# Would you go vegan for one year for a hundred grand? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 30, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189 "2011-09-30T18:58:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189/181 "2011-10-05T22:23:38Z")
> [@Zyanthia](#): > > I guess the simplest way to say the difference, one is asking you to do something for him and he is willing to pay you for it, the other is asking you to be something for him and he is willing to pay you for it. Except he’s not paying me to be a vegan, he’s paying me to keep a vegan diet. Once the year is done, none of that hundred grand is going to impede me from walking straight into a McDonalds and celebrating with a cheeseburger and a milkshake. We’re not talking about Indecent Proposal here. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189/182 "2011-10-05T23:18:49Z")
> [@Zyanthia](#): > > I’m not selling my right to choose to someone just because they feel they can buy whatever they want. The billionaire can take a flying leap and his attempt at buying my free will can go with him. > > It’s not that I love meat, it’s the thought that someone thinks they can buy me that irritates me. That billionaire ain’t the boss of you, is he?? ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2011, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189/183 "2011-10-08T06:53:59Z")
> [@Namkcalb](#): > > > [@Balthisar](#): > > > > Free chef? Free food? Free 100 kilodollars? No brainer. > > > > (Wait, vegan food made by a good chef doesn’t suck, does it??) > > I once went to a vegan restaurant in Beijing, it was made up to resemble meat dishes and it was almost, almost almost as good as the real thing I just got back from Hong Kong, and had a vegetarian (maybe not vegan, I’m unsure) meal at the big Buddha there, and it was basically like a high-quality version of the Chinese food that I’ve had on the mainland, except without meat. It was quite good. Actually compared to normal Chinese food, it was better, because without meat means without meat bones in every, single morsel, and so it was a good thing. (The Chinese apparently haven’t learned the art of butchering.) ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2011, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189/184 "2011-10-08T08:15:56Z")
Hey, I’ve already been vegan for the past year. Where’s my money? ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2011, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189/185 "2011-10-08T08:25:36Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Hey, I’ve already been vegan for the past year. Where’s my money? You’re disqualified, per the OP. Now, if you want to switch to a pure meat diet for the next year, I can offer you… a _thousand Korean won_. It’s all I’ve got in my wallet. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189/186 "2011-10-09T09:29:30Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > You’re disqualified, per the OP. > > Now, if you want to switch to a pure meat diet for the next year, I can offer you… a _thousand Korean won_. It’s all I’ve got in my wallet. Oh, yeah, sorry about that. And no, I’ll pass on the offer, but thanks. 😛 I will say, though, to encourage any of you who want to pocket the quick hundred grand, that sticking to a vegan diet, provided that you live somewhere where being a vegan is reasonably convenient, really is very easy. It’s really no big deal. Most of the time, it’s just like a regular diet, just a lot less meaty and a lot less cheesy. It won’t hurt you, and you probably won’t feel like you’re missing out on anything. You might even discover some awesome foodstuffs that you didn’t know about or weren’t that into before. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189/187 "2011-10-09T10:45:11Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > I will say, though, to encourage any of you who want to pocket the quick hundred grand, that sticking to a vegan diet, provided that you live somewhere where being a vegan is reasonably convenient, really is very easy. It’s really no big deal. Most of the time, it’s just like a regular diet, just a lot less meaty and a lot less cheesy. I’m not sure how vegan I am (discounting dinner), but I’m a heck of a lot more vegetarian now for breakfast and lunch than I used to be. Mostly, lunch is the change. Sometimes there’s bits of meat, but it’s mostly vegetables or noodles. I mean the stuff served at work as a free benefit, Chinese style. Considering that it’s mass made food (which I usually hate), it’s really quite good. Although honestly, just today for the first time I found proper skirt steak in town, so that, Tawainese sausage, some hot peppers of unknown name, and I decided to do my first carne asada in China. I couldn’t cut the skirt as thin as a traditional arrachera, but it was awesome. Today’s grilled on charcoal feast makes me seriously doubt the convictions I expressed in my earlier post! ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189/188 "2011-10-14T04:06:50Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Well, honestly, I may be completely full of shit here. The rest of this post may sound like I’m channeling our dear departed Dio, but I at least started with this disclaimer and will not defend my viewpoint to the death like he did. > > I think that when dealing with babies on basic issues like what to feed them, the question should always be “what’s best for my baby?” People shouldn’t look for ways to impose their lifestyle choices on their kids, even in situations where they think the kid will probably still be OK after the imposition. > > So, to avoid the coontpunch, your friend would need to show me that being a vegan is the best thing for her kid (for actual medical reasons, not bullshit “reducing the suffering in the world” reasons). It wouldn’t be enough for her to show me that a vegan diet will probably be OK for the kid. All right. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, and from a conversation with her plus some looking around, I have a book to link to which cites [studies on vegan vs. vegetarian vs. omnivorous children and growth rates.](http://books.google.com/books?id=J8Xgyvr9038C&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=pediatric+nutrition+vegan+comparison+studies&source=bl&ots=DhnOzhh3Iu&sig=P7MtW0g-fG5WK3KTc8Zm2-TvxPc&hl=en&ei=maWXTrfeF5ShsQKM6PnSBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false) Starts on the bottom right of the page and goes to the next page. An excerpt from [Simply Vegan](http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/kids.htm) demonstrates the (very) basic dietary strategy needed to keep a vegan baby healthy. It comes down to the diet being equal, as long as proper attention is paid to a few details, not superior. Which is what I expected to find. I’m not sure why it would have to be “the best thing,” which sounds like it has to be “better” in your eyes than an omnivorous diet, rather than equally as good. So. Perhaps this is a draw. It’s no worse, it’s no better. Children raised on a properly balanced vegan diet are just as healthy as those on a properly balanced omnivorous diet. There are certainly studies and cites that show vegan-raised infants having problems. Those cases largely came down to parents who were improperly feeding their children, not having educated themselves on what considerations are necessary for proper nutrition. I’m not convinced those people would have fed their babies properly whether animals were in the diet or not. There are plenty of “starved to death” babies out there that had nothing to do with being raised vegan or vegetarian. In the eyes of my friend, raising a child who can say he’s never eaten an animal or participated in factory farming, is a better choice. With the nutrition argument being equal, it comes down to moral choices, so it’s hard to leave that out. I’m not here to change anybody’s mind. That would be a Great Debate thread, and this is a bit of a hijack, though the thread’s old enough maybe not. I considered just making this a PM to **RR** , but thought I’d just put this out there for anyone else who’s curious. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky\_the\_Wonder\_Spirit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Sparky\_the\_Wonder\_Spirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky_the_Wonder_Spirit)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189/189 "2011-10-14T04:39:12Z")
> [@Galileo](#): > > Yeah, I’m surprised at how many current meat-eaters are saying that they would go vegan for a year. Not sure that they fully appreciate the extent of the changes to their diet and their social interactions. Yeah, but it’s only one year. It’s possible to socialize without food. I don’t think I have a single friend who would object; indeed I’m pretty sure they would call me an idiot if I didn’t take Crazy Billionaire up on his offer. Maybe $100 grand isn’t a big deal to you, but that’s a very pretty chunk of change for some of us. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189/190 "2011-10-14T16:07:55Z")
Too easy. Hell, I was happily vegetarian for a decade and only started eating meat again because I was finding it hard to put on weight and because eating meat is darned convenient. You’re going to have someone prepare meals for me _and_ pay me a bit more than twice my regular income? And I’m going to shed my accumulated five-years-of-daily-Tim-Hortons-bacon-sandwich weight? I can wait a year for Hollandaise on my steamed asparagus, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189/191 "2011-10-14T22:38:36Z")
I’m bummed that I can’t be in on it since I’m already a vegetarian ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-go-vegan-for-one-year-for-a-hundred-grand/598189.md?page=9)