Milk and butter consumption may be down, but overall dairy consumption is still way up. Cheese and yogurt consumption have risen many times over from what they used to be. It takes 9 gallons of raw milk to make just one pound of cheese, so is wrong to say people are having less dairy. In reality they are having more and that dairy is much more concentrated in fat, calories, etc. Data is a wonderful thing, but you can’t just pick and chose the information you want to use while excluding the rest that doesn’t support your argument. You made that same point yourself when comparing beef/pork to overall meat consumption. Animal proteins are all about the same as far as the body is concerned so how much of one vs. another really doesn’t make much difference. Saying that beef or pork went down cannot prove anything if other animal proteins went up in their place.

Historically you are right that many people and cultures have eaten meat, but there is no way to say that they didn’t have cancer. Diagnosing cancer was impossible back them because people didn’t know what it was and technology wasn’t there to identify it. We have no way to know how it affected their health. What we do know was that the average lifespan was much much shorter than it is now. Historical arguments that are based on assumptions have no real place in modern day discussions, and many modern day cultures show that lower animal foods and higher plant foods do in fact create lower levels of disease. Look at the “Blue Zones” study done my National Geographic. That wasn’t even a study if nutrition, but they found that to be true.

It’s also untrue to say that there haven’t been any vegan cultures. They may not have had that label, but many places in India, Asia, South America and others have followed a diet that was largely or completely vegetarian for centuries. It’s ridiculous to imply that a culture had to abstain from all animal products 100% to have eaten a vegetarian based diet. A small little piece of meat cooked into a dish once a week is hardly comparable to what people eat now. Based on all the studies I’ve read, there is good evidence to support that many people around the world have eaten largely vegetarian diets. Sometimes for no other reason than that meat and dairy were luxuries that they couldn’t afford.

There are plenty of arguments that can be made on this issue, but studies are often flawed and people tend to pick out just what they want to use to prove a point just as you did, so lets keep it simple. I have personally read hundreds of case studies on people who have reversed devastating and life threatening diseases by following a whole foods diet that excludes meat, dairy, and eggs. Statistically vegetarians weigh less, live longer, and have lower rates of disease. Statistically “vegans” , meaning simple people who avoid dairy and eggs in addition to meat, have lower rates of disease than vegetarians. You are right that there are plenty of vegan nuts and I’m sure there are unhealthy vegans as well since eating vegan does not mean eating healthfully, but even with that, the statistics are still in their favor. That added to my own personal experience tells me that I feel better and have better indicators of health (lower BP, smaller waistline, etc) when I eat whole foods and avoid animal products. If that isn’t a reality for you, then you have every right to make a different choice. Just please stop belittling mine. If you have never tried a vegan diet than you really have no right to speak on it anyway since anything you have to say is uninformed. I respect your right to make your own choices, but I do no respect people who come to our tables with hateful and biased opinions. Argue the science with science, not the half truth opinion laden posts you have written here. If you don’t have any real facts to bring to the table, I would suggest you take the time you spend writing uninformed and rude comments to do some more reading more and keeping your mouth shut.