Most people are clueless about protein or calcium needed

[Floflomo]

I follow a vegan diet and the amount of people that go on about protein or calcium is ridiculous and just shows they are totally clueless.

The RDA for protein isn't that big at all, many veg contains protein so before even getting onto to nuts, seeds and pulses I've had half of the RDA just from veg.

Calcium is in way more foods than just dairy, I had figs in porridge for breakfast made with almond milk. For lunch I'm having a salad with lots of leafy greens with a dressing made from tahini, so I'm doing just great with calum and getting it from a variety of sources.

Their death is not unavoidable. You have made the choice. Do you genuinely not see that? It is entirely avoidable.
Yes I eat only weeds and you are carnivorous of course so don't require any weeds..

I enjoy quinoa, buckwheat, rice, fruit and veg, as well as fish, poultry & meat.
I'm an omnivorous animal and I feel no guilt about eating other animals, like our ancestors have done for about 2 million years.
I just have a larger brain than the animals I eat.
When I die, the worms & insects will eat me. I hope I taste nice.

I eat lots of different stuff including a wide range of vegetables, but can't see why I should deny my body the meat that it has evolved to efficiently digest and which has such great nutrition that it needs. It feels very Darwinian that some people in today's world of bountiful nutrition wilfully restrict their diet but hey ho.

My diet is almost exactly what my grandmother ate - the same balanced Mediterranean diet enjoyed by people who live the longest on the planet. Your diet whose nutritional highlights are apparently kale, quinoa, and stupid amaranth (which I heard of for the first time on this thread) can't measure up.

And no one has so far explained to me why the life and suffering of an animal is more important than the life and suffering of a plant.

Obviously you eat plants too. That was my point. So why make the hack joke then? Why always make the hack joke?
You don't know what I eat. I don't eat whatever araminth is. If you can't make a decent tasty meal without meat you need to learn to cook.
Restricting diet in a tiny way so as to not cause completely unnecessary pain, suffering and death is entirely worth it to anyone with morality. I don't think a small amount of pleasure is worth that.
There are also places where the population have huge longevity that eat very little to no meat and dairy. Meat is not relevant to health.

Those of us who eat fish, meat & dairy don't regard it as immoral, or presumably we wouldn't continue.
There are different views on morality, same as there are on religion or politics.
We are just one group of animals, eating other animals as part of our normal diet, as we have evolved to do.

Apart from a small tribe IIRC somewhere obscure, there has been no naturally occurring vegan society, just some vegetarian ones. It is global trade and technology that have enabled veganism to be practical.

I respect the right of vegans to live as they do, but have no intention of emulating them.
Cutting out meat and dairy would be a huge change to my diet - it is an important part of most of my meals.
I have a vegetarian day about every 2 weeks, for a change, but my body doesn't feel satisfied going without fish or meat for longer than a day.
I don't have vegan days.

Your body is satisfied. Your mind isn't.

"If you can't make a decent tasty meal without meat you need to learn to cook." --> I perfectly could cook dishes without meat, but I choose not to, because I like meat and see no moral problem in eating it. If you see a problem, then just don't eat meat yourself, but please stop pretending to be morally superior, because you simply aren't.

Eating a hypocaloric diet extends life, both in animals and in humans. But this works both for vegetarian and omnivorous hypocaloric diets. And personally I prefer to live 5 months less but enjoy the pleasures of eating well and enjoying my food. Which I do immensely. Even though I quite enjoy my fruit, veggies and lentils I have never found a plant which makes me salivate and stimulates my taste buds to the extreme that meat does.

*to the extent

How much protein and calcium in a soapbox OP?

I blame you op i now want a bacon sandwitch after reading all this! Yum

Sandwich sorry no idea where the witch came from. Maybe after the bacon....

"Restricting diet in a tiny way so as to not cause completely unnecessary pain, suffering and death is entirely worth it to anyone with morality."

Bless Does anyone with morality not realize that preventing pain, suffering, and death in animals also means you should not be eating dairy products including butter or anything with "natural" red food dye, or wearing leather shoes, wool, silk, most cosmetics, or using crayons (which contain paraffin)? List doesn't end there, needless to say.

CotedAzur, the longest living people on the planet are the Japanese (who don't consume any milk products at all, and also have lower rates of osteoporosis than Europeans).

Aurynne, if you can't work out the difference between plants and animals yourself, it's not surprising you're not embarrassed to post comments that are beyond ignorant.

Haven't rtft because these ones all go the same way innit. But wrt to "Where do you get your protien?" from people who don't haven't got the first clue about nutrition is tres annoying. I used to say stuff like, "I dunno, where do you get your selenium?" Some people know about selenium in Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds or shell fish but not one of the people who asked me the protein/ calcium question ate any of those foodstuffs often. My mother, who is an effing know all, claimed to eat Brazil nuts every day, which was a flat out lie. I still affect surprise when there are none in her cupboards though I haven't even been vegan for 5 years

Japanese children drink cow's milk in schools & at home. There are versions of milk you can buy for adults without lactase. Cow's milk is kind of a faddy health food for adults in Japan.

The academic consensus is that osteoporosis is under-diagnosed in Asia, while some (less academic) argue it's over-diagnosed in western countries. Japan figures are about 35% at base of spine for ppl age 50-79. I can't find a similar population survey for UK; but 1/3 for Japan is not what I'd think of as low. Thing is, the Japanese do something like 20 minutes more weight-bearing exercise daily; matters for young people building up bone density.

complete proteins? buckwheat, chia, quenoir, aramth

All expensive and have low protein overall.
The concept of "complete protein" is rather 1970s, anyway.

I don't think its healthy to go without meat or milk for more than a day or so. Vegans are usually very thin and pale.

"Aurynne, if you can't work out the difference between plants and animals yourself, it's not surprising you're not embarrassed to post comments that are beyond ignorant." --> I am a biologist, and I believe I know the difference quite well. What I don't understand is the moral difference between killing one or the other for food, perhaps you could enlighten me about it and have a glorious, intelligent debate instead of calling me ignorant gratuitously.

Aurynne

Before any moral debate begins, could the audience clarify something?

Do you find it baffling that the UK has an array of societies devoted to preventing animal cruelty, along with laws criminalising particular treatments of animals, but no such laws on plant welfare?

I thought morally that quinoa was actually pretty suspect as it is now too expensive for the local people to eat as well as being a bit like toe nails

That Guardian article is not one I would trust, on the grounds that the journalist needed to have simple facts about the consumption of soya beans in animal feed pointed out to her in the comments post publication.

I'm sure she dealt with the economic issues vair well, then.
Try this one, and if you do nothing else, start buying fair-trade grains in the supermarket shop (if you are personally not on the breadline):

www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/01/quinoa_bad_for_bolivian_and_peruvian_farmers_ignore_the_media_hand_wringing.html

Cote I'm aware of what products do and do not contain animal products.

Ellreejee. Do you have any reason behind saying not eating meat or milk is unhealthy?
How many vegans and vegetarians do you know? I know many and they aren't 'pale and thin'. I know meat eaters that are! Your limited experience isn't evidence.

The Dalai Lama eats meat. That's good enough for me

vegan diet is incompatible with life unless supplemented or fortified. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it but that's the facts.

if you are wondering how they survived on veg in the middle ages, it was fertilised with, er, manure and that's where the B12 came from.

don't believe me? See what the vegan society says.