Following recent conversations on the topic of veganism, I thought it would be useful to have a more informed starting point.
Disclaimer: although I consider myself an ethical vegan, I am not an authority on any of the topics presented here.
1. Vocabulary
Getting too hung up on definitions would be counter-productive, but there seems to be a need for some clarifications.
According to The Vegan Society: "Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose."
This is what I would call ethical veganism, where moral considerations are primordial. Other reasons to be vegan include personal health, environmental concerns, spirituality/religion, economics, etc. They are not mutually exclusive. For example, I currently consider myself to be 50% ethical vegan, 30% environmental vegan, and 20% health vegan.
If you are going to criticize veganism, it is important to understand that ethical vegans are not against eating meat per se. It's just that given our current technology, when we remove the products of animal exploitation we are left with "plants" (loose term including plants, mushrooms, bacteria, yeast...) In other words, ethical vegans have a plant-based diet because there is currently no other realistic option. Ethical vegans also attempt to be lifestyle vegans by generally avoiding other products of animal exploitation, especially in clothing (leather, wool, silk) and cosmetics. Some vegans are also minimalists, and I think that makes sense. Notice "possible and practicable" in the definition above: veganism does not require perfection.
I don't often hear about people going vegan for the environment (could change thanks to Cowspiracy), and yet it would make much more sense than being anti-vegan while claiming to care about water scarcity, deforestation, biodiversity, climate change, etc. Cows, giraffes, dogs, chickens, cute bunnies, ugly rats, eagles, krill: all are earthlings, just like us. And climate change isn't going to wait until lab meat goes mainstream.
Health vegans claim that animal-derived foods are unhealthy and plant-based foods, especially whole plant foods, are beneficial to human health. They may or may not be concerned with animal welfare (Dr Fuhrman's nutritarianism comes to mind), but as dietary vegans they are likely to contribute to the goals of ethical veganism.
Spiritual vegans seem to be looking for some kind of purity or communion with the forces of the universe, or following religious teachings. I am biased against this kind of thinking. However, it can be a powerful motivation for many, and at this stage veganism can use all the help it can get. We are all in this together.
Regarding the word "diet": the purpose of an ethical vegan diet is not "dieting", it is to live normally with no restriction other than animal products. Raw vegans seem to be looking for some kind of spiritual and biological purity, or technological minimalism (to me they look more realistically "paleo" than the carnist paleo people). Health vegans often promote whole-food plant-based (wfpb) and low-fat wfpb diets, and those constrain the quality of food rather than the quantity. Regardless, it is not difficult to eat vegan in a wealthy country with access to diverse foods.
Lastly, vegan is not synonymous with natural, organic, gluten-free, GMO-free ... In principle, it's not even synonymous with low-fat, and there are high-protein, low-carb, and ketogenic vegan diets (those are however less common, and I rarely hear good things about them).
2. Why am I vegan?
I was an omnivore for most of my life and used to feel unconcerned with vegetarianism and veganism. However, as a pro-science individual, I was concerned about the environment, and started to notice that agriculture was often mentioned for its many negative impacts. I slowly became mostly vegetarian, and because I was worried about my health, I also started to learn a bit more about human nutrition. I eventually acquired the conviction that veganism is safe, and maybe even beneficial, and made the switch telling myself that it was 50% for my health, 40% for the environment, and 10% for the animals as a bonus (I am not an animal lover).
Later I learned why cows produce milk: it was a light bulb moment, and I immediately became an ethical vegan. We humans pride ourselves for our ingenuity, science and technology; we openly value compassion, reason, diplomacy, peace, love, culture, beauty. Dependence on the physical and psychological abuse of sentient beings that we deem of lesser value is not compatible with those ideals, and I believe it is our moral duty as an enlightened civilization to find a way out of this disturbing situation.
I explained my personal expectations of veganism in another discussion: link
Short version: ethical veganism should be viewed as morally sound, rational, and reliant on empirical evidence and mainstream science; pro-vegan attitude and partial veganism are steps in the right direction; public acceptance and adoption of veganism are increasing, and with a sustained community effort, hopefully someday some future generation will wake up in a vegan world, the sooner the better.
3. Resources
Some vegans are anti-science or promote dangerous ideas (antivaxxers, violence). They are putting people's lives at risk and contribute to a negative reputation of veganism. Sometimes a bit of common sense should be enough to tell what's what, but generally it's best to have good sources. I find scientific papers too technical for general use, but there is a wealth of information available for free online; just make sure you double-check the info before putting your life at risk.
3.1. Tips for new vegans
In my opinion, books don't compete well against the Internet when it comes to finding up-to-date information regarding nutrition, ingredients and recipes. There are many interesting websites, like https://www.pcrm.org , https://veganhealth.org and https://nutritionfacts.org which are maintained by medical professionals who are not generally in it for the money (although they occasionally write books).
If you have no idea where to start on your path to veganism, I recommend a video that Unnatural Vegan made a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID_2ymmvW5w (pretend your name is Sam Harris, or tune it out if it bothers you; atheism is not required to be vegan).
The Vegan View has lighthearted conversations mixing personal experience with useful tidbits, like tips for new vegans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQCraoKN014
Youtube channel okraw offers tips and interviews with people having decades of practical and medical experience with raw veganism. For example there is a long discussion about blood test results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orpqkp8wr9E
(this prolific youtuber also has an interview with someone arguing for veganism using biblical arguments)
3.2. Other
Plant Based News provides a compilation of vegan-related news every year: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxzJ6sKr_NWRxp01TPqxXBhAqnVTGtOAJ
A bit of optimism: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/apr/01/vegans-are-coming-millennials-health-climate-change-animal-welfare
"Plant-based diets aren’t a trend or a fad" (Aarti Ramachandran)
"Veganism is no longer niche or difficult"
If you are interested in critical thinking and controversies regarding nutrition science, Plant Positive has made great videos covering many topics including the paleo/low-carb diets, the lipid hypothesis/Ancel Keys, the Masai, the Colin T Campbell/Harriet Hall/Denise Minger controversy, Gary Taubes, and more: https://www.youtube.com/user/PrimitiveNutrition/featured (dozens of hours of ad-free high-quality didactic videos, lots of scientific references and fact checking, errata on his blog). It is somewhat similar to Potholer54, and I think it is well worth watching as a whole. What I learned about things to look for when reading a paper on nutrition: details about the study (funding, cross-sectional, longitudinal, interventional, size, duration), details about the diets (calories, dietary fiber, dietary cholesterol, processed vs unprocessed carbs, quantities and types of fat, adherence/monitoring, quality of the control), details about the subjects (human vs non-human, wealth, age/gender/race/height/weight, genetics, smoking, exercise, stress, medical conditions, medications, prior dietary habits, inter-group differences), details about the environment (serum cholesterol can be affected by parasites, altitude, season), quality of the interpretation (bad assumptions, confounding factors, reverse causality, regression dilution, inter-/intra-individual variability, improper generalizations, clarity of language); sometimes it can be useful to look at the historical context or other works by the authors to fill some blanks (about the study or the authors' biases), and unfortunately the relevant information is not always publicly available. This is difficult.
Psychologist Melanie Joy wrote Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism. According to her, carnism is an ideology (shared set of beliefs and practices), and "Carnists eat meat not because they need to, but because they choose to, and choices always stem from beliefs." (to me this looks like a complement to Ozymandias Ramses II's "beliefs are operative") It is however a violent and yet hidden ideology, nameless until now. I believe this helps explain why, despite decades of scientific studies, mainstream scientists still have trouble acknowledging vegetarianism and veganism: if you "know" that humans cannot live without consuming animal products, it would not occur to you that a vegan diet could be healthy, let alone cure anything. In addition to human psychology, the author also examines how carnism relates to morality and ideational disgust, rationality and rationalization, free will and hidden biases ...
Details regarding cruelty to animals are easy to find, especially in documentaries like Earthlings. I'd rather not insist too much on that; whenever I think I have seen it all, another atrocity comes to light so now I assume that reality is worse than I imagine, and prefer to focus instead on solutions.
4. What to discuss in this thread
You should probably take a look at http://yourveganfallacyis.com before going for a PRATT.
You are welcome to comment on what I have posted, or raise your own concerns (or praise!) regarding veganism. Please try to avoid confusing want, ability, and necessity, including biological, moral, and technological.
For the sake of readability, it might be preferable to focus on only a few points at a time, rather than make long posts like this one.
5. How to help save the world
Please, go vegan.
Disclaimer: although I consider myself an ethical vegan, I am not an authority on any of the topics presented here.
1. Vocabulary
Getting too hung up on definitions would be counter-productive, but there seems to be a need for some clarifications.
According to The Vegan Society: "Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose."
This is what I would call ethical veganism, where moral considerations are primordial. Other reasons to be vegan include personal health, environmental concerns, spirituality/religion, economics, etc. They are not mutually exclusive. For example, I currently consider myself to be 50% ethical vegan, 30% environmental vegan, and 20% health vegan.
If you are going to criticize veganism, it is important to understand that ethical vegans are not against eating meat per se. It's just that given our current technology, when we remove the products of animal exploitation we are left with "plants" (loose term including plants, mushrooms, bacteria, yeast...) In other words, ethical vegans have a plant-based diet because there is currently no other realistic option. Ethical vegans also attempt to be lifestyle vegans by generally avoiding other products of animal exploitation, especially in clothing (leather, wool, silk) and cosmetics. Some vegans are also minimalists, and I think that makes sense. Notice "possible and practicable" in the definition above: veganism does not require perfection.
I don't often hear about people going vegan for the environment (could change thanks to Cowspiracy), and yet it would make much more sense than being anti-vegan while claiming to care about water scarcity, deforestation, biodiversity, climate change, etc. Cows, giraffes, dogs, chickens, cute bunnies, ugly rats, eagles, krill: all are earthlings, just like us. And climate change isn't going to wait until lab meat goes mainstream.
Health vegans claim that animal-derived foods are unhealthy and plant-based foods, especially whole plant foods, are beneficial to human health. They may or may not be concerned with animal welfare (Dr Fuhrman's nutritarianism comes to mind), but as dietary vegans they are likely to contribute to the goals of ethical veganism.
Spiritual vegans seem to be looking for some kind of purity or communion with the forces of the universe, or following religious teachings. I am biased against this kind of thinking. However, it can be a powerful motivation for many, and at this stage veganism can use all the help it can get. We are all in this together.
Regarding the word "diet": the purpose of an ethical vegan diet is not "dieting", it is to live normally with no restriction other than animal products. Raw vegans seem to be looking for some kind of spiritual and biological purity, or technological minimalism (to me they look more realistically "paleo" than the carnist paleo people). Health vegans often promote whole-food plant-based (wfpb) and low-fat wfpb diets, and those constrain the quality of food rather than the quantity. Regardless, it is not difficult to eat vegan in a wealthy country with access to diverse foods.
Lastly, vegan is not synonymous with natural, organic, gluten-free, GMO-free ... In principle, it's not even synonymous with low-fat, and there are high-protein, low-carb, and ketogenic vegan diets (those are however less common, and I rarely hear good things about them).
2. Why am I vegan?
I was an omnivore for most of my life and used to feel unconcerned with vegetarianism and veganism. However, as a pro-science individual, I was concerned about the environment, and started to notice that agriculture was often mentioned for its many negative impacts. I slowly became mostly vegetarian, and because I was worried about my health, I also started to learn a bit more about human nutrition. I eventually acquired the conviction that veganism is safe, and maybe even beneficial, and made the switch telling myself that it was 50% for my health, 40% for the environment, and 10% for the animals as a bonus (I am not an animal lover).
Later I learned why cows produce milk: it was a light bulb moment, and I immediately became an ethical vegan. We humans pride ourselves for our ingenuity, science and technology; we openly value compassion, reason, diplomacy, peace, love, culture, beauty. Dependence on the physical and psychological abuse of sentient beings that we deem of lesser value is not compatible with those ideals, and I believe it is our moral duty as an enlightened civilization to find a way out of this disturbing situation.
I explained my personal expectations of veganism in another discussion: link
Short version: ethical veganism should be viewed as morally sound, rational, and reliant on empirical evidence and mainstream science; pro-vegan attitude and partial veganism are steps in the right direction; public acceptance and adoption of veganism are increasing, and with a sustained community effort, hopefully someday some future generation will wake up in a vegan world, the sooner the better.
3. Resources
Some vegans are anti-science or promote dangerous ideas (antivaxxers, violence). They are putting people's lives at risk and contribute to a negative reputation of veganism. Sometimes a bit of common sense should be enough to tell what's what, but generally it's best to have good sources. I find scientific papers too technical for general use, but there is a wealth of information available for free online; just make sure you double-check the info before putting your life at risk.
3.1. Tips for new vegans
In my opinion, books don't compete well against the Internet when it comes to finding up-to-date information regarding nutrition, ingredients and recipes. There are many interesting websites, like https://www.pcrm.org , https://veganhealth.org and https://nutritionfacts.org which are maintained by medical professionals who are not generally in it for the money (although they occasionally write books).
If you have no idea where to start on your path to veganism, I recommend a video that Unnatural Vegan made a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID_2ymmvW5w (pretend your name is Sam Harris, or tune it out if it bothers you; atheism is not required to be vegan).
The Vegan View has lighthearted conversations mixing personal experience with useful tidbits, like tips for new vegans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQCraoKN014
Youtube channel okraw offers tips and interviews with people having decades of practical and medical experience with raw veganism. For example there is a long discussion about blood test results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orpqkp8wr9E
(this prolific youtuber also has an interview with someone arguing for veganism using biblical arguments)
3.2. Other
Plant Based News provides a compilation of vegan-related news every year: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxzJ6sKr_NWRxp01TPqxXBhAqnVTGtOAJ
A bit of optimism: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/apr/01/vegans-are-coming-millennials-health-climate-change-animal-welfare
"Plant-based diets aren’t a trend or a fad" (Aarti Ramachandran)
"Veganism is no longer niche or difficult"
If you are interested in critical thinking and controversies regarding nutrition science, Plant Positive has made great videos covering many topics including the paleo/low-carb diets, the lipid hypothesis/Ancel Keys, the Masai, the Colin T Campbell/Harriet Hall/Denise Minger controversy, Gary Taubes, and more: https://www.youtube.com/user/PrimitiveNutrition/featured (dozens of hours of ad-free high-quality didactic videos, lots of scientific references and fact checking, errata on his blog). It is somewhat similar to Potholer54, and I think it is well worth watching as a whole. What I learned about things to look for when reading a paper on nutrition: details about the study (funding, cross-sectional, longitudinal, interventional, size, duration), details about the diets (calories, dietary fiber, dietary cholesterol, processed vs unprocessed carbs, quantities and types of fat, adherence/monitoring, quality of the control), details about the subjects (human vs non-human, wealth, age/gender/race/height/weight, genetics, smoking, exercise, stress, medical conditions, medications, prior dietary habits, inter-group differences), details about the environment (serum cholesterol can be affected by parasites, altitude, season), quality of the interpretation (bad assumptions, confounding factors, reverse causality, regression dilution, inter-/intra-individual variability, improper generalizations, clarity of language); sometimes it can be useful to look at the historical context or other works by the authors to fill some blanks (about the study or the authors' biases), and unfortunately the relevant information is not always publicly available. This is difficult.
Psychologist Melanie Joy wrote Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism. According to her, carnism is an ideology (shared set of beliefs and practices), and "Carnists eat meat not because they need to, but because they choose to, and choices always stem from beliefs." (to me this looks like a complement to Ozymandias Ramses II's "beliefs are operative") It is however a violent and yet hidden ideology, nameless until now. I believe this helps explain why, despite decades of scientific studies, mainstream scientists still have trouble acknowledging vegetarianism and veganism: if you "know" that humans cannot live without consuming animal products, it would not occur to you that a vegan diet could be healthy, let alone cure anything. In addition to human psychology, the author also examines how carnism relates to morality and ideational disgust, rationality and rationalization, free will and hidden biases ...
Details regarding cruelty to animals are easy to find, especially in documentaries like Earthlings. I'd rather not insist too much on that; whenever I think I have seen it all, another atrocity comes to light so now I assume that reality is worse than I imagine, and prefer to focus instead on solutions.
4. What to discuss in this thread
You should probably take a look at http://yourveganfallacyis.com before going for a PRATT.
You are welcome to comment on what I have posted, or raise your own concerns (or praise!) regarding veganism. Please try to avoid confusing want, ability, and necessity, including biological, moral, and technological.
For the sake of readability, it might be preferable to focus on only a few points at a time, rather than make long posts like this one.
5. How to help save the world
Please, go vegan.
