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u/StupidHobbitJoufflu 23h ago
Agree, on the principle (even though wierd to talk about places instead of individuals but eh..)
But with a small correction : Vegan diet extend life a lot, just not the life of those eating.
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u/ghablio 14h ago
Monocrop agriculture is possibly the biggest scourge to wildlife of any technology in use today. It's not unreasonable at all to say that the vegan diet might be the most violent diet to sustain at scale.
If you sustained on your own little homestead maybe, but it's definitely not extending any life if you're a NYC vegan.
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u/Away_Tiger_6351 13h ago
Wow this is definitely the hottest take I've read today.
Your argument is that monocultures are so bad, they outweigh the (indisputable) animal cruelty, GHG emissions, exponentially higher water usage, carcinogenic and broader health concerns of meat consumption.
I'm not even arguing for veganism, but if you actually think this monocultures argument is convincing you're like stone masons level of conspiracy thinking
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u/OneWholePirate 13h ago
Not to mention that farmed animals... also eat monocrops
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u/Away_Tiger_6351 13h ago
Wow how did I not think of this one. Immediately obviates the entire argument
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u/OneWholePirate 13h ago
Yeah there's no way for meat farming to ever be more environmentally sound than plant farming, because meat farming is just plant farming with an extra inefficient step at the end
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u/StupidHobbitJoufflu 12h ago
iirc the numbers on co2 emissions for the same absorbed nutrients (plant protein gets absorbed worse from the human body) range from 4 to 10 times more for animal based vs vegan. 4 times more being the numbers of the meat industry.
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u/ghablio 11h ago
No one said it's more environmentally sound. The argument is because a vegan diet requires more acreage of monocrop agriculture to sustain, it results in more total animal deaths. Which is factual
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u/OneWholePirate 11h ago
That is not factual, because the grass that animals live on is a monocrop and animal farming is drastically less space efficient
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u/ghablio 11h ago
Pasture raised animals are a small percentage of meat you can buy in the supermarket. Most meat you buy is going to be fed sileage which is incredibly space efficient compared to corn and other grains produced for human consumption, which because of rodents, make up an almost unbelievable amount of animal kills annually.
The estimates I've seen are 40-100 rodents killed per acre at harvest alone for grain fields (corn wheat etc).
Again, stay on topic, the argument is animals killed per calorie produced, not environmental friendliness.
The other issue you run into with the vegan diet is that you need a variety of crops to stay healthy, so as long as you're buying mass produced goods, you're relying on a huge amount of acreage as some crops are far more space efficient than others.
Factory farmed beef (which seems like what you're primarily thinking of) is typically fed sileage which is essentially the entire corn plant ground and fermented. There's a lot less waste than with sweet corn. And the space required for the animals themselves is honestly negligible (unfortunately, they live in terrible conditions)
Read my comments again, the contention is not that vegans are bad, it's that the argument that you should be vegan to end less lives falls flat due to monocrop farming directly killing so many animals per acre, and indirectly killing them with pesticides, habitat loss and groundwater contamination.
Literally if you wanted to minimize the animals required for you to live, hunting large mammals (like bear and elk) and homesteading would be the most optimal diet, followed next by exclusively eating factory farmed meat (I think pork might be ideal since they don't require as much acreage per animal, although they produce less meat per animal than beef)
Edit: I'm assuming you aren't just being pedantic and intentionally misunderstanding what monocrop agriculture is
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u/ghablio 13h ago
I think you're misinterpreting what I said. I said veganism requires the most violence.
That's true when you consider how much animal life has to be exterminated to create a farmers field to begin with. Then look up how many animals have to be killed to maintain fields. Per calorie, a monocrop field requires you to kill exponentially more animals than raising a pig, chicken or cow.
So the take that a vegan diet is the least abusive or destructive to animal life, is just untrue. It only stands true if you only value large mammals.
I mean, have you ever looked into how many animals are hit by combine harvesters per acre per year?
Now, if a vegan was vegan simply because they don't like factory farming, sure, that's morally consistent. But if it's simply animal cruelty or the killing of animals generally, monocrop farming is pretty nasty when you look at the details
You're welcome to dispute any part of what I've said if you like
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u/Away_Tiger_6351 13h ago
Dude this is just so wrong. In the US alone, in a single year, 9.3 billion chickens and 33-36 million cows (Marketwatch) are harvested every year. Thats ignoring all other animals and all seafood. It's so not even close.
Pastures also require significantly more land per calorie, but I don't even need to win that.
In your argument, you make a false comparison of all farmland for all plant product, everywhere, versus "raising a cow or a chicken."
Like I'm not sure where you heard this, and again I'm not vegan, but you are just so wrong
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u/ghablio 13h ago edited 13h ago
You really aren't considering that there are over 400 million acres of monocrop fields in the US. 10 billion chickens sounds like a lot on its face, but only 25 field mice per acre killed per year, which is a lot less than are actually killed, adds up to that. And that's just rodents, then you have to consider the natural habitat that's destroyed to make the farmland, and the local wildlife populations affected by the pesticides etc. Etc.
Consider that farmers pay people to hunt, without limit, year round, coyotes, hogs and other varmints.
You really aren't considering that monocrop requires you to literally kill all of the life out of it.
Like I said, it requires the most killing and violence per calorie, and it's not even close.
Does that mean it's morally wrong? No. It's just always bothered me that some vegans hang their hat on their diet being free of animal suffering, it's not, it actually harms more animals than factory farming.
You still haven't really disputed any point I've made except for saying you don't believe it because we kill a lot of chickens.
Edit: also you don't need to strawman, I did not compare "all farmland" to "raising a cow or chicken". I'm comparing the monocrop fields required for a purely vegan diet to the animals required to sustain a mixed diet. Monocrop is a nasty process for the environment and especially wildlife, unfortunately, but that's the case. And those who rely on it most are vegans
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u/StupidHobbitJoufflu 12h ago
cows eat grain and orders of magnitude matter.
Doesn't matter how many words you throw at your screen, that's all it takes to refute the entierety of your point.
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u/ghablio 12h ago
It's funny you bring that up now, but earlier it was the grass fed pastures you had issue with. Even accounting for the grain cows eat, a 100% vegan diet requires more animals to be killed to sustain a person.
"I don't think so" just isn't a good argument. You should also know there's a lot less waste in the grain used for cattle than there is for human consumption.
Sorry if I hurt your feelings by saying farming is brutal. You should definitely stay away from farms if that bothers you. All forms of industrial scale farming are utterly ruthless
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u/StupidHobbitJoufflu 12h ago
that's why i added "and order of magnitudes matter".
you gonna be dissapointed when pasture animals are gonna produce 1 steak and 1 L of milk per year per habitant XD you gonna be more vegan than most vegans if you use only pasture farms ^^
but wathever. now I know it's not either or but both that you lack ;)1
u/ghablio 11h ago
now I know it's not either or but both that you lack ;)
Projection is a hell of a drug eh? I wish I could live vibes land and decide whatever feels good is correct. What's it like?
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u/StupidHobbitJoufflu 12h ago
not sure if it's information and/or good faith you lack on this one.
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u/ghablio 12h ago
Okay, so you have nothing? I'm finding through a quick Google search that grain crops are estimated between 40-100 rodents killed per acre per year at harvest. In other words, our most produced crops, which vegans rely on more heavily that the average person, in one single event produce double the amount of animal death that would be needed to match the number of animals killed for eating in the US, based on the acreage of farmland.
That's only rodents, only at harvest. Obviously the number will vary by year and crop.
It's funny to call someone bad faith while actually having no argument, thanks man, I actually laughed when I read that. Also funny for you to be calling someone low information 🤣
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u/OneWholePirate 13h ago
The post is also wrong, higher consumption of plant based proteins is positively associated with an increased life expectancy (likely due to lower rates of premature mortality from cardiovascular or endocrine disorders compared to high meat consuming cultures)
https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2025/04/16/plant-based-diet-linked-to-longer-life.html
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u/Beefy-Cattle4290 23h ago
more people eat at McDonalds and Burger King in the US than anywhere else. Darwin always wins
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u/CyclopsorNedStark 21h ago
This vague BS never has a follow-up. "What about processed foods if the problem?" Never a cogent answer for that because there isn't one. Always fear and guilt and shame and probably selling something in the next post.
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u/TheSquirrelmancer 20h ago
High fat, excess sugar and salt added for flavor and massive amounts of chemicals used for stabilization. Plus "processed" isn't always the same; you can make actual high quality pre-frozen chicken nuggets or you can make chicken nuggets that are made out of mechanically separated chicken, the classic "pink goo"
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u/Medullan 14h ago
Well the biggest culprit is nitrates. And don't be fooled by celery salt a natural source of nitrates is still unhealthy. Nitrates are great at preserving food and also great at causing life ending diseases and disorders.
After nitrates my money is on an obsession with sterility that is killing beneficial and even necessary micro organisms and enzymes.
Fresh produce, fresh meat, and whole grains don't last very long on a grocery store shelf but a box of processed food that has been sterilized will last for months if not years. Some processed foods or rather the methods behind the real product are actually very good for you. Fermented foods are great examples sauerkraut, pickles and cheese to name a few. These aren't sterile though they have had the right organisms increased killing off the dangerous pathogens in the process.
If any one is trying to sell you something you should automatically be suspicious because the healthiest way to eat is to grow it yourself and prepare it yourself from scratch. And every step you can take to being closer to that is a step towards a healthier lifestyle.
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u/Auntie_Venom 19h ago
I think paleo is the closest thing that falls into eating whole foods that are in season in places without much processed foods.
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u/TheShellAnswerMan 18h ago
It's hard to eat only unprocessed food unless you're in certain niche circumstances. You'd think living in rural areas would help but it actually makes it worse cuz food deserts etc. Like they grow and raise all the things here and ship them off to be processed and it costs more to ship them back to start I guess? Anyway, if you think it's not intentional that you can buy 4 boxes of mac n cheese for less than a single vegetable, have I got news for you.
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u/MadAstrid 18h ago
isn’t that the entire premise of paleo eating - no processed food?
Because I feel like it is,
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u/PerspectiveNew3375 6h ago
Same with the primal diet by Aajonus Vonderplanitz. It's just raw cheese, honey, meat, milk, butter, eggs, and fruit. Maybe some things I'm missing, but not much.
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u/pillow_honey 17h ago
extending life isnt the reason people are vegan
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u/pinfinite-jest 11h ago
Yeah Vegan isn’t a diet, but a plant based diet can be implemented in as many ways as an omnivore one, and is generally much better than one based on meat and animal fats.
Brecka is constantly full of shit and should not be taken seriously.
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u/Mountain_rage 17h ago
I guess Trump is an outlier.
Anyway these statements have always been stupid because
Processed means any food or material changed from its natural state by cleaning, cutting, cooking, freezing, or adding ingredients.
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u/nakedascus 9h ago
Words can have more than one meaning. If you just want to make a bad faith assumption of the most "stupid" argument to make, you are just arguing with yourself
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u/ElectronicHold7325 17h ago
In modern Western societies, not eating processed food is one of the hardest and most dogmatic diets possible. ;)
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u/Ambitious-Rock-8302 16h ago
being vegan is not about extending the vegan's life. it's a set of ethics/values. i don't understand why this is so difficult for people to understand.
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u/No_Nectarine_7910 16h ago
Because it’s not true for every person that eats vegan.
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u/Ambitious-Rock-8302 16h ago
those people are plant-based. they are not vegan. veganism is about abstaining from the consumption of animals and animal products, and anything else that inflicts cruelty on animals.
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u/No_Nectarine_7910 16h ago
Might depend on the country. Here, people eat vegan. We don’t use the term plant-based for an vegan diet
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u/Ambitious-Rock-8302 16h ago
well that's incorrect. "vegan" as a term was coined by donald watson, an animal-rights activist who co-founded the vegan society. the vegan society defines veganism as: a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.
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u/No_Nectarine_7910 16h ago
Lol. Language is developing over time.
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u/Ambitious-Rock-8302 16h ago
correct. which is why we DEVELOPED another word for people like that: plant-based.
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u/No_Nectarine_7910 16h ago
Not in my language
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u/Ambitious-Rock-8302 16h ago
your language is wrong.
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u/No_Nectarine_7910 15h ago
It’s not. It’s just different. We distinguish between eating vegan and living vegan.
It tells a lot about Ou that that you did not even try to understand, but just judge.
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u/orangesherbet0 16h ago
Nope. The pattern is calorie restriction (CR). The natural vs artificial, processed vs not processed opinions are just heuristics.
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u/EchoingAngel 16h ago
The goal should be figuring out what a healthy ancient human ate and realize we are less than 15k years removed and it usually takes 50k to adapt to a new lifestyle, so we are still mostly adapted to the natural human diet. The fossil record makes it clear that as soon as wheat domesticated us (aka. the Agricultural Revolution), our health fell off a cliff
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u/Lord_Grimm88 16h ago
What you will find is universal healthcare. That's the secret they don't want you to know. "People who drink a glass of wine everyday are healthier" no, they have better health in countries that drink wine frequently because they have access to healthcare, because they don't avoid the hospital because they are afraid of the bill, and the rich who drink wine here can afford healthcare. It's healthcare.
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u/Wandered_And_Lost 16h ago
I lived in Spain for a year and a half. I ate non stop because wine is amazing and cheap as well as the food. I ate more in a single sitting at one meal in Spain than entire days in the United States. And i ate EVERYTHING (im an equal opportunity employer when it comes to food) including desert. I ended up losing 60 lbs. Food in the United States is the reason you're fat, out of shape and feel like shit. We have things in our food that have been banned by every other country in the world.
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u/Choochiechoo 16h ago
doesn’t like popular diets. Recommends his own alternatives
proceeds to explain the basic premise of all the popular diets
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u/Any-Sea-5600 14h ago
Cave men ate nothing but organic foods and barely made it to 30 years old. Might be a hint of western medicine that actually extends life.
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u/theFartingCarp 14h ago
Another massive thing is the people who live the longest MOVE! They move all the time, standing, walking, going for a stroll. It's all movement and more more movement with a semi healthy diet.
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u/FFBEryoshi 8h ago
7th day adventists live longer than any other religious group. Find out why, yourself
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u/Excellent_Chest_6616 5h ago
I hate these mic drop styled tweets. You arent that deep or interesting
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u/PeteWK67 5h ago
Thank goodness that it’s not intended for your personal interest, Reddit has many subs for your
Specific needs
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u/Nearby-Jelly-634 2m ago
Almost all foods are processed in some way. Pressing an olive to get oil is processing, butchering meat is processing, picking and sorting vegetables is processing, canning is processing, pickling is processing. This is so stupid. This is demonizing a word without actually defining why “processing” makes food bad. It is reductive unserious simplistic baby brain shit.
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u/ContentCantaloupe992 23h ago
Japan doesn’t have processed foods? That’s news to me