Comment by jakelazaroff

7 years ago

But “veganism is unhealthy” is an opinion. Your parenthetical about the lack of B12 indicates that you know this, and that the topic is more nuanced. If you don’t normally qualify that statement, why did you choose to do so here?

Frankly, I don’t believe that you don’t mean it as an attack on the lifestyle choices of others, and I’m not surprised that people get defensive.

9 comments

jakelazaroff

walterstucco666 7 years ago

> But “veganism is unhealthy” is an opinion

No, it is not.

scaredginger 7 years ago
Agreed, it is a false claim stated as fact.
- erik_landerholm 7 years ago
  
  correct. my vegan in-laws, have been vegan for 40 years now and they are in very good condition for their age. Saying it's "unhealthy" with no nuance is a ridiculous statement. It is in a no-way a fact. People that speak like this give people that speak in facts a bad name.
  
  3 replies →
jakelazaroff 7 years ago
“Unhealthy” is not an intrinsic, observable feature; it’s a label we use to describe things that cross some arbitrary threshold of having deleterious effects. Calling something “unhealthy” is the textbook definition of an opinion, my dude.
- walterstucco666 7 years ago
  
  You said many wrong things, but maybe with some help you can improve:
  - first of all I'm not your dude, I am not anybody's dude, my "dudes" are the people that know me personally and the people that know me personally call me by name, they do not call me "my dude" because they know I don't like it. You see the problem here? By assuming instead of carefully crafting your message in a way it was simply factually correct - at the best of your abilities- you turned yourself from being simply wrong to an "unrepentant asshole"
  - does unhealthy mean "a label we use to describe things that cross some arbitrary threshold of having deleterious effects"? no. The fact that we can measure the effect is the textbook of being "not an opinion" but a measure. If the measure is proved consistent in multiple experiments, we have a model (a proved theory).
  - unhealthy means not healthy, it doesn't mean it will kill you on the spot. Is drinking healthy? no, it's not. Is it unhealthy? yes, it is, alcohol is a poison for our body. Will it kill you? You will probably die for other causes before it will, but it could.
  - how many people die every year because are forced into an unhealthy vegan diet having no other choice? millions (AKA "still too many"). I'll post you the facts, you can make up your opinion about them, but they will be facts at the end of the day.
  Worldwide, an estimated 852 million people were undernourished in 2000–2002, with most (815 million) living in developing countries.5 The absolute number of cases has changed little over the last decade. However, while China had major reductions in its number of cases of protein– energy malnutrition during this period, this was balanced by a corresponding increase in the rest of the developing world.5 In children, protein–energy malnutrition is defined by measurements that fall below 2 standard deviations under the normal weight for age (underweight), height for age (stunting) and weight for height (wasting).6 Wasting indicates recent weight loss, whereas stunting usually results from chronic weight loss. Of all children under the age of 5 years in developing countries, about 31% are underweight, 38% have stunted growth and 9% show wasting.3 Protein– energy malnutrition usually manifests early, in children between 6 months and 2 years of age and is associated with early weaning, delayed introduction of complementary foods, a low-protein diet and severe or frequent infections.13,16,28 Table 1 shows the geographic distribution of protein– energy malnutrition among young children in developing countries.5
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1180662/