3 ethical reasons to eat a whole foods plant-based diet for health
Why should ethically motivated vegans embrace a healthy way of eating?
What’s the difference between “veganism” and “plant-based eating?” The standard answer is that going vegan is for the animals while going plant-based is something one does for their personal health. The classic test is that of the Oreo cookie. When a new vegan discovers with joy that “Oreos are vegan!” a plant-based eater replies: “Ugh, they’re full of unhealthy ingredients!” Inevitably, a seasoned vegan chimes in: “I’m vegan for the animals, give me the Oreos.”
In the immediate sense, the seasoned vegan is right: no animals are directly involved in the making of those classically unhealthy cookies. However, I would like to argue that living vegan on a diet consisting mostly of processed, refined, salty, and fatty foods has deep ethical implications beyond their own health, for animals, for less-privileged humans, and for the environment in the long-term. I’m not talking about the environmental destruction caused by palm oil. Bear with me as I unpack my reasoning for the first time here.
Junk-food vegans’ health outcomes aren’t much better than those of omnivores’
Due to the small number of vegans, vegetarians, and plant-based eaters in the general population, it is challenging to draw subtle conclusions from the prospective population studies we rely on to understand the relationship between eating patterns and long-term health outcomes. To provide more nuance, data collected about study participants’ food intake has been analyzed using “diet quality scores” that reflect the nutritious character (or lack thereof) of what is eaten. When using those indices, a diet limited to white rice and Oreos does not get lumped in with a diet of colorful salads with lots of vegetables, legumes, and whole grains.
Those scoring systems, such as the “Mediterranean Diet Score,” the “Alternative Healthy Eating Index,” and the “Pro-vegetarian Dietary Pattern” generally give higher scores to eating habits that include more plant-based whole foods, and take away marks for meat and processed food consumption. While those indices are far from perfect research tools, they at least allow us to gain some understanding of the comparative health outcomes of “whole foods plant-based vegan diets” (which include lots of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds) compared with “junk-food vegan diets” with few whole grains and unprocessed legumes, and more deep fried foods
The results are in, and it’s not great news for those who haven’t been making their own vegan burgers from whole ingredients.
Here are some examples of concerning trends:
- The risk of metabolic syndrome (a cluster of at least 3 symptoms including high abdominal fat, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high triglycerides, and low HDL cholesterol) is more elevated in those eating a vegan diet high in refined carbohydrates, sugars, and salty foods. Diets high in whole plant foods seem protective.
- Bone health: Dairy’s failure to actually strengthen bones doesn’t automatically make a vegan diet bone-friendly. A vegan diet rich in legumes, dark leafy greens, and calcium-set tofu most likely provides plenty of calcium and protection, especially if combined with weight-bearing exercise and some other key nutrients. However, poorly planned vegan diets seem associated with lesser bone health and an increased risk of fractures. In addition, the sodium abundant in processed foods and vegan meats decrease calcium absorption.
- Liver disease: the risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is decreased with a healthy plant-based diet, while unhealthy plant-based diet increases the risk.
- Stroke risk: A recent analysis of the EPIC-Oxford study found an elevated risk of hemorrhagic stroke in the combined veg* group. The exact cause of the risk was not pinpointed by the study’s authors, however some speculate that low-fiber diets and low vitamin B status could be at play.
Drugs are tested on animals
When presented with the risk of adverse health consequences of a steady diet of vegan donuts, ethical vegans may shrug: “So what? I don’t even know if human lives really deserve to be saved compared to innocent animal lives.”
That point also gives me pause, however the question is not exactly a matter of life and death.
Chronic disease usually presents itself progressively. Ethical vegans fueled by processed foods won’t instantly die as their LDL cholesterol become excessively high, or if they develop a tumor that should be surgically removed. Perhaps they’ll choose to address those issues with lifestyle interventions (including by adopting a healthier way of eating), but in the meantime many will be convinced by their doctors or loved ones to embrace traditional therapies (drugs, surgery…) to reduce the severity of their condition. Those traditional approaches were developed by experimenting on animals.
Others will not be so lucky to be able to choose: a stroke may leave them disabled for life, with various degrees of awareness. They may or may not even be able to refuse treatment or express their preference to continue eating a vegan diet at that time.
At the individual level, cultivating a healthy body and mind thanks to a whole foods plant based diet is not an absolute guarantee of perfect health. However, it does decrease the odds of finding oneself in the pharmaco-medical system or unable to live according to our convictions.
If this does not sway you, consider the stakes at the societal level, which are much higher.
Governments are addicted to destructive economic growth to pay for rising health care costs
The burden of chronic disease is massive and growing fast. The costs associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and renal failure are scary on their own. Combine those with dementia such as Alzheimer’s and the long-term costs of caring for the sick, both in monetary and in personal terms, will make your head spin. In the United States, one of the most wealthy and least healthy countries in the world, health care costs represent 18% of GDP, and that number does not even start to reflect the burden of ill-health on the lives of the sick and their caregivers. It also underrepresents the opportunity cost of those years during which individual lives become dedicated to medical treatment, as opposed to creative and productive endeavors.
In countries with a single payer healthcare system such as Canada, those healthcare costs are tacked onto the governments’ budget and must be paid for with taxes. The tax base has to grow constantly because the cost of healthcare keeps on rising along with the growing burden of chronic disease. Where do taxes come from? Governments largely rely on the extraction and transformation of natural resources into value-added products, and more generally on consumption, for income. If we all stopped trashing the planet to create ever more gizmos and doodads, governments would find themselves with a shrunken tax base. How would we pay for health care then?
In countries such as the United States where individuals and organizations pay for healthcare, the costs are more distributed, but the addiction to growth remains. Individuals find themselves unable to leave meaningless jobs where they create or sell ever more gizmos and doodads because they cannot risk going without the health insurance provided by their employer. Even in the USA, a significant amount of healthcare costs are borne by public programs such as Medicare, and so the addiction to economic growth pervades every level of society.
Economic growth means more resource extraction and transformation, more energy expenditure, more transportation, more habitat destruction, more pollution, more greenhouse gas emissions, and so forth. That’s bad news for every living thing on earth, including non-human animals.
Living healthy another day with a smaller footprint
Cooking one’s own healthy plant-based meals from basic ingredients requires a little more effort than popping vegan nuggets and fries in the toaster oven. But if it means that we can live longer, healthier lives as vegan activists without contributing as much to the destruction of natural wonders, isn’t it worth the effort? Not everyone has the resources to procure and prepare healthy vegan food at home, but those with a basic kitchen and small grocery budget can get started any day with simple cooking. I’ll help — just hit me up in the comments.
