Comment by lgkk

Saturated fat from beef is one of the healthiest things to consume.

Which organs are you referring to?

In a society where these diets buck the norm, I expect some of this effect is just from paying more attention to what one eats. It's a major mechanism behind lots of restrictive diets working for weight loss—paying more attention to food helps all on its own.

I bet there are people out there who eat semi-vegetarian diets basically by accident, who wouldn't think to label themselves semi-vegetarian, and that the beneficial effect is less pronounced among them.

I bet people on carnivore diet are less fat also. The key variable is “caring about your diet”, not whether or not you are eating plants or animals.

I'm not listening to a "scientific article" written by someone who doesn't know the difference between less and fewer.

https://bmcnutr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40795-02...

“In conclusion, our study showed that many vegan diets in the present survey failed to meet the daily protein intake requirements, both on single days and on all three days. Furthermore, the diets were particularly limited by the essential amino acids lysine, the sulphur-containing amino acids, leucine and valine.”

For a vegan who has a sedentary lifestyle, the problem is not getting appropriate amounts of amino-acids from the food, but getting them without eating so much as to cause a rapid gain of weight.

Lean meat provides proteins with very little of anything else, so it is extremely easy to choose a menu providing enough proteins but not too much energy.

Among vegetable products, only the seeds contain decent amount of proteins (this includes the cereals and the legumes), but all seeds contain much more of either carbohydrates or fats than proteins.

There are vegetable protein extracts aimed at vegans, but I do not consider those as an acceptable solution, because they are several times more expensive than meat, so it is likely that their environmental impact, due to the consumption of energy and chemicals for the protein extraction is greater than that of meat. Chicken meat is only about twice more expensive than legumes like peas, lentils or beans, so it is not easy to find a method of protein extraction from vegetables that can compete with that.

In Europe, where I live, there exists only one method that I am aware of that can be used to obtain enough proteins in a vegan diet with no more than 2000 kcal/day, when paying no more than for a chicken meat-based diet, which is to get more than half of the proteins from wheat flour from which the starch is removed at home by washing the dough made of it.

Any vegan diet that does not use some method of protein extraction would lead to a daily intake of around 3000 kcal when providing enough proteins for a healthy male, which is acceptable only for someone who does heavy physical work, but not for someone who works by sitting in the front of a computer.

Regarding the amino-acid balance, 167 g/day of lentils can provide enough of each essential amino-acid for a 75-kg human, with the exception of methionine. Similarly 500 g/day of wheat flour can provide enough of each essential amino-acid for a 75-kg human, with the exception of lysine.

If only wheat flour would be the source of proteins 1000 g per day would be needed to provide all essential amino-acids, but that alone would provide about 3500 kcal. If only lentils would be the source of proteins, about 600 g per day would be needed to provide all essential amino-acids, but that alone would provide about 1900 kcal (and eating so much lentils per day would be more expensive than eating chicken meat).

Combining wheat flour with lentils can satisfy the amino-acid requirements with much more reasonable quantities, but the daily intake of calories remains too high, unless most of the starch (i.e. about 75% of the starch) is removed from the wheat flour.

>There are over a billion people that don't eat meat by choice on the planet and another billion plus that have low access to animal protein.

That's not evidence that they're healthier for it.

Well, worms and insects

I clicked on a few at random. I saw vegetarianism "with comprehensive lifestyle changes" in one case. "Well-planned" vegan meals compared to a standard (less planned) omnivore diet in another.

Obviously, physically active vegetarians who carefully consider their diet (and eat specifically balanced non-ultraprocessed food) compares well to 100% fast food eating couch potatoes. Also obviously, it's far easier to have a nutritional deficit with vegetarian food.

I have yet to see a study where vegetarianism is just imposed with no other guidance. If you have one, I would love to see it.

Associated != causal

Most people who are vegan are more likely to be health conscious

Plant-based diets are much healthier, but only for those who are careful to also take a relatively large number of supplements containing the minerals that do not exist in plants or which exist in too small quantities (iodine, selenium, calcium) and the vitamins, fatty acids and amino-acid derivatives that do not exist in plants and which either are not made by humans, or are made in insufficient quantities, especially at old age and especially in males (vitamins B12, D3, K2, DHA, EPA, creatine, taurine, choline).

Otherwise, there are plenty of studies that show that those vegans who neglect to take appropriate supplements have various health problems, e.g. osteoporosis or anemia.

I also have heard of many (and I know personally someone) who were forced to abandon the vegan diet after some time due to health problems, but it is very likely that all such problems have been caused by not taking a complete set of supplements, because most have heard only about B12, and that is not the only substance missing from plants.