> Then then we have the decadent white folks with first world problems complicating things with crazy vegan diets.

What does skin color have to do with veganism? Nothing at all. And most vegans are actually brown, as the sibling comment has pointed out. This is not a "first world" problem, since in fact the first world is clearly consuming the most meat. (+)

Want to know what's decadent? The scale of industrial meat production. Keeping animals who never see any daylight in a much too small space for example. Eating beef everyday despite climate change.

(+) And, by the way, I have always disliked the term "first world problem". On average, life tastes pretty much the same for everyone, though obviously it's different in extreme circumstances. Suffering and pain and real and imagined problems feel essentially the same for everyone. By all means, let's improve the economic conditions in the third world but let's stop pretending economic abundance somehow equals happiness and a lack of problems.

How do you explain the roughly 500 million vegetarians in India?

Good one. At least they do consume milk and milk products. Otherwise 32M diabetics too [1]. Of course, it could be mostly form the non-vegetarian among them, but even in that case it would be a higher than expected portion of the population.

[1] http://www.who.int/diabetes/facts/world_figures/en/index5.ht...

That consume plenty of dairy - which offers the same nutritional benefits as meat.

But doesn't [directly] kill any sentient being. Yay! <milk production still abuses said animals bred for production>

As aesthetically pleasing as I find it I still can't go totally vegitarian. I have however and somehow released my eating of beef. Tiny steps, right?

As aesthetically pleasing as I find it I still can't expect everyone else to go totally vegitarian. But I think we may have to edge there over the coming decades as it's so wildly inefficient.

edit: pedantry

Cows only produce milk for their young. A milk cow is constantly bred to produce young which she then produces milk for. We want the milk, so we tale the calf away from the mother. Male calves are mostly useless and are killed young for veal. Some of the females are kept to replenish the herd.

Make whatever choices you want, but cows milk is not something that just drops out of cows.

Very true. Thanks for the reminder. Even goats have the same situation. I guess the truest non violent solution would be to milk soy beans or nuts. At least no one can hear empathize with them as fellow sentient beings.

Even in the production of vegetables and grains many sentient beings are killed. They just happen to be mostly insects or smaller mammals.

Try going into a garden without stepping on anything, or using a thrasher without killing a single thing.

That's why Buddhists don't get too crazy with the whole vegetarian thing, most eat meat (albeit not necessarily in our North American super-size me portions)...

> But doesn't [directly] kill any sentient being. Yay! <milk production still abuses said animals bred for production>

Historically consumption of milk is more about efficiency in turning feed -> nutrients, not necessarily about non-violent principles. Even in the production of vegetables, sentient beings are killed all the time (just incidentally).

Only a small number of those are vegan. Different diet.

Though why bother asking? The parent has his mind all made up.

Religious ignorance? Their dietary choice is not for its nutritional value, it's based on religious guidelines and taboo foods.

Also, a lot of them live in harsh conditions and have low life expectancy.

I think stevoski meant "How do you explain [the relative health and sustained society of] the 500 million vegetarians in India [despite the negative health consequences of vegetarianism]?"

So your "religious ignorance" answer is kinda a flippant one.

I was trying to explain how that diet is sustained.

As for the "relative health" I don't think there's much to begin with to explain. Where did the parent saw it?

A quick search for "Indian life expectancy" puts it at 66 years, vs 78 for the US and 74 for China (results for 2012).

Diet of course is not the only factor in this, but it plays a role, and the numbers don't seem very "relatively healthy" to me. Are there other numbers people can point to to qualify the "relative health" point?

If we mean "relatively healthy" compared to a diet heavy in sugars, HFCS, sodium etc, with obesity like that in parts of the US (South, midwest etc), it might be better -- but that's a pretty low bar.

The correct comparison to perform would be with a stable diet that includes fruits, vegetables et al PLUS meat and fish.