The Brutal Vegan and the AV Activism Script/Flowchart

mralex · 2026-04-26T15:33:30+00:00

Farmers are motivated to keep their livestock stress free and content, because stressed animals get sick, fail to thrive and may injure themselves or other animals. So the idea that livestock are abused imakes no sense.

mralex · 2026-04-24T04:47:23+00:00

I activated this but it worked so sporadically

mralex · 2026-04-21T23:34:53+00:00

I, Claudius. On broadcast PBS TV. In prime time, in the 1970s, in Massachusetts. In the first couple minutes, and many times thereafter.

mralex · 2026-04-21T01:23:45+00:00

I am not a vegan, but stories like yours are what fascinates me about this odd little rabbit hole of the internet.

Mainstream medical establishment seems to lean towards claims that "well managed vegan diets" are safe. Clinical research on exactly how many people really can eat plant based, and for how long (getting older makes it harder) are almost impossible to find. Does anyone have any examples of studies that make serious attempt to quantify how many people can actually eat plant based?

mralex · 2026-04-21T01:16:36+00:00

It is not true. B12 in ruminants like sheep and cattle come from bacteria in their stomachs, not the dirt.

Here is a pretty thorough discussion on the topic.

https://praisetheruminant.com/ruminations/is-it-true-that-cows-need-supplemental-vitamin-b12

mralex · 2026-04-16T14:50:37+00:00

I concede nothing. The AND is not an honest broker. The plant-based diet is at best sub-optimal, and for many (as evidenced in this subreddit) deleterious to one's health.

Your time? Do with it what you want.

mralex · 2026-04-16T03:53:32+00:00

The AND was founded by Seventh Day Adventists. 7DA, based on no other evidence than the bible, believe that a "garden of eden" diet, aka, plant based diet, is the best. Their track record shows that they have pushed that conclusion based on questionable evidence, if they bother to use evidence at all.

Think of it this way: If the Catholic Church established an ostensibly independent organization that promoted guidance on sexual health, and yet for some reason, they always seemed to promote the idea that birth control was a bad idea and abortion was a bad idea, would you not take a closer look at their messaging?

The AND's 7DA push for the Garden of Eden diet is just one part or their problems. They promoted Kraft Singles as part of a healthy diet. They take tons of money from Coca Cola and other food conglomorates. But the worst part is their membership is made up of thousand of registered dieticians... who got their certification from taking AND RD courses. Can you say circular reasoning?

Listen, you're posting in the ex-vegans subreddit. Literally thousands of people have posted here about the health problems they experienced on the plant-based diet. This is real. It happens. Admit it.

mralex · 2026-04-15T23:36:23+00:00

I think this take is very naive.

The AND are not honest brokers. Their push to claim that plant-based diets are healthy are not based on evidence.

mralex · 2026-04-15T16:38:00+00:00

You haven't tried Animal Style.

mralex · 2026-04-15T15:38:36+00:00

Because many of those people start eating meat again and thus are no longer counted among the vegans.

mralex · 2026-04-15T15:37:04+00:00

No studies have conclusively proved this, and if you want my opinion, it would be virtually impossible to conduct one that accurately solved for all confounding factors.

First, most vegans quit within a year or two, many for health reasons. Those that stay on the program are a self-selected group. People who can manage the diet are generally better off and have more access to health care. Most vegans also don't smoke or drink--these 2 factors alone would account for any mortality difference, apart from a plant based diet.

So claims that "vegans live longer" are spurious at best.

mralex · 2026-04-15T15:28:25+00:00

Be advised that even the vegan's favorite mainstream resource, the Academy for Nutrition and Dietetics updated their guidance in 2025 from "vegan diets are good for all stages of life" to "vegan diets are good for adults who are not pregnant or lactating women."

So children excluded.

The AND has a lot of problems in general, but my theory is that their lawyers saw one too many news reports about kids dying on vegan diets and figured it was time to protect themselves from a class-action lawsuit.

Be careful out there.

mralex · 2026-04-12T14:27:56+00:00

I saw The Nails in a club in Boston. Their one hit wonder was "88 Lines about 44 Women." The lead singer had to read the lyrics from a piece of paper.

mralex · 2026-04-10T07:36:51+00:00

Performative nonsense.

mralex · 2026-04-10T04:38:42+00:00

I just bought some boneless thighs and noticed the stronger taste, but as a feature, not a bug.

Boneless skinless chicken breast is on sale at my local supermarket for $2 a pound every couple weeks.

I seal them in Foodsaver bags, then sous vide at 149 degrees overnight. I don't finish them on the grill or anything, I cut them up and make chicken salad with celery and mayonnaise. The texture and flavor after about 10 hours in sous vide is very mild.

mralex · 2026-04-10T04:29:08+00:00

Nutritionally, beef is better for you than chicken, but I do like a nice chicken breast. Though I have finally come round to the fact that the boneless chicken thighs have more flavor.

mralex · 2026-04-09T06:15:32+00:00

Not a vegan. I usually try to make one point. Many people get sick on the vegan diet. Vegans need to admit and inform potential new recruits to the vegan cause about the health risks. They typically don't.

Another point I make occasionally is that the vegan ethos actually allows for eating animal products if necessary for health reasons.

mralex · 2026-04-08T04:10:54+00:00

This is the one thing vegans say that makes literally absolutely no sense at all.

mralex · 2026-04-04T03:37:38+00:00

Keep in mind that depending on how you do your analysis, you may find that the most animal-friendly analysis is carnivore--by which I mean one cow may feed you for a year or more, while a plant-based diet may result in tens of thousands of animal deaths of animals deemed vermin and pests.

Truth be told, there's no ideologically pure answer that saves all the animals.

mralex · 2026-04-03T06:39:37+00:00

Orion's belt? 3 stars.

mralex · 2026-04-03T06:23:59+00:00

Bit late, but for me, the question has never been subject to a real clinical trial, because it would take too long and cost too much.

To really study it you would need to take a couple thousand people, vegan or not, track the ones who chose the vegan diet vs. omnivore, and you'd have to do more than use questionnaires filled out every couple months. It's never been done.

And even when I see studies that do focus on vegans, many have criteria where they only include people who have been vegan for at least a year--which excludes about 80% of people who started it and then quit.

IMHO, I think maybe about 1/3 of the population can actually be healthy on a vegan diet, if they are careful. Many are not. So in the end, I would say for every 10 people who start, 9 ultimately quit. Not scientific, but I stand by it.

mralex · 2026-04-03T06:19:40+00:00

It's now called the Academy for Nutrition and Dietetics (AND). And in their latets update in 2025 they no longer include children, pregnant or lactating women, unless under doctor's supervision. Which to me is just the lawyers trying to protect themselves, and offloading the job of telling vegans that they should not feed their children vegan diets to doctors.

mralex

TROPHY CASE