So we were talking in the car the other day about how yeast is alive (until it isn’t). How do vegans feel about yeast? Honestly asking; I don’t know any vegans irl that I can ask.
Well it’s a fungus, and we eat fungi the same as we eat plants. We’re more concerned with undue human-driven suffering, which generally requires a central nervous system, and only animals have that.
Vegans on the whole recognize the biological complexity of life (i.e. multi-cellular organisms with the capacity to experience pain and pleasure through a nervous system and beyond, compared with uni-cellular or even multi-cellular organisms that don’t have such a system) and balance it with the quantity of pain and suffering throughout the world.
Basically, vegans by and large care about reducing the greatest amount of suffering for the most complex life on the planet (especially animals on the brink of extinction).
Usually we direct this goal towards rescuing farm animals, fighting elephant or lion poachers, saving rainforests, banning fishing in sea sanctuaries (or at least the use of purse seines that dredge the ocean floor), etc.
Yeast isn’t the biggest concern because 1) it isn’t considered towards the complex end of the spectrum of life as we know it on this planet, 2) we don’t have good evidence to show that yeast experiences pain, and 3) there are closer goals to achieve, like advocating for reduced animal consumption, alternative clothing to leather or fur, increased organic farming to offset nitrogen runoff in oceans, etc.
Achieving policy paradigms is one of the most impactful ways to improve animal suffering the world over, whether that’s increasing taxes on animal based products, reducing incentives for producers to make those products, capturing externalities and embedding them into businesses’ bottom lines, or straight up refusing permits and zoning to allow these kinds of economic activities.
Welcome to the world of veganism, where nuance is your best friend, and yeast is fine to eat
So we were talking in the car the other day about how yeast is alive (until it isn’t). How do vegans feel about yeast? Honestly asking; I don’t know any vegans irl that I can ask.
Well it’s a fungus, and we eat fungi the same as we eat plants. We’re more concerned with undue human-driven suffering, which generally requires a central nervous system, and only animals have that.
Vegans on the whole recognize the biological complexity of life (i.e. multi-cellular organisms with the capacity to experience pain and pleasure through a nervous system and beyond, compared with uni-cellular or even multi-cellular organisms that don’t have such a system) and balance it with the quantity of pain and suffering throughout the world.
Basically, vegans by and large care about reducing the greatest amount of suffering for the most complex life on the planet (especially animals on the brink of extinction).
Usually we direct this goal towards rescuing farm animals, fighting elephant or lion poachers, saving rainforests, banning fishing in sea sanctuaries (or at least the use of purse seines that dredge the ocean floor), etc.
Yeast isn’t the biggest concern because 1) it isn’t considered towards the complex end of the spectrum of life as we know it on this planet, 2) we don’t have good evidence to show that yeast experiences pain, and 3) there are closer goals to achieve, like advocating for reduced animal consumption, alternative clothing to leather or fur, increased organic farming to offset nitrogen runoff in oceans, etc.
Achieving policy paradigms is one of the most impactful ways to improve animal suffering the world over, whether that’s increasing taxes on animal based products, reducing incentives for producers to make those products, capturing externalities and embedding them into businesses’ bottom lines, or straight up refusing permits and zoning to allow these kinds of economic activities.
Welcome to the world of veganism, where nuance is your best friend, and yeast is fine to eat