
A Vegan No More - abraham
http://voraciouseats.com/2010/11/19/a-vegan-no-more/
======
dasil003
I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning
conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of
proportion to its veracity.

Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and
completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean
industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is
by advocating and _paying the premium_ for more sustainably raised meat.
Opting out of meat entirely does nothing to change the industry, because most
people will always eat some meat if they can afford it.

Meanwhile, as vegans focus on the elimination of meat from our diets, they
practically ignore the industrialized food that wreaks direct reproducible
havoc on our metabolisms causing epidemic obesity and diabetes. Consider the
effect of refined and reconstituted carbohydrates made from federally
subsidized crops that make the most devastatingly unhealthy food items also
the cheapest. Just the effects of soda pop alone are worthy of an
international movement.

~~~
cjbprime
> Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan.

There are, you'll be pleased to hear, many vegans with stronger ethical
arguments than "meat is murder". Such as, in summary:

* unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable.

* some non-human animals (notably the ones we eat most of) are as capable of suffering at the physical level as humans are. We shouldn't discount their suffering just because they aren't members of _homo sapiens_.

* factory farms raise most animals in conditions of unnecessary extreme suffering.

* therefore, it is ethically wrong to eat those animal products.

(This is actually an argument for eating humanely-raised meat instead of
veganism, but finding verifiably humanely-raised meat is difficult enough that
I'm not sufficiently interested to bother, and there are practical advantages
in eating a predictable diet. So I just eat vegan.)

By the way, I hate the federally subsidized crop situation too. I wish I could
do something substantial about it. It's disingenuous for you to say that
vegans are uninformed about health issues or industrial practice or the farm
lobby just because they don't "focus" on it; that doesn't match my experience
of other vegans at all, and it's obviously untrue that someone can only pay
attention to one issue.

~~~
lambda
It's difficult to find humanely raised meat? I just go to the farmer's market
and buy it straight from the farmer who raises grass-fed free range cows. If I
would like to verify, I can head to her farm and see how she raises the cows
myself.

Or I buy fish that are caught in sustainable ways, which have grown in their
natural habitat and not subjected to any suffering beyond the catch (which is
a necessary part of consuming them).

Yes, humanely raised meat (and milk, eggs, other animal products) is more
expensive, but it's also tastier, and it feels good know the people who have
grown and raised the food you eat. I balance out the extra expense, and impact
of raising animals, by eating meat or fish only about 2 or 3 times per week;
the rest of the time, I pick vegetarian options. That also makes it easier for
me when dining with people; I leave my couple of omnivorous meals for the
weekend, so I can have whatever's being served without having to cause extra
trouble for my hosts.

~~~
mml
The "tastier" organic myth is a myth in at least some cases. Double blind
taste tests of 2 halves of the same product reveal that the half presented as
"organic" is often chosen as being "tastier", despite being identical to it's
other "non organic" half.

IMHO, he organic food "movement" is marketing targeted at the guilty
conscience of the well-heeled consumer of organic foods.

~~~
Staydecent
lambda never mentions anything about Organic. Organic is not the same as
humanely raised meat, nor hormone free. And, IMHO, Organic standards are so
varied and in many cases silly that the green label isn't even a tell for a
desirable product by my terms.

In my experience, texture is very noticeable when comparing "supermarket" meat
vs locally raised, hormone-free meat.

As far as Veganism goes: I rather not take a vitamin supplement--it seems
unnatural.

LOL>

------
mmaunder
I eat meat, I fish and I've hunted. My wife has been a vegetarian for 20
years, since age 19. By vegetarian I mean she eats eggs and drinks milk, but
doesn't eat meat of any kind.

It's outright weird how the author swings from one extreme to the other, both
emotionally and nutritionally. Why not try adding eggs, milk, cheese and full-
cream yoghurt to your diet first? Or even add shellfish or chicken once or
twice a week?

She seems to swing from the most militant form of vegetarianism to maniacal
flesh gorging with an indictment of the vegan community to boot.

The range of diets that incorporate or exclude meat or animal byproducts is
wide as is the impact each variation has on our environment. A productive
approach would be to find a meat-veggie balance that works for your
nutritional needs and then spend the time to find environmentally friendly and
humane sources of the ingredients you need.

~~~
burgerbrain
> _Why not try adding eggs, milk, cheese and full-cream yoghurt to your diet
> first? Or even add shellfish or chicken once or twice a week? ... A
> productive approach would be to find a meat-veggie balance that works for
> your nutritional needs_

Did you even read her article? That's pretty much exactly what she did... it's
not like she's engaging in an all-meat diet now or something.

------
davidmathers
This post has some great lines in it:

* As a revolutionary feminist and anti-imperialist, veganism seemed to be yet another way I could fight the injustices we are facing.

* Capitalism has turned food, and especially grains, into a commodity, a weapon of war, and a way to make a profit, instead of the inalienable right it should be. The way to prevent hunger is not to feed the starving masses the food we currently feed to animals (excess food production and the resulting food dumping is one of the causes of hunger in the first place), but for the chronically hungry people to throw off the shackles of neo-imperialism and to gain back control of their local food systems.

* It was shocking to realize I had been expounding on the need to transform agriculture and farming without even knowing the bare minimum of what it takes to keep an ecosystem healthy.

Really? Was it really shocking? Really? I feel like I'm in a missing scene
from Monty Python's Life of Brian.

On the other hand her 3 paragraphs about the 3 kinds of bad people (the
frauds, the foolish know-it-alls, and the evidence deniers) sparked instant
recognition and made me realize that those are the exact people that irritate
me more than just about anyone else in this world.

~~~
jacquesm
> On the other hand her 3 paragraphs about the 3 kinds of bad people (the
> frauds, the foolish know-it-alls, and the evidence deniers) sparked instant
> recognition and made me realize that those are the exact people that
> irritate me more than just about anyone else in this world.

She seems to qualify for at least two of those three categories.

~~~
davidmathers
Instant karma's gonna get you!

Really though, it's the people who take knowing-it-all and evidence denial to
a personal level who deserve a special place in hell.

------
shaunxcode
It is impossible for me to say this person is "wrong" but I figure I may as
well throw my data points into the graph - I've been vegan for 11 years and I
am more healthy on every level than I've ever been. I went vegan in my late
teens when I was done growing, my younger brother went vegan at 12 a year
after me and is now taller/broader than me. I know many people who have been
vegan over 20 years who are in great health.

Obviously that doesn't just apply to vegans but regardless, the secret is
this: you have to hack your diet! You have to learn about nutrition in general
and then in relation to YOUR body and experience. There is no silver bullet
and I am glad there isn't: life should be a constant practice of critical
thinking and mindfulness. "Practicing" veganism is a great way to constantly
engage with the world in an active manner.

------
jacquesm
It's interesting how strong peer pressure is in groups like vegans to continue
to press someone in to a lifestyle that clearly is not to their best interest.

It reminds me of religious cults, and other 'us or them' styled groups.

Very scary.

~~~
muriithi
She even says that she and her family has received threats!

What would make someone do that simply because the lady has started eating
meat?

~~~
jacquesm
It's psychologically complicated but it has to do with people telling you that
you yourself are living a lie, and exposing that lie. That ties right in to
'ego' and self preservation.

People do not like to have their core beliefs challenged in a credible way.

~~~
dan00
Yes. It's strange that people really think that what they're doing isn't
connected in a way with their self-esteem, especially if they claiming all the
time that they're doing it only for a better world.

Wouldn't it be funny, if at the end there's no much difference between the SUV
driver and the vegan.

~~~
widgetycrank
I think people buy large SUVs under the false assumption of crashworthiness.
For the price range they could have gotten sedans of similar prestige.

~~~
jacquesm
And of _better_ crash-worthiness!

------
dejb
> I never expected this post to get so much attention.

There is nothing more popular than an anecdote that appeals to people's pre-
existing biases. Unfortunately there will be many for which this one story
will provide the same weight of evidence as the entire China Study.

~~~
zaphar
The point of the story is that not everyone can do a Vegan diet and still be
healthy. While this is just one example it does demonstrate the principle that
meat is a necessary and vital part of some peoples healthy eating.

I sometimes wonder if Vegans worry about Lions on the savannah eating
antelope. Do they want prevent that as well. Humans are Omnivores. We are
built to get nutrients from both meat and plantlife. Our metabolisms work
_best_ when we eat both in moderation. A Vegan lifestyle makes it harder to
eat healthy not easier and for some it makes it impossible.

~~~
dejb
> The point of the story is that not everyone can do a Vegan diet and still be
> healthy.

When you hear a story about how some substance 'cured cancer' do you instantly
conclude that the claims are necessarily correct - even for the cured person
in the story? Would you expect the story to become popular on HN? The problem
with one-off anecdotes like this is that they don't even conclusively
demonstrate anything.

> I sometimes wonder if Vegans worry about Lions on the savannah eating
> antelope.

Dude that is a really ignorant and insulting thing to say.

> Humans are Omnivores. We are built to get nutrients from both meat and
> plantlife.

And here you demonstrate your limited grasp of evolution which a resort to a
naturalistic fallacy.

> Our metabolisms work best when we eat both in moderation.

Actually the research demonstrates otherwise.

> A Vegan lifestyle makes it harder to eat healthy not easier

That is trivially true in a society where adding animal products to many foods
is routine. If even 20% of the population was vegan it would be trivial to
follow a vegan diet.

~~~
zaphar
> Dude that is a really ignorant and insulting thing to say.

Why? We have it within our power to prevent that particular form of animal
suffering. Give me enough money and political power and I could round up all
the antelope and lions and keep em seperated. How is ignoring that form of
animal suffering any different than ignoring animal farming?

> And here you demonstrate your limited grasp of evolution which a resort to a
> naturalistic fallacy.

I'll bite. How is it a fallacy? Fact: Humans are capable of digesting and
processing meat. Fact: Humans have been eating meat for as long as we've been
around. Fact: Humans get a number of nutrients in meat that are not easily
found elsewhere in a form we can process.

>> Our metabolisms work best when we eat both in moderation. > Actually the
research demonstrates otherwise.

Citation needed

> That is trivially true in a society where adding animal products to many
> foods is routine. If even 20% of the population was vegan it would be
> trivial to follow a vegan diet.

Because the market would provide? Either way you still have to work harder and
be far more careful with what you eat in order to pull it off so my point
still stands.

No where did I say it was impossible. Notice I said in moderation as well. You
wouldn't have to eat a lot of meat to get the required nutrition.

~~~
Tichy
"Either way you still have to work harder"

Since the production of meat uses up more resources (energy) than plant based
food, I think your claim does not hold up.

It is easier to produce plant based food, so why should it be harder to buy
plant based food?

I also doubt that you automatically eat healthy by simply adding meat to your
diet.

------
tomstuart
Look, veganism is a preference, not a religion.

For me, the salient facts are that eating animals and animal products is a)
ethically questionable and b) avoidable.

But it's just a choice. If I go round someone's house and they've cooked me an
otherwise vegan meal but put cheese on top, I'm not going to be a dick about
it, I'm going to eat it. Food isn't magic. Maybe this makes me not really
vegan, or a "bad vegan" or whatever, but I don't know or care what the rules
are. I don't even know any other vegans. It's nobody else's business.

I know it's a privilege to be affluent and healthy enough to be able to be
selective about what I eat, but I choose to exercise that privilege, just as I
choose to exercise other counter-evolutionary privileges like using
contraception and not murdering people who annoy me.

Could I do more? Could I be a better person? Certainly. Always. But doing this
much is so easy that it's a no-brainer, so that's how much I do. Maybe I'll do
better tomorrow.

I feel kind of shocked and alienated by how aggressively negative some of the
posters here are being about that choice.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"Look, veganism is a preference, not a religion."_

The line between preference and religion can be awfully thin. See: Urban vs.
suburban, Nikon vs. Canon, Vi vs. Emacs, etc.

All of the above are contentious issues that are, at the end of the day,
incredibly asinine to argue about. And all sides in the above suffer from
incredibly poor signal to noise ratio - both defending their ego more than
they are any notion of reason.

------
erikpukinskis
For what it's worth, I don't think of people who eat diets supposedly free of
animal products as "vegan". I think of them as "fundamentalist". To me,
veganism is about creating a culture where we don't abuse animals. It happens
that part of that work for me involves mostly not eating meat. But sometimes
eating meat is exactly what I need to do.

Eating meat, in specific ways, can be a way to connect with people, a way to
nourish myself... there are lots of ways in which eating meat can lead
directly or indirectly to my helping to lessen animal abuse.

And I think that's profoundly vegan. I think the OP feels the same way, but
she's apparently not as comfortable hijacking the word "vegan" as I am.

The way she uses the word, and the way most people use the word, makes it
useful only to marginalize people. What a waste of a word. I'd use it to
inspire people.

Like the mormon who might occasionally share a beer with their sister, in the
spirit of love and family and togetherness (important mormon values)... a
vegan can eat meat. These labels do not have to be so cut and dry.

~~~
Tichy
There are lots of reasons for being vegan. What if you can not digest animal
products very well, or just think it is healthier to eat vegan. YOur world
view seems rather black and white.

Also I don't understand the part about connecting with people - so if you
don't eat meat, you have troubles connecting (if you eat something else)? How
so? Also, does eating meat also help you to connect with vegans, or maybe not?

All in all, I call bullshit.

~~~
erikpukinskis
_There are lots of reasons for being vegan. What if you can not digest animal
products very well, or just think it is healthier to eat vegan._

That's great. I think those are wonderful reasons, and am happy for those
people to include themselves under the umbrella of veganism.

 _YOur world view seems rather black and white._

Why are you attacking me?

 _if you don't eat meat, you have troubles connecting (if you eat something
else)? How so?_

When I went to Spain, there were often situations where I could either eat
Spanish food with Spanish friends, or I could sit and not eat anything with
them, and then go home and cook my own food. I chose to share in their culture
and participate. I didn't really eat much meat, but I did eat some vegetarian
food. And I did try some of the meat.

 _does eating meat also help you to connect with vegans, or maybe not?_

I don't recall a situation where eating meat helped me connect with vegans. I
generally connect with vegans by eating vegan food with them, or talking about
vegan food.

 _All in all, I call bullshit._

Why are you antagonizing me? I'm just honestly expressing my thoughts about
something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. Please be a little nicer to
me.

------
autarch
Ginny Messina, who is a dietitian and actually has some qualifications to talk
about this stuff, wrote a great response to this blog post -
[http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-
vegans%E2%80%99-stor...](http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-
vegans%E2%80%99-stories-make-the-case-against-vegan-diets.html)

~~~
burgerbrain
> _That doesn’t mean I think she has made any of this up._

She has an awfully weird way of expressing this. The first few paragraphs of
her post are dedicated to implying as hard as she can that this blog post is
some sort of meat industry propaganda.

For example:

> _There is so much that is eerily parallel in these stories—not just the
> vague descriptions of the health-related experiences but also the evolving
> philosophy regarding food justice, and some very, very similar language._

~~~
autarch
I think Ginny's saying that the the author of the blog post is simply echoing
things she read elsewhere. That doesn't mean it's some sort of propaganda
effort on the part of the blog poster.

~~~
burgerbrain
I think that's definitely how she's trying to spin it "officially", but her
actual intent is pretty clear.

> _I have to admit I’m always a little suspicious when an ex-vegan dives
> headlong into a love affair with meat._

I mean come on, what else is that supposed to mean? Is she "suspicious" that
the author is simply echoing a new-found respect for meat? That doesn't even
make sense.

~~~
autarch
Sheesh, you really love your conspiracy theories.

Ginny's post is primarily about debunking the ridiculous health claims in the
original post. She's "suspicious" of the claims because they're ridiculous,
and the amount of fervor that Tasha shows suggests that there's something
going on besides nutrition.

~~~
burgerbrain
It's a conspiracy theory to suggest that others are seeing conspiracies where
there are none?

Man you people are nuts.

~~~
autarch
You're saying that Ginny is suggesting a conspiracy, when she isn't. That's
all I'm saying.

------
gxti
This is a perfect example of why one must use the utmost caution in allowing a
choice to become part of one's identity. When the time comes for that belief
to be challenged you will fight not because it is true, but because it is
perceived as an attack on the self. You will ignore reason and fight to save
that piece of yourself from annihilation like a feral animal cornered by a
predator.

You are not a vegan. You are not an atheist. You are not the car you drive or
the contents of your wallet. You are a human being, and nothing that is within
your power to change should be exempt from introspection.

~~~
elblanco
I've added this to my personal collection of awesome quotes.

------
sh1mmer
Reposting my thoughts from Reddit:

As a vegan I'm sad on two fronts.

a) That some vegans see the need to attack someone in this way.

I know some vegans consider (including myself) see it as a deeply moral issue.
However, I'd rather be like Ghandi than a fundamentalist. First and foremost,
we can't help how we are made. I can't understand how it is immoral to care
for oneself first. That said I personally haven't suffered adverse health
(quite the reverse).

b) The fact that my choice for me causes some people to want to knock me down.

Time and time again, I find my veganism attacked by people who aren't vegan.
Whether they make a joke of waving their meat meals in my face, or attack my
moral/ethical/dietary stance. It seems like a lot of people who are omnivorous
either feel guilty about it or simply don't like the idea that I have chosen a
moral stance stricter than their own. I find it disappointing, both in the
title and the comments of this thread that people seem to want to take me down
a peg for my beliefs.

~~~
DanielStraight
Maybe people just don't like being told that their moral stance is less strict
than yours when they don't feel they're doing anything wrong. Your post is
almost literally asking, "Why are people upset when I have a holier-than-thou
attitude?" What is really the difference between, "I have chosen a stricter
moral stance," and holier-than-thou?

~~~
sh1mmer
Stricter implies that I am applying more conditions to myself, 'holier-than-
thou' implies that I'm somehow applying them to you too.

I've chosen my morality for me, I'll happily advocate it if you are
interested. However, my act of choice in no way threatens your own act of
choice.

What I find frustrating is that because I've made a choice for me people
choose to assume I'm judging them.

~~~
DanielStraight
This makes your point... I just find it incredibly odd.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying that when you say "stricter moral
stance," you mean "more rules." That is not how I would interpret "stricter
moral stance."

I suppose I'm also thrown off by the concept of "my morality." If morality is
entirely personal, the whole concept of stricter or looser moral stances seems
nonsensical. If it's entirely personal, then isn't everyone, by definition,
strictly adhering to their own morality?

~~~
sh1mmer
Some definitions of the word strict from the Random House Dictionary that
might explain my position:

3\. closely or rigorously enforced or maintained: strict silence.

5\. extremely defined or conservative; narrowly or carefully limited: a strict
construction of the Constitution.

8\. stern; severe; austere: strict parents.

You could also think of strict as the root of "restrictive". I have a moral
code which allows me to do less than you, it restricts my actions.

However it doesn't follow that my morality inherently requires me to expect it
of others. That's a very western belief.

------
RyanMcGreal
I was never a vegan, but I was a pretty strict vegetarian for about ten years.
I started to rethink it when my doctor told me I was seriously deficient in
iron, B12 and folic acid.

The first time I ate meat again, a lamb shawarma, it was _freaking delicious_.
I felt my body scream "YES!" Now I incorporate some non-industrial, locally
sourced meat, cheese and eggs into a predominantly plant-based diet, and it
seems to be working well for my overall health.

Unfortunately a bread bar (exactly what it sounds like) operated by a Slow
Food chef recently opened near my house, and I find myself eating altogether
too much fresh baked bread.

------
jules
> As a feminist, this body-hating rhetoric infuriated me. The willing
> participation in the denial and degradation of my bodily needs smacked of
> misogyny, patriarchal control and violence against the female body, and
> everything that I fight against.

Huh? So somebody who willingly does not eat animal products despite the health
issues is misogynistic? What does this have to do with sexes?

> I refuse to play the game that so many women (vegan or not) are forced to
> play by our violently woman hating society; I will never feel shame or guilt
> for eating what my body wants and needs to be healthy.

It seems like veganism is not her only problem...

------
gfunk911
It sounds like she was getting very little fat and protein in her diet. When
you demonize fat, and don't eat much protein, you have no choice but to fill
the void with carbs, if you can fulfill your csloric needs at all

Also, Leafy vegetables are wonderful sources of nutrients, but terrible
sources of calories. It seems like she was trying to fill her caloric needs
with leafy vegetables, which simply isn't going to work.

~~~
astine
The article specifically mentions iron and B12. There is no natural way for a
human to get B12 without some kind of animal product or a supplement (usually
made from an animal product) and this woman developed a nutritional deficiency
as a result.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Sources>

------
kadavy
I've never been a vegetarian, but I used to eat very little meat.

The one mineral I rarely hear about when talking about a vegetarian or vegan
diet is Zinc. It is nearly impossible to get enough Zinc without eating animal
products. You can either eat nearly _3 pounds_ of peas, or little more than .5
ounces of canned oysters to get enough Zinc in your diet. Being low on Zinc
weakens your immune system, and your libido, so yeah - it's important.

YMMV, but I am feeling much better now that I've made it a point to eat more
(local, organically-raised) meat.

~~~
abeppu
Oysters are actually a weird case for some vegans, in that a lot of the
arguments made for veganism don't really apply. They don't have brains, so
there's not really a chance for suffering, and they can be farmed in an eco-
friendly way. Peter Singer, the animal rights philosopher that vegans are
always quoting, has at points said that he doesn't object to eating oysters.
<http://www.slate.com/id/2248998/>

~~~
steve19
Unfertilized chicken eggs don't have brains either, right? They are still
"unclean".

~~~
abeppu
I eat eggs sometimes, but I'm not proud of it. The moral considerations are
very different from oysters because of how they're produced. Producing a lot
of eggs requires a lot of hens. Having a lot of hens (and not roosters)
involves killing a lot of male chicks. Producing any volume of eggs
economically requires having a lot of hens in not that much space, which
typically involves things like clipping beaks. This also produces a lot of
concentrated waste which can often cause environmental damage. Keeping a lot
of hens fed requires that you give them a lot of feed, which requires
agricultural resources which might otherwise have produced food to be eaten by
people. So eating eggs entails killing and torturing birds, producing toxic
waste and using agricultural resources inefficiently.

------
crazydiamond
Perhaps those who eat meat should slowly introduce vegetarianism into their
diet (if they wish to) rather than going vegan straight.

I turned veg about 15 years back (but still ate an egg). My haemoglobin count
actually went up by a point (a year later). About 5 years ago, i gave up eggs
too. A year later my Haemo was up by another half point.

I do have a small amount of milk in tea/coffee. In India, there are millions
of vegetarians who live without health problems. Veganism seems a little
extreme to us.

------
robryan
Hmm, in the same way that this girl strongly was able to have a strong moral
stance for being a vegan before she has also been able to justify a strong
moral stance against it, pointing to large scale farming now as the enemy.

I'm all for the overall feeling but it does show that people can very easy
justify contradictory stances at different times.

~~~
davorak
It did seem like that the author should examine her decision making/philosophy
adopting process along with her dedication to veganism.

------
linuxhansl
I went to a 10 day meditation retreat a few years ago. As you can imagine I
met a lot of interesting people there.

One guy actually was a body builder _and_ vegetarian. He told me that he had
problems with being anemic as well. So his doctor told him to have a steak
once a month, which helped him a lot.

There is a reason why we can chew and digest both plants and animal products
and meat.

While personally I lean towards a vegetarian diet (for reasons of health,
morality, and sustainability) any such bias has to be paired with "wisdom".

Generally if we know how to listen our bodies will let us know what they need.
I mostly eat whatever I want, whenever I want it. It somehow naturally ends up
being mostly vegetarian, with diary product, and occasionally meats and (yes)
some candy.

Edit: I do avoid all low fat products and products with sugar replacements.

------
loca
Reminded me of a comment by Linus Torvalds [1]:

 _Meat is kind of important to people. Young kids in particular need a lot of
varied nutrients, and a balanced diet - with meat - is likely to be way
healthier than the alternatives.

Quite frankly, being vegetarian is like being religious: you should let the
kid decide on his/her own when they are grown up and can make that choice on
their own. Plus by then they've done most of their development, so your choice
won't mess them up for the rest of their lives.

Humans are designed to be omnivores. Don't play games with your kids
nutrition.

Eating meat is not at all unnatural. It's generally considered to be one of
the main reasons humans could afford to evolve a larger brain - because meat
is denser in nutrients than vegetarian diets.

Yes, you can do a healthy vegetarian diet (and even a vegan one, although at
that point you really are crazy - there's no substitute for milk), but it is
certainly not at all a trivial matter. It's much saner to just say "eating
meat is natural".

Once you're fully grown, it's a different matter.

Quite frankly, anybody who tells their kids to "don't eat meat" is kind of
crazy. You're much better off telling them to not drink sodas, avoid overly
processed foods etc.

And yeah, I care a hell of a lot more about my kids health than I care about
cows or even pigs. Deal with it._

[1] [http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/05/pig-lovers-
oath....](http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/05/pig-lovers-
oath.html?showComment=1274201279556#c6797364674668189582)

~~~
tghw
As a counter point, I've been vegetarian (ovo-lacto) my whole life. My parents
aren't crazy, they just decided they wanted to be vegetarian, and the logical
consequence of that is that my siblings and I were raised the same way.

I'm 6'1", ~175 lbs, and am strong and healthy. I've never had a blood test
show any deficiencies. I don't have to go out of my way to find protein:
dairy, eggs, and legumes are in enough dishes to make it easy. Plus, you don't
need nearly as much protein as most people get.

Linus is often wrong about things, especially when they're outside his areas
of expertise.

------
MikeCapone
Personally, I can't wait until we grow meat without having to kill animals who
can feel pain, distress, etc, to get it. It won't come one day too soon.

------
lwhi
I think this a case of the 'tail wagging the dog'.

The author decided she wanted to be vegan for (possibly) superficial reasons.

She then found she couldn't be vegan for health reasons, but rather than take
a step back and hold on to some of the principles she claimed to have (and
become an ovo-lacto vegetarian; and see if that worked) .. cognitive
dissonance came into play and she shifted her entire world-view around to suit
her new choice of meat-based diet.

I imagine it must have been difficult to make the choice - but there's
something about the subsequent rationalisation (and justification) that makes
me feel uncomfortable.

~~~
lwhi
Okay, maybe I'm being a bit harsh - but I did find the sea change in opinion a
bit difficult to comprehend.

Some people might _need_ to eat animal derived products to function - but that
should still be able to be compatible with a desire to ascribe to vegan
ideals. When a person chooses involve politics in dietary choice, pragmatism
should still be able to operate. Fundamentalism at any level is a bit wrong.

I don't see why the alternative - of becoming a fully fledged carnivore - was
taken when there was an intermediate step.

------
araneae
That was kind of eye-opening.

Not because it shows how bullshit veganism is; I knew that already.

But because it reminds me of this friend I have, who is always complaining
that she feels tired and weak. She goes to the doctor at least monthly, who
diagnosis her with some new deficiency. She's always taking some new pill or
food type.

I always thought she was a hypochondriac. But it just occurred to me that she
might not be, because she's a vegetarian.

~~~
chime
> because she's a vegetarian.

400 million Indians are vegetarian (milk and/or eggs):
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_in_India> and I've been a
vegetarian all my life. Last year I ran 50 miles non-stop in Grand Teton at
10,000ft elevation so I can say from personal experience that it is certainly
possible to be healthy on a balanced vegetarian diet. I can't say the same
about veganism though and it's not popular in India at all:
[http://business.in.com/article/recliner/being-vegan-in-
india...](http://business.in.com/article/recliner/being-vegan-in-india/4482/1)

~~~
riffraff
while I agree with your base assumption (living without eating meat is not a
health drama) pointing out to vegetarian indians is a fallacy that people
should stop making.

We have no knowledge of related/correlated facts about those 400M people, so
you can _for example_ follow the fallacy and say:

Life expectancy in india is lower than the world average and a lot lower than
other "poor" countries where vegetarianism is not common, such as north korea,
brazil or the palestinian territories. Thus vegetarianism leads to at a
shorter life.

Proof by underanalyzed example is not a good one.

------
kwantam
I was glad to see the food miles metric[1] tangentially mentioned in this post
(when she talked about importing exotic foods to keep herself healthy). This
is a notion that, in my opinion, doesn't get enough attention: it doesn't
matter how great the farming practices are if the food is then shipped three
thousand miles to my door. (Yes, the food miles notion is imperfect, but it's
at least a reasonable first-order approximation of the environmental impact of
your food.)

Besides being fun, one of the best things about hunting is that you can
directly observe the cost of transporting and processing food from animal to
table. On top of that, the animal I hunt most frequently (feral hog) is a
depredating pest in most of the southeastern US, doing substantial damage to
farm and ranch land. Most of my hunting is done on land where cows are
pastured, and I'm only happy to help reduce the population of hogs, protect
the grazing lands, and get a little meat out of the deal.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles>

~~~
cjbprime
> it doesn't matter how great the farming practices are if the food is then
> shipped three thousand miles to my door. (Yes, the food miles notion is
> imperfect, but it's at least a reasonable first-order approximation of the
> environmental impact of your food.)

I don't think so. Transportation accounts for only 11% of the environmental
impact of food[1], so that's not a first-order approximation of the true cost
at all. It is not only possible, but is in fact often likely, that shipping
food three thousand miles from somewhere where it was efficient to produce has
_less_ environmental impact than buying food with epsilon "food miles".

(Which means that the take-home message is: if you want to use food miles as a
metric, you should generally only buy food that is grown as efficiently where
you are as in the part of the world that grows it optimally.)

[1] <http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702969f>

------
techiferous
Another data point: I've been vegan for five years and haven't noticed any
related health problems and I have a friend who has been vegan for 30+ years
without any related health problems.

Whatever your position on the subject, it's important to approach this matter
with objectivity, logic, openness, sensitivity and lots of data. :)

------
alecco

      When the doctor first told me that I had numerous vitamin and mineral
      deficiencies, that I was almost anemic, and my B12 was so low she
      wanted to give me an injection immediately, I refused to believe her.
    

That's poor diet. Vegan or not. B12 is made by bacteria (not animals or
plants) and industrial meat is full of it because we feed livestock with
putrified waste foods while industrialized vegetables are unnaturally clean
with chemicals. Organic vegetables have enough B12.

Also modern diet has anti-nutrients preventing absorption (like coffee and
iron.)

The broad generalizations from reactionaries like political vegans and their
anti-vegan counterparts disgust me. Both groups are completely uninformed and
stubborn. For them it's about confirmation bias and group think.

~~~
Egregore
Actually it's recommended for vegans to take suppliments of B12, you can read
more about different aspects of vegan health at <http://www.veganhealth.org/>

~~~
alecco
Many foods like wheat flours are already fortified with B12 and iron. At least
where I live.

------
chipsy
I do know, anecdotally, of someone who is literally unable to eat meat(causes
digestive problems). A rare case, and I'm pretty sure ovo-lacto vegetarianism
is still OK. For my part I'm definitely one of the meat-eating types, though I
have my limits.

A bit more OT diet-related: As the months have grown colder I recently noticed
a dangerous binge-type craving for sweet stuff. So I decided I would go low-
carb and high-fat for a few days leading up to Thanksgiving just to see if it
could change my appetite. It's made a very obvious difference. One daily
Starbucks venti breve latte just obliterates the problem, though it's a bit
hard to digest and tiresome to drink.

------
Sidnicious
> In the span of just a few days I received an outpouring of emails from
> fellow ‘vegan’ bloggers, who told me in confidence that they weren’t really
> vegan ‘behind the scenes’.

> I even received emails from two very prominent and well respected members of
> the vegan AR community. One a published and much loved vegan cook book
> author, the other a noted animal rights blogger, their emails detailed their
> health struggles and eventual unpublicized return to eating meat.

This pisses me off the most, and what makes veganism look like a religion to
me. You learn much more from being wrong, and talking about being wrong, than
from standing by a point of view because it's popular.

------
pyre
There's a (somewhat) rebuttal to this here:
[http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-
vegans%E2%80%99-stor...](http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-
vegans%E2%80%99-stories-make-the-case-against-vegan-diets.html)

------
LikeOMG
"A Vegan Diet" is nothing more than a diet devoid of animal products or
byproducts. A vegan diet could technically be nothing but potato chips. What
did this woman eat? What did she eat exactly? What sort of workout did she do
every day? How many green smoothies did she rely on for energy for her
workouts? This has nothing to do with veganism, but everything to do with a
very confused person who did not know how to feed herself.

------
scottshapiro
_I know that the lipid hypothesis is completely fallacious, these animal foods
won’t hurt me or cause me ill health in anyway, in fact, the vitamins and
minerals they provide, along with the nutritious cholesterol and wholesome
saturated fat, will restore my health._

Great to hear that she sees the forest from the trees.

------
preek
Considering how this submission got voted and how the discourse is going, this
is a good example of how powerful the USA are.

I wonder how the discourse will continue now that it's dark night in the USA
and the day is starting for Europe and India.

------
burgerbrain
_"You once were a ve-gone, now you will be-gone."_

\--Scott Pilgrim vs The World

~~~
tptacek
Who knew iron pills broke vegan edge?

~~~
hartror
I'll tell you one thing iron supplements do and that is stop up your pipes >.<

------
manish
I simply can't understand why eating meat is wrong, when eating plant is not
wrong. I feel they are same.

~~~
tomstuart
Is eating a human the same?

~~~
manish
This is same question many of my veggie friends ask. I think no, it is not the
same for humans. For other carnivores, it does not make any difference.

------
Void_
It's normal to eat meat. People who don't, look kinda sick, you can tell.

