And I could introduce you to ten or fifteen who are healthier than horses and happier than clams, some of whom have been vegetarians for decades and actually look ten or fifteen years younger than their age. And more to the point, none of whom “obsess” single-mindedly about it – it’s just part of the way they live. But yeah, whatever.
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I could make that argument substituting in BB posters instead. Should we judge this site based on a few extremists?
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While we’re being anecdotal…My vegan friend shows all the symptoms of anemia …she can barely keep her head up…(she says she has always had all the symptomns of anemia) If her doctor mentions her diet she switches doctors. According to her it has nothing to do with her diet 
She knows more about nutrition than nearly anyone and she knows more than her doctor. According to her she is healthy as a horse but somehow manages to end up in the clinic or hospital more than anyone I know. She’s happy too (as long as she takes her happy pills ) I dare not mention it. I don’t wanna meat-splain to her after all!
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As someone who has to conform to a special diet for health reasons, I find it oddly extravagant to be able to choose not to eat certain things. It’s also weird to see people putting so much of their identity into what they do or do not consume. Seems like a pretty shallow thing to adopt as a core value.
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My brother and his wife were vegetarians for a number of years until she got pregnant and anemic and the doctor told her she wasn’t going to have a healthy child on their macrobiotic diet. And my brother is one of those high metabolism types who absolutely needs nutrients in a concentrated form. He’s the skinny guy that goes to the Chinese buffet, fills his plate five times and then goes home and eats a pint of ice cream. He still loves brown rice, but he needs meat to survive.
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Hmm, surely you know about the long lists of famously healthy vegetarians and vegans, including Olympic athletes. I wonder what makes you completely ignore them?
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Is that the best you can do? Two vegans!?! Impressive. (eye roll) Vegan power doesn’t seem to reallly be rocking at the Olympic games does it? Especially when you consider that out of the only two “vegans” listed:
- what happened to Carl Lewis’ career after a year of veganism?? Care to guess? Here. You don’t have to.
- The other “vegan” listed was a “vegetarian” who started eating meat later in life (I wonder why). Although he is often claimed to be a vegan or a vegetarian we don’t know his full diet but we know honey isn’t vegan.
Vegans and their anecdotal evidence citing propaganda… sheesh.
Conservatives and their context-free cherry-picking. Ugh.
Here, have some more, it’s good for you! Mmmmmm
And since you’ll clearly never have enough such “anecdotes” –
Beyond anecdotes, of course, there’s considerable scientific evidence showing that veganism is a smart way to eat. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics says that a well-planned vegan (and vegetarian) diet is “healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.” This is a much more cautious assessment, however, than many studies suggest.
According to one study, “vegetarian and vegan diets are effective in treating and preventing several chronic diseases.” The adaptation of a low-fat vegan diet can substantially mitigate the impacts of type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and Parkinson’s disease. Veganism reduces the risk of colon cancer. Vegans have a better “antioxidant status” than non-vegans. Veganism is more effective at combating obesity than other prescribed diets, such as that promoted by the National Cholesterol Education Program. Veganism has been shown to lower risk factors associated with cardiac disease. As Dr. Michael Greger, director of public health for the Humane Society of the United States, explains, “A plant-based diet is like a one-stop shop against chronic diseases.”
If you’re a heavy and/or regular meat eater, don’t you have a nagging worry about cancer and other problems? Or do you just prefer to ignore such risks?
Don’t worry about my diet. I’m doing just fine. I get my veggies. I haven’t been sick in more than twenty years (unless hangovers count) but we all have to go some day.
…and yet still nary a vegan in the bunch…
Ha, more cherry-picking.
Go ahead, ignore all the studies that say the opposite of what you’re saying. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing, my friend!
Anyway, as long as someone isn’t suddenly less healthy because of a change in diet, and they’re getting plenty of nutrients and whatnot however they can, and they’re not consistently, obliviously indulging in excessively cruel or environmentally destructive consumption behavior, I don’t have a big problem with it. My beef (ha) is with those who ridicule vegans and vegetarians. Why not just live and let live? Most of them aren’t all up your nose about the way you eat.
Ah, they call Dave Scott a vegetarian – I thought he was a vegan. Anyway:
http://www.powered-by-produce.com/2011/01/04/meatless-marathoner-runs-on-plants/
…unlike you in this thread 
You are the one who at the top of the thread asked to hear the “vegan hate” before anyone said a word. You were practically begging for it.
Just like the book this thread was supposed to be about…if you say ridiculous things you should expect ridicule. That’s a good thing. I have a sneaking suspicion that all vegans would not get nearly the grief that they do if:
- Some did not falsely claim to have an ethically superior diet
- Some did not expect their friends and family to cater to their delusions
The verdict is far from in in regards to which diet is healthiest. To compare strict vegans with the average American diet is disingenuous however. There are pros and cons to healthy vegan and healthy omnivorous diets. Studies done on populations with the highest amount of Centenarians show those populations have omnivorous diets.
Would you mind enlightening us with your credentials in regards to these drugs? Are you a pharmacist or a vegetarian/vegan 
Neither. But I know the difference between those various drugs.
Well, I’m no pharmacist but I think the common link is they all are used to treat various mental disorders. A correlation has been shown between veganism/vegetarianism and various mental disorders.
Once again…I’m happy to help you read between the lines. I remain humbly at your service.
My beef is that I’ve had a couple online stalkers, one for nearly a decade, who I’ve mainly ignored. There seems to be three things in common: they like conspiracy theories, their response to nearly anything is “I don’t understand” and “You’e stupid!,” and they are vegetarians. I did not even figure that out until I recently said “OK, who are these people who have been following me around for years … hmmmm, why am I being stalked by vegetarians?” I had always assumed that someone following me around for years saying “I don’t understand” was some sort of epic form of passive aggressive trolling, but it finally dawned on me that it isn’t.
Interesting… I wonder if there is a correlation between conspiracy theorists and vegans 
If you look up anything to do with an inflammatory disease like arthritis or Crohn’s, you will find links to sites that lump together GMOs, HAARP, chemtrails, vaccines causing autism, the New World Order, and all the other usual conspiracies. Historically, many fringe political groups have had an emphasis on some version of holistic health, including the John Birch Society’s campaign against fluoride. Today, if you have a conspiracy web site, holistic health is site content and click bait. Anybody googling a chronic disease is one click from a conspiracy site. Conspiracies appeal to people who use black-and-white thinking who are incapable of processing ambiguity.
