Veganism
From RationalWiki
Veganism is a lifestyle, or to some a philosophy, that eschews the exploitation of animals in any way. As such it is a subset of vegetarianism.
Vegans go beyond conventional vegetarianism, which is a matter of diet, and will not wear leather, for example. Some even won't wear wool or silk. Vegans also typically go much further than vegetarians in their diets, eschewing, for example, honey, which is an animal product (from bees), as well as dairy-derived products such as whey and casein which can be found in many vegetarian foods. As with many ideas, individuals must still make their own judgments about where to draw the lines. A subset of vegans also practice raw foodism.
"Freegans" are vegans who will not buy anything containing animal products, but have no problem eating or wearing them if they are thrown away or in second-hand stores. The motivation here appears to be unwillingness to financially support the animal agriculture industry while at the same time making sure nothing already derived from it goes to waste.
Vegans are absolutely opposed to sex with animals. As are all sane people.
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[edit] Benefits
- Low cholesterol diet.
- Lower fat diets (plants do have fat, too, although, see the next item).
- Much lower saturated fats.
- No animals were harmed in the making of your meals, clothes, etc. (unless they were used to harvest your plants - WINK!)
- Vegetables require less water than animals (liters of water used in production/kilogram of food).
[edit] Problems
- Getting required amino acids in diet:
- Humans need 20 amino acids to survive, but only produce 8 of their own. The other 12 must be obtained from food.
- Vitamin B12 is not found in foods of plant origins. One has to eat fortified foods, or take a vitamin supplement in order to make sure one gets enough B12 - meaning, essentially, that without modern synthesis of vitamins, a vegan diet would lead to slow death.
In 1926, Minot and Murphy found that a man was cured of pernicious anemia with liver extracts, a discovery for which they received the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1934. Ricke and Smith isolated crystalline vitamin B12 in liver extracts in 1948. Vitamin B12 (Cyanocobalamin) is a vitamin that is synthesized in nature only by microorganisms. It is necessary for animals and is present in every animal tissue at very low concentrations (1 ppm in the liver). A B12 deficiency causes pernicious anemia. The need for vitamin B12 in some animals is covered by taking or absorption of vitamin B12 produced by gut microorganisms. But humans only get vitamin B12 from food, since vitamin B12 synthesized by microorganisms in the intestine cannot be assimilated.
The concentrations of vitamin B12 present in animal tissues are too low for use in commercial production. The chemical synthesis is not practical because it requires 70 reaction steps. Commercial production is carried out at present entirely by fermentation.
Only certain red and green algae (the Nori is one of them) and chlorella contain true vitamin B12[1]. Spirulina algae predominate in an inactive form of vitamin B12 and are not suitable as a source, and also interfere with normal absorption of authentic vitamin B12.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Beyond Milk and Honey: The Vegan Controversy by Nina Rubin
- Health Benefits of Veganism - Vegan 2000: Life style of the millennium
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12656203?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=4&log$=relatedreviews&logdbfrom=pubmed
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