PR campaign may have fuelled food study backlash, leaked document shows | Eat-Lancet report recommended shift to more plant-based, climate-friendly diet but was extensively attacked online

www.theguardian.com PR campaign may have fuelled food study backlash, leaked document shows

Eat-Lancet report recommended shift to more plant-based, climate-friendly diet but was extensively attacked online

vegan @lemmy.world

PR campaign may have fuelled food study backlash, leaked document shows

www.theguardian.com /environment/2025/apr/11/pr-campaign-may-fuelled-food-study-backlash-leaked-document-eat-lancet

15 1

Environment @lemmy.world

PR campaign may have fuelled food study backlash, leaked document shows

www.theguardian.com /environment/2025/apr/11/pr-campaign-may-fuelled-food-study-backlash-leaked-document-eat-lancet

9 0

You're viewing part of a thread.

Show Context

48 comments

If you didn't have this condition, then would you make the switch?
- Having this issue makes me aware ADIs can't be maintained for an average person, for a single nutrient, so I am not convinced it'd be healthy long term or during development. Looking at other nutrients like amino acids would probably be a similar story
  
  So really, you just have anti-vegan bias. In actuality plant-based diets consistently show themselves to be among the most health promoting, and longevity promoting. Also, multi-generational vegans exist now days. It's established that plant-based diets are entirely appropriate for all stages of life, even pregnancy and childhood.
  If even body builders have no problem meeting their nutritional needs on plants, do you really think it would be so hard to get all your choline and tmg on plants? Plenty of people here have shown you there is no shortage of options. In your dismissals of these attempts to help, one of the major factors you're ignoring is that no one eats a single ingredient as their food source. So even if you're not quite eating enough soybeans to reach a benchmark, you also have to keep in mind that these nutrients are in a wide variety of foods, and you'd most likely be getting doses of it from virtually everything you eat.
  And also as pointed out, supplements are readily available. Like if I had your condition, I would not trust any diet to meet my choline needs, and would supplement anyway. And if I did, then why not make it a plant-based supplement?
  So you can do this, and frankly quite easily. Here's the thing: you're getting hyperfocused on raw numbers. You can't actually know that a thing works until you put it to the test. When I went vegan I was also really nervous that, what if there is something in animal products that I need to live, and I'll die if I stop eating them?! I tried anyway, found out through real experience that plants do meet all my needs, and made me feel significantly better in the process at that.
  That was when I understood the sheer amount of societal animal ag propaganda that had been drilled into me all my life, that it was all nonsense, and that experience was a liberation in and of itself.
  Oh, and you said in another comment that you don't have factory farming where you live? Judging by your server, are you from Australia? Then you should definitely watch Dominion, because you absolutely do have factory farming, and you are definitely contributing to it.
  
  There are so many popups on your "US News" source I can't even read it. The second link is just selling a book. The third link completely misquotes the Australian source that states b12 supplementation is necessary and careful planning is required to meet basic nutritional needs. B12 is an essential component of the folate cycle so that's another negative for me.
  All the studies I have read on veganism's benefits have been impacted by serious inconsistencies between the vegan and control groups, such as people who eat vegan carefully planning their diet and wanting to eat healthy. Control groups essentially always contain people who eat shit and don't care. Additionally, practically all consider lower or loss of body fat a core focus or benefit which is a clear indicator populations are not being compared correctly. Of course health conscious people will have lower bodyweight, lower fat. As would people getting inadequate nutrition.
  Dietary studies are the most unreliable field of science. Broad generalisations are made, even single food items are difficult to study and worst of all, everyone is assumed to react the same to a given diet
  We have all these diverse people who come from long lineages of specialised genetics for eating specific local foods. There is no single diet appropriate for everyone.
  To even begin to have a useful study, you'd need to compare people of similar genetics, who eat planned, considered and healthy diets. Even then it's going to be problematic with supplement use and other factors needing correcting.
  I have seen a few good Nordic diet studies, again applicable to only their genetics, but vegan diets were not compared.
  Vegans are a very small subset of the population who are health conscious and meticulous, very difficult to find a fair control. Same with microplastics and nanoplastics, we don't have valid control groups as everyone has been exposed.
  I'd much rather continue consuming a healthy, balanced ancestral diet.
  
  Alright, if we're in low-effort territory here, I'm just gonna quick-fire these off.
  Why are you not using an adblocker?
  Are you allergic to books? Okay, here's the entire list of scientific studies cited in that book. All 8000+ of them.
  It's not a misquote, that's just not relevant information for what the article was trying to convey, and the need for taking b12 is implied by "well planned." Also, if you have a basic understanding of how b12 is formed, you'd be stupid not to be taking b12 supplements anyway. No diet in our present environment can reliably supply b12 from whole food sources - and odds are you are taking b12 supplements anyway, because in many cases the animals you eat were fed supplements themselves.
  That's really just your personal opinion of what you claim to have read about vegan diet studies, which doesn't say much since you have already made it clear you're extremely biased and don't like reading. Also, "such as people who eat vegan carefully planning their diet and wanting to eat healthy" - so you're admitting that a vegan diet is healthy? Also, you are clearly not familiar with any vegan communities, because junk-food vegans are prevalent.
  Dietary science is incredibly complex, and there's a vast amount to learn still, but no it is not unreliable. Nutritional science is imperfect, and deeply impacted by corporate corruption, but still very much has a solid core. What's most unreliable is people actually following the recommendations of the scientific consensus, or even being able to begin learning what that is through all the noise of corporate propaganda which basically comes from the same stale playbook as the tobacco companies, and climate deniers, such as the garbage talking points you're spewing right now. I hope you're getting paid for this, because otherwise it's just sad.
  Umm, no they don't do that? Science is how we understand edge cases like food allergies, lactose intolerance, celiac disease and other autoimmune disorders, and every other nutritional edge-case that sometimes needs to be accounted for. But yeah, sorry, but humans are all made of a very similar biochemical make-up - there is an overall dietary pattern that fits most of the human population. (To be clear, if we're talking about nutrition alone, the scientific consensus leans most strongly in favor of the Mediterranean diet, which is not a vegan diet. But a vegan whole-food plant-based diet can fit that pattern just fine).
  Aside from that fact that with enough volume of evidence, no you don't necessarily need everyone to have the same genetics, there are other ways around those variables; same genetics? You mean like this study on twins which found that a vegan diet improves cardiovascular health?
  Yeah there are often sample size problems in vegan studies, I'll admit that. That can be worked around, but best way to solve that in the long term is for more people to go vegan.
  Dude, are you indigenous to Australia? Cause if not, you are literally hundreds to thousands of miles away from your "ancestral" diet, smh. But aside from your diet probably not being healthy, considering it contains animal products, it sounds more like you would rather just keep your head buried in the sand and not care about the fact that your "ancestral" diet is dependent on the industrial-scale systematic confinement, forced genetic modifications, torture, sexual assault, and slaughter of billions of sentient beings every year; something that is also one of humankind's most environmentally destructive endeavors, and continually creating conditions for one pandemic after another.
  Giving up animal products is one of the most important, impactful, and meaningful decisions you have a chance to make, and the only thing getting in the way is your own prejudice and devaluing of other living beings.
  
  Okay, here’s the entire list of scientific studies cited in that book. All 8000+ of them.
  this is a bare faced gish gallop
  
  That's just your opinion.
  
  ublock origin doesn't block them
  tldr
  b12 supplements are fundamentally essential for folate defects
  nothing to comment on, you make vague assumptions and ad hominem attacks
  you simultaneously write it's complex, imperfect and full of corruption, but also that it's not unreliable. Pick a stance
  what dietary pattern fits the whole global population?
  I spent way too much time reading this. Despite being twins, the study shows the vegan group started the study much healther, with a healthier diet, eating less processed meat, with far lower LDL cholesterol. During the study the vegans were made to eat significantly less, and the non-vegan group was forced to eat more than they did before the study. The measures of success included fat loss and insulin again like I mentioned, a poor marker. Simply fasting or eating less would achieve the same results - which is exactly what the vegan group was made to do. There is nothing of value learned here.
  correctly set up RCTs with large groups would address the problem but AFAIK no one has ever succeeded
  you can eat a close to ancestral diet without living in the same place... your hyperbole and dramatisation is wild. I have visited several farms, none of which treat animals poorly. I'm sure some farms have horrific conditions and should be shut down, but that's unrelated to vegan nutrition and ventures into whataboutism
  Thanks for the discussion but I am done
  
  It’s established that plant-based diets are entirely appropriate for all stages of life, even pregnancy and childhood.
  this is no longer the position of the academy.
  
  No longer the position of a academy, post-Trump administration. As if anything can be trusted from US institutions anymore.
  
  even the old position paper mostly discussed risks associated with a vegan diet.
  
  And it also discussed benefits, such as lower risk of certain diseases.
  
  Even the new paper (the very one you linked to) says that the subject of pregnant women and people under the age of 18 are simply out of the scope of the paper. To interpret that as meaning in anyway that they're saying people need to eat animal products to be healthy is factually incorrect.
  "This Position Paper addresses vege- tarian dietary patterns in adults aged 18 years or older who are not pregnant or lactating. Facilitating vegetarian di- etary patterns in individuals younger than age 18 years and/or for those pregnant or lactating requires specific guidance that considers how vege- tarian dietary patterns may influence these crucial stages of growth and development and is outside the scope of this Position Paper. The target audi- ence for this article is RDNs, NDTRs, and other health care practitioners."
  
  their previous position was that a vegan diet could be healthy for children or pregnant or lactating people. that is no longer their position.
  
  Where does it say that?
  
  they let that position expire, and when they issued a new position, it specifically excluded them. the expired position is not their current position.
  
  You cannot draw that conclusion from that one article, particularly when the article says explicitly, "... and is outside the scope of this Position Paper." Presumably they either have, or will be, writing more specific guidelines for children and pregnant women on plant-based diets, but so far this is what I've found on their paper on nutrition benchmarks for children:
  "Some children may also require dietary modifications for certain cultural or religious preferences, including vegetarian diets,4 which may also have added benefits. A recent study of one child-care center in South Carolina found that adding vegetarian meals to the menu improved the nutrient content of foods provided while keeping total energy, saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol relatively low.11"
  To read that paper and infer that it's claiming plant-based diets are unsafe for children and pregnant women requires such a thick degree of bias it's just desperate. Especially in the context of every other health authority around the world affirming that a properly implemented plant-based diet is safe and adequate for all stages of life. You really need to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself why you're trying so hard to lie about this.
  
  they let that position expire in 2021 and didn't write a new position until this year, and it's specific to adult nutrition.
  https://www.jandonline.org/article/S2212-2672(25)00042-5/pdf

48 comments