That’s because it’s a logical appeal. The argument is: Eating meat causes suffering to the animal. Eating meat is unnecessary for a human life. Eating meat causes unnecessary suffering.
In an argument, if you're trying to convince the other person to support your beliefs, you wouldn't use clearly biased sources like you did here. I have no argument with you specifically but just pointing it out for the future that people will dismiss any biased sources you give them, which is probably not what you want the outcome to be in an argumentative fashion.
You mean Kaiser Permanente? And Harvard Medical School? And The American Institute for Cancer Research? And the British Dietetic Association? And the Mayo Clinic?
The site you linked is affiliated with vegan causes, is it not? Just because the sources are from those institutions does not mean they aren't cherry picked for that specific cause. I can also quote journals with conclusions justifying omnivorous consumption as well [0] but those would be just as cherry picked.
Mate, the website is just a collection of links to the actual research. I’m being asked for sources, I give tons of very credible sources, and your retort is to just claim that now they are cherry picked?
Sure, we can ALWAYS find a source that supports whatever claim we want to make. But let’s look at the general scientific consensus.
The overwhelming majority of research indicates that veganism is perfectly healthy. That’s what I linked! Your single journalistic summary of summary about non-causal associations between meat eating and depression don’t undo the general scientific consensus.
In a nutshell, obesity and sugars are the killer regardless if they are vegetarian calories or animal calories. Second comes minerals that effect blood pressure, and third its peoples need for vitamins. A healthy diet is one that avoid health risks.
Fiber rich food and fish is linked with lower weight gain.
Sugar is linked with tooth decay and obesity, especially that white stuff that get produced by plants.
A diet need to balance vitamins and minerals based on how active the individual is.
No alcohol, no drugs, no tobacco, no coffee, no added sugar or fructose to water. If its an stimulant then there is risk for harm.
A healthy diet should be diversified and balanced.
None of the important things you mentioned are difficult on a vegan diet, so I’m confused as to what your point is.
You mentioned that there are associations between fish and lower weight gain, but that’s sort of irrelevant because I’m not making the claim that you can’t be healthy while eating animals (though many doctors do!)
I agree that all those things are important. So optimize for them and avoid eating animals.
None of the important things are difficult on a diet with animal parts. That is the point you are missing. The rules for a healthy diet only require it to be diversified and balanced so that a person get a healthy amount of calories, proteins, fats, minerals and vitamins. Health studies has not demonstrated any difference if a person get obese through too much bread, too much bacon, or too much sugar. Health studies has shown however that too much sugar has a very high risk for obesity since sugar can easily trigger over eating.
If we were to rank the world worst food product in terms of causing health problems for humans, sugarcane and sugar beet would list at the top. Animal products is in comparison fairly healthy. After sugar the next would likely be corn, as in high-fructose corn syrup. Much of the worlds insulin resistance and obesity is directly caused by those two vegetarian grown products!
If we look to historical diets that killed the largest number of people, outside the context of sugar, it would be diets where people only ate potatoes, rice or corn. Those diets has a risk of missing essential vitamins and during wars there were major epidemics from unvaried diet that focused on those vegetarian options. People who ate meat during those periods was generally more healthy as their diet was more varied and balanced.
If one want to optimize for health, optimize for a diversified and balanced diet that addresses risk associated with weight gain and insulin resistance. Cut out candy, beer, sugar drinks, potato chips, cereals, cheese puffs (corn coated with cheese powder), wine, and so on. All vegan food (except for the coat on the corn), all food that is terrible for health.
No discussion that uses statistics to prove a point should exclude the use of the same statistics. Vegan diet is associated with better health. A vegan diet is also associated with being female, high education, young, never married, normal and underweight BMI, and without any chronic conditions. How much is cause and effect is a bit more complex.
Again, I don’t see how any of this is relevant to the discussion. I’m not making the argument that non-vegan diets are unhealthy. My claim is that vegan diets can be perfectly healthy.
You seem to think that I’m claiming that veganism is optimal for health. I’m not.
I believe vegan diets are detrimental to health, I consider being healthy necessary for human life. I realize vegans like to imply the opposite but not only has the evidence been unconvincing, but I frankly have never met a healthy looking vegan in real life.
Not that any actual evidence or true rational argument has been provided by such parties in this comment chain. Appealing to emotion and agressively stating what you want to be true are simply not conductive to a productive argument.
Vegans are pretty vocal so it’s pretty easy to identify them. It’s like the CrossFit of diet regimens in that they self announce quite a bit.
I’m sure there are some quiet vegans, and it’s possible that I just don’t know people well enough to know whether they are vegan. I’ve met dozens of vegans over he years and friends with many. As I’m friends with them, I’m aware of their health issues or lack of health issues.
Ignoring the fact that you still would have clue who you meet is a healthy vegan because why the hell would that come up casually when meeting random people throughout the day, your belief is the opposite of every major nutritional and dietetic association around the world. I linked to the collection of those official stances elsewhere in the thread.
That means that not only do you claim to have a better understanding of nutrition than those organizations and the thousands of nutritionists and scientists they represent, but you are able to determine your correctness by merely talking to the vegans you’ve met.
That means you’re able to also trivially determine if someone’s health issues are caused directly by veganism, rather than merely present in a vegan.
That is a level of delusion and arrogance I genuinely cannot comprehend.
There are plenty of examples of people who lived normal lifespans without using electricity, without modern medicine, without central heating, without running water...
Someone is asking you to consider not supporting animal abuse, and you’re making the case that using electricity is comparably bad. That’s worth just calling out and appreciating for a moment.
> Someone is asking you to consider not supporting animal abuse, and you’re making the case that using electricity is comparably bad.
The arguments are exactly the same, despite your attempt to spin it.
The original argument was that a) eating meat is not necessary to human life, b) eating meat harms animals, c) therefore, you should stop eating meat.
My recasting of your argument is a) using electricity is not necessary to human life, b) using electricity harms animals, c) therefore, you should stop using electricity.
What is the difference between these arguments? Be specific.
And I don't really care if you "call me out". I don't bully. Sorry.
Providing safe, efficient nutrients is not unnecessary suffering. I believe it is necessary. And animals can be slaughtered in humane ways with minima suffering (eg, halal, kosher, and other methods).
Animals can process inarable land and turn it into nutrients. I can have a cow graze on land that can’t grow edible food for humans and turn it into edible food. That’s efficient.
