@hexalm I believe you are correct about the iron. I guess a meal that is 20% iron would taste somewhat, er, metallic! I can’t find my the exact reference I originally referred to but I found similar breakdowns and I think 20% of RDA is more realistic. That’s still a significant amount, especially for people like me who tend to be low in iron.

Good post–it’s easy to NOT think critically about food choices like this, which is the main reason I went from meat-eating->vegetarian->vegan. Had I been better informed I’d have cut to the chase to begin with! If nothing else, I agree that it’s inconsistent to eschew meat for ethical or environmental reasons, then fill the gap with cheese. Intuitively it seems to make sense, but a little research demonstrates intuition is wrong in many cases.

By the way, free range eggs aren’t off the hook, either. For starters, in the US this term only means they have some kind of access to the outdoors–which could be a tiny patch of ground outside the sheds “free range” chickens are usually crowded into. In Europe, it doesn’t mean that much more, although I think the new EU regulations are probably a significant improvement.

Many of the same environmental, animal welfare, and even health reasons apply. Male chicks are even more useless (economically) than male dairy cows, and are treated accordingly.

This is why I found it simpler just to become vegan, but that was also the result of consistently applying what I already believed regarding these issues.

And regarding soy, as a dairy replacement it’s only one of many options. The negative and positive health aspects of soy are all exaggerated, but as with anything moderation is not a bad idea. And soy in general shouldn’t be confused with isolated soy protein, which hasn’t been studied in the same light as whole soy foods–and scares me too, even as a lover of tofu and tempeh!

What impressed me about this article is that animals suffer and are slaughtered to provide people with good tasting foods. Ye cutting down on animal products still causes animal suffering and death!

If you want to be more environmentally responsible, cut down on animal products. If you want to be more healthy, cut down on animal products. If you want to eliminate unnecessary animal exploitation, suffering and death, and reduce the amount of violence in the world, GO VEGAN!

Just a quick response to your assertion that veganism is a difficult ethical decision: veganism is easy when you consider what the alternative is.

I think it’s great that you’ve cut back consumption of meat (to me that means the flesh of all animals, fish, chickens, ducks, turkeys, emu, and sheep as well as pigs, cows and buffalo), but please do not fall into the trap of buying “humane meat.”

The first point in the article was excellent — animals suffer for any kind of animal product humans eat. “Humane” or “happy” meat cannot exist because the animal is still considered property; she is born explicitly to be killed. There is nothing humane about that. There is also the idea that these small farmers like to encourage, that they care about “their” animals. I don’t know, I care very deeply for my dog and cats and I would never ever consider killing and eating them for any reason, but especially not for profit. I daresay the betrayal felt by such animals who have grown to trust the people who “care” for them must be enormous.

Further, free-range animals require more land use. While there are people continually starving around the world, to use that land to feed animals who will be killed for food, rather than for growing crops to feed humans strikes me as a slap in the face.

So I would go further than the writer of this article; eggs from free range chickens are little better than eggs from battery hens. Any animal product is going to cause suffering.

Again, I think it’s great when people reduce their use of animal products, but since this article touches on the vegetarian penchant for cheese, looking at eggs and “happy” meat is keeping in line with it.

You can find more here:
http://www.humanemyth.org/

Thank you! 🙂