So says Poorva Joshipura in a fact-free piece in CiF. She is responding to a Damascene conversion by George Monbiot a week or so ago when he realised that maybe eating meat isn’t destroying the planet and maybe we can eat it with a clear conscience. I admire Monbiot for openly admitting that maybe he got it wrong on this one. Joshipura harbours no such doubts and sticks to her guns. Veganism is good and eating meat is bad and bad for the planet at that.
Now, when people criticise the methods used in meat production, I’ll concur that they have a point. Industrial farming of meat and the subsequent slaughter causes me to have qualms – so eating the product does make me a hypocrite. I could not readily kill my own lunch. At least not until I had reached desperation. If I found myself in such a situation, I’d probably eat a great deal less meat than I do. I’d also have to dig out my bow – I’d sooner hunt lunch than kill something I’d raised. I’d still eat dairy products and eggs, though. But vegans don’t want us to eat even those.
Monbiot also fails to consider the disastrous effects that animal-centred diets have on human health. Animal products, high in saturated fat and cholesterol, are linked to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, strokes and many types of cancer. Plant-based foods, on the other hand, are cholesterol-free and high in fibre and can provide us with all essential nutrients.
This is the usual junk science pumped out by the health fascists when they get onto their collective bandwagon to complain about obesity. Cholesterol is not necessarily bad and eating meat products does not necessarily lead to high cholesterol. Eating meat does not lead to poor health or obesity – eating too much and not exercising enough is what does that.
Meat is a ready source of the necessary vitamins and proteins that our bodies need. Man is an omnivore – it’s why we have those canine teeth as well as the grinding molars. It is why our appendix is no longer able to digest chlorophyll. This stuff is basic biology taught at school. Or, it was when I was at school.
Sure, you can reduce your meat intake. Sure, it is possible to manage without meat entirely if you are prepared to source the relevant minerals, vitamins and proteins elsewhere. Most of us are not – me included.
If you want to eat a vegan diet and imbibe the disgusting soya milk rather than the full cream gold-top that I prefer, be my guest. Just kindly refrain from lecturing me about doing likewise because you are wasting your time. You do what you want to do and I’ll do what I want to do and we will accept the risks inherent in our choices, okay?
There are countless reasons why we should all go vegan…
Er, apart from the issue of intensive farming, no, there are not.
…and not a single plausible one why we shouldn’t.
Vitamins D and B12, calcium, high-biological-value protein and essential amino acids do?
How about meat simply tastes good and seeds dont. I like the taste of meat and thats good enough for me.
How can she bleat on about the health effects of meat? Humans have been eating meat since the dawn of man.
Stupid cow! Sorry. Fucking vegetable!
Scratch a vegan, find a gibbering ecofacist.
There are enormous areas in the world where crops cannot be cultivated. Large areas of Yorkshire, Wales, scotland, for example are suitable for sheep or goats but not arable crops.
Is she suggesting that these areas should remain unused?
To find out what diet and animal has evolved to eat you firstly look at the teeth. If the creature has a set of slicing steak knives for teeth (large canines and carnassial teeth) then it is a hunter or scavenger adapted to eat flesh. If it has flat, gringing teeth it is a plant eater. If it has a mixture it is omnivorous. Now humans have a mixed dentition. We need to eat meat. That way we get the full compliment of amino acids we need and iron and calcium. We also require fat in our diets, especially children, to ensure our brains develop properly. A vegan diet without supplements will kill a child. Also she is wrong about plants having no cholesterol. They have phytosterols, the plant equivalent which we can metabolise into squalene and thence into cholesterol. Why do vegans talk such nonsense about the human digestive system? (mind you I do enjoy a nice vegetarian curry and other Indian vegetarian dishes). But…….very hard to beat a bacon butty!
As a lacto-vegetarian who thinks everyone has a right to choose what they eat, I would wish to accuse this person of being irresponsible and wishy-washy. Why does she not make the complete journey and embrace fruitarianism? Veganism involves cooking food (thereby destroying key nutrients) and eating foods which result in the death of the plant. Fruitarians, on the other hand, eat only raw food which can be taken from a plant without killing it. Can’t abide folk who stick to the middle of the road!
I was veggie for 10 years. They usually say that it’s the bacon butties that get you in the end.
But I blame a fruit. The tomatoe. Add that to the bacon butty and its bye bye vegetarianism. Just a matter of time….
Much the same views as LR’s second paragraph – that’s why I became veggie. But I wasn’t going to change the way meat was farmed on my own. No problem killing the beastie myself but tend to get squeamish when skinning and pulling its guts out.
Animal products, high in saturated fat and cholesterol, are linked to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, strokes and many types of cancer.
Ah. Linked. How useful this word is to those who want to claim causation without any evidence whatsoever.
Sorry to tell you (not really), but meat and dairy leach calcium from your body. They don’t make it all better. I’ve been vegan for 21 years and am perfectly healthy, I’m not skin and bones. The only supplement I take is B12. I get everything else from my food and the sun. You are full of crap. Enjoy your meat and full fat dairy until the day you have to have open heart surgery. 😉
Nice little economy with the actualité there. Leaching occurs if your intake of uric acid is more than the body can cope with. That’s always assuming you believe the studies that come to this conclusion as opposed to the other studies that found no difference in osteoporosis levels between vegans and omnivores. Given that man has managed on an omnivorous diet for thousands of years without dropping dead as a consequence of meat poisoning, I’ll carry on as I am. I eat enough to keep me alive and healthy and no more. What part of “eating too much” caused you to struggle?
If you are happy being a vegan, that’s jolly good for you, I wouldn’t dream of stopping you or telling you to stop. Your life, your choice. I choose a different lifestyle and make no apologies for it; my life, my choice. I am merely tired of the hectoring from vegans who think it their place to lecture me about my choices. It is not.
The likelihood of me having open heart surgery is about the same as that of my my parents and grandparents – and their parents and grandparents; i.e. negligible. They all ate the same diet and lived well into old age, my parents are still with us without having had any open heart surgery, but be sure I’ll pass on your good wishes.
Still, nice of you to drop by and accuse me of being full of crap, thereby justifying my irritation at the sanctimonious preachiness of vegans in the original article.