> vegan meat products saw a 21 percent increase in unit sales from 2020 to 2022
> During the same period, animal-based meat and milk sales dropped by eight and nine percent, respectively
There are likely additional factors at play in the animal based drop
UK ONS shows whole milk at low of 43p/l in 2020 increasing to 70p/l in Mar 23 and minced beef from 609p/kg to 812p/kg in 23 -- but those numbers likely do not reflect the reality of multi-buy discount offers commonly being available in 2020 that are rarer now in 23 -- so the inflation felt by consumers is potentially even higher
The headline seems to be mixing two trends in food randomly. The drop in meat & milk is likely independent of vegan trends - the $ figures are different orders of magnitude. This isn't substitution at all, so there is no reason to think they are interacting.
Europe is probably being hit by some sort of hardship right now meaning people can't eat as well as usual. The UK seems to be being hit by an energy crisis for example, although they also seem to be having a much worse time of it than mainland Europe. Per capita figures are lower than China and it might drop below the global average in a decade if the current trend keeps up.
It's cheapest and healthiest to go to unprocessed vegan food and yet vegan replacements that usually have a premium over meat and dairy are also up, while their incremental production costs are probably less than meat/dairy.
This implies that meat/dairy have neither the top of the market nor the bottom. If more and more people are willing to pay that premium then I'm not sure what would come back and why once the costs of processed vegan food no longer includes early R&D and risk premiums.
Healthy alternatives like instant ramen? If a significant nuber of people can't afford meat any more, that's not a tiny difference in purchasing power (that can be mitigated by some fewer luxuries), but they basically became "very poor" now, and poor people will choose calorie rich food, which mostly isn't healthy at all.. just compare price per calorie for pasta/rice/(ramen)... vs peppers, broccoli, eggplant, etc.
No, healthy alternatives like healthy alternatives. E.g. google "cheap healthy food" (notice I even haven't added a "vegan" query constraint).
And your "poor people will choose calorie rich food" is an argument
- for what? That animal-based food is low-calorie or high-calorie, and people will only substitute it with unheathly stuff? Keep in mind that people have been going to "unhealthy" McDonald's for ages.
Meat is included in the cheap healthy food (as you said yourself), but once you're so poor you cannot afford even the cheap meats, you won't be able to afford a lot of other healthy things either. Yes cabbages are cheap when in season, but how long will you feel "full" (not hungry) after a cabbage soup compared to eg. pasta or rice?
I know; this is Hacker News, hence a strong knowledge and habit bubble of start-up ramen and food delivery cuisine, and a lack of knowledge of all the other choices of food that nature provides, and no experiences in the kitchen besides microwave.
Vegan people must belt down their Kwashiorkor; and no idea how any other society in the world of the long and recent past, as well as the present, could struggle through the only two possible options "eternal feeling of hunger" and "morbidly obese by noodle".
You're looking at extremes, while I'm saying that once you cannot afford meat anymore, you cannot afford vegan alternatives either. If you can't pay 2eur for a piece of pork, you can't afford a 3-pack of bell peppers either. But you can afford a 60c half-kilo pack of pasta.
If I can buy a piece of pork for 2 EUR at my German supermarket, then this is because of the meat industry in Germany being subsidized with an estimated 13 billion EUR yearly.
Replacing pork with bell peppers is a very strange idea. The go-to cheap, healthy and easy alternativeS are found in all sorts of beans meal like read beans and rice
You have a faulty premise. Most meat and dairy is healthy, if consumed in reasonable quantities. The exception is chargrilled red meat, which is correlated with colon cancer. There is evidence that vegan diets are dangerous for children. This study (https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/113/6/1565/6178918?log...), for example, found that vegan children were shorter and had lower bone density. Typical vegan diets lack the following essential nutrients either in part, or entirely:
* A
* B6
* B12
* D
* F
* K2
* CLA
* Carnitine
* Carnosine
* Cholesterol
* CoQ10
* Creatine
* Heme-iron
* Saturated fat
* Taurine
Of course a wise and studious vegan will carefully supplement all of these nutrients in the right balance on the right day. Most will not, and the risk compounds for children. An omnivorous diet is easy to get right, provided one doesn't over-eat.
The only things lacking in a plant-based diet that is essential are vitamin B12 and D. B12 is also lacking in animal-based diets nowadays, but is supplemented in animal feed. D is also lacking in animal-based diet, so this is not specific to plant-based diets.
Vitamins A, B6, F can be found in many plant-based foods. The rest of the stuff you listed are not essential for human health.
> B12 is also lacking in animal-based diets nowadays, but is supplemented in animal feed. D is also lacking in animal-based diet, so this is not specific to plant-based diets.
B12 is naturally present in fish, meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products. D is naturally present in oily fish, including salmon, mackerel, and sardines; as well as egg yolks, red meat, and liver.
> Vitamins A, B6, F can be found in many plant-based foods. The rest of the stuff you listed are not essential for human health.
Only fortified vegan foods contain sufficient quantities to satisfy a healthy diet, and even then, fortification may not be enough; especially for a growing child. Of course it requires one to be diligent in purchasing fortified options.
As for the claim that CLA, carnitine, carnosine, cholesterol, creatine, heme-iron, and taurine are not essential, I refer you to these studies and sources:
* Carnosine can be synthesised with beta-alanine and L-histidine (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8300828/), but vegetarians possess 50% lower beta-alanine (Harris, 2007. Harris RC, Jones G, Hill CA, et al. The Carnosine Content of V Lateralis in Vegetarians and Omnivores The FASEB Journal. 2007;21:769.20), and vegetarians subsequently typically possess significantly lower levels of muscle carnosine (Everaert, 2011. Everaert I, Mooyaart A, Baguet A, Zutinic A, Baelde H, Achten E, Taes Y, De Heer E, Derave W. Vegetarianism, female gender and increasing age, but not CNDP1 genotype, are associated with reduced muscle carnosine levels in humans. Amino Acids. 2011 Apr;40(4):1221-9). As per the study by Jukic et al. (2021), carnisine is an extremely important dipeptide for humans.
It's fair to argue that the data on K2, CoQ10, saturated fat isn't as conclusive. While the data is convincing, I can't prove they are essential. They certainly haven't been ruled out as being important to a healthy, balanced diet.
While you're correct that some animal-based foods contain B12 and vitamin D naturally, many people who eat meat and fish need to supplement it because it's just not enough. For vitamin D, this is especially true for people living in higher latitudes because there's not enough sun light.
I think you're not clear what the definition of "essential" in biology is. Essential means that it cannot be synthesized by the organism, but needs to be taken in externally. The studies you have linked do not talk about synthesis in the human body. A quick lookup on Wikepedia explains clearly that all other mentioned items are synthesized by humans.
You have a faulty conclusion, I didn't say most meat and diary is unhealthy.
But there is plenty of evidence that a nutrition significantly more vegan than today's western standard is better: healthier, cheaper, and ecologically superior.
Lower stature and bone density is evidence of dangerous malnutrition. Those with lower bone density in particular are at far higher risk of osteoporosis. I'm not sure how you could claim that isn't evidence of potential danger.
You have it backwards. Malnutrition can lead to impaired growth and lower bone density. But that doesn't automatically mean that lower bone density and lower stature is evidence of malnutrition. For all we know the measured difference between test and control was much smaller than the standard deviation.
Also the list you posted contains substances that our body produces ourselves so we don't need to get these from food (e.g. Creatine)
You are conflating study confounds with malnutrition. Lower stature and bone density is in fact clinical evidence of malnutrition. It is possible that the study cohort simultaneously suffered some other malady like radiation poisoning, but it is unlikely they all suffered maladies resulting in the same symptoms. I think the study design is sufficient to rule that out. It is certainly as rigorous as any other peer-reviewed nutritional study.
All concluded that vegan diets were healthy for children as long as the parents knew the common deficiencies (B12) and fed their children enough calories. The study you cited is on my list because it seems you didn't read the results where it stated that most children were not eating fortified or supplemented food like Vitamin D, which could easily explain why they have a lower bone density.
I provided a study in my very first comment. Did you read it? I'll provide it again for you here: (https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/113/6/1565/6178918?log...) The study found vegan children to be at risk of lower stature and bone density.
Thank you for the studies, I have reviewed them. In turn:
1. Please review Figure 2. Children on vegan and vegetarian diets presented with higher rates of "stunted or severely stunted," as per the WHO criteria used. This is discussed and confirmed later in the study. The study did not measure bone density at all.
2. This is the same study cited as above.
3. This study explored neither height nor bone density. The blood levels of studied macro-nutrients were in the healthy range, and that's good.
4. In a fascinating twist of fate, you cited the study I cited above, which finds that vegan children are at risk of lower stature and bone density. I'm not sure you read these studies if you think this study confirms your beliefs.
5. This study found that vegetarian children were both shorter, and weighed less. They did not measure bone density.
6. This study found, like the rest, that vegan children were shorter and weighed less. They did not measure bone density.
7. This study, once again, found children to be lighter and shorter. They did not measure bone density.
8. This study, once again, found children to be lighter and lower in "growth percentile." The study did not measure bone density.
9. It's hard to parse this study. The omnivorous children were taller than the vegetarians, but shorter than the vegans. However the vegan cohort was only six in total. Further, the vegetarian children were heavier than the omnivores. These results are the opposite of all of the studies you cited. It is an interesting data point, but it doesn't appear to lend credence to either of our arguments. It's clear that some delta occurs as a result of vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous diets, and given the wealth of evidence you've submitted, it's clear that vegetarian and especially vegan diets usually result in poorer growth. The study did not measure bone density.
I'm not sure you read these studies very thoroughly. I suppose I should thank you for providing so much corroborative evidence that vegan diets are dangerous for children.
The summaries of all these studies can effectively be summarised as: if you are raising children on a vegan diet, ensure you supplement and have adequate calory intake. Taking datapoints from figures and graphs without understanding the underlying causes and effects is how we spread misinformation. It's great that studies are measuring this so that we understand better how humans can develop successfully.
An example of this is in study 6 where you stated that vegan children were shorter and weighed less. Whilst true the study also stated "The energy intake of the vegan children was consistently lower than the recommended daily amounts". It then concluded that with a sensibly planned diet vegan children should have no intellectual or physical problems in their development.
So whilst I agree that all the studies did find differences, I disagree that they are somehow proving against my points that a vegan diet in children can be healthy if correctly planned. Due to how the animal agriculture industry creates meat (such as supplementing and fortifying the meat) it is extremely easy to get away with not planning meals with an omnivorous diet.
I agree with your summary. Vegan diets don't have to result in poorer nutrition. They're just much harder to configure and administer, and most people don't optimise them well, especially for children. This is the difference between what ought to be, and what is. The human or compliance factor in diets is often much more important than the diet itself. If compliance is low, it doesn't matter how healthy the diet is.
The evidence I've seen seems to indicate that meat and dairy are the healthy alternative. They also have centuries of safety data, unlike many (most?) vegan alternatives, which rely heavily on such things as canola oil and have to be engineered.
I doubt you'll agree, and I'm sure you'll be able to pull out some studies suggesting otherwise, but perhaps we can agree we shouldn't be making policy decisions that shift the diets of millions of people when we're dealing with a field (nutrition) that is really in its infancy.
Nutrition isn’t in its infancy. The real issue is people assume small changes in diet are more important than they are.
Fiber for example is useful for mechanical reasons in your digestive system, but you don’t actually digest it. It’s possible to be completely healthy and eat essentially zero fiber. Similarly eating massive quantities of fiber isn’t particularly beneficial.
There’s this misconception that there’s some single ideal diet and anything else is unhealthy. But we turn a high percentage of our food into energy and excrete stuff we don’t need. That provides extreme flexibility assuming you’re eating a wide range of plants and animals it’s probably fine. Eat a more limited diet and you have to be more careful, but not excessively so.
Of course when you take an even closer look things do get more complex, but for most people it’s not particularly relevant. The biggest issue is simply number of calories.
Meat and dairy from modern factory farms that feed animals with grain is very different from farms from, say, 19th century, when cows was feed mostly grass without antibiotics and were spending a lot of time outside.
> many (most?) vegan alternatives, which rely heavily on such things as canola oil and have to be engineered.
Kinda strawmanny to take/highlight unhealthy food as the vegan alternatives compared.
> perhaps we can agree we shouldn't be making policy decisions that shift the diets of millions of people
The diary and meat industries are prime examples that have profited and am profiting from (influencing) policy decisions. Including: subventions for dumping milk and meat prices; and manipulating dietary recommendations (check "food pyramid" with "lobby"), hence shifting diets of millions of people.
Milk was heavily subsidized and the prices were pushed to a point where all but the largest scale producers were making losses (~30 cents per liter) where I live whereas the price of plant based milk used to have a huge novely / vegan markup that wasn't based in production cost. The cost of plant based milk is not exactly much less than dairy now, but it is actually cheaper if you go by discount brand prices.
That so many people don't mind switching with so little monetary incentive is great, that's a lot of animal harm prevented.
Jealous that you get a choice. Netherlands here which is actually better for vegan options as a whole than the UK in my experience but never found a corner shop
With anything but cow dairy.
> "never found a corner shop With anything but cow dairy"
That's strange. They certainly are popular in the UK, and their long shelf life means there's little risk for shops in stocking them. I wonder if dutch "big dairy" could be using dirty tricks to keep plant alternatives off shop shelves?
End result of selective pressures on cow farmers. Humane treatment would raise the cost by like 20%, but the inhumane treatment readily visible to the buyer while the price is.
The whole agricultural industry in Europe is heavily subsidized through Europe's common agriculture policy. It's a strategic and national interest policy so that Europe's access to food is not jeopardized in case of war.
It's ok that these subsidies exist, and they surely won't go away any time soon.
At least in Germany the subsidiary is disproportionate for the large scale industry as it got paid by animal, so the more you can cram into a building, the more you get subsidized.
Animals in Germany are living through an extreme hell because of several financial incentives which make it so profitable for the one's willing to ignore the animals.
And the farmers that have even a tiny bit of a conscience are getting in severe financial trouble as they just can't compete on price. Especially as that kind of animal cruelty they're forced into comes with it's own psychological issues.
Which animal harm do you mean by having cows for milk? Its easy to buy bio milk which comes from free grazing cows, the cost of it is almost the same as basic milk where I live. I can tell you from my daily personal experience those are some of the happiest non-wild animals you can meet in person.
I mean if we move away from it, yes technically there will be 0 harm possible because we will have to kill all the diary cows, and prevent their offsprings from ever again being born. But thats kind of argument like killing all humans apart from me will end all of human suffering, technically true but not what we want.
Plant based 'milk' aint no milk, just drink with some flavors. Not judging or arguing for/against, but its not equivalent nor replacement in ie nutrition nor taste.
1. Cows, like humans, only produce milk after giving birth
2. These cows, in order to get pregnant in the first place, are artificially inseminated (and it isn't a very nice process)
3. What do you think happens to the offspring if it's male and thus uneconomical to keep?
The fact that these statements (which are incredibly obvious if you have an eighth grade education or higher) have to be spelled out is a testament to the power of the milk lobby that people think there are some bucolic scenes where farmkids go to milk Bessie each morning, who produces day in and day out without fuss.
The fact you’re getting downvoted so much also illustrates how much our species is willing to hide our head in the sand and buy the milk lobbies’ lies.
It doesn’t change the suffering and abuse involved in making it. Downvoting parent won’t make that go away even if you don’t like hearing it.
I love cheese too. I was eating some almost every day growing up in cheese country. But I gave it up once I learned the cost of making it in term of animal abuse and pollution.
We mostly gave up raping and pillaging so maybe one day we’ll also vastly reduce the abuse we inflict onto the billions of animals we “raise”…
I did not downvote, just wanted to share that me, and maybe many like me are not buying the milk industries’ lies. I would support legislation that increased quality of life for cows and all animals.
At least in Germany, and presumably most places in Europe are the same or similar, milk can be labeled organic without the animals ever being grazed. Though apparently they always have access to an outdoor area.
Even milk that's specifically sold as being from free grazing animals in actual fact only requires them to be on a pasture 6h a day for 120 days a year.
Far from being easy and cheap, I think in Europe it's close to impossible to buy milk from cows that are predominantly free grazing. Even though, from what I can tell, cows are perfectly capable of being outside year round in most of the continent.
> its not equivalent nor replacement in ie nutrition nor taste
Speak for yourself, it might not have the same nutritional value (but also not the same amount of hormones and/or antibiotics), but there are a few oat based milks (e.g. Alpro This Is Not Milk) that have almost the same mouth feel as cow milk (personally, I find that too fatty and prefer the non-fatty tasting oat milk).
> Its easy to buy bio milk which comes from free grazing cows
Uh huh, and how many people are doing that, especially close to the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder? There are plenty of plant based milk with a hefty trend markup, but least here in Germany the discount supermarkets have plenty of cheap plant based milk that is the same price as cow milk, and you don't have to squeeze milk from an animal for that.
Make your own. It's easy and cheaper than dairy. Takes minutes. Not drank dairy in five years, never miss it. Guests never tell that they been given oat milk and usually convert to drinking and/or making their own oat milk immediately following the experience.
You can supplement with lactoferrin if you so choose, and on the flip side oat milk doesn't contain any hormones, antibiotics or pus, all of which can slip into cow milk.
Oat milk would likely contain pesticides and other chemical residues. There is no hiding from bad chemicals but one can choose food that contains support for their removal. I'd be concerned about pure vegan diet for its lack of certain removal-supporting compounds, leading to massive issues after many years as one can read on Internet. I doubt they will supplement missing things.
All the overvalued growth stocks are going down because the supply of easy money dried up. The massive rise in BYND share price was always ridiculous. Their products are easy to replicate and companies like Nestlé have way more resources to bring them to market successfully and sustainably, which they're doing now.
Somebody not eating animal products for ethical reasons will not buy anything from Nestle given a choice, for very same reasons. And yes, we who avoid Nestle pay more for alternatives, but if you know their business practices there's no moral choice.
I'm not a vegetarian, but I eat little meat and replace the rest with meat alternatives. And I buy Nestle products, as do pretty much all people I know who are also trying to reduce their meat consumption. Meat alternatives are entering the mainstream and not everybody who cares about animal welfare is also an activist.
Most people I know buy Nestle products, but most people I know are not vegan.
I meant if your ethical values push you to go through the trouble of cutting out animal products completely, possibly at great cost to you, then I fail to see how the modicum of effort required to avoid buying Nestle products is anything but a rounding error.
I respectfully disagree. As much as I would like to avoid the kinds of Nestle, it's just impossible in practice for many of us. Instead, I try to find comfort in the fact that animal replacements are becoming cheap and common because of the mega corporations.
The task is simplified to looking at label. Respectfully, if even that is too much, you don't particularly care about avoiding Nestle products at all...
Almost everything can be reduced to "the task is simplified to a simple sounding thing". However, when you have dozens of such things in your daily life to worry about, it stops being so simple.
Also, if someone in my household likes a particular Nestle product, what's the procedure then? Stick to my principles and fight every time? Make an exception for that one? How many exceptions will there be in the end?
Ultimately, I guess I don't particularly care about avoiding Nestle in the end. Not to the extent that I would have to make my life more complicated than it already is.
> Almost everything can be reduced to "the task is simplified to a simple sounding thing".
How? Recycling for example is very complicated, takes time and effort sourcing recyclable things and shipping them for recycling later. Buying things manufactured sustainably is very complicated, because that stuff is not listed on labels in sufficient detail so you need to do actual research. Etc etc.
But here you have two products on the shelf. One has Nestle logo on the label the other doesn't. If you don't have significant issues with your vision, it takes 30 sec top to skim labels and tell which one is which. And the kicker is, you only have to do it once then you already know which logo is Nestle and just don't buy it. And if you as you say already try to be mindful of your diet you are already browsing multiple products looking at labels anyway! So I must be really missing something.
Personally the only reason not to do it is if I am poor at the moment and can't afford the non-Nestle one...
But recycling is easy! Just put the right thing in the right bin!
You have totally been sidestepping the part where I talk about this small inconvenience in relation to the existing complexity of life. I take it that you don't have small kids, since the thing is that when you do, you in general want to simplify whatever you can.
If one product takes 30 seconds to check and find a replacement (might not always exist!), that's a good 20 minutes on a proper family shopping run. I also don't have a super brain that will automatically remember the manufacturer for some 50 products, so I'd absolutely be stuck with checking each time.
Granted, once it becomes a routine to avoid certain products, it would be rather easy. But to get there would take time and effort that I'd rather spend elsewhere.
> But recycling is easy! Just put the right thing in the right bin!
Maybe if you live in very specific locations like Taiwan. Then yes you shall put right things in right bins, rinse your recycling first, etc. Not because it's easy or quick, it isn't, but because you will be financially penalized if you don't. In many other places recycling does nothing besides make you feel good and get off the case of the manufacturers who save money on plastic packaging and shift the blame around
> that's a good 20 minutes
Only once and only if you don't already skim the labels, which I bet you do if you try to avoid animal stuff in your diet occasionally. The small print ingredients take much longer to parse than an obvious Nestle logo.
I don't have a problem with not caring at all as much as saying that you care but it's too difficult, because in this case it really isnt.
OP here. You are free to feed your children with this new experimental food that has never been consumed at any point of human evolution on this planet.
The last time we tried this expriment with novel new foods 10% of USA got diabetes.
Do tell me how your children will end up in 20 years of this kind of food.
Similary cramming meat down our gullets morning day and night is a recent change too. And entire cultures do fine without dairy. "imitation" would make sense but "fake" doesn't.
> Good points until you showed obvious bias with the "fake food" comment.
What leads you to believe that the clear conflict of interests pointed out by OP changes in any way if OP doesn't use a marketing term to refer to their product?
Not OP. Then what "value" did you even bring to this conversation then, other than to say this person has bias? Because the natural interpretation of your comment is "oh, good facts, but see he has this bias because of this word, therefore the facts must be wrong or misleading or cherry picked". That interpretation sure sounds like an ad-hominem. If there is bias, state your counter points to prove that point.
I responded to a comment that used the term "ad hominem" wrongly. A dictionary could explain proper usage of that term better than I could so I don't bother
Probably going to be short lasted, as the nutritional deficiencies caused by those products start to produce symptoms. Then plant based diets will become stigmatised.
The trend in plant foods to label them with names for animal products is very misleading when the nutritional profiles have absolutely nothing in common. Oat “milk” is basically flavoured water; soy “milk” has a little bit of nutrients in it, but it’s negligible. Vegan “meat” from wheat/seitan (the most popular version) contains a type of protein that is not digestible. Vegan “cheese” from coconut oil and starch is also nutritionally empty. And so on.
I know all this because I’ve been vegan for 5+ years and i had to study a lot to understand how to be responsible about my diet. You have to go to basics and use raw ingredients. The processed products on the market are not good for you.
Oatly “brags” about not adding anything “extra” to their products (meaning they don’t even fortify with synthetic vitamins).
Gluten has a protein digestibility score of 0.25 - compared to 1 for animal protein. [0]
The bioavailability of synthetic vitamins used for fortification varies (e.g for b12, the methyl-, hydroxo- and cyano- variants are not equally effective at treating deficiency) and is different from natural sources (where cofactors and the vegetal matrix play a role in absorption).
The push for x product but vegan annoys me quite a bit, tbh.
There are lots of really amazing vegan meals. But noooo, gotta emulate non-vegan meals. As you said, nutritionally empty, but also just plain tasting worse IME.
There are a lot of people like me that just prefer eating vegan foods for animal welfare reasons. But do love the taste of meat. It's also a good transitional method during a period of change because people already know what taste they like.
This is why. Of course many foods can be even better exploiting the best sides of their ingredients but it will be different so it will be harder to convince people. This will just take longer.
I think it's principally the vegan burgers that are pretty horrible, just big fatty patties with no nutricional value, and not very tasty either, with some exceptions like Beyond.
Nothing wrong with emulating non-vegan foods. Culturally we have honed non-vegan meals for a _long_ time, and it only makes sense to tap into those learning by substituting certain ingredients but keeping taste, mouthfeel and pairing options intact.
Of course, if you shovel nothing but processed food into your maw, that's going to be bad for you, vegan or not.
> Probably going to be short lasted, as the nutritional deficiencies caused by those products start to produce symptoms.
>...
> I know all this because I’ve been vegan for 5+ years and i had to study a lot to
>...
> The processed products on the market are not good for you.
You appear to have a bias and are proclaiming that everyone will soon align with your bias.
I've been vegan for over 13 years and eat a ton of processed vegan foods, a lot of oil, and don't have a ton of fresh fruits of vegetables. Clearly my diet isn't as healthy as yours, but it's close to the typical American diet.
My latest checkup and blood test show that all of my key health indicators are in the middle of the healthy range and my organs are all working as expected.
It's unlikely that, in general, people will notice some nutritional deficit from eating plant-based mock meat and dairy products and stop purchasing them.
Yours less so. The commenter made an extraordinary claim, without evidence, that nutritional deficiencies would soon appear as a result of vegan food. The responder at least cited personal evidence that despite being on a vegan diet for 13 years they have had no abnormal blood work. Obviously it’s not as valuable as a well constructed large scale study, but it’s at least marginally better than literally nothing.
This is an example of something you aren't going to disprove in a large study. It is known that people relying too heavily on processed food makers suffer deficiencies and a reasonable hypothesis that food processing working with less choices will raise the rates of some deficiencies. A change on the order of 1 in 10 000 vegans is not going to show up in an affordable study but in something suspiciously close to an opinion piece in a rag newspaper.
Nutritionists everywhere point out the fact that diets which exclude whole food groups don't guarantee an adequate supply of some key nutrients, and in some cases require taking supplements to avoid suffering from health issues.
And you refer to that fact as "bias", to try to dismiss it?
I have had good luck with the Follow Your Heart brand "American Singles" and "Provalone" flavors from Sprouts. They melt well enough in a hot sandwich. They are terrible cold.
I'll always prefer real cheese(the more pungent the better), but my digestive system does not.
> Vegan “meat” from wheat/seitan (the most popular version) contains a type of protein that is not digestible
That would be gluten/gliadin. I'm somewhat gluten sensitive (makes psoriasis flare up) and have been pescetarian for over 30 years and I find that vegan "alternatives" are generally quite bad. They tend to use lots of fat (makes it taste better) and rely heavily on pastry/breadcrumbs which makes it unsuitable for me.
I totally agree with the cooking food yourself principle - it's the only way to not end up eating processed rubbish.
Exactly. Raises hand I try to eat animal products less for countless reasons that I really hope are obvious, but I still eat them even if I don't feel good about it. Btw I don't cook.
Don't want my coffee black? Alt milk. If it's as good as water, great--water won't kill me. Want to eat a substantial meal but all that's sold here is some impossible(tm) concoction? I'll eat that thing if it's meal time.
I may eat fish or even meat some other time and I try with various success to maintain a diverse diet anyway (beans etc.) so I reckon I might get the nutrients I need, that's not a problem.
I agree it might hurt someone who naively tries to go vegan just eating these things, but they are not a threat for people like me (probably more of those than full vegans).
I drank almond "milk" for a while, because it was shelf-stable until opened and wouldn't sour in a week, but also it is vanilla-flavoured and loaded with sugar.
The most important thing is food education. Most people's eating habits are inherited from their parents and family. It's really hard to change them.
In USA at least, the default options are not good. You have to make most of your own meals or be selectively eat at "healthy" restaurants if you want to be healthy. Otherwise you'll be overweight or skinny-fat.
I think Europeans have much better default options than Americans and can see how veganism may not net the same benefits as it would in the states. I've been vegetarian for 10+ years. The lack of options in USA has actually made me healthier as I have to prepare my own food more often, but I know some unhealthy vegans who just don't cook.
If you actually put a little thought in your vegan diet, it’s fine. I personally struggled with iron deficiency after switching, but increased my iron-rich vegetables intake along with cooking in a cast iron pan (yes it transfers to the food and to you). Along with semi regular blood tests, you’re fine.
I also wonder who really gets confused at the supermarket seeing plant milk and cow milk and mistakenly buying one for the other… How can you be “mislead” when even a 6yo knows that cow milk cannot possibly come from plants, or that a vegan burger cannot possibly be made out of a dead animal?
Alpro for example uses 2.3% almonds. That’s 5 almonds per glass of almond milk. And it’s a water extraction, which will not get most of the nutrients out. Instead they fortify it with a modest amount of synthetic vitamins.
And I make sure to eat salad, carrots and avocado every day.
I came up with this regime after getting my blood work done and after exactly tracking all my nutritional values for a while and comparing those to the suggested amounts.
I also have a long running project in the "statistics of one" space, where I track a lot of treatment effect correlations:
B12, Omega 3 with both (DHA and EPA), and vitamin D during the winter months.
I had some blood work done after 2 years of being vegan, largely to ensure my dietary shift hadn't caused any problems. This tested everything from cholesterol (lipid profile), iron profile, testosterone, B9 & 12, liver function, CRP and more. All markers we're either in the optimal or normal ranges. I eat reasonably well (I'm not perfect) and I try to keep processed foods - including fake meats - down to a minimum
B12 is the most important one. I've started getting some strange "tingling" in my arms a while ago, went to the neurologist, got a prescription for a higher dosage B12 and it went away. I was supplementing B12 already, but it wasn't regular.
Some other supplements:
- D3 (complemented with a "SAD Lamp" [0] in winter, can recommend)
- Omega 3-6-9
- Magnesium + B6 (helps reduce cramps during/after heavy training sessions)
- Vitamin C + Zinc when feeling that my immune system needs a boost (after traveling/flights)
https://examine.com/ is useful to get a quick look at the aggregated/summarized research for supplements.
I'm a 58 year old male, and have consumed a vegan diet for almost 40 years now. I take a women's daily multivitamin, primarily for the iron. I also take a calcium-magnesium-zinc tablet, as the multivitamin is relatively low in calcium.
None, but I'm only vegetarian. I get nearly all required B12 from dairy and eggs. For some reason I get >500% the daily suggested amount of iron. I'm pretty low on Vitamin D (~20%), I figured the worst case scenario is I get some mild depression during winter so no supplements either.
There are enough people becoming b12 deficient on a diet that actually contains b12. Take a b12 supplement. Don't risk it. Fortified products are not enough. Deficiency can take years to develop.
Personally I take a vegan supplement that contains b12, iron, d3 and zink. I also eat algae oil for the omega3.
I also make sure to use fortified soy milk.
I have personally found zink to be the hardest nutrient to get enough of, at least since I got kids and started cooking more kid-friendly food.
I never had issues before starting to supplement iron despite giving blood, so I don't think it is a problematic nutrient for me. Every day I eat more than twice the RDI, but of course non-heme and together with the regular absorption inhibitors.
I supplement D (because lots of people are deficient, vegan or not), B12, and K (helps with B12 or D absorption, forgot which)
For iron, I’d suggest switching to cast iron or carbon steel pans. They transfer iron to anything you cook in them and you absorb it. Works the same way as these little iron fishes to drop in the stew some ONGs gave (give?) to third world populations that are having iron deficiencies from not being able to afford or find a proper diet.
In any case, cooking every lunch and dinner on cast iron or high carbon steel pans solves the iron deficiency for us. Ask an MD to see if it’s an avenue for you too because the iron supplement pills or IVs are made out of animal blood afaik which kinda defeat the purpose of not killing animals.
Please also check you b vitamins and B12. They are very hard to get and had some friends being defficient without knowing it. Most of the plant based fake meats put it in, so that saves most people. But they were health oriented and also didn't eat those.
B12 and B6 for vegan me. As I'm male, and live somewhere sunny, I think iron and d3 are less of an issue. B6 has been linked to anxiety, so it's mainly an experiment to see if it helps.
I am getting a bit deeper into the food industry since I started investing in a startup that plans to produce animal feed with insects. Animal feeds are prepared with specific properties, for instance, fish feed at 60% protein. The impact of different percentages of compounds is measured closely on animal well being, growth, weight… I am quite bothered that we don’t do the same for human foods. We lighlty compare real milk with plant based milk without being honest about the completely different properties of the two. I suspect the difficult conversation we need to be having would be about proteins and how to produce them sustainabily and ethically. Many plant based vegan alternatives hide from the real problem, I think.
It's funny you are worried about the impact of vegan alternatives and not, say, sugars, alcohol, overly fatty or salty foods, too much bad quality meat raised with hormones etc. It's almost like you have a bias against the vegan alternative..
Edit: ok so I was not terribly constructive with this comment, so happy to elaborate. I'm pretty tired of this argument against vegan meat. The nutritional values of vegan meat are not that bad even in the worst case in relation to everything else that is in the market - it's a non issue at best. What I believe the commenters parroting this line really want to say is that they like meat and need a reason not to eat/support the alternatives.
Arguments against eating meat are orders of magnitude heavier than against vegan meat.
He is probably also concerned about those things and many other things, like climate change, the Ukrainian War, the Sudanese Civil War, AI... you don't have to mention every little thing you are concerned about in each post.
Please don't bring your nonsense strawman arguments to HN. It's perfectly fine to bring up one angle about something you want to discuss without listing all the other angles every single time, that doesn't downplay them in any way. If you always insist on listing every possible problem associated with every possible discussion point you'll never get anywhere.
Luckily, these are pretty much illegal in all of European Union.
Traceability regulations and the regulators being pretty on the ball with checking (even more so since the horsemeat issue years ago) mean we don't get such garbage in our market.
"Undercover footage that appears to show extremely sick cows being smuggled into a Polish slaughterhouse and sold on with little or no veterinary inspection has raised alarm about standards in one of the EU’s largest meat exporters."
Are they really that on the ball? Sounds like nothing changed after the horsemeat scandal.
They have lifted restrictions on feeding animal remains to livestock, in the name of competition. Those restrictions were there for good reason in the wake of the BSE crisis.
Hard to understand one can promote cheese versus « vegan cheese » for nutritional reasons ! The vegan cheese may contain very few nutriments while the vast majority of our « real » cheeses are absolute disasters.
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but there can be nutritional benefits hiding in certain cheeses. Vitamin K2 can be tricky to find in plant sources - natto being the only one I can think of and it's tricky to find here in the UK. Roquefort has been hailed as the important part of the "French paradox" (French cardiovascular health tends to be much better than their high fat diet would suggest). I do like my fermented foods, with kimchi being my most frequently consumed.
Thanks, didn’t know the k2 can be sourced in kimchi ! Totally agree with not throwing the baby with the water. As for most poisons, just a bit has a good effect, think red wine.
I don't personally know any vegetarian or vegan who thinks of alternatives as some kind of healthy choice by default. Many of them also don't consider cow's milk to be inherently healthy, but that's neither here nor there.
Those who care about eating healthy make sure that non-healthy foods, animal product alternatives or otherwise, are not the only thing they consume. They get their protein (and other macro and micronutrients) from relevant plant-based sources or supplementation. The latter is especially common for gym-goers. I'd hope people who do consume meat and dairy and care about their health also don't assume that animal product consumption is equatable to a healthy holistic diet by default.
While you're obviously correct that such things matter, I don't have the impression that people sweat those things for meat or dairy even before the vegan alternatives.
I'm using substitutes where possible, but count myself as vegetarian rather than vegan, mainly due to cheese. Vegan cheese substitutes do exist, but I can't use one single thing in all places: smoked tofu can go in a sandwich but it doesn't melt right on a pizza, the ones which do melt have zero-to-minimal protein. Milk substitutes are easier, but I still keep the soy for cereal and the Hafermilch for drinks.
> We lighlty compare real milk with plant based milk without being honest about the completely different properties of the two
For sure, there are many differences between plant based and dairy milk. Besides the protein levels, for example, a large percentage of humans - between 10 and 90 percent depending on genetic background - are lactose intolerant and can't digest animal milk. Plant based milks don't have this problem - very few people can't digest oats, and for those few who do have a problem with oats, they can switch to almond, rice, soy, cashew or even peanut milk. Sure, these have less protein than dairy milk, but they more than make up for it in diversity and benefit to the environment, and it's easy to adapt your diet to get the protein elsewhere.
So when being more honest in our comparisons - a good thing, for sure - we must compare all of these things and not just the amount of protein. For me personally, being one of those lactose intolerant people, plant based milks definitely win. For another person they may not.
Mammal milk contains lactoferrin, a very powerful anti-viral/bacterial/fungal molecule that helps fighting invaders in your gut. Lactose-free milk would still work to avoid age-related digestion issues. By skipping it you are likely going to develop gut issues in a few years/decades. See the clinical section here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactoferrin
"Lactoferrin in sufficient strength acts on a wide range of human and animal viruses based on DNA and RNA genomes,[46] including the herpes simplex virus 1 and 2,[47][48][49] cytomegalovirus,[50] HIV,[48][51] hepatitis C virus,[52][53] hantaviruses, rotaviruses, poliovirus type 1,[54] human respiratory syncytial virus, murine leukemia viruses[43] and Mayaro virus.[55] Activity against COVID-19 has been speculated but not proven"
The amount of sugars and carbs in fruit and veggies has risen a lot due to selection. The amount of sugar in products like cookies, yogurt, bread, sauces, sodas has been skyrocketing for decades.
These changes often go unnoticed.
Meanwhile vegan, vegetarian and healthy products often clustered together, attract a health conscious crowd and get scrutinized a lot. For example alternative milks have to jump through hoops to prove that they aren't less healthy than milk.
> Many plant based vegan alternatives hide from the real problem, I think
The difference between supermarket produce (fruit/veg) and greengrocer produce is night and day IMO.
As for carrots specifically, I did notice that the greengrocer carrots often are individually smaller and more fucked up looking than the supermarket ones, and taste more intensely.
Interestingly the greengrocer is often cheaper on some things than even the discounter supermarkets, and is MUCH cheaper if you factor in spoilage, disposal of packaging waste, etc.
Same goes for meat products - buying them from a good butchers can often work out cheaper than the supermarket (precise control over cuts, etc), far less waste, professional advice on preparation, higher quality, etc.
Waitrose sell some very nice tomatoes, albeit at very premium prices.
Sainsbury’s often stock UK-grown Thanet Earth tomatoes (look for “jubilee vine tomatoes” etc) which are some of the best I have found at normal prices, especially out of season.
Vegans are usually aware of nutritional values and know how to have a healthy diet without meat, it may include supplementation (vitamin B12 in particular). Probably better than the average meat eater who doesn't care.
Remember that humans are omnivores, we are less picky eaters than most animals.
> We lighlty compare real milk with plant based milk without being honest about the completely different properties of the two.
We’re talking about individual products. People who just vegan milk do so because they switched their diet (and this step requires you to think about proportions or else).
"the difficult conversation we need to be having would be about proteins and how to produce them sustainabily and ethically. This plant based vegan alternatives hide from the real problem, I think"
Huh? I thought the real problem are the vast ressources milk production needs and the cruel need to seperate the cow babies from their mothers so they produce more milk. And not even speaking about the meat production facalities.
Oatmilk on the other hand grows fast and does not require misstreating babies, so what is the real problem?
(apart from the fact, that many people, including me, also like milk and meat, despite alternatives?)
Meat and dairy are clearly not "vast" resource hogs in any way that currently matters, because they're cheap.
And while I personally share the belief that it's inherently cruel and should be changed, it's been obvious to me for most of my life that most people don't share those values and are not motivated by that.
But that's also a category error for the comment you're replying to, which is "is it healthy?" when you're answering "is it ethical?"
Correlation is not causation. As a European myself here is another correlation that probably has a lot more to do with the fact that people in Europe are not buying as much high quality food:
After the politicians printed so much money in order to pay for COVID costs, general inflation has accumulated to 18% or so, split in two years of 8-9%.
Basic food after Ukraine disruption of cereal and oils and increment in energy prices went up over 30%.
The fact that buying buying basic food is 30% more expensive I believe has a lot more to do with people looking for alternatives, specially poor people that could not pay the higher prices anymore.
> Correlation is not causation. As a European myself here is another correlation that probably has a lot more to do with the fact that people in Europe are not buying as much high quality food […] After the politicians printed so much money in order to pay for COVID costs, general inflation has accumulated to 18% or so, split in two years of 8-9%.
It's a nice theory and it would be very believable, if the trend to eat less meat would be a recent change. However per capita meat consumption has been dropping in Europe for 15 years straight. The biggest decrease was from 2015-2020 which was a 0% inflation period.
You are linking to US data. However you are right that the inflation in Europe was not 0%, but it was well below the 2% target rate. The average inflation rate over that time period is around 1.2%.
Milk was one of the hardest things for me to replace, but a few years ago a brand of pea-based milk replacement was released that acts as an excellent substitute for me (for cooking and in coffee). Now, the last thing I'm missing is eggs and to a smaller extent cheese. There _are_ some decent cheese replacements out there, but none quite perfect, and I haven't found anything even close with eggs. But seeing these things only get better over the years, at a pretty rapid pace, makes me confident that they're coming.
In Europe -- at least in Czechia and Germany, where I've spent some time recently -- Vegan options are often higher-priced than the foods they're substituting for. Vegan cheese is more expensive, often considerably more expensive, than regular cheese from a deli or from Lidl. Vegan cafes, which have noticeably grown in popularity, are no less expensive than regular cafes.
...There are also a lot of "Loving Hut" restaurants in the big cities of Czechia and Germany. These are run by a vegan cult who would doubtless frown upon the eating of insects. The food they offer is inexpensive, but no cheaper than, e.g., Burger King.
Speaking from Germany, the perceived price offset between vegan options it’s more or less 10-15%.
I would not state that is a cult ‘cause there’s a lot of people with genuine good intentions; but I would not believe 100% in all vegan options since the traceability regulations are not clear and those certification bodies lacks certain transparency regarding of its criterias versus government regulations.
In Europe, it's pretty low-key, but still. In Asia, they have TVs in their restaurants that show their religious ceremonies on a loop, and the restaurants have a more temple-like interior décor.
Why vegan though and not just vegetarian? It is far less complicated and has less dogma and drama than vegan.
I'm expecting the CRON (calorie restriction optimal nutrition) diet to become popular. People these days seem need to one-up or shock everyone, and vegan will be seen as too soft.
Anecdotally I would say that oat based milk is taking over the world (probably because it is sweeter). But it feels to me like Veganism and Vegetarianism are still quite niche.
Interestingly, I don't like most oat milks because they're so sweet.
I also learned that while they almost always say they're unsweetened, that's kinda... not wrong, but misleading, as most oat milks use a production process that creates sugar.
There are no-sugar or almost-no-sugar oat milks that don't do this, but they're rare.
Rare? Recently I, again, bought one of those by accident. At least in Germany and the Netherlands, it's available in most stores that also carry the sweetened ones and I find it easy to overlook the word ungesüßt/ongezoet on an otherwise identical package.
I don't think it's super weird. I'm lowering my meat consumption by eating more non-meat, and I'm not particularly interested in things that try to fake being meat, when I do eat I prefer meat, not something pretending to be meat. Lots of vegan friends in my circle also complains about companies doing fake meat instead of doing better products not trying to imitate meat.
IMO it's a lost market. An actual vegan, or generally someone that cares about their diet and products they use deeply, doesn't need any food innovations. What we/they need is access to affordable quality products to make our own meals with.
There is no real market here except you are a innovative farmer.
I moved to France last year and I'm pretty sure I eat less meat. Between the good veggies and fruits and the fantastic cheeses there is a lot of stuff that's just better to my palate than meat.
I’m in the same boat when it comes to meat (real or fake), but I’m not even thinking about giving up milk or dairy products, they’re one of the things I still value when it comes to food.
If you don’t buy them from very traditional read very expensive producers it is also very unnatural. Animals are simply used as self replacing bio reactors that are fed the cheapest inputs like grain and animal remains. Even the vitamin d in milk is mostly there because you just supplement the animals. I visit a small farm on vacation a few times a year and they have a bunch of chicken running around. I have no qualms eating their eggs, they are not even slaughtered in most cases as the fox eats them first. They also have a dozen cows on their meadow. But let’s not pretend that is where most animal products come from.
So in Ireland, supermarket meat is cheap, but usually higher in fat and "wetter". Still decent meat, but you are paying for water IME.
At the butcher I pay only slightly more, I know exactly which farm it came from, I know where it was slaughtered and processed, and I can ask for specific cuts/amounts, so less wastage.
Its also much higher quality and not as "wet", so its much nicer to cook with (and I'm not paying for water weight).
I've saved a metric shitload on my monthly food shopping by using the butchers and greengrocers in my area instead of the supermarkets.
Same. No-one has yet been able to explain why I should exchange a well-functioning animal-based diet into a vegan one where I need to supplement by default to fulfill human needs. I have respect for those who do it on the basis of animal compassion, but claiming healthiness is obviously a false statement.
Can't speak for you personally, but the average human today has an unhealthy diet since well before the recent popularity surge of vegan-by-choice in the west, so I don't accept "well-functioning animal-based diet" as a general premise even if you personally can make it work.
That issue basically only happens if you eat exactly one plant, not if you eat at least two, because different plants miss different amino acids and most protein rich plants have most amino acids and the differences overlap nicely.
This is so easy you're probably doing it already even as a meat eater: Mexican chilli with rice? Beans and rice compensate for each other's weaknesses. Peanut butter on bread? Peanuts and wheat cover each other.
There are some things that are technically complete by themselves, but mycoprotein (Quorn) which I think is complete, isn't available for purchase everywhere.
Conversely if you do single-foodsource-diet with meat, you can also get problems, most famously protein poisoning and scurvy.
Hang on, I think you’re muddying the waters here. A vegan diet is purely done for animal compassion. A vegan diet, a plant-based diet and even whole food plant-based diet are different diets.
Veganism is a lifestyle based around the notion of reducing as much harm to animals a feasibly possible. No one claims that a vegan diet is centred around health. After all, you could be vegan and eat nothing but Oreo’s and Dorito’s.
We’re only a few disasters away from the government deciding that the climate crisis requires drastic measures, including a severe rationing of meat and other products considered harmful to the environment. It’s clear from the rhetoric that this is the direction we are moving in, and it’s also clear that a great percentage of the population will comply and even celebrate such restrictions.
I can’t walk about in public wearing a mask for any length of time without getting harassed, despite the continued prevalence of COVID and the worsening picture regarding long term consequences. I have trouble believing “it’s clear” that a great percentage of the population will comply, I think the handling of the early lockdowns has done for that. It seems more clear to me that governments will struggle to get compliance for any such measures at scale, based on attitudes since.
Institutional science is politics. It’s no longer possible to systemically create the kind of feedback loop necessary to take any kind of intelligent action, nor is there political will. It’s far more politically expedient in the near term for the powers that be to say that whatever measures they’ve implemented do in fact work and then let the networked tribe punish anyone who dissents.
Well, if we're talking about climate change action items, then it actually makes sense to me, although I cannot find any numbers on how effective it is (comparing, to, say, better insulation of house windows).
By the way, "the government deciding" sounds like it's totally detached from public wish. But in democratic countries public has a lot of influence on the government, way more than popular meme says (speaking as an emigrant from autocratic regime), it just public is not exercising their right (or really trust the government). So it's actually "people are going to decide".
Maybe not with you. But in most modern cities they are actively campaigning against meat, they are mostly using the moral card: you are destroying the planet. How fun.
It isn't a 0 or 1, prob good for you health wise and for the planet to eat a little less meat and a bit more veg. Just look at the data out there.
This last year I am really decreasing how much meat I eat (ill never give it up although I am excited about ground cricket meat and trying that). I am doing it for my health, costs, and because its good for the planet long term.
Data is sort of wildcard argument. Doesn't has any value if you don't point to specific.
Cashew cheese really is not better for the planet the local organic milk cheese.
In north of Holland there huge patches of land only cow can grace the land and nothing else grows, and there is an abundance of the water. Yet everyone complains about milk and meat taking too much wayer, and that growing plants would be more efficient.
It all depends, you cant just say "data".
Same with health. You really can't claim fried soya or pea protein is healthier then ground beef from a cow that spends his summers outside.
Sure, but buying a locally raised cow that is fed on local farmland is a lot better for the environment than steak from Argentina most of the time. The data around that is pretty solid.
I don't think cashew cheese grows in nature, i would never consider it vegetables and I am not advocating for processed foods. Merely stating that cutting down on how much meat you eat and eating more veg is better for your health and the planet. Well backed by data.
Sorry bit confused, you asked what data was and I sent you a big explanation? Sorry I am a bit literal at times, what are you requesting that you can't find on Google?
Lol, at any rate you are saying a bunch of statements that seem pretty shaky, saying they are backed by data, and not linking any sources. I guess the data is in another dimension or something.
I live in a quite progressive modern city (in central Europe though) and at least here it can't be very widespread as I've never noticed anything like that.
I've got a few friends who are vegan but it's mostly me doing the questioning as I'm curious about developments in that field (and agtech)
what destroys the planet is not meat or non-meat. Its mass production of [insert food here]. I have fun listening the vegan arguments until they are shown how their over-consumption of avocados or soy-based foods has devastating or exploiting effects on ecosystems and people.
But people (including you it seems) don't really understand the scale at which meat production harm the environment compared to vegetables. Yes, every mass production have problems, but with meat you need multiple times the amount of everything, because you first need to produce the food the cow or whatever eats, and then the meat production.
For instance, it's multiple times less co2 impact for me eating an avocado here in Norway that's been shipped half the globe around from south america, compared to eating meat from the local farm. The scales are just so incredibly different in production (vs transportation) that it's not to "gotcha" many believe to claim that something imported is automatically bad.
You can't honestly claim buying avacado's is better for the planet, it's wreaked social & ecological havoc in multiple south American countries with dried up rivers, gangs and lack of diversification of the income of a country.
Next to that it's not always Plants vs meats. In many places only cattle can graze but not much of value can grow.
The CO2 issue is really a terrible comparison. Everything cows put out has been put in from the air. The airplanes are excreting new/old CO2 taken from fossil fuels. Some claim cows are still worse because of methane, but they forget to mention methane only had 12 years lifespan in the atmosphere.
> it's wreaked social & ecological havoc in multiple south American countries with dried up rivers, gangs and lack of diversification of the income of a country.
The produce to feed the cattle is often detrimental to the environment too. They're not cutting down rain forests in Brazil to produce soy for meat substitutes but rather for produce to feed animals.
But it's absolutely important to eat local and if you're gonna eat meat ensure that the animal was fed local produce too.
The question is about scales (or proportions) -- yes, most mass produced foods, (e.g. avocados) wreaked havoc, but the scope meat production does that might be way larger.
The vast majority of soy production, particularly the environmentally destructive production that’s converting rainforests in South America into farmland, is for animal feed, not human consumption: https://ourworldindata.org/soy
It seems you don't understand how this "foodchain" works—there will be nothing, no non-human or human animal, to eat if "we" run of out plant food sources. Everything consumed ultimately comes from plants.
There's no doubt there are more vegans and vegan alternatives, but this does not seem like an unbiased news source to paint an accurate picture of what's actually going on. There are lots of factors at play, including the economy, energy prices and general price increases on food, or really almost everything.
The market for those « alternatives » can be seen as a helper to change habits but not as a nutrition target. I’m an absolute sausage addict and some vegetal ersatz helps me when I crave for a barbecue, meanwhile taking new recipes habits that are nutritious enough for usual meals.
I wish it was more popular in Asia. Here everyone is crazy about meat, fish, and seafood. As vegetarian it's hard to go to a random place and find even one single non-plain (e.g. not pure rice) dish. The vegan choice outside vegetarian restaurants is pretty limited.
I went to Japan last year and it was rough haha. I'm vegetarian so it was a little better.
I spent a lot of time navigating to the sparse vegan/vegetarian restaurants which were overall mediocre. I subsisted on Starbucks veggie sandwiches, protein bars and 7-11 items.
I would probably go to more Indian restaurants if I did it again, but I try to keep high-protein and it makes things more complicated. I would also relax a little bit on the dashi and have some non-meat Soba.
Should be noted the source of this information, Good Food Institute Europe, was caught retaliating and spreading a culture of fear among dissenting forces in the organization. [1]
Whether you trust data from an organization that crushes dissent through illegal retaliation is up to you.
...and I was forced to switch to a carnivore diet for elimination purposes as some veggies were wreaking havoc on my body. Not sure getting healthier will be even an option in a few years.
My guess is that animal meat and milk sales dropped because of price increases, and vegans are usually rich and upper-middle class people that are not that price sensitive.
Weird way to say people can't afford animal-based products because of inflation and straight out stupid (current & upcoming) EU regulations, but yeah it's definitely 'the vegan trend', lmao.
As someone who actually enjoys the taste of milk and does not consider it a white liquid of unimportant taste to be poured over or into something other: No. Lactose free milk certainly hasn't the better taste and isn't the better product except for the lactose intolerant.
You didn't read my comment correctly, didn't say it tastes better. It's just that lactose free being the exception and not the norm prevents lots of people from enjoying it. I don't have intolerance, it's quite rare in Europe. But it's a problem for lots of the world population, which is why I believe lactose free should be more present.
> During the same period, animal-based meat and milk sales dropped by eight and nine percent, respectively
There are likely additional factors at play in the animal based drop
UK ONS shows whole milk at low of 43p/l in 2020 increasing to 70p/l in Mar 23 and minced beef from 609p/kg to 812p/kg in 23 -- but those numbers likely do not reflect the reality of multi-buy discount offers commonly being available in 2020 that are rarer now in 23 -- so the inflation felt by consumers is potentially even higher