Anti-vegan interviews Jack Norris RD

[beforewisdom]

Jack Norris, cofounder of Vegan Outreach and a registered dietitian recently agree to be interviewed by an ex-vegan and an anti-vegan on his blog letthemeatmeat. I think the whole interview is worth reading and worth saving. It functions as an excellent "answers to common points" as it answers more contemporary anti-vegan points than similar, more established FAQs.

 

Below, I pasted some of my favorite replies by Jack Norris. The questions in bold are from the anti-vegan ex-vegan

 

From

http://letthemeatmeat.com/post/938318830/interview-with-a-vegan-jack-norris-rd

 

Some vegans like to think they can get the B12 they need from tempeh, spirulina or dirty vegetables. Even some vegan leaders downplay the need for B12. Why do so many vegans want to think they don’t need to supplement?

 

Because they want to think that the vegan diet is natural. Many vegans believe that a vegan diet is the most natural and, therefore, the healthiest, and so everyone should stop harming animals and live an Eden-like existence. I understand the appeal of this, but the evidence that humans evolved as vegans is simply not there, not to mention the important fact that what is “natural” is not necessarily what is the healthiest.

 

But this cuts both ways. The vegans who want to base their nutrition on a return to Eden are no sillier, in my opinion, than the paleo dieters who want to return to hunter-gatherer times.

 

....

 

 

There are people who are too lazy about nutrition to supplement regularly or eat with necessary nutrients in mind. Are these people better off as omnivores?

 

If these people happen to consume vitamin B12 and calcium-fortified soymilk each day, they probably will fare about the same as most omnivores. If they don’t, then it’s hard to say because someone who pays little attention to nutrition as a vegan probably will do the same as an omnivore, increasing their risk for chronic disease.

 

If a vegan gets no dietary B12 at all, then it is just a matter of time before they run into acute health problems and so they will be worse off at some point until they correct that problem.

[offense74]

Jack Norris is an expert on the vegan diet, not on the whole food plant based diet so some of the stuff he says is not applicable if you're on a healthy vegan diet (as in whole foods). The B-12 issue is of course always applicable.

These two diets (standard vegan and whole food plant based) often gets mixed up for various reasons. The whole foods approach seems to give numerous advantages to your health and longevity which a standard vegan diet doesn't seem to give to the same extent. Peta, other organizations and vegans often use the whole food diet to promote the health benefits of a vegan diet which isn't really fair. This is also why Jack Norris have such different probable results from the science than for example Jeff Novick. They both have a strictly scientific approach but they are analyzing two completely different diets.

[beforewisdom]

offense74, you are one of my favorite posters.

 

However, what you wrote doesn't make enough sense to me to agree or disagree. The terms mentioned are so general it is hard to tell exactly what your opinion is.

[vegimator]

He's saying that Jack Norris doesn't strictly promote a whole foods diet which is true. He has no issue with people eating processed foods/fake meats and the studies on veg*ns which he references surely include a large percentage of people who have a lot of that in their diet. Consequently, we don't know a whole lot about how much a strictly whole foods vegan diet affects long term disease risk/longevity.

[beforewisdom]

He's saying that Jack Norris doesn't strictly promote a whole foods diet which is true. He has no issue with people eating processed foods/fake meats and the studies on veg*ns which he references surely include a large percentage of people who have a lot of that in their diet. Consequently, we don't know a whole lot about how much a strictly whole foods vegan diet affects long term disease risk/longevity.

 

I got that, but I don't see how his comments relate to the Jack Norris quotes I posted.

 

I still think the terms "whole foods vegan diet" and "standard vegan diet" are too slippery to evaluate what offense wrote.

 

What is a "whole foods vegan diet"? What is a "standard vegan diet"?

If I eat brown rice, fresh legumes and turnip greens all week, but I have a glass of protein powder and maybe some seitan on the weekend am I on a whole foods vegan diet or the standard vegan diet?