Vegans shouldn't have sex with meat eaters?

[edgiko]

There's a group in New Zealand vegans shunning vegans who have relations with meat eaters.

Do you think this is taking Veganism to an extreme?

I think it does. You can't be 100% vegan. It's only something you try to achieve, but so many everyday products we use are not vegan. I'm sure we're familiar with cars and junk

Comments

[likethewatch]

Anyone who feels that strongly about veganism *can't* have a relationship with a meat-eater, any more than a born-again Christian can with an agnostic. To have a successful relationship, you have to have mutual respect and enough core values in common not to face deep conflict three times a day plus snacks. Someone who thinks my body is made of dead animals isn't going to want to have sex with me, and if I know they think that, I don't want to have sex with them, either. Separatist vegans will go the way of separatist lesbians: neither group can reproduce with a high level of success (ref Nina Planck) and without medical intervention (ref test tube babies). So let 'em, it's their lives, and I'll go on eating delicious meat and having delicious sex with others who don't mind at all that I enjoy a full, natural diet.

[tiredshaw]

Interesting, my daughters might object to you saying that vegans can't reproduce with a high level of success.

[likethewatch]

They might, but the history says that humans can't maintain a vegan society, and the science suggests it's because of those nutrients that are so essential to human health and reproduction that are only found in animal foods. There has never been a vegan society, so we have no evidence people can reproduce more than a couple of generations with no animal foods.

[tiredshaw]

What evidence is there that vegans can't reproduce for more than a few generations? We currently live in a society where (relatively) fresh fruits, vegetables, and grains are available enough for many people to not need to eat animal products any more. There are even inexpensive non-animal derived nutritional supplements for those that don't think said food items provide enough nutrients.

[likethewatch]

http://www.ninaplanck.com/index.php?article=vegan_tragedy

Nina Planck talks about some of the reasons why a vegan diet will tend to decrease fertility, milk production, and cause malnutrition in infants and small children in this blog post.

We actually need animal foods to be healthy individuals and as reproductive members of our species. The moral challenges implicit in being omnivorous animals are plenty of fodder for discussion, but IMO the answer is not to commit a slow suicide by selectively refusing to kill (only animals, not fungus and mold or plants) in order to remain alive and well.

[tiredshaw]

You're kidding, right? That's one example of moron parents feeding their kid nothing but soymilk and apple juice. Shall we go into incidents of childhood diabetes from kids that eat too much McDonald's?
How many years do you think that humans can live on a vegan diet? I think it's irrelevant. You can be vegan, eat only tortilla chips, and be unhealthy. Or you can be an omnivore and avoid fried foods/etc. and be perfectly healthy.

[tryna_]

I think it's cute that meat-eaters must assuage what must be a very guilty conscience by arguing that vegan living is *impossible*, rather than just having the strength of their own convictions to say, "I do what I feel like, and what I feel like doing is eating meat," like a person who is comfortable with the righteousness of his own lifestyle.

[tiredshaw]

The media plays an enormous role in this. For example - this New Zealand article was on the FRONT PAGE of drudgereport.com. The implication is that there's this huge number of vegans that won't have sex with omnivores. Then you read the article and out of 127 people polled, a handful said they wouldn't do it. Even the woman they interviewed said she would have sex with an omnivore.
Then you have that article about the vegan parents that killed their kid with apple juice and soymilk. If it was apple juice and cow milk it would have been a non-story.

Well Yeah

[theevilchemist]

"You're kidding, right? That's one example of moron parents feeding their kid nothing but soymilk and apple juice. Shall we go into incidents of childhood diabetes from kids that eat too much McDonald's?

It seems only the DA got this correct when he said it's not about moral convictions but about child abuse. The untold number of children malnourished by omnivore parents isn't news, it's a sad fact, thus no one makes a big stink about it. The sheer media mania around this case demonstrates how rare it really is.

jv

Food Writers

[theevilchemist]

We actually don't need animals to be healthy individuals

The Tale of The Tape

[theevilchemist]

"We actually need animal foods to be healthy individualsWhen I hear about all these wacko diets people are on, I'm take a reductionist view; I want data to help define "healthy" and the health status on people who make all sorts of miraculous claims. I include that reductionist view in my own diet

[cannibalcountry]

http://supervegan.com/blog/entry.php?id=864

[likethewatch]

A shrill response from the "super vegans." Thanks. I followed the link to the NYT public editor's column that addressed Planck's column, and can't see the reason for their ad hominem attacks, definitely including the gross caption under her photo. Unless it was all the soy that made them do it?

Plant Nutrients

[theevilchemist]

They might, but the history says that humans can't maintain a vegan society, and the science suggests it's because of those nutrients that are so essential to human health and reproduction that are only found in animal foods. This is, of course, absolutely untrue. Tell me which nutrients are essential to human health and reproduction are only found in animal foods

Food Writers Part II (Protein)

[theevilchemist]

So I am reading more about your food writer. It's apparent she gets most of her information from popular culture rather than science and nutritional science. For example

Re: Food Writers Part II (Protein)

[fishycreambun]

Ya ever notice that gorillas, our close biological cousins are 20x stronger than people, but have a 97% plant based diet...

Chimps our closest biological cousins eat 95% plants and they are about the same weight as humans, bt 5x stonger.

You say this like we have the potential to double or triple our strength for our size if we cut animal products out of our diet. Chimps and gorillas have physiologies that developed under circumstances different from those of humans, and I don't think diet has much to do with their inherent strength.