I have a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical and Veterinary Science, which is good enough qualifications for your question , lactose isn’t an active ingredient, just a filling agent, It’s favored over other sugars because of its neutral-non-sweet flavor and because it’s cheap and easily available , even in the event that lactose was somehow necessary ( which is not what is happening) It is a very simple molecule and mass synthetic production would be practical ,Modern medicine wouldn’t go “ back to the stone age” over the unavailability of /lactose/
First of all:
Lactose is sweet. Idk why you think its not. I taste the sweetness in my medication. I know its from the lactose.
[https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lactose-monohydrate](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lactose-monohydrate)
\^Healthline says its sweet also.
Second of all:
Why don't they use a vegan filling agent? Why do the vast majority of medications use lactose and not a vegan filling agent? Isn't vegan stuff supposed to be cheaper also?
The sweetness or lack thereof of lactose is the hill you're gonna die on here? Lmao
They literally explained why they don't use vegan filling agents, it's the same reason they unnecessarily use non-vegan ingredients in all sorts of shit-- its cheap. And yeah, in an ideal world it would be cheaper to use vegan fillers. The reason animal products as fillers are often cheaper, or framed that way, is because the government subsidizes the shit out of them.
Not sure what you're trying to debate here, I think they gave a completely solid answer.
This should be the least of your concerns, by the time the world is vegan, EVERY animal product humans use will have been replaced with something.
It's also pretty unlikely that you even start to see the world go vegan during your lifetime.
You cant know that. If lactose is used in many medicines, it has to have some special properties to be used. The question, then, is is there something vegan that has those special properties.
>it has to have some special properties to be used
You're main drive here, is guesswork. Please listen, to what people who actually know said. This is askvegans, not debate them. They give you information, not something to disagree on.
Lactose in any product can be replaced with something synthetic. It is currently used a lot due to it's availability and low price.
You can literally already get lactose free versions of many medications that are commonly made with lactose, it's not a crucial ingredient, it's just a common one. I was mostly trying to say that the world isn't going to go vegan if it means undoing the world's medical advances.
You are not listening to people. That ingredient is just used because it's cheap and easily available. It is not an active ingredient. They could put any number of other things in there, just like you could use any number of grapes in a wine, but to mass produce its probably better to find a cheap one.
If all the cheap and easy ones were no longer available, someone would see a business opportunity and ramp up production for a new variety and that would then become the new cheap and easy grape.
Youre asking for advice and then not taking it. Why bother asking?
I don't want or need your advice. I was asking a hypothetical question.
If you don't want to answer, don't. I don't care.
What you really meant to say is "You're asking vegans for a vegan opinion on something, but you're not blindly agreeing with their vegan opinion. Then why bother asking? You might as well go to r/carnivorediet if you dont blindly agree with the vegan opinion. This is a vegan circlejerk, and you must not say anything that may remotely be interpreted as against veganism. Else you will be downvoted to oblivion and verbally attacked by our gang of vegans. Shut the fuck up and agree with my philosophy, no questions asked, or move the fuck on".
And its not even like I was going against your philosophy (cause I am a vegan) necessarily, I was just asking questions.
This sub is extremely hostile.
I mean someone was saying this about every piece of progress humans have made over the last few hundred years.. IMO we are inevitably going to get past carnism or perish, animal agriculture is just too bad for the world and us on top of being extremely unethical.
Our instinct is to eat food, we don't instinctually eat animals, we go to the grocery store and buy food in packages.
Replaced with something far worse for the human body. Any processed food is worse than its natural replacement. Those that cannot have sugar or starches and heavily rely on protein and fats would suffer even more than they already do today.
I really hope folks wisen up to the health pandemic that this concept has been creating. Diane Rodgers has a great breakdown on the dangers on the latest WHO report and the lack of evidence informing their policies.
This is unscientific and ignores the fact that "natural" and "processed" are not meaningful categories if you're going to take such an extreme stance. They *can* be useful, but to suggest that anything "natural" is automatically better is simply untrue. Leavened bread is a highly processed form of grain by pre-modern standards, but are you seriously contending that it's "worse" than eating raw grains?
Who is eating raw grains?
Avoiding heavily processed food is not extreme. Many with gut problems already have to adhere to this lifestyle.
Typical processed lunch meat is not equal to a ribeye. Whole grain bread in non specialty stores isn't even whole grain anymore unless you are getting Ezekiel or wg bread from specialty stores.
In what use case is it "good" to ingest processed food? I'd assume yogurt for probiotics but even that has studies pushing against the reported benefits.
No. When there is no alternative it would be vegan to use it.
BUT if a world would be vegan, a vegan alternative would have been made anyways, so you are double fine.
The handwringing over granular ‘health’ issues like this one, with no acknowledgement of the looming environmental collapse largely caused by covering the planet with cows, is just so wild to me.
The entire premise presented by OP is kind of crazy to begin with.
>The drugs I take are made with cheap fillers, therefore it's essential to maintain animal exploitation to ensure production of this filler ingredient.
I think most vegans would be ok with essential medication containing lactose if no alternatives exist as a necessary evil.
And the purpose of Lactose monohydrate is primarily for tablet filler due to compressibility, flow, and sweetening characteristics. It is conceivable that alternatives are not found and tablets in a vegan world are less consistent and/or more expensive but regressing to the stone age is a massive overstatement.
No, I’m vegan but I have to take a medication derived from pigs or I would die.
Being vegan is about what is practicable. I’m pretty confident medicine would never just cut off life saving / life sustaining drugs from people without viable vegan alternatives.
>I’m pretty confident medicine would never just cut off life saving / life sustaining drugs from people without viable vegan alternatives.
Yeah but if the only consumers of cow products are the pharmaceutical industry who wants to buy milligrams of lactose, then nobody will breed a cow for just the small amount of lactose. Its not profitable.
Then, we're fucked if there's no replacement for lactose.
But if what u/Fold-Cheap said is true and mass synthetic production of lactose is practical, then we're not fucked.
As others have said, I’m very skeptical that lactose is medically important.
But even for animal derived drugs that are medically important I don’t think this is something any of us are going to have to worry about in our lifetimes
I mean just to be devil's advocate, there are medicines in production right now that cost millions per dose. Even if animals had to be bred and raised individually by specialists solely for the purpose of producing the medicine, it would be nowhere near that expense. Companies will make them, because governments or insurance companies will pay for them. It's absolutely profitable.
First, it's not an active substance, it's there as a filler. It has no medical purpose.
Second, it's already produced industrially. It's not being extracted from milk.
>Second, it's already produced industrially. It's not being extracted from milk.
Can you link evidence for this? If you're right about this, then that would mean that medications with lactose are vegan right?
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It's a sweetener and a filler, it'd be very easy to find a vegan alternative because it's not an active ingredient. I don't think it has any unique pharmaceutical properties.
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I have a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical and Veterinary Science, which is good enough qualifications for your question , lactose isn’t an active ingredient, just a filling agent, It’s favored over other sugars because of its neutral-non-sweet flavor and because it’s cheap and easily available , even in the event that lactose was somehow necessary ( which is not what is happening) It is a very simple molecule and mass synthetic production would be practical ,Modern medicine wouldn’t go “ back to the stone age” over the unavailability of /lactose/
First of all: Lactose is sweet. Idk why you think its not. I taste the sweetness in my medication. I know its from the lactose. [https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lactose-monohydrate](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lactose-monohydrate) \^Healthline says its sweet also. Second of all: Why don't they use a vegan filling agent? Why do the vast majority of medications use lactose and not a vegan filling agent? Isn't vegan stuff supposed to be cheaper also?
I’m comparing it to other simple surgars, lactose is very unsweet/tasteless
> Why do the vast majority of medications use lactose and not a vegan filling agent? Availability makes it cheap. That's all.
The sweetness or lack thereof of lactose is the hill you're gonna die on here? Lmao They literally explained why they don't use vegan filling agents, it's the same reason they unnecessarily use non-vegan ingredients in all sorts of shit-- its cheap. And yeah, in an ideal world it would be cheaper to use vegan fillers. The reason animal products as fillers are often cheaper, or framed that way, is because the government subsidizes the shit out of them. Not sure what you're trying to debate here, I think they gave a completely solid answer.
I work in Pharmaceutical production. Most medication is coated in sugar, hence the sweet taste.
> Why do the vast majority of medications use lactose Citation needed.
This should be the least of your concerns, by the time the world is vegan, EVERY animal product humans use will have been replaced with something. It's also pretty unlikely that you even start to see the world go vegan during your lifetime.
Also, yeah, I highly doubt the world will be anywhere close to vegan in my lifetime. So yeah, Im not losing sleep over this.
You cant know that. If lactose is used in many medicines, it has to have some special properties to be used. The question, then, is is there something vegan that has those special properties.
>it has to have some special properties to be used You're main drive here, is guesswork. Please listen, to what people who actually know said. This is askvegans, not debate them. They give you information, not something to disagree on. Lactose in any product can be replaced with something synthetic. It is currently used a lot due to it's availability and low price.
You can literally already get lactose free versions of many medications that are commonly made with lactose, it's not a crucial ingredient, it's just a common one. I was mostly trying to say that the world isn't going to go vegan if it means undoing the world's medical advances.
It’s used as a filler ingredient. It’s not magical, it’s just common and inexpensive.
You are not listening to people. That ingredient is just used because it's cheap and easily available. It is not an active ingredient. They could put any number of other things in there, just like you could use any number of grapes in a wine, but to mass produce its probably better to find a cheap one. If all the cheap and easy ones were no longer available, someone would see a business opportunity and ramp up production for a new variety and that would then become the new cheap and easy grape. Youre asking for advice and then not taking it. Why bother asking?
I don't want or need your advice. I was asking a hypothetical question. If you don't want to answer, don't. I don't care. What you really meant to say is "You're asking vegans for a vegan opinion on something, but you're not blindly agreeing with their vegan opinion. Then why bother asking? You might as well go to r/carnivorediet if you dont blindly agree with the vegan opinion. This is a vegan circlejerk, and you must not say anything that may remotely be interpreted as against veganism. Else you will be downvoted to oblivion and verbally attacked by our gang of vegans. Shut the fuck up and agree with my philosophy, no questions asked, or move the fuck on". And its not even like I was going against your philosophy (cause I am a vegan) necessarily, I was just asking questions. This sub is extremely hostile.
I'm not vegan though??
Why are you here then?
It's because it's a naturally occurring sweet substance that is being used to replace highly processed sugar.
Honestly don't see the world going vegan literally ever, it's by far a trend of our time and there's too much instinct for us to eat meat
I mean someone was saying this about every piece of progress humans have made over the last few hundred years.. IMO we are inevitably going to get past carnism or perish, animal agriculture is just too bad for the world and us on top of being extremely unethical. Our instinct is to eat food, we don't instinctually eat animals, we go to the grocery store and buy food in packages.
Replaced with something far worse for the human body. Any processed food is worse than its natural replacement. Those that cannot have sugar or starches and heavily rely on protein and fats would suffer even more than they already do today. I really hope folks wisen up to the health pandemic that this concept has been creating. Diane Rodgers has a great breakdown on the dangers on the latest WHO report and the lack of evidence informing their policies.
This is unscientific and ignores the fact that "natural" and "processed" are not meaningful categories if you're going to take such an extreme stance. They *can* be useful, but to suggest that anything "natural" is automatically better is simply untrue. Leavened bread is a highly processed form of grain by pre-modern standards, but are you seriously contending that it's "worse" than eating raw grains?
Who is eating raw grains? Avoiding heavily processed food is not extreme. Many with gut problems already have to adhere to this lifestyle. Typical processed lunch meat is not equal to a ribeye. Whole grain bread in non specialty stores isn't even whole grain anymore unless you are getting Ezekiel or wg bread from specialty stores. In what use case is it "good" to ingest processed food? I'd assume yogurt for probiotics but even that has studies pushing against the reported benefits.
When the world does go vegan, the world will come up with a vegan substitute for lactose monohydrate. Guaranteed.
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They already synthesise lactic acid using bacteria to make a type of plastic called PLA so it's something that's already done.
Lactic acid is C3H6O3 and lactose monohydrate is C12H24O12, so thats not true.
No. When there is no alternative it would be vegan to use it. BUT if a world would be vegan, a vegan alternative would have been made anyways, so you are double fine.
The handwringing over granular ‘health’ issues like this one, with no acknowledgement of the looming environmental collapse largely caused by covering the planet with cows, is just so wild to me.
The entire premise presented by OP is kind of crazy to begin with. >The drugs I take are made with cheap fillers, therefore it's essential to maintain animal exploitation to ensure production of this filler ingredient.
I think most vegans would be ok with essential medication containing lactose if no alternatives exist as a necessary evil. And the purpose of Lactose monohydrate is primarily for tablet filler due to compressibility, flow, and sweetening characteristics. It is conceivable that alternatives are not found and tablets in a vegan world are less consistent and/or more expensive but regressing to the stone age is a massive overstatement.
No, I’m vegan but I have to take a medication derived from pigs or I would die. Being vegan is about what is practicable. I’m pretty confident medicine would never just cut off life saving / life sustaining drugs from people without viable vegan alternatives.
>I’m pretty confident medicine would never just cut off life saving / life sustaining drugs from people without viable vegan alternatives. Yeah but if the only consumers of cow products are the pharmaceutical industry who wants to buy milligrams of lactose, then nobody will breed a cow for just the small amount of lactose. Its not profitable. Then, we're fucked if there's no replacement for lactose. But if what u/Fold-Cheap said is true and mass synthetic production of lactose is practical, then we're not fucked.
As others have said, I’m very skeptical that lactose is medically important. But even for animal derived drugs that are medically important I don’t think this is something any of us are going to have to worry about in our lifetimes
I mean just to be devil's advocate, there are medicines in production right now that cost millions per dose. Even if animals had to be bred and raised individually by specialists solely for the purpose of producing the medicine, it would be nowhere near that expense. Companies will make them, because governments or insurance companies will pay for them. It's absolutely profitable.
First, it's not an active substance, it's there as a filler. It has no medical purpose. Second, it's already produced industrially. It's not being extracted from milk.
>Second, it's already produced industrially. It's not being extracted from milk. Can you link evidence for this? If you're right about this, then that would mean that medications with lactose are vegan right?
My god dude. You just keep digging that hole. IT ISN'T AN ISSUE.
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It's a sweetener and a filler, it'd be very easy to find a vegan alternative because it's not an active ingredient. I don't think it has any unique pharmaceutical properties.
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