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I've been scouring the other wikipedias and non-english websites for statistics relating to vegans. By and large, this has been a failure. There appear to be no/poor statistics for vegans (or even vegetarians) in Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Possibly useful:
Veganismus wikipedia article provides "between 250,000 and 460,500". This is cited to veganwelt.de, which itself cites no source. This number is repeated on a number of german vegan websites, but none of them (that I can understand) have an authoritative source linked or listed. This source appears to provide an estimate for vegetarians, but I could not glean any info regarding vegans. Perhaps someone with better German could do so.
Veganisme wikipedia article provides "16,000 vegans." Sourced to veganisme.org, which I cannot understand, but which appears to be an estimate from the Netherlands vegan society.
Веганизм wikipedia article provides a bunch of statistics, and although most of them appear to be the UK/US/Germany stats that I've listed above. But maybe someone who can read Russian would be able to find something better.
Yay. So in sum, the german citation is kind of crappy, and we might have a citation for the Netherlands. Anybody else have any luck? Kellen T 22:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Very informative article, congratulations. I've identified one minor point that needs correcting and have a question for experts.
The minor point is that under the sub-heading "calcium" there is a reference to a study "by Oxford" with a link that directs to the English city of that name. I suspect that "University of Oxford" was meant but even that is vague and it would be more satisfactory to say "a team of X-specialism researchers at the University of Oxford".
The question is whether vegans avoid beer and wine as fish products are frequently used to clarify these beverages? If so, are other alcoholic drinks acceptable?
Thanks.
Itsmejudith 11:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I question the quality of this article based on the Good article criteria. For that reason, I have listed the article at Good article review. Issues needing to be address are listed there and you are invited to comment. Regards, Tarret 14:12, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Hello, my English is not really good but i have some qestions about this picture. Has this Picture ,in this article an effect like a propaganda? Is it licensed to take it over, with the same text to the german veganism article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.73.211.12 ( talk) 13:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Byproducts are part of avoidance, animal right issues are moral issues and the nutritional statement is corrected now from a medical point of view. Please don't edit without justification. Jenny Len☤ 14:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry; just read this after the fact. I made an informative edit about veganism in French which caused a lot of confusion amongst some of us in Canada when it came to dietary needs. Just trying to avoid international confusion. This is, however, common knowledge, so if we feel we need to link to a translation page let me know. I believe the French "vegetalien" page is accurate. Cpt ricard 07:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about my mistake. I wrongfully placed the report due to my confusion between veganism and vegetarianism. I moved it to environmental vegetarianism; so note that if you see its removal, it wasn't banditry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.165.22 ( talk) 08:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Here are some sections I think could use some attention:
I will eventually work on some of these myself, but perhaps other editors can get to them first. Kellen T 12:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems that the source says ethical related with commitment in page 2 and moral related with convictions in page 17 so both should be under the same citation. Thank you for calling my attention to that Jenny Len☤ 12:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
It suited well with the article and subject. This page is in desperate need of at least one of those pictures that illustrates animal suffering due to human neglect. More people than vegans are aware of animal cruelty, so a realistic picture can hardly be considered propaganda. Whoever removed it, put it back where it belongs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.113.226.96 ( talk) 15:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
This article has lost its GA status. The article itself hasn't changed much since the original granting of GA, but issues were raised about its content. Here is the GA reassessment discussion, which includes specific concerns. Kellen T 11:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
almost non of the vitamins in supplements are absorbed, vegans also have an increased risk of kidney/liver damage, also a increased risk of Thrombosis which can lead to strokes. before you change about the way you eat you should talk to any "real" Nutritionist with masters or a PhD degree, as without any professional help you can kill yourself (as the internet isn't a reliable enough a way to find these things out.) Markthemac 08:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
but not health concerns, which should be displayed. Markthemac 00:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
This part was recently added to the article:
While this is moderately interesting, it seems like a bit of trivia rather than something that fits well within the article. I am leaning towards removing it unless a better place can be found for it. Opinions? Kellen T 04:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I have a problem with this edit, which changes:
to:
I previously reverted this change, but it has been added back. The previous version was derived from the Vegan Society definition of veganism (although a direct quote would be better, imo). The problem with the change is (a) "use of animals" includes animal products (b) "use of animals" is clearer than "use of animal derived products" as it more directly locates the reason for veganism. The added citation does nothing for me, and doesn't really support a distinction between "use of animals" and "animal products." Finally, I object to the edit summary of "corrected definition and sourced" because the definition was blatantly not wrong to begin with. Kellen T 05:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Please excuse my previous changes (repeated changes) as I am brand new to Wikipedia. This is my first attempt to edit an article and I may have broken protocol. My intent is to alter slightly the way in which the potential for vitamin/nutrient deficiencies in a vegan diet is worded. Currently, by saying that "vegan diets can be deficient...," the implication is that there is some diet (the assumption being the standard American diet, or the diet of the majority) that is not deficient in vitamins/nutrients. That means that a vegan diet, when compared with the standard American diet, can also deficient in cholesterol, saturated fat, among other undesirable things. It is true that a person on a vegan diet should be aware of vitamin B12, iodine and other nutrients...as should everyone. I propose that where worded: "However, a vegan diet can be deficient..." it should be changed to "Just as any diet can be deficient in nutrients, an unplanned vegan diet may be deficient in..." ( CraigWenner 22:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC))
any vegan who eats properly with the vegan food groups and goes to a doctor for a blood analysis test can verify that the doctors are always impressed by the high levels of calcium, iron, b12, and iodine. The last time I got a blood analysis test my calcium levels exceeded the average levels. When you intake enough calcium, healthy bone structure is maintained through weight-bearing exercises that shoot electrical impulses through the bone tissues adhering the calcium to the osteoblasts. I have been vegan for 9 years and it disturbs me that the best advice you give to people seeking out how vegans get calcium is to eat fortified soy products??? what about broccoli?? vegetarians who drink milk are usually calcium deficient because of the protein-induced hypocalciurea - where excessive protein causes a pH imbalance that binds the sulfur bonds from milk proteins with unstable calcium cations from the milk and then the acid excess takes calcium from the blood which gets replaced by the osteoblasts in the bones. After milk consumption, the body urinates out more calcium than it tried to digest. Why cant we tell people to eat leafy greens or broccoli or lentils? or brown rice or grain? how do other herbivorous mammals get their calcium? this veganism site needs accurate information. and fortified foods are never recommended over natural sources.
This article lost GA status (unfairly, IMO - drive-by reviewing is bad) due in part to a lack of criticism. Today I ran across a few articles [4] [5] that I want to suggest we include in the "Resources and the Environment" section.
The basic gist is that a diet with a limited meat and/or dairy intake (still far less that the standard American diet, FWIW) may actually be more environmentally friendly than a diet restricted only to vegetables. This is due to land-use concerns - it is more efficient (on a calorie-per-area basis) to use marginally fertile land for livestock than vegetables. The conclusion that the Slate article then draws is that if you live around poor farming land, then it is better to eat locally rather than import large quantities of vegetables - the transportation of which leads to higher CO2 emissions. I'd like to see about integrating these references into the environment section and adding a short paragraph, but since this could be a contentious change I thought I'd bring it to the talk page first. Cheers, Skinwalker 15:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice to come to consensus about whether or not the 'demographics' section indeed needs to be tagged with the "globalize" template. There simply isn't any data which we can cite to fulfill the ideal requirements for removing the "globalize" template. As such, it's not a failing of this article or wikipedia in general that we can't provide a wider view, and the template is therefore meaningless in this context. I would suggest we remove it and point to this decision in the future if the template is added. Kellen T 14:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
"In April 2007 MIT biologists claimed that they had found a symbiotic relationship between soil and roots, with B12 being present in soil attached to roots (which includes the soil around root vegetables, such as parsnips or carrots) [6]."
This paragraph has been deleted. One can obtain vitamin B12 from "dirty"/lightly washed raw organic carrots? Seems highly relevant to me. nirvana2013 16:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I'm new to Wikipedia editing. I wish to re-arrange the sentence found under the heading 'Vitamin B12': "Vegetarians who were previously meat eaters may preserve, up to 30 years, stores of Vit B12 in their bodies." to "Vegetarians who were previously meat eaters may preserve stores of Vit B12 in their bodies for up to 30 years." which I feel flows better gramatically. I have two questions about this change: 1) Is it considered a 'minor edit' to re-arrange a grammatically poor sentence without (I believe) altering the message/content? Yes I have read Help:Minor edit, but I'd like some more clarity. 2) I edited this sentence and previewed it (without changing the subsequent tag), but the reference changed from 69 to 1. Why? Thanks for your time stscross 11:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I found the article focused too much on the practice of not eating meat, not the practice of not consuming or using any animal products. For eg. the ethics section focuses on why vegans may choose not to eat meat. I would like to know why vegans choose not to eat any animal product.
220.245.158.49 ( talk) 06:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Really, do we need 18 paragraphs, 9 sections, to talk about Vegan nutrition, outside of the Vegan nutrition article? I dare say this section of Veganism is almost as long as the main article itself! When people constantly complain about the length of this article, is there any excuse to have so much information here? A line along the lines of "Certain vitamins and minerals, such as Iodine, B12, and Calcium, may be lacking in a Vegan diet," or a line talking about nutrients and mention those three specifically as examples. Honestly, this is just a waste of space, all this information clearly goes on the Vegan nutrition page. Vert et Noir talk 09:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I added a paragraph stating, as succinctly as I knew how to put it, that many vegans rely on soy as their main source of protein. A user called Keller removed it, saying that it was not appropriate for this article. I disagree, and have therefore restored the paragraph. Web-sites that evangelize for vegan diets almost always push people toward tofu and other soy meat substitutes, and I cited one, chooseveg.com, as a reference. If vegan diets often rely on soy, then the debate about the safety of soy consumption deserves to be noted on this page. I also cited a video by a nutrition author, which Keller seems to feel is an inappropriate source. I don't understand why a video by an author is a less authoritative reference than the author's book, which I just as easily could have cited. If Keller feels this is an inappropriate source, then I suggest he/she improve my contribution by finding another source. If he/she is, like many vegans, eager to downplay the risks of soy because it's a vegan staple, then I suggest he/she pound sand.-- ManicBrit 19:11, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Kellen:
I don't expect an ideologue to adhere to NPOV perfectly, but you've failed to defend your position. My sources are quite clear - chooseveg.com is a resource for vegans planning their diets, and it advocates tofu and other soy products as three of the five main protein sources vegans should use. The other source is a lecture from an MD who authored a book about healthy eating. You can consider these sources "poor" because they don't conform to your point of view, and you can attempt to police this page and others associated with it in order to give a more pro-vegan slant, but I don't see how you can call these sources "poor." I am going to restore a section to the "Precautions" section that refers readers to the "Soy Controversy" article. -- ManicBrit ( talk) 17:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
MuleAttack:
The contribution never said that all vegans eat soy, just that many do, which was supported by a link to a vegan website. The paragraph itself also noted that soy has been added to many food products in the US, and is not unique to a vegan diet. However, the prevalence of soy in vegan diets is well-established, and someone researching veganism should know that information before they log on to some site like chooseveg.com and start downing tofu in the same quantity as they previously downed meat. You are quite free to add a counterpoint that some vegan diets do not include soy and that lentils and nuts can suffice. That would be a valid contribution that would enhance the article. Removing the soy information detracts for the article. -- ManicBrit ( talk) 17:17, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
The following seems to be a rather useless indicator:
The problem there is that unless you are actively seeking to avoid certain things, you probably pay very little attention to whether eggs or butter were used in the bread you ate, or whether the soup you had was based in Chicken or Beef stock, or whether the Caesar Salad you had used an anchovy-based salad dressing. I find it quite implausible to infer from the data that 1.4% of all Americans make an effort to avoid eating bread and crackers. The poll isn't an effective way to determine the real numbers for vegans, because most people don't read labels as closely as vegetarians, vegans, or people with food allergies do. The passage seems misleading and suited for removal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.172.224 ( talk) 22:23, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
The first sentence, "Veganism (also strict or pure vegetarianism) is a philosophy and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose," is incorrect. A philosophy cannot "seek" anything. Nor can a lifestyle. A person who holds a philosophy, or practices a lifestyle, can seek. But a philosophy itself, cannot. Veganism is a way of life (never use a "big word," or fancy schmancy word, such as philosphy, or lifestyle, when a "small word," such as way of life, will do. Following this rule makes for better communication, with more people. Veganism is a way of life that involves not using animals, or animal products, for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, or any other purpose, as far as is reasonably possible; and vegans hold that in this day and age, in the industrialized world, food, clothing and shelter can easily be acquired without relying on animals or animal products. The first sentence needs to be changed. Nomenclator ( talk) 01:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
"Usually" pronounced /ˈviːgən/?
This is the way I personally heard Jay Dinshah, the founder of the American Vegan Society, pronounce the word, in 1967, and he remarked about it being the correct pronunciation. He personally corrected me when I pronounced the word incorrectly. The correctness of pronunciation is determined by authoritative declaration, and not by repeated experimentation, repeated observation, and accumulation of empirical evidence, which is the way the correctness of scientific facts are determined. If Jay Dinshah said oranges had more sugar than grapefruits, I might want to measure sugar levels. If Jay Dinshah said vegan was pronounced /ˈviːgən/, then /ˈviːgən/ is the correct pronunciation. The sentence should be changed to read that "correct pronunciation is /ˈviːgən/. -- Nomenclator ( talk) 01:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I cleaned up the B12 section, and removed one sentence which read:
This is false. This had the following two references, which are themselves useful, but which contradict the statement. Perhaps they will be useful to someone else.
{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link) (found
here)I've also removed:
Which is interesting, but only tangentially relevant to the health of vegans.
Later, I also reworded, but then decided on removing the part about Dr. Spock from the "pregnancies and children section". This read:
The previously cited source was not very good, and didn't actually indicate that he "said" something (which the original text said he did). The new source above is from the NY Times, but the quote actually comes from this AP article, not the NY times one. I removed this section because it was improperly under the "precautions" header and I didn't have a good place for it at the time. Please re-add it in an appropriate place if you're feeling toasty. Kellen T 19:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
The article says:
The latest edition of Dr. Benjamin Spocks Baby and Child Care was released last month, and it contained a surprising turnaround. Dr. Spock, who died at the age of 94 just before the new version of his book was published, advised no cows milk or any other dairy products for children. Mothers milk, not cows milk, is natures perfect food for babies under one year, according to Dr. Spock. And once a child is over the age of two years, he advised a vegetarian dieteliminating meat and poultry and cutting down on fish. We now know that there are harmful effects of a meaty diet, Dr. Spock wrote with his co-author Stephen J. Parker, M.D. Children can get plenty of protein and iron from vegetables, beans, and other plant foods that avoid the fat and cholesterol that are in animal products.
This supports the quote as is.
Abe Froman ( talk) 03:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
As this has no direct connection to veganism. Kellen T 01:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
As nothing cited actually shows a connection to veganism. There's a page of links about BGH, 3 citations about how hormones may affect human health, and one citation about legality. There are links to vegan pages on the BGH page, but nothing more. Kellen T 02:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
I think this section is rather poor. Yes, there are vegan athletes. There are two sources; one lists very few vegans (though many vegetarians) and the second lists around 20 athletes. Neither of these sources make claims about veganism leading to greater athletic achievement. Yes, Carl Lewis is/was vegan. So what? Without similar claims, by vegan advocacy organizations or a larger number of vegan athletes, I count this as anecdotal evidence. Kellen T 01:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
If anybody has copies of Tom Regan's books, could someone please add a paragraph about his views on veganism in the "ethics" section, including some quotes. Alternatively paste links here to text available online (i've not yet found any that mentions veganism). Kellen T 19:22, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Kellen goes on an editing binge [8], and the Vegan article suddenly has little to no positive information in it. I reverted to 12.28 until his edits are discussed. Abe Froman ( talk) 03:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
What really caught my eye was the wholesale removal of the sections on Athletics, BGH, and Benjamin Spock. [9] Not only were these cited to books or medical publications, they also contained information that could portray veganism positively. Why these were removed, while negative information, using similar sources, was retained, I can only guess. Abe Froman ( talk) 03:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I've re-done most of my edits, one by one. If you have a critique of a specific edit, please bring it up rather than reverting everything I've done just on the basis of it looking "positive" or "negative." Kellen T 12:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Kellen could be correct that a huge amount of these would be required to meet the RDA for calcium, but rephrasing it to say fortified soy milk or supplements amkes it appear that a vegan diet cannot in itself provide sufficient calcium without being supplemented. It also goes against some vegans who prefer to get their RDA's though "real" foods instead of supplements. Maybe there is a compromise that can indicate that while it might be difficult to get all the calcium needed without supplements, it is possible. For example, a cup of soybeans (180mg) has more calcium than a cup of cottage cheese (160mg) [10] Bob98133 ( talk) 16:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
The links supporting this sentence are broken:
Michael H 34 ( talk) 17:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34
Hey,
Is it possible to describe that veganism has benefits to stopping emerging epidemics ? See the Epidemic-article where I added the info and reference (reference being this WHO-document ).
Thanks. KVDP ( talk) 09:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
How does the picture of a fruit/vegetable market in Barcelona contribute to this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.216.163.100 ( talk) 13:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The edit changed "A 1999 metastudy of five studies on vegetarian mortality rates in western countries found equivalent mortality rates for vegans and meat eaters" to "A 1999 metastudy of five studies on vegetarian mortality rates in western countries found equivalent mortality rates for vegans and regular meat eaters. These two group had the highest mortality rate of 1.0 while vegetarian and infrequent meat eater performed better in term of mortality scoring 0.84, while those who only eat fish did best in term of mortality scoring 0.82."
A small question first: Does this remark in general belong in the Benefits section? I would say no, since it doesn't really address any beneficial aspect of a vegan diet. It doesn't really seem to be appropriate for the Precautions section either, but I think it would fit in there better, at least.
Second: I don't think that the new edit is phrased well. It's not obvious what the numbers mean, exactly, in the context of this article, and I don't think they're needed. If a reader would like to know more precise information, they can follow the link to the study. Additionally, I think that "performed better," "scoring," and "did best" aren't exactly right for this piece of information. Those phrases and words convey a sort of competition or contest. I do agree that the original sentence didn't really express enough, so I won't just revert the edit.
How does this sound: "A 1999 meta-study of five studies comparing vegetarian and non-vegetarian mortality rates in western countries found equivalent mortality rates for vegans and those who eat meat regularly. The study also found equivalent and lower mortality rates for vegetarians and those who eat meat infrequently."
Thoughts? Djk3 ( talk) 23:53, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
It took me a minute to find the numbers the editor was quoting. They're in this table, which uses the smaller number of vegans before adding those from the Health Food Shoppers Study. I'm going to add this edit, but I'm going to leave it where it is right now if the ultimate goal is to merge the Benefits and Precautions sections. It might be worth it to mention that the study says to interpret the death rate ratios with caution, but I'm not sure. The study says that we should do that because of the uncertainty of the dietary classification of subjects in the Health Food Shoppers Study, and the table that we're drawing information from doesn't include that data. Djk3 ( talk) 19:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Someone is keep eliminating information which clearly indicate that vegan do pretty bad in term of longevity and that people who eat fish but no other meat live longest among sample groups. Isn't this a typical example of censorship? Vapour ( talk) 17:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I do not think it is acceptable to censor the fact that vegan as well as regular meat eater has the highest mortality rate while people who eat only fish has the lowest mortality rate. I will keep reverting if this crucial info is deleted or obscured. Vapour ( talk) 09:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I edited the content relating to Chinese study. I accept that content is slightly heavy with my interpretation. I don't like to delete content if it is sourced from verified source so I tried to salvage it. Feel free to trim it. Vapour ( talk) 14:35, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I would like to suggest that studies cited in the "health" section be about vegans (that is, they should be one of the studied populations), and that the cited conclusions be statistically significant. If not, they ought to come with very clear disclaimer (to the effect that they're not really applicable). I just made some changes to try to effect this. (Personal note: I am quite interested in negative results on veganism that pass these criteria.) Mkcmkc ( talk) 18:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Since vegans are very outspoken and seem to be very active in bringing their philosophy to others, would a section on vegan activism be germaine to the article? Bugguyak ( talk) 17:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I've heard claims of adverse effects when a person goes omnivore after a period of veganism. People say that some sort of meat-processing bacteria in your digestive system dies or somehow becomes inactive if you don't eat meat, so that you can't go back to eating meat after being a vegan.
Is there a Wikipedia article in which this claim is discussed? I've tried a little searching but I've found nothing on WP. I've heard this claim several times, so if (as I believe) it's not supported by the facts, shouldn't this myth be debunked in (for example) this article? 88.112.7.166 ( talk) 14:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
I removed this because (1) the issue of honey is already covered by the previous sentence, (2) the citation doesn't support the "controversial term" sentence (3) this doesn't address why some vegans find honey acceptable (e.g. because they don't view bees as passing the threshold for sentience or what have you). Basically it's unnecessary. Kellen T 09:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I think that the PETA web site is a bit too general as a link for this article, however a link to the PETA vegan website http://www.goveg.com/ might be appropriate. Bob98133 ( talk) 17:41, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
does any vegan think about what would happen if everyone drops animal oriented foods and starts consuming vegetables. Please dont take this as an insult, these are the points i am curious of as an engineer, these are only resource problems for me, We mankind are the most consuming animals on the planet and the assumptions i have made are about the usage of the resources and the effects, thanks for reading :)
if someone has any different views please inform me these are only my thoughts and do not need to mention medical and human evolution issues... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doganaktas ( talk • contribs) 01:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Peter Singer calls himself a "flexible vegan" which is, *not* a vegan. According to the definition on which the wikipedia and vegan society has agreed, Singer does not meet this quality.
"I don’t eat meat. I’ve been a vegetarian since 1971. I’ve gradually become increasingly vegan. I am largely vegan but I’m a flexible vegan. I don’t go to the supermarket and buy non-vegan stuff for myself. But when I’m traveling or going to other people’s places I will be quite happy to eat vegetarian rather than vegan. " (My bad about not signing, still learning) http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2006/04/peter_singer.html Ajkochanowicz ( talk) 01:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
It appear that vegan advocate are insinuating that favourable health effect vegetarian automatically apply to vegan. This is not the case. Plus, some details of the quoted paper seems to be funked. There is no mention of reduced risk to cancer in the cited paper. A separate study which incorporate the same cited article also show that your mortality rate rise if you switch from vegetarian to vegan, to the level equivalent to regular meat eater. Vapour ( talk) 15:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Please stop using info from vegan advocacy site. These site is no where considered as neutral or verifiable. Info from academia or media is the rule. Vapour ( talk) 15:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
And I corrected misquote of China study. Some Chinese are Mahayana Buddhist and are vegetarian but they are not vegan. The medical studies I have quoted established that all overall gain one make from vegetarianism or reduced meat intake is lost once one switch to veganism. Vapour ( talk) 14:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
"An exhaustive report on diet and cancer was released by the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund. Ten years in the making, reviewing more than 7,000 scientific studies, this 500+ page report is being considered the most comprehensive review ever published on the causal role of diet in cancer. The good news is that cancer is largely preventable. In addition to stopping smoking, exercising daily, and attaining a healthy weight, the expert panel recommends an overall limit on meat intake, and specifically singles out processed meat—bacon, hot dogs, ham and cold cuts—as a "convincing cause" of cancer. In general they conclude: "Eat mostly foods of plant origin". By choosing to eat a more humane, plant-based diet we can simultaneously attend to our own welfare, that of the animals, and that of our planet." [15].
I followed the source link (which is a link to a blog, not the report), found the main site for the study, searched here for "vegan," searched in the result PDFs for "vegan" and found mentions of vegan only in the context of defining what the diet is. Maybe the "plant-based diet" quote could be used somewhere else, but it borders on WP:SYN. Kellen T 12:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
Because there's already a section on Singer and this paragraph mainly seemed to be used to rebut the Jarvis' argument, which gets into tit-for-tat POV in the text of the article, which we would be better off without. Kellen T 10:58, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
"Vegans do not use or consume animal products of any kind" is wrong for all practical reasons as animal products and their consumption by vegans (knowingly or unknowingly) is too large a list to retype here given that it was already in the article earlier with sources. I suggest it be reworded or something. Idleguy ( talk) 09:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I find it strange that PETA is still in the link section, while Gary Francione has been removed. PETA does not advocate veganism as its moral baseline, and usually uses the word "vegetarian" in its literature. It is an animal welfare organization, not a vegan organization. I am not suggesting that the link to Francione's blog should be restored. However, since PETA advocates vegetarianism and welfare reforms, and only tangentially advocates veganism, it should not be included in the external links either. -- Nick, 15:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I just removed the following from the "Benefits":
While those findings are certainly noteworthy, it's too lengthy a reference to put right in the first paragraph of a section that deals with the benefits of a vegan diet. It really disturbs the flow of the paragraph. Maybe this would fit in somewhere else in the article (thought I couldn't find a proper place). Lodp ( talk) 17:50, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I suggest we delete the vegan nutrition article, which was a fork of a section of this article back in the day, but which has retained sections that we've excluded from this article, retained lots of bad writing, has poor citations, and overall is unnecessary since the major (i.e. encyclopedic) issues of a vegan diet are addressed here, and the minutiae is better left to the vegan advocacy websites (the vegan society, and vegan outreach's veganhealth.org). I'll put it up for AFD if there's some agreement here. Kellen T 18:01, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree, even the first line is badly written, "Vegan nutrition encompasses the nutrients vegans require for a balanced diet. It is an important part of a vegan's life" If there's no 'omnivorous nutrition' article and how it's an important part of an omnivores life then there should be no vegan equivalent.
Muleattack (
talk)
02:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that we should delete that article. nk, 19:41, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
I added a photo of Donald Watson to the "Definition" sectoin of the article, since he is the one (or half of two) that coined the term "vegan", only to be reverted by User:Kotra, who argued that illustrating the diet was more important than Watson. The photo there now is the generic "cornucopia" image used all over. In my opinion, Watson is much more relevant to that section than a food image, especially considering the fact that we have additional food images later in the article. Opinions? Kellen T 05:52, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
A discussion about the appropriateness of the “cornucopia” image was started in the last section, but it is off-topic there so I'll continue it here.
I said: “the cliché that vegans necessarily eat a great number of fresh, raw or unprocessed vegetables and fruit. I'm vegan but I don't eat like that at all. I eat a lot of spaghetti, soy milk and breakfast cereals, bread, bottled fruit juice, soft drinks, soy cheese, chips, pizzas and so on which are all vegan but not at all represented in that picture.”. Kotra answered: “The basic ingredients for all the foods you mention are pretty much all present in the "cornucopia" image. They're just in their pre-processed form. I agree that vegans don't always (or even usually) eat these foods as they are pictured (whole and raw), but I don't think that's what the image would convey to readers. I think it conveys that these are the basic ingredients a vegan can eat. I see no problem with illustrating what vegans can eat as opposed to what they can't.”
If I ask an average meat-eater what ey ate at lunch, the response will not be: “I ate cereals, legumes and pig muscle”. Rather it might be “pork with beans and bread”. True, vegans are often questioned about what they do eat; but just as often the answer comes as something like “grains, legumes, roots, nuts...” That is really strange. It's like confusing food with botany. Botanically, carrots may be roots, but as a food, carrots are carrots, and everyone knows carrots.
If we are to represent the foods vegans eat, I think we should start out with the foodstuffs that everyone knows. Bread, spaghetti, pizzas, French fries, water, soft drinks, sauerkraut, salads, biscuits, carrots and peas, wine and beer and other commonplace things. Then also the vegan equivalents to other commonplace items: soy milk, soy yoghurt, vegan ice cream, margarine, pastry... And then the vegan specifics like tofu, tempeh and so on.
Veganism is not about being aliens from Vega. Some vegans may eat only raw wild roots, or whole organic local-grown grains. But that's just one particular form of veganism, and I don't think the article should promote that as being what veganism is about.
David Olivier ( talk) 10:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Here's an idea, how about no picture at all? I don't see a reason to try and encompass the vegan diet (typical or otherwise) in a picture Muleattack ( talk) 04:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
References to a 2007 UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have been removed. This survey suggested that 2.24% of the England population had identified themselves as vegan, which is substantially higher than other survey results. Subsequent recontacting of respondents who had given a positive response found that very few of them were vegan or had ever been vegan. The conclusion is that some respondents did not know what vegan meant and had given a false positive response. StevieBassBoy ( talk) 10:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
With apologies, there is not a publicly available reference at present, so it is just my word. I work in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and commissioned the Defra survey cited. Following correspondence with the Vegan Society concerning the higher than expected percentage claiming to be vegan, our contractor recontacted those who claimed to be vegan and found that very few of them were vegan or had ever been vegan. Owing to some technical difficulties we have not been able to reflect this in the survey results still available on the Defra website, but they should not be cited further. The vegan result is of limited importance for the purposes of our survey (it was just a means of checking responses to other questions rather than a purposeful output). However it is of importance to the Vegan Society that the false result is not promulgated further. If the reference is reinstated again, at present you only have my assurance that it is incorrect. StevieBassBoy ( talk) 11:55, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
The removed section was:
Hopefully StevieBassBoy can provide us with something we can cite, or at least use to agree upon excluding the study from the article. Kellen T 15:02, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
This is clearly a preposterous statement meant to cause misinformation by a group that thinks chiropractic is bogus. This paragraph sounds ridiculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DonnieD123 ( talk • contribs) 19:21, 18 June 2008
The following sentence was rewritten because it was very poorly constructed:
"Animal ingredients can be found in countless products and are used in the production of—though not always present in the final form of—many more many of these ingredients are esoteric also have non-animal sources, and especially in non-food products may not even be identified."
Before rewriting this sentence, I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what the author was saying and I am still not sure if I understand it. If anyone wants to edit my writing, please don't do so by replacing it with this sentence. Please restate the point in a more clear manner. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DivaNtrainin ( talk • contribs) 22:42, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
The sentence is not clear at all. I will rewrite the sentence now that I understand what you are trying to say. The sentence has two subjects located within two different parts of the sentence. It has two different verbs within two different parts of the sentence, and this is not a compound sentence. Please note, that anytime an author has to give instructions to a reader on how to read a sentence, then it is the author that has failed. DivaNtrainin
My rewording is an improvement. My improvement uses simpler language and that's a good thing. The reader shouldn't need to have a Ph.D. to use wikipedia. There are more problems with your sentence. For example, you state "Animal ingredients can be found in countless products...". Isn't the prescence of animal ingredients in a lot of product obvious? Does this really need to be said?
Then you state "(Animal Products) are used in the production of—...—many more many of these ingredients". So, now you are saying the quantity of animal-based ingredients is some quantity more than countless. That does not make sense.
Then you say "(Animal Products) are used in the production of—...—many more many of these ingredients are esoteric". According to www.dictionary.com, esoteric is defined as
"1.understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite: poetry full of esoteric allusions. 2. belonging to the select few. 3. private; secret; confidential. "
So, if we use either of the first two definitions, then your sentenced does not make sense.
Your sentence states that non-animal ingredients aren't identified on the label, but you don't provide any reason why. Your original sentence could also be rephrased as "Don't bother looking at the label to detemine if animal products were used to make the product." That's hardly a worthwhile point.
I have no problem with you editing my work, but don't replace it with something that is poorly structured and unclear. DivaNtrainin —Preceding comment was added at 00:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
- My rewording is an improvement. My improvement uses simpler language and that's a good thing. The reader shouldn't need to have a Ph.D. to use wikipedia.
- There are more problems with your sentence. For example, you state "Animal ingredients can be found in countless products...". Isn't the prescence of animal ingredients in a lot of product obvious? Does this really need to be said?
- Then you state "(Animal Products) are used in the production of—...—many more many of these ingredients". So, now you are saying the quantity of animal-based ingredients is some quantity more than countless. That does not make sense.
- Then you say "(Animal Products) are used in the production of—...—many more many of these ingredients are esoteric". According to www.dictionary.com, esoteric is defined as
- "1.understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite: poetry full of esoteric allusions.
- 2. belonging to the select few.
- 3. private; secret; confidential. "
- So, if we use either of the first two definitions, then your sentenced does not make sense.
- Your sentence states that non-animal ingredients aren't identified on the label, but you don't provide any reason why. Your original sentence could also be rephrased as "Don't bother looking at the label to detemine if animal products were used to make the product." That's hardly a worthwhile point.
Discussion copied from User talk:kotra on 19:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
There already exists a section on "eating disorders" in the vegan article. I added the appropriate category so that people researching behaviors associated with eating disorders would be able to find it. A large number of people with eating disorders become or have been vegan, the connection is real and there. The edit was not vandalism; if you feel it was, this is an issue you should take up with the people who initially inserted the discussion of "eating disorders" into the article in the first place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaphraud ( talk • contribs) 02:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
:"Veganism is a philosophy and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose."
I find this opening statement slighty ambiguous, mostly becuase of the vague link to "philosophy". To me it seems inappropriate to over-archingly class veganism as "a philosophy" and then go on to direct the reader to a very very generalised article on the subject.
Prehaps a better wording might be:
Prehaps not. Nevertheless I feel that this important opening statement needs a re-wording.
Jason McConnell-Leech (
talk)
09:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
"Veganism is a philosophical position and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose."
Under the resources & the environment section, there is this sentence:
"It has been noted that the production of some vegan food substitutes like soy, used to produce soymilk amongst other items, is partly to blame for the deforestation of rainforests."
I looked at the references for that sentence, and neither one mentions soymilk or any other dairy or meat analogue. In fact, the only mention of the use of the soy threatening deforestation is this:
"The main products derived from soybeans are soy meal (the world’s main oil meal for animal feed) and soy oil (the world’s most consumed vegetable oil)." [12]
(emphasis added)
What I'm getting at is that this doesn't seem to be related to veganism in any particularly meaningful way. Soy meal is primarily an animal feed, and for human consumption it's likely used in as much non-vegan food as it is in vegan food. It's a common ingredient in many processed foods. Soy oil is used in almost every deep fryer, everywhere, and it's often what we buy when we get an unnamed "vegetable oil."
Additionally, it looks like someone tried to add a rebuttal:
"However, massive amounts of soy are used as animal feed rather than for direct human consumption. And while it takes several pounds of soy to produce a single pound of meat, a single pound of soy can be used to produce several pounds of soy-based foods for humans."
Massive amounts of soy in relation to what? Total soy production? Total human consumption? Compared to corn-based feed? What constitutes massiveness? The first half of the of the second sentence looks true, and a reference could probably be found for it, but the second half looks like it would only be true for vegan Jesus. You can't make more than a pound of food from one pound of any product.
I think that we should remove this paragraph since it's only tangentially related to veganism, doesn't reproduce the references' statements, and also contains some dubious claims. Djk3 ( talk) 02:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
- The increasing demand for soybean products is partially responsible for the increasing deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. [25] [26] However, the majority of this demand is in the form of livestock feed and soybean oil [26], two products that a vegan diet is unlikely to have a greater demand for than non-vegan diets.
As a carnivore, I find the argument that vegan-destined soy contributes to deforestation section to be... well, stupid. The soy/tofurkey/vegans connection is obviated by the massive amounts of soy that go into animal feed as compared to tofu or soy bacon or whatever. This, I don't think, is disputable. Archer Daniels Midland didn't get rich by feeding hippies. Skinwalker ( talk) 01:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
The paragraph in the Section "Resources and the Environment" in reference to the developing world was added in order to provide context to this section. Before my post, the section only covered the perspective of developed countries and excluded the actions of developing countries. Wikipedia has constantly requested from its contributors to provide a global perspective to topics. If we do not want to discuss a balanced approach to the topic "Resources and the Environment", then we should completely remove the section from the veganism page. DivaNtrainin ( talk) 10:22, 04 July 2008 (UTC)
Earlier in the discussion page we reached the decision to delete the Vegan nutrition article, since it's in a shambles, and its material is already covered in this article. However, it still has not been deleted. I propose that now is the time to voice objections to its deletion. If no one has any objections, let's go ahead and get rid of it. -- N-k, 00:25, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
Saying this after explicitly noting that honey & silk are "by definition animal products" is redundant, bad writing, and an example of someone attempting to advance a personal agenda ("people who eat honey aren't vegan"). The citations are just references back to other sources already used in the article. Kellen T 15:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
This was removed:
German WP cites both the veganwelt site and the study which replaced it here. Kellen T 15:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
If it must exist, place it in a Criticism section. It's former location in "ethical concerns" was misplaced. The polemic had nothing to say about veganism and ethics. Abe Froman ( talk) 21:29, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Maybe there shouldn't be a criticism section at all, I mean, is it really necessary? Vegetarianism doesn't have a criticism section, cbhristianity doesn't have one either (not saying that veganism is a religion). The contents of the section basically are statements saying that all vegans are hypocrites and then rebuttals. Everyone is a hypocrite in one way or another. If the criticisms were that veganism was somehow harmful to the environment or to people other than those who are vegans then I'd understand it. As it is it's pointless imho and should go. Muleattack ( talk) 09:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I've shortened the Davis section and its rebuttal by Gaverick Matheny to one paragraph. It seems to me that Davis made an argument that was completely disproved by Matheny and the article should reflect this. As this happened in 2003 and as Davis has not countered Matheny's rebuttal in the intervening five years, I think we can say that Matheny has proved his point and that Davis accepts this, if only tacitly. If anyone knows of a defence made by Davis (or anyone else) to Matheny's rebuttal, I'd be interested in seeing it. There's a case to be made for moving this and the Jarvis paragraph to a Criticism section. I may do that. Steve3742 ( talk) 16:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
In this diff, I removed the use of the "|quote" field from the references used in this article. The heavy use of quotes resulted in significantly reduced navigability of the References section. If anyone wishes to work the material from the quotes into the article, you may use the above diff. Feedback welcome. Whatever404 ( talk) 22:32, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Whatever, chill out. I've never known Kellen to be anything other than polite and collaborative. If you indicate which fee-based sources you want to read, other editors of this page can try and find PDFs through our work or school access. If we can find them, we can privately email them to you. Or, we can summarize the abstract. Often you can find abstracts yourself through Pubmed. While I'm a big fan of open access journals, they are relatively new and we can't just exclude important sources that aren't available online. That would exclude as a source virtually every copyrighted work published in the last 70 years. Skinwalker ( talk) 22:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Just a brief third fourth opinion: From my viewpoint, Kellen has not been rude in this discussion (as of this posting). He has been polite and explained his views clearly and nonconfrontationally. The use of "scare quotes" might have been slightly sarcastic, but it was justified because removal of content is not the same as formatting. -
kotra (
talk)
22:59, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
William Jarvis, writing for The National Council Against Health Fraud, characterizes veganism as "a hygienic religion that meets deep emotional needs of its followers," who revel "in self-denial and wars against pleasure," and who "cannot be trusted to be objective, reliable sources of information on anything that bears upon its fundamental paradigm."
This seems to be a sweeping generalisation against vegans rather than any verifiable criticism of veganism itself, I think there could be valid arguments in a criticism section but I don't think that this brings anything to the article. -- Quazu ( talk) 20:46, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
OK, I'm going to remove it for now, please add to the discussion if anybody puts it back, besisdes from these claims being (in my opinion) totally absurd, the writer has obviously never heard that in polite discourse you attack arguments rather than the people making them. Surely any notable criticisms would be in reference to health. Again, the quote isn't actually a criticism of veganism and doesn't even give any rationale for his viewpoints. -- Quazu ( talk) 14:57, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
The Jarvis section (as it now stands) is just a criticism of the speciesism claim. But surely there are better articulated criticism of speciesism out there that can be used?-- Dodo bird ( talk) 07:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
I split it off because it seemed there were two parts to the quote (indeed, they were taken from different magazines.) In one bit, he was attacking the idea of speciesism using a reduction ad absurdium, and I figured this could go under Singer's section. The second bit seemed to me to have very little value at all other than saying he didn't like or trust vegetarians. I left that in a Criticism section as it seemed general criticism. It certainly added nothing to his critique of speciesism. There's an argument for saying that comment was worthless and should be deleted (as it has been.) Steve3742 ( talk) 13:30, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Aside from any consideration of bias, the addition of the Jarvis quote at the bottom of the 'Ethics' is just bad writing. It doesn't flow from the preceeding paragraph, and is completely unrelated to ethics. It belongs in a seperate section. "I wish to note that I wrote this text section in response to repeated additions of Jarvis as a critic of veganism" (Kellen) is the only reason Jarvis should be included on this page, and even then only until better criticism is found. It is hard to quote this article as a general criticism of veganism since so much of it is specific to extremists and personal anecdotes, but perhaps consider something like:
William Jarvis, writing for the Nutrition & Health Forum newsletter, criticised "ideological vegetarians", claiming it to be "riddled with delusional thinking from which even scientists and medical professionals are not immune". He suggests (without reference) "one need not eliminate meat from one's diet [..] Apparently, it is ample consumption of fruits and vegetables, not the exclusion of meat, that makes vegetarianism healthful."
(meta question: does (without reference) violate NPOV, or is it valid observation? It is a statement of fact...)
(FWIW The Davis quote is relevant and fits nicely inline in the ethics section)
Xaviershay ( talk) 23:03, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
I am wondering - has anyone mentioned anything about Davis' arguement not having anything to do with veganism - but with overpopulation? isnt that what he is really talking about? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ourmetis ( talk • contribs) 08:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
I have removed the image of the cow ready for slaughter as it is clearly meant to offend people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.17.107.49 ( talk) 00:10, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
I find the charges that the image is "offensive" or somehow profane to be disingenuous; the image does not show an exaggerated situation, it does not contain blood or gore, it's not especially filthy, nor does it overdramatize the situation. The caption is terse and free of appeals to emotion. Whether the image is the best choice to illustrate the section is a purely editorial decision. I think it works, but I'm not at all attatched to it, so if a better image was proposed I could support changing the image. Kellen T 10:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
- Vegan organizations maintain that animals have rights, and as such it is not ethical to use animals in ways that infringe those rights.
- Singer does not contend that killing animals is always wrong, but that from a practical standpoint it is "better to reject altogether the killing of animals for food, unless one must do so to survive."
- Philosopher Tom Regan argues that animals are entities which possess "inherent value" and therefore have "basic moral rights," and that the principal moral right they possess is "the right to respectful treatment."
It beats me how you can see such a gap between the philosophical statements you cite and the picture of a cow being slaughtered — other than the gap that always exists between a general philosophical statement (general, rather than vague) and a specific fact. I think that for any vegan, of whatever specific philosophical flavour, an image of an animal being slaughtered is a good illustration of what they oppose. To speak of the dots to connect between "cow being restrained for slaughter" and "infringement of animal rights" seems really strange. Of course it is possible, and interesting, to elaborate on the connection, but on the face of it the connection is obvious for most anyone. David Olivier ( talk) 22:26, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
- Vegan ethicists typically consider the slaughter of animals to be an infringement upon their rights.
- Some ethicists consider the slaughter of animals to be an infringement upon their rights.
I thought I would point out that if one was looking to prove relevancy of this cow image under 'Ethics', perhaps it would be a good idea to include a second image in the same section that shows a different ethical concern of animal use other than the killing of them? This might sate those against showing the cow image. Not sure what I'd think of putting though, maybe a Zoo animal? Eddie mars ( talk) 22:28, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Outstanding issues in the article:
Totally outstanding! Kellen T 13:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Anybody else care to comment on these issues? or do some work on them? Kellen T 15:01, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
This article is pretty biased, with all the talk about how great the diet is and no criticisms.
Thewritingwriter17 —Preceding undated comment was added at 16:35, 19 October 2008 (UTC).
I had one concern in the
Health benefits section. However none of them apply specifically to veganism. They are applicable to the parent category of
vegetarianism and none of the articles referenced in this section specifically talk about veganism either.
This may seem as a moot point but veganism is actually a fairly restrictive version of vegetarianism and since this distinction is never made nor a disclaimer presented, the benefits appear as applying directly to veganism.
Aashay147 (
talk)
11:51, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
The amount of plant material that would require to convert ALA to EPA to DHA used by the brain would amount to kilograms and likely has negligible effects. This is a severe deficiency in diets of vegans that seems to be understated in this article. http://dhaomega3.org/index.php?category=overview&title=Conversion-of-ALA-to-DHA Schnarr 04:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm not implying I do, in fact most people are deficient in Omega-3 fatty acids. However, this article states you would be able to get omega-3 easily in the diet. When in fact, you require a broad range of non-animal food sources and supplementation. This reference is specific to women during pregnancy [14] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schnarr ( talk • contribs) 05:24, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Yep. The article you cite is authored by Jean-Marie Bourre, well known and well discredited in France for being the lobbyist and propagandist for a great number of agrobusiness groups. See here for the ironical attribution of the “Grand prize for propaganda 2006” by Thierry Souccar, an independent nutritionist. “Jean-Marie Bourre, comme je l’ai écrit avec Isabelle Robard dans « Santé, Mensonges et Propagande » est surtout président du Centre d’information sur les charcuteries payé par les industriels de la saucisse, membre du Comité scientifique du pain créé par les producteurs de farine, président du Comité scientifique de l’huître, président du Comité scientifique du Comité national pour la promotion de l’œuf mis en place par les producteurs d’œufs. Il fait aussi la promotion du pruneau pour le compte de la Collective du pruneau d’Agen.” Outside of France, anyone with such a heap of conflicts of interest would be largely discredited, or at least obliged to cite them in eir articles. Please note too that the abstract of the article you cite is vague and inconclusive, as is the concluding paragraph; all they do is attempt to suggest. They don't even get the facts right, in that they omit linseed oil as a source of ALA — while it contains some 50% ALA and is easy to find. David Olivier ( talk) 11:57, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your investigation. I now see that supplimentation is included and that should be sufficient. Schnarr 03:24, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I think the opening paragraph confuses proponents of animal rights and vegans, which are not necessarily the same thing. Veganism is dietary. I don't think animal testing of cosmetic products is necessarily restricted for vegans, unless those vegans are specifically interested in animal rights. Some vegans are concerned with their own health and not animal abuse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.135.177.214 ( talk) 19:52, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fit for Life. Badagnani ( talk) 17:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
In this article there's no section yet, that mentions all arguments, that can bring a person to stay or to become veganist. Before eventually adding such a section, here and now already the suggestion is made, that one of those arguments might be this one: To some (or maybe many) it's clear, that consumption of animal foodproducts very strongly raises ones libido, as well as (to a certain extent) one's sexappeal. Now, given the fact, that in these days even babies and other very young children are feeded with among other things animal foodproducts (for instance added to prepared babyfood), the presumption exists, that this can be a serious cause of these children becoming victim of pedophile activities. So preventing this could be seen as an (additional) argument to raise children the veganist way. A question in this context however is, in how far there are sources about this subject available. Maybe insiders know any. VKing ( talk) 14:21, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
There's this from Slate: [15] which brings up both sides but doesn't draw any conclusion. Bob98133 ( talk) 21:39, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Here's a little help, to read the article better; it contents this sentence: "As well as vegetarians and vegans who choose not to eat animal products, the elderly are known to eat less meat because of loss of appetite in later years and difficulty with chewing." So it evidently is also about younger persons, who don't eat any meat, namely all vegetarians (and all veganists and all fruitarians). VKing ( talk) 13:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Sigh; so this has to be explained as well? There we go: "As well as vegetarians and vegans, the elderly..... " That's what's in the article, (which is written by a scientist and published by a very well known national broadcasting organisation, which might be sufficient, to tegard the article as being reliable). So it doesn't say: "As well as elderly vegetarians and vegans". No, "as well as vegetarians and vegans". So as far as concerns vegetarians and vegans, there is no limitation; they all don't eat meat; the old, the young, the men and the women. As well as them, in many cases elderly persons also eat hardly or no meat any more (among other things, because they hardly can chew it). Hopefully it's clear now, cause it's very unlikely, that this could be explained any further.
By the way, now that it is scientifically affirmed, that eating meat raises libido, to this article not only can be added the fact, that vegansm reduces the drive behind pedophile activities, but equally the one behind other perversities, like homosexuality and incest.
It's true, the source doesn't mention this verbally, but she affirms the fact, out of which this conclusion logically can be drawn. (Not too complicated?). VKing ( talk) 04:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Then surely in the article as an argument can be mentioned, that according to scientists not eating meat can reduce ones libido. But this argument is more in it's right place in the article about vegetarianism, as veganism contents a bit more than just not eating animal food. Now as for other arguments, or better "reasons", to become or to stay veganist:
So far for now; maybe soon more reasons will be added, eventually by somebody else. VKing ( talk) 08:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Wp is a coöperational project. The 'facts' are not added to the article yet, but just mentioned on this discussion page. This has been done mainly, because in this way other contributors have the opportuninty to judge what is posed and eventually contribute in preparing it for addition to the article, among other things by finding and mentioning references. For undoubtedly there are other users, who have more time available to do this, than the one who spent the time he had available now, in taking the initiative for such a new section and mention some main 'facts', that, after having been provided with references, could be part of it. VKing ( talk) 15:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Wonder what references, eh, Wp-rules can confirm, what has been posed in the former edit, as if it where facts. VKing ( talk) 16:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
A section called "veganarchism" was recently added. As far as I can tell, this is not significant enough to have its own section, and probably belongs only as a link in the "see also" section. Also, the section on eating disorders was deleted, re-added, and then modified, so in its current form it presents only information that is detrimental to veganism. What should this section contain, if it should exist at all? I am not making any proposals on either of these topics, I'm just wondering what other editors think. -- n-k, 17:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
What an active talk page! So, this line in the opening paragraph: "Vegans are therefore encouraged to plan their diet and take dietary supplements.[8]", seems to be much too strong for the refence given. In the article referenced, the strongest *conclusion* (I did read the whole article) regarding vegetarian (including vegan) diets and supplements is "In some cases, use of fortified foods or supplements can be helpful in meeting recommendations for individual nutrients." I guess I don't see how 'In some cases', 'can be helpful' means all vegans should be encouraged to supplement their diets. (Especially as many of the other dietary articles referenced conclude that a well-planned vegan diet is healthy w/o supplementation.) Thoughts? 64.122.192.37 ( talk) 22:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I feel this wording is more pertinent. Thanks! 64.122.192.37 ( talk) 16:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
i read on the internet that Dr. james halsted was working with persian iranian vegans who did not get b12 deficiency and discovered they were using humanure to grow there food. Username 1 ( talk) 20:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
"Studies have shown that those eating an omnivorous diet require more vitamin B-12 than vegans. This is because the typical diet leads to digestive atrophy. Because vitamin B-12 is peptide bound in animal products and must be enzymatically cleaved from the peptide bonds to be absorbed, a weakening of all gastric acid and gastric enzyme secretions (due to a cooked food diet) causes an inability to efficiently extract vitamin B-12 from external food." [19] Username 1 ( talk) 16:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Taken from Talk:fruitarianism
I have also seen studies showing that eating food contaminated with shit may contain B12. However, I have not seen a reliable source indicating that fruitarians specifically may meet their B12 requirements in this way. - SummerPhD ( talk) 21:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
This is quite relevant,..
http://rawfooddietsecrets.com/blog/12/no-such-thing-as-a-b12-deficiency/ —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
96.225.99.178 (
talk)
23:53, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Hello,
I want to add a link to Low carbon diet, but I'm not sure if it should go in the "Similar diets" section or "See also" section... I tried the "See also" section once, but it got edited to 'Low carb diet' which is an entirely different page! (and a very non-vegan diet!) and then removed. Ideas? Jaybird vt ( talk) 00:54, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I reverted this change (marked "minor", without an edit summary), but had my revert reverted. I've reverted similar changes many times previously. It is not our place to determine who or what "fits" the definition of veganism, but to represent it as it exists. As the world exists, there are many people who eat honey and who are called vegans by e.g. the source cited in that section, vegan.org. I recognize that there is an ideological dispute. The source recognizes that there is an ideological dispute. The article describes the dispute, based upon the source. Having some wording in this article like "people who call themselves vegans" is just POV pushing and, as i said in my edit summary, this is not the place for it. Kellen T 23:46, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
"Vegans use no bee products" quoted from http://www.vegansociety.com/pdf/Honey.pdf That seems to me to state that people who eat honey are not vegan and conflicts with vegan actions statement. Muleattack ( talk) 21:40, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
How about replacing "some vegans consider their use and the use of other insect products to be acceptable." with "some people consider their use and the use of other insect products to be acceptable in a vegan diet." ? Muleattack ( talk) 01:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
In rewriting this section, I removed the two Stepaniak citations as they were excessive (there's a direct Vegan Society citation now, and these two citations were redundant from the beginning). They are as follows:
Honey was prohibited for use by vegans according to the 1944 manifesto of the British Vegan Society … a position consistent with the requirement for full membership in the American Vegan Society since its inception in 1960.
Abstaining from the use of honey is a requirement for full membership in that society, as was stated in its original manifesto, a policy that is consistent with the position of the American Vegan Society since its founding in 1960.
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)Kellen T 17:51, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I miss some aspects of this aspect especially among young vegans and added some points based on german studies and press reports. -- Polentario ( talk) 20:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your efforts to improve the article, but I have multiple criticisms of these additions.
I think it's rather problematic to be including German criticisms in the english-language article since (a) none of us have access to the sources since they're not available outside germany (and the ones included aren't online sources) (b) most of use don't speak german even if we had access to the sources (c) the criticisms are likely tailored to the specific situation of veganism in germany (d) no quotes are provided for the citations, so we can't read what the person using the citation thought supported their article statement. Now the specific criticisms.
This part:
is totally pointless. That segment essentially says "vegans base their diet on asian diets, but asians are eating more meat". So what?
I don't contest that someone could suggest that german vegans could use this as inspiration, but this movement is irrelevant outside germany, and the criticism is rather obtuse: "veganism has similarities to the diets promoted by these sketchy guys".
The 151 note is not actually a citation, and as with the other sources 152 has no quote and isn't available online. This section as a statement is also not acceptable. We can identify authors who say such things, but not just say them straight out since this is a POV. My personal POV is that this is bullshit, however there are certainly vegans for whom this is relevant. A more acceptable phrasing would be something like "author X contends that veganism fills a semireligous place in vegans lives, that since in the athor's view veganism is based upon compassion for all life forms its view is utopian."
This is not sufficiently cited. The source is a NYTimes travel article about Munich which talks about a vegan restaurant. That source doesn't "acknowledge" anything, and doesn't make any statement about vegan restaurants in general.
All this section says is that Prez-berg has more vegetarian restaurants/more vegetarians. Veganism isn't mentioned in the source so far as I can tell. This section seems to be (in a round-about way) trying to indict veganism/vegetarianism as a luxury of the rich, but it doesn't come right out and say it. This section seems particularly pointless to me since it's about a regional difference only within berlin. I'm not saying it isn't true, just that it's not very relevant in an english language article about a much broader subject.
As I said before, I do think mentioning the punk-veganism connection is relevant, but I think that that Breyvogels' viewpoint is given too much space, and that there are probably other sources we could cite. I would personally also appreciate quotes from Breyvogel so that non-germans could actually check some of the source material rather than only having an editor's characterizations of her position to go by.
Finally, the section on the position of the German and Swiss dietary associations is interesting, but I suspect the quote doesn't give a wholly accurate picture of their position. For example, in this PDF there's a segment (babelfish translated) which reads:
I was not able to find the section quoted in the article in the Swiss position papers, but of course, I don't speak/read german. Kellen T 08:13, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
I removed this for the reason listed above (source does not support statement):
This as well, because it's pointless:
And this, for the same reason:
I removed this:
because the statement made is not supported by the source. If you go to amazon.co.uk, search for the book "Vegane Lebensstile", do "Search inside this book" and search for "straight edge" you will find one mention of straight edge, which is a quote from a youth talking about his motivations. This is not at all sufficient to make the statement that "larger amounts of vegans" are found in younger people, or in fans of straight edge. I also removed:
Because although the statement as it stands is half-true (imo), the POV is improperly attributed to Breyvogels, who is the editor, not the author of the "study" (a compilation of essays), there is no page number cited, and no quote given, so I cant even try to verify the veracity of the statement, especially the "Veganism predominantly is a lifestyle declaration" section. "predominantly" is very strong, and inappropriate in the article text unless directly attributed to another author. Kellen T 13:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
For the reasons listed above, I removed:
I also removed the following
pending a page number, a quotation, or some other more specific attribution. Better would be to replace the german source with something readily available and in english. Kellen T 18:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Syracuse University Press, 2006, 192 pp. $US 19.95 hardcover (0-8156-3127-8) BR -- Polentario ( talk) 01:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
If anybody can get the fulltext of Larson 2001 and provide a relevant quote it would be appreciated. Kellen T 14:08, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Just send her an e-mail, think that will work. BR -- Polentario ( talk) 01:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Section for appropriate sources here.
Haenfler, Ross. Straight Edge : Clean-Living Youth, Hardcore Punk, and Social Change. New Brunswick, NJ, USA: Rutgers University Press, 2006.
This work also contains all of the veganism-related contents of: Ross Haenfler Rethinking Subcultural Resistance: Core Values of the Straight Edge Movement Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 2004; 33; 406, which is often cited. The best quotes (I've searched the entire book) are:
These are all fine, but make statements better suited to the straight edge article rather than this one.
Wood 2006: Straightedge Youth: Complexity and Contradictions of a Subculture
Has some minor mentions of veganism.
I've checked out a few of the sources mentioned in Wood's citations. I was unable to obtain copies of:
But in the copyright section of this book, it notes that both of these papers are used, at least in part, for the book itself. Perhaps it's a bit odd for the author to cite himself, I don't know... I obtained two of the sources mentioned on p7, there was no mention of veganism in:
And a minor mention of veganism in:
Irwin 1999: "The Straight Edge Subculture: Examining the Youths' Drug-free Way." Journal of Drug Issues 29, no. 2:365-80
All in all, not very strong citations for this article, though I note that the straightedge article could use some help. Kellen T 23:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise. Craig O'Hara. AK Press. Copyright Date: 1999.
Dylan Clark. "The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine" Ethnology, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Winter, 2004), pp. 19-31
Kellen T 02:05, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
I would like to add research done by
Dr. Dean Ornish, specficially a study on men with prostate cancer and addoption of "lifestyle changes". Those lifestyle changes included a vegan diet. Should I create a subsection titled "Cancer" under "Nutritional benefits" or just a paragraph on the research within "Nutritional benefits"? (I'll post the proposed text here before I update the article.)
--
Thomas.vandenbroeck (
talk)
08:35, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Here's the text I propose to add:
A 2005 secondary prevention study published in the Journal of Urology by Dr. Dean Ornish(footnote), showed that a year long "intensive lifestyle change" consisting of a vegan diet, aerobic exercise, stress management and weekly group therapy resulted in a 4% reduction in PSA levels with no patients having to leave the study for conventional treatment due to disease progression. In contrast, the control group for this study experienced a 6% increase in PSA levels with 6 patients having to leave the study for conventional treatment due to disease progression.
-- Thomas.vandenbroeck ( talk) 04:11, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
I like the bold as it makes it easier to read technically dense material by visually picking out what's important to focus on -- but it is not a common wiki style. Here's the updated text with the other suggestions incorporated:
A 2005 secondary prevention study on prostate cancer published by Dr. Dean Ornish, showed that a year long "intensive lifestyle change" consisting of a vegan diet, aerobic exercise, stress management and weekly group therapy resulted in a 4% reduction in PSA levels with no patients having to leave the study due to disease progression. In contrast, the control group for this study experienced a 6% increase in PSA levels with 6 patients having to leave the study for conventional treatment due to disease progression.(footnote)
-- Thomas.vandenbroeck ( talk) 16:47, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
More like this:
A 2005 secondary prevention study on prostate cancer, showed that a year long "intensive lifestyle change" consisting of a vegan diet, aerobic exercise, stress management and weekly group therapy resulted in a 4% reduction in PSA levels and zero patients leaving the study due to disease progression, compared with a 6% increase in PSA levels and 6 patients leaving the study the control group.(footnote)
Kellen T 18:05, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
The fact that a vegan diet showed the possibility of reversing cancer is considered revolutionary, and important if you've been diagnosed with cancer. A vegan diet has been proven to reverse heart disease and diabetes type-2, and I'd like to include as much health research as possible when explaining the benefits of following a vegan diet.
--
Thomas.vandenbroeck (
talk)
19:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
I stand by my last version of the text. As you may already know, it's difficult to distill 5 pages of research into two sentences - LOL. A link to Dr. Dean Ornish is important since he does alot of research on vegan[vegetarian?] diets and disease.
--
Thomas.vandenbroeck (
talk)
21:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
I removed:
Because it didn't fit in the article where it lived and I don't see a particularly good place for it now. Suggestions welcome. Kellen T 10:47, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Wanted to say the citation and reference section of this article is one of the best I have ever seen. Well done -- 94.193.135.142 ( talk) 11:43, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
My edit of image thumbnails layout was reverted by User:Kellen` because he think "they don't all need to be on the right." But please look at my screen shot under 1024px-width screen resolution you will learn that the thumbnails sandwich the main article text. I suppose Kellen is using some greater screen resolution so he didn't see the problem, but this looks inappropriate in 1024*786px or smaller resolution. For more information, please check the WP:Layout#Images, MOS:IMAGES & WP:Picture tutorial. Thx. -- Sameboat - 同舟 ( talk) 02:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
WP:PSTS "Appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, and these are general rules. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are more suitable on any given occasion is a matter of common sense and good editorial judgment, and should be discussed on article talk pages."
In relation to this edit, can consensus be reached that this matter is or not a primary concern to the ideology of veganism? ~ R. T. G 23:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the bible is a primary concern for a very signifigant section of those both vegan and vegan-oposed ~ R. T. G 23:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
You can't just put information about the bible in the opening paragraph, that suggests that veganism and christianity are somehow related, when they are not. Muleattack ( talk) 14:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is "verifiability, not truth" ( WP:V). This means we have to be able to quote reliable sources for any inclusion we wish to make. The Bible is a primary source ("religious scripture" WP:PSTS), and any interpretation of it requires a secondary source ( WP:NOR). Now, you did quote two secondary sources
but it seems to me these two websites don't have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" ( WP:RS). Is there a reputable book, peer-reviewed publication or similar source substantiating your interpretation of the Bible on this issue? Gabbe ( talk) 18:37, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I find the sources for this section to poorly reliable. It is also garden variety original research. I'm in favor of excluding it. Skinwalker ( talk) 00:09, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Religion is for many an important part of human life. Major religious organisations rarely promote true vegetarianism but some do show signs of veganism, particularly Christianity with numerous indications of veganism throughout scripture. [44]
Christianity and Judaism
The evidence of vegetarianism in the Bible is overwhelming. [45] In the Old Testament, God is described as commanding the first man and woman to eat plant based food with the most frequent translation, "fruit which bears seed". After The Great Flood, God permits a wider human diet but theologians in favour of veganism and vegetarianism, who are in the minority [46], point out that this was a time when plant life would be almost non-existant (after many weeks under sea water) and that God and Jesus are quoted many times in the bible instructing humans to be protective and helpful of other creatures. [47] God makes a covenant with Israel that he should break any bow, sword or weapon of war so that all creatures may sleep safely. [48] In the Christian New testament, Peter, a disciple of Jesus, claimed to live only on bread and olives to which he added other vegetables on rare occasions [49] and James, Jesus brother and immediate successor as religious leader, and his followers beleived that Jesus was strictly vegetarian although it was the following of Paul the Apostle, who never actually met Jesus, not James which became the foundation of the Christian church today. Paul was of the opinion that faith was weak among those who ate "only vegetables". The topic of Jesus Christ, as with all Abrahamic faith, is also impotant to Islamic faith. [50]
In modern times, the $27 million Creation Museum in Kentucky, USA created controversy after its opening on May 28th 2007. The museums exhibits show Adam and Eve in scenes with veg eating tyrannosaurus. Creationism is controversial because it may confuse children who are learning about evolution. [51]
Veganism and vegetarianism is not promoted by the major Christian, Jewish and Islamic institutions.
Hinduism
Hindu [52] organisations promote vegetarianism and veganism but particularly notable was revered spiritual leader of India Mahatma Ghandi who had been a fruitarian [53] until he started taking goat's milk on the advice of his doctor. He never took dairy products obtained from cows because of his view initially that milk is not the natural diet of man, dissaproval of farming methods, [54] and because of a vow to his late mother.
Other
There are also numerous other religious groups that regularly or occasionally practice a similar diet, including adherents to some Buddhist traditions, [55] Sikhs, [56] Jains, [57] Eastern Orthodox Christians, [58] [59] Rastafari, [60] and Seventh-day Adventists. [61]
References
- ^ Jack Norris, RD. "Vegan Health: B12 in Tempeh, Seaweeds, Organic Produce, and Other Plant Foods". veganhealth.org. Vegan Outreach. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
- ^ Jack Norris, RD. "Vegan Health: Are Intestinal Bacteria a Reliable Source of B12?". veganhealth.org. Vegan Outreach. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
- ^ Greg Lester (2007-06-1). "Study Finds that Dietary Vitamin B6, B12 and Folate, May Decrease Pancreatic Cancer Risk among Lean People". aacr.org. American Association for Cancer Research. Retrieved 2007-06-14.
{{ cite web}}
: Check date values in:|date=
( help)- ^ Brody, Jane (1998-06-20). "Final Advice From Dr. Spock: Eat Only All Your Vegetables". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 2007-12-30.
- ^ Donaldson L J, Donaldson R J (2000). Essential Public Health. UK: Petroc Press. pp. 160–161. ISBN 1-900603-32-2.
- ^ "Bovine Growth Hormone". EJnet.org. Retrieved 2006-09-15.
- ^ Swan SH, Liu F, Overstreet JW, Brazil C, Skakkebaek NE (2007). "Semen quality of fertile US males in relation to their mothers' beef consumption during pregnancy". Hum. Reprod. 22 (6): 1497–502. doi: 10.1093/humrep/dem068. PMID 17392290.
{{ cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)- ^ Andersson AM, Skakkebaek NE (1999). "Exposure to exogenous estrogens in food: possible impact on human development and health". Eur. J. Endocrinol. 140 (6): 477–85. PMID 10366402.
- ^ Aksglaede L, Juul A, Leffers H, Skakkebaek NE, Andersson AM (2006). "The sensitivity of the child to sex steroids: possible impact of exogenous estrogens". Hum. Reprod. Update. 12 (4): 341–9. doi: 10.1093/humupd/dml018. PMID 16672247.
{{ cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)- ^ Stephany RW (2001). "Hormones in meat: different approaches in the EU and in the USA". APMIS Suppl. (103): S357-63, discussion S363-4. PMID 11505585.
- ^ "OrganicAthlete's Pro-Activist Team". Retrieved 2006-10-30.
- ^ "Vegetarian and Vegan Famous Athletes". Retrieved 2006-10-30.
- ^ Lewis, Carl. "Carl Lewis on Being Vegan". Introduction to Very Vegetarian, by Jannequin Bennett. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
- ^ "Honey PDF" (PDF). Honey PDF. Vegan Society. Retrieved 2008-02-01.
- ^ "HSUS cancer report". Humane Society of the United States. Retrieved 2008-02-01.
- ^ Singer, Peter (1979). "The case against using animals for food is at its strongest when animals are made to lead miserable lives so that their flesh can be made available to humans at the lowest possible cost. ... In order to have meat on the table at a price that people can afford, our society tolerates methods of meat production that confine sentient animals in cramped, unsuitable conditions for the entire duration of their lives. ... To avoid speciesism we must stop these practices." Practical Ethics, Cambridge 1979. Chapter 3.
- ^ "Possible protective effect of milk, meat and fish for cerebrovascular disease mortality in Japan". Japan Epidemiological Association. 1999-08-09. Retrieved 2006-09-15.
{{ cite web}}
: Check date values in:|date=
( help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) ( help)- ^ BMRB Social Research (2007-11-02). "Data tables" (PDF). Report, questionnaire and data tables following Survey of Public Attitudes and Behaviours toward the Environment: 2007. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. pp. 500–502. Retrieved 2007-11-22.
- ^ a b c d e f "Vegan FAQs". Vegan Outreach. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
Is refined sugar vegan? It depends on how you define 'vegan.' Refined sugars do not contain any animal products, and so by an ingredients-based definition of vegan, refined sugar is vegan. ... However, if one accepts a process-based definition of vegan, then many other familiar products would also not be considered vegan. For instance, steel and vulcanized rubber are produced using animal fats and, in many areas, groundwater and surface water is filtered through bone charcoal filters.- ^ a b c "IVU FAQ: Drinks". International Vegetarian Union FAQ. International Vegetarian Union. 2006-08-03. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
- ^ a b c "Information Sheet: Alcohol". Vegetarian Society. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
The use of animal derived products in the production of alcoholic beverages is fairly widespread not because no alternatives exist, but because they always have been used and there is little demand from the consumer for an alternative. ... The main appearance of animal derived products is in the fining or clearing process, though others may be used as colorants or anti-foaming agents.- ^ a b c "IVU FAQ: Ingredients". International Vegetarian Union FAQ. International Vegetarian Union. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
- ^ a b c "IVU FAQ: Animal Derived Ingredient List". International Vegetarian Union FAQ. International Vegetarian Union. 2006-08-03. Retrieved 2007-03-10.
- ^ a b c "IVU FAQ: Maybe Animal Derived". International Vegetarian Union FAQ. International Vegetarian Union. 2006-08-03. Retrieved 2007-03-10.
- ^ Deforestation paves way in Brazil By Jan Rocha BBC
- ^ a b World Rainforest Movement
- ^ http://www.vegansociety.com/html/downloads/ArticlesofAssociation.pdf
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
foodcriteria
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ "VeganWelt: vegan FAQ". veganwelt.de. Retrieved 2007-10-03.
In Deutschland gibt es zwischen 250 000 und 460 500 Veganer (5 Millionen Vegetarier)- ^ Jarvis, William T. (1996). "Physician's Committee For Responsible Medicine (PCRM)". National Council Against Health Fraud. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
NCAHF considers vegetarianism, particularly veganism, a hygienic religion that meets deep emotional needs of its followers. Adherents cannot be trusted to be objective, reliable sources of information on anything that bears upon its fundamental paradigm.- ^ Jarvis, William T. (1997-04-01). "Why I Am Not a Vegetarian". ACSH Newsletter "Priorities". 9 (2). American Council on Science and Health. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
The belief that all life is sacred can lead to absurdities such as allowing mosquitoes to spread malaria, or vipers to run loose on one's premises. Inherent in the idea that all life is sacred is the supposition that all forms of life have equal value.- ^ [1] 13. April 2008 Munich Redux: Germany’s Hot Spot of the Moment. NICHOLAS KULISH NYT
- ^ a b Angela Grube: Vegane Lebensstile. Diskutiert im Rahmen einer qualitativen/quantitativen Studie(Vegan and vegetarian Lifestyles, Discussion in the frame of a qualitative and quantitave study) ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, 150 Seiten, ISBN 3-89821-538-5
- ^ FAO
FAO- ^ Wedding is one of the poorest quertiers within Berlin, the medical results of a Couch potato lifestyle are sometimes dubbed as Morbus Wedding in Germany
- ^ Bionade-Biedermeier, von Henning Sußebach, © ZEITmagazin LEBEN, 08.11.2007 Nr. 46 [2], Bionade- Biedermeier refers to a fermented drink popular also among vegans and the bohemian atmosphere in Prenzlauer Berg
- ^ a b Wilfried Breyvogel: Eine Einführung in Jugendkulturen. Veganismus und Tattoos. (Veganism and Tatoos, An introduction into youth cultures) VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2005
- ^ Bernd-Udo Rinas (Art)gerecht ist nur die Freiheit, Geschichte, Theorie und Hintergründe der veganen Bewegung (The only rightsome way of animal husbandry is freedom, History, Theory and background of the vegan Movement), Focus Verlag, Gießen, 2000 ISBN 3-88349-486-0, p. 136ff, compare Breyvogel p. 89
- ^ compare the use of compassion within Arthur Schopenhauers philosophy
- ^ Bettina Mann, Essen und Identität: Zur sozialen und kulturellen Dimension der Ernährung (Social and cultural dimensions of Nutrition). Working Paper Nr. 161, Universität Bielefeld 1991
- ^ a b c "Vegetarian starter kit", Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, posted on vegsource.com.
- ^ Gokhale's Charity, My Experiments with Truth, M.K. Gandhi.
- ^ The Rowlatt Bills and my Dilemma, My Experiments with Truth, M.K. Gandhi.
- ^ Religion and vegetarianism / Are Christians vegetarians? March 1996, International Vegetarian Union website
- ^ Was Jesus a Vegetarian? Kamran Pasha for the Huffington Post, Sept 3rd 2009
- ^ Toward a Prophetic Church for Animals The Reverend Professor Andrew Linzey
- ^ Did God give humans dominion over animals? PETAs jesusveg.org website
- ^ Christianity and Vegetarianism, The Christian Vegetarian Association
- ^ Religion and vegetarianism / Are Christians vegetarians? March 1996, International Vegetarian Union website
- ^ Was Jesus a Vegetarian? Kamran Pasha for the Huffington Post, Sept 3rd 2009
- ^ Creation Museum Draws Scientific Fire, A.P.S. Physics 2007
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
hinduvegans
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Gokhale's Charity, My Experiments with Truth, M.K. Gandhi.
- ^ The Rowlatt Bills and my Dilemma, My Experiments with Truth, M.K. Gandhi.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
buddhismvegan
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
sikhvegan
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
jainvegan
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
orthodoxyveganism
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
georgia-veganism
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
rastavegan
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
7thdayvegans
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
This proposed section is based on fact and notability from undeniably reliable sources as suggested by the Vegan Society and direct from groups such as PETA, the American Physical Society, Wikisource (Ghandi info parsed from on-wiki), the International Vegetarian Union, The Christian Vegetarian Association and the Huffington Post. All of the sources, exluding the APS Physics article, are rock solid works of published study, not daily articles.
Rather than asking if I am funning or trolling, why doesn't someone discuss the topic instead of bias-jockeying the article. Folk asked at the peer reviews what was lacking in the article and they were told this was it. f it should not be added, why did you not try to convince the reviewers of that? Made up our minds since did we? It's rather sad to feel this article, about something I love to promote, is so jockeyed. An ocean of philosophising acceptance and love, backed up with a staunch hypocrasy. Well done lads. You show them Jesus-lovers what they are good for. Don't bother trying to change critturs when you can overcome them, echo, cheers. ~ R. T. G 17:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I don't understand your argument. Are you saying that Wenham and Barton are not experts on the Bible, and that the article implies that "vegans cannot be Christian"? Gabbe ( talk) 18:24, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
A quick search of the article reveals that the word "vegetable" appeas 7 times whilst the word "meat" appears 41 times. Far be it from me to say but I did think that the veganism topic was rather opposite to that. Is there some way that we can balance out the article to represent veganism truthfully? ~ R. T. G 17:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
The Vegan Society seems to have broken all the links to this page most notably the citation [1] and the Donald Watson quote. I would try to fix them but I do not know what to search for, sorry. ~ R. T. G 17:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
The newest edits about people who say they are vegan not really being vegan by definition is really silly. Particularly since it is followed by "Vegans may avoid honey for moral [33], environmental [34], health [35] or a number of other reasons." According to the previous section, vegans don't avoid these products; if they use them they are not vegans, so no problem. The vegetarian article went through the same sort of nonsense with people who eat fish yet consider themselves to be vegetarians. The entire second ph of this section could be dropped, which would improve the article by removing the nitpicking that contradicts itself. Bob98133 ( talk) 14:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Discovery.com says about the recent 50% decline in the worlds be population:-
The top suspects are a parasite, an unknown virus, some kind of bacteria, pesticides, or a one-two combination of the top four, with one weakening the honeybee and the second killing it. [30]
and I say if there is some reason that the Vegan Society respects concern for the care of insects, let's have it. You may think that "Oh I never heard anyone who said that except the Vegan Society" well here is one more. The milk of little bee babies who literally cause the food we eat to grow whilst syrup grows on trees. Honey is not better it is just different and if you think that is special try Linda McCartneys vegan meat... yeeeu... It may be a particular concern for vegans asked and evidence suggests that to be a seriously notable position so, position it and in case of opposing views *describe them* as opposing views. Do not review them and pick one you think sounds best. This is not a challenge it is merely the neutral point of view. If you think that providing both sides is a challenging idea, in this case, you haven't acknowledged the middle ground. Who do we think we are Weekly Review? No, Wikipedia is the all-time review of the weekly review and that is best. Being picky is just filling up this talk page while the article is particularly skinny in the healthy areas, sorry. As a particular story gathering questions on vegan parenting went a few years back, it wasn't feeding the kids vegan food that made the parents abusive, it was not feeding them enough of anything at all. ~ R. T. G 23:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I rewrote this section to avoid usage of the term 'vegan' or 'people who identify as vegan' (etc). Kellen T 18:06, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I see that someone, perhaps Kellen, has reverted my insertion of "alleged" before "rights of mosquitoes". Whether mosquitoes are the kind of beings that can have moral rights is contentious; in fact, many or most animal-rights activists and philosophers doubt that insects can have moral rights (since to have moral rights, one must have interests, and to have interests one must have conscious desires). Given that Varner and others doubt/deny that insects can have moral rights, it makes no sense to talk about their failing to respect "the rights of mosquitoes". To say "the rights of mosquitoes" without a qualifier like "alleged" is to inject a point-of-view into the article. Scales ( talk) 22:21, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I removed the following Chomsky text. I think Chomsky is interesting, and it's great that he makes any comment on vegetarianism at all, but it's not really very relevant to this article, and certainly out of proportion to the other sections. Kellen T 13:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Political activist and philosopher, [1] [2] [3] Noam Chomsky has commented on the moral foundation of animal rights and vegetarianism:
NC: In every (aspect of human life) that you look at, there are questions about authority and domination that ought to be raised constantly, and that very rarely have satisfactory answers..As a matter of fact, you can even ask the same about your relation to animals. The questions can be asked there, too, in fact are being asked.
Q: You're an animal rights activist?
NC: I think it's a serious question. To what extent do we have a right to torture animals? I think it's a very good thing that that question ...
Q: Torture?
NC: Experiments are torturing animals, let's say. That's what they are. So to what extent do we have a right to torture animals for our own good? I think that's not a trivial question.
Q: What about eating?
NC:Same question.
Q: Are you a vegetarian?
NC: I'm not, but I think it's a serious question. If you want my guess, my guess would be that ...
Q: A hundred years from now everyone will be.
NC: I don't know if it's a hundred years, but it seems to me if..society continues to develop without catastrophe on something like the course that you can sort of see over time, I wouldn't be in the least surprised if it moves toward vegetarianism and protection of animal rights. In fact, what we've seen over the..years, including the twentieth century, there is a widening of the moral realm, bringing in broader and broader domains of individuals who are regarded as moral agents.
Q: Nothing could be happening to that underlying, wired-in, inate, intrinsic character... That can't be changing.
NC: No, but it can get more and more realized. You can get a better and better understanding of it. We're self-conscious beings. We're not rocks. And we can get more and more understanding of our own nature, not because we read a book about it..but just through experience, including historical experience, which is part of our own personal experience because it's embedded in our culture, which we enter into.
Q: So then it's plausible that vegetarians, animal rights advocates and the like are just a couple of steps ahead in discerning something about ...
NC: It's possible. I think I'd certainly keep an open mind on that. You can understand how it could be true. It's certainly a pretty intelligible idea to us. I think one can see the moral force to it. [4]
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | → | Archive 10 |
I've been scouring the other wikipedias and non-english websites for statistics relating to vegans. By and large, this has been a failure. There appear to be no/poor statistics for vegans (or even vegetarians) in Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Possibly useful:
Veganismus wikipedia article provides "between 250,000 and 460,500". This is cited to veganwelt.de, which itself cites no source. This number is repeated on a number of german vegan websites, but none of them (that I can understand) have an authoritative source linked or listed. This source appears to provide an estimate for vegetarians, but I could not glean any info regarding vegans. Perhaps someone with better German could do so.
Veganisme wikipedia article provides "16,000 vegans." Sourced to veganisme.org, which I cannot understand, but which appears to be an estimate from the Netherlands vegan society.
Веганизм wikipedia article provides a bunch of statistics, and although most of them appear to be the UK/US/Germany stats that I've listed above. But maybe someone who can read Russian would be able to find something better.
Yay. So in sum, the german citation is kind of crappy, and we might have a citation for the Netherlands. Anybody else have any luck? Kellen T 22:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Very informative article, congratulations. I've identified one minor point that needs correcting and have a question for experts.
The minor point is that under the sub-heading "calcium" there is a reference to a study "by Oxford" with a link that directs to the English city of that name. I suspect that "University of Oxford" was meant but even that is vague and it would be more satisfactory to say "a team of X-specialism researchers at the University of Oxford".
The question is whether vegans avoid beer and wine as fish products are frequently used to clarify these beverages? If so, are other alcoholic drinks acceptable?
Thanks.
Itsmejudith 11:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I question the quality of this article based on the Good article criteria. For that reason, I have listed the article at Good article review. Issues needing to be address are listed there and you are invited to comment. Regards, Tarret 14:12, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Hello, my English is not really good but i have some qestions about this picture. Has this Picture ,in this article an effect like a propaganda? Is it licensed to take it over, with the same text to the german veganism article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.73.211.12 ( talk) 13:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Byproducts are part of avoidance, animal right issues are moral issues and the nutritional statement is corrected now from a medical point of view. Please don't edit without justification. Jenny Len☤ 14:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry; just read this after the fact. I made an informative edit about veganism in French which caused a lot of confusion amongst some of us in Canada when it came to dietary needs. Just trying to avoid international confusion. This is, however, common knowledge, so if we feel we need to link to a translation page let me know. I believe the French "vegetalien" page is accurate. Cpt ricard 07:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about my mistake. I wrongfully placed the report due to my confusion between veganism and vegetarianism. I moved it to environmental vegetarianism; so note that if you see its removal, it wasn't banditry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.165.22 ( talk) 08:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Here are some sections I think could use some attention:
I will eventually work on some of these myself, but perhaps other editors can get to them first. Kellen T 12:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems that the source says ethical related with commitment in page 2 and moral related with convictions in page 17 so both should be under the same citation. Thank you for calling my attention to that Jenny Len☤ 12:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
It suited well with the article and subject. This page is in desperate need of at least one of those pictures that illustrates animal suffering due to human neglect. More people than vegans are aware of animal cruelty, so a realistic picture can hardly be considered propaganda. Whoever removed it, put it back where it belongs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.113.226.96 ( talk) 15:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
This article has lost its GA status. The article itself hasn't changed much since the original granting of GA, but issues were raised about its content. Here is the GA reassessment discussion, which includes specific concerns. Kellen T 11:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
almost non of the vitamins in supplements are absorbed, vegans also have an increased risk of kidney/liver damage, also a increased risk of Thrombosis which can lead to strokes. before you change about the way you eat you should talk to any "real" Nutritionist with masters or a PhD degree, as without any professional help you can kill yourself (as the internet isn't a reliable enough a way to find these things out.) Markthemac 08:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
but not health concerns, which should be displayed. Markthemac 00:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
This part was recently added to the article:
While this is moderately interesting, it seems like a bit of trivia rather than something that fits well within the article. I am leaning towards removing it unless a better place can be found for it. Opinions? Kellen T 04:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I have a problem with this edit, which changes:
to:
I previously reverted this change, but it has been added back. The previous version was derived from the Vegan Society definition of veganism (although a direct quote would be better, imo). The problem with the change is (a) "use of animals" includes animal products (b) "use of animals" is clearer than "use of animal derived products" as it more directly locates the reason for veganism. The added citation does nothing for me, and doesn't really support a distinction between "use of animals" and "animal products." Finally, I object to the edit summary of "corrected definition and sourced" because the definition was blatantly not wrong to begin with. Kellen T 05:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Please excuse my previous changes (repeated changes) as I am brand new to Wikipedia. This is my first attempt to edit an article and I may have broken protocol. My intent is to alter slightly the way in which the potential for vitamin/nutrient deficiencies in a vegan diet is worded. Currently, by saying that "vegan diets can be deficient...," the implication is that there is some diet (the assumption being the standard American diet, or the diet of the majority) that is not deficient in vitamins/nutrients. That means that a vegan diet, when compared with the standard American diet, can also deficient in cholesterol, saturated fat, among other undesirable things. It is true that a person on a vegan diet should be aware of vitamin B12, iodine and other nutrients...as should everyone. I propose that where worded: "However, a vegan diet can be deficient..." it should be changed to "Just as any diet can be deficient in nutrients, an unplanned vegan diet may be deficient in..." ( CraigWenner 22:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC))
any vegan who eats properly with the vegan food groups and goes to a doctor for a blood analysis test can verify that the doctors are always impressed by the high levels of calcium, iron, b12, and iodine. The last time I got a blood analysis test my calcium levels exceeded the average levels. When you intake enough calcium, healthy bone structure is maintained through weight-bearing exercises that shoot electrical impulses through the bone tissues adhering the calcium to the osteoblasts. I have been vegan for 9 years and it disturbs me that the best advice you give to people seeking out how vegans get calcium is to eat fortified soy products??? what about broccoli?? vegetarians who drink milk are usually calcium deficient because of the protein-induced hypocalciurea - where excessive protein causes a pH imbalance that binds the sulfur bonds from milk proteins with unstable calcium cations from the milk and then the acid excess takes calcium from the blood which gets replaced by the osteoblasts in the bones. After milk consumption, the body urinates out more calcium than it tried to digest. Why cant we tell people to eat leafy greens or broccoli or lentils? or brown rice or grain? how do other herbivorous mammals get their calcium? this veganism site needs accurate information. and fortified foods are never recommended over natural sources.
This article lost GA status (unfairly, IMO - drive-by reviewing is bad) due in part to a lack of criticism. Today I ran across a few articles [4] [5] that I want to suggest we include in the "Resources and the Environment" section.
The basic gist is that a diet with a limited meat and/or dairy intake (still far less that the standard American diet, FWIW) may actually be more environmentally friendly than a diet restricted only to vegetables. This is due to land-use concerns - it is more efficient (on a calorie-per-area basis) to use marginally fertile land for livestock than vegetables. The conclusion that the Slate article then draws is that if you live around poor farming land, then it is better to eat locally rather than import large quantities of vegetables - the transportation of which leads to higher CO2 emissions. I'd like to see about integrating these references into the environment section and adding a short paragraph, but since this could be a contentious change I thought I'd bring it to the talk page first. Cheers, Skinwalker 15:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice to come to consensus about whether or not the 'demographics' section indeed needs to be tagged with the "globalize" template. There simply isn't any data which we can cite to fulfill the ideal requirements for removing the "globalize" template. As such, it's not a failing of this article or wikipedia in general that we can't provide a wider view, and the template is therefore meaningless in this context. I would suggest we remove it and point to this decision in the future if the template is added. Kellen T 14:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
"In April 2007 MIT biologists claimed that they had found a symbiotic relationship between soil and roots, with B12 being present in soil attached to roots (which includes the soil around root vegetables, such as parsnips or carrots) [6]."
This paragraph has been deleted. One can obtain vitamin B12 from "dirty"/lightly washed raw organic carrots? Seems highly relevant to me. nirvana2013 16:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I'm new to Wikipedia editing. I wish to re-arrange the sentence found under the heading 'Vitamin B12': "Vegetarians who were previously meat eaters may preserve, up to 30 years, stores of Vit B12 in their bodies." to "Vegetarians who were previously meat eaters may preserve stores of Vit B12 in their bodies for up to 30 years." which I feel flows better gramatically. I have two questions about this change: 1) Is it considered a 'minor edit' to re-arrange a grammatically poor sentence without (I believe) altering the message/content? Yes I have read Help:Minor edit, but I'd like some more clarity. 2) I edited this sentence and previewed it (without changing the subsequent tag), but the reference changed from 69 to 1. Why? Thanks for your time stscross 11:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I found the article focused too much on the practice of not eating meat, not the practice of not consuming or using any animal products. For eg. the ethics section focuses on why vegans may choose not to eat meat. I would like to know why vegans choose not to eat any animal product.
220.245.158.49 ( talk) 06:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Really, do we need 18 paragraphs, 9 sections, to talk about Vegan nutrition, outside of the Vegan nutrition article? I dare say this section of Veganism is almost as long as the main article itself! When people constantly complain about the length of this article, is there any excuse to have so much information here? A line along the lines of "Certain vitamins and minerals, such as Iodine, B12, and Calcium, may be lacking in a Vegan diet," or a line talking about nutrients and mention those three specifically as examples. Honestly, this is just a waste of space, all this information clearly goes on the Vegan nutrition page. Vert et Noir talk 09:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I added a paragraph stating, as succinctly as I knew how to put it, that many vegans rely on soy as their main source of protein. A user called Keller removed it, saying that it was not appropriate for this article. I disagree, and have therefore restored the paragraph. Web-sites that evangelize for vegan diets almost always push people toward tofu and other soy meat substitutes, and I cited one, chooseveg.com, as a reference. If vegan diets often rely on soy, then the debate about the safety of soy consumption deserves to be noted on this page. I also cited a video by a nutrition author, which Keller seems to feel is an inappropriate source. I don't understand why a video by an author is a less authoritative reference than the author's book, which I just as easily could have cited. If Keller feels this is an inappropriate source, then I suggest he/she improve my contribution by finding another source. If he/she is, like many vegans, eager to downplay the risks of soy because it's a vegan staple, then I suggest he/she pound sand.-- ManicBrit 19:11, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Kellen:
I don't expect an ideologue to adhere to NPOV perfectly, but you've failed to defend your position. My sources are quite clear - chooseveg.com is a resource for vegans planning their diets, and it advocates tofu and other soy products as three of the five main protein sources vegans should use. The other source is a lecture from an MD who authored a book about healthy eating. You can consider these sources "poor" because they don't conform to your point of view, and you can attempt to police this page and others associated with it in order to give a more pro-vegan slant, but I don't see how you can call these sources "poor." I am going to restore a section to the "Precautions" section that refers readers to the "Soy Controversy" article. -- ManicBrit ( talk) 17:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
MuleAttack:
The contribution never said that all vegans eat soy, just that many do, which was supported by a link to a vegan website. The paragraph itself also noted that soy has been added to many food products in the US, and is not unique to a vegan diet. However, the prevalence of soy in vegan diets is well-established, and someone researching veganism should know that information before they log on to some site like chooseveg.com and start downing tofu in the same quantity as they previously downed meat. You are quite free to add a counterpoint that some vegan diets do not include soy and that lentils and nuts can suffice. That would be a valid contribution that would enhance the article. Removing the soy information detracts for the article. -- ManicBrit ( talk) 17:17, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
The following seems to be a rather useless indicator:
The problem there is that unless you are actively seeking to avoid certain things, you probably pay very little attention to whether eggs or butter were used in the bread you ate, or whether the soup you had was based in Chicken or Beef stock, or whether the Caesar Salad you had used an anchovy-based salad dressing. I find it quite implausible to infer from the data that 1.4% of all Americans make an effort to avoid eating bread and crackers. The poll isn't an effective way to determine the real numbers for vegans, because most people don't read labels as closely as vegetarians, vegans, or people with food allergies do. The passage seems misleading and suited for removal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.172.224 ( talk) 22:23, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
The first sentence, "Veganism (also strict or pure vegetarianism) is a philosophy and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose," is incorrect. A philosophy cannot "seek" anything. Nor can a lifestyle. A person who holds a philosophy, or practices a lifestyle, can seek. But a philosophy itself, cannot. Veganism is a way of life (never use a "big word," or fancy schmancy word, such as philosphy, or lifestyle, when a "small word," such as way of life, will do. Following this rule makes for better communication, with more people. Veganism is a way of life that involves not using animals, or animal products, for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, or any other purpose, as far as is reasonably possible; and vegans hold that in this day and age, in the industrialized world, food, clothing and shelter can easily be acquired without relying on animals or animal products. The first sentence needs to be changed. Nomenclator ( talk) 01:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
"Usually" pronounced /ˈviːgən/?
This is the way I personally heard Jay Dinshah, the founder of the American Vegan Society, pronounce the word, in 1967, and he remarked about it being the correct pronunciation. He personally corrected me when I pronounced the word incorrectly. The correctness of pronunciation is determined by authoritative declaration, and not by repeated experimentation, repeated observation, and accumulation of empirical evidence, which is the way the correctness of scientific facts are determined. If Jay Dinshah said oranges had more sugar than grapefruits, I might want to measure sugar levels. If Jay Dinshah said vegan was pronounced /ˈviːgən/, then /ˈviːgən/ is the correct pronunciation. The sentence should be changed to read that "correct pronunciation is /ˈviːgən/. -- Nomenclator ( talk) 01:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I cleaned up the B12 section, and removed one sentence which read:
This is false. This had the following two references, which are themselves useful, but which contradict the statement. Perhaps they will be useful to someone else.
{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link) (found
here)I've also removed:
Which is interesting, but only tangentially relevant to the health of vegans.
Later, I also reworded, but then decided on removing the part about Dr. Spock from the "pregnancies and children section". This read:
The previously cited source was not very good, and didn't actually indicate that he "said" something (which the original text said he did). The new source above is from the NY Times, but the quote actually comes from this AP article, not the NY times one. I removed this section because it was improperly under the "precautions" header and I didn't have a good place for it at the time. Please re-add it in an appropriate place if you're feeling toasty. Kellen T 19:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
The article says:
The latest edition of Dr. Benjamin Spocks Baby and Child Care was released last month, and it contained a surprising turnaround. Dr. Spock, who died at the age of 94 just before the new version of his book was published, advised no cows milk or any other dairy products for children. Mothers milk, not cows milk, is natures perfect food for babies under one year, according to Dr. Spock. And once a child is over the age of two years, he advised a vegetarian dieteliminating meat and poultry and cutting down on fish. We now know that there are harmful effects of a meaty diet, Dr. Spock wrote with his co-author Stephen J. Parker, M.D. Children can get plenty of protein and iron from vegetables, beans, and other plant foods that avoid the fat and cholesterol that are in animal products.
This supports the quote as is.
Abe Froman ( talk) 03:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
As this has no direct connection to veganism. Kellen T 01:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
As nothing cited actually shows a connection to veganism. There's a page of links about BGH, 3 citations about how hormones may affect human health, and one citation about legality. There are links to vegan pages on the BGH page, but nothing more. Kellen T 02:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
I think this section is rather poor. Yes, there are vegan athletes. There are two sources; one lists very few vegans (though many vegetarians) and the second lists around 20 athletes. Neither of these sources make claims about veganism leading to greater athletic achievement. Yes, Carl Lewis is/was vegan. So what? Without similar claims, by vegan advocacy organizations or a larger number of vegan athletes, I count this as anecdotal evidence. Kellen T 01:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
If anybody has copies of Tom Regan's books, could someone please add a paragraph about his views on veganism in the "ethics" section, including some quotes. Alternatively paste links here to text available online (i've not yet found any that mentions veganism). Kellen T 19:22, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Kellen goes on an editing binge [8], and the Vegan article suddenly has little to no positive information in it. I reverted to 12.28 until his edits are discussed. Abe Froman ( talk) 03:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
What really caught my eye was the wholesale removal of the sections on Athletics, BGH, and Benjamin Spock. [9] Not only were these cited to books or medical publications, they also contained information that could portray veganism positively. Why these were removed, while negative information, using similar sources, was retained, I can only guess. Abe Froman ( talk) 03:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I've re-done most of my edits, one by one. If you have a critique of a specific edit, please bring it up rather than reverting everything I've done just on the basis of it looking "positive" or "negative." Kellen T 12:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Kellen could be correct that a huge amount of these would be required to meet the RDA for calcium, but rephrasing it to say fortified soy milk or supplements amkes it appear that a vegan diet cannot in itself provide sufficient calcium without being supplemented. It also goes against some vegans who prefer to get their RDA's though "real" foods instead of supplements. Maybe there is a compromise that can indicate that while it might be difficult to get all the calcium needed without supplements, it is possible. For example, a cup of soybeans (180mg) has more calcium than a cup of cottage cheese (160mg) [10] Bob98133 ( talk) 16:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
The links supporting this sentence are broken:
Michael H 34 ( talk) 17:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34
Hey,
Is it possible to describe that veganism has benefits to stopping emerging epidemics ? See the Epidemic-article where I added the info and reference (reference being this WHO-document ).
Thanks. KVDP ( talk) 09:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
How does the picture of a fruit/vegetable market in Barcelona contribute to this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.216.163.100 ( talk) 13:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The edit changed "A 1999 metastudy of five studies on vegetarian mortality rates in western countries found equivalent mortality rates for vegans and meat eaters" to "A 1999 metastudy of five studies on vegetarian mortality rates in western countries found equivalent mortality rates for vegans and regular meat eaters. These two group had the highest mortality rate of 1.0 while vegetarian and infrequent meat eater performed better in term of mortality scoring 0.84, while those who only eat fish did best in term of mortality scoring 0.82."
A small question first: Does this remark in general belong in the Benefits section? I would say no, since it doesn't really address any beneficial aspect of a vegan diet. It doesn't really seem to be appropriate for the Precautions section either, but I think it would fit in there better, at least.
Second: I don't think that the new edit is phrased well. It's not obvious what the numbers mean, exactly, in the context of this article, and I don't think they're needed. If a reader would like to know more precise information, they can follow the link to the study. Additionally, I think that "performed better," "scoring," and "did best" aren't exactly right for this piece of information. Those phrases and words convey a sort of competition or contest. I do agree that the original sentence didn't really express enough, so I won't just revert the edit.
How does this sound: "A 1999 meta-study of five studies comparing vegetarian and non-vegetarian mortality rates in western countries found equivalent mortality rates for vegans and those who eat meat regularly. The study also found equivalent and lower mortality rates for vegetarians and those who eat meat infrequently."
Thoughts? Djk3 ( talk) 23:53, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
It took me a minute to find the numbers the editor was quoting. They're in this table, which uses the smaller number of vegans before adding those from the Health Food Shoppers Study. I'm going to add this edit, but I'm going to leave it where it is right now if the ultimate goal is to merge the Benefits and Precautions sections. It might be worth it to mention that the study says to interpret the death rate ratios with caution, but I'm not sure. The study says that we should do that because of the uncertainty of the dietary classification of subjects in the Health Food Shoppers Study, and the table that we're drawing information from doesn't include that data. Djk3 ( talk) 19:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Someone is keep eliminating information which clearly indicate that vegan do pretty bad in term of longevity and that people who eat fish but no other meat live longest among sample groups. Isn't this a typical example of censorship? Vapour ( talk) 17:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I do not think it is acceptable to censor the fact that vegan as well as regular meat eater has the highest mortality rate while people who eat only fish has the lowest mortality rate. I will keep reverting if this crucial info is deleted or obscured. Vapour ( talk) 09:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I edited the content relating to Chinese study. I accept that content is slightly heavy with my interpretation. I don't like to delete content if it is sourced from verified source so I tried to salvage it. Feel free to trim it. Vapour ( talk) 14:35, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I would like to suggest that studies cited in the "health" section be about vegans (that is, they should be one of the studied populations), and that the cited conclusions be statistically significant. If not, they ought to come with very clear disclaimer (to the effect that they're not really applicable). I just made some changes to try to effect this. (Personal note: I am quite interested in negative results on veganism that pass these criteria.) Mkcmkc ( talk) 18:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Since vegans are very outspoken and seem to be very active in bringing their philosophy to others, would a section on vegan activism be germaine to the article? Bugguyak ( talk) 17:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I've heard claims of adverse effects when a person goes omnivore after a period of veganism. People say that some sort of meat-processing bacteria in your digestive system dies or somehow becomes inactive if you don't eat meat, so that you can't go back to eating meat after being a vegan.
Is there a Wikipedia article in which this claim is discussed? I've tried a little searching but I've found nothing on WP. I've heard this claim several times, so if (as I believe) it's not supported by the facts, shouldn't this myth be debunked in (for example) this article? 88.112.7.166 ( talk) 14:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
I removed this because (1) the issue of honey is already covered by the previous sentence, (2) the citation doesn't support the "controversial term" sentence (3) this doesn't address why some vegans find honey acceptable (e.g. because they don't view bees as passing the threshold for sentience or what have you). Basically it's unnecessary. Kellen T 09:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I think that the PETA web site is a bit too general as a link for this article, however a link to the PETA vegan website http://www.goveg.com/ might be appropriate. Bob98133 ( talk) 17:41, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
does any vegan think about what would happen if everyone drops animal oriented foods and starts consuming vegetables. Please dont take this as an insult, these are the points i am curious of as an engineer, these are only resource problems for me, We mankind are the most consuming animals on the planet and the assumptions i have made are about the usage of the resources and the effects, thanks for reading :)
if someone has any different views please inform me these are only my thoughts and do not need to mention medical and human evolution issues... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doganaktas ( talk • contribs) 01:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Peter Singer calls himself a "flexible vegan" which is, *not* a vegan. According to the definition on which the wikipedia and vegan society has agreed, Singer does not meet this quality.
"I don’t eat meat. I’ve been a vegetarian since 1971. I’ve gradually become increasingly vegan. I am largely vegan but I’m a flexible vegan. I don’t go to the supermarket and buy non-vegan stuff for myself. But when I’m traveling or going to other people’s places I will be quite happy to eat vegetarian rather than vegan. " (My bad about not signing, still learning) http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2006/04/peter_singer.html Ajkochanowicz ( talk) 01:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
It appear that vegan advocate are insinuating that favourable health effect vegetarian automatically apply to vegan. This is not the case. Plus, some details of the quoted paper seems to be funked. There is no mention of reduced risk to cancer in the cited paper. A separate study which incorporate the same cited article also show that your mortality rate rise if you switch from vegetarian to vegan, to the level equivalent to regular meat eater. Vapour ( talk) 15:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Please stop using info from vegan advocacy site. These site is no where considered as neutral or verifiable. Info from academia or media is the rule. Vapour ( talk) 15:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
And I corrected misquote of China study. Some Chinese are Mahayana Buddhist and are vegetarian but they are not vegan. The medical studies I have quoted established that all overall gain one make from vegetarianism or reduced meat intake is lost once one switch to veganism. Vapour ( talk) 14:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
"An exhaustive report on diet and cancer was released by the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund. Ten years in the making, reviewing more than 7,000 scientific studies, this 500+ page report is being considered the most comprehensive review ever published on the causal role of diet in cancer. The good news is that cancer is largely preventable. In addition to stopping smoking, exercising daily, and attaining a healthy weight, the expert panel recommends an overall limit on meat intake, and specifically singles out processed meat—bacon, hot dogs, ham and cold cuts—as a "convincing cause" of cancer. In general they conclude: "Eat mostly foods of plant origin". By choosing to eat a more humane, plant-based diet we can simultaneously attend to our own welfare, that of the animals, and that of our planet." [15].
I followed the source link (which is a link to a blog, not the report), found the main site for the study, searched here for "vegan," searched in the result PDFs for "vegan" and found mentions of vegan only in the context of defining what the diet is. Maybe the "plant-based diet" quote could be used somewhere else, but it borders on WP:SYN. Kellen T 12:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
Because there's already a section on Singer and this paragraph mainly seemed to be used to rebut the Jarvis' argument, which gets into tit-for-tat POV in the text of the article, which we would be better off without. Kellen T 10:58, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
"Vegans do not use or consume animal products of any kind" is wrong for all practical reasons as animal products and their consumption by vegans (knowingly or unknowingly) is too large a list to retype here given that it was already in the article earlier with sources. I suggest it be reworded or something. Idleguy ( talk) 09:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I find it strange that PETA is still in the link section, while Gary Francione has been removed. PETA does not advocate veganism as its moral baseline, and usually uses the word "vegetarian" in its literature. It is an animal welfare organization, not a vegan organization. I am not suggesting that the link to Francione's blog should be restored. However, since PETA advocates vegetarianism and welfare reforms, and only tangentially advocates veganism, it should not be included in the external links either. -- Nick, 15:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I just removed the following from the "Benefits":
While those findings are certainly noteworthy, it's too lengthy a reference to put right in the first paragraph of a section that deals with the benefits of a vegan diet. It really disturbs the flow of the paragraph. Maybe this would fit in somewhere else in the article (thought I couldn't find a proper place). Lodp ( talk) 17:50, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I suggest we delete the vegan nutrition article, which was a fork of a section of this article back in the day, but which has retained sections that we've excluded from this article, retained lots of bad writing, has poor citations, and overall is unnecessary since the major (i.e. encyclopedic) issues of a vegan diet are addressed here, and the minutiae is better left to the vegan advocacy websites (the vegan society, and vegan outreach's veganhealth.org). I'll put it up for AFD if there's some agreement here. Kellen T 18:01, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree, even the first line is badly written, "Vegan nutrition encompasses the nutrients vegans require for a balanced diet. It is an important part of a vegan's life" If there's no 'omnivorous nutrition' article and how it's an important part of an omnivores life then there should be no vegan equivalent.
Muleattack (
talk)
02:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that we should delete that article. nk, 19:41, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
I added a photo of Donald Watson to the "Definition" sectoin of the article, since he is the one (or half of two) that coined the term "vegan", only to be reverted by User:Kotra, who argued that illustrating the diet was more important than Watson. The photo there now is the generic "cornucopia" image used all over. In my opinion, Watson is much more relevant to that section than a food image, especially considering the fact that we have additional food images later in the article. Opinions? Kellen T 05:52, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
A discussion about the appropriateness of the “cornucopia” image was started in the last section, but it is off-topic there so I'll continue it here.
I said: “the cliché that vegans necessarily eat a great number of fresh, raw or unprocessed vegetables and fruit. I'm vegan but I don't eat like that at all. I eat a lot of spaghetti, soy milk and breakfast cereals, bread, bottled fruit juice, soft drinks, soy cheese, chips, pizzas and so on which are all vegan but not at all represented in that picture.”. Kotra answered: “The basic ingredients for all the foods you mention are pretty much all present in the "cornucopia" image. They're just in their pre-processed form. I agree that vegans don't always (or even usually) eat these foods as they are pictured (whole and raw), but I don't think that's what the image would convey to readers. I think it conveys that these are the basic ingredients a vegan can eat. I see no problem with illustrating what vegans can eat as opposed to what they can't.”
If I ask an average meat-eater what ey ate at lunch, the response will not be: “I ate cereals, legumes and pig muscle”. Rather it might be “pork with beans and bread”. True, vegans are often questioned about what they do eat; but just as often the answer comes as something like “grains, legumes, roots, nuts...” That is really strange. It's like confusing food with botany. Botanically, carrots may be roots, but as a food, carrots are carrots, and everyone knows carrots.
If we are to represent the foods vegans eat, I think we should start out with the foodstuffs that everyone knows. Bread, spaghetti, pizzas, French fries, water, soft drinks, sauerkraut, salads, biscuits, carrots and peas, wine and beer and other commonplace things. Then also the vegan equivalents to other commonplace items: soy milk, soy yoghurt, vegan ice cream, margarine, pastry... And then the vegan specifics like tofu, tempeh and so on.
Veganism is not about being aliens from Vega. Some vegans may eat only raw wild roots, or whole organic local-grown grains. But that's just one particular form of veganism, and I don't think the article should promote that as being what veganism is about.
David Olivier ( talk) 10:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Here's an idea, how about no picture at all? I don't see a reason to try and encompass the vegan diet (typical or otherwise) in a picture Muleattack ( talk) 04:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
References to a 2007 UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have been removed. This survey suggested that 2.24% of the England population had identified themselves as vegan, which is substantially higher than other survey results. Subsequent recontacting of respondents who had given a positive response found that very few of them were vegan or had ever been vegan. The conclusion is that some respondents did not know what vegan meant and had given a false positive response. StevieBassBoy ( talk) 10:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
With apologies, there is not a publicly available reference at present, so it is just my word. I work in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and commissioned the Defra survey cited. Following correspondence with the Vegan Society concerning the higher than expected percentage claiming to be vegan, our contractor recontacted those who claimed to be vegan and found that very few of them were vegan or had ever been vegan. Owing to some technical difficulties we have not been able to reflect this in the survey results still available on the Defra website, but they should not be cited further. The vegan result is of limited importance for the purposes of our survey (it was just a means of checking responses to other questions rather than a purposeful output). However it is of importance to the Vegan Society that the false result is not promulgated further. If the reference is reinstated again, at present you only have my assurance that it is incorrect. StevieBassBoy ( talk) 11:55, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
The removed section was:
Hopefully StevieBassBoy can provide us with something we can cite, or at least use to agree upon excluding the study from the article. Kellen T 15:02, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
This is clearly a preposterous statement meant to cause misinformation by a group that thinks chiropractic is bogus. This paragraph sounds ridiculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DonnieD123 ( talk • contribs) 19:21, 18 June 2008
The following sentence was rewritten because it was very poorly constructed:
"Animal ingredients can be found in countless products and are used in the production of—though not always present in the final form of—many more many of these ingredients are esoteric also have non-animal sources, and especially in non-food products may not even be identified."
Before rewriting this sentence, I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what the author was saying and I am still not sure if I understand it. If anyone wants to edit my writing, please don't do so by replacing it with this sentence. Please restate the point in a more clear manner. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DivaNtrainin ( talk • contribs) 22:42, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
The sentence is not clear at all. I will rewrite the sentence now that I understand what you are trying to say. The sentence has two subjects located within two different parts of the sentence. It has two different verbs within two different parts of the sentence, and this is not a compound sentence. Please note, that anytime an author has to give instructions to a reader on how to read a sentence, then it is the author that has failed. DivaNtrainin
My rewording is an improvement. My improvement uses simpler language and that's a good thing. The reader shouldn't need to have a Ph.D. to use wikipedia. There are more problems with your sentence. For example, you state "Animal ingredients can be found in countless products...". Isn't the prescence of animal ingredients in a lot of product obvious? Does this really need to be said?
Then you state "(Animal Products) are used in the production of—...—many more many of these ingredients". So, now you are saying the quantity of animal-based ingredients is some quantity more than countless. That does not make sense.
Then you say "(Animal Products) are used in the production of—...—many more many of these ingredients are esoteric". According to www.dictionary.com, esoteric is defined as
"1.understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite: poetry full of esoteric allusions. 2. belonging to the select few. 3. private; secret; confidential. "
So, if we use either of the first two definitions, then your sentenced does not make sense.
Your sentence states that non-animal ingredients aren't identified on the label, but you don't provide any reason why. Your original sentence could also be rephrased as "Don't bother looking at the label to detemine if animal products were used to make the product." That's hardly a worthwhile point.
I have no problem with you editing my work, but don't replace it with something that is poorly structured and unclear. DivaNtrainin —Preceding comment was added at 00:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
- My rewording is an improvement. My improvement uses simpler language and that's a good thing. The reader shouldn't need to have a Ph.D. to use wikipedia.
- There are more problems with your sentence. For example, you state "Animal ingredients can be found in countless products...". Isn't the prescence of animal ingredients in a lot of product obvious? Does this really need to be said?
- Then you state "(Animal Products) are used in the production of—...—many more many of these ingredients". So, now you are saying the quantity of animal-based ingredients is some quantity more than countless. That does not make sense.
- Then you say "(Animal Products) are used in the production of—...—many more many of these ingredients are esoteric". According to www.dictionary.com, esoteric is defined as
- "1.understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite: poetry full of esoteric allusions.
- 2. belonging to the select few.
- 3. private; secret; confidential. "
- So, if we use either of the first two definitions, then your sentenced does not make sense.
- Your sentence states that non-animal ingredients aren't identified on the label, but you don't provide any reason why. Your original sentence could also be rephrased as "Don't bother looking at the label to detemine if animal products were used to make the product." That's hardly a worthwhile point.
Discussion copied from User talk:kotra on 19:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
There already exists a section on "eating disorders" in the vegan article. I added the appropriate category so that people researching behaviors associated with eating disorders would be able to find it. A large number of people with eating disorders become or have been vegan, the connection is real and there. The edit was not vandalism; if you feel it was, this is an issue you should take up with the people who initially inserted the discussion of "eating disorders" into the article in the first place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaphraud ( talk • contribs) 02:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
:"Veganism is a philosophy and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose."
I find this opening statement slighty ambiguous, mostly becuase of the vague link to "philosophy". To me it seems inappropriate to over-archingly class veganism as "a philosophy" and then go on to direct the reader to a very very generalised article on the subject.
Prehaps a better wording might be:
Prehaps not. Nevertheless I feel that this important opening statement needs a re-wording.
Jason McConnell-Leech (
talk)
09:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
"Veganism is a philosophical position and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose."
Under the resources & the environment section, there is this sentence:
"It has been noted that the production of some vegan food substitutes like soy, used to produce soymilk amongst other items, is partly to blame for the deforestation of rainforests."
I looked at the references for that sentence, and neither one mentions soymilk or any other dairy or meat analogue. In fact, the only mention of the use of the soy threatening deforestation is this:
"The main products derived from soybeans are soy meal (the world’s main oil meal for animal feed) and soy oil (the world’s most consumed vegetable oil)." [12]
(emphasis added)
What I'm getting at is that this doesn't seem to be related to veganism in any particularly meaningful way. Soy meal is primarily an animal feed, and for human consumption it's likely used in as much non-vegan food as it is in vegan food. It's a common ingredient in many processed foods. Soy oil is used in almost every deep fryer, everywhere, and it's often what we buy when we get an unnamed "vegetable oil."
Additionally, it looks like someone tried to add a rebuttal:
"However, massive amounts of soy are used as animal feed rather than for direct human consumption. And while it takes several pounds of soy to produce a single pound of meat, a single pound of soy can be used to produce several pounds of soy-based foods for humans."
Massive amounts of soy in relation to what? Total soy production? Total human consumption? Compared to corn-based feed? What constitutes massiveness? The first half of the of the second sentence looks true, and a reference could probably be found for it, but the second half looks like it would only be true for vegan Jesus. You can't make more than a pound of food from one pound of any product.
I think that we should remove this paragraph since it's only tangentially related to veganism, doesn't reproduce the references' statements, and also contains some dubious claims. Djk3 ( talk) 02:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
- The increasing demand for soybean products is partially responsible for the increasing deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. [25] [26] However, the majority of this demand is in the form of livestock feed and soybean oil [26], two products that a vegan diet is unlikely to have a greater demand for than non-vegan diets.
As a carnivore, I find the argument that vegan-destined soy contributes to deforestation section to be... well, stupid. The soy/tofurkey/vegans connection is obviated by the massive amounts of soy that go into animal feed as compared to tofu or soy bacon or whatever. This, I don't think, is disputable. Archer Daniels Midland didn't get rich by feeding hippies. Skinwalker ( talk) 01:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
The paragraph in the Section "Resources and the Environment" in reference to the developing world was added in order to provide context to this section. Before my post, the section only covered the perspective of developed countries and excluded the actions of developing countries. Wikipedia has constantly requested from its contributors to provide a global perspective to topics. If we do not want to discuss a balanced approach to the topic "Resources and the Environment", then we should completely remove the section from the veganism page. DivaNtrainin ( talk) 10:22, 04 July 2008 (UTC)
Earlier in the discussion page we reached the decision to delete the Vegan nutrition article, since it's in a shambles, and its material is already covered in this article. However, it still has not been deleted. I propose that now is the time to voice objections to its deletion. If no one has any objections, let's go ahead and get rid of it. -- N-k, 00:25, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I removed:
Saying this after explicitly noting that honey & silk are "by definition animal products" is redundant, bad writing, and an example of someone attempting to advance a personal agenda ("people who eat honey aren't vegan"). The citations are just references back to other sources already used in the article. Kellen T 15:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
This was removed:
German WP cites both the veganwelt site and the study which replaced it here. Kellen T 15:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
If it must exist, place it in a Criticism section. It's former location in "ethical concerns" was misplaced. The polemic had nothing to say about veganism and ethics. Abe Froman ( talk) 21:29, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Maybe there shouldn't be a criticism section at all, I mean, is it really necessary? Vegetarianism doesn't have a criticism section, cbhristianity doesn't have one either (not saying that veganism is a religion). The contents of the section basically are statements saying that all vegans are hypocrites and then rebuttals. Everyone is a hypocrite in one way or another. If the criticisms were that veganism was somehow harmful to the environment or to people other than those who are vegans then I'd understand it. As it is it's pointless imho and should go. Muleattack ( talk) 09:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I've shortened the Davis section and its rebuttal by Gaverick Matheny to one paragraph. It seems to me that Davis made an argument that was completely disproved by Matheny and the article should reflect this. As this happened in 2003 and as Davis has not countered Matheny's rebuttal in the intervening five years, I think we can say that Matheny has proved his point and that Davis accepts this, if only tacitly. If anyone knows of a defence made by Davis (or anyone else) to Matheny's rebuttal, I'd be interested in seeing it. There's a case to be made for moving this and the Jarvis paragraph to a Criticism section. I may do that. Steve3742 ( talk) 16:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
In this diff, I removed the use of the "|quote" field from the references used in this article. The heavy use of quotes resulted in significantly reduced navigability of the References section. If anyone wishes to work the material from the quotes into the article, you may use the above diff. Feedback welcome. Whatever404 ( talk) 22:32, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Whatever, chill out. I've never known Kellen to be anything other than polite and collaborative. If you indicate which fee-based sources you want to read, other editors of this page can try and find PDFs through our work or school access. If we can find them, we can privately email them to you. Or, we can summarize the abstract. Often you can find abstracts yourself through Pubmed. While I'm a big fan of open access journals, they are relatively new and we can't just exclude important sources that aren't available online. That would exclude as a source virtually every copyrighted work published in the last 70 years. Skinwalker ( talk) 22:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Just a brief third fourth opinion: From my viewpoint, Kellen has not been rude in this discussion (as of this posting). He has been polite and explained his views clearly and nonconfrontationally. The use of "scare quotes" might have been slightly sarcastic, but it was justified because removal of content is not the same as formatting. -
kotra (
talk)
22:59, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
William Jarvis, writing for The National Council Against Health Fraud, characterizes veganism as "a hygienic religion that meets deep emotional needs of its followers," who revel "in self-denial and wars against pleasure," and who "cannot be trusted to be objective, reliable sources of information on anything that bears upon its fundamental paradigm."
This seems to be a sweeping generalisation against vegans rather than any verifiable criticism of veganism itself, I think there could be valid arguments in a criticism section but I don't think that this brings anything to the article. -- Quazu ( talk) 20:46, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
OK, I'm going to remove it for now, please add to the discussion if anybody puts it back, besisdes from these claims being (in my opinion) totally absurd, the writer has obviously never heard that in polite discourse you attack arguments rather than the people making them. Surely any notable criticisms would be in reference to health. Again, the quote isn't actually a criticism of veganism and doesn't even give any rationale for his viewpoints. -- Quazu ( talk) 14:57, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
The Jarvis section (as it now stands) is just a criticism of the speciesism claim. But surely there are better articulated criticism of speciesism out there that can be used?-- Dodo bird ( talk) 07:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
I split it off because it seemed there were two parts to the quote (indeed, they were taken from different magazines.) In one bit, he was attacking the idea of speciesism using a reduction ad absurdium, and I figured this could go under Singer's section. The second bit seemed to me to have very little value at all other than saying he didn't like or trust vegetarians. I left that in a Criticism section as it seemed general criticism. It certainly added nothing to his critique of speciesism. There's an argument for saying that comment was worthless and should be deleted (as it has been.) Steve3742 ( talk) 13:30, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Aside from any consideration of bias, the addition of the Jarvis quote at the bottom of the 'Ethics' is just bad writing. It doesn't flow from the preceeding paragraph, and is completely unrelated to ethics. It belongs in a seperate section. "I wish to note that I wrote this text section in response to repeated additions of Jarvis as a critic of veganism" (Kellen) is the only reason Jarvis should be included on this page, and even then only until better criticism is found. It is hard to quote this article as a general criticism of veganism since so much of it is specific to extremists and personal anecdotes, but perhaps consider something like:
William Jarvis, writing for the Nutrition & Health Forum newsletter, criticised "ideological vegetarians", claiming it to be "riddled with delusional thinking from which even scientists and medical professionals are not immune". He suggests (without reference) "one need not eliminate meat from one's diet [..] Apparently, it is ample consumption of fruits and vegetables, not the exclusion of meat, that makes vegetarianism healthful."
(meta question: does (without reference) violate NPOV, or is it valid observation? It is a statement of fact...)
(FWIW The Davis quote is relevant and fits nicely inline in the ethics section)
Xaviershay ( talk) 23:03, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
I am wondering - has anyone mentioned anything about Davis' arguement not having anything to do with veganism - but with overpopulation? isnt that what he is really talking about? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ourmetis ( talk • contribs) 08:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
I have removed the image of the cow ready for slaughter as it is clearly meant to offend people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.17.107.49 ( talk) 00:10, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
I find the charges that the image is "offensive" or somehow profane to be disingenuous; the image does not show an exaggerated situation, it does not contain blood or gore, it's not especially filthy, nor does it overdramatize the situation. The caption is terse and free of appeals to emotion. Whether the image is the best choice to illustrate the section is a purely editorial decision. I think it works, but I'm not at all attatched to it, so if a better image was proposed I could support changing the image. Kellen T 10:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
- Vegan organizations maintain that animals have rights, and as such it is not ethical to use animals in ways that infringe those rights.
- Singer does not contend that killing animals is always wrong, but that from a practical standpoint it is "better to reject altogether the killing of animals for food, unless one must do so to survive."
- Philosopher Tom Regan argues that animals are entities which possess "inherent value" and therefore have "basic moral rights," and that the principal moral right they possess is "the right to respectful treatment."
It beats me how you can see such a gap between the philosophical statements you cite and the picture of a cow being slaughtered — other than the gap that always exists between a general philosophical statement (general, rather than vague) and a specific fact. I think that for any vegan, of whatever specific philosophical flavour, an image of an animal being slaughtered is a good illustration of what they oppose. To speak of the dots to connect between "cow being restrained for slaughter" and "infringement of animal rights" seems really strange. Of course it is possible, and interesting, to elaborate on the connection, but on the face of it the connection is obvious for most anyone. David Olivier ( talk) 22:26, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
- Vegan ethicists typically consider the slaughter of animals to be an infringement upon their rights.
- Some ethicists consider the slaughter of animals to be an infringement upon their rights.
I thought I would point out that if one was looking to prove relevancy of this cow image under 'Ethics', perhaps it would be a good idea to include a second image in the same section that shows a different ethical concern of animal use other than the killing of them? This might sate those against showing the cow image. Not sure what I'd think of putting though, maybe a Zoo animal? Eddie mars ( talk) 22:28, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Outstanding issues in the article:
Totally outstanding! Kellen T 13:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Anybody else care to comment on these issues? or do some work on them? Kellen T 15:01, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
This article is pretty biased, with all the talk about how great the diet is and no criticisms.
Thewritingwriter17 —Preceding undated comment was added at 16:35, 19 October 2008 (UTC).
I had one concern in the
Health benefits section. However none of them apply specifically to veganism. They are applicable to the parent category of
vegetarianism and none of the articles referenced in this section specifically talk about veganism either.
This may seem as a moot point but veganism is actually a fairly restrictive version of vegetarianism and since this distinction is never made nor a disclaimer presented, the benefits appear as applying directly to veganism.
Aashay147 (
talk)
11:51, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
The amount of plant material that would require to convert ALA to EPA to DHA used by the brain would amount to kilograms and likely has negligible effects. This is a severe deficiency in diets of vegans that seems to be understated in this article. http://dhaomega3.org/index.php?category=overview&title=Conversion-of-ALA-to-DHA Schnarr 04:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm not implying I do, in fact most people are deficient in Omega-3 fatty acids. However, this article states you would be able to get omega-3 easily in the diet. When in fact, you require a broad range of non-animal food sources and supplementation. This reference is specific to women during pregnancy [14] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schnarr ( talk • contribs) 05:24, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Yep. The article you cite is authored by Jean-Marie Bourre, well known and well discredited in France for being the lobbyist and propagandist for a great number of agrobusiness groups. See here for the ironical attribution of the “Grand prize for propaganda 2006” by Thierry Souccar, an independent nutritionist. “Jean-Marie Bourre, comme je l’ai écrit avec Isabelle Robard dans « Santé, Mensonges et Propagande » est surtout président du Centre d’information sur les charcuteries payé par les industriels de la saucisse, membre du Comité scientifique du pain créé par les producteurs de farine, président du Comité scientifique de l’huître, président du Comité scientifique du Comité national pour la promotion de l’œuf mis en place par les producteurs d’œufs. Il fait aussi la promotion du pruneau pour le compte de la Collective du pruneau d’Agen.” Outside of France, anyone with such a heap of conflicts of interest would be largely discredited, or at least obliged to cite them in eir articles. Please note too that the abstract of the article you cite is vague and inconclusive, as is the concluding paragraph; all they do is attempt to suggest. They don't even get the facts right, in that they omit linseed oil as a source of ALA — while it contains some 50% ALA and is easy to find. David Olivier ( talk) 11:57, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your investigation. I now see that supplimentation is included and that should be sufficient. Schnarr 03:24, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I think the opening paragraph confuses proponents of animal rights and vegans, which are not necessarily the same thing. Veganism is dietary. I don't think animal testing of cosmetic products is necessarily restricted for vegans, unless those vegans are specifically interested in animal rights. Some vegans are concerned with their own health and not animal abuse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.135.177.214 ( talk) 19:52, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fit for Life. Badagnani ( talk) 17:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
In this article there's no section yet, that mentions all arguments, that can bring a person to stay or to become veganist. Before eventually adding such a section, here and now already the suggestion is made, that one of those arguments might be this one: To some (or maybe many) it's clear, that consumption of animal foodproducts very strongly raises ones libido, as well as (to a certain extent) one's sexappeal. Now, given the fact, that in these days even babies and other very young children are feeded with among other things animal foodproducts (for instance added to prepared babyfood), the presumption exists, that this can be a serious cause of these children becoming victim of pedophile activities. So preventing this could be seen as an (additional) argument to raise children the veganist way. A question in this context however is, in how far there are sources about this subject available. Maybe insiders know any. VKing ( talk) 14:21, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
There's this from Slate: [15] which brings up both sides but doesn't draw any conclusion. Bob98133 ( talk) 21:39, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Here's a little help, to read the article better; it contents this sentence: "As well as vegetarians and vegans who choose not to eat animal products, the elderly are known to eat less meat because of loss of appetite in later years and difficulty with chewing." So it evidently is also about younger persons, who don't eat any meat, namely all vegetarians (and all veganists and all fruitarians). VKing ( talk) 13:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Sigh; so this has to be explained as well? There we go: "As well as vegetarians and vegans, the elderly..... " That's what's in the article, (which is written by a scientist and published by a very well known national broadcasting organisation, which might be sufficient, to tegard the article as being reliable). So it doesn't say: "As well as elderly vegetarians and vegans". No, "as well as vegetarians and vegans". So as far as concerns vegetarians and vegans, there is no limitation; they all don't eat meat; the old, the young, the men and the women. As well as them, in many cases elderly persons also eat hardly or no meat any more (among other things, because they hardly can chew it). Hopefully it's clear now, cause it's very unlikely, that this could be explained any further.
By the way, now that it is scientifically affirmed, that eating meat raises libido, to this article not only can be added the fact, that vegansm reduces the drive behind pedophile activities, but equally the one behind other perversities, like homosexuality and incest.
It's true, the source doesn't mention this verbally, but she affirms the fact, out of which this conclusion logically can be drawn. (Not too complicated?). VKing ( talk) 04:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Then surely in the article as an argument can be mentioned, that according to scientists not eating meat can reduce ones libido. But this argument is more in it's right place in the article about vegetarianism, as veganism contents a bit more than just not eating animal food. Now as for other arguments, or better "reasons", to become or to stay veganist:
So far for now; maybe soon more reasons will be added, eventually by somebody else. VKing ( talk) 08:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Wp is a coöperational project. The 'facts' are not added to the article yet, but just mentioned on this discussion page. This has been done mainly, because in this way other contributors have the opportuninty to judge what is posed and eventually contribute in preparing it for addition to the article, among other things by finding and mentioning references. For undoubtedly there are other users, who have more time available to do this, than the one who spent the time he had available now, in taking the initiative for such a new section and mention some main 'facts', that, after having been provided with references, could be part of it. VKing ( talk) 15:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Wonder what references, eh, Wp-rules can confirm, what has been posed in the former edit, as if it where facts. VKing ( talk) 16:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
A section called "veganarchism" was recently added. As far as I can tell, this is not significant enough to have its own section, and probably belongs only as a link in the "see also" section. Also, the section on eating disorders was deleted, re-added, and then modified, so in its current form it presents only information that is detrimental to veganism. What should this section contain, if it should exist at all? I am not making any proposals on either of these topics, I'm just wondering what other editors think. -- n-k, 17:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
What an active talk page! So, this line in the opening paragraph: "Vegans are therefore encouraged to plan their diet and take dietary supplements.[8]", seems to be much too strong for the refence given. In the article referenced, the strongest *conclusion* (I did read the whole article) regarding vegetarian (including vegan) diets and supplements is "In some cases, use of fortified foods or supplements can be helpful in meeting recommendations for individual nutrients." I guess I don't see how 'In some cases', 'can be helpful' means all vegans should be encouraged to supplement their diets. (Especially as many of the other dietary articles referenced conclude that a well-planned vegan diet is healthy w/o supplementation.) Thoughts? 64.122.192.37 ( talk) 22:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I feel this wording is more pertinent. Thanks! 64.122.192.37 ( talk) 16:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
i read on the internet that Dr. james halsted was working with persian iranian vegans who did not get b12 deficiency and discovered they were using humanure to grow there food. Username 1 ( talk) 20:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
"Studies have shown that those eating an omnivorous diet require more vitamin B-12 than vegans. This is because the typical diet leads to digestive atrophy. Because vitamin B-12 is peptide bound in animal products and must be enzymatically cleaved from the peptide bonds to be absorbed, a weakening of all gastric acid and gastric enzyme secretions (due to a cooked food diet) causes an inability to efficiently extract vitamin B-12 from external food." [19] Username 1 ( talk) 16:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Taken from Talk:fruitarianism
I have also seen studies showing that eating food contaminated with shit may contain B12. However, I have not seen a reliable source indicating that fruitarians specifically may meet their B12 requirements in this way. - SummerPhD ( talk) 21:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
This is quite relevant,..
http://rawfooddietsecrets.com/blog/12/no-such-thing-as-a-b12-deficiency/ —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
96.225.99.178 (
talk)
23:53, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Hello,
I want to add a link to Low carbon diet, but I'm not sure if it should go in the "Similar diets" section or "See also" section... I tried the "See also" section once, but it got edited to 'Low carb diet' which is an entirely different page! (and a very non-vegan diet!) and then removed. Ideas? Jaybird vt ( talk) 00:54, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I reverted this change (marked "minor", without an edit summary), but had my revert reverted. I've reverted similar changes many times previously. It is not our place to determine who or what "fits" the definition of veganism, but to represent it as it exists. As the world exists, there are many people who eat honey and who are called vegans by e.g. the source cited in that section, vegan.org. I recognize that there is an ideological dispute. The source recognizes that there is an ideological dispute. The article describes the dispute, based upon the source. Having some wording in this article like "people who call themselves vegans" is just POV pushing and, as i said in my edit summary, this is not the place for it. Kellen T 23:46, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
"Vegans use no bee products" quoted from http://www.vegansociety.com/pdf/Honey.pdf That seems to me to state that people who eat honey are not vegan and conflicts with vegan actions statement. Muleattack ( talk) 21:40, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
How about replacing "some vegans consider their use and the use of other insect products to be acceptable." with "some people consider their use and the use of other insect products to be acceptable in a vegan diet." ? Muleattack ( talk) 01:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
In rewriting this section, I removed the two Stepaniak citations as they were excessive (there's a direct Vegan Society citation now, and these two citations were redundant from the beginning). They are as follows:
Honey was prohibited for use by vegans according to the 1944 manifesto of the British Vegan Society … a position consistent with the requirement for full membership in the American Vegan Society since its inception in 1960.
Abstaining from the use of honey is a requirement for full membership in that society, as was stated in its original manifesto, a policy that is consistent with the position of the American Vegan Society since its founding in 1960.
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)Kellen T 17:51, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I miss some aspects of this aspect especially among young vegans and added some points based on german studies and press reports. -- Polentario ( talk) 20:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your efforts to improve the article, but I have multiple criticisms of these additions.
I think it's rather problematic to be including German criticisms in the english-language article since (a) none of us have access to the sources since they're not available outside germany (and the ones included aren't online sources) (b) most of use don't speak german even if we had access to the sources (c) the criticisms are likely tailored to the specific situation of veganism in germany (d) no quotes are provided for the citations, so we can't read what the person using the citation thought supported their article statement. Now the specific criticisms.
This part:
is totally pointless. That segment essentially says "vegans base their diet on asian diets, but asians are eating more meat". So what?
I don't contest that someone could suggest that german vegans could use this as inspiration, but this movement is irrelevant outside germany, and the criticism is rather obtuse: "veganism has similarities to the diets promoted by these sketchy guys".
The 151 note is not actually a citation, and as with the other sources 152 has no quote and isn't available online. This section as a statement is also not acceptable. We can identify authors who say such things, but not just say them straight out since this is a POV. My personal POV is that this is bullshit, however there are certainly vegans for whom this is relevant. A more acceptable phrasing would be something like "author X contends that veganism fills a semireligous place in vegans lives, that since in the athor's view veganism is based upon compassion for all life forms its view is utopian."
This is not sufficiently cited. The source is a NYTimes travel article about Munich which talks about a vegan restaurant. That source doesn't "acknowledge" anything, and doesn't make any statement about vegan restaurants in general.
All this section says is that Prez-berg has more vegetarian restaurants/more vegetarians. Veganism isn't mentioned in the source so far as I can tell. This section seems to be (in a round-about way) trying to indict veganism/vegetarianism as a luxury of the rich, but it doesn't come right out and say it. This section seems particularly pointless to me since it's about a regional difference only within berlin. I'm not saying it isn't true, just that it's not very relevant in an english language article about a much broader subject.
As I said before, I do think mentioning the punk-veganism connection is relevant, but I think that that Breyvogels' viewpoint is given too much space, and that there are probably other sources we could cite. I would personally also appreciate quotes from Breyvogel so that non-germans could actually check some of the source material rather than only having an editor's characterizations of her position to go by.
Finally, the section on the position of the German and Swiss dietary associations is interesting, but I suspect the quote doesn't give a wholly accurate picture of their position. For example, in this PDF there's a segment (babelfish translated) which reads:
I was not able to find the section quoted in the article in the Swiss position papers, but of course, I don't speak/read german. Kellen T 08:13, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
I removed this for the reason listed above (source does not support statement):
This as well, because it's pointless:
And this, for the same reason:
I removed this:
because the statement made is not supported by the source. If you go to amazon.co.uk, search for the book "Vegane Lebensstile", do "Search inside this book" and search for "straight edge" you will find one mention of straight edge, which is a quote from a youth talking about his motivations. This is not at all sufficient to make the statement that "larger amounts of vegans" are found in younger people, or in fans of straight edge. I also removed:
Because although the statement as it stands is half-true (imo), the POV is improperly attributed to Breyvogels, who is the editor, not the author of the "study" (a compilation of essays), there is no page number cited, and no quote given, so I cant even try to verify the veracity of the statement, especially the "Veganism predominantly is a lifestyle declaration" section. "predominantly" is very strong, and inappropriate in the article text unless directly attributed to another author. Kellen T 13:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
For the reasons listed above, I removed:
I also removed the following
pending a page number, a quotation, or some other more specific attribution. Better would be to replace the german source with something readily available and in english. Kellen T 18:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Syracuse University Press, 2006, 192 pp. $US 19.95 hardcover (0-8156-3127-8) BR -- Polentario ( talk) 01:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
If anybody can get the fulltext of Larson 2001 and provide a relevant quote it would be appreciated. Kellen T 14:08, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
Just send her an e-mail, think that will work. BR -- Polentario ( talk) 01:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Section for appropriate sources here.
Haenfler, Ross. Straight Edge : Clean-Living Youth, Hardcore Punk, and Social Change. New Brunswick, NJ, USA: Rutgers University Press, 2006.
This work also contains all of the veganism-related contents of: Ross Haenfler Rethinking Subcultural Resistance: Core Values of the Straight Edge Movement Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 2004; 33; 406, which is often cited. The best quotes (I've searched the entire book) are:
These are all fine, but make statements better suited to the straight edge article rather than this one.
Wood 2006: Straightedge Youth: Complexity and Contradictions of a Subculture
Has some minor mentions of veganism.
I've checked out a few of the sources mentioned in Wood's citations. I was unable to obtain copies of:
But in the copyright section of this book, it notes that both of these papers are used, at least in part, for the book itself. Perhaps it's a bit odd for the author to cite himself, I don't know... I obtained two of the sources mentioned on p7, there was no mention of veganism in:
And a minor mention of veganism in:
Irwin 1999: "The Straight Edge Subculture: Examining the Youths' Drug-free Way." Journal of Drug Issues 29, no. 2:365-80
All in all, not very strong citations for this article, though I note that the straightedge article could use some help. Kellen T 23:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise. Craig O'Hara. AK Press. Copyright Date: 1999.
Dylan Clark. "The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine" Ethnology, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Winter, 2004), pp. 19-31
Kellen T 02:05, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
I would like to add research done by
Dr. Dean Ornish, specficially a study on men with prostate cancer and addoption of "lifestyle changes". Those lifestyle changes included a vegan diet. Should I create a subsection titled "Cancer" under "Nutritional benefits" or just a paragraph on the research within "Nutritional benefits"? (I'll post the proposed text here before I update the article.)
--
Thomas.vandenbroeck (
talk)
08:35, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Here's the text I propose to add:
A 2005 secondary prevention study published in the Journal of Urology by Dr. Dean Ornish(footnote), showed that a year long "intensive lifestyle change" consisting of a vegan diet, aerobic exercise, stress management and weekly group therapy resulted in a 4% reduction in PSA levels with no patients having to leave the study for conventional treatment due to disease progression. In contrast, the control group for this study experienced a 6% increase in PSA levels with 6 patients having to leave the study for conventional treatment due to disease progression.
-- Thomas.vandenbroeck ( talk) 04:11, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
I like the bold as it makes it easier to read technically dense material by visually picking out what's important to focus on -- but it is not a common wiki style. Here's the updated text with the other suggestions incorporated:
A 2005 secondary prevention study on prostate cancer published by Dr. Dean Ornish, showed that a year long "intensive lifestyle change" consisting of a vegan diet, aerobic exercise, stress management and weekly group therapy resulted in a 4% reduction in PSA levels with no patients having to leave the study due to disease progression. In contrast, the control group for this study experienced a 6% increase in PSA levels with 6 patients having to leave the study for conventional treatment due to disease progression.(footnote)
-- Thomas.vandenbroeck ( talk) 16:47, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
More like this:
A 2005 secondary prevention study on prostate cancer, showed that a year long "intensive lifestyle change" consisting of a vegan diet, aerobic exercise, stress management and weekly group therapy resulted in a 4% reduction in PSA levels and zero patients leaving the study due to disease progression, compared with a 6% increase in PSA levels and 6 patients leaving the study the control group.(footnote)
Kellen T 18:05, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
The fact that a vegan diet showed the possibility of reversing cancer is considered revolutionary, and important if you've been diagnosed with cancer. A vegan diet has been proven to reverse heart disease and diabetes type-2, and I'd like to include as much health research as possible when explaining the benefits of following a vegan diet.
--
Thomas.vandenbroeck (
talk)
19:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
I stand by my last version of the text. As you may already know, it's difficult to distill 5 pages of research into two sentences - LOL. A link to Dr. Dean Ornish is important since he does alot of research on vegan[vegetarian?] diets and disease.
--
Thomas.vandenbroeck (
talk)
21:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
I removed:
Because it didn't fit in the article where it lived and I don't see a particularly good place for it now. Suggestions welcome. Kellen T 10:47, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Wanted to say the citation and reference section of this article is one of the best I have ever seen. Well done -- 94.193.135.142 ( talk) 11:43, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
My edit of image thumbnails layout was reverted by User:Kellen` because he think "they don't all need to be on the right." But please look at my screen shot under 1024px-width screen resolution you will learn that the thumbnails sandwich the main article text. I suppose Kellen is using some greater screen resolution so he didn't see the problem, but this looks inappropriate in 1024*786px or smaller resolution. For more information, please check the WP:Layout#Images, MOS:IMAGES & WP:Picture tutorial. Thx. -- Sameboat - 同舟 ( talk) 02:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
WP:PSTS "Appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, and these are general rules. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are more suitable on any given occasion is a matter of common sense and good editorial judgment, and should be discussed on article talk pages."
In relation to this edit, can consensus be reached that this matter is or not a primary concern to the ideology of veganism? ~ R. T. G 23:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the bible is a primary concern for a very signifigant section of those both vegan and vegan-oposed ~ R. T. G 23:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
You can't just put information about the bible in the opening paragraph, that suggests that veganism and christianity are somehow related, when they are not. Muleattack ( talk) 14:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is "verifiability, not truth" ( WP:V). This means we have to be able to quote reliable sources for any inclusion we wish to make. The Bible is a primary source ("religious scripture" WP:PSTS), and any interpretation of it requires a secondary source ( WP:NOR). Now, you did quote two secondary sources
but it seems to me these two websites don't have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" ( WP:RS). Is there a reputable book, peer-reviewed publication or similar source substantiating your interpretation of the Bible on this issue? Gabbe ( talk) 18:37, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I find the sources for this section to poorly reliable. It is also garden variety original research. I'm in favor of excluding it. Skinwalker ( talk) 00:09, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Religion is for many an important part of human life. Major religious organisations rarely promote true vegetarianism but some do show signs of veganism, particularly Christianity with numerous indications of veganism throughout scripture. [44]
Christianity and Judaism
The evidence of vegetarianism in the Bible is overwhelming. [45] In the Old Testament, God is described as commanding the first man and woman to eat plant based food with the most frequent translation, "fruit which bears seed". After The Great Flood, God permits a wider human diet but theologians in favour of veganism and vegetarianism, who are in the minority [46], point out that this was a time when plant life would be almost non-existant (after many weeks under sea water) and that God and Jesus are quoted many times in the bible instructing humans to be protective and helpful of other creatures. [47] God makes a covenant with Israel that he should break any bow, sword or weapon of war so that all creatures may sleep safely. [48] In the Christian New testament, Peter, a disciple of Jesus, claimed to live only on bread and olives to which he added other vegetables on rare occasions [49] and James, Jesus brother and immediate successor as religious leader, and his followers beleived that Jesus was strictly vegetarian although it was the following of Paul the Apostle, who never actually met Jesus, not James which became the foundation of the Christian church today. Paul was of the opinion that faith was weak among those who ate "only vegetables". The topic of Jesus Christ, as with all Abrahamic faith, is also impotant to Islamic faith. [50]
In modern times, the $27 million Creation Museum in Kentucky, USA created controversy after its opening on May 28th 2007. The museums exhibits show Adam and Eve in scenes with veg eating tyrannosaurus. Creationism is controversial because it may confuse children who are learning about evolution. [51]
Veganism and vegetarianism is not promoted by the major Christian, Jewish and Islamic institutions.
Hinduism
Hindu [52] organisations promote vegetarianism and veganism but particularly notable was revered spiritual leader of India Mahatma Ghandi who had been a fruitarian [53] until he started taking goat's milk on the advice of his doctor. He never took dairy products obtained from cows because of his view initially that milk is not the natural diet of man, dissaproval of farming methods, [54] and because of a vow to his late mother.
Other
There are also numerous other religious groups that regularly or occasionally practice a similar diet, including adherents to some Buddhist traditions, [55] Sikhs, [56] Jains, [57] Eastern Orthodox Christians, [58] [59] Rastafari, [60] and Seventh-day Adventists. [61]
References
- ^ Jack Norris, RD. "Vegan Health: B12 in Tempeh, Seaweeds, Organic Produce, and Other Plant Foods". veganhealth.org. Vegan Outreach. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
- ^ Jack Norris, RD. "Vegan Health: Are Intestinal Bacteria a Reliable Source of B12?". veganhealth.org. Vegan Outreach. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
- ^ Greg Lester (2007-06-1). "Study Finds that Dietary Vitamin B6, B12 and Folate, May Decrease Pancreatic Cancer Risk among Lean People". aacr.org. American Association for Cancer Research. Retrieved 2007-06-14.
{{ cite web}}
: Check date values in:|date=
( help)- ^ Brody, Jane (1998-06-20). "Final Advice From Dr. Spock: Eat Only All Your Vegetables". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 2007-12-30.
- ^ Donaldson L J, Donaldson R J (2000). Essential Public Health. UK: Petroc Press. pp. 160–161. ISBN 1-900603-32-2.
- ^ "Bovine Growth Hormone". EJnet.org. Retrieved 2006-09-15.
- ^ Swan SH, Liu F, Overstreet JW, Brazil C, Skakkebaek NE (2007). "Semen quality of fertile US males in relation to their mothers' beef consumption during pregnancy". Hum. Reprod. 22 (6): 1497–502. doi: 10.1093/humrep/dem068. PMID 17392290.
{{ cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)- ^ Andersson AM, Skakkebaek NE (1999). "Exposure to exogenous estrogens in food: possible impact on human development and health". Eur. J. Endocrinol. 140 (6): 477–85. PMID 10366402.
- ^ Aksglaede L, Juul A, Leffers H, Skakkebaek NE, Andersson AM (2006). "The sensitivity of the child to sex steroids: possible impact of exogenous estrogens". Hum. Reprod. Update. 12 (4): 341–9. doi: 10.1093/humupd/dml018. PMID 16672247.
{{ cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)- ^ Stephany RW (2001). "Hormones in meat: different approaches in the EU and in the USA". APMIS Suppl. (103): S357-63, discussion S363-4. PMID 11505585.
- ^ "OrganicAthlete's Pro-Activist Team". Retrieved 2006-10-30.
- ^ "Vegetarian and Vegan Famous Athletes". Retrieved 2006-10-30.
- ^ Lewis, Carl. "Carl Lewis on Being Vegan". Introduction to Very Vegetarian, by Jannequin Bennett. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
- ^ "Honey PDF" (PDF). Honey PDF. Vegan Society. Retrieved 2008-02-01.
- ^ "HSUS cancer report". Humane Society of the United States. Retrieved 2008-02-01.
- ^ Singer, Peter (1979). "The case against using animals for food is at its strongest when animals are made to lead miserable lives so that their flesh can be made available to humans at the lowest possible cost. ... In order to have meat on the table at a price that people can afford, our society tolerates methods of meat production that confine sentient animals in cramped, unsuitable conditions for the entire duration of their lives. ... To avoid speciesism we must stop these practices." Practical Ethics, Cambridge 1979. Chapter 3.
- ^ "Possible protective effect of milk, meat and fish for cerebrovascular disease mortality in Japan". Japan Epidemiological Association. 1999-08-09. Retrieved 2006-09-15.
{{ cite web}}
: Check date values in:|date=
( help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) ( help)- ^ BMRB Social Research (2007-11-02). "Data tables" (PDF). Report, questionnaire and data tables following Survey of Public Attitudes and Behaviours toward the Environment: 2007. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. pp. 500–502. Retrieved 2007-11-22.
- ^ a b c d e f "Vegan FAQs". Vegan Outreach. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
Is refined sugar vegan? It depends on how you define 'vegan.' Refined sugars do not contain any animal products, and so by an ingredients-based definition of vegan, refined sugar is vegan. ... However, if one accepts a process-based definition of vegan, then many other familiar products would also not be considered vegan. For instance, steel and vulcanized rubber are produced using animal fats and, in many areas, groundwater and surface water is filtered through bone charcoal filters.- ^ a b c "IVU FAQ: Drinks". International Vegetarian Union FAQ. International Vegetarian Union. 2006-08-03. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
- ^ a b c "Information Sheet: Alcohol". Vegetarian Society. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
The use of animal derived products in the production of alcoholic beverages is fairly widespread not because no alternatives exist, but because they always have been used and there is little demand from the consumer for an alternative. ... The main appearance of animal derived products is in the fining or clearing process, though others may be used as colorants or anti-foaming agents.- ^ a b c "IVU FAQ: Ingredients". International Vegetarian Union FAQ. International Vegetarian Union. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
- ^ a b c "IVU FAQ: Animal Derived Ingredient List". International Vegetarian Union FAQ. International Vegetarian Union. 2006-08-03. Retrieved 2007-03-10.
- ^ a b c "IVU FAQ: Maybe Animal Derived". International Vegetarian Union FAQ. International Vegetarian Union. 2006-08-03. Retrieved 2007-03-10.
- ^ Deforestation paves way in Brazil By Jan Rocha BBC
- ^ a b World Rainforest Movement
- ^ http://www.vegansociety.com/html/downloads/ArticlesofAssociation.pdf
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
foodcriteria
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ "VeganWelt: vegan FAQ". veganwelt.de. Retrieved 2007-10-03.
In Deutschland gibt es zwischen 250 000 und 460 500 Veganer (5 Millionen Vegetarier)- ^ Jarvis, William T. (1996). "Physician's Committee For Responsible Medicine (PCRM)". National Council Against Health Fraud. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
NCAHF considers vegetarianism, particularly veganism, a hygienic religion that meets deep emotional needs of its followers. Adherents cannot be trusted to be objective, reliable sources of information on anything that bears upon its fundamental paradigm.- ^ Jarvis, William T. (1997-04-01). "Why I Am Not a Vegetarian". ACSH Newsletter "Priorities". 9 (2). American Council on Science and Health. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
The belief that all life is sacred can lead to absurdities such as allowing mosquitoes to spread malaria, or vipers to run loose on one's premises. Inherent in the idea that all life is sacred is the supposition that all forms of life have equal value.- ^ [1] 13. April 2008 Munich Redux: Germany’s Hot Spot of the Moment. NICHOLAS KULISH NYT
- ^ a b Angela Grube: Vegane Lebensstile. Diskutiert im Rahmen einer qualitativen/quantitativen Studie(Vegan and vegetarian Lifestyles, Discussion in the frame of a qualitative and quantitave study) ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, 150 Seiten, ISBN 3-89821-538-5
- ^ FAO
FAO- ^ Wedding is one of the poorest quertiers within Berlin, the medical results of a Couch potato lifestyle are sometimes dubbed as Morbus Wedding in Germany
- ^ Bionade-Biedermeier, von Henning Sußebach, © ZEITmagazin LEBEN, 08.11.2007 Nr. 46 [2], Bionade- Biedermeier refers to a fermented drink popular also among vegans and the bohemian atmosphere in Prenzlauer Berg
- ^ a b Wilfried Breyvogel: Eine Einführung in Jugendkulturen. Veganismus und Tattoos. (Veganism and Tatoos, An introduction into youth cultures) VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2005
- ^ Bernd-Udo Rinas (Art)gerecht ist nur die Freiheit, Geschichte, Theorie und Hintergründe der veganen Bewegung (The only rightsome way of animal husbandry is freedom, History, Theory and background of the vegan Movement), Focus Verlag, Gießen, 2000 ISBN 3-88349-486-0, p. 136ff, compare Breyvogel p. 89
- ^ compare the use of compassion within Arthur Schopenhauers philosophy
- ^ Bettina Mann, Essen und Identität: Zur sozialen und kulturellen Dimension der Ernährung (Social and cultural dimensions of Nutrition). Working Paper Nr. 161, Universität Bielefeld 1991
- ^ a b c "Vegetarian starter kit", Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, posted on vegsource.com.
- ^ Gokhale's Charity, My Experiments with Truth, M.K. Gandhi.
- ^ The Rowlatt Bills and my Dilemma, My Experiments with Truth, M.K. Gandhi.
- ^ Religion and vegetarianism / Are Christians vegetarians? March 1996, International Vegetarian Union website
- ^ Was Jesus a Vegetarian? Kamran Pasha for the Huffington Post, Sept 3rd 2009
- ^ Toward a Prophetic Church for Animals The Reverend Professor Andrew Linzey
- ^ Did God give humans dominion over animals? PETAs jesusveg.org website
- ^ Christianity and Vegetarianism, The Christian Vegetarian Association
- ^ Religion and vegetarianism / Are Christians vegetarians? March 1996, International Vegetarian Union website
- ^ Was Jesus a Vegetarian? Kamran Pasha for the Huffington Post, Sept 3rd 2009
- ^ Creation Museum Draws Scientific Fire, A.P.S. Physics 2007
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
hinduvegans
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Gokhale's Charity, My Experiments with Truth, M.K. Gandhi.
- ^ The Rowlatt Bills and my Dilemma, My Experiments with Truth, M.K. Gandhi.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
buddhismvegan
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
sikhvegan
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
jainvegan
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
orthodoxyveganism
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
georgia-veganism
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
rastavegan
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).- ^ Cite error: The named reference
7thdayvegans
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
This proposed section is based on fact and notability from undeniably reliable sources as suggested by the Vegan Society and direct from groups such as PETA, the American Physical Society, Wikisource (Ghandi info parsed from on-wiki), the International Vegetarian Union, The Christian Vegetarian Association and the Huffington Post. All of the sources, exluding the APS Physics article, are rock solid works of published study, not daily articles.
Rather than asking if I am funning or trolling, why doesn't someone discuss the topic instead of bias-jockeying the article. Folk asked at the peer reviews what was lacking in the article and they were told this was it. f it should not be added, why did you not try to convince the reviewers of that? Made up our minds since did we? It's rather sad to feel this article, about something I love to promote, is so jockeyed. An ocean of philosophising acceptance and love, backed up with a staunch hypocrasy. Well done lads. You show them Jesus-lovers what they are good for. Don't bother trying to change critturs when you can overcome them, echo, cheers. ~ R. T. G 17:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I don't understand your argument. Are you saying that Wenham and Barton are not experts on the Bible, and that the article implies that "vegans cannot be Christian"? Gabbe ( talk) 18:24, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
A quick search of the article reveals that the word "vegetable" appeas 7 times whilst the word "meat" appears 41 times. Far be it from me to say but I did think that the veganism topic was rather opposite to that. Is there some way that we can balance out the article to represent veganism truthfully? ~ R. T. G 17:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
The Vegan Society seems to have broken all the links to this page most notably the citation [1] and the Donald Watson quote. I would try to fix them but I do not know what to search for, sorry. ~ R. T. G 17:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
The newest edits about people who say they are vegan not really being vegan by definition is really silly. Particularly since it is followed by "Vegans may avoid honey for moral [33], environmental [34], health [35] or a number of other reasons." According to the previous section, vegans don't avoid these products; if they use them they are not vegans, so no problem. The vegetarian article went through the same sort of nonsense with people who eat fish yet consider themselves to be vegetarians. The entire second ph of this section could be dropped, which would improve the article by removing the nitpicking that contradicts itself. Bob98133 ( talk) 14:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Discovery.com says about the recent 50% decline in the worlds be population:-
The top suspects are a parasite, an unknown virus, some kind of bacteria, pesticides, or a one-two combination of the top four, with one weakening the honeybee and the second killing it. [30]
and I say if there is some reason that the Vegan Society respects concern for the care of insects, let's have it. You may think that "Oh I never heard anyone who said that except the Vegan Society" well here is one more. The milk of little bee babies who literally cause the food we eat to grow whilst syrup grows on trees. Honey is not better it is just different and if you think that is special try Linda McCartneys vegan meat... yeeeu... It may be a particular concern for vegans asked and evidence suggests that to be a seriously notable position so, position it and in case of opposing views *describe them* as opposing views. Do not review them and pick one you think sounds best. This is not a challenge it is merely the neutral point of view. If you think that providing both sides is a challenging idea, in this case, you haven't acknowledged the middle ground. Who do we think we are Weekly Review? No, Wikipedia is the all-time review of the weekly review and that is best. Being picky is just filling up this talk page while the article is particularly skinny in the healthy areas, sorry. As a particular story gathering questions on vegan parenting went a few years back, it wasn't feeding the kids vegan food that made the parents abusive, it was not feeding them enough of anything at all. ~ R. T. G 23:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I rewrote this section to avoid usage of the term 'vegan' or 'people who identify as vegan' (etc). Kellen T 18:06, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I see that someone, perhaps Kellen, has reverted my insertion of "alleged" before "rights of mosquitoes". Whether mosquitoes are the kind of beings that can have moral rights is contentious; in fact, many or most animal-rights activists and philosophers doubt that insects can have moral rights (since to have moral rights, one must have interests, and to have interests one must have conscious desires). Given that Varner and others doubt/deny that insects can have moral rights, it makes no sense to talk about their failing to respect "the rights of mosquitoes". To say "the rights of mosquitoes" without a qualifier like "alleged" is to inject a point-of-view into the article. Scales ( talk) 22:21, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I removed the following Chomsky text. I think Chomsky is interesting, and it's great that he makes any comment on vegetarianism at all, but it's not really very relevant to this article, and certainly out of proportion to the other sections. Kellen T 13:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Political activist and philosopher, [1] [2] [3] Noam Chomsky has commented on the moral foundation of animal rights and vegetarianism:
NC: In every (aspect of human life) that you look at, there are questions about authority and domination that ought to be raised constantly, and that very rarely have satisfactory answers..As a matter of fact, you can even ask the same about your relation to animals. The questions can be asked there, too, in fact are being asked.
Q: You're an animal rights activist?
NC: I think it's a serious question. To what extent do we have a right to torture animals? I think it's a very good thing that that question ...
Q: Torture?
NC: Experiments are torturing animals, let's say. That's what they are. So to what extent do we have a right to torture animals for our own good? I think that's not a trivial question.
Q: What about eating?
NC:Same question.
Q: Are you a vegetarian?
NC: I'm not, but I think it's a serious question. If you want my guess, my guess would be that ...
Q: A hundred years from now everyone will be.
NC: I don't know if it's a hundred years, but it seems to me if..society continues to develop without catastrophe on something like the course that you can sort of see over time, I wouldn't be in the least surprised if it moves toward vegetarianism and protection of animal rights. In fact, what we've seen over the..years, including the twentieth century, there is a widening of the moral realm, bringing in broader and broader domains of individuals who are regarded as moral agents.
Q: Nothing could be happening to that underlying, wired-in, inate, intrinsic character... That can't be changing.
NC: No, but it can get more and more realized. You can get a better and better understanding of it. We're self-conscious beings. We're not rocks. And we can get more and more understanding of our own nature, not because we read a book about it..but just through experience, including historical experience, which is part of our own personal experience because it's embedded in our culture, which we enter into.
Q: So then it's plausible that vegetarians, animal rights advocates and the like are just a couple of steps ahead in discerning something about ...
NC: It's possible. I think I'd certainly keep an open mind on that. You can understand how it could be true. It's certainly a pretty intelligible idea to us. I think one can see the moral force to it. [4]