Vegan girl

Remove all ads!

Drew, I am not implying that all vegans are sanctimonious nutjobs. But there are some vegans, vegetarians, or what have you that are so busy patting themselves on the backs about how brilliant/superior they are that they lose perspective on reality. Obviously you're not one of those, but those parents obviously weren't as educated about their lifestyle choices as you are.

Bottom line, it's their fault that she is sick, and no amount of sophistry can change my opinion about that.

As for your sister, I feel bad about what happened to your family. However, I believe that the two cases are quite different. The rickets was a direct result of their stupidity and lack of a sensible vegan diet. Cancer isn't.

 

Worldwide, most people don't drink milk (which isn't even a natural source of vitamin D - we fortify it), eat liver, or even fatty fish, yet severe D vitamin deficiencies nearly never happen because, as BTA pointed out already, most people get their D vitamins from the sun. This deficiency is an easy one to overlook for anyone. More importantly, you sidestepped the main issue. I fully agree that the parents needed to pay more attention to their daughter's diet (or at least give her a multi). That much is obvious, but this idea that the parents ignored her symptoms because they were too busy patting themselves on the back is poorly thought out, at best.

You are assuming that the parents were too busy patting themselves on the back to notice that their daughter was sick. You assume far too much. I brought up my sister (who, if you're curious, survived her cancer and is now a sophomore in college) as a way of pointing out that doctors miss things. From the article, we have no way of knowing how many times this girl was taken by her parents to the hospital, but we do know from the article that she's been there at least a few times for fractures, so it's not like the doctors didn't have a few missed opportunities to spot a larger problem. You also have no way of knowing whether the parents weren't themselves clued into a potentially larger problem with their daughter. They may have brought such concerns to a doctor (as my parents did with my younger sister) only to have the doctor incorrectly diagnose their child or simply fail to recognize that there was even a problem. These things happen all the time. The first time Michael J Fox went to a neurologist (and he went to one of the best in the world) with Parkinson's symptoms, the neurologist concluded there was nothing wrong with him and he was a picture of perfect health. Just because you think there is something wrong with you or your child doesn't mean your doctor will agree and even if the physician does agree that something is wrong, that is no guarantee that the diagnosis will be correct.

 

Why not raise them for Veal?

Bullets are more effective in this regard.

Let's take a closer look at the practices and see what's actually necessary...

How does that impression spread? It is precicely that impression that leads to the discounting of what they have to say on the topic. We want information (loading the link as I write this), not a sales pitch. We certainly don't want to be vilified for a less than total conversion. We just want a more balanced diet that might even be a little healthier...

I just looked at the link. It takes learning and planning to implement correctly, but what does this teach those of us that don't want to give up meat?

 

Have you ever looked at the veal industry? I shouldn't have to explain to you why this industry is so universally reviled that most meat eaters won't eat veal.

You apparently don't know what the stun gun is for. A bolt is shot into the cow's forehead to stun it so it isn't conscious while it is slaughtered. Bullets are expensive and shooting a cow (let alone 300 an hour) in the head is kind of messy. The bolt only fails a little under 5% of the time in a well run slaughterhouse (but only about 33% of slaughterhouses manage a failure rate of less than 5%), but that 5% is conscious during slaughter...and a flailing cow hanging by one leg from a hook tends to present a safety problem for the workers on the floor. If you want more humanely slaughtered meat, buy locally slaughtered Halal meat (larger Halal operations are less consistent and the slaughtering is often so ineptly done that you are better off going with the bolt) or buy directly from a butcher who does the slaughtering in-house. A butcher doesn't have to "knock" 300 cattle an hour, so he has the time to do it right.

That vegans aren't radical extremists who are killing their children, and that it takes just as much learning and planning to implement a proper vegan diet as it takes to implement a proper meat based diet. No more, and no less. The only real difference is that we auspiciously learn about conventional nutrition in school (although most people either don't remember what they were taught or they just can't be bothered to implement it).

 

That's funny drew as millions of pounds of veal are sold every year. I have to say i am skeptical of your 5% failure rate on the bolt gun as you are a vegan & have a (from your POV) justifiable bias.
Your comment on the larger Halal operations shows a bit of a lack of knowledge on your part though. If they were acting as you imply the food would be haram & unfit to eat, this isn't just a money thing for these people but a religious deal. They tend to be a bit more careful when it come to that.
Obviosly these people weren't well informed vegans, have you looked at how long it takes rickets to have that profound of an effect on an adolescent? It isn't something that just happens in a month or even several months time.

 

Either that or gross negligence. Forcing a restrictive diet on a growing child is bad enough, but not checking - carefully - what effects this diet would have on it is failing as a parent, big time. And if you can't do that, then for the sake of the child someone else should. Oh, you feel bad about it? Aww, how nice. Guess the girl must be feeling better already - oh, wait, those were the extra nutrients that the doctors gave her.

BTW, can she be allowed to keep the girl on a provisional basis, i.e. if people check what the girl's diet is? Keeping a 10-year old away from her family can be stressful for the child as well, and she's been through enough already?

 

Drew, obviously doctors can miss things. At no point did I say that doctors are infallible. However, I just re-read the article and it's pretty obvious to me that it is a result of the parents' neglect / incompetence that the girl is sick.

I understand that you see this as an assault against all vegans everywhere but this is not true -- it is an attack on this partidcular set of vegans and their particular mindset, which can exist in people who follow all sorts of diets.

 

Ah, but now you are changing my criteria. I said that the problem with this girl was she was malnourished. An obese child clearly has an improper diet and/or an eating disorder. However, I'd have a really hard time claiming such a child isn't reaching the recommended daily minimums for nutrition. (Again, unless he lives on McDonald's food.) In fact, by definition an obese child is not malnourished.

 

'They Die Piece by Piece'

I'm a meat eater, but I found the above article pretty disturbing.

Doesn't the last sentence contradict what you said immediately prior to it? As you say, an obese child can be malnourished if he/she lives on McDonalds food.

 

The parenthetical reference was there as a caveat. Unless there is some unusual factor involved (like eating tons of junk food that is high in calories and nothing else) you're not going to be malnourished if you're obese. I know a lot of obese kids who don't live on McDonald's food. The only thing wrong with their diets is they eat to much and/or exercise too little.

 

Check Splunge's link. I hope, martaug, that this helps you realize that maybe I'm not quite as biased as you think. I wasn't born a vegetarian, after all.

What are you talking about? You rightfully point out that Halal is a religious standard, but you seem to have conveniently forgotten that Halal operations are for-profit businesses run by secular businessmen which sell to religious groups and the general population. Smaller Halal operations are more likely to ensure that their knife stays sharp and that the person who slits the animal's throat is well trained. They also don't usually slaughter as many animals per hour, so mistakes from fatigue or speed are less likely, but the larger operations are less consistent in that regard. If you are slitting a hundred throats an hour with a dull knife, screw ups are quite likely.

I beg to differ. Most morbidly obese children have morbidly obese parents. This isn't a coincidence. The reason that these kids are morbidly obese is that they eat the same foods their parents eat - junk. They aren't getting obese from too many carrots and potatoes, unless those carrots and potatoes are fried. There are far more morbidly obese people in this country than there are vegans (and morbidly obese vegans are almost unheard of), and there are also far more morbidly obese children than there are vegan children. Most vegan children are perfectly healthy. Morbidly obese children, almost universally, are not.

Taluntain argues that losing the weight can improve a child's health, and this is mostly true. Type 2 diabetes, on the other hand, doesn't go away, and morbidly obese children are more likely to have bone trouble than vegan children, anyway, since most vegans do know how to eat well and ensure their children do, too. Studies have failed to show that vegans have a higher rate of osteoporosis or other bone ailments as the general populace, so in practice, vegans aren't putting their children in any more jeopardy than the general population. The same cannot be said for the morbidly obese. We have 10 year old kids with high cholesterol (because their saturated or trans fat intake is too high) and having multiple heart attacks. We have kids with type 2 diabetes (which is almost always caused by improper diet) so bad that they are already insulin dependent or on dialysis. Many of these kids aren't even obese. They just have high cholesterol or developed diabetes from improper nutrition. Failing to watch your nutrition leads to poor results whether you eat meat or not.

 

I give up

Drew,

I don't know what else to say, other than to rehash the points I have already made, because I don't really think you have done much to refute anything that I've said. I have, in several threads now, conceded that it is possible to lead a healthy, vegan lifestyle. I have conceded - repeatedly - that I believe you do just that. However, I think I'm making a reasonable assertion that this girl's nutritional needs were not being met by her diet alone. Therefore, I think it is reasonable to conclude that if her diet were different, she would not have severe Vitamin D deficiency that have caused permanent damage to her spine.

A lot of kids I know - even the morbidly obese ones - eat cereal with milk in the morning for breakfast. (Note, I don't think it matters that the only reason milk contains vitamin D is because it is fortified with it. I don't really care how the vitamin D gets into milk, but I'm glad that it's there because most kids drink milk.) Of course, my argument isn't just about drinking milk. I simply asserted that the greater variety of food you consume the greater opportunity you have to meet your nutritional needs.

You then brought up childhood obesity, and claim that these kids are malnourished because all they eat is junk. I think this is a flawed stance to take because my argument was that people should eat a diverse selection of foods, and if all you are eating is junk food, then I'd say you don't have a whole lot of variety in your diet. Pointing to obesity as a counterpoint would be valid is I was saying that children should eat a greater quantity of food - but all I was saying is children should eat a greater variety of food. Besides - I've framed all my arguments up to this point around eating a healthy diet - not about eating junk food - so I'm really perplexed as to why you'd bring up obese children who gorge themselves on junk food as a reasonable counterpoint.

It's true that morbidly obese children aren't healthy. It's also true that vegans are not obese. But the majority of people are neither morbidly obese OR vegans, and that's the people I'm talking about.

 

I brought up obesity, type 2 diabetes and the like by way of pointing out that an improper meat based diet carries nearly identical risks to an improper vegan one, and that this nutritional ignorance is just as common with (and just as dangerous for) meat eaters as it is with vegans. Looking at obesity, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart attack, osteoporosis, and stroke rates leads me, at least, to believe that more people are ignorant to their own nutritional needs than not. Our government operates on the same principle. They mandate that Iodine be added to salt and that vitamin D be added to milk for the simple reason that nearly everyone uses salt and drinks milk (adding the vitamin D directly to milk also improved the bio-availability of its calcium since vitamin D is essential for its absorption), even if they don't know a damn thing about proper diet. By thus fortifying such foods, the serious ailments connected to inadequate Iodine or D vitamin intake become more rare.

Before we started fortifying dairy milk in the 1930's, rickets was an epidemic. Afterwards, it became nearly non-existent. Since soy milk is similarly supplemented and the vast majority of vegans drink soy milk, consume tofu products, and eat fortified cereals even if they know nothing about nutrition, D vitamin intake simply should not be a problem for vegans. In other words, being particularly well read isn't as necessary as I think you were trying to imply (although most vegans are well read about the matter, anyway, since they weren't always vegan).

This article was about one kid, not thousands, meaning that by far the vast majority of vegans never develop this problem. In other words, even if you don't know what you are doing, even if you are a sanctimonious nut job (not your words, I know) too busy patting yourself on the back to read up on nutrition, this deficiency shouldn't be happening to you just because you are vegan. If it does, you really, really screwed up. I absolutely agree with you that these parents did something very wrong with their child, but I take exception to the idea (which admittedly wasn't yours) that the reason that the child developed rickets was that her parents were vegan.

[tangent]In an off topic side note pertaining to something you said about obesity, high BMI has been found to severely hamper vitamin D absorption. This is why the morbidly obese have such a high risk of vitamin D (and nearly any other mineral) deficiency even if they somehow are taking in a proper diet (which isn't bloody likely). Fat cells squirrel away and alter a lot of vitamins and minerals, depriving the body of them.[/tangent]

 

Drew, i stand corrected on the bolt gun stat & offer a sincere apology.
I still stand by my objection about your comments on the halal operations as these money-hungry businesses still shut operations down to pray at all of the proper times.

[tangent] On BMI's they are such a joke for any serious athlete they aren't even worth discussing. If you have any signifigant muscle mass you will be labeled as overweight or obese. Just look at michael jordan who is skinny but muscular, he classifies as overweight(bmi of 25.4). Reggie bush, one of the fastest men in the nfl almost qualifies for obese(bmi of 29.3) You get into serious lifters & it skyrockets brock lesnar(33.1), john cena(31.7) most rugby players fall between 26-32[/tangent]

 

I never said that. I said they weren't religious institutions and that the larger ones (and even some of the smaller ones) don't always follow all the Halal guidelines, like ensuring that the knife is sharp enough. Like the bolt gun, the problems with Halal slaughtering are also well documented. I'll get you a link later, but right now I'm taking my kids to the park.

 

Have fun, my kids(the dogs) are in the backyard chasing squirrels.

 

Here is a good example of the kind of abuses that can happen in Halal or Shehita (the Jewish equivalent) slaughterhouses. Sadly, these types of issues are commonplace.

A snippet:

As I mentioned before, Kosher or Halal slaughter, when done right, is relatively quick and causes minimal suffering...but it isn't always done correctly by the larger operators.

Regarding BMI, martaug, they were specifically referring to the fact that subcutaneous fat robs your body of vitamins and minerals. High performance athletes are obviously a different story.

 

I'm sorry drew but i am leery of anything posted by PETA, as they have a habit of, um, shall we say exaggerating stories towards their viewpoint.

i'll pm about the bmi's as it is off-topic.

 

You obviously didn't follow the link. This wasn't posted by PETA. It was published in the Globe Gazette on December 7th of 2004. A kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa was ultimately shut down (after the article's printing) by the Iowa department of agriculture and a federal probe was launched because of a video captured inside the facility by a private investigator who was hired by PETA, who subsequently made it public.

Temple Grandin, who I quoted in the snippet, is hardly a friend of PETA, consulting as she does for companies like Swift, Excel, and IBP/Tyson. She is no animal rights activist and is often actually at loggerheads with PETA. She is also one of our country's most highly respected professionals in the field of Animal Science, so her words on this matter carry quite a bit of weight. Try actually following the link this time and then call it biased.