...and I'm sure eating an egg here and there from your back-yard hen (AKA living garbage disposal) will absolutely ruin all of it... /s

I don't disagree that theres a lot of room and a some benefits to reducing meat consumption. But I don't think that's the same as it being sensible for everyone to be vegan.

Vegans will always say their way is better. There's a commitment there with zero room for compromise, and I think IMO for many it's a fad.

For many for who it is just a diet, often it's just a fad. But for those who stick to it, it is very important to them and it most certainly isn't a fad. So veganism is certainly not a fad, but that doesn't stop some people treating it as such. But those people who try it are welcome to, at the very least it will bring them some perspective on a life of eating meat.

It's not a fad. Veganism is like a cult. Vegans are starving their infants to death for their "religion".

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/wjqbem/judge-convicts...

Plant-only diet is terrible for humans just like a meat-only diet. The best diet for humans is a balanced diet.

..and pets...

As you clearly know, life is about balance. I'd say the ideal diet is mostly vegan, with exceptions made for very well-made cheese (in France), the occasional egg from a pastured hen, a steak once every few months from a cow who got to run around and eat grass, and wild fish once a week or so.

My wife used to believe this, and then she got so sick she nearly needed a blood transfusion. Dietary needs are not universal in the slightest.

She cannot have carbs or sugars, but she needs certain kinds of meat like fish or chicken.

The only way to find this stuff out is to have detailed dietary analysis and bloodwork. You might be surprised what you find out about your own body.

That being said, yes eating nutritious plants is never a bad idea. Being vegan on the other hand, is probably overboard for 90% of humans.

I find much greater benefits avoiding vegan foods like sugar, excess alcohol, and overly processed carbohydrates. I've seen "vegan" brownies and cake.

My diet is rich in minimally processed foods like vegetables, fruit, flour I mill myself (I have a home mill), but also meat, egg, and dairy.

Liver is an amazing nutritionally dense food, and there's no benefit to not eating it. Eggs are great too. Fish are great. There's nothing wrong with red meat either in reasonable quantities.

All of which is saying that I see "vegan" as sort of orthogonal to dietary health. It includes things that are bad for you and excludes things that are good for you.

> And from personal experience its much easier and more fun than you could dare to expect.

Honestly curious - how is this fun? I try to eat less meat for a personal medical reason and finding non-meat dishes is a hassle, and at some restaurants it's impossible.

I would suggest exploring the cuisines of cultures that are predominantly vegetarian. I was very much a meat-and-potatoes person growing up in the American Midwest, and I haven't moved completely away from meat-eating, but I eat far less now because I learned how to cook Indian, Thai, and Vietnamese food at home. Cuisines where vegetarianism isn't a second-class citizen tend to put more effort into making good-tasting vegetarian dishes.

Whereabouts (country) are you? I've just started cutting drastically down on meat consumption (maybe eat it twice a week now), and it's been really easy (in the UK).

> The health benefits of a whole food plant based diet are astonishing

No. The health benefits of a balanced diet is astonishing. Vegan diets are just as bad for humans as meatatarian diets.

> and the whole missing vitamin mineral thing is trivially taken care of.

It isn't.

> Becoming vegan will lead to immediate and long term health benefits.

No it won't. Having a balanced diet will. That's why all the oldest people are omnivores.

Humans are built to be omnivores.

A vegan diet is a terrible diet for humans. That's why it has to be augmented so much. The cult of veganism has to be countered just like any other cult.

There is so much to unpack and criticize here, but just for fun, i'll bite on this one:

>> and the whole missing vitamin mineral thing is trivially taken care of.

>It isn't.

I'm dead serious when I say that if you can demonstrate this, you'll be handed a PHd on a platter. Possibly a Nobel prize.

Get writing!

PS sorry can't resist, you'll get another Nobel for publishing how humans are 'built to be...'.

And the typical vegan diet is terrible. A whole food plant based diet is fundamentally different - they only share the fact that they are based on non animal products

It's so funny that every topic on veganism, you are always to be found.

> I'm dead serious when I say that if you can demonstrate this, you'll be handed a PHd on a platter. Possibly a Nobel prize.

Are you dead serious?

> PS sorry can't resist, you'll get another Nobel for publishing how humans are 'built to be...'.

Well considering we aren't obligate carnivores and we aren't obligate herbivores, I wonder what we are?

Eating meat, just like eating vegetables, fruits, etc made us who we are. We are actually built by our food consumption evolutionarily speaking.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16990.epdf

> And the typical vegan diet is terrible.

Yes. Because it's not ones humans are designed for.

> A whole food plant based diet is fundamentally different - they only share the fact that they are based on non animal products

Yikes. That just sounds like a rebranding of a terrible idea. Kind of like how "neo-nazis" rebranded to alt-right.

Balanced diet including meat, veggies, etc > vegan/whole food diet. Human society has proven this to be true. The dominant human society is the balanced diet society. No vegan society nor meat-only society truly exists.