Study Finds Veganism To Be The Most Sustainable Diet, Published By PLOS

[Jamie 608]

Vegetarian for 6 years today, *proud*

[Helxig 45,330]

Lol duh  

[kevinthesheep 2,947]

4 hours ago, Lord Temptation said:

I don't need evidence to know that humans have been eating eggs and meat for tens of thousands of years. Without eating meat we would never have evolved to become homo sapiens. We'd still be living in trees and uttering nonwords. Stop trying to change history.

Being human means eating meat, and there is no shame in that. If you want to be an ideologue, divert your attention to the chemicals industry and crusade against them. 

Of course. Humans are naturally omnivores, we are able to absorb nutrients from both plant and animal matter, and hunting animals is a huge part of our history and how we evolved. I will never argue against this, it's a fact. What's also a fact is that modern animal agriculture is inherently cruel and billions of animals suffer unnecessarily every year. Even on the best of farms, animals are sent to the slaughterhouse afraid for their lives - no intelligent being should be faced with the prospect of walking to their deaths and having a bullet to their head or their necks sliced open. We live in a modern civilisation and agriculture has come a long way to the point where we have cheap and abundant plant matter to eat. We are now faced with a choice whether we hurt animals or not. Our ancestors were not lucky enough to be sitting on a computer arguing about morality, they were only focused on survival. Yes, there are still some communities of people who rely on animals as a main source of calories, obviously these people are only doing what they can to survive and there is justification for killing. However, all major dietetic associations have acknowledged that a vegan diet can provide humans with all the nutrients we need, so if animal products are not essential to our health, how do you justify their suffering and death?

 

(p.s I realise this comes across a little harsh and I promise I'm not attacking you or anyone, I really do understand where non-vegans are coming from... it can be a very difficult thing to grasp considering how most of us were raised.)

[Luc 4,776]

Waiting for artificial meat to slay us all

 

[blzr 1,589]

1 hour ago, Jamie said:

Vegetarian for 6 years today, *proud*

Yayy! Vegan for 7 and 1/2 years! My diet slays! 

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

50 minutes ago, kevinthesheep said:

Of course. Humans are naturally omnivores, we are able to absorb nutrients from both plant and animal matter, and hunting animals is a huge part of our history and how we evolved. I will never argue against this, it's a fact. What's also a fact is that modern animal agriculture is inherently cruel and billions of animals suffer unnecessarily every year. Even on the best of farms, animals are sent to the slaughterhouse afraid for their lives - no intelligent being should be faced with the prospect of walking to their deaths and having a bullet to their head or their necks sliced open. We live in a modern civilisation and agriculture has come a long way to the point where we have cheap and abundant plant matter to eat. We are now faced with a choice whether we hurt animals or not. Our ancestors were not lucky enough to be sitting on a computer arguing about morality, they were only focused on survival. Yes, there are still some communities of people who rely on animals as a main source of calories, obviously these people are only doing what they can to survive and there is justification for killing. However, all major dietetic associations have acknowledged that a vegan diet can provide humans with all the nutrients we need, so if animal products are not essential to our health, how do you justify their suffering and death?

 

(p.s I realise this comes across a little harsh and I promise I'm not attacking you or anyone, I really do understand where non-vegans are coming from... it can be a very difficult thing to grasp considering how most of us were raised.)

Actually our ancestors were lucky because they didn't have computers. They foraged for plants and developed stone tools to hunt animals. They had the best of both worlds. Meat was ceremonial but overall their diet was mostly plants. Nothing was farmed. Everything was organic. They had the life. 

[kevinthesheep 2,947]

52 minutes ago, Lord Temptation said:

Actually our ancestors were lucky because they didn't have computers. They foraged for plants and developed stone tools to hunt animals. They had the best of both worlds. Meat was ceremonial but overall their diet was mostly plants. Nothing was farmed. Everything was organic. They had the life. 

Technology and civilisation has brought us  music, literature, medicine, a reliable/consistent source of food and clean water, general comfort... our ancestors prior to the past couple of centuries didn't have any of this. I'd rather live in 2016 thx 

Nah but on a serious note, there are 7 billion people on the planet and it's not possible for all of us to live this way anymore. Modern human evolution involves making compassionate choices and having empathy for others. I feel it is our obligation to live in a way that causes as little harm to others (human, non humans & the environment) as possible, and veganism is just one aspect in achieving this.

[Bounty 799]

I'd like to go vegetarian and then vegan one day, I've slowly reduced my meat intake, I'm lactose intolerant so I have almond milk with my cereals or smoothies (I do have cheese from time to time cause I love it). It was also hard for me when I was living with my parents because my mom cooks a lot of meat based dishes (We're mexican) but now I live on my own and I care about the environment, animals and my health... sometimes I go to the supermarket and see prices of vegan options or vegan stuff and I'm like damn too expensive and that's a reason why I haven gone full vegetarian/vegan. I know there's ways and all that but I'm lost haha, at least I live in a city that has a huge vegan culture and have some vegan friends. I wanna try it for 2017, starting now slowly. Just hope my bf doesn't hate me haha.

ps: when I was little I saw pigs being slaughtered and never ate pork for at least 15 years until very recently I've tried pork again, I just like bacon :'(

[Guest]

Hopeful in the future everyone will  be vegan and we'll stop killing poor animals who didn't do **** to us

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Lord Temptation said:

Actually our ancestors were lucky because they didn't have computers. They foraged for plants and developed stone tools to hunt animals. They had the best of both worlds. Meat was ceremonial but overall their diet was mostly plants. Nothing was farmed. Everything was organic. They had the life. 

Not even sure how it is a "luck" to be sitting on a computer, it's more of a curse really. It's more like this generation are living less, but that's a whole other topic

[later 135]

18 hours ago, Anastasia said:

Study: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0165797

Took this from Reddit, but here are the key findings of the study:

Food production is a major driver of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water and land use, and dietary risk factors are contributors to non-communicable diseases. Shifts in dietary patterns can therefore potentially provide benefits for both the environment and health. We find 14 common sustainable dietary patterns across reviewed studies, with reductions as high as 70–80% of GHG emissions and land use, and 50% of water use (with medians of about 20–30% for these indicators across all studies) possible by adopting sustainable dietary patterns. Reductions in environmental footprints were generally proportional to the magnitude of animal-based food restriction. Dietary shifts also yielded modest benefits in all-cause mortality risk. Our review reveals that environmental and health benefits are possible by shifting current Western diets to a variety of more sustainable dietary patterns.

Of the 210 scenarios, 197 showed a reduction in environmental impacts when switching from baseline to alternative dietary patterns (sign test: p<0·0001), while thirteen scenarios showed an increase or no impact. The median changes in GHG emissions, land use, and water use, across all sustainable diet types, were -22%, -28%, and -18%, respectively. The largest environmental benefits across indicators were seen in those diets which most reduced the amount of animal-based foods, such as vegan (first place in terms of benefits for two environmental indicators), vegetarian (first place for one indicator), and pescatarian (second and third place for two indicators).

All studies showed positive health effects, ranging from <1% reduction in estimated mortality risk for vegetarian diets, to 19% for vegan diets, though some of these were not statistically significant.

Several considerations regarding environmentally sustainable eating are worth noting. Firstly, the production of food (i.e. the growing of crops and raising of livestock) is the primary driver of environmental impacts, as opposed to later stages such as transport and processing [92, 93]. While local and seasonal diets have advantages such as protecting local economies and crop diversity, efforts to reduce dietary-related environmental impacts should focus on reducing animal-based foods in high-consuming societies.

Our review showed that reductions above 70% of GHG emissions and land use, and 50% of water use, could be achieved by shifting typical Western diets to more environmentally sustainable dietary patterns. Medians of these impacts across all studies suggest possible reductions of between 20–30%. This review is the most recent and comprehensive to date, and the first to compare impacts across GHG emissions, land use, and water use.



No news outlets have picked this up, though it came out November 3rd.

Not sure what to tag this as, help?

I bet you have no idea what you just said. Quote quote quote quote quote. Random percentage here, random percentage there.  Statistic here, statistic there. But, when it all comes down to it, I bet you have no idea what you just said.

[Melech 9,900]

3 hours ago, Luc said:

Waiting for artificial meat to slay us all

 

Israel is researching about that, saw an article yesterday  

BDS better be patient 

[uo111 5,282]

2 hours ago, later said:

I bet you have no idea what you just said. Quote quote quote quote quote. Random percentage here, random percentage there.  Statistic here, statistic there. But, when it all comes down to it, I bet you have no idea what you just said.

It's really not that hard to think for yourself.

You should try it some time.

[kevinthesheep 2,947]

3 hours ago, later said:

I bet you have no idea what you just said. Quote quote quote quote quote. Random percentage here, random percentage there.  Statistic here, statistic there. But, when it all comes down to it, I bet you have no idea what you just said.

Lmao if that's all you have to say in response 

[Anastasia 6,093]

3 hours ago, later said:

I bet you have no idea what you just said. Quote quote quote quote quote. Random percentage here, random percentage there.  Statistic here, statistic there. But, when it all comes down to it, I bet you have no idea what you just said.

I didn't say it, I quoted and said before doing so that I was quoting. The link to the study is in the OP, and yes I can read, very well. I didn't get into university by not being able to read or understand studies, what kind of pathetic insult is this? 

 

Btw, there are no "random percentages", the quotes are directly taken from the study and all can be backed by clicking the link and reading the full report.