To follow up after more pondering: I think it is the title. Veganism having “trade-offs, and one of the axes is health” sounds to me like “veganism will necessarily make most people sick in a significant way they should carefully consider before going vegan to see if this is a sacrifice they are willing to make”, and that, I would not have agreed with at all. I think for near everyone, the problems are fixable, and that I have not sacrificed my health for veganism in any relevant way.
But the specific statements in the text—that a vegan diet can be harmful, if badly done, like any diet; that it isn’t necessarily suited for everyone, if that person has a lot of allergies or severe digestive issues; that being careless about your diet, vegan or not, is not a good idea; that while veganism avoids some health issues from excessive meat consumptions, it comes with risks of deficiencies in turn that need to be countered—I would all agree with. I’m in the camp “For the vast majority of people, veganism can be done without relevant harm to their health, while achieving a lot of ethical good. For most people, this is not as hard as they think. Some may even feel better and get healthier, but I wouldn’t rely on that, and you should put some thought into changing your diet so profoundly, and do regular blood tests to make sure you haven’t dropped something you needed.”
But collectively, I wouldn’t title these statement the way your text was titled. But more as “please get blood tests, folks, nutrition is easy to fuck up and impactful” or “can we please not guilt sick people into going vegan, they have enough shit on their plate without complicating their diet further via restrictions” or “can we please not promote veganism as a panacea, the data does not support this, going vegan doesn’t make french fries suddenly healthy” or “B12 and D3, supplement it, people, seriously, how many times do we need to tell you”.
To follow up after more pondering: I think it is the title. Veganism having “trade-offs, and one of the axes is health” sounds to me like “veganism will necessarily make most people sick in a significant way they should carefully consider before going vegan to see if this is a sacrifice they are willing to make”, and that, I would not have agreed with at all. I think for near everyone, the problems are fixable, and that I have not sacrificed my health for veganism in any relevant way.
But the specific statements in the text—that a vegan diet can be harmful, if badly done, like any diet; that it isn’t necessarily suited for everyone, if that person has a lot of allergies or severe digestive issues; that being careless about your diet, vegan or not, is not a good idea; that while veganism avoids some health issues from excessive meat consumptions, it comes with risks of deficiencies in turn that need to be countered—I would all agree with. I’m in the camp “For the vast majority of people, veganism can be done without relevant harm to their health, while achieving a lot of ethical good. For most people, this is not as hard as they think. Some may even feel better and get healthier, but I wouldn’t rely on that, and you should put some thought into changing your diet so profoundly, and do regular blood tests to make sure you haven’t dropped something you needed.”
But collectively, I wouldn’t title these statement the way your text was titled. But more as “please get blood tests, folks, nutrition is easy to fuck up and impactful” or “can we please not guilt sick people into going vegan, they have enough shit on their plate without complicating their diet further via restrictions” or “can we please not promote veganism as a panacea, the data does not support this, going vegan doesn’t make french fries suddenly healthy” or “B12 and D3, supplement it, people, seriously, how many times do we need to tell you”.