Carnivore diet been doing great

[Jannes]

@integral How much do you think would adding a small amount of biological eggs and maybe some milk, which both kind of contain the essence for growing life essentially increase the chance that they cover potentially not yet found nutrients by chance?

[ExploringReality]

@Princess Arabia

Not necessarily. The morality I speak of isn't something judged or bestowed upon from some higher deity or God. God is everything, but operates on many levels, it's not hierarchy, it's a holarchy. There is only Gods will. The morality I speak of in making conscious choices is only judged by the light of our own consciousness which is God. It's all impersonal from the biggest picture, but it's also sentient and connected as well. Life is a process and flowing creation of creation and destruction. Like the cells of our bodies are constantly going to battle to keep the whole organism alive, but if from the cellular level we start picking and choosing sides as to who were the good cells, who's the bad cells then the harmony at a higher level of the organism would collapse. So on one level or order it can look like chaos and on a higher level you see order and harmony. Everything is highly chaotically ordered and harmonic but from our human perspective it may not look like that, it may seem cruel, it may seem fucked up but that's just the way it is from a certain vantage point, and what makes human life so beautiful and unique is our ability to make conscious choices and to make changes. We can't stop a hurricane from flooding or natural disasters killing animals, but we can see things from a higher perspective and having a deeper awareness, not because a God is judging us, but because of our inner light of radiant transcendance.

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, Basman said:

This implies a binary of either you care about animals or you don't. It's a false dichotomy. You could care about general animal well-being but not see them as equivalent to humans, not adopting the utilitarian framing all together. You could love animals and raise them for meat on a farm, for example. This is how many farmers operate. You could care about dogs and cats but not so much for cows and pigs. This is how many suburban folk operate.

It's a pretty big jump in logic if you think about it. Why does it follow that caring about animals then means that they are entitled to the same rights as humans?

This is wrong. The best way is to commit seppuku and seize to exist. The best thing for ecology would be for humanity to go completely extinct over night.

It is an inherent contradiction within an ideology that is all about self-denial for the sake of preservation to draw the line anywhere. Any line will necessarily be partial and reductive.

First off, these are strawman claims that I am not making...

• "Meat eaters don't care about animals."
• "Animals are entitled to the same rights as humans."
• "Human should negate themselves entirely to save plants and animals."

I have never made any of these claims. They are pure strawmen that you're arguing against to give a straw dummy to smack down.

STRAWMAN #1 - "Meat eaters don't care about animals."

I'm not saying that people who eat meat and dairy don't care about animals. Quite the opposite. Most people who consume an omnivorous diet do care about animals.

Like, I always cared about animals, ever since I was a child, but I didn't choose to go Vegan until I was 27.

So, I had always had Vegan values... I just wasn't living in alignment with them until I changed my diet and lifestyle to reflect those values.

And I had tons of ways of explaining that incongruence of values away.

That's also the case for many people who consume meat and other animal products. Most of them also care about animals.

And if many of them had to kill the animals themselves, they'd probably just choose not to unless it was a matter of life or death.... and they would just eat something else instead.

But because they don't kill the animals themselves and they just purchase indiscriminate pieces of meat from the grocery store, they don't viscerally realize that their actions are misaligned from their values.

STRAWMAN #2 - "Animals are entitled to the same rights as humans."

I have no problem with human beings having more rights than animals within the context of human society.

But I believe that an animal has a right to life and well-being that trumps a human being's right to eat them for pleasure.

Like, if the choice is between "Kill this animal" or "Kill this human", I have no problem with humans deciding to save the human and kill the animal. Or if a human needs to eat an animal to sustain their life, I have no problem with that either.

And (call me crazy :D) I don't believe that animals should have the right to vote... or due process... or speech... or any of those human rights.

So no... I don't believe that animals are entitled to the same rights as humans.

And my belief is that sentient beings of any species are allowed to prioritize the life of one of their own species over the life of one of another species... if it's a matter of life or death.

I see humans as no different.

So, I don't have a problem with human beings dealing with food scarcity who have no choice but to consume animals and animal products to survive... in the same way that I have no problem with a lion eating a gazelle... and in the same way that I don't have a problem with bees swarming another being they perceive as being a danger to their hive.

STRAWMAN #3 - "Human should negate themselves entirely to save plants and animals."

And you are technically correct that the best way to "save the plants" or to "save the animals" is to stop existing.

And the second best way is to go Vegan. And the worst way is to continue eating meat and other animal products.

But I am not advocating for people to nullify their existence or anything extreme like that in order to save animals and the environment. 

Instead, I am advocating for people who are in first world nations and who have access to well-stocked grocery stores... and who aren't dealing with food scarcity and food insecurity to make changes to bring their actions more into alignment with their own values, if they have Vegan values and care about animals.

So, I'm not advocating for anything extreme or self-negating. I'm not even asking people to give up pleasure in their diet... but rather to move away from the pleasures of an omnivorous diet to experience the pleasures of a Vegan diet.

I am not so extreme as to say, "All humans should stop existing because it's better for the environment.

But if those are your values... you could try a "fruit-only" diet where you needn't kill any plants or animals. But I doubt those are your actual values because you just came up with this to defend your own choices from yourself.

[integral]

1 hour ago, Jannes said:

I want to understand your point so I reformulated it in my mind, correct me when I am wrong: "Almost everyone could thrive on a vegan diet if they did everything right, but practically you can expected that they wont do everything correct, and therefore that they will be unhealthy on a vegan diet. 

And if its not possible to educate these people about how they should pursue the vegan diet correctly it would be better to discorage them to follow this diet at all because they dont know what they are doing and would hurt themselves. An omnivore diet would be the safer pick as it increases that the person gets all the nutrients by chance. 

That would be a very reasonable point to make imo. However if you do that then you miss the opportunity to educate them  instead.

It takes intelligence to be a vegan. This is not a diet that you just do because it's trending, it has to be planned, you have to supplement thoroughly and you have to do monitoring. The evidence is overwhelming that if you're not supplementing you get murdered health-wise.

The guidelines of the World Health Organization Do a good job emphasizing this. But on average most vegans do it the wrong way because of cultural in general creates a ignorant population were there isn't enough awareness to do veganism properly.

Vegetarianism is a lot easier and requires less supplements and the Mediterranean diet and Mostly of white meat and fish that are well planned require a lot less intelligence to get right and less testing, so it's more viable for a average Joe who is too lazy to do veganism properly.

1 hour ago, Jannes said:

Almost everyone could thrive on a vegan diet if they did everything right, but practically you can expected that they wont do everything correct, and therefore that they will be unhealthy on a vegan diet. 

I actually didn't make that point but it is true. I was more saying that regardless of the diet you'll get into a scenario where you have to modify your diet according to your individual needs and health and gut microbiome. It's more obvious for sick people with IBS but normal people also age and life is hard and dirty and in practice people have to adjust their diets. It's very rare that someone just goes their entire lifetime never adjusting their diet regardless of whatever diet they're doing.

The point I was making is naturally because of diversity and how our environment is toxic and high stress and we get OLD all these issues the body naturally fails for a wide range of people, every illness known that you can think of like joint pain, bloating, erectile dysfunction, brain fog and things like that eventually build up. It's less likely for people who have a well-planned diet but even they will reach a point that they have to adjust their diets to match their individual needs.

Like if you have brain fog at 45 and you don't know why and you're eating well and the testing comes back fine, what do you do? You're forced to go down a rabbit hole.

Also You're never going to get a situation where problems are completely avoidable with just diet alone. You have to combine that with high quality planned sleep, high quality planned exercise and high quality planned stress-free mindset and lifestyle. And even in this ideal scenario you can still have a bunch of unforeseen problems because our environment is toxic and depending on how resilient your genetics are to it.

1 hour ago, Jannes said:

@integral How much do you think would adding a small amount of biological eggs and maybe some milk, which both kind of contain the essence for growing life essentially increase the chance that they cover potentially not yet found nutrients by chance?

If you're talking about vegetarians, then that isn't enough, you still have to supplement especially iron + b12 at the very least, I'm not going to go into full detail. You could frame an egg like a supplement that's essentially what vegetarians is doing so that it reduces the number of actual pills they need to take.

Edited May 22 by integral

[AION]

Wow. Emerald is totally unfolding in this thread. Her paradigm is being shattered. It is amazing how the vegan paradigm resembles other extremist paradigms.😣

 

It’s like watching someone cling to a crumbling worldview, not because it holds up under scrutiny, but because it’s part of their identity. And this is where it gets interesting: many people who follow strict ideologies, whether religious, political, or dietary, often build their entire sense of morality and superiority on them. It becomes less about truth and more about tribal allegiance. Veganism, for some, not all.. becomes a righteous cause, a moral badge, and when challenged, the reaction isn’t rational debate, it’s emotional defensiveness. Just like we see with religious fundamentalists or political ideologues.

 

Emerald’s insistence on dismissing lived experiences and pushing “science says” arguments while cherry-picking studies or ignoring the limitations of nutritional science only reveals how shaky her foundation really is. You can feel the cognitive dissonance surfacing in her replies. She’s confronted with firsthand accounts that contradict her beliefs, and instead of curiosity or humility, she doubles down. This is classic behavior when a paradigm is under threat.😭

 

It’s also worth noting how diet is one of the last domains where people still feel morally justified in being controlling and judgmental toward others. If you disagree with someone’s spiritual beliefs, you’re supposed to respect it. But if you say you eat steak for breakfast and feel amazing? Suddenly, you’re a murderer, unethical, and deluded according to people like Emerald.

 

There’s a deeper lesson here too: any belief system that cannot tolerate nuance or individual variation is bound to crumble. The carnivore diet, for all its controversy, is presenting undeniable results for many people. And the inability to engage with those results without spiraling into condescension or logical gymnastics says more about the rigidity of the person than the validity of the diet.

 

Watching Emerald struggle is a mirror for all of us who’ve ever been too attached to an idea. But in this case, it also exposes how the “moral high ground” she stands on is really just a tower of sand. And the tragic comical part of it all is that she should know better because she gives shadow work workshops. 😰

Edited May 22 by AION

[Jannes]

8 hours ago, integral said:

It takes intelligence to be a vegan. This is not a diet that you just do because it's trending, it has to be planned, you have to supplement thoroughly and you have to do monitoring. The evidence is overwhelming that if you're not supplementing you get murdered health-wise.

The guidelines of the World Health Organization Do a good job emphasizing this. But on average most vegans do it the wrong way because of cultural in general creates a ignorant population were there isn't enough awareness to do veganism properly.

In my experience vegans are on average way more informed about diet then other people. But it might still not be enough.

Although it becomes easier and easier. There are supplements where you can literally take two pills out of the same box a day which covers all your needs as a vegan on top of a well balanced vegan diet. (picture below)

https://www.target.com/p/ritual-multivitamin-for-women-18-with-vegan-omega-3-dha-vitamin-d3-chelated-iron-and-methylated-folate-vegan-capsules-mint-essenced-60ct/-/A-87742293

8 hours ago, integral said:

Vegetarianism is a lot easier and requires less supplements and the Mediterranean diet and Mostly of white meat and fish that are well planned require a lot less intelligence to get right and less testing, so it's more viable for a average Joe who is too lazy to do veganism properly.

I actually didn't make that point but it is true. I was more saying that regardless of the diet you'll get into a scenario where you have to modify your diet according to your individual needs and health and gut microbiome. It's more obvious for sick people with IBS but normal people also age and life is hard and dirty and in practice people have to adjust their diets. It's very rare that someone just goes their entire lifetime never adjusting their diet regardless of whatever diet they're doing.

The point I was making is naturally because of diversity and how our environment is toxic and high stress and we get OLD all these issues the body naturally fails for a wide range of people, every illness known that you can think of like joint pain, bloating, erectile dysfunction, brain fog and things like that eventually build up. It's less likely for people who have a well-planned diet but even they will reach a point that they have to adjust their diets to match their individual needs.

Like if you have brain fog at 45 and you don't know why and you're eating well and the testing comes back fine, what do you do? You're forced to go down a rabbit hole.

Also You're never going to get a situation where problems are completely avoidable with just diet alone. You have to combine that with high quality planned sleep, high quality planned exercise and high quality planned stress-free mindset and lifestyle. And even in this ideal scenario you can still have a bunch of unforeseen problems because our environment is toxic and depending on how resilient your genetics are to it.

But there is a wide variety of plant foods, so there are multiple ways to make a vegan diet work. You can search for lower fiber vegan diets, low carb vegan diets, vegan diets for building muscle, ... Of course there is less variation compared to an omnivore diet but for most needs a vegan diet has an answer.

8 hours ago, integral said:

If you're talking about vegetarians, then that isn't enough, you still have to supplement especially iron + b12 at the very least, I'm not going to go into full detail. You could frame an egg like a supplement that's essentially what vegetarians is doing so that it reduces the number of actual pills they need to take.

Well you would supplement those anyways. My point was moreso that in your o3 answer you said that there may be certain nutrients science hasnt discovered yet and which are vital for our health and which may only be in animal food. So my question would be, if one would supplement their diet with eggs which basically contain everything for life, wouldnt that likely cover most nutrients that havent yet been discovered?

 

 

Edited May 22 by Jannes

[integral]

7 hours ago, AION said:

Wow. Emerald is totally unfolding in this thread. Her paradigm is being shattered. It is amazing how the vegan paradigm resembles other extremist paradigms.😣

 

It’s like watching someone cling to a crumbling worldview, not because it holds up under scrutiny, but because it’s part of their identity. And this is where it gets interesting: many people who follow strict ideologies, whether religious, political, or dietary, often build their entire sense of morality and superiority on them. It becomes less about truth and more about tribal allegiance. Veganism, for some, not all.. becomes a righteous cause, a moral badge, and when challenged, the reaction isn’t rational debate, it’s emotional defensiveness. Just like we see with religious fundamentalists or political ideologues.

 

Emerald’s insistence on dismissing lived experiences and pushing “science says” arguments while cherry-picking studies or ignoring the limitations of nutritional science only reveals how shaky her foundation really is. You can feel the cognitive dissonance surfacing in her replies. She’s confronted with firsthand accounts that contradict her beliefs, and instead of curiosity or humility, she doubles down. This is classic behavior when a paradigm is under threat.😭

 

It’s also worth noting how diet is one of the last domains where people still feel morally justified in being controlling and judgmental toward others. If you disagree with someone’s spiritual beliefs, you’re supposed to respect it. But if you say you eat steak for breakfast and feel amazing? Suddenly, you’re a murderer, unethical, and deluded according to people like Emerald.

 

There’s a deeper lesson here too: any belief system that cannot tolerate nuance or individual variation is bound to crumble. The carnivore diet, for all its controversy, is presenting undeniable results for many people. And the inability to engage with those results without spiraling into condescension or logical gymnastics says more about the rigidity of the person than the validity of the diet.

 

Watching Emerald struggle is a mirror for all of us who’ve ever been too attached to an idea. But in this case, it also exposes how the “moral high ground” she stands on is really just a tower of sand. And the tragic comical part of it all is that she should know better because she gives shadow work workshops. 😰

I could go through each point you made and debunk it because you didn’t represent her position at all correctly. You were wrong about every part of her position except for one or two.

1/10 

Especially everything you said about morality I don’t get it. What when did she ever say that? And she also didn’t reject carnivore diet for people with special cases.

Ai:

True / mostly supported: 1

Mixed / partly right: 4

Largely unsupported: 3

People have areas of strengths and weaknesses. Sadhguru has terrible politics and that has nothing to do with his field of expertise, which he’s exceptional in.

Most of this debate was people speaking past each other.

Carefully frame your comments better in the future please. Because you’re doing personal attacks that are unnecessary. 

Edited May 22 by integral

[zurew]

7 hours ago, AION said:

Emerald’s insistence on dismissing lived experiences and pushing “science says” arguments while cherry-picking studies or ignoring the limitations of nutritional science only reveals how shaky her foundation really is. You can feel the cognitive dissonance surfacing in her replies. She’s confronted with firsthand accounts that contradict her beliefs, and instead of curiosity or humility, she doubles down. This is classic behavior when a paradigm is under threat.😭

Im sure you would be so convinced if 20 firsthand accounts of vegans were come out saying how great they feel after changing their diet to a vegan diet and that they have completely great health results and they have been on a vegan diet for the last 20 years.

You surely wouldnt pivot to saying and make a 1000 excuses that we need to be nuanced about it and that it must have been other factors other than the vegan diet (that made these people more healthy )and would imply that it wouldnt work for other people. - you would immedately ditch this "I need first hand accounts" criteria.

 

I don't understand how can you not see how incredibly lost you are in this conversation. You dont have any basics ready to even begin to have a conversation on nutrition or on ethics. If we were to run consistency checks on your values you would crumble left and right and dodge all questions like you did in this thread already.

its beyond cringe and embarassing to see you even attempting to make any criticism on any of this.

Edited May 22 by zurew

[Princess Arabia]

12 hours ago, ExploringReality said:

it may seem cruel, it may seem fucked up

Ok, so the word seem is the key point here. All depends on whose looking because "seem" implies that. I get your whole point and it is well-taken. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing because I think it's a matter of personal opinion but I do think most people are biased and one-sided when it comes to this issue and are basing their opinions and views only on how they see it and not what's actually the case which is only natural and to be expected. Kind of the same thing where one doesn't care about something they're not aware of that's not personal to them and or are affected personally by. By aware of I mean crushing an ant with your feet while walking or smashing a nuisance fly or running over a turtle  - that is not an issue for the person concerned about animals being tortured for food. It's all conditional and depends on. This is why I don't get too involved in the issue because all sorts of reasonings and rationalizations are at play.

[zurew]

On 2025. 05. 21. at 11:49 AM, Michael569 said:

Posting something like this on this particular forum is a completely futile act as much as I agree with you that this is a a strong argument. The nuances of how profound this is and the 100+ years of academic work that went into putting the hierarchy of evidence together are completely lost here. 

Its not an uphill battle. It is Leonidas taking his 300 Spartans charging up a mountain where Xerxes and 500 thousand Persians await with rolling rocks, catapults and archers.  

Haha, I feel your pain.

I don't know why you waste your time here.

There are other places, where you can have much higher quality conversations, where people know more about philosophy  and nutrition and they can actually make sense of the papers and they know what the evidence hierarchy is about.

Edited May 22 by zurew

[integral]

29 minutes ago, zurew said:

There are other places, where you can have much higher quality conversations, where people know more about philosophy  and nutrition and they can actually make sense of the papers and they know what the evidence hierarchy is about.

Meta‑research (Metascience) and Epidemiologic methods critiques of science are common in these forums?

[integral]

4 hours ago, Jannes said:

In my experience vegans are on average way more informed about diet then other people. But it might still not be enough.

They likely read a vegan book or two. Not exactly thorough epistemology or experience, you have to work with someone to set up your plan initially and most don't. Most vegan start off just winging it.

Most vegans do not get tested or monitored

They buy into the vegan Echo chamber that this is just such an incredibly healthy diet you're going to feel amazing and this whole time you were wrong and meat was destroying to you and you're going to Blossom like a butterfly.

These are not scientifically minded people. It starts with a dream.

Although it becomes easier and easier. There are supplements where you can literally take two pills out of the same box a day which covers all your needs as a vegan on top of a well balanced vegan diet. (picture below)

https://www.target.com/p/ritual-multivitamin-for-women-18-with-vegan-omega-3-dha-vitamin-d3-chelated-iron-and-methylated-folate-vegan-capsules-mint-essenced-60ct/-/A-87742293

Yes but It would have to be a high quality multivitamin most of them are garbage. 

You should also ask the question if I take a healthy person that has great absorption and eats well and then I give them a multivitamin: are they healthier? What about long-term are they better off or is it neutral?

But there is a wide variety of plant foods, so there are multiple ways to make a vegan diet work. You can search for lower fiber vegan diets, low carb vegan diets, vegan diets for building muscle, ... Of course there is less variation compared to an omnivore diet but for most needs a vegan diet has an answer.

I'm getting the impression that you think I'm saying this diet is like impossible, it's not: you can do this diet if you have a routine, you just make the meals and you're good

The problem is the average person doesn't have this level of discipline time energy willpower motivation or intelligence to do this properly.

A lot of people don't even cook

Were talking about the average person here that didn't awaken to veganism.

Well you would supplement those anyways. My point was moreso that in your o3 answer you said that there may be certain nutrients science hasnt discovered yet and which are vital for our health and which may only be in animal food. So my question would be, if one would supplement their diet with eggs which basically contain everything for life, wouldnt that likely cover most nutrients that havent yet been discovered?

Sure that isn't too bad, but in the end again this is never going to be perfect even if you cover all your nutrients there is no perfect to be achieved unless you're incredibly tested like Brian Johnson and even then he's making lots of mistakes and there's a lot of unknowns.

This is an experiment on your body it's not a certainty.

You are always experimenting and balancing out pros and cons. Like fish has mercury in it, all of these foods have toxins in them, Pesticides, defense mechanisms, whatever, that your body has to process and eliminate, nothing is perfect here, All of these things interact with your body differently.

If you eat eggs and you don't feel good, then There's Something Wrong. Don't discount personal experience, you have to use personal experience as part of your guidance.

You have to mix what the science says intelligently with personally experiences.

Think like someone who's experimenting on their body and trying to maximize health

Edited May 22 by integral

[Jannes]

2 hours ago, integral said:

I'm getting the impression that you think I'm saying this diet is like impossible, it's not: you can do this diet if you have a routine, you just make the meals and you're good

The problem is the average person doesn't have this level of discipline time energy willpower motivation or intelligence to do this properly.

A lot of people don't even cook

Were talking about the average person here that didn't awaken to veganism.

I think we are on the same page pretty much.

We agree that a vegan diet is in theory possible for most people if executed well and we have a slight disagreement in how difficult this diet would be for the average Joe to do right where I would say its a little more doable and you argue that the challenge is a little too much.

[Basman]

16 hours ago, Emerald said:

...But because they don't kill the animals themselves and they just purchase indiscriminate pieces of meat from the grocery store, they don't viscerally realize that their actions are misaligned from their values.

How would you know? How do you know this isn't just an assumption on your part?

16 hours ago, Emerald said:

But I believe that an animal has a right to life and well-being that trumps a human being's right to eat them for pleasure.

This is what I really meant by "equal rights to humans". Obviously, animals can't participate in society as civilians. You didn't really give any justification for why humans shouldn't eat animals.

16 hours ago, Emerald said:

...And you are technically correct that the best way to "save the plants" or to "save the animals" is to stop existing.

And the second best way is to go Vegan. And the worst way is to continue eating meat and other animal products...

That was perhaps a bad point on reflection.

16 hours ago, Emerald said:

...But I doubt those are your actual values because you just came up with this to defend your own choices from yourself.

This is categorically a strawman on your part. You constantly accuse people instead of just focusing on the quality of their arguments. It's really unpleasant and your making this forum worse for it. Stop it. It's insulting.

I have no interest in justifying my beliefs. I'm just curious about about the philosophical merits of veganism. I have at no point actually said that veganism is bad. I don't take any pleasure in paying anyone out but it's just so obnoxious with how your mostly preoccupied with just defending your beliefs and winning debates.

I don't think I'm going to be engaging with your posts anymore. Too annoying.

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, Basman said:

How would you know? How do you know this isn't just an assumption on your part?

It's a pretty basic component of human nature to go into cognitive dissonance whenever one takes actions that are against their own values.

And people who care about animals but also contribute to their suffering and death through their lifestyle choices on a purely voluntary basis, have a variety of different ways to deal with that cognitive dissonance... which involves coming up with all sorts of defenses... often ones that they don't believe in themselves.

And they will quickly abandon a defense once it doesn't work and try to find another to hide behind.

Here are some common defenses that non-Vegans with Vegan values give to square the circle in their own mind...

• "Veganism is unhealthy."
• "But plants are also alive! And yet, you're fine with eating them! So, Vegans are hypocrites."
• "Existing as a human being harms the environment. So, going Vegan is self-negation tantamount to suicide."
• "Some people need to eat meat to survive because of food scarcity!" (employed by people who aren't dealing with food scarcity)
• "Veganism is an insult to traditional culture."
• "But how will we grow enough plants to feed everyone?" (This one is my favorite because 80% of crops are grown to feed livestock... and it takes 16 lbs of grain to produce one pound of beef. And as soon as people realize that this argument is in favor of Veganism because Veganism requires fewer crops to be grown compared to an omnivorous diet), they immediately ditch their concern about "How will we grow enough plants.")
• "The Bible says it's okay to eat meat."
• "It's unnatural not to eat animals."
• "Human beings are superior to animals, so eating them is justified."
• "Animals shouldn't have the exact same rights as humans." (when the argument is that animal life should be prioritized over human pleasure... not that animals should have the same rights)
• "The same number of animals will die whether I eat them or not." (This appeal to futility was my justification prior to going Vegan.)
• "But what about field deaths?" (when more field deaths happen because 80% of crops are grown to feed livestock)
• "Domesticated animals would go extinct if we didn't breed them for food."
• "Domesticated animals would over-populate if we didn't kill them for food."
• "Humans are at the top of the food chain. And animals' purpose for existence is to be eaten by humans."
• "Other animals, like lions, also eat meat. So, why don't you have a problem with lions eating meat when you do have a problem with humans eating meat."
• "I only eat grass-fed livestock. So, I'm not being cruel."
• "I only eat halal meat. So, I'm not being cruel."
• "Vegans are just trying to virtue signal and be superior. So, Veganism isn't anything to be taken seriously."
• "Veganism is for rich people."
• "You will never save all the animals. So, what's the point in trying?"
• "One person going Vegan won't make a difference."

These are really common anti-Vegan arguments that all Vegans hear ad-infinitum. The trick is to realize that the people who are arguing with you don't disagree with you.... they disagree with their own actions. And they're scrambling to find a good defense to quiet the cognitive dissonance.

If you were really interested in questioning the philosophy of Veganism, then you should at least understand how people react to it.

Edited May 22 by Emerald

[Emerald]

8 hours ago, zurew said:

Im sure you would be so convinced if 20 firsthand accounts of vegans were come out saying how great they feel after changing their diet to a vegan diet and that they have completely great health results and they have been on a vegan diet for the last 20 years.

You surely wouldnt pivot to saying and make a 1000 excuses that we need to be nuanced about it and that it must have been other factors other than the vegan diet (that made these people more healthy )and would imply that it wouldnt work for other people. - you would immedately ditch this "I need first hand accounts" criteria.

I don't understand how can you not see how incredibly lost you are in this conversation. You dont have any basics ready to even begin to have a conversation on nutrition or on ethics. If we were to run consistency checks on your values you would crumble left and right and dodge all questions like you did in this thread already.

its beyond cringe and embarassing to see you even attempting to make any criticism on any of this.

100%

All the people on this thread that want to provide personal anecdote videos as proof of the claim that "Veganism is unhealthy" would not be consistent if I produced the same (or greater) number of personal anecdote videos about people having great results and clearing up health problems on a Vegan diet or of people having health problems on Carnivore, Keto, or the omnivorous diet.

And it's extra frustrating that they're gloating and believe they're slam dunking the argument with their anecdotes... and doing mental gymnastics that "real holistic thinkers recognize the value of anecdotes."

Edited May 22 by Emerald

[Emerald]

8 hours ago, integral said:

People have areas of strengths and weaknesses. Sadhguru has terrible politics and that has nothing to do with his field of expertise, which he’s exceptional in.

Most of this debate was people speaking past each other.

Carefully frame your comments better in the future please. Because you’re doing personal attacks that are unnecessary. 

Go back and take a look at our conversation. I've been quite consistent and reasonable in my arguments.

My reason for arguing with you initially is because you were making some broad-sweeping claims about the health of Vegan diets that were unsupported by the evidence that exists.

The claims were...

• Vegan diets are not nutritionally sufficient.
• 40%+ people can't go Vegan without compromising their health (which you later walked back)
• The way that bell-curves generally work is evidence that supports the idea that "40% of people can't go Vegan."

And I was telling you that there is no such evidence... and that you're pulling those claims out of thin air.

And at a certain point, you were arguing that personal anecdotes are a viable form of evidence that are on equal ground to studies and meta-analyses. And claiming that I was engaging in scientific dogma and being "radical" and not being holistic enough in my epistemology for not seeing anecdotes as real evidence.

And of course, I couldn't let you get away with that.

My claims have been quite simple. And I've been very consistent about them.

1. Non-Vegans who care about animals and who don't agree that human pleasure/convenience is more important than an animal's life, often use a variety of different defenses to assuage the cognitive dissonance they have around taking actions that aren't aligned with their own values. And they often don't even truly believe the defenses they're giving. 
2. Personal anecdotes don't constitute valid evidence for sweeping claims about a the health of a diet or lack-there-of because you could collect just as many positive personal anecdotes that support any diet and just as many negative personal anecdotes to discredit any diet.
3. The consumption of fewer animal products and more plants is associated with lower risk of heart disease, stroke, and all-cause mortality according to thousands of studies and cross-referenced into many meta-analyses.
4. If it were true that 40% (or even a much smaller percentage) of people couldn't go Vegan without compromising their health, there would be evidence to that effect... and the WHO and ADA would not have deemed a well-planned Vegan diet as an adequate diet for all phases of life if people were at such a great risk for malnutrition on a Vegan diet.

Those are literally the only claims of truth that I've made in this whole thread. And there is nothing radical about them. 

And #2 and #4 are indisputable facts.

And #1 is a common observation that I've seen with regard to how others and myself have rationalized animal product consumption.

And #4 is a logical extrapolation based on what I know about how health organizations operate (with their priority being general public health) and the evidence that's currently on record regarding the human diet.

And my whole reason why I'm arguing these things is to keep people honest, by pointing out when they're using selective science denial mental gymnastics to hide from their real motives for eating animal products from themselves.

[integral]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

personal anecdotes are a viable form of evidence that are on equal ground to studies and meta-analyses.

How I use anecdotes, Science and other forms of knowing is to see them as data points that are then connected to point to various possibilities and to form some kind of picture. But the truth is not certain it is an open-ended thing with shifting parts.

If a vegan bodybuilder has been doing it for 20 years, I do consider that a partial data point.

If a million people reports health problems doing anything I consider all of that partial data points.

If Warren Buffett gives business advice, I consider that a partial data point.

If someone quits the keto diet after various issues, I consider that a partial data point (not that this person is right or wrong about any of this). 

Not that these people aren't conflating things or that I'm not conflating things, their data points have partial true.

And so the strategy is to bridge everything together in a fuzzy map.

 

Out of curiosity Leo just posted anecdotes for remote viewing. It's definitely a claim even more scientifically unsubstantiated then this topic suggesting diversity.

What is your opinion on it? I do not say this to claim anecdotes are valid about this debate, I'm Shifting the conversation out of curiosity of what of anecdote means to you. The meaning of an anecdote for you.

Also this is image of a Emerald whipping StrawMen, I happen to generate it yesterday inspired by one of your comments,

Edited May 22 by integral

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, integral said:

How I use anecdotes, Science and other forms of knowing is to see them as data points that are then connected to point to various possibilities and to form some kind of picture. But the truth is not certain it is an open-ended thing with shifting parts.

If a vegan bodybuilder has been doing it for 20 years, I do consider that a partial data point.

If a million people reports health problems doing anything I consider all of that partial data points.

If Warren Buffett gives business advice, I consider that a partial data point.

If someone quits the keto diet after various issues, I consider that a partial data point (not that this person is right or wrong about any of this). 

Not that these people aren't conflating things or that I'm not conflating things, their data points have partial true.

And so the strategy is to bridge everything together in a fuzzy map.

 

Out of curiosity Leo just posted anecdotes for remote viewing. It's definitely a claim even more scientifically unsubstantiated then this topic suggesting diversity.

What is your opinion on it? I do not say this to claim anecdotes are valid about this debate, I'm Shifting the conversation out of curiosity of what of anecdote means to you. The meaning of an anecdote for you.

Also this is image of a Emerald whipping StrawMen, I happen to generate it yesterday inspired by one of your comments,

It's fine to use anecdotes as personal inspiration to inform your own decisions. 

I personally get really inspired when a person adopts a whole food plant based diet and experiences better health outcomes and bloodwork.

But that doesn't constitute proof if I were trying to make wide sweeping claims about the health of plant-based diets... like if I were to claim, "Veganism is the healthiest diet." 

To have valid proof for the overall health of diet, you really have to look at studies and meta-analyses... because you can never account for all personal anecdotes that exist on the planet.

And if you try to use personal anecdotes as evidence to claims about the health of any diet (or lack-there-of), there is a de facto cherry picking because you simply cannot view every single anecdote that exists.

And the vast majority of the time, people are naturally going to try to find anecdotes that support their own claims and ignore the ones that don't.

And even in the minority of times when someone is trying to be even-handed and pick from a wide variety of anecdotes, they still aren't going to get any valid evidence of the overall health of a diet that way because there are SOO many anecdotes that exist that weren't examined.

But with something like remote viewing, if it does exist, I don't necessarily believe that it could be studied with the scientific method since it is tied to the subjective experience of a particular person.

With things like that, I prefer to remain agnostic and open-minded.

Like, I've experienced out of body experiences, since I was 13 years old. And I've sometimes been able to go places in these experiences.

And I would imagine that remote viewing has to do with that.

So, I know that it's possible phenomenologically as an experience that people are capable of having. 

What I don't know (and don't believe I will ever know) about my out of body experiences is...

1. If I was perceiving something that exists in some objective consensus reality of its own.

OR

2. If it is an objective consensus reality.... whether or not it's the one that I typically inhabit or if it's some other dimensional aspect of this reality.

OR

3. If it's just a really real feeling experience that happens purely in my own mind.

So, I don't know. And I don't believe that I'll ever know the truth of whether remote viewing is real or not. 

But I remain open-minded because of the experiences that I've had.

Either way, I don't believe that science can study it. So, I don't expect any scientific evidence to the effect.

So, the only choice is to go off of personal anecdotes because there is no objective empirically observable evidence.

But you won't find me making any claims of truth or falsehood, because I have no evidence to verify nor falsify the possibility of remote viewing.

Also, I like the picture. I reminds me of the Wizard of Oz... with the scarecrow and the Emerald city and some Wicked Witch of the West vibes about the outfit I'm wearing.

Edited May 23 by Emerald

[something_else]

9 hours ago, Emerald said:

But that doesn't constitute proof if I were trying to make wide sweeping claims about the health of plant-based diets... like if I were to claim, "Veganism is the healthiest diet." 

IIRC in the 1980s and surrounding decades, vegans were scientifically measured to be some of the healthiest people around. However since the introduction of much more processed vegan food, that's no longer the case anymore.