Seen a lot of posts on Lemmy with vegan-adjacent sentiments but the comments are typically very critical of vegan ideas, even when they don’t come from vegans themselves. Why is this topic in particular so polarising on the internet? Especially since unlike politics for example, it seems like people don’t really get upset by it IRL
I’ve been a vegetarian for 15 years. People IRL often do get offended if you tell them you don’t eat meat. I try my best to avoid saying it because it often leads to being lectured about proteins. Everyone suddenly becomes a nutritionist when you explain why you don’t eat meat.
Why do they believe you only find protein in meat?
Some essential amino acids are difficult to find in adequate quantities on a vegan diet. If you don’t vary your protein sources or make sure you are getting the right amino acids, then you may develop a deficiency, which can lead to poor health or even be fatal.
I have read that this is largely a myth based on a book from the 70s, and that while there are varying proportions of amino acids in different vegan protein sources, there is still enough of each so that you could easily get everything you need.
I read this in a book years ago that I don’t remember the name of, but found a source instantly
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6893534/
Lots of people are really stupid
You are not wrong. I am vegetarian for about 15 years and I’ve literally have had a father of a friend yell at me. He was telling vegetarians aren’t real and if anybody would actually not eat meat for a couple of months they would die because they would be missing vital nutrients only found in meat. He was yelling at me to stop telling lies and be truthful.
Yeah. I try not to mention it to people if I can avoid it. I work construction and am surrounded by manly men tring to out man each other. I had one guy offer me bear jerkey and got bent out of shape when I declined. He wouldn’t stop. He just kept on me about why I didn’t eat meat. After about an hour of him asking again and again why I don’t eat meat I said “meat’s another word for dick and eating dick is gay”. As problematic as it was, it worked.
It never cases to amaze me that a 250pound dude with a 40oz soda in one hand and a mouthfull of gas station pizza thinks he has the responsibility to lecture me about nutrition.
I did get offended when, after a very successful date, I went to a shawarma place with her and we both had a super awesome shawarma with lots of meat. For the next date I made some pizza rolls with salami and she confessed that she actually doesn’t eat meat.
I still tease her about that when I meet her nowadays.