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Indian food is saving so many lives (media.piefed.social)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/vegan@slrpnk.net
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[+] -8 points 6 months ago (15 children)

A reminder that easiest way to avoid becoming deficient, is a tiny amount of locally sourced fresh animal protein. Dont feel like you failed if you do. We are biologically evolved to need it. That is tough to avoid.

It certainly better than having to find the right suppliments that are ethically and sustainably produced.

Its also the best way to convince people to eat more sustainable and healthy. Not to become 100 vegetarians, but to become 95% vegetarians.

That is how we make the biggest improvement in the world.

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  • [–] 14 points 6 months ago (9 children)

    It's way more sustainable and ethical (and possibly healthier too) to take b12 supplements (even if they're not sustainably produced) than any amount of animal flesh (other than roadkill I guess).

    • b12 deficiency is widespread even among meat eaters
    • b12 is generally supplemented in animal feed or the animals themselves are supplemented. Skipping the middle man is clearly more sustainable.
    • If the animals are not supplemented, you can't know if you're avoiding deficiency. Furthermore a tiny amount of a vitamin (milligram or microgram order of magnitude) takes way fewer resources to produce than 500g of meat/fish.
    • no matter how "humanely" they treat the animals they still get killed, unlike with the supplement. For dairy and eggs the slaughter is more indirect but it is still a fact that animals in the industry end up getting killed.
    • In terms of sustainability, it doesn't matter that much if a product is local, the most impactful thing is the mode of production or the product itself (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-emissions-supply-chain)

    I agree with your overall point that from a population perspective it's way more practical and impactful to change as many diets as possible instead of focusing on changing diets to 100% plant-based. And I think we should focus on that, broader society interventions instead of advocating for individuals to change their diets.

    But if someone who reads this is facing the choice of taking a supplement versus some animal flesh, there is no ethical or sustainability grounds for choosing the flesh. Also probably no health grounds unless there are compounding issues (eg deficiency + allergies, interacting conditions, etc). I focused on B12 but this applies to many nutrients.

    It's just not true that a tiny amount of animal flesh will spare you deficiency. It's also not true that deficiencies are "tough to avoid" on a plant-based diet, especially protein deficiency.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (7 children)

    What the?? b12 deficiency is widespread even among meat eaters?

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    My doctor explained it like so: B12 is produced by bacteria that hang out in dirt. Us humans have largely stopped chewing on dirt directly, so for a while, it was advantageous to have that middleman of animals eating plants+dirt and then eating those animals or what comes out of them.

    But now it's becoming rarer for farm animals to chew on dirt, too, because they might never see a meadow and instead just get fed soy or corn or such, to bulk them up as quickly as possible.

    And so, yeah, she actually recommends B12 supplements to everyone. B12 is just consistently low in blood tests and well, she's also obviously not going to recommend chewing dirt when supplements are cheap and easy to get.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (4 children)

    It does still happen in countries where most of the meat is factory farmed like the USA.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    How does factory farming affect it?

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago*

    I was more referring to the defficiency resulting in poorer mental health outcomes, less so than the well understood nutritional defficiencies.

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2021.1974336#abstract

    Nutrition is a very complex topic and like with most things health related, we dont understand the full picture yet, and each person is slightly different. Some people might do we well abstaining from meat, others would not.

    I think the main message is that sustainability is a goal we should all strive for, but diet is a balance and not a religion. With moderation animal products may be neccesary and sustainable

    The sustainability picture will also differ greatly based on where you live. Meat may be impractical in your region due to factory farming and poor environmental regulations.

    Some eggs, milk or cheese from a real free range local farm might do better on the sustainability picture, than imported soy beans grown overseas on burned forests.

    We buy some mutton on occasion from a local solar power farm who keeps sheep to eat the grass that grows below the solar panels, rather than having to get commercial lawn mowers in. They have even partnered with the local veterinary school help with the health monitoring of the animals.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    (Unfertilized) eggs and dairy are minimally unethical and widely used in Indian food.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    Regarding the minimally unethical are you sure about that?

    Like do you know what happens to the male born chicks? Or what happens to the hens that stop giving eggs? Or in what conditions do they live? And about dairy, do you know what happens to male born calves? And what happens with the cow when she stops producing milk? And how the cow feels when their children are taken from her?

    My friend, eggs and dairy are even more brutal that meat industry, which they are the same industry by the way.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    It's very difficult to consume dairy without animals being killed, because cows need to be pregnant to produce milk, which has the side-effect of more cows. In industrial production, we're talking roundabout 5 calves over the lifetime of 1 milk cow. Those calves are not being kept around.
    You'd need to find a farmer that only milks their cows when they get pregnant naturally.

    With eggs, backyard chickens can be argued to be moral (given humane conditions). But industrial production involves male chicks being shredded and horrendous conditions for those that get to live.

    In either case, I'd consider a vegan diet with supplements so much easier.

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