On May 15, 7:23*am, "Fred C. Dobbs" >
wrote:
> On 5/14/2010 1:34 PM, Dutch wrote:
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> > "Rupert" > wrote
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> > What the efficiency argument actually says, on any reasonably
> > intelligent reading, is that by going vegan you can have a diet which
> > is just as tasty and nutritious with a much smaller environmental
> > footprint. That's the claim, and it's true, and some people reasonably
> > see it as a good reason for going vegan.
> > ------>
>
> > I would dispute all of the claims in that response.
>

Dutch, I would just mention that I use Google Groups and I can never
see your posts anymore. I can only see what you have written in Ball's
reply, so I am replying to you by replying to Ball's post.

> > Vegan diets are not just as tasty, not to me. Meat and dairy introduces
> > irreplaceable tastes and variety to any diet.
>

Well, if that is your experience that is fine, but I and many other
people have had a different experience. If you are concerned about the
environmental footprint of your diet and also concerned about the
extent to which your diet tastes good - and I think most people are
concerned about both to some extent - then you would weigh up those
two considerations and find a trade-off. That's called optimising
within budget constraints; Ball can tell you all about that. You find
that a vegan diet is so incredibly unpalatable that you are prepared
to accept whatever increase in your environmental and animal-suffering
footprint you accept in order to make your diet more palatable. Well,
there you are, that is how you have chosen to spend your budget. I am
not considering moral questions in this discussion; you have chosen to
spend your budget one way, but I remarked that some people might be
rationally motivated by consideration of environmental externalities
to spend their budget a different way, and I claim, contra Ball, that
this is the usual intended interpretation of the "inefficiency"
argument. I don't see how you have any reason to dispute anything I've
said.

> > Vegan diets are not just as nutritious in many cases. I have personally
> > experienced failure to thrive on vegetarian diets and I know many people
> > have. There was a recent study to this effect posted to aaev, and the
> > issue is well documented at beyondveg.com.
>

If you were having serious health problems as a result of a vegetarian
diet then that too would be a relevant consideration, but I don't
believe this is especially common because it is the position of the
American Dietetic Assocation that vegan diets are nutritionally
adequate and healthy at all stages of life and can help to reduce the
risk of many serious health problems, I know many people who are on a
vegan diet who are extremely healthy, many high-performing athletes
are vegan, and two health professionals have told me that going vegan
is an excellent choice. That's about all the evidence I have so far
that bears on the matter. You have an anecdote about an experience you
had which suggests that maybe some people fail to thrive on vegetarian
diets, and possibly some scientific evidence as well. Well, I'm happy
to look at the scientific evidence if you want to show me. I don't
think that you can plausibly claim that serious health problems from a
sensibly-planned vegan diet (and "sensible planning" is no especially
onerous challenge) are especially common, but if you had some reason
to think that there was a serious risk of that for you, then that
would be a relevant consideration, obviously. I believe that my
statement that vegan diets are healthy for the overwhelming majority
of people was quite well-supported by the current scientific evidence.


> > Vegan diets are not always associated with a smaller environmental
> > footprint. They CAN BE, but Steven Davis's study, the Polyface Farm, and
> > the experience of many small farmers illustrate that it is quite
> > possible to use meat in a diet and have a small environmental footprint..
>

That's a different claim. A vegan diet involves a significant
reduction in environmental footprint from a typical Western diet.
There may be other ways of achieving the same effect, yes. I never
denied that. If environmental concerns were what you were worried
about then it would be rational to consider those options too.

> > These claims should be modified and placed in context.
>
> > I also don't agree that veganism is reasonable, *vegetarianism* is
> > reasonable, veganism is extreme and unreasonable.
>
> > The vegan argument in reality is the AR argument, it is based on the
> > notion that it is *unjust* to use animals as products.
>

Often, yes. But that was not the argument that Ball was discussing in
this thread.

I would think that if most people took a hard look at what goes on in
most modern farms and slaughterhouses just in order to provide them
with food which they find slightly more enjoyable they'd probably be
hard-pressed to avoid the conclusion that it is unjust. I don't regard
veganism as an unreasonable response to the situation.

But that is the animal-welfare argument. Ball wanted to discuss the
"inefficiency" argument, which I claim that he has mischaracterised. I
claim that it is correctly characterised as an argument from concerns
about your environmental footprint which you would weigh up against
other concerns about how good your food tastes and about your health.
I believe that most people would become more healthy by going vegan
and I have a fair number of health professionals who back me up. Your
situation may be different. Regarding how good the food tastes one
can't really argue about that. De gustibus non disputandum est, as
they say. I would think that for most people the environmental
argument in itself would be a fairly compelling one. But that is not
really the point. I was just trying to tell Ball that I thought that
he had mischaracterised the position of those who talk about the
"inefficiency" of meat production.