Can you tl;dw the most compelling arguments?
- hormones from the cows and their supplements is in the milk and impacts our hormone system in negative ways
- antibiotics used excessively in cows are in the milk and have negative affects on an individual level and might also contribute to the bacteria antibiotic arms race
- saturated fats are generally bad and should be minimized in the human diet. Milk is full of them and they are direct causes of heart disease and other top killer health issues for people
- sugar argument similar to saturated fats but for diabetes
- milk production is generally inhumane in its treatment of animals and it’s on a pretty big scale
Living a life of generally avoiding processed foods and sugar as well as emphasizing lean meats/protein and vegetables is probably the best thing any of us can do for ourselves whatever that combination may look like for an individual.
Anyone who makes a claim that anything specific is beneficial is almost certainly talking out of their ass or selling a product.
Recall the food pyramid, the greatest corporate pseudoscience scam ever pulled. There was also a generation that was told "butter is bad for your health".
"- hormones from the cows and their supplements is in the milk and impacts our hormone system in negative ways
- antibiotics used excessively in cows are in the milk and have negative affects on an individual level and might also contribute to the bacteria antibiotic arms race
- saturated fats are generally bad and should be minimized in the human diet. Milk is full of them and they are direct causes of heart disease and other top killer health issues for people"
None of this is supported by evidence, picking the last argument as an example:
> Multiple reviews of the evidence have demonstrated that a recommendation to limit consumption of saturated fats to no more than 10% of total calories is not supported by rigorous scientific studies. Importantly, neither this guideline, nor that for replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats, considers the central issue of the health effects of differing food sources of these fats. The 2020 DGAC review that recommends continuing these recommendations has, in our view, not met the standard of “the preponderance of the evidence” for this decision."
Many of the diet studies, as poor as they are, that show beneficial changes due to diet almost always involve fat loss from baseline. Whatever diet can satisfy you and keep the weight down appears to be the local optimum.
Only 40% of consumers in UK [0] know that a cow has to give a birth to a calf to be able to give milk. Male calves are usually immediately killed these days, or sold for meat in a few months (together with 25?% of female calves). In dairy industry calves are removed from their mothers the day they're born (only 27% of consumers know this), in beef industry they're usually kept together.
The saddest story I've seen is a mother cow who gave birth to two calves. Because she was not first-time mother, she prepared. One calf was immediately taken away, the other she managed to hide somewhere in the fields. Of course when the farmer found about it (insufficient milk output), he located the calf and took it away. I can't find it, but here is a similar story. [1]
All dairy cows are forcibly impregnated every year, are spent after 5-6 years to the point where they often can no more walk [2], and instead of a normal life which would be 20-48? years (upper number is the record) they're taken to the slaughterhouse [3].
> humane conditions for the cows
That doesn't exist, not even on small local farms. Humane? It's an oxymoron.
[0] https://plantbasednews.org/culture/ethics/brits-willing-go-v...
[1] https://www.trendcentral.com/mother-cow-hides-calf/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN7SGGoCNI - Dairy is scary!
There are farms like this [0] which are certainly humane. And the farms suggested by Dr Temple Grandin also qualify as such, although I'm not aware of any farm actually implementing her methods.
Any kind of slaughter is inhumane when there's no NEED to eat meat. The clean process you may have seen in TV is different from reality (see recent CO2 chambers relevations [0]).
Taking away mother's young and taking milk mother produces for her (him is killed usually immediatelly) is inhumane. [1]
Etc.
I've seen Dr Temple Grandin's "Glass Walls" ... she is not the right person for the job of representing "humane animal treatment." Yes, she says what you want to hear. But not the right person for the animals.
Sure. That's an argument for reformation though.
> Any kind of slaughter is inhumane when there's no NEED to eat meat.
That simply isn't true. Humane simply means inflicting as little suffering as possible. That's it.
> The clean process you may have seen in TV is different from reality
I'm well versed. I've been arguing against veganism for the last few years.
> I've seen Dr Temple Grandin's "Glass Walls" ... she is not the right person for the job of representing "humane animal treatment." Yes, she says what you want to hear. But not the right person for the animals.
She is very well respected in her field and her work is solid. If it makes things better for animals, why resist it?
https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/pesticides/
"While some plant foods may be contaminated, animal food intake is the biggest source of certain pesticide exposure for both adults and children. Pesticides, as well as antibiotics, manure, pus cells, cholesterol, and saturated fat have all been found in milk. Factory farmed fish have higher levels of DDT and other banned pesticides than wild-caught fish, and even fish oil supplements may be contaminated with PCBs and insecticides. Many pesticides take a long time to degrade – the U.S. made arsenic-based pesticides illegal years ago, but they still persist in the soil. Similarly, though DDT was banned in the U.S. for agricultural use in 1972, people may still be exposed to the pesticide through contaminated dairy products and meat."
"Overall, those eating plant-based diets have been found to have a lower levels of pesticides than omnivores. Rinsing produce in a salt water solution may be an effective way to reduce pesticide residues on produce."
Eating red meat has the same problem I suppose.
All those "manly" men behind their BBQs are slowly turning into women.
the level on HN really dropped those last years.
Of course, that's why a human mother's milk is 50-60% saturated fat, right? Saturated fat consumption grams per capita has basically remained steady for the last 120 years or risen slightly, even 20 years before heart disease started to surge right around the time Crisco in the 1920s was introduced into the food supply.
Let's look at the data since 1900. We were told to replace saturated fat with polyunsaturated. Look let's see how that turned out:
https://www.cureamd.org/dr-knobbe-presents-macular-degenerat...
Wow, would you look at that rise in heart disease deaths. Totally running in lock step with saturated fat consumption wasn't it? Whoops, nope!
About 30 years out of date, based on corrupt fraudulent industry "research", completely ignoring recent studies over the past 20 years which have debunked all of that. We need saturated fat. It is essential. Animal fats are loaded with fat soluble vitamins you won't get from industrial seed oil. Vegetable oils are toxic rancid garbage loaded with Omega-6 and 100% deficient in fat soluble nutrients.
Both of those animals have a fermentation based digestive system so they can digest fiber that humans can't.
I'll take the diet and strength of a wolf or bear, thanks.
Some humans still have the ability, but most have lost it. It depends on you microbiome. But we still don't have to consume meat, not in this day and age, and with our supermarkets and online recipes.
> I'll take the diet and strength of a wolf
"Wolves are known to scavenge and consume dead or rotten meat when they come across it. Wolves have a remarkable ability to tolerate and digest decaying flesh. Scavenging on carcasses can be an important source of food for wolves, especially during times when hunting is challenging or prey is scarce."
I'd like to see it ... please find some friends, and without weapons hunt and with your teeth and nails take down an elk or something. Then eat it raw.
And if you're not successfull, find some carcass and enjoy ! Remember to start from the anus, where it's easier to tear.
Cannot edit. I was thinking of insoluble fiber, but cannot find the source.
We can digest soluble fiber. Insoluble fiber we cannot digest, but we need it anyway.
This is a really silly comparison, to compare humans to animals with different genetics, digestion traits and hormones. Male gorillas have MASSIVE amounts of testosterone and minimal myostatin. Their body doesn’t break down muscle. Humans are not like this at all, and if you disagree then please show me a vegetarian body builder, or even vegetarian elite strength athletes.
"Meat is definitely not the secret to bodybuilding,” Bill Pearl later said.
https://www.thebarbell.com/vegan-bodybuilder/#:~:text=Jehina....
https://www.adaptnetwork.com/veganadventurist/8-most-success...
https://ultra-x.co/which-ultra-runners-are-plant-based-or-ve...
And ultra-running is much more cool than body building ;p
But if you insist.
https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=vegan%20bodybuilders
https://images.google.com/search?q=vegan+bodybuilder&tbm=isc...
Or what a shark eats?
This argument is absurd.