I agree with your two sentences, but the first one is very ambiguous. You mention someone with a B12 deficiency. The way I see it, both vegans and omnivores remove sources of B12 from their diet: the vegan doesn’t eat animal products that contain B12, the omnivore doesn’t eat B12 supplements (or B12-enriched products that are suitable for vegans). Many omnivores even refuse to eat those vegan B12 supplements, just like vegans refuse to eat meat. Now you have someone who doesn’t eat either of those B12 sources: no meat and no vegan supplement. You can call it a too restrictive, unhealthy vegan diet (because the diet doesn’t contain meat), but you can equally call it a too restrictive, unhealthy omnivorous diet (because the diet doesn’t contain vegan B12-sources). There is a kind of symmetry.
This feels very muddled to me. Could you rewrite it with your explicit cruxes/assumptions/beliefs, and the logical chain between them and your conclusion?
I was pointing at a non-vegan bias in the way how you framed your argument: that a vegan diet is restrictive. But non-vegans also eat a restrictive diet, as they don’t eat (and often refuse to eat) vegan foods. Vegans don’t eat non-vegan sources of B12, and non-vegans don’t eat vegan sources of B12.
Your bias is comparable to a native English speaker who has an English bias and claims that French is a difficult language because the French people don’t use those simple words like “door” and “table”. So when you want to speak French, you first have to learn new words. But the fact that the French language doesn’t use the words that you use, doesn’t make it a difficult language. For native French people, French is an easy language.
So the crux is: a vegan diet is not difficult, but changing diet is difficult. For vegans (who learned how to eat vegan), a vegan diet is easy, just like a non-vegan diet is easy for non-vegans (who learned how to eat non-vegan).
I don’t think the claim that non-vegans don’t eat vegan foods is well-supported. For instance, a cake made with eggs and butter still consists of mostly vegan foodstuffs; that a non-vegan may refuse to eat a vegan cake does not mean they are restricting specific foodstuffs from their diet. Likewise, non-vegans do not categorically refuse to eat vegan B12 supplements (I assume the B12 in a multivitamin is made in a lab?) even if they do not eat them as part of 100 percent vegan completed foods.
Most non-vegans don’t take vegan B12 supplements. That means this vegan product is excluded from the non-vegan’s diet. The reason why non-vegans exclude it (whether they don’t like it, consider it as immoral...), is not important because reasons are not health related. Whether or not someone who doesn’t take the B12 supplement categorically refuses to take it, has no impact on that person’s health.
a vegan diet is not difficult, but changing diet is difficult. For vegans (who learned how to eat vegan), a vegan diet is easy, just like a non-vegan diet is easy for non-vegans (who learned how to eat non-vegan)
Accepting this arguendo, it doesn’t seem like an argument against education for vegan converts.
I agree with your two sentences, but the first one is very ambiguous. You mention someone with a B12 deficiency. The way I see it, both vegans and omnivores remove sources of B12 from their diet: the vegan doesn’t eat animal products that contain B12, the omnivore doesn’t eat B12 supplements (or B12-enriched products that are suitable for vegans). Many omnivores even refuse to eat those vegan B12 supplements, just like vegans refuse to eat meat. Now you have someone who doesn’t eat either of those B12 sources: no meat and no vegan supplement. You can call it a too restrictive, unhealthy vegan diet (because the diet doesn’t contain meat), but you can equally call it a too restrictive, unhealthy omnivorous diet (because the diet doesn’t contain vegan B12-sources). There is a kind of symmetry.
This feels very muddled to me. Could you rewrite it with your explicit cruxes/assumptions/beliefs, and the logical chain between them and your conclusion?
I was pointing at a non-vegan bias in the way how you framed your argument: that a vegan diet is restrictive. But non-vegans also eat a restrictive diet, as they don’t eat (and often refuse to eat) vegan foods. Vegans don’t eat non-vegan sources of B12, and non-vegans don’t eat vegan sources of B12.
Your bias is comparable to a native English speaker who has an English bias and claims that French is a difficult language because the French people don’t use those simple words like “door” and “table”. So when you want to speak French, you first have to learn new words. But the fact that the French language doesn’t use the words that you use, doesn’t make it a difficult language. For native French people, French is an easy language.
So the crux is: a vegan diet is not difficult, but changing diet is difficult. For vegans (who learned how to eat vegan), a vegan diet is easy, just like a non-vegan diet is easy for non-vegans (who learned how to eat non-vegan).
I don’t think the claim that non-vegans don’t eat vegan foods is well-supported. For instance, a cake made with eggs and butter still consists of mostly vegan foodstuffs; that a non-vegan may refuse to eat a vegan cake does not mean they are restricting specific foodstuffs from their diet. Likewise, non-vegans do not categorically refuse to eat vegan B12 supplements (I assume the B12 in a multivitamin is made in a lab?) even if they do not eat them as part of 100 percent vegan completed foods.
Most non-vegans don’t take vegan B12 supplements. That means this vegan product is excluded from the non-vegan’s diet. The reason why non-vegans exclude it (whether they don’t like it, consider it as immoral...), is not important because reasons are not health related. Whether or not someone who doesn’t take the B12 supplement categorically refuses to take it, has no impact on that person’s health.
Accepting this arguendo, it doesn’t seem like an argument against education for vegan converts.