industry tactics we've all seen in the past. They also had a plethora of experts to convince the public it's a good thing to smokwe. Food industry is powerful and it will go down kicking, that's for sure. > When the documentary Cowspiracy came out and said 51 per cent of emissions are from livestock, I knew that was not true. I knew that the official global number was 14.5 per cent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. And even that is an exaggerated number. If you want to learn more, and why the contribution of meat production may be even higher than 51%, see the following paper: https://climatehealers.org/the-science/animal-agriculture-position-paper/ https://climatehealers.org/the-science/animal-agriculture-po... One thing from the article I can agree with. Don't eat highly processed food. Not all vegan diets are healthy diets. If you want to stay healthy, eat whole plant-based foods, minimum fat. Whenever someone has health problem, doctors will recommend plant based diet - like with cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular illnesses, gallblader & pancreas, kidney, endometriosis ... it's easily verifiable. In fact, 15 top killer diseases are preventable with plant-based diets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXXXygDRyBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXXXygDRyBU If I had more time, I would have written a better comment. Sorry.

wortelefant 4y ago
In addition to the omission of studies about plant based diets, it glosses over the main concern. "Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals." https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism You could make a similar argument about slavery, the reason we abolished it has nothing to do with productivity estimations.
Gordonjcp 4y ago
If eating a plant-based diet is good for you, why are there no healthy vegans?

doomrobo 4y ago

The author claims that veggies aren't cruelty free because among other things: "In New South Wales, Australia, over a five-year period up to 2013, rice farmers killed nearly 200,000 native ducks to protect their rice crops from the birds." Very brave, though the author forgets to compare to literally any other numbers. A quick check reveals that Australia slaughtered ~1.5M chickens PER DAY in 2013. Currently it's ~2M per day [0]. So the author argues not to avoid cruelty because it only reduces cruelty by 99.9932%. This is garbage. [0] https://www.chicken.org.au/facts-and-figures/#Production https://www.chicken.org.au/facts-and-figures/#Production

whataboutery 4y ago
irthomasthomas 4y ago
Meat comes from animals, you say? There is a big difference between killing farm animals bred for the purpose, and killing wild animals. Most egregious is the killing of endangered orangutans and monkeys [0][1]. Also, most people are aware that meat comes from animals, but few are aware of how many animals and their habitats are destroyed to grow crops. And did you know that fires set by the agriculture industry in Indonesia puts out more CO2 than America, some days? [2] And that's just Indonesia. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45146581 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45146581 https://savetheorangutan.org/threats/palm-oil/ https://savetheorangutan.org/threats/palm-oil/ https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/indonesia-fires-amazon-carbon-emissions-peatland/ https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/indonesia-fires-amazon-car...
- 0daystock 4y ago
  Yet most crops are grown to feed farmed animals. Remove the farmed animals inefficiency coefficient from the equation and suddenly the world is overwhelmed with an abundance of food, most of which is healthier anyway.
  - belorn 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

telesilla 4y ago

I belong to a farm co-op, every year we're offered a goat or sheep for slaughter, in return for helping pay for these animals to be farmed we get to buy a supply of cheese and yogurts that is beyond this world. It's as close to being a good earth citizen as possible while ethically eating a variety of meats. Some of us make vegan cheese to sell to each other, some fruits or vegetables, wine, bread - whatever they decided they want to make a living on. Then some of us who have time contribute with small home goods like hummus or cakes, each week offering what we can to sell to the group. I want a source of unprocessed vegan meat, and I'm looking at recipes to encourage me to make them regularly and freeze and resell, rather than buy. Recipes welcome!

lupire 4y ago
What is unprocessed vegan meat? Making vegan meat requires a "process". Cheese is processed milk. Buy super firm tofu blocks, portabella mushrooms.
- sky-kedge0749 4y ago
  Also lentils are filling and have a lot of protein. Boiled lentils with salt and other seasoning taste fine, are easy to make and as unprocessed as it gets.
- telesilla 4y ago
  Vegan meat from the supermarket is delicious but not a sustainable option for a weekly diet: too much salt and preservatives. Recipes such as black bean & beetroot burgers are superb. I'm on the lookout to more classic recipes, maybe using soy protein or even anything more complicated as long as it doesn't need an industrial kitchen. https://itsavegworldafterall.com/black-bean-beet-burger-recipe/ https://itsavegworldafterall.com/black-bean-beet-burger-reci...
0daystock 4y ago
Those animals are literally raped (euphemistically: "artificially inseminated") so you can eat the food meant for their children, which you know as "cheese" and "milk". I challenge you to be there to hear a mother cow's cry when her child is taken from her to "make veal". How anyone can consciously frame this behavior as moral or ethical on any level remains a mystery to me. Animal products aren't necessary for human health and commodifying them for our selfish purposes has karmic effects which are so obvious.