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> After all, even I know nutrition isn't found in steaks, fish tacos...glasses of milk

This statement has no factual basis. Please cite a source for this claim.

> there is no shortage of protein in a proper plant based diet.

This is probably true, but I would question whether most vegans get enough protein. Have you tracked your nutritional macros? What do your numbers look like?

> Many are presumably ignorant alltogether.

You extrapolated your take away from a single encounter during which you did not engage the doctor about her opinions to cover the entire medical profession?

It's really pretty easy to get enough protein.

The typical American consumes 50-100% more protein than the recommended intake, so most of us are working from an incorrect baseline when trying to come up with an intuitive idea of how much protein is needed. And the animal products that vegans don't eat aren't just a big gap in the grocery budget; they need to be replaced with other foodstuffs. Despite common stereotypes that's typically not going to mean mountains of rabbit food because that's a horrendously expensive way to get your calories and it's not very filling either. More likely you'll see staple products like legumes, and those also tend to be relatively high in protein.

edit: Curious why the downvote. If someone feels I'm giving really bad nutritional advice here, then it would be MUCH better to provide a response that explains where I'm wrong. A downvote and no reply is pretty useless in this situation; it lets me know someone disagrees but otherwise does everyone else a huge disservice by allowing the bad information to remain unchallenged.

> The typical American consumes 50-100% more protein than the recommended intake

Show me the data. Most people I see are eating carb heavy diets and not much protein. Until you track your macros over tme, you have no idea if you're eating enough protein each day

Just wanted to point out here that I'm talking population statistics and you're talking anecdotes. As they say, the plural of anecdotes is not data.

That said, if you'd like some data how about the CDC? http://nchstats.com/2010/03/03/adults’-daily-protein-intake-...

Interesting. Protein requirements will obviously vary based on size and weight, but I agree it's definitely possible to hit those numbers on a vegan diet.

Per the guidelines:

|Resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

That's a guideline I disagree with pretty strongly. For my part, I'd say downvoting usually doesn't do any good. There's not much that's edifying to communicating to someone that you don't like what they said. But there's a lot of value in communicating to someone why you don't like what they said.

The downvote's a feature that really needs to be removed from sites like HN. Keep the upvote; that does something constructive. But the downvote has an almost strictly adverse impact on the quality of discourse, and for that reason alone I'm more than happy to use opportunities to encourage people to use their talking words.

What's wrong with bacon, cheese omelettes and milk? Of course there is nutrition found in all of those. I primarily eat a protein/fat based diet and survive on bacon and eggs.

It causes unnecessary suffering, enslavement and murder of tens of billions of animals, which are all intelligent living beings with feelings and wills to live; it's simply unethical to be cruel and violent to animals. [1][8]

Meat and dairy is filled with junk [2]. Animal protein contributes to the acceleration of osteoporosis [3]. Cutting it out will lower your chance of disease [4]. Humans are herbivores [5].

Modern industrial animal agriculture is a major cause of global warming [6]. Cattle consume 16 times more grain than they produce as meat [7]. The U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat [9].

So, there is plenty wrong with eating the carcass of an animal mutilated in horrific ways. For me, it simply has to do with non-violence.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK_KEQb_YVA

2. http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/12.07/11-dairy.html

3. http://pcrm.org/search/?cid=1010

4. http://www.ornishspectrum.com/wp-content/uploads/A-Very-Low-...

5. http://www.peta.org/living/food/natural-human-diet/

6. http://ecowatch.com/2013/01/21/factory-farming-global-warmin...

7. https://books.google.com/books?id=ishlcmQuatoC&pg=PA293&lpg=...

8. http://modernfarmer.com/2014/03/pigheaded-smart-swine/

9. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-80...

We treat a lot of animals badly, but uh. We mutilate live and dead plants; that seems on par to me with mutilating dead animals. What's horrific about it?

And that peta page is stupid.

Unrelated: how do you define will to live?

It's absolutely insipid to think that plants are akin to animals in any way. Plants are insentient and void of central nervous systems, lungs, hearts, kidneys, intestines, blood, ears, and anuses.

What if we turned this around?

"It's absolutely insipid to think that plants are different to animals in any way. Plants are alive, and contain cells and circulatory systems. They grow, consume food, respire and reproduce."

It's obvious from the above that selecting a set of characteristics and asserting that they render a comparison 'insipid' doesn't really supply any information or make a coherent point.

> What if we turned this around?

Then you would be making just as an asinine and ignorant statement which is factually correct, but grossly misrepresents the truth - that there is a distinct difference between plants and animals, but not so much between human and non-human animals.

http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious...

Then you would be making just as an asinine and ignorant statement which is factually correct, but grossly misrepresents the truth

Yes, I would be – exactly the same as the one you made previously.

Animals and humans are alike. Animals and plants are also alike. Your argument therefore appears to be one of scale – plants are sufficiently different, in your opinion, that eating them is not mutilation. I'm of the opinion that animals are sufficiently different from humans that eating them is not mutilation. You see the problem?

Corpses are insentient and void of working central nervous systems, lungs, hearts, etc.

You didn't really answer either of my questions. What is 'horrific' about chopping up a dead animal, and what is a will to live?

Actually, plants have analogs to neurotransmitters and other similar chemicals to sense their environment. I'm not saying you're eating Groot's cousin, but I would caution you not to assert that plants are not aware of their environment.

it's simply unethical to be cruel and violent to animals

That's an assertion of your personal view, and not at all objective.

Meat and dairy is filled with junk

The US has a problem with food quality – this issue is orthogonal to the health benefits of various foods. You are always free to eat organic.

Animal protein contributes to the acceleration of osteoporosis

That's a controversial conclusion at best, and it's supported by a paper backed by a vegan lobbying organisation – not a problem in itself, but sufficient to require skepticism.

Cutting it out will lower your chance of disease

That statement is not supported by the research you supplied.

Humans are herbivores

We'll set aside the obvious problems with linking to PETA as reference. The description of humans as 'herbivores' is objectively untrue, given that at least 95% of humans worldwide are omnivorous.

Modern industrial animal agriculture is a major cause of global warming [6]. Cattle consume 16 times more grain than they produce as meat [7]. The U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat [9].

No argument there. Eating meat is pretty clearly bad for the environment. That's arguably a separate issue.

You're not really succeeded in supplying much in the way of convincing arguments, and you've managed to be rude in the process.

>at least 95% of humans worldwide are omnivorous.

That even sounds like a pretty conservative figure to me. Lacto-ovo vegetarians are a class of omnivore, too, and I have a really hard time believing anything within an order of magnitude of 5% of humans are strict vegetarians.

> That's an assertion of your personal view, and not at all objective.

Why is it always the responsibility, throughout history, of a vocal minority to convince others that violence against a group is wrong? No, empathy isn't my personal view, it is shared by any rational and sane person, who will agree animals have an inherent right to be free of pain and suffering. Or do you dare assert humans have an exclusive monopoly on freedom?

> You are always free to eat organic.

Good grief. Organic poison is still poison. Please see this page for many cited examples of health benefits from a vegan diet, and risks of a non-vegan one: http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/vegans/

> it's supported by a paper backed by a vegan lobbying organisation

Just as claims that milk, cheese, egg and meat products are necessary are lobbied by animal agriculture organizations.

http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/11/lets-ask-marion-nestle-c...

any rational and sane person, who will agree animals have an inherent right to be free of pain and suffering

If that is the case, then such a view can obviously not require vegetarianism or veganism. Unless you are claiming that 'any rational and sane person' is a vegetarian or vegan – a dubious claim.

I'm a big fan of ethical treatment of animals used for food production. It's just that my ethical standards apparently differ from yours. That doesn't make them invalid.

Organic poison is still poison.

Your point was specifically about produce being 'filled with junk' – in this case, hormones. That's the point I was disputing.

I don't disagree that vegan diets have the potential to be healthy. Your argument commits the typical fallacy of drawing unwarranted conclusions, however; vegan diets tend to be healthier compared to average omnivorous diets, but this is typically due to reduced consumption of saturated fats, increased consumption of dietary fibre and so on. Veganism is not a prerequisite for improving one's diet.

Just as claims that milk, cheese, egg and meat products are necessary are lobbied by animal agriculture organizations.

Yes, and I don't agree with those either. It's obvious that it's possible to be vegan. The difference is that I didn't use those studies in defence of my point; you did.

> I'm a big fan of ethical treatment of animals used for food production.

This is an utter logical fallacy. There is no such thing as ethical treatment of animals used for food production, just as there is no such thing as ethical slaughter, ethical rape, or happy and humane slavery. No commodification of another body is ethical, nor should be tolerated.

You may be interested to learn that Heinrich Himmler, the Gestapo commander responsible for deaths of many people, ordered as a "more humane means" of execution the use of poison gas in specially constructed chambers disguised as shower rooms.

>No commodification of another body is ethical, nor should be tolerated.

Why?

This is an utter logical fallacy. There is no such thing as ethical treatment of animals used for food production, just as there is no such thing as ethical slaughter, ethical rape, or happy and humane slavery. No commodification of another body is ethical, nor should be tolerated

It's not a fallacy - we just don't agree on ethical boundaries. I'm completely comfortable, from an ethical standpoint, with animals being used for food production. Clearly that's a popular view globally.

You may be interested to learn that Heinrich Himmler, the Gestapo commander responsible for deaths of many people, ordered as a "more humane means" of execution the use of poison gas in specially constructed chambers disguised as shower rooms.

That's a cliché reductio ad Hitlerum. I'm not sure what your point is, aside from "bad people can do bad things*.

I agree with most points but [5] that humans are herbivores seems a little dubious. If most eat meat, even though it typically costs more than veg, doesn't that make us omnivores pretty much by definition?

rape

Ummm, maybe I've seen different feedlot videos than you have?

Maybe the parent was referring to artificial insemination...?

Perhaps, but of words to water down into meaninglessness, I think "rape" is a poor choice. We ought not diminish the experiences of actual rape victims. If humans have determined that it's ethical to consume the flesh of an animal, that would seem to imply it's also ethical to perform a veterinary procedure that causes pregnancy on that same animal.

I don't agree with the term choice here, but we haven't determined that it is ethical to consume meat.

Generally meat eaters just do it without considering ethics, mmm tasty.

Is this bad or good? Dunno. Such philosophy.

How else would you describe the practice of forcing animals to be repeatedly and forcibly impregnated against their wills with long steel devices that shoot semen into their vaginas for the entirety of their insufferable lives?

"Rape" implies a lack of consent, when there could have been consent. Animals are unable to give consent, so the idea of "rape" is nonsensical.

What is nonsensical is a definition of consent that denies that animals are able to give it. You know how when you try to do stuff to them, and they run away or attack you or whatever? It's not a subtle message they're sending. At least in most cases.

Of course, it's probably important to admit that 95% of Western civilization (and maybe all civilization; and maybe all of humanity) agrees with your perspective on this topic, to my dismay.

Edit: although when you consider all relevant issues about the morality of how humans use animals, the ethics of forcefully inseminating them come pretty low on the list, imo.

I've raised free range chickens on my small personal farm for years and let me assure you, they don't need to any human intervention to be inspired to procreate.

If anyone is committing rape on my farm it's the roosters, not me.

I don't agree with your argument, but wouldn't have downvoted you if you hadn't written "Suffice to say, doctors don't have all the answers, or even most of them. Many are presumably ignorant altogether." Suffice to say, nobody has all the answers. Or you think you do?

> On my way out, she reminded me I should think about eating meat "for protein"

That one right there is such a tell about how well-educated many doctors are in nutrition. There are more than enough nutrients that pose a genuine problem for vegetarians, but still the one that's mentioned is one of the ones that generally isn't a problem.

That said, a MD or DO speaking about nutrition is technically operating outside their specialty. So maybe one shouldn't expect them to be too sure of what they're talking about. Though I don't know if most folks really understand that, and it's also true that dietitians often get overlooked.