Why Jack's Book Matters
Updated June 2013
If you doubt any of the below, please read:
Facing Failing Health As A Vegan
From
vegetarian to confirmed carnivore, and
I'm not vegan anymore.
Or just Google "former vegetarian" or "former Vegan" -- there
are, sadly, tens of thousands of results.
Thanks.
-Matt
I have many
regrets. One of the biggest is that the early
days as a vegan were concerned mostly with saying
how great veganism was and winning an argument with
a meat eater, rather than actually helping animals.
I am grateful to everyone who helped me get out of
the vegan bubble.
So I obviously understand wanting to believe the best
about veganism, as well as the siren song of appealing
to self-interest to promote veganism. However, the
idea that the majority of people will give up their
familiar, favorite foods in order to benefit their
long-term health has long shown itself to be...unrealistic,
at best. A simple survey of American's eating habits
proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. (Discussed
in greater historical and nutritional detail here,
and in an advocacy context here.)
Of course, the health argument isn't just an unrealistic
attempt to trick the masses into going veg. As pointed
out in the links above, it takes hundreds of intensively
confined broiler chickens to provide the same number
of meals as one steer. So even though the health argument
has convinced some people to stop eating all
animals, the others who moved from beef and pork to
chicken and fishes can easily counter these
new vegetarians.
T
his,
sadly, has led to many, many more
animals being slaughtered.
Thus, appealing to people's self interest via the
health argument has created much, much more
suffering.
Still, many advocates have this seemingly unshakable,
unfalsifiable belief that veganism is so miraculous
in its health benefits, there simply must be
a way to convince the majority to go vegan. But the
fantasy that veganism -- and veganism alone -- is the
perfect diet isn't simply false, it is the exact opposite
of many people's real-world experience. (Again, see
the three links at the top, and this,
especially the meta-survey that shows actual
vegans to have higher mortality
than fish eaters, and the same mortality rate as meat-eaters.
More recent studies of meat and mortality: 1,
2,
3,
4,
5.)
When VO cofounder Jack Norris started leafleting around
the country in 1995 and '96, he was surprised and
frustrated by the number of former vegetarians
and vegans who told him they had gone back to eating
meat because they hadn't felt healthy as a vegetarian
or vegan. This, of course, is completely counter to
the standard vegan line that meat, eggs, and dairy
are deadly poison; being vegan will cure
/ prevent all manner of diseases; etc.
How could this be? How could so many people
feel so unhealthy as to go back to an animal-centered
diet (feeling healthier upon doing so), when at the
time, we knew, just knew, being vegan was the
only way to be healthy?
The tidal wave of failed vegetarians was so overwhelming
that Jack, instead of rationalizing it away and staying
in the vegan bubble, went back to school to become
a registered dietitian, so he could read the actual
original nutrition research, rather than merely
seeing the selective vegetarian spin / distortion.
Jack's experience is backed up in this Psychology
Today article, which indicates 75% of
people who go vegetarian in the US eventually go back
to eating animals.
75%!
In other words, if everyone who went vegetarian had
stayed vegetarian, there would be four times more
vegetarians in the US today! (A similar survey in
the UK also showed more former vegetarians than current
vegetarians there as well.)
And what is the leading cause of people going back
to eating animals? The existence of "happy meat"?
Ha! Peer pressure? Nope. Missing the taste? Not even
close.
The leading reason the vast majority of vegetarians
go back to eating animals is because they didn't
feel healthy.
Again, compare the real-world reality with the propaganda
put out by many vegan advocates. An amazing disconnect!
It is, of course, easy for us to attack the people
who go back to eating meat. "They weren't really
vegetarian!" "They weren't vegan!"
"They weren't organic non-GMO whole-foods
vegan!" "They weren't raw!"
Of course, this can be initially satisfying
("Those quitters aren't as smart / dedicated as me!
They just didn't go far enough!"). But here
is the important question:
Is our goal to feel good about our particular
diet?
Or do we want to help animals?
The only way to help animals is to help new people
stop eating them. Attacking non-vegetarians --
especially those who had been willing to alter their
diet -- is the exact opposite of helping
animals! That it took me years to realize this
is one of my biggest regrets.
To help new people take action to help animals,
we must first accept their experience, rather than
vilify them to rationalize our vegan mythology.
Understandably, many people are still keen to Defend
The Vegan Faith: "But I know the health argument works
-- just look at near-vegan Bill Clinton!" In the first
case, Bill
Clinton proves the point.
Secondly, a relative handful of self-selected
individual examples can't counter the overall numbers:
for every person out there saying they are vegetarian,
there are more saying, "Well, I used to be vegetarian,
but...."
Anyway you look at it, this is a disaster for
the animals. They don't need us to glorify veganism
-- they need us to help new people make and sustain
positive change. To do this, we need to face facts
(again, something I resisted for years).
The facts are clear. The biggest net impacts health
concerns have on the public's diet are:
1. Eating many, many more smaller animals, and
2. Causing people to go back to their previous animal-centered
diet.
The numbers are stark and unequivocal: when we promote
the
vegan health fantasy, overall, we
hurt animals.
Again, I have total sympathy with the desire
to believe the anything and everything claimed for
veganism: it will cure cancer, reverse baldness, halt
global warming, undo impotence, create world peace,
and make us all much, much better looking.
But then I watch the latest
video of the brutal, sickening barbarity inflicted
on farmed animals. And I know that, no matter how
much I want to buy into the feel-good fantasy
about my personal veganism, it is infinitely more
important to deal with the real world.
Knowing the reality of what the animals are going
through, as well as the reality of how most non-vegetarians
actually react to different arguments, I am compelled
to work for the biggest possible net impact for the
animals, given the world as it really is, and accepting
the facts as they exist.
And the way to have the biggest impact for the animals
is simple:
1. Focus on the animals as the irrefutable bottom
line: Buying meat, eggs, and dairy causes unnecessary
suffering; we can each choose not to cause this suffering.
2. Provide people with honest, thorough, evidence-based
information so they can change their diet and maintain
that change.
The
latter is why Jack
and Ginny's book -- and their work in general
-- is of vital importance.
It isn't that big of a change. We simply stop saying
that adopting an ethical diet is healthier.
Instead we let people know how very healthy it can
be, and here
is how. As Jack has said elsewhere:
"Every person who goes vegan and assumes it doesn't
take any planning is at significant risk to have future
poor health, leading them to end up quitting and telling
others how their health failed as a vegan. My activism
is basically dedicated to trying to stop this flow
of ex-vegans who claim to have had poor health.
"Before I came along, any ex-vegan's story was simply
countered by blaming them. What good does that do,
other than to protect people's pre-conceived ideas?
Here
is a response to the ex-vegan phenomena that, in my
opinion, can help people advocating for veganism.
I hope that my work and my talks empower vegan advocates
to be able to answer a lot of the nutrition questions
they get, and with answers that are true and believable."
It is an absolute moral imperative that we
learn and present the reality of vegan nutrition,
so we can help new people stop eating animals, and
stick with it.
The animals deserve no less.
Please also see Ginny's articles:
How
the Health Argument Fails Veganism
Bad
news for red meat is bad news for chickens
And Jack's:
"I
was vegan for a while, but...".