In this sequel post to follow up "Attacking Anti-Smoking Propaganda and Anti-Smoking Hypocrities", I am focusing on one of the several arguments in particular put forth: the argument that eating animal products kills more people than smoking. I must first state my amazement that several readers are stuck in a helpless state of mind where they cannot simply research this further themselves and instead need people to hand feed them everything. People, seriously, you obviously know how to use the Internet. Chances are you know how to use a search engine. It's really, really not that hard.
In Part I, my main objective was to make people rethink about common propaganda and also rethink about their own choices in life, vegeteranism and veganism were one of a few suggestions put forth that, if you are intellectually and ethically honest in your arguments against smoking, you must also apply it to your diet. if you do not, then you are simply part of a dishonest propaganda culture.
After all, if you truly as an individual oppose smoking on the grounds of health, environmentalism, and clean air, you should absolutely and considerably object to the animal product industry ten times more for these same reasons.
There are some very common myths about meat/dairy and about vegetarianism and veganism. In a parody of the anti-smoking propaganda language, here is the Truth about eating animal products.
Number one myth: you need to eat meat (this includes eggs) and dairy to be healthy.
Truth: a diet of regular meat and dairy consumption is unhealthy, especially in comparison to a vegetarian or vegan diet.
The number one factor that creates high cholesterol is a diet of animal products. A plant-based rich diet (not your average American meal), on the other hand, is recognized to result in low cholesterol. People are so oblivious and cannot see the forest before their eyes in America that they all believe that their diets are meat in moderation. The standard American diet is not a moderate diet of animal products. High cholesterol is the number one cause of heart disease. Heart disease kills more people than smoking.
If meat and dairy were essential to be healthy human beings, you would expect groups and cultures that minimize or avoid both to be unhealthy. Facts show otherwise.
In the Western world, Seventh-Day Adventists promotes vegeterianism. In the November 2005 of National Geographic, "The Secret of Long Life", states that research shows that Seventh-Day Adventists in California, for example, live four to ten years longer than the average Californian.
There is abundant academic, scientific, and nutrition studies that demonstrate the increased health of a plant-based diet. For example, in research published by Key TJ, Thorogood M, Appleby PN, Burr ML of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, "Dietary habits and mortality in 11,000 vegetarians and health conscious people: results of a 17 year follow up", shows that it lowers the risk of colon cancer, heart attack, high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, prostate cancer, and stroke.
Especially in the American factorized animal product industry, heavy usage of growth hormones and antibiotics because of the intensively "farmed" animals, there is enough indications that that it may affect fetal and childhood development negatively that growth hormones (which require antibiotics as it it severely increases weakness to diseases) are illegal to use in the European community. See "Hormones in meat: different approaches in the EU and in the USA" from the
National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM/ARO) by Stephany RW (these are articles from the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health's archive, ergo the first/middle name abbrevations).
The American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada states in "Position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada: Vegetarian diets":
"This position paper reviews the current scientific data related to key nutrients for vegetarians, including protein, iron, zinc, calcium, vitamin D, riboflavin, vitamin B-12, vitamin A, n-3 fatty acids, and iodine. A vegetarian, including vegan, diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients.In some cases, use of fortified foods or supplements can be helpful in meeting recommendations for individual nutrients. "
Something that most people realize is that different individuals actually can have significantly different nutrient requirements. The statement goes on to say that:
"Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence."
A common criticism against smoking is that it is optional. Well, so is your diet in animal products.
If you believe that because something is harmful and optional, it should be avoided and campaigned against, you should avoid and also campaign against eating animal products, as they are more harmful than cigarettes in every category and, like cigarettes, is entirely optional.
It continues:
"Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals. Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer."
Government statistics, as stated in the post that this is a follow-up of, shows that heart disease is the number one killer of Americans. For simplicy sake in the Part I post, I avoided complicating the issue, simply desiring to question how people think and what they think and make them apply intellectually honest standards to their own life and live accordingly.
The truth is that eating animal products is linked, as these statements show, to a spectrum of diseases, poor health, and cancer. However, on the issue of heart disease alone, the standard American diet's intake of animal products kills more people in America than cigarettes. And this is only considering heart disease and ignoring significant increases in things such as colon and breast cancer and conditions such as diabetes.
And entire, free, online, academic and scientific book is available online provided by the National Academies Press is "Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer: Directions for Research" which goes into a lot more detail regarding diet and cancer. Published in 1983, the directions of research since, as only touched upon in this post, indicate and confirm the connection between diet and cancer, especially a diet in animal products that Americans possess. This work was published by the Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council, and Committee on Diet, Nutrition, and CancerThe China Project by Roger Segelken of Cornell University contributed to this study and did a follow-up in 1989.
A basic conclusion of the study is that a Western diet is linked to Westernized levels of disease. And that the standard amount of animal intake in the Western diet is connected to those diseases. I have referenced studies from Oxford, Cornell, The American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada, the Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council, Committee on Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer, the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, and I could reference dozens more.
However, the first draft in this post took me approximately a full hour already. I am not here to write a book. You can find books that can reference even more.
Traditions and religious beliefs which advocate vegetariansism date back to around 200 BCE in India. Today Indian vegetarians, usually lacto-vegetarians make up 20–42% of the population in India. Seventh-Day Adventists in America. Jainism is one of the world's oldest religions and is still practiced today and is a pretty strict vegeterianism. The Cathar Christians in the Middle Ages were strict vegetarians (except for fish). The standard American myopic perception of the growing vegetarian and vegan movement is that these ideas are new and risky healthwise. However, entire peoples, regions, and religions for thousands and thousands of years have been perfectly healthy without the consumption of meat or dairy and/or with a much lower intake of meat and dairy consumption than the standard American meal.
What does all of this mean?
Eating animal products is a dietary option, not a dietary requirement.
Eating animal products is detrimental to health.
The calories of energy needed to create meat compared to a plant-based equivalent in energy is incredibly wasteful. Spending energy to create nutrition in the form of meat is also wasteful of energy. As stated in Part I, a United Nations report revealed that the animal product industry was the number two or three worst offender in every type of environmental problem, clearing land, polluting water, air, etc.
However, if you choose to do "go vegan", please research what a healthy vegan diet entails.
Remember: the Web and its search engines are before you, you can use it, you can learn.
And let us be intellectually and ethically honest with ourselves:
If you object to smoking on the basis of health, environment, and pollution, if should object even more to the animal product industry and follow a vegetarian and/or (even better) vegan diet.
Last notes:
The danger is not that a vegan diet cannot provide you the nutrients you need, but that your standard American diet and meal culture hinders you from being able to see out of it. It is difficult to change one's diet not because of a lack of choices or tastes, but because your region's culture makes animal products the center of everything in its diets and meals.
So, I repeat.
If you choose to do "go vegan", please research what a healthy vegan diet entails.
Remember: the Web and its search engines are before you, you can use it, you can learn.
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Exactly.
Criticizing smoking while eating meat is hypocritical. It's like the pot calling the kettle black. Except that eating meat is even more dangerous.
Most sources say that smoking is the biggest cause of heart disease:
So while heart disease kills more people, smoking assists in killing 17143 people per year by accelerating and causing heart disease.
So while I'm not convinced on that front, I agree with what you say. I don't like smoke, I don't smoke (anymore), and I prefer to get my high through other means.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
Eating meat does not cause heart disease or cancer.
If it did, then how come several societies whose diet consists of only meat, or mostly meat, have almost no heart disease (supposedly caused by high cholesterol)?
http://www.progressiveu.org/001209-i-am-a-meat-eater-and-im-proud-of-it-...
I'm still waiting for that UN report, since that link in your original entry was a blog that had nothing to do with the UN.
Pulled from one of your own sources:
Some vegans may have intakes for vitamin B-12, vitamin D, calcium, zinc, and occasionally riboflavin that are lower than recommended
While that may not seem serious up front, they can be very serious if nothing is done about it. B-12 is a major source of energy for the body. Without it, it has to find other ways to get it (that may or may not be a good thing, depending on the situation). Calcium...do I really need to go into that one? It's what your bones are made of, without it, your bones are prone to weakening (especially menopausal women, who are already highly prone to osteoporosis). Vitamin D acts as an aid for the body to absorb and use Calcium. Without Vitamin D, you're losing a good portion of that Calcium intake. It can be obtained through time in the sun, but thanks to UV rays, it shouldn't be your only source of Vitamin D.
So, how to vegans take care of these and other nutrient deficiencies? Vitamins, diet, etc. Well, I hope you know what exactly is in your Vitamins if you take them, or how your food got any extra nutrients, otherwise you're no better off than those of us you call hypocrites, since it takes resources to develop vitamin pills.
I must first state my amazement that several readers are stuck in a helpless state of mind where they cannot simply research this further themselves and instead need people to hand feed them everything.
Asking you for your sources is not asking to be hand-fed information. It's asking you for the sources where you found your information so it can be compared with sources we've found our information at. Also, citing your sources gives credit where credit is due if you didn't do the studies yourself, thus avoiding copyright infringement and plaguerism issues.
That said, vegetarians put themselves (and their children) at just as much risk as everyone else. The vast majority of the time certain foods are linked to diseases, disorders, birth defects, etc. is not because of the food itself, but because of the conditions in which it was grown/raised and processed.
A vegan is at just as much risk for cancer as a meat-eater if those foods contain any number of chemicals known to cause cancer. How much of your food is genetically modified? Well, if you buy strawberries or apples in January, then chances are, they're modified in some way. If you eat bananas at all, then you're eating a genetically modified fruit.
You can argue until you're blue in the face about the societies that thrive on vegan diets and I can guarantee there will be at least one person that will argue back about the societies that are doing just as well on diets almost exclusively of meat.
It's not a matter of what you eat, but where you get your food from. A vegan diet full of GM foods that were soaked in pesticides and fertilizers is no better than a meat diet full of fatty, battery meats since you're both taking in chemicals that weren't meant to be ingested to begin with.
Humans as a whole are opportunistic omnivores, which means we are capable of consuming both meat and plants and obtain most, if not all, our nutrients from either or both sources. We are opportunistic in that we are equally as capable of living off a vegan diet as we are a carnivorous diet, depending on what's available (hence tribes that have gone to both extremes).
You also have no grounds to call anyone a hypocrite while using the ecology factor unless your house is powered by solar or wind power, you drive an electric car (again, ultimately powered by the sun or wind) or don't drive at all, don't use Natural Gas and you make your own clothing, grow all your own food (without chemicals), and make use of everything (including all your trash), since you too are contributing to the pollution of the environment.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Thank you for also pointing that out. I thought I was the only crazy one who got ignored by the original poster.
I'd also appreciate it is someone who supports this alternative vegan/vegetarian viewpoint to actually read and comment the two blogs I've written in defense of the other side... otherwise I'm going to assume that all of you cannot defend your choices and choose to be ignorant.
Of course, my only retaliation is to continue to instigate on every pro-vegan and pro-vegetarian thread I find until the end of time. Muhahahahahahahaha.
Now, I would be more inclined to agree with said diet if, you once, recognized the benefits to both smoking and the consumption of meat. Now, if there is any physical benefit to smoking, please inform me because I have not been taught otherwise. Meat however does hold many benefits. I know that meat may hold different risks than a plant based diet, but it also holds different benefits.
Let me for a moment take your advice on search engines and also encourage the use of the use of a search engine. Look up "Benefits of Meat Eating" You will come across multiple sites stating the benefits of meat. If you would like look up "benefits of vegan or vegetarian diet."
I will acknowledge the benefits of a vegetarian diet and vegan diet because I know personally people that practice both of these, and they are healthy. I also know that they take dietary supplements to help them get that which they do not get from a strictly plant based diet. There are down sides to this diet just like a meat based diet, and you must choose which is more beneficial.
To all those that may read this, make your own choice off of your own research. If you choose to be a vegetarian, vegan, meat eater, or smoker, it is your body and your choice. You decide what is best for your body after your own research and pursue that. If you wish to be persuaded by others, that as well is your choice. Just know that if you wish to be in control, then take the control and do it for yourself.
Silence is golden, that's why you're reading my words, not hearing them ;-)
Not that I don't hate smoking...
But women who smoke have a lower risk of getting breast cancer.
And tobacco can ease alzheimers and some forms of arthritis.
Those are benefits.
Even though the downfalls far outweigh them, there are still benefits. Just like meat. :P
Now I"m going to go lobby with other anti-smokers while eating a big, fat, juicy, beefy burger.
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If You Swear That There's No Truth And Who Cares, How Come You Say It Like You're Right? [Bright Eyes]
http://progressiveu.org/143541-how-to-survive-the-2008-elections
Now, if only we could get Corporate America to stop putting poisons in our tobacco, the benefits might actually outweigh the risks.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Well I smoke so I'm gonna eat meat. But I'm going to quit smoking before I quit eating animal products. The fact is animal products are ok to eat in moderation. Fish are healthy. They are low in fat, high in protein and give you vitamins that you cannot find outside of fish. While I agree that the anti smoking groups lie to people to make smoking seem worse than it is (though it is of course terrible for you), the health detriments of eating animal products is not anywhere comparable to those of smoking.
Modern nutritional knowledge disagrees with you. Hell, even the American Heart Association says that a vegan or vegetarian diet is healthy and better than a diet with meat.
Citizen Press Revolution
Damn, 10x in a row! New record.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
Click to send Hate Mail
Actually, a poster a couple comments down also disagrees with you.
The biggest problem with a vegan diet is its lack of B vitamins and Iron, both of which have to be artificially included via enriched foods.
The problem with a diet that includes meat is the higher risk of bad cholesterol.
There are pros and cons to both diets. Someone who doesn't like (or can't eat) soy, for example, may not want to go on to a vegetarian diet because soy is the primary source for protein. On the other hand, some people simply can't eat meat and are healthier on a vegan diet.
All in all, it's not so much a matter of eating or not eating meat, it's a matter of where you get your food from. A vegan diet where the food is coming from farms that use a lot of artificial fertilizers and pesticides can actually be less healthy than a carnivorous diet where the food is coming from free-range, vegetarian feeding farms that don't use hormones.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Here's the facts from the American Heart Association, copied and pasted straight from their website: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4777
* Protein: You don't need to eat foods from animals to have enough protein in your diet. Plant proteins alone can provide enough of the essential and non-essential amino acids, as long as sources of dietary protein are varied and caloric intake is high enough to meet energy needs.
* Whole grains, legumes, vegetables, seeds and nuts all contain both essential and non-essential amino acids. You don't need to consciously combine these foods ("complementary proteins") within a given meal.
* Soy protein has been shown to be equal to proteins of animal origin. It can be your sole protein source if you choose.
* Iron: Vegetarians may have a greater risk of iron deficiency than nonvegetarians. The richest sources of iron are red meat, liver and egg yolk -- all high in cholesterol. However, dried beans, spinach, enriched products, brewer's yeast and dried fruits are all good plant sources of iron.
* Vitamin B-12: This comes naturally only from animal sources. Vegans need a reliable source of vitamin B-12. It can be found in some fortified (not enriched) breakfast cereals, fortified soy beverages, some brands of nutritional (brewer's) yeast and other foods (check the labels), as well as vitamin supplements.
* Vitamin D: Vegans should have a reliable source of vitamin D. Vegans who don’t get much sunlight may need a supplement.
* Calcium: Studies show that vegetarians absorb and retain more calcium from foods than nonvegetarians do. Vegetable greens such as spinach, kale and broccoli, and some legumes and soybean products, are good sources of calcium from plants.
* Zinc: Zinc is needed for growth and development. Good plant sources include grains, nuts and legumes. Shellfish are an excellent source of zinc. Take care to select supplements containing no more than 15-18 mg zinc. Supplements containing 50 mg or more may lower HDL ("good") cholesterol in some people.
So is the diet good? Yes, it can help you, however, it is not perfect. You have to make sure you are watching what you're eating to make sure you're getting everything you need almost as much as you'd need to check nutrition facts on anything to make sure you weren't getting too many bad things. So it's honestly up to your preference.
Silence is golden, that's why you're reading my words, not hearing them