Philosophical Vegan Forum

I did a forum search on these subjects, but haven't found anything substantial, so I created this new topic.

Being atheist at birth seems obvious, and living your whole life as an atheist is an option many people have taken. While lifetime atheists are quite common in most Western societies of today, lifetime vegans are a much rarer case.

Is anyone here a lifetime vegan, or is anyone here planning on raising one's kids as lifetime vegans? Is veganism more suitable for adults and the elderly?

The way I see it is that in order for our kids to grow up healthy in modern Western societies, they simply cannot miss out on a whole range of non-vegan foods. Maybe I'm ignorant about many of the vegan alternatives out there. Maybe vegetarianism is a less "extreme" and more appropriate diet for our kids, but we're still talking about the entire food pyramid here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyra ... trition%29

Even the healthy eating pyramid includes meat and non-vegan food, although in smaller quantities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_eating_pyramid

When I have kids of my own I would definitely want them to at least try meat, fish, and other non-vegan food, just so they know what my diet was like and what our ancestors used to eat. I don't want them to be popping vitamin pills and supplements all the time. If they choose to, they can switch over to a vegan diet later, preferably after they have grown up. But this is all talk about the future and nothing is set in stone, yet.

I don't just care about myself and my own diet. I care about what the next generation will have on their plates as well. I know veganism has good intentions like eliminating excess harm to animals and such, but when it comes to our kids, our offspring, our next generation, I cannot give veganism green light, not with the current milieu, environment, and society.

What do you think?

Accurate pyramids also include legumes and tofu as options under 'proteins'. No serious nutritional or health authority (government or NGO) maintains that animal products are necessary for human nutrition.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864

ADA wrote:It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.

That's scientific consensus.
There's no reason to feed a child animal products. You seem to be misinformed on the topic.

I can understand your sentiment, regarding wanting your child to try them, but will you also provide cigarettes for your children to try, and encourage them to smoke at least a few packs so they know what smoking is like?



The problem with including animal products, AND with including other unhealthy food products like sugary food and soda, in a child's diet is that it establishes bad habits. Bad habits which could be hard for the child to break later in life even if he or she wants to.

Some bad habits, like racism, smoking, and eating meat just don't need to be passed down to the next generation.

caLRo wrote:
The way I see it is that in order for our kids to grow up healthy in modern Western societies, they simply cannot miss out on a whole range of non-vegan foods. Maybe I'm ignorant about many of the vegan alternatives out there. Maybe vegetarianism is a less "extreme" and more appropriate diet for our kids, but we're still talking about the entire food pyramid here.

I recently went on a trip with a friend with two young kids, aged 3 and 5. I'm vegan, but no one else in the party was. A typical day's diet for both boys was:

Breakfast: Chocolate-flavoured cereal with full-cream milk
Snack: Packet of rice snacks
Morning tea at a cafe: Chocolate muffin
Lunch: Ham and cheese sandwich, milkshake
Afternoon snack: Apple
Dinner: Pizza with ham, cheese and pineapple
Dessert: Bowl of custard

Now, we were on holidays, and I'm aware that things are a bit different when you're away from home. However, we cooked our own breakfasts and dinners every night, and in the week that we were away, I don't think I saw either child eat any type of vegetable except the occasional slice of tomato in a sandwich, or a bit of corn in chicken noodle soup. In other words, being non-vegan is absolutely no guarantee of eating a healthy diet. Nor, to be fair, is being vegan - it's all about what choices you make within the different food groups available to you. Eg, I could eat deep-fried potatoes for dinner tonight, with a chicken-style veggie burger slathered with vegan cheese and mayo, or I could eat stir-fried tofu and vegetables over brown rice. Both options are vegan, but only one is healthy!

I don't have kids, but if I did, I would certainly be raising them on a vegan diet. From an outside perspective, watching other people's kids who I'm familiar with, it seems like many people look at the vegan options on offer in cafes, etc, and say, 'My kid would never eat that.' What I think that means in reality is 'Having been raised on ham and cheese sandwiches, my kid would refuse to try a quinoa salad.' Kids eat what they're accustomed to eating - I know one five-year old who gnaws on raw spring onions and chunks of fennel, because his mum snacks on them when she puts the shopping away, and he's grown up thinking that's perfectly normal.

Sam

brimstoneSalad wrote:Accurate pyramids also include legumes and tofu as options under 'proteins'. No serious nutritional or health authority (government or NGO) maintains that animal products are necessary for human nutrition.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864

ADA wrote:It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.

That's scientific consensus.
There's no reason to feed a child animal products. You seem to be misinformed on the topic.

From a nutritional standpoint, I admit that I would consider a vegan/vegetarian diet appropriate for kids as long as there are enough foods and varieties to cover all nutritional requirements. I have little knowledge about all the possible vegan/vegetarian options and substitutes out there, but I can imagine that my opinion could change in favor of these diets if I'm better informed.

I can understand your sentiment, regarding wanting your child to try them, but will you also provide cigarettes for your children to try, and encourage them to smoke at least a few packs so they know what smoking is like?



The problem with including animal products, AND with including other unhealthy food products like sugary food and soda, in a child's diet is that it establishes bad habits. Bad habits which could be hard for the child to break later in life even if he or she wants to.

Some bad habits, like racism, smoking, and eating meat just don't need to be passed down to the next generation.

This seems like a straw man to me.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Meat has many nutritional benefits to kids and young people when consumed in moderate quantities. While excessive meat consumption is a bad habit, a bad smoking habit such as depicted here is a total exaggeration in this context. Of course I don't want these kids to develop bad smoking habits. When they hit puberty and want to try new things, one cigarette is harmless, just like one good quality piece of meat.

Meat itself isn't bad, neither is a cigarette. It's the habits that humans develop that are bad. Education is important here. In the case of bad meat consumption habits, some first hand experience wouldn't hurt, as there are still nutritional benefits. Sometimes kids develop bad habits, but they can grow out of them. Some people are just more careful, and less willing to take these habit risks.

It comes down to choice. As a parent or guardian, you can decide to a large extent what you want your kids to eat and consume. When they become adults themselves, they can make their own choices. So let's give them choices, just like we've been given our own by our parents. I see little reason for these kids to go total vegan at such an early age.

Whether cigarettes are considered vegan is another whole debate, which I don't want to go into on this forum topic.

caLRo wrote:
Meat itself isn't bad, neither is a cigarette. It's the habits that humans develop that are bad. Education is important here. In the case of bad meat consumption habits, some first hand experience wouldn't hurt, as there are still nutritional benefits. Sometimes kids develop bad habits, but they can grow out of them. Some people are just more careful, and less willing to take these habit risks.

It comes down to choice. As a parent or guardian, you can decide to a large extent what you want your kids to eat and consume. When they become adults themselves, they can make their own choices. So let's give them choices, just like we've been given our own by our parents. I see little reason for these kids to go total vegan at such an early age.

Personally, I don't see it as a matter of 'choices,' because my motivation for going vegan was ethical and centred on the issue of animal suffering. From that point of view, I wouldn't offer my (hypothetical) child meat or cheese as an option because (a) they're not necessary for the child's nutritional needs to be met, and (b) I don't want my money going to support industries which cause unnecessary suffering. For the same reason, I don't cook with animal products regardless of who I'm feeding; I just find a vegan option which is relatively non-threatening to folks accustomed to different meals.

I suspect this is a common point of misunderstanding between vegans and non-vegans. I have one friend in particular who tends to talk about choosing a vegan meal as though it's a taste preference - along the lines of 'You like tofu, I like beef - it's just a matter of taste.' But as a matter of fact, I heartily disliked tofu when I first went vegan (I've since learnt to love it), and I see tofu vs beef as being qualitatively different than, say, capsicum vs eggplant. I'll happily cook you eggplant, though I can't stand it myself, because it's ethically equivalent. I won't cook you beef (which I used to thoroughly enjoy the taste of), because it's ethically quite a different thing to pick soybeans than to kill a cow.

Does that make sense? I've tried explaining this verbally to friends, with little success; hopefully it's a bit clearer when put in writing.

Sam

caLRo wrote:This seems like a straw man to me.

No, a straw man means misrepresenting someone's position in order to make it easier to attack. Brimstonesalad was making an analogy to your point of giving meat to children. Meat is bad for you and so is smoking. Meat harms others and so does smoking.

caLRo wrote:Meat has many nutritional benefits to kids and young people when consumed in moderate quantities.

Really? Would you care to name a few of these nutritional benefits?

caLRo wrote:When they hit puberty and want to try new things, one cigarette is harmless, just like one good quality piece of meat.

What good could possible come out of trying one cigarette or one piece of meat? However, I can think of several negative consequences.

caLRo wrote:Meat itself isn't bad, neither is a cigarette.

They are both bad although meat is worse.

caLRo wrote:It comes down to choice. As a parent or guardian, you can decide to a large extent what you want your kids to eat and consume. When they become adults themselves, they can make their own choices.

Yes, I agree. There is not much a parent can do to stop an adult child from smoking or eating meat, but why introduce it to them when they are at an age where they don't fully understand the consequences.

As long as you give them healthy vegan food and inform yourself very well on what nutrition children need you can very well raise your children on a vegan diet. That is in many ways better than an uninformed unhealthy omnivore diet. But if you give your children healthy food in general and you inform yourself very well on what nutrition they need you can of course give them also small quantities of meat. It is a personal choice and if they learn that meat should only be consumed in small quantities to be healthy it has the same quality as a good informed vegan nutrition.
It just comes down to what you would morally be able to give your children and a well balanced low meat diet is widely perceived as equally healthy as a well balanced vegan diet you can choose.
Just don't act uninformed and give them tons of red meat or stop giving them mothers milk really early because you think it is unhealthy (Both of which happened in families I am acquainted with).

Sam wrote: I know one five-year old who gnaws on raw spring onions and chunks of fennel, because his mum snacks on them when she puts the shopping away, and he's grown up thinking that's perfectly normal.

I eat raw spring onions, chives and many spices all the time. My parents had a garden with all those and I always ate what was growing.
It all comes down on what parents perceive as normal and consciously and unconsciously show their children and what they make available to them.

Jebus wrote: Really? Would you care to name a few of these nutritional benefits?

...

Jebus wrote:
What good could possible come out of trying one cigarette or one piece of meat? However, I can think of several negative consequences.

To satisfy their curiosity if textbook education doesn't suffice. Also, because "choice".

Jebus wrote:
They are both bad although meat is worse.

Even worse still for the slaughtered animals, and the tabacco industry has a long history of cruel animal testing. Ultimately, humans have the nasty potential and "choice" make both meat and cigarettes absolutely devastating to all. But there's a thing called moderation. Smoke for an afternoon, cleanse your longues for a year. 50 smoking sessions in one's lifetime should be ok. All depends on how and what you smoke, of course.

Jebus wrote: Yes, I agree. There is not much a parent can do to stop an adult child from smoking or eating meat, but why introduce it to them when they are at an age where they don't fully understand the consequences.

I'm not sure what the best exact age is, but at this point of debate I'm primarily arguing against veganism from cradle to grave (or urn, if you prefer cremation).

Ignorance is not bliss. Some things in life are better understood through experience rather than just textbook education. This is definitely so if you want these kids to grow up with a multi-cultural background and understanding. There are still many places in the world where meat consumption is the norm and veganism is rarely heard of. I don't want these kids to go xenophobic and have panic attacks at the mere sight of a well prepared bloody steak. Rather, they should be raised in a way that they can understand why others are eating meat, and perhaps why veganism offers a better future for us all.

caLRo wrote: This seems like a straw man to me.

As Jebus explained, it's an analogy, not a straw man.

caLRo wrote: Meat has many nutritional benefits to kids and young people when consumed in moderate quantities.

Nutrition is contextual, and not just in terms of quantity.

When you claim that something has nutritional benefits, you need to look into what 'nutrients' you're talking about, and whether those nutrients can be obtained from other sources.

You could say doughnuts have nutritional benefits. They have lots of calories, and they even have some protein!
But a more nuanced analysis reveals that doughnuts are shit for nutrition.

Protein can be better obtained from beans, veggies, and whole grains compared to doughnuts. Calories, likewise, have better sources, starches and fats from whole foods.

While it is a fact that doughnuts contain them, doughnuts are a terrible source of both of these things. Eating them does not provide nutritional benefits in comparison to eating a plant based whole food diet.

Doughnuts, or meat, are great for people in third world countries who don't have enough food at all, and don't have other options. If you're comparing meat or doughnuts to starvation, the junk food beats starving every time.

You know how it's said that people lie with statistics?
Well, people lie with nutrition all of the time too. They'll point out some "good" things that are in a food they want to advocate, and they'll ignore all of the bad things, AND worse, they'll make it out like the food they're advocating is the only place to get those good things and that you need that to be healthy.

Meat contains protein, yes. Meat also contains a number of minerals, yes, and even some vitamins. There are some good things in meat.
All of these things, however, can also be found in healthier foods that do not contain the BAD things in the levels that are in meat. The bad things in meat far outweigh any of the good, which is what makes it a junk food.

caLRo wrote: When they hit puberty and want to try new things, one cigarette is harmless, just like one good quality piece of meat.

1. It's not harmless. While cancer is formed by many things, you can ultimately get cancer from a single cigarette causing a crucial mutation that starts the process leading to cancer, or a single piece of meat (particularly if cooked in certain ways) presumably providing those carcinogens.
The way cancer works is more random, like Russian roulette -- it just takes a few mutations to get there. The more you do it, the higher your risk (playing Russian roulette a hundred times is more likely to kill you than once), but just doing it one time is NOT without risk.
Heart disease is a bit different, more cumulative and less random than cancer -- heart disease builds up over time, and it can be reversed by eating better. One cigarette or one piece of meat isn't going to give somebody heart disease. But cancer is just scary and quite random; you can't make any definitive claims about cancer safety.

Learn about cancer: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-c ... cer-starts
And smoking: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/fa ... neral-says
And meat: http://www.pcrm.org/health/cancer-resou ... ancer-risk

2. It isn't one cigarette, or one piece of meat, if they decide they like it. That was my point about giving your children these bad habits.

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statist ... bacco_use/

90% of smokers started by 18 years old, and 99% by 26.
Smoking is something children start before their brains are fully developed (which also makes them more prone to addiction), and before they can fully understand the consequences and use reason.

There's no reason to expose a child to the risk of dependency.

If an adult decides to do something unhealthy, there's nothing you can do about it, but it's irresponsible to encourage a child to do these things.

caLRo wrote: Sometimes kids develop bad habits, but they can grow out of them. Some people are just more careful, and less willing to take these habit risks.

That's quite the opposite kind of implication from reality. As I said, the earlier people start these things, the harder it may be to change later.

Would you also agree with encouraging your child to try methamphetamine, morphine, cocaine, etc.?

brimstoneSalad wrote: Meat contains protein, yes. Meat also contains a number of minerals, yes, and even some vitamins. There are some good things in meat.
All of these things, however, can also be found in healthier foods that do not contain the BAD things in the levels that are in meat. The bad things in meat far outweigh any of the good, which is what makes it a junk food.

Pretty much agree, as long as you don't totally discredit eating meat in moderation.

brimstoneSalad wrote: 1. It's not harmless. While cancer is formed by many things, you can ultimately get cancer from a single cigarette causing a crucial mutation that starts the process leading to cancer, or a single piece of meat (particularly if cooked in certain ways) presumably providing those carcinogens.
The way cancer works is more random, like Russian roulette -- it just takes a few mutations to get there. The more you do it, the higher your risk (playing Russian roulette a hundred times is more likely to kill you than once), but just doing it one time is NOT without risk.
Heart disease is a bit different, more cumulative and less random than cancer -- heart disease builds up over time, and it can be reversed by eating better. One cigarette or one piece of meat isn't going to give somebody heart disease. But cancer is just scary and quite random; you can't make any definitive claims about cancer safety.

Learn about cancer: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-c ... cer-starts
And smoking: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/fa ... neral-says
And meat: http://www.pcrm.org/health/cancer-resou ... ancer-risk

2. It isn't one cigarette, or one piece of meat, if they decide they like it. That was my point about giving your children these bad habits.

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statist ... bacco_use/

90% of smokers started by 18 years old, and 99% by 26.
Smoking is something children start before their brains are fully developed (which also makes them more prone to addiction), and before they can fully understand the consequences and use reason.

There's no reason to expose a child to the risk of dependency.

If an adult decides to do something unhealthy, there's nothing you can do about it, but it's irresponsible to encourage a child to do these things.

As I said in a previous post, I don't exactly know what the appropriate ages are. But at some point in their early lives, they will likely wonder why there are still so many others that eat meat.

Like with your nutritional arguments above, eating meat may have some benefits, but there's a better alternative: textbook education about why vegan foods are better than meat. But if the best isn't available, you go for the second best, and many people around world do just that.

I'm confident that when vegan alternatives become more widely accessible and available around the world, more people will embrace veganism, but the world just isn't ready yet. Meat, despite the increased health risks, is still second best.

The next few generations of people may still be living in a world with staggering dietary inequality. Some societies may have gone vegan, while others are still chewing on flesh. How can we ever bridge societies and tackle global issues together when our first world kids become oblivious about other cultures and their people's non-vegan diets?

Moderation is key. Reduce the risks, cut down meat consumption, but do not abandon it entirely. You may never know when you may end up in a situation where you have to go for second best. When you do have to go for second best, you better have learned about how to respect other people's cultures and diets, or at least know how to respectfully decline and make a simple but understandable case for your own diet.

I said earlier that some are less willing to take these risks than others. This also applies to the minute risks everytime one consumes something that has >0,000% risk. People take risks all the time (logical fallacy?). The question is whether the risks they took are worth it. In the case of 1 meat 1 smoke, I'd say it's worth the experience, maybe even worth the pleasure if I can make an appeal to hedonistic arguments.

brimstoneSalad wrote:
That's quite the opposite kind of implication from reality. As I said, the earlier people start these things, the harder it may be to change later.

Would you also agree with encouraging your child to try methamphetamine, morphine, cocaine, etc.?

See above about appropriate ages and dealing with risks. That whole range of drugs may be better suited for a separate discussion.