Thanks for this. I agree it doesnât neatly follow from the principles earlier in the piece: if you measure diets monolithically, there are only a few, then it is not that surprising to have one keep coming top. Conversely, if measured as classes, as you say it becomes less surprising to find a particular (large) set of diets keep coming top.
However, I still think it is a bit surprising. I think on most reasonable measures vegan diets are a minority of the space of diets availableâboth in practice and in theory there are a lot more ways of having animal products and non-animal products than just the latter. So if this minority set keeps coming up top when looking at many disparate considerations, we should ask why. If it were just two, maybe that isnât so bad, but X, Y, Z, W etc. becomes more and more surprising.
(I agree with your determinations on the object level issues. Thereâs a clear case for veganism being best for animal welfare, and that expectedly correlates with environmental impact, but less so health and taste. I wouldnât be altogether surprised to find that a diet optimized purely for low environmental impact might include some animal products, much less surprised if one for optimized for health did, and pretty confident one for taste would.)
Just an anecdote and bordering on off-topic I guess, but the âvegetarian/âvegan tastes better/âbest than meatâ is a point that I (a non-vegan!) have found myself defending multiple times. In fact, my safest bet when trying a new cuisine is to go for vegan-est dishes, for taste alone.
When I express this socially, I typically find others agreeing.
So this sprinkled insistence on âveganism defended for taste is suspiciousâ is suspicious to me, and makes me go meta. Itâs not the point of the post however so Iâll drop it here.
Thanks for this. I agree it doesnât neatly follow from the principles earlier in the piece: if you measure diets monolithically, there are only a few, then it is not that surprising to have one keep coming top. Conversely, if measured as classes, as you say it becomes less surprising to find a particular (large) set of diets keep coming top.
However, I still think it is a bit surprising. I think on most reasonable measures vegan diets are a minority of the space of diets availableâboth in practice and in theory there are a lot more ways of having animal products and non-animal products than just the latter. So if this minority set keeps coming up top when looking at many disparate considerations, we should ask why. If it were just two, maybe that isnât so bad, but X, Y, Z, W etc. becomes more and more surprising.
(I agree with your determinations on the object level issues. Thereâs a clear case for veganism being best for animal welfare, and that expectedly correlates with environmental impact, but less so health and taste. I wouldnât be altogether surprised to find that a diet optimized purely for low environmental impact might include some animal products, much less surprised if one for optimized for health did, and pretty confident one for taste would.)
Just an anecdote and bordering on off-topic I guess, but the âvegetarian/âvegan tastes better/âbest than meatâ is a point that I (a non-vegan!) have found myself defending multiple times. In fact, my safest bet when trying a new cuisine is to go for vegan-est dishes, for taste alone.
When I express this socially, I typically find others agreeing.
So this sprinkled insistence on âveganism defended for taste is suspiciousâ is suspicious to me, and makes me go meta. Itâs not the point of the post however so Iâll drop it here.