The Vegetarian Myth...new book. GRRRRRR
Posted by little2ant on Oct 07, 2009 · Member since Aug 2004 · 3055 posts
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/UndergroundWellness/2009/10/08/The-Vegetarian-Myth-with-Lierre-Keith
This came across my facebook. It is so infuriating. Another one of those "I was vegan for 20 years and got so sick...blah blah blah"
You can listen to an interview with the author on this site.
Haven't read this book but reading from your posts that a) she thinks a vegan diet is not sustainable b) that is cannot be healthy. I don't understand the argument that eating meat is more sustainable than grain directly. Even though in a city, I am in the middle of one of the biggest and diverse agriculture in the country. Know a few things about how animals are raised - and the inhumane conditions most are in. To raise animals you have to either a) put quite a bit of them in a small area/feed lots and feed them tons of grains and manufactured supplements b) put a little less of them on semi-intensive free range plots supplemented by grains or c) put a very few on large acres of land. Most land that is used for pasturized animals can be used for some type of crop grown conventially, organically or usung permaculture or agroforestry methods. Areas that are very marginal and cannot support agriculture really can't support animals very well, either. You can put about one cow per every 2-5 acres of desert without having the ecosystem crash down.
So, I don't agree that vegan diets are less environmentally friendly than omnivore diets. Perhaps, a lacto-ovo diet that is about 5-10% animal products and the rest plant food maybe more use our total resources better. But that is another argument for another thread.
As for being healthy, here is one good question? Healthy for whom? The animal or the person or other half of the workd that has to compete with our animals for food?
More notes about Lierre Keith - she recently got "pied" in the face:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/17/BAGI1CGM1H.DTL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woFD8pp3rRU
wow this lady is fucking crazy... veganism causes you to act out, throw pies in people's faces, and be self-destructive... stupid
"It was like kicking a kitten"
Looks like eating carrion didn't bring back her strength...somehow she reminds me of Glenn Beck.
p.s. I find it to be great evidence that vegan diets are unhealthy since she was unhealthy on a vegan diet. Especially since no one really ever gets sick on an animal-based diet.
No doubt! If a vegan gets the flu it must be "your diet". If a omni gets the flu it is because it is "going around".
And yet anothere thing that grinds my gears! Ugh
The link was blocked on my computer but I read the first couple of pages. It sounds horribly flawed in my view. From what I read, by her reasoning, i.e. agriculture destroys the environment, then cows chickens, pigs, etc. need to stop eating grain since they are the biggest consumers of it, not humans! I guess maybe I didn't understand since that first link was blocked.
If your just eating alfalfa sprouts of course your going to get sick but eating seitan meals which have like 20 something grams of protein a serving yeah right your going to get sick.
I think it's just another propagandistic campaign being paid by the meat industry.
I just had a conversation about this woman. I wonder if she was anorexic when she was vegan? Anyone would be unhealthy if they weren't eating enough or getting the proper nutrients.
It's SO much easier to be healthy as a vegan than as an omni, and I'm just grateful that the positive press on veganism is outweighing crazy stuff like this.
I just had a conversation about this woman. I wonder if she was anorexic when she was vegan? Anyone would be unhealthy if they weren't eating enough or getting the proper nutrients.
It's SO much easier to be healthy as a vegan than as an omni, and I'm just grateful that the positive press on veganism is outweighing crazy stuff like this.
This is what I was thinking... Of course if your undernourished for all those years you're gonna fuck your body up but don't blame it on being vegan... blame it on yourself
Okay, I just listened to the Cosmopolitan Hour where they talked about this woman/book, and this is just preposterous. There's no way that such a poorly-researched book (with questionable funding to boot) would ever make it to print if it were anything other than bashing a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle. People (pharmaceuticals, medical industry, meat industry, etc) DO NOT make money off healthy people and vegan people=healthy people (if eating a well rounded whole foods diet).
The way I understand it is this: this woman "cheated" on her vegan diet and didn't really eat vegan. So how the hell can she say that vegan diets don't work, when it sounds like she would have no idea what a vegan diet was like. How does this make sense? It's like asking someone who has cheated on their wife how a monogamous relationship works. I don't get it.
In the sciences, you cannot publish crap. it has to be peer-reviewed and revised and it's difficult to publish something without incredible thought and effort. This book is a slap in the face to anyone that's ever taken the time to actually have a thought in their head and research it. What a waste.
The way I understand it is this: this woman "cheated" on her vegan diet and didn't really eat vegan. So how the hell can she say that vegan diets don't work, when it sounds like she would have no idea what a vegan diet was like. How does this make sense? It's like asking someone who has cheated on their wife how a monogamous relationship works. I don't get it.
Ha! you've hit the nail right on the hammer, as they say! Nicely said.
;D
Oooh! I can't wait to listen to the Cosmopolitan Hour ep on this book. I love that podcast! VR, is it the newest episode or an old one?
For years I was depressed, angry and self loathing.
I got out of an unhealthy relationship and stopped drinking.
The whole time I was veg*an (Ive been veg*an since 13). I am a believer of the medicinal harmonizing values of 'Celtic Sea Salt' (unrefined, non-processed and naturally occurring) . And my theory (perhaps others share it) is that in the current state of food supply; essential natural occurring nutrients, elements and trace minerals are voided in processing and rendering. The body is not only ~70% water but a nutrient dense, element and trace mineral rich sea-like atmosphere. Blood contains this and if you consume fresh meat you are less likely to be lacking the elements and trace minerals, there are alternatives to eating flesh to acquire the essential elements and trace minerals. Natural and sustainable agriculture is one as is going straight to the source with the "Celtic Sea Salt" I believe this is the overlooked keystone to all inhabitants of earth.
I agree that we currently do not have a clear understanding of how the earth works, I feel we as inhabitants of this earth are still in the dark ages of understanding this complex interconnectedness.
I see the title 'The Vegetarian Myth' as shock value. It enrages or appeals. Veg*ans might read it, definitely talk about it. Omnis' may be curious, pro meat individuals can use it as a tool to discredit alternative diets. Its marketing and from what I have read it has some substance and far to much compartmentalization and relegation.
Oooh! I can't wait to listen to the Cosmopolitan Hour ep on this book. I love that podcast! VR, is it the newest episode or an old one?
It's the newest episode.
Yay, awesome.
I'd say that I have to agree with the consensus. I haven't the slightest how anyone who truly understood not only the health, ecological and economical benefits of the vegan diet but really understood the moral validity of the movement could ever take this view point. When she says that she is not killing the cows, chickens, pigs hereself it proves that she had never understood nor ever will understand what being a vegan is really about. The health issues she is speaking of do really sound like symptoms of an affliction caused by an eating disorder (anorexia or bulimia) or by some form of malnutrition/vitamen or mineral deficiency. The symptoms of anxiousness, depression and anger in particular sound to me like a B-12 deficiency and if you go long enough with deficiency or a malnutrition diet than it will definitely start taking a toll on the body. As for the degenerative bone disorder I'm pretty sure that its a gentic disorder or could possible relate back to the b-12 deficiency (if you don't have enough b-12 then your mental stability becomes impaired, then your ability to absorb and sustain calcium decline and if long enough goes by you guessed it: a bone disorder).
Another thing I don't get is how this chick is going on and on about how environmentally unhealthy a vegan diet is... WHAT???!!!! Ok, almost every real, scientific based, compotent environmental agency/resource not only support veg*n diets as a environmentally healthy but often endorse and educate about the benefits but I'm sure this lady knows best (NOT!!! >:(). Also, the bit about how vegans are in cults is completely ridiculous. Even groups like the ALF don't have leaders or actual groups, I don't know any other vegans or vegetarians so I think she used that one to intensify the media hype that vegans are extremist, crazy, dangerous individuals who will make you be adherent to their diet. When in fact I think vegans are more of independent thinking individuals than anyone else for all the negative crap, lack of social understanding and plain ignorance they have to face while still maintaining what they believe. I think that being a meat eater is buying into the crowd.
I think VR hits this one exactly. How funny it is that she is able to obtain a book deal, press tour and speaking engagements so quickly. Most authors have to struggle for years and literally beg to get this kind of deal. I definitely think it was funded in some underhanded way by some large corporation to ensure the public buys their products and supports their lively hood. It really saddens me that someone like this will sell books and possibly turn someone who is less educated about how truly healthy veg*n diets are off from taking their health back.
This lady is wrong that is laughable until you remember what is at stake. BOO!
END RANT
PS: I'd like to see a list some of these supposed meals she was eating or to have a trained professional not employed by a subsidiaries of a corporation examine her and see if she has indicators of eating disorders/malnutrition.
PSS: Why would you go to an anarchist book fair to endorse your book? I'm fairly sure most of the audience were vegans and further more why go to an anarchist book fair for a book that supports governmental control/economic control/ the norms that most anarchists are against.
PSS: Why would you go to an anarchist book fair to endorse your book? I'm fairly sure most of the audience were vegans and further more why go to an anarchist book fair for a book that supports governmental control/economic control/ the norms that most anarchists are against.
Exactly my thoughts... I think I would have known something was coming... AND IT WAS IN SAN FRANSISCO, VEGAN HEAVEN!!!
Okay, I am lame. Only the first sentence was supposed to be in quotes. Oops. I don't know how to fix it. ???
Just click modify and you can fix it
fibromyalgia, Alzheimer's, fertility problems, endometriosis, anorexia, heart disease, and mental and neurological disease.
*/snippetysnip*
:o
Oh My Gods!! This must be why my doctor recommended a vegetarian diet!!
Guess what Ms. Keith, those are hereditary diseases. I should know. Actually, I'm pretty sure most of them are, but I can only be 100% certain of the ones in red. ::)
>:( Seriously, lady, get your facts and research straight before publishing.
Now, about that dude-on-dude action... ;D
Seems like practically EVERY peer-reviewed study says the exact opposite, for heart disease; and speaking from my own experience, going to basically all plant foods (cutting dairy) flat-out STOPPED my endometriosis symptoms, like someone had thrown a switch.... so, um, yeeaaahhh...
I think I see the problem here: this book should be on the *fiction* shelf! Simple oversight; presumably librarians around the country are trying to get it straightened out, as we speak.
They had been vegan about as long as me (20-ish yrs) and were, shocking but true, still very healthy!
Yeah I was about to sat that I've actually become much MORE healthy from being vegan and stopped having horrible hospitalization - required stomach problems... so...?
Pages