What if Vegans are Actually Right?

[Scot Dutchy]

I dont need it Brian. Vegans dont cut it here. The supermarkets support them and why not as their food is so expensive and has a massive profit margin. As the Dutch say; They are fools of their own purse.

[pErvinalia]

Show us on this doll where the vegan touched you, Scot.

I love how you confuse being on your hobby horse with having an argument.

[JimC]

There is one issue here that would benefit from an infusion of evidence, the degree of herbicide/pesticide/artificial fertilisers on soy bean crops around the world, and the degree to which such beans find there way into products eaten by vegans/vegetarians. It is Scot's main argument, really. Now, I have heard (without good figures) that large scale production of soy beans (for animal or human consumption) is indeed heavily reliant on synthetic chemical use. This may have direct consequences to human consumption of the beans, but, perhaps more importantly, is environmentally unsound.

Now, perhaps there are good supplies of truly organic soy beans, and if vegans were consistently choosing these, then the use of chemicals on commercial crops cannot be an argument against veganism. Real figures rather than empty rhetoric would help this current argument...

[Brian Peacock]

Scot thinks a vegan lives by Soy alone.

[JimC]

Scot thinks a vegan lives by Soy alone.

Well yes, he is a bit fixated on that, but that doesn't change the fact that soy products are a fairly major part of many vegan diets, and that light should be thrown on how they are grown. It may well not be an issue, if most vegan products are sourced differently to the large commercial crops, but I'm by no means certain of that...

[laklak]

If God didn't want us to eat animals He wouldn't have made them so tasty.

[Scot Dutchy]

Scot thinks a vegan lives by Soy alone.

Well yes, he is a bit fixated on that, but that doesn't change the fact that soy products are a fairly major part of many vegan diets, and that light should be thrown on how they are grown. It may well not be an issue, if most vegan products are sourced differently to the large commercial crops, but I'm by no means certain of that...

I am not fixated on that but they depend on soya as the main source of plant protein even though the dietitians accepts that plant protein is inferior to animal protein. Look at most vegan products they invariably contain soya. Most 'milks' they drink are soya based. There just not enough organic soya available and what there is very expensive.
Remember not just vegans eat soya. It is a base product for Asian cuisine. Soya is not an easy crop to grow and needs plenty of protective spraying which is often carried out aerially. The environmental destruction is immense as soya fields are dead areas. Nothing survives the spraying especially the defoliate spraying just before harvesting.

If vegans did have an alternative product source that would be only one facet of a vegan diet. It is unhealthy especially for young children. Children are being forced in the same way as those of religious maniacs to adopt an unhealthy life style. They rely on pills to supplement their diet which is in normal food.

Why are vegans so aggressive? Is it because they are pushing a life style they know is wrong? No leather shoes but plastic is acceptable? When we have a huge plastic problem. You have vegan wine and beer these days.

[Brian Peacock]

The recommended daily requirement (RDR) for protein in a healthy diet is 42grams for the average adult. Studies have shown that meat eaters exceed the RDR for protein by between 70 to 200%. Only 3% of American adults fail to meet the RDR for protein regardless of their diet.

A diet that contains a balance of pulses, beans, whole grains and greens will provide more than enough protein as well as helping to meet the RDR for fibre of 32grams. Most adults in the global North are only getting about half the RDR for fibre in their diet. A lack of dietary fibre has been associated with increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke, type-II diabetes and bowel cancer. Generally veg*ns meet their RDR for both protein and fibre.

It is not true that people opting for a veg*n diet are 'lacking' and need to replace foodstuffs such as meat and milk with soya alternatives, even though it's fair to say that many soya-based processed foods are produced and marketed as an alternative to meat. A non-meat diet that meets a person's nutritional requirements is simply not dependent on soya - however, a capitalist agricultural system that over-produces soya relies on marketing soya products as a necessary alternative to meat to both meat-eaters and non-meat-eaters alike. A well-planned and balanced veg*n diet is appropriate for individuals during all stages of life, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, as well as for athletes.

So don't believe the anti-veg*n hype, and particularly don't believe the hype that says soya production for humans is soooo bad for the environment while ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of soya production goes to animal feed. The amount of land and resources given over to meat production globally, which includes the production of animal feed, is a horrendous misuse of resources that could literally feed the planet five times over on a planet where an estimated 2 billion people are in ongoing nutritional deficit. And don't assume that nutritional deficit is a third-world issue when around 15% of Americans live in households that lack the means to get enough nutritious food on a regular basis.

So, with the so-called 'protein gap' between a veg*n diet and meat-eatery debunked in the 70s, and with it the idea that a diet containing meat is automatically more healthy such that meat needs to be replaced by something like soya, and that veg*ns are unhealthy, what are we left with? What's important is that people eat a balanced diet that meets their nutritional needs, and in my experience veg*ns are far more aware of their nutrition than the average Joe or Jolene. More nutritional information and education is needed across the board so people can make healthy choices that meet their needs regardless of their personal tastes and choices. While certain food myths and assertions about the default goodness, rightness or healthiness of meat are prevalent they generally remain divorced from the wider context of nutrition. In part these myths feed assumptions that in-turn feed into dismissal, denigration, and discrimination against veg*ns and veg*n dietary choices.

At the same time it's undeniable that meat consumption is falling in the global North and the number of people opting for a veg*n diet are rising. Those who opt for a vegan diet on animal welfare, social justice, environmental and/or macroeconomic grounds, so-called 'ethical vegans', are people taking a particular political stand. Why does it matter, and to whom should it matter, if vegans are meeting their nutritional requirements and why do people still feel it's OK to vilify and discriminate against vegans if they are? Because they're bad people? Why are some people so personally affronted by veg*ns, so angered, and so insistent on not only disavowing the freely-made dietary choices of others but on withholding a certain portion of their rights, and denying their humanity and existence in the process?

As I mentioned already, I think a significant part of this comes out of our social inclinations to confuse normalcy for normativity, to assume that one's 'normal' is a right, good and true fact that nobody in their right-mind can deny. This might account in some part for why people take the free choices of others as a direct and personal challenge and also why we see common reference to veg*nism as a cognitive impairment; irrational, crazy, loony, deluded etc, and/or as a form of anti-social behaviour; extremists, cultists, fascists etc. Personally I think that the people who feel personally challenged and affronted by the free choices of other are often unthinkingly using them as a vehicle through which to express their own dysforia, and particularly when others are seemingly resented for making or advocating certain choices for the good. This might be worth further discussion...

Anyway. As for complaints about 'vegan aggression', well that all sounds very familiar doesn't it(?), much like the tired complaints from the fervently religious about how so-called fundamentalist atheists are forcing their views on others and fucking-up society by... well... not believing in a god - "Help! I'm being oppressed by people who don't endorse my values and way of life! How very dare they!"

[Sean Hayden]

Because it's a moral claim. If you're going to claim some dietary choices are immoral then expect to be challenged.

[Brian Peacock]

Because it's a moral claim. If you're going to claim some dietary choices are immoral then expect to be challenged.

I can understand the challenge, just not the resentment for staking or embodying a certain type of moral claim via a free choice. The majority of arguments for veganism boil down to the Political even though what we each choose to put in our bodies is, as much as possible, a free choice for which we carry personal responsibility - accepting that 'choice' is a loaded term and the supposedly 'free' nature of that kind of choice often depends on factors beyond our personal and/or social control. So while the existence of veg*ns may offer a challenge to the meat-eater--in the same way that the existence of the meat-eater may offer a challenge to the veg*n--that challenge is in the realm of ideas and ultimately doesn't impinge upon the values, choices or way of life of the other. No veg*n in a free society is being forced to eat meat and no meat-eater is being forced to eat tofu, nor should they unless, that is, one party is holding that their values, choices and/or way of life are the normative standard to which all others must adhere and be judged by. And it's clear from this discussion that veg*ns don't have a monopoly on that kind of normative assertion.

[Scot Dutchy]

Where did you pick that up Brian. No source? It says nothing. The usual gaffs that vegans come out with and no answers. Sorry just a load of words without meaning with a truck load of assumptions.
Can we have facts and not opinions. JFCOAPS Brian. This sort of dribble I never expected from you. Why is obesity rising because of 'healthy' diet choices?
We even got 'fundamentalist' atheists in on the act. Please...
Read medical journals Brian not veggie mags. It is an unhealthy diet.

[Scot Dutchy]

Ethical vegans really

Man o' man we really have it now.

[Scot Dutchy]

BTW what's with the 'veg*ns' Brian. Another little trick to hide the vegans and vegetarians in one pigeon hole. Your are a vegan or not. You cannot be a partial vegan. It is the same as being partially pregnant.

[JimC]

By evolution I am an omnivore, and eating some meat/fish/dairy, IMO, is the simplest way to achieve a healthy diet (it being true that the average meat consumption in the West is much higher than it needs to be). It is important to me that, if I consume animal products, the animals have a reasonable life and are killed with minimal trauma, so, for example, we only buy free-range products. I accept, to a degree, the arguments that some forms of meat production are an environmental problem, and so, like many others, I have reduced my meat intake considerably, but I will never reduce it to zero. I am perfectly happy for vegans to do their thing (and they certainly can have a fully nutritious diet with some careful planning and perhaps some supplements), but I'm not particularly impressed with the attitudes of some holier than thou vegans (not Brian!) who want to lay a guilt trip on the rest of us, while being as ridiculously fussy as an orthodox Jew about animal products.

[Brian Peacock]

Where did you pick that up Brian. No source? It says nothing. The usual gaffs that vegans come out with and no answers.

What are you disputing exactly?