Meat is the easiest form of high quality protein. Not everyone's digestive system is amenable to high quantities of non-meat protein sources or to high-carb diets.
How is it easiest? Perhaps most accessible how society is currently setup, but beans, tofu, etc are all good for you, plenty of vegan body builders rely on them.
Sorry, it is easier to eat meat. The protein IS higher quality, easier to digest and more balanced. Eating nutritional yeast and balancing your legumes, tofu and other protein sources to get a proper assortment of B vitamins and amino acids IS harder.
Not saying it's not healthier, not saying is not more ethical, not saying anything except it IS easier. Stop lying.
Do you think all vegans are the same? There is no need to make a huge generalization about a group that is so diverse.
> The protein IS higher quality, easier to digest and more balanced
I've never seen anyone claim that meat is easier to digest than plants. Do you have a source?
In terms of quality, you first need to define quality and that depends on your goals. Whole plant protein comes packed with fiber, while animal protein comes packed with cholesterol, IGF-1 and saturated fat. If your goal is to prevent heart disease and cancer through dietary means, plant protein is higher quality.
> Eating nutritional yeast and balancing your legumes, tofu and other protein sources to get a proper assortment of B vitamins and amino acids IS harder.
This statement makes it clear that you don't know much about vegan diets. This is usually a concern I hear from pre-vegans or people who have been vegan for 2 weeks.
> not saying anything except it IS easier. Stop lying.
If I was ever worried about getting all 9 essential amino acids in a single meal (believe me, most vegans don't think about it), I would eat beans and rice, or lentils and potatoes, or edamame, or tempeh, or quinoa, or hummus and crackers, or a peanut butter sandwich, or tofu. For me, this is a lot easier (and cheaper) than preparing meat.
If you've been eating meat for 20 years, it will be easier for you to keep eating meat, no one is disputing that.
Now, eating out is definitely harder as a vegan, but like the parent said, it's because the way society is currently setup, not because meat is easier to produce.
> Do you think all vegans are the same? There is no need to make a huge generalization about a group that is so diverse.
True, I should have qualified this. It's only a subset of vegans who frustrate me this way.
> I've never seen anyone claim that meat is easier to digest than plants. Do you have a source?
Really? Google "is meat easier to digest than vegetable protein". It literally has millions of results.
> In terms of quality, you first need to define quality and that depends on your goals. Whole plant protein comes packed with fiber, while animal protein comes packed with cholesterol, IGF-1 and saturated fat. If your goal is to prevent heart disease and cancer through dietary means, plant protein is higher quality.
Yeah, I get this argument. It's why I'm eating vegetarian or vegan at least a few times a week these days.
> This statement makes it clear that you don't know much about vegan diets. This is usually a concern I hear from pre-vegans or people who have been vegan for 2 weeks.
I'm going by discussions such the ones in my vegan cookbooks, similar to this one:
> If you've been eating meat for 20 years, it will be easier for you to keep eating meat, no one is disputing that.
That was the crux of my argument: it is NOT easy to be vegan, stop saying it is. It is arguably better. Healthier and more ethically sound. But my vegan days have much more time-consuming shopping, cooking and prep days.
For me, the ethical considerations alone make it harder. It is hard work for me to do things I consider unethical on a regular basis and I'd much rather not have the cognitive load of blocking out information on a daily basis.
My personal experience was that going vegan was much easier than not, as soon as I became aware of what was going on (at around age 18). Once I realized that animals have relationships and emotional lives, it became clear to me that they weren't "food" for me.. in the same sense humans aren't food for me.
Additionally, in terms agriculture, it seems like it requires more work and inputs to create meat, so that is harder as well.
I've been vegan for over a decade and it honestly feels like it's only made my life better.
Yeah, I get that. Farming, especially modern methods, are pretty horrific.
I've been reducing meat in my diet and eat vegetarian a couple of days a week. I try to buy ethically raised meat for other days.
What I was reacting to is the idea that it is some how not an effort to be vegan, as if it isn't any more work than stopping off at MickyD's on the way home ...
I would say that for me it's not any more effort at all, anymore than preferring Pepsi to Coke might be more effort.
Also, yes to reducing intake. The idea you have to go totally vegan to make an impact probably hurts the cause.
My ultimte frisbee coach used to say he would offer to buy people vegetarian meals as an offset, so he could still eat meat.
I dealt with my concern over dating non-vegan women when I realized I'd probably save more animals by the fact they would most likely eat less meat at least sometimes by being with me.
Finally, I think some of the best work being done for animals is the work in startups making vegan meats and such.
What drives you crazy about vegans? That your flawed, biased assumptions are challenged? Protein is in all whole foods. You don't need to eat soy, or legumes, to get your fill as a vegan. You just eat food. Like a regular person. Except you don't hurt animals in the process. Simple!
Weird. All my vegan and vegetarian cookbooks have lentils, beans, chickpeas or tofu. often mixed with nuts, in pretty much every dish. And suggest nutritional yeast as a good source of B vitamins, especially B12 (admittedly as an additive)
This is wrong? Are you claiming you can just eat cruciferous vegetables, for instance, and be fine?
Well, humans require fewer than 5% of calories to be derived from protein, that's about 50-60g for males and slightly less for females. You could eat 2,500 calories of only fruit and still get enough protein. But not B12, that requires a supplement. The sources you mentioned are high in protein, but I would argue they aren't necessary for a functional vegan diet.
Running Room, Livestrong, MyFitnessPal, countless other sites, my running clinic leader, the sports nutritionist at my running clinic, my doctor (certified in sports medicine) all recommended between 80 and 100 grams.
You really don't know what you are talking about do you?
A couple of for profit blogs and people without a nutrition education inform you. Sad. Check any reputable source, like WHO, you are eating too much protein, dude.
This argument boggles my mind. Are we all body builders? Why do we need to eat like them? There's this protein craze going on that we all need to eat the densest sources of protein cause we all look like Arnold.
The amount of protein in seeds, tofu, seitan, nuts, legumes is plenty for almost anyone. And if you are power lifting even omnivore lifters take protein shakes after working out usually.
I'm a Type 2 Diabetic. I control my blood sugar with a low carb, high fat diet. I don't eat extreme amounts of protein, but I do need a form of it that doesn't come with a lot of added carbs, and I think eating whole foods is a lot healthier than eating proteins that have been isolated out of plant foods.
I eat meat and (non-starchy) vegetables. I don't eat like a bodybuilder, but neither is a plant-protein-based diet easy for me.
You're shifting the argument. The point isn't that we need to eat like them, it's that we want to, and meat is delicious.
> The amount of protein in seeds, tofu, seitan, nuts, legumes is plenty for almost anyone.
By that logic, there'd be no point in manufacturing sports cars or macbook pros anymore, because normal cars and Chromebooks have enough power for "almost anyone".
Matter of taste? I don't like it much, never did and I grew up in a family were we ate tons of meat and vegetarian was a dirty word. I like 'a bite' of very good beef, but I could never eat a whole steak; just bores the hell out of me and the taste annoys me after a few bites. Chicken I just don't see the point. Next to a programmer I am a cook (own a restaurant) and I find taste very important; always have. So I think 'meat is delicious' is an opinion of yourself (and often people who never tried much else; people who cook 'without meat' (for whatever reason) often cook very bland; then I can understand it; those meals give 'vegetarian' cooking a very bad name and meat 'automatically' would make those better tasting for a lot of people. I wouldn't eat a barely heated up mashed pumpkin without seasoning either); I prefer other things and sure, if there is a bit of meat in something then it can be nice under the right circumstances.
Raw meat, eggs, and such are very easy to cook and make delicious.
Tofu is already highly processed, and beans require a length cooking time. By any definition of the word, animal protein is less time consuming to make more delicious than plant protein.
You forgot the part where they add a ton of antibiotics to the meat, where it gets infected with pathogens and viruses, then has to be bleached, frozen, and cooked to dangerously high temperatures which produce known carninogens. That's about as processed as you can get.
At least for me, I have a high-sensitivity gut that sometimes verges into IBS territory, if I mistreat it. I can't tolerate beans or similar in any quantity, so I'm left with pretty much tofu as a non-meat protein source. And I have to eat fairly high-protein low-carb to avoid various minor autoimmune nuisances. So if I were to cut meat, dairy, and eggs - I would pretty much have to exist on tofu, and I'm dubious about that being a good idea.
All whole foods have protein. All plant foods have all essential amino acids. The eating meat for protein argument is extremely trite and disproved with ease.
Like changing 80% of all meals to something less desired?
"huge" is debatable, but certainly a valid standpoint. In any way: there are pros and cons and everyone should weigh them against each other: health, price, animal cruelty, taste etc.
My compromise e.g. is non strict (and hopefully non dogmatic) vegetarian with preferably organic diary products.
This argument only works if you assume that people who go vegan enjoys food less than they did before they went vegan. The reality is that most vegans report enjoying food much more. The reason for that is that they are forced to experiment with different flavors and get more creative, which expands their culinary horizons.
This is a faulty argument. People who join various religious sects say the same exact things.
Overlooking whether vegans or religious sects are good, bad or whatever, what really happens is probably that people find other vegan people, become part of a community and enjoy that.
It's the same cargo cult process that makes everyone want an Iphone. I dread the day when a high percentage or, god forbid, majority of people start looking down on those dirty meat-eaters because "won't anyone think of the animals?".
The Amatur Radio Relay Leage (ARRL) has a page with overview on ham radio and information on how to get licensed[0]. The wikipedia page also provides a nice overview[1]. The ARRL sells books which can help you learn the material for the license exams. You might also see if there's an amateur radio club near you; in my experience they're pretty friendly and interested in helping out aspiring hams.
"in my experience they're pretty friendly and interested in helping out aspiring hams."
Talk to people who have been there about station building experiences. I think the answer you'll get is the best maximization of fun is spending around $1 on antenna system for about every $1 spent on radio gear. Hooking up a $1000 radio to a $50 antenna system is likely to be far less enjoyable and lower performance than hooking up a $50 radio to a $1000 antenna system although its about the same outlay of dough and effort.
Also the old timers are pretty good at planning, having been there, and the best antenna system for a plot of land is not necessarily the most expensive or largest.
The main problem you'll find is technological changes, at the feedpoint auto-tuners hit in a big way maybe 20 years ago so maybe 19 years ago you wouldn't get good advice about them or randomwire antennas in general. (OK now, probably). Maybe 30 years ago it took awhile for hams at that time to "grok" ferrite based baluns. I'm not sure what todays misunderstood hotness would be, probably remotely controlled/tuned antennas like magloops with russian vacuum variable caps or those (expensive) steppir things.
Also its a very big hobby. Someone who thinks they've experienced it all either is extremely old and wealthy or is wrong.
It turns out that on the extreme end, the ratio grows to $4 or more per antenna for $1 in radio/computers/etc. A well-equipped tower can have $10,000 worth of parts. This does not count the labor.
The scale range of fun in Ham Radio is quite large.
True, but don't forget SO2R and multi radio contesters, and there do exist $10K tower systems but there also exists radios like the $10K IC-7800 or the merely $8K IC-7700 series. So it is possible to maintain the 1:1 ratio.
Its not entirely audiophile. Impressive engineering, cutting edge stuff, for that price. IP3 of +40 dBm? 110 dB dynamic range IF strip with multiple AGC loops? how the...
The ARRL Operating Manual is excellent. It's appropriate for a complete newcomer to just pick up and start reading, but will go into more advanced topics, like antenna design and satellites.
If you're not licensed, there are flashcard apps for your phone that will prepare to completely ace the test very quickly. The manual's a good reference for any questions you don't understand. I'd also recommend finding a local club or other operator just to get a demo of a basic radio contact and the protocol people follow for conversation. Some of it's mandated by governments, but a lot of it just convention.
Someone who used to work at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in Edinburgh told me that the exact size of a dram is a covenant between the barkeep and their customer ;)
Don't tell them that on Islay. I upset the guide at Ardbeg by pointing this out, who called me a "typical British imperialist, what are you going to do, tax it, sassenach?!".
Just in case anyone is wondering - whisky isn't made from peat, it is made from malted barley that was often dried over a peat fire and this very distinctive aroma was imparted to the malt and then to the spirit.
NB When I was as student I used to have a summer job in a maltings that made malt from barley that was used by a number of distilleries. Note that most maltings are actually fairly large industrial plants - not really the normal image people have of the Scots whisky industry although lots of higher end distilleries do make their own malt.
I don't think there is any lack of peat in Scotland - I guess what there is a lack of is areas where people are happy to ruin the landscape to harvest peat.
e.g. The Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland:
