So U think Vegan is healthy?

[Aractus]

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  The videos in the OP are of someone who was unable to thrive on a well planned vegan diet, no matter what supplements he took etc he couldn't build muscle

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  Kind of a slippery slope suggesting that you need meat to gain muscle huh? Are you suggesting people haven't gained muscle on vegan diets or there are no vegan athletes? If your answer is no then I'm just going to outright call you wrong and ignorant.

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I'm not even going to bother dignifying that with an answer since you've obviously made a straw man.

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Straw man? c'mon, just no. I asked you to confirm or deny something. Significantly different to making your position for you, wouldn't you say...

You sound like you're conceding that you don't need meat to build muscle or even live healthily if I made a staw man...But seriously, get real with the false straw man claim.

You didn't bother to address the argument at all, the topic as raised in the very first post, and then you came and made a claim that my argument is a slippery slope because there are some vegan athletes.

Well I already pointed this out, and if you had searched through my posts using associated keywords you would have found it:

• We can go to any gym and find fit and healthy people on a complete range of different diets.

The reason why your argument is a straw man is because I as you well know was talking about long-term veganism, and what you referred to - vegan athletes - are not long-term vegans. Some might be, but most are not. The average length of time a person in the USA is a vegetarian for is 9 years, and 75% go back to eating meat (figure from psychology today). We don't know the numbers for vegans, however it's believed to be similar. Veganism can be great for some people in the short term. So can crash dieting in fact, but just about every nutritionist will agree that long-term crash diets are extremely dangerous.

Ashton Kutcher went on a "fruitarian diet" (80/10/10) just as Steve Jobs used to do - didn't even do it for very long and was hospitalized. Steve Jobs died of pancreas cancer, almost certainly caused by his diet. Now you will say "that's doing veganism wrong" - and I agree, it is certainly doing it wrong, we would both agree on that.

But is there a "right way" to do a long-term vegan diet that is healthy for everyone? No there isn't. I'll quote Alex Jamieson's email to me:

• Hi Daniel,
  
  thanks for your email.
  
  I can't give you much insight, as I don't know the specifics about Harley.
  I can tell you that many, MANY people have come out to me (via email or face-to-face) in the last year with similar stories.
  
  They've been vegan for years, some over a decade. They follow vegan doctors' plans and still find their health faltering.
  When they add meat back into their diet, their health problems disappear.
  
  We are all different. Some people need meat for a while, or their entire lives.
  It's not a theory. It's fact.
  I still encourage people to try a plant-based detox if they feel compelled, or have a health problem that
  seems to warrant it.
  
  Be well,
  Alex
  
  Her TEDx talk (correcting her health problems with diet instead of drugs):
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQXhxjtcI_k

Note that even she didn't make it to long-term vegan she was vegan for ~11 years, and while she does not eat much meat at all, she does eat it now in the amount she believes is right for her.

Her vegan diet did however work for correcting her health problems that she had at 25. Going back to meat corrected her health problems more recently.

..that's in the very first post, you only had to read that far.

Which didn't prove that you needed meat since people can live without it, but continue...

Vegans are the ones making the claim that we don't need any meat, and the onus of proof is on them. The claim they most often make is: "veganism done correctly does not lead to any health problems" or the way you put it* "people can live without (meat)" - disproven. It doesn't work for everyone long-term.

*PLEASE NOTE: I'm not calling you a vegan.

There are two extremes: 1. everyone needs to eat meat every day. 2. everyone can do well with no meat in their diets. Vegans believe one extreme, most of us - especially doctors and nutritionists - don't believe either extreme. Everyone is different. Some people thrive eating meat once a fortnight, however very few people thrive on long-term vegan diets. 75% of American vegetarians return to eating meat with the average length of time being 9 years, and the number one reason they give for returning to eating meat (given by 35% of respondents) is for health (link).

Which is why I suggested a balanced diet, there are drawbacks to every diet you try. If you exclusively ate meat or mostly ate meat you'd have horrible problems if not worse problems that if you were vegan or mostly vegan.

Another straw man - you can't use "mostly vegan" for arguments to do with perceived health benefits on vegan diets. Let me explain this as Daniel Vitalis does: even if you proved to me that my breathing less oxygen would be more beneficial to my health, it's a giant leap to then conclude that breathing no oxygen at all will be even healthier still.

And while a balanced diet is the best we can do currently, can we at least agree that meat is far from the most needed food group.

No we don't agree upon that. We agree that "sweets" are an unneeded food group, we agree that "alcohol" is an unneeded food group, we agree that dairy is an unneeded food group for most of the world. I would agree with the Paleo camp that grains are the least needed of the five major food groups - however I don't agree with eliminating them from your diet entirely and I think that's extreme. I also don't agree with eliminating dairy if you're lactose tolerant.

Nobody advocated for a total vegan diet, if you had actually been reading you'd have seen that.

Who's making straw man's against who again?

This is what you wrote:

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  The videos in the OP are of someone who was unable to thrive on a well planned vegan diet, no matter what supplements he took etc he couldn't build muscle - that's in the very first post, you only had to read that far.

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  Which didn't prove that you needed meat since people can live without it, but continue...

Which is why you balance it out like I've been saying over and over but you keep ignoring for an argument.

I think we will be able to get all of the nutritional value from some sort of modified meat or something similar in the future. Maybe not soon, but eventually we should be able to synthesize anything.

Why would you want to synthetise something that's grown naturally? Do you want to synthetise opium artificially instead of growing poppies too? What's the benefit?

Eliminating an entire food group (or two, counting dairy separately) is not a balanced diet.

Wow, you're being kind of a dumbass right now. You cry straw man when there are none from me and then make two against me including this new one above. I never said eliminate an entire food group, get that through your head, okay great.

Maybe not the way you count food groups, but beans, and for that matter corn too are seeds and all seeds are grains.

No, anything you have read is probably propaganda.

For someone who doesn't even know my position, I doubt you could tell the difference between fact and propaganda when you're so intellectually dishonest in your replies.

But what can I expect from someone of your stupid religious beliefs though, distortion is your game.

I've provided plenty of academic references, you've provided zero, I simply surmise since you bring up assertions as "facts" that you can't reference them with scientific material. Simple.

As to your attack on my religious beliefs, you don't know this because you're new, but at my church we have one of the leading astrophysicists in the world (not just in Australia, the world). He has personally taught about 15 PHD's who went on to become science advisors to world leaders (that's not counting everyone else). We also have 3 or 4 GP's (the congregation size is about 150 people or so) and other medical professionals. No decent professional lets their religious beliefs bias their scientific beliefs. I would wager you, however, that there is far more scientific expertise in the congregation that I'm a part of then the general public.

Many people have other food sensitivities. Some people can't eat gluten, some people can't eat nuts, some people can't eat foods containing soy.

And some people can't eat meat or meat products...Just sayin'...

And your reference?

Let me give you a hypothetical: it's been proven that plant-based diets lower cholesterol. Cholesterol deficiency causes anxiety, depression, anger and aggression. How does a vegan go about correcting a dangerously low cholesterol level?

I'm not a vegan, but your answering a question with another question sounds like another concession to me.

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You claimed that animal products are not the only source of high quality protein, I proved otherwise. Furthermore there are countless examples, as in my OP, of people who could not build muscle on fully vegan diets no matter what they did or what supplements they took.

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You hardly proved anything but whatever helps you sleep at night I guess. But this rant is at least the 5th straw man in this reply. My exact words were "Meat is not the only good source of protein" not high source of protein. There are good alternatives.

See? it was your own fault for the misunderstanding. Basically you started an argument for no reason with someone you probably agree with for the most part, hope you have fun.

You're now being deliberately dishonest. You were responding to what I originally wrote:

• Aractus: Soy is poison, and you can't get any high quality protein from fruit/veg/nuts and grains.

To which you replied:

• Quantum Theorist: You're still full of shit, meat is not the one and only good source of protein.

So you're now conceding that I'm not full of shit and I'm correct in saying that animal products are the only source of high quality protein? Or are you are simply saying that changing my position in your response from "animal products" to "meat" and "high quality protein" to "good source of protein" is somehow honest and not making a straw man?