Is It Necessary to Consume Animal Products?

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume IV, p. 54 of the PDF edition · English translation

It is sometimes argued that consuming animal products is necessary for maintaining good health and that, therefore, consuming animals is justified.

However, consuming animal products is not necessary for maintaining good health. This is attested by many organizations of nutrition experts around the world. Examples are the positions of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics¹³⁵, the National Health Service of United Kingdom¹³⁶, the Dietitians Association of Australia¹³⁷, Dietitians of Canada¹³⁸, the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute¹³⁹, the Asociación Española de Dietistas y Nutricionistas¹⁴⁰, the Sociedad Argentina de Nutrición¹⁴¹, Portugal's Programa Nacional para a Promoção da Alimentação Saudável¹⁴², the Italian Society of Human Nutrition¹⁴³ and Nordic Co-operation¹⁴⁴, which includes Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. These are not vegan organizations (in fact, they publish other studies on animal-based diets). What leads them to take this position is simply the weight of the evidence.

For example, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics concluded that a well-planned vegan diet is healthy and nutritionally adequate (and may even help prevent and treat certain diseases) at every stage of life¹⁴⁵, including pregnancy, breastfeeding, childhood, adolescence, and old age, as well as for athletes¹⁴⁶. This is because what we need are the nutrients that foods contain, not specific foods¹⁴⁷. Moreover, even if it were necessary to consume animal products, we should still research how to make this unnecessary, just as, if it were necessary to kill other humans in order to survive, the right thing to do would be to research how to make that unnecessary.