The Vegan Hypocrisy Manifesto

All humans are hypocrites; some just deny this reality more than others.

Morally Superior?

I am a health professional who tells people how to live an optimal lifestyle, yet love to shove an entire large Domino's Hawaiian pizza down my throat with a bag of sour watermelon candy and Lindt white chocolate embedded with almonds for dessert. I claim to be pro-environment, but my car is gas-fueled, and I heat my home during the winter thanks to hydroelectric dams that destroyed entire ecosystems and indigenous communities. My ancestors stole this continent. I sometimes throw recyclable items in the garbage. Abused children assembled all the electronic devices I use on a daily basis. Same with my Nikes shoes.

Now, a recent comment on the positive changes three months of carnivore food habits had on a health metrics ranging from my digestion to body composition, energy, and stress levels sparked hate from a well-versed vegan justice warrior. This guardian of earth called me a lying, psychopathic, planet-destroying coward all in one breath before berating me with facts and statistics on the atrocities of a meat-based lifestyle.

I was glad he knew more about my body than I did, as do the many more saints all over my social media feed. Talks of a meat tax and political push for nationwide plant-based diet guidelines have pulled me out of passivity to call out the hypocrisy.

This piece aims to deconstruct the imaginary moral high-ground raised by some plant-based advocates with cherry-picked evidence that suits my narrative.

Veganism on the Rise

Plant-based diets spread like weeds these days according to the Food Revolution Network. A report by the research firm Globaldata states that veganism reached an all-time high in the United States by growing from one percent to six percent of the total population over the last three years. The food delivery service "Just Eat" noted a 94 percent increase in plant-based related orders in 2018, which correlates to the recent release of the Netflix shock-documentary What The Health and the Oikja animated film.

Many elite athletes support the cause, from Venus Williams to NBA superstar Kyrie Irving and even Tom Brady, who claims that eighty percent of his diet consists of organic vegetables. World-class celebrities such as Beyonce, Ellen Degeneres, and Bill Clinton amongst many others also joined the movement.

Motives to go plant-based tend to gravitate around three core principles: Animal welfare, environment, and health. These pillars erect the moral high-ground used by vegan justice warriors to sermon heretic meat eaters and convert new adepts.

A closer look at each fragment exposes the dubious foundations that support the dogmas, much like the real estate market circa 2008.

The vegan scriptures tell the tale of an oppressed species pulled out of mother nature's harmony by their egotistic human kin and forced into nutritional slavery. One finds light by abstaining from the barbaric practice of eating these sentient animals capable of feeling and expressing all human emotions thanks to their complex nervous system.

This kingdom of health lies within the one percent of plants comestible for humans, these oblivious organisms that lack the nervous machinery that creates emotions and feelings. No neurons and nerves connect the outside world to the brain. Eat them, for they feel no pain.

Or do they?

Smart Plants?

Plant sentience is an old idea. American journalist Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird explored the topic through a series of experiments they published in The Secret Life of Plants nearly forty years ago, but critics classified the book as fiction full of pseudoscience nonsense unsupported by independent verification and replicable studies.

Plant sentience maintains its laughingstock status today amongst biologists and the vegan community, but modern science and cutting-edge technologies now shed new light on the matter.

A study out North Carolina State University found that the carnivorous Venus flytrap can separate prey from pollinators crucial for reproduction. The journal American Naturalist published these findings in February 2018.

Three species identified as top spreaders of the plant's pollen never showed up in dissections of its digestive system, as opposed to the high count of others who visited both the trap and the flowers only to become lunch.

The mechanism behind this protection remains unclear. Researchers have no idea whether the plant's architecture, color, or a specific chemical signaling plays a role in keeping the beneficial bugs out. Nobody knows why these particular help species help each other, they just do.

This symbiotic relationship between plant an insect is a bond older than humans. The Venus flytrap's ability to evolve a predatorial awareness and the digestive machinery to overcome the dry, nutrient-scarce soil they called home has some strong Darwinian vibes, a survival of the smartest scenario if you will.

Japanese Sundews will even steal insects lure from their non-carnivorous neighbors for pollination, a behavior known as kleptoparasitism, where one species acquires food from another and offers nothing in return.

My intuition tells me that these digestion and strategic abilities are signs of sentience. The gut is the second brain, after all.

Fuck my feelings, though.

An organism that can study its surroundings, adapt, and interact with the environment is intelligent by nature. But the lack of brain means no pain is possible. They are soulless, remember. But what about senses? Tristan Wang reviews the topic in his Harvard Science Review article.

Plants can see the world, according to Daniel Chamovitz, author of What a Plant Knows. Daffodils compute the length of a day and time flowering as spring comes around. Think you understand color? Plants have eleven types of light receptors compared to the mere two found in humans. The absence of a brain and eyes does not impede their ability to see their environment and adapt to survive.

And what about the sense of smell? A study published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America (PNAS) six years ago noted a defensive response in plants triggered by the scent of incoming herbivores. They know their enemies by smell even without a nose.

Still, no fatty brain to be found.

Humans and animals communicate via specific sound patterns and physical expressions. People understood this concept eons before any science ever came around, but only recently found out that plants too can interact amongst themselves and their environment.

A study published three years later delved into this rapid defensive response to an oncoming herbivore. The researchers found that bean plants detected aphid-attacks on nearby neighbors, sent warning signals, then emitted defensive chemical substances to repel the assailant and attract its predators.

You might not hear anything, but the language is still there. The communication happens through an underground internet of fungus, an information superhighway linked by the roots through thin threads known as mycelium. Most natural soils are rich in such connections.

"The researchers set up five bean seedlings in an order in which there was a central ‘donor’ plant surrounded by four ‘receiver’ plants. Two of the receiver plants were connected to the donor plant via mycorrhizal fungi with the other two lacked physical connection to the other plants. " - (Wang, Harvard Science Review)

Bean plants disconnected from this network during the experiment failed to produce the same protective response as the others during an attack.

Could this intricate system of fungi that processes sensorial information from the environment, retains memory, and devises predatorial strategies to maximize survival be the source of plant intelligence?

Mushrooms belong in the biological dark matter category, along with bacteria, where 99% of species on this planet remain out of science's light. What codes for one thing in humans does the opposite for them. They are aliens to us from a genetic standpoint.

The gap between human knowledge and nature's wisdom remains vast. Our comprehension of plants is in its infancy. How will a few more decades of scientific and technological progress change the current paradigms?

Are you sure the bean salad on your plate did not feel a form of fear or pain when it got sprayed with pesticides, ripped out of the soil by a tractor, then chopped up with a knife?

I must have been taking a piss when mother nature handed out the insight that gives vegan justice warriors confidence to justify their righteousness through diet.

You might not eat something that can express fear as an animal does, but the digestive system of a carnivorous plant, along with adapted predatory strategies and the underground internet of mushrooms connecting various organisms in an ecosystem display the evolutionary work of sentient organisms.

Saving the Planet?

The environment is a significant pillar erected for the vegan moral high-ground. All meat produced with precious resources roots in the evil factories such as the one depicted by Upton Sinclair in The Jungle, according to the scriptures. Their existence alone is a strong root of global warming.

One finds light by avoiding any product that comes from such barbarities in favor of the stuff grown out of mother nature. I fail to see how solely eating vegetables produced out of irrigated fields, sprayed with volatile pesticides and insecticides, then transported in a chain of boats and trucks from all over the world is any better for the environment.

Monsanto bought Bayer Chemicals for how many billions of dollars again?

Monoculture of high-profit crops such as wheat, soy, and the crap you can find yearlong at any nearby grocery store destroys entire ecosystems, rids soils of all life, and fills them with pollution. All the chemicals used in mass production contaminate groundwater, too.

One-third of monoculture goes to feed cattle, but that does not erase the other majority destined for human consumption. Do you believe that third would disappear if the whole planet went plant-based?

Big agriculture companies own the organic or local labels that often exempt the morally superior vegan from this reality, their vertical integration of the supply chain runs deep. They control the whole market with their billions of dollars.

You might support a local economy with your choices, which is essential, but the money goes to the same place as those who buy from the global trade. Do not be naïve.

The environmentally friendly pillar of veganism is unfounded. Avoiding meat because of one of its production branches does not eliminate the pollution created to bring soy milk in your latte or transport the three bean salad you had for lunch. Plant-based habits do not exempt anybody from the impact of a first-world human in 2018, either, regardless of its diet.

The fact that fruits and vegetables are the most wasted food group is by far the most prominent elephant in the room, as more than half of the total production goes to waste at the consumer and manufacturing level! All this water, volatile pesticides released into nature, and petrol to fuel the tractors expended for nothing.

Most of the waste rots in landfills and produces the same greenhouse gases as factories and cars. Meat might require a lot of resources for production, at least most of it gets eaten.

Vegan justice warriors need to clean up their act before erecting the moral high-ground used to sermon meat eaters. Dietary choices are a raindrop in the ocean of the phenomenon known as the environment.

Healthier?

Health is the final pillar left to support the moral high-ground of veganism. The scriptures speak of a kingdom of health, free of heart disease and colon cancer for those who practice the vegan dogma with utmost diligence.

Here is a thought experiment: You are a subject in a grand scientific study designed to understand the impact of nutrition on health. The scientist in charge asks you to fill out a detailed food log and include all other lifestyle habits for a whole year. The answers will provide the data necessary to make statistical conclusions.

Fast forward one year later. Have you filled out the survey on a daily basis as instructed? Are your answers accurate or were they sometimes estimated? I would expect the righteous human that you are to have followed the directions carefully, but everybody forgets sometimes.

Can you remember what you had for lunch last month? Maybe you can, and good on you.

Now, imagine one hundred of your acquaintances also filled out the survey. Do you believe they followed the instructions on a daily basis? Are their answers accurate? I have much faith in you, honest human. But them?

What about 50,000 random people? What are the odds that their answers were accurate and honest?

The scientist collects the same type of data from 22 different countries, then discards two thirds from his statistical analysis. His results indicate those who consume more saturated fat are a certain percentage more likely to die than those who eat more grains and vegetables.

Someone in the media finds the study, spreads it all over under some catchy headline such as "Saturated Fat Causes Heart Disease." The population goes wild in fear, so the government steps in and issues a nationwide policy against saturated fat.

Think this scenario is silly? This dubious scientific practice was enough to convince George Mcgovern to create the Dietary Guidelines for Americans in 1977. The same ambiguous data also supports claims from The China Study or the World Health Organization's warning that meat causes colon cancer.

A study with twenty million participants only accounts 0.3 percent of the world's population. Does this warrant a species-wide generalization on food and health?

The world is sicker than ever; People with below average cholesterol still die from heart disease, vegans get cancer, yet people eating nothing but meat cure their digestive disorders without any fiber. Is it possible humans still have a weak scientific understanding of their bodies and minds?

Or perhaps that some corporate entity with deep pockets doctored the knowledge for profit?

What will future generations think of our current health wisdom? Heroin started as cough syrup, remember. The Noble Academy awarded their most prized honor to the psychopath that drilled ten-inch ice picks into agitated children's head. George Washington died after a long bloodletting session with his physician.

The same establishment who called the shots back then is still running the show today.

The anti-meat propaganda for good health is groundless. No science in the world that can contradict your body. You know yourself better than anybody else. Disease emerges when the harmony within, known as homeostasis, fails to find peace. Health markers ranging from sleep quality to stress or energy levels, digestion, and mental acuity amongst many others are right reflexions of this inner balance.

The impact of food on these metrics is the only nutrition science that matters to you, but does not necessarily apply to the seven and a half billion physiologies out there. Focus on your body, vegan justice warrior, not the ideology behind your dietary choices.

Our profound ignorance of plants fused with the dubious health science claims and all the pollution caused by agriculture tell me the moral vegan high-ground is a house of cards.

I know there are tons of psychological biases working to justify this stance on the matter. My goal is to raise awareness of the vegan ideology's hypocrisy. I have no right to affirm your food strategy is wrong for your body. I have never met you. Eat whatever suits your experience of life, but do not pretend like you are morally superior because of your food choices.

The thought of death threats and a government taxing specific food products while subsidizing others under the name of health science starts to paint a totalitarian picture, however. One must stand to such nonsense.

History has had enough oppressive religions. No need for more.

Those still reading these words either agree with me and should share this article to rise against the hypocrisy; others might disagree but gave me a fair chance to prove myself, and should share to prove the stupidity of this meat-eater. I thank you for the kindness, either way.

All sources mentioned in this piece are easily accessible on Google. Enjoy the research!

Did you know a growing amount of people are improving their lives with a carnivore diet? Check out their stories at www.meatheals.com

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