Anti-vegan article (health)

[Sakana]

Can anyone point out any inaccuracies or fallacies in this article? For example, it references a study about egg consumption not increasing risk of heart disease. For each study such as this one, do we know approx how many studies there are showing the exact opposite?


authoritynutrition dot com slash top-5-reasons-why-vegan-diets-are-a-terrible-idea/

[Anon0045]

The devil is in the details. Watch this channel https://www.youtube.com/user/PrimitiveNutrition. He looks at the claims made by low-carbers like the authoritynutrition guy by going through the scientific studies they refer to. Often times, low-carbers misinterpret the articles or ignore parts that goes against their claims. I don't know if there is a good way to debate health without actually spending a lot of time, like him, going through scientific papers. At least one could negate such articles by referring to authorities in the plant-based movement.

Nutritionfacts.org usually has a lot of info as well. Here you can find the link between eggs and several diseases: https://www.youtube.com/user/NutritionF ... query=eggs

[brimstoneSalad]

Unlike religion, which is a 'philosophical' matter and can be debunked by demonstrating logical fallacies, empirical claims like that just require legwork.

Like Anon0045 said, you mostly just have to find the evidence, and show that they're making stuff up and lying to people.

[Sakana]

I watch Dr. Greger. He's great!

This was thrown at me in a debate as a kind of, "look at this, I win."

This one is more annoying than the usual anti-vegan article, since it doesn't seem to be full of logical fallacies. Instead it's carpet-bombed with references to studies that are undoubtedly cherry-picked or misrepresented, and it's gonna take an eternity to disentangle everything.

Scientific studies reach contradictory conclusions all the time, so I was just wondering if we know anything about the ratio of studies that support/discredit veganism. This whole field seems to be very muddied by conflict of interests and lack of good ways to actually test things.

[miniboes]

Here's my 2 cents: tell him to bring the arguments himself. You shouldn't have to go and debunk a whole argument at every step of an argument, that's ridiculous.

as for this article, it mentions some nutrients I have never heard of and non-essential. Besides that, it's bullcrap.

[metalized]

a bit late maybe, but here is my two cents:
The article has 5 main points of which the first only needs some researching,
Regarding vitamin B12, even FDA recommends that people over 50 get fortified food or supplements for Vitamin B12.
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/Consume ... 118079.htm


The other 4 seem to me like a total failure to justify the pompous title "Top 5 Reasons Why Vegan Diets Are a Terrible Idea"

2 bottom line: Despite all the propaganda, there isn’t any evidence that vegan diets are any better than other diets. Most of the studies are observational in nature.
- There isn't evidence that they aren't then, if you use the same argument he uses.

3 bottom line: Vegan proponents often use fear mongering and scare tactics in order to convince people not to eat animal foods. They frequently cite The China Study as evidence, which has been thoroughly debunked.
- Using a study for the reference is still valid while there is nothing else to prove it wrong. Vegan proponents like myself don't use studies, or lies, I just use my concern and wish for the animal abuse to stop. Except for that, the author uses in the first point a study from 1982 that shows that a "whopping 92% of vegans are deficient in B12", which might have been true at the time, but I doubt that it is so today. So he is no so thorough or fair in presenting evidence.

4 bottom line: Vegan diets also recommend that people shun added sugar, refined carbohydrates, vegetable oils and trans fats. This is probably the reason for any health benefits, not the removal of unprocessed animal foods.
- He is speculating, which clearly indicates a lack of scientific approach

5 has no bottom line, but the first claim is: Humans have been eating meat for hundreds of thousands (or millions) of years.
- This is an idiotic statement on its own. Some hundreds of years ago people were being burned alive because they claimed the earth revolves around the sun, or that the earth is not flat. Also, few hundreds years ago people were not taking baths or showers. How often did Europeans eat meat during the medieval ages? Not too often I reckon. And what were our ancestors eating before they become hunters? Roots and fruits.
On this point he concludes with: There may be ethical or religious reasons not to eat animals… I get it. But there is no scientifically valid health reason to completely eliminate animal foods.
- There scientifically no reason to not eliminate animal foods as well, at least not by what I read in this article (I didn't read it too thoroughly, I have to admit)

The article just has a pompous title, but it contents are far from presenting the five reasons of why vegan diet is a terrible idea. It is a manipulative and misleading title, using fear and mongering, which are criticized within the article itself.

[Sakana]

My main problem was also that they don't deal with the ethical issues at all, and instead seem to abuse their titles as nutrition experts to spread bad logic & science.

:- (

[Sakana]

Randomly stumbled upon this rebuttal of the article.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1iodwaS0XQ

Some good arguments, sprinkled with a bit of ad hominem and some well-deserved antagonism towards pro meat nutritionists.

[Anon0045]

Here's another good youtube reply to the article (more detailed):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTQVpT0 ... 99aok159fa

[garrethdsouza]

The unnatural vegan debunked the whole article

Also Suggesting that it isn't better or scientifically there's no such evidence is patently false!
See:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24871675
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25365383
http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abs ... 14)00062-X

Michael gregers nutrition facts.org is also a good reaouurce for more articles.