https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-less-red-m...
Furthermore, water usage, water table pollution, and greenhouses gasses from animal husbandry are a significant chunk of the pie when it comes to climate change.
I don’t care about the emotions of animals at all, and never will. I purposely show my daughter videos of how to slaughter farm animals to try to make sure she has a full understanding of what’s happening so she doesn’t one day realize what “pork” or “beef” means and becomes vegan. Her favorite food by far is steak.
I’m all for others reducing their consumption as hopefully that’ll drop prices so I can eat more meat and feed my children more meat. Which is the only actual end result people who advocate cutting meat consumption will ever achieve.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but humans are animals mate
You realize that to an extent, the reason why meat is cheap is because of economy of scale and government subsidies, both of which depend on significant/majority of the population to be meat eaters to exist?
This comes across as proudly sociopathic. The line between the human animal and any other is arbitrary and blurry and about to get much more so. I think it’s healthy to understand your own body and recognize the importance meat has in your diet, and if that comes at the cost of the suffering of animals, that might be a price you’re willing to pay. But to lump all animal suffering together as ignorable is really a red flag for an empathy deficit that is worth examining.
Eggs are actually great if you have your own flock of chickens. They work almost for free in keeping grass down without requiring fossil fuels or complex machinery. They are almost perfect in handling food waste, and they can reduce harmful insects and weed without using any herbicide or pesticide. For insects they are likely less cruel than poison, and do not spread the poison to bees or birds. They also fertilizer the garden in a very natural way. A fairly small flock can easily maintain the need of eggs for a small family, often producing so much that you want to give it away to friends and relatives.
A bit of an anecdotal but when the natural gas prices went up after Russian invasion of Ukraine, one food product that got hit hard was fresh tomatoes. Farming them during off-season is very energy intensive and so require a lot of electricity, which in most countries mean a lot of fossil fuel. Even if you use renewables, that is energy that would otherwise go to to displace fossil fuel. It is indirect, but fresh tomatoes is right now connected with fossil fuel and war. Meat is also effected, but analysts seem to argue that people can easier switch over to farm more animal feed than they can fix the energy dependence on Russian fossil fuels. People could stop eating fresh vegetables when its off season...
Tried it (by my own suggestion) as a supportive boyfriend for a week. Absolutely not. The food tastes awful and is so unfulfilling as well. Every single bit of it. Nice boutique vegan restaurants, homemade vegan, following highly rated recipes online, “you can’t even tell it’s vegan!!” alternatives from the store.
All of it absolutely gross and of questionable nutritional value, both overall and to men’s health especially but also women. I finally discovered, for example, the source of my then-girlfriend’s bouts of faintness and nausea: her vegan diet. Supplementing with vitamins improved things overnight. But something feels very, very wrong about that.
There’s also the type of person that tends to be vegan. I’m sorry but when the scene is filled with people who believe veganism, male feminism, effeminate traits, inherent weakness due to diet, and voting for Bernie is a personality trait, I don’t walk… I run.
I don't think this is common practice. My dairy knowledge is somewhat dated, but they they're usually kept in large corrals (possibly crowded) with many other cows.
You may be thinking of the stanchions they're put into for milking, but they're only put in those during the actual milking process, which only takes a few minutes with modern milking machinery.
Usually they're fed something tasty while being milked... makes it easier to get them to go into the dairy barn.
I suppose in a climate that permits them to be outside all year it's a different story.
Commercial meat is really bad for the environment, but you don’t have to eat that.
Animals are evolved to make the most of vegetables that humans can’t eat. There are sustainable sources that we can use to eat beef, pork, chicken, lamb, etc.
I try and do my best by eating local sources that I know are well produced. I don’t hunt, but would one day like to.
https://www.sacredcow.info/ Is a decent source of info on this.
Animals can process inarable land and turn it into nutrients. I can have a cow graze on land that can’t grow edible food for humans and turn it into edible food. That’s efficient.
What biases are you talking about?
[0] https://sapienjournal.org/people-who-eat-meat-experience-low...
Sure, we can ALWAYS find a source that supports whatever claim we want to make. But let’s look at the general scientific consensus.
The overwhelming majority of research indicates that veganism is perfectly healthy. That’s what I linked! Your single journalistic summary of summary about non-causal associations between meat eating and depression don’t undo the general scientific consensus.
In a nutshell, obesity and sugars are the killer regardless if they are vegetarian calories or animal calories. Second comes minerals that effect blood pressure, and third its peoples need for vitamins. A healthy diet is one that avoid health risks.
Fiber rich food and fish is linked with lower weight gain.
Sugar is linked with tooth decay and obesity, especially that white stuff that get produced by plants.
A diet need to balance vitamins and minerals based on how active the individual is.
No alcohol, no drugs, no tobacco, no coffee, no added sugar or fructose to water. If its an stimulant then there is risk for harm.
A healthy diet should be diversified and balanced.
You mentioned that there are associations between fish and lower weight gain, but that’s sort of irrelevant because I’m not making the claim that you can’t be healthy while eating animals (though many doctors do!)
I agree that all those things are important. So optimize for them and avoid eating animals.
If we were to rank the world worst food product in terms of causing health problems for humans, sugarcane and sugar beet would list at the top. Animal products is in comparison fairly healthy. After sugar the next would likely be corn, as in high-fructose corn syrup. Much of the worlds insulin resistance and obesity is directly caused by those two vegetarian grown products!
If we look to historical diets that killed the largest number of people, outside the context of sugar, it would be diets where people only ate potatoes, rice or corn. Those diets has a risk of missing essential vitamins and during wars there were major epidemics from unvaried diet that focused on those vegetarian options. People who ate meat during those periods was generally more healthy as their diet was more varied and balanced.
If one want to optimize for health, optimize for a diversified and balanced diet that addresses risk associated with weight gain and insulin resistance. Cut out candy, beer, sugar drinks, potato chips, cereals, cheese puffs (corn coated with cheese powder), wine, and so on. All vegan food (except for the coat on the corn), all food that is terrible for health.
No discussion that uses statistics to prove a point should exclude the use of the same statistics. Vegan diet is associated with better health. A vegan diet is also associated with being female, high education, young, never married, normal and underweight BMI, and without any chronic conditions. How much is cause and effect is a bit more complex.
You seem to think that I’m claiming that veganism is optimal for health. I’m not.
Why not just give a shit about the suffering of others though?…
So what?
Not that any actual evidence or true rational argument has been provided by such parties in this comment chain. Appealing to emotion and agressively stating what you want to be true are simply not conductive to a productive argument.
I’m sure there are some quiet vegans, and it’s possible that I just don’t know people well enough to know whether they are vegan. I’ve met dozens of vegans over he years and friends with many. As I’m friends with them, I’m aware of their health issues or lack of health issues.
That means that not only do you claim to have a better understanding of nutrition than those organizations and the thousands of nutritionists and scientists they represent, but you are able to determine your correctness by merely talking to the vegans you’ve met.
That means you’re able to also trivially determine if someone’s health issues are caused directly by veganism, rather than merely present in a vegan.
That is a level of delusion and arrogance I genuinely cannot comprehend.
> As I’m friends with them, I’m aware of their health issues or lack of health issues.
Of course I come in contact with lots of random people who are vegan but I certainly don’t know them well enough to understand their health.
I am also aware of the health of my non-vegan friends as well.
There are a lot of things that are "unnecessary for human life", such as using electricity.
Making electricity harms the environment, causing suffering.
Therefore, you should stop using your computer.
Right?
The arguments are exactly the same, despite your attempt to spin it.
The original argument was that a) eating meat is not necessary to human life, b) eating meat harms animals, c) therefore, you should stop eating meat.
My recasting of your argument is a) using electricity is not necessary to human life, b) using electricity harms animals, c) therefore, you should stop using electricity.
What is the difference between these arguments? Be specific.
And I don't really care if you "call me out". I don't bully. Sorry.
P.S. I'm not your "mate".
And once you've answered - how would you feel about hyper advanced aliens coming to our corner of the universe and being horrified of all the pain and misery on earth, with a finger on a button that'll painlessly stop us from existing.
The huge difference between your hypothetical and reality is that the aliens are actively committing genocide and im merely a proponent of not forcefully impregnating more animals to get them pregnant so I can profit off them.
If human beings were kept in conditions like those we find animals and at the same scale, and the aliens came and were horrified then I’d beg them to press the button that stops humans from being raped and impregnated at mass scale solely for the babies to be processed.
The question is, for me, pretty important, because it moves the bulk of the focus from "don' eat meat" to "dramatically improve farming conditions".
Rabbits are pound for pound the most efficient meat to raise.