O/T... Vegetarianism in the workplace...

Chortle.

 

If you go vegan you might be!

 

The problem with Vegan food is that plants don't have blood, so what do you use to dip your chips in when you're having a vegan steak?

 

What a load of ********. Who'd want to work for a shithouse company that forces such on their staff.

Meat is here to stay. Everyone loves it, even the weirdos that think they're saving the planet, they're just attention seekers in denial.

 

This sort of thing alarms me. There are an increasing number of concerns re medical issues surrounding Vegan diets particularly regarding babies and infants.
vegan diet impact on brain development in infants. Many scholarly articles from various sources highlight various issue relating to brain development and bone and tissue growth. As has been repeated on this thread several times, we evolved as omnivores and biologically we are not designed to thrive long term on a solely plant based diet. Examples of sportsmen and women 'thriving' are misleading as they are mostly young, in their prime, have dieticians on call and sufficient funds to include artificial supplements to compensate. The long term effects are therefore unclear.

Many people who casually go Vegan are unaware of the risks and the more I read the more the long term prognosis for someone on a Vegan diet (no eggs or dairy being a major issue) is not looking good. Moreover Veganism for babies especially where the mother is also likely Vegan given breastfeeding is best means the milk lacks vital minerals for healthy bone and more importantly brain development. Formula for vegans relies on Soya and not readily available in many countries and there are issues beginning to come to the fore with Soya substitutes generally.

Below is a short list of scholarly documents on teh subject and googling Vegan diet impact on brain development brings up more. I believe it is possible to overcome many of the problems but I hope for her sake she is aware of the risks.

Veganism on a large scale is relatively new phenomenon and the more the dieticians and medical fraternity are discovering, the more likely it is IMO that it will becaome a pariah for nursing mothers in the same way that smoking or drinking has become.

Whilst ethically I respect people's decision to go Veganand /or bring their children up that way but not if it puts a child's health or future health at risk. I kjust hope she is aware of those risks......

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Effects of Vitamin B12 and Folate Deficiency on Brain Development in Children
MM Black - Food and nutrition bulletin, 2008 - journals.sagepub.com
… Kuhne T, Bubl R, Baumgartner R. Maternal vegan diet causing a serious infantile neurological
disorder … J. Neu- ropathy in two cobalamin-deficient breast-fed infants of vegetarian mothers … Gotze
C, Koletzko B. Persistence of neurological damage induced by dietary vitamin B12 …
Cited by 292 Related articles All 11 versions
Vitamin B12 and brain development
K Stollhoff, FJ Schulte - European journal of pediatrics, 1987 - Springer
… His mother had been a vegan for 5 years, strictly avoiding animal protein … megaloblastic anemia
and neurologic abnormalities in a Vit B 12 deficient breast-fed infant of strict vegetarian … J, Cantrill
RC, Fernandes- Costa F, Metz J (1983) Effect of a Vit B 12 deficient diet on lipid …
Cited by 100 Related articles All 6 versions [PDF] oup.comACNP Full Text
Dietary (n-3) fatty acids and brain development
SM Innis - The Journal of nutrition, 2007 - academic.oup.com
… The richest dietary sources are fish and sea foods, but poultry and eggs provide lower … memory
are impaired in rodents fed an (n-3) fatty acid–deficient diet during development … Recently, we
showed that maternal dietary (n-3) fatty acid restriction in gestation alters neurogenesis …
Cited by 824 Related articles All 9 versions
[PDF] usda.govACNP Full Text
Effect of vitamin B12 deficiency on neurodevelopment in infants: current knowledge and possible mechanisms
DK Dror, LH Allen - Nutrition reviews, 2008 - academic.oup.com
… using the following key words: vitamin B 12 , cobalamin, deficiency, infant, lactation, and vegan …
Clinical symptom anthropometry, Pernicious anemia (n = 18), Veganism (n = 30) … suffered from
pernicious anemia and 33% of infants whose mothers were vegans recovered from …
Cited by 370 Related articles All 15 versions
[PDF] semanticscholar.orgACNP Full Text
Human milk: maternal dietary lipids and infant development
SM Innis - Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 2007 - cambridge.org
… total fatty acids to >30g/100g total fatty acids in the milk fat of vegetarians (Innis & … 100 g RBC total
fatty acids in breast-fed infants whose mothers followed a vegan diet (and thus … Visual acuity and
the essentiality of docosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid in the diet of term …
Cited by 260 Related articles All 16 versions
The influence of a vegetarian diet on the fatty acid composition of human milk and the essential fatty acid status of the infant
TAB Sanders, S Reddy - The Journal of pediatrics, 1992 - jpeds.com
… 28. Sanders TAB. The growth and development of British vegan children … 32. West ED, Ellis FR.
The electroencephalogram in veganism, vegetarianism, vitamin B12 deficiency, and in controls …
Investigation into the causation of the electroencephalogram abnormality in vegans …

 

I would quite happily have a vegan burger with you or anyone but I will not accept the idea that someone can tell me that I cannot enjoy a steak when I want one.

 

My theory is that there are two types of people in the World - Those that 'eat to live' and those that 'live to eat'. I firmly believe that Vegans are in the former group.

We are constantly told that Vegan food is delicious and Vegan substitutes are every bit as flavoursome as the 'real thing' or indistguishable from meat but it turns out that this is 99 times out of 100 incorrect. Don't even get me started on Quorn (which I once had the misfortune to try) although accept thgere may be better stuff available now. Nevertheless most 'substitutes' complex to manufacture requiring industrialised processes.

 

Some quorn stuff is ok, the mince is good. The chicken cubes aren't great. Cauldron make some great veggie sausages. Linda McCartney do some good burgers too. I think as demand increases the quality will too.

 

Plenty of people are intolerant of Quorn and can't eat it without it having nasty effects.

 

All this mention of vegan food and none on GMOs interesting..

 

People get so riled up about vegans and veganism because, I think, deep down they know that eating animals and animal products is wrong. There is no need for any animal to die for you to live in perfect health. It's selfish and cruel. If they wish to continue as they are, the least meat eaters can do is to accept that they're wrong and concede that veganism is the ethical and moral thing to do. If you know what you're doing (as for every diet, whether it includes animal products or not), it's also the healthiest thing to do. Billions of animals die needlessly every year, yet we're the extremists for calling it out and making a big deal about it? It doesn't make sense.

I went vegan last year after years of being a vegetarian. I'm a long distance runner who clocks over 3000km annually in preparation for some marathon or another, which means nutrition is especially important. I have yet to die of any kind of deficiency. I'm in perfect health with tip top blood work. My race times continue to fall and I recover from workouts faster than ever before. And no animal has to suffer and die for me to do so.

 

Also well aware of how much of a ***** I sound when I say the above, but I’m past caring

 

I think they get riled up not because they think it is wrong, but because of some vegans trying to tell none vegans they should be vegans and they are murderers, this doesnt push me to try it but causes the total reverse, standing outside butchers screaming at people who want to buy meat, these are the people who stop many wanting to try vegan. I would never tell someone to eat meat, but the door swings both ways

 

I think there is an element of truth to what you say but you have to admit there are quite a few that take great delight in telling everyone about their lifestyle. I'm not talking about the militant ones. I don't need someone to do that to know that their lifestyle choice is better than mine (and it is, I am not for one minute saying it isn't).

 

I think there are nasty side effects for most people that eat Quorn.

Smugness being the most common.

 

As someone who loves meat I can't really argue with this. I try and buy the more ethically farmed meat, but at the end of the day there's no arguing with the fact that something has died for my meal. Being brutally honest with myself, I can live with that because I don't consider animals to be on the same level as us and selfishly I enjoy the taste so much that I can look past the moral issues.

 

I enjoy eating meat. I eat meat with basically every meal. Except breakfast, when I have either meat or eggs.

I stopped eating meat for a few years ago, due to a relationship at the time. I lasted a week and I was just feeling lousy. Couldn't lift as much in the gym., was tired at work by 2pm and just felt generally **** so I said **** that. I always buy meat that has been slaughtered humanely, but I refuse to feel guilty for doing what is extremely natural, provides much needed protein and that humans have done since the dawn of time.

 

What annoys me is when vegans tell you how their diet is so much better and healthier than meat eaters because they consider themselves to be healthy. Well, guess what? I eat loads of meat and I’m incredibly healthy too. Or they point to one particular athlete and say ‘see - healthier!’ Ignoring the fact that there are thousands of meat eating athletes who are obviously just as healthy, if not more so. I’m not saying that you can’t be vegan and healthy, just that it doesn’t automatically make you a super human who is better than everyone else. You can be vegan and have an unhealthy lifestyle and be a meat eater with a healthy lifestyle.