A surge in the number of vegans is storing up health problems for the wealthy West
 

https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...n-a8682906.html

Very interesting to read an article about the issues related to vegan diets despite some of the ill-informed claims:

Far preferable to the usual claims of farm animal flatulence ruining the climate, this quote is merely a naive, unfounded fantasy. What is purposely ignored are the farm practices that result in runoff choking our water systems, the leaching of soil at a major level requiring chemical treatment to replace soil nutrients, the energy required for preparing land for growing, maintaining, and harvesting, pest control measures, not to mention the severely nutrient-depleted produce that results. How can this type of system be sustained as a long-term productive, healthy solution for the masses??? It must be acknowledged that there are issues that must be resolved for feeding the world, and no dietary approach gets a pass without recognizing, confronting, and resolving the broad health and availability issues associated with it. Quotes like the one cited above can no longer be blindly accepted without vigorous challenge.

I have a good response at last: “veganism does not match my enzyme pattern.”

But since there can’t be agriculture without animals, they are just playing a game of pretend.

THis lack of good nutrients is an over looked crisis. We appear to be a land of p lenty but in fact our plates are mutrient poor. Even the land is becoming depleted of minerals as farming is loosing land to development ( houses) and the same farm land is used over and over, and never replenished and rebuilt. THis is why I have become convinced that a multivitamin a day will fill the gaps in the food sources.

Our AMerican society has become a glut of poor food, at every turn my kids are handed crappy food because that has become the new normal. Start with school lunches, boy scout events, church suppers, candy bar fund raisers, spaghetti dinners at the fire house...... In any given month, the amount of crap my kids gobble up is disheartening.

As for:


What does this all mean????????

It's just beyond me why anyone would want to try and live on peanut butter and tofu :lol:

I can almost understand the peanut butter part. :lol: The only soy that doesn't taste awful to me is soy sauce.

I like soy sauce too.
I had some prime rib for dinner last night and just can't imagine a hunk of tofu tasting good like that. :lol:
Yes peanut butter is good for a treat but i feel sorry that it's the only source of protein for a vegan. It would be like punishment after a while :lol: Why do vegans punish themselves when there is so much good protein out there that tastes good and provides the nutrition we need.

Part of the problem is the deficiencies don't show up right away. It can be years before it all becomes really apparent and then it's too late. I shudder when I think about all the kids who've never had animal fat or protein ever in their lives.

A) it has become “accepted wisdom” that a plant based diet is best for health. So skipping meat entirely must be the best!

B) Veganism is now the new religion. There are various well-funded sources pushing “meat is murder” and “pets are slaves.”

C) Nutrition science is in such a ditch that WE are the fringe with our fad diets.

Meat may be murder, but carbohydrates are slow suicide.

I wanted to be all sarcastic and stuff, but I remembered my decision to help them. The article includes basically all the help I thought of back then, which is mostly about deficiencies. I'm glad to see such an article instead of the usual dogmatic crap.

On the other hand, there's a clip ad for a movie that argues meat isn't necessary for health or fitness. I may not be a super genuises, but I think there's a clear disconnect here between the article and the ad which funds it.

Oh how I wish we'd settle this once and for all with a closed-ward experiment. A few willing human subjects. Plants (of their choice) as their only food source. No supplement of any kind. One year. See what happens.

I doubt that would get past an ethics board. B12 at the least--Neal Barnard's vegan diabetes study did include b12, but other than plants, that was it.

It's possible for a vegan diet to be not the worst diet in the world. Damning with faint praise...

So I work at a fast food restaurant. People come in and ask for vegetarian options. Vegetarians might go away with cheese nachos. Vegans? Plain baked potato, french fries... one problem for some people on a "plant-based" diet is that they just end up with a plant-based SAD. It's possible for a plant-based diet, at least with supplements, to be better than a standard American diet that includes meat, but SAD without meat is probably worse, not better.

I have thought about what I'd have to do to my WOE if I were to go vegan. It's a lot of work. Supplements are essential and the consumption of the vegetable protein that can be readily used to preserve or create lean mass is a very important choice. I understand the ethical concerns and respect those who choose any WOE as an overall health objective. However, and my view only, those who choose to be vegetarian or vegan solely due to ethical concerns must work hard and research how to stay healthy, as being what one considers to be "ethical" without understanding how to eat correctly is hardly a ticket to good health and may very well be a ticket to chronic disease and a short lifespan.

I remember years ago on the board we discussed an essay looking at whether carnivores in the wild should be somehow separated from innocent herbivores.

As far as the ethics goes--I think they're just wrong. I don't really respect those ethics, although I do respect the attempt to be ethical itself.

Should I compromise my health, and those of others, to keep human babies off the diet? I'd say yes. Lets go way down, to clams and shrimp. Should I compromise any human's health so that these animals can live to a healthy old age? Not likely. I can see at some point saying, I don't want to eat the fluffy bunny, or the pig or something, at some point saying, this animal just seems too aware. Not saying I agree, but at least the argument can be made. The only reason I can see for drawing a solid line at such an extreme point that even the smallest, least likely to have any semblance of sentience animal is protected is the slippery slope argument. Sometimes lines are inescapably fuzzy. What should the legal drinking age be? Clearly wine cooler sippy cups are a bad idea. At what point are you needlessly encroaching on the freedom of an adult? 19? 21? 25?

I also believe that people who eat a vegan or vegetarian diet out of ethical concerns should expand their view of ethics to include all the animals who are killed or whose habitats are destroyed by large scale agriculture. We all live on this planet earth and are complicit in the destruction of our habitat (there are many human practices that either presently or ultimately harm humans or both) and the habitat of the many other creatures who inhabit this planet. Ethical concern for all living beings must include all our practices. There is not any way we can't leave some foot print but we can be mindful of the foot print we leave. I eat meat but I am mindful of the practices used to raise and slaughter the animals I eat. I have multiple food sensitivities and can't eat legumes. Getting sufficient protein on a plant based diet would be impossible for me yet I see the way I eat as ethical in light of my circumstances. A tunnel vision view of ethics that included simply avoiding meat (especially if it also includes disparaging people who eat meat and engaging in other harmful practices) reflects a very limited view of ethics. By thinking carefully of how we each live our lives, we can each determine how to live ethically that is suitable for our circumstances and also take in the needs of other beings on this planet.

Good discussion. I'm quoting my earlier post to accurately emphasize my view. I accept those who choose a particular WOE path due to concerns related to ethics. This does not constitute agreement. I still have a problem with the rationale leading one to not eat whole foods that provide the most effective nutrient density leading to higher quality health. For me, the primary motivation is to eat what works best. It's clearly an individual thing, and it takes time to learn the best food choices by experiences from n=1 results. That being said, when those who are inspired by these ethics start to disparage those with other beliefs, that's when my acceptance ends.

I work with a vegan in her 20's who has already broken her hip just by stepping badly while jogging. She seems to have no clue that it might be connected with her diet.

A vegan ethics board would greenlight it no problem. The point is to settle the matter, not keep skimming it. Absence of any definitive answer allows lies to persist. That's what happened with the all-meat trial. It gave a definitive answer to the big question about it at the time: Does eating only meat cause deficiency, especially scurvy? We got a definitive answer for an all-meat diet, but in light of the buzz around a vegan diet, the answer we got from that is only one side, we need the other side too.

The logic is simple. A demonstration that an all-meat diet is not deficient does not also demonstrate that an all-plant diet is deficient. Simple reason is that an all-plant diet was not tested. Never been. Barnard's study (didn't read it), wasn't an all-plant diet, it was plants+supps. The +supps doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things apparently, it's quickly omitted from all preaching about it, though it's the first thing the rest of us point out, like that article for example.

It's a bit like the fortification of wheat flour. We don't call it that anymore, but we used to. Fortified wheat flour. That's what it is. It's not wheat, it's not wheat flour, it's fortified wheat flour. So, it's not an all-plant diet, it's a fortified plant diet. It has to be fortified, but again we have yet to find a definitive answer about that, cuz it's never been done.

In light of the absence of a definitive answer, even the help I wanted to offer them, even this article which explains a little why, even Barnard's +supps study, why do we mention supps and deficiency? Cuz we don't actually know, but take supps just in case cuz we're almost definitively certain that it's deficient. If anything, I'd cite Barnard's study to support the almost definitive certainty that it's deficient.

So yeah, that's why oh I wish.

I don't think a vegan ethics board would necessarily green-light it. There are lots of wild-eyed 30 bananas a day types who would, but I'd guess most people in that position actually believe in the need for b12.

We did not get a definitive study for all-meat. We got a study in two guys, that's it. I lean towards agreement with you that all meat is in all probability fine, but I wouldn't call it definitive. I do think it should be easier to get an all-meat diet with no supplements green-lighted than an all-plant diet with no supplements. Should, not would.

Right, only two subjects. The hypothesis was that eating only meat causes deficiency - in all humans, including those two subjects. The answer was definitive and unambiguous - no, eating only meat does not cause deficiency - in all humans, including those two subjects.

If at this point we want to re-formulate the hypothesis by including this definitive answer, we get something like this. It's unlikely that eating only meat causes deficiency in all humans, cuz we're batting 0 for 2 already. If we keep going and eventually find that one human who does develop deficiency by eating only meat, do we then dismiss all previous findings, reset our batting average and declare we were right all along? We already know how to find this one human, but it's not him, it's the methodology we know how to falsify and refute. We just have to break the rules of eating only meat, which is to cook thoroughly and in the process destroy some essential elements, eat little or not fat which otherwise provides essential elements, and eat less than to satiety which would likely cause minor problems in context (minor compared to the semi-starvation experiment for example). By doing it this way, we can find as many of that one guy as we want.

It's important to keep in mind that eating only meat ain't about a minor intervention, it's the definition of a Big Deal and not just from a point of view but from a matter-of-fact. It's equally important to keep in mind that we're not talking about a couple of Sam Feltham's, but about an army of clinicians and lab technicians and experts and the like, all of whom were observing as attentively as they possibly could with all the tools available to them at the time. The slew of modifications of the initial hypothesis is countless, some still do not believe any of it (vegans and the like), but the fact remains the initial hypothesis was refuted and can no longer be invoked as is - it is by definition definitive.

I just realized I'm being highly contentious here and I promised way back I wouldn't be a jerk. So, ok, it's not definitive, but I got nothing to show for that, so meh I dunno.

-edit-
Forgot the main point.

Even if it's not definitive, it remains a point of reference against which no other diet has been compared to any degree even approaching it. So, let's at least do a two-subject all-plant equivalent, cuz even that hasn't been done.

It's entirely possible that the best of all diets, whatever that is, actually does include some supplements. You might have promised not to be a jerk, but I never promised to not be pedantic. :lol:

Backtracking a bit--okay. I could see a study of one as being definitive, my favourite example is the first diabetic kid to put on healthy fat pads when insulin for type I was first administered. And certainly as you say, if a claim is that any human on an all meat diet is going to develop scurvy, that doesn't take many subjects to disprove. But while you did say scurvy, you said, especially scurvy. There are a lot of nutrients besides vitamin c, and a lot of nutrients we can be deficient in for quite a while without obvious ill effect. Or that we can be deficient in even before a trial starts. If deficient zinc was lowering my testosterone levels, for instance, and I went from one zinc deficient diet to another, that might just continue the status quo, whereas if I started on a zinc-sufficient diet and switched to the deficient one, over time I might develop symptoms.

The way nutritional requirements are defined--take a sufficiently large group, see how much of a nutrient it takes to keep most, close to a hundred percent, from being in a negative balance in the case of something like protein or minerals like calcium or magnesium, or in the case of various vitamins to avoid symptoms of deficiency. Sometimes there's quite a wide range of intakes that look to be adequate on an individual basis.

Hehe, good one, Teaser.

I agree with you here. It's possible that the best diet includes some supplements. Don't have links or anything but I remember about elephants walking for days just to get salt, or chimps eating meat occasionally. The salt here is clearly a supplement, the meat for chimps is debatable but still it would be similar to an all-plant diet supplemented with B12 and fat solubles for example.

So I'll point out the obvious and claim that even with a definitive, comparative all-meat AND all-plant controlled trial with no supplements, the results would make no difference to the those in the camps cited in the article. Not one whit.

I agree. This is the part "ethical vegans" entirely miss. Not to mention that so many of them seem to not realize how much of modern life is based on animal products, like automobile tires, shellac, gelatin in their supplements, and insects in food.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A VEGAN.

Does she know famous and proselytizing vegans secretly eat fish to protect their health? Probably not, because they won't tell her.

Both vegan and keto diets are very popular right now. My favorite local market has had not one, but TWO jackfruit + veggie cold salads in the deli case since January 1st. :Puke:

Not to mention vegan mac n cheese in pre-pack (blech!), samples of vegan soup (actually pretty tasty), and Nut-Pods half-n-half replacer with coffee.

BUT they also have lovely grilled and sliced flat-iron steak, and a nice salad bar with good dressings, so I guess I'm good. They always have roasted chicken legs in the hot bar. They sample things like salami, cheeses, and salmon patties. They even use organic lettuces and spinach in their kitchen. I asked. :)

I wrestled with whether or not I should be vegetarian many years ago, and I continue to be concerned about the environmental and health impacts of Big Ag - both in meat production and plant farming. My takeaway continues to be:

1. We cannot get all essential nutrients from a diet devoid of all animal products unless they are artificially supplemented to try to correct this deficiency. For example, there is no non-animal source of B12 except that synthesized in a laboratory.

2. I have a special need that requires me to eat animal products. I tend to be slightly anemic, and I need that heme iron. Plant-based iron just doesn't do it for me.

Way back when, I tried being a vegetarian (including dairy & eggs) for a brief period of time. I even chose faux leather products and comforters stuffed with fiberfill. Recently, I discovered that synthetic fabrics leach plastic microfibers every time you launder them. The microfibers infiltrate our water supply. We ingest them. No bueno, but I can't remember the specifics about how they affect our health. That faux-down jacket you bought because it doesn't have animal products f*ks up the environment in other ways.

It does piss me off that veganism is being touted as better for health. So many people have decided to try vegan as a New Year's resolution, that's why the market has responded with all these vegan choices. They were sampling pepperoni pizza minis, and a lot of people refused it for that reason.

Thank goodness you recognize you need beef for the anemia. I have a friend who is a runner and she lives off of sugar, pastries and all carbs and refuses to listen to me that she needs meat since she is chronically anemic! :rolleyes:
~also cooking with a cast iron skillet might help since it leaches iron.