Vegetarian/Vegan Questions?

[Nathan H. Hoffner]

I see we have here certain problem.I give you link to 20 minute video where you paleo diet is shred to pieces by logic and science. And you only answer is to give me advertisement to buy a book about pale diet?

I hope that you see a problem.

Have you watched this? 

[FreedomPhilosophy]

 

Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?

Pascal Diethelm1 and Martin McKee2

 

Black is white and white is black

 

HIV does not cause AIDS. The world was created in 4004 BCE. Smoking does not cause cancer. And if climate change is happening, it is nothing to do with man-made CO2 emissions. Few, if any, of the readers of this journal will believe any of these statements. Yet each can be found easily in the mass media.

 

The consequences of policies based on views such as these can be fatal. Thabo Mbeki's denial that that HIV caused AIDS prevented thousands of HIV positive mothers in South Africa receiving anti-retrovirals so that they, unnecessarily, transmitted the disease to their children.1 His health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, famously rejected evidence of the efficacy of these drugs, instead advocating treatment with garlic, beetroot and African potato. It was ironic that their departure from office coincided with the award of the Nobel Prize to Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi for their discovery that HIV is indeed the case of AIDS. The rejection of scientific evidence is also apparent in the popularity of creationism, with an estimated 45% of Americans in 2004 believing that God created man in his present form within the past 10 000 years.2 While successive judgements of the US Supreme Court have rejected the teaching of creationism as science, many American schools are cautious about discussing evolution. In the United Kingdom, some faith-based schools teach evolution and creationism as equally valid ‘faith positions’. It remains unclear how they explain the emergence of antibiotic resistance.

 

Elsewhere, the hand of powerful corporate interests can be seen. It took many decades for the conclusions of authoritative reports by the US Surgeon General3 and the British Royal College of Physicians4 on the harmful effects of smoking to be accepted, while even now, despite clear evidence of rapid reductions in myocardial infarctions where bans have been implemented, there are some who deny that second-hand smoke is dangerous. In large part this was due to the efforts of the tobacco industry to deflect attention to other putative causes of smoking-related diseases, from stress to keeping pet birds. The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have suffered similar attacks from commentators with links to major oil companies.

 

All of these examples have one feature in common. There is an overwhelming consensus on the evidence among scientists yet there are also vocal commentators who reject this consensus, convincing many of the public, and often the media too, that the consensus is not based on ‘sound science’ or denying that there is a consensus by exhibiting individual dissenting voices as the ultimate authorities on the topic in question. Their goal is to convince that there are sufficient grounds to reject the case for taking action to tackle threats to health. This phenomenon has led some to draw a historical parallel with the holocaust, another area where the evidence is overwhelming but where a few commentators have continued to sow doubt. All are seen as part of a larger phenomenon of denialism.

 

Defining and recognizing denialism

 

The Hoofnagle brothers, a lawyer and a physiologist from the United States, who have done much to develop the concept of denialism, have defined it as the employment of rhetorical arguments to give the appearance of legitimate debate where there is none,5 an approach that has the ultimate goal of rejecting a proposition on which a scientific consensus exists.6 In this viewpoint, we argue that public health scientists should be aware of the features of denialism and be able to recognize and confront it.

 

Denialism is a process that employs some or all of five characteristic elements in a concerted way. The first is the identification of conspiracies. When the overwhelming body of scientific opinion believes that something is true, it is argued that this is not because those scientists have independently studied the evidence and reached the same conclusion. It is because they have engaged in a complex and secretive conspiracy. The peer review process is seen as a tool by which the conspirators suppress dissent, rather than as a means of weeding out papers and grant applications unsupported by evidence or lacking logical thought. The view of General Jack D Ripper that fluoridation was a Soviet plot to poison American drinking water in Dr Strangelove, Kubrick's black comedy about the Cold War is no less bizarre than those expressed in many of the websites that oppose this measure.

 

In some cases, denialism exploits genuine concerns, such as the rejection of evidence on the nature of AIDS by African-Americans who perceive them as a manifestation of racist agendas.7 While conspiracy theories cannot simply be dismissed because conspiracies do occur,8 it beggars belief that they can encompass entire scientific communities.

 

There is also a variant of conspiracy theory, inversionism, in which some of one's own characteristics and motivations are attributed to others. For example, tobacco companies describe academic research into the health effects of smoking as the product of an ‘anti-smoking industry’, described as ‘a vertically integrated, highly concentrated, oligopolistic cartel, combined with some public monopolies’ whose aim is to ‘manufacture alleged evidence, suggestive inferences linking smoking to various diseases and publicity and dissemination and advertising of these so-called findings to the widest possible public’.9

 

The second is the use of fake experts. These are individuals who purport to be experts in a particular area but whose views are entirely inconsistent with established knowledge. They have been used extensively by the tobacco industry since 1974, when a senior executive with R J Reynolds devised a system to score scientists working on tobacco in relation to the extent to which they were supportive of the industry's position. The industry embraced this concept enthusiastically in the 1980s when a senior executive from Philip Morris developed a strategy to recruit such scientists (referring to them as ‘Whitecoats’) to help counteract the growing evidence on the harmful effects of second-hand smoke. This activity was largely undertaken through front organizations whose links with the tobacco industry were concealed, but under the direction of law firms acting on behalf of the tobacco industry.10 In some countries, such as Germany, the industry created complex and influential networks, allowing it to delay the implementation of tobacco control policies for many years.11 In 1998, the American Petroleum Institute developed a Global Climate Science Communications Plan, involving the recruitment of ‘scientists who share the industry's views of climate science [who can] help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse gases’.12 However, this is not limited to the private sector; the administration of President George W Bush was characterized by the promotion of those whose views were based on their religious beliefs or corporate affiliations,13 such as the advisor on reproductive health to the Food and Drug Administration who saw prayer and bible reading as the answer to premenstrual syndrome.14 A related phenomenon is the marginalization of real experts, in some cases through an alliance between industry and government, as when ExxonMobil successfully opposed the reappointment by the US government of the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.15,16 These events led a group of prominent American scientists to state that ‘stacking these public committees out of fear that they may offer advice that conflicts with administration policies devalues the entire federal advisory committee structure’.17

 

The use of fake experts is often complemented by denigration of established experts and researchers, with accusations and innuendo that seek to discredit their work and cast doubt on their motivations. Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and who has made a great contribution to exposing tobacco industry tactics, is a frequent target for tobacco denialists. He is described on the Forces website as ‘infamous for being the boldest of liars in “tobacco control” that most ethically challenged gang of con artists’, adding that ‘he cynically implies his research into smoking is science, banking on the sad fact that politicians, let alone the media, have no idea that epidemiology is not real science and that his studies define the term junk science’.18

 

The third characteristic is selectivity, drawing on isolated papers that challenge the dominant consensus or highlighting the flaws in the weakest papers among those that support it as a means of discrediting the entire field. An example of the former is the much-cited Lancet paper describing intestinal abnormalities in 12 children with autism, which merely suggested a possible link with immunization against measles, mumps and rubella.19 This has been used extensively by campaigners against immunization, even though 10 of the paper's 13 authors subsequently retracted the suggestion of an association.20 Fortunately, the work of the Cochrane Collaboration in promoting systematic reviews has made selective citation easier to detect.

 

Another is a paper published by the British Medical Journal in 2003,21 later shown to suffer from major flaws, including a failure to report competing interests,22 that concluded that exposure to tobacco smoke does not increase the risk of lung cancer and heart disease. This paper has been cited extensively by those who deny that passive smoking has any health effects, with the company Japan Tobacco International still quoting it as justification for rejecting ‘the claim that ETS is a cause of lung cancer, heart disease and chronic pulmonary diseases in non-smokers’ as late as the end of 2008.23

 

Denialists are usually not deterred by the extreme isolation of their theories, but rather see it as the indication of their intellectual courage against the dominant orthodoxy and the accompanying political correctness, often comparing themselves to Galileo.

 

The fourth is the creation of impossible expectations of what research can deliver. For example, those denying the reality of climate change point to the absence of accurate temperature records from before the invention of the thermometer. Others use the intrinsic uncertainty of mathematical models to reject them entirely as a means of understanding a phenomenon. In the early 1990s, Philip Morris tried to promote a new standard, entitled Good Epidemiological Practice (GEP) for the conduct of epidemiological studies. Under the GEP guidelines, odds ratios of 2 or less would not be considered strong enough evidence of causation, invalidating in one sweep a large body of research on the health effects of many exposures.24 Although Philip Morris eventually scaled back its GEP programme, as no epidemiological body would agree to such a standard, British American Tobacco still uses this criterion to refute the risk associated with passive smoking.25

 

The fifth is the use of misrepresentation and logical fallacies. For example, pro-smoking groups have often used the fact that Hitler supported some anti-smoking campaigns to represent those advocating tobacco control as Nazis (even coining the term nico-nazis),26 even though other senior Nazis were smokers, blocking attempts to disseminate anti-smoking propaganda and ensuring that troops has sufficient supplies of cigarettes.27 Logical fallacies include the use of red herrings, or deliberate attempts to change the argument and straw men, where the opposing argument is misrepresented to make it easier to refute. For example, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined in 1992 that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is carcinogenic, a finding confirmed by many other authoritative national and international public health institutions. The EPA assessment was described by two commentators as an ‘attempt to institutionalize a particular irrational view of the world as the only legitimate perspective, and to replace rationality with dogma as the legitimate basis of public policy’, which they labelled as nothing less than a ‘threat to the very core of democratic values and democratic public policy’.28 Other fallacies used by denialists are false analogy, exemplified by the argument against evolution that, as the universe and a watch are both extremely complex, the universe must have been created by the equivalent of a watchmaker and the excluded middle fallacy (either passive smoking causes a wide range of specified diseases or causes none at all, so doubt about an association with one disease, such as breast cancer, is regarded as sufficient to reject an association with any disease).

 

Responding to denialism

 

Denialists are driven by a range of motivations. For some it is greed, lured by the corporate largesse of the oil and tobacco industries. For others it is ideology or faith, causing them to reject anything incompatible with their fundamental beliefs. Finally there is eccentricity and idiosyncrasy, sometimes encouraged by the celebrity status conferred on the maverick by the media.

 

Whatever the motivation, it is important to recognize denialism when confronted with it. The normal academic response to an opposing argument is to engage with it, testing the strengths and weaknesses of the differing views, in the expectations that the truth will emerge through a process of debate. However, this requires that both parties obey certain ground rules, such as a willingness to look at the evidence as a whole, to reject deliberate distortions and to accept principles of logic. A meaningful discourse is impossible when one party rejects these rules. Yet it would be wrong to prevent the denialists having a voice. Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they employ and identifying them publicly for what they are. An understanding of the five tactics listed above provides a useful framework for doing so.

[J. D. Stembal]

I still eat bacon and eggs cooked in the bacon grease

 

You aren't the only one!

 

There is long history of ketogenic diets being used to prevent disease. Back in the 1920s, before anyone knew what insulin was, specialists found that epilepsy could be successfully treated with high fat/low carb nutrition. Bob Atkins successfully treated what he categorized as hypoglycemia (the perpetual blood sugar crash you experience when you eat too much carbohydrate), starting his private practice in the 1960s, helping people heal with his modified VLC (very low carbohydrate) diet. Fast forward to today, the philosophy of Paleolithic nutrition is being used to treat multiple sclerosis, which was previously thought to be incurable. The real lesson here is that in order to maintain ketosis in your body, you cannot possibly avoid all meat or animal products. At the very least, in order to stay a vegetarian and be ketogenic, you still have to eat fish - pescetarianism, I believe it's called. The problem with this, or course, is that fishing has been widely corrupted by industrial agriculture (fish farming), too. I never buy anything that isn't "wild caught" but there is a huge price difference at the counter.

 

I hope you saw my list of recommended reading earlier in the thread, Cobra. There might be a few titles there that will interest you. I'm very glad that you are feeling well and energetic. I wish my eyesight would improve, but after two years of ketosis, I'm not holding my breath waiting for it.

 

The Christina Warinner TED presentation is a personal nemesis of mine. I've been trying to get one of my close friends off his quasi-vegetarian diet. Like many vegetarians who end up overweight and feel unhealthy, he will cheat from time to time and have hamburgers at a cookout, which allows him to get the fat his body craves. That video was responsible for him no longer taking any of my input seriously, and he completely ignored the empirical evidence that I dropped a quarter of my body weight by going keto.

[cobra2411]

 

 

Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?

Pascal Diethelm1 and Martin McKee2

 

Black is white and white is black

 

HIV does not cause AIDS. The world was created in 4004 BCE. Smoking does not cause cancer. And if climate change is happening, it is nothing to do with man-made CO2 emissions. Few, if any, of the readers of this journal will believe any of these statements. Yet each can be found easily in the mass media.

 

 

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick... Can you get any more logical fallacies in there? Lets see, both in the actual quote and by simply posting the quote as your retort I can see; Ad Hominem, Begging the question, confirmation bias, false dichotomy, false authority, red herring, poisoning the well, appeal to authority... 

 

The assertion is made that meat damages the body and cholesterol and heart disease are one illness mentioned. The only solution is a plant based diet - all meat is bad. When  a counter point is offered; both with reports and with anecdotal data showing that you at best have a correlation and it's pretty weak - you don't have causation we're simply in denial? 

 

I know you've listed studies; I've refuted them because there is a strong conflict of interest due to the authors receiving money from big pharma for continuing to take that stance. That makes your quoted response even better... Us denialists are driven by greed... Not like the researchers on the payroll of big pharma though... 

 

Post studies that show meat is the problem and not sugar... 

 

 

The Christina Warinner TED presentation is a personal nemesis of mine. I've been trying to get one of my close friends off his quasi-vegetarian diet. Like many vegetarians who end up overweight and feel unhealthy, he will cheat from time to time and have hamburgers at a cookout, which allows him to get the fat his body craves. That video was responsible for him no longer taking any of my input seriously, and he completely ignored the empirical evidence that I dropped a quarter of my body weight by going keto.

Oh, like above? 

[FreedomPhilosophy]

 

The assertion is made that meat damages the body and cholesterol and heart disease are one illness mentioned. The only solution is a plant based diet - all meat is bad. When  a counter point is offered; both with reports and with anecdotal data showing that you at best have a correlation and it's pretty weak - you don't have causation we're simply in denial? 

 

It's not enough to present a few questionable contrary findings, you have to be able to explain away over a century of findings inconsistent with what you believe. Those exhibiting denialism don't do this, just like creationism nuts don't actually deal with evolutionary theory.

[cobra2411]

It's not enough to present a few questionable contrary findings, you have to be able to explain away over a century of findings inconsistent with what you believe. Those exhibiting denialism don't do this, just like creationism nuts don't actually deal with evolutionary theory.

Again with the logical falicies... Ad hominem, this time with a straw-man. "Those exhibiting denialism don't do this, just like creationism nuts don't actually deal with evolutionary theory." You do understand that you have never offered any rational or logical evidence that us meat eaters are the ones suffering from denialism. In fact, based on what you quoted I could have simply said "so are you" in response, but I'm trying to have a logical, rational debate about the benefits of different diets; all in the quest for better knowledge of what makes a healthy diet and what doesn't. 

 

More straw-man arguments where I'm grasping at straws and you've presented solid, sound and unquestionable theories. 1: the "evidence" that have been presented on the vegetarian side has all been causation derived from correlation. They're all observational studies - show me studies that have controlled variables. I listed a meta-analysis study, which is a study of studies that looked into low carb diets. Sure, still observational, but much more controlled in terms of showing meat as a friend or foe. It's a hell of a lot better than simply lumping all meat eaters together as all the same. 

 

My assertion is that plants and meat are healthy to eat and it's sugar along with any carbohydrates that digest with similar effect as eating refined sugar. The counterpoint offered is that a plant based diet is the only healthy way to eat - eating meat with or without carbs is harmful. Please correct me if I'm wrong here. I have offered evidence and I will offer more. These are controlled, randomized trials that look at weight loss and cardiovascular risk factors. 

 

A Randomized Trial of a Low-Carbohydrate Diet for Obesity

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa022207

 

63 individuals were randomized to either a low-fat diet group, or a low-carb diet group. The low-fat group was calorie restricted.

 

There was more weight loss in the low-carb group, significant at 3 and 6 months, but not 12. The low-carb group had greater improvements in blood triglycerides and HDL, but other biomarkers were similar between groups.

 

A Low-Carbohydrate as Compared with a Low-Fat Diet in Severe Obesity

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa022637

 

132 individuals with severe obesity (mean BMI of 43) were randomized to either a low-fat or a low-carb diet. Many of the subjects had metabolic syndrome or type II diabetes. The low-fat dieters were calorie restricted.

 

Triglycerides went down by 38 mg/dL in the LC group, compared to 7 mg/dL in the LF group.

Insulin sensitivity improved on LC, got slightly worse on LF.

Fasting blood glucose levels went down by 26 mg/dL in the LC group, only 5 mg/dL in the LF group.

Insulin levels went down by 27% in the LC group, but increased slightly in the LF group.

 

Effects of a low-carbohydrate diet on weight loss and cardiovascular risk factor in overweight adolescents

http://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(02)40206-5/abstract

 

30 overweight adolescents were randomized to two groups, a low-carb diet group and a low-fat diet group.

 

The low-carb group lost 9.9 kg (21.8 lbs), while the low-fat group lost 4.1 kg (9 lbs). The difference was statistically significant.

There were no adverse effects on the lipid profiles of participants in either group.

 

A Randomized Trial Comparing a Very Low Carbohydrate Diet and a Calorie-Restricted Low Fat Diet on Body Weight and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Healthy Women

http://press.endocrine.org/doi/full/10.1210/jc.2002-021480

 

53 healthy but obese females were randomized to either a low-fat diet, or a low-carb diet. Low-fat group was calorie restricted.

 

The women in the low-carb group lost an average og 8.5 kg (18.7 lbs), while the low-fat group lost an average of 3.9 kg (8.6 lbs).

Based on these data, a very low carbohydrate diet is more effective than a low fat diet for short-term weight loss and, over 6 months, is not associated with deleterious effects on important cardiovascular risk factors in healthy women.

 

The National Cholesterol Education Program Diet vs a Diet Lower in Carbohydrates and Higher in Protein and Monounsaturated Fat

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=217514

 

60 overweight individuals were randomized to a low-carb diet high in monounsaturated fat, or a low-fat diet based on the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP). Both groups were calorie restricted.

 

The low-carb group lost 1.8 times as much weight, 13.6lbs vs 7.5lbs and saw improvements in LDL particle size, greater reduction in triglycerides (-42 vs -15). 

 

A Low-Carbohydrate, Ketogenic Diet versus a Low-Fat Diet To Treat Obesity and Hyperlipidemia

http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=717451

 

120 overweight individuals with elevated blood lipids were randomized to a low-carb or a low-fat diet. The low-fat group was calorie restricted.

 

The low-carb group lost 20.7lbs vs 10.6lbs with improvements in triglycerides and HDL cholesterol. 

 

 

Comparison of energy-restricted very low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets on weight loss and body composition in overweight men and women

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC538279/

 

28 overweight individuals on a low fat or low carb diet, both calorie restricted.

 

The LC group lost significantly more weight; particularly the men. 

 

Comparison of the Atkins, Zone, Ornish, and LEARN Diets for Change in Weight and Related Risk Factors Among Overweight Premenopausal Women

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=205916

 

311 overweight/obese premenopausal women were randomized to 4 diets: A low-carb Atkins diet, a low-fat vegetarian Ornish diet, the Zone diet and the LEARN diet. Zone and LEARN were calorie restricted.

 

In this study, premenopausal overweight and obese women assigned to follow the Atkins diet, which had the lowest carbohydrate intake, lost more weight and experienced more favorable overall metabolic effects at 12 months than women assigned to follow the Zone, Ornish, or LEARN diets.

 

 

The effect of a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-glycemic index diet on glycemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2633336/

 

84 individuals with obesity and type 2 diabetes were randomized to a low-carb, ketogenic diet or a calorie restricted low-glycemic diet.

 

HDL improved by 5.6 mg/dL in the LC group. No improvement in the LF group. The LC group saw a reduction in A1c by 1.5% vs 0.5% and a reduction or elimination of diabetic medications in 95% vs 62% of dieters. 

 

 

Do the vegetarians sill hold out that eating meat conclusively causes heart disease? 

[Richard_V]

 

 

Yes I want eat meet. It tasty. And since I can find something like this:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036671/Vegan-couple-serve-life-sentences-starving-baby-death-extreme-diet.html

In matter of second.... well I hope that you see my problem of leaving meet.

 

Well done! You must be proud of yourself. You managed to find ONE - yes ONE- instance of a vegan couple who killed their child by feeding it an INSANE diet. 

 

If I now do a search on how many non-vegan people have abused / murdered / tortured / starved their kids to death, how many do you think I'lll find? 

 

I have friends who have been vegan for more than 20 years. They have a 5 year old daughter who has been vegan from birth. She has NEVER been sick (apart from catching chicken pox at nursery) and is one of the healthiest, happiest most energetic kids I've seen.

 

I strongly believe in non-violence. I am not a speciesist and therefore, the only logical way I can align my life with my values and philosophies is by being vegan. 

 

I don't judge people who aren't vegan because I wasn't always this way. But when someone starts throwing around BULLSH$T to discredit a movement which is all about non-violence and compassion, I will call them out for what they are: 

IGNORANT. 

[J. D. Stembal]

Careful, Cobra! The more convincingly you argue that eating meat is not actually bad for you, but necessary for optimal health, the more likely they are to pull out the big Lefty guns of environmentalism, and animal cruelty.

 

Richard, seriously, discontinue feeding your kid a vegan diet. It's child abuse. There is nothing about veganism that aligns you or your family with non-violence in reality or philosophically. I'm not judging you, just telling you the harsh truth that denying your body the nutrients it needs will devastate the health of you and your children.

[LovePrevails]

 

Richard, seriously, discontinue feeding your kid a vegan diet. It's child abuse. There is nothing about veganism that aligns you or your family with non-violence in reality or philosophically. I'm not judging you, just telling you the harsh truth that denying your body the nutrients it needs will devastate the health of you and your children.

 

can you offer proof instead of appeals to emotion?

Yeah I['m sure it's so much more unhealthy to raise a vegan than to feed kids hamburgers and fries which is what most parents do

why don't you target them first since you are so concerned with the healthy diet of children

 

vegans thrive in terms of health, they are the least likely demographic to suffer from 17 out of the 18 leading causes of death

[surfingthoughts]

Regarding health issues rather than ethical:

 

For those of you who live in the UK (I am unsure if other countries can view this content) the BBC did a program on "Should I Eat Meat" quite resonantly and is worth a watch in my view - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04fhb90/horizon-20142015-1-should-i-eat-meat-the-big-health-dilemma

 

This program shows that our understanding of the health issues regarding meat consumption has not yet got a solid footing more research needs to be done. However it is perhaps safe to say that processed meat in particular smoked meat which contains some of the same carcinogens found in cigarette smoke would be unhealthy if consumed on a regular basis. I would suggest like most things is all about getting that balance.

[Psychophant]

How can you life with a vegan as an omnivore? You don't distinguish between meat-eater and vegan, cuz meat eaters ain't restricted to meat but vegans restrict themselfs to non-animal products. Thus it is more precise to destinguish between restricted and non-restricted eater.

 

It stands to argue that if veganism is just a preference instead of a moral choice, love is possible. Otherwise if she is an activist and calls people like you murderer like those PETA crowd, you better should stay away from her, at least if you prefer integrity over bossoms.

[Richard_V]

Richard, seriously, discontinue feeding your kid a vegan diet. It's child abuse. There is nothing about veganism that aligns you or your family with non-violence in reality or philosophically. I'm not judging you, just telling you the harsh truth that denying your body the nutrients it needs will devastate the health of you and your children.

 

Hey. Firstly, it's not my kid. Did you actually read my post? 

 

***Please have the courtesy to read this post before commenting***

 

Secondly, contrary to your statement,  your post was incredibly judgemental. 

I was talking about real-world examples of people I know personally. If you want to refute what I am saying -  feel free to call me a liar. 

 

Do you think I’m lying about my (vegan for over 20 years) friends and their 5 year old vegan child being as healthy, energetic and sharp as any child I’ve ever seen? 

Do you think I’m lying when I say they never get sick? 

Do you think I’m lying when I say I’ve never felt better having been on a plant-based diet for just over a year (I’m in my late 30’s by the way)? 

 

The friends I am talking about run what has been called 'Europe's finest vegan restaurant' here in London. It's called Vantra. Look it up. I have a feeling they might know a little more about nutrition than you & I. 

 

Veganism is devastating to health you say?

Well, like most things in life, a balanced healthy vegan diet requires a degree of research, education and common sense. Even the British National Health Service agrees it is a perfectly healthy and valid choice.

 

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Vegetarianhealth/Pages/Vegandiets.aspx

http://www.greatveganathletes.com

 

 

I can turn your accusation of ‘child abuse' around for you:

Forcing children to consume animal products is child abuse.

Very clear links have been made between dairy / meat products being seriously detrimental to the health of human beings… cancer, osteoporosis, heart disease to name a few. Look up The China Study. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study

http://saveourbones.com/osteoporosis-milk-myth/

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2003/dec/13/foodanddrink.weekend

 

Like most other (arguably psychopathic) gargantuan industries, meat & dairy's remit is to get you to consume their products. Period. They don’t give a sh$t about your health - all they care about is profit. 

They have incredibly powerful ($$) lobby groups which - as we all know - will ‘influence’ the outcome of so-called ‘scientific’ studies… and of course the flow of information and education. 

 

 

Ignore this information at your peril my friend. 

 

There is no valid, rational, logical argument against veganism. 

It's good for our health, it's good for the environment and most importantly, it's good for all the innocent beings out there who are being tortured and murdered mercilessly... because people enjoy the taste of their flesh & secretions. 

 

 

[cobra2411]

can you offer proof instead of appeals to emotion?

Yeah I['m sure it's so much more unhealthy to raise a vegan than to feed kids hamburgers and fries which is what most parents do

why don't you target them first since you are so concerned with the healthy diet of children

 

vegans thrive in terms of health, they are the least likely demographic to suffer from 17 out of the 18 leading causes of death

 

Gotta side with the vegetarians here - inclusion of that one isolated case is really poor form and it's much more likely it was simple abuse and neglect. Juice and soy milk? Do you really think that vegans only eat juice and soy milk? 

 

My concerns with feeding a child a vegan diet is that the diet is so restrictive and we have evolved as omnivorous who do best with a diversified diet. I'm insulin resistant and therefor must restrict the amount of sugar or other foods that digest similarly to sugar - basically I eat on the low side of the glycimic load index, but I do eat lots of veggies along with copious amounts of meat. My concerns with a developing child on a vegan diet are nutritional deficiencies. They can be managed sure, but adding some animal products to the diet takes care of that pretty easy. I feel as though parents are forcing their beliefs onto their children. 

 

http://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/176565

92% of vegans who didn't supplement had low serum vitamin B12 levels whereas only 20% of vegetarians who still ate milk and eggs were deficient. 

 

http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/17657359

 

Suggests that a higher protein intake, particularly from animal sources, better maintains muscle mass in older women. I.e. lack of protein, lack of muscle... 

 

http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/17657359

 

Here's one for the men, eating a meat based diet resulted in more fat free mass and skeletal muscle.

 

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8207518

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691485/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14600563

 

Here's a three-fer...  Creatine, most commonly found in animal products, helps with muscle and brain functions and vegans are typically deficient. 

 

http://natural-health.ethos.ag/cataracts-wang.pdf

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00726-010-0749-2

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10951108

 

Carnosine, found only in animal products has been shown to have an anti-aging effect. It's a free-radical scavenger that reduces oxidation stress and extends and rejuvenates. 

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18305382

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11083485

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9637947

 

Decosahexaenoic Acid... Say that three times fast. DHA is a form of Omega 3 that is only found in animal products and is far supirior to ALA, an Omega-3 found in plant based foods. 

 

 

Regarding health issues rather than ethical:

 

For those of you who live in the UK (I am unsure if other countries can view this content) the BBC did a program on "Should I Eat Meat" quite resonantly and is worth a watch in my view - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04fhb90/horizon-20142015-1-should-i-eat-meat-the-big-health-dilemma

 

This program shows that our understanding of the health issues regarding meat consumption has not yet got a solid footing more research needs to be done. However it is perhaps safe to say that processed meat in particular smoked meat which contains some of the same carcinogens found in cigarette smoke would be unhealthy if consumed on a regular basis. I would suggest like most things is all about getting that balance.

 

Video is unavailable to us not living in the UK...  But I agree with your synopsis - there are no controlled studies that show that meat is bad for you, just as there are no controlled studies that show vegetarianism is the cure... Lots of observational studies parroted as gospel as though the mysteries of life had been revealed and that meat was all that was bad in the world... 

 

 

How can you life with a vegan as an all-eater? You don't distinguish between meat-eater and vegan, cuz meat eaters ain't restricted to meat but vegans restrict themselfs to non-animal products. Thus it is more precise to destinguish between restricted and non-restricted eater.

 

It stands to argue that if veganism is just a preference instead of a moral choice, love is possible. Otherwise if she is an activist and calls people like you murderer like those PETA crowd, you better should stay away from her, at least if you prefer integrity over bossoms.

 

And therein lies the problem. Vegetarians lump all non-vegetarians into the same bucket - Meat Eaters. But... There are a few sub-classifications that exist, mainly the amount of sugar that's eaten. Meat eaters need to be split into at least two groups - those that avoid dietary glucose and those that don't. 

 

Sugar, in my educated opinion, is the problem. Sure, there are people who handle sugar fine, but there are those of us that don't and I suspect many if not all of the obese people in the world are in that category. One of the things we need to do is stop looking at Obesity as the cause of illness and instead look at is as a symptom of an underlying cause. If you do that then Insulin Resistance pops up as a very likely cause for obesity. Insulin as I've previously said is a storage hormone and if you're insulin resistant your body is going to need to produce more insulin than normal to get the desired effect. With all that insulin present your body is going to readily store all available energy as fat and be very resistant about giving it up. So you eat your cereal for breakfast and it gets turned into fat. After digesting, 2-3 hours later, you're hungry again because your body can't get to it's fat stores for the energy it needs as there's still a bunch of insulin hanging around. So you eat a mid morning snack... Wash, rinse and repeat till your fat as a cow and saturated fat gets the blame. Of course if you eat saturated fat along with surgar then you're sending that directly to fat stores, no question about it. Just packing it away, meal after meal, never to be used again because your body is always in storage mode. 

 

Normal bodies alternate between storage and use mode. Your fat cells are like your wallet and when you eat that's like going to the ATM to fill your wallet. Insulin is like duck tape around your wallet that you have to fight to remove to get money out. It simply gets easier and more convenient to keep going to the ATM more often. As I said before, most vegetarians and vegans don't adopt Twinkies and Ho-Ho's as a staple in their diet and instead eat lots of vegetables; which I've never argued are unhealthy to eat. There are some though, like Steve Jobs, who go to the absurd and eat a fruit based diet, which is high in sugar. Jobs as you may know died of pancreatic cancer. Hmm... The pancreas is responsible for insulin production, which would have needed to work overtime with a fruit based diet and cancer feeds on surgar... Probably no coincidence there. 

 

Like most other (arguably psychopathic) gargantuan industries, meat & dairy's remit is to get you to consume their products. Period. They don’t give a sh$t about your health - all they care about is profit. 

They have incredibly powerful ($$) lobby groups which - as we all know - will ‘influence’ the outcome of so-called ‘scientific’ studies… and of course the flow of information and education. 

 

 

And you don't think Big Pharma with their anti-diabetes market of over 35 Billion and their lipid market of over 10 billion in 2012 aren't going to do that same thing?!?!?!? 

 

And who was that post about denialism directed to again? 

 

I'm glad to see that the video posted didn't resort so such lowbrow tactics like appeals to emotion, oh wait, they did. The meat industry is destroying the world? How about big agriculture? Their fertilizers run off into streams, rivers, etc and cause algae blooms that suffocate and wipe out huge amounts of fish. The environmental finger can be pointed both ways. As for torturing and murdering animals, that's an APA discussion and has already been discussed here. I am not going to get dragged into environmental or moral arguments over eating meat because they are distractions. This thread has devolved into a battle by the vegetarians to label animal products as the devil and plant based foods as the salvation when it's not that simple. They rely on cherry picked observational data as gospel truth while attacking anyone who refutes their information. 

 

Show me the controlled studies that meat, and meat alone is the cause of the 17 out of 18 leading causes of death. I'm betting that nobody can. 

[Richard_V]

 

 

And you don't think Big Pharma with their anti-diabetes market of over 35 Billion and their lipid market of over 10 billion in 2012 aren't going to do that same thing?!?!?!? 

 

And who was that post about denialism directed to again? 

 

Hi - I'm not sure I understand where you're going with this, so I apologise if I have the wrong end of the stick here...

Surely big pharma benefits more than anyone from people's poor dietary choices? On this I can agree 100%. 

[cobra2411]

Hi - I'm not sure I understand where you're going with this, so I apologise if I have the wrong end of the stick here...

Surely big pharma benefits more than anyone from people's poor dietary choices? On this I can agree 100%. 

Yes, and I've shown that the "eggs are as bad as smoking" people are on the payroll of big pharma. Their study was an observational study which did not account for other nutritional causes of high cholesterol or if that cholesterol was even bad. Yet it's parroted as "eggs raise cholesterol which causes heart disease" when it's impossible for such a study to show that. Of course though fear mongering people will run to their doctor to get some lipitor to lower their cholesterol. There's a strong chance that lipitor can cause type 2 diabetes... Isn't that just convenient. 

 

My response was because I felt you were using the "big money" argument to show how the meat industry "influences" their data without accepting that any "big money" source wouldn't do the same thing for their interest or that smaller money, like one of my favorite persons, Dr McDougall wouldn't "influence" the data they collect to support their own agenda. 

[Richard_V]

Yes, and I've shown that the "eggs are as bad as smoking" people are on the payroll of big pharma. Their study was an observational study which did not account for other nutritional causes of high cholesterol or if that cholesterol was even bad. Yet it's parroted as "eggs raise cholesterol which causes heart disease" when it's impossible for such a study to show that. Of course though fear mongering people will run to their doctor to get some lipitor to lower their cholesterol. There's a strong chance that lipitor can cause type 2 diabetes... Isn't that just convenient. 

 

My response was because I felt you were using the "big money" argument to show how the meat industry "influences" their data without accepting that any "big money" source wouldn't do the same thing for their interest or that smaller money, like one of my favorite persons, Dr McDougall wouldn't "influence" the data they collect to support their own agenda. 

 

Fair enough. I'm sure that most industries can and will use lobbying (within their capacity) to shift / influence outcomes of any kind of study in order to benefit them. They must all be taken with a pinch of salt. 

For me personally, it is enough to have met a lot of uber-healthy, happy people who have been eating a purely plant-based diet for many years, even decades.

And after over a year of being vegan and feeling the way I do, I certainly don't need any more proof. 

[cobra2411]

Fair enough. I'm sure that most industries can and will use lobbying (within their capacity) to shift / influence outcomes of any kind of study in order to benefit them. They must all be taken with a pinch of salt. 

For me personally, it is enough to have met a lot of uber-healthy, happy people who have been eating a purely plant-based diet for many years, even decades.

And after over a year of being vegan and feeling the way I do, I certainly don't need any more proof. 

I can accept that. I'm just trying to point out, in all my posts, that eating meat doesn't automatically make your diet unhealthy. If a plant diet works for you, great. It doesn't work for me. 

[Richard_V]

I can accept that. I'm just trying to point out, in all my posts, that eating meat doesn't automatically make your diet unhealthy. If a plant diet works for you, great. It doesn't work for me.

No doubt, a well balanced omnivorous diet can be healthy. Out of interest, how long were you on a plant based diet and what aspect didn't work for you?

[Nathan H. Hoffner]

can you offer proof instead of appeals to emotion?

Yeah I['m sure it's so much more unhealthy to raise a vegan than to feed kids hamburgers and fries which is what most parents do

why don't you target them first since you are so concerned with the healthy diet of children

 

vegans thrive in terms of health, they are the least likely demographic to suffer from 17 out of the 18 leading causes of death

Some things to consider.....

 

You're a Vegetarian. Have You Lost Your Mind?

Vegetarian diets are correlated with an increase in mental health problems

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201211/youre-vegetarian-have-you-lost-your-mind

 

Monkeys that eat omega-3 rich diet show more developed brain networks

Monkeys that ate a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids had brains with highly connected and well organized neural networks -- in some ways akin to the neural networks in healthy humans -- while monkeys that ate a diet deficient in the fatty acids had much more limited brain networking, according to a new study.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140205165757.htm

 

Weston Price Looked for Vegans But Found Only Cannibals

 

http://www.westonaprice.org/uncategorized/weston-price-looked-for-vegans-but-found-only-cannibals/

 

Nora Gedgaudas - Libertarian/ Physical and Mental Health Expert

 

http://www.primalbody-primalmind.com/video/

 

 

Debunking a Paleo Diet Strawman

 

http://www.humansarenotbroken.com/debunking-a-paleo-diet-strawman/

No doubt, a well balanced omnivorous diet can be healthy.

Out of interest, how long were you on a plant based diet and what aspect didn't work for you?

 

Interesting stuff here..... 

 

 

 - 1st principle of a nourishing traditional diet - Sacred foods

 

http://www.cravingfresh.com/2012/04/1st-principle-of-nourishing-traditional.html

 

 - 2nd principle of a nourishing traditional diet - Nutrient density

 

http://www.cravingfresh.com/2012/05/2nd-principle-of-nourishing-traditional.html

 

 - 3rd principle of a nourishing traditional diet - Animal products

 

http://www.cravingfresh.com/2012/05/3rd-principle-of-nourishing-traditional.html

 

 - 4th principle of a nourishing traditional diet - Cooked and raw foods

 

http://www.cravingfresh.com/2012/05/4th-principle-of-nourishing-traditional.html

[surfingthoughts]

Yet another thing to add to this conversation - Meat in the future may be grown in the lab for human consumption this is ethically neutral in my opinion and would affect the environment considerably less. If you believe in global warming or not you can not reasonably deny the huge amount of forestry in particular rain forests that are cut down to raise animals or to produce corps to feed animals which is less energy efficient that humans eating from crops directly.

 

Some land is not suitable to grow crops due to landscape and/or soil quality however grass thrives on it, we cannot digest grass but Cows and other animals can and thus we can harness the energy through eating them and their products such as milk.

 

The BBC has done Part 2 to the series "Should I Eat Meat" if you are in the UK and interested in this topic which I presume you would be if your reading this then give it a watch when it becomes available on Iplayer. Sorry to those outside of the UK I don't think you can watch this. One thing that was brought up on this program was that Mussel farms are very efficient in terms of energy conversion, the space that they take up (the sea is deep) and they actively use carbon to make their shells so in terms of carbon they do have a "footprint" but is very small. 

[Richard_V]

Ok brothers and sisters:
I think we can all agree that well balanced plant based and omnivorous diets can both be healthy. I know people who are doing very well on one or the other. Maybe you do too.

But here's the catch:

Veganism is about more than diet. It is about equality amongst  across species. Fear, suffering and torment are not exclusively human traits, yet this is what countless beings have to endure on a daily basis, worldwide.

Veganism is about a better life and environment for every living being on this planet - including humans.
In many third world countries, people are starving to death because it is more profitable to have precious resources (such as water and grain) diverted to feed animals bound for slaughter.
The toxic waste and gases produced by factory farms is also poisoning our environment.
The consumption of animal products is a human rights issue as much as it is an animal rights issue.

Clearly, eliminating animal products from your life will reduce the suffering of every being on this planet. Arguing the contrary will serve nothing but your ego.

So the question is really: Does your taste for animal flesh and secretions outweigh the immeasurable suffering of the beings (human or non-human) you share this planet with?

I strongly recommend you meditate on this for a while.

[surfingthoughts]

...I strongly recommend you meditate on this for a while.

 

What about the prospect of meat being made in the lab? 

Also when I meditate I only concentrate on my body breathing ect anything else is a distraction.

[shirgall]

What about the prospect of meat being made in the lab?

 

Abhorrent! We didn't evolve from slime for 4 billion years to just sneak up on carrots *or* test tubes!

 

(runs away very fast)

[cobra2411]

No doubt, a well balanced omnivorous diet can be healthy.Out of interest, how long were you on a plant based diet and what aspect didn't work for you?

 

Basically the whole not eating meat part of it...

 

Seriously, I really enjoy a good piece of meat. It fills me up; usually I only eat twice a day and that's very convenient for me. I do go through phases where I do eat a plant based diet for a time, but then I'm back to eating meat. 

[Richard_V]

Basically the whole not eating meat part of it...  Seriously, I really enjoy a good piece of meat. It fills me up; usually I only eat twice a day and that's very convenient for me. I do go through phases where I do eat a plant based diet for a time, but then I'm back to eating meat.

Yes, the thing about plant based diets is you have to eat a lot and often :-)

[LovePrevails]

Seriously, I really enjoy a good piece of meat. It fills me up; usually I only eat twice a day and that's very convenient for me.

 

Cobra, the fact that you enjoy eating dead animals is philosophically neutral, in both the health debate and the moral debate

 

sugar-eating people enjoy eating refined sugar but that does not make it healthy

likewise, thieves enjoy thieving but that does not make it moral

 

the fact you like meat has nothing to do with the debate

[Richard_V]

What about the prospect of meat being made in the lab? 

Lab created meat does not violate animal or human rights as far as I can tell! Nutritionally speaking, I have no idea.

[cobra2411]

Cobra, the fact that you enjoy eating dead animals is philosophically neutral, in both the health debate and the moral debate

 

sugar-eating people enjoy eating refined sugar but that does not make it healthy

likewise, thieves enjoy thieving but that does not make it moral

 

the fact you like meat has nothing to do with the debate

Perhaps you missed the side conversation between myself and Richard_V. I had originally stated that some people find it easier to adopt a meat based low carb diet vs a plant based diet and would have a much greater chance of success. I maintain that removing the sugar from your diet is important and that both plant and meat based diets can be healthy. I then added my personal story that I could not stick to a plant based diet, but was able to stick to a meat based diet. Richard then asked where I was having trouble, presumably to share his knowledge about plant based diet, which I appreciate. What you quoted was my response and taken out of context it doesn't mean anything to the debate. 

 

So... In summary I offer this. Plant and meat based diets can be both healthy and unhealthy depending on what is included in the diet. It's almost a certainty that sugar and other processed and refined carbohydrates that digest with the same effect as sugar are the culprits behind most of the reasons for death. I offer that obesity is a symptom of the bodies difficulty dealing with sugary foods and that the other health problems discussed; cancer, heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes, etc, are also all due to eating sugary foods and offer the vast amount of anecdotal and formal research on people who have adopted either a plant or meat based diet that eliminated sugar have seen tremendous improvements in their health. In short, both meat and plant based diets are healthy as long as you get the sugar and refined foods out of your diet. 

[surfingthoughts]

Abhorrent! We didn't evolve from slime for 4 billion years to just sneak up on carrots *or* test tubes!

 

(runs away very fast)

 

 

Lab created meat does not violate animal or human rights as far as I can tell! Nutritionally speaking, I have no idea.

 

Just to clarify if the hope is for complex human organs such as the heart that the body will accept as genuine to be made in the lab there is no reason why the meat grown in a lab would be noticeably different by taste, appearance or nutrition in fact you could alter and trailer them to be superior.

 

We are trained to resist man playing god by the god fearing preachers but if there is no logical reason and only their rhetoric it should not be taken seriously. Take Geo-crops for example they are made without the capability to reproduce (which makes it very profitable for the people selling the seeds) yet people destroy fields of the stuff worrying that it will spread and make super weeds, there is no logic in this. People also think just because it is genetically altered to grow better in harsher conditions and not reproduce that some how it is going to pose a health risk to eat. Look at all the fact use the logical part of your brain and make a decision we have been altering crops through selective breeding for ages and think nothing of it. 

 

I don't think the argument between meat eaters and veterinarians will go away until meat that is made in the lab to a high standard is mainstream (that not to say natural meat wont exist or be debated). There are currently too many angles to be wholly right or wholly wrong and too many interest groups pushing their interests on others.

[luxfelix]

If only we could subsist solely on photosynthesis from the sun...  Sunbeams, Yum! 

[AustinJames]

Veganism is about more than diet. It is about equality amongst species.

 

 

Can there truly be equality amongst species?  What does that mean in terms of the NAP? Do you believe that every action against an animal has the same moral content as it would if it was a human that was acted upon?

[Richard_V]

 

 

Can there truly be equality amongst species?  What does that mean in terms of the NAP? Do you believe that every action against an animal has the same moral content as it would if it was a human that was acted upon?

 

 

I didn’t word that very well - sorry - I meant equality across species (in terms of their right to be free from torture and exploitation) 

 

As far as we know, animals are not capable of being moral or immoral, but they clearly have preferences. It’s safe to assume that all beings (in a natural, healthy state) prefer to live than die. They prefer freedom to imprisonment and nurture to torture.  

The fact that certain beings cannot communicate these preferences using a recognisable human language does not diminish their clear and demonstrable ability to feel them.

  To quote Charles Darwin: “There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.”

 

In industrial nations, most animals are treated as commodities and products purely for exploitation and profit. 

Approximately150 billion are slaughtered each year and it’s safe to say that the majority of them live out their short, tormented lives in horrific conditions. 

Then there are pets, which people enjoy and ‘love’.

This clear contradiction creates a cognitive dissonance in many people when the subject of animal rights is discussed. 

It is known as speciesism and on a philosophical level, it simply does not compute.

Anyone who eats pig, lamb or beef should have no problem with someone else eating dolphin, dog or cat. 

 

India has made some headway by declaring dolphins ‘non-human persons’ and protecting them as such. Should this extend to all animals, everywhere? 

 

Perhaps animals can be looked at in a similar way to (human) toddlers who cannot express their preferences in recognisable language and similarly cannot grasp abstract moral & philosophical concepts. We don’t expect small children to be subject to or conform to philosophical or moral ideals. Yet we (hopefully) respect and recognise the inherent rights they were born with.

 

I believe that every action from a being capable of grasping the concept of morality towards any other being has moral content - regardless of species.

[AustinJames]

 

I didn’t word that very well - sorry - I meant equality across species (in terms of their right to be free from torture and exploitation) 

 

As far as we know, animals are not capable of being moral or immoral, but they clearly have preferences. It’s safe to assume that all beings (in a natural, healthy state) prefer to live than die. They prefer freedom to imprisonment and nurture to torture. 

 

Do you really think that a dairy cow would prefer to be free?  Provided a domesticated animal is treated well, I cannot imagine it would prefer to be in the wild.  If they could reason, is it not possible many animals would enter into agreements with humans, exchanging goods, services, or even their lives for food, shelter, and comfort?

[Richard_V]

Do you really think that a dairy cow would prefer to be free?  Provided a domesticated animal is treated well, I cannot imagine it would prefer to be in the wild.  If they could reason, is it not possible many animals would enter into agreements with humans, exchanging goods, services, or even their lives for food, shelter, and comfort?

 

You are posing a hypothetical question based on animals having the ability to reason and enter into contracts with humans. 

 

Why don’t we pretend there is an advanced alien species who enjoy the taste of human flesh / milk and enjoy wearing our skin. 

 

Regarding milk, the conversation might go something like this: 

 

"Hello human female. My friends and I own a farm and we would like to make you an offer.

   We agree to keep you safe, house and feed you in return for the following: 

 

1 - We will need to inseminate you (forcefully if you resist).

 

2 - Once you have given birth, we will need to take your baby away so that we can have your milk. Don’t worry! As long as your baby is female, we will put it in a pen with other  babies and feed it. If it’s male, we will kill it as cheaply and efficiently as possible because we enjoy eating human babies very much. We call it veal.

 

3 - You will have to stay indoors all day every day, in a pen just big enough for you to stand in. Sitting or resting is not an option as we need maximum milk yields to make a profit. 

 

4 - You will be hooked to a machine which will constantly pump your breasts for milk. This may result in painful, infected and pus-filled sores, but we do provide antibiotics. 

 

5 - This will go on continuously for 3-4 years and then, once you are ‘spent’ we will send you to a slaughter house to be hung upside down and either have your throat slit or a  bolt rammed into your skull. 

 

Alternatively, you can take your chances on your own and in the wild. "

 

[AustinJames]

Regarding milk, the conversation might go something like this...

 

Provided a domesticated animal is treated well, I cannot imagine it would prefer to be in the wild.

 

I agree that the modern meat and dairy industry is largely inhumane, and perhaps even immoral.  The animals live and die in abhorrent conditions.  The treatment you describe is unacceptable.

 

There are examples in history of people selling themselves into slavery, and in accordance with your example some of them were wet nurses who agreed to have their babies taken from them.  They did this because life as a slave in a civilized society was better than being free in a tribal society.  Even some slaves that were freed in post-Civil War U.S. asked to be enslaved again, as they were not prepared to compete in a market environment.  Today, I prefer to live in tax slavery rather than take my chances in the wilderness.  If some humans prefer slavery, is it possible that animals would prefer it?