Vegetarian diets and health: the voice of science needs to be heard - Archive ouverte HAL
Article Dans Une Revue The Conversation France Année : 2017

Vegetarian diets and health: the voice of science needs to be heard

Résumé

Are vegetarian diets the key to healthy aging, or could they be a health risk? These questions are a source of confusion for the general public, and for many scientists too. Why? Nutrition is a complex discipline and it struggles to provide simple answers to issues as broad as the relationships between a range of dietary practices and health outcomes. Are vegetarian diets good or bad? Can we tweet the answer in 140 characters or less? You can add to this intrinsic problem the general trend of society, with less-qualified messengers relaying information that is fragmented and often biased, misinterpreted or indeed uninterpretable. Many viewpoints are advanced, but few reflect any consensus between experts, in particular those from national advisory committees – for example, in France, the United States) and internationally. Even reliable media may highlight a particular study without referring to the hundreds that preceded it. Our diet and the clash of politics and philosophy In this general context, why is vegetarianism subject to so many radically opposed points of view? Beyond being a major societal debate, it’s also a highly politicised one. Pure and impartial science is not fashionable, and cannot be heard above the din of clashing and frequently uninformed views. The fact is that consumption of animal protein has doubled since the end of World War II, but today questions are being raised about the food model of industrialised societies – they are seen as having degraded public health and being unsustainable, particularly in the face of global warning. An underlying reason for our reluctance to deal with these issues is that the consumption of animal products has always been associated with our representations of the world. Vegetarianism is an “ism”. Religions and a number of philosophies have long maintained special relations with the consumption of animal products. To speak of eliminating meat from our diet is to bring into question the representation of man in the universe. It’s also about the place of animals in society, a relationship that has evolved over time. In societies in development, animal products were costly but useful and favoured by those with the economic resources, but we have now entered an era where they’ve become objects of distrust and in some cases symbols of a societal model being called into question. The effect of animal products on the environment or on health, the fight on behalf of defenceless animals… our ethical and aesthetic views are evolving. So should we be for or against animal products? The battle lines are being drawn. Even within the scientific community, rational thinking seems to disappear when the question is raised. But this subject is too important for scientific research to be ignored. Food transitions in western countries seem inevitable, and are in fact already under way. For those who wish to reduce their meat consumption for personal reasons, the question is not “Should I become vegetarian or vegan?” but “How can I become a vegetarian or vegan?” “How” involves understanding the nutritional pitfalls involved and how they can best be avoided – in other words, what is the healthiest version of the desired diet?
Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

hal-01766750 , version 1 (14-04-2018)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-01766750 , version 1

Citer

François Mariotti. Vegetarian diets and health: the voice of science needs to be heard. The Conversation France, 2017. ⟨hal-01766750⟩
128 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Partager

More