Cleon
King of the Pod People
So...rather than try to transition to a non-fossil-fuel economy, you think the EASIER option is to convince every man, woman, and child on Earth to go vegan?
Obvious solution in our face, we fund research to preserve AGW causing industries
- Thread starter Tsukasa Buddha
- Start date
Where will you get your vitamin B12?
Even vegan authorities recommend B12 supplements.
Unabogie
Philosopher
Yay, another vegan thread!
I agree with all the meat eaters. When I don't eat meat, I feel bad.
Although since I don't eat meat ever, I've somehow felt bad for the last 13 years with no adverse health effects.
I agree with all the meat eaters. When I don't eat meat, I feel bad.
Although since I don't eat meat ever, I've somehow felt bad for the last 13 years with no adverse health effects.
Unabogie
Philosopher
Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
Oh, and BTW. It would take a drive of 60 miles or more every time I went to get groceries in order for me to pick up a lot the ingredients you would like to add into a vegetarian diet in order to claim that it is healthy. You seem to have a bit of a distribution problem, as well, unless you'd like me to survive on potatoes, onions, and carrots alone. There sure as hell isn't any tofu around here... or any soy products that are meant for human consumption other than soy sauce (even though soybeans are one of our major crops locally). That extra 120 miles a week in my old gas-guzzler would likely make any supposed benefit to the environment null and void in any case.
A lot of the foods required to make a vegetarian/vegan diet less than detrimental to your health aren't exactly all that commonly available currently, and may have limits as to how much of them can be grown anyway. Just because you've got vegan restaurants, vegan-friendly grocery stores, and whatever else within a reasonable distance of where you live doesn't mean everybody does... or that some of those products can even be supplied for anything other than a niche market. You don't exactly tend to be talking about the most common crops when you try to support the notion that it is healthy.
I can eat nothing but meat and potatoes... maybe with a little bread now and then and be just fine in providing for my energy needs. Is it healthy? Maybe not perfectly so, but as of yet it hasn't caused any major problems. Don't get me wrong, I do eat other things... but I don't have to intentionally vary it, and I do eat the same thing day after day for weeks on end occasionally.
On the other hand, vegetarians and vegans DO tend to occasionally have problems (iron deficiency being one of the most common), prompting them to write articles like say, these (yes, a google search... I'll let you decide which results are pertinent):
https://www.google.com/search?q=vegetarian+health+problems&oq=vegetarian+health+problems&aqs=chrome..69i57.6502j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8
Here's one that I find particularly telling, although you may stick your fingers in your ears and ignore it if you'd like:
http://authoritynutrition.com/top-5-reasons-why-vegan-diets-are-a-terrible-idea/
The risks for not eating properly as a vegan/vegetarian have far more severe and immediately noticeable effects than what would be considered a "normal" unhealthy diet -- and most of us aren't willing to spend that much effort in deciding what to eat.
A lot of the foods required to make a vegetarian/vegan diet less than detrimental to your health aren't exactly all that commonly available currently, and may have limits as to how much of them can be grown anyway. Just because you've got vegan restaurants, vegan-friendly grocery stores, and whatever else within a reasonable distance of where you live doesn't mean everybody does... or that some of those products can even be supplied for anything other than a niche market. You don't exactly tend to be talking about the most common crops when you try to support the notion that it is healthy.
I can eat nothing but meat and potatoes... maybe with a little bread now and then and be just fine in providing for my energy needs. Is it healthy? Maybe not perfectly so, but as of yet it hasn't caused any major problems. Don't get me wrong, I do eat other things... but I don't have to intentionally vary it, and I do eat the same thing day after day for weeks on end occasionally.
On the other hand, vegetarians and vegans DO tend to occasionally have problems (iron deficiency being one of the most common), prompting them to write articles like say, these (yes, a google search... I'll let you decide which results are pertinent):
https://www.google.com/search?q=vegetarian+health+problems&oq=vegetarian+health+problems&aqs=chrome..69i57.6502j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8
Here's one that I find particularly telling, although you may stick your fingers in your ears and ignore it if you'd like:
http://authoritynutrition.com/top-5-reasons-why-vegan-diets-are-a-terrible-idea/
The risks for not eating properly as a vegan/vegetarian have far more severe and immediately noticeable effects than what would be considered a "normal" unhealthy diet -- and most of us aren't willing to spend that much effort in deciding what to eat.
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Dang, you spoiled my plot. Goodly amounts of Marmite (yum) will do the trick, but I was picturing TB frantically googling for vegan B12.
The fact remains that the UK vegan society recommends B12 supplements.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Serious question: Will partial adoption of the proposal satisfy? What if most people elect to give up meat, but a few--me, for example--choose to keep goats or chickens or whatnot, and enjoy the pleasures of the flesh?
If a high enough percentage of people adopt TB's lifestyle, will the global climate tolerate the small percentage who don't? Or is this an all-or-nothing kind of solution?
If a high enough percentage of people adopt TB's lifestyle, will the global climate tolerate the small percentage who don't? Or is this an all-or-nothing kind of solution?
Polaris
Penultimate Amazing
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Then they won't be calling you "theprestige, the bridge builder" or "theprestige, the stone mason" anymore.
The_Animus
Illuminator
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Exactly. I can eat as much dairy as I want and I feel fine. My girlfriend says it makes her feel bad but its probably just woo because everyone is the same and reacts exactly the same to various stimuli.
Unabogie
Philosopher
Actually, that was me being snarky. I'm vegan and have been vegetarian for 13 years. The idea that someone would feel bad is the woo, IMO.
The_Animus
Illuminator
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Yeah I noticed, hence my snarky retort
Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
The idea that you can even suggest that you have the basis to make a judgement on this is woo. What, are you reading my mind or something? I don't think you'd like what you'd find there if you could, regarding this sort of nonsense. It's sort of like going to the doctor and honestly telling him my head hurts and having him respond with "no it doesnt." Do you really think that would ever be appropriate?
Maybe you feel fine without meat products, but I most certainly do not. I'm certainly not the only one in the universe who has reported these effects.
Hell, maybe just the fact that I'm 6'4 and weigh in at slightly over 200lbs (not obese for this height) makes a difference for all I know. A smaller person may be affected slightly differently for all I know, although I certainly do not claim to know this one way or the other. The simple fact is that I can stuff myself to the point of being ready to barf on non-meat products and still feel like I'm not eating enough. Add in a little meat and I feel fine with much less volume.
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Unabogie
Philosopher
I can base this on the fact that there are no nutrients that are missing in a vegan diet, hence, you feeling hungry is coming from your mind, not your body.
Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
Okay, as far as I can tell, that's just straight up lying.
Vitamins and minerals that vegetarians and vegans tend to lack:
Iron, B12, creatine, carnosine, Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA)
Source: http://authoritynutrition.com/top-5-reasons-why-vegan-diets-are-a-terrible-idea/
(Iron isn't specifically listed that I saw, although I can cite other sources naming it as a common deficiency)
Also, according to that article:
...but ...but if you eat just exactly right, you can avoid this!
Maybe so, but vegans have been shown to tend to be nearly uniformly deficient in these areas. I'd say creatine and/or testosterone shortages are the most likely causes for the effect noted, although I don't presume to know. Nutrition isn't my area of expertise by a long shot... so I have to look somewhere other than my own mind for that information.
It's a little bizarre to claim that having a diet different than everyone else will not produce a biology that is in some way slightly different than everybody else's. Whether you can say those differences are "unhealthy" or not can be a matter of opinion, I suppose, and I'm not even sure that the date when you die is even the only meaningful measure of that. In any case, I'd say that it stands to reason that our bodies (and by extension, our minds) might tend to notice those differences when presented with a new diet... I don't think that's an unreasonable assumption at all.
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The_Animus
Illuminator
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With the snark taken out your argument was as follows:
A few people claimed that switching from a high meat diet to a vegan diet left them feeling bad, but when I did it, I didn't feel bad, therefor no one else could possibly feel bad and they are spouting woo.
That doesn't sound like a skeptics argument to me.
Why would you assume the only reason someone could feel bad is because of a nutrient deficiency? As has been pointed out by others just because you switch to vegan doesn't guarantee you are eating everything you should to replace those lost nutrients by cutting out meat. But in addition I gave you a specific example already in which different people can have different reactions to food types. That was the point I was making in referencing how I can eat dairy but my gf cannot.
And now I'm going to quickly rattle off tons of ways I can think of that different people react differently to various chemicals.
- Dosage: Different dosages affect people differently.
-Addiction & Withdrawal: Some people get addicted to drugs while others don't. Someone who smokes pot every day can quit and have withdrawal symptoms of headaches, insomnia, sweating, while someone else who smoked pot every day can quit and have none of those.
-Enzymes: This doesn't apply to just people who can't process dairy. This has been shown in numerous other foods/drinks too including alcohol. I know someone who can drink alcohol and not get drunk. They've done this numerous times, they can take shots, drink beer, whatever, it doesn't matter. They eventually end up feeling sick but never have that drunk impaired aspect normal people get.
-Allergic reactions: Some people can eat a peanut and die, someone else can eat them and their skin gets puffy and red, someone else can eat them and just feel a little off, and some people can eat them and be completely fine. The same is true of any number of foods.
-Chemical interactions: Sometimes one or the other alone is fine, but if both are taken it causes complications.
There are other mental factors too, so while there are physical reactions like the above, there are also psychological reactions. And so "it's all in your mind" might be true, but that matters about as much as depression being "all in your mind" to the person who feels like crap.
-Repulsed: I know a vegan who wouldn't eat meat for moral reasons. Very nice person. We were teaching English in Japan and she is usually pretty careful about making sure people know and checking the food beforehand, but it happened that she accidentally ingested some meat. She spent the next hour shaking, crying, and gagging and throwing up. All in her head for sure, but that doesn't always help.
-Aversion: You eat something, shortly after you feel violently sick, and regardless of whether that food caused it you now have an aversion to it. Many people experience nausea and cannot eat that food again.
-Taste: If you think something tastes bad, or has a texture you find very unpleasant, that alone can also cause you to feel unwell.
Finally I would just add that over the years the foods that have been labeled "bad" or "good" has changed many times. Meat and potatoes are the staple of a good diet. No wait meat is bad for you. No wait some meat is good for you, seafood, and some meat is bad, red meat. Use margarine or fake butter not real butter. No wait don't use either. No wait butter is okay in moderation but not margarine or fake butter. So how reliable our understanding of food, nutrition, and it's effects on us is questionable.
The idea that someone could feel bad is hardly woo (and maybe it would have only been temporary but because of that initial feeling we quit before reaching the "feelin fine" zone).
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Polaris
Penultimate Amazing
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If a vegan eats a triple bacon cheese-burger after years of not even a glass of milk or shred of cheddar jack, would his heavy, bloated, tired feeling be mental or physical?
Unabogie
Philosopher
You think you get enough nutrients from the standard American diet? The fact is that every diet needs to balanced and you likely have to supplement. That's trivial to do no matter what you eat.
But thanks for reminding me why I love vegan threads to much. It's the joy they bring and the calm, rational discourse.
Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
There's no such thing as a saturated fat vitamin.
Yeah, I am aware that saturated fat has been demonized over the past few decades -- related to heart problems, but it is also related directly to steroid production -- which is why the notion of vegetarians being wimps (physically) isn't just something that somebody just made up to put them down. The reason that people tend to mention it, is because it largely tends to be true, and there's an actual physical reason for it.
I suppose you could take anabolic steroids to make up the difference... I wouldn't advise it though.
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Unabogie
Philosopher
I'll think about this really hard when I'm lifting weights tonight.
Maybe these people will stop by to opine about weak vegans.
http://www.greatveganathletes.com/
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Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
Exceptions don't disprove the general rule in this case.
I wonder why you don't add Lance Armstrong to that list? It really seems to me like he should belong there, for some reason. I'm not sure why.
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