Ed Winter is a famous animal rights activist. Like so many other city-dwelling millennials, he suddenly got the epiphany that chicken nuggets are disgusting, animals are cute, and it is not pleasant to see them suffer. He quickly took the now quite common path: meat-eater to vegetarian to vegan to animal rights activist. He has thousands of followers on social media and has probably encouraged numerous people to reconsider what they eat. Kudos to him!
I have had his Ted talk on my Youtube playlist for several weeks. On multiple occasions, I´ve started watching it. But after only a few seconds, I feel like vomiting in my mouth. And it is not due to the cruelty he talks about: it's him. I'm sure Earthling Ed, as he calls himself online, is very persuasive for some, but for me, his charm creates the opposite reaction. The day will come when I have to decide whether to put my dog to sleep. My dog means the world to me, and it will be a heartbreaking decision to make. Earthling Ed will give me the strength I need. Not sure why but listening to him awakens the Neanderthalian animal killer in me.
What initially made me allergic to this vegan Messaiah was when he claimed that humans are not supposed to eat meat. The claim on its own did not bother me, but the evidence he presented undoubtedly did. He explained that none of his city-dwelling audience members could kill a full-grown pig with their bare hands and eat the uncooked meat and inner organs. Therefore, we are herbivores. These are the kind of arguments that I feel are incredibly counterproductive for the vegan cause.
A world-famous blogger (me) once defined this as taking the debate into La-la-land. This means that the discussion dives into a rabbit hole that quickly ends up being miles away from what the real issues are. In this example, it soon becomes a debate about the evolution of the species. Don't get me wrong as a historian I love to talk about it, but it is a mistake for a vegan to go there.
Archeological research and the hunter-gatherers of today have given us a decent idea of what our ancestors ate. They drank blood, ate raw eggs, larvae, ants, and gladly devoured the raw liver of an animal whose blood was still warm from a fresh kill. So for a millennial, who has seen nothing but city life, to point out that honey is the vomit of bees and therefore disgusting is just ridiculous. Having meat on the menu was a significant reason why we evolved into what we are today. Maybe even THE reason.
Question is if we are supposed to eat more like the Gorillas, who are almost vegan, or the Chimpanzees who get around 5% of their calorie intake from animal products, or like the paleo cavemen who arguably ate a rather high amount of animal products, or perhaps the ultimate human carnivores who eat only meat and eggs. One should not forget the molecular build-up of the fatty acid amides and the enzymes in the hypothalamus... See what is happening? This is La-la-land. Talking about what our ancestor ate on the Savannah back in the days before Abraham knew what a fatty acid was should not be the talking point concerning today's eating habits and food production.
The realities of human evolution do not necessarily mean that humans need animal products in today's society to live a healthy life, and certainly not the amount that is being gorged. It also doesn't alter the question surrounding the morality in eating meat or the desperate need to produce food with more sustainable methods for the continuously growing population. Dear vegans, forget the past and keep your eye on the ball!
If you sit down with a vegan, you will soon receive a link to their holy book: The China Studies. Once the notification sound is heard, their higher moral and excellent health will be the topic of the evening. A friend of mine claimed that a lot of meat eaters have nutritional deficiencies, whereas his vegan diet was flawless and gave him all the nutrients he needed. Some studies indicate that up to 80% of vegetarians and vegans may be deficient in vitamin B12. Also, vitamin D, Omega 3, iodine, iron, calcium, and zinc are nutrients vegans often lack. The deficiency can be slow to develop, causing symptoms to appear gradually and intensify over time. In laymen's terms, it can be hard to tell without a blood test. I´m glad my friend is on top of things.
There are also plenty of memes circulating on social media where vegans claim that meat eater´s arteries are pretty much all clogged up, vegetarians are halfway to hell, whereas the vegan´s arteries are as clear as the arteries of alcoholics.
Around 85% of the human population are meat eaters; but a distinction needs to be made between mega obese Al from Alabama, who eats a truckload of KFC buckets per day, and meat-eating Alejandro who is a member of the Tsimane people of Bolivia who arguably have the healthiest arteries in the world. There is a significant difference between a slice of hunted Capybara meat and deep-fried-three-headed-chicken. Putting all meat eaters in the same bracket is like claiming that if your name is Kim, you are more likely to be an Asian dictator. Dear vegans, stop bragging about your superior health and keep your eye on the ball!
I have done my fair share of amateur research and sneaked in on quite a few university lectures on nutrition and health. Two issues seem apparent to me:
1. The research is vast and extremely complicated. It doesn't take long before the professor's speech is filled with technical and scientific terms, and so many studies to consider that I have a hard time distinguishing what language he is speaking.
2. In 92% of the scientific papers on diet, nutrition, and health, the conclusion is the same :
"More research needs to be done in order to understand our findings
fully. Based on what we now know, it seems like a well-balanced diet
consisting of real food with little or no refined sugars and processed
products is crucial to good health. Regular exercise and being physically
active is highly recommended. "
Without a doubt, there has been some disreputable research on the subject. The food industry, big pharma, and interest groups have unquestionably been manipulating our eating habits. But this does not mean that the über driver with absolutely no academic training can claim after some googling on vegan forums that he now is the prophet with the TRUTH on an extremely complex subject.
The majority of American adults are overweight, and up to 30% have diabetes. Homo Sapiens is the sickest animal on the planet due to a horrible diet, lack of exercise, too much alcohol, too much prescription drugs, not enough illegal ones, a stressful lifestyle, pollution, and not enough sex. To suggest that their health problems and nutrition deficiencies are due to meat just doesn't pass the scientifically proven: "Wall´s smell test."
How do I know this? Scientists have been trying to examine the most healthy societies in the world and the reasons why they are so healthy. These societies all have different diets, lifestyles, and living conditions, but they all have two things in common: they all include animal products in their diet, and they are all physically active.
There might be some Texonian red-neck reading this and screaming approving chants while I bash the vegans with my sound arguments. Quiet down; you´re an idiot! The fact that the vegan arguments mentioned are naive and absurd does not give you the moral high ground. Just because you tasted hunted elk meat four years ago and do one squat per day after taking a shit does not excuse you from all the corn-fed processed "food" that you eat. And no, your lazy ass does not need all that protein. The Alabama-Al/ Alejandro comparison works both ways. Eating a pound of meat every day makes absolutely no sense. Just because you can doesn't mean that you should. Trust me. Furthermore, those healthy societies all consume animal products there is not reason to believe that it is the animal products per se that are keeping them healthy.
Anyone willing and able to stop and honestly look into the food and dairy industry will see the insanity. Life stock consumes 80% of all the antibiotics produced. Primarily due to the horrible condition they live in and the perverse food that is being forced down their throats. Thousands of tons of livestock excrement go straight into our water system, causing a massive amount of pollution. The meat industry has made the cow into the biggest predator of the oceans as a consequence of the fish pellets they are being fed. The list goes on.
Dear vegans, you need to be precise in your arguments, stick with the inconvenient truths that most people agree upon but have ignored to remain sane. So many, only need a little bit of a push, some time to contemplate, and they will change their habits. They might not all become vegan right away, but they will listen.
The industrial scale torture of animals and its horrible effect on the environment is a clear and undisputed fact. Relentlessly use it, and by all means, use the visual effects and show how brutally these animals are being treated and killed. Stay away from absolutes and don't take the discussion into La-la-land where you possess no expertise and will lose the debate. Don't fuck this up! The future of humankind is counting on you to save the world!
Sorry, on that last sentence I got a bit carried away. Even if all primates became vegan tomorrow, it would still not save the world. But if the vast majority of us would be vegan most of the time, we would feel better, be healthier, have more sex, and our marvelous spaceship would be a better home for all of us. I promise.
Some of you might think that I'm too mean to the vegans. This might be true, but like black people who use the N-word, and Jews who are allowed to make gas chamber jokes; I am permitted to make fun of vegans because I am a vegan. How that has worked out for me is another story.
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