Some people are already struggling to feed themselves on an omnivore diet, and have nothing to replace meat if you take it away.
This statement seems a bit exaggerated and emotionally charged. Do you think that having literally “nothing to replace meat if you take it away” is a serious problem for more than, say, one in 10k[1] people? Meat is not known for being particularly cheap or easily available. It doesn’t grow on trees. More than a billion people live without it. Even when it comes to protein, grains and legumes are a cheaper source than meat.
Does this sentence refer to people like the small percentage of Inuit who still hunt for most of their food? Vegan outreach is not targeted at such people, so it doesn’t seem relevant to bring it up.
Maybe by “some people” you did mean something like “one in 10k” or way fewer people in which case the claim could be true. But then it’s useful to make that clear. The way it’s written, it sounds like the purpose of the sentence is mostly to generate an emotional reaction in the reader. A vegetarian could say “a single bite of meat can kill you.” It would be a true sentence because you can get fatal food poisoning from a single bite of meat. But it would have little place in serious, level-headed discussions. And again, people who actually have the problem you described are not the target of vegan advocacy, so it’s not clear why you’re bringing this up.
Maybe what you meant to say was “some people would have a harder time following a healthy diet without animal products.” But if so, why didn’t you write that instead?
Animal products are incredibly nutrient dense. You can get a bit of all known nutrients from plants and fortified products, and you can find a vegan food that’s at least pretty good for every nutrient, but getting enough of all of them is a serious logic puzzle unless you have good genes.
This claim also seems to be a bit overstated and emotionally charged. I guess it could be technically true if the vast majority of people “have good genes” according to your definition, but the way you write it makes it sound like having “good genes” is an exception. What nutrients specifically are you concerned about? B12 and multivitamins are extremely cheap. This pea protein powder with good reviews is as cheap per gram of protein as chicken breast at my local Costco, and very protein-dense. This makes it cheaper than almost all animal protein sources. Grains and legumes are even cheaper per gram of protein but less protein-dense. Eating a few cheap pills each day and a scoop of protein powder or legumes doesn’t sound like “a serious logic puzzle.”
Also, how are animal products “incredibly nutrient dense”? What nutrients are you referring to? Do you mean per calorie, or per dollar, and compared to what? Micronutrients are much cheaper in supplements than in animal products.
Food allergies and digestion issues mean lots of people struggle to feed themselves even with animal products; giving up a valuable chunk of their remaining options comes at a huge cost.
This sentence has the same hyperbole problem. “Struggle to feed themselves” conjures images of people who literally struggle to get enough calories to survive. Some people do struggle to get enough calories to survive because they’re allergic to a lot of foods, but they’re not the target of vegan advocacy. This problem is incredibly rare among wealthy young Westerners. What you probably meant to say is that some people have a hard time having a perfectly healthy diet because of their food allergies. In which case you should just have said that instead.
Is there a reason this comment got a pretty big strong downvote? I’m willing to hear reasons why the sentences I quoted are relevant in level-headed discussions about vegan advocacy, and why they couldn’t be substituted with “some individuals may struggle to maintain a healthy diet as vegans.”
I downvoted you because you responded to a very legible and effortful post (after going to a lot of trouble testing EAs and finding them nutritionally deficient to the point where it might affect their work), a post making the author’s cruxes clear, and what kind of evidence would change her mind, with incredulity, accusations of bad faith, and a brazenly made-up number. I don’t find any of your later arguments to be of sufficient quality to reverse that judgment.
The obvious case where someone might be hard pressed to be healthy on a vegan diet is when someone has allergies to multiple things that are ingredients in many of the common vegan protein staples. This is common enough that I’ve met ex-vegans who had to compromise on their diet for this reason, as well as a vegan who seemed very clearly nutritionally deprived because of FODMAP and gluten allergies but was toughing it out regardless for ethical reasons, so I’d be quite surprised if you’ve never met someone with multiple allergies that severely constrict their vegan options for getting the full spectrum of known nutrition. (Supplementation can help but is often less effective than nutrients in their original context.)
“Some cultures don’t eat meat” does not in fact prove that nobody has nutritional deficiencies from not eating meat; some people in those cultures may be nutritionally deficient for that reason! That’s like saying that because bread was ubiquitous in Europe, no Europeans have issues with gluten.
I said a specific number for two reasons: to express my personal opinion and to ask if the author disagrees. I thought that was clear. Without saying a number, I would not be able to check if there is any disagreement.
what kind of evidence would change her mind
My comment was not about presenting evidence or changing minds about veganism. I agree with the sentences I quoted and with what you wrote in your second and third paragraphs. But, even true statements can be misapplied. Would you object to a vegetarian saying “a single bite of meat can kill you”? I would in most contexts.
ETA > “Some cultures don’t eat meat” does not in fact prove that nobody has nutritional deficiencies from not eating meat Where did I say that nobody has nutritional deficiencies from not eating meat?
I would find the existence of vegan cultures to be substantial evidence, if they existed. I do find the existence of lactovegetarian cultures compelling; that is part of why I think milk is a pretty sufficient meat replacement for some people. But AFAICT there aren’t any vegan cultures. There are vegan traditions making up a minority of certain cultures (although there are allegations that it’s more aspirational than obeyed, and because I think it only takes small amounts of meat to gain the nutritional benefits they count as omnivore for my purposes), and there are cultures that can’t afford meat and start eating it once they do (and their health improves with it, although of course wealth can improve health lots of ways).
But the existence of successful lactovegetarian cultures doesn’t make lactovegetarianism a health choice for members of east Asian, sub-Saharan African, or Native American cultures[1] whose members are overwhelmingly lactose intolerant. It doesn’t even make it a healthy choice for northern Europeans with lactose intolerance, even though they’re an anomaly in their culture.
There is some interesting work being done now on genetic differences between vegetarians and omnivores. I don’t put a lot of credence in any one finding at this point, but it makes sense that cultures would adapt their genetics around what food was available to them, and those adaptations would affect the optimal diet of their descendants. It would be weird if that didn’t happen.
FDD, if you want to quantify and make a case for your belief that people who struggle to eat well on a vegan diet are vanishingly rare, I would welcome that, and have laid out what evidence I would find most convincing.
genetics is of course more complicated than this. Continents are not good places to draw genetic lines, there are cultures within those groups that have high rates of lactose tolerance, although off the top of my head they’re all pastoralists and so decidedly not vegetarian.
This statement seems a bit exaggerated and emotionally charged. Do you think that having literally “nothing to replace meat if you take it away” is a serious problem for more than, say, one in 10k[1] people? Meat is not known for being particularly cheap or easily available. It doesn’t grow on trees. More than a billion people live without it. Even when it comes to protein, grains and legumes are a cheaper source than meat.
Does this sentence refer to people like the small percentage of Inuit who still hunt for most of their food? Vegan outreach is not targeted at such people, so it doesn’t seem relevant to bring it up.
Maybe by “some people” you did mean something like “one in 10k” or way fewer people in which case the claim could be true. But then it’s useful to make that clear. The way it’s written, it sounds like the purpose of the sentence is mostly to generate an emotional reaction in the reader. A vegetarian could say “a single bite of meat can kill you.” It would be a true sentence because you can get fatal food poisoning from a single bite of meat. But it would have little place in serious, level-headed discussions. And again, people who actually have the problem you described are not the target of vegan advocacy, so it’s not clear why you’re bringing this up.
Maybe what you meant to say was “some people would have a harder time following a healthy diet without animal products.” But if so, why didn’t you write that instead?
This claim also seems to be a bit overstated and emotionally charged. I guess it could be technically true if the vast majority of people “have good genes” according to your definition, but the way you write it makes it sound like having “good genes” is an exception. What nutrients specifically are you concerned about? B12 and multivitamins are extremely cheap. This pea protein powder with good reviews is as cheap per gram of protein as chicken breast at my local Costco, and very protein-dense. This makes it cheaper than almost all animal protein sources. Grains and legumes are even cheaper per gram of protein but less protein-dense. Eating a few cheap pills each day and a scoop of protein powder or legumes doesn’t sound like “a serious logic puzzle.”
Also, how are animal products “incredibly nutrient dense”? What nutrients are you referring to? Do you mean per calorie, or per dollar, and compared to what? Micronutrients are much cheaper in supplements than in animal products.
This sentence has the same hyperbole problem. “Struggle to feed themselves” conjures images of people who literally struggle to get enough calories to survive. Some people do struggle to get enough calories to survive because they’re allergic to a lot of foods, but they’re not the target of vegan advocacy. This problem is incredibly rare among wealthy young Westerners. What you probably meant to say is that some people have a hard time having a perfectly healthy diet because of their food allergies. In which case you should just have said that instead.
I would be surprised if the claim was true for anywhere near that number of people.
Is there a reason this comment got a pretty big strong downvote? I’m willing to hear reasons why the sentences I quoted are relevant in level-headed discussions about vegan advocacy, and why they couldn’t be substituted with “some individuals may struggle to maintain a healthy diet as vegans.”
I downvoted you because you responded to a very legible and effortful post (after going to a lot of trouble testing EAs and finding them nutritionally deficient to the point where it might affect their work), a post making the author’s cruxes clear, and what kind of evidence would change her mind, with incredulity, accusations of bad faith, and a brazenly made-up number. I don’t find any of your later arguments to be of sufficient quality to reverse that judgment.
The obvious case where someone might be hard pressed to be healthy on a vegan diet is when someone has allergies to multiple things that are ingredients in many of the common vegan protein staples. This is common enough that I’ve met ex-vegans who had to compromise on their diet for this reason, as well as a vegan who seemed very clearly nutritionally deprived because of FODMAP and gluten allergies but was toughing it out regardless for ethical reasons, so I’d be quite surprised if you’ve never met someone with multiple allergies that severely constrict their vegan options for getting the full spectrum of known nutrition. (Supplementation can help but is often less effective than nutrients in their original context.)
“Some cultures don’t eat meat” does not in fact prove that nobody has nutritional deficiencies from not eating meat; some people in those cultures may be nutritionally deficient for that reason! That’s like saying that because bread was ubiquitous in Europe, no Europeans have issues with gluten.
I said a specific number for two reasons: to express my personal opinion and to ask if the author disagrees. I thought that was clear. Without saying a number, I would not be able to check if there is any disagreement.
My comment was not about presenting evidence or changing minds about veganism. I agree with the sentences I quoted and with what you wrote in your second and third paragraphs. But, even true statements can be misapplied. Would you object to a vegetarian saying “a single bite of meat can kill you”? I would in most contexts.
ETA
> “Some cultures don’t eat meat” does not in fact prove that nobody has nutritional deficiencies from not eating meat
Where did I say that nobody has nutritional deficiencies from not eating meat?
I would find the existence of vegan cultures to be substantial evidence, if they existed. I do find the existence of lactovegetarian cultures compelling; that is part of why I think milk is a pretty sufficient meat replacement for some people. But AFAICT there aren’t any vegan cultures. There are vegan traditions making up a minority of certain cultures (although there are allegations that it’s more aspirational than obeyed, and because I think it only takes small amounts of meat to gain the nutritional benefits they count as omnivore for my purposes), and there are cultures that can’t afford meat and start eating it once they do (and their health improves with it, although of course wealth can improve health lots of ways).
But the existence of successful lactovegetarian cultures doesn’t make lactovegetarianism a health choice for members of east Asian, sub-Saharan African, or Native American cultures[1] whose members are overwhelmingly lactose intolerant. It doesn’t even make it a healthy choice for northern Europeans with lactose intolerance, even though they’re an anomaly in their culture.
There is some interesting work being done now on genetic differences between vegetarians and omnivores. I don’t put a lot of credence in any one finding at this point, but it makes sense that cultures would adapt their genetics around what food was available to them, and those adaptations would affect the optimal diet of their descendants. It would be weird if that didn’t happen.
FDD, if you want to quantify and make a case for your belief that people who struggle to eat well on a vegan diet are vanishingly rare, I would welcome that, and have laid out what evidence I would find most convincing.
genetics is of course more complicated than this. Continents are not good places to draw genetic lines, there are cultures within those groups that have high rates of lactose tolerance, although off the top of my head they’re all pastoralists and so decidedly not vegetarian.