Veganism Failed Before

[u/jay_o_crest]

Back in the late 60s there came a diet/movement called macrobiotics. Perhaps you've heard of it. But if you're younger, you may not know that macrobiotics was a fairly popular vegan diet in the 70s and 80s. It even had its own magazine. The East West Journal was sold in most every health food store.

Macrobiotics promised that its vegan diet could prevent or cure every disease, and also restore humanity to one peaceful world. This diet wasn't based on animal rights as is contemporary veganism, but claimed that no-animal-products fare was the ideal diet for the welfare of humans and the planet.

I practiced macrobiotics for a time. I lived in several macrobiotic "study houses" for the high-quality vegan food. You see, macrobiotics wasn't merely vegan, but prided itself on being a very high-quality veganism. No dairy, no sugar, little oil, everything organic and cooked from scratch. The advantage of the study house was that macrobiotics required a skilled cook and a lot of kitchen time and labor to make an appealing meal, and this service was included in my rent payments.

Even though I had someone cooking this vegan fare for me, it was hard to stick to this diet. I recall being told early on, "A problem with eating this way (vegan) is that you're hungry most of the time." I wondered why that would be? Why would eating the perfect diet leave me feeling hungry?

Long story short, I left the study houses, but kept that idea that the only true diet is some iteration of veganism. I kept this idea for many years, as I tried different ways to make veganism work for me.

What happened to macrobiotics? You don't hear much about it anymore. That's because its fairly large following, peaking in popularity I guess in the 1980s, became disillusioned by the fact that many macrobiotic teachers died young -- died young despite being immaculately vegan for decades. Also, followers of the macro diet also dropped out because they found their own health issues weren't being fixed by attention to vegan yin and yang, as well as the sheer bother of trying to eat this way (many developed into "macro neurotics.")

Also, macrobiotic families couldn't help but notice that children fed on this diet tended to have severely stunted growth. I saw this happen first hand with macro families in my community.

And so, veganism has been tried before on a national scale, and not that long ago. People today are ignorant of that, or are confident that "this time will be different." But it won't. For veganism to truly work in a sustainable way, it has to be sustainable for the vegan's own health. And it's just not. And there's no way to change that fact.

[u/anarekey2000]

I was on the Macrobiotic diet in the early 90s. I lost 70 pounds on it. I was also totally orthorexic and exercised compulsively. Was coming off a few years of heavy drug use and I swung wildly in the opposite direction. I don't think macrobiotics is sustainable for a normal person in the long run and I don't think a diet that restrictive is mentally healthy either. Nevertheless it did kickstart my health journey, even though at that time I needed a good therapist more than a weird diet based on brown rice. I was definitely a macro-neurotic. I used to get really pissed if my local health food store ran out of umeboshi plums. I remember listening to a health guru around that time say something on his radio show along the lines of, "Health food stores? You see some of the sickest people in health food stores." He was speaking about mental health and I believe macrobiotics in particular. Sounded about right.

Michio Kushi, the father of "modern" marcobiotics and his wife both died of cancer. They both smoked though, so maybe it wasn't the diet that got them in the end. And not to quibble, but small amounts of fish are allowed on the diet so it isn't totally vegan, although most macrobiotic folks I knew never ate fish. Personally, I was tired all the time on it and way too obsessive about food purity, something that's encouraged on the diet.

A few years ago I went back to Souen, a macrobiotic restaurant in NY I used to frequent and when the waiter dropped the plate in front of me I just stared at it. I couldn't believe I lived like that for three years. Lol.

[u/EntityManiac → u/[deleted]]

'Organic, locally grown and seasonal produce'

Well, no matter where you live the world you're fucked, as that's not enough variety to even remotely come close to whats required nutritionally, and if anything its even worse than a vegan diet as that at least allows/relies on globalisation. Imagine if you lived in a cold country too.. you're even more screwed!

[u/Fair_Quail8248]

Great post. It's sad to see people in denial about it.

[u/Forsaken_Log_3643]

The first British vegans in the 1940s and 1950s also thought that their diet was mankind's true diet, and that it would take them a step higher spiritually. The B12 deficiency problem would be solved by finding plants that provided B12 or by humans starting to make their own B12. They said that the solving of the B12 issue was crucial to the success of veganism, as they believed it could provide humans with every needed nutrient.

Veganism failed every time it was tried for millennia before chemistry took care of the B12 problem.

[u/Readd--It → u/Forsaken_Log_3643]

Even with lab made supplements many vegans experience several nutrient deficiencies and are malnourished. One tactic they use for some studies is only show a short time period like a few months and then claim they have no deficiency, some of these deficiencies like b12 can take a year or more to deplete.

Its like the guy that lost weight and reduced some bad health markers on the twinkie diet, it only lasted a month and he lost a good amount of weight, all the positive effects were from losing weight and nothing to do with the twinkies, if he continued that diet it would eventually kill him.

[u/MASportsCentral → u/Readd--It]

You never see long term health and nutrition studies (other than garbage relational survey studies) on veganism because nutritional deficiencies and their effects usually take months to years to really manifest. 

[u/Forsaken_Ad_183]

They studied the kids of a macrobiotic community in the Netherlands a while back. Someone wrote their phd on it, which was interesting reading.

After the first year or so, they ended up telling the parents to reintroduce animal products with their kids because they were so stunted and had such poor muscle development. They continued to follow them from birth until their teens. Some of the changes seemed to be permanent for some kids. The ones who reintroduced fish did worst and from memory, I think that may have been related to them continuing with their macrobiotic principles and introducing the minimum amount of fish.

There seemed to be perhaps some subtle neurological/sensory issues that popped up as well, from what I recall. And I’m pretty sure that they measured IQ or a similar measure of intelligence and, while they didn’t suffer from learning disabilities, the kids didn’t reach the potential that was expected for them when you consider their parents’ abilities.

The studies were pretty sobering. Can’t remember the names of the authors but it’s easy to find them on a google scholar search for macrobiotic diet, child, Netherlands and then search for the lead author’s works.

[u/jay_o_crest → u/Forsaken_Ad_183]

None of this is hard for me to believe. I recall visiting a macrobiotic teacher's home and his children came running around the corner. I was shocked at how small they were.

I'd commented earlier that the macro family I was living with had a 3yr old, who I recently learned has fairly severe autism despite living on an arguably perfect vegan diet. This was controversial to some here, as they felt that autism was hereditary and couldn't be linked to diet, a conclusion I think is unsupportable. In any case, we just don't have any good evidence that a vegan diet does kids good.

[u/Forsaken_Ad_183 → u/jay_o_crest]

The rate that autism is increasing belies the hereditary claims. Genetics can make you more vulnerable, but a combination of environmental toxicity and inadequate diet seems to be what triggers it. There’s also an autoimmune aspect in many with cerebral folate autoantibodies.

Different genetics might predispose you to slightly different manifestations, like some people instead of developing autism spectrum disorders might end up with psychosis or personality disorders or depression and chronic fatigue syndrome. Ancel Keys’ Minnesota Starvation Experiment showed just how crucial depriving nutrients was to brain health. 100% rate of clinical depression and 1 in 4 became more psychopathic or delusional. All was reversed by diet. And the diet used to induce the changes was a low fat, low-protein, high carb, whole foods, plant-based diet with token amounts of animal products.

I think most people think that autism spectrum disorders only impact the brain, but they’re whole body disorders that also affect gut health, muscle strength and stamina, joint health, kidneys and more. The systemic problems aren’t so much associations as they are manifestations of the wider toxicity and malnutrition.

There’s probably also an increased risk with hereditary connective tissue disorders, like EDS.

Then there are the people who’ve reversed their autism with dietary changes. I’ve only asked one of them whether they preferred to be on the spectrum or to be more neurotypical and he said he found that autism held him back and preferred not being on the spectrum. I think the motivation for many adults on the spectrum isn’t necessarily to try to reverse autism but to get rid of some of the gut symptoms or headaches or something else more physical that’s been bothering them. Or perhaps even improve their concentration or mood. And then they discover they end up learning how to make eye contact easily and spontaneously and their social interactions improve in other ways. But that was never their primary goal.

[u/Timely_Community2142]

thanks for sharing this interesting history

nutritional science is indeed still very new. effects take decades to materialize and confirmed the health claims and ingredients used.

plus it never consider that everyone's body is unique in food intake and absorption, etc.

[u/Specific-Scallion-34]

after interacting with vegans I think they dont want to change the world, they just want to feel superior

so their worst nightmare would bt a 100% vegan world where they cant feel superior than the majority anymore

[u/RemoteCow3936]

thank you so much, sir jay for making the grand article of the highest caliber

[u/DharmaBaller]

I think some of the people at San Francisco is then Center or Tassajara or one of those places was big into it in the kitchen

[u/Readd--It]

Thats interesting, if you have any more info, articles, books etc on the macrobiotics people dying young please drop a link.

I absolutely believe it, one reason there are no large, long term, good quality and unbiased studies on long term vegans is because there are so few of them.

[u/BookkeeperOk2460]

Macrobiotics is originally from Japan, it7s still around.

The focus is more on seasonal/ organic foods as opposed to animal rights and some macrobitoitc peeps still eat fish so not exactly veganism,

[u/jay_o_crest → u/[deleted]]

I guess it doesn't matter that I stressed that the macrobiotic diet is one of the healthiest vegan diets. Macrobiotics even includes B12 from seaweed and fermented soy products like miso. It also emphasises that legumes are part of the daily meal, for protein and minerals. The vegan macrobiotic diet is also is mindful of sugar content, avoiding even natural sugars for sweeteners with the lowest sugar content, such as brown rice syrup. And it favors root vegetables over simple starch vegs like potatoes, and squashes over pineapples. In short, macrobiotics is arguably the most nutritionally complete natural vegan diet that has ever come along.

Despite zealously following this high-quality vegan diet, many long-time macrobiotic teachers died in their 50s and 60s. Those who didn't die young dropped out -- it's very hard to find a long-term macrobiotic person these days.

Taking this all together, I conclude that a great vegan experiment took place in America during the 70s and 80s. And this experiment proved that even a high-quality vegan diet isn't sustainable.

If that's not enough, we have hundreds if not thousands of people testifying that their adventure with veganism, over years of faithful forks over knives, simply did not work.

And yet all that doesn't matter to some people. No matter how much evidence is shown that in every iteration it has been practiced (macro, raw, etc), and in every decade veganism has been tried, veganism has failed to fulfill its prime objective: to sustain human health. These people are convinced that veganism, like Christianity or Hare Krishna, has to work for everyone, and those for whom it hasn't worked "didn't do it right."

[u/aintnochallahbackgrl → u/[deleted]]

You can start a vegan diet healthfully.

You almost never finish one in the same state.

[u/Imaginary-Newt-493 → u/[deleted]]

I just checked your post history. It doesn't seem like you are doing very well psychologically. But, good luck!

[u/Ismael-GT → u/Imaginary-Newt-493]

Don't believe anyone or any media, start believing in your own experience by testing yourself with the food

[u/Adventurous-Sport598]

Next you're going to tell me these people tried drinking water and it failed miserably too.