When people try argue against veganism

[mogenblue]

Many scientific studies say that plant based food benefits your health.

HSPH: The Nutrition Source > Disease Prevention

HSPH: Processed red meat related to higher risk of death, plant protein to lower risk

NCBI: The Health Advantage of a Vegan Diet: Exploring the Gut Microbiota Connection

NIH: Vegetarian Diets Linked to Lower Mortality

GWU: A Plant-Based Diet Causes Weight Loss, According to New Mega-Study

It is even found that plant based food is tied to happiness:
Psych Central: Eating More Fruits & Vegetables Tied to Happiness

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Tobi

I get what you mean, Gem
But who knows for sure if veganism/vegetarianism would harm the body-systems of tribal people? It may be detrimental to their culture and traditions....but would it harm their physical health?

I'm imagining if you took the fish out of the diet of island peoples they would have malnutrition.

Because of where they live and the options available to them then such people have no choice than to hunt and fish for a living. If they suddenly had options, and (theoretically) adopted a good balanced vegan diet, with all necessary nutrients, we can't really say without lifetime studies, how that would affect them physically.

That doesn;t happen, and island peoples who are 'given options' (meaning made to pay for imported food) don't actually 'choose' vegan diets. In fact, their traditional diets are replaces with the cheap stuff they afford. Rice, flour, sugar, tea and fatty canned meats.

I don't really see veganism/vegetarianism as exclusively a 'middle-class white-man's' eating fad, or any politically/culturally-motivated domination agenda....
Many Indian people are vegan/vegetarian.

They have religious/cultural reasons and that's fine, it doesn't make them more better than a Pacific islander fisherman or a desert nomadic person. It just means they clear a lot of forest to create agriculture.

Veg does have sensible and ethical reason, so I'm nor going against it, but merely pointing out that ethics are not 'right'. Ethics is a dilemma.

For example. Lets say we come across an ethic group that lives in a forest, but they do little to no agriculture. For 10 thousand years they hunted and gather and led reasonably healthy lives. Then the great white/indian moralist comes and teaches them to not kill animals for food, but instead, clear the land for crops and take water from the streams for irrigation. As a result there is habitat destruction, soil erosion, and even species extintion. With less habitat to provide for them, the people become more reliant on their agriculture and continue the practice of deforestation to grow crops. Soon enough they forget hoe to hunt and gather, there are less jungle species available and they become completely reliant on their own toil to produce this vegan diet, but to the destruction of their culture their forest and their and knowledge. Morals are simple: don't kill, but ethics are complicated because something has to be killed one way or another, and that includes more than the lives of animals.

[knightofalbion]

Originally Posted by Gem

I'm imagining if you took the fish out of the diet of island peoples they would have malnutrition.


That doesn;t happen, and island peoples who are 'given options' (meaning made to pay for imported food) don't actually 'choose' vegan diets. In fact, their traditional diets are replaces with the cheap stuff they afford. Rice, flour, sugar, tea and fatty canned meats.


They have religious/cultural reasons and that's fine, it doesn't make them more better than a Pacific islander fisherman or a desert nomadic person. It just means they clear a lot of forest to create agriculture.

Veg does have sensible and ethical reason, so I'm nor going against it, but merely pointing out that ethics are not 'right'. Ethics is a dilemma.

For example. Lets say we come across an ethic group that lives in a forest, but they do little to no agriculture. For 10 thousand years they hunted and gather and led reasonably healthy lives. Then the great white/indian moralist comes and teaches them to not kill animals for food, but instead, clear the land for crops and take water from the streams for irrigation. As a result there is habitat destruction, soil erosion, and even species extintion. With less habitat to provide for them, the people become more reliant on their agriculture and continue the practice of deforestation to grow crops. Soon enough they forget hoe to hunt and gather, there are less jungle species available and they become completely reliant on their own toil to produce this vegan diet, but to the destruction of their culture their forest and their and knowledge. Morals are simple: don't kill, but ethics are complicated because something has to be killed one way or another, and that includes more than the lives of animals.

We've been here before!

There is chronic over-fishing in the Pacific Region. There is also chronic pollution in the Pacific Region. What fish remains is polluted with toxins like mercury.

The diet of the Pacific Islanders is predominantly imported junk food from Australia! They have the highest levels of obesity and diabetes in the world.
So this 'living off the land' idyll is totally false.

What may have happened in the past (though the diet of the New Guinea people for example was predominantly vegan, based on sweet potatoes and the like) is firmly in the past. This 'living off the land' hunting and killing theory may have been viable when earth's population was a fraction of what it is now, but with over 7 billion people heading to 10 billion people by the middle of the century .... All wildlife would be wiped out within a month!

Deforestation is predominantly down to land clearance for cattle ranching. Certainly the case in the Amazon.
You can feed many more people using land for crop production than you can meat production.
In any case, a disproportionate amount of annual crop production (i.e. grains, soya) is used for animal feed for livestock.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by knightofalbion

We've been here before!

There is chronic over-fishing in the Pacific Region. There is also chronic pollution in the Pacific Region. What fish remains is polluted with toxins like mercury.

The diet of the Pacific Islanders is predominantly imported junk food from Australia! They have the highest levels of obesity and diabetes in the world.
So this 'living off the land' idyll is totally false.

Islander peoples are generally impoverished by Western standards so they buy basics like soap, sugar, rice and cheap meat with high fat content. People of New Guinea who mostly do live off the land don't have the same health problems as you describe, but it is increasing.

What may have happened in the past (though the diet of the New Guinea people for example was predominantly vegan, based on sweet potatoes and the like) is firmly in the past. This 'living off the land' hunting and killing theory may have been viable when earth's population was a fraction of what it is now, but with over 7 billion people heading to 10 billion people by the middle of the century .... All wildlife would be wiped out within a month!

If you actually go live in newguinea you will see how it is, but as it stands you have no idea. I've had the good fortune to travel the region between highlander subsistence farmers to island fishing villages, so I'm pretty well in the know of the cultures and lifestyles of peoples in that area.

Deforestation is predominantly down to land clearance for cattle ranching. Certainly the case in the Amazon.
You can feed many more people using land for crop production than you can meat production.
In any case, a disproportionate amount of annual crop production (i.e. grains, soya) is used for animal feed for livestock.

I don't think you understand the bid picture of diet, culture and poverty, b s I say, there are sound ethical reasons for a vegan diet. It's just that most people, particularly those in remote regions, can't afford diets based on Western incomes.

[knightofalbion]

Originally Posted by Gem

Islander peoples are generally impoverished by Western standards so they buy basics like soap, sugar, rice and cheap meat with high fat content. People of New Guinea who mostly do live off the land don't have the same health problems as you describe, but it is increasing.



If you actually go live in newguinea you will see how it is, but as it stands you have no idea. I've had the good fortune to travel the region between highlander subsistence farmers to island fishing villages, so I'm pretty well in the know of the cultures and lifestyles of peoples in that area.


I don't think you understand the bid picture of diet, culture and poverty, b s I say, there are sound ethical reasons for a vegan diet. It's just that most people, particularly those in remote regions, can't afford diets based on Western incomes.

You were in New Guinea as a boy as I understand it, which was what over 40 years ago? The world has moved on since then. In any case, if you lived there, you'll know, the diet of the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea is traditionally largely vegetarian. Yams, taro and sago forming the bulk of the diet.

Per capita income is a fraction of that of Australia, true, but most of the people in the Pacific Region do live on a Western junk food diet. That's why they're suffering from chronic levels of obesity and diabetes.
Of the countries with the highest levels of obesity. The top 5 are all in the Pacific Islands! They certainly aren't starving.

On the broader picture, the world CANNOT sustain the Livestock Industry, even at the present level.
It's destroying animals by the billion, causing untold suffering and harm; it's destroying the planet and it's tarnishing the Spirit of all those engaged in it, directly or indirectly.

In the future, people will be vegan or eating insects & test-tube meat. That will be the choice.

[SerpentSun]

Ha yeah I don't take the word of places like NIH and Psych Forums.

And I never said hunting and gathering could feed more humans, I said it'd feed a healthy human population in a healthy ecosystem. Earth doesn't need billions of us.

I get that neither foraging nor the livestock industry can support the human appetite. But the pesticides, deforestation, genetic modification, and monocropping of agriculture can't support Earth. And a virus can't survive without a host.

If you genuinely feel healthy eating vegan, more power to ya. No one needs to justify not putting something in their own body. I lie and say I have a chitin intolerance to get out of eating arthropods, fish, and reptiles. But just know that until there are simply less humans, no diet is cruelty-free. So I eat what makes me strong for when Nature knocks us back to the Stone Age.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by knightofalbion

You were in New Guinea as a boy as I understand it, which was what over 40 years ago? The world has moved on since then. In any case, if you lived there, you'll know, the diet of the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea is traditionally largely vegetarian. Yams, taro and sago forming the bulk of the diet.

I left new guinea when I was 31, 18 years ago, but still have contact with people there. The mountain and valley folk have extensive agriculture so they eat mainly vegetables, but hunt and forage as well, and reserve livestock (mainly pigs) for ceremony, compensation, brideprice and feast, but poultry raising has become popular in accessible areas, which are consumed more frequently. The coastal and island peoples typically go fishing nearly every day, though. There are many cultural groups, so I'm just making generalisations. Villagers have next to no money, so tradestore goods are very basic, sugar, rice, canned fish/meat, salt.

Per capita income is a fraction of that of Australia, true, but most of the people in the Pacific Region do live on a Western junk food diet. That's why they're suffering from chronic levels of obesity and diabetes.
Of the countries with the highest levels of obesity. The top 5 are all in the Pacific Islands! They certainly aren't starving.

Of course, they are suffering new illnesses due to consuming junk, which is cheap and heavily marketed. I think high carb and sugar is the main issue, and very low quality fatty meat like lamb flaps and canned processed meat with high salt content.

On the broader picture, the world CANNOT sustain the Livestock Industry, even at the present level.
It's destroying animals by the billion, causing untold suffering and harm; it's destroying the planet and it's tarnishing the Spirit of all those engaged in it, directly or indirectly.

In the future, people will be vegan or eating insects & test-tube meat. That will be the choice.

Yes, I encourage vegan ethics for the reasons you mention, which are very sound reasons, but as we see in practice, most peoples can't afford health, so they eat what is cheapest.

[mogenblue]

Originally Posted by Gem

but as we see in practice, most peoples can't afford health, so they eat what is cheapest.

I disagree with that. My vegan diet is cheaper then a regular diet that includes animal food.

It may be difficult for people who live in remote areas to live cheaper on a plant-based diet, but if you have internet and are smart enough you can save money on a plant-based diet.

A cow or a pig needs to eat a few years before it produces a single portion of meat. The land that is needed to feed them can also be used for crops for human consumption every year. Sometimes even two times a year. So basically vegan food has to be cheaper by default.

Organic food is more expensive then regular food. But organic food is something different then plant-based food.

Organic food is not necessarily healthier then plant-based food.

Here in Holland 1 liter of cow milk cost about 60-100 eurocent. I make my soymilk myself and that cost me about 35 eurocent per liter at max. Non-organic.

I make hummus, seitan, bean burgers and indian omelets myself and they are almost all cheaper per 100 gram then any kind of meat or dairy. Non-organic.
So much for the holy proteins we all need every day.

B12 supplements cost next to nothing.

And my health and overall well being have significantly improved since I went vegan.

[Tobi]

Originally Posted by mogenblue

I disagree with that. My vegan diet is cheaper then a regular diet that includes animal food.

I find that too, mogenblue.
If I shop carefully, even in a mainstream store I can find basics for a healthy vegan diet at very low cost. And any additional supplements needed, can be found at competitive prices usually online.
As an example, I once worked out the cost of what appeared to be an expensive Omega 3 vegan supplement. But I found a deal where I got 3 for the price of 2 online, and free shipping. When I worked it out, penny for penny and week by week, it was no more cost than the 3 cans of fish I bought per week pre-vegan!

I mean....carrots 45p for quite a large bag. OK not organic, but they will do. Cabbage 69p....broccoli 49p....celery 49p... Potatoes....£1 a bag....cashew nuts 75p a bag! ...peanuts £1 a large bag.....etc etc
That's just a quick example. It doesn't cost much for vegan food if you are canny.

[SerpentSun]

Not to add to debate, but I'm just curious. Y'all rely on grocery stores, supplements, and even the internet just to afford enough to eat. But what if all that failed? All it takes is one solar flare, one idiot nuking the magnetosphere, one hacker, one pesky plague....Even the machines that tend the fields can be hacked just like cars these days.

Everything relies on computers, everything is hooked up to one "grid" or "cloud", putting all our eggs in one basket. Just like monocropping. Just like hoping a superbug, resistant to our most poisonous pesticides, don't wipe out the whole harvest. So what if that happens?

Or what if yet another superbug makes everyone too sick to farm? I'm not sure ration cards can be used online, nor do they cover supplements. Food stamps don't even cover supplements. What if the next president ticks off Kim Jong Un, and he launches a nuke up in the atmosphere, disabling a 3rd of satellites like the US did in the 50s/60s? Or maybe it was the UK. Either way, there goes the internet.

So considering that the vegan diet requires either enough people to farm, computers to do it for us, or the space and skills to grow enough food yourself....And even with a big agriculture industry, y'all still seem to need supplements....Could any of you even survive a natural or manmade disaster that threatens our already-vulnerable food security?

Could you survive without the internet to buy vitamins, the modern technology farmers rely on, or those farmers alive and well to farm for you? Please tell me you guys at least know how to identify wild edible plants for when they reclaim the Earth? I'd hate to think any of you would starve. :(