I'm one of those folks who thinks there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a vegetarian or a vegan ... as long as you don't try to end MY meat eating.
The problem with vegans (and I dated a few before forever swearing them off) is that they are really control freaks. They're not content to live their philosophy in contented happiness.
They want to legislate it for the rest of us. Militantly.
I'm dating my first vegan; I'm learning to cook tofu (voluntarily!) but there's nary a complaint when I order steak, and more often than not she nabs a slice of pizza when I order in.
Undernourish how? Lack of B12 seems to be the big problem with vegans, and you can supplement that easily. Granted, lack of cow milk in the kid's diet means less IGF resulting in shorter height. But there's also less risk of cancer and diabetes. I'm not sure if that's the same as 'weakness.'
Do you have any peer reviewed data that you're basing your opinions on?
vegans are actually malnourished on vitamin d, sat-fat, cholesterol, vitamin k2 (d and k2 are only readily absorbable by humans in animal-derived forms), and several other things.
there is no lesser risk of cancer or diabetes, actually. that's mythical and not based on the science. the science is actually the opposite of pro-vegan in terms of dietary practice.
there is no peer-reviewed data showing a vegan diet to be healthier for any class of humans. pubmed has plenty of data showing the benefits of meat-based diets, though.
"I'm dating my first vegan; I'm learning to cook tofu (voluntarily!) but there's nary a complaint when I order steak ..."
Yea, that's how it starts.
Then one day, she'll announce "we have to talk."
And it will be about how sick to her stomach you make her feel every time you order steak, but since she loves you so much, she's decided to let you continue doing it. You know, because she loves yo so much. She's willing to be sick for you.
And from then on out, every time you do, she'll give you that look and excuse herself to go puke. And pretty soon, you won't order steak anymore.
Then one day, you'll realize that you never order steak anymore and you'll find a new girlfriend.
Funny, I had the opposite problem in my last serious relationship. My meat eating girlfriend was a control freak who constantly attempted to impose her meat-eating ways on me.
Wow Mover. Can you use a broader brush? Exactly what legislation have vegans tried to pass outlawing meat? That photo did have one phrase I thought funny "Vegan-curious".
There are some in the vegan universe that DO want government to start treating meat in the same way it treats tobacco, or at least booze. But they don't advocate the legislative route. Groups like PETA, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest are trying to phase meat out of school lunches, include meat in any fat tax proposal, etc.
Supposedly if they were concerned about the health of the kids, they'd be trying to go after sugar instead of the meat. But they're a bunch of anti-meat fanatics and that's that.
if they were concerned about health, they'd be raw vegans, the only vegan diet that does have a fair amount of sat-fat (due to pretty much having to live off avocados and walnuts for calories since most grains and legumes are lethal raw).
you think the low-fat craze came out of nowhere? you think the demonizing of eggs came out of nowhere?
even though saturated fat and cholesterol are healthful in pretty much any quantity above 'little to none', strict vegetarians and vegans have pretty much campaigned successfully to get them out of the american diet, despite copious evidence that they are essential to health and development.
vegans are also the ones against lower-carbon animals that thrive in poor-farming environments, preferring expensive and carbon-intensive irrigation to increase farmland and grow high-sugar and high-gluten grains.
Trans fats are often produced from hydrogenated plant oils. Did you, perhaps, mean saturated fats?
You know, I'm generally pretty libertarian when it comes food. I don't know what 'trans fat banning of oreos' refers to, but if they eliminated trans fats entirely I'd be fine with that. As it is, the FDA isn't supposed to allow chemically modified foods as foodstuffs. They're supposedly classified as additives. Margerine and trans-fats both break this rule and are both unhealthy.
To add to your list, though, they had laws in California mandating larger cages for chickens and similar laws which industry advocates claimed would make California eggs less competitive. We'll see how that ballot measure (Pretty sure it passed, IIRC) plays out.
Sounds about right. My friends used to joke that I refused to eat anything that didn't formerly have a soul. Not entirely true, of course - you need bread to wrap around your meat - but fairly close.
Confidence is sexy. If you are a meat eater and the mentioning of the word vegan deteriorates your humor into nervous childishness - you have issues.
BTW an Oxford study has shown vegans to generally have higher testersteron than non-vegans. No matter how much soy they consume - nothings on the planet has more female hormones than beer.
On a personal level - all of my ex-partners who I would not want to hang with today have remained their new vegan diet after our separation. I never "forced" them into anything - I might even have bought and cooked meat for them - never preached... they switched by themselves as eigenman seems to do above.
PS: Vegans who supplement are the least likely people of the population to suffer from B12 deficiency. Here a link from the USDA on B12 deficiency among meat eaters. Sad myths such as these only lead to pregnant women who eat meat thinking that they are save regarding B12. It is also hard to imagine that Carl Lewis and plenty of Iron Man winner or gorillas are malnourished. But I do not take the discussion here very seriously - neither smart nor funny cookies participate here?
"No matter how much soy they consume - nothings on the planet has more female hormones than beer."
I've noticed the same. Before I cut down my beer intake, I was developing man-boobs. Couldn't drive. Stuff I said made no sense and I was always either fighting or crying.
Couldn't resist. In all seriousness, I grew up in the South and knew a lot of people who wouldn't drink for religious reasons (later worked on a trading floor with a lot of Pakistani and Indian Muslim quants). I know a lot of people who don't smoke for health reasons....and in both cases, they seem to take a more "I don't, but please go ahead" view than many of the vegans I know.
In addition to the militancy discussed above, I've personally encountered a lot of anti-hunting and factory farming gross out stories during lunch, vegans who will order all vegan fare for a lunch meeting with 3 vegans and 15 carnivores, and that yokel in the UK who wants to outlaw meat worldwide to "fight AGW" or something ridiculous.
Maybe it's just that Americans are jerks. Have not encountered that from the vegan Hindus I've met.
I am sure that there are many asshole vegans out there. It does not happen to me in private to get all-activisty but it does happen to me in "public". Coming back to your man-boobs - what is more metro-sexual than that?
The link between cancer and dietary hormones - estrogen in particular - has been a source of great concern among scientists, said Ganmaa, but it has not been widely studied or discussed.
The potential for risk is large. Natural estrogens are up to 100,000 times more potent than their environmental counterparts, such as the estrogen-like compounds in pesticides.
"Among the routes of human exposure to estrogens, we are mostly concerned about cow's milk, which contains considerable amounts of female sex hormones," Ganmaa told her audience. Dairy, she added, accounts for 60 percent to 80 percent of estrogens consumed.
As we have saturated fats and cholesterol in milk as well - let's not even get started on impotence. That's not to say that impotent men with boobs should not have the right to feel manly enough. But I can see how eating remains one of their main pleasure in life and that sounds a bit restrictive to me. It might just be that I believe in only one life before death.. what do I know?
The problem with this new age vegan/vegetarian affair is that not much thought has gone into the meals. Most vegetarian dishes that you get in restaurants seem like an afterthought. A meat based dish is either retrofitted with a tofu substitute or the meat is removed to create a vegan meal. In my limited culinary expertise Indian restaurants are the only place where you find completely different items on the vegetarian and meat sections. In fact one can not eat just the meat in an Indian meal and still be full.
I'm one of those folks who thinks there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a vegetarian or a vegan ... as long as you don't try to end MY meat eating.
The problem with vegans (and I dated a few before forever swearing them off) is that they are really control freaks. They're not content to live their philosophy in contented happiness.
They want to legislate it for the rest of us. Militantly.
Generalize much?
I'm dating my first vegan; I'm learning to cook tofu (voluntarily!) but there's nary a complaint when I order steak, and more often than not she nabs a slice of pizza when I order in.
I would never date a vegan. They undernourished and would bear weak children. In addition to the control freak problem.
Undernourish how? Lack of B12 seems to be the big problem with vegans, and you can supplement that easily. Granted, lack of cow milk in the kid's diet means less IGF resulting in shorter height. But there's also less risk of cancer and diabetes. I'm not sure if that's the same as 'weakness.'
Do you have any peer reviewed data that you're basing your opinions on?
@Ryan W.
vegans are actually malnourished on vitamin d, sat-fat, cholesterol, vitamin k2 (d and k2 are only readily absorbable by humans in animal-derived forms), and several other things.
there is no lesser risk of cancer or diabetes, actually. that's mythical and not based on the science. the science is actually the opposite of pro-vegan in terms of dietary practice.
there is no peer-reviewed data showing a vegan diet to be healthier for any class of humans. pubmed has plenty of data showing the benefits of meat-based diets, though.
Don't vegans also tend to be flatulent?
"I'm dating my first vegan; I'm learning to cook tofu (voluntarily!) but there's nary a complaint when I order steak ..."
Yea, that's how it starts.
Then one day, she'll announce "we have to talk."
And it will be about how sick to her stomach you make her feel every time you order steak, but since she loves you so much, she's decided to let you continue doing it. You know, because she loves yo so much. She's willing to be sick for you.
And from then on out, every time you do, she'll give you that look and excuse herself to go puke. And pretty soon, you won't order steak anymore.
Then one day, you'll realize that you never order steak anymore and you'll find a new girlfriend.
Funny, I had the opposite problem in my last serious relationship. My meat eating girlfriend was a control freak who constantly attempted to impose her meat-eating ways on me.
"My meat eating girlfriend was a control freak who constantly attempted to impose her meat-eating ways on me."
What's her number?
What about non-ideological vegans?
I'm a vegan because I physically *feel* better when I eat that way.
I happen to also believe that if God didn't intend for us to eat animals he wouldn't have made them so yummy.
Non-ideological vegans are the hottest chicks on the planet.
Wow Mover. Can you use a broader brush? Exactly what legislation have vegans tried to pass outlawing meat? That photo did have one phrase I thought funny "Vegan-curious".
There are some in the vegan universe that DO want government to start treating meat in the same way it treats tobacco, or at least booze. But they don't advocate the legislative route. Groups like PETA, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest are trying to phase meat out of school lunches, include meat in any fat tax proposal, etc.
Supposedly if they were concerned about the health of the kids, they'd be trying to go after sugar instead of the meat. But they're a bunch of anti-meat fanatics and that's that.
if they were concerned about health, they'd be raw vegans, the only vegan diet that does have a fair amount of sat-fat (due to pretty much having to live off avocados and walnuts for calories since most grains and legumes are lethal raw).
you think the low-fat craze came out of nowhere? you think the demonizing of eggs came out of nowhere?
even though saturated fat and cholesterol are healthful in pretty much any quantity above 'little to none', strict vegetarians and vegans have pretty much campaigned successfully to get them out of the american diet, despite copious evidence that they are essential to health and development.
vegans are also the ones against lower-carbon animals that thrive in poor-farming environments, preferring expensive and carbon-intensive irrigation to increase farmland and grow high-sugar and high-gluten grains.
Fois gras bans in Chicago. Fast-food restaurant bans in Oakland. Trans-fat bannning of Oreos.
Do I really have to go on?
Because I could.
Some vegans are cool (see post by the hotty vegan above). Then there are the militant freaks which comprise most of the philosophical movement.
Trans fats are often produced from hydrogenated plant oils. Did you, perhaps, mean saturated fats?
You know, I'm generally pretty libertarian when it comes food. I don't know what 'trans fat banning of oreos' refers to, but if they eliminated trans fats entirely I'd be fine with that. As it is, the FDA isn't supposed to allow chemically modified foods as foodstuffs. They're supposedly classified as additives. Margerine and trans-fats both break this rule and are both unhealthy.
To add to your list, though, they had laws in California mandating larger cages for chickens and similar laws which industry advocates claimed would make California eggs less competitive. We'll see how that ballot measure (Pretty sure it passed, IIRC) plays out.
The details are fairly uninteresting.
Of import is the larger point: Vegans want to militantly legislate their philosophy onto the rest of us, forcing us to conform.
That's why they make poor mates.
Long-term, Darwin will exterminate them because of this propensity.
Soy is a great way for men and children to get some estrogen/isoflavone into their system.
Which is why I minimize the amount of soy I intake. Mostly soy sauce on stir fry. But soy milk? Gods no! Whole milk or nothing I say!
Almond milk is a better substitute milk than soy anyways.
Yeah cuz that's just what American society needs ... more metrosexuals with too much estrogen in their system.
I prefer the omnivore diet... if it's slower than I am, I'll eat it... OMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM!
My rule is if it's slower than about 2500 fps, I eat it.
If it had parents ... fry it up.
Sounds about right. My friends used to joke that I refused to eat anything that didn't formerly have a soul. Not entirely true, of course - you need bread to wrap around your meat - but fairly close.
I'll give a RAWR! for Atkins.
I thought my browser had crashed for a second. Because that picture is my desktop background :)
Confidence is sexy. If you are a meat eater and the mentioning of the word vegan deteriorates your humor into nervous childishness - you have issues.
BTW an Oxford study has shown vegans to generally have higher testersteron than non-vegans. No matter how much soy they consume - nothings on the planet has more female hormones than beer.
On a personal level - all of my ex-partners who I would not want to hang with today have remained their new vegan diet after our separation. I never "forced" them into anything - I might even have bought and cooked meat for them - never preached... they switched by themselves as eigenman seems to do above.
PS: Vegans who supplement are the least likely people of the population to suffer from B12 deficiency. Here a link from the USDA on B12 deficiency among meat eaters. Sad myths such as these only lead to pregnant women who eat meat thinking that they are save regarding B12. It is also hard to imagine that Carl Lewis and plenty of Iron Man winner or gorillas are malnourished. But I do not take the discussion here very seriously - neither smart nor funny cookies participate here?
"BTW an Oxford study has shown vegans to generally have higher testosterone than non-vegans."
That must explain why so many vegan chicks are so aggressively butch.
"... all of my ex-partners who I would not want to hang with today have remained their new vegan diet after our separation."
Have you detected the pattern yet?
"No matter how much soy they consume - nothings on the planet has more female hormones than beer."
I've noticed the same. Before I cut down my beer intake, I was developing man-boobs. Couldn't drive. Stuff I said made no sense and I was always either fighting or crying.
Couldn't resist. In all seriousness, I grew up in the South and knew a lot of people who wouldn't drink for religious reasons (later worked on a trading floor with a lot of Pakistani and Indian Muslim quants). I know a lot of people who don't smoke for health reasons....and in both cases, they seem to take a more "I don't, but please go ahead" view than many of the vegans I know.
In addition to the militancy discussed above, I've personally encountered a lot of anti-hunting and factory farming gross out stories during lunch, vegans who will order all vegan fare for a lunch meeting with 3 vegans and 15 carnivores, and that yokel in the UK who wants to outlaw meat worldwide to "fight AGW" or something ridiculous.
Maybe it's just that Americans are jerks. Have not encountered that from the vegan Hindus I've met.
John,
I am sure that there are many asshole vegans out there. It does not happen to me in private to get all-activisty but it does happen to me in "public". Coming back to your man-boobs - what is more metro-sexual than that?
From the Harvard News Office - it's not just the boobs we get:
As we have saturated fats and cholesterol in milk as well - let's not even get started on impotence. That's not to say that impotent men with boobs should not have the right to feel manly enough. But I can see how eating remains one of their main pleasure in life and that sounds a bit restrictive to me. It might just be that I believe in only one life before death.. what do I know?
sat-fats and cholesterol don't contribute to man-boobs. they are essential for good health, actually, and increase testosterone for men.
wibbles,
sat-fats and cholesterol where mentioned here in the context of impotence. I am sure you know now what I mean?
The problem with this new age vegan/vegetarian affair is that not much thought has gone into the meals. Most vegetarian dishes that you get in restaurants seem like an afterthought. A meat based dish is either retrofitted with a tofu substitute or the meat is removed to create a vegan meal. In my limited culinary expertise Indian restaurants are the only place where you find completely different items on the vegetarian and meat sections. In fact one can not eat just the meat in an Indian meal and still be full.
As much as I hate to see a stereotype confirmed, apparently it really is true that a sense of humor requires meat in the diet.