

Being Vegan is worse for the environment? - michaelfairley
http://veganskeptic.blogspot.com/2010/11/being-vegan-is-worse-for-environment.html

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ahi
I wish this was done more often. When I read the paper I spend most of my time
wondering why an article was published and who made the phone call.

~~~
chc
In this case, I think it's probably more innocent than corporate interests
influencing the news or anything else people are likely to suspect. As a
vegetarian, people like to argue with me about my food choices — not meat
industry employees, but just people in general. There are a lot of folks who
take "Meat is good" as an a priori fact and assume vegans are doing some sort
of twisting to make it _look_ like their diet is workable. I'm sure someone
read the intro, got to that part and said, "Ha! I knew they were playing a
trick on me!" — and then got straight to writing an article about the _real
truth_ they'd uncovered.

~~~
burgerbrain
>assume vegans are doing some sort of twisting to make it look like their diet
is workable.

Last I checked, unless vegans are supplementing their diets with
multivitamins, they lack all the necessary nutrients needed to survive. As
somebody who hasn't taken multivitamins since he was a child, that certainly
seems like "twisting" from my perspective. Vegetarianism strikes me as
perfectly normal however.

However, I must say it's really none of my business what others chose to
ingest, be it meat, veggies, heroin,... I really don't care. I think the only
reason most people become wary of vegans is because of stunts organizations
like PETA preform.

~~~
colanderman
> Last I checked, unless vegans are supplementing their diets with
> multivitamins, they lack all the necessary nutrients needed to survive.

Source? I've been vegan for close to three years now and don't take
multivitamins, yet I'm surviving. So long as you eat a variety of foods (and
if you're female, plenty of leafy greens) you're all set.

There is however exactly one vitamin which is not available from plant-based
sources, and that is B12. However it is produced by bacteria and thus is may
be cultured as a supplement.

Please check your facts before posting next time and stop spreading
misinformation.

Sources: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganism#Specific_nutrients>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_b12#Sources>

~~~
alextgordon
_Please check your facts before posting next time and stop spreading
misinformation._

This is exactly the kind of defensive attitude that gives vegans a bad name :\

~~~
wonderzombie
And it's this kind of reaction that makes vegans irritable, when you tar an
entire class of people with a small subset's behavior. :)

Seriously, though, can you blame 'em? Take whatever uninformed opinion
somebody has about something near and dear to your heart. If you use computers
and/or you're a geek, this shouldn't be hard. Things like: Macs are for
idiots, or Linux is broken, or Windows is inherently insecure.

Now imagine hearing people--- well-meaning and otherwise--- tell you about it
over and over. Wouldn't you get sick of that? Even if you personally wouldn't,
is it that hard to imagine that a reasonable person might?

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crazydiamond
While doing such studies one should be careful when considering alternatives.
The article refers to tofu as an alternative. Many Vegans (e.g. in India) do
not consume tofu, so his comparison would fail there.

