Vegetarian Myths

re: Vegetarian Myths

cantanz777 — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:58:22 GMT

HI, I am thankful for your article and the truth it states. I live in Tanzania, East Africa and have observed first hand the diets of the local tribes, particularly the Masaai. I have also had interacton with many other tribes here. The Wahazube, the Barbeg, the Ha, the Gogo and the Chuga. Those who are predominately meat eaters are always the more healthy and also the most feared by their neighbors. This has long historical roots to it.

The Masaai for instance have no incidence of heart related problems and very little cancer, IF they are not exposed to sugar and wheat product consumption. Once they come into the cities and start to partake of the sugars and processed products soon develop many diseases they traditionally have not been subject to.

Keep up the good work!

Gary

re: Vegetarian Myths

Shepsu_4 — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 06:34:11 GMT

"Again, I have seen the results of this misinformation in my practice. I've had several patients of Northern European descent with severe mental and immune problems caused by a lack of EPA and DHA, two omega-3 fatty acids not found in plant foods."

What about avocados, and all the various nuts, beans and legumes. Surely, if your diet is varied and balanced you will get at least the recommended amount of EPA. According to www.Nutritiondata.com, avocado's have omega 3 and 6 EPA in them along with some vitamin A. So, maybe your clinical studies weren't eating properly balanced vegetarian diets. Some vegetarians eat nothing but veggie junk.

"Upon questioning Tanya about her diet, I quickly saw the cause of her infections, as well as her miscarriage: she had virtually no fat in her diet and was also mostly a vegetarian. "

Maybe your patients are among that group of people who eat only veggie junk.

re: Vegetarian Myths

rachelle20 — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 11:34:57 GMT

I have now been a vegan for over 6 years and, after vast amounts of research; concluded it is the healthiest type of diet, providing it is balanced. I study medicine therefore am well aware of nutrition/dieting and did not jump into this diet without doing any research. Most of the journal articles Ive read suggest positive implications for a vegetarian/vegan diet so Id like to know where you obtained the references from for this apparently biased article. There are a few isolated articles which suggest the diet is unhealthy; so I presume that you used these to support your arguments?

“As for the claims that raising livestock requires more water than raising plant foods, water that livestock drink would be drunk by them anyway, even if they were not being raised for food.”

Do you not realize that these animals are only BRED for food; if they weren’t used for food; they wouldn’t be bred.

“When all of the data are taken into account, the actual differences of heart disease between vegetarians and non-vegetarians in these studies was less than 1%: hardly a significant amount.”

This is an example of a very isolated study; most of the journal articles suggest vegetarians are at significantly lower risk of heart disease than non-vegetarians; please read the literature in a more honest and less biased way.

“Similarly, the annual all-cause death rate of vegetarian women was shown to be significantly higher than that of non-vegetarian women (0.86% vs 0.54%).”

A lot of studies would disagree with this and if you had evaluated all the literature fairly then you would have noticed this; it is very difficult anyway to conduct a fair study in this area as there is relatively few vegetarians compared to meat-eaters so it would not be a equal comparison, however most of the literature suggests vegetarians/vegans live longer simply because they suffer less with cancers, heart diseases etc.

“these thinkers would do well to remember the numerous studies that show that low saturated-fat consumption CAUSES violent behaviour in people.”

Funny isn’t it how serial killers, rapists etc never seem to be vegetarians, all the vegetarians/vegans I know are very civilised educated people; they campaign mostly for human and animal rights and are some of the nicest people I will ever meet. It appears to be that many meat-eaters seem to feel inadequate/threatened by peaceful vegetarians therefore; they take every opportunity to attack them and question them, much like in this article; I would classify this as a form of violence.

Im too busy to prove any of the other arguments wrong but Ill just say that all the vegetarians/vegans I know have clear skin, lots of energy, they never catch colds and they raise very healthy children with less incidences of asthma, allergies etc. People will always attack vegetarians as they do not understand them; they would never be able to exercise the will-power and self-control to give up meat and dairy products; therefore; they will continue to generate fruitless arguments on why vegetarianism is ‘wrong.’

re: Vegetarian Myths

Amit.Kher — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 09:03:34 GMT

"MYTH" 1's answer is full of incorrections/impracticalities. Non-vegetarianism is inefficient in energy use. For every MegaJoule of Sun's energy falling on a plant, about 5% (with variations) is converted into plant matter, leaving about 50KJ. If fed to animals, about 5 % energy is converted into animal matter, leaving just 2.5KJ. Rest is used for the animal's breathing, blood flow, inefficient metabolism, sex, running around, flexing its muscles even when confined in a shed, etc.

Urine contains nitrogen compounds? None of these compounds have been fixed (converted from atmospheric Nitrogen into nitrogen compounds) by the animal. It all comes from plant matter. You will be happy to know that human urine contains the same nitrogen containing compunds too.

The current animal farm practices are current because they are economical. If animals are left to graze grass on their own, they run around, wasting valuable energy (see the 5% comment above). Much larger real-estate requirements will force these "efficient" animal farms farther from human population requiring much more expenditure and pollution in transportation. It will also result in deforestation. You think you can fight with economics? Sorry.

At the end of it all, you still admit that non-vegetarian food is ineffecient (remember "It is true that these foods could be fed to humans"). Only your utopian, impractical, non-existent, impossible, economically infeasible farm practices can make it "efficient".

re: Vegetarian Myths

Walter.g — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:20:11 GMT

"First and foremost is our stomach's production of hydrochloric acid, something not found in herbivores. "

This is not true. Google to convince yourself.

re: Vegetarian Myths

VincentCraven — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:15:10 GMT

Thank you for posting this article. Though I do not fully believe everything you say, our society would benefit with more information like this. I strongly agree with the argument that the current method of raising livestock is very wrong and should be dealt with.

re: Vegetarian Myths

scaggs184 — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:39:21 GMT

THANK YOU FOR PUTTING ALL THE ARGUMENTS INTO ONE ARTICLE! THIS WILL BE GIVEN TO ALL VEGANS I KNOW