In my original answers I address why this is not the case (private communication serves this purpose more naturally).
This stood out to me as strange. Are you referring to this comment?
And regardless of these resources you should of course visit a nutritionist (even if very sporadically, or even just once when you start being vegan) so that they can confirm the important bullet points, whether what you’re doing broadly works, and when you should worry about anything. (And again, anecdotically this has been strongly stressed and acknowledged as necessary by all vegans I’ve met, which are not few).
The nutritionist might recommend yearly (or less frequent) blood testing, which does feel like a good failsafe. I’ve been taking them for ~6 years and all of them have turned out perfect (I only supplement B12, as nutritionist recommended).
I guess it’s not that much that there’s some resource that is the be-all end-all on vegan nutrition, but more that all of the vegans I’ve met have forwarded a really positive health-conscious attitudes, and stressed the importance of this points.
It sounds like you’re saying that the nutritional requirements of veganism are so complex that they require individualized professional assistance, that there is no one-page “do this and you will get all the nutrients you need” document that will work for a the vast majority of vegans. You seem to dismiss this as if it’s a minor concern, but I don’t think it is.
> I have a lot of respect for Soto for doing the math and so clearly stating his position that “the damage to people who implement veganism badly is less important to me than the damage to animals caused by eating them”
As I mentioned many times in my answer, that’s not the (only) trade-off I’m making here. More concretely, I consider the effects of these interventions on community dynamics and epistemics possibly even worse (due to future actions the community might or might not take) than the suffering experienced by farmed animals murdered for members of our community to consume at present day.
After reading your post, I feel like you are making a distinction without a difference here. You mention community dynamics, but they are all community dynamics about the ethical implications of veganism in the community, not the epistemic implications. It seems perfectly fair for Elizabeth to summarize your position the way she does.
This stood out to me as strange. Are you referring to this comment?
No, I was referring to this one, and the ones in that thread, all part of an exchange in which Elizabeth reached out to me for clarification.
In the one you quoted I was still not entering that much detail.
I’ll answer your comment nonetheless.
It sounds like you’re saying that the nutritional requirements of veganism are so complex that they require individualized professional assistance, that there is no one-page “do this and you will get all the nutrients you need” document that will work for a the vast majority of vegans.
No, what I was saying wasn’t as extreme. I was just saying that it’s good general practice to visit a nutritionist at least once, learn some of the nutritional basics and perform blood tests periodically (each 1 or 2 years). That’s not contradictory with the fact that most vegans won’t need to pour a noticeable amount of hours into all this (or better said, they will have to do that the first 1-2 months, but mostly not afterwards). Also, there is no one-page be-all end-all for any kind of nutrition, not only veganism. But there certainly exist a lot of fast and easy basic resources.
After reading your post, I feel like you are making a distinction without a difference here. You mention community dynamics, but they are all community dynamics about the ethical implications of veganism in the community, not the epistemic implications. It seems perfectly fair for Elizabeth to summarize your position the way she does.
Yes, of course, we were talking about veganism. But in the actual comment I was referring to, I did talk about epistemic implications, not only implications for animal ethics (as big as they already are). What I meant is “if there is something that worries me even more than the animal ethics consequences of this (which are big), it is breeding a community that shies away from basic ethical responsibility at the earliest possibility and rationalizes the choice (because of the consequences this can have for navigating the precipice)”.
This stood out to me as strange. Are you referring to this comment?
It sounds like you’re saying that the nutritional requirements of veganism are so complex that they require individualized professional assistance, that there is no one-page “do this and you will get all the nutrients you need” document that will work for a the vast majority of vegans. You seem to dismiss this as if it’s a minor concern, but I don’t think it is.
After reading your post, I feel like you are making a distinction without a difference here. You mention community dynamics, but they are all community dynamics about the ethical implications of veganism in the community, not the epistemic implications. It seems perfectly fair for Elizabeth to summarize your position the way she does.
No, I was referring to this one, and the ones in that thread, all part of an exchange in which Elizabeth reached out to me for clarification.
In the one you quoted I was still not entering that much detail.
I’ll answer your comment nonetheless.
No, what I was saying wasn’t as extreme. I was just saying that it’s good general practice to visit a nutritionist at least once, learn some of the nutritional basics and perform blood tests periodically (each 1 or 2 years). That’s not contradictory with the fact that most vegans won’t need to pour a noticeable amount of hours into all this (or better said, they will have to do that the first 1-2 months, but mostly not afterwards). Also, there is no one-page be-all end-all for any kind of nutrition, not only veganism. But there certainly exist a lot of fast and easy basic resources.
Yes, of course, we were talking about veganism. But in the actual comment I was referring to, I did talk about epistemic implications, not only implications for animal ethics (as big as they already are). What I meant is “if there is something that worries me even more than the animal ethics consequences of this (which are big), it is breeding a community that shies away from basic ethical responsibility at the earliest possibility and rationalizes the choice (because of the consequences this can have for navigating the precipice)”.