PR campaign may have fuelled food study backlash, leaked document shows | Eat-Lancet report recommended shift to more plant-based, climate-friendly diet but was extensively attacked online
PR campaign may have fuelled food study backlash, leaked document shows
Impossible to get recommended essential nutrients like choline eating a plant based diet, of course it's going to be attacked
I guess I'm a ghost, having been vegan for so long. If this is the afterlife, people like you must be why it's Hell, as you're spreading egg industry misinformation about choline - a substance which, in those animal-based regular concentrated doses, is correlated with a greater risk of cancers 1 2 3. Also heart disease.
Despite large parts of the population being under the "adequate intake", a common worry for choline deficiency is about dementia. If plants were so low in choline, you'd expect AD to be a big issue for those who ate more plant-based (as a spectrum) than animal-based food.
Here's a trial with an intervention of:
This lifestyle intervention includes (1) a whole foods, minimally processed plant-based diet low in harmful fats and low in refined carbohydrates and sweeteners with selected supplements; (2) moderate exercise; (3) stress management techniques; and (4) support groups.
and the conclusion:
in persons with mild cognitive impairment or early dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease, comprehensive lifestyle changes may improve cognition and function in several standard measures after 20 weeks.
Too short? Perhaps something on the Mediterranean diet, which is a heavily plant-based diet (if you don't know what the MD score is, look it up):
We used Cox proportional hazard regression models to explore the associations between MedDiet adherence, defined using two different scores (Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener [MEDAS] continuous and Mediterranean diet Pyramid [PYRAMID] scores), and incident all-cause dementia risk in 60,298 participants from UK Biobank, followed for an average 9.1 years. The interaction between diet and polygenic risk for dementia was also tested.
...
In this large population-based prospective cohort study, higher adherence to a MedDiet was associated with reduced dementia risk.
Is the MD bad in this way?
Results: Participants’ diets were analyzed (MDP n = 15, CHD n = 13). The MDP (n = 10, 67%) achieved a high level of adherence (MDSS score between 16 and 24) vs. CHD (n = 3), (p = 0.030). HEI-2015 significantly increased from baseline to week 12 (p = 0.007) in the MDP and was significantly higher at week 12 compared to the CHD (p = 0.0001). The SIBDQ (bowel domain) showed reductions in the passage of large amounts of gas (p = 0.01) and improvements in tenesmus (p = 0.03) in the MDP. Despite enhanced diet quality and adherence in the MDP, females had inadequate intakes of calcium, iron, vitamin D, vitamin E, and choline and males had inadequate intakes of fiber, vitamin D, vitamin E, and choline. No adverse events were reported.
You'll find that studies on dementia and diets tend to recommend more plant-centered diets.
Hmmmm... if you actually check the literature for choline, it's an "Adequate Intake" recommendation, not an RDA. There isn't enough data for it.
In most of the population groups considered, the average choline intake was found to be below the AI set in 1998 by the IOM in the USA. Given the definition of AI, no conclusion can be drawn regarding the adequacy of choline intake.
Too long, didn't read. I have a medical condition that requires a higher intake of choline or trimethylglycine than the advised 550mg.
Failure to do so makes me feel terrible, get weak and have dangerously low cholesterol.
Given the advised quantity is impossible to achive, I'd never have a chance so you can spare the vegan preaching
I also have medical and economic issues that make it unreasonable to be completely vegan, but that doesn't mean the world shouldn't shift towards it. Factory farming isn't a practice needed to help my conditions, and I doubt you benefit from it either. They could probably use humane and sustainable methods to provide plenty of meat/dairy for medical purposes and pet foods.
And besides, according to this chart, soybeans have higher choline content than most meats. Google also says there's a shitton of trimethylglycine in wheat. And both come in supplement form. (Not sure how they make them though, so maybe not vegan.)
Coeliac disease and a broken folate cycle pretty much makes it impossible.
By the chart, the average male would need to consume about 3 cups of soybeans per day? I'd probably be up for double that. If it's even possible to eat 6 cups of soy bean per day, you'd likely soon end up with copper toxicity or toxic amounts of some metals if your gut can even digest it. In addition to all the other balanced food you'd have to eat, would be unsustainable.
We don't have factory farming here
Factory farming exists pretty much everywhere though. If just 50% of people reduced their meat intake to an occasional treat, that would go a long way to reducing suffering, improving sustainability, and increasing the availability and affordability of vegan products. That doesn't mean that any given individual needs to be vegan, just that encouraging widespread veganism is beneficial to everyone.
I'm sorry if my post came off as "Just eat s bunch of soy beans," because that isn't what I meant. Rather, it seems viable to eat a lot of plants and supplement with animal products where needed, especially given that there's also a pill form.
Also I don't think the 550mg figure is meant to be a recommended minimum intake, but rather a figure where it's impossible to be deficient. It's my understanding that a minimum intake of choline hasn't been established. From Wikipedia:
Insufficient data is available to establish an estimated average requirement (EAR) for choline, so the Food and Nutrition Board established adequate intakes (AIs). For adults, the AI for choline was set at 550 mg/day for men and 425 mg/day for women. These values have been shown to prevent hepatic alteration in men. However, the study used to derive these values did not evaluate whether less choline would be effective, as researchers only compared a choline-free diet to a diet containing 550 mg of choline per day. From this, the AIs for children and adolescents were extrapolated.
Twelve surveys undertaken in 9 EU countries between 2000 and 2011 estimated choline intake of adults in these countries to be 269–468 milligrams per day. Intake was 269–444 mg/day in adult women and 332–468 mg/day in adult men.
I had a look into factory farming here. Seems to only apply to caged chickens and some pork. I only buy free range eggs, grass fed meat and don't really eat pork
Given the advised quantity is impossible to achive, I’d never have a chance so you can spare the vegan preaching
You can take choline supplements, so it's not impossible. Vegan preaching will continue. The assumption here that you're not sharing is that you want some magical "natural diet" while living a completely unnatural life. You have a medical condition, which was discovered thanks to modern medical science, modern biology and chemistry, and yet you imagine that you must obtain some "natural sources" as if that's an enchanted biological material instead of the very obvious: you're OK with sacrificing sentient beings for your fantasy of "natural independence from modernity".
Oh, and factory farming is responsible for most of the animal products. That's part of your fantasy issue. Let's put it this way. If there were no factory farms, not only are you statistically unlikely to get your hands on eggs and livers, but if you had hens, you could afford only a small number of hens and your economic situation would pressure you to sell the eggs, not to consume them.
Take the supplements.
If you want to go full "primitivist", then understand first that the humans as "primitives" can only survive as tiny populations, a fraction of how many humans we have today. You would've probably died as a natural abortion or in childhood, just like me.
It's bean a huge displeasure to talk to you, I hope that you remember me.
What is this condition you have?
As discussed in the chart link in the comment above, a genetically broken folate cycle requires high quantities of choline and trimethylglycine
If you didn't have this condition, then would you make the switch?
Having this issue makes me aware ADIs can't be maintained for an average person, for a single nutrient, so I am not convinced it'd be healthy long term or during development. Looking at other nutrients like amino acids would probably be a similar story
So really, you just have anti-vegan bias. In actuality plant-based diets consistently show themselves to be among the most health promoting, and longevity promoting. Also, multi-generational vegans exist now days. It's established that plant-based diets are entirely appropriate for all stages of life, even pregnancy and childhood.
If even body builders have no problem meeting their nutritional needs on plants, do you really think it would be so hard to get all your choline and tmg on plants? Plenty of people here have shown you there is no shortage of options. In your dismissals of these attempts to help, one of the major factors you're ignoring is that no one eats a single ingredient as their food source. So even if you're not quite eating enough soybeans to reach a benchmark, you also have to keep in mind that these nutrients are in a wide variety of foods, and you'd most likely be getting doses of it from virtually everything you eat.
And also as pointed out, supplements are readily available. Like if I had your condition, I would not trust any diet to meet my choline needs, and would supplement anyway. And if I did, then why not make it a plant-based supplement?
So you can do this, and frankly quite easily. Here's the thing: you're getting hyperfocused on raw numbers. You can't actually know that a thing works until you put it to the test. When I went vegan I was also really nervous that, what if there is something in animal products that I need to live, and I'll die if I stop eating them?! I tried anyway, found out through real experience that plants do meet all my needs, and made me feel significantly better in the process at that.
That was when I understood the sheer amount of societal animal ag propaganda that had been drilled into me all my life, that it was all nonsense, and that experience was a liberation in and of itself.
Oh, and you said in another comment that you don't have factory farming where you live? Judging by your server, are you from Australia? Then you should definitely watch Dominion, because you absolutely do have factory farming, and you are definitely contributing to it.
There are so many popups on your "US News" source I can't even read it. The second link is just selling a book. The third link completely misquotes the Australian source that states b12 supplementation is necessary and careful planning is required to meet basic nutritional needs. B12 is an essential component of the folate cycle so that's another negative for me.
All the studies I have read on veganism's benefits have been impacted by serious inconsistencies between the vegan and control groups, such as people who eat vegan carefully planning their diet and wanting to eat healthy. Control groups essentially always contain people who eat shit and don't care. Additionally, practically all consider lower or loss of body fat a core focus or benefit which is a clear indicator populations are not being compared correctly. Of course health conscious people will have lower bodyweight, lower fat. As would people getting inadequate nutrition.
Dietary studies are the most unreliable field of science. Broad generalisations are made, even single food items are difficult to study and worst of all, everyone is assumed to react the same to a given diet
We have all these diverse people who come from long lineages of specialised genetics for eating specific local foods. There is no single diet appropriate for everyone.
To even begin to have a useful study, you'd need to compare people of similar genetics, who eat planned, considered and healthy diets. Even then it's going to be problematic with supplement use and other factors needing correcting.
I have seen a few good Nordic diet studies, again applicable to only their genetics, but vegan diets were not compared.
Vegans are a very small subset of the population who are health conscious and meticulous, very difficult to find a fair control. Same with microplastics and nanoplastics, we don't have valid control groups as everyone has been exposed.
I'd much rather continue consuming a healthy, balanced ancestral diet.
Alright, if we're in low-effort territory here, I'm just gonna quick-fire these off.
Giving up animal products is one of the most important, impactful, and meaningful decisions you have a chance to make, and the only thing getting in the way is your own prejudice and devaluing of other living beings.
Okay, here’s the entire list of scientific studies cited in that book. All 8000+ of them.
this is a bare faced gish gallop
Thanks for the discussion but I am done
It’s established that plant-based diets are entirely appropriate for all stages of life, even pregnancy and childhood.
this is no longer the position of the academy.
No longer the position of a academy, post-Trump administration. As if anything can be trusted from US institutions anymore.
even the old position paper mostly discussed risks associated with a vegan diet.
they let that position expire in 2021 and didn't write a new position until this year, and it's specific to adult nutrition.
https://www.jandonline.org/article/S2212-2672(25)00042-5/pdf
The attacks come from an emotional, not logical place. Maybe someone can help me understand why there is such a strong reaction to even mentioning the word "vegan" among some folk.
I think there is this tension whenever a moral norm is changing in society. Vegans are telling people something is worthy of dignity and respect that currently isn’t being granted that status. The cohort of vegans is growing. People don’t like to be made out to be unethical for something they never even considered could be unethical.
this process is how ethics comes to be—a new ideal slowly permeates society as more people adopt it and eventually we decide “cannibalism is unethical” (or whatever) is a general rule and teach that to our children who hopefully perpetuate the rules that ring true for them.
I don’t know for sure, either, but if I had to guess then it has something to do with A. being vegan can be a marker of other progressive beliefs, or perhaps more significantly, B. the consumption of meat is glorified as a traditionally masculine trait
https://vegfaqs.com/vegan-food-sources-choline/
There are plant sources of choline
Based on your source, to get enough for a male adult, you'd need to eat 700 grams of flax seeds per day. Flax seeds are the richest source of choline in the vegan world
Guessing you used this page for that?
https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrient-ranking-tool/Choline/Nuts-and-Seeds/Highest
Try adding the "Vegan" option, and it'll list 91 food types that contain more choline by weight
Now it's only 7 CUPS of kidney beans PER DAY
