Is Becoming Vegan Pointless?

       These days more and more people are becoming vegan because they think it is helping save the animals, but is this lifestyle actually better for the world? Becoming vegan is a bad idea because it is impossible to avoid using any animal products, veganism harms wild animals, and the vegan diet is not healthy.

       A vegan's goal is to not eat or use any animal products because they think it saves animals lives, and is better for the world. However, vegans rarely realize how many products have some type of material made from animals in them. Many beauty products contain products from animals. For example, make-up, nail polish, perfume and more all come from animals. Some of the fluids in your car also contain animal products, and if you think that a Tesla doesn’t use animal products because it doesn’t have an engine, the leather in the interior is made from animal skin also. There are so many products that include things from animals to be made, and I would encourage you to read about some sometime.

       Many vegans believe by eating only vegetables it will save animals' lives, however, this is not exactly true. Farmers are having to find more land to farm because of the increasing demand for plants. This is causing farmers to take more land to grow plants, which takes away from wild animals habitats. Without the correct habitat, animals do not have the correct environment to live in. Farmers are trying to use GMOs to produce more plants in less land, but people have a problem with that too, even though GMOs do not harm anything.

       Without eating animal products like meat, humans can not naturally get the correct nutrients they need to live healthily. Without eating foods from animals people will start to have deficiencies in vitamin B12, iron, magnesium, calcium, zinc, and high quality protein. People will also experience a lack of omega-3. A lack of omega-3 is likely to cause depression. A lack of omega-3 is also known to help develop schizophrenia, dementia, bipolar disorders and more.

       Several studies show that living a vegan lifestyle does not have major effects in helping the world, and the vegan diet is not healthy. Only the bad things that happen on bad farms tend to get spread to the public, which spreads the view that animal farming is very cruel and inhuman, however, I can tell you from experience that not all animal farms are that way. All in all, a vegan lifestyle is not smart, because it still harms wild animals, it is not healthy and more. So if you are contemplating becoming vegan, I would encourage you not to, and thank a farmer next time you see one.

Do you think becoming vegan is stupid, explain?

Do you think a vegan diet is healthy?

Would you ever become Vegan, explain?

https://www.saintlukeskc.org/about/news/research-shows-vegan-diet-leads-nutritional-deficiencies-health-problems-plant-forward#:~:text=Compared%20to%20the%20standard%20American,%2C%20and%20high%2Dquality%20protein.

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  • I don't think being vegan is stupid, people can eat whatever way they want. I think that the vegan diet can be challenging because of the lack of protein in most vegan foods, although some foods do have a good amount of protien. I would never become vegan because meat is very good.

  • I don't see a big point in going vegan because I agree with you. They thinking that they are helping the animals but they really aren't. I also think that vegan is not really that healthy. Many people that are vegan even sometimes starve themselves.

  • I would not call it stupid but I personaly am not vegan and do not see any reason to. I do agree that it is probably unhealthy but some people have to do it for health reasons, sometimes you have to replace sometime really bad with something that is not as bad. I personaly understand both sides but there is a differenct between being vegan and vegetarian so is being vegetarian better?

    • If you are a vegetarian you do not eat meat but you might eat other products from animals like milk and eggs. Meat is still very important in a healthy diet, so I believe that both veganism and vegetarianism are not very good for you.

  • I agree with you that there are animal products in so many things that you wouldn't expect it to be in it. 

    I appreciate that you care about the habitat of wild animals. Unfortunately, cattle ranching is the biggest driver of the Amazon rainforest deforestation. The rainforest (which is very important for our climate) is getting burned down to create space for cattle ranching and to grow soy and other plants that are mostly used for animals. 

    You also mentioned that a vegan diet requires more land because of the higher demand for plants. Actually, a plant based diet uses 75% less croplands than an omnivorous diet. This is due to the fact that all the animals eat way more plants than you would on a vegan diet. If a cow weighs 1,000lbs they would eat up to 30lbs of dry matter. I don't think that a human would eat that much. If we would reduce our animal product consumption, we could use the land where plants were grown to feed animals to grow plants for humans. We are using so much more resources by eating animals. 

    Furthermore, you mentioned that we have to eat animal products to get all the nutrients we need. First, I'd like to mention that we don't need animal products but the nutrients (which we can also get from plants). If you plan a plant-based diet and eat the right foods you can get all the nutrients you need. There are some amazing athletes who are actually vegan. I think that we can agree on the fact that you have to nourish your body the right way in order to be successful in sports. Some examples are Lewis Hamilton, Venus Williams or Patrick Baboumian. 

    • Majority of all the land that is used for livestock farming is un-farmable. This means that the land is not fit to grow crops, or it would be too hard to farm this land for crops. So farmers can not simply just switch livestock land to crop land. For the land that is farmable, in order to transer the land from livestock to crops it would take tillage. Tilling deep into the land releases CO2, which just harms the world in the long run anyways. Yes, you can get many different nutrients from plants, however, depending on the plant, you would have to consume more of the plant to get the same amount of nutrients as a smaller piece of meat. Also depending on where the vegan may live, some of the plants that have these different nutrients are not always available where the vegan lives. This makes it difficult for the vegan to get the correct nutrients they need easily. I appreciate your interest in this topic, are you a vegan?

      • I appreciate your reply and that you tried to explain your point a little bit more and that we can have this conversation. As I mentioned earlier, the amount of needed farming land would decrease on a vegan diet. Therefore, we also wouldn't need all of the land that is being used for livestock farming right now and the land that is unfarmable could be used for other things or just couldn't be used at all. Acording to the Food and Agriculture Organization by the United Nations, about 15% of global emissions are contributed by the livestock farming industry. There are many other factors besides the land use, for example the produced methane, high wasser usage or transport emissions. 

        I agree with you that it is important to eat local and seasonal foods. For a healthy diet, the meat consumption should be on a minimun anyways. Meat/Animal products are related to many health problems like heart attacks, strokes or obesity. Yes, it is true that you can (or have to eat) more on a vegan diet since plants have fewer calories than animal products in general. Plants also come with many other good nutrients like fiber and animal products rather have the bad ones like cholesterol. If you do a little research and make sure that you include all food groups (veggies, fruit, whole grains, nuts and seeds and legumes) you should be able to get all your nutrients. 

        And yes, I haven't eaten meat since late 2019. I mostly eat vegan and try to avoid animal products as much as possible.  

        • If veganism became very popular, and many people started to eat strictly vegetables and plant based foods, the demand for plants would go up. Because not all land used for livestock is farmable, it might push farmers to look for more land, like wild animals habitats. After all, more crops does amount to more land being needed.     Yes livestock farming does account for some global emissions. However, farmers and scientist are working very hard to help solve or reduce this problem. Recently at the dairy in Kirkman installed digestors that use manure and methane from the cows to make clean elctricity. Farmers are also trying to find a way to reuse the water run off on their farm. There are plenty other things farmers are doing to help this problem, and I think it would interest you to look into them. I respect your decision on becoming vegan, and I find it interesting on what you do to get the correct nutrients you need.

  • I belive that it's not a good idea because you're not getting enough nutriants from the vegtables they are eating. Being vegan can cause problems to your body it will cause you to lose Omega-3, Calcium and other things you get from eating meat. I would never go vegan because it's not really good for you and it's just not for me and it can probably kill you.

    • Not eating meat can definetely cause health problems because of deficiencies of things like omega-3. This can cause major problems to your health, and I do not think that veganism is worth that risk.

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