Plant-Based Diets are just as good if not better than Animal-Based Diets/diets with animal products

I think you reasoning is circular.A. You believe that a full diet is evil.B. You want to restrict your diet to plant source foods only.C. You want people to remove animal food sources from their diet and then study and work hard to find ways to get a healthy diet on only plant based sources.To this circular argument I respond: Balanced diets with animal and plant sources are a better choice for most people.Let’s look at the premise of your debate.You say plant based diets are better.You say AFS are unnecessary as those nutrients can come from supplements or plant sources.This is not an argument for plant based diets. You need to convince me of the resolution, not teach how to make up for the limited nutrition of a PBD.Lets look at your arguments.1. You claim that dairy is unnecessary (round 1) in not relevant to the debate. You say “it takes an informed person to eat a well-balanced . . . diet” (round 2 point 4)I say dairy is part of a well balanced diet (so does th Canada food guide[1] and the American Dietary Guidelines[2]) 2. You speak about eliminating dairy, and then claim “Excess animal protein actually increases risk of osteoporosis” The calcium from dairy decreases risk of osteoporosis and has a place in a healthy diet Studies show fracture risk correlation increases with plant protein and decreases with AFS [3] Total protein: - risk reduction 3.6 times Animal protein:- risk reduction 4.5 times [4] Vegetable protein:- risk INCREASE 2.9 times [4] Carbohydrate:- risk INCREASE 4.9 times3. You speak about micro-nutrients (Round 2 point 2) and reference a web page[5] that says “At the molecular level, biochemistry becomes physics. The atoms in a chemical bond share a pair of electrons that create a magnetic attraction.” I would not trust any page that calls covalent bonds a MAGNETIC attraction. What kind of fringe science is this? Even if it were true that every nutrient I need is available by selecting just the right mix of plants to eat (which it is not), it is far less costly (time and money) and more efficient (dietary uptake issues) to includes fish, dairy, eggs and meat in a balanced diet.4. In response to my evidence from the National Institute of Health you responded “Wrong. Being FEMALE is linked to iron deficiency. “ I had not bothered mentioning iron deficiency specifically (which is often a fact of PBDs). I stated that “Vegetarian diets are linked to menstrual problems in young women.". Some references that ALL state a link between vegetarianism and health problems in women. Check the references here http://ajcn.nutrition.org... 4. You state “it takes an informed person to eat a well-balanced, ethical diet, regardless of whether it is a PBD or ABD” Finally we agree. Thanks for forfeiting the debate. A balanced diet with dairy, fish, eggs, and meat can easily do as well or better than a PBD.5. You have theBOP to show that a PBD is as good or better than a full balanced diet. You have not done this. Then you give me the debate by saying those who need dairy are in developing countries (round 2 after point 5) If animal source food is helpful, then a good full source diet is better than a restricted diet. 6. Again you bring up B12. You seem to be advocating supplements to overcome the deficiencies of a PBD. “Vitamin B12 is naturally found in animal products, including fish, meat, poultry, eggs, milk, and milk products. Vitamin B12 is generally not present in plant foods”[6]You state “Economics and sustainability are very much a part of what makes PBD a better OVERALL diet than ABD, in addition to superior nutrition. I take the ethics & responsibility of individuals in account, because well, they are relevant to diet.”Economics and sustainability- Harvesting local foods is good for the local economy.[7] Today I ate local vegetables, corn, eggs and fish. How would shipping oranges from Florida and pineapple from Costa Rica be good for anyone? The Wiki on pineapple says [8] “Three-quarters of pineapples sold in Europe are grown in Costa Rica, where pineapple production is highly industrialised. Growers typically use 20 kg of pesticides per hectare in each growing cycle”Ethics. Lets say a bottle of vitamin supplements costs $25 for a 2 month supply, or $150 per year. Even people strongly pro PBD say it costs more to eat an ethical vegan diet.[9] An "ethical PBD" seems too costly for most of our world A PBD does not equate to an ethical diet. Depending on what you believe constitutes ethical you have to work hard and learn much because people want to tell you their product is ethical. It may not be. This my be a marketing trick. Are you in favor of GM foods? Monsanto has many products that fit the PBD definition[10] From my POV ethical food include: Local harvest, less chemicals, sabbath practices for workers, not a cash crop in an area of worker poverty, and the list goes on. Many plant based foods have unethical sources.You make some statements that help me understand your position. When you speak of “Obese American dietary problems” (round 2 after point 5) it makes me think you are comparing a moderate PBD to the insanity of morbid obesity and junk food diets. Almost any diet is better than Coke, chips, Big Macks and twinkies. A good balanced diet is better than a PBD that has to wash down supplements and seek far away specialty foods to just get proper nutrition. Pro starts out round 1 by stating “ I'm not citing sources because I don't feel like looking all of them up -- however, I do feel confident that my opinions have been fairly well-researched. “He then starts round 2 by stating that referenced material from round 1 is wrong.It is difficult to have a debate if you claim referenced items are wrong but give no referencesSeveral times you say “ You also missed my statement” . . .Without good references, I don’t believe your statement just because you said it. If you have no (valid) references, I can not believe your assertions.Are you getting your info from fringe web sites or supermarket tabloids? Let me close with a quote[11] Reference please? We haven’t found such statistics in a search of the medical database.In spite of claims to “stacks of studies,” there is actually very little scientific literature that carefully compares mortality and disease rates in vegetarians and nonvegetarians. In 1991, Dr. Russell Smith, a statistician, analyzed the existing studies on vegetariansim and discovered that while a number of studies show that vegetarian diets significantly decrease blood cholesterol levels, very few have evaluated the effects of vegetarian diets on overall mortality. His careful analysis revealed no benefit from vegetarianism in terms of overall mortality or longevity. In fact, Smith speculated on the possibility that the available data from the many existing prospective studies were left unpublished because they failed to reveal any benefits of the vegetarian diet. He notes, for example, mortality statistics are strangely absent from the Tromso Heart Study in Norway, which showed that vegetarians had slightly lower blood cholesterol levels than non-vegetarians. [1] http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca...[2] http://www.health.gov...[3] http://www.ajcn.org...[4] http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca...[5] http://www.fi.edu...[6] http://ods.od.nih.gov...[7] Feenstra, G. (2002) Creating space for sustainable food systems: lessons from the field. Agriculture and Human Values. 19(2). 99-106.[8] https://en.wikipedia.org...[9] http://www.theveganrd.com...[10] http://www.pbs.org...[11] http://www.westonaprice.org...