A new study tested the psychological benefits of a two-week clinical intervention to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in 171 young adults (aged 18–25).

Participants were randomly assigned into

1. a diet-as-usual control condition,
2. an ecological momentary intervention (EMI) condition involving text message reminders to increase their consumption plus a voucher to purchase fruits and vegetables,
3. or a fruit and vegetable intervention (FVI) condition in which participants were given two additional daily servings of fresh fruits and vegetables to consume on top of their normal diet.

Only participants in the last group (FVI) condition showed improvements to their psychological well-being with increases in vitality, flourishing, and motivation relative to the other groups. No changes were found for depressive symptoms, anxiety, or mood.

Giving young adults fresh fruit and vegetables to eat can have psychological benefits even over a brief period of time.

My response on a new video by ModVegan. The video with a part of its description:

Can vegans support animal welfare campaigns without compromising on animal rights? Does advocating for some animals undermine our desire to see justice for all animals? 

Gary Francione has long argued that Single Issue Campaigns are bad for the vegan movement. While I agree that many single issue campaigns make non-vegans feel better about alternative forms of cruelty (leather instead of fur, duck instead of foie gras). But I think some single issue campaigns can be great. 

My comment:

Margaret, I disagree with you and Francione on this one :) - well, on the beginning arguments. I think both ant fur and anti foie gras are useful, they brought real changes, including legal limitations, plus general public awareness about such types of problems. Your argumentation for anti cat fur is applicable to those causes. No one implied that people should replace fur with leather.

I do not like all-or-nothing campaigns because they are too broad and require too much change from people, who are not ready to abolish everything at once, and who will just ignore them. Incremental change, if probable, is better than nothing to concentrate on. Veganism, abolitionism and single issue causes can coexist. Also, killing animals for art (film) is my personal no-no.

I also found another video with Margareth on Francione: 

My comment:

Such an interesting conversation - thank you! I was in the linkedin group for ethical vegans for many years, it was exclusive for supporters of Francione. Unfortunately, the manager and I disagreed too much :) Margaret, I'll look up the kindle book, thanks for the info!

Alec Android:

Fruitarian's Network I know an Abolitionist who was banned from Francione's page because she defended her friend after her friend was banned for some disagreement with Francione or the moderator. Then I myself got blocked from an abolitonist group for being friends with her, even though I'm an abolitionist who genuinely hates most if not all of the same non-abolitionist things that Francione hates. They're a weirdly exclusive little group online. The internet can facilitate that kind of shitty behaviour. I understand excluding non-abolitionists ("welfarists") but they go further than that in the defence of superficial idiosyncracies and personalities as if they were fundamentally important principles.

My comment:

This is a familiar scenario for online communities :) That professional group never grew much, and became practically inactive.

The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.

It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas and feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing on reason or mental health.

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

Among Chinese adults, a higher level of fruit consumption was associated with lower blood pressure and blood glucose levels and, largely independent of these and other dietary and nondietary factors, with significantly lower risks of major cardiovascular diseases. 

On July 7, 2012, a prominent international group of scientists - cognitive neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists - gathered at The University of Cambridge to reassess the neurobiological substrates of conscious experience and related behaviors in human and non-human animals. 

The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness:

The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.

My comment on ModVegan's video "Vegan Sell-Outs":

Everyone can be vegan - just eat vegan, and maybe go further. Veganism is for everyone, in every industry, with any occupation, and situation, and any levels of awareness or ethics. Calling anyone "not real vegan" - especially knowing that being vegan is not a rewarding social position - is unnecessary demanding and even intimidating fashion among vegans, detrimental to the spread of veganism, imho. I observed it for years, and never witnessed anything good or productive resulting from it.

Sorry to disagree on this one, Margaret.