[Lifestlye] My body resists veganism. What’s the most ethical alternative?

[BirSaNN]

Suppose a person is very concerned about the ethical issues around food and farming, especially animal welfare, but for whatever reason finds that a wholly plant-based diet does not work for them. What is the most defensible step away from veganism – the best compromise to make, if it is a compromise at all?

About a year ago, this question became vivid to me soon after I set out on an experiment: a near-vegan diet for a month. For some time, I have tried to eat in a way mindful of ethical issues, avoiding, albeit imperfectly, the products of inhumane factory farming. But I have eaten animal products, including meat and fish, regularly. After I spent a lot of time in recent years working on questions about animal minds (initially trying to understand octopuses and other cephalopods, and then moving on from there), the ethical questions around food began to feel quite pressing. So I wanted to find out how I felt on a diet with almost no animal products.

My plan was near vegan, as I allowed myself two eggs each day, and some minor deviations (I didn’t worry if I was given butter for my toast, didn’t query the details of Thai sauces and stayed with my usual fish oil tablets). The eggs were included because, ever since another series of dietary experiments a few decades earlier, I have found that a high-protein and fairly high-fat diet is best for my general wellbeing. So, I thought, two eggs would help smooth the transition, along with protein supplements. Free-range eggs I see as the most ethical of all widely available animal products. Some vegans hold that eating eggs of any kind is unethical, while others at least see this choice as more defensible than other animal foods. (Peter Singer, in his book Animal Liberation, regards free-range egg production as acceptable.)

The aim of the experiment was to look at the possibility of heading towards veganism, and to do this primarily for animal welfare reasons. I accept some of the arguments against meat made on environmental grounds, but the issues around animal suffering are primary for me.

To my surprise, the experiment quickly became an illuminating failure. The regimen was, after just a few days or so, much harder than I had expected. I felt unsettled, tired and much of the time quite cold, surprisingly (in February in Australia). Heartburn, headaches, inattention … it did not go well. On day 10, I decided to change plans and add some dairy products to the diet for the middle third of the month. This transition was just as surprising as the previous one. Immediately I felt fine, with all those problems out of the picture. I felt better than fine, in fact – very sharp. Ten days after that, I resumed the near-vegan regime. The results were as discouraging as before, and I switched back. By the end of the month, I’d spent half of it mostly vegan and half as a vegetarian.

Perhaps I should have stuck with the first, mostly vegan diet, and waited to get used to it. (My understanding is that one’s microbiome, one’s gut ecology, has to make a shift.) But I was reluctant to do this, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. With that unsettled feeling, day after day, I suspected I was more vulnerable to pathogens than usual. I expected to catch Covid-19 at some stage (as I did, a month or so later), and wanted to be physically well-equipped to fight it off.

link: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/feb/27/my-body-resists-veganism-whats-the-most-ethical-alternative