I had a friend at work years back who said she was vegetarian. She was really vegan, but at the time the term wasn’t as well known. She didn’t do it for some moral reason, it was because she was very heavy. After a few years she had lost a couple hundred pounds, and looked so different that thry had to take a new pic for her ID badge. She was healthy, and absolutely not “malnourished”.
it’s defensiveness. a person who eats 19 strips of bacon for every meal doesn’t threaten the average omnivore. that person is arguing that they should do more of what they want to do anyway. the existence of a happy, healthy vegan, OTOH, threatens omnivores. it tells them that there is a choice other than meat, and what that does is force them to acknowledge that eating meat is a choice and that if you make that choice you’re responsible for the consequences. if you live in a world where meat is necessary, let’s call it the ferret diet because they’re my favorite obligate carnivores, then you didn’t really have a choice at all. as factory farming imposes cruelty on animals at the individual level and huge damage to the environment and climate on a collective level, the ferret diet allows you to say “🤷🤷 what are you gonna do?” veganism is an attempt to answer that question, and it’s a valid one. there are plenty of people who don’t eat any sort of animal product and are still happy and healthy. veganism threatens them because it makes the suffering they create a choice that they’ve made, rather than an inevitable consequence of being an obligate omnivore. bitching at vegans, trying to poke holes in vegan diets, all it is is an attempt to shed responsibility for your own life choices by pretending there never was a choice.
Yep. Homo sapiens are omnivores incredibly versatile ones thanks to our ability to process food outside our bodies. (cooking, grinding, etc.) And due to our intelligence we are totally able to survive on a vegan diet. Even if vegan diets are not optimal for the individual they are looking optimal for the species as a whole.
I’ve done both vegan and keto for over a year at some point during my life and what I will say is that I naturally cover my nutrition bases through preferences and desires, while vegan though I had to hunt down (forgive the pun) b12 and complete proteins combinations a little more diligently to cover my nutrition needs.
Or put differently, I think it’s easier to mess up a vegan diet than a keto one.
I think it’s easier to mess up a vegan diet than a keto one.
People often worry more about vegan diets than other diets. But somehow people’s concerns aren’t proportional to the risk of messing up your nutrition needs.
It’s not about health risks; it’s more about their personal feelings. Most people don’t like that animals are killed for food, but giving up tasty meat and cheese is tough. Instead of supporting vegans, they question them. This might be because admitting they eat meat just for its taste feels wrong. So, they deflect by questioning veganism. It’d be great if there were more understanding and supportive and less defensiveness about food choices.
I’d be nice to occasionally hear “Good for you! I’m happy that you make choices that are in line with your values!” But alas, most responses tend to be “But aren’t you barely allowed to eat anything now!?”
So much time and effort online and on TV is expended arguing against eating plant based food. It’s hard not to see through this.
Vegans should honestly just take a B12 pill. B12 is naturally produced by bacteria, but most good natural sources amount to using an animal gut as a fermenter. Pills just cut out the middleman and use an industrial fermenter rather than one that moos.
You could eat dirt or drink unclean water instead, but the pills are cheap, easy and natural.
Protein combining is an old myth. You don’t need to eat a complete protein at each meal. It’s fine if they average out to be complete over the course of a day or two, which is quite easy. If you have a sandwich for lunch and lentil soup over cauliflower rice for dinner you’ve eaten a complete protein.
9 of them are “essential” because your body can’t make them from other amino acids.
Protein is complete when it has enough of all of the essential amino acids. It’s incomplete when it’s missing at least one of them.
Rice, for example, doesn’t quite have enough lysine in it. If you live on only rice, you’ll eventually run into a lysine deficiency. Chickpeas, though, have plenty of lysine but not enough methionine.
Rice and chickpeas individually are incomplete. A bowl of chickpeas and rice is complete, though.
The problem with this, like I said, is that if you have cucumber sushi for lunch and falafel dipped in hummus for dinner it’ll average out to be complete. Almost no one has to actually care about this, it’s really just an interesting factoid.
I remember now that you say it, that the body cannot create all proteins we need. Makes sense to call it “complete” when your diet includes all the amino acids that you need.
Its quite weird to see people go on Keto benders and then bang on about the environment (as they do here). It literally one of the worst diets for the environment as it relies on intensive farming. It is also not a balanced diet. Any idea where it came from?
It came from studies of epileptic children. They altered their diet to try and control the fits. That is where Keto comes from. Others noticed that certain kids on this diet didnt put any weight on as they became adults so experimented with it themselves. Several studies have linked Keto to cardiovascular and hypertension problems. As well as some issues with bowel health.
There have been no such disadvantages to true veganism recorded (as long as they get the balance right).
By “here” I mean my home town. Not Lemmy. God you lot are a miserable lot. I’m starting to see why the other instances slag you off. 🙄
I’m no nutritionist, but I’m reasonably sure that any reasonable diet, whether keto or vegan can be accomplished while maintaining proper nourishment.
The thing is, most people’s diet isn’t even providing full nourishment. There’s usually something that’s missing that people are simply not aware is missing, or they’re getting in such low quantities that it’s unhealthy. IMO, the main problem is a lack of education on the matter. I was taught the food pyramid in grade school. It’s barely relevant, and it was literally the only diet and nourishment education I recieved from my first world primary/highschool education. Unless you are going into health science or nutritionist type college credits, nobody takes the time to learn anything further about it later on. They just eat, and don’t really think about it. I certainly didn’t for a very long time.
Additionally, when I learned about the food pyramid, the examples didn’t really make a lot of sense to me, since at the time I had barely touched any food preparation tasks, nor dealt with food that wasn’t ready to eat already (usually prepared by my parents), and I had no context for what a “grain” really was, or why bread was considered a “grain” in the pyramid. I was stupid. In many ways, I still am. Yet, later in life, I don’t know of anyone who is running their meal plan through a professional nutritionist before making the food. I don’t know of anyone who, even if they have a meal plan, even knows a nutritionist who can consult on whether the good that they eat will provide the nutrition that they actually need.
The general population seems to put most of their trust in food makers, the corporations that make ready to eat food, to have accounted for their nutritional needs. Places like fast food restaurants, normal restaurants and those that make recipes, and most of their interest is in making food you’ll enjoy, more than food that will actually provide the nutrition you need.
On top of that, even most doctors won’t, by default, order tests to ensure all of your nutritional needs are met, and unless you have a symptom resulting in a significant deficiency of something, you would never know if you’re behind or not getting enough of something. I can hear the comments now, “but if they’re not being affected, why does it matter?” … The thing is, they are being affected, just not significantly enough for them to be able to draw a correlation or even really complain about it.
So at the end of the day, we’re probably all malnourished in some way, or at least, there’s a nontrivial amount of people who are unaware that they’re malnourished, which isn’t being caught, and nobody has the knowledge or understanding to know it’s even happening. The education on nourishment is so lackluster that is easily forgotten by most and instead we learn about factorials and trigonometry which most people never use past highschool.
I’m summary, more people than you would expect are likely unaware that they’re malnourished, and the education system would rather teach you maths you’ll never use than ensure you can feed yourself properly. The whole thing is fucked, and it’s ironic when people lecture or question anyone about their nourishment needs, given how little any average person has been taught about proper nourishment. Everything is fucked and everybody sucks.
Been meaning to figure out a meal plan for balanced nutritious diet. Ideally something with at least a couple week’s worth of variety so I’m not getting too sick of anything. Do you have any recommendations for going about that? Any websites or services to assist those efforts?
Certainly don’t mind leftovers either, and I imagine I just need to make more grocery runs for fresh produce than I’m doing currently. It would be lovely to establish a bit of a routine that I can stick to easily to help avoiding take out and junk food.
No sweat, no pressure, but would happily welcome your insights!
I’m sorry, I don’t have all this figured out for myself. I know I’m missing things in my diet and I did some preliminary analysis with the help of my GP and a testing lab, and I think I have a handle on the broad strokes for myself, and where I need to improve.
I’m technical, so for me the process is simply to identify the issue, and ratify the issue as best as I’m able. I’ve started the first part of this, I have yet to do the follow through. Unfortunately, I find myself in a bit of a difficult personal position and can’t really afford to make any significant changes to my life at the moment. My long term plan is to grow a garden. I’m finally in a physical situation where that’s viable (I recently moved out of an apartment, where it was very difficult to grow a garden at best, into a home with enough space to have a dedicated area for gardening outside). I want to eat as much of my own produce as I can, which will provide more fruits and vegetables than I would normally have access to, which will hopefully be good over a longer period of time. That’s just to start. Better, cheaper, produce that’s more easily accessed and readily available, to encourage myself to eat more leafy greens and such.
I know a garden big enough to continually do that (at least through the good seasons for growing), is a significant challenge, since it can occupy a lot of room that can’t really be used for anything else. There’s also nontrivial investments to be made into things like fertilizer, mulch, soil, tools, seeds, and so much more. And this is just step one for me.
I’m not in a financial position to go for it yet, and growing season is over for this year, but I’m going to save up and hopefully I can start next year.
The only reason I’m talking your ear off about it is that growing your own fruits and veggies is pretty much always a good option. Commercial growers tend to prioritize the size of the produce over everything else, so they can be paid more for what they grow. A good looking, large apple (as an example) sells better and for more money than a smaller, oddly shaped apple, even if the latter is much more nutrient-dense than the former. If you grow your own with even a modicum of research into which variety is best to grow for yourself, you’re going to have better food to eat that costs less, all for a small amount of effort.
Apples are a bit tough, even if you’re in a house, apples grow on trees and usually don’t produce any fruit until they’re a fair size; so that’s probably a bad example, but the underlying point still stands. It’s a good starting point, and, while difficult to do in an apartment, it’s not impossible with a hydroponic type system. A small “grow” tent, with a rack and some deep plastic pans for the soil, plus some grow lights and you’re good to make a small garden; but even dedicating only a few square feet to it may be a pretty significant ask depending on where you live specifically.
IDK, that’s the only real thing I can contribute right now. I’m sure other commenters will have suggestions, and I’m certain there’s plenty of info on the internet, just be weary of random search results, as much good information as there is online, there’s also a lot of bad info trying to sell you something.
On top of that, even most doctors won’t, by default, order tests to ensure all of your nutritional needs are met, and unless you have a symptom resulting in a significant deficiency of something, you would never know if you’re behind or not getting enough of something.
This makes me really appreciate my doctor. I emailed her and let her know I’ve been eating a vegetarian diet for the past two years and wanted to see if there were any gaps in my nutritional intake. She happily ordered a nutritional panel for me right away.
Oh, they’ll order it for you when you ask, but I don’t know of any test that doctors run without being promoted that will examine the nutritional state of a person. Once you ask for it, then you’ll very likely get what you ask for, but the doctor isn’t going to go out of their way to order it without being asked first.
So if you don’t think about it, or it’s just not something that you’re looking into, then your doctor doesn’t bother unless you report a complaint or symptom that may be related to some kind of malnourishment.
I get it, I don’t blame doctors, assume it’s fine unless there’s a problem… Nobody wants to waste lab time on tests when everything appears fine and there’s no complaints. But it’s kind of a disservice to the health of the general public. There’s a number of symptoms that go unreported simply because people have experienced them for so long and/or they’re so mild that they can’t be bothered… Some people just think it’s normal to have that symptom, just a part of every day life, when it’s not and it can take years or more before it’s discovered. By that time, permanent damage may have already occurred.
I would still blame the education system for the primary issue, since there’s so much we learn from primary/secondary education that we never use, and so many things we need to know every day, which isn’t even mentioned in schools.
I don’t have a vendetta against the school system, I just think they’re teaching the wrong things for everyone to know. There’s a lot of things that are taught that are only useful to a handful of professions, meanwhile being able to balance your chequebook, or vote, or feed yourself in a way that will maintain your health and nutrition are often not even offered and if they are, they’re electives. But no, you need to be able to calculate the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle. Everyone needs algebra, despite the fact that not all jobs need any understanding of it. You have to read and understand the complete works of Shakespeare, and a handful of dusty old books and form a literary analysis of them because reasons… But doing your own damn taxes? Get gud noob.
I have literally stopped talking to a sibling becauase they think it is funny to make jokes about my veganism, or ask if I am still vegan (for life), or if I miss the taste of meat (no, I find the smell nauseating).
It is a lack of respect for life choices, made more loathesome because my choice is made on an ethical foundation, not a whim.
Honestly, that is just one reason. They are a jerk and a bully, like everyone else who comes on here feeling the need to dismiss veganism or claim feeling attacked by it.
Just like other kinds of prejudice, these negative reactions betray a profound level of ignorance that go beyond infuriating to pitiful.
All those immoral lions relying on killing for their food. Just unnatural and immoral. If humans were meant to eat meat, we’d have teeth specifically adapted for it and digestive systems designed for omnivorous diets. Oh wait…
You’ll have to take that one up with Jonathan Swift. He makes some pretty convincing (obviously satirical) arguments.
Obviously it’s not 1:1 and there are plenty of carnivorous/omnivorous animals you might find less objectionable, but the point is that there has to be some acceptance of nuance on both sides or neither can ever be “right.” The claim that veganism can’t be healthy is obviously BS, but so is the claim that there’s nothing at all that can make meat eating acceptable.
Tbh though, I was scrolling “all” and didn’t notice this was posted to the vegan community. I wouldn’t have interjected just to say this if so, cuz I think going out of your way to be combative on any side of an argument tends to be counterproductive and more about oneself than the actual issue. So my apologies for that, but I stand by the point that there are ethical ways to eat meat that both omnivores and vegans would benefit from recognizing. If its a black and white issue, factory farming is no worse than raising your own livestock sustainably or hunting invasive species for meat. Rather than push people towards better habits, the all or nothing murder argument encourages an acceptance of the status quo by saying “meat is meat and it’s all equally murderous according to vegans, so I might as well go for the cheapest stuff that is easiest to find if I am going to continue eating it.” In any case, this isn’t the place for a two-sided debate as a community by and for only one side of that debate. Zero judgment there, just didn’t mean to start one in that context.
If lions were able to eat predominantly plants and fruits they would do so because it’s easier and requires less energy.
If humans were meant to eat meat, we’d have teeth specifically adapted for it and digestive systems designed for omnivorous diets. Oh wait…
Since we’re the product of evolution we’re not meant to do anything. Evolution is reactive to changing environments. In terms of what our physiology is most suitable for is predominantly hunting and gathering, with a bit of meat from hunting occasionally.
The fact that we have some sharp teeth and can digest meat doesn’t mean that we have to consume the enormous amount of meat that we’re currently eating. The health department of pretty much every Western Country says that its population eats unhealthy amounts of meat.
Because this loser mentality of “it needs killing”. Yeah it’s called the circle of life. I guess we morally shame owls for hunting the mice that hunted the insects. If you want to make a statement on factory farms and torturous methodology, that’s one thing. But death is a part of life, and having meaning in death to provide nutrition for continuation of life is just a reality.
death is a part of life, and having meaning in death to provide nutrition for continuation of life is just a reality.
You’re missing something pretty important here. Death is part of life is an argument that you’d use to try and justify hunting. Farming also means breeding more animals that will be raised for their meat and killed after a few years.
Globally, 60% of all large mammals are livestock. It’s a crazy number and there is nothing natural about this. The killing isn’t the root problem, producing/breeding huge numbers of animals is.
Death might be a natural part of the circle of life, but we’re artificially starting this circle for many farm animals. If we’d stop doing this at such an insane scale, we wouldn’t need to discuss their death (or quality of life)
Importantly, this is something that we choose to do even though we don’t have to. The owl has to hunt for mice and isn’t able to choose not to. This makes our moral position not comparable to owls or any other animal.
This makes it easy to argument against and if arguments start, information is lost. Someone could say crop death, eating more vegan food than absolutely necessary to survive.
Vegan candy, tasty but all the crop death. I’d recommend simple arguments like, I love animals and only want to hurt them as little as reasonably possible.
It’s not as flashy as “the least amount of harm possible” I know, but it’s at least the Truth. I think the difference between a vegan and others is only the level of harm they’re willing to cause. But then again it was always like that. You’re just lower than others in that animal-harm spectrum and not the absolute bottom. But still a lot lower.
Eating cats and dogs is controversial. So is eating sharks or whale. Some diets are unnecessarily harmful. Since we all live on the same planet, that affects others and it makes sense to have an opinion on this.
Outside of the US, it’s not controversial to say the average meat intake in the US is too high: for health reasons and for the environment. I think it’s okay to judge people when they eat abnormal amounts of meat.
I'm being facetious. I'm sure as hell not a vegan, I eat steak or chicken every night. And I love to eat meat off the bone feel the flesh and veins wiggling back into my throat. People - you all need to grow a sense of humor and learn to tolerate other points of view.
Meanwhile in alpha gal allergy land (allergy to mammal, the only known sugar allergy and the only known “slow onset” allergy, now the third most common food allergy in the USA thanks to Lone Star ticks and climate change), I’m happy that non-dairy cheese has come lightyears in the past decade, but wish I could easily find chicken and turkey sausage that doesn’t use beef casing. Miyoko Brand cashew cheese is amazing but SO expensive.
Vegans should see alpha gal allergy folks as their allies, I think. Margaret Atwood, in her MaddAdam trilogy, imagined that alpha gal allergy was spread by ecoterrorists looking to reduce global meat consumption. While that is fiction, I sometimes think everyone should get the allergy. Basically ALL mammal consumption would cease. You’d still have sheep, alpacas, etc. for fiber production, but it would be a global food revolution unparalleled in human history, exceeding even the agricultural revolution from producing fertilizer from atmospheric nitrogen.
Does it produce alpha gal as part of the milk? Even alpha gal levels that are too low to cause anaphylaxis are thought to cause an inflammatory response that dramatically increases the risk of stroke from the creation of unstable arterial plaque. [EDIT: hey downvoter that has targeted my account, did you know that I could start my own instance and determine what user you are, so I can report you? Think about that before you continue to downvote everything I ever posted or commented on lemmy, okay? This isn’t reddit, and you aren’t fully anonymous.]
Look it up when you have a second, it’s fascinating, and it is only going to be more of an issue as the range of the Lone Star tick spreads. In the South (US) even budget grocery stores in bumfrick nowhere are starting to carry a fair selection of vegan cheese and some other vegan products, because of the allergy. A few years ago you might be able to get some rubbery soy imitation processed American Cheese, while now you can get much better stuff at a Food Lion. And it’s not because there’s suddenly vegans everywhere in rural America - it’s because people got the alpha gal allergy.
Diet isn’t for weight loss by definition. The definition is “a special course of food to which a person restricts themselves”/“the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats”. You can go on a diet with intent of weight-loss, but it’s not inherent to a diet itself.
Yes and no. Keto and other low carb diets encourage you to eat bacon, but do be aware that you need to keep watching your salt intake as well as the type of fats used to prepare the bacon. Aditionally, this would also mean you do not get to eat most breads and pasta for instance. So yes to lots of bacon but no to lots of other good eats so that’s why these diets are for those that need them due to e.g. pre-diabetis 2 or other health scares/risks.
Bacon’s really not a healthy food however you swing it, unfortunately. Salt, nitrites, saturated fat, processed red meat, it’s definitely one to enjoy in moderation rather than every day.
I don’t care what keto folks say, it’s not a healthy diet. You might lose weight but all that shit is going to damage your heart. Keto is a very specific diet that should be used under very specific circumstances but it’s blown up recently because bacon…
There are more diets than keto that are low carb and/or use bacon and there’s lots of people that use them for health reasons. The fact that some douches flaunt keto or other flavour of the season diets on social media does not mean there’s not many people following similar diets, supported by real dietists and/or doctors for valid reason with great success to their health.
That’s great for them! But as I said, unless you have specific circumstances that require a keto or similar diet don’t do it lol. There seems to be a lot of people putting themselves on it even though it was created for a very specific issue and was very rare to be on. People saw it has high fat foods and want to be on it even though other diets that are much more heart healthy would work for them.
Okay? Lmao I didn’t say being fat was healthy, I said keto is generally an unhealthy diet. Quick Google search tells you it’s one of the hardest on your cardio health. Unless recommended by your nutritionist, don’t do keto. For the majority of people exorcise and portion control work wonders.
Kind of. I went on keto over the past 6 months and lost 60 lbs. I ate bacon almost every day. Keto is about maintaining ketosis by keeping carbs to a minimum (no fruit, no starches like rice and potatoes, no sugars, no bread, etc). You can eat as much no-carb food as you want. You lose a lot of weight.
Keto includes vegetables, mushrooms, and tons of other food beyond just meat. All Keto is is cutting carbs.
Essentially, stop eating grasses because you don’t have the digestive equipment large herbivores need to do so. Corn, rice, wheat, etc. Also cutting out sugar. I haven’t seen a single diet recommend eating sugar in my life, but maybe some bulking diets do?
It’s possible to be both vegan and keto. Incredibly expensive and difficult, but they aren’t mutually exclusive.
My god, your post history is fucking tragic. I’m not going to engage with you, you sad sorry little man all im going do is block you. So take your weird right wing troll bullshit to twitter or truth social or even reddit. Because just like every other aspect of your life, the people here don’t want you around because you gleefully make everything worse for everyone else.
Scrolling down half i the comments has give me a true headache. Why do you guys feel the need to explain your consumption to vegans? Not like we have not heard your “arguments” a thousand times before.
Oh wait, you arent trying to justify your actions to us but to yourself?
Add comment