By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - General Discussion - Is becoming a vegetarian/vegan worth it?

curl-6 said:

In today's world, it's almost impossible to completely separate one's self from the killing of animals. Even if you're vegan, you're likely still using countless products derived from animals; plastics, dyes, shampoo/conditioner, cosmetics, vitamin supplements, textiles, rubber, shaving cream, deodorant, perfume, paint...

Also, in order to grow plant crops, natural habitat is destroyed and pest animals are shot and poisoned.[...]

With research, it's relatively easy to avoid all of those animal-infused products.  Product labelling is getting better all the time, too.

And the fact that growing plant crops destroys natural habitat, etc., is one of the strongest arguments in favour of going vegan.  Do you think the majority of the animals people eat are roaming free?  Nope, they're eating farmed food.  Wheat, corn, soy, you name it.  60-80% of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is because of animal agriculture.  45% of ice-free land is devoted to animal agriculture.  A third of the world's grain goes to feeding livestock.  I could go on.  70 billion land-based food animals are killed every year (and that doesn't even include seafood).  So, yeah, your concerns are a strong argument for people going vegan.  Thank you for sharing them!  :)

LipeJJ said:
I don't think so. There are healthier options to lose weight/be healthy... the best one is to have a balanced diet - one that includes all kind of food: vegetables, nuts, meat, even some sugar... that's the most natural way to be healthy; at least that's what most nutritionists recommend.

Every nutrient one can get from eating animals, you can also get from a vegan diet.  There's no health benefit exclusive to eating animal products.  There are however a raft of diseases that are strongly connected to an omnivorous diet.  Eating a balanced diet doesn't mean eating meat (there's no recommended daily amount for meat), eating a balanced diet means eating a wide variety of nutrients.  You can eat a balanced diet as a vegan, and doing so is more healthful than doing so as an omnivore.  As for what most nutrionists recommend, the preponderence of recent health research is suggesting animal products aren't nearly as important or healthful as previously believed, and nutritionists are starting to take note.  Consider also that many nutrionists make recommendations tempered in part based on what they think their clients will be likely to choose to follow, not necessarily what is optimal for health.  Better to recommend a B-grade option the client may actually have success with, than a grade-A option that they may not follow (sadly). 

Farsala said:
I could never go Vegetarian or Vegan as it is simply too expensive. I have always been a scrawny dude but I eat a lot of food and barely gain any weight. Here in cow land meat is quality and cheap, while some fruit is seasonal and often expensive.

I also love almost all food equally, so giving up meat would be the same as giving up all vegetables or all fruit etc.

Animal carnivores would eat me or a cow so I see no problem in eating them or a cow. Eventually I will die and be eaten by some organism. (Likely bacteria)

Too expensive?  When I hear this from people, they're usually comparing non-organic meat against organic produce.  Or, worse yet, fast food vs. produce.  I don't believe there's a long-term scenario where being a whole food vegan is more expensive, given how much disease (and therefore how many health dollars) it can save.  I'm a whole food vegan, and I rarely eat fruit.  My go-to breakfast is pre-soaked chia and flax paired with raw coconut and cocoa, for example.  It's pennies a bowl, it's filling, it takes a long time to digest (I'm like you, I eat a lot and am thin), it's wildly nutritious, and to me it's delicious.  There probably are some vegan diets that might be more expensive in the short-term, but that doesn't mean you need to follow those vegan diets.  I did some research and was creative in coming up with something that was nutriotionally broad and inexpensive.  And, like I say, the long-term health benefits are likely a long-term savings for almost everyone.

As for a carnivorous animal eating us if they had a chance...  I'm curious, are you eating lion, or wolf?  Or are you eating nearly defenseless herbivores like cows.  If so, the argument sounds self-defeating.   

Rab said:

If Humans were being looked after in some alien Zoo on some distant solar system they would use the the Paleo diet for maximum health and compatibility [...]

Maximum compatibility with what?  Certainly not maximum health, though.  People on the paleo diet typically don't have ideal cholesterol levels.  Populations on the paleo diet don't average in the ideal BMI range.  And the paleo diet isn't even very paleo, as analysis of fossilized human stool from the period suggests that most people's diets from that era were 99% vegan.  They favoured the food that didn't run away, didn't fight back, and didn't spoil.  Go figure.



Around the Network
Eagle367 said:
We were made to eat meat. Meat is an essential component of the diet but like anything else should be taken in a balanced diet. The most important thing for health is that you have a balance between diet and excersize instead of prohibiting yourself to eat food we were made to eat

There is no reason to believe meat is essential to a human diet.  There's no nutrient, or health benefit, that's exclusive to eating meat.  The nutrients we get from eating animals, they get from eating plants (or eating animals that eat plants).  Our biology also suggests we started out as herbivores, and that to this day we are poorly adapted to eating meat.  (I'll expand on that below).

Eagle367 said:
Your last point about suffering makes me angry because you also "torture and kill" plants brutally for vegan diets. You chop them up rip them apart just because no blood does not mean a plant's life is any worth more than an animal. If you don't want to kill then eat only fruits and without harming the seeds.Vegans also participate in killing and 'murdering' living beings. Stop being self righteous you kill to eat like any animal. Only plants are exempt from this because they are producers. Tell me are plants not living also. This is in no way a valid argument for being vegan and it is irritating as hell when vegans assume so. According to your own words you also torture and murder plants. Deal with it

Plants don't have central nervous systems, and there's no suggestion they have sentience.  But even if we accept everything you say at face value, that's a strong argument for going vegan.  Why?  Because when you eat meat that was born and grown for human consumption, it is fed a vast amount of plants also.  So when you eat a small amount of meat, you're also contributing to the "suffering" of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of plants as well.  Even if you believe plants have feelings (and I don't), that's nonetheless a strongly pro-vegan argument.  Anything else ignores the science, and common sense.

Airaku said:

It really depends on your body. My mom was a vegetarian for years but had to stop because she was becoming very sick. My mother both have low iron and eating a lot of spinach alone wasn't enough. Her doctors made her stop before she got sick. However if you don't have that problem then there is no issues with it. 

I've heard from people that being a Vegan is better than being a vegetarian. Vegans tend to have more energy than most people and part of that is because eating pure fruits and vegetables is easy for your body to break down. In addition to that, applying basic science her. The transfer of energy gets lowered from carnivore to carnivore. A Giraffe will directly eat a plant and have a lot of energy, a Lion may eat that Giraffe but it will receive less energy and their body needs to break it down. If we were to kill the Lion and eat it. We would receive significantly less energy than the Lion did and our bodies would need to work harder to break it down.

Here's the funny thing. Giraffe's need 30 minutes of sleep a day. A female Lion (who does most of the hunting) sleeps for around 18 hours a day. There's a real difference there. A lot of Vegan's claim that they function or much less sleep and they are filled with far more energy. Vegetarians don't quite level to that. While I find it hard to believe this is possible as per being human, and Giraffe's sleep less than any other mammal. The reports are there and the science adds up. Hell, even a deer sleeps 30 minutes at a time, but throughout the day. They are also always alert while sleeping. Whilst not being alert while sleeping, vegans claim to be more alert during their day.

While being a vegan is significantly harder, and far more effective than being a vegetarian. You will need to give up dairy and grains. As those two are harder for your body to process and stores both weight and causes energy loss by your bodies requirement to work harder to break it down.[...]

Our bodies aren't very adept at getting iron from red meat.  We absorb a relatively small amount of the iron (and other nutrients) present.  Sounds to me like she may have been eating the wrong things, or eating them at the wrong times of day, or simply not eating enough of them.  My iron is better than ever before, and it's not solely from spinach.  It's from buckwheat, and flax, and, and, and.

I'm a vegan and I eat grains and my body is thriving.  Given up dairy is a natural (dairy consumption contributes to diabetes, poor weight management, and many other problems), but giving up grains?  I'm not gluten-intolerant, so I don't see the logic in that for me.  But I'm selective, consuming sprouted grains, ancient grains, etc.  I'm not talking about Wonder Bread here.  :)

Eagle367 said:

But don't say murder and torture. Eating meat is in our nature just look at our anatomy. If killing animals is torture and cruel and murder then so is plants. I have seen vegans act self righteous and they think they are doing something humanitarian or great or fantastic when they don't eat animals. You can eat grass for all I care but don't act superior because of that. Just a reality check that technically we torture plants a hell of a lot more than we do animals and we are fine with that so the animal murder part is all in your heads and I am proud not to be a part of this arrogance and eating meat is also healthy if taken in the right dosage. A meat eater can be just as much healthy and even more than vegans, so stop with this self service garbage you people have going in 

Sorry for the hard language but this behavior makes me furious and mad as hell. I am human and hence eat meat and plant because humans as a species is omnivores.

I think your strong emotions are blinding you.  The science doesn't back up anything you just typed.

Our anatomy is poorly adapted to animal products.  Our throats are too small, our jaws aren't offset, our teeth aren't sharp enough, or nails aren't durable enough, our intestines are too long, etc.  There's nothing about our anatomy that is well adapted to eating meat.  Scientists have tried to give coronary heart disease to dogs in controlled conditions, and failed; like other omnivores, dogs have short intestines that reduce the amount of cholesterol they absorb from meat.  Humans have much longer intestines in relation to our "trunk" length, about a 10:1 ratio which is typical of herbivores.  Try eating nothing but raw meat, and try doing it without cutting tools, and try to catch and kill that meat without weapons, and tell me how naturally adapted our biology is to eating meat.  We started cutting and cooking meat in the blink of an evolutionary eye, so our biology is little changed from before those inventions/discoveries.  From an evolutionary biology point of view we're either herbivores, or we're poorly adapted omnivores.

And again, huge amounts of plants are grown for feeding animals, so if you are concerned with plant health and welfare then go vegan.  The animals an omnivore eats consume hundreds of times as many plants as you would consume as a vegan.  And thse are the same plants that don't have brains or central nervous systems, right?

OdinHades said:
I could never live without cheeseburgers. It's just not possible, I'm sorry! =/

Curious...  not even if you were offered millions of dollars to do so?  If so, wow, that's some addiction you got there!  ;)

Mummelmann said:
As for the OP: mankind is herbivore, we have enzymes that break down protein chains from animalistic sources a lot better, we have a digestive system that needs vitamin B and bodily functions such as healing wounds and maintaining tendons and other, essential structures of our bodies are greatly helped by things like collagen, which is abundant in meat sources. We also have canines and heavy maulers in our mouths and the most powerful jaw muscles of any animal relative to their size and function. It's a biological fact that we are meant to eat all sorts of food, and most vegetarians and vegans need to eat a slew of vitamins and minerals on the side to maintain healthy storages of essentials in their bodies. As for the environmental argument; it seems reasonable at first glance, until you realize that per-calorie worth of vegetables is lower compared to the carbon footprint and producing massive amounts of crops require immense landmass, tending and, inevitable at such a grand scale; widespread use of pesticides and other chemicals (100% eco is simply not possible on a huge scale), not to mention the potential disaster should the weather not play along if a larger percentage of the population become a lot more dependent on vegetables and fruit.

As for the moral part; it's probably the best argument of the lot since it's both one with merit and one that is more subjective and justifiable. However; think about this, in order to grow huge crops, you'd need to slaughter a lot of animals to keep them from ruining crops and vegetation, you would also need to cultivate a lot more land, which would decrease sizes of habitats and biotopes for countless organisms; that means evicting entire species and murdering a bunch of animals simply to prevent them from eathing your food, that's not really any more logical or moral than slaughtering and then eating. Killing an animal for food makes more sense than killing it to save crops, from most point of view's anyway.
Besides; even without all this, there's still the conundrum of biological facts like plant consumption, plants and vegetables sustain themselves on soil, soil is enrichened by bacteria and dead tissue from, you gussed it, animals and other organisms, which means that on a spiritual and moral level, you can't really avoid consuming animals in some form or another, no matter what you do.[...]

Where to begin.  Firstly, 'herbivore'.  "That word, I do not think it means what you think it means."  You say herbivore, then describe something else (omnivore, carnivore, not 100% sure where you were going with that).  That said, see my comments above.  We don't have canines (have you *looked* at how much sharper canine teeth is than human teeth?).  I made a bunch of comments earlier in this email that points out how our biology is primarily herbivorous, if you scroll up.  There's very little pointing to us being biologically omnivorous, which is why we get so much disease from eating meat.  Coronary heart disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, parkinson's, alzheimer's, and many other are strongly associated with omnivorous diets.

Arguments based on the amount of water required per calorie?  That's a specious argument, completely devoid of any value.  I could drop 1ml of lemon juice in 1000 litres of water and then ship it around the world and point out that my diluted lemon water is worse to transport per calorie than Coca Cola.  So what?  The average person is nutrient deprived, but not calorie deprived.  If you want calories get a large milkshake from McDonald's, and it will have all the calories the average person needs for an entire day.  So what?  Plants are high in nutrition and low in calorie, and arguing about environmental impact per calorie is a line of logic similar to what the tobacco industry used to use to defend itself.  Unless and until the average person is calorie deprived, such arguments are utterly without value by any reasonable definition.

Your argument that we would need to clear more land to make more vegetables is quite incorrect.  45% of the Earth's ice-free land is dedicated to animal agriculture (space for the animals themselves, and the land that does nothing but make animal feed).  They eat hundreds of times as much food energy as we get from eating them.  Deforestation is largely caused by animal agriculture.  Turn the existing land used for animal agriculture over to feeding humans, and there'd be land (and food) to spare.  Livestock eat one third of the world's grain, as just one example.

Your final argument is also incorrect.  Vegan farming is a growing trend, and is sustainable.



ruimartiniman said:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-8LETe8gdrecEhxaGRWVVJRbWc/edit?pli=1

I watched about the first half of the documentary.  It contains a lot of misonformation.  An egregrious example is one of the people interviewed suggested that we need to eat meat to get vitamin B12.  Nope.  Vitamin B12 is a by-product from bacteria, bacteria that lives in the bodies of humans (and other animals) and produces it for us.  The only reason we have a problem with it today is we've made the soil to sterile with monoculture, pesticides, herbicides, and the like.  They now give vitamin B12 supplements to livestock because of this problem, meaning that when you eat meat you're actually eating supplemented B12 in whole or in part.  In North America, a higher percentage of omnivores are now B12 deficient than vegans.

The documentary then suggests we used to eat a lot of meat by pointing to a site that had bones from tens of thousands of animals, some of which showed evidence of being eaten.  OK, cool.  But do the math.  Spread those animals over hundreds/thousands of families for thousands/tens of thousands of years, and the actual amount of meat consumed is crazy tiny.  Analysis of fossilized human stool suggests most pre-history humans were about 99% vegan.  Analysis of human remains of those that ate a lot more meat (such as mummified inuit) show evidence of the animal products in their diets causing disease.

There's more, lots more, misinformation in this documentary, but those are a couple that stood out for me.  There's no nutrient that is exclusive to eating animal products, nor any health benefit. 



scrapking said:
curl-6 said:

 

Farsala said:
I could never go Vegetarian or Vegan as it is simply too expensive. I have always been a scrawny dude but I eat a lot of food and barely gain any weight. Here in cow land meat is quality and cheap, while some fruit is seasonal and often expensive.

I also love almost all food equally, so giving up meat would be the same as giving up all vegetables or all fruit etc.

Animal carnivores would eat me or a cow so I see no problem in eating them or a cow. Eventually I will die and be eaten by some organism. (Likely bacteria)

Too expensive?  When I hear this from people, they're usually comparing non-organic meat against organic produce.  Or, worse yet, fast food vs. produce.  I don't believe there's a long-term scenario where being a whole food vegan is more expensive, given how much disease (and therefore how many health dollars) it can save.  I'm a whole food vegan, and I rarely eat fruit.  My go-to breakfast is pre-soaked chia and flax paired with raw coconut and cocoa, for example.  It's pennies a bowl, it's filling, it takes a long time to digest (I'm like you, I eat a lot and am thin), it's wildly nutritious, and to me it's delicious.  There probably are some vegan diets that might be more expensive in the short-term, but that doesn't mean you need to follow those vegan diets.  I did some research and was creative in coming up with something that was nutriotionally broad and inexpensive.  And, like I say, the long-term health benefits are likely a long-term savings for almost everyone.

As for a carnivorous animal eating us if they had a chance...  I'm curious, are you eating lion, or wolf?  Or are you eating nearly defenseless herbivores like cows.  If so, the argument sounds self-defeating.   

 

@bold Will add to list, but in my part of the world it might be impossible to be cheap.

Lions, wolves, tigers, etc. would eat me if I was around them, and I would eat them if it was legal and poses no risk to killing them out. But I live in cow+ agriculture land so I mainly eat beef and vegetables. And unlike many carnivores, cows are plentiful and in no present danger of dieing out.



scrapking said:
ruimartiniman said:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-8LETe8gdrecEhxaGRWVVJRbWc/edit?pli=1

I watched about the first half of the documentary.  It contains a lot of misonformation.  An egregrious example is one of the people interviewed suggested that we need to eat meat to get vitamin B12.  Nope.  Vitamin B12 is a by-product from bacteria, bacteria that lives in the bodies of humans (and other animals) and produces it for us.  The only reason we have a problem with it today is we've made the soil to sterile with monoculture, pesticides, herbicides, and the like.  They now give vitamin B12 supplements to livestock because of this problem, meaning that when you eat meat you're actually eating supplemented B12 in whole or in part.  In North America, a higher percentage of omnivores are now B12 deficient than vegans.

The documentary then suggests we used to eat a lot of meat by pointing to a site that had bones from tens of thousands of animals, some of which showed evidence of being eaten.  OK, cool.  But do the math.  Spread those animals over hundreds/thousands of families for thousands/tens of thousands of years, and the actual amount of meat consumed is crazy tiny.  most pre-historAnalysis of fossilized human stool suggestsy humans were about 99% vegan.  Analysis of human remains of those that ate a lot more meat (such as mummified inuit) show evidence of the animal products in their diets causing disease.

There's more, lots more, misinformation in this documentary, but those are a couple that stood out for me.  There's no nutrient that is exclusive to eating animal products, nor any health benefit. 

Analysis of fossilized human bones  suggestsy humans were about 99% NOT vegan, it´s in the documentary. When human lived in the jungle they ate food easily available and edible like fruit and meat. Vegetables were available but almost of it need to be cooked, humans could cook meat in the fire but not vegetables, they had no pots and spoon for milions.

 

Lots of studies sugests vitamina b12 produced by bacteria are not enough and most part is not even absorved. Meat is the best food you can eat, the illuminatti system wants people to be vegan, it´s part of their plan to reduce population. Being vegan will destroy your health slowly, our digestive system is clearly designed to eat meat. Steve Jobs died because he was vegan, the best way to avoid pancreatic cancer is to eat meat. Sure you can find vegan people healthy, but it´s not the norm. I used to be vegetarian myself, but i´m done with it.  

Wanna change your life to get everything you want? First you need to do Paleo diet, than get into quantum physics. 




Around the Network

Go pescatarian instead, you can still eat fish so you still get plenty of protein and the added goodness of the healthy oils fish meat contains.



PSN ID: Stokesy 

Add me if you want but let me know youre from this website

StokedUp said:
Go pescatarian instead, you can still eat fish so you still get plenty of protein and the added goodness of the healthy oils fish meat contains.

I think the arguments for pescetarianism from a health point of view are fairly strong.  Not as strong as being on a whole food plant-based diet, but nonetheless fairly strong.  Strong with one major caveat that is: we're screwing over the oceans (and lakes, and rivers, and...) with pollution, so with every passing year you have to be more and more careful which seafood you eat.  The levels of metals and toxins in seafood keep increasing, as they bioaccumulate up the food chain.  At first it was recommended that we avoid bottom feeders.  Now it's recommended that we avoid seafood that eat the bottom feeders.  Unless you expect humanity will wake up and suddenly start treatings its oceans a tonne better, there'll be more seafood on the list of those recommended to avoid as time goes on.

Your protein recommendation isn't relevant, as plants also have plenty of protein.  Plants are, after all, where animals get their protein from (either directly by eating plants, or indirectly by eating animals who've eaten plants)!  :)  Most people eat too much protein (more than their bodies can even absorb, which at best means the excess is wasted, and at worst it can actually interfere with the absorption of other nutrients).  Most people couldn't even tell you a single symptom of protein deficiency, and yet they're very concerned about it for no apparent reason; these same people are probably deeply fibre deficient, which is a much more common and serious problem.  So being panicked about replacing your protein if you go vegan is largely a non-issue.  Omnivores not getting enough fibre is a pretty common health concern however, but whole food vegans have no worries in this department (I struggle to imagine how you'd construct a whole food vegan diet that was fibre-deficient).

From a food chain point of view, being on a plant-based diet has never looked better since plants are so low on the food chain and toxins bioaccumulate up through the food chain.  From a strictly health point of view, I'd recommend people eat only plants and insects.  The variety of insect-based options are increasing (I saw a protein bar made from insect protein recently), and it's considered a new food frontier by many people.  If I were still an omnivore, I would probably explore it.



Nope, I'll stick to being an omnivore.



ruimartiniman said:

 Analysis of fossilized human bones  suggestsy humans were about 99% NOT vegan, it´s in the documentary. When human lived in the jungle they ate food easily available and edible like fruit and meat. Vegetables were available but almost of it need to be cooked, humans could cook meat in the fire but not vegetables, they had no pots and spoon for milions.

 

Lots of studies sugests vitamina b12 produced by bacteria are not enough and most part is not even absorved. Meat is the best food you can eat, the illuminatti system wants people to be vegan, it´s part of their plan to reduce population. Being vegan will destroy your health slowly, our digestive system is clearly designed to eat meat. Steve Jobs died because he was vegan, the best way to avoid pancreatic cancer is to eat meat. Sure you can find vegan people healthy, but it´s not the norm. I used to be vegetarian myself, but i´m done with it.  

Wanna change your life to get everything you want? First you need to do Paleo diet, than get into quantum physics. 


In what part of the documentary?  There was so much misinformation in there I only got through the first half.  It states that being vegan is not healthful, despite the fact that every nutrient on the planet is available to a vegan diet (yes, even B12, peaches commonly contain it).  How could a well-crafted vegan diet be anything but healthful?  And there's no citation for their false claim, they just state the misinformation and move on without making any attempt to prove it.  Not journalistic of them, and not very impressive.

You like videos?  Here's one:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3j80WpjM0M  And unlike the video you posted (which appears to be copyrighted material, so it being hosting it on Google Drive appears to be piracy BTW), this video on B12 has citations for every single claim it makes.

Recent archeological evidence proves that we've been cooking vegetables far longer than previously believed.  The video you posted appears to have out-of-date claims on that point.

Meat is the healthiest thing on the planet?  Heart disease kills 1 out of every 6 omnivores, and hinders their quality of life in the later years of those it doesn't manage to kill.  Go on a meat-only diet and see how well you fare.  If you do become a carnivore, I guess you'd have to be careful to not "season" your meat as that generally means adding plants to it to make it taste better.  ;)

The illuminati want me to go vegan?  I went vegan because of the triple threat: reduction in animal cruelty, reduction in environmental devastation, and improvement to my health.  My health, and especially my digestion, has improved dramatically since I went vegan despite your unsubstantiated claims to the contrary.  Not sure what a secret society that may or may not exist has to do with any of the above.

EDIT TO ADD:  There's something weird in my words that you quoted.  You appear to have edited it in some way without indicating you did (such as adding "[...]" to indicate a removal of text).  Not cool.  If someone read your post without reading my original comment, that would become my comment to them.



Shadow1980 said:
scrapking said:

The research doesn't back you up.  Even if there weren't proven health benefits to a whole food plant-based diet, there are health detriments that are all but solely associated with omnivorous diets.

Uh huh...

http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/04/01/study-vegetarians-less-healthy-lower-quality-of-life-than-meat-eaters/
http://www.abc.net.au/health/talkinghealth/factbuster/stories/2014/03/13/3962359.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/29/long-term-vegetarian-diet-changes-human-dna-raising-risk-of-canc/

There is no consistent research that suggests that veganism is, when correcting for all other factors, inherently, obviously, and significantly better than a well-balanced omnivorous diet.

but cholesterol is only found in animal products

Cholesterol is not inherently bad for you. It depends on the kind and amount. Hell, your body makes cholesterol on its own because it needs it.

There's growing evidence that while MS may be caused by genetics, the rate at which symptoms progress (or not) is affected by diet for many people.  People diagnosed with the early stages of multiple sclerosis have symptoms stay the same or lesson in 95% of cases if they switch to a whole food plant-based diet, whereas MS patients who stay on an omnivorous diet see symptoms continue to worsen in almost 100% of cases.

MS patients, who are at most about 0.1% of the population, are a special case. Some people may have health conditions that warrant excluding meat from their diet. For the average person, vegetarianism/veganism is not inherently healthier as far as anyone can tell. It's like gluten: totally harmless unless you have celiac. But, like veganism, "gluten free" and other fad diets are more a lifestyle based on woo than a diet based on any real evidence regarding its overal healthiness.

That's stronger correlative evidence than we have for smoking causing cancer (as we have yet to "prove" that cigarettes cause cancer, as that would involve clinical trials where people were given cancer, so we've accepted the correlative evidence is strong enough and stopped there).  I don't want to be "that guy" who suggests a miracle cure to someone with a condition, yet the scientific evidence on this is strong and growing.

We've known for decades that tobacco smoke is highly carcinogenic, and smoking clearly increases risk of lung cancer by a massive amount and results in an overall significant reduction in average life span. Meanwhile, there is no evidence that meat, when consumed in moderation and in the right form (meaning eating lean grass-fed beef and other higher-quality red meats and any non-red meats, and not wolfing down bacon and Big Macs by the pound on a regular basis), will cause the average person to live a statistically significant shorter and/or unhealthier life. Eating too much red meat might raise your risk of colon cancer a bit, but that's not the same as saying that eating any meat (or animal products in general) at all greatly increases your risk of cancer. I personally eat on average at most half the 50 g/day of processed or red meats recommended by several health organizations (e.g., AICR and NHS). Equating eating meat to smoking or even downplaying smoking's health risks relative to eating meat is beyond disingenuous.

Research regarding diet is honestly all over the place. Humans are very complex and all of us have our own unique health. Something that's harmless to you might kill me and vice versa. In most cases nobody knows for sure what exactly is more healthy diet-wise because there's nothing consistent one way or another. For example, are coffee or eggs good or bad for you? There's no definite answer. Also, most of the health "information" out there on the web is quite frankly based on a lot of woo and other nonsense. As far as I can tell, whether its veganism or paleo or gluten-free or Atkins or whatever, most of these "healthy" diets are just fad diets that don't have clear health benefits for the average person. I know a lot of people get their health advice from quacks like Mercola, Mike Adams, and Dr. Oz. But there is very little in the way of any clear, helpful, universal dietary advice besides "don't eat fast food all the time, don't drink alcohol much, eat a balanced diet, and get some exercise." Avoiding tobacco and other recreational drugs is probably a good idea, too, though that's only tangentially related.

You've edited my quote to include a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't say, and much of which I disagree with.  Someone coming into this conversation late might think I am articulating those positions, which I absolutely am not.  That's not cool.

If I presume that was meant to be a response to me, rather than a misquote of me, I'll simply add that you don't appear to have understood what I was saying.  I believe the preponderence of new evidence appears to be pointing in the direction of a whole food plant-based diet being the best.  Note I didn't say "vegan".  Studies on vegan health versus vegetarians vs. pesceterians, vs. omnivores, etc., are not what I am talking about.  I'm talking about research that looks at a whole food vegan, meaning someone who eats raw and/or cooked whole foods.  The term vegan, and many of the studies that comment on the vegan diet, include so-called "junk food" vegans.

You can be vegan and eat Oreo cookies.  You can be vegan and eat Tofurkey.  I don't eat either of the above.  If you're eating processed foods, then you're not on an exclusively whole food plant-based diet.  I believe, and there's a growing body of scientific evidence that demonstrates, that being on a whole food plant-based diet is wildly nutritious and helps you avoid disease.  I'm the first to admit that more research needs to be done, but that's always the case.  If you're eating Tofurkey, or other processed foods, then you're not a whole food vegan and any study that includes you is not producing results related to what I'm talking about.  Studies on vegans that treat all vegans as one category, and especially studies that don't narrow things down any further than vegetarians, are potentially interesting but have very little to do with my arguments, so the citations and comments you added to my quote are of little relevance to my fundamental point.