To ask everyone to eat less meat and meat products?

[Breadandwine]

There are 3 reasons I eat a plant-exclusive diet:

1. I feel I'm healthier (I became veggie to avoid BSE - and my osteoarthritis has been stopped in its tracks since I went vegan)
2. Animal welfare issues (I went vegan after looking at the inevitable cruelty involved in the meat and dairy industries)
3. Global warming/climate change (the single most important thing anyone can do to fight GW is to go vegan - the world's livestock industry contributes more to GW than does transport!)

Before global warming reared its ugly head, I was quite reticent about my veganism, only talking about it when I was asked. But now that our children's and our grandchildren's future is threatened, I'm a lot more vocal.

And now there's me and the Pope on the same side - who'dda thunk it?

I am an omnivore. I eat meat, as my body is designed to do. I have a chronic illness that means I can eat very few vegetables, fruits, nuts or pulses and so I need to eat meat to obtain some of the vitamins/minerals that I can't digest from other sources, including multivitamins. I get anaemic very quickly because of my condition and red meat is the only way I can keep this vaguely under control. I also have to eat vast quantities of dairy foods in order to try and ward off osteoporosis that I am at high risk of because of all the steroids I have to take for my illness (which decrease bone density). I can't obtain that calcium from other food sources, as previously stated.

I raise my own free-range lambs (they aren't organic because I treat them for worms and vaccinate them against nasty diseases). They are fed on nothing but grass, which, last time I checked, was inedible to humans. I have my own free-range chickens that provide me with eggs at no cost to them. My lambs have very happy lives until they go to slaughter at 12 months old (they are a slow maturing breed) and our nearest abattoir is quite close so they have very few food miles. We get our pork and beef from a local farmer (about 3 miles away) and so that's very few food miles too.

I think that transportation has an awful lot more to do with global warming than livestock, and getting rid of animals that can survive on poor ground in order to try and grow crops there instead would be a disaster! Animals such as sheep and goats thrive in areas that couldn't support crops in a lot of countries.

I haven't read all the thread so someone might have already said OP reminds them of the late lamented Stanley Green of Oxford Street.

But if so, I want to say it again

unlucky - Are you saying that the information I wrote is wrong? Got proof?

Is The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition "the dairy lobby", too?

Is British Journal of Nutrition this insidious "dairy lobby"?

How about British Nutrition Foundation? Are they also "the dairy lobby"?

8.2 Bioavailability from different dietary sources
8.2.1 Milk and milk products
Calcium in milk is considered to have a higher bioavailability than that of cereals and most vegetables, and is similar to calcium carbonate which is readily absorbed. The typical fractional absorption of calcium from milk is in the region of 30% compared to 5% from spinach (Heaney et al. 1988) (see Table 11).
The high bioavailability of calcium from milk may in part be due to the absence of factors that inhibit calcium absorption and a number of constituents of milk (e.g. lactose and protein) have been proposed to contribute positively to this high bioavailability.

This same link also has quite a lot on calcium intake in the UK, if you are really interested in finding out whether or not this is a problem despite the presence of dairy products in most people's diets.

"Bone issues weren't a problem for all the family members that lived to a ripe old age either. "

You know who had bone issues? Gwyneth Paltrow, who managed to give herself pre-osteoporosis at the grand old age of... 38.

Funny enough, she is not a vegan anymore

I had blood tests carried out last year and my calcium levels were good despite not eating dairy. My mother in law gets through a pint a day and cheeses and has to take calcium supplements for osteoporosis. She's not really old. The Duchess of Cornwall has it and she's not very old. Yy to Gwyneth Paltrow.

Well saying your parents didn't have bone issues is all very antidotal, mine did and I grew up on a farm with loads of dairy and meat.

Didn't gywenth have issues due to not enough sunlight (to prevent aghing) causing vit d problems? She doesn't eat much dairy anyway she just has it sometimes now.

Your guess would be wrong as Japan has a much lower osteoporosis.

Were your parents overweight? Overweight people tend not too get it as their bones are strengthened by moving all the blub. That's why weight training helps.

Oh and my calcium and vitamin d levels are fine, I supplement for vitamin d in the winter months only.

unlucky - Answer my post of 22:49 last night, please.

Didn't know Gwyneth was vegan. I thought she did that whole macro thing.

She isn't vegan, nore has she ever advocaded veganism sorry my post wasn't clear. She eats meat and dairy ans still had bone problems so was adviced more sunlight.

I couldn't reqd your links as all PDFs.

Have you read the China study?

YANBU, but YABPatronising :o

No unlucky, being overweight is certainly not a family trait.
Comparing Asians to Caucasians isn't exactly valid scientific proof is it? You get there's likely to be more than one factor?
Feel free to find actual valid scientific data, and results showing veganism is the healthier choice, rather than just sharing your biased conclusions.

I'm not sure you get lots of sites calling gp vegan, her books have not been vegan.

Who said I was comparing different races? There are millions of Asians born in the uk you know.

Google them for yourself.

Right so we're comparing people of Japanese origin raised in the UK to native born Japanese to prove dairy is bad? Have you considered applying for a grant for your research, or at least sharing your hypothesis ideas with leading scientists? They sound very balanced and valid ideas I'm sure
I don't need to google stuff. You're the one that's come along with bizarre conclusions, I'm asking for the results you drew them from, the burden of proof is with you if you want people to drop thousands of years of evolutionairy knowledge and follow your reasoning.

No your just posting research that's sponsored by the dairy and meat industry. Who exactly is going to fund research that benefits health and not a lucrative industry?

Anyway for the third time China study.

I know people who like their steak so blue that a skilled vet could bring it back to life, thus using less fossil fuel to cook it, I prefer my steak well done but don't eat steak very often (or any other meat for that matter).
If we as a family ate less meat then 50% of my family would eat nothing but potatoes and bread.

Yanbu to ask but you would be unreasonable to expect other people to change their dietary habits.

It would be better for everyone to think about eating less meat.

unlucky - FYI. you sound slightly unhinged when you say that The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, British Journal of Nutrition, and British Nutrition Foundation are mouthpieces of the dairy industry. Of course it must be a conspiracy if organizations dedicated to nutrition that are run by people with higher education on this subject contradict what you read on fluffy vegan websites run by housewives and teenagers with zero scientific credentials

I'm on phone so this isn't easy but I'll try to help you understand what these organizations are:

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) is the most highly rated peer-reviewed research journal in ISI's nutrition and dietetics category and publishes the latest worldwide basic and clinical studies relevant to human nutrition in topics such as obesity, vitamins and minerals, nutrition and disease, and energy metabolism. The AJCN was selected by the Special Libraries Association (SLA) as one of the top 100 most influential journals in Biology and Medicine over the last 100 years. Its 2013 Impact Factor is 6.918 according to Thompson Reuters.

Periodically, supplements to the AJCN are published, and these contain proceedings from internationally recognized conferences on clinical nutrition. Supplements are included in the subscription rate and are also available for purchase individually.
Guidelines and Policies

From here.

British Journal of Nutrition is a leading international, peer-reviewed journal of nutritional science. Established by the Nutrition Society in 1947, it has an international Editorial Board with a central Editorial Office in London.
BJN encompasses the full spectrum of nutritional science – epidemiology, dietary surveys, nutritional requirements and behaviour, metabolic studies, body composition, energetics, appetite, obesity, ageing, endocrinology, immunology, neuroscience, microbiology, genetics and molecular and cell biology. Submissions addressing the new frontiers of the subject, including the rapidly emerging area of nutritional genomics, are especially encouraged.

• See more at: www.nutritionsociety.org/publications/nutrition-society-journals/british-journal-of-nutrition#.dpuf

You're going about it the wrong way cote by referencing valid scientific research. You notice my anecdotal reference to my family got far more response than your actual scientific research. Which tells us an awful lot. Really you need to post a link to some obscure Facebook post saying the same so the data is in a format they are familiar with if you wish to be taken seriously by certain pro vegans

Fucking hell. It's the twilight zone here sometimes.