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?

Flilix said:

Of course you can live a healthy life as a vegan, but you need to consider better what you do and don't eat. I admire people who manage to be fully vegan, but for most people this is too much of an effort.

You didn't answer my question, and I'm genuinely curious.  What health problems are you concerned with?

Why do you feel a vegan needs "to consider better what you do and don't eat"?  I actually believe the opposite is true, as omnivores are statistically less healthy, and the fact that our top killers are diet and lifestyle related (heart disease, diabetes, etc.) is proof that it's not just vegans who need to do some meal planning.  Omnivores need to as well, and they die in the millions because they choose not to.

Plant-based diets on average have far more nutrients per calorie.  I found meal/nutrition planning challenging as an omnivore as I was always running out of calories each day.  On a plant-based diet, I have found doing so far easier because I eat so much more food that I'm much more likely to hit all my nutritional bases without even trying very hard.



Around the Network
scrapking said:
Flilix said:

Of course you can live a healthy life as a vegan, but you need to consider better what you do and don't eat. I admire people who manage to be fully vegan, but for most people this is too much of an effort.

You didn't answer my question, and I'm genuinely curious.  What health problems are you concerned with?

Why do you feel a vegan needs "to consider better what you do and don't eat"?  I actually believe the opposite is true, as omnivores are statistically less healthy, and the fact that our top killers are diet and lifestyle related (heart disease, diabetes, etc.) is proof that it's not just vegans who need to do some meal planning.  Omnivores need to as well, and they die in the millions because they choose not to.

Plant-based diets on average have far more nutrients per calorie.  I found meal/nutrition planning challenging as an omnivore as I was always running out of calories each day.  On a plant-based diet, I have found doing so far easier because I eat so much more food that I'm much more likely to hit all my nutritional bases without even trying very hard.

I've had underweight problems in the past, even though I eat quite a lot. Sure, I could just eat a lot more fruit and vegtables, but I already eat a lot more of these than most people (and my weight is still pretty low).



Doctors recently found that vegan diets can actively alter your DNA (this is the body trying to adapt to the delusional idea that you can get all of your nutrients from plants alone), which has been claimed could cause cancer and heart disease in the vegan and their offspring.

So no. Not really.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/29/long-term-vegetarian-diet-changes-human-dna-raising-risk-of-canc/



Watch me stream games and hunt trophies on my Twitch channel!

Check out my Twitch Channel!:

www.twitch.tv/AzurenGames

scrapking said:
NATO said:

he hears you, yet spends the entire thread telling everyone that veganism is how humans are supposed to live, and how it can cure just about any ailment, and how humans aren't supposed to eat meat, and even in his very reply to you, can't help but push the narrative that if only everyone were vegan the planet would magically be saved.

What about your post did he actually hear?

 

My honest to god view on this whole topic is more or less the same as my view on religion.

Do whatever the fuck you want, just don't spend your life trying to get/force/guilt other people to do the same.
You're vegan? good for you, unless i'm cooking you something i don't need to know.
You're religious, good for you unless i'm cooking you something i don't need to know.

Am i cooking you something?
Yes: Tell me "no __ for me please, i'm vegan", or "no __ for me please, it's against my religion"
No: shut your damn mouth.

You think you know me.  You like to think you can peg me in a little box based on your experiences with others, your own biases, and your preconceptions.  You couldn't be more wrong.

I'm a former omnivore.  When I was an omnivore, I didn't believe a lot of the things I believe now.  But as new information was presented to me, I kept an open mind and gradually made changes.  Those changes were made over a 27 year span.

In the early days of concern over tobacco smoking, a lot of people denied that smoking caused cancer.  People said just smoke if you want, or smoke in moderation if you're worried about it.  But that's not what the preponderance of science said.

Similarly, people are saying a lot of the same things about meat now.  But again, that's not what the preponderance of science is saying.

Again, you think you know me.  I don't own a single piece of clothing with the word "vegan" on it.  I don't go around telling people I'm vegan.  I have spent most of my life not being vegan.  I keep it to myself until invited to do so.  You do realize that this thread is on the topic of veganism, right?  Do you go to threads about the Nintendo Switch just to attack people for being excited about the Switch, or thinking the Switch is the best thing going?

You have pigeon-holed me as closed minded, yet it's my open-mindedness that made me vegan.  In truth, I'm not eating a vegan diet, I'm eating an evidence-based diet.  And as the best evidence changes, so too does my diet.  I make changes to it on a monthly basis.

But in your haste to declare me closed minded, you're actually declaring your own closed-mindedness since your assumptions about me and my experience are just that, assumptions.  And most of your assumptions about me are wrong.

No, actually given the evidence of your repeatedly preachy, pretentious posts, combined with the fact that your response to him had absolutely nothing to do with what he was saying, id say I have you pegged pretty much spot on.

But hey, why not reply to this with yet another long winded post where you say "I'm vegan" and "as a former omnivire" and sprinkle it with a little more PETA style spin while you're at it. 



Only if you want to be a vagina dryer..



Around the Network
scrapking said:
NATO said:

What really? It's a good thing you told us again or we might have forgot

So your attempt at ridicule is completely misplaced, IMO.  You're exhibiting a common trait of the "angry omnivore", my friend.

Psht, as a food eater you would never understand, not even a single grain of rice has passed my lips in close to 9 months. 



Azuren said:
Doctors recently found that vegan diets can actively alter your DNA (this is the body trying to adapt to the delusional idea that you can get all of your nutrients from plants alone), which has been claimed could cause cancer and heart disease in the vegan and their offspring.

So no. Not really.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/29/long-term-vegetarian-diet-changes-human-dna-raising-risk-of-canc/

   The study doesn't say vegan diets actively alter your DNA.  The study says that people who are descended from different populations have different DNA.  You could just as easily say that people descended from populations that ate a lot of meat have different DNA, that's equally true.

   We all have different DNA, but we have the same biology.  In the same way that all Koalas have different DNA from each other, but they all have the same biology so they all eat eucalyptus leaves despite their different DNA.  People overstate the significance of DNA differences, and understate the significance of our shared biology.

   This study is interesting, but the conclusions in the Telegraph article you linked to don't entirely agree with the studies they mention (if you read the actual studies, rather than media reports on them).  And the study is looking at vegetable oils.  Vegetable oil is junk food, so I don't add vegetable oils to my food any more than I eat Oreo cookies or smoke cigarettes.  The study might as well conclude that processed meat or heroin is bad for you.  We all know that vegetable oils, processed meats, etc., are bad for you, and studies concluding that are not surprising to me.  I'm no more a fan of eating refined carbohydrates or vegetables oils than I am meat, dairy, or eggs.  I eat whole foods.  The fact that vegetarians are more susceptible to the problems of vegetable oils, and meat eaters are more susceptible to the problems of processed meats (because of what eating meat does to their gut bacteria), is not exactly a strong argument either way.  And that's what this study is looking at.

   The article suggests that there can be problems with fertility for vegans, hilariously because of high levels of pesticides.  Again, the news story has drawn a conclusion that the researchers themselves did not appear to conclude (from what I can tell, as the study doesn't appear to link to a single study meaning some guess work is required).  The studies I found don't conclude that vegetarians/vegans are at risk, they conclude that people with lots of pesticides in their diet are at risk.  People eating organic produce are at low risk for that, and I eat almost exclusively organic food.  However, people who eat lots of non-organic meat often have extremely high levels of pesticides in their systems.  Pesticides bio-accumulate up the food chain.  A cow might eat 500 times as much food energy as we get from eating the cow, for example.  If you are buying meat at the grocery store, then you often get meat from animals that have eaten hundreds of times as much pesticide and herbicide-laden plant foods as you would if you were eating plants yourself.

   One American study increased the amount of vitamin C for people that were having problems with fertility and there was a huge jump in fertility (most participants in the study were able to conceive a child), so the evidence suggests that fertility is best enhanced by eating organic plant foods (organic to avoid pesticides, and plants to increase the amount of natural vitamin C consumed).

   The study then goes on to point out three common nutrient deficiencies with vegetarians...  without bothering to point out that the same studies concludet hat meat eaters are typically deficient in seven essential nutrients.  So that's not exactly good journalism on the telegraph's part.  And most studies on nutrient deficiencies look at ovo-lacto vegetarians, but people sometimes then attribute those conclusions to vegans.  But since vegans don't eat dairy and eggs (which are foods that have low nutrients-per-calorie ratios), there is evidence that vegans tend to suffer fewer nutrient deficiencies.  I know my bloodwork shows I'm not low in any of the above (not the three nutrients that vegetarians are typically low in, nor the seven nutrients that meat eaters are typically low in...  anecdotal of course, but enough for me to want to stay the course since I'm enjoying success).  And that makes sense since meat/dairy/eggs have very low levels of nutrition per calorie compared to the foods I eat, so people eating whole food plant-based diets will eat more total food, get more nutrition, and if you're eating the rainbow you'll get a wider variety of nutrition.

   Anyway, your conclusion is that it's impossible to be healthy without eating meat.  Pretty much every government health body on the planet disagrees with that conclusion.  There's no "recommended daily amount" for meat.  Animals get their nutrition from eating plants.  Nutrition comes from the ground after all, from plants and bacteria.  I'm particularly amused at the conclusion of the article you link to that vegetarians are at greater risk of heart disease.  Heart disease was essentially unknown in the world amongst populations that were mostly plant-based.  It's only by introducing animal products or processed foods to one's diet that populations see any significant risk of heart disease.  The article you linked to was interesting, but appears to have fallen prey to journalists (AKA non-scientists) drawing conclusions from the headlines of studies rather than from reading the studies themselves.



It wasn't for me. Couldn't remain even a month without some meat in my diet

 

Animals are killed all the time by other stronger and bigger animals, so it is part of nature. I don't need to feel bad for it the same way lions dont need to.



NATO said:

No, actually given the evidence of your repeatedly preachy, pretentious posts, combined with the fact that your response to him had absolutely nothing to do with what he was saying, id say I have you pegged pretty much spot on.

But hey, why not reply to this with yet another long winded post where you say "I'm vegan" and "as a former omnivire" and sprinkle it with a little more PETA style spin while you're at it. 

I reviewed his post and mine and didn't see anything I didn't reply to.  I'd be curious to have some examples.  After a quick review of the posts, I don't think there'll be much.  As you said, my posts tend to be long-winded, so I tended to respond to pretty much everything being said.  Your posts tend to be brief and not respond to much of what is being said, however.  So I think there's a significant pot-kettle-black situation here, honestly.

Anti-smoking advocates were called preachy and pretentious by people who didn't want to hear the truth about their bad habits in the '60s to 80s.  I'm not sure what's preachy about sharing the best independent/peer reviewed science.  What might be preachy is if I got into the ethics of it all, but I largely avoid that as I see no value in telling people how they ought to feel.  But sharing the science is preachy?  Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

I am not a member of PETA, and I don't normally follow them as I usually get annoyed with them when I do.  I was particularly disappointed in their recent attacks on Impossible Foods and Hampton Creek, for example, which seemed completely off the mark.

I'm genuinely curious, when was the last time you made a significant change to your diet?  And when was the time before that?  And the time before that?  My diet is unrecognizable from a year ago.  And that diet was unrecognizable from a year before that.  And so on.  I don't tend to think of people who follow the research and make frequent evidence-based changes as being closed-minded.  But you're welcome to that attitude, if you think it serves you in some way.  I don't think it has much credibility, however.



Flilix said:

I've had underweight problems in the past, even though I eat quite a lot. Sure, I could just eat a lot more fruit and vegtables, but I already eat a lot more of these than most people (and my weight is still pretty low).

This is an interesting one.  I know people who eat huge amounts of calorie dense foods (meat, dairy, eggs, junk food, etc.) and are underweight.  And I know people who eat mostly whole plant foods but struggle to maintain their weight.  But those are all anecdotal.  Where it gets more interesting is when you look at populations as that smoothes out the exceptions to the rule.

When you look at populations vegans typically average in the ideal BMI, vegetarians are a little overweight on average, and omnivores are a lot overweight on average.  BMI is a largely useless tool when looking at an individual, but is very useful for analyzing populations.