Vegan

[iago]

I figured I should post this here, somewhere open and clear.

Yes, I'm a vegan. The last time I purposely ate something non-vegan was mid-October, when I had a sub at Quiznos and forgot to ask for no cheese. The last time I purposely ate meat was sometime in August or September, when I had a chicken sub at Subway (and my friend suggested I try a veggie sub, which I did the next day since Subway's chicken sucks anyways).

Yes, I'm careful to take all necessary vitamins and minerals (vitamin B12, D, and iron, calcium, and protein). I eat a lot of stir fries, stews, vegetables, beans, middle eastern food, and soy/tofu.

If you have any questions, comments, etc., feel free to post. I know I've brought this up before, but I figured I'd make sure that everybody who cares enough to read my forum notices.

[BigAznDaddy]

i wish i could try to go a month without eating meat or any dairy products but i cant. i just need the protein and all the nutrients that comes out of meat, fish and other stuff like that. although chinese new years is comming up and i have to go at least one day without eating meat. so rice, tofu, and steamed vegetables here i come.

[Newby]

i wish i could try to go a month without eating meat or any dairy products but i cant. i just need the protein and all the nutrients that comes out of meat, fish and other stuff like that.

Supplements. You can do it!

[iago]

i wish i could try to go a month without eating meat or any dairy products but i cant. i just need the protein and all the nutrients that comes out of meat, fish and other stuff like that.

Supplements. You can do it!

You can do it fine without supplements, as long as you eat the right vegetables. There are a lot of world-class athletes (Olympic runners, Tour de France cyclists, weight lifters, etc) who are vegan. It's not easy, and you have to eat a lot of leafy greens and such, but it's certainly possible.

For me, I don't work out a lot (my usual workout is either cycling 20km or walking up stairs to my 16th story apartment), so I just keep up a decent protein intake and I'm good.

[Krazed]

I'm just wondering, whats the real reason behind being Vegan, other then that kid you knew where you used to live?

[iago]

He's not a kid, he's an adult much older than me with a family.

In any case, I meant to mention that in my first post, but I totally forgot to. Then I was going to go back and add that, but I forgot to do that, too.

The reason are really two-fold, though. The first is health. Meat isn't good for you. Meat consumption has been linked to various forms of cancer, heart disease, and other nasty stuff. Not to mention that the majority of saturated fats, cholesterol, and other bad stuff come from dairy and the like. The main benefit to meat and dairy is the vitamins and minerals you get from them, but those can be consumed in different ways that, although they aren't as efficient, they are healthier.

The second reason is ethical. I mentally evaluated my beliefs about animals. Am I ok with animals suffering for me? Dying for me? I'm upset when my dog or cat dies, but not the cow that fed me. Does that make sense? What's the difference between my dog and a cow/pig/chicken, other than familiarity? I couldn't resolve that question in any meaningful way. A lot of people imagine farms as ideal places where animals wander around and stuff, but 80% of the meat in Canada (and probably more in the US) come from factory farms and feedlots. In those situations, animals are treated extremely badly. Dairy cows and egg chickens and such are treated basically the same as the meat animals, and the ones that don't produce enough are simply killed off and fed to the others. When I was at the Calgary zoo, they had buckets of dead baby chickens (the male ones, whatever they're called) to feed animals. They said that they came from chicken farms and that they're of no use since they don't lay eggs, so they're just killed.

I'm aware that this doesn't happen everywhere, but the first part of my paragraph holds, in my mind -- what's so special about me that it's ok for other living animals to die just for my pleasure? I consider that selfish.

In addition to those two main reasons, there are a lot of good facts here, including environmental reasons, monetary reasons, etc. Those weren't big concerns in my mind, but they're definitely worth looking at.

The main influence of my friend who did it was showing me that it's not a difficult lifestyle to live. Before I knew him, I assumed that it was an extremely difficult lifestyle to maintain. After seeing him do it, I realized that it was a pretty easy lifestyle, as long as you don't mind giving up things like fastfood. So there you go.


Also note that I'm not trying to start an argument, and that this decision isn't up for debate. But you asked for the facts, so there they are.

[Towelie]

The first is health. Meat isn't good for you. Meat consumption has been linked to various forms of cancer, heart disease, and other nasty stuff. Not to mention that the majority of saturated fats, cholesterol, and other bad stuff come from dairy and the like. The main benefit to meat and dairy is the vitamins and minerals you get from them, but those can be consumed in different ways that, although they aren't as efficient, they are healthier.

That made me lol. It is like saying that breathing has been linked to cancer, or drinking water has been proven to cause death.

[Sidoh]

That made me lol. It is like saying that breathing has been linked to cancer, or drinking water has been proven to cause death.

There's a much stronger correlation then that.

[iago]

The first is health. Meat isn't good for you. Meat consumption has been linked to various forms of cancer, heart disease, and other nasty stuff. Not to mention that the majority of saturated fats, cholesterol, and other bad stuff come from dairy and the like. The main benefit to meat and dairy is the vitamins and minerals you get from them, but those can be consumed in different ways that, although they aren't as efficient, they are healthier.

That made me lol. It is like saying that breathing has been linked to cancer, or drinking water has been proven to cause death.

I can't really argue that, because it doesn't really make sense. But maybe I'll talk a bit about risk management.

It really comes down to risk levels (which I can talk about all day, because managing risk is essentially my job). Everything you do carries a certain level of risk and a certain level of "return" (pleasure? utility? call it what you want). The first step to risk management is to identify and understand the risks, and the second step is to evaluate whether or not the risk is worth taking, based on your understanding of it. That's how all of our decisions are made, basically, only we don't really think of it that way, it's built in.

Now, to look at breathing and drinking water, perhaps there is some risk involved. You can inhale something dangerous, or drink too much water. But the return on taking the risk is continuing to live, so that's a risk that everybody accepts without even thinking about it. Smoking cigarettes, driving cars, walking outside at night, and drinking pop are also risks, but each can also have associated returns for taking them. Cigarettes relax people, cars speed up transportation, walking at night could save money, and people enjoy the taste of pop. That's another example of a risk-return analysis -- some people lean one way, some people lean the other.

So apply that to meat -- when you eat meat, you're raising your risk of heart disease and cancer. The benefit is that you get to enjoy the taste/texture of what you're eating. That's the very simplest way to look at it. Is the benefit worth the risk? I personally don't think it is, but that's my personal evaluation.

Admittedly, there's more to it than that, which you can see from my other post. But I wanted to make this a fairly simple risk-benefit analysis.

And incidentally, because breathing and drinking water don't even correlate with cancer or death, your argument makes no sense to begin with. Unless you can provide the "link" you speak of? But really, I suspect that this whole post won't mean a thing to you. (Also, what Sidoh said while I was typing. )

[Ender]

On "milk fat":

My family friend bought me a bar of dark chocolate. As a vegan, I can eat dark chocolate so long as they don't add milk into it. But when I scanned the ingredients of this bar, I found one instance of milk: "milk fat".

In fact, I found this in many other items of their house, such as the waffles. And in all these other items that I'm talking about, the word "milk fat" was the only instance of "milk" in the ingredients.

What's up with this? Wikipedia says

Butterfat or milkfat is the fatty portion of milk. Milk and cream are often sold according to the amount of butterfat they contain.

Is that why they list milk fat as an ingredient in the dark chocolate bar and waffles we have here? As a substitute for the word "milk"? Or is it because there's actually no dairy in there, just the fat that comes from milk.

In either case, it should not be okay for a vegan, since it's still an animal byproduct.

[iago]

Weird, I've never seen that ingredient before, the big ones you have to watch out for are whey, casein, and gelatin. I don't know what that is, but it's definitely non-vegan.

I try to buy organic foods as much as I can, I got a brand of toaster waffles called "flax plus". They're really good. I don't know if you have Safeway where you live, but around here Safeway is selling more and more organic things. I'm actually pretty impressed at their selection. But in any case, organic foods tend to have less extraneous ingredients (preservatives, colours, fillers, etc) than their counterparts, which I like. I still read labels, of course.

[Rule]

[CrAz3D]

Meat isn't good for you. Meat consumption has been linked to various forms of cancer, heart disease, and other nasty stuff.

Bull shit.  if you watch what you eat almost anything natural is good.

[Blaze]

Meat isn't good for you. Meat consumption has been linked to various forms of cancer, heart disease, and other nasty stuff.

Bull shit.  if you watch what you eat almost anything natural is good.

Actually, iago is correct.

[iago]

Meat isn't good for you. Meat consumption has been linked to various forms of cancer, heart disease, and other nasty stuff.

Bull shit.  if you watch what you eat almost anything natural is good.

Let me re-state this for the 100th time: NOTHING you eat is natural!

And it's true -- do some research if you don't believe it.