Vegan Diets are Healthier

It Doesn't Matter Whether Essential Nutrients are Plant or Animal Discovery Magazine published The Inuit Paradox: How can people who gorge on fat and rarely see a vegetable be healthier than we are? http://discovermagazine.com...= Inuits are the Eskimos of northern Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, whose diets include very few vegetables. They nonetheless have half the rates of heart disease of typical Canadians and Americans. “What the diet of the Far North illustrates, says Harold Draper, a biochemist and expert in Eskimo nutrition, is that there are no essential foods—only essential nutrients. And humans can get those nutrients from diverse and eye-opening sources.” The Inuits get vitamins, notably vitamin C, from organ meats. The fat from wild animals is largely unsaturated, and the large quantities of omega-3s in their diet helps offset the fats. Raw fish and raw meat have important amino acids that are otherwise obtained from plants. So if your diet is mostly seal blubber and caribou, be sure to balance it with liver and raw fish. The point is that people need certain nutrients, and it doesn't matter whether the nutrients come from plants or animals, or, such as the B12 Pro advocates, from chemical synthesis. A perfectly-planned vegan diet will therefore be no better and no worse than a perfectly-planned diet that contains meat. Both will have all the essential nutrients, and neither will have too much of anything that poses a health risk. I think that Pro wasted a great deal of space in this debate providing lists of nutrients that are found in plants and claiming that nutrients are nutritious. It's true that all those plant nutrients are in plants and that humans need them. All the plant nutrients are available to people who eat both plants and meat, so that is not an advantage of a vegan diet. There is No Inherent Health Risk in Meat Pro offered the possibility that meat posed an inherent cancer risk, so that a diet with meat would be less healthy. However, dairy, eggs, fish, and chicken have no such risk, and red meat poses no such risk if less 18 ounces per week is consumed. Vegans face cancer risks from sugars, fried starches, and refined flour, so their planning problem is not solved by just avoiding meat. The Well-Planned Diet If “well-planned” means “perfectly-planned,” i.e., having all essential nutrients and not too much of anything, and if the average person can accomplish the planning required, then the resolution still fails. The resolution claims that the vegan diet is healthier, and it is no healthier. In the last round of the debate, Pro considered vegan diet planning for protein, vitamin B12, and omega-3s. I have indeed agreed that vegans can get enough protein, and I additionally agree that vegans can get enough B12 and omega-3s. The question is not whether it is possible, but whether the planning is reasonable for the average person. In addition, vegans must plan to ensure they get enough iron, zinc, and additional nutrients. An Australian study showed that using tables of nutrient requirements deign for meat eater is insufficient for vegans: "Meat, poultry and fish-based meals provide good quantities of vitamin B-12, omega-3 fats, iron and zinc. Legumes, nuts and seeds, on the other hand, do not contain vitamin B-12, important for the normal functioning of the brain, or long-chain omega-3 fats, required for the brain and maintaining a healthy heart. What’s more, the iron and zinc content of a plant-based meal is not as easily absorbed by the body as a meat-based one. ... Professor Katrine Baghurst, key author of the study comments: 'People need to be aware that they should not simply substitute a portion of a plant-based food for a portion of meat and expect to receive the same nutritional benefits.'" http://www.girl.com.au... Vegans must also plan n order to get enough vitamin D, calcium, and iodine. http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au... Vitamin D is generated in the body upon exposure to sunlight, but that's insufficient in northern climates. The usual source is fortified milk, which most people get ordinarily. Vegans must seek fortified soy milk or some other fortified product. Vitamin D is toxic in large doses, so concentrated supplements are not sold. The advice from a nutritionist to vegetarians is "The best way to make sure you're getting enough nutrients, including protein, is to keep track of the foods you eat on a daily basis." How Difficult is Vegan Diet Planning? Vegan has to plan under the constraint that they do not include meat or animal-derived products In the fabled "land of milk and honey" both milk and honey are disallowed to vegans. Pork chops are obvious, but there are dozens of so-called "hidden" meat products. http://www.cyberparent.com... The list of items to be avoided begins Worcestershire sauce, Caesar salad dressing, pizza topping, Greek salads, packaged cookies and crackers, refried beans, flour tortillas, ready-made pie crusts, bottled juices, colored pasta, some candies, frozen pops, garlic salt, vanilla, meat tenderizers, salad-dressing mixes, ice cream, candy, baked goods, chewing gum, liquor, wine, vinegar, beer, fruit juice, soft drinks, mmarshmallows, yogurt, frosted cereals, gelatin-containing desserts, molded salads ... and continues at length. Life is possible without any of these things (excepting maybe beer, but I assume there is vegan beer made without the animal-derived clarifying agent) but the list of things to be avoided limits where the desired nutrients are allowably obtained by vegans. Since vegans dismiss red meat as too high a cancer risk, they must similarly dismiss tropical oils and fried starches. Pro emphasizes that a vegan diet is naturally lower in cholesterol and calories than an unplanned meat-consuming diet, but the bottom line is that vegans have no better overall health than unconstrained meat-eaters. That tells us that the planning difficulties in areas other than cholesterol and calories are so great as to completely offset those advantages. The healthiest diet actually observed is the low-meat diet. Pro claimed that the planning to keep red meat consumption below 18 ounces. Fast-food franchises, being extremely health conscious, convenient sell red meat in increments called "quarter-pounders." This makes tracking trivial. Also, a number of the low-meat diets exclude red meat entirely while consuming some combination of white meat, fish, and dairy. The Resolution is Negated Well-planned vegan or non-vegan diets will be equally nutritious, so the resolution fails. However, it's doubtful that the average person can plan a vegan diet considering all the nutrients that must be given care and the constraints of obtaining them without animal sources. The resolution therefore also fails on the grounds that a non-fanatical layman cannot accomplish the planning to level required. I remind Pro that debate etiquette does not allow adding new arguments in the final round, which is for summarizing and for analyzing the flow of the debate. The reason is that new arguments or data introduced so late cannot be properly debated. A five round debate provides plenty of space to preset everything before the last round.