There are tons of easy alternatives for vegetable protein, including good old lentils, beans, chickpeas, etc. You don't have to go out of your way to buy tempeh or gourmet vegetarian food.

Hitting high protein or low carb macros is difficult without some kind of protein supplement. I'm currently targeting 50% fat, 25% protein, 25% carbs for endurance reasons. Of course this isn't applicable to everyone. But it is applicable to anyone who needs to keep carbs low for health reasons, or anyone with some kind of athletic hobby.

Also bear in mind that not all protein is created equal. If wheat gluten wasn't low in lysine, I'd eat a lot more of it.

So, basically:

1. "healthy" doesn't mean living a long life free of ailments. It means achieving your standard of athletic performance as a hobby.

2. "challenging" doesn't mean difficult. It means doing some research, buying more tempeh at once and maybe freezing it, or just buying a protein supplement.

> "challenging" doesn't mean difficult. It means doing some research, buying

That's already too much. I can do that, and you can do that. Our jobs are to research things and then implement them. Most people will not or can not do this. Expecting them to is a waste of time.

The way to solve this would be to de-incentivize meat production on the supply side, and encourage food distributors to fortify food with micronutrients that are commonly missing in vegetarian diets (vitamin B12, calcium, etc). Anything short of this is not going to do much except turn people off from being vegetarian.

I'm curious what else you think is missing in a vegan/vegetarian diet, because calcium is not one of them, and even "omnivores" are recommended to supplement B12 - it's produced by soil bacteria that we would in the past get from fresh vegetables, and that's how animals should get it, too, but even now meat animals are given B12 supplements.

Calcium is most certainly an issue. A lot of vegan dairy substitutes are already fortified with calcium for this specific reason.

I'm still learning this stuff myself. But from the things I've read so far, vegans (especially the WFPB variety) can have difficulty getting: Vitamin B12, calcium[0], iron, and possibly a balanced amino acid profile if they have elevated protein requirements. A diet too high in carbs and too low in fat and protein can also cause long term problems like candida overgrowth and hormonal imbalances.

[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3967195/

I just want to make sure I am clear on the argument you are making. Are you saying the average person can't easily be healthy without meat? That it would require them to do research? That it is easier for them to be healthy on meat-including diet without doing any research?

I agree that none of this matters as long as people can eat meat. They will if they can.

> I just want to make sure I am clear on the argument you are making

Yes, that's a decent summery. Populations would be less healthy if meat just suddenly disappeared with no other changes. Although, in the United States at least, we massively over-consume meat to the detriment of our health. But we rely on it as a source of many micronutrients that we otherwise wouldn't get by default.

Additionally, these changes will never happen without regulatory changes on the supply side to artificially drive up the cost of meat production.

Beans, lentils, and chickpeas are not a substitute for meat, in terms of either nutrition or flavor. Vegetable protein does not equal meat protein in terms of amino acids. Plant proteins are typically low in methionene, tryptophan, lycine, and isoleucine [0]. My point is not that vegetarianism is completely impossible, but that it is hard to get everything necessary. This is especially true for anyone who is trying to build muscle or get in shape. It certainly doesn't taste as good, especially if you don't want to take tons of time cooking.

It still takes "gourmet" vegetarian food to compare to regular meat.

[0] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/animal-vs-plant-protein

I don't know, looking at this chart is seems extremely easy to meet those amino acids with plant foods.

https://vegfaqs.com/important-vegan-amino-acids/

Just looking at lysine:

> There’s no official RDA for lysine, but according to research, you typically want to aim for about 12 mg per kg of bodyweight.

> For example, a 170 lb person needs 924 mg per day, or more.

So a cup of soybeans providers 1.33 grams, oats, lentils and any bean at least a gram per serving.

Oatmeal for breakfast, nuts for a snack and a mix of vegetables with some beans or tofu for dinner and you exceed the RDA for every one of those amino acids you've listed. All healthy things you should be incorporating into your diet anyway (fiber rich). So while a single food may not meet the RDA alone, it seems very easy to meet with a combination of common foods in a plant based diet.

Not to mention nutrients that are supplemented in vegan diets often are also supplemented in omni diets (B12 in meat and Vitamin D in milk, for example, are only because of supplementation and fortification).

> It certainly doesn't taste as good, especially if you don't want to take tons of time cooking. > It still takes "gourmet" vegetarian food to compare to regular meat.

I had plenty of terrible meat meals and many amazing vegan dishes. I would say the standard American diet lacks a lot of knowledge about tasty ways to cook plants, but they do exist and they aren't hard. Ethiopian and Indian cooking, for example, have a strong tradition of plant based dishes that are easy to make. Many other cuisines can easily be adapted.

Well said. I generally also like to point out that many meats are eaten with some kind of flavouring/ sauce to make them taste better. These flavourings and sauces are nearly entirely made of vegetables and fruits...

> It certainly doesn't taste as good

I'd say that's pretty subjective. I haven't missed meat from a taste perspective. The smell actually starts to get a little bit repulsive when I go for months without it.

The rest of your point is very relevant though. I supplement with whey protein. But if it wasn't for that, I'd really be struggling to hit amino acid targets. Being an athletic vegan is borderline impossible in my opinion.

> Being an athletic vegan is borderline impossible in my opinion.

There are a great number of vegan athletes that disagree. E.g. Patrik Baboumian, one of the strongest people alive, is vegan. America's best Olympic weight lifter (maybe not currently but has been), Kendrick Ferris, is vegan. Keep an eye out for the release of the moving "The Game Changers" [1] for more.

[1] http://gamechangersmovie.com/

Just copying and pasting this link from a sibling comment to yours to point out that oatmeal, nuts, and beans are generally good enough to cover the amino acids that are otherwise hard to get from a vegan diet https://vegfaqs.com/important-vegan-amino-acids/

Agreed that it's really hard to be an athletic vegan, but seems doable if you hit these amino targets and still supplement with pea protein or something.

You're right that taste is subjective, and that what tastes good for one may not for another. That is a large part of the reason that I take issue when people self-righteously say I should be eating a vegan diet, eating insects, etc.

Which is really pathetic if you think about it. Cutting way down or eliminating meat is actually extremely easy, especially anywhere in the US. But people value Instagramming their bacon too much.

As a species we have a very heavy karmic payback coming and these kinds of attitudes are a big part of the reason.

Also you don't need tempeh. Beans are available everywhere, just as nutritious, and dirt cheap.

> But people value Instagramming their bacon too much.

...Yeah pretty sure that's not the reason. Vegetarian meals are usually more colorful and better for photos, bacon is a very boring photo.

It's the taste. Tempeh is a decent bacon substitute, beans are not. I feel like I'm missing some sarcasm here or something.

I'm not defending eating meat here. All I'm saying is you might want to broaden your own horizons as to why people eat it.

To pretend things like taste don't exist makes your argument disingenuous and makes anyone likely to dismiss your arguments right away.

If you're going to boil it down so simply, there are cruelty free sources of meat, and since you choose to ignore that and your only argument is cruelty... I'm just going to ignore everything else you say, because the one area I do understand, I understand you're making stuff up about.

HN hivemind is triggered! Thanks for spreading awareness (I'm vegan btw)

This isn't spreading awareness, this is how you make people sick of your cause. This is like the angry preacher who goes down to college campuses and yells that sex is the devil. After enough missing-the-point, anyone not on your side gives up listening or actively assumes anything else you say is also missing the point.

> Which is really pathetic if you think about it.

Blaming individuals for a demographic problem is not productive. It doesn't seem like you read that part though...

How is it a demographic problem? Who is forcing you to eat meat? Most societal changes are brought about by individuals with the courage to question something that is wrong but socially normalized.

Reducing systemic, global issues to the actions of the individuals is simplistic. It's technically true that if everyone stopped eating meat tomorrow these industries would collapse, but it's also true that if people would simply stop killing each other, we wouldn't need prisons. People are not autonomous rational actors, we're creatures with a context, wills, and desires. "Simply be more virtuous" glosses over why the choices people have to make and are able to make exist in the first place. Don't eat meat, sure, I won't argue that in the right context that's the virtuous choice, but why is it on US to change, rather than the people at the actual levers of power?

Also, "simply be more virtuous" is never a solution that has ever worked. I've had similar conversations - "getting a job is easy, just pick a good major and work hard like I did." Sure, but what did standing there and saying that do? When I go meet with the city council, and I say those exact words, what has been accomplished? What policy can be written, what programs can be started, based off casting an accusation like that?

Who is forcing you to use single use plastic? Who is forcing you to drive a car powered by an internal combustion engine? Who is forcing you to eat food produced on degrading land? That's not how the tragedy of the commons works.

> Most societal changes are brought about by individuals with the courage to question something that is wrong but socially normalized.

[Citation needed]

The truth is that most sweeping societal change is driven by a central government and always has been. Everything from the transition to city-states, the industrial revolution to civil rights. Individuals convince their central governments to act, but you can't just convince an entire population to change their mind without a monopoly on violence.

>Who is forcing you to eat meat?

Are people "forced" to celebrate Valentine's day? Are they "forced" to wear blue jeans? Listen to either rock OR pop OR rap OR country?

Demographic == culture. We eat meat because we eat meat because we ate meat, for ten thousand years.

Do you blame a child for their "choice" of religion? Do you blame a family that drives to work over taking the bus, which sucks 4 hours extra out of their day because they live in Pocatello, Idaho and don't have much of a transit system?

> But people value Instagramming their bacon too much.

You realize people enjoy bacon for the flavor, right?

If they're smart enough to subdue me and my entire civilization using technology unfathomable to my puny human mind then I guess I don't really get a say and it doesn't matter what I think anyway, now does it?

There's an analogy to livestock in there if you look hard enough.

So if intelligence is the marker, is it ok to manipulate mentally handicapped people?

We're not talking about marginal intelligence difference. You're making the exception the rule. We're talking different species here. The food chain applies and if you're not at the top there's no advocate built into nature for you. You're a commodity and the only thing securing your survival is your value and the responsibility of the species above you.

Of course I would. Do you think my lack of objection somehow shows a moral inconsistency? I think you do -- but that's only true if you project a very rigid and symmetrical concept of moral intuition on to me, which I promise you I don't hold.

I'd be more interested in their recipes.