That's a fair point. Another athlete I do follow who is ripped[1], has been reportedly Vegan since he was 2. Generally speaking when I think of building muscle in the gym, I think of protein powder and supplements as opposed to eating ever larger quantities of meat; I don't think that's controversial? AFAIK the only thing you need if you are vegan is a Vitamin supplement.
I'm not a Vegan promoter or anything -- I'm not even sure what a Vegan eats for most of their meals (but would love to learn). But having some background in nutrition I'm skeptical there's any shortcoming to being Vegetarian, Vegan, etc, that a very simple supplement (i.e. like one regular vitamin) wouldn't overcome.
Most protein powder is whey-based (not vegan). Whey protein is generally inferior to muscle, connective tissue, etc. but it's typically a lot cheaper. It's better than plant-based alternatives though. Plant protein efficiency is terrible compared to animal protein efficiency, so any moderately muscular vegan is likely eating prodigious quantities of mediocre protein sources like peanut butter.
> AFAIK the only thing you need if you are vegan is a Vitamin supplement.
This is what some vegans will tell you, but you only need to look at the ones saying this to know it's not true. I know some vegans who could be mistaken for non-vegans from a fitness standpoint, and they put quite a lot of work into maintaining their diet. More than just taking a few vitamin pills.
OTOH, you can achieve better results by just eating a lot of steak...
BTW, famous vegan athletes almost never start vegan, and tend to quickly retire due to increased injury rates and slowed recovery.
Otherwise it's just a load of bull ;)
> 'single biggest way' to become unhealthy, weak, and scrawny
https://old.reddit.com/r/veganfitness/
It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.
- American Dietetic Association
A vegetarian or vegan diet can be suitable for everyone, regardless of their age.
- NHS UK
A plant-based diet is based on foods derived from plants, […] with few or no animal products. […] Well-planned plant-based diets can support healthy living at every age and life-stage.
- British Dietetic Association
> they are methodologically very dishonest (tricks like falsely equating protein quality)
For adults, protein from two or more plant groups daily is like to be adequate.
- WHO
> anti-meat activism tends to be either quasi- or literally religious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vWbV9FPo_Q - Melanie Joy, The psychology of eating meat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7JE8j5Ncmw - James Wildman, Think
> every problem is actually caused by that thing I don't like
Plethora of studies has confirmed that (animal) agriculture is one of the biggest destroyers of our environment. It's mostly animal products consumers who reject latest science and choose to be ignorant of those problems.
I've had my mind changed (sometimes in significant ways) many times on HN. I would love it if vegans were correct on this topic, but unfortunately their epistemic rigor tends to be extremely bad and as far as I can tell they are pretty uniformly incorrect when they make claims like this.
I think if you understood my objection, you wouldn't have bothered trying to convince me with links from organizations that exist solely to transmit low-quality information to midwits, like the WHO or random advocacy/lobbying group websites.
The types of information that would convince me are e.g. epistemically sound research papers, and I can almost guarantee that I've read more of those than you have if you think random quote clippings from the WHO should have any impact whatsoever on anyone's priors.
Sadly, your response is unfortunately quite typical of veganism enthusiasts on this website. Very condescending, but completely devoid of any kind of useful information.
Your towering intellect, armed with an exclusive collection of "epistemically sound research papers," surely eclipses the feeble influence of organizations like the WHO.
How foolish of us to think their information could impact anyone's priors.
Your insightful critique of veganism enthusiasts, while devoid of substance, certainly showcases your unmatched condescension. Thank you for gracing us with your profound wisdom and invaluable lack of useful information.
Also the 'single biggest way' to become unhealthy, weak, and scrawny. There is no conceivable way that the (putative, but questionable) negative externalities of healthy food consumption outweigh that.
Also, given that anti-meat activism tends to be either quasi- or literally religious (in the case of groups like Seventh-day adventists), of course my prior is that any anti-meat activist can dump a huge pile of link spam saying "hey, check it out, every problem is actually caused by that thing I don't like". This has little bearing on my posterior distribution, because every time I've looked into specific claims about emission equivalence or deforestation, they are methodologically very dishonest (typically by tricks like falsely equating protein quality or assigning revenue in bizarre ways).