
Originally Posted by
cmac
As a retired vegan, I'd advise you to stop wasting your time arguing with those who are addicted to meat, convenience and the protein short cut. Remember, not all people are set up to make the switch and are better off living a life of ignorance, like eskimos.
In general, people who eat meat are neither "addicted" to it, nor ignorant. I could stop eating meat if I so chose; there's no psychological or chemical compulsion pushing me to eat it. I just happen to like it. (By contrast, I do feel that I get addicted to sugar.)
And after enduring dozens of Dualta's posts, I don't think you can say I'm ignorant of the current research on meat. But I've made the decision that for me, the potential risks of eating meat are outweighed by the enjoyment I get from it.
What are the actual risks of eating meat? Well, the study Dualta linked to doesn't say. The article claims that "eating one hotdog or two strips of bacon per day was associated with a 20 percent increased risk of death". But that scary statistic is essentially meaningless unless we know the absolute increase in risk of death, not the relative increase.
For example, let's say the overall risk of death by nutrition-related causes for all people in a certain age group is 0.0005%. Eating meat raises that risk by 20%, which brings it all the way up to 0.0006%. Is the enjoyment of eating meat worth that amount of additional risk? For many people, it is. And the people who do these kinds of nutritional studies deliberately avoid talking about increases in absolute risk because they know the amounts are so small that nobody would care.
Somebody might show you a study proving that motorcycle riders are 10 times more likely to die in a crash than car drivers, but you would still choose to ride. Not because you're ignorant of the risks, but because for you the enjoyment you get from riding is worth it. And if that same person kept coming back again and again showing you similar studies saying the same thing, you'd probably start avoiding him in a hurry.
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