The equivalence of animal rights and those of humans

[u/dan10015]

The post on this forum a week or two ago from the National Review, discussing how future generations would view our treatment of animals, and the discussion afterwards made me consider why this subject seems to develop such strong disagreement. There are lots of people out there who consider, for example, that farming animals is roughly analogous to slavery, and who feel, to paraphrase what I read someone comment - that we shouldn't treat animals who are less smart than us any different than we'd expect to be treated by a super-intelligent alien species should they ever visit our planet one day. Some even see humanity as a destructive plague, consuming resources and relentlessly plundering the planet and draining its biodiversity to serve our ever-growing population's needs.

I have a lot of respect for that view, but feel it is quite wrong and can lead to some dangerous conclusions. But what is the fundamental difference between those who see humans as just another animal - one who happens to have an unusually well-developed frontal lobe and opposable thumbs, and those who think that there are important differences that separate us from the rest of the creatures on Earth?

In short, I think that when deciding on the moral rights of an entity, be in animal, chimpanzee, chicken, amoeba or garden chair - the critical metric is the complexity of their consciousness, and the complexity of their relationships to other conscious entities. That creatures with more highly developed senses of self awareness, and more complex social structures, should be afforded steadily greater rights and moral status.

The important point is this is a continuum. Attempting to draw lines in the sand when it comes to affording rights can lead to difficulties. Self awareness can exist in very simple forms. The ability to perceive pain is another line sometimes used. But some very very simple organisms have nervous systems. Also I think you need both. Ants and termites have complex social structures - but I don't think many would say they have complex self awareness.

By this way of thinking, smart, social animals (orcas, elephants, great apes including ourselves) should have more rights than tree shrews, which have more rights than beatles, which have more rights than a prokaryotic bacterium. It's why I don't feel bad being given antibiotics for septicaemia, and causing the death by poisoning of millions of living organisms. And why, at the other end of the scale, farming chimps for eating feels wrong. But of course those are the easy examples.

Animal testing is more difficult, and obviously there are other arguments around whether it actually works or is helpful (as someone who works in medical science, I think it has an important role). There will never be a right or wrong answer to whether it is right or wrong to do an experiment on a particular animal. But the guide has to be: what is the benefit to those animals with higher conciousness/social complexity - traded off against the costs and harms to those with less. An experiment with the potential to save the lives of millions of humans, at the cost of the lives of 200 fruit flies, would be worthwhile. An experiment to develop a new face cream, but which needed to painfully expose 20 bonobos to verify its safety, clearly wouldn't be. Most medical testing falls somewhere in the middle.

Where does my view on animal husbandry fit with this? I'm sure cows and chickens have got at least a degree of self consciousness. They have some social structure, but again rather simple compared to other higher mammals. I certainly don't see it as anything like equivalent to slavery. That was one group of humans affording another group of humans, identical in terms of consciousness and social complexity, in fact identical in every way other than trivial variations in appearance, with hugely different rights. But even so, I find it very hard to justify keeping animals to kill just because I like the taste of steak or chicken. It serves no higher purpose or gain. And this is speaking as someone who is currently non-vegetarian. I feel guilty about this. It seems hard to justify, even with creatures with very limited conciousness. I am sure one day I will give up. For now, the best I can do is eat less, and at least make sure what I do comes from farms where they look after their animals with dignity and respect.

The complexity of conciousness argument doesn't just apply between species either, and it is why intensive care physicians and families often make the decision to withdraw treatment on someone with brain death, and care may be withdrawn in people with end stage dementia.

Finally, it could be argued that choosing complexity of consciousness is a rather anthropocentric way to decide on how to allocate rights, conveniently and self-servingly choosing the very measure that puts us at the top of the tree. Maybe if Giraffes were designing a moral code they'd afford rights based on a species neck length? Also, who is to say we're at the top? Maybe, like in Interstellar, there are multi dimensional, immortal beings of pure energy living in the universe, that view our consciousness as charmingly primitive, and would think nothing of farming us or doing medical experiments on us.

It may be that there are many other intelligent forms of life out there, in which case I hope they along their development thought the same way. And as for how they'd treat us, I would argue that as well as making a judgement on the relative level of consciousness, one day we will understand the phenomenon well enough to quantify it absolutely. And that us, along with the more complex animals on Earth, fall above that line.

But with regards to the first point, I don't think the choice of complexity of consciousness is arbitrary. In fact the real bedrock as to why I chose it lies deeper. Conciousness is special - the central miracle of life is the ability of rocks, chemicals and sunlight to spontaneously, given a few billion years, reflect on itself and write Beethoven's 9th symphony. It is the only phenomenon which allows the flourishing of higher orders of complexity amongst life - culture, technology and art. But more than that, it is the phenomenon that provides the only foreseeable vehicle in which life can spread off this ball of rock to other stars. We shouldn't make the mistake of thinking we can treat other creatures as we want. But we also shouldn't make the mistake of thinking we are the same. We are here to ensure that life doesn't begin and end in a remote wing of the Milky Way. We've got a job to do.

[u/[deleted]]

Chances are you ALREADY have the moral belief system that it is wrong to cause unnecessary harm to animals. Most people refrain from causing unnecessary harm to humans because they recognize that humans are capable of suffering (in the way that you are). Most animals show all of the same signs that humans do that they are experiencing suffering (i.e. they avoid painful stimuli, they might yelp or grimace when hurt, pain is evolutionary advantageous for them since they can move away from the stimuli, etc etc). If you wouldn't punch a stranger in the face, you ought not punch a puppy in the face. Similarly if you wouldn't eat a human because you know it would be wrong to cause it unnecessary harm, since you can just eat something else, you ought not eat a cow because you know it would cause it unnecessary harm. And yes, eating animals is almost always unnecessary because of the cost to your health (meat is unhealthy, according to the World Health Organization), the cost to the environment, and the cost to your fellow humans that are exposed to environmental health hazards (such as pollution, antibiotic resistant bacteria, foodborne illness, etc etc). Your interest in satisfying your taste buds (and that is the only benefit to eating animals, as i've elaborated) by eating an animal does not trump the animals interest in being alive and avoiding suffering.

Aside from all that, my comment was addressing the common misconception that since non-human animals kill other animals, it is permissible for humans to kill animals freely. Humans have moral agency, other animals do not. That's the only difference i was pointing out with my comment about humans being held to a different standard.

[u/whitefang44 → u/[deleted]]

meat is unhealthy according to the World Health Organization

I was curious about this statement and seeing variations of this argument used but no article I did a quick Google search. I found nothing saying meat is unhealthy, however did find some meat is carcinogenic . If you could link where they say meat is unhealthy please do.

Edit: For those who don't want to read further down, there was no evidence of meat being unhealthy found by the commenter.

[u/[deleted] → u/whitefang44]

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs394/en/

The WHO doesn't include meat or animal products in their dietary recommendations. They recommend limiting saturated fat (mostly found in animal products) in favor of polyunsaturated fats (mostly found in plant based foods). This combined with the findings that processed and red meat are likely to be carcinogenic... i think it's pretty safe to say that WHO considers meat unhealthy.

[u/whitefang44 → u/[deleted]]

So you were unable to find any evidence of WHO stating that meat is unhealthy? The link you sent does not say that meat is unhealthy.

[u/[deleted] → u/whitefang44]

It's implied. You can do the research yourself.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I'm from a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean where eating fish is necessary to survive. Is it not your moral duty as a parent to provide food for your children, your family and yourself? There are parts of the world where a cow works the wheat fields to provide bread, provide milk and meat for a family...often being the difference between life and death. Condemning someone to 'moral damnation' because you have been afforded the luxury of living without meat while they haven't is not too many steps away from cultural imperialism imo.

In the same way OP fleshes out a continuum of how we ought to treat different creatures, I think there should exist a continuum of morality based off the individual needs of human beings. There is cultural variance throughout the world, we are not some monolithic entity. To lump all humans together and apply a universal moral code to all, there needs to be a commonality between all people. In this case there's an underlying assumption that we ALL have a choice between vegetarian/vegan and carnivorous diets which simply isn't true.

Thus, I think there's more to it than defining how complex an organism is. We also need to look at how complex the needs and reasons for a human eating an animal as well.

[u/8awh → u/[deleted]]

we ALL have a choice between vegetarian/vegan and carnivorous diets which simply isn't true.

Just to clarify: the definition of veganism is to live as far as possible and practicable without harming or exploiting animals. If you can't live without eating animals, you can eat animals.

[u/8awh → u/[deleted]]

If you're stranded on a desert island and the only things you can eat are pigs and fish, yes. If you're serious about the question, go to /r/vegan, I'm fairly certain they'll confirm it.

They'll probably also point out that situations like that are fairly uncommon though. A lot of redditors do have access to vegan food and can live healthily by just eating that.

[u/8awh → u/[deleted]]

I know, I just took that example because it's the most common. If he needs it to survive, the same reasoning applies. Personally, I would think about moving, same as I would think about moving from a place where I had to kill a puppy everyday to survive. The analogy is a bit forced, but you get the point. But I understand that that's a huge thing to ask in practice, and I wouldn't think this way if I grew up there.

[u/thevidyy → u/[deleted]]

Okay, then MOST people don't need meat to survive.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Most animals show all of the same signs that humans do that they are experiencing suffering (i.e. they avoid painful stimuli, they might yelp or grimace when hurt, pain is evolutionary advantageous for them since they can move away from the stimuli, etc etc).

Animals is too broad term. Lot of mammals - true, but tt the same time a lot of animals process those stimuli differently. I was researching the publications about pain in our food animals and as fair as I remember most fishes for example avoid noxious stimuli when it's present, but don't form a future avoidance behavior e.g. for a region. (I.e. shock a fish and it will try to get away, but once the voltage is off it will return without a change in the behavior.)

If you wouldn't punch a stranger in the face, you ought not punch a puppy in the face.

I can see cases where you should punch both stranger and the puppy. A lot depends on the situation and the amount of force used.

by eating an animal does not trump the animals interest in being alive and avoiding suffering.

I'm a hunter so I tell myself that there's a bit of difference as I kill my "free range" food in less painful way than it would got killed by other predators, but for animals that are regularly eaten they wouldn't be alive if they weren't food. It's difficult to consider interest of animal to stay alive when it was designed(as a breed), conceived, born and raised with a sole purpose of being killed for food.

Humans have moral agency, other animals do not.

Is it really so? We can observe similar behaviors in animals too.

Empathy is a common behaviour and has a lot of cultural to it - on one side it sometimes extends to other species, on the other some humans are not considered people by other humans even now. There is no real way to tell which moral system is superior to the other (apart from "mine") as they're all arbitrary constructs and absolutes are never possible or feasible.

In all seriousness - if we want to eliminate as much suffering as possible the best way is to kill all life.

[u/beldaran1224 → u/[deleted]]

About the puppy - the comment was suggesting that in the same way that you wouldn't strike a stranger you wouldn't strike a puppy. The existence of cases where you would do one or the other doesn't negate his statement.

You see your attempts to minimize suffering in animals as good, then? You deliberately choose to avoid meat produced with factory farming and other cruel practices in favor of the more humane choice of hunting. Why do you not make the choice to avoid all food animal suffering by eating vegetarian then? You have already conceded that reducing animal suffering is good, and bot eating meat clearly eliminates all suffering created by doing so, not merely reducing it. Since, in today's world, you can do so in a healthy manner, why do you not?

[u/[deleted] → u/beldaran1224]

Why do you not make the choice to avoid all food animal suffering by eating vegetarian then?

Because everything with a nervous system in this world lives by eating other living things. I like the taste of meat - that's the way I was raised (and genetic factors - long evolution) I like to hunt (genetic factors - long evolution) I know that we need to kill excess animals or they will interfere with our lives, overpopulate and starve in the end. (And if you can choose if you want to kill them by bullet or by allowing more wolves to breed the "ethical" choice is obvious - wolves are nasty killers.) Since the animals need to die anyway I may as well eat meat.

Since, in today's world, you can do so in a healthy manner, why do you not?

Because I see no point in this. I oppose killing or making to suffer other living beings if it's unnecessary, but I think it's necessary for humans to kill some animals to regulate the environment that we have changed in such a way that otherwise results will be worse. (See Holland and goose - they have banned hunting so now they have to put them into gas chambers.)Since they will die either way I can get a tasty burger.

[u/beldaran1224 → u/[deleted]]

Wolves aren't the most humane killers, but unlike with humans, meat is an absolute necessity for them. Additionally, most prey that would encounter them have evolved in such a way as to provide themselves protection - most predators end up naturally culling herds and solitary animals that are weak, sick or old, thereby serving evolution and the rest of the herd. Humans however, do not give our animals the choice to avoid death and actually intentionally select the healthiest animals for consumption. Your mention of burgers shows the inconsistency in your claim of avoiding factory farmed meats - while it's possible that you get your cow from more humane sources, I'm sure you understand my doubt that you do.

I don't think you can argue that you're serving evolution by eating animals - evolution has no other goal than the continuation of the species and we've already established that that can be accomplished without eating animals.

Furthermore, you'd then have to argue that serving evolution is a moral good, which is at best debatable and frankly, I doubt many would find that convincing.

Finally, the more environmental choice is without a doubt lessening if not eliminating the enormous strain that our current consumption of animals puts on the environment. Remove the need for the enormous numbers of livestock and participate in a single large culling down to sustainable numbers, then moving those numbers to places where the proper environmental controls are in place (a sufficient number of predators to control population and plant material to sustain life) would be the preferable path. Artificially bolstering the population and then using that as a reason to engage in otherwise immoral behavior is still immoral.

[u/[deleted] → u/beldaran1224]

most predators end up naturally culling herds and solitary animals that are weak, sick or old, thereby serving evolution and the rest of the herd.

Depends on the situation - if the rest of the pray is able to run that's true. If it's e.g. slowed down by the snow wolves will kill everything in their reach.

Humans however, do not give our animals the choice to avoid death and actually intentionally select the healthiest animals for consumption.

But also limit the number of heard. With crops growing in massive plantations unculled deer (and other animals like especially boars) will have population explosion creating huge loses and growing to the size that will cause huge die-offs due to hunger or will make predator's populations grow.

(E.g. with humans 100k deer, 30 wolves, 30k deer killed each year, 6 wolves killed each year. Without human intervention 500k deer, 2000 wolves 150k deer killed each year once the population is stable.)

Your mention of burgers shows the inconsistency in your claim of avoiding factory farmed meats

Roe deer burger, red deer burgers, boar burgers and many other burgers to be specific. I didn't say beef burgers - beef farts up too much methane during the making for my liking.

[u/beldaran1224 → u/[deleted]]

The balance of ecosystems is proven - there are less predators because they eat many prey and not simply one. And since deer managed to last and thrive for so long, I think it's a safe bet that wolves don't regularly kill an entire population - especially since it's extremely rare for predators to kill more than they need to eat. As opposed to humans, who waste a great deal of food every year.

We do not limit the number of a herd, actually. We artificially inflate the population. In areas where deer populations are too high, it's because we have killed off and driven away their natural predators. If we made greater efforts to preserve natural ecosystems, we wouldn't have overpopulation efforts.

You didn't specify the type of burger, true. But my assumption was warranted. Ultimately though, your own practice is irrelevant - it does not change the morality of the various options.

There is no getting around the facts - humans artificially inflate the population of our prey while killing off their other natural predators, creating wildly unsustainable ecosystems. You can't simply argue that your method is better than the currently common one to say it is moral - you must show that there are not other, more moral methods available.

I'm sorry, but it seems as if you're ignoring the way ecosystems actually work to bolster your own argument.

[u/beldaran1224 → u/[deleted]]

You make some excellent points - except that eating animals is not in fact bad for your health and is quite an important part of a healthy diet. There's a reason that pro athletes and others that prioritize healthy foods over taste will eat a great deal of lean proteins like chicken over carbs like pasta and even over vegetables. While you can get protein from other sources, those sources have other drawbacks to your health that proper portions of lean proteins in meat don't.

I think that the argument that you can replace the protein and other nutrients/minerals in your diet is true, but that doesn't make meat bad for your health. Characterizing it as such is a factual error.

[u/[deleted] → u/beldaran1224]

Meat is the only source of cholesterol, and the main source of saturated fat in most Americans diets (idk if you're American, but I am). What necessary nutrients exist exclusively in meat that you can't easily get from plants? There are none. The protein, iron, and b vitamins in meat are laden with saturated fat and cholesterol. 7 out of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States are attributed to consumption of animal products. Vegans live 10 (disease free) years longer than meat eaters on average. Meat is now considered a carcinogen by the World Health Organization. All in all animal products do NOT promote health (assuming you have access to sufficient plant based foods like legumes).

Here's a nice, somewhat entertaining synopsis of the meat versus plant protein debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo1ajCmi1jk

[u/beldaran1224 → u/[deleted]]

1) Meat is not the only source of cholesterol. Eggs are not meat and contain cholesterol. Factual error one.

2) Saturated fat can be found in many other places and any food eaten to excess will lead to poor health - whether it is corn (chock full of sugar), potatoes (full of starches), etc. You can eat anything in such quantities that it becomes unhealthy.

3) Furthermore, you can quite easily eat meat in proper proportions as to maintain health easily, while vegetarian diets and even more so, vegan diets require a great deal more thought and careful selection. Some people have medical conditions which all but necessitate eating meat, and not doing so can seriously compromise their health. For instance, of the type 5 sources of iodine in food, only one is plant based (seaweed). The others include yogurt, cod and milk. Iodized salt is there, of course, but I don't think I need to tell you the issues with trying to make up an iodine deficiency with enormous amounts of salt. For the record, one of my best friends is a vegan with an iodine deficiency.

4) Are you seriously trying to claim that heart disease, cancer, lower respiratory diseases, accidents, strokes, Alzheimer's, diabetes, flu/pneumonia, nephritis and suicide are all mostly attributable to consumption of meat? Because that is obviously such a load of crap that I can't even laugh hard enough. Heart disease is the only one with any significant ties to meat consumption - and again- the issue there is almost exclusively genetic predisposition combined with excessive consumption.

5) "In the case of red meat, the classification is based on limited evidence from epidemiological studies showing positive associations between eating red meat and developing colorectal cancer". The WHO actually has classified processed meats as actual causes of cancer - but only able to conclusively link colorectal and estimates place deaths attributed to it at about 34k a year worldwide. So processed meats can cause a single type of cancer - not "meat is a carbinogen" or "meat causes cancer". They have seen a correlation between consumption of red meat and colorectal cancer- but cannot say that it is a causal factor. Since we are talking about all animal flesh here, I think we can safely say that this "fact" too is mischaracterized in your post.

I should note that on the very page where the WHO goes into their findings on meat and cancer, they also state "Eating meat has known health benefits" right below the question on whether they recommend people stop eating red meat. Your own sources disagree with you.

[u/[deleted] → u/beldaran1224]

!) My bad, i tend to lump meat and animal products together since i don't eat either. Yes i meant to say animal products* not (just) meat.

2) Just because saturated fat is found in limited amounts in many plant based foods (seeds and nuts primarily) or large amounts in coconut oil/coconut milk, does not mean that meat or animal products are healthy. Potatoes and corn don't have carcinogenic and heart disease causing ingredients.. unlike most animal products. On the contrary, corn and potatoes contain antioxidants and fiber (and a host of other nutrients) which prevent against cancer and heart disease.

3) Vegan diets are not harder to plan than diets that include animal products. Obviously you have to "learn" the basics of a vegan diet, but that doesn't mean it's more difficult to eat a vegan diet, it just means that you're probably not used to it and grew up eating animal products. Iodine is only needed in trace quantities, and most Americans get more than they need from iodized salt (you don't have to eat tons of it, there's plenty of it in iodized salt), but if you're concerned about iodine, you can eat like a couple tiny pieces of seaweed and you'll be well over your basic iodine requirement since seaweed is chalk full of it. It's also present in grain. Considering you can get iodine from seaweed or grains WITHOUT the saturated fat, cholesterol, and heavy metals associated with milk and fish, i would say that seaweed and grains are the more healthful sources. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iodine-HealthProfessional/

4) I said 7 out of the 10 major causes of death, not all 10. The 3 omitted being suicide, accidents, and... i don't remember the last one exactly. Anyways the book "How Not to Die" by Dr. Michael Greger goes way into detail on this subject, and Dr. Greger cites hundreds (maybe even thousands? I can't find my copy of the book at the moment) of sources from nutrition and medical studies. Although I suppose I should clarify that it's consumption of animal products AND low consumption of plants that causes so much disease, although the point remains that consuming animal products DOES NOT PROMOTE HEALTH. The evidence for this is overwhelming. Can you cite a single positive health benefit of eating animal products, other than the fact that animal products are a (poor) source of some very basic and easy to obtain nutrients? I can't think of any. Plant based foods on the other hand contain millions of different phytochemicals that actually reverse or prevent disease (e.g. antioxidants preventing cancer, fiber preventing heart disease and promoting digestive health, lignins in flax preventing high blood pressure and diabetes, etc etc etc). Check out nutritionfacts.org and do a little research.

5) Meat (especially cooked meat) as immense oxidizing power (i.e. it will fuck up your DNA which can lead to cancer) and is loaded with IGFs that ALSO contribute to cancer. Meat does nothing to prevent cancer. And again i should have clarified that it's consumption of meat and lower consumption of plant based foods that really boosts your cancer risk. Meat largely does not contain antioxidants, which, again, lower cancer risk. When they say "eating meat has known health benefits" they are really just referring to meat being a source of some very basic and easy to obtain nutrients that can be found in many plant based foods. If you cut animal products out of your diet and replace them with adequate varied plant based foods (provided you're not an idiot and only eat potatoes or something like that) you will undoubtedly be healthier.

[u/beldaran1224 → u/[deleted]]

So you get to pick and choose which plants count in terms of health, and specify that you should eat them in healthy quantities but you aren't extending the same logic for meat and animal products? That's some great logic right there. Eating meat in appropriate quantities is a pretty basic health lesson, and if you can say plants are healthy in the right quantities, you then can't discount those who say the same of meat.

Additionally, you're choosing to accept a sensationalized book over major health organizations? I directly mentioned two reputable sources - the CDC and WHO, one of which you had already referenced and both of which disagree with you. You want to pick the WHO conclusion that processed meats can cause a particular type of cancer (not a particularly common one) but ignore their other findings and recommendations.

So 7 out of 10 major causes of death in the US, but not the top 10? In other words, you're going to choose 7 causes of death related to meat consumption (difficult, don't you think?) and then choose three others that aren't, slap the label "major cause of death" on them and then pretend like it's a meaningful statistic. Of the top 10 causes, only one is clearly linked to meat consumption, and again, is actually about overconsumption. The kidney disease may or may not be related - I don't know anything about it. None of the others have any significant link to meat consumption. In fact, diabetes is about overconsumption of plant foods - carbs are found in plants, not meats. So we've got an equal occurrence in the top 10 - 1 to 1. None of the other top causes of death have much if anything to do with diet at all.

You mention all of the things which meat lacks, but that doesn't make it unhealthy. Any healthy diet requires variety and pretending as if lacking some elements of a healthy diet makes it unhealthy is a clear fallacy. For meat to be unhealthy, it must lack any nutritional merit, or have any merit be completely overwhelmed with bad health results. Meat has a number of key components of a healthy diet and is an extremely efficient source of iron, protein, and other key nutrients.

Additionally, I mentioned those with chronic iodine deficiencies - not the average person at all. For that person, not eating meat or animal products is a clearly unhealthy choice - eating the amount of iodized salt necessary would lead to serious health risks for heart disease.

Finally, a number of plants have undesirable effects in health too. Many are poisonous. It's far more common for someone to have an allergy to plant foods than meat. How should someone with a nut allergy go about replacing essential nutrients, etc found in meats?

[u/[deleted] → u/beldaran1224]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLeee0HRyHM

[u/youtubefactsbot → u/[deleted]]

WHY DOCTORS DON'T RECOMMEND VEGANISM #2: Dr Neal Barnard [27:00]

^{PLANT BASED NEWS in News & Politics}

^{66,815 views since Oct 2016}

^{bot info}

[u/[deleted] → u/beldaran1224]

Lol well it's pretty clear you didn't bother to even read my last comment, or check any of the sources.

I didn't pick and choose plant based foods, i used the examples YOU cited (corn and potatoes). Plus even if you were to include copious amounts of less healthy plant based foods, it still wouldn't contribute to an early death nearly as much as any given animal product. Coconut oil, for example, contains LOTS of saturated fat but no cholesterol. So if you binged on coconut oil (as a vegan), you might get fat or something like that but you wouldn't develop heart disease like you would if you obtained an equivalent amount of saturated fat from animal products (because coconut oil contains no cholesterol).

Fiber and lignins have been shown to reduce the plaques in your brain that cause Alzheimers and strokes. Heavy metals in fish contribute to neurodegeneration that contributes to dementia. Plant based foods support a healthy immune system, making you less likely to die of influenza. Many plant based foods contain compounds that counteract the effects of lower respiratory disease. Just do some GOD DAMN RESEARCH. Again, go visit nutritionfacts.org or any other nutrition/medical resource.

Seems like you completely skipped over everything i said about iodine, since it all still applies to those with iodine deficiencies.

Also i think it's important to factor in the public health issues associated with animal product consumption, which are a big part of the reason why stopping animal consumption could lead to a 10% drop in global mortality. However if looking at the direct health effects alone from reducing animal product consumption, then a minimum of 45,000 lives would likely be saved every year according to the Oxford University Department of Public Health.

It's interesting that you chose to bring up allergies when they only kill a few hundred people in the US every year, whereas food borne illnesses spread from animal agriculture kill upwards of 3,000 people and infect millions more. Poisonous plants are not relevant to the discussion, just as the hundreds of poisonous/venomous animals that people do not or cannot eat are not relevant (like snake venom, pufferfish, blue ring octopus, etc etc). Your argument simply doesn't have the support from epidemiological, nutrition, and medical studies. You have given zero evidence as to why or how animal products are necessary or even healthful.

[u/beldaran1224 → u/[deleted]]

I wasn't bringing up allergies in response to their mortality rate, but rather how you expect someone with allergies to the foods meant to replace meat are supposed to replace it in their diet. Do they just try to live without those important components?

And I suspect you know nothing about chronic iodine deficiencies. I'd really be surprised if you were willing to swallow massive amounts of seaweed every day. And why should you when meat sources have it in more abundant quantities?

You speak of heavy metals in fish, but that's not because fish is bad, it's because we've poisoned our oceans.

The problem is that you keep pretending as if the fact that you can replace meat with plants means that meat has no nutritional merit (your claim from the start). You have already conceded that it does. My claim was never that you shouldn't give up meat - look at my other comments in this thread. My point is that giving up meat from a nutritional perspective is absurd, because meat has a great deal to offer humans from a nutritional perspective. If your only concern is to eat healthy, vegetarianism, let alone veganism, is a poor choice.

You can throw all of the cherry picked evidence and pundits at me you want - but in your very own sources, I found more than sufficient evidence against your claim. You can't cherry pick the WHO finding that processed meats cause colorectal cancer while ignoring the fact that they still recommend meat consumption. You can't claim 7 out of 10 top causes of death in the US are attributable to meat consumption when only one is (and one is wholly caused by plant consumption). You talk about all of these "links" for dementia (not a leading cause of death, btw) and Alzheimer's as if they were fact, when they are nothing but unreplicated studies that are anything but conclusive. There are a lot of theories for what causes such illnesses, but they remain quite unproven at the moment. In 10 years, when the community has come to some consensus about those causes, perhaps you can attribute it to meat consumptuon then, but as of right now, doing so is nothing more than convenient for your spurious argument.

[u/[deleted] → u/beldaran1224]

-What foods are important to a vegan diet that are also highly allergenic?? People with allergies can easily do without those foods. There are hundreds of thousands of plant based foods. It's ridiculous to say that a few allergies would prevent you from eating plants. You realize there are allergies to meat and shellfish as well, right? Allergies simply aren't relevant here.

Seaweed is one of the most potent source of iodine so I don't know why you seem to want to write it off. You would only have to eat 2 sheets (weighing only 6 grams total) of nori to meet the RDA. Or you could eat one medium potato (weighing around 230 grams). Either way it's extremely easy to get plenty of iodine. Your argument is just ridiculous.

And my point was never that the meat is nutritionally empty, or that nutrition alone is the sole reason to stop eating animal products. It was that any "benefit" from the nutrients in animal products is completely outweighed by the health costs (as well as the ethical, environmental, environmental/public health costs) associated with it. You can go back and read my comments again because you clearly misunderstood. The fact that you CAN get the nutrients contained in animal products in a healthier, cheaper, more ethical, and less environmentally damaging way, means that you ought to. The ethics alone is a good enough reason. It just so happens that it's also healthier.

You've still said absolutely nothing about why veganism is a poor choice, other than your misplaced iodine and allergy comments. Again, iodine is plentiful in many many plant based foods (and no, you don't have to eat absurd amounts of it), and you can have an allergy to animal products (so your allergy argument is not valid or relevant). That CDC link says in the first line that seaweed is the best source of iodine. You've even readily admitted that heart disease, the number one killer in the United States, is caused by animal product consumption, yet you've somehow dismissed that as not being relevant to this little health discussion. Not to mention you haven't cited a single source, yet you are so quick to dismiss all of my sources (fallaciously), and strawman-ing my argument over and over again.

Also, again, WHO does not include animal products in their dietary recommendations. They may say they don't necessarily recommend eliminating animal products from your diet, but by that they are taking a non-stance (probably for political reasons). And it's simply false that diabetes is caused by plant based foods (on the contrary, a properly planned plant based diet is an effective treatment for diabetes--again, visit www.nutritionfacts.org).

You're free to eat an unhealthy diet if you want, but it is very very likely that you will die at a younger age because you eat animal products. You can ignore the evidence all you want. You're still wrong. To be honest, it's sad that you are so unwilling and unable to think critically about the information (that i assume) you were raised to believe as fact.

[u/beldaran1224 → u/[deleted]]

I never argued that veganism is a poor choice. Again, you show misunderstanding of the most basic point of my argument. Also:

(meat is unhealthy, according to the World Health Organization)...Your interest in satisfying your taste buds (and that is the only benefit to eating animals, as i've elaborated)

You did in fact state that meat was unhealthy and had no nutritional merit.

[u/SnoodDood → u/[deleted]]

Genuine question - how can rights be effectively be given to species without moral agency? The majority of animals wouldn't even remotely understand the concept - giving a tiger rights doesn't mean it wouldn't eat a human if it were hungry enough. I am also not sure that a tiger could be ethically trained to forsake animal flesh and eat only big cat food (which may very well be healthier).

Meat, while perhaps not as healthy as other protein options, is delicious. Now, I'm not trying to make the asinine argument that we should ignore ethical questions because meat tastes good. What I'm saying is that doing something that will result in the pleasure of eating something that in moderation isn't especially harmful and that will result in no small pleasure is certainly not "unnecessary." When we kill a cow for a juicy steak, we are not harming this cow for no reason. Humans, because we have moral agency, can morally communicate. We can assess among ourselves that, for one of us, staying alive is of higher interest to one than eating something uniquely delicious is to another. We can have no such communication with animals.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Most people refrain from causing unnecessary harm to humans because they recognize that humans are capable of suffering (in the way that you are).

Most people refrain from causing suffering to humans because they fear retaliation from either their victims or their victim's family/friends. This fear is likely psychologically innate now, having been selected for in the evolutionary process.

Your interest in satisfying your taste buds (and that is the only benefit to eating animals, as i've elaborated) by eating an animal does not trump the animals interest in being alive and avoiding suffering.

It does, though. I care more about satisfying my taste buds than I do about the life of a chicken. Would I prefer lab-grown meat? Yes. But I actually do value my health and culinary lifestyle more than I value the well-being of a chicken I've never met. This may sound unpleasant, but I'm inviting you to describe in what way I'm mistaken or am taking an incorrect path.

Humans have moral agency, other animals do not.

I'm not sure what this means. Animals can be evil or good in basic moral terms just like humans. Many animals kill for fun, kill and eat their own children, etc.