To say that being a vegan is no better for the environment than being a meat eater?

[OnlyInYourDreams]

Unless you eat only home grown, locally sourced products?

Obviously some people are vegan because they don’t like the idea of using any kind of animal products. But all too often people say that they’re vegan because “it’s better for the environment when this is categorically not the case.

Lots of fruit/veg have to be imported which is actually worse for the environment because it involves pumping man-made substances into the environment.

Products like almond milk are terrible for the environment because e.g. it takes 1600l of water to produce 1l of almond milk. Coca-Cola is practically a green product in comparison…

If people want to be vegan, why not just say you want to be vegan. Coming up with reasons such as “it’s better for the environment” which are just rubbish and laughable is only going to increase the amount of people who don’t take vegans seriously.

So meat once or twice a week.
Ditto fish.
Up legume, grain, plant based meals.
Reduce dairy.
Experiment with flavour.

Does that sound reasonable?

There's heme iron (animal sources) and non-heme iron. Heme iron is much better absorbed by some people.

FFS. This has been debunked SO MANY TIMES.

@mustlovegin instead of making up rubbish in order to defend your food choices, why don’t you just admit that you like eating meat, regardless of the consequences? At least you would be being honest.

I think reducing meat is far more realistic for most people and more sustainable specifically in the uk.

Eg the school i work in does a vegan monday in the canteen now so everyone eats vegan that day. I think over time it will be only one day offering meat and one day fish and 3 days vegan.

My school does vegetarian Monday.
All the kids moan there's something weird on their pizza (peppers).
Shows how much veg they have at other times if they can't recognise a pepper.

I think if reducing (I mean actually reducing, not just saying you do to score points against vegans) would have a good impact on everyone.
People eating more vegetables would hopefully mean healthier diets in general. Less pressure on the NHS. Vegans would benefit because popular 'suppliment' foods would be made to better quality and quantity.
I'd be able to get full at a buffet without nicking all the chips...

Definitely @RebeccaOfSunnyHellFarm reducing meat, fish and dairy is how I choose to live and it’s something people should be looking to move towards. I may eat some form of meat or fish once a week. 6 days of the week my meals are vegan or vegetarian.

@MildredPuppy

B12 is very difficult to get from plants - i think theres like one seaweed with it and one type of fermented soya. Everything else is fortified with it - the fortification is grown from microrganisms so i suppose not strictly vegan but i doubt they have a face or nervous system. Lots of peoole who eat meat have low b12 and have to supplement too. In fact i believe the cows etc are fed b12 supplements anyway because so again you can just cut out the middle cow. Injections are for people who dont absorb it whatever they eat. Vitamin b12 deficiency runs in my family

I have pernicious anemia, so my b-12 is via injection, but there are many more sources such as mushrooms, tempe, nutritional yeast, nori.

The UK cannot produce all the food its population needs if we all went vegetarian never mind vegan. Huge swathes of farming land cannot grow non meat. So where will food come from if we all have to stop eating meat? African countries? South America? Or will choice only be for the rich and the rest will have to have a middle ages diet? Please tell us where all this vegan food will come from?

That is excellent.
If anyone is interested I have got so many good recipes out of this book. It's called the green roasting tin.
The pad Thai potato tray bake is sublime.
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The UK can't produce enough food for our population now full stop. That's got nothing to do with vegans and everything to do with urbanisation.
But vertical farming is one option.
I hope you don't eat:
Tea
Rice
Oranges
Quinoa
Spaghetti
Because for the most part they're imported.
Honestly, people talking about only vegan food being imported make yourselves sound very silly. Don't you realise that flour and pasta running out in the pandemic was because it's mostly imported. Hope you don't eat bread.

SimonJT - its really hard for a vegan to get enough b12 without actively trying to get enough b12. Whch is why its important they go look into it and seek out fortified foods and those very very few plants that have it, and supplement if they struggle to get nori seedweed and fermented soy stuff. Mushrooms for instance its only specific mushrooms that have more than a trace so a normal supermarket mushroom wouldn't help

I get concerned when people make out theres loads of sources of b12 for vegans and suggest leafy veg that i always mention supplementing.

It doesnt matter taking a supplement - its not a barrier to being a vegan. When i realised all the meat i ate was supplemented any way otherwise their b12 was too low i kinda though it makes more sense for me to supplement myself

I have a supplement as an extra security thing, but I believe I probably do ok with fortified stuff too. Blood test recently showed normal levels.
I think it's important to be truthful, a balanced vegan diet is healthful, but that's not just the western omnivore diet with stuff removed.
Most vegan cookbooks happily have a section on nutrients. Usually they give very sensible advice.

@Mirw so where does the cattle feed come from? One cow also requires more the 5 times the grain to sustain its large body mass over its lifetime than a human. How many meals will one cow produce for human consumption? The grain is already being mass produced to feed cattle at an over abundant rate. We would need considerably less arable land if we feed the person directly with the grain rather than the cow.

The thing which always gets me with these debates is the amount of lecturing from all sides!

There are good and bad aspects of all diet and yes food miles on vegan products can be very high in comparison (Jack fruit, banana flower, soya etc) but there is also unethical meat sources and other ingredients flown in.

I get a local veg box, use of local butcher but buy less meat, buy my fish from the boat (I get this is rare but I live by the sea) and use a local dairy refill system.

I don't really care about people's diet choice as long as they don't lecture me on it! I say this as a ex vegetarian, then pescatarian who have listened to both sides lecturing me!

I can't find straight statistics on how much meat we import but this would put it at 25%+
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/16/meat-imports-animal-welfare-standards

@donquixotedelamancha

In fact, you sound like the person who refused to believe people would choose not to have children because of the environment, and wanted them to say the 'proper' reason.

Rearing your own children is (for example) better for the environment than eating blueberries. They also taste delicious.

Delicious Children or blueberries? 😁

Soya is in pretty much everything though, not just vegan food as those with an allergy know.
Biscuits
Chocolate
Baby formula (!)
Crackers
Animal feed

So it's a bit unfair to say vegans are the only ones consuming it.
Maybe vegans would be less lectuury if people didn't make stupid goady claims about them being trendoids, unhealthy, I'll looking.
I've honestly never questioned anyone's diet in person, unless they started to slag off mine. Which happens frequently.
It's good this thread has shown people, not just vegans, doing their own thing to be conscientious. And it will look different from everyone with budget, location and preference changing.

@Middersweekly so where does the cattle feed come from
As I said up thread, the vast majority of beef cattle in the UK eat very little grain - and much of the grain that they do eat isn't fit for human consumption. They eat grass, silage (made out of grass), crop residues, stuff like spent brewers grains, and sometimes hay or silage made out of plants like vetches, which are grown with a dual purpose - to make the silage, but also to give the soil a break from cereals (to reduce pests without spraying) and to capture nitrogen to fertilize the soil.

They eat very little that could have gone onto people's plates. What they are doing is upcycling cellulose (that we cannot digest) into a nutrient dense foodstuff.

This is also true for beef imported from eg Ireland.

@BellaTheDog

There's heme iron (animal sources) and non-heme iron. Heme iron is much better absorbed by some people.

FFS. This has been debunked SO MANY TIMES.

@mustlovegin instead of making up rubbish in order to defend your food choices, why don’t you just admit that you like eating meat, regardless of the consequences? At least you would be being honest.

Harvard school of public health is still saying that heme iron is better absorbed....

Glancing at the internet, this does seem to be the scientific consensus.

Honestly, I have nothing against vegans. I have a colleague at work who is trialling a vegan diet to see if she can work out what triggers her health conditions. I have eaten some of that much touted 'delicious vegan food' (some is legit delicious; some is really, really boring; some is disgusting). What I dislike is being preached at by people presenting dubious 'facts'.

Honestly, I have nothing against vegans. I have a colleague at work who is trialling a vegan diet to see if she can work out what triggers her health conditions. I have eaten some of that much touted 'delicious vegan food' (some is legit delicious; some is really, really boring; some is disgusting). What I dislike is being preached at by people presenting dubious 'facts'.

The same as ‘all food’ then. And I don’t think it’s vegans who are solely responsible for sharing dubious facts or preaching about nutrition.

@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman you need to look at those conclusions in the context of who they are funded by. Many of these studies are funded by the meat industry.

NHS advice is fairly straightforward.
www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/vegetarian-and-vegan-diets-q-and-a/

I do think, like any diet, it's important it's balanced. It's when you get people with peculiar ideas like eating just fruit and calling it vegan that deficiency starts.
Like meat eaters, the diet is fairly broad, but unlike meat eaters people generally lump all vegan diets and outcomes together, possibly due to unfamiliarity.

I have yet to meet anyone who has not wolfed down my vegan Ethiopian peanut curry.
My pancakes, however leave much to be desired so that's DH job!

It's the corporate mass production of everything that ruins everything.

As soon as something becomes popular it gets mass produced and hence bad for the environment in some way, whether it's meat or vegan foods. The only way to really save the environment is if we all just consumed FAR, FAR less than we do now, not just food but clothes, makeup, cleaning products etc.

Veganism is good in theory and on the right path - if you can grow your own veggies or buy from only local small farms - but as usual it's turned into a "trend" that is pushed onto us by the "man" who has to make his money and doesn't give a fuck about saving the environment.

It's the same old bullshit over and over again.

@RebeccaOfSunnyHellFarm

I have yet to meet anyone who has not wolfed down my vegan Ethiopian peanut curry. My pancakes, however leave much to be desired so that's DH job!

The curry sounds amazing. Can you post the recipe? You might be the key to resolving the pro v anti vegan standoff.