Please explain Veganism to me . . .

I have had not read the first page FWIW but you get used to shit like that

Not offended and that was moderate me 8)

. dark green leafy veg tends to be a much better dietary source of iron than red meat anyway.

Vitamin C aids absorption as well FWIW

Wow, this thread has finally provided one useful piece of information it seems – I didn’t know that.

Though does that only apply to the basic nutritional content, or does that include how easily they are digested? I didn’t think we were all that good at processing nutrients from green stuff, only having one stomach (I could be talking complete rubbish here – hoping to be educated by somebody who knows more about nutrition than me).

Most of the vegans cyclists I know have poor manners, no sense, and are pussies with an angry save-the-Planet sense of moral superiority and entitlement. It’s usually a drama. Driving a car makes you strong! Call troll if you like, just being honest.

us vs them bingo all the way

Crocs vs Vans
Short hair vs long hair
Beard vs clean-shaven
Blondes vs Brunettes
26ers vs 650bers
VW vs Vauxhall
Shirts vs tees

PS just bagged a new L-shaped brick shed. With an electrical socket. With room for bikes and a workbench. Everything else is now background noise. L8rs argueraters 🙂

AlexSimon GTFO this is not the place for reasoned, reasonable discussion 😆
Personally it’s just the whole moral highground, evangelising of veggies that I find irritating as I agree with Ninfan. Certain environments / eco-systems / responsible farming needs animals as part of the cycle so we need to consume animals as part of that cycle.
Ethically we need to ensure the animals have good welfare and be prepared to pay for it.
Which I think is the main issue, which applies to the Vegan/Veggie argument, is that as the world population grows the effort to keep food cheap means heavy industrialisation unless we take the Soylent Green solution

Oxalic acid and tannins inhibit bioavilibilty of iron and calcium from leafy green veg to about 25-40%.
Taking into account the low digestibility of cellulose containing material gives overall, on a per mass basis, a bioavailibilty of about 15% of the checmical analysis figures.

Personally it’s just the whole moral highground, evangelising of veggies that I find irritating

This always comes up on these threads and yet the predominant voice on here is always some irate meat eaters

No one like moralising but again its not diet specific Have you read these threads on here?

you cannot be healthy if you are veggie and they are all unhealthy
let me work out why you are a hypocrite
We need meat for iron/something else
Its natural
ETC

You really dont think meat eaters are preaching and its just veggies?

Meat eating really does seem to make people stupid 😉

So since then I’ve done my best to be ‘vegan’. That’s what it’s about for me – just doing my best to avoid things that I wouldn’t do myself, or things that I think are harmful to the environments that I cherish.

I’m not sure the insecure anti-vegans will understand a sensible and considered position like that. You can but hope though.

How does that compare with the bioavailability of nutrients in meat, and how do the proportions of nutrients compare? The headline question is, do you get more of those nutrients from dark green leafy veg or from red meat (or is there another better option) once it’s been through your digestive system?

Personally it’s just the whole moral highground, evangelising of veggies that I find irritating as I agree with Ninfan.

I can understand that it’s irritating. Vegan activists can be as annoying to me, as I’m sure religious activists are normal church-going folk.

Hopefully you can see it from our point of view. We’ve done something different from the norm, so it’s easy for the conversation to be dragged that way, questions are asked, and it’s very difficult to give answers without it sounding like I want everyone to be vegan. Obviously I do want everyone to be vegan (why wouldn’t I given all the positives I think it has?), but it’s taken a great many years to understand how people react to the way the subject is approached.

Certain environments / eco-systems / responsible farming needs animals as part of the cycle so we need to consume animals as part of that cycle.

I don’t believe that.
I do believe however, that living in northern Europe as we do, I rely on importation of goods. It’s easy to see why for the last few thousand years, we’ve come to rely on animals.

Anyone who has suffered local organic veg box deliveries through winters can attest to that!

Some of the iron in meat is part of protein complexes which makes it more digestible than that in vegetables.

even if you are a hypocritical fish eating vegetarian like me
You’re a pescatarian. HTH.

You’re WEAK. HTH.

🙂

You really dont think meat eaters are preaching and its just veggies?

Meat eating really does seem to make people stupid

LOL. I don’t think I have ever suggested anyone go veggie except in jest to my Kiwi mate.. I get FAR more traffic the other way .. ‘What do you eat?’ ‘Where do you get protein from?’ (the new fave) .. ‘Oooh I just couldn’t live without bacon!’ .. it’s very simple, I can and am quite happy to do so. It’s not a self flagellation thing.

wrecker – Member

I don’t either. Everybody should eat what they want, it’s nobody else’s business.

<sharpens knives> <looks out recipes for longpig> <starts IP trace on Wrecker>

Certain environments / eco-systems / responsible farming needs animals as part of the cycle so we need to consume animals as part of that cycle.

I don’t believe that[/quote]
That’s a bit like some people don’t believe in evolution – how do you think the South Downs get mown? Without the ‘mowing’ how do you think the Chalkhill Blue butterfly would do?

I might get exposed to more veggi evangelising by hanging out in heebie jeebie hippie circles, so I might see more bias that way than others

Well it seems you lot agree with my gut feeling on this, but do we have a definitive answer on which is better?

whilst that might be true we dont need to consume the animals we just need to have them

Its also a self fulfilling prophecy

We have artificially made the environment [ via farming] and if we dont artificially keep it like this then something will happen- its true- but lets not pretend we have animals to protect the environment or help butterflies or that its nature at work.

Well it seems you lot agree with my gut feeling on this, but do we have a definitive answer on which is better?

Nope and you won’t get one. If you read up on veggie diets though there is usually some talk of combining foods to make the most of them. Iron is a tricky one as it’s difficult to get out of the best plant forms, but adding vit C (glass of orange juice, oh noes the sugar!!!!) helps absorb it better.
Fairly sure someone in ST once wrote that baked beans on wholemeal bread contain the most complete range of proteins. No idea if thats true, but I do like beans 🙂

http://www.viva.org.uk/ironing-out-facts-fact-sheet

Short version two types of iron and the non meat one MAY be better for you and non meat eaters get more of that
I think its possible a claim born from philosophy rather than science and VIVA are ,like Greenpeace is to the environmental movement, for Vegans/veggies IMHO

ANemia [ iron deficiency] is no more common in non meat eaters than meat eaters – US and BMA studies

questions are asked, and it’s very difficult to give answers without it sounding like I want everyone to be vegan

Especially when the question is ‘Are you vegan/veggie for health or moral reasons’, which if you then answer ‘moral’, you are then accused of being preachy by taking the moral high ground. Which is then closely followed by a number questions designed to show you up as a hypocrite.

My standard response to this question is usually something along the lines of..

“Because I couldn’t personally cut the throat of a pig/cow/lamb, so I don’t expect others to do it for me. The moral superiority and improved health are just beneficial side effects.”

Its a pointless debate some folk want to eat meat some dont
Some of those [either side]are healthy some are not
Some of those get annoyed by the diet of the other lot and some dont
I really dont see why other folk care what other folk eat

I dunno, people who are vegetarian because they ‘don’t believe animals should be killed/mistreated for our food’ who eat mass-produced eggs and milk do grind my gears a little. You can say it’s personal choice etc but those people do surely on some level believe themselves to be morally superior to those who eat meat. I would like to say I only eat meat from free-range relatively ethical sources (I try with varying degrees of success). I reckon if I stuck to that and didn’t eat any mass produced milk or eggs it would arguably be causing less suffering to animals than a veggie who eats mass produced eggs and milk.

So to me vegetarianism seems a bit of a halfway house that makes people feel like they are doing good but the amount of good is often questionable, IMO. Vegans on the other hand I genuinely admire and more of us should eat like that more of the time definitely.

The moral superiority and improved health are just beneficial side effects.

😆

So to me vegetarianism seems a bit of a halfway house that makes people feel like they are doing good but the amount of good is often questionable,

Of course it’s a halfway house. But the logic that you shouldn’t be vegetarian because you’re not capapble/willing to be vegan is a bit silly. Every vegan and vegetarian I know accepts that it’s impossible to be morally pure on this subject. The choice to be either is a conscious choice to do something positive, whilst accepting the limitations. Would it be more acceptable to say ‘I eat meat because there’s no point in giving up as I can never achieve moral purity and I don’t want to be a hypocrite’?

Well it seems you lot agree with my gut feeling on this, but do we have a definitive answer on which is better?

trying to put aside my obvious bias (with the same disclaimer as junkyard that i genuinely do not care what anyone else chooses to eat or not eat), a well balanced omnivorous diet should have a way higher proportion of veg to meat than that of most omnivores anyway, so it wouldn’t really be an issue i’d have thought?

personally speaking, i’ve not eaten meat or dairy for around 27 years now and never had issues with iron deficiency. i do eat a lot of spinach, broccoli, kale etc though… so it seems to work for me.

That’s a bit like some people don’t believe in evolution – how do you think the South Downs get mown? Without the ‘mowing’ how do you think the Chalkhill Blue butterfly would do?

I’ll rephrase. As Junkyard says, we have created an artificial environment. If you want to protect that (presumably because it’s better than the alternatives), then that’s fine and I can understand it, but it is definitely not the same as saying that nature requires sheep farming.

A large amount of government spending goes into subsidising farming based on the same thought process. i.e. that farmers are the custodians of our landscape and that if we don’t subsidise every hedge/drystone wall/fallow field/etc then the money-making alternative will be worse. It may be the case, but we seem to be very protective of very recent history without much thought to what alternatives could be better/more natural.

(glass of orange juice, oh noes the sugar!!!!) helps absorb it better

is there a better local source than the ones flown in from Spain? so transport pollution and irrigation issues to consider there.

https://gsoil.wordpress.com/2012/12/25/the-impact-of-citrus-production-an-approach-from-the-soil-system/%5B/url%5D

Most of the vegans i know have poor health/low energy and it’s usually a drama. Meat makes you strong! Call troll if you like, just being honest.

Odd. Most of the meat eaters I know are overweight, and the majority of those over 50 have heart problems. They also cause a drama every time I quietly order the vegetarian option on the menu, yet I say nothing about their menu choice.

Poor diet makes you weak/poor health. By your logic, eating this everyday

is going to make you healthier a stronger than eating this?

So meat equals shit fast food? Have a word….you’re exactly as bad as the anti veggies….

I’ll rephrase – by artificial do you mean man-made?
So an eco-system that has been around for around 4000 years, probably much more, is ‘artificial’?
Current understanding suggests there are few eco-systems (including the Amazon basin and the American mid-west) that are un-influenced (at minimum) or essentially created (at maximum) by man.
Ergo the whole world is an artifical system.

I agree, but you seemed to be posting it as a justification for continued animal farming, whereas I don’t see that.

Personally it’s just the whole moral highground, evangelising of veggies that I find irritating as I agree with Ninfan.

Does that actually happen a lot to you, or have you just made it up?

I think I’ve met, ooh, two preachy veggies in my life. One was a fruitloop who cut something else out of her diet whenever she was ill, which was most of the time because she kept eating less and less. The other was some random woman in a pub who was loudly playing the “meat is murder” card to anyone who would listen. I had a most entertaining debate with her, deconstructing her half-baked ideas, it was like being on the Internet. She’d assumed I was a meat eater and took that as point of attack. The look on her face was priceless when I revealed 20 minutes in that I’d been vegetarian for considerably longer than she had.

Mostly though, the ‘preachy’ ones IME are the omnivores who have never really given their diet any thought whatsoever and stuff whatever crap down that they’ve always eaten, yet feel obliged to mansplain about incisors or depth perception, or how they knew a vegan who had a cold once, or some other ill-informed rot. Pretty much every vegetarian / vegan I know just wants to get through life without having to have the same gods damned discussion every. single. time. we eat out. You eat what you want, I’ll eat what I want, simples.

And the reason we’re discussing it now? Because an omnivore asked us to explain it. We’re not explaining it to be preachy, we’re not explaining it to give you something to attack (and believe me, we’ve heard it all before and it gets weary), we’re not explaining it to justify our diets or to evangelise (though most people could do to think more about what they eat, veggie or not), we’re explaining because someone bloody well asked us to.

So to me vegetarianism seems a bit of a halfway house that makes people feel like they are doing good but the amount of good is often questionable, IMO. Vegans on the other hand I genuinely admire and more of us should eat like that more of the time definitely.

You haven’t read the whole thread, have you. You’re assuming, incorrectly, that there is only reason not to eat meat.

is going to make you healthier a stronger than eating this?

If I ate that every day I’m pretty confident I’d explode!

So meat equals shit fast food? Have a word….you’re exactly as bad as the anti veggies….

I believe he was just demonstrating a point, which is broadly what Junkyard was saying. You can have a good or a bad diet as a vegan; a good or a bad diet as a vegetarian; or a good or a bad diet as a meat eater. The two are not intrinsically linked.

Or, being a meat eater does not necessarily negate your right to make sensible comments about someone else’s dietary choices; however if your diet does mostly consist of crap meat then you’re in no position to be judgemental about someone else.

So an eco-system that has been around for around 4000 years, probably much more, is ‘artificial’?

4000 years is nothing. Even in that period though the landscape was radically different to what it is now, largely due to industry, farming, and our obsession with keeping things tidy.

It could be very different though.. I’d much prefer forested hills containing the likes of wolves, bears and beavers than bald fields and peat bogs full of sheep and game birds.

It’s not an issue, I was just curious about the accuracy of your claim, given that I was immediately struck by one possible issue which I wasn’t sure had been factored in to the comparison 😉

I don’t doubt that with a properly healthy diet it is possible to get all the nutrients you need, whether that diet is vegan, vegetarian, omnivore or carnivorous (actually I can see how you might struggle on some things with the latter). I’m also sure that despite eating rather less meat than the average person I still eat a lot more than I need to (I sometimes used to have a meat free month – mostly vegetarian, but fish a couple of times a week – haven’t managed that since having kids who I’m afraid have been brought up to enjoy eating meat – and I’ve not yet made them kill their own dinner either). Though the main issue with my diet is my propensity to snack on biscuits and the like – they’re certainly not vegan, but I don’t think that’s what makes them bad for me.

I think all those of us on this thread capable of using our brains also agree that the health issue isn’t the headline category of the diet, as it is possible to have a good or bad diet whichever of those categories you choose.

So meat equals shit fast food? Have a word….you’re exactly as bad as the anti veggies….

Not at all, I was highlighting the poor diet choice as the key component to the argument that I was responding to. Be it a meat based, or meat free diet. You found teh obvious flaw in the argument though – well spotted 😉

I don’t give a shit about other peoples diet choices and don’t preach about them, neither do the majority of vegetarians that I know (which is quite a lot).

Edit: Cougar got it 8)

If I ate that every day I’m pretty confident I’d explode!

I’m pretty confident one end of me would.

The choice to be either is a conscious choice to do something positive, whilst accepting the limitations. Would it be more acceptable to say ‘I eat meat because there’s no point in giving up as I can never achieve moral purity and I don’t want to be a hypocrite’?

That’s not really what I’m saying though. I’m saying it’s possible to take steps to be more ethical in your consumption of food – ‘do something positive’ – that don’t necessarily involve being vegetarian. And that you could make an argument that some meat eaters are more ethical than some vegetarians in their consumption. I don’t think people can assume vegetarian = more ethical without thinking through any of the other aspects.

I know quite a few vegetarians who eat more eggs than most meat-eaters. Whilst these are usually free-range they are also usually mass-produced supermarket eggs. I don’t think they have thought through how many animals are being killed to produce those eggs.

I’m not saying ‘either be perfect or do nothing’ I’m saying don’t make potentially tokenistic gestures to make yourself feel better, have a really good think and do some research about the impact your consumption has. I know many people have done this, but quite a lot haven’t IMO. It seems to me often like an emotional reaction of ‘I don’t want to harm the cute animals’ rather than a logical/ethical position, which is how it’s presented.

@Cougar – yes I have thanks – I’m obviously talking about those who don’t eat meat for ‘moral’ reasons.

Actually further to my above post, I’m wondering when I last managed a day without eating some form of meat or fish (though I struggle to feel any level of guilt about the latter). Should try a bit harder, but it’s tricky when you’ve reared kids who demand their meat.

That’s not really what I’m saying though. I’m saying it’s possible to take steps to be more ethical in your consumption of food – ‘do something positive’ – that don’t necessarily involve being vegetarian. And that you could make an argument that some meat eaters are more ethical than some vegetarians in their consumption. I don’t think people can assume vegetarian = more ethical without thinking through any of the other aspects.

Totally agree. IMO some of the least ethical food stuffs you can eat are milk, eggs and fish (obviously not veggie but I hope you can see why it gets a mention). Not a pop at vegetarians, just pointing out that the ethics of what you eat aren’t simply what it is made from. To be fair most vegetarians and vegans probably put a lot more thought into where their food comes from but its hardly black and white.

Would it be more acceptable to say ‘I eat meat because there’s no point in giving up as I can never achieve moral purity and I don’t want to be a hypocrite’?

I can see Grum’s point, if you care about animal welfare choosing to be vegetarian (and carrying on eating massproduced milk/eggs/cheese/etc) on the surface sounds like a pretty shit way of making a difference.

Kind of like worrying about the environment and buying a slightly smaller engined car.
But theres other reasons to be veggie

Does that actually happen a lot to you, or have you just made it up?

the preachy bit not so sure about but I’m pretty sure people turn veggie coz of the fluffy animals, doing that while supporting the dairy industry is being a bit disingenuous with yourself no?

But yeah it’s all a compromise and the comparison of “ethical” omni diet vs bog standard veggie diet is probably arguable anyway

is going to make you healthier a stronger than eating this?

An omnivore can eat all that