Open letter to my vegan friends

Dear vegan friends,

I hope this correspondence would meet you in good health and a sound mind. I have taken some time out to research on the lifestyle you have chosen, especially those relating to diets and I found it imperative to clarify some of some salient issues relating to your preference for plant-based foods over animal/meat-based ones. While some of the opinions I will be expressing in this letter belongs to me, the larger part belongs to the science world.

Until today, I did not know that variation exists even within you my vegan friends. It came as a surprise for me to learn that some are dietary vegans, some are ethical vegans while a host of you are environmental vegans. I understand that while the dietary vegans are only concerned with avoiding foods made from animals or animal products such as egg, oil etc, they really do not see any big deal in using products derived from animals such as leathers, clothing and other products made from animals.

In addition to the strict plant-based dietary observation, I got informed that the ethical vegans also stay away from using any animal-derived products while environmental vegans stay away from both animal-based diets and products on the premises that not doing so is causing an irreversible damages to the environment. Better still, some groups (can't actually be referred to as vegans) such as flexitarians and reducetarian are also emerging and their ideologies happen to be partly in line with veganism. If you will not say I am too inquisitive, it would be interesting to know which of the vegan variants you rightfully belong.

I am happy to let you know that I have dedicated some time to take an objective review of some of the best arguments in favour of your dietary lifestyle. While some are not far from the truth, some are scientifically debatable and a host of others are just blatant propaganda to promote vegan's lifestyle.

First and foremost is the hypothesis that we humans are not adapted to meat eating and carnivorous lifestyle as evidenced in our digestive system and anatomy. It is argued that humans lack the adaptation required of a proper canivorous/predatory animal vis a vis agile body, grasping claws and teeth for tearing preys. In addition, the digestive system of humans is better adapted to digesting plant-based diets compared to animal-based ones.

^{By NJR ZA - CC BY-SA 3.0, Link}

My dearest friends, the above argument looked quite convincing and fool-proof, but let me inform you that even among carnivorous animals, variations do exist. While carnivorous animals like lion, tiger etc. have agile body, thick grasping claws as well as dental formula that is well adapted to tearing meat, other carnivorous animals like the vulture have no such attributes. While the former are referred to as predators, the later are called scavengers, yet both are carnivores. Hence, that humans are not adapted to meat-eating because of their body structure no longer holds ground. Afterall, what we lacked in structure, we gained much more through well developed brain which confers to us, the ability to find our ways around tearing and eating of meat.

There is no doubt that in humans, the bowel transit time of meat and meat-based diets trascends that of plant and plant-based diets when considered in equal proportions with other factors being constant. This is in part due to the presence of more fats in meat which take more time to digest as compared to plant-diets and in part due to more fiber in plant-diets when compared to meat-diets. I know that fiber generally assists the movement of food through the intestine resulting in faster digestion, however, the low fat content of plant-based diets means you vegans have to eat far more food quantities in order to compesate for the shortfall in essential fatty acids requirement of the body (our system cannot synthesize these fatty acids on their own) that may arise as a result of strict plant-diets. This is in addition to the risk of being vitamin D and B₁₂ deficient, I understand that some of you have to take vitamin supplements in order to stay healthy. I stand to be corrected on this.

^{By Ragesoss - CC BY-SA 3.0, Link}

Next on my review is the argument that plant-based diets is more sustainable and environmentally friendly when compared to animal-based diets. As a botanist and an ecologist, I am totally in for anything that would add to the sustainability and friendliness of the environment but not to the detriment of humans living in it. The notion that vegan diets only take about one tenth of animal-based diets in terms of environmental resources is actually debatable in many fronts. Crop production requires a larger area of land when compared to animal production (though it might be argued that animals feed on a large part of the crops) and hence, requires that larger areas of forests cleared which is generally bad for the environment and leads to emission of green house gases. The transportation of agricultural produce in itself leads to emission while crops like rice have quite a large carbon footprint.

The argument and the debate can go on and on but last on my review is the notion that you have that animals and human have the same mental consciousness and the capacity to feel pains; as such, killing animals is interpreted as murder in your quarters. First of all, I will like to point out to you that the food chain and the food web are natural phenomenon of the ecosystem and organisms only evolved through natural selection. Humans are not the only creature that feeds on both meat and plant-based diets and the accusation of murder is only from moral perspective.

My dearest vegans, as a Botanist that has studied plants to quite some good details, I can categorically tell you that if you consider animals and humans to be at the same hierarchical level, plants cannot be far from them. Plant is considered a living organism, possessing most of the attributes (if not all) that makes humans and animals a living and conscious being.

^{Please don't kill me! I am also living}

Plants are known to move both spontaneously and paratonically, respire (breathe-in oxygen and breathe-out carbon dioxide), feed (through photosynthesis, carnivorous feeding etc), respond to stimuli, grow, excrete, reproduce and die just like humans and other animals. They communicate and cryout in times of trouble, they have a circulatory system as well as an equivalence of human nervous system. The only thing yet to be established is if plants have brain. That nature placed them at the bottom of the food chain does not make them less of a living organism. You all might want to think twice and re-evaluate your opinion of plants. Perhaps the experiment in this video would clear some of your doubts.

In conclusion, let me reiterate that I did not write this letter to spite your ideology nor bring down your lifestyle in any way. It is just the scientist in me writing and I hope this will not make me and you less of a friend. I will actually be very happy to read from you all about what you feel with this letter of mine.

After all that have been said, I cannot wait to pay you a visit and enjoy a sumptous meal of salad and fries washed down with some soya milk.

My deepest and warmest greetings to your friends and families. Do not forget to be kind to those plants in your backyard.

Regards,

@gentleshaid

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References

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Richard Dawkings

live strong

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