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Comment by marricks | Hacker News Reader

I gave up animal products and found a pretty good increase in quality of life.

It happened when other changes were occuring in my life, but I lost weight, hung out with other vegans, felt better overall.

It can really depend on when you live, but being vegan in most US metropolitan areas is pretty easy these days.

As for lab meats, they're great and I'm generally for them, but acting like we don't have viable other solutions is a bit silly. Lentils, beans, nuts, seeds, seitan, tofu, all great sources of protein.

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> acting like we don't have viable other solutions is a bit silly. Lentils, beans, nuts, seeds, seitan, tofu, all great sources of protein.

Depends on what you mean by "viable". Food is a huge part of culture and while those items you listed do provide protein it's, in my opinion, no where near as enjoyable as various types of meat. In fact many of that, to me, is really gross and I've tried multiple versions of all of it.

Naturally to others meat may be gross. There isn't a one size fits all solution here. We've evolved taste for a reason and it's hard to ignore if you don't like the "other solutions".

So I would say I disagree with your statement when you call the other items "viable other solutions" :)

I used to really like eating meat too. Also used to not like seitan or beans much, but now I love 'em. Tastes changed since I went vegan.

If your litmus test for "viable" is what currently makes you the happiest you'll be blocked off from not only helping the world but likely helping yourself too.

This has also been my experience having gone vegan. Honestly, people make it out to be a big deal, but it isn't.

> If your litmus test for "viable" is what currently makes you the happiest you'll be blocked off from not only helping the world but likely helping yourself too.

I find that terribly narrow minded. It's not about "happiest". I've tried almost all of those before, several of them in multiple ways. I don't like the taste nor texture. So since I don't like the taste of what you like I am thusly being selfish and blocked from helping myself and the world?

This isn't how you win people over to your side. This is the type of thing that actually reinforces someone's opinion and makes it worse getting through to them.

Instead of trying to make yourself sound better than the person you want to convince of your position, you would be better off trying to find common ground and working from there.

"You catch more flies with honey than vinegar"

Best of luck.

I did not say, and would not, say I am better than you or the average person. I have no idea who you are. I'm sure not the next Mr. Rodgers or what have you, maybe you are. What I can say is making the change to vegan made me better than I was, and it took me being open and making a change.

Honestly though, this comes up a lot "catching more flies with honey" but I don't think these things should be spoken about obliquely, truth should be spoken plainly. I spoke true to my experience and knowledge as best I could and tried to be as polite as I could. Best of luck to you as well.

Taste is acquired, it is not in your genes. Of course you will find foods and tastes that were present through your whole life better than new textures and tastes. It's normal.

Eventually one either gets used and enjoys the new foods or makes tasty meals in combination.

For me, getting drunk and then eating the disgusting thing in the morning made me love it. It's undescribable how delicious things are when one is dehydrated and when the disgusting taste of beer was the only thing in the mouth the night before.

So that's exactly the point. One might rationally understand the flaws with meat, but taste, however it may be acquired, is difficult to change. I absolutely love meat but not exclusively. I also eat a lot of pinto and black beans and cook chick peas. However, none of the current options come close to offering the taste, texture and variety that comes with meat. And there are so many varieties! Meat from pigs, cows, goat, sheep/lamb, chicken, duck, turkey... they all have a unique taste. They change flavor and texture considerably depending on cooking style. You can cook them in different ways...essentially, meat offers much variety not offered currently by vegetarian substitutes.

Same thing a person grown on vegetables and fruits might say. Thousands of choices, all different in textures and tastes and can be combined into extremely delicious meals.

The quality of life is subjective and taste can easily be acquired in a way that one can continue feeling satisfied with the foods they eat.

What you might need is a tastebud reset, which can easily be accomplished and after that you'll find anything extremely delicious.

You mentioned that you've just tried an ingredient and didn't like it which isn't even comparable to your dietary regime which was filled with meat during an extremely long period of time. To acquire taste takes effort or some out of the ordinary measures (a week or two of one ingredient diet to reset the taste buds, or that alchohol trick repetatively etc.).

It's not just less enjoyable, plant protein is flat-out inferior. The amino acid profile of meat is better (eg leucine) and meat contains creatine, which is essential for explosive athletic performance and which is completely unavailable from plants. It's why powerlifters and practically every other strength and power athlete eats meat.

Like this world record breaking vegan power lifter? http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=6137&catId=8

What about this vegan NFL player? https://redditblog.com/2016/06/24/300-pound-vegan-david-cart...

Bit more about myself since I think it's applicable: I'm no world class athlete, but I went vegetarian and started weight lifting a while back. Benched like 120 starting out. Now I'm vegan and can bench 200+ lbs, gained that muscle without eating animals.

Sure, there's some random ingredient that studies show only meat has and may help a little, but plenty of vegan athletes are starting to pop up and show there isn't some special thing in dead animals.

Let's not forget the record holder and only male American weightlifter to qualify for the last olympics: http://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/articles/why-ameri...

The common theme among vegan athletes is that recovery times improve substantially.

This is just demonstrably false. There are millions of people who don't eat meat and have no protein problems. There are also plenty of vegan vegetarian athletes and strongmen. Please learn about them.

There have been a bunch of vegetarian Mr. Universes, and plenty of vegetarians and vegans peppered liberally across every other pro sport. I'm not going to argue with you about the exact impact of meat vs plant protein on your body, but there's plenty of evidence that this isn't remotely a barrier to top performance.

"completely unavailable from plants"

True but highly misleading. Even a vegan will have some amount of creatine because this molecule is produced by the liver and kidney.

Also the effects of creatine aren't that well studied: http://www.webmd.com/men/creatine

I don't know why I joined this discussion. I am neither vegan nor an athlete.

> Lentils, beans, nuts, seeds, seitan, tofu, all great sources of protein.

This may be true, but all of those either: interfere with mineral absorption, decrease serum testosterone, or are not comparable in taste to animal protein.

You may have had an increase in quality of life, but this is not universally applicable to the entire population. Keto is the first thing that comes to mind that increases quality of life, that also focuses a lot on animal products.

Full disclosure, I am a vegetarian.

Mineral absorption you say? https://saveourbones.com/osteoporosis-milk-myth/

Phytic acid is in those foods, not milk.

> hung out with other vegans

Thanks for also writing about the downsides! :)

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