4 ms·

Why is everyone so extreme? The guy at the start of the article went from being vegan for decades to now consuming "nine eggs and a handful of sausages for bre

Why is everyone so extreme? The guy at the start of the article went from being vegan for decades to now consuming "nine eggs and a handful of sausages for breakfast, a few quarter-pounders for lunch and whatever meat he can stack up on for dinner." That's insane and I think gets to the heart of the issue - extreme diets. I'd been a lacto-ovo vegetarian (lacto: milk, cheese and yogurt, ovo: egs) since 1990. Recently, my doctor wanted me to add fish for Omega 3. As I did that, I also realized adding grilled chicken would be smart - insane amounts of protein and very little animal fat. I'm still primarily a lacto-ovo vegetarian, I still enjoy many vegetarian meals, and now I've added fish and chicken to the mix. On the upside, I've dramatically increased the number of restaurants I can go to when going out with friends! What I'm not doing is eating a pound or two of chicken every day along with lox for breakfast! I've just added some fish and chicken to my diet. I really don't understand the extremism.

aziaziazi 2y ago
It really depends on the region, here’s for Europe (mother of Human Rights, maybe inclined to morale) but other surveys have it differently : > 95% of respondents reported it being because of animal welfare, 83.9% because of the environment, and 55.9% because of health reasons. I do it for animal welfare and the extremism has made me think multiple time because I consider myself as a very moderate person in various subject, including food for 35 years but that’s not the case anymore. It didn’t appear as a radical decision overnight but as a reflection over years and gradually transitioned through the Overton scale. It IS extremist, but many other extremisms are widely accepted by large groups of population but not endorsed by all : [HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL ON] Embargos, Boycotts, child labor, God, human genome science[OFF]… you name it. Anti-slavery where also considered extremists (and still are in some places). You’ve got to ignore some judgements (like being seen as an extremist) and concentrate on the facts if you want to go "against the current" (not sure we say this in English) https://www.veganisingit.com/vegan-food-statistics-trends-2024/#:~:text=Europe%20Vegan%20Facts&text=In%202019%2C%20a%20survey%20was,55.9%25%20because%20of%20health%20reasons https://www.veganisingit.com/vegan-food-statistics-trends-20....
adrian_b 2y ago
While I have no intention of ever going back to eating meat, after two years and a half of eating vegan food I have reintroduced in my food an ingredient of animal origin, which is whey protein concentrate. It is likely that this exception will be temporary, because there already exists the technology of producing whey protein by a culture of a genetically-modified fungus. There are good chances that in at most a decade such protein production by fungal cultures could substitute the whey protein and the egg-white protein of animal origins. In any case for now I did this step back because with an 100% vegan diet it is extremely difficult to satisfy simultaneously 4 conditions: a high enough daily protein intake, but without a too high energy intake that would cause a weight gain, and without paying more for the vegan food than for a meat-based food, while having a sedentary life style. If any of these 4 constraints is relaxed, then it becomes easy to eat a vegan diet. When you are willing to spend much more money for vegan food than for meat-based food, then there are a lot of plant protein extracts that are many times more expensive than chicken meat. When you are doing a hard physical work that requires eating more than 3000 kcal per day, then it is easy to combine proteins from cereals with proteins from legumes, so that you will eat enough proteins per day. On the other hand, if you must satisfy all 4 constraints, that is difficult. In Europe where I live, there exists only one way to satisfy all 4 constraints, by extracting at home gluten from wheat flour, which requires time and water. The rest of the proteins can be obtained from legumes such as lentils, peas, chickpeas or beans. Even by dumping most of the starch from wheat flour, after eating enough gluten and legumes you can eat only small quantities of other food without exceeding the admissible amount of calories per day. This makes the daily menus too monotonous. So after two years and a half, I have begun to use whey protein concentrate (from which I make a cheese substitute by mixing it with vegetable oil and other ingredients in smaller amounts; this has the aspect and taste of melted cheese, but it has a much healthier fat content; where I live whey protein concentrate is a little cheaper than chicken meat). This allows to add proteins to the menu whenever needed, with only a minimal addition of calories, which allows a much greater freedom in the choices of food. As long as I have been eating strictly vegan food I had to completely avoid any starchy vegetables, e.g. potatoes or bananas or maize or rice, because they would have provided more calories than I could eat without gaining weight. Now I no longer have any restrictions on what I may eat, based on the energy content, returning to how it was when I was using lean meat as the main source of proteins, when I could eat much more varied vegetables and fruits than when I was eating only vegan food.
znpy 2y ago
> Why is everyone so extreme? I think that "everyone being so extreme" is part of a larger today's issue: people are just not okay anymore with being normal/average/just okay. And when I say "not okay" I really mean that people are anxious and get depressed. If you think about it, it's crazy. So people need to find something that defines themselves. There's not anymore such thing like, let's say, "Robert who is vegan" but rather "A vegan named Robert" (or, specularly: "Robert who is carnivore" but rather "A carnivore named Robert"). The "issue" is strong in the IT industry as well, btw: no more "Robert who is an SWE/SDE/DevOps/whatever" but rather "An SWE/SDE/DevOps/whatever named Robert". So yeah... People absorb these kind of "pre-made personalities" and don't bother developing their own. They get some off-the shelf opinions to repeat over and over, and don't bother developing their own. Needless to say, echo chambers don't help.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
adfm 2y ago
This is the way to go. I made some beyond burgers for guests last night and they were impressed enough to mention they’d consider adding it to their rotation. They were mostly concerned with the environmental impact of beef (23% co2 comes from beef), but they did consider their health as a bonus.
- nradov 2y ago
  Many of us are skeptical of ultra-processed foods like Beyond Burgers. It's unclear what the long-term effects might be. The fact that they advertise "no cholesterol" as some sort of feature indicates that the product is probably some kind of scam (cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern). https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/dietary-guidelines/previous-dietary-guidelines/2015/advisory-report https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/diet...
- jitl 2y ago
  I have a bunch of friends who swear by the Burger King impossible burger with bacon on top. It’s so good (not good for you though)
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  Wow. My experience with beyond was horrible - I couldn't finish it. I've tried it few times and I just don't get it who can eat this.
Iulioh 2y ago
At this point wouldn't be better to drop the "lacto-ovo-chicken-vegetarian" label?
- taylodl 2y ago
  Apparently, the term is pesce-pollotarian? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- pixxel 2y ago
  Yeah but then they couldn’t tell you about it at any given opportunity.
nradov 2y ago
Animal fat isn't something to avoid, at least not for health or performance reasons. Everything in moderation. Extreme diets are often more a means of virtue signaling or addressing hidden mental conditions than anything to do with health. Adherents want to fit in with a certain group and then they invent various justifications to make their choices seem more reasonable.
- orwin 2y ago
  [Edit]: To be clear, while i responded to your comment, this is for added context and i generally agree with your main point: of course you don't have to avoid eating animal fat, but beware of the following: From my dietician: saturated fat isn't as bad as you generally read, but is still vastly inferior to poly-insaturated fat for health, so fat from fish like salmon and eggs are to be prefered to fat from red meat or fat poultry (mostly mono-insaturated and saturated. Tip from me: if it isn't liquid at room temp, it's not poly-insaturated). Also, while it's true that in general, animal fat is "worse" than vegetable fat, this is an average: palm oil is worse than egg or fish fat. Also, animal fat can store a lot of lipophilic drugs when dosing is made liberally, and while i'm pretty sure in the West (or at least in Continental Europe) drugs given to animals are regulated, this isn't the case everywhere, so depending on where you live and if factory farms near your home are recent and cheap, beware.
  - nradov 2y ago
    In general there is some increased risk of toxicity from consuming too much of any one food, whether it's heavy metals in nuts or fat-soluble drugs in meat or pesticide residue in fruit. That's why as a general heuristic it's better for most people who want to optimize for general health to eat a wide variety of different things. From a certain perspective fish oil is probably "better" than olive oil in terms of lipid ratios. But I'm not going to saute my vegetables in fish oil. https://peterattiamd.com/davidallison2/ https://peterattiamd.com/davidallison2/ Some people have this weird desire to over simplify and label certain foods as "good" or "bad" or "healthy" or "unhealthy". The reality is that there are hardly any purely bad foods and almost everything contains at least some useful nutrients. The dose makes the poison. Everything in moderation.

aziaziazi 2y ago

It really depends on the region, here’s for Europe (mother of Human Rights, maybe inclined to morale) but other surveys have it differently : > 95% of respondents reported it being because of animal welfare, 83.9% because of the environment, and 55.9% because of health reasons. I do it for animal welfare and the extremism has made me think multiple time because I consider myself as a very moderate person in various subject, including food for 35 years but that’s not the case anymore. It didn’t appear as a radical decision overnight but as a reflection over years and gradually transitioned through the Overton scale. It IS extremist, but many other extremisms are widely accepted by large groups of population but not endorsed by all : [HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL ON] Embargos, Boycotts, child labor, God, human genome science[OFF]… you name it. Anti-slavery where also considered extremists (and still are in some places). You’ve got to ignore some judgements (like being seen as an extremist) and concentrate on the facts if you want to go "against the current" (not sure we say this in English) https://www.veganisingit.com/vegan-food-statistics-trends-2024/#:~:text=Europe%20Vegan%20Facts&text=In%202019%2C%20a%20survey%20was,55.9%25%20because%20of%20health%20reasons https://www.veganisingit.com/vegan-food-statistics-trends-20....

adrian_b 2y ago

While I have no intention of ever going back to eating meat, after two years and a half of eating vegan food I have reintroduced in my food an ingredient of animal origin, which is whey protein concentrate. It is likely that this exception will be temporary, because there already exists the technology of producing whey protein by a culture of a genetically-modified fungus. There are good chances that in at most a decade such protein production by fungal cultures could substitute the whey protein and the egg-white protein of animal origins. In any case for now I did this step back because with an 100% vegan diet it is extremely difficult to satisfy simultaneously 4 conditions: a high enough daily protein intake, but without a too high energy intake that would cause a weight gain, and without paying more for the vegan food than for a meat-based food, while having a sedentary life style. If any of these 4 constraints is relaxed, then it becomes easy to eat a vegan diet. When you are willing to spend much more money for vegan food than for meat-based food, then there are a lot of plant protein extracts that are many times more expensive than chicken meat. When you are doing a hard physical work that requires eating more than 3000 kcal per day, then it is easy to combine proteins from cereals with proteins from legumes, so that you will eat enough proteins per day. On the other hand, if you must satisfy all 4 constraints, that is difficult. In Europe where I live, there exists only one way to satisfy all 4 constraints, by extracting at home gluten from wheat flour, which requires time and water. The rest of the proteins can be obtained from legumes such as lentils, peas, chickpeas or beans. Even by dumping most of the starch from wheat flour, after eating enough gluten and legumes you can eat only small quantities of other food without exceeding the admissible amount of calories per day. This makes the daily menus too monotonous. So after two years and a half, I have begun to use whey protein concentrate (from which I make a cheese substitute by mixing it with vegetable oil and other ingredients in smaller amounts; this has the aspect and taste of melted cheese, but it has a much healthier fat content; where I live whey protein concentrate is a little cheaper than chicken meat). This allows to add proteins to the menu whenever needed, with only a minimal addition of calories, which allows a much greater freedom in the choices of food. As long as I have been eating strictly vegan food I had to completely avoid any starchy vegetables, e.g. potatoes or bananas or maize or rice, because they would have provided more calories than I could eat without gaining weight. Now I no longer have any restrictions on what I may eat, based on the energy content, returning to how it was when I was using lean meat as the main source of proteins, when I could eat much more varied vegetables and fruits than when I was eating only vegan food.

znpy 2y ago

> Why is everyone so extreme? I think that "everyone being so extreme" is part of a larger today's issue: people are just not okay anymore with being normal/average/just okay. And when I say "not okay" I really mean that people are anxious and get depressed. If you think about it, it's crazy. So people need to find something that defines themselves. There's not anymore such thing like, let's say, "Robert who is vegan" but rather "A vegan named Robert" (or, specularly: "Robert who is carnivore" but rather "A carnivore named Robert"). The "issue" is strong in the IT industry as well, btw: no more "Robert who is an SWE/SDE/DevOps/whatever" but rather "An SWE/SDE/DevOps/whatever named Robert". So yeah... People absorb these kind of "pre-made personalities" and don't bother developing their own. They get some off-the shelf opinions to repeat over and over, and don't bother developing their own. Needless to say, echo chambers don't help.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

adfm 2y ago

This is the way to go. I made some beyond burgers for guests last night and they were impressed enough to mention they’d consider adding it to their rotation. They were mostly concerned with the environmental impact of beef (23% co2 comes from beef), but they did consider their health as a bonus.

nradov 2y ago
Many of us are skeptical of ultra-processed foods like Beyond Burgers. It's unclear what the long-term effects might be. The fact that they advertise "no cholesterol" as some sort of feature indicates that the product is probably some kind of scam (cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern). https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/dietary-guidelines/previous-dietary-guidelines/2015/advisory-report https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/diet...
jitl 2y ago
I have a bunch of friends who swear by the Burger King impossible burger with bacon on top. It’s so good (not good for you though)
dzhiurgis 2y ago
Wow. My experience with beyond was horrible - I couldn't finish it. I've tried it few times and I just don't get it who can eat this.

Iulioh 2y ago

At this point wouldn't be better to drop the "lacto-ovo-chicken-vegetarian" label?

taylodl 2y ago
Apparently, the term is pesce-pollotarian? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
pixxel 2y ago
Yeah but then they couldn’t tell you about it at any given opportunity.

nradov 2y ago

Animal fat isn't something to avoid, at least not for health or performance reasons. Everything in moderation. Extreme diets are often more a means of virtue signaling or addressing hidden mental conditions than anything to do with health. Adherents want to fit in with a certain group and then they invent various justifications to make their choices seem more reasonable.

orwin 2y ago
[Edit]: To be clear, while i responded to your comment, this is for added context and i generally agree with your main point: of course you don't have to avoid eating animal fat, but beware of the following: From my dietician: saturated fat isn't as bad as you generally read, but is still vastly inferior to poly-insaturated fat for health, so fat from fish like salmon and eggs are to be prefered to fat from red meat or fat poultry (mostly mono-insaturated and saturated. Tip from me: if it isn't liquid at room temp, it's not poly-insaturated). Also, while it's true that in general, animal fat is "worse" than vegetable fat, this is an average: palm oil is worse than egg or fish fat. Also, animal fat can store a lot of lipophilic drugs when dosing is made liberally, and while i'm pretty sure in the West (or at least in Continental Europe) drugs given to animals are regulated, this isn't the case everywhere, so depending on where you live and if factory farms near your home are recent and cheap, beware.
- nradov 2y ago
  In general there is some increased risk of toxicity from consuming too much of any one food, whether it's heavy metals in nuts or fat-soluble drugs in meat or pesticide residue in fruit. That's why as a general heuristic it's better for most people who want to optimize for general health to eat a wide variety of different things. From a certain perspective fish oil is probably "better" than olive oil in terms of lipid ratios. But I'm not going to saute my vegetables in fish oil. https://peterattiamd.com/davidallison2/ https://peterattiamd.com/davidallison2/ Some people have this weird desire to over simplify and label certain foods as "good" or "bad" or "healthy" or "unhealthy". The reality is that there are hardly any purely bad foods and almost everything contains at least some useful nutrients. The dose makes the poison. Everything in moderation.