Should we stop eating meat for the environment?

Meat-free diets are not necessarily nutritious

Question: Should we stop eating meat for the environment?
Position‹4 of 4: No - It is hard to maintain a nutritious diet
Argument1 of 3›: Meat-free diets are not necessarily nutritious

Cutting out meat is only the first step in a vegetarian diet. What you choose to eat instead of meat is equally important, and avoiding meat may just lead to a less nutritious diet. Don't forget, Oreo's are vegan!

The argument

There are plenty of vegetarian and vegan foods that are unhealthy, and cutting out meat does not change this. Eliminating meat is therefore not automatically healthier than meat-based diets. Plenty of plant-based meat substitutes are heavily processed and can be as equally unhealthy as meat. Dietician Elena Fricke explains that "Many meat substitutes are highly processed foods," and "a lot of meat substitutes, they'll say their food is vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based, but it's not necessarily healthy." Meat is often the most filling part of a meal, and meat-free diets can struggle to satisfy a person's hunger. As a result, some vegetarians and vegans overfill on refined carbohydrates to compensate for the lack of meat and unintentionally create less healthy diets. Avoiding meat does come with health and environmental benefits, but these benefits only materialise if it is substituted with healthy and sustainable alternatives. To ask people to avoid meat for the sake of leading healthier lives and saving the planet neglects the fact that there are plenty of other sources of unhealthy and unsustainable foods out there causing damage to our bodies and planet. Simply avoiding meat is therefore not the ultimate solution.

Premises

[P1]Many vegetarian and vegan foods, including heavily processed meat substitutes, are just as unhealthy as meat. [P2] Meat is often the most filling part of a meal, so meat-free eaters may overfill on refined carbohydrates. [P3] The benefits of cutting meat only materialise if it is replaced with healthy, sustainable alternatives. [C] Therefore, because meat-free diets are not necessarily nutritious, it is hard to maintain a nutritious diet without meat.

Counter-arguments

The nutritional value of any diet, be in meat-based, vegan, or vegetarian, depends on the food you do end up eating. With a little bit of planning, meat-free diets can be equally or more healthy than meat-based diets. With a little research, meat-free diets can provide all of the necessary nutrients for a healthy diet. And in the same way that some meat-free diets can be unhealthy, meat-based diets can also be unhealthy. For example, many processed types of meat like chicken nuggets are meat-based but are also full of chemicals and carry no nutritional value. To dismiss vegetarian diets because there are some unhealthy alternatives ignores the fact that there are plenty of healthy meat-free foods too.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] True, and it applies equally to the alternative. Processed meat is classified by the IARC as carcinogenic to humans, and a diet of nuggets and sausages is not made nutritious by containing meat. A premise that convicts both sides equally cannot support a conclusion about one of them. [Rejecting P2] Satiety is not a property of meat as such but of protein, fat and fibre, which legumes, tofu, nuts and whole grains supply. That some people substitute refined carbohydrates describes a poorly planned diet, and the same substitution is available to anyone; the premise treats one common mistake as a feature of the diet. [Rejecting P3] This premise defeats the conclusion. If the benefits materialise when meat is replaced with good alternatives, then a nutritious meat-free diet is plainly achievable — the opposite of what the conclusion claims. Major dietetic bodies have found appropriately planned vegetarian and vegan diets adequate at all life stages, with vitamin B12 supplementation the one clear requirement, and "requires planning" is a long way from "hard to maintain".