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?

scrapking said:
Aeolus451 said:

You're giving false information on this. Humans require nutrients that only come from meat and animal products. End of story. To live a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle, supplements are required if they want to remain "healthy" by the standards of actual doctors. If not they'll eventually have short term or permanent health problems ranging from muscle aches to dementia to different disorders. People should be eating meat and plants daily.  Science recommends that humans take in B12 daily which only comes from meat and animal products.... 

You can't give me one example of a nutrient that comes from animal products that can't be garnered some other (and much healthier way) because no such nutrient exists.  You keep saying everyone else's information is false, but can't even validate your own information.  Whereas I can (and have) quoted the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and many respected health bodies to back up my claims.

Your claim with B12 is false.  There are plant sources of B12.  Animals don't produce B12, they get B12 from plants and bacteria (and, in the case of factory farmed animals, supplements) the same as humans can and do.  I'm not actually sure if you're fully reading my posts.  You're definitely not reading/comprehending much of the science that's out there.

You're talking gimberish. You won't even acknowledge that the human body requires vitamins that come from animals and I listed them earlier. Humans naturally get B12 from animals. That's why vegans and vegetarians have to resort to taking supplements and fortified foods. End of story. Vegans and vegetarians are no different than flat earthers. Obsessed with conspiracies and the denial of basic facts. I've read through your posts.and there's alot of smoke and mirrors. 



Around the Network
Green098 said:
SvennoJ said:

Perhaps some perspective could help

https://www.thinkingnutrition.com.au/broccoli-bad-for-you/
Long-lived people don’t avoid dairy foods, or soy or gluten. They don’t calculate the glycaemic index of their meals. They don’t ruminate on if the grains they are eating are stopping the absorption of other nutrients. They don’t take supplements. They eat. They move. They enjoy. They socially engage with their community in person. They live.

You can villify meat and dairy products all day, in the end it hasn't stopped earth's population explosion in the slightest.

Probably couldn't agree more. The oldest person to live "Jeanne Calment" just ate what tasted good to her, no tricks, no actively including or avoiding certain foods, she ate what she liked. Here's a fact file on her life if you want to know more in depth about her life; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

Whether you are an omnivore, vegetarian or vegan, just eat what you like and tastes good to you. Of course aim for a good healthy diet but you don't to go overboard about it and worrying about every little possible thing. Anyways I think I'm better off avoiding cancer by practicing good sun protection throughout my life rather than not eating my bowl of cereal in the morning.

She continued cycling until her hundredth birthday I hope I'll be able to do that!

Yeah, I'm screwed. I love the sun, can't get enough of it in summer. Sunscreen probably isn't good for you either, but f it, I'm not going to hide inside when the sun is out. Luckily my mother is from Indonesia so I have some natural protection.



scrapking said:

Interesting link.  I think I've read it before (failing that, I read something similar).  I agree that orthorexia can be a serious issue for some people.

I don't calculate the gclycemic index of my meals (no need, the odds of me getting diabetes from a plant-based diet focused around whole foods is next to non-existant).  I don't avoid gluten, lots of really healthy foods contain gluten, and I don't have celiac disease.  I don't avoid soy, as it's one of the healthiest beans on the planet, despite fear-mongering to the contrary.  I don't ruminate on the grains I'm eating creating malabsorption issues, because if you're eating the rainbow then you don't tend to suffer that effect (vitamin C improves the absorption of a raft of other nutrients, including iron).  I don't take supplements, aside from vitamin D in the winter (and only because I live in a northern climate).

I do avoid dairy.  As a species we only started eating dairy about 10K years ago, which is a blink of an eye evolutionarily.  The populations that consume the most dairy tend to have the most osteoporosis despite the dairy industry's calcium claims.  Plus there are plenty of ethical issues with dairy where I would be less happy with life if I were participating in them, so not consuming dairy contributes to a happier life for me, which is ultimately what the article you linked to is all about.

Meat and dairy aren't stopping Earth's population explosion as the health problems from them tend to come well after reproductive years, so I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

Cheese makes you happy though and is also good for you
http://time.com/4619162/cheese-health-food-cholesterol/

Well, what would happen if everyone started to live to a 100, society can hardly handle the ageing population as it is!

Anyway do whatever makes you feel good, a positive mind is most important for good health. Eating your problems away is the biggest threat to health atm. Play games instead of watching tv. That keeps your hand occupied not to grab that bag of chips or other snacks or soda. Binge watching, binge snacking go hand in hand, Netflix is causing obesity!
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/31/461594989/netflix-and-chew-how-binge-watching-affects-our-eating-habits
I guess you can snack a lot more on veggies, unless you dip them into dressing etc.

Anyway comparing a vegan lifestyle to the average omnivore couch potatoe, yes the people that choose that vegan lifestyle are likely a lot more healt conscious to start with. Plus all those remote vegan societies don't have the overabundance culture we have here. You can be perfectly healthy and live a long life as an omnivore, as long as with everything else, eat in moderation. Which is something I'll improve on that my parents did. You don't need to finish your plate, stop when you've had enough. It's hard though as it was ingrained over 18 years, finish your dinner, clear your plate, kids in Africa go hungry so you better eat up. (how did that ever make sense)



ArchangelMadzz said:
If you can't live with the horror of factory farming and going organic doesn't cut it then go for it.

Just make sure you know what you're doing as going Vegan can be bad for your health if you're ill informed.

Staying an omnivore is even more likely to be bad for your health, well informed or not.  Statistically, the average North American omnivore is more nutritionally deficient than the average vegan (one study found the average vegan deficient in 3 essential nutrients, the average omnivore deficient in 7 essential nutrients; they were both typically calcium deficient, but they differed on the other nutrients).  And since many people go vegan for ethical and environmental reasons, there isn't a lot of evidence to support the idea it's because vegans are necessarily even more health conscious people, making that result all the more significant.  Hell, the definition of vegan includes not wearing wool, not using leather, etc., so the very word speaks to a lot of things that are nothing to do with what you eat.

The fact that 14 of the top 15 killers in North America (heart disease, diabetes, many cancers, etc.) are related to diet and lifestyle suggests that successful health and vibrancy into old age as an omnivore is what's hard, not being vegan.  I agree with you that simply eating a vegan diet is no guarantee of health (hell, Oreo cookies are vegan).  But the standard American omnivorous diet is almost a guarantee of bad health.

However, if you adopt a plant-based diet focused on whole foods, and you eat the rainbow, it's almost impossible to do it wrong.



Green098 said:

Probably couldn't agree more. The oldest person to live "Jeanne Calment" just ate what tasted good to her, no tricks, no actively including or avoiding certain foods, she ate what she liked. Here's a fact file on her life if you want to know more in depth about her life; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

Whether you are an omnivore, vegetarian or vegan, just eat what you like and tastes good to you. Of course aim for a good healthy diet but you don't to go overboard about it and worrying about every little possible thing. Anyways I think I'm better off avoiding cancer by practicing good sun protection throughout my life rather than not eating my bowl of cereal in the morning.

Interestingly, as an omnivore (and later as a pescetarian), I avoided the sun as much as I could.  I think it worked against me living life to the fullest.

Then I learned how all of us are exposed to cancer on a regular basis, but that the body has natural anti-cancer abilities.  Our cells even have self-destruct mechanisms when they get damaged, so that they don't replicate in a damaged state.  One of the ways that cancer defeats the body is by turning off this self-destruct mechanism, but it turns out there are plant-based foods (such as the spice turmeric) that can actually turn it back on:  https://nutritionfacts.org/video/turmeric-curcumin-reprogramming-cancer-cell-death/  And phytate rich foods such as beans and flaxseed have tremendous cancer-fighting ability:  https://nutritionfacts.org/video/phytates-for-rehabilitating-cancer-cells/

I don't find Jeanne Calment's story very compelling.  Anyone can get lucky.  What I do find compelling are population studies, where they show thousands of people having a shared experience for one reason or another.  Jeanne Calment may be the oldest known living person, but the Adventist vegetarians are now the longest-living human population ever studied, and many of them grew up in vegetarian (or vegan) households and have never eaten tasted meat in their lives:  https://publichealth.llu.edu/adventist-health-studies

I agree with you that it's important not to become orthorexic.  And I agree with you that there are health and longevity advantages to living a low-stress life.  But to your example of how you avoid the sun, now that I'm on an anti-oxidant rich diet full of cancer fighting phytonutrients I now feel that I can live life much more fully, and with much less stress.  Far more so than when I was an omnivore not worrying very much about what I ate.  So that's an alternate perspective that builds on your points, for your interest.



Around the Network
Aeolus451 said:

You're talking gimberish. You won't even acknowledge that the human body requires vitamins that come from animals and I listed them earlier. Humans naturally get B12 from animals. That's why vegans and vegetarians have to resort to taking supplements and fortified foods. End of story. Vegans and vegetarians are no different than flat earthers. Obsessed with conspiracies and the denial of basic facts. I've read through your posts.and there's alot of smoke and mirrors. 

I'm not sure what gimberish even is.  Do you mean gibberish?

I did acknowledge your point.  You listed:

vitamin B1, which I pointed out was an abundant nutrient in the plant kingdom

vitamin B12, which animals do not produce, and that humans can get the exact same way the animals do (they get them from eating plants right from the ground, or from supplements in the case of factory farmed animals)

vitamin D, which humans can get enough of from 15 minutes of sun exposure a day

Again with your pot-kettle-black routine.  You like to accuse people of the same things you're doing.  I acknowledge almost every single thing you say, whereas your replies suggest you aren't even thoroughly reading my posts let alone responding to them.  I pointed out you don't even understand how omega 3s work in the body, and you stated outright falsehoods about them, and didn't acknowledge my point let along your error, or correct/apologize for it.

As for supplements, the majority of them aren't vegan/vegetarian (containing animal products such as gelatin, dairy by-products, egg, etc.).  The majority of supplements are created for, marketed to, sold to, and consumed by omnivores.  Why is that if their diet is so great?  It's not great, and on some level millions of omnivores know it.  You are alternating between spreading BS and calling BS, and it's not a good look for you.



No.



I'm not a vegetarian but I've found there's quite a lot of alternatives that make it a lot less difficult than I thought it would be, and when you go a long time without eating meat you begin to lose your taste and desire for it.

The truth is, it's a very, very healthy way to go so long as you make sure you're still getting sufficient protein (which can be found in plenty of non-animal sources) and vitamins (perhaps get a metabolic panel after a couple months of it to make sure you're not deficient in anyhting); I don't believe I've ever met a fat committed-vegetarian.

Personally, I've been gradually removing meat from my life but more so because I've been developing feelings of guilt about the animals I eat... I recall one turning point night was when I was at a bar watching basketball and ordered a large plate of wings with a friend who hardly ate any, and looking down at it I realized that something like a minimum of nearly a dozen animals had to die so that we could have something to snack on with our beer. That just felt inherently wrong, but certainly didn't stop me lol

There's certain animals, though, that I've really felt the need to stop eating, first and foremost being pigs. I've just seen far too much evidence on youtube and the like that pigs are essentially dogs, with similar levels of intelligence and emotions to the point that it just seems insanely cruel the way they are kept in pens and then killed. It was painful as hell to say goodbye to prosciutto, pepperoni, and bacon, but it turns out turkey bacon is actually quite good.

At this point the next animal I may have to abandon (but am extremely hesitant to) is the cow... I hope they're not as aware and intelligent as some evidence has begun showing them to be, as damn do I love steak lol



SvennoJ said:

Cheese makes you happy though and is also good for you
http://time.com/4619162/cheese-health-food-cholesterol/

Well, what would happen if everyone started to live to a 100, society can hardly handle the ageing population as it is!

Anyway do whatever makes you feel good, a positive mind is most important for good health. Eating your problems away is the biggest threat to health atm. Play games instead of watching tv. That keeps your hand occupied not to grab that bag of chips or other snacks or soda. Binge watching, binge snacking go hand in hand, Netflix is causing obesity!
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/31/461594989/netflix-and-chew-how-binge-watching-affects-our-eating-habits
I guess you can snack a lot more on veggies, unless you dip them into dressing etc.

Anyway comparing a vegan lifestyle to the average omnivore couch potatoe, yes the people that choose that vegan lifestyle are likely a lot more healt conscious to start with. Plus all those remote vegan societies don't have the overabundance culture we have here. You can be perfectly healthy and live a long life as an omnivore, as long as with everything else, eat in moderation. Which is something I'll improve on that my parents did. You don't need to finish your plate, stop when you've had enough. It's hard though as it was ingrained over 18 years, finish your dinner, clear your plate, kids in Africa go hungry so you better eat up. (how did that ever make sense)

What evidence do you have that people who choose a vegan lifestyle are more health conscious on average?  I don't see a lot of evidence for that.  I see more evidence for the reverse, I see omnivores buying supplements like crazy, going to the gym, obsessing over fish and so-called "white meat", etc.  Until recently the vegan movement was focused on animal welfare, not optimal health.  I'm a part of a vegan Facebook group with over 2000 members, and another with over 5000 members, and there are legions of people there getting excited every time some new processed food comes out (or some grocery store puts a popular processed food on sale).  This is a commonly asserted claim, but it seems to fly in the face of a lot of evidence.  Has it ever been studied, or are you simply assuming it's true?

I'm right with you that a stress reduced lifestyle is good for health.  I think stress reduction, lots of sleep, and an appropriate diet are the three pillars of health, but I wouldn't put stress reduction above the other two.

To your first point, the independent research continues to call BS on the idea that dairy and eggs are good for you.  The science suggesting otherwise is being funded by vested interests connected to industries that sell cholesterol laden foods, and they're manipulating the science in the same way the tobacco industry used to before they gave up trying to defend tobacco on the health front.

If you want a study that suggests cholesterol is not bad for you, there are several ways to do it.  For example:

- Construct a study that *slightly* increases or slight reduces cholesterol, find no statistically significant change, and declare victory.  This is akin to taking someone who smokes two packs of cigarettes a day and doing a study that reduces that by one cigarette, and finding no significant health benefit to the reduction.  Similarly, if you take someone who smokes two packs a day and increase their cigarette smoking by one cigarette you're unlikely to find a significant health detriment.

- Publication bias.  Independent research is likely to publish their findings no matter what, but research funded by vested interests typically only publishes when they get the result they want.  If they come up with results that don't fit their narrative, you'll never hear about it.  Yet the research funded by public health agencies, charities, etc., usually gets published whatever the result.

- Correlative studies on cholesterol is another way they manipulate the data.  For example, put people on diets with the same amount of cholesterol, note that each participant ends up with different levels of cholesterol, declare no correlation, and that eating cholesterol makes no difference to health.  Declare victory.

The above is the approach of the vested interests.  Independent research continues to do studies where they take people and significantly increase their cholesterol intake, and they find bad cholesterol skyrockets.  Or take groups of people and significantly reduce their cholesterol intake, and their bad cholesterol plummets.  Open and shut.

The Canadian government for its most recent round of proposed nutrition guidelines chose to ignore *all* research funded by vested interests.  Didn't matter if it was funded by a dairy board, or an alliance of rice producers.  And they concluded that while research funded by vested interests was all over the place, the independent research all had a consistent narrative that cholesterol was bad, caused heart disease, and should be reduced in the diet for optimal health.  That was preceded by a similar decision by the Brazilian government, and followed up by a similar decision by a Northern European government.

The research that says cholesterol is A-OK is bad science.  It usually doesn't get submitted to peer review, and generally fails peer review when it does get submitted.  It's true junk science in the worst sense of the word.  That's not cherry-picking, as that's ignoring not only the pro-cholesterol science paid for by meat/dairy/egg industry, it's also ignoring science by the pomegranate industry trying to oversell the health benefits of their product.  It's choosing to look at independent science that is submitted to rigourous scientific scrutiny only, and that's increasingly the approach that government health agencies are having to take as vested interests become more daring in their attempts to over-sell their products.



scrapking said:
Aeolus451 said:

You're talking gimberish. You won't even acknowledge that the human body requires vitamins that come from animals and I listed them earlier. Humans naturally get B12 from animals. That's why vegans and vegetarians have to resort to taking supplements and fortified foods. End of story. Vegans and vegetarians are no different than flat earthers. Obsessed with conspiracies and the denial of basic facts. I've read through your posts.and there's alot of smoke and mirrors. 

I'm not sure what gimberish even is.  Do you mean gibberish?

I did acknowledge your point.  You listed:

vitamin B1, which I pointed out was an abundant nutrient in the plant kingdom

vitamin B12, which animals do not produce, and that humans can get the exact same way the animals do (they get them from eating plants right from the ground, or from supplements in the case of factory farmed animals)

vitamin D, which humans can get enough of from 15 minutes of sun exposure a day

Again with your pot-kettle-black routine.  You like to accuse people of the same things you're doing.  I acknowledge almost every single thing you say, whereas your replies suggest you aren't even thoroughly reading my posts let alone responding to them.  I pointed out you don't even understand how omega 3s work in the body, and you stated outright falsehoods about them, and didn't acknowledge my point let along your error, or correct/apologize for it.

As for supplements, the majority of them aren't vegan/vegetarian (containing animal products such as gelatin, dairy by-products, egg, etc.).  The majority of supplements are created for, marketed to, sold to, and consumed by omnivores.  Why is that if their diet is so great?  It's not great, and on some level millions of omnivores know it.  You are alternating between spreading BS and calling BS, and it's not a good look for you.

Oh lordy. I mistyped and put one little ietter into a word that doesn't belong there and all of my points that I made are now debunked. I never mentioned omega 3s in any of my posts....so what are you talking about? 

Supplements are for people who for some reason or another don't get enough of something in their diet. Normal people who eat a normal balanced diet don't need to take them.