Cringe to choose the ethical option - plants are just too good; I can’t give them up. I guess I’ll have to start eating double the amount of plants to make up for your carnivorous ways.
The thing about vegan diets being unhealthy really irks me because the alternative is not usually some perfect diet optimized for health but whatever thoughtless diet one gets from just eating whatever they feel like in the moment without any deliberate thought.
You say “the alternative” as if it’s the only alternative. Not everybody who eats meat is thoughtless or careless. And not every vegetarian is just a meat eater sans the meat. People care on different levels and some care about different things. It does not make you right and them wrong. Or vice versa.
nowhere in my comment did i imply that it was the only alternative, nor did i imply that everyone who eats meat is thoughtless or careless.
my point is that "veganism is unhealthy" falls flat as an argument because it is not unhealthy relative to the standard american diet and because some of the people who use it likely have less healthy diets themselves.
with meat in your diet, a pretty thoughtless diet works fine usually if it’s not ridiculous. that’s why people who don’t care about animal welfare like meat so much. vegan diet requires more careful planning to get the right nutrients. this is a major reason people don’t switch, important to consider if you want to convince them.
Have you studied the arguments claiming that veganism may actually increase the total amount of suffering when you consider wild-animal suffering? Do you have an opinion on this issue?
I think it's very doubtful--the effect on wild animal suffering is mostly very, very unclear, and in the case of most animals, just completely dwarfed by the first-order effect of not eating animals.
Not a question about veganism per se, but about a topic closely related to animal rights: Zoophilia: Would you say that having sex between a human, especially but not only an adult human, and a non-human animal should be illegal and treated similarly to statutory rape due to the difference in mental abilities between them?
Satire is both harder than it apparently looks to you, and not a good way of doing philosophy. Bok choy either feels pain or it doesn't, and if there's evidence it does it is our moral duty to investigate it. Hur hur fluffy puppies with big googoo eyes is a shit argument at best, and bloody nonsensical for a champion of the rights of fucking shrimp.
Not meaning to be aggressive, it's just that substack keeps serving me your stuff so there's obviously an algorithm out there that wants me to comment. So I have.
If I ate a plant based diet I would have to take artificial supplements of choline, creatine, B12, D, calcium, zinc, and iodine. I can't afford the $20/month for those supplements so I will get a $5 big mac every day instead.
You only need a b12 and d supplement. You get iodine from salt, for instance. There’s a reason vegans have better health than non vegans even controlling for other stuff
I know there are buff vegans, but every vegan I've met is scrawny. Meat really is the best way to get complete bioavailable protein sources.
I wouldn't deny that the vegan diet is better than the Standard American Diet, which consists of hyperpalatable super-processed food. That $5 Big Mac that Jonathan referred to has three (THREE!) slices of bread to which high fructose corn syrup was added (because it's cheap and because the sugar acts as a preservative). So if you asked me "should I eat crap all day or be a vegan," I'd tell you to be a vegan. But I prefer eating a balanced diet that includes vegetables and fruits, but also includes meat.
I am convinced that animal torture is not great, and I'm fairly affluent, so I do eat meats that are humanely raised, inasmuch as that's possible. I think a chicken that's actually been allowed to move and eat tastes better than one that was penned its whole life.
Could you link to a study showing vegans have better health after controlling for other stuff? I spent a few minutes trying to find a study like that but the handful I looked at all had confounding variables.
But did you consider how the biggest buffest animals like elephants, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, giraffe, oxen, and cows don't eat any meat at all? Its obviously impossible to get big and buff eating animals, you have to eat leaves,twigs, grasses, roots, and fruit to become actually enormous.
turns out its entirely possible to eat meat with essentially zero animal cruelty or suffering. in fact, if you are even remotely moral utilitarian (im actually not, but it still works as an approximation usually) the happiness of well treated farm animals is a huge net positive overall good in the universe even if they are eaten after a fulfilling life.
Do you have any peer reviewed studies showing that lions eat meat, and that aren't obvious examples of woke-ideologically captured researchers? No? Curious.
Cringe to choose the ethical option - plants are just too good; I can’t give them up. I guess I’ll have to start eating double the amount of plants to make up for your carnivorous ways.
The thing about vegan diets being unhealthy really irks me because the alternative is not usually some perfect diet optimized for health but whatever thoughtless diet one gets from just eating whatever they feel like in the moment without any deliberate thought.
You say “the alternative” as if it’s the only alternative. Not everybody who eats meat is thoughtless or careless. And not every vegetarian is just a meat eater sans the meat. People care on different levels and some care about different things. It does not make you right and them wrong. Or vice versa.
nowhere in my comment did i imply that it was the only alternative, nor did i imply that everyone who eats meat is thoughtless or careless.
my point is that "veganism is unhealthy" falls flat as an argument because it is not unhealthy relative to the standard american diet and because some of the people who use it likely have less healthy diets themselves.
with meat in your diet, a pretty thoughtless diet works fine usually if it’s not ridiculous. that’s why people who don’t care about animal welfare like meat so much. vegan diet requires more careful planning to get the right nutrients. this is a major reason people don’t switch, important to consider if you want to convince them.
Your hunger shall be ready, for when the Glenn inevitably sues you for plagiarism in the supreme marsupial court, you must simply eat him too.
Have you studied the arguments claiming that veganism may actually increase the total amount of suffering when you consider wild-animal suffering? Do you have an opinion on this issue?
I think it's very doubtful--the effect on wild animal suffering is mostly very, very unclear, and in the case of most animals, just completely dwarfed by the first-order effect of not eating animals.
Not a question about veganism per se, but about a topic closely related to animal rights: Zoophilia: Would you say that having sex between a human, especially but not only an adult human, and a non-human animal should be illegal and treated similarly to statutory rape due to the difference in mental abilities between them?
I’ve been vegan for 20 years but you’ve convinced me to change my wicked ways!
Satire is both harder than it apparently looks to you, and not a good way of doing philosophy. Bok choy either feels pain or it doesn't, and if there's evidence it does it is our moral duty to investigate it. Hur hur fluffy puppies with big googoo eyes is a shit argument at best, and bloody nonsensical for a champion of the rights of fucking shrimp.
Not meaning to be aggressive, it's just that substack keeps serving me your stuff so there's obviously an algorithm out there that wants me to comment. So I have.
If I ate a plant based diet I would have to take artificial supplements of choline, creatine, B12, D, calcium, zinc, and iodine. I can't afford the $20/month for those supplements so I will get a $5 big mac every day instead.
You only need a b12 and d supplement. You get iodine from salt, for instance. There’s a reason vegans have better health than non vegans even controlling for other stuff
I know there are buff vegans, but every vegan I've met is scrawny. Meat really is the best way to get complete bioavailable protein sources.
I wouldn't deny that the vegan diet is better than the Standard American Diet, which consists of hyperpalatable super-processed food. That $5 Big Mac that Jonathan referred to has three (THREE!) slices of bread to which high fructose corn syrup was added (because it's cheap and because the sugar acts as a preservative). So if you asked me "should I eat crap all day or be a vegan," I'd tell you to be a vegan. But I prefer eating a balanced diet that includes vegetables and fruits, but also includes meat.
I am convinced that animal torture is not great, and I'm fairly affluent, so I do eat meats that are humanely raised, inasmuch as that's possible. I think a chicken that's actually been allowed to move and eat tastes better than one that was penned its whole life.
Could you link to a study showing vegans have better health after controlling for other stuff? I spent a few minutes trying to find a study like that but the handful I looked at all had confounding variables.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26853923/
This one is about vegetarians rather than vegans but controls for stuff https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15824171/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4691673/pdf/ajcn119461.pdf
Those studies don't show that veganism improves overall health outcomes.
The second study you linked says:
> A vegetarian diet devoid of meat and fish did not have any
> effect on all-cause mortality and cancer mortality compared
> with a nonvegetarian diet in health-conscious persons. There
> was solely a nonsignificantly lower risk of dying from ischemic
> heart disease (RR, 0.70).
But it seems like the control group wasn't a good control anyways:
> These results may be interpreted to suggest that abstinence
> from meat, meat products, and fish does not affect the risk of
> death except for ischemic heart disease.
>
> It should be pointed out, however, that even among the nonvegetarians in our
> study, there were only 0.4% (1.6%) who reported consuming
> meat (meat products) daily, 6.5% (4.9%) frequently (z3 times/
> wk but not daily), and 28.1% (18.7%) occasionally (more than
> once a month but <3 times/wk).
The third study says:
> we found no significant differences in all-cause mortality between the diet groups
I can't read the first one because it's not open access.
Keep at it and maybe you can level up to looking like Liver King.
Good to read!
Veganists suck.
I fear you did not read very carefully.
I read that you are now on a manly lion's diet of nothing but bloody hunks of healthy god-given meat.
That's a good thing: you need super animalistic proteins to build muscle and fight fight fight.
Screw the Veganists and their weak veganismatic impulses.
It's great to read someone who's so genuine and honest in his writing and who can also recognize it in others.
But did you consider how the biggest buffest animals like elephants, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, giraffe, oxen, and cows don't eat any meat at all? Its obviously impossible to get big and buff eating animals, you have to eat leaves,twigs, grasses, roots, and fruit to become actually enormous.
I'm glad Neil de Grasse Tyson is such a dickhead, or we wouldn't have had this excellent polemic.
turns out its entirely possible to eat meat with essentially zero animal cruelty or suffering. in fact, if you are even remotely moral utilitarian (im actually not, but it still works as an approximation usually) the happiness of well treated farm animals is a huge net positive overall good in the universe even if they are eaten after a fulfilling life.
Do you have any peer reviewed studies showing that lions eat meat, and that aren't obvious examples of woke-ideologically captured researchers? No? Curious.
I love this new genre! 😂
When they call you a carnist,but you're really just circle-of-life anti-communist-maxing
You should stop writing this blog, instead listen and learn.