> 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.
> 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