To be honest, I don't get the mania for processed meat substitutes when there's excellent vegetarian/vegan fare from cuisines that have been doing it for millennia. As an Indian brought up in a vegetarian family, I had no inkling or desire to eat meat until I came to the US for grad school.
One day I had this niggling doubt that I continued to be a vegetarian for cultural rather than ethical reasons. I tested that hypothesis by eating a hamburger. It was literally the worst thing I had ever tasted. I had to try hard not to throw up and offend my hosts.
Then I tasted bacon, hot dogs pastrami sandwiches and fried chicken and I understood why people like meat. That continued for a few more months.
About six months after the hamburger episode, I had another epiphany that I don't like eating animals since I don't like animals being eaten. I turned vegan. All's well that ends well.
To be honest, I don't get the mania for processed meat substitutes when there's excellent vegetarian/vegan fare from cuisines that have been doing it for millennia.
There's a term for vegans who don't actually eat whole foods: "french fry vegan". It's as derisive as it sounds. If you're eating processed meat substitutes all the time as a vegetarian, IMO you aren't doing it right. I'm sure plenty of other people would agree.
And yet, vegetarians do eat those things sometimes. It's cultural. In the West (not just in the USA, in much of Europe as well), a lot of traditional foods are either meat-based or contain meat. My friends and I want to go out for a burger and a milkshake, because that's fun for us; I want a damn burger. A grilled mushroom on a roll is equally delicious, but it just isn't the same.
> If you're eating processed meat substitutes all the time as a vegetarian, IMO you aren't doing it right. I'm sure plenty of other people would agree.
I couldn't disagree more. The vast majority of vegans are vegan primarily for religious reasons or because of animal welfare and/or environmental concerns (see, e.g., [0]). Heavily processed plant-based foods clearly address the religious and animal welfare considerations, and I suspect they're far more environmentally friendly than animal products despite the energy used to process and ship them.
Avoiding heavily processed foods is a good idea in general. But it's orthogonal to veganism. And eating heavily processed foods doesn't invalidate the benefits of veganism - aside from the health benefits, which are the primary concern for only a slim minority of vegans.
> To be honest, I don't get the mania for processed meat substitutes...
It seems you didn't even bother to read the article to check if it would make good segue into your vegan epiphany story: there is no mention of processed meat substitutes.
It also seems like the hamburger you tried was quite poorly prepared if hot dogs made a more compelling case for eating meat.
With more and more people switching to vegetarian and vegan fake meats, I'd be interested in understanding what is the wisdom on highly processed vegetable-based foods.
Processing foods is what likely helped Homo to get enough energy to evolve big brains. So, processing foods isn’t all that bad, and it may even be hard-wired in many of us.
But, Humans tend to take things too far, and inventing new ways of processing is really fun! So, most food today is over-processed. It’s acceptable to grind, dice, tear, smash, smush, squeeze, ferment, spice, salt, and cook veggies, lightly. Any more than that is risky territory.
I think that is slight miss-use of term processed food.
Process food (at least to me) is anything that has been artificially adjusted by factory processing, like injecting meat with some solutions in order to 'make' more meat.
I would hardly qualified lets say smoked bacon as processed food in that sense. But all of those microwave ready meals et al. large content of it is cheap filler masqueraded as actual product.
It is not a mis-use. Bacon is absolutely a processed meat.
“Microwave ready meals” are typically just pre-cooked meals prepared for reheating - they’re probably not the best meals in terms of ingredient quality or cooking methods, and low-quality ones might have some plant starches as filler, but most of them are pretty straightforward.
Of course there exist low-quality or over-salted meals.
But I just took a look in my freezer at two bog-standard ready meals I have there just in case - macaroni and cheese, and a beef lasagne. They’re each about 1.5g of salt, and there’s nothing notable about the ingredients.
Anything more than like 700-900 mg/day is less than ideal. 1.5g leaves you no budget for the rest of the day. (Though some sources say you just need to be below 2.5g. Still, that’s not much higher than 1.5g when we’re talking an entire rest of the day to eat.)
NHS guidelines in the UK are <6g of salt (2400mg sodium) per day. US guidelines are 2300mg. Salt and sodium are not the same; 1.5g of salt is about 600mg sodium, or about 1/4 of the recommended daily limit. That seems entirely reasonable for a main meal.
Here is the thing: I can make my own microwave-ready meals. I might put "cheap filler" in some things: beans and lentils and whatnot. It is still processed food, even if I'm not adding chemical additives or having food scientists add aromas and testing for peak yumminess. To that end, plain frozen peas are processed.
Smoked bacon is exactly the sort of thing they warn to eat sparingly because it is a highly processed food. It doesn't really matter that we've been making it for some time, it is still highly processed. I'd argue that most of it has added chemicals and things like the meat you describe upfront. Even without, the actual curing and smoking is what makes it more harmful.
I think it's also not great for many of the same reasons but the motivation might be more eithical or environmental than health. Most of the vegans I know (myself included) have totally different diets that don't include meat replacements at all. Beans and legumes take the place of red meat.
Probably none, most want to hear about, if there is something to it. They struggled hard to replace their meat with soy and extracted proteins and yeast from wherever .. it must be good.
I just really believe, that for the most part my body knows the best whats good for him. I just have to really pay attention. So sugar might taste good, but my body does not feel good, when eating too much of it. Meat is good, but only if it is good meat and not too much (meat that did not suffer too much and pushed with medicaments).
So balanced diet, lots of vegetables ... the classical recommendation, seems right.
> Probably none, most want to hear about, if there is something to it. They struggled hard to replace their meat with soy and extracted proteins and yeast from wherever .. it must be good.
I already addressed the first part in another comment in this thread. I wanted to point out that the "protein" argument is dated and uninformed. Protein is everywhere, grains, nuts, seeds and vegetables. It does not need to be "extracted" through some external process, it occurs naturally and can be used by your body. Also no one "struggled" with this, huge populations of the planet have been getting protein from plants for a long time before modern fake meat.
I don't get the downvotes, it's a pretty solid advice.
You have to try really hard to be unhealthy if you eat unprocessed meat, veggies, grains and stick to the basics. It's what millions of years of evolution engineered our body for. Not 300gr of smoked bacon every morning and 1L of fruit juice per day.
This is obviously a simplification, but a rule of thumb is probably: Just as unhealthy as the meat alternative for you (particularly the closer these alternatives come to the original), but better for the planet.
I think the longevity of dietary advice is pretty low. Remember when eggs were the enemy, when fat was the enemy, when carbs were the enemy? Meat had to have it's turn sometime.
Perhaps we can judge the statements on the evidence behind them?
The reason that processed meat (that is meats which are smoked, salted, etc.) is recommended to not be eaten is because it has been shown to be carcinogenic.
The egg thing is based on the idea (I actually don't know enough to know if this is correct or not) that dietary cholesterol intake affects blood cholesterol levels, and eggs have a bit of dietary cholesterol in them.
I get that we're not very educated within this area but perhaps we should stay quiet then? What's the point in writing comments on HN about things we know very little about?
All these results (re 'shown to be carcinogenic') are based on surveys as opposed to experiments. In other words, unlike randomized, double-blind studies, they cannot be said to demonstrate causation, but at best may point to interesting hypotheses.
As for eggs and cholesterol, about 80% + of cholesterol is produced in the liver, and increasing dietary cholesterol by HUGE amounts at best changes blood cholesterol by 2-4%
Sorry I can't dig up the study right now, but perhaps searching pubmed may find it.
Perhaps the media should stay quiet until the research is done.
And any science news headline containing the word "may" should probably be ignored. That's a good sign that they're exaggerating a single study. The media makes money by sensationalizing research, not reporting it accurately.
Eating processed meat has been consistently "bad for you" since at least the late 60's, when I remember being told that bologna and hot dogs weren't healthy but ok as a treat.
Huge sums are being spent to confuse consumers. Reliable research has actually been pretty consistent for decades and repeatedly implicates dietary cholesterol and saturated fat in a variety of diseases.
> Reliable research has actually been pretty consistent for decades and repeatedly implicates dietary cholesterol and saturated fat in a variety of diseases.
That is simply not true. Cholesterol are split in at least 2 different groups. HDL and LDL, the good and the bad respectively. But it's not the whole picture, a subgroup of LDL is considered mostly harmless as it rarely crosses into the bloodstream. The number that you really want to minimize is called LDL-p (LDL particles) in your blood, and surprisingly many saturated fats play a role in reducing that number, and increasing the HDL, which has been shown to be good for your health.
I don't understand why this is getting down voted.
Here's a clip of Dr Rhonda Patrick, who is incredibly well informed on the effects of dietary cholesterol, basically saying the same thing: https://youtu.be/VnYeuES3joc
Regarding processed meat, what part of the processing makes the meat unhealthy? Or is it something related to how processed meat is often consumed vs unprocessed meat?
From the WHO stuff that was released a few years ago, I understood that "nasty processing" really only meant where nitrites were used (to preserve meat)?
And as someone who has butchered a pig, made sausages and bacon I can assure you that for a lot of it the nitrates are really the only difference between those and other forms of meat.
I guess the curing time could also be relevant but I don't believe there is anything to suggest that curing time is an issue.
Knowing this I was wondering for ages "surely it can only be the nitrates" and that seemed to be the case. It is also possible to buy bacon safely cured without nitrates now too.
It's all the additional steps and products added. A lot of processed meat are juste a slime of bones, skin, organs, ligaments whatever was left on the carcass of the animal. On top of that it comes from low quality (cheap) animals in the first place which doesn't help.
It's like eating a fruit vs drinking a juice, or eating raw veggies vs a broth. The original material is the same but it doesn't mean it holds the same benefits.
I don't believe that this matters. Why would it? Offal has great nutritional value. The inuit did perfectly well on an all-meat diet. The issue is more likely curing with nitrites and smoking.
>It's like eating a fruit vs drinking a juice
Another thing that doesn't matter. What exactly do you think magically happens when you put an orange into a blender and mix with a bit of water that would make it lose its nutritional value?
Inuit did not did well on an all meat died (btw, they also ate seaweed). Their life expectancy was much lower and they had higher instances of cardiac events. They did survive, that is true, and humans can survive on very different diets, but they did not trive.
You're free to believe what you want. A slime of chicken skin, fat and ligaments isn't digested the same way as a chunk of chicken breast. The nutritional values are just a small part of a big equation.
> Another thing that doesn't matter. What exactly do you think magically happens
Many things happen and none of them are magical.
The glycemic index of a raw fruit isn't the same as a juice from the same fruit for example, you don't get the fibers, &c.
> The inuit did perfectly well on an all-meat diet.
That's another side of my point, they evolved on that diet, most people didn't. Do you think the lifestyle of the average first worlder has anything to do with inuit lifestyle?
>Many things happen and none of them are magical. The glycemic index of a raw fruit isn't the same as a juice from the same fruit for example, you don't get the fibers, &c.
Only if you buy a juice concentrate. Making your own juice is equivalent to chewing an orange.
>You're free to believe what you want. A slime of chicken skin, fat and ligaments isn't digested the same way as a chunk of chicken breast. The nutritional values are just a small part of a big equation.
Of course not, I'm not arguing for that. What I am arguing for is that there's nothing inherently unhealthy about eating any of those things, and that offal is actually very nutritious.
>That's another side of my point, they evolved on that diet, most people didn't. Do you think the lifestyle of the average first worlder has anything to do with inuit lifestyle?
If an American adopted the diet of an inuit in such a way that their caloric needs are satisfied then I doubt it would matter. It is definitely possible that the inuit have evolved in some ways to accomodate for their diet, do you have any sources for that?
Regarding fruit juice Vs fruit I remember hearing about the cell walls and sugar and how in making the juice it destroyed the cells releasing sugar or something.
>A lot of processed meat are juste a slime of bones, skin, organs, ligaments whatever was left on the carcass of the animal.
All of these are healthy.
They might sound "disgusting" for modern consumers accustomed to 100% white meat, but none of them are harmful. In fact, bone marrow, skin, and organ meat contain many micronutrients that are less abundant in regular white meat, including vitamin A, B12 and collagen.
I am now cynical about all dietary advice. In Western countries the sort of people who eat bacon and burgers tend to have very different lifestyles from those who eat sushi. They are more likely to smoke and less likely to exercise. They are also likely to be less well educated and more likely to be poor and work at unhealthy jobs. Are all these factors taken account of in this study?
For example, as I understand it, black people in America eat a lot of white meat (chicken which is supposed to be healthier than red meat) and yet their health tends to be poorer than average.
I wonder how true this is. I have been trying to switch to a more carnivore diet - more red meat eg steak - for rumored benefits of lowering inflammation and boosting immune system. This is stating the reverse.
It's nutritional science, so the error bars are big, the effect sizes are small and the confounding variables numerous. At least a plant-based diet reduces your GHG footprint, so there's that. If you want to switch to a more carnivorous diet, I'd suggest chicken instead of beef. The evidence for mammalian meat being slightly carcinogenic seems to be pretty solid, and the climate impact of beef is about ten times that of chicken.
If you have so much as tried to grow a garden, much less farm at scale, you have a lot less sympathy for animals and their destructiveness. When you have racoons coming along at night knocking down your corn for the sheer hell of it, and not even eating it, or porcupines doing the same thing, or crows plucking out the stocks just as soon as they poke out of the ground, or deer mowing flat anything that isn't encased in an eight foot high fence, they lose their cute and cuddly charismatic aspects, and you start to view them like a horde of locusts, stealing the bread from your table, and prosecuting them with extreme prejudice becomes very, very attractive.
It's almost as if you've built your garden right in the middle of their habitat.
But seriously, I come from a family of farmers, and I know that the things that farmers do to animals is way worse than anything you've described here.
There’s really no amount of nice treatment that makes taking a calf away from its mother alright. I’m not aware of any ways to produce dairy without systematic animal abuse.
I found a method that leaves them together for 3 months. That's an improvement at least.
(Of course that means that the calf will take most -but not all- of the milk during that time. But then it is stated that the cost for the vet goes down a lot in exchange.)
Another option I found is to give several calves to one cow for 6 months, which has advantages and disadvantages compared to the first way. (Longer time with milk and natural suckling behaviour but calves without their mother and the smaller ones might get less milk.)
edit: Here is a list with places in Germany that do that:
By not taking the calves away from their mothers? That's how we did it for centuries, we only started taking calves away from their mothers when artificial milk replacements made it more profitable to do so.
Not nearly as many, of course, and the same products are eaten by meat eaters as well, and most plants are grown for animal feeding, but yes, it's impossible to live a regular human life and not indirectly hurt animals, humans or the environment. You can try to minimize it, though.
>We should care about unnecessary suffering because we can.
"We should because we can"? There are many things that we "can" do that we better not do. There's no automatic logical deduction from "we can" to "so we should".
Avoiding unnecessary suffering is sometimes used as the basis for whole ethics systems. It's inherently good and doesn't need to be deduced from anything.
But we have been eating meat for millennia, naturally, before we ever concerned ourselves about reading/writing and math, so there's that.
>If ducks stopped raping other ducks, they'd go extinct too. Not really sure if that's an argument in favor of human rapists, though.
That would have mattered only if the same conditions applied (e.g. extinction threat otherwise), which they don't. So it's looks more like a way to force the argument against eating meat based on a strong association with something obviously negative ("think of the children" style argument).
> That would have mattered only if the same conditions applied (e.g. extinction threat otherwise)
Exactly the point I'm making. Humans don't face extinction if we stop eating animal products, so comparing us to lions is not a valid argument for why we should eat meat.
Eating animals (some of which can`t reproduce naturaly anymore) raised in CAFOS, fed unnatural foods and pumped with hormones and antibiotics is all but natural evolutionary behavior and hurts both animals and humans.
>Whether something is “natural” has no bearing on its goodness.
Well, goodness also is not a logical argument. Good according to what, some arbitrary morals? Other people find it perfectly good to eat burgers.
>And certainly plenty of the behaviors that cause human suffering are 100% natural.
Only in the contrived sense, that we are part of nature as a species.
But we have long made the distinction that our more advanced developments concerning invention, historical developments, innovation, etc, are part of "civilization", and it's the behaviors that we already had before we developed those that are our "natural" part.
And we did ate meat before we had writing, and mobile phones.
>This is a fine conclusion that just doesn’t happen to follow from anything else you said.
Isn't not meant to be a logical deduction from something said earlier, it's meant to be about prioritization.
Rape, murder, and infanticide are all natural human behaviors by this definition, and they’ve become less common as we’ve become more divorced from nature. Also natural: having about half of your children die what are now preventable deaths. Life in nature is complete shit.
And I was assuming here a basically utilitarian definition of the good, because of your concern with suffering. Of course it’s debatable.
>At least a plant-based diet reduces your GHG footprint
That isn't actually true. It is a very misleading claim spread to promote veganism. It comes from comparing the raw caloric value of field corn, to the caloric value of beef. In reality, We do not actually eat field corn, we turn it into HFCS and corn oil, this reduces the energy efficiency of corn dramatically. A plant based diet also should not be based on HFCS and corn oil.
Second, beef is the worst meat to compare to, it is not an accurate representation for meat in general. Chicken being fed on corn based feed produces 5 million calories per acre, more than almost all the plant based crops a vegan diet would generally be based on, including soy, and equal to staples like wheat.
Third, even in comparing beef they do it wrong. They are comparing to hypothetical beef raised entirely on corn. There is no such beef. All beef is grass fed for the first year, they are only finished on grain.
That's interesting. I based my opinion on reports such as [1]. Do you have any (semi-)scientific references that support your opinion?
I agree that we don't eat much corn directly, but if it weren't used to feed livestock, we could use the land for something else, like potatoes or lentils or whatever grows in similar climate to corn, which are actually eaten. I'm somewhat doubtful of your claim that corn fed chicken produce 5 million calories per acre. Do you have a citation for that? The usual rule of thumb for going up one level in the food chain is that you lose 9/10th of the energy and corn only produces on the order of 12 million calories per acre. This random google result here [2] indeed claims about 1.4 million calories per acre for chicken.
>Do you have any (semi-)scientific references that support your opinion?
Does arithmetic count? The stats are available to look up yourself, the math is simple to do. But there's nobody funding publishing "debunk vegan nonsense" papers like there are people funding "make up vegan nonsense". So the only people you can find doing the math for you are just random people like the blog I link to later in this post.
>I agree that we don't eat much corn directly, but if it weren't used to feed livestock, we could use the land for something else, like potatoes or lentils or whatever grows in similar climate to corn, which are actually eaten
Most of those alternatives produce far fewer calories per acre than corn, which is the issue. An honest comparison shows most plant crops produce very low calories per acre, and require lots of diesel to produce and transport. Yes, you could grow something else. And almost all of those something elses are worse than corn fed chicken from an energy efficiency standpoint. If vegans want to argue the impact of meat vs plants in this way, then they need to apply the same standard to plants, and that means demanding that the vast majority of crops being grown are abandoned in favor of the tiny number that meet corn's energy output: corn, sugarcane, potatoes, palm. There's your acceptable vegan diet if we're going to limit things for being less efficient than corn.
>The usual rule of thumb for going up one level in the food chain is that you lose 9/10th of the energy
We're not talking about a natural ecosystem, which is what that rule of thumb is for. We're talking about animals that have been bred specifically to grow very large very quickly on very little food.
>and corn only produces on the order of 12 million calories per acre
No, corn produces 12 million calories per acre in human edible calories when converted to corn oil and HFCS. It produces 15 million calories per acre as livestock feed.
>This random google result here [2] indeed claims about 1.4 million calories per acre for chicken.
And it is very wrong. It is making up a silly number by using the human figure for corn calories per acre not the livestock feed figure. Then assuming chickens are fed 50/50 corn and soy when in reality their feed is almost entirely corn. It is also assuming a feed conversion ratio of 3, which is nearly double the actual ratio of 1.6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Poultry
You'd think that the meat industry would pay for debunking vegan nonsense papers, especially when the world starts talking about a carbon tax that would make beef a lot more expensive if they use the numbers I cited. But I'll read the links you provided and update my opinion. Thanks for looking them up for me.
Pasture is not harvested or stored, so there is no rodent or bird deaths from harvesting equipment, and no mass rodenticide usage as there is with grains.
It is far from "loaded". 0.15g per serving is not "loaded", and is half the level of salmon for example, which is promoted as healthy. Omega 6 polyunsaturated fats are highly inflammatory. But our intake is almost entirely from "vegetable oil", not chicken.
That's because people eat a lot of chicken and eggs, and don't each much salmon. When deciding what to eat, the amount per serving is what matters, not how much of it the average person eats. And again, arachidonic acid is just one omega 6 PUFA, being specifically singled out for promotion by vegans because it is found in meat. The rest of the omega 6s are all just as bad, and our intake is almost entirely from vegetable oil. A serving of chicken has less than 2g of omega 6s in total. That's less than of the omega 6s in a serving of tofu.
Animal protein is highly inflammatory. This is about the worst thing you can do if you are concerned about inflammation. Load up on fresh vegetables and fruits instead.
This has been my take away as well. There are plenty of these sorts of studies that don’t rule out meat, but show a clear damaging effect from red meat. Often, they mention leaving in a little serving of low fat meat. It’s probably more to leave people the option of some meat as opposed to making a more divisive statement. Meanwhile, cultures which start out with diets more whole foods, plant based and introduce the standard American diet see stark climbs in cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and the other ailments.
'Animal protein is highly inflammatory'. If this massive unqualified, non-referenced generalization is true then we can see that it doesn't translate into diffential mortality.
"United Kingdom-based vegetarians and comparable nonvegetarians have similar all-cause mortality. Differences found for specific causes of death merit further investigation."
Many fresh vegetables are inflammatory. Plants evolved chemicals to hinder herbation. Roots/tubers and fruit are generally fine, but leaves/stems/flowers are generally full of inflammatory anti-nutrients and should be cooked.
Blog posts and HN posts have an equal lack of authority. Authority does not matter though, facts do. You can look up the levels of oxalates, phytates, PUFAs, etc from whatever source you like and confirm reality. You don't need an "authority" to tell you what to think.
>Blog posts and HN posts have an equal lack of authority.
I agree that ultimately facts are what matter, but I disagree on this point. In the real world where it's not possible to author or reference a peer-reviewed research study for every statement or decision you'd like to make, this authority has value.
TThe administrators of Harvard Medical School, a well respected university, were willing to publish this content on a domain they controlled. This implies that some trusted expert at this trusted institution authored, reviewed, and published this content. This means that they don't believe that this content is so inaccurate as to expose the institution to a reputation loss, as opposed to say www.fake-health-expert.example.com. In fact, this may have more authority than a peer-reviewed study that doesn't properly disclose its funding by e.g. the dairy or sugar industry.
This skin in the game of reputational risk is orders of magnitude different than your or my reputational risk by posting a comment to HN.
>This implies that some trusted expert at this trusted institution authored, reviewed, and published this content.
No it does not. It is a blog post. Tons of people have blogs on that domain. There is absolutely no standard of authority or correctness involved. You are falsely inferring that there are trusted experts involved. There is no factual basis for that belief.
That site is run by a well known quack, and is full of misrepresented "evidence" and even outright lies. It used to be called the "vegan research institute" until he renamed it so it was less obvious as a propaganda outlet.
And btw you linked an article with the following conclusion : "The video confirmed what I already knew from evaluating the published evidence: it is healthier to eat more plant-based foods and less red meat."
I said the same thing in a previous HN discussion and my comment was down voted into oblivion. Many Asian cultures had this thing figured out thousands of years ago. Less or no meat. Many famous martial arts schools (Indian, Chinese and Japanese) are totally vegetarian. So, the argument that meat is needed for extreme physical activity goes out of the window. Almost all Asian monks (Buddhist, Jain or Hindu) are vegetarians. So, the argument that meat is needed for better mental\intellectual health also goes out the window.
We just have to make sure we are not swapping super processed meats with super processed plant-based foods. Avoiding processed foods is what makes up for most of this difference.
I do not care, despite the constant barrages from the ethical vegetarians and the climate-alarmist vegetarians, and the Beyond Meat investors.
First off, steak and bacon and pork taste delicious, and life on rabbit food is not, in my opinion, worth living.
Second of all, the only way that I can maintain anything close to what the literature says should be a healthy weight is when I slash grains out of my diet and eat low carb, high fat, supplemented by green vegetables. Any vegetarian diet's benefits pale in comparison to the threat of diabetes and general wear and tear from carrying extra weight around.
Before anyone goes vegan, check-out the numerous ex-vegan videos on youtube. Even with supplementation veganism isn't sustainable for most people past 3 years, 10 if you're lucky, very few get to 15. Just keep in mind that without vitamin B12 supplements-->certain death.
This is not a human diet, and humans are not herbivores. Herbivores have complex stomachs or eat their own poop (eg, gorrillas and rabbits).
After the health flush of the first few months, veganism is a downward spiral to pasty skin, mood-swings, depression, dark circles, fatigue, skinny-but-fat, Joint paint, constant hunger/lack-of-satisfaction, excessive volume of eating. Vegans eat like you wouldn't believe. And a great deal of wildlife dies due to agricultural farming.
And despite what people say, anthropologically we are not omnivores but carnivores. Radio-isotope analysis has us eating a diet close to a wolf by preference over the last million years. Unlike a pig, a genuine omnivore, we do not have a proper cecum.
But sure, a few humans are better adapted to a plant-based diet than others, and our distant genetics was herbivore which means these genes can re-express, but for most people veganism becomes a nightmare and explains why the level has historically been at 0.3%.
One day I had this niggling doubt that I continued to be a vegetarian for cultural rather than ethical reasons. I tested that hypothesis by eating a hamburger. It was literally the worst thing I had ever tasted. I had to try hard not to throw up and offend my hosts.
Then I tasted bacon, hot dogs pastrami sandwiches and fried chicken and I understood why people like meat. That continued for a few more months.
About six months after the hamburger episode, I had another epiphany that I don't like eating animals since I don't like animals being eaten. I turned vegan. All's well that ends well.