Came for the picture of Phil Hartman (and grew up watching Mr. Rogers) but stayed for the article. Thank you for making these important points. I worked in the public schools about 7 years ago. If I had showed up in a thong and danced in front of 3rd graders, I would have been fired, arrested and divorced (rightfully so). What's changed?
The only thing that has changed is that people have gone in extreme directions away from the natural world and our natural instincts through indoctrination into the belief that our natural ways are wrong. I don't think this could happen without that indoctrination.
I feel like we're playing semantics. In any case, all babies are born to a diet of mother's milk (or formula). By this logic, all fruits and vegetables are also pushed on babies. I do think a vegan diet can be healthy (though it is difficult to do well, certainly many in India pull it off), but it's pretty nuts when people go vegan and eat tons of processed foods.
I have added to my article to share why drinking breast milk is vegan, thanks to your comment. It seems to me that people are making up this idea that it's not vegan as a gotcha, rather than actually thinking it through. Breastmilk is the most natural and expected diet for a baby.
Many people have their own views of things as "persecutors" and never look into them to see the nuances. But your comment has helped to create more discussion, which is beneficial for the various readers who may have had the same lack of knowledge, so thanks.
Fruits, evolutionarily speaking, want to be eaten to spread their seed. That's why they're tasty. Children would be more likely to see a piece of fruit and want to eat it, then look at a rabbit and want to kill it to eat it.
My article is not about saying veganism is the best diet, just that it's not extreme.
Eating lots of processed foods could be considered extreme. They're not really "natural" or "normal" when you look at the history of the world. They're very recent inventions. There's no need to conflate processed food diets and veganism.
Again, I'm not trying to promote veganism. I'm just saying it's not extreme since we all start out that way.
I wasn't trying to "gotcha" and I don't hate vegans, I just don't see breast milk as vegan. I guess it depends on how you define it. Most formula isn't vegan either. And my point re processed foods is that a lot of vegans in the West are eating diets I would consider extreme, because they're highly processed. I agree this doesn't reflect on all vegans.
Formula isn't natural either. That's another very recent development.
I have to say I'm shocked to hear that people don't consider breast milk to be vegan, but that has only come from non-vegans at this point, so that is why I would consider it a non-vegan thing to believe. To believe it's not vegan makes it easy to say veganism is extreme, that certainly would be. But I've never met a vegan would say that breast milk is off limits. I'm not sure they exist.
Yeah, formula is very unnatural. And I realize vegans aren't opposed to breastfeeding, it's just an exception (and a good one; some vegans also make an exception for honey, which I also think is a good exception). But I still think it's a stretch to suggest that veganism is natural and our original state before "meat and dairy are pushed on us", as opposed to a moral belief system that some humans adopt. The vast majority of humans have been omnivores or vegetarians throughout history. I mean, I'm introducing first foods to a baby right now, and given how excited she was when she first tasted egg yolk and ghee, I don't think anything is being forced on her!
Veganisn isn't pushed on kids. There is no vegan society since modern Westrn Americans adopted one and used lab made supplements to make it work. Also human milk is NOT vegan. It is an animal product. Humans are not plants we are animals. That we require animal fat and protien to grow from birth or we die should be a warning against veganism. We survive on 100% animal product from birth. Renaming an obvious animal product required for human thriving (breastmlk) as "vegan" is as obvious of a cope as renaming a boy a girl because it feels good.
Humans give their milk naturally to their young. It's consensual. The whole point of veganism is to not take meat/milk products, etc. from animals that cannot consent. It seems you have a different definition of veganism that most do.
If you take a glass coffee pot still hot from the coffee maker and dowse it with ice cold water the pot will almost certainly crack at a minimum, and may even shatter.
Put a glass in the freezer for an hour, take it out and pour boiling water in it, and the same thing is likely to happen.
Take that heated coffee pot and fill it with warm water and everything is fine.
Take that frozen glass and fill it with cold (but not ice cold) water and again everything is fine.
Ice cold water is "extreme" when the ambient temperature is at or near the boiling point for water.
The ideal temperature for hot coffee is "extreme" when the ambient temperature is at or near the freezing point.
This is why, when dealing with the beginnings of frostbite, you don't thaw the affected extremity with hot water, but with slightly warm water. The higher the temperature the farther away from the ambient temperature within the affected extremity, and thus the more "extreme" the heat being applied.
"Extreme" is a subjective frame of reference, and is contingent upon one's point of origin.
For someone like me, vegan diets are very "extreme", because that means foregoing such essential food items as steak, ribs, and bacon! (that is sooo not happening!)
The diet thing doesn’t make sense here. You could just as easily say that “all babies are born on a ketogenic diet” so they should never eat carbs, carbs are just forced on them (breast milk is ketogenic).
The argument too that a baby would eat a piece of fruit before killing an animal is also a fallacy - plenty of animals kill food for their young ones until they teach them how to do it themselves. I know plenty of mothers who feed their babies liver or sardines as their first food and the babies love it. I actually think making your baby “vegan until not” is the same sort of magical thinking as “genderless til they tell us what they are.”
I agree with your other points I just think the diet claim sidetracks it and doesn’t fit in the way other the other points do
I didn't say that all babies are born on the vegan diet and should never eat meat or animal products. I said it's not "extreme" if someone continues to do what they did as a healthy baby.
"But every single human is born on a vegan diet, in the same way that they’re born without vaccines. Eating meat and dairy is pushed onto babies, in the same way we push vaccines onto them. The reason is because people think those things are good for them. "
In the original "state of nature" before all the accoutrements of civilization are applied, the very first food an infant receives is the milk from their mother's breast.
Strictly speaking, we are all therefore born on a dairy diet.
One could also question the degree to which various foods are "pushed" onto children. Given that the alternative to eating foods of some kind is starvation, if a child is to survive it must eat something besides their mother's milk eventually. Initially, yes, those other foods are provided to the child by their parents, and so the selection of foods is at the parents' discretion. However, the objective of feeding the child remains the child's survival and growth.
Perhaps "dairy" is the wrong word to use here, but I certainly don't expect human breast milk in the dairy aisle. Dairy usually refers to farm animal's milk and cheese products. Either way, human breast milk is vegan. They're on the vegan diet (not to be confused with a vegan philosophy as I guess some people have done.)
I feel as if people are missing my point here. I'm not saying it's extreme to not be vegan. I'm saying it's not extreme to be vegan (continue on the same diet later in life). There is a difference and it seems to be going everyone's head because they believe veganism to be unhealthy (and perhaps extreme) in some way.
Came for the picture of Phil Hartman (and grew up watching Mr. Rogers) but stayed for the article. Thank you for making these important points. I worked in the public schools about 7 years ago. If I had showed up in a thong and danced in front of 3rd graders, I would have been fired, arrested and divorced (rightfully so). What's changed?
The only thing that has changed is that people have gone in extreme directions away from the natural world and our natural instincts through indoctrination into the belief that our natural ways are wrong. I don't think this could happen without that indoctrination.
Breastmilk isn't vegan ...
Of course it is.
I feel like we're playing semantics. In any case, all babies are born to a diet of mother's milk (or formula). By this logic, all fruits and vegetables are also pushed on babies. I do think a vegan diet can be healthy (though it is difficult to do well, certainly many in India pull it off), but it's pretty nuts when people go vegan and eat tons of processed foods.
I have added to my article to share why drinking breast milk is vegan, thanks to your comment. It seems to me that people are making up this idea that it's not vegan as a gotcha, rather than actually thinking it through. Breastmilk is the most natural and expected diet for a baby.
Many people have their own views of things as "persecutors" and never look into them to see the nuances. But your comment has helped to create more discussion, which is beneficial for the various readers who may have had the same lack of knowledge, so thanks.
Fruits, evolutionarily speaking, want to be eaten to spread their seed. That's why they're tasty. Children would be more likely to see a piece of fruit and want to eat it, then look at a rabbit and want to kill it to eat it.
My article is not about saying veganism is the best diet, just that it's not extreme.
Eating lots of processed foods could be considered extreme. They're not really "natural" or "normal" when you look at the history of the world. They're very recent inventions. There's no need to conflate processed food diets and veganism.
Again, I'm not trying to promote veganism. I'm just saying it's not extreme since we all start out that way.
I wasn't trying to "gotcha" and I don't hate vegans, I just don't see breast milk as vegan. I guess it depends on how you define it. Most formula isn't vegan either. And my point re processed foods is that a lot of vegans in the West are eating diets I would consider extreme, because they're highly processed. I agree this doesn't reflect on all vegans.
So we agree about processed foods being extreme.
Formula isn't natural either. That's another very recent development.
I have to say I'm shocked to hear that people don't consider breast milk to be vegan, but that has only come from non-vegans at this point, so that is why I would consider it a non-vegan thing to believe. To believe it's not vegan makes it easy to say veganism is extreme, that certainly would be. But I've never met a vegan would say that breast milk is off limits. I'm not sure they exist.
Yeah, formula is very unnatural. And I realize vegans aren't opposed to breastfeeding, it's just an exception (and a good one; some vegans also make an exception for honey, which I also think is a good exception). But I still think it's a stretch to suggest that veganism is natural and our original state before "meat and dairy are pushed on us", as opposed to a moral belief system that some humans adopt. The vast majority of humans have been omnivores or vegetarians throughout history. I mean, I'm introducing first foods to a baby right now, and given how excited she was when she first tasted egg yolk and ghee, I don't think anything is being forced on her!
Veganisn isn't pushed on kids. There is no vegan society since modern Westrn Americans adopted one and used lab made supplements to make it work. Also human milk is NOT vegan. It is an animal product. Humans are not plants we are animals. That we require animal fat and protien to grow from birth or we die should be a warning against veganism. We survive on 100% animal product from birth. Renaming an obvious animal product required for human thriving (breastmlk) as "vegan" is as obvious of a cope as renaming a boy a girl because it feels good.
Humans give their milk naturally to their young. It's consensual. The whole point of veganism is to not take meat/milk products, etc. from animals that cannot consent. It seems you have a different definition of veganism that most do.
Breastmilk is not vegan because it is an animal product. Humans are animals.
See definition of "vegan."
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vegan
If you take a glass coffee pot still hot from the coffee maker and dowse it with ice cold water the pot will almost certainly crack at a minimum, and may even shatter.
Put a glass in the freezer for an hour, take it out and pour boiling water in it, and the same thing is likely to happen.
Take that heated coffee pot and fill it with warm water and everything is fine.
Take that frozen glass and fill it with cold (but not ice cold) water and again everything is fine.
Ice cold water is "extreme" when the ambient temperature is at or near the boiling point for water.
The ideal temperature for hot coffee is "extreme" when the ambient temperature is at or near the freezing point.
This is why, when dealing with the beginnings of frostbite, you don't thaw the affected extremity with hot water, but with slightly warm water. The higher the temperature the farther away from the ambient temperature within the affected extremity, and thus the more "extreme" the heat being applied.
"Extreme" is a subjective frame of reference, and is contingent upon one's point of origin.
For someone like me, vegan diets are very "extreme", because that means foregoing such essential food items as steak, ribs, and bacon! (that is sooo not happening!)
I think you are proving the point in my article, thanks.
The diet thing doesn’t make sense here. You could just as easily say that “all babies are born on a ketogenic diet” so they should never eat carbs, carbs are just forced on them (breast milk is ketogenic).
The argument too that a baby would eat a piece of fruit before killing an animal is also a fallacy - plenty of animals kill food for their young ones until they teach them how to do it themselves. I know plenty of mothers who feed their babies liver or sardines as their first food and the babies love it. I actually think making your baby “vegan until not” is the same sort of magical thinking as “genderless til they tell us what they are.”
I agree with your other points I just think the diet claim sidetracks it and doesn’t fit in the way other the other points do
I didn't say that all babies are born on the vegan diet and should never eat meat or animal products. I said it's not "extreme" if someone continues to do what they did as a healthy baby.
"But every single human is born on a vegan diet, in the same way that they’re born without vaccines. Eating meat and dairy is pushed onto babies, in the same way we push vaccines onto them. The reason is because people think those things are good for them. "
In the original "state of nature" before all the accoutrements of civilization are applied, the very first food an infant receives is the milk from their mother's breast.
Strictly speaking, we are all therefore born on a dairy diet.
One could also question the degree to which various foods are "pushed" onto children. Given that the alternative to eating foods of some kind is starvation, if a child is to survive it must eat something besides their mother's milk eventually. Initially, yes, those other foods are provided to the child by their parents, and so the selection of foods is at the parents' discretion. However, the objective of feeding the child remains the child's survival and growth.
Perhaps "dairy" is the wrong word to use here, but I certainly don't expect human breast milk in the dairy aisle. Dairy usually refers to farm animal's milk and cheese products. Either way, human breast milk is vegan. They're on the vegan diet (not to be confused with a vegan philosophy as I guess some people have done.)
I feel as if people are missing my point here. I'm not saying it's extreme to not be vegan. I'm saying it's not extreme to be vegan (continue on the same diet later in life). There is a difference and it seems to be going everyone's head because they believe veganism to be unhealthy (and perhaps extreme) in some way.