I think the impression I got from your text is that it is motivated and overshadowed by a profoundly traumatic personal experience (namely, your body consistently rejecting food, and hence ruining your well-being) and the immense frustration when some vegan people witnessing this degree of suffering went “hey, have you considered, on top of all the existing problems, also introducing an additional complication into your diet by cutting out a huge part of the little that somewhat works for you? It is easy, I did it, it is great for everyone!” This was tone deaf of them. With all the shit you are dealing with, whether it is in theory possible for you to be healthy as a vegan or not, I think it is utterly unreasonable for you to make a situation that is already very, very hard on you even harder. Originally, the definition of “vegan” was “to avoid consuming in a way that harms animals, wherever reasonable.” I like this definition to this day. For you, a reduction in animal product consumption is currently likely not reasonable at all. If you are doing better, and you have the mental and other capacities for it, and want to, I’d be happy to support you in doing so, but getting your health working is clearly more important, and going vegan would entail a significant sacrifice for you that is totally disproportional to the gains.
I think you are aware that your experience is not common, which is why you said so—but the big factor it plays in the text gives a different impression to the reader, because presumably, all the cases you have encountered resonated with you, a lot. Hence all the readers who are stressing that for most people, going vegan does not have to entail any meaningful sacrifice in their health, because most people can be perfectly healthy while vegan. But exceptions like you are valid, and important.
It also sounds like you have heard from a lot of vegans with what I would consider fringe opinions. When this movement started, people kept saying that all the vegans would die within a year. It was incredibly wonderful and satisfying to see that we not only did not die, but were perfectly fine, and even beating some omnis on some health values. For me, the point of this was that we had shown that it could be done. But some people—I think frustrated at having been told over and over that they would starve to death, when they really didn’t, and in fact felt better than prior to going vegan, and had some health values even improve—basically countered by assuming that because veganism helped them, it would help everyone, that it wasn’t just healthy, but somehow massively superior. They clearly wanted to spread something that had helped them, and with good intentions, but I think they are wrong to assume it is superior health wise, or doable for everyone, or safe without any worries (insofar as good nutrition is something everyone should worry about, the more so if they take an existing diet and cut away a chunk of it rather than restarting from the ground up). I angrily correct them when they start spouting that going vegan will fix cancer, or that it is the duty of some disabled kid with massive food issues to go vegan because it is easy for everyone, because that strikes me as actively harmful, and I do remind people of B12 - but then, so does every doctor and vegan advice site. But for the most part, I see them in the context of what is still a majority opinion—all the regular people who go, I couldn’t go vegan, I’d be missing all the things, humans have to eat meat, or they die. That opinion does a lot of harm, and I think it still does more harm than the people who are very excited about veganism.
I mentioned elsewhere in this post that I do not think all animal products are unethical in principle; I don’t have a problem with someone drinking goat milk from a goat that happily hops along some cliffs where we can’t grow shit anyway, or someone eating the eggs from runner ducks they keep in their food forest for slug control. The products most potentially relevant for health are the ones often currently thrown away, not the fancy muscle meat. My major issue is with our current large scale industrial farming ruining animal welfare and the planet, the animals kept in tiny cages, the immense waste of land and water and destruction of rainforests, and production of climate gasses. With people consuming vast quantities of meat that they do not need in any way, that actually make them sick, and that this planet cannot produce. Not with people fulfilling genuine needs in ethically reflected ways. I’m happy for all the ethical products to go to folks like you, because I don’t need them, and I am happy to accept that you do.
I think the impression I got from your text is that it is motivated and overshadowed by a profoundly traumatic personal experience (namely, your body consistently rejecting food, and hence ruining your well-being) and the immense frustration when some vegan people witnessing this degree of suffering went “hey, have you considered, on top of all the existing problems, also introducing an additional complication into your diet by cutting out a huge part of the little that somewhat works for you? It is easy, I did it, it is great for everyone!” This was tone deaf of them. With all the shit you are dealing with, whether it is in theory possible for you to be healthy as a vegan or not, I think it is utterly unreasonable for you to make a situation that is already very, very hard on you even harder. Originally, the definition of “vegan” was “to avoid consuming in a way that harms animals, wherever reasonable.” I like this definition to this day. For you, a reduction in animal product consumption is currently likely not reasonable at all. If you are doing better, and you have the mental and other capacities for it, and want to, I’d be happy to support you in doing so, but getting your health working is clearly more important, and going vegan would entail a significant sacrifice for you that is totally disproportional to the gains.
I think you are aware that your experience is not common, which is why you said so—but the big factor it plays in the text gives a different impression to the reader, because presumably, all the cases you have encountered resonated with you, a lot. Hence all the readers who are stressing that for most people, going vegan does not have to entail any meaningful sacrifice in their health, because most people can be perfectly healthy while vegan. But exceptions like you are valid, and important.
It also sounds like you have heard from a lot of vegans with what I would consider fringe opinions. When this movement started, people kept saying that all the vegans would die within a year. It was incredibly wonderful and satisfying to see that we not only did not die, but were perfectly fine, and even beating some omnis on some health values. For me, the point of this was that we had shown that it could be done. But some people—I think frustrated at having been told over and over that they would starve to death, when they really didn’t, and in fact felt better than prior to going vegan, and had some health values even improve—basically countered by assuming that because veganism helped them, it would help everyone, that it wasn’t just healthy, but somehow massively superior. They clearly wanted to spread something that had helped them, and with good intentions, but I think they are wrong to assume it is superior health wise, or doable for everyone, or safe without any worries (insofar as good nutrition is something everyone should worry about, the more so if they take an existing diet and cut away a chunk of it rather than restarting from the ground up). I angrily correct them when they start spouting that going vegan will fix cancer, or that it is the duty of some disabled kid with massive food issues to go vegan because it is easy for everyone, because that strikes me as actively harmful, and I do remind people of B12 - but then, so does every doctor and vegan advice site. But for the most part, I see them in the context of what is still a majority opinion—all the regular people who go, I couldn’t go vegan, I’d be missing all the things, humans have to eat meat, or they die. That opinion does a lot of harm, and I think it still does more harm than the people who are very excited about veganism.
I mentioned elsewhere in this post that I do not think all animal products are unethical in principle; I don’t have a problem with someone drinking goat milk from a goat that happily hops along some cliffs where we can’t grow shit anyway, or someone eating the eggs from runner ducks they keep in their food forest for slug control. The products most potentially relevant for health are the ones often currently thrown away, not the fancy muscle meat. My major issue is with our current large scale industrial farming ruining animal welfare and the planet, the animals kept in tiny cages, the immense waste of land and water and destruction of rainforests, and production of climate gasses. With people consuming vast quantities of meat that they do not need in any way, that actually make them sick, and that this planet cannot produce. Not with people fulfilling genuine needs in ethically reflected ways. I’m happy for all the ethical products to go to folks like you, because I don’t need them, and I am happy to accept that you do.