Rather misinformed. Also, if farmland is the issue, has nobody in the science world noticed the magic of hydroponic cultivation? Vertical gardening is possible, a skyscraper has the footprint of a huge field when you use every floor to grow food. Can't do that with cows.
Being vegan isn’t as good for humanity as you think
21–30 of 80 posts
Re: Being vegan isn’t as good for humanity as you think
#22Going vegan isn't supposed to be as good for humanity as possible -- it is supposed to be as good as possible for all conscious beings, including non-human animals. It would be rather surprising if the best diet for humans would also be the best diet for humans and animals taken together. On the other hand, it is encouraging that these two goals do not conflict for the most part: The paper only finds pretty minimal l…
Exactly. The idea of the vegan diet being "good for humanity" isn't something that crosses the minds of many "die-hard vegans", quite the opposite in fact. Many have a profound dislike of humanity and choose a vegan diet out of concern for the animals harmed in food production. Morrissey would be an excellent example of someone who really takes that philosophy to heart. For the record, I'm a vegetarian, my daughter is vegan, and I'm a Morrissey fan.
Re: Being vegan isn’t as good for humanity as you think
#23The idea of the vegan diet being "good for humanity" isn't solely about land use which this article focuses on. It's mostly about use of energy. Vegan diet: food from land -> truck -> grocery store -> my mouth. Meat/dairy/what have you: food from land -> truck -> animal's mouth -> truck -> grocery store -> my mouth. And when it comes to meat it means years feeding and water etc. until the product can actually be sent…
Tell that to someone forced to paleo diet due to health/performance reasons. We obviously don't have as complicated ingestion system as cows nor as simple as cats so we aren't "designed" to eat vegetables/meat only but most likely both.
Re: Being vegan isn’t as good for humanity as you think
#24A pretty weak article and omits any new developments in the future of food production. The main argument of the article appears to be that some farm land won't be used (perennial cropland) when people are on a vegan diet. Well, then use that space to build some aeroponic or hydroponic farms [1]. You'll get produce all year around. Other studies have shown that it's not sustainable if we'd have to rely on meat to feed…
One of the larger problems I've found with the vegan diet is, where do you source your Omega 3 from? ALA (found in flax and chia seeds) has low bioavailability as opposed to EPA and DHA found in fish and eggs. Not only that, flax and chia seeds are very high in Omega 6, thus promote dangerous levels of inflammation. So, can a vegan please explain to me how your community has managed to solve this?
Soy & walnut have plenty of Omega 3
Re: Being vegan isn’t as good for humanity as you think
#25There is an implicit assumption that maximizing the number of people who can be squeezed on to the planet is "good" for humanity. I have never heard a reasonable justification for this. Anyone who's taken a long car trip in an automobile packed to maximum passenger capacity will intuitively understand the counterargument.
I'm more sympathetic to the idea of maintaining a population level within which people can live with some amount of dignity e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones#Inscriptio...
Re: Being vegan isn’t as good for humanity as you think
#26The idea of the vegan diet being "good for humanity" isn't solely about land use which this article focuses on. It's mostly about use of energy. Vegan diet: food from land -> truck -> grocery store -> my mouth. Meat/dairy/what have you: food from land -> truck -> animal's mouth -> truck -> grocery store -> my mouth. And when it comes to meat it means years feeding and water etc. until the product can actually be sent…
Tell that to someone forced to paleo diet due to health/performance reasons. We obviously don't have as complicated ingestion system as cows nor as simple as cats so we aren't "designed" to eat vegetables/meat only but most likely both.
What kind of "performance" reasons are we talking about, because I'm having trouble thinking of "force"ful ones.
Re: Being vegan isn’t as good for humanity as you think
#27A pretty weak article and omits any new developments in the future of food production. The main argument of the article appears to be that some farm land won't be used (perennial cropland) when people are on a vegan diet. Well, then use that space to build some aeroponic or hydroponic farms [1]. You'll get produce all year around. Other studies have shown that it's not sustainable if we'd have to rely on meat to feed…
One of the larger problems I've found with the vegan diet is, where do you source your Omega 3 from? ALA (found in flax and chia seeds) has low bioavailability as opposed to EPA and DHA found in fish and eggs. Not only that, flax and chia seeds are very high in Omega 6, thus promote dangerous levels of inflammation. So, can a vegan please explain to me how your community has managed to solve this?
I try to add more foods that contain omega 3 to my diet, such as walnuts, cooking with rapeseed oil, spirulina powder in my smoothies, avocados.
Or simply get some supplements like this one here: http://www.nothingfishy.co/
Also don't forget your B12 and D3 vitamins.
Re: Being vegan isn’t as good for humanity as you think
#28A pretty weak article and omits any new developments in the future of food production. The main argument of the article appears to be that some farm land won't be used (perennial cropland) when people are on a vegan diet. Well, then use that space to build some aeroponic or hydroponic farms [1]. You'll get produce all year around. Other studies have shown that it's not sustainable if we'd have to rely on meat to feed…
One of the larger problems I've found with the vegan diet is, where do you source your Omega 3 from? ALA (found in flax and chia seeds) has low bioavailability as opposed to EPA and DHA found in fish and eggs. Not only that, flax and chia seeds are very high in Omega 6, thus promote dangerous levels of inflammation. So, can a vegan please explain to me how your community has managed to solve this?
Although this is no good for religious vegans, if you are only following a vegan diet for health/ethical/environmentalist reasons, it's hard to argue against eating rope-farmed salt-water mussels. They are high in long chain omega-3 fats.
See:
https://sentientist.org/2013/05/20/the-ethical-case-for-eati...
The article approves of oysters too, but note that oysters may contain oyster crabs:
Re: Being vegan isn’t as good for humanity as you think
#29A pretty weak article and omits any new developments in the future of food production. The main argument of the article appears to be that some farm land won't be used (perennial cropland) when people are on a vegan diet. Well, then use that space to build some aeroponic or hydroponic farms [1]. You'll get produce all year around. Other studies have shown that it's not sustainable if we'd have to rely on meat to feed…
One of the larger problems I've found with the vegan diet is, where do you source your Omega 3 from? ALA (found in flax and chia seeds) has low bioavailability as opposed to EPA and DHA found in fish and eggs. Not only that, flax and chia seeds are very high in Omega 6, thus promote dangerous levels of inflammation. So, can a vegan please explain to me how your community has managed to solve this?
It's likely that vegans don't suffer from EPA and DHA deficiency because the body gets better at converting them from ALA. As this study have found: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20861171
From the study: "Despite having significantly lower intakes of EPA and DHA (from fish or fish oil), blood levels of EPA and DHA in vegans and vegetarians were approximately the same as regular fish eaters.
The results indicate that the bodies of vegetarians and other non-fish-eaters can respond to a lack of dietary omega-3 EPA and DHA by increasing their ability to make them from omega-3 ALA.
And as they said, "The implications of this study are that, if conversion of plant-based sources of n-3 PUFAs were ... sufficient to maintain health, it could have significant consequences for public health ..."
To be safe, I occasionally take an omega-3 supplement from algae.
Re: Being vegan isn’t as good for humanity as you think
#30A pretty weak article and omits any new developments in the future of food production. The main argument of the article appears to be that some farm land won't be used (perennial cropland) when people are on a vegan diet. Well, then use that space to build some aeroponic or hydroponic farms [1]. You'll get produce all year around. Other studies have shown that it's not sustainable if we'd have to rely on meat to feed…
One of the larger problems I've found with the vegan diet is, where do you source your Omega 3 from? ALA (found in flax and chia seeds) has low bioavailability as opposed to EPA and DHA found in fish and eggs. Not only that, flax and chia seeds are very high in Omega 6, thus promote dangerous levels of inflammation. So, can a vegan please explain to me how your community has managed to solve this?
Several studies have found omega-3s in the bloodstream of vegans (I'll try and post links later), which suggest it endogenous production of it's metabolites actually occurs at a low level.
While this doesn't get you into the recommend blood levels of omega-3 oils (it's mostly suprising because it's been found at all, and consistently), I have not seen a non-drastic method for meeting the amounts of omega three that the science reccomends, vegan or not.
Omega fat science is quite out of whack with the dietary recomendations commonly made. If you do the math, in order to acheive the ratios that are described in most papers I've read, one would need to forgo all omega 6 sources (olive oil, tofu, many other things), or consume unrealistic amounts of omega-3 oil each day to offset them. (I once calculated it to be in the region of a pint of omega-3 rich oil a day)
I'm equally mystified, but about the whole thing.