It seems like the most immediate way to meet low-cost but high volume is through in vitro meat culture [1]. It will likely take awhile to clear the health and GMO-fear hurdles, but it's coming. Especially places where raising livestock in traditional ways drastically harms the environment (mass pig dumps in rivers, or limited land resources in island nations).
Decentralizing growth of meat and other food, as mentioned in the article, is probably a good thing too, just like decentralizing internet services or electrical generation. However, I don't completely buy the 'decentralize everything' argument that has become popular lately. While it brings us closer to the libertarian dream, some advantages are lost as well. Also, I'm not convinced the innovations that enable decentralized agricultural or electrical generation don't have the same positive impact on the centralized version of the system. Except, in the centralized system you benefit from economies of scale. We'll probably end up with some kind hybrid system.
The only solution I foresee comes from technologies such as the one you mention, in vitro meat. Billions of families on earth have an entrenched cultural desire for meat. It's much easier for a technological revolution to happen than to change culture.
"Some of the company’s prized purebred birds can now add a pound of weight for every 1.2 pounds of feed consumed"
That's great news. Also compared to cows, chickens emit much less methane and other greenhouse gases, especially if their manure is handled properly. Not to mention they're working on breeding to improve that. And given it takes only ~ 30 days to raise a chicken, that reduces overall energy consumption running the farm.
But I think WSJ understated how healthy a vegan diet is, aside from lacking B-12.
There are a lot of myths about B-12. The most persistent one is that it comes from meat. It's actually made by bacteria. Vegetarians and vegans only lack it in modern society because of (a) antibiotic use, harming bacterial population, and (b) "clean" foods, which fails to reintroduce those bacteria, and which lack b12 themselves.
Not so surprisingly, the same is true for modern animals including farmed cows and pigs. I can't find a the source now (and apparently neither can wikipedia editors, cause they deleted it), but a very significant percentage of B12 production today (some say upwards of 80%) goes to animals. Some of it for their well-being, but most of it for the people eating them. A contender for the "least-efficient-way-to-supplement-vitamins", I think.
Also, many non-vegans and non-vegetarians suffer from B12 deficiency these days.
„...understated how healthy a vegan diet is...“ One question always crosses my mind when I hear this, maybe someone knows an answer here on HN.
It seems easy to tell the negative effects of eating meat (might cause cancer, etc). But are all the effects of not eating animal products at all in the long-term well known? And I don't mean not eating animal products for 1 year or 10 years but for multiple generations.
Will people who have not eaten animal products for 1000 years still have a life expectancy similiar to the general population (I guess animal product-eaters)? Will they have more/less diseases, higher/lower IQ, etc.
Haven't some or most Indians been vegan/vegetarian for generations? Anectdotally, I have met Indian vegans with really high IQs. Also, Indians in general seem to have short stature. I wonder how much of that is due to genes and how much can be attributed to diet.
My family moved to the US when I was 2 years old. My brother and I are a full 6 inches taller than our parents, even though we ate traditional (Andhra) Indian cooking and rice every meal at home until we went to college. Most of my parents' friends' children are similarly taller than their parents
It seems easy to tell the negative effects of eating meat (might cause cancer, etc).
It's absolutely not easy. For example, there is still no conclusive evidence on meat causing cancer. There is no mechanism - there are no carcinogens in meat. What was actually found was that processed meats, and also meat cooked on open fire or otherwise charred may contain carcinogens. Still nothing on meat prepared in other ways, i.e. boiled.
To provide at least somewhat credible proof, it would be required to find groups of people, who do not eat read meat at all ever, then other group - who eat read meat but not processed or cooked on open fire, and finally a group that only eats processed or cooked on open fire meat. And even if you could identify such groups of people, how could you possibly eliminate all other potential confounders?
Same with vegetarians vs meat eaters. Vegetarians on average are more health conscious: more exercise, less smoking and alcohol, more healthy habits in general. It is completely wrong and dishonest to just compare them to meat eaters and say "see, how many benefits you get from not eating meat".
But are all the effects of not eating animal products at all in the long-term well known?
Again, it is not very easy. Groups of people who avoid animal products on the grounds of i.e. religion (Buddhism) do not stand out as remarcably healthy. And groups of people who are vegetarians for health reasons have many healthy habits that confound meat avoidance as the reason for their better health. So no, it's not quite conclusive as well.
I've recently read "The Blue Zones" book[1]. The authors identified areas where the unexpectedly high percentage of centenarians live, and did some research to try and find out the possible reasons behind their longevity. The interesting thing is that people consume at least some meat in all of these zones, except for about 30% of Loma Linda's Seven Day Adventists, who are vegetarians.
So there you go: even if meat is not a hard and fast requirement for health and longevity, it certainly is not a source of sickness and shortened lifespan.
This is sickening. At the risk of starting a flame war I'll still state my opinion: the only reason for eating meat is taste. The same goes for cheese and other dairy products.
The arguments against the meat & dairy industry are well known: chronic disease, depletion and pollution of natural resources, global warming, and above all the moral argument: enslaving sentient beings is wrong.
200 years ago in the US they were breeding human slaves [1]. Today they still breed chicken slaves and cow slaves and pig slaves, selecting for higher fertility and higher production of eggs, milk and meat. Then these animals spend all their lives enslaved, from birth to death, a life of absolute misery.
I'm not saying killing animals for food is inherently a wrong act, but enslaving them sure is.
You're right - it is sickening. And it's increasingly becoming this elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about.
I used to be totally in the bandwagon of "those annoying vegans trying to make people feel bad for eating meat". Now I agree - why shouldn't you shame someone for doing something bad? Buying and consuming animal products is bad for everyone involved: bad for the person eating them, the environment and the animals. We would shame corporations for polluting the environment and we would shame a person for abusing their pets in the way factory farming does animals, so why is it ok if they do it by proxy?
I read a nutrition book called "The China Study" about 6 months ago and it was the push I needed to seriously give veganism a try. I don't deny it, I love the taste of certain meats and at times I do miss them and I do occasionally still eat fish (sushi is my favourite food).
I'm feeling better in every sense. I was surprised to see that my body composition is actually better now, even though my protein intake is markedly lower (I was 95kg and ~14% body fat before and am 87kg and ~10% now, judging BF% with calipers so not exactly precise), my weightlifting strength is up, my cardio endurance is improved, my skin is _hugely_ clearer and I anecdotally seem to have more energy - I definitely feel less lethargic after eating. My biggest concern was loss of muscle mass given lower protein intake, somehow I am looking better and feeling stronger than before. I'm eating around 3-600g of carbs per day (!) which is all coming from whole fruit and veg, which seemed totally ridiculous to me before coming from a close-to-paleo high fat high protein diet.
FWIW I'm a 22 y/o male and consume around 3-4000 cals/day and work out 5-6 times per week so YMMV.
Driving a car increases your risk of death via accident by an astronomical amount. Shame on you!
The only leg vegans have to stand on in the argument against meat is the cruelty occurring in factory farms. That cruelty isn't inherent in the process of raising and slaughtering animals though. Not to mention life in the wild can be pretty rough as well.
I don't eat for health reasons - I eat because I'm hungry and good food tastes great. Lunch and dinner are the two best parts of my day. On birthdays of myself and my partner, we go out and eat a tasting menu with matched drinks at one of London's best restaurants. On holiday, probably the most enjoyable part of the day is eating local food with local wine.
Food including meat is not something I would want to live without. Meat is one of the best reasons to be alive, from a hedonistic perspective.
Lifelong vegetarian here, and I can say from my experience I feel healthier and more fit on a mostly plant based diet, with some animal protein (eggs). I did take a year when I was 22 and experimented with eating meat, and I will still occasionally cheat and eat a bit of animal flesh here or there. Maybe not the right diet for everyone but works for me and you too it seems.
Because I spent a year eating meat regularly specifically to see if I would feel healthier or perform better in exercise, and ultimately found I felt better eating mostly plants so switched back. Still eat some animals rarely so I am not a puritan veggie.
I'd rather eat meat than most of the product that passes for protein in many restricted diets. Not just because of the taste.
> a life of absolute misery.
No. Not all. Some yes, and mistreatment of animals is definitely a problem, but I can't agree with the conclusion that because some animals are mistreated, we shouldn't eat any.
I do know that the majority of the meat (beef) I eat is extremely well treated for its entire life. Yes, they are bred and grown for a purpose. Yes, it lives in a paddock and yes, we eat it. But "enslaved" and "misery" are not words which are applicable.
FWIW, I'm not from the USA, and have grown up around farms and farm animals.
(When I say "majority" above, I mean that we also buy some meat from supermarkets and I can't be totally certain of how it has been treated, but in my opinion, the vast majority of farmers treat their animals very well here.)
"enslaved" and "misery" are not words which are applicable.
Regardless of the day to day treatment of animals (which is only even "acceptable" in a tiny minority of places[1]), they are still bred to meet our needs and killed long before the end of their natural life. You shouldn't be measuring the treatment of the animals you eat relative to awful treatment they experience elsewhere in the world, you should measure it relative to the life the animals would lead naturally [edited from "in the wild"]. Animals killed for meat are usually slaughtered very early on in their life, long before they've lived 10% of what they would live naturally [edited from "in the wild"].
[1] Factory farming is near 99% of all livestock farming in the USA.
This certainly makes me think about things. Many animals in the wild fall victim to predators (a terrible and painful death), and many die prematurely of illness and famine.
The meat I eat doesn't have those problems.
We do indeed slaughter it "as soon as it is ready" rather than at end of natural life though, it's certainly something for me to think more about.
edit: to keep it clear about where my stance comes from: we don't factory farm. The beef I'm talking about is grass reared outside in open paddocks, with additional hay during winter, salt lick, "drenched" for worms, and eaten at approximately 2 years old. They come up to "say hi" if you stand at the fence and wait quietly. They are not really exposed to dogs for rounding up.
The vast majority of farmed animals are only alive at all because they are farmed. Wild animals would not fare well - what is now farmland would be put to different use.
(I don't live in the US, and I grew up in the Irish countryside amongst the many cows in the fields.)
How comfortable is the "natural" life an animal might live? Talk to any hunter and ask what kind of animals they come across in the wild: starved, infected (parasites, bacteria, fungi), horrible injured due to a predator attack, etc.
I'd argue there is probably less suffering for farm raised animals then those in the wild.
I've come to the same conclusion myself, after stopping eating meat several years ago.
People are addicted to the taste of meat and they eat it out of the desire for pleasure.
We can have a healthy and beautiful body without eating any meat.
Sometimes I wonder, how would the world be like if people ate no meat and didn't keep billions of animals as slave prisoners ? What if people stopped killing animals for food ?
Would that affect the way that humans treat each other too ?
Would people treat plants and nature differently too ?
Would that be a more aggressive or a more peaceful world ?
Would that affect the social structure of humans ?
Would that be a more spiritually evolved world ?
We can be opportunistic feeders, but we can be kind and affectionate towards each other and towards other species.
Given the state of our technological development, It's now a matter of choice.
We choose to be in a certain way (eg. opportunistic feeders) according to our ideology and system of beliefs.
But technically, we don't have to do that anymore. We are now technologically advanced enough to actually be able to make that jump. Or, rather, we are ready to start making that jump and we can improve the technology until we've made it.
We have to, in order to evolve to the next level as a species...
Surely I'm deluded, but no less than people thinking that having (more) concentration camps for billions of animals is the path to a brighter future.
Again, "concentration camp" is not a suitable term for the kind of animal raising I'm talking about. Look up what concentration camps are. Then look up a picture of some healthy cows on a sunny grassy field. Not nearly the same. The vast majority of farmed animals are not mistreated. [But in saying that, I have probably drifted a little from the theme of the article, which is more about factory farming, which I'm not totally on board with]
Mistreated animals don't thrive. They don't make a good product.
We treat our animals better than some vegans treat other people, despite the fact that we eat them at the end.
You must admit though, labelling the entire gastronomic aesthetic as "taste" is almost deceptive in its ability to downplay the level to which this drives human experience and motivation.
You might as well say that the only reason we have sex is because it feels good, and while celibacy is a great policy for self mortification and moral self-superiority over the common man, it has about as much realistic place as a policy for how we should manage community sexual mores as does vegetarianism or veganism does in a discussion on meat.
Indeed, the phrase "spice of life" makes inherent reference to the importance of taste, and I do not think a world without such as a prime accessible experience is a world most want to live in.
While you are entitled to your opinion, be aware that your opinion is likely factually wrong.
Hunting animals for food is core to what we as humans evolved to be. The way we sweat, walk, stand, etc. all seem to have evolved to be an endurance hunter. Clearly, our evolution favored those who hunt and eat meat.
In addition, we know from those who try to avoid consuming animal products completely that you will have to supplement your diet rather stringently with some nutrients that human digestion extracts really easily from meat.
You would have much more success arguing that we eat too much meat rather than we shouldn't eat it at all.
Hunting animals for food is core to what we as humans evolved to be. The way we sweat, walk, stand, etc. all seem to have evolved to be an endurance hunter. Clearly, our evolution favored those who hunt and eat meat.
This is a great point.
In addition, as far as I know, there were no vegetarian groups of people before religious reasons, and later ethical reasons came by.
Hunting consumes a lot of time and energy. If it was completely unnecessary, I would expect a lot of traditional societies just drop it and survive on plants.
The reality was quite the opposite - the game that hunters brought in was more valuable and sought after. That does not make sence if it was unnecessary for better health and survival.
Are shrimp potential slaves too? How about plankton? Insects?
If a silicon wafer becomes sentient does it become a slave?
How can you tell which is which?
Considering we are talking about life in all cases including plants I have always wondered how people draw this imaginary arbitrary line. You can't really survive without consuming living organisms, so by what criteria does consuming one become sickening?
- Animals are mostly likely sentient and feel pain and can suffer like we do [1]
- Pigs are as smart or smarter than small children [2]
- We don't need to enslave and kill animals anymore to survive [3]
- Large scale animal farming is harmful to the environment [4]
- Working in a slaughterhouse can cause PTSD and has other emotional toll on workers [5]
The main reason why we still eat meat is because it's cultural and because we like the taste of it.
So considering the above, it's highly illogical to continue this myth of needing animal protein.
The future of food is plant-based and we don't have to give up the taste and texture that meat products currently provide. There are alternative products like http://beyondmeat.com that are superior to meat.
If you can opt out of the perverted and insane system that the meat industry is, why wouldn't you?
[3]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864
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.
True, but it's still 2x the grass fed beef we buy. Maybe the premium is due to the Whole Paycheck effect, but if they can't get the price competitive with moderately premium priced animal protein, they'll have a tough time replacing/displacing it.
And I'm not especially food price sensitive. Other people are absolutely (and rightly) going to compare it to corn/grain-fed beef.
I gave beyondmeat[1] as an example that we possess the technology already to provide meat-like products that are 100% plant-based. It's backed by people like Bill Gates, Biz Stone...
I'm just hoping that people will start educating themselves and stop ignoring the facts about factory farming and reject the idea as it's destructive on so many levels.
I'm not so much arguing against farms that give the animal a decent life and try to reduce suffering as much as possible, although I hope this will also become a thing of the past when products like beyondmeat will become cheaper than the cheapest meat available.
How about because I don't see humans eating meat as any worse than any other animal eating meat?
I'm sure the mouse one of my previous cats ate was in excruciating pain when it died. But that's life, it's called predation.
See no reason humans should try and be 'different' to the rest of nature. The whole artificial 'divide' between humanity and nature is just strange to me.
I enjoy eating meat, I see it as perfectly natural, and frankly, I don't give a damn how the cow feels as its being slaughtered.
You are not a cat and carnivores kill and hunt their prey without using tools or factory farms and eat raw meat. Can you can kill a cow with your bare hands and teeth and eat it raw while the flesh is still bloody and warm? Maybe you can, but would you enjoy it?
In the past we used to hunt and raise our own animals, because of scarce resources, we needed it to survive. Now most of us don't need it anymore, because we have access to better and more ethical alternatives- it's called progress.
And what about compassion towards non-human animals who have to suffer just to please your taste buds. How does watching the below make you feel?
So I can't eat meat because I don't possess the sharp canines and claws of a feline? Should I go around the forest telling tool using animals that they can't eat termites and ants unless they have the natural adaptations of an anteater?
CM30 was comparing him/herself to carnivores, so I was asking whether s/he can act like one.
And those forest animals of yours need meat to survive. We don't anymore.
We have progressed to a stage where we can perfectly survive on a 100% plant based diet, but yet we chose to support an oppressive system that enslaves and kills sentient beings and along the way is destructive on so many other levels (see my original post) - nothing 'natural' about that.
CM30 was basically saying that s/he enjoys meat, i.e. it tastes good and doesn't give a sh*t about the well-being of other sentient beings, a very selfish attitude if you ask me.
Please watch those videos I posted and tell me you're ok with what is shown.
Meat and other animal products are delicious. Eating them is totally natural. The only issue I have is with cruelty. I would be ok with a rise in prices in exchange for more ethically produced animal products (though I don't think conditions would have to change much for chickens, they're pretty retarded). Historically meat has been a luxury.
That being said, if you are a vegan on the internet ranting about animal cruelty and you own basically any mass produced clothing you need to re-examine your priorities.
Humans can eat raw meat and do. Tartare, sushi, uncooked shellfish, blue rare, and so on is all raw, though not necessarily common because of disease caused by unsafe handling of the meats and the potential for eating live parasites from when the animal was alive.
A secondary reason for cooking meat is that it'll be more nutritious from the heat making the nutrients more accessible for the human body's digestive system.
Also, just for the record animals that do eat raw meat can get sick from it and/ or acquire parasites just the same as humans. Most people who have pets (particularly dogs that'll eat anything) for a long time experience this at some point.
> Eating meat is not natural. Humans are not predators.
Um, you are completely off base.
Current evidence seems to indicate that, in fact, many of our evolutionary changes from the great apes were all about hunting via endurance. Effectively we evolved to simply chase prey until it collapsed.
So, not only is eating meat natural, and not only are we predators. But, we are the implacable Terminator of the animal world.
The two other comments underneath this one (at the time of my writing) both state something along the lines of "of course humans can digest raw meat, because there are raw meat dishes". This is reasoning is flawed. You can eat a lot of things that you can't digest.
I also believe, though, that we can and do digest raw meat. But I have no specific knowledge about that (and this is not a request to get spammed with data, thanks).
This is a much better argument. Do you see the difference between your argument and the argument of "there are raw meat dishes, therefore we must be able to digest it"?
Things going through your stomach doesn't mean they can be processed (something everybdoy should be aware of about once a day). Having a huge portion of your callories depend on raw meat on the other hand, that means there needs to be some processing, otherwise you'd be dead.
Keep in mind, that I was saying the argument was BS, not the thesis. I agree with the thesis, in fact, that humans can process raw meat and it's part of our natural diet.
> That being said, if you are a vegan on the internet ranting about animal cruelty and you own basically any mass produced clothing you need to re-examine your priorities.
Huh? Most cheap, mass-produced clothing is synthetic, for reasons of cost. I get what you're saying, but "basically any mass produced clothing" includes a whole lot of clothing items that are not derived from animal products.
If so they are relying on a pretty simplistic interpretation of the cost/benefit of sweatshops-style labor for developing societies. Sweatshop laborers can be argued to be investing in their own futures through one of the few avenues to a stable income they have access to. Same can't really be said for the staggering majority of livestock.
It's interesting. There are pro meat eaters and pro animal arguments here, but none of the comments I see states the following opinion: that meat in fact contains a set proteins, fats (and vitamins? not sure) that are hard to find in that combination in other sources. So yes, it is theoretically possible to eat complete and healthy without meat. It's also theoretically possible to put 3 chop sticks on top of each other, put them on your head and walk like that to your super market. That doesn't mean you can do it, by adding some beans and nuts to your diet. It's so complicated that some doctors think they can't do it for a long time to themselves. And it's so individual that no newspaper can tell you exactly how you specifically can compansate.
I don't think I know enough about health to have an opinion, but for me it sounds just as likely as meat having no relevance to human health.
And although statistics sometimes trick you, I know a lot of very, very thin vegetarians/vegans, but a lot of people with a healthy BMI who strongly advocate eating balanced (including meat, just not as much as most people do), which makes me believe that a small amount of meat may be better for human health than no meat at all.
>So yes, it is theoretically possible to eat complete and healthy without meat. It's also theoretically possible to put 3 chop sticks on top of each other, put them on your head and walk like that to your super market. That doesn't mean you can do it, by adding some beans and nuts to your diet. It's so complicated that some doctors think they can't do it for a long time to themselves.
This is such FUD nonsense; pretty deplorable on this forum. There's nothing theoretical about eating "complete and healthy without meat" - people have been living on vegan and vegetarian diets for centuries without ill effects. People have become bodybuilders, MMA fighters while being vegan too, not that the vast majority of humans need to measure their diets by those of elite athletes.
As for "so complicated" here is the American Dietetic Association:
>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.
Here's just a few lines from the full text of your link
Vegetarians, and particularly vegans, tend to have lower blood levels of EPA and DHA than nonvegetarians (15).
Zinc intakes of vegetarians vary with some research showing zinc intakes near recommendations (32) and other research finding zinc intakes of vegetarians significantly below recommendations (29,33).
Some studies suggest that vegans who do not consume key sources of iodine, such as iodized salt or sea vegetables, may be at risk for iodine deficiency, because plant-based diets are typically low in iodine (12,35).
In the Oxford component of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Oxford) study, the risk of bone fracture was similar for lacto-ovo-vegetarians and meat eaters, whereas vegans had a 30% higher risk of fracture possibly due to their considerably lower mean calcium intake (38).
Low vitamin D intakes (42), low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels (12), and reduced bone mass (43) have been reported in some vegan and macrobiotic groups who did not use vitamin D supplements or fortified foods.
The vitamin B-12 status of some vegetarians is less than adequate due to not regularly consuming reliable sources of vitamin B-12 (12,46,47).
No unfortified plant food contains any significant amount of active vitamin B-12.
Vegetarian diets are typically rich in folacin, which may mask the hematological symptoms of vitamin B-12 deficiency, so that vitamin B-12 deficiency may go undetected until after neurological signs and symptoms may be manifest (47).
Vegetarians did not meet dietary standard (in at least one country) for:
● vitamin B-12 (in the United Kingdom);
● iron (in the United States, for both vegetarians and omnivores);
● folate (in Germany, though lower rate of deficiency than among omnivores);
and ● zinc (in the United Kingdom).
Infants of vegetarian mothers appear to have lower cord and plasma DHA than do infants of nonvegetarians (70).
Breast milk DHA is lower in vegans and lacto-ovovegetarians than in nonvegetarians (71).
Vegetarian athletes may have lower muscle creatine concentration due to low dietary creatine levels (92,93).
Some, but not all research suggests that amenorrhea may be more common among vegetarian than nonvegetarian athletes (94,95).
Not all aspects of vegetarian diets are associated with reduced risk for heart disease. The higher serum homocysteine levels that have been reported in some vegetarians, apparently due to inadequate vitamin B-12 intake, may increase risk of CVD (111,112) although not all studies support this (113).
Although very little data exist on the bone health of vegans, some studies suggest that bone density is lower among vegans compared with nonvegetarians (164,165).
Vegetarians can, however, have risk factors for dementia. For example, poor vitamin B-12 status has been linked to an increased risk of dementia apparently due to the hyperhomocysteinemia that is seen with vitamin B-12 deficiency (188).
TL;DR:
The complexity is there. It is possible to eat a balanced meatless diet, but at the same time it is quite easy to screw it up, and the consequences may show up after a few years and take time to undo.
Thanks for adding in the science. I'm simply not a medicine guy so I couldn't do much more than post the TL;DR from memory.
All of the listed insufficiencies are quite hard to analyse without blood tests, etc., right? So it is possible to have, e.g., B-12 insufficiency but feel normal, or have low creatine and still perform better in sports than most people would (just not as good as one could be doing).
I guess you've never seen a review article. The whole point is to go through the prevailing literature and rationalize the results, with the end goal of providing the consensus position among experts. Which is to say, cherrypicking "a few lines" of citations is one of the worst ways to interpret a review article which draws from hundreds of separate and often conflicting studies. You will note that I quoted from the abstract, where they clearly state their position.
This review draws from 204 studies, 20 of which you have cherrypicked one-line statements from. I don't see the utility in getting a 10% cursory review of a review from a layman who has an axe to grind.
Complexity of course exists, but not in the dishonest sense that you implied in your initial comment. What I am telling you, and anyone else that is listening, is that as of 2009 experts in the field have concluded that it is absolutely practical to be healthy on a well planned meatless diet, notional doctor and newspaper strawmen be damned.
This review draws from 204 studies, 20 of which you have cherrypicked one-line statements from.
There are more studies. How many would be an "enough" number to convince you that it is not trivial to achieve optimal health on completely meatless diet?
My point is that there are many vegetarians and vegans in imperfect health and lacking certain vitamins / minerals. To make a blanket statement that they are all doing it wrong would be to fall into "No true vegetarian" fallacy.
Complexity of course exists, but not in the dishonest sense that you implied in your initial comment. What I am telling you, and anyone else that is listening, is that as of 2009 experts in the field have concluded that it is absolutely practical to be healthy on a well planned meatless diet, notional doctor and newspaper strawmen be damned.
So at least you agree that complexity exists. My disagreement lies in that I do not think it is "absolutely practical" to be healthy on a meatless diet. Your own words "well planned" suggest that there is an expectation for a person to be aware of all potential deficiencies one can experience on a meatless diet, and to have enough nutritional knowledge to plan ones diet around these deficiencies. While possible, it is not something I expect from an average person to do. An average Western person, unfortunately, does not even have enough knowledge in nutrition to keep a healthy weight, which is a much easier task compared to tracking micronutrients.
A practical thing would be to include at least some meat (I agree that most people in the west eat more than strictly necessary) and to avoid a lot of overhead, unless one really wants to study the subject.
Eh, I think there are some very valid arguments to be made for eating lower on the food chain. I am not a big fan of moral" arguments per se. Those folks saying they are vegetarian because they think eating animals is somehow cruel or something are basically saying that if they can't hear it scream, its suffering doesn't count. We have scientific proof that plants "scream" (give off a pulse) when attacked and also communicate chemically with their neighbors when infested with insects, etc. So plants do have some kind of awareness of being physically assaulted and they communicate in some manner about this awareness, it is just a form of communication that human ears cannot detect. Saying "if I cannot hear it scream, it is all okey dokey" opens up all kinds of ugly questions (like "Is it okay to be a serial killer if you are deaf?")
Anyway, some good arguments to get most of your calories from things lower on the food chain:
1) Ultimately, all calories start as sunlight. Eating lower on the food chain makes our resources go further because the higher up the food chain you go, the more sunlight is concentrated in those few calories.
2) Health. There are several metrics which are negatively impacted by eating higher on the food chain. Toxic chemicals that negatively impact human health tend to concentrate in the fats of animals. Eating vegetarian tends to reduce your exposure to a toxic world. You are also more likely to get serious diseases, like e. coli and certain parasitic infections, from meat than from plants. Most food poisoning comes from meat or dairy, not plants.
3) Cost. Diet for a Small Planet* documented the fact that every country on the planet (at the time it was written) had the ability to produce enough food from traditional, mostly vegetarian, diets to feed all their people. Famine was due to political things, like civil war, and the fact that meat was too costly for poor families who had become accustomed to it and no longer ate the traditional, mostly vegetarian, local diet.
I am not a vegetarian. I am someone who eats more vegetarian meals than I did growing up and I have at times been accused of being a vegetarian by my meat-and-potatoes relatives. I also relatively rarely eat beef simply because I am really picky about the quality of my beef. I probably eat less meat on average than the typical American and I am satisfied with the healthfulness of my diet these days. I think a less-meat diet would do most American good. A meatless diet is not really critical and even the author of "Diet for a Small Planet" later relented on her vegetarian stance and repositioned it as "One less hamburger" in a follow-up book, indicating that we stretch the planets resources by reducing our excessive consumption of meat without giving it up entirely.
The China Study[1] is a really good book that contains a lot of research about the effect on chronic disease a vegan diet has. I found it very interesting.
Did you read any of the critisism though? Here are some
69 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 181 ms ] threadDecentralizing growth of meat and other food, as mentioned in the article, is probably a good thing too, just like decentralizing internet services or electrical generation. However, I don't completely buy the 'decentralize everything' argument that has become popular lately. While it brings us closer to the libertarian dream, some advantages are lost as well. Also, I'm not convinced the innovations that enable decentralized agricultural or electrical generation don't have the same positive impact on the centralized version of the system. Except, in the centralized system you benefit from economies of scale. We'll probably end up with some kind hybrid system.
[1] http://new-harvest.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/post_2012_...
That's great news. Also compared to cows, chickens emit much less methane and other greenhouse gases, especially if their manure is handled properly. Not to mention they're working on breeding to improve that. And given it takes only ~ 30 days to raise a chicken, that reduces overall energy consumption running the farm.
But I think WSJ understated how healthy a vegan diet is, aside from lacking B-12.
Not so surprisingly, the same is true for modern animals including farmed cows and pigs. I can't find a the source now (and apparently neither can wikipedia editors, cause they deleted it), but a very significant percentage of B12 production today (some say upwards of 80%) goes to animals. Some of it for their well-being, but most of it for the people eating them. A contender for the "least-efficient-way-to-supplement-vitamins", I think.
Also, many non-vegans and non-vegetarians suffer from B12 deficiency these days.
As a meat eater with B12 deficiency I agree with this statement.
Franken-chickens take around 30 days, but those grow faster than their organs, bones, and muscles can support the speed of the weight gained.
It seems easy to tell the negative effects of eating meat (might cause cancer, etc). But are all the effects of not eating animal products at all in the long-term well known? And I don't mean not eating animal products for 1 year or 10 years but for multiple generations.
Will people who have not eaten animal products for 1000 years still have a life expectancy similiar to the general population (I guess animal product-eaters)? Will they have more/less diseases, higher/lower IQ, etc.
It's absolutely not easy. For example, there is still no conclusive evidence on meat causing cancer. There is no mechanism - there are no carcinogens in meat. What was actually found was that processed meats, and also meat cooked on open fire or otherwise charred may contain carcinogens. Still nothing on meat prepared in other ways, i.e. boiled.
To provide at least somewhat credible proof, it would be required to find groups of people, who do not eat read meat at all ever, then other group - who eat read meat but not processed or cooked on open fire, and finally a group that only eats processed or cooked on open fire meat. And even if you could identify such groups of people, how could you possibly eliminate all other potential confounders?
Same with vegetarians vs meat eaters. Vegetarians on average are more health conscious: more exercise, less smoking and alcohol, more healthy habits in general. It is completely wrong and dishonest to just compare them to meat eaters and say "see, how many benefits you get from not eating meat".
But are all the effects of not eating animal products at all in the long-term well known?
Again, it is not very easy. Groups of people who avoid animal products on the grounds of i.e. religion (Buddhism) do not stand out as remarcably healthy. And groups of people who are vegetarians for health reasons have many healthy habits that confound meat avoidance as the reason for their better health. So no, it's not quite conclusive as well.
I've recently read "The Blue Zones" book[1]. The authors identified areas where the unexpectedly high percentage of centenarians live, and did some research to try and find out the possible reasons behind their longevity. The interesting thing is that people consume at least some meat in all of these zones, except for about 30% of Loma Linda's Seven Day Adventists, who are vegetarians.
So there you go: even if meat is not a hard and fast requirement for health and longevity, it certainly is not a source of sickness and shortened lifespan.
[1]http://www.amazon.com/The-Blue-Zones-Lessons-Longest/dp/1426...
The arguments against the meat & dairy industry are well known: chronic disease, depletion and pollution of natural resources, global warming, and above all the moral argument: enslaving sentient beings is wrong.
200 years ago in the US they were breeding human slaves [1]. Today they still breed chicken slaves and cow slaves and pig slaves, selecting for higher fertility and higher production of eggs, milk and meat. Then these animals spend all their lives enslaved, from birth to death, a life of absolute misery.
I'm not saying killing animals for food is inherently a wrong act, but enslaving them sure is.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_breeding_in_the_United_S...
I used to be totally in the bandwagon of "those annoying vegans trying to make people feel bad for eating meat". Now I agree - why shouldn't you shame someone for doing something bad? Buying and consuming animal products is bad for everyone involved: bad for the person eating them, the environment and the animals. We would shame corporations for polluting the environment and we would shame a person for abusing their pets in the way factory farming does animals, so why is it ok if they do it by proxy?
I read a nutrition book called "The China Study" about 6 months ago and it was the push I needed to seriously give veganism a try. I don't deny it, I love the taste of certain meats and at times I do miss them and I do occasionally still eat fish (sushi is my favourite food).
I'm feeling better in every sense. I was surprised to see that my body composition is actually better now, even though my protein intake is markedly lower (I was 95kg and ~14% body fat before and am 87kg and ~10% now, judging BF% with calipers so not exactly precise), my weightlifting strength is up, my cardio endurance is improved, my skin is _hugely_ clearer and I anecdotally seem to have more energy - I definitely feel less lethargic after eating. My biggest concern was loss of muscle mass given lower protein intake, somehow I am looking better and feeling stronger than before. I'm eating around 3-600g of carbs per day (!) which is all coming from whole fruit and veg, which seemed totally ridiculous to me before coming from a close-to-paleo high fat high protein diet.
FWIW I'm a 22 y/o male and consume around 3-4000 cals/day and work out 5-6 times per week so YMMV.
The only leg vegans have to stand on in the argument against meat is the cruelty occurring in factory farms. That cruelty isn't inherent in the process of raising and slaughtering animals though. Not to mention life in the wild can be pretty rough as well.
Food including meat is not something I would want to live without. Meat is one of the best reasons to be alive, from a hedonistic perspective.
I do know that the majority of the meat (beef) I eat is extremely well treated for its entire life. Yes, they are bred and grown for a purpose. Yes, it lives in a paddock and yes, we eat it. But "enslaved" and "misery" are not words which are applicable.
FWIW, I'm not from the USA, and have grown up around farms and farm animals.
(When I say "majority" above, I mean that we also buy some meat from supermarkets and I can't be totally certain of how it has been treated, but in my opinion, the vast majority of farmers treat their animals very well here.)
[1] Factory farming is near 99% of all livestock farming in the USA.
The meat I eat doesn't have those problems.
We do indeed slaughter it "as soon as it is ready" rather than at end of natural life though, it's certainly something for me to think more about.
(I don't live in the US, and I grew up in the Irish countryside amongst the many cows in the fields.)
I'd argue there is probably less suffering for farm raised animals then those in the wild.
I've come to the same conclusion myself, after stopping eating meat several years ago. People are addicted to the taste of meat and they eat it out of the desire for pleasure. We can have a healthy and beautiful body without eating any meat.
Sometimes I wonder, how would the world be like if people ate no meat and didn't keep billions of animals as slave prisoners ? What if people stopped killing animals for food ?
Would that affect the way that humans treat each other too ? Would people treat plants and nature differently too ? Would that be a more aggressive or a more peaceful world ? Would that affect the social structure of humans ? Would that be a more spiritually evolved world ?
....
In general, mistreated animals do NOT make good food products. Eg, they taste bad, and are tough, and have low yields.
I don't think the worlds problems would be solved by us not being opportunistic feeders. If you do, then you are clearly deluded.
Is that the only description of "us" ?
We can be opportunistic feeders, but we can be kind and affectionate towards each other and towards other species.
Given the state of our technological development, It's now a matter of choice.
We choose to be in a certain way (eg. opportunistic feeders) according to our ideology and system of beliefs.
But technically, we don't have to do that anymore. We are now technologically advanced enough to actually be able to make that jump. Or, rather, we are ready to start making that jump and we can improve the technology until we've made it.
We have to, in order to evolve to the next level as a species...
Surely I'm deluded, but no less than people thinking that having (more) concentration camps for billions of animals is the path to a brighter future.
Mistreated animals don't thrive. They don't make a good product.
We treat our animals better than some vegans treat other people, despite the fact that we eat them at the end.
It's a hell of a reason, though.
You might as well say that the only reason we have sex is because it feels good, and while celibacy is a great policy for self mortification and moral self-superiority over the common man, it has about as much realistic place as a policy for how we should manage community sexual mores as does vegetarianism or veganism does in a discussion on meat.
Indeed, the phrase "spice of life" makes inherent reference to the importance of taste, and I do not think a world without such as a prime accessible experience is a world most want to live in.
While you are entitled to your opinion, be aware that your opinion is likely factually wrong.
Hunting animals for food is core to what we as humans evolved to be. The way we sweat, walk, stand, etc. all seem to have evolved to be an endurance hunter. Clearly, our evolution favored those who hunt and eat meat.
In addition, we know from those who try to avoid consuming animal products completely that you will have to supplement your diet rather stringently with some nutrients that human digestion extracts really easily from meat.
You would have much more success arguing that we eat too much meat rather than we shouldn't eat it at all.
This is a great point.
In addition, as far as I know, there were no vegetarian groups of people before religious reasons, and later ethical reasons came by.
Hunting consumes a lot of time and energy. If it was completely unnecessary, I would expect a lot of traditional societies just drop it and survive on plants.
The reality was quite the opposite - the game that hunters brought in was more valuable and sought after. That does not make sence if it was unnecessary for better health and survival.
If a silicon wafer becomes sentient does it become a slave?
How can you tell which is which?
Considering we are talking about life in all cases including plants I have always wondered how people draw this imaginary arbitrary line. You can't really survive without consuming living organisms, so by what criteria does consuming one become sickening?
- Animals are mostly likely sentient and feel pain and can suffer like we do [1]
- Pigs are as smart or smarter than small children [2]
- We don't need to enslave and kill animals anymore to survive [3]
- Large scale animal farming is harmful to the environment [4]
- Working in a slaughterhouse can cause PTSD and has other emotional toll on workers [5]
The main reason why we still eat meat is because it's cultural and because we like the taste of it.
So considering the above, it's highly illogical to continue this myth of needing animal protein.
The future of food is plant-based and we don't have to give up the taste and texture that meat products currently provide. There are alternative products like http://beyondmeat.com that are superior to meat.
If you can opt out of the perverted and insane system that the meat industry is, why wouldn't you?
---
[1] http://www.livescience.com/39481-time-to-declare-animal-sent...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mza1EQ6aLdg
[3]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864 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.
[4] http://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-farming/environmental-damage/...
[5] http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2013/03/creatin...
edit: formatting
The price will come down.
And I'm not especially food price sensitive. Other people are absolutely (and rightly) going to compare it to corn/grain-fed beef.
I'm just hoping that people will start educating themselves and stop ignoring the facts about factory farming and reject the idea as it's destructive on so many levels.
I'm not so much arguing against farms that give the animal a decent life and try to reduce suffering as much as possible, although I hope this will also become a thing of the past when products like beyondmeat will become cheaper than the cheapest meat available.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TpQl9V9yoA - interview with the CEO (4min)
I'm sure the mouse one of my previous cats ate was in excruciating pain when it died. But that's life, it's called predation.
See no reason humans should try and be 'different' to the rest of nature. The whole artificial 'divide' between humanity and nature is just strange to me.
I enjoy eating meat, I see it as perfectly natural, and frankly, I don't give a damn how the cow feels as its being slaughtered.
In the past we used to hunt and raise our own animals, because of scarce resources, we needed it to survive. Now most of us don't need it anymore, because we have access to better and more ethical alternatives- it's called progress.
And what about compassion towards non-human animals who have to suffer just to please your taste buds. How does watching the below make you feel?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF7Ega_TpZE (can you face the reality of factory farming - ~6min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCLDK7zjzF8 (Little girl finding out what meat is - ~2min)
Do you agree with the practices that are carried out in factory farms and slaughter houses, where pigs are being skinned or boiled alive for example?
Are you ok with the ecological damage that is caused by the large scale meat industry?
And I encourage you to watch the documentary Earthlings - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s50iRI85Z3U and let me know your thoughts after watching it.
If you raise, kill and slaughter your own animals, then ignore the above.
edit: formatting
And those forest animals of yours need meat to survive. We don't anymore.
We have progressed to a stage where we can perfectly survive on a 100% plant based diet, but yet we chose to support an oppressive system that enslaves and kills sentient beings and along the way is destructive on so many other levels (see my original post) - nothing 'natural' about that.
CM30 was basically saying that s/he enjoys meat, i.e. it tastes good and doesn't give a sh*t about the well-being of other sentient beings, a very selfish attitude if you ask me.
Please watch those videos I posted and tell me you're ok with what is shown.
That being said, if you are a vegan on the internet ranting about animal cruelty and you own basically any mass produced clothing you need to re-examine your priorities.
Eating meat is not natural. Humans are not predators.
A secondary reason for cooking meat is that it'll be more nutritious from the heat making the nutrients more accessible for the human body's digestive system.
Also, just for the record animals that do eat raw meat can get sick from it and/ or acquire parasites just the same as humans. Most people who have pets (particularly dogs that'll eat anything) for a long time experience this at some point.
Um, you are completely off base.
Current evidence seems to indicate that, in fact, many of our evolutionary changes from the great apes were all about hunting via endurance. Effectively we evolved to simply chase prey until it collapsed.
So, not only is eating meat natural, and not only are we predators. But, we are the implacable Terminator of the animal world.
I also believe, though, that we can and do digest raw meat. But I have no specific knowledge about that (and this is not a request to get spammed with data, thanks).
If humans couldn't digest it, those peoples would have gone extinct long ago.
Things going through your stomach doesn't mean they can be processed (something everybdoy should be aware of about once a day). Having a huge portion of your callories depend on raw meat on the other hand, that means there needs to be some processing, otherwise you'd be dead.
Keep in mind, that I was saying the argument was BS, not the thesis. I agree with the thesis, in fact, that humans can process raw meat and it's part of our natural diet.
Huh? Most cheap, mass-produced clothing is synthetic, for reasons of cost. I get what you're saying, but "basically any mass produced clothing" includes a whole lot of clothing items that are not derived from animal products.
I don't think I know enough about health to have an opinion, but for me it sounds just as likely as meat having no relevance to human health.
And although statistics sometimes trick you, I know a lot of very, very thin vegetarians/vegans, but a lot of people with a healthy BMI who strongly advocate eating balanced (including meat, just not as much as most people do), which makes me believe that a small amount of meat may be better for human health than no meat at all.
This is such FUD nonsense; pretty deplorable on this forum. There's nothing theoretical about eating "complete and healthy without meat" - people have been living on vegan and vegetarian diets for centuries without ill effects. People have become bodybuilders, MMA fighters while being vegan too, not that the vast majority of humans need to measure their diets by those of elite athletes.
As for "so complicated" here is the American Dietetic Association:
>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.
[0]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864
Here's just a few lines from the full text of your link
Vegetarians, and particularly vegans, tend to have lower blood levels of EPA and DHA than nonvegetarians (15).
Zinc intakes of vegetarians vary with some research showing zinc intakes near recommendations (32) and other research finding zinc intakes of vegetarians significantly below recommendations (29,33).
Some studies suggest that vegans who do not consume key sources of iodine, such as iodized salt or sea vegetables, may be at risk for iodine deficiency, because plant-based diets are typically low in iodine (12,35).
In the Oxford component of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Oxford) study, the risk of bone fracture was similar for lacto-ovo-vegetarians and meat eaters, whereas vegans had a 30% higher risk of fracture possibly due to their considerably lower mean calcium intake (38).
Low vitamin D intakes (42), low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels (12), and reduced bone mass (43) have been reported in some vegan and macrobiotic groups who did not use vitamin D supplements or fortified foods.
The vitamin B-12 status of some vegetarians is less than adequate due to not regularly consuming reliable sources of vitamin B-12 (12,46,47).
No unfortified plant food contains any significant amount of active vitamin B-12.
Vegetarian diets are typically rich in folacin, which may mask the hematological symptoms of vitamin B-12 deficiency, so that vitamin B-12 deficiency may go undetected until after neurological signs and symptoms may be manifest (47).
Vegetarians did not meet dietary standard (in at least one country) for: ● vitamin B-12 (in the United Kingdom); ● iron (in the United States, for both vegetarians and omnivores); ● folate (in Germany, though lower rate of deficiency than among omnivores); and ● zinc (in the United Kingdom).
Infants of vegetarian mothers appear to have lower cord and plasma DHA than do infants of nonvegetarians (70).
Breast milk DHA is lower in vegans and lacto-ovovegetarians than in nonvegetarians (71).
Vegetarian athletes may have lower muscle creatine concentration due to low dietary creatine levels (92,93).
Some, but not all research suggests that amenorrhea may be more common among vegetarian than nonvegetarian athletes (94,95).
Not all aspects of vegetarian diets are associated with reduced risk for heart disease. The higher serum homocysteine levels that have been reported in some vegetarians, apparently due to inadequate vitamin B-12 intake, may increase risk of CVD (111,112) although not all studies support this (113).
Although very little data exist on the bone health of vegans, some studies suggest that bone density is lower among vegans compared with nonvegetarians (164,165).
Vegetarians can, however, have risk factors for dementia. For example, poor vitamin B-12 status has been linked to an increased risk of dementia apparently due to the hyperhomocysteinemia that is seen with vitamin B-12 deficiency (188).
TL;DR:
The complexity is there. It is possible to eat a balanced meatless diet, but at the same time it is quite easy to screw it up, and the consequences may show up after a few years and take time to undo.
All of the listed insufficiencies are quite hard to analyse without blood tests, etc., right? So it is possible to have, e.g., B-12 insufficiency but feel normal, or have low creatine and still perform better in sports than most people would (just not as good as one could be doing).
This review draws from 204 studies, 20 of which you have cherrypicked one-line statements from. I don't see the utility in getting a 10% cursory review of a review from a layman who has an axe to grind.
Complexity of course exists, but not in the dishonest sense that you implied in your initial comment. What I am telling you, and anyone else that is listening, is that as of 2009 experts in the field have concluded that it is absolutely practical to be healthy on a well planned meatless diet, notional doctor and newspaper strawmen be damned.
There are more studies. How many would be an "enough" number to convince you that it is not trivial to achieve optimal health on completely meatless diet?
My point is that there are many vegetarians and vegans in imperfect health and lacking certain vitamins / minerals. To make a blanket statement that they are all doing it wrong would be to fall into "No true vegetarian" fallacy.
Complexity of course exists, but not in the dishonest sense that you implied in your initial comment. What I am telling you, and anyone else that is listening, is that as of 2009 experts in the field have concluded that it is absolutely practical to be healthy on a well planned meatless diet, notional doctor and newspaper strawmen be damned.
So at least you agree that complexity exists. My disagreement lies in that I do not think it is "absolutely practical" to be healthy on a meatless diet. Your own words "well planned" suggest that there is an expectation for a person to be aware of all potential deficiencies one can experience on a meatless diet, and to have enough nutritional knowledge to plan ones diet around these deficiencies. While possible, it is not something I expect from an average person to do. An average Western person, unfortunately, does not even have enough knowledge in nutrition to keep a healthy weight, which is a much easier task compared to tracking micronutrients.
A practical thing would be to include at least some meat (I agree that most people in the west eat more than strictly necessary) and to avoid a lot of overhead, unless one really wants to study the subject.
Yes, you have no idea of the issue.
Anyway, some good arguments to get most of your calories from things lower on the food chain:
1) Ultimately, all calories start as sunlight. Eating lower on the food chain makes our resources go further because the higher up the food chain you go, the more sunlight is concentrated in those few calories.
2) Health. There are several metrics which are negatively impacted by eating higher on the food chain. Toxic chemicals that negatively impact human health tend to concentrate in the fats of animals. Eating vegetarian tends to reduce your exposure to a toxic world. You are also more likely to get serious diseases, like e. coli and certain parasitic infections, from meat than from plants. Most food poisoning comes from meat or dairy, not plants.
3) Cost. Diet for a Small Planet* documented the fact that every country on the planet (at the time it was written) had the ability to produce enough food from traditional, mostly vegetarian, diets to feed all their people. Famine was due to political things, like civil war, and the fact that meat was too costly for poor families who had become accustomed to it and no longer ate the traditional, mostly vegetarian, local diet.
I am not a vegetarian. I am someone who eats more vegetarian meals than I did growing up and I have at times been accused of being a vegetarian by my meat-and-potatoes relatives. I also relatively rarely eat beef simply because I am really picky about the quality of my beef. I probably eat less meat on average than the typical American and I am satisfied with the healthfulness of my diet these days. I think a less-meat diet would do most American good. A meatless diet is not really critical and even the author of "Diet for a Small Planet" later relented on her vegetarian stance and repositioned it as "One less hamburger" in a follow-up book, indicating that we stretch the planets resources by reducing our excessive consumption of meat without giving it up entirely.
Did you read any of the critisism though? Here are some
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html
http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/...
http://rawfoodsos.com/the-china-study/