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Comment by isolli | Hacker News Reader

I was vegetarian for 20 years, vegan for 7, yet I started eating meat and fish about a year ago. Here are my thoughts:

- I started eating animal products again for health reason; I believe many people can thrive on a vegetarian or vegan diet, but I couldn't. It makes me unhappy, but there I am.

- Similarly vegetarian and vegan for a long time, my wife started craving animal products the minute she got pregnant. And after birth she became very ill, and survived on chicken broth. In short, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

- There is no reason for anyone to eat meat twice a day; and above all there is no reason for heavy subsidies so that everyone can eat meat cheaply twice a day.

So my preferred solution: animals raised humanely and sustainably to allow for healthy, limited consumption of animal products, with products priced at actual cost in order to eliminate over-consumption.

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> limited consumption of animal products

It would be more impactful get three people to reduce meat by 50% than to get one to reduce by 100%. Unfortunately, "meals that don't have a chunk of meat as their centerpiece but that are still far from vegetarian" does not have the same ideological zeal as veganism (speaking in the context of a western industrial background).

When eating out (again: western cuisine), the meat-free choices are getting better and better and I applaud that, but it seems to just get more polarized. In aggregate, either vegan or an ever bigger focus on a meat centerpiece is hardly an improvement. Low meat dishes seem to have a serious branding problem.

I have a number of friends who eat meat only 2 times per week. I used to be vegetarian for about 15 years until I met my wife and we agreed to eat meat, but only organic/otherwise sustainable and only a limited number of times per week.

When eating out, I still eat vegetarian unless I know where the restaurant got its meat from. Increasing numbers of restaurants in Amsterdam do care where their meat comes from, fortunately.

Organic and sustainable are not the same thing.

That's why I mention them both. I'm generally fine with anything that has animals outside rather than locked up in a tiny cage, but I prefer meat grown locally in a field that's not certified over meat that's technically certified but shipped from the other side of the world.

As much as I'd love to brain the next deer that's eating under my apple tree I'm also aware that that deer might have been stuffing its face at god knows what dumpster or drinking from the river downstream of town (which has a several hundred year manufacturing history so I wouldn't drink the river water).

Farming animals for meat has its problems but it does impose much stricter controls on the inputs. No farmer raising livestock for human consumption is feeding their animals contaminated food and water if there are other options available. If DuPont is upstream of your farm you're probably SOL but that's the exception not the rule.

As a rule of thumb I would say there is good overlap. In support of my claim, I suggest the report from Olivier de Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food [0].

[0] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2011-03-09/un-report-supp...

Organic according the USDA means that you use manure to fertilize instead of biosolids and you use something like copper-based pesticides instead of glyphosate.

I don't know enough about agriculture to understand what that means, but I have heard that the US uses a different, presumably lower, standard for organic crops than the EU does.

> I don't know enough about agriculture to understand what that means, but I have heard that the US uses a different, presumably lower, standard for organic crops than the EU does.

It means exactly what you heard. The USDA Organic label doesn't mean that organic crops are sustainable. The organic label doesn't address problems associated with commercial agriculture: monocultures, wide-spread use of pesticides, fertilizer run-off into streams/rivers/ponds/lakes causing them to become hypoxic, destruction of wetlands to create arable land etc.

> Low meat dishes seem to have a serious branding problem.

I think the way you make this work is using meat for flavor rather than as a centerpiece- a lot of noodle dishes from China do this (e.g. https://thewoksoflife.com/2014/11/dan-dan-noodles/).

Exactly, the whole "diaspora Asian" thing has this figured out just fine. But every food tradition has a great variety of low-meat options, with the possible exception of pure hunter/herder communities. But in the west they are traditionally mostly restricted to home cooking and what little still made it to professional kitchens is now increasingly getting squeezed out by fully meatless choices (the choice in status meat somehow never gets less).

(I say "diaspora Asian" because I can only talk about what we get under the Asian brand in Europe, which for all I know might be completely unrelated to what actually happens in the namesake regions. But that's completely unrelated to the point we are making here: meat for flavor instead of for status, kudos to them)

> It would be more impactful get three people to reduce meat by 50% than to get one to reduce by 100%. Unfortunately, "meals that don't have a chunk of meat as their centerpiece but that are still far from vegetarian" does not have the same ideological zeal as veganism

So, work to get people to try a different appreciate meatless options; as you note, they are getting better. You can reduce meat consumption by eating meat-centered meals less frequently as well as eating some-but-less meat in each meal.

The thing is, I really don't like those dishes that bend over sideways to eradicate even the last bit of meat. I'd be fine making that steak-sized chunk an extremely rare occasion, but don't take away my little flavor bits. Polarized "we cater for vegans and for big-steak aficionados" and then controlling your dosage via some foodie variety of pulse width modulation might be fine for some, but it's not for me. When low meat options disappear from the menu to make room for vegan options while the high meat dishes stay, then people like me are likely to end up eating more meat, not less, without really wanting to.

> I really don't like those dishes that bend over sideways to eradicate even the last bit of meat.

It's not like meat is a natural part of every dish that must be eradicated at some kind of effort to produce a meatless dish, though I'd agree that dishes they start with a meat dish and take that approach are often among the worst of meatless dishes.

I agree! This has been bothering me ever since I stopped eating vegetarian. My ideal dish would have lots of tasty vegetables with a side of meat. Unfortunately I suspect that most customers would consider they're not getting their money's worth.

Absolutely agree. I think the calls for vegetarianism and veganism can really backfire. It's not realistic to expect everyone to give up meat completely.

We should be calling for people _limiting_ their meat consumption in a way that works for them. It's far more effective to have 50% of the population limit their meat consumption than 5% eschew meat all together.

I personally eat meat about once a week, and that's something that's worked for me. I also try to source my meat and dairy from humane sources. And it's been a minimal effort. I don't feel that I've been denied meat. I can still have it once in a while, and it does not affect me in my daily life whatsoever.

I don't mind vegetarian. I rarely eat meat and never crave for it. However vegan just sounds horrible. Eggs and cheeses are incredible, milk, fish, prawns. Cutting them out feels like cutting half of the nutrients out of my diet. I wouldn't risk it unless I had very extensive knowledge and dedication to human dietary requirements and what which plants can provide, which I don't have and won't have.

> Cutting them out feels like cutting half of the nutrients out of my diet. I wouldn't risk it unless I had very extensive knowledge and dedication to human dietary requirements and what which plants can provide, which I don't have and won't have.

Yea, this is pretty common (as many comments above yours will also attest to). “Vegetarian” and “vegan” are awful diet plans, in that they only tell you what not to eat. People coming from a standard diets based around meat/cheese/eggs undoubtedly have a hard time, and often become sick.

Fortunately, you don’t need that much knowledge. This stuff has been figured out by dietitians. If you’re interested in what a plant-based diet could look like, check out nutritionfacts.org. Dr. Greger has a “daily dozen” checklist that will pretty easily get you to a very healthy diet. It includes: cruciferous vegetables, other vegetables, whole grains, flax, berries, other fruits, spices (turmeric, cinnamon, garlic, etc), greens, nuts/seeds, beans/legumes, water, and exercise. If you consistently knock all 12 of those out, you’ll be healthy as a horse.

Aren't fish and prawns animals? Would you still considered a vegetarian if you ate them?

Some people consider that vegetarian, but I never understood that myself. When I was vegetarian, I didn't eat fish. I did eat eggs, though. Since they were unfertilized I didn't have a problem with them, and it helped me stick with the diet for as long as I did.

>Some people consider that vegetarian,

it's a christian cultural thing, mostly catholic. because the church decided fish aren't meat.

Ah, I allways wondered about that as being stupid well, now with that institution as the cause, it makes sense.

Also Jewish people don't consider fish meat for the purposes of keeping kosher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pescetarianism

If you eat fish you're a pescatarian not a vegetarian.

Vegetarianism as I encountered it was 'no meat'. Which basically meant 'no muscle from anything closer to us than a frog'.

With a vegan diet, you need vitamin B12 supplements.

Take a multi-vitamin supplement, some linseed oil for the essential fatty acids and maybe some mineral supplement if appropriate according to the blood test.

You should do that anyway no matter your diet.

Dr Garth Davis: Americans have become obsessed with Protein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQCt3IhaUtU&feature=youtu.be...

Supplements are a scam industry and you should not be advising anyone to waste their time and money on supplements.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/supplements-are-a-30...

With a vegan diet, you need vitamin B12 supplements.

From the linked article:

> Overall, multivitamins are not recommended for the generally healthy. There’s just no clear evidence to prove that they have any benefit. A 2013 analysis of 27 trials involving more than 400,000 people concluded that there was no clear evidence that they reduce cardiovascular disease, cancer risks, or reduce all-cause mortality.

This makes no sense.

You have a vegan diet to reduce cardiovascular disease, cancer risks, or reduce all-cause mortality.

You take vitamin supplements to prevent potential deficiencies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d1Ca6SsKfE

http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19562864/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/27886704/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/21139125/

The need for vitamins and essential fatty acids is scientifically proven.

Better safe than sorry. Multi-vitamin supplements are cheap enough.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_fatty_acid

Fermented foods such as kimchi and sauerkraut can supply B12, as can seaweed and some other foods.

So it is possible.

AFAIK there are no good vegan sources of vitamin B12 except vegan vitamin B12 supplements.

All experts recommend vitamin B12 supplements for vegans, vegetarians and older people.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4042564/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17959839

https://www.b12-vitamin.com/algae/

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12_deficiency:

> Vitamin B12 deficiency in the US and the UK is estimated to occur in about 6 percent of those under the age of 60, and 20 percent of those over the age of 60.[1] In Latin America rates are estimated at 40 percent and they may be as high as 80 per cent in parts of Africa and Asia.[1]

Your solutions sounds pretty good to me (I'm vegetarian), because you are already aware of all the bad things about that industry, but you probably also know that most of the people don't know that and aren't capable of eating meat or fish from sustainably and healthy sources. In my personal experience, there's a lack of culture that makes easier for everybody to become vegetarian or vegan rather than learning how to find that kind of products that you mentioned...

I think there's a role for consumption of meat and animal products. There's also a lot of land which cannot be used to directly generate human food in any sensible way, e.g. in the uplands. Furthermore, animals have an important role in maintaining soil quality, which is vital to ensure good crop yields.

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