jack_norton wrote:Well I don't think you need to "prove it". I mean, trying cost nothing. Obviously, you need to be well informed and not just stop eating meat/dairies all of a suddenly without replacing it with a vegetal alternative (a mistake I've seen in many people who then complained that they felt "weak"). I started a long discussion long ago on indiegamer forums but in the end I gave up, because my English isn't good enough to sustain my arguments and also because some people were clearly not open to even trying, so no point in discussing it at all.
Actually, I was not referring to the benefits of being a vegan as that which needed to be proved. Rather I was referring to the list of facts posted at the very beginning of the thread, drawn from this site
here.
Take a few cases in point:
"#8: In third world countries 1 in 10 babies die before their first birthday." Just how is this relevant to the topic of vegetarianism/vegan? It's in the list, but where's the connection. Does this mean to imply that 1 in 10 babies dying because everybody is eating meat? (...And now that I think about it, just where IS our meat coming from?!) Whether or not this has to do with the aforementioned displacement is ambiguous. If there was a connection, or if these figures originate from the same study, it certainly isn't made explicit.
"#57: Eating vast quantities of animal flesh, eggs, milk & butter is a luxury that most of the planet can not afford" What is sentence is trying to communicate is ambiguous at best. Read in a certain way, it implies that we shouldn't be eating meat either the people cannot afford it or that the planet's resources cannot support it.
"#52: If the full ecological cost of meat was passed onto the consumer - the price would be quadrupled (at least)" Okay, but show me the specifics. What is the breakdown/components of that cost? Which study determined the components of the cost and then calculated it?
"#82: Meat is full of traces of antibiotics, hormones, toxins produced by stress & pesticide residues that become concentrated from all the crops they have eaten" Could there not be a similar risk when it comes to eating vegetables that have been exposed to pesticides, or have been 'modded' in some way?"
As for every fact that contains a number of a figure of some sort, I want to know exactly WHERE these numbers are coming from, the studies conducted, the research done. How do I know that these numbers weren't just made up on the fly? Show me the proof.
I'm not saying that whoever wrote this article is a liar. I just find it bizarre that they expect me to believe this list of facts at face value without providing any evidence. It's not even a question about whether the source is relevant or reliable when not a single external source is cited whatsoever.
To clarify, I don't disbelieve the idea that veganism has its own benefits (and its costs). Rather, my beef is with the idea that I could have 101 'facts' thrown at my face without being provided any evidence to show that they are indeed true.
