Death by Veganism

[Guest guest]

Nutritionist and anti-vegan activist Nina Planck's article " Death by Veganism "

may be the archetype for an inductive argument fallacy. These are the arguments

that try to take a horrifying event or conclusion of research and frame it to be

caused by veganism. Planck's article took the example of one Crown Shakur, an

infant who was starved to death by his parents...er his vegan parents. Shakur's

parents also happened to both have blue eyes and detached earlobes but Planck is

determined to make correlation causation--it's the veganism. It seems to me

that starving a baby to death is caused by not feeding him rather than following

an ethical principle and diet but what do I know?

 

Planck also makes some boldly false claims. Having been a vegan herself, she

claims the human body simply cannot " create and nourish a robust baby merely on

foods from plants " even though vegan-raised children exist on this earth outside

of the realm of fantasy. Planck finally revealed she was under the impression

vegan parents were against breastfeeding (they aren't), preferring instead to

feed their children soymilk and apple juice. She then takes her error to

passionately explain why breastmilk is so important. Planck is now continuing

to promote her book " Real Food " in which she lauds lard as a " miracle food " (I'm

not kidding.)

 

" Vegan Plus "

Mark Bittman is working hard to consider veganism as a food issue and seems to

be interested in how to eat meat as a vegan. After years of careful research in

his underground evil laboratory, Bittman has emerged with a revolutionary new

theory called " Vegan Plus, " " plus " because he's better than us. Apparently

vegan plus overcomes the drawback of veganism of having to eat vegan food.

 

It's beyond being a vegan; it's being a vegan-plus. You can be a vegan and still

have a really lousy diet. But at night, I eat whatever I want. Period. And I

think that's probably why many of my dinners have either meat or pasta and

bread. By 7 at night, I'm dying for that stuff.

 

Come on, Mark. Maybe what you need is a steady diet of soymilk and apple juice.

It's not really clear what the point is of abstaining from meat in order to make

up for it in the dark when no one is looking but I'm pretty sure eating dead

animals isn't vegan anything.

 

Oprah goes vegan

Some of us were excited to be graced with Oprah Winfrey's announcement she would

be trying out a three week vegan diet. But after a few days of her exasperated

detail of her self-punishment, Winfrey's impression of a need for a personal

staff of vegan chefs and nutritionists, and her labeling of veganism as a

" cleanse " (the word " vegan " was almost never used in her 21-day blog), we all

just had to hide under our beds and wait until it was over.

 

But the worst was yet to come. Having finished the " cleanse " while interviewing

animal welfarists like Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States,

Oprah gave away free Kentucky Fried Chicken on her show inciting a sit-in

protest...oh no, not for widely supporting animal cruelty--the participating

Manhattan KFC ran out of chicken.

 

Holly Paige

The Independent ran an article with the frightening title " How our vegan diet

made us ill " satisfying the preconceived notions of so many vegan critics that

veganism is poor for health. Mother of four Holly Paige claims her children

were subject to holes in their teeth and delayed growth as a result of feeding

them a vegan diet.

 

Paige later admits she wasn't just putting her children on a vegan diet, but a

raw vegan diet. She actually admits her basis for convicting veganism was from

an antiquated book on nutrition added with her own interpretations

 

Although she has no medical confirmation, she believes the family had symptoms

of vitamin D- and protein-deficiency. 'I felt like such an idiot. I got the

information from a book I'd had sitting around on my shelf for 20 years.'

 

Funny. I would also feel like " such an idiot " if I publicly made medical claims

based on a 20-year-old book about vitamins. Paige's story continues to become

remarkable. Paige claims the holes in her daughter's teeth actually healed up

after returning her and herself to what she describes as an absolutely insane

diet

 

" I just went wild. Typically, in a day I would eat half a chicken, two litres of

milk, half a pound of cheese and three eggs. I just had to do it. It went on for

weeks. The children were having lots of boiled eggs and cheese. "

 

She also claims her daughter started growing quite rapidly after the

introduction. As we all know, rapid growth is something rarely observed in

preteen girls, so she may have something there. On Paige's website,

RawCuisine.co.uk, Paige lauds her use of the psychoactive drug, ayahuasca: " I

have taken large doses a few times. The best way I can describe the experience

for me is that it feels like `the real thing'- like waking up, like experiencing

a sense of self that is more real " . She defends the use of Dimethyltryptamine

(DMT), the active ingredient, by the fact that " [DMT is] found in all living

things and operating in the brain as a neurotransmitter " . Though further reseach

suggests that the psychedelic DMT dependently elevates " blood pressure, heart

rate, pupil diameter, and rectal temperature, in addition to elevating blood

concentrations of beta-endorphin, corticotropin, cortisol, and prolactin [and]

growth hormone blood levels " . DMT is listed among mescaline and LSD as drugs

which mimic the action of serotonin (an essential neurotransmitter) in the

brain.

 

Author: Adam Kochanowicz

Adam Kochanowicz is a National Examiner

http://www.examiner.com/x-4198-Vegan-Examiner~y2009m7d16-The-vegan-hall-of-shame