I’ll recognize I can be dismissive on the issue. More than just being dismissive, I push back. It isn’t the food, or even the people per se. It is the behaviors. For 0.4% of the population some vegans make a heck of a lot of judgmental noise about being vegan, look down their noses at people who aren’t, and use a disproportionate amount of (metaphorical) oxygen. THAT behavior is what I push back against.
The OP’s post here is a good example. Judgment and unsubstantiated opinion presented as fact. At the risk of irritating a whole new group of people that post and the behaviors it represents are every bit as anti-science and anti-intellectual as denying climate change. So I push back.
Let’s look:
A vegan lifestyle is compatible with the highest levels of health and fitness,
Incomplete, neglects the requirement for vitamin and mineral supplements and ignores any potential performance difference between one person eating traditionally and that same person on a vegan diet.
protects huge numbers of animals,
This goes directly to John’s (@Harters) insight that without markets most of those animals would not exist at all. One can make a good case that wild caught animals such as fish and whales are protected although fish are harvested for agriculture (fertilizer) and fish and whales for a wide range of products.
and is a potent way to combat climate change.
Going to need footnotes here. The intestinal gas argument is a poor one and does not consider the huge amount of fuel used and therefore emissions generated in plant agriculture and of course transportation of higher volume, lower density food product.
Plus, the food is insanely delicious and it becomes more widely available every year.
Opinion presented as fact and a specious argument given that produce is inherently vegan.
It appears to me, personally, that especially with regard to climate change that if one accepts human impact the straightforward answer is to reduce the number of people. Unfortunately population control, usually reproduction control, generates a visceral reaction from some people who become very loud. I commend the movie “Idiocracy” for consideration; it’s entertainment but has some foreboding subtexts.
Now what other subject can I draw in to irritate some other constituency? grin