If you’re here because of the “drama”, congratulations, I am too apparently. If you’re also here with the position that a vegan diet is unhealthy in humans, I’m begging you for a toilet break’s worth of your time. The contents of this post are wholly divorced from ethics or environmental concerns, are not here to “own you with facts and logic”, and are focused solely on human health through the quoting of scientific literature. For as many of these as I can, I have provided links to the full text on the NCBI’s PubMed Commons in the interest of transparency.
- It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes […] Low intake of saturated fat and high intakes of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, soy products, nuts, and seeds (all rich in fiber and phytochemicals) are characteristics of vegetarian and vegan diets that produce lower total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and better serum glucose control. These factors contribute to reduction of chronic disease. —Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (2016)
- Based on this systematic review of randomized clinical trials, there is an overall robust support for beneficial effects of a plant-based diet on metabolic measures in health and disease. —Translational Psychiatry (2019)
- In most countries a vegan diet has less energy and saturated fat compared to omnivorous control diets, and is associated with favourable cardiometabolic risk profile including lower body weight, LDL cholesterol, fasting blood glucose, blood pressure and triglycerides. —PLoS One meta-analysis (2018)
- This comprehensive meta-analysis reports a significant protective effect of a vegetarian diet versus the incidence and/or mortality from ischemic heart disease (-25%) and incidence from total cancer (-8%). Vegan diet conferred a significant reduced risk (-15%) of incidence from total cancer. —Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition (2017)
- The present systematic review and meta-analysis showed a 15% and a 21% reduction in the relative risk of CVD and IHD, respectively, for vegetarians compared to nonvegetarians, but no clear association was observed for total stroke or subtypes of stroke. In addition, an 18% reduction in the relative risk of IHD was observed among vegans when compared to nonvegetarians, although this association was imprecise. —European Journal of Nutrition (2023)
- Adequate intake of dietary fiber is associated with digestive health and reduced risk for heart disease, stroke, hypertension, certain gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers. According to consumer research, the public is aware of the benefits of fiber and most people believe they consume enough fiber. However, national consumption surveys indicate that only about 5% of the population meets recommendations, and inadequate intakes have been called a public health concern […] The IOM defines total fiber as the sum of dietary fiber and functional fiber. Dietary fiber includes nondigestible carbohydrates and lignins that are intrinsic and intact in plants; functional fiber includes isolated, nondigestible carbohydrates that have beneficial physiological effects in humans. Common sources of intrinsic fiber include grain products, vegetables, legumes, and fruit. —American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine (2017)
- [R]ecommendations to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, while decreasing saturated fat and dairy intake, are supported [for asthma] by the current literature. Mediterranean and vegan diets emphasizing the consumption of fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes, while reducing or eliminating animal products, might reduce the risk of asthma development and exacerbation. Fruit and vegetable intake has been associated with reduced asthma risk and better asthma control, while dairy consumption is associated with increased risk and might exacerbate asthmatic symptoms. —Nutrition Reviews (2020)
- Over the past two decades, a substantial body of consistent evidence has emerged at the cellular and molecular level, elucidating the numerous benefits of a plant-based diet (PBD) for preventing and mitigating conditions such as atherosclerosis, chronic noncommunicable diseases, and metabolic syndrome. —Nutrients comprehensive review (2023)
- Consumption of vegetarian diets, particularly vegan diets, is associated with lower levels of plasma lipids, which could offer individuals and healthcare professionals an effective option for reducing the risk of heart disease or other chronic conditions. —Nutrition Reviews systematic review and meta-analysis (2017)
- After adjusting for basic demographic characteristics, medical specialty, and health behaviours (smoking, physical activity) in model 2, participants who followed plant-based diets had 73% lower odds of moderate-to-severe COVID-19 (OR 0.27, 95% CI 0.10 to 0.81) compared with participants who did not follow plant-based diets. Similarly, participants who followed either plant-based diets or pescatarian diets had 59% lower odds of moderate-to-severe COVID-19 (OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.17 to 0.99) compared with those who did not follow these diets. —British Medical Journal (2021)
- Current research suggests that switching to a plant-based diet may help increase the diversity of health-promoting bacteria in the gut. However, more research is needed to describe the connections between nutrition, the microbiome, and health outcomes because of their complexity and individual heterogeneity. —Nutrients systematic review (2023)
- [T]his systematic review shows that plant-based diets and their components might have the potential to improve cancer prognosis, especially for breast, colorectal and prostate cancer survivors. —Current Nutrition Reports (2022)
- Moderate evidence suggests that adhering to vegan diets for at least 12 weeks may be effective in individuals with overweight or type 2 diabetes to induce a meaningful decrease in body weight and improve glycemia. —Obesity Reviews systematic review and meta-analysis (2022)
- The data discussed in this systematic review allow us to conclude that plant-based diets are associated with lower BP and overall better health outcomes (namely, on the cardiovascular system) when compared with animal-based diets. —Current Hypertension Reports (2023)
- There are multiple benefits of a vegan or vegetarian diet [six listed, too long to quote here] in the management of CKD […] —Journal of Renal Nutrition (2019)
- The present systematic review provides evidence that vegan and vegetarian diets are associated with lower CRP levels, a major marker of inflammation and a mediator of inflammatory processes. —Scientific Reports (2020)
- Evidence strongly suggests that plant-based dietary patterns that are abundant in fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains with less emphasis on animal foods and processed foods are a useful and a practical approach to preventing chronic diseases. Such dietary patterns, from plant-exclusive diets to plant-centered diets, are associated with improved long-term health outcomes and a lower risk of all-cause mortality. Given that neurodegenerative disorders share many pathophysiological mechanisms with CVD, including oxidative stress, inflammation, and vascular damage, it is reasonable to deduce that plant-based diets can ameliorate cognitive decline as well. —Advances in Nutrition (2019)
- [T]he current study presents evidence that plant-based diets, among which the vegan diet, have no effect on physical performance, including on strength/power performance. It is noteworthy that aerobic performance may be even benefitted by these diets. —British Journal of Nutrition systematic review and meta-analysis (2024)
- [H]igher adherence to plant-based dietary patterns, especially from healthy sources, may be universally beneficial for the primary prevention of T2D, CVD, cancer, and mortality. —Nutrition Journal systematic review and meta-analysis (2023)
- This umbrella review offers valuable insights on the estimated reduction of risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases and cancer, and the CVDs-associated mortality, offered by the adoption of plant-based diets through pleiotropic mechanisms. Through the improvement of glycolipid profile, reduction of body weight/BMI, blood pressure, and systemic inflammation, A/AFPDs significantly reduce the risk of ischemic heart disease, gastrointestinal and prostate cancer, as well as related mortality. —PLoS One (2024)
- In this community‐based cohort of US adults without cardiovascular disease at baseline, we found that higher adherence to an overall plant‐based diet or a provegetarian diet, diets that are higher in plant foods and lower in animal foods, was associated with a lower risk of incident cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular disease mortality, and all‐cause mortality. —Journal of the American Heart Association (2019)
- In this meta-analysis of prospective observational studies, we found that greater adherence to a plant-based dietary patterns was inversely associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes. These findings were broadly consistent across subgroups defined by various population characteristics and robust in sensitivity analyses.—JAMA Internal Medicine (2019)
- Our findings suggest that a shift in diet from a high consumption of animal-based foods, especially red and processed meat, to plant-based foods (e.g., nuts, legumes, and whole grains) is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality, CVD, and T2D. Thus, a change in dietary habits towards an increment of plant-based products appears to be important for cardiometabolic health. —BMC Medicine systematic review and meta-analysis (2023)
- Not only is there a broad expansion of the research database supporting the myriad benefits of plant-based diets, but also health care practitioners are seeing awe-inspiring results with their patients across multiple unique subspecialties. Plant-based diets have been associated with lowering overall and ischemic heart disease mortality; supporting sustainable weight management; reducing medication needs; lowering the risk for most chronic diseases; decreasing the incidence and severity of high-risk conditions, including obesity, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and hyperglycemia; and even possibly reversing advanced coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes. —The Permanente Journal (2016)
Meanwhile Lemmy.World moderator Rooki:
To be honest linking something like meat to death of people is like saying everybody that breathed air died.
correlation != causation
Rooki is a science denier - confirmed.
Unfortunately, running or managing a Lemmy instance doesn’t come with requirements to read science.
It’s so genuinely distressing to me that such an absurd comment got nearly even upvotes and downvotes. I swear that the average carnist is so far in denial that they’ll upvote even the most insane, goalpost-moving non-arguments to preserve the industry-brainwashed fantasy they live in where vegans are at any given time a gram of protein away from collapsing like a cartoon skeleton. You absolutely know that if a plant-based diet had been in that headline as being positively correlated with T2D (it isn’t, as shown above) instead of meat, Rooki’s response wouldn’t have been “well geez we’re all going to die anyway so why does it matter?” And if it was (at which point, good on them for consistency, I guess?), it would’ve been a 25-to-1 downvote ratio with omnis and vegans alike piling on and mocking it.
This reminds me of theoretical physicist Angela Collier talking about crackpots who send her their rebuttals to general relativity etc., analogizing them to someone walking into a restaurant, calling the head chef a fraud who can’t cook, saying their food is much better, and presenting the chef with a takeout box full of Play Doh to eat as proof. That is to say that it’s not even just an incorrect counterargument; it’s so asinine that it’s a complete non sequitur not even rising to a counterargument. Can LW really add peer-reviewed scientific information as a requirement to their ToS when this is who’s evaluating its merits?
I went to down vote them. But I already did 😅
Quick suggestion: All that linked text is hard to read. Try unlinking the source from the pull quote and instead link the source listed at the end?
You’re 100% correct. I started with a format that made sense for a few articles, and then when it snowballed, I had too much tunnel vision to see it was a problem. It should hopefully be better now.
Thanks!
Stands up and starts clapping
Veganism is unhealthy because of all the mental damage I get talking to people about it online
Maybe don’t come into a vegan community then if it makes your cognitive dissonance hurt
Tbf, I thought their comment was funny as fuck and upvoted it. I actually can’t tell based on their comment if they’re vegan or antivegan, which makes it funnier.
It gets a “based as hell I guess” seal of approval from me.
I guess it was negative votes when i read it and i assumed it was antivegan, but i see your point now and can agree 👨🌾
I read that as they’re a vegan tired of being mocked online. It could go either way actually.
this makes the need for lemmy to add the ability for community owners to move communities to different servers all the more necessary
Facts don’t care about your feelings carnists.
Maybe this isn’t the place for this discussion, but why be this way? Is it because you feel like this is the treatment you get around the rest of lemmy or the rest of the world? Is the vegan day-to-day so bad that you need a place you can use a made up pseudo-slur about the majority of the population to other like-minded folks?
I could be convinced to change my diet, but it’s not even possible to engage a vegan where they are (vegan subs) to ask honest questions unless I happen into an unrelated comment chain. I’m never going to subscribe to the vegan religion, but from the perspective of personal health I am interested in the principles and the “how to”.
This is a great hook post, and unlike reddit this stuff frequently bubbles to the top of “all” so you’re getting traffic from people like me. Unfortunately it seems like this kind of good post is the cheese in the mouse trap. It may have been you who specifically asked me to listen to vegans, I told you I wouldn’t because of the vitriol. I’m not asking you to change, but I am asking why you feel like you do.
It’s the animals who are the victims not you for being called Carnist. You have same energy as boys on twitter complaining about being called cis.
Also veganism is a philosophy that’s been around since 1944 and carnism was coined by the amazing physiologist Melanie Joy.
I know it’s hard to read a very serious name like a vegiddler, but try to remember: the real victims are the animals.
Wow so cool thanks for the update 90 days late and a dollar short. I’ll file it away, ya vegiddler ;).
Why be this way?
I’m not Beaver, but I think they’re understandably frustrated at consistently being berated for trying to do good by adherents to a prevailing belief system whose widespread harm goes almost completely unchallenged by society. You can see that even this post in a vegan community which is nothing but a polite ask followed by robust scientific sources is at a 75% upvote ratio because veganism is so irrationally hated by society at large that overwhelming scientific evidence for its healthfulness is a target of disapproval.
is the vegan day-to-day so bad
Pretty nice overall. Food’s cheaper, you tend to feel like you have more energy, you often end up discovering interesting and really great new foods that you wouldn’t have with a diet revolving around animal products, and your GI tract works like clockwork. Super bizarre, that last one, but I can’t not mention it.
made up pseudo-slur
All slurs are made up, but this isn’t one inherently; “carnism” is just a way to describe the ideology “in which people support the use and consumption of animal products, especially meat. Carnism is presented as a dominant belief system supported by a variety of defense mechanisms and mostly unchallenged assumptions”. (Quoted from Wikipedia because they summarize it excellently.) It’s a way to challenge that the idea that “veganism” and “vegetarianism” are ideologies while carnism is just “normal”. It can be used as a slur, but that’s every word for an ideology ever.
I could be convinced to change my diet, but
You should know that vegans get this all the time. Because vegans care about animals and the environment (the latter of which of course helps the animals too), this comes off as “you better police your tone or the animal killing will continue, and you wouldn’t want that, now would you?” This could work, because ultimately all vegans want is to see as few animals exploited as possible, but it can ring hollow for reasons in the next paragraph.
it’s not even possible to engage vegans where they are
People very often engage extremely politely outside of vegan subs in relevant areas (e.g. posts to news articles about animal welfare) and are downvoted to hell for it, their voices drowned out by ridiculous, bad-faith pseudo-arguments which are easily debunked and regurgitated so often that there’s a running joke about vegan bingo. It’s frustrating to vegans when carnists have an absolute right to make fun of vegans as malnourished zealots whose way of living is often compared to a fate worse than death, is tantamount to child abuse if imposed on one’s children, and is so tenuously held that they just need to “try a cheeseburger” and wake up out of the Matrix. But if they so much as speak out of turn (like what Beaver said is pretty tame in the grand scheme of things, right?) after being berated constantly for just existing, let alone politely broaching the subject where it’s relevant, then this is why nobody likes vegans and we were right to make fun of you this whole time and just for that, I’m going to go kill a chicken and vegans are religious extremists.
I’m never going to subscribe to the vegan religion
Vegans tend to distinguish a plant-based diet from being vegan, as vegans stick to it as a way of promoting animal welfare, but more importantly, there are products outside of their diet such as leather that they don’t consume either. So you’re interested in a PBD, which is still a huge reduction in harm. People who haven’t tried one often treat a PBD as a huge commitment, but as a hobbyist cook with not a lot to spend on ingredients, it’s one of my favorite parts of being vegan. I have a really hard time making and sticking to lifestyle changes, but I consider it one of the easiest things I’ve ever done because I feel better, and I enjoy the food I cook and eat more than before. You might be interested in /c/homecooks on vegantheoryclub.org or /r/veganfoodporn on Reddit.
I am interested in the principles and the “how to”.
For a while, I landed on the idea that I would be pescetarian and stayed there for a while. From a health perspective, a lot of the benefits of a plant-based diet also come with the so-called Mediterranean diet, and so that’s what I wanted. I weaned off of fish largely for environmental reasons at the time, although I also decided that if I wouldn’t want to kill a fish with my bare hands, I wouldn’t want to pay someone else to do that either. And lastly, I stopped consuming animal products altogether after watching the Dominion documentary. I was never vegan because I was of the opinion that it only slightly reduced the amount of harm from vegetarianism and that vegans were bitter idealogues trying to enforce purism. After the documentary, however, I realized that instead of being 90% of the way there, I was maybe more like 50% if I’m being generous. And so I started cutting out animal products like dairy.
As for “how to maintain that”, I think I had a good experience sticking to it because I was able to focus on eliminating specific foods and how to replace them rather than just being thrown into figuring out how to replace large components of my diet. While it is entirely possible to get on and stick to a plant-based diet cold turkey when doing it for ethical reasons, if it’s strictly for dietary ones, then I suggest just cutting out red meat first. This is what I did, and I think it’s a good starting point both if you’re concerned about ethics and the environment and if you don’t care about either of those and just want to be healthier.
The key to a PBD is nonperishable staples like legumes, nuts, seeds, and grains. Those can be paired with fruits and vegetables. For plant-based milk, I highly recommend Almond Breeze unsweetened (not vanilla), as I think this is about as close to milk as you can get without drinking the sweetened kind (which destroys a huge health benefit of switching to plant milk) or drinking pea milk (which is the best but is expensive). But if almond milk isn’t your thing, the amount of variety for plant milk is so enormous that you’ll probably land on something you like if you keep trying. I think it’s paramount to have a wide variety of dry spices bought in bulk, because these along with sauces take what can be boring foods and turn them into something incredible. This isn’t so much a concern for a health-centric PBD, but getting mired down in plant-based alternatives to animal-based ones (I think with the exceptions of milk and yogurt) is the easiest way to make it as hard as possible, because it’s really not sustainable if you have any sort of a budget. Lastly, knowledge of what non-homemade foods are plant-based just comes with time, but if you’re doing it for health reasons rather than ethical ones, the fact that milk powder rears its head in places it has no business being would be much less of a concern.
This is a great hook post
Much appreciated. I think the stigma of vegans as people physically wasting away for their beliefs ought to be addressed first because it’s really just incorrect, and while there’s a kernel of truth because nutritional deficiencies can happen if you’re extremely stupid about it (fruitarians come to mind), I think a huge part of it comes both from industry propaganda and from something people can hide behind so they don’t have to confront the ethics of animal agriculture (“well it’s that or being healthy, so…”). It’s possible to go plant-based and have nutritional deficiencies, but it’s also possible to have a terrible, nutritionally deficient omnivorous diet. If done right (which shouldn’t be a lot if you don’t have some sort of medical issue; I supplement B12 via nutritional yeast and am otherwise pretty loose with my diet, and my labs are always great, even much better than before), you can easily be healthier than on an omnivorous diet in huge part thanks to the reduction in saturated fat and the increase in unsaturated fats and fiber.
Thank you so much for this reply. I really appreciate you taking the time to write this. I wish more people would read it as with your other comments!
Thank you much for the verbose reply. I think I have misunderstood the concept of veganism up until this point, conflating its fundamentals with PBD. It seems like the PBD is actually a byproduct of the concept of veganism rather than the starting premise.
That being said, I don’t think I can engage with the “vegan community” in a way that is satisfying to either party. I grew up eating an animal protein every meal, but I don’t feel like that’s really necessary or beneficial in the long run. There are lots of good reasons to go PBD, but I’m looking at it like alcohol: I enjoy it, but I don’t need to have some every single day. Cutting back (or out) is objectively good, but I’m just not interested in completely removing animal protein from my life. Maybe for that reason, a key problem I have getting comfortable in a PBD is I don’t want to eat plants pretending to be meat or dairy or cheese: the ones that I have had are like if I described to a scientist what gas station cheese / butter tastes and feels like. I would rather eat plant dishes that are tasty and nutritious in their own right without a supplement sprinkle / other ingredients pretending to be eggs or milk or what have you.
It’s not easy to get started building a repertoire of meals, but you’ve at least given some good tips besides letting me know I’m looking in the wrong place / barking up the wrong tree.
I will reread what you wrote again tomorrow.
Praise be the good faith interaction.
Indian, Ethiopian, some Mexican (e.g. bean stews), the Buddhist food in SEA and EA food (Thai in particular) are all great places to look for food that is “not trying to be” carnist variations.
Almost all of us grew up eating animals every day, I would strongly recommend the dominion documentary linked. It is not an easy watch but it is important to know what is actually going on. Unlike alcohol, the harm isn’t just to you. The change seems harder than it is, realistically almost immediately you’ll probably feel better (combination of health + feeling good about your choices) which makes it a lot easier.
I’ll give a watch when the holiday weekend is over, probably not great content for my 2 kids under 4.
Favorite Ethiopian dish? Been wanting to try making something in that vein.
TBH I don’t make it enough to have a favourite dish, my sister does more than me and I just love everything she pulls out at family gatherings. I’m more Szechuan/Thai/Indian and weird experimental, improv food myself.
Shiro wat is pretty good. A thick soup made of chickpea flour (buy at an Indian grocery, everywhere else it will be more expensive and lower quality) thickened with nut-butter. A comforting and simple meal.
Everything berbere I’ve had is great. Actually making something based on that mix today but it’s more a everything leftover in the fridge than recipe haha.
Sis makes some sort of peanut stew. Idk what it’s called but it slaps, it’s almost like satay in that it’s a thick, rich saucy stew. Instead of fish and like flavours though it leans earthy. Good shit, may find if you look around.
Without elaborating further, I’ll agree that no kid should be going anywhere near this documentary.
Yeah… I still get flashbacks
The technician did a great job replying to most of what you said, but can I just add one more thing which helped me see veganism from a different perspective, in response to you calling veganism a religion (I know you changed your view already and probably didn’t mean it literally but I just wanted to address it anyway):
Apart from the obvious that veganism (which I prefer to consider “the animal rights stance”) is an ethical position/social justice movement more alike to something like feminism or pro-LGBT rights; and doesn’t have any spiritual beliefs attached to it and is based purely in ethics/compassion, philosophy/logic/reason, as well as science/evidence (for the related environmental and health components), meaning it doesn’t really cover any of the hallmarks of a religion unless we consider other, human rights-based justice movements religions too…
I almost see veganism as being the opposite of a religion, not just because it frequently rejects religion as being an excuse or justification for violating individuals’ rights (though it is compatible with religion and there are arguments for veganism from religious perspectives like there are for other rights-based positions, e.g. the Quakers were actually pivotal in abolishing slavery in the US, and progressive churches make a case for homosexuality being accepted and for it to be sinful to victimize people on the basis of their sexuality, etc)…
But because veganism confers the ABSENCE of dogma, not the presence of it: that dogma being the normalized, ingrained societal/cultural belief system that accepts and assumes not just the superiority of humans and lowered importance of non-humans (human supremacy/anthropocentrism), and the differential perceived-value & treatment of certain species of sentient beings based on factors like their utility to humans or their endearment to us (speciesism), but also accepts & even promotes (and largely opposes the rejection of) carnism, or the systemic exploitation of & cruelty toward non-human animals for various purposes, which utilizes the “four Ns” of carnist conditioning as a validation mechanism; that to exploit animals for their flesh, secretions, skin, fur, etc. is “Nice, Normal, Natural, and Necessary”… which are views based not on science but on a willingness to believe in things without evidence or reason, often that suit one’s pre-existing narrative and are convenient to enable them to maintain control over less powerful members of society, or vulnerable/innocent individuals/victims and continue acting according to the status quo (which is unfortunately how religion has often been used, though not inherently, and sometimes in the opposite way).
In this regard, you could argue that veganism is to carnism, what atheism/agnosticism is to religion/theism. I hope this makes sense.
Welcome to lemmy! I saw your opening post and wondered how long until we interacted.
I see and understand your perspective on veganism vis a vis religion, and I will say most of my commentary is not based on the topics of your argument.
Rather, when I say veganism as a religion, I’m referring to unyielding evangelism or knee-jerk denunciation of “carnism” which I put in quotes because I honestly think it’s a pretty ridiculous attempt at a stake in the ground for veganism. But that’s, like, just my opinion, man.
All of that said, your argument DOES make sense with respect to couching veganism as the atheism/agnosticism of the discussion if it weren’t for the merciless/alternating evangelism and then going to touch “home base” in a vegan community. I would even be OK with that situation, but the host instances of vegan subs are awful. It says something really profound to me that most people don’t want to associate with the instances veganism call home.
Thanks for the warm welcome! 😃
Yes, I suppose you’re right that veganism would be more like atheism in its absence or rejection of a traditionally dominant belief system & its concomitant behaviors, if someone was simply vegan and didn’t do any activism/advocacy/promoting or “evangelizing” or proselytizing, which has a less religious connotation (which, to be fair, is most vegans. You only hear about the activists or vocal vegans because, well, they want to be heard & want to spread the idea of veganism or the often esoteric information & evidence related to it with the masses).
In that sense the kind of veganism which doubles as not just a personal position but also an actively pushed social movement is kind of like a hybrid between atheism & abolitionism/social justice causes I guess? Unless you count anti-religious people who actively oppose & challenge religion in a kind of philosophic activism, also termed New Atheism, but that’s not as much of a “social justice” movement as such, though it can be related to a defense of those causes when viewing religion as a threat to them.
I don’t personally find it to be too strange or unreasonable for vegans to invent a term or terms to recognise and describe the ideology/ies we’re either rejecting or actively opposed to (carnism, speciesism, human supremacy, anthropocentrism, etc - many of which pre-dated veganism & even weren’t strictly born out of animal rights discussions but rather human psychology in general). If veganism is the absence of certain beliefs & practices, it makes sense to put a name to those beliefs & practices, no? Otherwise veganism remains a rather nebulous concept without a clear goal or reason, and can often seem like simply an idea or practice in itself rather than the dismantling of such. Doing so also helps to de-otherize veganism in a similar way to how terms like “cisgender” help to de-otherize transgenderism by establishing that the norm is in fact identifiable & describable in itself & does have its own clear set of characteristics. I’m happy to use “non-vegan” (which does contain the otherizing of veganism issue) in case the term carnism brings offence, but I would wager any offence it causes is likely to stem from the challenging nature of what it exposes & addresses, as it’s quite literally just holding up a mirror to larger society’s choices & attitudes with as much accuracy as possible, without any inherent judgment as a matter-of-fact descriptor (not that judgment can’t be placed on it). Terms like this intend to foster honest discussions about the truth of our nature. If people don’t like what they see (which to me indicates an acknowledgement of some tangible problem worth addressing that’s separate from any word used to capture it), or take issue with the word used, they’re free to propose a different term since that’s not what’s important, but the reality is there isn’t another term to accurately describe the phenomenon really. Though it builds on ancient concepts, this kind of discussion itself in this form is rather recent & underdeveloped, and so the language used is, too.
To me the fact that the majority of people (which as we know are non-vegans) don’t want to associate with the places in which discourse among vegans occurs, speaks more to people’s resistance to the difficult ideas (or even facts) it raises & brings to light, or the contentions it makes, than it does the specific nature of those communities. I think it’s inevitable and understandable that people hate vegans & seeing vegans discuss things as veganism poses a threat to their current way of life (a philosophical & moral threat at least, if not a physical one).
That said, there are all different kinds of vegans, and they’re just people like anyone. Far from perfect, & flawed in many ways. So there are bound to be toxic vegans, especially on the internet, just as there are in any community or among people in general. I’m not sure that there’s a higher prevalence of that phenomenon among vegans or vegan groups, and from my experience vegans are usually (not always) pretty civil with each other. The “drama” comes when talking with non-vegans, usually (not to claim whose fault that is, as it’s probably brought about equally by both parties, or just a natural consequence of their fundamental value differences & how those ideas conflict, or rather are not aligned consistently, even if there is significant common ground).
However, I have to be honest that it seems a little wrong to me to suggest that veganism as a philosophy or ethical stance, as independent from any people who adopt or follow it, can be ruined by the actions of one vegan (or even any number of vegans). I’m sorry you feel this way though and I hope you’re able to form a more positive impression of it, or rather the vegan community, by whatever means that may be possible. In my experience it’s a pretty welcoming community to vegans or those who are ready to make the change to being vegan or are curious about it, but somewhat understandably (but still often regrettably) not so much toward those who argue against the vegan position or tend to defend their choices to “use” animals (for lack of a better way to summarize the behaviors). And, frankly, it seems unreasonable to me to take out your annoyance at what some humans did (vegan or not) on innocent non-human animals. Since your issue is with the vegans and not the deer (or whatever animals), the punishment there is being directed at the wrong individuals, no? Just some food for thought.
Hope I didn’t upset you or anything, I was really just trying to be as sincere as I can 😅
No offence taken in any way. Nicely written.
You are right that to be able to have specific, nuanced discussion and move minority positions to equal footing there is often a need for a new lexicon “Carnist” in particular makes it sound to me like there are vegans, and there are people whose entire life is meat. To me, it’s a laughable turn of phrase.
With respect to communities and subs, I don’t think that it’s so cut and dry as “most people aren’t vegans, so they necessarily don’t like where vegans congregate”. That is a little bit reductionist. I suppose you weren’t here to see it happen, but this vegan sub basically crapped it’s pants because of one power tripping exmod until the technician came and took it over (which may have started with this post actually). As that was happening, the most active users were suggesting jumping to .ml instances and to go to vegantheoryclub which self advertises as anarchy-forward (fine). MAYBE because people like me browse “all” instead of my subs most of the time, being in the main stream leads to too many downvotes to combative–but in group–content for comfort. Even still, maybe we don’t have to go hang out with tankies?
As to vegan theory club, I visited several posts to have sane and rational discourse only to have my comments immediately deleted. As I recall, these were not short or offhand dismissive comments but actual attempts to engage. Comments deleted, users banned, and Hamid specifically doing it as the instance admin and leaving “fuck america” footprints. Suffice it to say that it really chapped my ass, and as an American looking down the barrel of another Trump term, I don’t like Americans that much either. Between him, beaver, and some other high activity accounts, it is mostly not worth the effort to try to break into these communities.
Considering deer hunting, yes the comments were flippant and I deleted all that yesterday. Still though, where I live hunting is the only population control for deer besides overcrowding and disease. It saves me buying beef, and I assume is a much better way to go than a wasting disease or a high speed encounter with a car.
What’s this TOS drama all about?
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I don’t advocate breeding pets to put into our homes anyway, as it’s an animal rights abuse and cruel in my view, but there is substantial scientific literature on the topic of feeding commercially produced, appropriately-fortified vegan pet foods to cats and dogs that are specifically tailored to them, indicating that it can be perfectly healthy when done appropriately and even produces better health outcomes in a lot of cases: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9860667/#:~:text=They had more ideal body,that were fed vegan diets. There is also research showing they enjoy it just as much if you find a kind that they take a liking to, much like animal-based versions. Animal-based pet food usually contains the scraps and leftover, rejected parts from the meat industry and feeds to these animals what would be considered unfit for human consumption due to its health risks. So it’s not surprising that conventional commercial pet foods are associated with a range of health problems that vegan pet food largely bypasses. However, even pets fed raw meat diets appeared to fare worse than those fed appropriate vegan diets according to balanced appraisals of all the evidence.
The ASPCA are, much like the RSPCA, known to promote animal agriculture propaganda and are involved heavily with industries that exploit animals. A large part of their funding comes from grants & partnerships with animal agriculture. Not only are they an incredibly biased source, but they’re also clearly not a scientific one.
This is my first exposure to Lemmy drama. I’ve only read the ToS announcement and thread and this. Seems like a great responde. Here’s wishing You all the Best.
I can only speak for myself but I appreciate the effort. Realistically I don’t have high hopes for the longevity of this comm. I assume one or another of the antivegan admins will continue to find whatever flimsy reason to shut down discussions that make them unhappy.
I strongly recommend anyone interested in reading about veganism on the fediverse check out the comms on vegantheoryclub or hexbear. If your server doesn’t federate (e.g. world) make an account on one that does. Both of those places are administrated by vegans and suck a lot less.
Hi https://lemmy.world/u/TheTechnician27 (I don’t know how to tag users, sorry), I just wanted to point out that one of your links is broken:
" * There are multiple benefits of a vegan or vegetarian diet [six listed, too long to quote here] in the management of CKD […] —Journal of Renal Nutrition (2019) "
This sends us to a broken link:
https://www.jrnjournal.org/article/S1051-2276(19
Here is the fixed link I believe: https://www.jrnjournal.org/article/S1051-2276(19)30026-3/fulltext
Hope that helps, and to make it easier to find and correct if you want to, the broken link in your post is the 15th from the top, or 10th from the bottom, I think. :)
You can tag people like this: @TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
Fixed! I totally forgot to escape the parens in the URL.
And here is the full quote:
There are multiple benefits of a vegan or vegetarian diet in the management of CKD: (1) Intake of animal fat is associated with albuminuria, and other components related to meat such as choline and carnitine are converted by gut flora into trimethylamine and trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) that are associated with atherosclerosis and renal fibrosis.10 (2) Vegan dieting leads to a decreased acid load, whereas ingestion of animal-based foods increases acidogenesis and ammonia production, and this favorable alkalization of vegan diet may have additional effects beyond what would be provided by mere intake of sodium bicarbonate.11 (3) There is less absorbable phosphorus in plant-based protein given the preponderance of indigestible phytate as the main source of phosphorus and given that fresh fruits or vegetables are less likely to have added phosphorus-based preservatives that are often used for meat processing.12,13 (4) Higher dietary fiber intake, in addition to a favorable modulation of advanced glycation end products,14 enhances gastrointestinal motility and lowers the likelihood of constipation, which is a likely contributor to hyperkalemia. (5) A vegan diet based on fresh fruits and vegetables lessen the likelihood of exposure to potassium-based additives.15,16 (6) There are potentially favorable impacts on the gut microbiome leading to lower generation of uremic toxins such as indoxyl sulfate, p-cresol sulfate, TMAO, and other unfavorable substances.17 TMAO is not only elevated as a consequence of renal insufficiency but also likely contributes to the progression of CKD and the risk of mortality in patients with CKD.18 There are other benefits from a higher intake of plant-based protein, such as lowering the likelihood of kidney stones and decreased risk of cardiovascular disease due to higher intake of natural antioxidants including carotenoids, tocopherols, and ascorbic acid.19
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You might as well say modern men are men by every scientific definition (and subsequently evolved to be able to dominate women). Regardless if that’s true, that doesn’t mean that men inherently need to dominate women. Just like omnivorous humans don’t inherently need to dominate non-human animals. They can choose to be respectful and ethical instead since we’re moral agents capable of rising beyond our basal, animalistic instincts and even our evolutionarily-programmed nature. We’re also able to make more rational and informed choices about what benefits ourselves, other animals, and the planet the most, regardless of what’s natural. Natural doesn’t automatically equal better, in a lot of cases it’s worse. This (your argument) is just an appeal to nature fallacy.
To be clear, us being omnivores means we’ve evolved to be able to eat from plant- or animal-based (as well as fungal, algal, etc) sources. That doesn’t mean we need to eat all of them, we’re capable of surviving on either, and evidence shows we actually thrive on a plant-based diet. It’s also worth acknowledging that we originally evolved from frugivorous herbivores before we started hunting animals (yes, really), and our bodies, while they have developed some omnivorous adaptations, are still closer to that of herbivores than carnivores and lean more towards the herbivorous side even compared to most other omnivores. But that’s mostly irrelevant to what we’re actually able to do, what we’re shown to be healthiest (and most longevous/long-lived) when doing today, what’s most ethical, sustainable, etc. Just some food for thought.
I don’t know. I am not vegan but I am Vegetarian(I can’t live without Milk, Sorry). I am healthy as fuck.
“Milk” is the one that surprises me the most, simply because I believe plant milk trounces dairy milk in basically every aspect except price (which is in my experience improving but exists due to massive subsidies toward the dairy industry that plant milk doesn’t ever receive, not its own intrinsic merits. Even just taking the subsidies away would reverse this, and if the subsidies flipped, the difference would be enormous). You definitely can live without it, and it’s even a lot better in most respects.
- The nutritional profile of plant milk is generally better. Wheras it lacks the ~8g of protein per ~250 mL that typical dairy milk has (you can get versions fortified with 8g protein, though, if you want), it makes up for it by being free of sugar (if you get unsweetened) compared to the typical 8–12g of lactose; having no lactose which can ferment in people with intolerance (plenty of people only realize they were intolerant after they stop drinking milk and no longer feel symptomatic); having substantially fewer calories; and having no or extremely minimal saturated fat and cholesterol (the fats plant milks do tend to have are very healthy mono- and polyunsaturated ones). Almond milk – by far the most common – has considerably more calcium (~35–45% compared to ~20–30%) and Vitamin D (~35% compared with ~20–25%) per serving than dairy milk. Whereas dairy milk is fortified with Vitamin D3, plant milk is fortified with D2; the mechanism for metabolizing the calcium is less efficient in D2 than D3, so this difference is offset to some extent. Oat milk more closely aligns with typical dairy milk calcium and Vitamin D contents, so it’s slightly less nutritious than dairy milk in this respect. Plant milk is generally also fortified with micronutrients such as Vitamins A, B2, and B12 to meet or exceed what dairy milk typically contains. That 8g of protein can easily be made up for elsewhere, as you only need around 0.8g per day per kilogram that you weigh (around 55g in a 70kg adult).
- Plant milk takes months to go bad, whereas dairy milk that hasn’t been ultrapasteurized (at which point it becomes as expensive as or even more expensive than plant milk and often still has a somewhat shorter shelf life) maybe lasts two weeks from the date of purchase. This means that you can easily stockpile it between sales (I often keep around 15L) and it won’t go bad.
- Plant milk has an absolute ton of variety. There’s almond, soy, coconut, oat, cashew, rice, peanut, macadamia, pea, banana, pumpkin seed, pistachio (this one’s one of the wildest beverages I’ve ever seen; it’s like $10 a liter lmao), etc. You can make any of these at home and even fortify it with relative ease and for pretty cheap if you’re so inclined, although it’s not my preferred choice just because I like the consistent experience that grocery store milk offers. Within these categories, pretty much all of them have sweetened, unsweetened, chocolate, vanilla, and vanilla unsweetened, while the main ones like almond and oat milk tend to have much more exotic varieties like banana, matcha, pumpkin spice, nog, hot chocolate, and extra creamy. And even then, different brands will offer different experiences. The only one that’s absent is strawberry, and it vexes me to this day. You can make it on your own, but I have never in my life seen a single strawberry plant milk sold in a grocery store. Do I like strawberry milk? No. Do I think it’s weird that I’ve never seen a company experiment with it? Absolutely. So I guess if you specifically can’t live without grocery store strawberry milk, you can ignore this entire point. Get on it, plant milk companies.
- Every type of plant milk is better in every conceivable way for the environment.
- Every type of plant milk is better in every conceivable way for animal welfare.
- Completely subjective, but dairy milk has this weird, slightly sour taste that I never liked growing up that makes plant-based milks taste so much more clean and refreshing to me.
Thanks for this writeup. But for me It’s not about nutrition I just love Dairy Products and Sweets(I know non-vegan can say the same for Meat and stuff). In my country no one tried making Sweets with Plant based milk(I will experiment in future see if it’s taste good or not). Also, Just for fact I buy milk directly from a nearby cow farm.
Congrats you’re still supporting the raping of cows, the separation of a mother and child, and the killing of calves.
They are holy in my country.
May I ask, is artificial insemination is still practiced if cows are holy? Sorry if this is a dumb question.
No, I guess. But people with greed sure practice this. Because they just want money what you can expect from them.
Thanks for sharing
Aren’t most dairies in India (I presume) owned by people who aren’t Hindu, like Sikhs? A billion Indians cannot consume dairy every single day without unholy things being done to cattle. Maybe you get milk from the one dairy in India that miraculously doesn’t abuse cattle, but that means someone else can’t get their milk there and has to use the cruel stuff.
It’s always cruel. There’s literally no way to make it not cruel, just less cruel in certain ways. Never “humane”, only “more inhumane or less inhumane”, and varying degrees of inhumanity
I can change myself not other.
Yes, you can go vegan and stop supporting animal exploitation.
And what would that look like? Because I think it looks like not enslaving, raping and killing intelligent creatures.
You’ve been deceived like most people, you really need to watch this documentary if you care about animals (especially cows and their calves), ethics, environment, etc. Even if health is not a concern to you.
This documentary, Maa Ka Doodh, goes into how the standard inherent practices in India’s dairy industry are abominably cruel. There is simply no way to do it ethically, something vegans are well aware of, not to mention the majority is mass-produced and even more cruel than the very extremely rare cases that are barely commercially viable and can only cater to a select few wealthy people, and even those are still highly cruel, just less so. Is less cruel = not cruel? No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maa_Ka_Doodh
They made it viewable for free on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhTOLeevtQw
Additionally, Arvind Animal Activist on YouTube educates the public about the ethical, environmental and health imperatives to go vegan from an Indian perspective:
You might be healthy now but evidence shows you would be at more risk of health issues, diseases etc, and mortality risk, especially later in life, than if you ate a plant based diet, and have worse health-and-life expectancy.
Additionally, you’re contributing to some of the worst environmental practices harming our planet and causing climate change.
Finally, the abuses of animals in other industries beyond meat production, not only are usually still contributing to the killing of animals for meat indirectly since animals are used for overlapping purposes, but are horrifically cruel in their own ways too.
Please watch this: Dairy Is Scary
Thanks, I will consider it but is there any Vegan sweet? I love sweet can’t live without that ( ; ω ; ).
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