My MIL went off the vegan deep end about a year ago. She 100% believes that anything can be cured by going vegan, and non plant-based foods are what causes every issue. Not even exaggerating, she believes that within 8 weeks of going vegan, you’ll be cured of: alzheimers, dementia, diabetes, cancer, hormone issues, autoimmune diseases, permanent disabilities, autism, and basically anything else wrong with you genetic or otherwise.
You can tell her you met someone, me, who has two of the things on your list and has been vegan for 3 years.
It’s sweet that you think facts or reality matter to her, that went out the window a long time ago. We also stopped talking to her a couple months ago, for a lot of reasons
I have IBD, which is something that often requires surgery. I’ve seen so many people online shaming IBD sufferers for getting parts of their colon removed rather than “just trying keto/vegan/whatever”, as if they wouldn’t have died without the surgery. It infuriates me to no end that they blame the victims of these diseases, like we haven’t all tried god knows how many diets to get the pain to stop.
Not even exaggerating, she believes that within 8 weeks of going vegan, you’ll be cured of: alzheimers, dementia, diabetes, cancer, hormone issues, autoimmune diseases, permanent disabilities, autism, and basically anything else wrong with you genetic or otherwise.
As someone with at least two things on your list, this sounds perfectly believable to me, and she’s far from alone - people who buy in to this and similar crap (have you tried yoga? Acupuncture? Reiki? Keto? Fasting? the list never ends) will pop up like slimy slugs after it rains to pester disabled people with their almost missionary, ableist bullshit.
Surprised I haven’t seen this in the replies. This type of thinking is why Steve Jobs tried to fast and diet his way out of pancreatic cancer which led to his death.
Nah but a whole food plant-based has been scientifically proven to help with all those issues.
Scanned through your link. It doesn’t mention most of them. It also almost immediately lumps vegetarian and low meat in with vegan. Lastly, it spends as much time talking about environmental concerns as health ones.
About all it says on the matter is that a healthy diet helps more than an unhealthy one. Vegans also tend to have a healthier diet. It’s perfectly possible to have a healthy diet, including meat, and gain the same benefits.
You’re in denial as your second paragraph is straight up misinformation as you cannot be just as healthy when you’re continuing to eat meat as processed meat is a class 1 carcinogen and red meat is a class 2a carcinogen.
There is a significant amount of research done on the benefits of the whole foods plant-based diet.
Animal flesh will increase the amount of your cholesterol intake increasing your risk for heart disease as they’re also high in saturated fats.
Certain types of fish contain high amounts of mercury due industrial pollution with predator fish species having the highest amounts.
Not to mention all the possible food contaminantion.
Posting the second tweet (or whatever bluesky calls it) because the context is important imo:
I agree with all of this.
$0.02: bigots need rigidly defined in/out groups to feel strong and safe, and their awful behavior is self-reinforcing through fear of their peers. More succinctly: everyone in that club knows how they treat “others”, and so fear being one themselves. This also explains why social progress meets so much backlash, as bigots are clinging to their rules like a kind of psychological life-preserver.
Also applies to “I’d rather die than be disabled” in its many forms.
And I just posted this in another comment, but I think it’s relevant here too:
What’s wrong with “I’d rather die than be disabled”? To me it looks a legitimate personal moral stance.
To me it looks a legitimate personal moral stance.
Congratulations, you’re an ableist.
Edit just to give anyone who might actually give a shit a clue: if you replace disabled with any other marginalised group and your point becomes glaringly bigoted, it’s also bigoted when you aim it at disabled people. It’s really not that fucking complicated.
Can you explain why? Why can’t I choose not to live in case I’d get disabled (in some cases, I would say)?
As long as you are not advocating that disabled people should be killed, and you respect the personal nature of this position, what is the problem?
Since you added an edit later on: no replacement makes that statement bigoted. If my own morale or ideas bring me to my own evaluation - that applies only to me - that life in a certain condition wouldn’t be worth living, there is nothing bigoted (at least, inherently).
I wouldn’t want to live so many lives that people live. Like an exploited worker in a poor country, a female in a very religious society etc. Ultimately this is a personal decision on your own life and body, nobody else should have a saying on what I want to do with my life at this fundamental level.
The problem (which becomes being ableist, or racist, or sexist) is when this perspectives becomes an ideology that affects society. You can easily support a society that - say - grants equal opportunities to men and women and at the same time think that you wouldn’t want to live as a woman.
peak MeRiToCrAcY
At the risk of receiving the ire of Lemmy, there are some notable exceptions to this. I can’t speak for all disabilities, but for bipolar disorder, there are a LOT of non-pharmecutical things I have done that makes my life so much better. For me, the #1 best thing I can do is exercise. It sucks because that is the most intensive thing to do, but once I started running a 5k a day, and then cooled down a bit due to my poor knees (now I got into rock climbing), I have been listed as “Bipolar-in remission” by my doctors. This isn’t just anecdotal, there is plenty of research on this subject that shows the link between exercise and mental health.
I would also consider “taking my meds” as under the “healthy living my way out of disability”, but just taking them isn’t enough.
I of course will extend the caveat that I am physically abled to do these exercises, and there are bipolar folks who are unable to make this happen, but if I’m offered a tool to help make my life better, I’m going to use it.
Also to extend deeper into the ire, when people with bipolar disorder choose not to take their diagnosis seriously and refuse treatment, not only can it be harmful to those around them, but also to those of us who are trying to shirk the stereotype of “unstable and dangerous manic depressive”. When Kanye was manic and went off on his neo Nazi rants, many people said “well, he’s bipolar so it’s not really his fault”. He wasn’t taking meds, and he was ignoring his health leading into it.
Personally, that exoneration is upsetting because so many of us are putting in the effort to live healthy stable lives and accept responsibility for our actions, even when manic. Being manic is an explanation for terrible behavior, but it isn’t an excuse. When we believe that bipolar people can’t help but be awful, people will hear about my diagnosis and believe that I will be awful and I can’t help it. It’s dehumanizing.
One more note on this post- it seems to lend itself to hopelessness. Of course it was talking about chronic illness as a whole, and of course chronic illness isn’t a monolith, but having the thought of “there’s nothing that can be done” isn’t something I’m willing to accept, at least for myself. To quote Emily Dickinson, Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and it sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. Every day I hope that tomorrow will be better than today, but I know hope is merely enough. I need to do the work. Sometimes I don’t hear the tune, but it’s always there waiting should I lend an ear.
I think what the post does very well in it’s most core point is address the stigma that abled people have towards the disabled. I’d say the imperative word in the post is “just”. You can’t just healthy living your way out of chronic illness. For some, healthy living has a huge benefit, but for me to get to where I am wasn’t easy, in fact it asks for effort every day, and I know to be in my current mental space takes a lot more effort than it does for others.
From BoJack Horseman: it gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier, But you gotta to do it every day, that’s the hard part. But it does get easier.
TL;DR I live with Bipolar disorder and I have found healthy living has saved my life, and while many can’t do what I do, letting people off the hook for not taking care of themselves with a dangerous illness creates the stereotypes that negatively impacts people who manage their bipolar disorder.
Edit just to cover my basses, when talking about folks that choose not to address their bipolar disorder/ not exclusing manic episodes, I’m addressing those with a diagnosis and have the means to access medications and help and then actively choose not to. I’m more willing to cut some slack for someone who had a bad prescription and are still finding what works for them, or folks who don’t have access to medical care (which is an abomination that medicine isn’t universally accessible).
Also have bipolar, used to walk and run all the time… didn’t help
Ya know what did help? Getting medication and realizing how inappropriate and insane the shit I did when I was either tripping balls on a mania or suffering agony and desiring death in a depression. Now all I can do is try to make amends with anyone I wronged while I wasn’t in my right mind, and try to remember things that I just buried during the wild mood swings.
God, I gotta call my therapist tomorrow there’s no way around it
