Talk:Veganism

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[edit] Needs more on freeganism

Freeganism(Wikipedia link) goes beyond just "don't buy dead animals". It's more of an anti-consumerism pro-humanitarianism movement than a set of dietary rules. It goes beyond Veganism, also caring about the environment and treatment of workers. Also, according to that WP article, most Freegans don't eat or use animal products. Those who do are sometimes called "meagans" (meat+freegan). --Chupi 02:24, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

Dumpster diving as a philosophy? I'm there, living it, but not eating it! [more detail please] ħumanUser talk:Human 03:37, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Beekeeping vital?

I'm not going to take it out, but does anyone have a source on the idea of beekeeping being vital to agriculture? I've been looking and I can't find anything. Sake Fueled (talk) 22:28, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Have you been following the colony collapse disorder issue for the last few years? There are quite a few self- or wind-pollinated crops, but quite a lot more that still require bees to do the pollination. CCD is a problem because a lot of these crops require beekeepers with itinerant hives, which are the ones that are the worst affected by the problem, and feral bee populations simply aren't reliable enough to pollinate enough crops to feed everybody. (Then again, I'd have thought this was elementary school-level science that shouldn't need documentation because it's blindingly obvious.) EVDebs (talk) 00:20, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
I have observed immense variability in the local bees playing in some of my trees and shrubs over the years. If my cherry flowers early - which is predictable based on weather - they aren't around. Professional beekeepers are in high demand at flowering time for orchards, and many other crops. ħumanUser talk:Human 02:06, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

[edit] I thought...

...veganism was only about diet, just like vegetarianism, only that veganism did not allow any animals or animal products to be eaten. The Heidelberg Kid (talk) 00:13, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it could be both an entire lifestyle or just a diet depending on how dedicated you are. Sam Tally-ho! 00:14, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

AceModerator 00:18, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Meat Gives You Cancer/Is the reason why we aren't healthy.

There is an enormous amount of material devoted to how a diet that includes meat gives people cancer, and that humans aren't 'supposed' to eat meat. Much of it professes that the Western Diet is killing millions, playing off of fears of drugs, obesity, and cancer, and often (incorrectly) concludes returning to a 'whole-food plant-based diet' (another way to say veganism that doesn't contain Green Panic) as the solution. This diet is incorrectly associated with Asian countries, playing the 'we are stupid white man and the wisdom of ancient eastern peasants is exotic and therefore better than us' card. I recently had the displeasure of seeing a documentary called Forks over Knives, which was basically MADE of this tripe, supported by the findings of two scientists that make it look more legit. However, the documentary misrepresents their work on a pretty shocking level, yet I hear people repeating ideas just like it all the time. For a good debunking of such tripe, here's a very thorough and reputable blog that does it. ±Knightoftldrsig.pngKnightOfTL;DRgarrulous en guerre 17:24, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Mmmm, tripe. Redchuck.gif ГенгисIs the Pope a Catholic?Moderator 08:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Refs

Can anyone fix reference #4? I can't see what's screwing up the formatting. Redchuck.gif ГенгисIs the Pope a Catholic?Moderator 08:47, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Done. There was a hard line-break in the text. rpeh •TCE 08:55, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Milk and cancer

Apparently, drinking milk can increase your risk of developing prostate cancer. Can anyone confirm this?--Krejtalk 03:30, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

The Mayo Clinic is a pretty reputable source, and the claim you mention is already clarified and put in perspective in the article. The relevant text states that "In studies, men who ate the most dairy products — such as milk, cheese and yogurt — each day had the highest risk of prostate cancer." Remember that correlation does not imply causation, and the article goes on to state that "study results have been mixed, and the risk associated with dairy products is thought to be small." There you go. Also note that there are many potential risk factors associated with all cancers, including prostate cancer. The article you cite is just giving a list of general recommendations and is very open and honest about the strength of each claim and the proportion of each potential risk. Based on the presentation of the evidence and facts in the article, I'd say anyone trying to use the dairy claim or similar claims relating to prostate cancer (or really any cancer, as none of the reputable sources I've found have assigned diet anything beyond a complementary role in cancer prevention, instead giving general advice such as eating more fruits and vegetables) as a fear tactic to push some special diet or scare you out of consuming a particular food is either misinformed or a charlatan. The One They Call Mars (talk) 17:16, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

[edit] No animals were harmed?

Plenty of animals would continue to be harmed indefinitely, even following an overnight worldwide vegan switch-over. Habitat destruction, pollution (fertilizer runoff, for starters), pest control (whether with chemicals, traps, domestic animals [like our favorite invasive species -kitties] or firearms), farm implements shredding everything from arthropods to baby deer, etc.. Veganism totally rules if you're a livestock species, but it doesn't do you much good if you're not. That's not to say it's not a better choice than blindly eating tons of whatever, but to say no animals were harmed is way false. No livestock was harmed? Sure.

Shane8005 (talk) 07:10, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Keep in mind that producing food from animals also generally require a lot more land than producing plant food such that the number of wild animals being harmed by growing crops is also minimized by a vegan diet. Kamizushi (talk) 04:19, 16 January 2014 (UTC)


Thought I jump in here - I'll put my bias out front as I'm a Canadian livestock farmer and obviously have a interest on one side of this topic, but important to note many of the farmers I' know have wrestled with these ethical issues and still end up raising animals. The ethical lines are not as clear as some think. Land use is a good example. Livestock are often grazed on marginal land while better quality land is reserved for crops. My farm demonstrates this. Of the 600 acres we farm, 400 are used for grazing sheep and 200 are used for crops. The crop land is mostly class 1 and class 2 agricultural land while the 400 grazing acres are class 4 to class 6. By just looking at these raw values, I have twice as much land in livestock as crops; however, the poorer quality land would never sustain any crop product and really can only produce food by allow some sort of ruminant to harvest forages. However, to get enough forage off marginal land, you need to graze a lot of it and as a result, acreage devoted to livestock tends to get pushed up and when compared directly to crop land, will always look larger. You would need to compare crop use vers livestock use on identical classes of agricultural land to get any meaningful values and even then it would be hard to create a fair comparison – for example, a really wet year might drown out my crops but would favor grass growth, thus creating a bias towards the livestock, while in other years the opposite would be true.

Unfortunately, the information well has been so poisoned by questionable data on both sides of this issue that even with a lot of first-hand experience, I find it hard to figure exactly where to draw the ethical lines. — Unsigned, by: Loliver / talk / contribs 18:24 (UTC) 2014 Feb 2

[edit] Criticisms

There is a real disconnect between the tone of "claims", and the tone of "criticism". In claims, there is a tone of authority that this diet "for sure" lowers all these things like cholesterol. We aren't saying "the claim is that they do", but really saying they do. Then in criticism, we jump into this wishy washy "well... it might have some benefit". I know little to nothing about the bennies and risks of veganism, but we aught to figure out if we think it's good, bad, or don't have an opinion. cause right now, we have all three in one article.Green mowse.pngGodot The ablity to breath is such an overrated ability 16:24, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't like the use of the word 'all' in the current version of this section. I suggest cutting both instances of the word, since it requires a rather extreme amount of confidence to use. Nullahnung (talk) 17:15, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
This conversation is a year old but I agree and went ahead and did it. I also added that they "can" have "some" health benefits, because a poorly balanced vegan diet doesn't seem likely to produce overall health benefits.--The General talk to me 02:38, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
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