Currently, I am staying in the USA for my postdoctoral studies. The other day I posted a screenshot in a Whatsapp group where WWF published a 2024 planet report and found the eating habits of Indians are more sustainable than other parts of the world (since meat consumption is extremely high). One of my friends (not so close) didn't like it and commented that this was just woke liberal/western hegemony's propaganda to make people (especially the global south) believe that animal protein is not great (frequent consumption) so that poor global south people conditioned to believe it is bad for them. He highly believes Indians must include more animal protein in their diet (like North/South America). I replied to him politely with the available first source of knowledge this isn't entirely true. This went on back and forth and he took the debate in many directions which was unnecessary.

https://preview.redd.it/rw241o7zwcud1.jpg?width=1078&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f2f63fbae133e6ab094fa0b927f51cfb1bae0ff

While some of his perspectives made sense, a lot of his beliefs I thought were skewed and problematic like-

1. Religious dogmatism is preventing most Indiand from adopting a better diet (animal protein basically)
2. Carbohydrates are mostly poor people's food (in the global south) and protein and fat should be enough for a healthy diet.
3. Food consumption has almost nothing to do with climate change and it is just propaganda by Western corporations (I did mention it is not the major reason but a significant reason nonetheless)
4. Indians are not doing great in physically intensive sports (Olympics) and one of the reasons is that we do not have enough animal protein in our diet (I know it is laughable) like other countries.
5. The majority of Indians are vegetarian because eating animal protein once a week/month should not be considered non-vegetarian.

There are many more and I would urge you to read all the screenshots here (green are mine and white are his comments) https://imgur.com/a/tebM4Lx

At one point I had to stop the conversation as I felt he was strongly identified with his beliefs that he thinks are right (so debating more is fruitless). There was also a sense of supremacy in the sense he felt there were things only he knew but most of the world perhaps not. He does say some valid things but most I found delusional.

Am I the only one thinking that? Am I judging too much? I am just curious what people think about this whole debate and this guy.

A documentary I made on one of the last radio repair shops in India.