Hacker News Reader

Comment by Eduard | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Healthy alternatives like instant ramen? If a significant nuber of people can't afford meat any more, that's not a tiny difference in purchasing power (that can be mitigated by some fewer luxuries), but they basically became "very poor" now, and poor people will choose calorie rich food, which mostly isn't healthy at all.. just compare price per calorie for pasta/rice/(ramen)... vs peppers, broccoli, eggplant, etc.

> Healthy alternatives like instant ramen?

No, healthy alternatives like healthy alternatives. E.g. google "cheap healthy food" (notice I even haven't added a "vegan" query constraint).

And your "poor people will choose calorie rich food" is an argument - for what? That animal-based food is low-calorie or high-calorie, and people will only substitute it with unheathly stuff? Keep in mind that people have been going to "unhealthy" McDonald's for ages.

Meat is included in the cheap healthy food (as you said yourself), but once you're so poor you cannot afford even the cheap meats, you won't be able to afford a lot of other healthy things either. Yes cabbages are cheap when in season, but how long will you feel "full" (not hungry) after a cabbage soup compared to eg. pasta or rice?

I know; this is Hacker News, hence a strong knowledge and habit bubble of start-up ramen and food delivery cuisine, and a lack of knowledge of all the other choices of food that nature provides, and no experiences in the kitchen besides microwave.

Vegan people must belt down their Kwashiorkor; and no idea how any other society in the world of the long and recent past, as well as the present, could struggle through the only two possible options "eternal feeling of hunger" and "morbidly obese by noodle".

You're looking at extremes, while I'm saying that once you cannot afford meat anymore, you cannot afford vegan alternatives either. If you can't pay 2eur for a piece of pork, you can't afford a 3-pack of bell peppers either. But you can afford a 60c half-kilo pack of pasta.

If I can buy a piece of pork for 2 EUR at my German supermarket, then this is because of the meat industry in Germany being subsidized with an estimated 13 billion EUR yearly.

https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/tierwirtschaft-erhaelt-13-...

So what? So is the grains industry, and you can buy pasta for 50c.

Replacing pork with bell peppers is a very strange idea. The go-to cheap, healthy and easy alternativeS are found in all sorts of beans meal like read beans and rice

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_beans_and_rice

You have a faulty premise. Most meat and dairy is healthy, if consumed in reasonable quantities. The exception is chargrilled red meat, which is correlated with colon cancer. There is evidence that vegan diets are dangerous for children. This study (https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/113/6/1565/6178918?log...), for example, found that vegan children were shorter and had lower bone density. Typical vegan diets lack the following essential nutrients either in part, or entirely:

* A

* B6

* B12

* D

* F

* K2

* CLA

* Carnitine

* Carnosine

* Cholesterol

* CoQ10

* Creatine

* Heme-iron

* Saturated fat

* Taurine

Of course a wise and studious vegan will carefully supplement all of these nutrients in the right balance on the right day. Most will not, and the risk compounds for children. An omnivorous diet is easy to get right, provided one doesn't over-eat.

The only things lacking in a plant-based diet that is essential are vitamin B12 and D. B12 is also lacking in animal-based diets nowadays, but is supplemented in animal feed. D is also lacking in animal-based diet, so this is not specific to plant-based diets.

Vitamins A, B6, F can be found in many plant-based foods. The rest of the stuff you listed are not essential for human health.

> B12 is also lacking in animal-based diets nowadays, but is supplemented in animal feed. D is also lacking in animal-based diet, so this is not specific to plant-based diets.

B12 is naturally present in fish, meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products. D is naturally present in oily fish, including salmon, mackerel, and sardines; as well as egg yolks, red meat, and liver.

> Vitamins A, B6, F can be found in many plant-based foods. The rest of the stuff you listed are not essential for human health.

Only fortified vegan foods contain sufficient quantities to satisfy a healthy diet, and even then, fortification may not be enough; especially for a growing child. Of course it requires one to be diligent in purchasing fortified options.

As for the claim that CLA, carnitine, carnosine, cholesterol, creatine, heme-iron, and taurine are not essential, I refer you to these studies and sources:

* CLA is an essential fatty acid for humans (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4429457/).

* Carnitine is considered a conditionally essential amino acid (https://ods.od.nih.gov/News/Carnitine_Conference_Summary.asp...). In many cases the body does not synthesise sufficient quantities.

* Carnosine can be synthesised with beta-alanine and L-histidine (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8300828/), but vegetarians possess 50% lower beta-alanine (Harris, 2007. Harris RC, Jones G, Hill CA, et al. The Carnosine Content of V Lateralis in Vegetarians and Omnivores The FASEB Journal. 2007;21:769.20), and vegetarians subsequently typically possess significantly lower levels of muscle carnosine (Everaert, 2011. Everaert I, Mooyaart A, Baguet A, Zutinic A, Baelde H, Achten E, Taes Y, De Heer E, Derave W. Vegetarianism, female gender and increasing age, but not CNDP1 genotype, are associated with reduced muscle carnosine levels in humans. Amino Acids. 2011 Apr;40(4):1221-9). As per the study by Jukic et al. (2021), carnisine is an extremely important dipeptide for humans.

* Cholesterol is essential (https://www.cdc.gov/cholesterol/myths_facts.htm#:~:text=Myth....).

* Heme is essential (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3967179/).

* Taurine is essential (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3501277/).

It's fair to argue that the data on K2, CoQ10, saturated fat isn't as conclusive. While the data is convincing, I can't prove they are essential. They certainly haven't been ruled out as being important to a healthy, balanced diet.

While you're correct that some animal-based foods contain B12 and vitamin D naturally, many people who eat meat and fish need to supplement it because it's just not enough. For vitamin D, this is especially true for people living in higher latitudes because there's not enough sun light.

I think you're not clear what the definition of "essential" in biology is. Essential means that it cannot be synthesized by the organism, but needs to be taken in externally. The studies you have linked do not talk about synthesis in the human body. A quick lookup on Wikepedia explains clearly that all other mentioned items are synthesized by humans.

You have a faulty conclusion, I didn't say most meat and diary is unhealthy.

But there is plenty of evidence that a nutrition significantly more vegan than today's western standard is better: healthier, cheaper, and ecologically superior.

> There is evidence that vegan diets are dangerous for children

That is not "evidence that vegan diets are dangerous for children".

Lower stature and bone density is evidence of dangerous malnutrition. Those with lower bone density in particular are at far higher risk of osteoporosis. I'm not sure how you could claim that isn't evidence of potential danger.

You have it backwards. Malnutrition can lead to impaired growth and lower bone density. But that doesn't automatically mean that lower bone density and lower stature is evidence of malnutrition. For all we know the measured difference between test and control was much smaller than the standard deviation.

Also the list you posted contains substances that our body produces ourselves so we don't need to get these from food (e.g. Creatine)

You are conflating study confounds with malnutrition. Lower stature and bone density is in fact clinical evidence of malnutrition. It is possible that the study cohort simultaneously suffered some other malady like radiation poisoning, but it is unlikely they all suffered maladies resulting in the same symptoms. I think the study design is sufficient to rule that out. It is certainly as rigorous as any other peer-reviewed nutritional study.

Not sure what your evidence is. Here's my list of studies of vegetarian and vegan children that disprove your claims:

* https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/11/4/832/htm

* https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394-021-02753-3

* https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/5/1707/htm

* https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/113/6/1565/6178918

* https://anthropogoniquescom.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/grow...

* https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-277X....

* https://www.minervamedica.it/en/journals/minerva-pediatrics/...

* https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.15252/emmm.202013492

All concluded that vegan diets were healthy for children as long as the parents knew the common deficiencies (B12) and fed their children enough calories. The study you cited is on my list because it seems you didn't read the results where it stated that most children were not eating fortified or supplemented food like Vitamin D, which could easily explain why they have a lower bone density.

> Not sure what your evidence is.

I provided a study in my very first comment. Did you read it? I'll provide it again for you here: (https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/113/6/1565/6178918?log...) The study found vegan children to be at risk of lower stature and bone density.

Thank you for the studies, I have reviewed them. In turn:

1. Please review Figure 2. Children on vegan and vegetarian diets presented with higher rates of "stunted or severely stunted," as per the WHO criteria used. This is discussed and confirmed later in the study. The study did not measure bone density at all.

2. This is the same study cited as above.

3. This study explored neither height nor bone density. The blood levels of studied macro-nutrients were in the healthy range, and that's good.

4. In a fascinating twist of fate, you cited the study I cited above, which finds that vegan children are at risk of lower stature and bone density. I'm not sure you read these studies if you think this study confirms your beliefs.

5. This study found that vegetarian children were both shorter, and weighed less. They did not measure bone density.

6. This study found, like the rest, that vegan children were shorter and weighed less. They did not measure bone density.

7. This study, once again, found children to be lighter and shorter. They did not measure bone density.

8. This study, once again, found children to be lighter and lower in "growth percentile." The study did not measure bone density.

9. It's hard to parse this study. The omnivorous children were taller than the vegetarians, but shorter than the vegans. However the vegan cohort was only six in total. Further, the vegetarian children were heavier than the omnivores. These results are the opposite of all of the studies you cited. It is an interesting data point, but it doesn't appear to lend credence to either of our arguments. It's clear that some delta occurs as a result of vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous diets, and given the wealth of evidence you've submitted, it's clear that vegetarian and especially vegan diets usually result in poorer growth. The study did not measure bone density.

I'm not sure you read these studies very thoroughly. I suppose I should thank you for providing so much corroborative evidence that vegan diets are dangerous for children.

Very interesting reply.

The summaries of all these studies can effectively be summarised as: if you are raising children on a vegan diet, ensure you supplement and have adequate calory intake. Taking datapoints from figures and graphs without understanding the underlying causes and effects is how we spread misinformation. It's great that studies are measuring this so that we understand better how humans can develop successfully.

An example of this is in study 6 where you stated that vegan children were shorter and weighed less. Whilst true the study also stated "The energy intake of the vegan children was consistently lower than the recommended daily amounts". It then concluded that with a sensibly planned diet vegan children should have no intellectual or physical problems in their development.

So whilst I agree that all the studies did find differences, I disagree that they are somehow proving against my points that a vegan diet in children can be healthy if correctly planned. Due to how the animal agriculture industry creates meat (such as supplementing and fortifying the meat) it is extremely easy to get away with not planning meals with an omnivorous diet.

I agree with your summary. Vegan diets don't have to result in poorer nutrition. They're just much harder to configure and administer, and most people don't optimise them well, especially for children. This is the difference between what ought to be, and what is. The human or compliance factor in diets is often much more important than the diet itself. If compliance is low, it doesn't matter how healthy the diet is.

The evidence I've seen seems to indicate that meat and dairy are the healthy alternative. They also have centuries of safety data, unlike many (most?) vegan alternatives, which rely heavily on such things as canola oil and have to be engineered.

I doubt you'll agree, and I'm sure you'll be able to pull out some studies suggesting otherwise, but perhaps we can agree we shouldn't be making policy decisions that shift the diets of millions of people when we're dealing with a field (nutrition) that is really in its infancy.

Nutrition isn’t in its infancy. The real issue is people assume small changes in diet are more important than they are.

Fiber for example is useful for mechanical reasons in your digestive system, but you don’t actually digest it. It’s possible to be completely healthy and eat essentially zero fiber. Similarly eating massive quantities of fiber isn’t particularly beneficial.

There’s this misconception that there’s some single ideal diet and anything else is unhealthy. But we turn a high percentage of our food into energy and excrete stuff we don’t need. That provides extreme flexibility assuming you’re eating a wide range of plants and animals it’s probably fine. Eat a more limited diet and you have to be more careful, but not excessively so.

Of course when you take an even closer look things do get more complex, but for most people it’s not particularly relevant. The biggest issue is simply number of calories.

Meat and dairy from modern factory farms that feed animals with grain is very different from farms from, say, 19th century, when cows was feed mostly grass without antibiotics and were spending a lot of time outside.

So the reasons for safety do not apply.

Grass fed and finished beef is actually cheaper than factory farm meat if you buy it in bulk rather than at the supermarket.

> many (most?) vegan alternatives, which rely heavily on such things as canola oil and have to be engineered.

Kinda strawmanny to take/highlight unhealthy food as the vegan alternatives compared.

> perhaps we can agree we shouldn't be making policy decisions that shift the diets of millions of people

The diary and meat industries are prime examples that have profited and am profiting from (influencing) policy decisions. Including: subventions for dumping milk and meat prices; and manipulating dietary recommendations (check "food pyramid" with "lobby"), hence shifting diets of millions of people.

Oat milk is a popular vegan milk and almost all of them are 10% canola oil. It's not that much of a strawman.

> almost all of them * which you checked / where you live

Probably you mean 10% oat, not canola oil; that much fat wouldn't be a vegan drink milk alternative.

Besides, I don't find the current evidence for canola oil being unhealthy convincing.

No, I mean canola oil. It's to give a creamy texture to oat milk. Oatly oat milk, for example, more than 1/3 of its calories come from canola oil.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com