“Celebrity artist Miley Cyrus quits veganism because of her brain development”; “The vegan who climbed Everest dies”; “Vegan mother fed and killed her baby vegan”… We’re sure you’ve come across these headlines somewhere. So how long did we sit and think about it?
It is always more advantageous for the media to present news in a way that will appeal to the majority. In addition, many people only follow the news from the headlines, do not read the content or do their own research to find the right information.
The other day, we came across a news story with the headline “He died because of a vegan diet”. Do you think the truth of the matter is just nutrition, or do we get caught up in media manipulation and direct our perception in this way?
First, let’s go over a little summary of veganism.
Vegans; They do not include any animal products in their lives by taking issues such as ethics, environment, animal rights and health as a source of motivation. By saying that we normalize evil as humanity, but this is not normal, they get rid of the order in which the majority advances, and therefore they are seen as “contrary”. However, they simply choose not to restrict the freedom of other living things by exercising their personal freedom and prefer not to eat animal food.
Since they stand apart from the majority of the society and have a lifestyle that not everyone has yet fully understood, many developments in their lives become an area open to short-term attachment to their diet.
When it comes to health, veganism; It has been proven that it prevents heart and vascular occlusion, diabetes, cholesterol and chronic heart diseases. In addition, problems such as B12 or iron deficiency can occur in a vegan diet, but most vegans who eat consciously prevent this by taking supplements.
They don’t actually die because they’re vegan…
People; It can be both vegan and unhealthy, but this is not because they are vegan, but because they cannot maintain a balanced and regular vegan diet. Likewise, an omnivorous person can be both omnivorous and unhealthy because he does not have a balanced and regular diet.
Moreover, thousands of people die every day from heart attacks and atherosclerosis, which are the main causes of a large animal-based and animal-fat diet, but none of these reports are touted as “died from eating meat.”
In fact, to give an example, a man named James Blunt, who ate meat as a reaction to vegans, had scurvy! Another chef, who often poses with “0% Vegan” T-shirts and meat in hand, died of a heart attack caused by atherosclerosis. However, none of these came before us as “died because he was not vegan” or “died from animal-based nutrition”. Because it has no media value!
Let’s start with the “vegan who died climbing Mount Everest” example.
We all remember this news as a headline. Because that’s how the media works. Regardless of the title of the news, the headlines that hold the most place in our minds are the headlines that we sometimes see and pass through.
Yes, a vegan who has climbed Everest has died, but so far there have been 311 people who have died while climbing Everest, and only one of them was vegan. However, even though the death of other people who died did not make a sound in the media, and even though it was covered in the media, we could not see a news report that “the person who fed omnivores died while climbing Everest”, right? This is where the power of the media comes into play.
Moreover, the woman who climbed Everest did not die because she was vegan, according to hospital reports. She died of “mountain sickness” that can be seen in mountaineers.
We have discussed the topic of “vegan mother who killed her baby” in detail below:
To summarize; When we look at reliable sources such as Harvard University, World Health Organization, Oxford University, it has been proven that a balanced and regular vegan diet will not lead to negative consequences for children.
However, when we look at the bottom line of the news that we see in the headlines as “vegan mother killed her child by feeding vegan”, we see that the child actually died from malnutrition, not from vegan nutrition.
Thousands of children around the world die every day due to inadequate and unconscious nutrition. As you can imagine, not all of these thousands of children are on vegan diets. On the contrary, vegan ones are very limited. In short, a balanced and non-regular diet; Whether vegan or carnivorous, it can have dire consequences.
Since we gave a few examples, let’s come to our latest news: “The vegan woman who was fed with tropical fruits died.”
The true face of the news, which appears in the headlines as “the vegan woman died of starvation” or “the vegan phenomenon died because of veganism”, is actually not just this. We don’t have an official report yet, but Zhanna Samsonova’s family said their daughter had a “cholera-like infection” and had been in intensive care for some time because of it.
Dr. Suat Erus made the following statement on the subject: “There is no such thing as dying from being vegan. Veganism decides what to eat and what not to eat. A person can die of starvation, not veganism. There is a very important point here, that we should not directly associate veganism with health. “A person can be both unhealthy and vegan. A person can be both omnivorous and unhealthy. That’s why you shouldn’t rely on news like “he became vegan and died.”
If we explain media manipulation and society perception with an example independent of veganism:
When a woman has a car accident, the first thing we think about is her “female” identity, as if her ability to drive is a biological thing. It is possible to see the headlines “35-year-old female driver had an accident while turning the corner”, but let’s take a look at it from the other side.
When a man has an accident, his gender is not newsworthy. It’s hard to see a gendered headline that says “35-year-old male driver had an accident while turning the corner”. Moreover, when we look at the statistics, men have more accidents in traffic than women…
In short, the characteristics of the people in the disadvantaged groups in the society that put them in the disadvantaged group are seen as their primary identity and every negativity is attributed to that identity.