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Do Ex-Vegans’ Stories Make the Case Against Vegan Diets?


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I also read that Voracious Vegan post via metafilter the other day and couldn't help but feel like it was either heavily influenced or she was paid off by the Weston Price people.

 

I have come across more and more ex-vegans both online and in real life and their stories all follow the same script as the Voracious Vegan woman's.

 

Strange to have someone go from no animal products to full-on bacon love...

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No, absolutely not. Any number of underlying issues can cause health problems and pointing solely at a balanced nutritious vegan/vegetarian/omnivore diet as the culprit is the cowards way out of committing to a healthy lifestyle. And furthermore perpetuates the stupid myth that humans cannot survive on a vegan diet when in fact humans are the masters of adaption and there are tons of people who have lived healthily for decades and decades on veganism.

 

My guts are a freaking mess. I am missing half of my intestines, I have an Ileostomy, and I function at 110% capacity on a vegan diet. If anyone should be compromised, it's me. But I find workarounds for hiccups in my diet, why can't a 100% functioning adult? Why can't they play with their diet and foods that mesh well with their genetics? Laziness and cowardliness.

 

Disregard the unmotivated, eat plants.

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I have come across more and more ex-vegans both online and in real life and their stories all follow the same script as the Voracious Vegan woman's.

 

 

You would not know it from the way the book is marketed, but Jonathon Safran Foer in his book “Eating Animals” does a stunning refutation of the "sustainable meat is better for the environment" argument. Foer did 3 years of research for his book and hired a fact checker to QC what he wrote.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I haven't read anything else by her -does she normally write in this dramatic way? She talks about crying all the time, sounds like she is unstable, and then suddenly a miraculous cure after one mouthful? Rapid heart rate after eating on a vegan diet? I don't know what to make of it all. I mean I disagree with a lot of things she says later on, but even her initial account sounds really weird to me

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IMO if people can survive on the standard american diet, how could you ever say a vegan diet doesn't work, haha. Stuffing your body with junk hides problems, eating a cleaner diet reveals them. It's an opportunity to make yourself healthier, not a sign that you are getting worse.

 

Also a vegan diet requires a level of intelligence, and attention paid to your food. Two things a majority of people in the modern world are lacking. People blame the diet, what they don't realize is they created their diet, they're the ones at fault, not the "diet".

 

People are amazing.....

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"and was learning that eating meat is the real way to decrease one’s carbon footprint."

 

wtf is this shit

 

nothing worse than a person that becomes sick in the head and starts eating animals.i have never met someone like this before.i don't know what i would do about them.

 

I'm so tired of animals being looked at as food.They have just as much right to live as any good person.I look at people that eat them as people that eat children.

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"and was learning that eating meat is the real way to decrease one’s carbon footprint."

 

wtf is this shit

 

nothing worse than a person that becomes sick in the head and starts eating animals.i have never met someone like this before.i don't know what i would do about them.

 

I'm so tired of animals being looked at as food.They have just as much right to live as any good person.I look at people that eat them as people that eat children.

 

 

I agree. It's amazing the ethical side of veganism basically can't be used as a pro, because most people don't care.

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Those people are dumb.

Although I'm not a vegan anymore, and I doubt I really was a "True" vegan (cuz a true vegan would obviously stay one) I don't eat meat, and its pretty rare that I eat something like eggs (which still gross me out) or milk (again.. eew).

I avoid animal products about 90% of the time instead of 100% of the time. Why so close you ask? Well I guess I can't bothered to go out of my way to read labels or research a restaurant before I eat at it.

 

Enough about me.

The fact is, if these people avoided animal products and went back to eating meat, they were never vegan in the first place. If they weren't healthy as "vegans", then they probably won't be healthy as omnivores either. They just like to write stuff to appear like they know what they're talking about because they tried veganism and failed, and therefore, the diet must be awful or a stupid idea.

 

Instead they should write out why veganism didn't work for them. Can't digest soy. Don't like vegetables. Too lazy to read labels etc. I admit I failed the vegan diet. That doesn't mean I think it's wrong.

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....Although I'm not a vegan anymore, and I doubt I really was a "True" vegan (cuz a true vegan would obviously stay one) I don't eat meat, and its pretty rare that I eat something like eggs (which still gross me out) or milk (again.. eew).

I avoid animal products about 90% of the time instead of 100% of the time. Why so close you ask? Well I guess I can't bothered to go out of my way to read labels or research a restaurant before I eat at it....

I suppose you could say you are a 'casual vegan'?

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ex vegans say they have been depriving themselves on a vegan diet....

 

What about the life this animal was deprived of?It never got to eat at a restruant or whatever people say they are missing out on.How can anyone not put a life over a tiny inconvenience?"omg i went to a restruant and there was nothing vegan to eat there, life is so tough".what they had to go to a store and buy whatever produce they wanted instead?how can anyone allow this to happen.

http://i53.tinypic.com/dowg88.jpg

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....Although I'm not a vegan anymore, and I doubt I really was a "True" vegan (cuz a true vegan would obviously stay one) I don't eat meat, and its pretty rare that I eat something like eggs (which still gross me out) or milk (again.. eew).

I avoid animal products about 90% of the time instead of 100% of the time. Why so close you ask? Well I guess I can't bothered to go out of my way to read labels or research a restaurant before I eat at it....

I suppose you could say you are a 'casual vegan'?

 

It's my understanding that "vegans" are pretty much "all or nothing". If you cheat once in awhile with a piece of cheese that doesn't make you vegan, because vegans have such strong beliefs.

You'd never see a Muslim have a piece of bacon every now and then for example. Even when I ate a vegan diet, I wasn't into animal rights activism, or abolishing "speciesism" or things like that. Therefore, I always called myself a "vegetarian." I didn't feel strongly enough on eating an animal product free diet 100% of the time to call myself a "Vegan". Not to mention, my very existence destroys animal habitats (I live in a suburb which was built after de-forestation) I use electricity (hydro-electricity from dams that again, destroy animal habitats), My plumbing which pollutes the ocean etc. etc. To call myself a "vegan" and use a computer + phone all day inside my warm house or office with my running water seemed hypocritical to me.

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Not to mention, my very existence destroys animal habitats (I live in a suburb which was built after de-forestation) I use electricity (hydro-electricity from dams that again, destroy animal habitats), My plumbing which pollutes the ocean etc. etc. To call myself a "vegan" and use a computer + phone all day inside my warm house or office with my running water seemed hypocritical to me.

 

>>implying that none of us are vegan

 

goatse.jpg

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It's my understanding that "vegans" are pretty much "all or nothing". If you cheat once in awhile with a piece of cheese that doesn't make you vegan, because vegans have such strong beliefs.

You'd never see a Muslim have a piece of bacon every now and then for example. Even when I ate a vegan diet, I wasn't into animal rights activism, or abolishing "speciesism" or things like that. Therefore, I always called myself a "vegetarian." I didn't feel strongly enough on eating an animal product free diet 100% of the time to call myself a "Vegan". Not to mention, my very existence destroys animal habitats (I live in a suburb which was built after de-forestation) I use electricity (hydro-electricity from dams that again, destroy animal habitats), My plumbing which pollutes the ocean etc. etc. To call myself a "vegan" and use a computer + phone all day inside my warm house or office with my running water seemed hypocritical to me.

Self-justification and self-preservation go hand in hand.

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The label isn't important in my opinion, more and more I feel like the label of "veganism" should not be scrutinized to the extents that it sometimes is (or often is, if you're on the internet). The term needs to be set in stone for the requirements of food labeling and all that. But to say you can't be vegan because you live in a house with heating, means that there are pretty much no vegans. By doing so, you may as well make a new vague term to cover the millions of people who have this lifestyle, whatever you want to call it, where they are in a society that they object to, yet are pretty much trapped in. The intention of the majority of people who call themselves vegan is still there, and it is to reduce suffering / put money into the pockets of more ethical companies.

 

I went through a phase of not wanting to call myself vegan, because of the same reasons as Marcina, that it seems more like a philosophy to work towards, rather than something that a person can actually be at any given time. But, the majority of people do not understand what's going on anyway, and to say "no I'm not vegan", would make them even more confused, because they would have called you vegan most likely anyway. I mean you can say "pretty much vegan", if that makes things easier. The word "vegan" should not be seen like a medal, it's a description of what you do / don't do. So you can add a prefix to it and you're sorted

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I went through a phase of not wanting to call myself vegan, because of the same reasons as Marcina,

Sometimes i just say i'm a vegetarian but it's only because i doubt some of the people i say it too even know wtf i'm talking about.Everyone knows what a vegetarian is.But i'm proud to be a vegan.I can live knowing nothing is caged or being slaughtered because of me.I don't mean in a selfish way either.It's all for the animals.

Edited by Cold Fission
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I don't call myself a Vegan because I hate labels. I just say I don't eat meat. If they tell me we are meant to eat meat; I tell them go kill a cow, a chicken, a pig with your bare hands and start eating it raw. Then they shut up..

Yeah, that is a good one. I work with cows and pigs in my job, and I know for real that a pig or a cow would win vs an unarmed human. It's bad enough sometimes when I'm just trying to feed them or clean their shelters, they still could easily kill me, let alone if I was actually trying to have a fight.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Cool, I needed to read that. Extreme pressure from everyone is making me go through that biannual vegan self doubt I get. Seems like in addition to her Dr. being biased, Tasha was looking for someone to "tell" her to stop, and all they had to do was use big words and scare her right outta her faux leather boots.

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