11–20 of 275 posts
> I never expected this post to get so much attention. There is nothing more popular than an anecdote that appeals to people's pre-existing biases. Unfortunately there will be many for which this one story will provide the same weight of evidence as the entire China Study.
Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying the premium for more sustainably raised meat. Opting out of meat entirely does nothing to change the industry, because most people will always eat some meat if they can afford it.
Meanwhile, as vegans focus on the elimination of meat from our diets, they practically ignore the industrialized food that wreaks direct reproducible havoc on our metabolisms causing epidemic obesity and diabetes. Consider the effect of refined and reconstituted carbohydrates made from federally subsidized crops that make the most devastatingly unhealthy food items also the cheapest. Just the effects of soda pop alone are worthy of an international movement.
Ginny Messina, who is a dietitian and actually has some qualifications to talk about this stuff, wrote a great response to this blog post - http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-vegans%E2%80%99-stor...
She has an awfully weird way of expressing this. The first few paragraphs of her post are dedicated to implying as hard as she can that this blog post is some sort of meat industry propaganda.
For example:
>There is so much that is eerily parallel in these stories—not just the vague descriptions of the health-related experiences but also the evolving philosophy regarding food justice, and some very, very similar language.
A bit more OT diet-related: As the months have grown colder I recently noticed a dangerous binge-type craving for sweet stuff. So I decided I would go low-carb and high-fat for a few days leading up to Thanksgiving just to see if it could change my appetite. It's made a very obvious difference. One daily Starbucks venti breve latte just obliterates the problem, though it's a bit hard to digest and tiresome to drink.
I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity. Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying…
There are, you'll be pleased to hear, many vegans with stronger ethical arguments than "meat is murder". Such as, in summary:
* unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable.
* some non-human animals (notably the ones we eat most of) are as capable of suffering at the physical level as humans are. We shouldn't discount their suffering just because they aren't members of homo sapiens.
* factory farms raise most animals in conditions of unnecessary extreme suffering.
* therefore, it is ethically wrong to eat those animal products.
(This is actually an argument for eating humanely-raised meat instead of veganism, but finding verifiably humanely-raised meat is difficult enough that I'm not sufficiently interested to bother, and there are practical advantages in eating a predictable diet. So I just eat vegan.)
By the way, I hate the federally subsidized crop situation too. I wish I could do something substantial about it. It's disingenuous for you to say that vegans are uninformed about health issues or industrial practice or the farm lobby just because they don't "focus" on it; that doesn't match my experience of other vegans at all, and it's obviously untrue that someone can only pay attention to one issue.
I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity. Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying…
I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity. Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying…
I often wonder where these veracious vegans are. I've yet to meet a vegan who has been evangelical, yet have met many omnivores who speak poorly of vegans. Is this a region specific problem?
Two words: The Internet.
I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity. Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying…
I've also tried to convince people that shrimp and oysters are vegan, but I've had less luck with that.
I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity. Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying…