Ah, good question. Like the author of your quote, I’m also not a nutritionist, nor am I a medical doctor. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the healthiest diet did include some animal products. That’s because vegan/​vegetarian diets optimise for something else – they optimise for the removal of meat & animal products. It shouldn’t be surprising that a diet optimising purely for health might be better than (& different from) one that optimises for something else entirely.
I suppose in the end one has to sort out one’s motivations in choosing a diet. How much importance do I place on my health versus, say, animal suffering? (Or, in more deontological terms, how do I reconcile the duties I have to myself with those I have to other creatures?) Personally, I would strive to eat vegan/​vegetarian even if I learned that it was relatively unhealthy. But I’m well aware that not everyone would do that!
Yeah what you said makes sense. I agree that I think practically everyone who can should go for a vegetarian/​vegan diet even if it is not the healthiest one. It’s already good enough that it’s likely a healthier diet compared to most people’s diets. Thanks for your thoughts!
You can optimise for health on a vegan diet as well. The only difference would be any nutrients that are exclusively found in animal products. But, as I stated in my other comment below, I think there are good reasons to believe that it’s unlikely there are any such nutrients with non-negligible health benefits, other than those that we are aware of and can be supplemented. The main reason is all the knowledge we collectively have about the nutrients in the human diet (and the compounds which are important for metabolism in the human body).
Ah, good question. Like the author of your quote, I’m also not a nutritionist, nor am I a medical doctor. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the healthiest diet did include some animal products. That’s because vegan/​vegetarian diets optimise for something else – they optimise for the removal of meat & animal products. It shouldn’t be surprising that a diet optimising purely for health might be better than (& different from) one that optimises for something else entirely.
I suppose in the end one has to sort out one’s motivations in choosing a diet. How much importance do I place on my health versus, say, animal suffering? (Or, in more deontological terms, how do I reconcile the duties I have to myself with those I have to other creatures?) Personally, I would strive to eat vegan/​vegetarian even if I learned that it was relatively unhealthy. But I’m well aware that not everyone would do that!
Yeah what you said makes sense. I agree that I think practically everyone who can should go for a vegetarian/​vegan diet even if it is not the healthiest one. It’s already good enough that it’s likely a healthier diet compared to most people’s diets. Thanks for your thoughts!
You can optimise for health on a vegan diet as well. The only difference would be any nutrients that are exclusively found in animal products. But, as I stated in my other comment below, I think there are good reasons to believe that it’s unlikely there are any such nutrients with non-negligible health benefits, other than those that we are aware of and can be supplemented. The main reason is all the knowledge we collectively have about the nutrients in the human diet (and the compounds which are important for metabolism in the human body).