Dr. Doug Graham (80-10-10 raw vegan)

[miniboes]

-and I can be pretty damned certain that the money I pay in taxes is causing animals to suffer. I'm pretty sure the money I don't spend on this or that is causing animals to suffer. My very existence....causes animals to suffer. Obligate parasite, in context. Neither you nor I actually have control over this, and our relative dietary choices are not sufficient grounds to elicit a change in this situation.

Note that I said minimize suffering, not eliminate suffering. To say that because you can't eliminate animal suffering you might as well not try is like saying you can't stop all sexual abuse so you might as well buy child porn and rape the next woman you meet.

You're asking how a reduction in fossil fuel use and dependence would reduce animal suffering? Just sum up for me the state you feel the fossil fuel industry is in regarding the suffering of animals (including ourselves..of course)?

I do feel like the fossil fuel industry is causing animal suffering, but it is nowhere near the scale of animal suffering caused by the dairy and meat industry. I don't see how you can possibly think that integrating livestock production into our overall food production is somehow better than getting rid of livestock production.

Speciesist. How convenient for your pleasure.

Sure, I don't see what is inherently wrong with speciesism if it does not mean claiming superiority of humanity over other sentient beings.

LOL, of all the things about sentience and how it seems to lead to differences in life that -are- easy to quantify, that's not one of them. All life, by any consistent metric, has "interest to live". Not immediately relevant but it's just something I had to opine upon when I saw it.

How can something not conscious have an interest in anything? Come to think of it, how is that even relevant if it is not sentient?

If something cannot suffer, if something cannot even want anything, then I have no problem with eating it. However, if it can suffer, and it does have a will to live, then it is in our circumstances not justifiable.

Because.......? Also, so long as we're not eating it but are hurting or impeding it in some other way...are we then in a similar position - or will we only extend this criticism to omnivory?

Sorry, I don't understand your latter question, could you rephrase? As to why, I believe in a morality based on the minimization of suffering, as Sam Harris has constructed it in his book The Moral Landscape. Do you think we should not seek to minimize suffering?

(the short version of that long disappointing convo is that were are simply not at a point in ag where it's even possible to feed people without suffering and harm being done to animals..and that's best or worst case scenarios. We're might not even be in a position where reduction is feasible if possible...as any suffering alleviated on one side will simply be absorbed by the other)

How did you determine that?

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Sure, and how is that relevant when talking about vitamin b12 or the effect of milk on bone health?

Something else I want to say on the whole B12 thing, but why would you stack up a documented cure for our #1 killer against that one vitamin that you can take a supplement for? Also keep in mind that almost all physicians that recommend the plant-based (vegan) diet, like Neal Barnard and Michael Greger, actually recommend a B12 fortified plant-based diet. Whoever really listens to their advice will not have B12 deficiency.

That is just not true. There are a lot of people who take B12 oral supplements on a vegan diet and find they develop B12 deficiencies anyway. Then they resort to injecting B12; and a huge number of vegans now recognise this and recommend IV B12!

What is your evidence?

Balanced in the sense that you're not trying to make your body produce excessive amounts of things (eg vitamins and cholesterol and other steroids like insulin) that you can get from the diet.

You should avoid cholesterol, saturated fat, trans fats and animal protein by that definition. All of these things are only found in animals naturally (except for saturated fat) and can make your body produce excessive amounts of things you can get from diet; CVD, Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, and the list goes on.

That wasn't my question, my question was whether a person should stop following a diet that is unhealthy for them?

Sure, or improve the diet so it is no longer unhealthy. The case however, is that for most people a B12 fortified plant-based diet rich in legumes and vegetables is an extremely healthy diet. I would also argue that a diet that causes the greatest killer in the world, the standard meat-eater diet, is unhealthy.

And Alex Jamieson, as much as you don't want to admit this, is aware of a very large number of people who have encountered health problems when following veganisim and felt judged and betrayed by the vegan community and have told their stories to her. In fact you can even see some of them in the comments section on her blog: "I cannot possibly applaud you enough. I was a long time vegetarian that had terrible health issues so I went vegan hoping to heal myself. I healed some issues, and greatly aggravated others with the enormous amounts of soy and wheat in my diet. It was very difficult to admit that veganism didn’t work for me after three years."

That doesn't tell us anything about how healthy veganism is. All these people could be eating oreos all day and call it a vegan diet.

The problem is that you don't know for certain whether veganisim long term will be a healthy or unhealthy choice for an individual person. I'm not arguing that everyone experiences problems long-term, although many do. I'm arguing that people who do experience problems should put their health first, and shouldn't feel judged by those in the vegan community for doing so.

Hey, how about the 17.3 million people that die of CVD each year? 30% of global deaths worldwide? How is your "balanced" diet treating them? How can you possibly stack up your anecdotal examples of people having problems with a possibly faulty vegan diet to the greatest causes of death in the world?

We're going to have to agree to disagree. There are a huge number of politicians who deliberately use this as an excuse to generate higher tax revenue from essential power supplies, and ultimately that disproportionately disadvantages the poor.

What other cause for global warming do you propose?

And I say to you again that you do not know whether veganisim will be healthy or not for individual people.

We know it's healthy for the great mass of people, therefore for most individuals.