Breaking
FoodNerdy Recipes Management System
Tag

arguments

Browsing
health

5 Common Arguments to Eat Meat – NOT

As a vegetarian or vegan, you are often confronted with arguments as to why a meatless diet is unhealthy, unnatural or even harmful to the environment. What is it about these statements? We have collected five of the most common arguments for meat and formulated counter-arguments.

Claims like “The rainforest is on fire for tofu!”, “Athletes need meat!” or “If God hadn’t wanted us to eat meat, he wouldn’t have made it so delicious!” probably every vegetarian has: in and vegan:in heard before. We can do no more than argue about God and his plans. But if statements are demonstrably false, you don’t have to let them rest. How to dispassionately counter some of the most common arguments for eating meat:

Humans are carnivores?

Humans are carnivores, vegan diet is unnatural.

Some of the most popular arguments against vegetarians and vegans revolve around how natural a meat-free diet is. Sentences like “People are carnivores, you can see that from their teeth” are also often used. But: Humans are definitely not pure meat eaters (= carnivores). After all, even the biggest meat lovers eat a piece of fruit or vegetable from time to time. This is also important, because unlike carnivores, humans cannot produce vitamin C themselves and have to get it from food.

Furthermore, if we were pure carnivores, we could swallow large chunks of meat almost without chewing. In carnivores, digestion begins in the stomach, while humans start digesting in the mouth. An enzyme in the saliva that breaks down starch helps us with this. And starch is not in meat, but in plants.

Admittedly, from a biological point of view, people are not herbivores (=herbivores) either, but omnivores (=omnivores). That is, our physical characteristics—including how our teeth are constructed and how they work—allow us to eat both animal and plant-based foods, depending on what is available.

Unlike our ancestors who hunted and gathered, today we have choices. We don’t starve if we don’t eat meat, thanks to farming and storage facilities. We also don’t have to put as much energy into foraging – and making up for that loss with food. We’re also getting older, which is why it’s important to look not only at short-term satiety, but also at the long-term health pros and cons of a diet.

If you want to be physically fit, you need meat?

People need animal proteins, especially athletes.

“If the [construction worker] only gets meat once a week and only salad, he falls off the scaffolding on the third day.” This quote from the Bavarian Minister of Economic Affairs Hubert Aiwanger made the rounds in the summer of 2020. The politician is right on one point: You cannot have a balanced diet from lettuce alone. Luckily, there are a lot of other plant-based foods, also to provide us with the proteins that athletes love.

The documentary “The Game Changers” shows that you can also achieve top performance with a purely plant-based diet using the example of various top athletes. The science journalist Bas Kast even comes to the conclusion in his book “The nutrition compass: The conclusion of all scientific studies on the subject of nutrition” (buy** at Thalia, bücher.de or Buch7, among others) that vegetable proteins are healthier than animal ones. Various studies provide evidence that meat consumption increases the risk of various lifestyle diseases.

The vitamin B12 thing

Vegans need to supplement vitamin B12, meat eaters don’t.

If you have to take vitamin B12 as a dietary supplement, it cannot be a sensible diet – many have certainly heard this argument as well. It’s true, vegans should supplement with vitamin B12. Some plant-based foods also contain vitamin B12, but in a form that, according to experts, cannot be used by the human body.

But where does the vitamin B12 in meat come from? For poultry and pork, the answer is: from dietary supplements. Because just like in humans, vitamin B12 is formed in the large intestine of animals, but they excrete it without using it.

Ruminants, on the other hand, can use the vitamin B12 they produce in their own bodies. To do this, they must be sufficiently supplied with the trace element cobalt. In industrial agriculture, cows often lack this requirement, which is why they are often dependent on nutritional supplements.

On this basis, it is entirely justified to ask the question whether one cannot simply take vitamin B12 oneself in the form of food supplements and skip the detour via the animals.

Vegans eat industrial goo?

Meat substitutes are unnatural chemical food.

Vegan food consists of flavor enhancers, artificial flavors and other additives? This is true for some plant foods, as it is for many processed animal products. And as with an omnivorous diet, such products should be the exception rather than the rule when it comes to eating healthily.

Meat substitutes make it easier for many people to switch to a plant-based diet. They are practical if you want to prepare a vegan alternative to a meat dish without much effort. In the long run, however, many health-conscious vegans refrain from replacing meat, sausage and cheese 1:1 with vegan substitutes. Instead, there are, for example, Bolognese made from lentils, vegetable skewers when grilling and hummus on bread. Tofu is also available in its natural state, and even with processed meat substitutes, the list of ingredients is not always as long and cryptic.

Even if vegans treat themselves to a few vegan sausages at a barbecue party (if they are possible again): Before calling them industrial goo, one should consider whether it is really being vegan that decides how natural or unnatural one eats. Didn’t you just eat a bratwurst with a similarly long list of ingredients, plus ready-made barbecue sauces, chips and cola? If so, then maybe it’s best to keep your mouth shut.

Does the rainforest burn for tofu?

Vegan diet harms the environment.

If we all stop eating meat, where are we supposed to grow all the vegetables to keep us full? Some people are probably asking this question. If rainforests are already being cut down to plant soy, wouldn’t the problem get worse with a switch to a plant-based diet?

Many who ask these questions forget that pigs, cattle and chickens also have to eat. Very few of these animals graze on green mountain meadows that are unsuitable for growing food. Instead, large areas of arable land are required for the cultivation of animal feed. This means that the area required for animal food is higher than for plant food. When animal husbandry decreases, areas are freed up on which we can grow food for human consumption or on which we can reforest.

The increasing hunger for cheap meat has led to forests being cut down in order to grow animal feed in huge monocultures. Depending on the source, 75 to 85 percent of the soy harvested worldwide is fed to animals. So much for the claim that vegetarians and vegans are destroying the rainforest. Incidentally, the soy for meat and milk substitutes often comes from Europe.

After years of eating meat and other animal products, it can be difficult to reduce or even stop eating them altogether. But hiding behind false arguments no longer counts as an excuse.

Keep Reading
By
Cooking Tips

Is Milk Healthy? – 6 Arguments Against Milk

It is considered a healthy, natural food that makes you big and strong and the ultimate source of calcium. “Milk makes tired people perk up,” say some. But opponents of milk believe that milk makes you sick. Is milk healthy or unhealthy? Utopia introduces you to the arguments against milk.

Milk consumption – when is milk healthy?

Every German consumes a total of 86 kilograms of fresh milk products every year. That makes us world leaders. And this despite the fact that the human body neither absolutely needs milk nor is it originally designed to digest lactose. It is absolutely paradoxical that humans are the only creatures that consume milk from other animals and continue to do so in adulthood.

It is undisputed that milk is essential to start life. The infant can easily digest breast milk thanks to the enzyme lactase.

But it is actually only due to a “genetic defect” that has developed in the course of evolution that it retains this ability and makes it possible to consume milk even in adulthood. But is this even necessary?

1. Milk unhealthy due to diseases

Milk is rich in good ingredients. In addition to calcium, it contains many vitamins, magnesium, iodine and amino acids that the body cannot produce itself. A healthy, balanced drink. But here is the first mistake. Because milk is by no means just a drink, but can be described as a staple food due to its high nutrient density.

Opponents of milk also claim that milk makes you sick. They can trigger allergies, especially in infants, lead to chronic infections, cause skin problems and neurodermatitis, promote asthma, diabetes and even cancer. The reason for this could be the foreign proteins in the milk, against which the body defends itself. Many of these cases of illness may be due to a milk allergy. So far, however, there have been no scientific studies that can unequivocally confirm this connection.

2. Milk unhealthy due to lactose intolerance

What occurs in Germany as a clinical picture is quite normal on many continents: milk intolerance. 75% of the world’s population is lactose intolerant. If the body lacks the enzyme lactase, which is supposed to break down the milk sugar (lactose) into digestible components, this is referred to as lactose intolerance. In Germany, this affects 15 percent of people, but globally, milk tolerance is the exception rather than the rule. In Asia and Africa, for example, just one percent of the population can digest milk. During the course of evolution and cattle breeding, which began around 7,000 years ago, populations in the north, in particular, developed the enzyme lactase to digest milk, which was actually intended as food in times of need. Originally, our body does not seem to be dependent on milk at all, quite the opposite.

3. Milk unhealthy due to loss of calcium

Even as a child you learn: the calcium from milk helps growth, is good for the bones and makes you strong. That’s correct. No food in our society contains as much calcium as milk. The mineral is essential for strengthening bones and teeth, but also for muscle function. But what only a few know: the many animal proteins in milk can lead to acidification in the body and blood. In order to neutralize these, the body needs calcium, which it then has to extract from the bones. This loss of calcium can be the cause of osteoporosis. And that despite claims that milk prevents the disease.

The ratio of absorption and loss of calcium is therefore much more important than the pure intake of the mineral. Because, as milk opponents argue, calcium deficiency is not caused by drinking too little milk, but by consuming too many acidic foods such as coffee, cola, alcohol, meat, dairy products and sweets. Even if it is less than milk: Many vegetable sources also contain calcium and can sufficiently cover the need for this mineral. Topping the list are green leafy vegetables, broccoli, beans, soy, nuts and grains. Vegetable protein can also be better metabolized by the body and does not lower the pH value into the acidic range.

4. Milk unhealthy because it goes through many technical processes

For many people, milk is one of the most natural products. It comes fresh from the cow and can be drunk without additives. But in reality it looks a little different. Because milk is now an industrially processed food that comes fresh from the dairy instead of from the cow. There it was homogenized, broken down into its individual parts, pasteurized, heat-treated and preserved. Doesn’t sound so natural anymore.

5. Milk is unhealthy for the environment

Cows emit a lot of greenhouse gas, namely methane, which is many times more harmful to the climate than CO2. Cows therefore have a bad climate balance per se. In addition, a lot of feed is required for the four million dairy cows in Germany, which either comes from countries in which rainforest is cleared for the cultivation of feed or which is grown in Germany in monocultures using artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Factory farming (whether for milk or meat production) is one of the biggest climate sins.

6. Is organic milk the better alternative?

Many believe that drinking organic milk is a good compromise. Not only does it come from organic farming, it is also healthier than conventional milk. That’s true, since organic milk contains three times more omega-3 fatty acids and more vitamins, but fewer harmful substances than conventional milk. But is the cow, to whom you owe the delicious organic milk, really “happy”? Perhaps the statement that organic cows lead a happier and less suffering life is true.

But what does not distinguish them from the animals from mass farming: They also have to calve every year, are sometimes artificially inseminated, separated from the calf shortly after birth and end up in the slaughterhouse after their job as milk producers. Not to mention the conventionally farmed cows. The turbo cows give up to 40 liters of milk a day (about eight would be normal). In order to achieve this top performance, they are given concentrated feed, are made permanently pregnant and suffer from various diseases, such as mastitis, which are finally treated with antibiotics. Man also benefits from this when he takes the milk. A cow could live 20 years. But the high-performance apparatus only has to last about five years before it is sent to the slaughterhouse.

Drink milk – conclusion

Today we consume significantly more milk than we used to, both directly in the form of dairy products and indirectly via dairy products, which actually do not belong in the refrigerator; there is hardly any reliable information about the long-term effect of this. In addition, the way in which we produce this food piecemeal today is usually no longer ethically justifiable.

Therefore, do not blindly rely on seemingly plausible reasons for milk consumption. In fact, almost every argument in favor of milk also has an argument against it.

Everyone should therefore take a differentiated look at their milk consumption and the associated framework conditions and not ignore the question “Do we really need milk?”. However, you don’t have to give up milk completely or become a vegan from now on. Just buy and drink milk consciously. As so often, the rule of thumb also applies to milk consumption: less is more.

Keep Reading
By
Food

5 Common Arguments to Eat Meat or NOT

As a vegetarian or vegan, you are often confronted with arguments as to why a meatless diet is unhealthy, unnatural or even harmful to the environment. What is it about these statements? We have collected five of the most common arguments for meat and formulated counter-arguments.

Claims like “The rainforest is on fire for tofu!”, “Athletes need meat!” or “If God hadn’t wanted us to eat meat, he wouldn’t have made it so delicious!” probably every vegetarian has heard before. We can do no more than arguing about God and his plans. But if statements are demonstrably false, you don’t have to let them rest. How to dispassionately counter some of the most common arguments for eating meat:

Humans are carnivores?

Some of the most popular arguments against vegetarians and vegans revolve around how natural a meat-free diet is. Sentences like “People are carnivores, you can see that from their teeth” are also often used. But: Humans are definitely not pure meat eaters (= carnivores). After all, even the biggest meat lovers eat a piece of fruit or vegetable from time to time. This is also important, because unlike carnivores, humans cannot produce vitamin C themselves and have to get it from food.

Furthermore, if we were pure carnivores, we could swallow large chunks of meat almost without chewing. In carnivores, digestion begins in the stomach, while humans start digesting in the mouth. An enzyme in the saliva that breaks down starch helps us with this. And starch is not in meat, but in plants.

Admittedly, from a biological point of view, people are not herbivores (=herbivores) either, but omnivores (=omnivores). That is, our physical characteristics—including how our teeth are constructed and how they work—allow us to eat both animal and plant-based foods, depending on what is available.

Unlike our ancestors who hunted and gathered, today we have choices. We don’t starve if we don’t eat meat, thanks to farming and storage facilities. We also don’t have to put as much energy into foraging – and making up for that loss with food. We’re also getting older, which is why it’s important to look not only at short-term satiety, but also at the long-term health pros and cons of a diet.

If you want to be physically fit, do you need meat?

“If the construction worker only gets meat once a week and only salad, he falls off the scaffolding on the third day.” This quote from the Bavarian Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger made the rounds in the summer of 2020. The politician is right on one point: You cannot have a balanced diet from lettuce alone. Fortunately, there are a lot of other plant-based foods, that also to provide us with the proteins that are so popular with athletes.

The documentary “The Game Changers” shows that you can also achieve top performance with a purely plant-based diet using the example of various top athletes. The science journalist Bas Kast even comes to the conclusion in his book “The nutrition compass: The conclusion of all scientific studies on the subject of nutrition” that vegetable proteins are healthier than animal ones. Various studies provide evidence that meat consumption increases the risk of various lifestyle diseases.

The vitamin B12 thing

If you have to take vitamin B12 as a dietary supplement, it cannot be a sensible diet – many have certainly heard this argument as well. It’s true, vegans should supplement with vitamin B12. Some plant-based foods also contain vitamin B12, but in a form that, according to experts, cannot be used by the human body.

But where does the vitamin B12 in meat come from? For poultry and pork, the answer is: from dietary supplements. Because just like in humans, vitamin B12 is formed in the large intestine of animals, but they excrete it without using it.

Ruminants, on the other hand, can use the vitamin B12 they produce in their own bodies. To do this, they must be sufficiently supplied with the trace element cobalt. In industrial agriculture, cows often lack this requirement, which is why they are often dependent on nutritional supplements.

On this basis, it is entirely justified to ask the question whether one cannot simply take vitamin B12 oneself in the form of food supplements and skip the detour via the animals.

Do vegans eat industrial goo?

Does vegan food consist of flavor enhancers, artificial flavors, and other additives? This is true for some plant foods, as it is for many processed animal products. And as with an omnivorous diet, such products should be the exception rather than the rule when it comes to eating healthily.

Meat substitutes make it easier for many people to switch to a plant-based diet. They are practical if you want to prepare a vegan alternative to a meat dish without much effort. In the long run, however, many health-conscious vegans refrain from replacing meat, sausage and cheese 1:1 with vegan substitutes. Instead, there is, for example, Bolognese made from lentils, vegetable skewers when grilling and hummus on bread. Tofu is also available in its natural state, and even with processed meat substitutes, the list of ingredients is not always as long and cryptic.

Even if vegans treat themselves to a few vegan sausages at a barbecue party (if they are possible again): Before calling them industrial goo, one should consider whether it is really being vegan that decides how natural or unnatural one eats. Didn’t you just eat a bratwurst with a similarly long list of ingredients, plus ready-made barbecue sauces, chips and cola? If so, then maybe it’s best to keep your mouth shut.

Does the rainforest burn for tofu?

Grilled striploin sliced steak on cutting board over stone table

If we all stop eating meat, where are we supposed to grow all the vegetables to keep us full? Some people are probably asking this question. If rainforests are already being cut down to plant soy, wouldn’t the problem get worse with a switch to a plant-based diet?

Many who ask these questions forget that pigs, cattle and chickens also have to eat. Very few of these animals graze on green mountain meadows that are unsuitable for growing food. Instead, large areas of arable land are required for the cultivation of animal feed. This means that the area required for animal food is higher than for plant food. As animal husbandry decreases, areas are freed up on which we can grow food for human consumption or on which we can reforest.

The increasing hunger for cheap meat has led to forests being cut down in order to grow animal feed in huge monocultures. Depending on the source, 75 to 85 percent of the soy harvested worldwide is fed to animals. So much for the claim that vegetarians and vegans are destroying the rainforest. Incidentally, the soy for meat and milk substitutes often comes from Europe.

After years of eating meat and other animal products, it can be difficult to reduce or even stop eating them altogether. But hiding behind false arguments no longer counts as an excuse.

Keep Reading
By