>Plant based diets have been practiced by not insignificant portions of the population beginning in the 6th-century BCE with Buddhism and Hinduism. An estimated 20-40% of India is currently vegetarian. Not sure "fad" is an accurate descriptor.
In terms of human history, he's right. 6th-century BCE was not very long ago at all: that's less than a mere 3000 years. Humans have been around for over 2 million years.
Also, he's right about the skeletal record: archaeology shows that humans lost about 1 foot of height when they switched to agriculture. Yes, much of India is vegetarian, but Indians tend to be pretty short, but then when they emigrate to western nations and adopt more western diets, their kids end up dwarfing them.
I am Indian, I am vegan and was brought up vegetarian and I am not short. I am a foot taller than my parents. It has nothing to do with approximating western diets and everything to do with proper nutrition, vegetarian or not.
> everything to do with proper nutrition, vegetarian or not
Exactly. It's like the unending articles that point to negligent "vegan" parents as the cause of child deaths/underdevelopment when they fed them super extreme, restrictive diets that just happen to be able to fit into the rules of veganism. You can get poor nutrition and technically follow the rules of many diets, but that isn't necessarily a reflection on the diets themselves, but on poor nutrition awareness.
> In terms of human history, he's right. 6th-century BCE was not very long ago at all: that's less than a mere 3000 years. Humans have been around for over 2 million years.
3000 years is certainly long enough to take something out of "fad" status. I would challenge you to find another diet that follows specific rules that has been around for longer.
> Also, he's right about the skeletal record: archaeology shows that humans lost about 1 foot of height when they switched to agriculture.
Again - making broad, sweeping evolutionary correlations does not an argument make. You have absolutely no idea what specific shifts in eating, living or working habits resulted in skeletal changes. These are the same weak arguments proponents of the Paleo and Atkins diets make. Could you make a case for dietary changes effecting our evolution at the time? sure. Could you point to vegetarianism as the cause? Good luck with that.
> Yes, much of India is vegetarian, but Indians tend to be pretty short, but then when they emigrate to western nations and adopt more western diets, their kids end up dwarfing them.
Yet again with the generalizations. If we humor this for a moment, there is a much stronger argument for the correlation[3][4][5][6] of poverty levels[1] and height[2] than there is for levels of vegetarianism. In fact, there is data to show the opposite[7][8]. Poor diet in general results in impaired growth, not vegetarianism. I'm not even sure what you could argue would be missing in a vegetarian diet that would effect bone growth as most point to calcium in milk and vegetarians can drink milk...
Drinking milk is a Western thing, and not normal in India. Also, vegans don't drink milk at all; they're morally opposed to using animals products like that (eggs too), so they want to eliminate that as a calcium source.
In terms of human history, he's right. 6th-century BCE was not very long ago at all: that's less than a mere 3000 years. Humans have been around for over 2 million years.
Also, he's right about the skeletal record: archaeology shows that humans lost about 1 foot of height when they switched to agriculture. Yes, much of India is vegetarian, but Indians tend to be pretty short, but then when they emigrate to western nations and adopt more western diets, their kids end up dwarfing them.