
Veganism: An Engineer's Perspective - somanyquestions
https://medium.com/@coloradoreed/veganism-from-an-engineers-perspective-2fbe0828540b
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tracker1
I'm diabetic and allergic to legumes. It's nearly impossible for me to get
enough protein or complete protein without excessive intake of either legume
derived protein or carbs.

Beyond that, I like meat and feel that eating meat is part of a natural state
of being. I find that factory farming has other issues and most don't eat
enough head to tail profile for appropriate nutrition though.

Aside: I think another large issue is that most people aren't eating enough
healthy balanced fat profiles, and get too many fats higher in linoleic acid
which is more problematic. Most natural sources of unrefined and specifically
animal protein are generally 0.5g fat to 1g protein or higher. The eating of
animals combined with cooking food are what allowed homosapiens to evolve. Not
that I fault those who chose a vegetarian lifestyle, though the religious
zealotry is a bit annoying.

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tmm84
Have you tried spinach and other leafy greens? Loads of protein, fiber and
other nutrients. Also you only need the essential amino acids and not whole
proteins. All protein is equal as plants contain all the essential amino
acids. Also since you have access to the internet and time to post here you
probably have never had protein problems (think third world people who are
starving). Also too much protein turns into glucose then into fat.

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tracker1
Okay, you try eating 10# of spinach a day for a week and see how you feel. Not
to mention how many stores I'd have to go to and the environmental impact of
all of that driving in order to get enough.

I would like for you to try for a month of eating vegan, with no pre-processed
products with 100g of protein a day, and 50g of balanced fats without any
legumes. No peas, beans, lentils. And on top of that, stay under even 100g of
carbs and under 20g sugars a day. Note that I stay under 50g total carbs
(including fiber) and under 20g net carbs and generally under 5g sugars a day.

By the end of a month, you probably won't want to do it any longer... beyond
that, you may lose your job, as it's pretty rough trying to eat 10# of greens
a day.

So fuck the righteous, religious zealotry of the cult of vegan.

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tracker1
You can vote the above down all you like... the fact is, I'd have to eat over
8 pounds of food a day to get a sufficient level of protein a day. I have
enough eating the 2-3 pounds of food I typically eat as it is. It's utterly
ridiculous. I stated why I eat the way I do, and included that I like meat,
and that I really don't care for the religious-like approach that most vegans
take.

Only to have that ignored, and for someone to make a suggestion that just
doesn't work in any practical way.

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mimixco
The OP quotes a study that says vegans are at least as healthy as _other
vegetarians._ That's not a comparison to meat eaters and not much of an
endorsement.

He neglects the recently published study (posted here on HN) that connects
vegetarianism with depression and other mental problems.

I hate factory farming, too, and was a vegetarian myself for many years for
that reason. But animals can be killed for food without being inhumane. The
cure for factory farming is to make it nice for the amimals. Giving up meat to
fix factory farming is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

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neuralRiot
How is killing a being that doesn't want to die humane? And sadly meat
production at the current level without factory farming is even more
devastating for the environment if even possible.

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mimixco
No being wants to die. That said, much of the animal kingdom (of which we are
a part) lives by doing just that. Animals can be raised in kind and happy
places and can be killed painlessly.

While I agree with the goal of changing factory farming, I don't think we can
fight biology. It's ok if people eat animals. We evolved to do exactly that.

~~~
neuralRiot
I find it very ironic that we as the dominant species being capable of feats
like space travel, worldwide real time communications, eradication of
diseases, DNA engineering, nuclear energy and more cannot find another form of
nutrition than that of a bear or a baboon.

~~~
mimixco
Eating is pretty basic. I see no reason to deny our basic biology.

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8lall0
Engineer's analysis for an engineer's perspective:

\- Point 8: this is not sufficient by itself; having a Declaration on
Consciousness is not enough without papers and documentation.

\- Point 2: correlation doesn't mean cause; vegans tend to have a better food
education, but this doesn't prove that veganism == healty.

\- Point 3: not sufficient, it doesn't show how human body absorbs and uses
those nutrients.

Beyond this, you're missing much more infos, such as documentation about vegan
food (lack of?) impact (soy and avocados, for example) and going on.

See you next time.

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Andre607
> I’ve created a set of three simple statements (with supporting references)
> that represent the fundamental arguments that brought me to veganism:

>It’s unnecessary for humans to consume animal products, i.e. we can thrive on
a vegan diet [1, 2, 3].

> Consuming animal products is one of the largest individual contributions to
> climate change [4, 5, 6].

> Consuming animal products results in slaughtering ~75 billion sentient farm
> animals each year — animals that want to live [7, 8].

> Logically, from the above three points, it follows that consuming animal
> products is unnecessary and causes destruction to the environment as well as
> billions of sentient animals.

Logically, this is textbook circular reasoning or a tautological fallacy. The
author's three points are that consuming animal products is unnecessary and
causes destruction to the environment as well as billions of sentient animals.
To then say that the _exact same three things as the three points_ follow from
those same three points is circular reasoning.

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colanderman
The blog post may benefit from an editor, but those three points are supported
by the footnotes, whose very references – but not content – you included in
your quotation. The footnotes themselves constitute more than half the post
and include citations of published studies.

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tomcam
> Consuming animal products results in slaughtering ~75 billion sentient farm
> animals each year

I am sympathetic but people do not seem to understand that a huge number of
animals – probably many more than this worldwide – are destroyed when fields
are plowed.

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cjrd
totally agree!

however, we plow fields mostly to feed the animals we eat...

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hackerman12345
the feed the animals are happy to eat is boring and can grow very densely, the
food vegans would like to eat (if a lot of people went vegan) would assuredly
not just be corn, or wheat, or legumes.

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cjrd
"the food vegans would like to eat": vegan/vegetarians already exist, and we
study and analyze their diets when determining crop usage, e.g. see reference
#5 in the blog post. Or, my personal favorite:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0594-0](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0594-0)

tldr; omni diets consume about an order of magnitude more crops in total, so,
you know, more animals die in crop production to eat animals than not eating
animals...

oooo, also of interest: we actually eat a very small number of crops, 40 crops
make up 90% of the global calorie consumption (see ref #4)

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thebigspacefuck
Being vegan is hard. If you notice, there are qualifiers for the health
statements such as "well-planned" and "if appropriate food choices are made".
Being lacto ovo vegetarian is much easier and probably has close to the same
health benefits and environmental impacts. Regardless, I think everyone should
try either one for a while and see what works for you. My family ate meat
pretty much every meal growing up so I felt trying veganism was a good
experience, but ultimately it didn't work out. I still eat meat but less
frequently.

~~~
tmm84
"well-planned" and "if appropriate food choices are made", these statements
are there because some people who "try" to go vegan end up eating too little
and not enough variety. It would be like trying to survive solely on a limited
selection of MREs or solely on sugary cereal at the supermarket. The human
body isn't stupid and if you aren't giving it the things it needs then the
"diet" your eating (meat or no meat) is bad.

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maxander
It’s worth noting that all reasons to go vegan, if you don’t find them
sufficiently convincing to actually become vegan, are also good reasons to
simply eat _less_ meat and other animal products.

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paulie999
I enjoyed the succinctness of this post. Not sure if I agree that there's
amazing vegan cheese though ;)

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colanderman
I'm a big fan of Tree Line and Miyoko's nut cheeses, and Chao fermented tofu
cheese slices.

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miccah
Kite Hill has great cream cheese as well.

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colanderman
Oh yes! Forgot about them.

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beatgammit
First of all, whether something is "sentient" is a bit subjective, and whether
eating a sentient being is okay is also quite subjective. If we strike that
list item, we are left with the climate change argument.

However, they're also missing a number of other arguments, such as:

\- difficulty eating a balanced diet \- inconveniencing others (must take into
account vegan options when going out to eat with coworkers/clients) \- some
meat sources don't particularly contribute to climate change (e.g.
hunting/fishing on your own)

If your going to try to come up with a deductive argument in support of
veganism, you need to take into account all major arguments on all sides of
the issue (vegetarianism, piscatarianism, etc).

As such, I'll only accept this argument as a completely subjective argument
because the climate change argument (and part of the sentience argument)
entirely depends on how you source your meat, leaving the completely
subjective sentience argument.

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cjrd
Did you take a look at reference 4-6, particularly #4, and Figure 1 in #4? The
animal products we consume are objectively more resource intensive than the
non-animal products.

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chaddattilio
Brilliant. Thanks for compiling this information.

