Any Vegetarians/Vegans here?

[bennyboy]

Let's try some links, with clear, short comments (the way I suggested earlier):

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http://chriskresser.com/what-everyone-es...deficiency
Conclusion: According to this article (which I didn't read), more reliable tests for B12 deficiency are quite damning, both for lacto-ovo vegetarians and especially for vegans.

Caveat: None mentioned

I just did. Major oooops. Especially pertaining to neurological disorders and stage III B12 deficiencies not showing up until later in life....say around maturity for those who were weaned on a vegetarian / vegan diet?

I'm curious about breakfast cereals as supplements. I have a box of "Choco Hoops," a Tesco-branded cereal, and it has 100g giving about 34% of the RDA for B12, presumably for an adult consuming about 2000 calories/day. For a child, we're looking at about 1600 calories, so close to 43%. Not a bad start. I know for some vitamins there are issues with absorption as well as amount consumed, though. You've hit on a mediating point with me-- children. While I'm bordering on vegan these days, I wouldn't even bother telling my wife to stop giving the kids milk. This thread, though, has really made me start thinking about how much suffering milk-cows involve, even if they live to relative maturity. I'm not sure it's meaningfully less than meat stock. One number I'd like to see is the overall protein/caloric/calcium production of a milk cow over the time period it takes to raise meat stock.

That being said, I think we know even more about the harms that red meat, especially in the copious amounts that Americans eat, can bring to children and adults, and I'd be willing to bet some of them are developmental issues-- not to mention hormone issues that come from mass-production techniques. Some animal-borne diseases are instant killers, but I believe there are probably some slow-developing lurkers as well, either viral or due to the stress on organs of processing quantities of meats FAR beyond what we are evolved to handle.

I think we all have to be honest, and to turn to proper science, in improving the quality of our diet, whichever lifestyle choices we end up making.

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No, I don't think they should be more feedlot rather than grass fed. The point is all the studies show that per kg of protein, meat is worse for the environment, producing 11 times as much greenhouse gasses. The measure of how many kg of grain does it take to produce a kg of meat is useful only in so far as it is a measure of inefficiency and harm to the environment. The point is no matter how you raise cattle it is still worse than grain.

I think the winning point is a function of environmental impact, as well as the efficiency of getting nutrients into people's bodies. There are regional issues in some areas (like Tibet) that making sustainable farming of plant foods impossible (afaik).

However, in countries with a choice, unless meat can provide perfect calorie and protein conversion (which it doesn't), then grain-based foods are going to be a big winner in this department (whatever the rate of inefficiency is).

Personally, I'd like to see responsible choices before eradication of meat. Many Americans eat entire orders of magnitude more meat than they need to. Not only are THEY belching and farting out copious amounts of methane, so are the many cows they consume each year, the trucks to drive all that meat around, etc. I'd very much like to see food choice becoming a dietary issue, rather than gustatory masturbation. I'd also like much stronger legislation on how animals are to be raised-- there should be requirements about degrees of liberty, exposure to natural light and foods, etc.