Do all vegans have deficiencies? vitamins and minerals

[Scholar]

2 hours ago, SgtPepper said:

If you want to hear the anti-vegan message, look up Bobby's perspective, Sv3rige and ex-vegan videos. 

I think it's possible to maintain life on a vegan diet but you will have to supplement and be vigilant of your zinc and iron levels.

I personally do not think there is enough evidence that it is a safe diet in the long-term. Scientifically speaking, the Mediterranean and the Japanese people practices the healthiest diets. Both of these cultures eat fish, eggs, and some meat. 

Both Bobby and Sv3rige were basically starving themselves with a raw vegan diet, to use them as good examples for ex-vegans is in my opinion irresponsible. Infact most ex-vegans on youtube seem to have been raw vegans or similar extreme diets.

You have Tim Shieff who basically drank his own piss and starved himself believing it would heal him, you had Vegetable Police drinking turpentine and also starving himself believing it would heal him. You had Bobbies perspective being raw vegan and being proud of how ripped he looked while he encouraged by his followers to starve himself. You had sv3rige who also starved himself and sungazed until he was hospitalized and almost died.

Raw veganism is alluring for the seemingly most irrational and irresponsible people, so to use these peoples failure as evidence that the vegan diet is somehow deficient is in my view very problematic.

 

 

[Cocolove]

6 hours ago, SgtPepper said:

If you want to hear the anti-vegan message, look up Bobby's perspective, Sv3rige and ex-vegan videos. 

I think it's possible to maintain life on a vegan diet but you will have to supplement and be vigilant of your zinc and iron levels.

I personally do not think there is enough evidence that it is a safe diet in the long-term. Scientifically speaking, the Mediterranean and the Japanese people practices the healthiest diets. Both of these cultures eat fish, eggs, and some meat. 

Idk man, I Bobby is a little better that sv3rige but I don't think those people are valid sources of wisdom or just info.

[Cocolove]

5 hours ago, Jonac said:

If you go vegan mostly for animal compassion you're gonna suffer vitamin deficit. 

What if I go vegan mostly for selfish reasons?

[Jonac]

@Cocolove idk. This food topics are a delicated thing. If you feel prepared go vegan, but be honest if you star feeling bad, or maybe you can thrive.

I try veganism 2 years ago, gone bad. Then follow a regular diet. Now I can't tolerated chicken and eggs, and pork is becoming such a powerfull food, is like the taste is so strong.

My advice is to try for yourself and be mindful. Every body react different, depending on body awareness. ☺️

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, Shiva said:

WTF? How can anybody take any of these guys seriously?

I'm shocked by their numbers of followers and people who sign up to their cults.

This is crazy, really crazy...

Yes, it's very interesting to observe. There is a mindset that whatever is mainstream must be a conspiracy to keep us unhealthy, so a lot of people who were raw vegan when it was fringe had this mindset. Once veganism became more mainstream they seem to have abandoned it and a lot of them now follow the carnivore diet, because it is the new fringe.

[Cocolove]

Not that I like this guy or his attitude, but he does a good job against the two we mentioned:

 

[Leo Gura]

I think what everyone overlooks is the simple fact that people have different nutritional needs. There is no one best diet in the abstract. The question is always: What is the best diet FOR ME? And that you can only discover through trial and error.

There are many factors at play: your genetics, geography, climate, your budget, your health conditions, your level of development, etc.

I have found that vegetarian does not work well for me. It doesn't give me the energy that I need to function well. But it would be a mistake to apply my conclusion to all other people. My conclusion is for me.

[remember]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I think what everyone overlooks is the simple fact that people have different nutritional needs. There is no one best diet in the abstract. The question is always: What is the best diet FOR ME? And that you can only discover through trial and error.

There are many factors at play: your genetics, geography, climate, your budget, your health conditions, your level of development, etc.

I have found that vegetarian does not work well for me. It doesn't give me the energy that I need to function well. But it would be a mistake to apply my conclusion to all other people. My conclusion is for me.

 got you - devil!

SELFBIAS 

i bet you never really tried. and of course it‘s a lot of knowledge and work you have to invest into it. guess you did not have the right teacher.

from the perspective of a vegan who was once an addict to especially dairy - yes it’s also an addiction the most serious of all, it denies killing.

and by the way if your thyroid is autoimmune maybe you would be better without - there is reason to conclude that maybe every autoimmune disease can get symptom free without dairy and meat.

Edited January 20, 2020 by remember

[Uncreated]

@Leo Gura  You feeling tired doesn't justify supporting the suffering of billions of animals, you shouldn't just proceed to eating meat just because you didn't do the diet correctly the first time. If you understood the amount of suffering animal agriculture causes, I dont know how you can even think about paying for animal products again

 

[EddieEddie1995]

@UncreatedBut everything is One! So doesn't really matter

[Cocolove]

37 minutes ago, Uncreated said:

@Leo Gura  You feeling tired doesn't justify supporting the suffering of billions of animals, you shouldn't just proceed to eating meat just because you didn't do the diet correctly the first time. If you understood the amount of suffering animal agriculture causes, I dont know how you can even think about paying for animal products again

 

That depends.

@Leo Gura

What kind of animal products do you eat? For example, I spent some time just eating animal products that I knew were raised with love, that is, I visited the farms to ensure the cows and chickens were living the life. Do you do something like that? or will you eat an animal product that may have been part of the really naughty animal industry of our society?

[Space]

9 hours ago, Uncreated said:

@Leo Gura  You feeling tired doesn't justify supporting the suffering of billions of animals, you shouldn't just proceed to eating meat just because you didn't do the diet correctly the first time. If you understood the amount of suffering animal agriculture causes, I dont know how you can even think about paying for animal products again

 

Well, yes it does. How is someone going to positively affect the world if they are chronically tired all the time. Why would you immediately assume that Leo didn't do the diet correctly? Everyone's bodies work in different ways, stop judging people for something that is beyond their control.

[Scholar]

34 minutes ago, Space said:

Well, yes it does. How is someone going to positively affect the world if they are chronically tired all the time. Why would you immediately assume that Leo didn't do the diet correctly? Everyone's bodies work in different ways, stop judging people for something that is beyond their control.

How does someone positively affect the world while they contribute to the greatest holocaust and environmental destruction in the history of mankind and is continuously trying to justify it instead of finding ways to avoid it, say by means of consuming insects, mussels or similar products which involve less suffering and environmental destruction?

Especially from someone whose only purpose is self-actualization and improving oneself. "Everyone's body works different ways" doesn't give you a free pass to consume however you want.

 

I think this is a very interesting attitude of entitlement. I am entitled to be optimally healthy and I am entitled to ensure it by holocausting other beings.

 

This is the height of self-bias. This kind of thinking is what can justify human slavery. After all, how would Leo positively affect the world if he had to grow his own crops and basically spend 12 hours plowing and working on a field to ensure he wouldn't starve to death the next winter? If he has a few slaves doing it he could easily focus on intellectual pursuits and self-actualization. This is the way Elites have been doing and justifying it for centuries. Sure it worked, but do you see Christ or Buddha justifying their actions this way?

 

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, Uncreated said:

@Leo Gura  You feeling tired doesn't justify supporting the suffering of billions of animals, you shouldn't just proceed to eating meat just because you didn't do the diet correctly the first time. If you understood the amount of suffering animal agriculture causes, I dont know how you can even think about paying for animal products again

That is your relative judgment.

9 hours ago, Cocolove said:

That depends.

@Leo Gura

What kind of animal products do you eat? For example, I spent some time just eating animal products that I knew were raised with love, that is, I visited the farms to ensure the cows and chickens were living the life. Do you do something like that?

Definitely not. I don't have time to kiss every animal I eat.

Quote

or will you eat an animal product that may have been part of the really naughty animal industry of our society?

Definitely

I try to buy organic and free-range as much as possible, but even that is not always possible and those labels aren't to be trusted anyways. Most free-range stuff isn't really so free-range as they make you believe.

Survival is a naughty business.

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, Shiva said:

Out of curiosity, would you still prefer a meat-based diet even if you found a vegetarian diet that gave you the same amount of energy? Why or why not?

I would prefer to go vegetarian for ethical reasons if it didn't disrupt my life too much.

Of course taste of the food is a factor. Meat probably tastes better to me. But that could be retrained.

But for example, I don't like eating fruit all the time. It becomes too sugary and gross. I don't know how people pull that off for long periods of time even if it gives them enough energy. My body doesn't tolerate a fruit only diet.

[Scholar]

42 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That is your relative judgment.

Definitely not. I don't have time to kiss every animal I eat.

Definitely

I try to buy organic and free-range as much as possible, but even that is not always possible and those labels aren't to be trusted anyways. Most free-range stuff isn't really so free-range as they make you believe.

Survival is a naughty business.

This is a very important aspect that I think is very misunderstood. I feel like people do not quite grasp how radical full self-acceptance is.

Psychological self-acceptance as Leo is advocating is the acceptance of all that is in terms of identity and ego. This is not metaphysical self-acceptance, because metaphysical self-acceptance is always the case. It cannot be not the case as it is the prerequisite for existence, or rather it is existence itself.

 

Psychological self-acceptance or what we call enlightenment is more of a recognition of that Metaphysical Self-Acceptance. A recogntion and therefore an altering of the psychology of the chimp mind, thus leading to talk about self-acceptance, self-love and so forth.

What is important to recognize however is that the insight of Metaphysical Self-Acceptance will mold and respond to different kinds of psychologies in different ways. You give a psychopathic child rapist complete insight into Self-Acceptance and he will with joy rape the children even more so than before. Don't forget that there have been enlightened people who were sacrificing human beings by the thousands. It all depends on the psychology.

This is basically Survival responding to Divinity. Metaphysical Self-Acceptance is all that is, including all the rapists, all the survival and all the "devilry".

[removed by Moderator]

This is why we change psychology before enlightenment, before the insight of self-acceptance. Or rather moral development and self-acceptance should happen in a functional and progressive way so that it eventually creates behaviour that strike a balance between survival and psychological self-acceptance.

This seems to be what the whole process of evolution is about, to strike the right balance. Humanity might not have striked the right balance and could very well be on the way of dissolving itself. This is necessary because this way of the world allows for all the creatures to evolve who can indeed strike the balance eventually.

Edited January 20, 2020 by Leo Gura
Removed paragraph to avoid confusion

[Leo Gura]

@Shiva I don't want to litigate the ethical issues of meat-eating here.

It should be pretty obvious that factory farming is problematic from a consciousness perspective and we should minimize it as much as possible. It should also be equally obvious why a complete elimination will not happen any time soon.

Quote

Why do you hold your energy levels as more important than the lives of those animals?

Obviously because I am selfish and engaged in survival.

To put it another way, if you and I were in a boat together in the middle of the sea, I would eat you and not feel too guilty about it, since that is life If you don't like it, you can file a complaint with God in the afterlife.

[Scholar]

A few other good ways to look at all of this:

If you realized you are the Creator of all that Is, all that was and all that will be (even if both of these things can only be what Is), how would the chimp mind respond to it? How would it look at itself and the world if it new that it was the origin of all of it and that it deemed all of it Perfection?

Now add the realizations that you are Infinte and that you are all of it. You are all the rapists, you are Hitlers. And not only that, you have commanded for there to be Infinite rapists and Hitlers.

Now add to that the realizations that all of you will return to the Source, that all that Is is necessarily impermanent. That all Creatures that exist will return to the Infinite Source of Nothingness.

What would that do to the chimp mind? What would it do to the ant mind? What would it do to the lions mind? What would it do to the dolphines mind?

 

Additionally you will realize the dharmic nature of reality. That all that Is has it's place and that it is placed perfectly. That there is no an inch of misplacement in all of Infinite existence. This is Dharma. It means that all Creatures, all Things and all Non-Things serve their Purpose perfectly.

The lions purpose is to eat the gazelle. The gazelles purpose is to suffer as it is eaten. That all of them are playing their role perfectly.

 

That the carnist is seeking to remain carnist. The vegan is seeking to abolish animal exploitation. All of them are playing their part perfectly. If it is your purpose to look at yourself and your authentic expression, you will realize you are one or the other and either way you will be playing your role. You will be the Leo justifying selfishness or you will be the vegan criticizing him. It all is perfect and it all has it's play. Evolution will take care of the rest, by itself. We are not seperate from Evolution, we are the process of Evolution.

This is inescapable, although similar to Psychological Self-Acceptance there is Psychological Dharma. Psychological Dharma will lead to Sukha, which is one of the ways Reality manifests it's Will. It manifests it by Suffering, and you shall suffer if you do not follow your Dharma, even if it is not possible to not follow it. Psychological Dharma, much like Psychological Self-Acceptance, can be the case or not be the case. It's like you will follow the laws of gravity no matter what, however you can jump. Just expect gravity to pull you back if you resist it.

 

Psychological Dharma is a problem for humans not so much for animals. Animals in the wild are usually in perfect accordance with their Dharma. A bird will not contemplate why it needs to make new babies and raise them. An owl will not contemplate the morality of it's action. Both of them follow their Dharma perfectly, their place in the world.

Enlightenment is strange in that it hijacks this psychological dharmic system as the insight leads to a realization of Absolute Dharma, meaning that as I have described all Things in the universe serve and cannot help avoiding to serve their purpose. This can in the chimp mind lead to a great motivation to fullfill ones Psychological Dharma, but it can also lead to a great indifference due to the realization that there is no such thing as more or less dharma. This will be determined by the form of the mind.

 

There is no reason for why we should prepare our psychology before enlightenment or why we should seek enlightenment in the first place. A reason is not necessary, for it is the case anyways. This is the difference between a dharmic understanding and a moral understanding of the world. From a perspective of morality we must justify everything in some way, a dharmic understanding will realize that the existence of it is it's justification.

Why expoit animals? Because it is so.

Why criticise the exploitation of animals? Because it is so.

 

Not who is right, nor who is wrong. Simply evolution taking place.

 

Reality will conspire to aid you not if you follow some rules of morality, but rather if you follow your dharma. It's interesting because talking and realizing Dharma leads to an alteration of Dharma. It seems to generate a very transrational dynamic, like the Observer vs the Observed.

Some people for example will use dharmic concepts to justify their actions. So they will use dharmic concepts and translate them into morality. That itself is in a way dysfunctional, but at the same time it is perfectly functional because it is the dharma of dharma to make people translate it into morality and create religious systems out of it. It's very difficult to put it into linear and casual terms.

Edited January 20, 2020 by Scholar

[Space]

4 hours ago, Scholar said:

How does someone positively affect the world while they contribute to the greatest holocaust and environmental destruction in the history of mankind and is continuously trying to justify it instead of finding ways to avoid it, say by means of consuming insects, mussels or similar products which involve less suffering and environmental destruction?

Yes well I've heard the environmental arguments a million times and it doesn't add up to me. 1000 calories of beef is going to cause less environmental impact than 1000 calories of plants. Seems pretty obvious to me. However, factory farming is still a major contributor, not denying that.

4 hours ago, Scholar said:

 "Everyone's body works different ways" doesn't give you a free pass to consume however you want.

No it doesn't, but it does give me a right to eat meat. This is called survival. Stop ignoring the reality of this. Some people need animal protein to have a healthy functioning body, there is no doubt about this. You surely can't expect people to have unhealthy bodies purely so that we can save a few cows? It can't be both ways, at least for now.

Edited January 20, 2020 by Space

[Scholar]

15 minutes ago, Space said:

Yes well I've heard the environmental arguments a million times and it doesn't add up to me. 1000 calories of beef is going to cause less environmental impact than 1000 calories of plants. Seems pretty obvious to me. However, factory farming is still a major contributor, not denying that.

No it doesn't, but it does give me a right to eat meat. This is called survival. Stop ignoring the reality of this. Some people need animal protein to have a healthy functioning body, there is no doubt about this. You surely can't expect people to have unhealthy bodies purely so that we can save a few cows? It can't be both ways, at least for now.

 Just because it doesn't add up to you doesn't make it false. It is well established that the same amount of calories will require far more ressources for beef than it will for various plant calories. Factory farming is in the majority of cases more environmentally friendly than roaming cattle due the the substaintial amount of land that is required to feed cows with grass.

 

There is no such thing as a right to do anything. In my opinion it is also very ignorant to reduce this calculation to meat vs plant based. If I need to eat meat, does that mean I can factory farm chimps and dolphines or even humans for that matter, if I have access to beings that are less sentient?

Just because you need meat doesn't mean you can just kill any animal whatsoever to get it, otherwise you could easily justify killing humans for meat production. If there is an alternative in my view any functional moral system will have to somehow reduce itself to only consuming the least sentient animals that is practically possible. This means something like this:

If you truly require meat, eat mussels. If mussels are not available, eat insects. If insects are not available, eat fish. And so forth. You wouldn't just go and kill a human because you need meat, that would seem absurd.

 

You can be absolutely healthy without consuming any beef whatsoever. For the absolute majority of people mussels and fish are easily accessable and a far more healthier alternative.

 

It is not yet established that it is not possible to structure a plant based diet and still be reasonably healthy for the majority of people. This is just an assertion, and I would posit it to be a moral imperative for us to:

A) Do our utmost best to not include products that cause greater suffering and exploitation in our diet and otherwise.

B) If we do require some of them, make efforts to somehow aquire these products or essential nutrients in these products in a different manner (like supporting lab grown meat for example)

C) Change our view that we are entitled to the most optimal health.

 

To me it is inconsistent and self-biased to treat animals like cows, chicken, fish and so forth to any lesser degree than we treat mentally disabled people on the same level of sentience. I could not possibly conceive of a difference between them, other than reasons based on self-bias, that would justify the kind of argumentation you are providing.

"You surely can't expect people to have unhealthy bodies purely so that we can save a few mentally disable people?"

If you think this comparison is outrageous, I view it as evidence of your self-bias and speciesism. It is no different from racism.