What if the World went Vegan?

• A tragic case of severe malnourishment and death of an 18-month-old child highlights the potential implications of strictly vegan diets for children, leading to growth retardation and deficiencies in essential nutrients. Furthermore, studies suggest that following a vegan lifestyle may affect fertility and also impact one’s mental health, increasing the risk of depression and cognitive decline later in life.

• Moderation and balance were key features of Prophet Mohammed’s (saw) diet, which included a judicious portion of meat sourced ethically as tayyab (wholesome and pure).

Picture this:

It’s lunchtime in the office. Francesca, the vegan and pro-choice campaigner, very kindly shares her tasteless, I mean eggless, home-baked chocolate brownies with you. A conversation about what alternative coconut oil she used for binding her ingredients and how her brownies are ‘so much more healthier’ seems on the horizon. The cultural garment placed on you is to feign interest, politely nod, and attentively listen, irrespective of your genuine disinterest in this exchange. However, despite believing in killing babies, “love has no bounds”, “Men are inherently all misogynists”, and eating brownies with no eggs, Francesca perpetually seeks to assert her perceived moral high ground over anyone and everyone in the office. However, she isn’t a terrible person. Like many individuals aligned with the progressive “woke” ideology, she appears to have forfeited her independent thinking capabilities, leading to the forceful imposition of her homogenised beliefs onto others. Alas, conforming to the prevailing societal norms seems to be her modus operandi.

As a caveat, not all vegans are woke, liberal leftists who possess the same beliefs. It’s important not to stereotype and to give dawah with compassion. However, here’s the ammunition you may need to deal with a “Francesca” of your own in the workplace (in the hope of not merely magnifying mendacious vegans but more importantly, to compete with corruption):

“Eating meat is cruel”: Taking a closer look at the impact of Veganism on children

In 2019, Vegan parents were charged with the murder of their malnourished 18-month-old son. In Florida, Ryan Patrick O’Leary, 30, and Sheila O’Leary, 35, were charged with aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter, child abuse, and two counts of child neglect, according to State Attorney Amira Fox. The parents had starved their 18-month-old son to death by only feeding him fruit and vegetables. The charges also involved three of their other children who were malnourished, one to such an extent that the child’s teeth had to be removed

Opting for a strictly vegan diet for children is inherently abusive. When it comes to providing them with the essential nutrition required for optimal growth and overall well-being, challenges will always be presented. To oppose this is simply untenable. This is evidenced in a Longitudinal study conducted by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 418 0–10-year-olds consuming a plant-based macrobiotic diet and a matched omnivorous control group were closely examined in the Netherlands. The study found that growth in the vegan infants was retarded, mainly between 6 and 18-month-olds. Ubiquitous deficiencies of energy, protein, vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium, and riboflavin were detected in macrobiotic infants, leading to fat and muscle wasting and slower psychomotor development (the relationship between cognitive function and physical movement).

‘The Society for Research in Child Development’ took a closer look at the Cognitive abilities of children in relation to their nutrition. 555 Kenyan school children were fed soup daily with and without meat. They were tested before and after the study to see how their intelligence compared. Due to their economic circumstances, the majority of the children were de facto vegetarians at the start of the study. By the end of the study, it was concluded that the children who were given the soup containing meat each day seemed to have a significant edge. By the end of the study, they had outperformed all the other children on a test for non-verbal reasoning. They also did the best on a test of arithmetic ability. In addition, UCL research finds vegan diets can cause irreversible damage to a child’s nervous system

Veganism causes issues for couples trying to conceive

The Journal of Human Reproductive Sciences (lww.com) asserts that 1/3 of vegan males have depleted iron stores. It concluded that this deficiency, consequently, can negatively impact sperm production. Reproductive biologist Grace Dugdale cautions that Veganism may be fashionable but could cause problems for women trying to conceive as they are likely to be deprived of iron, zinc, vitamin B12 and Omega 3 (found in white fish and dairy).

Grace Dugdale The Reproductive Biologist, who advises infertile couples, addressed a question surrounding veganism and fertility during a Fertility show in London. She cautioned that veganism may be fashionable but could cause problems for women trying to conceive, as vegans are likely to be deprived of iron, zinc, vitamin B12, and Omega 3 (found in white fish and dairy).

Deteriorating Mental health and other health issues

Vegetarian women have 33 per cent higher risk of breaking a hip | New Scientist. In addition, a study by Harvard University in 2019, titled ‘Plant based diets are best…or are they’, examined 50,000 people and the impact of their diets. It found that the rates of stroke were 20% higher among vegetarians.

Vegetarianism and veganism compared with mental health and cognitive outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis – PubMed (nih.gov) found that vegan or vegetarian diets were related to a higher risk of depression. Warning on vitamin B12 deficiency for vegans and vegetarians – Quadram Institute tells us how due to the fact that vegans are 60% more likely to have Vitamin B12 deficiency-B12 deficiency can cause heart palpitations, fatigue, anxiety, anaemia and breathlessness. Vegans are therefore more likely to be presented with the aforementioned health complications. Also, the study: Vitamin B12 status and rate of brain volume loss in community-dwelling elderly | Neurology found that later in life, the amount of B12 in a person’s blood has been directly correlated with their IQ. In the elderly, the study found that the brains of those with lower B12 were 6 times more likely to be shrinking.

Veganism’s impact on the environment

The Mind-Boggling Math of Migratory Beekeeping – Scientific American tells us how California’s booming almond industry uses 31 to 80 billion migrant honeybees a year in order to achieve maximum pollination during the almond trees’ two-week bloom. Interestingly, California produces up to 80% of all the world’s almonds and could not achieve such a mass scale without migratory beekeeping. American avocados also fully depend on bees’ pollination to produce fruit, so farmers have turned to migratory beekeeping as well to fill the void left by wild populations. Many Vegans who claim to have chosen this diet explain that they have done so in order to avoid cruelty to animals. However, many of them still drink almond milk and eat avocados and almonds despite being aware of migratory beekeeping and billions of bees dying every year.

Joseph Poore, a researcher at the University of Oxford who studies the environmental impacts of food, says, “It’s essential to be mindful about everything we consume: air-transported fruit and vegetables can create more greenhouse gas emissions per kilogramme than poultry meat, for example.

Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK | SpringerLink Delicate fruits like blueberries and strawberries are often imported by air to Europe and the US to fill gaps left when local fruits are out of season. Research by Angelina Frankowska, University of Manchester, recently found that asparagus eaten in the UK has the highest carbon footprint compared to any other vegetable eaten in the country, with 5.3kg of carbon dioxide being produced for every kilogramme of asparagus. This is due to the fact that much of it is imported by air from Peru. She and her colleagues found, in fact, that the healthy green has the largest environmental footprint of any of the 56 vegetables they looked at, including its land use and water use.

Vegan social media influencer dies from a predominantly fruit-based diet

Raw vegan influencer, 39-year-old Zhanna Samsonova, died on 21st July after switching to a tropical fruit diet that led to starvation and exhaustion, her friends say.

Samsonova was known on social media for sharing her raw vegan diet, which saw her consume mostly fruit. She died after seeking medical attention during her travels in Southeast Asia.

Hollywood stars are ditching their trendy vegan diets

Anne Hathaway quit her vegan diet after feeling weak, ‘The Devil wears Prada’ actress told People magazine how she ate fish after being a vegan for over a decade. She said after had she finished eating her meal, she felt “her brain was re-booting like a computer.” , and that she “Did not feel, good healthy or strong being a Vegan.”

Liam Hemsworth Had to ‘Rethink’ Vegan Diet After Health Scare according to People’s magazine. During this juncture of his life, he developed a calcium oxalate kidney stone and had to undergo surgery. He said, it happened “from having too much oxalate in his body, caused by too many vegetables.

In answer to the question initially posited, if the world went vegan, mayhem would reign supreme.

Allah says in the Qur’an:

O mankind, eat from whatever is on earth [that is] lawful [halal] and good and do not follow the footsteps of Satan. Indeed, he is to you a clear enemy.

2:168

As Muslims, we firmly believe that Allah, in His wisdom, would never permit anything harmful to us. However, we observe that many financially capable Muslims indulge excessively in meat consumption. Perhaps, taking a respite from meat could prove surprisingly beneficial to everyone’s well-being.

What was the Prophet Mohammed (saw’s) diet?

In the culinary footsteps of Prophet Mohammed (saw), we see how a trail of moderation and balance adorned his diet, with a judicious portion of meat, mind you, sourced ethically as tayyab. Alas, the meat of our modern tables often falls short of meeting these tayyab standards.