Is Veganism a good idea? If so, then why? If not, then why not?

Answer 1

No, If a vegan diet is very carefully planned, and that requires either fortified foods or supplements, it can be AS healthy as a good meat eating diet. I think there are a couple of benefits, but they come from eating a wide range of fruit and veg and being health conscious as vegans have to be, not omitting meat, and thus those benefits can be go without actually going veggie. Needless to say a uncarefully planned vegetarian, or especially vegan, diet can lack many essential nutrients and be very bad for your health.

There are many benefits to a diet containing meat and animal products. Many vegetarians claim that meat is unhealthy. This is a blatant fallacy.
It is well established that eating meat improves the quality of nutrition, strengthens the immune system, promotes normal growth and development, is beneficial for day-to-day health, energy and well-being, and helps ensure optimal learning and academic performance.
A long term study found that children who eat more meat are less likely to have deficiencies than those who eat little or no meat. Kids who don’t eat meat — and especially if they restrict other foods, as many girls are doing — are more likely to feel tired, apathetic, unable to concentrate, are sick more often, more frequently depressed, and are the most likely to be malnourished and have stunted growth. Meat and other animal-source foods are the building blocks of healthy growth that have made America’s and Europe's youngsters the tallest, strongest and healthiest in the world.
Meat is an important source of quality nutrients, heme iron, protein, zinc and B-complex vitamins. It provides high-quality protein important for kids’ healthy growth and development.
The iron in meat (heme iron) is of high quality and well absorbed by the body, unlike nonheme iron from plants which is not well absorbed. More than 90 percent of iron consumed may be wasted when taken without some heme iron from animal sources. Substances found to inhibit nonheme iron absorption include phytates in cereals, nuts and legumes, and polyphenolics in vegetables. Symptoms of iron deficiency include fatigue, headache, irritability and decreased work performance. For young children, it can lead to impairment in general intelligence, language, motor performance and school readiness. Girls especially need iron after puberty due to blood losses, or if pregnant. Yet studies show 75 percent of teenage girls get less iron than recommended.
Meat, poultry and eggs are also good sources of absorbable zinc, a trace mineral vital for strengthening the immune system and normal growth. Deficiencies link to decreased attention, poorer problem solving and short-term memory, weakened immune system, and the inability to fight infection. While nuts and legumes contain zinc, plant fibre contains phytates that bind it into a nonabsorbable compound.
Found almost exclusively in animal products, Vitamin B12 is necessary for forming new cells. A deficiency can cause anaemia and permanent nerve damage and paralysis. The Vitimin B12 in plants isn't even bioavailable, meaning our body can't use it.
Why not buy food supplements to replace missing vitamins and minerals? Some people believe they can fill those gaps with pills, but they may be fooling themselves. Research consistently shows that real foods in a balanced diet are far superior to trying to make up deficiencies with supplements.

Lets not forget either that protein, while it is found in plants, is better quality in animal products.

Some people claim that meat is unhealthy because it contains saturated fat. So does margarine and olive oil, and they're vegan suitable (in fact the hydrogenated fats in Marge can be very bad, but that's another story). Besides, any excess calories in your diet, any excess sugar, starch or carbohydrates are stored in your body for later use. This is done by turning them into saturated fats.
Cholesterol too. Your body on average creates four to five times more cholesterol than the average person consumes, and compensates by creating more when less is consumed. Cholesterol isn't evil, it is essential; it makes up the waterproof linings of all our cells and without it we would die. Too much can be bad, but as with saturated fats there are more healthy ways of disposing of it, like regular exercise. Anyway, it isn't so much how much cholesterol you eat, but how well yur body handles it. A person who eats loads of dietary cholesterol and leads an unhealthy lifestyle can still have low cholesterol, and vice versa. Most people's bodies are able to take a large amount of cholesterol without getting atherosclerosis. For this reason that eating meat gives you heart disease is very misleading, and for the most part untrue. Of course, if you do have a problem eating loads isn't a good idea, but for most people there is nothing at all to worry about.

Yes, there are things in meat that there is some evidence can cause cancer in some people, but there are as many in plants too. Soy especially has some very potent carcinogens. Processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.
Soy phytoestrogens disrupt endocrine function and have the potential to cause infertility and to promote breast cancer in adult women. Also they are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism and may cause thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.
Soy is bad for numerous other reasons, but that isn't the point, I'm just using it as a quick example relating to cancer not being exclusive to some animal products. The evidence that claims meat does cause cancer is patchy anyway.

Some people also claim that we aren't designed by evolution, to eat meat. They claim that our digestive system is quite long and that we produce amylase, a starch splitting catabolic enzyme, akin to herbivores and unlike carnivores. Apparently this clearly shows that we were designed to eat plants. Such people should go and look up 'omnivore' in a dictionary. They have also been known to cite other reasons we are like herbivores and unlike carnivores: that we suck water instead of lapping it, and that we perspire through our skin, such things have nothing at all to do with whether or not we were designed to eat meat, and nothing to do with how our body handles food. I might as well say that because we, like most carnivores and unlike most herbivores, have eyes that face forwards, we must be carnivorous. Of course, that's not true for precisely the same reason.

The fact is Humans are omnivores, with the ability to eat nearly everything. By preference, prehistoric people ate a high-protein, high-mineral diet based on meat and animal sources, whenever available. Their foods came mainly from three of the five food groups: meat, vegetables and fruits. As a result, big game mammoth hunters were tall and strong with massive bones. They grew six inches taller than their farming descendants in Europe, who ate mostly plant foods, and only in recent times regained most of this height upon again eating more meat, eggs and dairy foods. We are adapted to eat meat, and it is just as natural as eating plants.
Some also claim that the digestion of meat releases harmful byproducts into our system. This is true, however such are our adaptations to eating meat that our bodies are quite able to dispose of said products without any adverse effects.

So, in summary: it isn't healthier to avoid meat. You can be healthy without meat, but likely not as healthy as if you did, assuming you kept things like the wide range of fruit and veg that a veggie diet usually entails. Too much meat can be bad, but normal amounts are no problem at all. Any health benefits that come from a veggie diet come from a wide range of fruit and veg, and being health conscious, as veggies often are; that doesn't require you to not eat meat."

I don't think a vegan diet benefits anyone in any way better than a better meat eating diet could at all. If you have no ethical qualms, it's quite pointless. PETA will tell you otherwise, but they have very strong ethical opinions, and mould their 'evidence' around it. There is, for example, some evidence that vegans live longer and are at less risk from cancer and heart disease; however those studies show only a very marginal and insignificant difference and none of those studies have yet managed to identify meat as the only variable. Veggies are less likely to smoke, drink or eat junk food, and eat a wider range of fruit and veg, making the test results inaccurate and unreliable.


@ Vegan&Proud.

"vegans diet uses only 3oo gallons of water a day,it is estimated that a meat eating diet takes up 2,500 gallons of water a day."

It is worth noting rice takes more than twice as much water to produce than beef. Now does that mean we should stop eating rice? If your answer to that is no please reconsider the entire argument about water usage and meat consumption, as it's more than likely these people wouldn't give a damn weren't they vegan.

"Food originating from animal sources, including milk, unlike most foods derived from plants, makes the blood acidic. When this happens, the body withdraws calcium from the bones to make the blood more alkaline. This process balances the pH of the blood, but consequently becomes one of the factors which leads to osteoporosis."

You've misunderstood what the argument is saying. I know what you're referring to, but the study claimed that excess protein, protein being acidic, leached calcium from the bones in order to balance PH, thus causing osteoporosis. Therefore they said, as a meat eating diet gives much more protein than is needed (as opposed to a vegan diet) meat causes osteoporosis,
This is still wrong though, as those studies were conducted with pure protein powders, a completely unnatural form, and very concentrated. When protein is taken in meat, a form your body has evolved to get protein from, the blood doesn't become acidic, calcium isn't leached from the bones and osteoporosis isn't caused.

On the other hand, just one cup of milk caters for one 5th of your bodies recommended daily amount. And yes, while calcium can be got from other places, this isn't really the point, as calcium is essential for the normal growth and maintenance of bones and teeth, and long-term calcium deficiency can lead to osteoporosis, and as such milk IS good for bones.
Milk also contains numerous other nutrients which while, yes, can be got from non animal sources, are nevertheless very important. It is the single most nutritious food in terms of types of nutrients and the amounts of said nutrients per x ml you are likely to find; babies have to get ALL their nutrition from it for heavens sake.
Yes, the fact is milk is made for babies (albeit cow's, but it contains exactly the same nutrients as human's, just slightly different levels). Your dietary requirements aren't much different from a baby's, so it is illogical to say that milk is unhealthy.

"It is deceptive to measure fat as the percentage of physical weight of foods as the milk industry does. Since milk is mostly just water, by weight the fat comes to only 3% to 3.7%. Fat content by calories, however, is 50%!"

I'm not sure I undestand the logic of this, but it's very possible I've misunderstood, as it isn't clear quite what's meant.
As I understand it there are two types of calories, fats and carbohydrates (I know that's very basic, but it'll do). Surely if you made a food with a little fat in it but no carbohydrates whatsoever then the fat by calories would be 100%. Likewise one with lots of fat but even more carbohydrates would be less than 50%. I fail to see the merit of this system.
To understand the amount of fat in a food or drink surely it has to be done by the mass of fat in a certain amount.
So milk is mostly water, so what? That doesn't mean that it makes sence to ignore the water which makes up most of milk and work with everything else as that gives the impression of there being much more fat than there is. I suspect this is just a way to skew the facts.

"Worldwide demand for fish, along with advances in fishing methods--sonar, driftnets, floating refrigerated fish packing factories--is bringing ocean species, one after another, to the brink of extinction. In the Nov., '95 edition of Scientific American, Carl Safina writes, "For the past two decades, the fishing industry has had increasingly to face the result of extracting [fish] faster than fish populations [can] reproduce." Research reveals that the intended cure--aquaculture (fish farming)--actually hastens the trend toward fish extinction, while disrupting delicate coastal ecosystems at the same time."

While that is true, and would ahave been much more over a decade ago when it was written, it is also true that in some fishing areas fish stocks are rising due to not continuously fishing an area, the same principal as crop rotation.

"Methane is one of the four greenhouse gasses that contributes to the environmental trend known as global warming. The 1.3 billion cattle in the world produce one fifth of all the methane emitted into the atmosphere."

What do you suggest? Kill the cows?

Anyway, EPA data show 2003 methane emissions from all sources accounted for just 9 percent (8.9%) of all 2003 GHG emissions in the United States. In addition, methane emissions decreased 10 percent between 1990 and 2003. Eating less beef would have an insignificant effect on greenhouse gas emissions since methane produced by all domestic livestock accounted for less than 3 percent (2.5%) of the total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2003.

"Our dwindling supply of good water is directly tied to meat consumption. Over half of the total amount of water consumed in the US goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock."

Untrue. U.S. agriculture, in total, accounts for approximately 50 percent of U.S. water use. According to a 1993 article in the Journal of Animal Science by J. Beckett and J. Oltjen, total livestock production accounts for just over 11 percent of all U.S. water use. This includes the water to grow crops fed to livestock, which accounts for 9.7 percent of all water use, and livestock consumption, at 1.2 percent of all water use.

Answer 2

It is possible to have a good, balanced vegan diet. My best friend is vegan and says that since becoming vegan she's found so many interesting and different things to eat and doesn't feel like she is missing out on anything.
However, I'm veggie, but I don't think veganism would be a sensible choice for me as I find that too much soya gives me migraines and although her diet is varied and balanced, it does contain a lot of soya produce (e.g. milk, cheese, fake meat etc.). For this reason, I don't feel that I personally would be able to get the nutrients I need from a vegan diet.
I guess it's a question of conscience and common sense.

Answer 3

Yes, in western society veganism is a good idea. It helps to cut down on ecological damage, as well as being good for your health. It isnt particularly that hard either when you get used to it. Ive been vegan for 15 years, yes it takes a little bit more thought in the beginning, but it soon becomes second nature.
Many non vegans argue that humans are 'naturally onminvorous' which may or may not be the case, but in our society there is nothing we eat or drink that is natural any more. We have the capabilities of getting every nutrient we need from a purely plant based diet so it seems ridiculous to cause more damage than we need to by not doing so.

Answer 4

i would say difficult (for some), but still a very good idea! you would be much healthier and animals wouldn't have to suffer and die before they got to your plate. you also wouldn't be supporting the cruel leather & fur industry and all the horrible labs that test on animals. i am a vegetarian, and i wish i could be a vegan but i don't like most vegetables (haha, i know) so i don't have very many options. maybe one day! i never wear leather or fur and i try to buy cruelty-free products. i say go for it, especially if you are already a vegetarian. even if you're not, do it anyway =)

Answer 5

Vegans don't eat any meat products as they believe that to do so would be to exploit other animals.

Personally I'm a vegetarian and think that animals should earn their keep in one way or another, such as chickens providing eggs, so long as they are not kept in cruel intensive farming conditions.

My main reason for not eating meat is not due to animal welfare issues even though I do consider this important. The main reason is quite simply that global warming would be solved in an instant if everyone was a vegetarian. By far the greatest contributor to increased carbon dioxide in the environment is the cutting down of forest throughout the world in order to grow soya which is used in animal feed.

If you really want to save the planet then give up meat and eat a diet rich in fruit, vegetables and fish. Veganism is just an extreme form of vegetarianism and serves no useful purpose.

Answer 6

Well some people become vegans to save animals but there are several others that are vegans for health reasons. For example, Chickens and cows are given hormones in order for them to produce more.

These hormones are passed on in the milk, eggs and meat. Maybe the food industry will not admit it but I wonder why so many girls are 'maturing' physically so much younger. Cooking does not kill hormones because like Mad Cow disease it is a protein.

So there are good reasons to be if you decide to be vegan other than the save the animals route. I don't do it to save the animals other than the animal "ME" :)

To add as for eating healthy check surveys done on vegetarians vs meat eaters and they all say vegetarians live longer. Remember as with all diets there must be changes in lifestyle to maximize the benefits of that diet. SO you can be healthy and be vegan or just simply switch to organic milk and eggs :D

Answer 7

Vegans are cultists, PETA is their god.
Don't believe me? Just take a glance at some of these answers. Absolute insane ramblings direct from the PETA playbook.
PS -- Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian....something to consider?

Answer 8

Very good idea if you learn how to eat a balanced diet. You can lower your cholesterol and prevent heart disease, allergies and a lot of other things just cutting out dairy products. Without meat you will digest better and faster and lower your risk of cancer and other diseases.

Answer 9

Is it a good idea? Yes. Why? The above answer puts it pretty well. Plus it's easy to eat delicious food without anything having to suffer or die.

Answer 10

no i dont think it is a very good idea because it would worst than difficult getting all the right nutriunts we all need! They also wouldn't get a leather seated car or wear proper underwear if they are that strict! I would never be one!

Answer 11

" no animals are being harmed in the cheese or milk process! "

Oh really Jen L - and taking a calf away from its mother so she will continue to produce milk for humans isn't cruel?. Using rennet from an animal's stomach to make cheese..?

Do your research!

The reason for being vegan is to reduce unnecessary cruelty to animals. So it's a good idea if you care about animals, wouldn't you say?