Vegan Marshmallows

Within living memory, the spectrum of the dietary palate has increased dramatically; instead of the choices being singular; where spam was spam and bread was bread; choices have exploded! On TV, on the book shelves, at a cafe' and in the supermarket you see pages of options, where only living memory serves a different story. So what's happened? Have people become more picky, understanding of the human body become more detailed, businesses trying to capitalise on more niche marketing, diversity of an individual becoming more understood and the peculiarities of needs and wants becoming more complicated. Whatever the reason, we now live in a culture where restaurants have essay-length menu's, supermarkets are as big as football stadiums and TV's have so many channels it makes your thumb hurt.

The thing is about choice, it can be as big a burden as the lack of choice, and actually has no impact on satisfaction in general. It allows for the customer to become even more choosy and stubborn with their likes/dislikes or wants/distastes. Veganism, or varieties of it have been around for as long as people have been able to afford the luxury of choice. Greeks, Pythagoras and Empedocles and Theophrastus were vegetarians (through Pythagorianism diet; though actually Pythagoras ate certain types of meat). It didn't really take off in Europe until the 19th Century, and Veganism is even newer; coined in 1944 by Donald Watson who co-founded the Vegan society in England. “Man should live without exploiting animals”.

Veganism is a protected 'belief' under article 9 of the European convention of the protection of human rights, and actually has various parables of a religion itself. As of 2006 it was estimated that 150,000 people were vegans in the UK; it's now thought to be quite a bit larger. By 2010, interest in Veganism had grown big enough to open vegan stores, and establish vegan options in restaurants and bars.

Human History:

Humans have been eating meat for hundreds of thousands of years; we are not the exception of the rule in the animal kingdom, we are abiding by the pecking order; food chain. We didn't decide to eat meat to begin with, we evolved this way. No traditional culture subsisted on a vegan diet, a fact that Dr. Price found particularly interesting. (Dr. Western Price; Tradition and physical degeneration).

This many sound a compelling argument of 'natural law', it is a rather bad argument when trying to validate a current 'morality' - you can't state, because of our historical lineage to something, that makes it right. Furthermore, some creatures have evolved to eat vegetation instead of meat over years of evolution; the Panda, which means that we could be subject to change ourselves. This is important to note when discussing dietry concerns or the real reasons for and against an argument. On the subject of Panda's, though they have been on a strict, bamboo-based vegetarian diet for some 2 million years now, it seems that wasn’t long enough to shake off ancestral adaptations to an omnivorous diet. Since bamboo is not exactly bursting with nutritional value, and the animals can only digest around 17% of the stuff they eat, researchers have long wondered how they extract enough goodness from it to keep their bodies nourished. No wonder they have little interest in the energy-sapping pleasures of intercourse.

Within each diet, as it is within each religion, there are sects which diverge as the conviction of their moral compass or their understanding of their own bodies and mind differ, so do their codes. For instance, some consider anything from animals and insects a no go – honey and silk are off the table (American Vegan society and the Vegan society). This is generally purported towards an ethical code of consumption, though this is not the only reason why a Vegan might be a Vegan: The American Dietetic Association (ADA) concludes that a vegetarian or vegan diet is healthier than one that includes meat. They note that vegetarians have lower body mass indices, lower rates of death from ischaemic heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and less prostate and colon cancer. Now that's something to brag about!

Holy Scripture:

'The China Study' (which is a book title, not a study) is in many respects the equivalent of the 'Holy Bible' for Vegans - it has been used to promote the idea that vegan cultures experience better health than omnivorous cultures. It reads and has data to support such claims, however, it is clear from many researchers since, that T. Campbell, the author, notoriously cherry-picked data to arrive at a specific conclusion. A conclusion which went to support his initial claim that a Vegan diet is ultimately better. Denise Minger; author of 'Death by Food Pyramid' published a scathing critique of Campbell’s work in her article 'The China Study: Fact or Fiction'. So, it should be made aware that the data within it might not be as sound as it thinks it is, in fact, it has largely been debunked in every category and could almost be viewed as Vegan propaganda rather than anything factual. Let's move that off the table too.

Vegan Concerns:

> Contrary to popular belief, you can’t get vitamin A from carrots. Vegetables provide carotene, a precursor to vitamin A, while animal sources such as liver and pastured egg yolks provide true vitamin A. Many people believe that carotene can be converted into vitamin A, but this conversion is usually insignificant. First, it takes a huge amount of carotene to convert to a moderate amount of vitamin A. Second, when there is poor thyroid function, impaired digestion or a a lack of healthy fats in the diet, this conversion won’t happen:

In the same way, useable vitamin D (natural vitamin D3) is only found in animal products such as pastured egg yolks, cod liver oil and dairy products from grass-grazing animals. Traditionally, ancient cultures that lived in darker environments relied heavily on these vitamin-D rich foods (for example, Scandinavians ate copious amounts of salmon and grass-fed animal butter). The myth that we can obtain vitamin D from mushrooms is false… mushrooms contain vitamin D2, which is extremely poorly absorbed.

Vitamin A and Vitamin D are particularly essential for immune regulation, digestion, fertility and hormone balance.

> 10 years ago, a vegan diet equated to vegetables interspersed with soy milk, soy cheese, soy bacon, soy protein, soy cereal, tofu, and tempeh. Now, the health problems with chronic soy consumption are becoming more mainstream and many vegans have reduced their soy consumption. Even so, a vegan diet often relies on a moderate amount of soy products – especially soy protein powders and soy protein bars. The primary concern with consuming soy in any form is the phytoestrogen content. Phytoestrogens can mimic estrogen in the body, causing a chain reaction of hormone imbalances. Although studies showing the hormonal effects of consuming soy are controversial, I believe the research indicates that we should play it safe rather than sorry. For example, one study showed that infants consuming soy formula had concentrations of blood estrogen levels 13,000 to 22,000 times higher than normal estrogen levels!

> Vitamin K2 is the shuttle that transports calcium into your bones. You can eat as much calcium as you want but it won’t strengthen your bones unless it is accompanied by vitamin K2. This is one reason why calcium supplementation has been shown to increase the risk of plaque formation – the body can’t use the calcium for building bones so it stores it in the arteries. Unlike vitamin K1, plants do not provide vitamin K2.

> B12 is another problem for Vegans; it's essential for general body functions. Because B12 is critical for life and isn’t found in any amount in plants (except some types of algae), it is by far the most important nutrient that vegans must be concerned with. In fact, B12 deficiency is very common in vegans, one study showing that a whopping 92% of vegans are deficient in this critical nutrient.

The other problem with a Vegan diet is its usual insistence to design and make products which resemble things which a Vegan is condemned not to eat; butter, cheese, fake meats, etc... So to create these things you require a slew of 'food substitutes' including stabilizers, gums, thickeners and highly processed protein extracts. Butter, for instance, in 'Earth Balance's' butter has palm fruit oil, canola oil, safflower oil, flax oil, olive oil, salt, natural flavour, pea protein, sunflower lecithin, lactic acid, and annatto colour in its ingredients. In dairy butter, you have... butter.

Evaluation:

There is no evidence showing that a vegan diet is better than any other diet. When evaluating the health differences between a group of people, it's incredibly difficult because there are a great number of other factors involved in sizing up an individual. Vegetarians are probably healthier because they are more health conscious overall, eat more vegetables, are less likely to smoke, more likely to exercise, etc. It has nothing to do with avoiding animal foods. It is important to note, that in a study of 10,000 individuals, where both the vegetarians and non-vegetarians were health conscious, there was no difference in mortality between groups. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8842068).

Recently I watched a program about life spans in relation to diets. It fundamentally came down to this principle: over-eating is bad for you. So take days of fasting into the equation and you'll kick start your system to burn off fats and cause 'cellular recycling' – to burn off latent energy stored in cells; which can help repair mechanisms in the body. Cutting back on portions and having days of fasting can dramatically change your body and also its longevity and resistance to disease such as cancer and diabetes. In 2012, a study found that a low calorie diet can slow down ageing and ward off diabetes, cancer and dementia. Other studies have pointed to the need to cut food intake by about 40 per cent to live 20 to 30 per cent longer.

Future:

So what for the future? Ethical ominvorism, and a reduction to ones intake. Our ecosystem relies on a self-regulating balance of predators and prey. This system worked well with humans and their prey until we began inhumane farming practices that compromise the well being of animals, the health of humans, and the health of the planet. It means sourcing your goods from sources where treatment to livestock allows for the animal to be managed in a respectful manner and not crammed into cages too small for them and fed until their legs break in cages of shit. This is not outside our reach, and it will surely mean that $1 hamburgers have no place in an ethical omnivore world; which is OK. Also, cutting back on how much you eat and alternate what you eat is essential to any balance. To force yourself to stick to a diet which your body is rebelling about is not the way to a healthy body or healthy life.

But just like Confined Feeding Animal Operations aren’t the answer to a healthy planet, neither is veganism. Vegan diets tends to demand a higher quantity of cereal grains and soy, crops which wreak havoc on our ecosystem due to mass farming techniques. On the other hand, grass-grazing animals can nourish stripped soil and even reverse desertification!

There may be ethical or religious reasons not to eat animals…But there is no scientific data to support the view that it is 'healthier' than a balanced omnivorian diet.