Why do people get so provoked by vegans?

VegesaurusRex

I didn't read all of this thread either, but I think I am one of the obnoxious vegans that people are talking about here. The reality is however, that I never tell anyone what to eat, but rather I keep throwing scientific studies in their faces

The "tone" of your comments does make you appear to be an "obnoxious vegan" (your words). If you come across as someone who believes he is intellectually superior than those who think differently than you, you'll have a hard time getting people to listen. Sometimes a softer approach works better. My friend, VoV, does a fine job of educating people without coming across as arrogant or obnoxious.

Well, well, I know you. I heard about your problem. Unbelievable!!!

I appreciate your advice, and it is, in fact the same advice VoV and others have given me. In the long run, you are probably right, but I have a different goal. (Message me if interested.)

Yes, you can attest that I am obnoxious, but as Popeye said, " Iam what Iam."

VegesaurusRex

Wow, how to start an argument!!!!

Why don't people just do what they do and get along!!!

I think this is a topic that should never have been started as are we not all here to achieve one thing - Lose Weight

it shouldn't matter how we each do it surely.

Some people are here to get healthier overall, and not just lose weight.

For the people that prefer not to get heart disease, stroke, diabetes, etc, there is eating a proper well balanced diet that includes a lot of fresh raw fruits and vegetables.

For the people that simply want to look good temporarily, and don't care about dying of preventable disease, there are meat based diets.

It's not simply a difference of how to lose weight, it's about overall health and longevity.

Of course, studies show that high protein diets, like Atkins, decrease the chance of getting heart disease, stroke and diabetes. So, I guess meat is kind of important.

In the Horizon documentary (it's on youtube) called Eat, Fast and Live Longer the doctors stated that a low protein diet increases longevity and health. It's a very interesting programme because it deals with interval fasting and the 2:5 method that has been discussed quite a bit on these boards recently.

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfna7nV7WaM

Anyway, the inclusion of 25g of soya protein a day has been shown to lower cholesterol, which is the opposite of red meat.

I really cannot listen to a UTube at the moment, but I will this afternoon. I agree that high VEGETABLE PROTEIN might be okay, but not high animal protein.

Need2bfit918

I didn't read all of this thread either, but I think I am one of the obnoxious vegans that people are talking about here. The reality is however, that I never tell anyone what to eat, but rather I keep throwing scientific studies in their faces

The "tone" of your comments does make you appear to be an "obnoxious vegan" (your words). If you come across as someone who believes he is intellectually superior than those who think differently than you, you'll have a hard time getting people to listen. Sometimes a softer approach works better. My friend, VoV, does a fine job of educating people without coming across as arrogant or obnoxious.

well i believe verging on vegan is his wife. so i guess they balance each other out.

wewon

I didn't read all of this thread either, but I think I am one of the obnoxious vegans that people are talking about here. The reality is however, that I never tell anyone what to eat, but rather I keep throwing scientific studies in their faces, showing a definitive correlation between eating meat and chronic diseases. The reactions are usually pretty strong. The dumbest ones usually say something like "studies are all slanted and skewed by researchers who have an agenda," or "you haven't proven causation - correlation does not equal causation." They ignore the fact that studies have been done since the 1940, and virtually all of them show the same thing: eating meat is correlated with deadly chronic diseases. Every reputable medical association in the world recommends eating no meat or at worse less meat.

I recently got into an on-line argument with a VEGETARIAN who was very angry at my approach. He messaged me and said, "What the Hell are you doing. What do you care what those idiots eat? They will get cancer or heart disease and die. This is Darwinism. Survival of the fittest."

I had to say he had a good point. However, I do care for several reasons:

1. I don't want to pay increased health care costs because of them.

2. I was once a meat eater, so there is hope for everyone

3. The animal suffering caused by eating meat is horrible. We are an evil species.

4. I invariably get messages or friend requests from people saying my direct approach has help them.

The latter category is worth talking about. Anyone who has studied sociology knows what "magical thinking" is. It is also known as "cognitive dissonance." People compartmentalize their thought processes and hold conflicting views. For example, some people may say, "The scientific approach is good. It has given us civilization." Yet these same people will make up excuses for not believing thousands of studies that correlate meat eating with chronic diseases. Magical thinking somehow protects them. They think these studies are either bogus, or not properly done, or in the usual words of the most statistically challenged of them, "that causation is not proven." (When asked what study they know of does prove causation, they can't give me one.)

My approach which for some reason many, many people find offensive, is simply this: Look at the science. Are longitudinal studies perfect? No. Can scientists slant or skew results? Yes. However, I really do not think they do a lot (probably the exception is those studies funded by special interest groups, because there, the outcome of the study is tied to the funding.)

In any event, until someone tells me a better source of information than massive longitudinal studies, they will inform my opinion, for better or worse.

Hmm...

After reading this, I'm not sure why anyone would be provoked. LOL!

taylor5877

If your total cholesterol is below 150 and LDL is below 70, you are essentially heart attack proof.

Cool...I eat POUNDS of meat per day and am below both of those.

I'm much smarter about where my carbohydrates come from than other carb restricted (if 30% and more actual calories than most on here is considered "restricted") individuals though. I typically eat around 200g/day with most coming from fruits and vegetables, particularly non-starchy vegetables and higher fiber fruits such as berries. When i eat steak, I don't take a bite that has visible fat, reguardless of the cut. My fat numbers that I log for steak, are GROSSLY overestimated.

Most of my daily fat and saturated fat comes from plant sources (coconut oil, olive oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, purified MCT's, and peanuts/other nuts).

Eating a lot of meat doesn't mean it has to be loaded with saturated fats...which is something I've not seen a study really address.

Glasgow_Vegan

This BBC article is about the amount of people in the UK who eat vegetarian/vegan 'meat' instead on animal meat for health reasons, despite not being vegetarian otherwise:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/0/19294585

Also, Quorn adverts in the UK never mention vegetarianism or animal rights. They don't even say that it isn't meat. Just that it's lower in fat:

http://youtu.be/_Ymabb7Uzeg

"The UK market for meat-free products such as tofu, sausages, burgers, and imitation chicken fillets was most recently put at £786.5m a year, up 7.7% from five years earlier. A further 10.3% increase is expected over the next five years, according to market research company Key Note.

But this boom in meat-free products is no longer being driven solely by vegetarians.

Just 6% (3.8m) of the UK population identified themselves as "mainly" vegetarian (eating fish but not meat) in 2011, and 3% (1.9m) as completely vegetarian.

So who is fuelling the rise?

Su Taylor from the Vegetarian Society says it's "people with differing motivations", which could be health, environment, animal welfare or just "trying something different".

They include "meat reducers" - people who may have bought in to campaigns such as "Meat Free Mondays" and are trying to reduce their carbon footprint."

hypotrochoid

It all boils down to belief. If you believe in it and it works for you, awesome! But... beliefs are like Man Bits. It's great if you have one, but it's generally frowned upon if you go waving it around in public, and for heaven's sake, don't go cramming it down anyone's throat without their consent.

Glasgow_Vegan

They started out with the health food (rather than animal rights etc.) with this advert a few years ago:

http://youtu.be/JvUR8t9tDcc

WendyTerry420

I only get provoked if they call me a murderer.

WendyTerry420

... but rather I keep throwing scientific studies in their faces, showing a definitive correlation between eating meat and chronic diseases. ...

There is no such thing as a definitive correlation study.

Glasgow_Vegan

It all boils down to belief. If you believe in it and it works for you, awesome! But... beliefs are like Man Bits. It's great if you have one, but it's generally frowned upon if you go waving it around in public, and for heaven's sake, don't go cramming it down anyone's throat without their consent.

I doubt most of the vegans who've posted mention it much in real life. A lot of my friends eat meat and it's just something we agree to disagree on so don't mention. They know I'm vegan and ask about it, but we leave it at that. A few have cut down a lot on their meat and want to eat more vegan foods for health reasons now. Some say they intend to go vegetarian in a few years.

Anyway, I think people post about it here because they see the benefits in terms of weight loss. They aren't really shoving it down anyone's throat so much as they're saying it's an option to those who might not have heard of it. I mean it's a weight loss forum where people post about all sorts of diets. People can disagree and leave it at that.

beckajw

I AM bothered by Vegans that do it for idealistic reasons. I believe that eating animals is the way of the planet. It's what is meant to happen. Also plants are just as much alive as animals and have just as much right to live. By idealistic vegan thinking fruits are ok, they are meant to be eaten. But roots should be banned as that kills the plant!

I am an omnivore.

I wonder if you would think that if a race of superbeings came here from another planet and decided to eat us.


As for humans being herbivores here is a bit about the Editor of the the American Journal of Cardiology:

William C. Roberts MD has five decades of experience in the field of cardiology, written over 1300 scientific publications, a dozen cardiology textbooks, and has been editor in chief of the American Journal of Cardiology for a quarter of a century. He is arguably the most highly regarded cardiologist in the world today.

In his 2008 editorial "The Cause of Atherosclerosis", published in the peer reviewed journal Nutrition in Clinical Practice, Roberts states that there is a single, sole cause to heart disease: cholesterol. If your total cholesterol is below 150 and LDL is below 70, you are essentially heart attack proof. What is the cause of high cholesterol? Saturated fat and animal products:

Atherosclerosis is easily produced in nonhuman
herbivores (eg, rabbits, monkeys) by feeding them
a high cholesterol (eg, egg yolks) or high saturated
fat (eg, animal fat) diet… And atherosclerosis was not produced in a
minority of rats fed these diets, it was produced in
100% of the animals! Indeed, atherosclerosis is one
of the easiest diseases to produce experimentally,
but the experimental animal must be an herbivore.
It is not possible to produce atherosclerosis in a
carnivore…"

He elaborates in an earlier editorial:

It is virtually impossible, for example, to produce atherosclerosis in a dog even when 100 grams of cholesterol and 120 grams of butter fat are added to its meat ration. (This amount of cholesterol
is approximately 200 times the average amount that human beings in the USA
eat each day!). (The American Journal of Cardiology, 1990, vol. 66,896.)

He then utterly annihilates the human omnivore myth in a single sentence. here it is:

***Because humans get atherosclerosis, and atherosclerosis
is a disease only of herbivores, humans also must be
herbivores.***

At once the insanity of our times comes into razor sharp relief.

Some may debate whether cholesterol is the sole cause of heart disease. It does not matter, the fact remains that atherosclerosis occurs only in herbivores.

If humans were physiological omnivores, heart disease would not exist, let alone be America's #1 killer for over a hundred years.

It may not be the least bit hyperbolic to say that the existence of heart disease in humans is proof that we, as a species, are vegans.

In any case, a low fat vegan diet has been proven again and again to be the cure for heart disease. A mountain of clinical evidence supports this.

According to Roberts, those who are utterly immune to heart disease without the use of statin drugs are pure vegetarian fruit eaters. His own exact words. fruit eaters.

HUMANS ARE HERBIVORES

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/acs-veh020111.php

beckajw

It all boils down to belief. If you believe in it and it works for you, awesome! But... beliefs are like Man Bits. It's great if you have one, but it's generally frowned upon if you go waving it around in public, and for heaven's sake, don't go cramming it down anyone's throat without their consent.

I doubt most of the vegans who've posted mention it much in real life. A lot of my friends eat meat and it's just something we agree to disagree on so don't mention. They know I'm vegan and ask about it, but we leave it at that. A few have cut down a lot on their meat and want to eat more vegan foods for health reasons now. Some say they intend to go vegetarian in a few years.

Anyway, I think people post about it here because they see the benefits in terms of weight loss. They aren't really shoving it down anyone's throat so much as they're saying it's an option to those who might not have heard of it. I mean it's a weight loss forum where people post about all sorts of diets. People can disagree and leave it at that.

If only...

Glasgow_Vegan

I only get provoked if they call me a murderer.

I think they mean that you benefit from murder/slaughter, or play a role in it.

beckajw

I only get provoked if they call me a murderer.

I think they mean that you benefit from murder/slaughter, or play a role in it.

It's not murder.

Glasgow_Vegan

Another way of thinking about it:

Many people boycott Nestle products because they disagree with their policy of promoting infant formula over breast feeding in countries with poor sanitation. A lot of those people boycotting eat meat.

If someone does that, it doesn't mean they think they're better than you.

Glasgow_Vegan

I only get provoked if they call me a murderer.

I think they mean that you benefit from murder/slaughter, or play a role in it.

It's not murder.

That's your opinion.

bathsheba_c

I only get provoked if they call me a murderer.

I think they mean that you benefit from murder/slaughter, or play a role in it.

Hiring someone to commit murder is still murder. Also, I go fishing. So, yes, I have been called a murderer and a slaveholder on MFP for not being vegan.

Glasgow_Vegan

I only get provoked if they call me a murderer.

I think they mean that you benefit from murder/slaughter, or play a role in it.

Hiring someone to commit murder is still murder. Also, I go fishing. So, yes, I have been called a murderer and a slaveholder on MFP for not being vegan.

But you already knew that you killed the fish and played your part in the death of animals, so why does it bother you?

beckajw

I only get provoked if they call me a murderer.

I think they mean that you benefit from murder/slaughter, or play a role in it.

It's not murder.

That's your opinion.

Right, just as you have yours.