Animal meat and milk sales drop in Europe as vegan versions hit record highs | Hacker News Reader

Animal meat and milk sales drop in Europe as vegan versions hit record highs

plantbasednews.org

184 pointsgbenga4real273 comments

> vegan meat products saw a 21 percent increase in unit sales from 2020 to 2022

> During the same period, animal-based meat and milk sales dropped by eight and nine percent, respectively

There are likely additional factors at play in the animal based drop

UK ONS shows whole milk at low of 43p/l in 2020 increasing to 70p/l in Mar 23 and minced beef from 609p/kg to 812p/kg in 23 -- but those numbers likely do not reflect the reality of multi-buy discount offers commonly being available in 2020 that are rarer now in 23 -- so the inflation felt by consumers is potentially even higher

Milk was heavily subsidized and the prices were pushed to a point where all but the largest scale producers were making losses (~30 cents per liter) where I live whereas the price of plant based milk used to have a huge novely / vegan markup that wasn't based in production cost. The cost of plant based milk is not exactly much less than dairy now, but it is actually cheaper if you go by discount brand prices.

That so many people don't mind switching with so little monetary incentive is great, that's a lot of animal harm prevented.

Here in the UK, plant based milks are typically more expensive than cow’s milk, particularly if you go for the well-known brands (Alpro, Oatly, etc)

Typically in a corner shop you’re paying around £2 for 1 litre of plant milk, compared to £1.25 for 2 pints (1.13L) of cow’s milk.

That doesn’t seem to have dampened demand for plant milks, however!

Jealous that you get a choice. Netherlands here which is actually better for vegan options as a whole than the UK in my experience but never found a corner shop With anything but cow dairy.

> With anything but cow dairy.

The Dutch love their cows? Who would have imagined that? :D

s/love/torture/. If anything, brutality of dairy produce is hundred times worse than butchering them for meat.

End result of selective pressures on cow farmers. Humane treatment would raise the cost by like 20%, but the inhumane treatment readily visible to the buyer while the price is.

Other than the corner shops it's the most vegan friendly place I've seen in Europe. The farmers and their supporters aren't the whole population.

> "never found a corner shop With anything but cow dairy"

That's strange. They certainly are popular in the UK, and their long shelf life means there's little risk for shops in stocking them. I wonder if dutch "big dairy" could be using dirty tricks to keep plant alternatives off shop shelves?

Is this just a London thing or can you actually get alternatives as easily in other parts of the country?

You can get them everywhere. All the mainstream supermarkets sell them. In London you might well have a choice between 10 different plant based milks.

Everywhere, and also a large selection of fake meat and other vegan stuff in big supermarkets. UK is great for this

It's not cheaper here. The moment it is I'll switch to oat milk. I think it tastes better.

Oat milk has no lactoferrin, a powerful anti-viral/bacterial/fungal compound in milk, so you are going to eliminate a significant immunity boost.

You can supplement with lactoferrin if you so choose, and on the flip side oat milk doesn't contain any hormones, antibiotics or pus, all of which can slip into cow milk.

Oat milk would likely contain pesticides and other chemical residues. There is no hiding from bad chemicals but one can choose food that contains support for their removal. I'd be concerned about pure vegan diet for its lack of certain removal-supporting compounds, leading to massive issues after many years as one can read on Internet. I doubt they will supplement missing things.

It also doesn’t have hormones or antibiotics.

So I'll throw in some cinnamon. There's no shortage of foods that preserve themselves.

Make your own. It's easy and cheaper than dairy. Takes minutes. Not drank dairy in five years, never miss it. Guests never tell that they been given oat milk and usually convert to drinking and/or making their own oat milk immediately following the experience.

> Guests never tell that they been given oat milk

And everyone clapped!

Come off it.

I love oat milk (and think almond milk suuuuuucks). I haven’t had dairy milk in nearly 8 years at home.

But it doesn’t taste the same, doesn’t have the same mouthfeel, and can’t be cooked with in the same way.

They’re literally entirely unique things. Pretending otherwise is just as stupid as religion.

Store-bought oat milk is a different thing again, and I agree, mouthfeel and taste are unconvincing with store-bought.

I cook with homemade just fine in pasta dishes.

Which animal harm do you mean by having cows for milk? Its easy to buy bio milk which comes from free grazing cows, the cost of it is almost the same as basic milk where I live. I can tell you from my daily personal experience those are some of the happiest non-wild animals you can meet in person.

I mean if we move away from it, yes technically there will be 0 harm possible because we will have to kill all the diary cows, and prevent their offsprings from ever again being born. But thats kind of argument like killing all humans apart from me will end all of human suffering, technically true but not what we want.

Plant based 'milk' aint no milk, just drink with some flavors. Not judging or arguing for/against, but its not equivalent nor replacement in ie nutrition nor taste.

1. Cows, like humans, only produce milk after giving birth

2. These cows, in order to get pregnant in the first place, are artificially inseminated (and it isn't a very nice process)

3. What do you think happens to the offspring if it's male and thus uneconomical to keep?

The fact that these statements (which are incredibly obvious if you have an eighth grade education or higher) have to be spelled out is a testament to the power of the milk lobby that people think there are some bucolic scenes where farmkids go to milk Bessie each morning, who produces day in and day out without fuss.

The fact you’re getting downvoted so much also illustrates how much our species is willing to hide our head in the sand and buy the milk lobbies’ lies.

I just really like cheese and yogurt and milk and other cow milk products.

It doesn’t change the suffering and abuse involved in making it. Downvoting parent won’t make that go away even if you don’t like hearing it.

I love cheese too. I was eating some almost every day growing up in cheese country. But I gave it up once I learned the cost of making it in term of animal abuse and pollution.

We mostly gave up raping and pillaging so maybe one day we’ll also vastly reduce the abuse we inflict onto the billions of animals we “raise”…

I did not downvote, just wanted to share that me, and maybe many like me are not buying the milk industries’ lies. I would support legislation that increased quality of life for cows and all animals.

> its not equivalent nor replacement in ie nutrition nor taste

Speak for yourself, it might not have the same nutritional value (but also not the same amount of hormones and/or antibiotics), but there are a few oat based milks (e.g. Alpro This Is Not Milk) that have almost the same mouth feel as cow milk (personally, I find that too fatty and prefer the non-fatty tasting oat milk).

> Its easy to buy bio milk which comes from free grazing cows

Uh huh, and how many people are doing that, especially close to the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder? There are plenty of plant based milk with a hefty trend markup, but least here in Germany the discount supermarkets have plenty of cheap plant based milk that is the same price as cow milk, and you don't have to squeeze milk from an animal for that.

At least in Germany, and presumably most places in Europe are the same or similar, milk can be labeled organic without the animals ever being grazed. Though apparently they always have access to an outdoor area.

Even milk that's specifically sold as being from free grazing animals in actual fact only requires them to be on a pasture 6h a day for 120 days a year.

https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/lebensmittel/leben...

Far from being easy and cheap, I think in Europe it's close to impossible to buy milk from cows that are predominantly free grazing. Even though, from what I can tell, cows are perfectly capable of being outside year round in most of the continent.

> Plant based 'milk' aint no milk, just drink with some flavors

Do you also say "peanut butter ain't no butter"?

"Milk" has meant "fatty white liquid" since forever. The oldest surviving cookbook in the English language references "almond milk."

> Milk was heavily subsidized (...)

The whole agricultural industry in Europe is heavily subsidized through Europe's common agriculture policy. It's a strategic and national interest policy so that Europe's access to food is not jeopardized in case of war.

It's ok that these subsidies exist, and they surely won't go away any time soon.

At least in Germany the subsidiary is disproportionate for the large scale industry as it got paid by animal, so the more you can cram into a building, the more you get subsidized.

Animals in Germany are living through an extreme hell because of several financial incentives which make it so profitable for the one's willing to ignore the animals.

And the farmers that have even a tiny bit of a conscience are getting in severe financial trouble as they just can't compete on price. Especially as that kind of animal cruelty they're forced into comes with it's own psychological issues.

The headline seems to be mixing two trends in food randomly. The drop in meat & milk is likely independent of vegan trends - the $ figures are different orders of magnitude. This isn't substitution at all, so there is no reason to think they are interacting.

Europe is probably being hit by some sort of hardship right now meaning people can't eat as well as usual. The UK seems to be being hit by an energy crisis for example, although they also seem to be having a much worse time of it than mainland Europe. Per capita figures are lower than China and it might drop below the global average in a decade if the current trend keeps up.

Pure hopium.

> Europe is probably being hit by some sort of hardship right now meaning people can't eat as well as usual.

Isn't Europe experiencing an inflation wave of around 10%? That tends to take away meat from the diet.

Edit: Eurostat says it's 6.9% in the euro area, and 8.3 in the EU as a whole.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/16324910/2-1...

It's cheapest and healthiest to go to unprocessed vegan food and yet vegan replacements that usually have a premium over meat and dairy are also up, while their incremental production costs are probably less than meat/dairy.

This implies that meat/dairy have neither the top of the market nor the bottom. If more and more people are willing to pay that premium then I'm not sure what would come back and why once the costs of processed vegan food no longer includes early R&D and risk premiums.

Cow’s milk has bucked the inflation trend and fallen in price recently in the UK.[1]

Dairy farmers are also suffering significant cuts in “farm gate” prices they receive, due to a glut of supply amid weak demand.[2]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65267367.amp

[2] https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets-and-trends/milk-price...

Soo "unit sales". Is this by weight? By volume? By calorie?

>> The Good Food Institute Europe (GFI Europe) reports that sales of plant-based foods across 13 European nations amounted to €5.7 billion in 2022.

The good food institude is the lobbying arm of the lab grown protein companies.

>> ...a Y Combinator funded non-profit that promotes plant- and cultivated meat alternatives to conventional animal meat

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

Also look at stocks at these fake food companies: they are all going down.

All the overvalued growth stocks are going down because the supply of easy money dried up. The massive rise in BYND share price was always ridiculous. Their products are easy to replicate and companies like Nestlé have way more resources to bring them to market successfully and sustainably, which they're doing now.

Somebody not eating animal products for ethical reasons will not buy anything from Nestle given a choice, for very same reasons. And yes, we who avoid Nestle pay more for alternatives, but if you know their business practices there's no moral choice.

I respectfully disagree. As much as I would like to avoid the kinds of Nestle, it's just impossible in practice for many of us. Instead, I try to find comfort in the fact that animal replacements are becoming cheap and common because of the mega corporations.

> As much as I would like to avoid the kinds of Nestle, it's just impossible in practice for many of us

Why?

> As much as I would like to avoid the kinds of Nestle, it's just impossible in practice for many of us.

how so?

Well, for one, it requires remembering every brand present on this infographic:

https://wyomingllcattorney.com/static/img/nestle-list.png

I am fairly sure that there is a nestle logo on the packaging of these brands as well

Exactly. All that's required is looking at packaging. Anyone who cares about what they put into their body is already having a habit of doing that.

I'm not sure many people are checking the nutritional information of their San Pellegrino.

Wife, kids, full time job, hobbies.. simply no time or energy to start looking at each item and finding alternatives when finally buying groceries.

Hate Nestle? Download the app Boycott.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FuckNestle/comments/ihk2ul/hate_nes...

The task is simplified to looking at label. Respectfully, if even that is too much, you don't particularly care about avoiding Nestle products at all...

Almost everything can be reduced to "the task is simplified to a simple sounding thing". However, when you have dozens of such things in your daily life to worry about, it stops being so simple.

Also, if someone in my household likes a particular Nestle product, what's the procedure then? Stick to my principles and fight every time? Make an exception for that one? How many exceptions will there be in the end?

Ultimately, I guess I don't particularly care about avoiding Nestle in the end. Not to the extent that I would have to make my life more complicated than it already is.

> Almost everything can be reduced to "the task is simplified to a simple sounding thing".

How? Recycling for example is very complicated, takes time and effort sourcing recyclable things and shipping them for recycling later. Buying things manufactured sustainably is very complicated, because that stuff is not listed on labels in sufficient detail so you need to do actual research. Etc etc.

But here you have two products on the shelf. One has Nestle logo on the label the other doesn't. If you don't have significant issues with your vision, it takes 30 sec top to skim labels and tell which one is which. And the kicker is, you only have to do it once then you already know which logo is Nestle and just don't buy it. And if you as you say already try to be mindful of your diet you are already browsing multiple products looking at labels anyway! So I must be really missing something.

Personally the only reason not to do it is if I am poor at the moment and can't afford the non-Nestle one...

> How?

But recycling is easy! Just put the right thing in the right bin!

You have totally been sidestepping the part where I talk about this small inconvenience in relation to the existing complexity of life. I take it that you don't have small kids, since the thing is that when you do, you in general want to simplify whatever you can.

If one product takes 30 seconds to check and find a replacement (might not always exist!), that's a good 20 minutes on a proper family shopping run. I also don't have a super brain that will automatically remember the manufacturer for some 50 products, so I'd absolutely be stuck with checking each time.

Granted, once it becomes a routine to avoid certain products, it would be rather easy. But to get there would take time and effort that I'd rather spend elsewhere.

> But recycling is easy! Just put the right thing in the right bin!

Maybe if you live in very specific locations like Taiwan. Then yes you shall put right things in right bins, rinse your recycling first, etc. Not because it's easy or quick, it isn't, but because you will be financially penalized if you don't. In many other places recycling does nothing besides make you feel good and get off the case of the manufacturers who save money on plastic packaging and shift the blame around

> that's a good 20 minutes

Only once and only if you don't already skim the labels, which I bet you do if you try to avoid animal stuff in your diet occasionally. The small print ingredients take much longer to parse than an obvious Nestle logo.

I don't have a problem with not caring at all as much as saying that you care but it's too difficult, because in this case it really isnt.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I eat little meat and replace the rest with meat alternatives. And I buy Nestle products, as do pretty much all people I know who are also trying to reduce their meat consumption. Meat alternatives are entering the mainstream and not everybody who cares about animal welfare is also an activist.

Most people I know buy Nestle products, but most people I know are not vegan.

I meant if your ethical values push you to go through the trouble of cutting out animal products completely, possibly at great cost to you, then I fail to see how the modicum of effort required to avoid buying Nestle products is anything but a rounding error.

Good points until you showed obvious bias with the "fake food" comment.

Was already there with "lab grown protein" instead of vegan meat, meat substitute etc.

Dismissing a point due to bias is an example of the ad hominem fallacy.

No it's not

Not OP. Then what "value" did you even bring to this conversation then, other than to say this person has bias? Because the natural interpretation of your comment is "oh, good facts, but see he has this bias because of this word, therefore the facts must be wrong or misleading or cherry picked". That interpretation sure sounds like an ad-hominem. If there is bias, state your counter points to prove that point.

I responded to a comment that used the term "ad hominem" wrongly. A dictionary could explain proper usage of that term better than I could so I don't bother

Personally I hoped people could make strong arguments and not weaken their own stance with pettiness. It's real food. You can eat it.

I'm not dismissing a point. I said they were good points. I just think that calling the food "fake" detracts from their argument.

> Good points until you showed obvious bias with the "fake food" comment.

What leads you to believe that the clear conflict of interests pointed out by OP changes in any way if OP doesn't use a marketing term to refer to their product?

OP here. You are free to feed your children with this new experimental food that has never been consumed at any point of human evolution on this planet.

The last time we tried this expriment with novel new foods 10% of USA got diabetes.

Do tell me how your children will end up in 20 years of this kind of food.

Similary cramming meat down our gullets morning day and night is a recent change too. And entire cultures do fine without dairy. "imitation" would make sense but "fake" doesn't.

>> Similary cramming meat down our gullets morning day and night is a recent change too.

If we were hunter gatherers who hunted megafauna then we ate TONS of meat in the past, so this is not a difference.

And there are also cultures who do fine without veggies, the Inuit.

Probably going to be short lasted, as the nutritional deficiencies caused by those products start to produce symptoms. Then plant based diets will become stigmatised.

The trend in plant foods to label them with names for animal products is very misleading when the nutritional profiles have absolutely nothing in common. Oat “milk” is basically flavoured water; soy “milk” has a little bit of nutrients in it, but it’s negligible. Vegan “meat” from wheat/seitan (the most popular version) contains a type of protein that is not digestible. Vegan “cheese” from coconut oil and starch is also nutritionally empty. And so on.

I know all this because I’ve been vegan for 5+ years and i had to study a lot to understand how to be responsible about my diet. You have to go to basics and use raw ingredients. The processed products on the market are not good for you.

The push for x product but vegan annoys me quite a bit, tbh.

There are lots of really amazing vegan meals. But noooo, gotta emulate non-vegan meals. As you said, nutritionally empty, but also just plain tasting worse IME.

There are a lot of people like me that just prefer eating vegan foods for animal welfare reasons. But do love the taste of meat. It's also a good transitional method during a period of change because people already know what taste they like.

This is why. Of course many foods can be even better exploiting the best sides of their ingredients but it will be different so it will be harder to convince people. This will just take longer.

I think it's principally the vegan burgers that are pretty horrible, just big fatty patties with no nutricional value, and not very tasty either, with some exceptions like Beyond.

Nothing wrong with emulating non-vegan foods. Culturally we have honed non-vegan meals for a _long_ time, and it only makes sense to tap into those learning by substituting certain ingredients but keeping taste, mouthfeel and pairing options intact. Of course, if you shovel nothing but processed food into your maw, that's going to be bad for you, vegan or not.

Seitan is gluten which is perfectly digestible, unless of course you are sensitive to it.

The oat milks I see sold here are fortified with calcium and vitamins as well as iodine.

No argument on vegan cheeses.

> Seitan is gluten which is perfectly digestible, unless of course you are sensitive to it.

However, gliadin doesn't get fully digested/broken down - it's about 70% of the protein in gluten.

Oatly “brags” about not adding anything “extra” to their products (meaning they don’t even fortify with synthetic vitamins).

Gluten has a protein digestibility score of 0.25 - compared to 1 for animal protein. [0]

The bioavailability of synthetic vitamins used for fortification varies (e.g for b12, the methyl-, hydroxo- and cyano- variants are not equally effective at treating deficiency) and is different from natural sources (where cofactors and the vegetal matrix play a role in absorption).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_Digestibility_Correcte...

> Vegan “meat” from wheat/seitan (the most popular version) contains a type of protein that is not digestible

That would be gluten/gliadin. I'm somewhat gluten sensitive (makes psoriasis flare up) and have been pescetarian for over 30 years and I find that vegan "alternatives" are generally quite bad. They tend to use lots of fat (makes it taste better) and rely heavily on pastry/breadcrumbs which makes it unsuitable for me.

I totally agree with the cooking food yourself principle - it's the only way to not end up eating processed rubbish.

Lots of people eat these products without being vegan or vegetarian.

Don’t know why you’d eat the fake versions if you could have the real ones.

Tastes fine, can share a meal with people who are vegetarian, enviromental concerns, novelty.

Some people prefer the taste of the 'fake' versions.

I drank almond "milk" for a while, because it was shelf-stable until opened and wouldn't sour in a week, but also it is vanilla-flavoured and loaded with sugar.

Exactly. Raises hand I try to eat animal products less for countless reasons that I really hope are obvious, but I still eat them even if I don't feel good about it. Btw I don't cook.

Don't want my coffee black? Alt milk. If it's as good as water, great--water won't kill me. Want to eat a substantial meal but all that's sold here is some impossible(tm) concoction? I'll eat that thing if it's meal time.

I may eat fish or even meat some other time and I try with various success to maintain a diverse diet anyway (beans etc.) so I reckon I might get the nutrients I need, that's not a problem.

I agree it might hurt someone who naively tries to go vegan just eating these things, but they are not a threat for people like me (probably more of those than full vegans).

What about almond milk?

Alpro for example uses 2.3% almonds. That’s 5 almonds per glass of almond milk. And it’s a water extraction, which will not get most of the nutrients out. Instead they fortify it with a modest amount of synthetic vitamins.

I know very few people (vegan or otherwise) who actually like vegan cheese. Most prefer to skip cheese if they’re eating vegan.

I have had good luck with the Follow Your Heart brand "American Singles" and "Provalone" flavors from Sprouts. They melt well enough in a hot sandwich. They are terrible cold.

I'll always prefer real cheese(the more pungent the better), but my digestive system does not.

> Probably going to be short lasted, as the nutritional deficiencies caused by those products start to produce symptoms. >... > I know all this because I’ve been vegan for 5+ years and i had to study a lot to >... > The processed products on the market are not good for you.

You appear to have a bias and are proclaiming that everyone will soon align with your bias.

I've been vegan for over 13 years and eat a ton of processed vegan foods, a lot of oil, and don't have a ton of fresh fruits of vegetables. Clearly my diet isn't as healthy as yours, but it's close to the typical American diet.

My latest checkup and blood test show that all of my key health indicators are in the middle of the healthy range and my organs are all working as expected.

It's unlikely that, in general, people will notice some nutritional deficit from eating plant-based mock meat and dairy products and stop purchasing them.

I knew a smoker who lived to 90. I'm not sure how either of our anecdotes are valuable here.

Yours less so. The commenter made an extraordinary claim, without evidence, that nutritional deficiencies would soon appear as a result of vegan food. The responder at least cited personal evidence that despite being on a vegan diet for 13 years they have had no abnormal blood work. Obviously it’s not as valuable as a well constructed large scale study, but it’s at least marginally better than literally nothing.

This is an example of something you aren't going to disprove in a large study. It is known that people relying too heavily on processed food makers suffer deficiencies and a reasonable hypothesis that food processing working with less choices will raise the rates of some deficiencies. A change on the order of 1 in 10 000 vegans is not going to show up in an affordable study but in something suspiciously close to an opinion piece in a rag newspaper.

> eat a ton of processed vegan foods, a lot of oil

All you're convincing me of here is that it's easy for a typical vegan diet to be incredibly unhealthy.

Well, it's true. Artificially limiting your choices imposes hardships, not opportunities.

It’s up to you. But it’s the same with an omnivore diet, hot pockets and coke isn’t too healthy either.

> You appear to have a bias (...)

Nutritionists everywhere point out the fact that diets which exclude whole food groups don't guarantee an adequate supply of some key nutrients, and in some cases require taking supplements to avoid suffering from health issues.

And you refer to that fact as "bias", to try to dismiss it?

I’m not vegan but I don’t use milk at all. I don’t think I’d suffer any problems by adding soy milk to my coffee vs the nothing I currently add.

If you actually put a little thought in your vegan diet, it’s fine. I personally struggled with iron deficiency after switching, but increased my iron-rich vegetables intake along with cooking in a cast iron pan (yes it transfers to the food and to you). Along with semi regular blood tests, you’re fine.

I also wonder who really gets confused at the supermarket seeing plant milk and cow milk and mistakenly buying one for the other… How can you be “mislead” when even a 6yo knows that cow milk cannot possibly come from plants, or that a vegan burger cannot possibly be made out of a dead animal?

The most important thing is food education. Most people's eating habits are inherited from their parents and family. It's really hard to change them.

In USA at least, the default options are not good. You have to make most of your own meals or be selectively eat at "healthy" restaurants if you want to be healthy. Otherwise you'll be overweight or skinny-fat.

I think Europeans have much better default options than Americans and can see how veganism may not net the same benefits as it would in the states. I've been vegetarian for 10+ years. The lack of options in USA has actually made me healthier as I have to prepare my own food more often, but I know some unhealthy vegans who just don't cook.

Vegans of HN: What do you supplement and why?

Personally, I supplement VitaminD3 and Iron.

And I make sure to eat salad, carrots and avocado every day.

I came up with this regime after getting my blood work done and after exactly tracking all my nutritional values for a while and comparing those to the suggested amounts.

I also have a long running project in the "statistics of one" space, where I track a lot of treatment effect correlations:

https://www.gibney.org/a_syntax_for_self-tracking

27,899 entries in my log so far.

From all supplements I a/b tested, Vitamin D3 and Iron look most promising at the moment.

Please also check you b vitamins and B12. They are very hard to get and had some friends being defficient without knowing it. Most of the plant based fake meats put it in, so that saves most people. But they were health oriented and also didn't eat those.

Just B12 and sometimes D3 and omega (I'm really bad at remembering it). I eat enough tofu to get all the iron I need as a man :)

Recently I've been tracking proteins more closely but reaching recommended levels has never been an issue.

B12, Omega 3 with both (DHA and EPA), and vitamin D during the winter months.

I had some blood work done after 2 years of being vegan, largely to ensure my dietary shift hadn't caused any problems. This tested everything from cholesterol (lipid profile), iron profile, testosterone, B9 & 12, liver function, CRP and more. All markers we're either in the optimal or normal ranges. I eat reasonably well (I'm not perfect) and I try to keep processed foods - including fake meats - down to a minimum

B12 and Iron, depending on my levels of exercise also Magnesium.

definitely B12. D3 because I live in Estonia and there is not enough sun all year. I get blood work done once per year, so far all good.

Have you researched if choline supplementation is necessary?

None, but I'm only vegetarian. I get nearly all required B12 from dairy and eggs. For some reason I get >500% the daily suggested amount of iron. I'm pretty low on Vitamin D (~20%), I figured the worst case scenario is I get some mild depression during winter so no supplements either.

B12 is the most important one. I've started getting some strange "tingling" in my arms a while ago, went to the neurologist, got a prescription for a higher dosage B12 and it went away. I was supplementing B12 already, but it wasn't regular.

Some other supplements:

- D3 (complemented with a "SAD Lamp" [0] in winter, can recommend)

- Omega 3-6-9

- Magnesium + B6 (helps reduce cramps during/after heavy training sessions)

- Vitamin C + Zinc when feeling that my immune system needs a boost (after traveling/flights)

https://examine.com/ is useful to get a quick look at the aggregated/summarized research for supplements.

[0] Random link with some explanation: https://psychcentral.com/reviews/sad-lamp

B12 and B6 for vegan me. As I'm male, and live somewhere sunny, I think iron and d3 are less of an issue. B6 has been linked to anxiety, so it's mainly an experiment to see if it helps.

I thought D3 was the non-vegan one and D2 was vegan.

edit: Double-checked, D2 is always vegan, D3 can be vegan but isn't always.

My almond milk has some vitamin D, and I have nooch fairly often which is very full of B12. I don't take any pills/gummies currently.

Had never heard of or seen Nooch before. Going to try that. Great shout.

I'm taking the VEG 1 supplements (https://www.vegansociety.com/shop/veg-1-supplements) as I believe they essentially cover everything I need to worry about on that front (I hope it does).

I'm a 58 year old male, and have consumed a vegan diet for almost 40 years now. I take a women's daily multivitamin, primarily for the iron. I also take a calcium-magnesium-zinc tablet, as the multivitamin is relatively low in calcium.

B12, Magnesium, multi-vit, Omega3 (from algae), D3. I'm pescatarian (although rarely, mostly vegetarian).

I supplement D (because lots of people are deficient, vegan or not), B12, and K (helps with B12 or D absorption, forgot which)

For iron, I’d suggest switching to cast iron or carbon steel pans. They transfer iron to anything you cook in them and you absorb it. Works the same way as these little iron fishes to drop in the stew some ONGs gave (give?) to third world populations that are having iron deficiencies from not being able to afford or find a proper diet.

Those iron fishes are not actually terribly effective.

Maybe if used once rather than for every meal.

In any case, cooking every lunch and dinner on cast iron or high carbon steel pans solves the iron deficiency for us. Ask an MD to see if it’s an avenue for you too because the iron supplement pills or IVs are made out of animal blood afaik which kinda defeat the purpose of not killing animals.

There are enough people becoming b12 deficient on a diet that actually contains b12. Take a b12 supplement. Don't risk it. Fortified products are not enough. Deficiency can take years to develop.

Personally I take a vegan supplement that contains b12, iron, d3 and zink. I also eat algae oil for the omega3.

I also make sure to use fortified soy milk.

I have personally found zink to be the hardest nutrient to get enough of, at least since I got kids and started cooking more kid-friendly food.

I never had issues before starting to supplement iron despite giving blood, so I don't think it is a problematic nutrient for me. Every day I eat more than twice the RDI, but of course non-heme and together with the regular absorption inhibitors.

I am getting a bit deeper into the food industry since I started investing in a startup that plans to produce animal feed with insects. Animal feeds are prepared with specific properties, for instance, fish feed at 60% protein. The impact of different percentages of compounds is measured closely on animal well being, growth, weight… I am quite bothered that we don’t do the same for human foods. We lighlty compare real milk with plant based milk without being honest about the completely different properties of the two. I suspect the difficult conversation we need to be having would be about proteins and how to produce them sustainabily and ethically. Many plant based vegan alternatives hide from the real problem, I think.

It's funny you are worried about the impact of vegan alternatives and not, say, sugars, alcohol, overly fatty or salty foods, too much bad quality meat raised with hormones etc. It's almost like you have a bias against the vegan alternative..

Edit: ok so I was not terribly constructive with this comment, so happy to elaborate. I'm pretty tired of this argument against vegan meat. The nutritional values of vegan meat are not that bad even in the worst case in relation to everything else that is in the market - it's a non issue at best. What I believe the commenters parroting this line really want to say is that they like meat and need a reason not to eat/support the alternatives.

Arguments against eating meat are orders of magnitude heavier than against vegan meat.

Or maybe it's ok to worry about one bad thing without having to worry about all bad things.

Don't assume things about people.

He is probably also concerned about those things and many other things, like climate change, the Ukrainian War, the Sudanese Civil War, AI... you don't have to mention every little thing you are concerned about in each post.

Whataboutism: check.

Please don't bring your nonsense strawman arguments to HN. It's perfectly fine to bring up one angle about something you want to discuss without listing all the other angles every single time, that doesn't downplay them in any way. If you always insist on listing every possible problem associated with every possible discussion point you'll never get anywhere.

> overly fatty or salty food

Hard to understand one can promote cheese versus « vegan cheese » for nutritional reasons ! The vegan cheese may contain very few nutriments while the vast majority of our « real » cheeses are absolute disasters.

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but there can be nutritional benefits hiding in certain cheeses. Vitamin K2 can be tricky to find in plant sources - natto being the only one I can think of and it's tricky to find here in the UK. Roquefort has been hailed as the important part of the "French paradox" (French cardiovascular health tends to be much better than their high fat diet would suggest). I do like my fermented foods, with kimchi being my most frequently consumed.

Thanks, didn’t know the k2 can be sourced in kimchi ! Totally agree with not throwing the baby with the water. As for most poisons, just a bit has a good effect, think red wine.

Microdosing hemlock the next big thing?

I thought the benefits of red wine came from stuff like the tannin and could be gotten otherwise from non poisonous sources.

> bad quality meat raised with hormones

Luckily, these are pretty much illegal in all of European Union.

Traceability regulations and the regulators being pretty on the ball with checking (even more so since the horsemeat issue years ago) mean we don't get such garbage in our market.

"Undercover footage that appears to show extremely sick cows being smuggled into a Polish slaughterhouse and sold on with little or no veterinary inspection has raised alarm about standards in one of the EU’s largest meat exporters."

Are they really that on the ball? Sounds like nothing changed after the horsemeat scandal.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/27/secret-f...

They have lifted restrictions on feeding animal remains to livestock, in the name of competition. Those restrictions were there for good reason in the wake of the BSE crisis.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/22/eu-to-lift-its...

"the difficult conversation we need to be having would be about proteins and how to produce them sustainabily and ethically. This plant based vegan alternatives hide from the real problem, I think"

Huh? I thought the real problem are the vast ressources milk production needs and the cruel need to seperate the cow babies from their mothers so they produce more milk. And not even speaking about the meat production facalities.

Oatmilk on the other hand grows fast and does not require misstreating babies, so what is the real problem?

(apart from the fact, that many people, including me, also like milk and meat, despite alternatives?)

Meat and dairy are clearly not "vast" resource hogs in any way that currently matters, because they're cheap.

And while I personally share the belief that it's inherently cruel and should be changed, it's been obvious to me for most of my life that most people don't share those values and are not motivated by that.

But that's also a category error for the comment you're replying to, which is "is it healthy?" when you're answering "is it ethical?"

" But that's also a category error for the comment you're replying to, which is "is it healthy?" when you're answering "is it ethical?" "

I agree that those are two different categories, but the quote I used was about both:

"how to produce them sustainabily and ethically"

Mea culpa, I missed that :)

We've also been aggressively selecting traits in animals, grains, vegetables and fruits at an accelerating pace.

I'm worried that modern carrots are lacking in nutrition due to being heavily selected for size and colour.

Vegetables you can buy at the supermarket are absolutely atrocious. Every time I go home to my parents' and have home-grown tomatoes I cry.

Yup, the tomatoes available to me (UK) in supermarkets have zero flavour. I just buy them out of habit. They look great but they’re crap.

Waitrose sell some very nice tomatoes, albeit at very premium prices.

Sainsbury’s often stock UK-grown Thanet Earth tomatoes (look for “jubilee vine tomatoes” etc) which are some of the best I have found at normal prices, especially out of season.

Tesco tomatoes are almost universally bad.

About tomatoes: I think it's also because they're harvested before they're really ripe so they're harder and will handle transport better.

The difference between supermarket produce (fruit/veg) and greengrocer produce is night and day IMO.

As for carrots specifically, I did notice that the greengrocer carrots often are individually smaller and more fucked up looking than the supermarket ones, and taste more intensely.

Interestingly the greengrocer is often cheaper on some things than even the discounter supermarkets, and is MUCH cheaper if you factor in spoilage, disposal of packaging waste, etc.

Same goes for meat products - buying them from a good butchers can often work out cheaper than the supermarket (precise control over cuts, etc), far less waste, professional advice on preparation, higher quality, etc.

Hmm.

While you're obviously correct that such things matter, I don't have the impression that people sweat those things for meat or dairy even before the vegan alternatives.

I'm using substitutes where possible, but count myself as vegetarian rather than vegan, mainly due to cheese. Vegan cheese substitutes do exist, but I can't use one single thing in all places: smoked tofu can go in a sandwich but it doesn't melt right on a pizza, the ones which do melt have zero-to-minimal protein. Milk substitutes are easier, but I still keep the soy for cereal and the Hafermilch for drinks.

> We lighlty compare real milk with plant based milk without being honest about the completely different properties of the two

For sure, there are many differences between plant based and dairy milk. Besides the protein levels, for example, a large percentage of humans - between 10 and 90 percent depending on genetic background - are lactose intolerant and can't digest animal milk. Plant based milks don't have this problem - very few people can't digest oats, and for those few who do have a problem with oats, they can switch to almond, rice, soy, cashew or even peanut milk. Sure, these have less protein than dairy milk, but they more than make up for it in diversity and benefit to the environment, and it's easy to adapt your diet to get the protein elsewhere.

So when being more honest in our comparisons - a good thing, for sure - we must compare all of these things and not just the amount of protein. For me personally, being one of those lactose intolerant people, plant based milks definitely win. For another person they may not.

Mammal milk contains lactoferrin, a very powerful anti-viral/bacterial/fungal molecule that helps fighting invaders in your gut. Lactose-free milk would still work to avoid age-related digestion issues. By skipping it you are likely going to develop gut issues in a few years/decades. See the clinical section here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactoferrin

"Lactoferrin in sufficient strength acts on a wide range of human and animal viruses based on DNA and RNA genomes,[46] including the herpes simplex virus 1 and 2,[47][48][49] cytomegalovirus,[50] HIV,[48][51] hepatitis C virus,[52][53] hantaviruses, rotaviruses, poliovirus type 1,[54] human respiratory syncytial virus, murine leukemia viruses[43] and Mayaro virus.[55] Activity against COVID-19 has been speculated but not proven"

If that's something you feel that you need, you can get it as a supplement. Or also from cow tears, apparently.

Very few vegans know about it, even fewer supplement it.

The amount of sugars and carbs in fruit and veggies has risen a lot due to selection. The amount of sugar in products like cookies, yogurt, bread, sauces, sodas has been skyrocketing for decades. These changes often go unnoticed.

Meanwhile vegan, vegetarian and healthy products often clustered together, attract a health conscious crowd and get scrutinized a lot. For example alternative milks have to jump through hoops to prove that they aren't less healthy than milk.

> Many plant based vegan alternatives hide from the real problem, I think

If anything, it's the opposite.

I don't personally know any vegetarian or vegan who thinks of alternatives as some kind of healthy choice by default. Many of them also don't consider cow's milk to be inherently healthy, but that's neither here nor there.

Those who care about eating healthy make sure that non-healthy foods, animal product alternatives or otherwise, are not the only thing they consume. They get their protein (and other macro and micronutrients) from relevant plant-based sources or supplementation. The latter is especially common for gym-goers. I'd hope people who do consume meat and dairy and care about their health also don't assume that animal product consumption is equatable to a healthy holistic diet by default.

Vegans are usually aware of nutritional values and know how to have a healthy diet without meat, it may include supplementation (vitamin B12 in particular). Probably better than the average meat eater who doesn't care.

Remember that humans are omnivores, we are less picky eaters than most animals.

B12 is often added to the like of oat milk directly.

> We lighlty compare real milk with plant based milk without being honest about the completely different properties of the two.

We’re talking about individual products. People who just vegan milk do so because they switched their diet (and this step requires you to think about proportions or else).

Correlation is not causation. As a European myself here is another correlation that probably has a lot more to do with the fact that people in Europe are not buying as much high quality food:

After the politicians printed so much money in order to pay for COVID costs, general inflation has accumulated to 18% or so, split in two years of 8-9%.

Basic food after Ukraine disruption of cereal and oils and increment in energy prices went up over 30%.

The fact that buying buying basic food is 30% more expensive I believe has a lot more to do with people looking for alternatives, specially poor people that could not pay the higher prices anymore.

> Correlation is not causation. As a European myself here is another correlation that probably has a lot more to do with the fact that people in Europe are not buying as much high quality food […] After the politicians printed so much money in order to pay for COVID costs, general inflation has accumulated to 18% or so, split in two years of 8-9%.

It's a nice theory and it would be very believable, if the trend to eat less meat would be a recent change. However per capita meat consumption has been dropping in Europe for 15 years straight. The biggest decrease was from 2015-2020 which was a 0% inflation period.

Could you share the data for this please?

Here is the data for Austria where I live. I'm not sure how to find representative numbers across the EU: https://www.academia-superior.at/seit-2000-ist-der-jaehrlich...

2015-2020 was zero interest rate period not zero inflation. Housing went up 14%

https://www.in2013dollars.com/Housing/price-inflation/2015-t...

You are linking to US data. However you are right that the inflation in Europe was not 0%, but it was well below the 2% target rate. The average inflation rate over that time period is around 1.2%.

0% inflation isn’t true at all

Yes, depends on the country. But between 2015 and 2020 the average inflation was 1.2%.

Milk was one of the hardest things for me to replace, but a few years ago a brand of pea-based milk replacement was released that acts as an excellent substitute for me (for cooking and in coffee). Now, the last thing I'm missing is eggs and to a smaller extent cheese. There _are_ some decent cheese replacements out there, but none quite perfect, and I haven't found anything even close with eggs. But seeing these things only get better over the years, at a pretty rapid pace, makes me confident that they're coming.

I have yet to find an unprocessed food as tasty and nutritious as eggs that I can prepare in under two minutes on the stove.

Sure, when you are priced out of meat and fish, you are turning to vegan options. I expect a similar headline in a few years (from bugbasednews):

"Vegan Food Sales Drop in Europe as Insect Versions Hit Record Hight"

In Europe -- at least in Czechia and Germany, where I've spent some time recently -- Vegan options are often higher-priced than the foods they're substituting for. Vegan cheese is more expensive, often considerably more expensive, than regular cheese from a deli or from Lidl. Vegan cafes, which have noticeably grown in popularity, are no less expensive than regular cafes.

...There are also a lot of "Loving Hut" restaurants in the big cities of Czechia and Germany. These are run by a vegan cult who would doubtless frown upon the eating of insects. The food they offer is inexpensive, but no cheaper than, e.g., Burger King.

Dairy is heavily subsidized in the EU. When studying abroad in Canada I was shocked at dairy prices.

One thing I noticed recently is that these vegan alternatives are actually cheaper than quality meat options.

Even branded, imported, US grown alternative burgers are cheaper in the super market than a proper organic meat burger from the area.

Speaking from Germany, the perceived price offset between vegan options it’s more or less 10-15%.

I would not state that is a cult ‘cause there’s a lot of people with genuine good intentions; but I would not believe 100% in all vegan options since the traceability regulations are not clear and those certification bodies lacks certain transparency regarding of its criterias versus government regulations.

No, I mean the Loving Hut chain is actually run by a cult: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Hai

In Europe, it's pretty low-key, but still. In Asia, they have TVs in their restaurants that show their religious ceremonies on a loop, and the restaurants have a more temple-like interior décor.

But the vegan products tend to be more expensive.

Why vegan though and not just vegetarian? It is far less complicated and has less dogma and drama than vegan.

I'm expecting the CRON (calorie restriction optimal nutrition) diet to become popular. People these days seem need to one-up or shock everyone, and vegan will be seen as too soft.

Anecdotally I would say that oat based milk is taking over the world (probably because it is sweeter). But it feels to me like Veganism and Vegetarianism are still quite niche.

Quite niche, or quiche.

Interestingly, I don't like most oat milks because they're so sweet.

I also learned that while they almost always say they're unsweetened, that's kinda... not wrong, but misleading, as most oat milks use a production process that creates sugar.

There are no-sugar or almost-no-sugar oat milks that don't do this, but they're rare.

Rare? Recently I, again, bought one of those by accident. At least in Germany and the Netherlands, it's available in most stores that also carry the sweetened ones and I find it easy to overlook the word ungesüßt/ongezoet on an otherwise identical package.

Weird anecdote, in my circle, everyone hates vegan “meat” yet everybody is also reducing meat consumption.

I don't think it's super weird. I'm lowering my meat consumption by eating more non-meat, and I'm not particularly interested in things that try to fake being meat, when I do eat I prefer meat, not something pretending to be meat. Lots of vegan friends in my circle also complains about companies doing fake meat instead of doing better products not trying to imitate meat.

IMO it's a lost market. An actual vegan, or generally someone that cares about their diet and products they use deeply, doesn't need any food innovations. What we/they need is access to affordable quality products to make our own meals with.

There is no real market here except you are a innovative farmer.

I’m in the same boat when it comes to meat (real or fake), but I’m not even thinking about giving up milk or dairy products, they’re one of the things I still value when it comes to food.

So they're increasing the amount of whole plant-based food they're eating?

I moved to France last year and I'm pretty sure I eat less meat. Between the good veggies and fruits and the fantastic cheeses there is a lot of stuff that's just better to my palate than meat.

Plenty to improve in food production, sure, but the current move towards hyper processed foods is dumb.

They can take the animal meat (and eggs, and dairy products) from my cold dead hands..

Relax, no one is really considering meat foods to go away in the next 100 years or so.

It's all about the access to the vegetarian and vegan foods to those who want it, and it happens to become more popular, so market adapts.

But you present it like someone tries to take your food.

Maybe not with you. But in most modern cities they are actively campaigning against meat, they are mostly using the moral card: you are destroying the planet. How fun.

It isn't a 0 or 1, prob good for you health wise and for the planet to eat a little less meat and a bit more veg. Just look at the data out there.

This last year I am really decreasing how much meat I eat (ill never give it up although I am excited about ground cricket meat and trying that). I am doing it for my health, costs, and because its good for the planet long term.

Data is sort of wildcard argument. Doesn't has any value if you don't point to specific.

Cashew cheese really is not better for the planet the local organic milk cheese.

In north of Holland there huge patches of land only cow can grace the land and nothing else grows, and there is an abundance of the water. Yet everyone complains about milk and meat taking too much wayer, and that growing plants would be more efficient.

It all depends, you cant just say "data".

Same with health. You really can't claim fried soya or pea protein is healthier then ground beef from a cow that spends his summers outside.

Sure, but buying a locally raised cow that is fed on local farmland is a lot better for the environment than steak from Argentina most of the time. The data around that is pretty solid.

I don't think cashew cheese grows in nature, i would never consider it vegetables and I am not advocating for processed foods. Merely stating that cutting down on how much meat you eat and eating more veg is better for your health and the planet. Well backed by data.

Well backed by data? What does that mean.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

You missed the conclusion step

Sorry bit confused, you asked what data was and I sent you a big explanation? Sorry I am a bit literal at times, what are you requesting that you can't find on Google?

Lol, at any rate you are saying a bunch of statements that seem pretty shaky, saying they are backed by data, and not linking any sources. I guess the data is in another dimension or something.

For sure :)

what destroys the planet is not meat or non-meat. Its mass production of [insert food here]. I have fun listening the vegan arguments until they are shown how their over-consumption of avocados or soy-based foods has devastating or exploiting effects on ecosystems and people.

But people (including you it seems) don't really understand the scale at which meat production harm the environment compared to vegetables. Yes, every mass production have problems, but with meat you need multiple times the amount of everything, because you first need to produce the food the cow or whatever eats, and then the meat production.

For instance, it's multiple times less co2 impact for me eating an avocado here in Norway that's been shipped half the globe around from south america, compared to eating meat from the local farm. The scales are just so incredibly different in production (vs transportation) that it's not to "gotcha" many believe to claim that something imported is automatically bad.

You can't honestly claim buying avacado's is better for the planet, it's wreaked social & ecological havoc in multiple south American countries with dried up rivers, gangs and lack of diversification of the income of a country.

Next to that it's not always Plants vs meats. In many places only cattle can graze but not much of value can grow.

The CO2 issue is really a terrible comparison. Everything cows put out has been put in from the air. The airplanes are excreting new/old CO2 taken from fossil fuels. Some claim cows are still worse because of methane, but they forget to mention methane only had 12 years lifespan in the atmosphere.

> it's wreaked social & ecological havoc in multiple south American countries with dried up rivers, gangs and lack of diversification of the income of a country.

The produce to feed the cattle is often detrimental to the environment too. They're not cutting down rain forests in Brazil to produce soy for meat substitutes but rather for produce to feed animals.

But it's absolutely important to eat local and if you're gonna eat meat ensure that the animal was fed local produce too.

You’d really rather have them making drugs than avocados?

The question is about scales (or proportions) -- yes, most mass produced foods, (e.g. avocados) wreaked havoc, but the scope meat production does that might be way larger.

> or soy-based foods

The vast majority of soy production, particularly the environmentally destructive production that’s converting rainforests in South America into farmland, is for animal feed, not human consumption: https://ourworldindata.org/soy

Bold of you to assume I'm not growing my own food.

I live in a quite progressive modern city (in central Europe though) and at least here it can't be very widespread as I've never noticed anything like that.

I've got a few friends who are vegan but it's mostly me doing the questioning as I'm curious about developments in that field (and agtech)

Campaigning (for anything) is good, I see nothing wrong about it.

Active people will (and should) win, that's the law of nature.

We’re only a few disasters away from the government deciding that the climate crisis requires drastic measures, including a severe rationing of meat and other products considered harmful to the environment. It’s clear from the rhetoric that this is the direction we are moving in, and it’s also clear that a great percentage of the population will comply and even celebrate such restrictions.

Maybe it’s time we take action to reduce the severity of the crisis before we end up in the scenario you describe.

Institutional science is politics. It’s no longer possible to systemically create the kind of feedback loop necessary to take any kind of intelligent action, nor is there political will. It’s far more politically expedient in the near term for the powers that be to say that whatever measures they’ve implemented do in fact work and then let the networked tribe punish anyone who dissents.

I can’t walk about in public wearing a mask for any length of time without getting harassed, despite the continued prevalence of COVID and the worsening picture regarding long term consequences. I have trouble believing “it’s clear” that a great percentage of the population will comply, I think the handling of the early lockdowns has done for that. It seems more clear to me that governments will struggle to get compliance for any such measures at scale, based on attitudes since.

Where do you live? I walk around with a mask in the UK with zero issues, same with my partner and family.

Well, if we're talking about climate change action items, then it actually makes sense to me, although I cannot find any numbers on how effective it is (comparing, to, say, better insulation of house windows).

By the way, "the government deciding" sounds like it's totally detached from public wish. But in democratic countries public has a lot of influence on the government, way more than popular meme says (speaking as an emigrant from autocratic regime), it just public is not exercising their right (or really trust the government). So it's actually "people are going to decide".

100 years is a long time, if they're not seriously considering it, they should.

That timeline is long enough to also include the serious possibility of basically any weird currently-just-Sci-Fi option: https://youtu.be/Z_ZGq8Tah0k

If you could remove meat from the supply chain and be the main supplier for the alternative, why wouldn’t you choose to profit from that?

The upside for the politicians and suppliers seems too astronomical not to be at least thinking about it.

If you don’t buy them from very traditional read very expensive producers it is also very unnatural. Animals are simply used as self replacing bio reactors that are fed the cheapest inputs like grain and animal remains. Even the vitamin d in milk is mostly there because you just supplement the animals. I visit a small farm on vacation a few times a year and they have a bunch of chicken running around. I have no qualms eating their eggs, they are not even slaughtered in most cases as the fox eats them first. They also have a dozen cows on their meadow. But let’s not pretend that is where most animal products come from.

In many parts of Europe buying from the traditional local style of producer is the cheaper way to buy animal products.

Supermarket meats often contain a fair bit of water weight IME.

> In many parts of Europe buying from the traditional local style of producer is the cheaper way to buy animal products.

Burden of proof here

So in Ireland, supermarket meat is cheap, but usually higher in fat and "wetter". Still decent meat, but you are paying for water IME.

At the butcher I pay only slightly more, I know exactly which farm it came from, I know where it was slaughtered and processed, and I can ask for specific cuts/amounts, so less wastage.

Its also much higher quality and not as "wet", so its much nicer to cook with (and I'm not paying for water weight).

I've saved a metric shitload on my monthly food shopping by using the butchers and greengrocers in my area instead of the supermarkets.

Same. No-one has yet been able to explain why I should exchange a well-functioning animal-based diet into a vegan one where I need to supplement by default to fulfill human needs. I have respect for those who do it on the basis of animal compassion, but claiming healthiness is obviously a false statement.

Can't speak for you personally, but the average human today has an unhealthy diet since well before the recent popularity surge of vegan-by-choice in the west, so I don't accept "well-functioning animal-based diet" as a general premise even if you personally can make it work.

If you have a bad diet and you remove a significant source of protein and other nutrients from it, how is it a better diet?

I believe the name for what you're doing there is "begging the question".

Vegan diets generally have protein and other nutrients.

to my original point:

> why I should exchange a well-functioning animal-based diet into a vegan one where I need to supplement by default to fulfill human needs

applies also in the protein domain, seeing how vegan protein sources lack or have minimal concentrations of some essential amino acids, for instance

That issue basically only happens if you eat exactly one plant, not if you eat at least two, because different plants miss different amino acids and most protein rich plants have most amino acids and the differences overlap nicely.

This is so easy you're probably doing it already even as a meat eater: Mexican chilli with rice? Beans and rice compensate for each other's weaknesses. Peanut butter on bread? Peanuts and wheat cover each other.

There are some things that are technically complete by themselves, but mycoprotein (Quorn) which I think is complete, isn't available for purchase everywhere.

Conversely if you do single-foodsource-diet with meat, you can also get problems, most famously protein poisoning and scurvy.

https://www.climateofourfuture.org/exploring-the-potential-r...

https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/2022/07/80-of-cow-a...

Hang on, I think you’re muddying the waters here. A vegan diet is purely done for animal compassion. A vegan diet, a plant-based diet and even whole food plant-based diet are different diets.

Veganism is a lifestyle based around the notion of reducing as much harm to animals a feasibly possible. No one claims that a vegan diet is centred around health. After all, you could be vegan and eat nothing but Oreo’s and Dorito’s.

Interesting, I notice that dairy is indeed very unpopular here in Spain and milk from other sources is rising greatly. Like soy and oat milk.

I don't really like dairy at all so I'm not really interested in vegan alternatives either.

But meat is still very big on the map and vegan/vegetarian options are nowehere as common as they are in the Netherlands.

There's no doubt there are more vegans and vegan alternatives, but this does not seem like an unbiased news source to paint an accurate picture of what's actually going on. There are lots of factors at play, including the economy, energy prices and general price increases on food, or really almost everything.

The market for those « alternatives » can be seen as a helper to change habits but not as a nutrition target. I’m an absolute sausage addict and some vegetal ersatz helps me when I crave for a barbecue, meanwhile taking new recipes habits that are nutritious enough for usual meals.

I wish it was more popular in Asia. Here everyone is crazy about meat, fish, and seafood. As vegetarian it's hard to go to a random place and find even one single non-plain (e.g. not pure rice) dish. The vegan choice outside vegetarian restaurants is pretty limited.

Where in Asia do you live? Just curious more than anything.

I went to Japan last year and it was rough haha. I'm vegetarian so it was a little better.

I spent a lot of time navigating to the sparse vegan/vegetarian restaurants which were overall mediocre. I subsisted on Starbucks veggie sandwiches, protein bars and 7-11 items.

I would probably go to more Indian restaurants if I did it again, but I try to keep high-protein and it makes things more complicated. I would also relax a little bit on the dashi and have some non-meat Soba.

Should be noted the source of this information, Good Food Institute Europe, was caught retaliating and spreading a culture of fear among dissenting forces in the organization. [1]

Whether you trust data from an organization that crushes dissent through illegal retaliation is up to you.

[1] https://animalcharityevaluators.org/blog/changes-to-recommen...

...and I was forced to switch to a carnivore diet for elimination purposes as some veggies were wreaking havoc on my body. Not sure getting healthier will be even an option in a few years.

Same, for the same reason, for 36 months now, and I've gotten much healthier according to the lab results and my subjective quality of life.

You 2 are the enlightened few...

You are among the few that are enlightened ...

My guess is that animal meat and milk sales dropped because of price increases, and vegans are usually rich and upper-middle class people that are not that price sensitive.

Just be aware which company you will give the money, the will optimize, it will have long term impact.

Weird way to say people can't afford animal-based products because of inflation and straight out stupid (current & upcoming) EU regulations, but yeah it's definitely 'the vegan trend', lmao.

This is great news. Save the animals!

I have replaced all of my milk consumption with Malk, now with Vitamin R

Yeah, veganism, not inflation. Sure.

Animal milk outside of not being ethically sourced, could really be a better product if it came lactose free and fortified with Vitamin D by default.

Nothing wrong with lactose, even with intolerance it's just unpleasant not unhealthy.

It would be good if vit d is in many more things but don't understand why it's milks job.

Good grass fed butter has some vitamine d.

But most natural food sources will have limited vit d.

As someone who actually enjoys the taste of milk and does not consider it a white liquid of unimportant taste to be poured over or into something other: No. Lactose free milk certainly hasn't the better taste and isn't the better product except for the lactose intolerant.

You didn't read my comment correctly, didn't say it tastes better. It's just that lactose free being the exception and not the norm prevents lots of people from enjoying it. I don't have intolerance, it's quite rare in Europe. But it's a problem for lots of the world population, which is why I believe lactose free should be more present.

the poor people in Europe will be screwed, as usual, if these fake meat companies continue to push their agenda… just look at the electric car crap.

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