Vegans don’t want you to not have fun in life. We want you to live your life and let others live theirs, too.
I forgot who I stole it from, but veganism is my favorite example of a position that has nearly unassailable reasoning, but is still utterly unconvincing to most people.
Not really. It comes from the position that animals are people, or at least more worthy of consideration than the wants of humans. Neither of which are true in the eyes of basically everyone. Now arguing against factory farming seems to actually be unassailable.
The age old question. Do people make decisions using reasoning? Or do they make decisions based on emotions, and rationalise them afterwards using their reasoning?
I’d say the balancing factor tends to be effort. We are, as living creatures, lazy. That’s how you survive. The level of empathy you need to acquire before the suffering of a chicken you will never meet is going to compete with your desire to eat easily available delicious food made from them is going to have to be very high.
And once you make your choice you’re not going to internalise the idea that you are knowingly operating from a moral code informed by an acceptance of laziness are you? That conflicts with the self identity of being a rational and good person.
Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes somewhere in the middle.
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Just eat less meat. You don’t have to go 0-100. Skip the patty, skip the filet. Double up on proteins. Dairy shouldn’t be an end goal but substitute the actual meat for dairy for at least some reduction. Pick the food that is vegan instead of the one using meat stock, etc. Little things here and there. Default to meatless, eat the damn meat if you absolutely have to. Increase this change over time, and make sure to add a vegan B12 supplement. 80% is better than 100%. 60% is better than 80% when you get there. Maybe someday you hit 0%. Achieve perfect through gradual change, don’t shun good if you can’t be perfect.
One change I made early on was to look for ways to shorten the distance from my food, become familiar with how it gets to my plate and just keep higher standards overall for things like meat.
The experience of buying meat in particular can be heavily abstracted and sanitized. Every big chain supermarket has an area with rows and rows of perfectly packaged cuts. There is not very much information at all about most of it.
Pick up a Styrofoam tray of boneless skinless chicken breasts from the one or two giant conglomerates. Each package is wrapped in plastic. They all have very consistent appearance, evenly colored and equally plump. They are completely odorless. It is chicken but it’s very very far away from being a chicken. It’s been through a lot of hands and miles. You’ve already hit a wall, though, because you’re not getting much more information about that meat besides maybe some marketing terms and a picture of a taco or some shit like that. You’re being sold the idea of it. All of the horrible stuff is obscured. Even the neutral stuff like what it ate, if it was ever sick or given any medications. All that stuff gets pushed into the memory hole and is supposed to never reach the consumer. If you become too curious, and start digging into it on your own, you naturally end up consuming less. They know this.
Contrast that with what’s produced more locally. Try to figure out who in your area is producing with the goal of building up an actual local foodway sustainably. How close can you get to identifiable people actually producing your food? Can you access a co-op, farmers market, CSA?
Folks who do things like regenerative farming and try to build up their soil tend to be very passionate and like to share about it. Visit a nearby farm or ranch. Many have small retail operations. They may deal in larger quantities than you’re used to. Find out the process. If an animal is involved, how is it cared for and what does it do all day? Is the animal improving its surroundings or degrading them? Are you willing to meet your food face to face?
IMO if you’re going to continue eating meat, you owe it to your food to unpack this stuff, examine how it makes you feel to literally “know how the sausage is made”, form deeper connections with your food and community, and find opportunities to make positive changes to your buying habits.
ETA:
not everyone will be able to stomach peeking behind the curtain. But that’s actually good. It means you’re a compassionate human being, and that feeling can be harnessed and channeled into better personal choices.
I’m just tired of seeing all meat-eating equated, too. The Styrofoam chicken is in a completely different category from a fresh whole chicken acquired locally from, say, a nearby farm that prioritizes regenerative practices.
Compare the true costs and impacts of each. You might forget they’re the same species. It turns out that, if you simply let a chicken just… do its chicken things and provide it with what it already knows it needs to satisfy its drives, its natural behaviors and outputs can be directed to benefit the rest of the system. It’s not easy. This is a complex system, and there’s a lot to learn. But if you can get it right, the chicken is healthy and satisfied, it improves other parts of the system during its life, has at least net-zero if not positive net impact environmentally, and you still get to sell it at the end if that’s what you want your operation to be.
The best arguments for not eating meat disagree specifically with what happens at the end of, e.g., a meat chicken’s life. I know not to argue against that. It’s a principled moral stance.
There will probably always be people who want to eat meat. It is very deeply ingrained human impulse. I think it desperately needs to be scaled way way back. The big players in the conventional national industry need to be seized and taken apart, yesterday. Everything good and useful there needs to be pried out of their hands, brought local, and distributed among the people.
If the tables were turned, and local, sustainable models were the norm, we’d eat way less of it, feel way better, and have the community profit instead of extracted from. “Big chicken” would not exist like it does now. We’d be having completely different conversations.
This is the best advice you can give someone imo. Im like 75% vegan, still have eggs and bacon on the weekends, some chicken with dinner, some other stuff here and there. But mostly its beans/tofu and rice with veggies.
Some people think they have to give up everything all at once right now and of course that seems overwhelming… because it is.
Perfectionism is often used as a shield to prevent change or to avoid challenging yourself or your own rigid thinking. When you see someone saying it’s all or nothing they’re actively sabotaging themselves, often that’s exactly what they want to be doing, plausible deniability
I’m a cold turkey kind of guy. Slippery slopes are hard to navigate but clean cuts are easy.
You like the cold turkey or are you the vegan?
Do what works for you. If cold turkey works, excellent. Not everyone can, and taking a gradual approach may be more realistic for them instead.
honestly, giving everything up at once was pretty easy? soymilk took a few weeks to get used to, but outside that adjustment i just added more beans to stuff. Worth at least trying before compromising on slaughter.
For you it was easy, which doesn’t have any bearing whatsoever on how easy it will be for any other person. What’s worth trying is anything which reduces the amount of suffering in the world, which is not ‘compromise’, it’s a positive step. One burger a year is an improvement and even if that’s all you can manage it’s better than nothing.
and for all the other people who will find it easy, it’s important to still have a message dissenting the idea that it’s always difficult. I’m saying that going all out and finding if you even need to compromise is better than assuming from the start that a compromise is your only viable option.
No assumptions made here, just the observation that a positive step is not a compromise.
to a vegan it kinda sounds equivalent to “just don’t be racist most days of the week, thats a good start”
While I agree with the sentiment, I still struggle a bit with this rhetoric. When it comes to misogyny or rasicsm you wouldn’t tell someone to just try and do less of it. The meat & dairy industry is still a whole lot of abuse and exploitation, and I think everyone is probably on board with having nothing to do with it. The friction is just too high I guess.
Actually yes you would. For the average person in the privileged position, “trying to do less racism” or “trying to be less misogynistic” is the crux of actioning allyship, especially when people are imprinted and socialized from a young age to be/act racist and misogynistic without knowing or understanding it. Kids can’t necessarily control that, but trying to undo it by being less racist and less misogynistic day by day is the necessary work of anti-racism and feminism.
It also ignores that even allies almost always still hold some misoginy or racism, simply due to upbringing. True allies have to admit that we’re not done progressing.
Not only allies. There is a lot of internalization of misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. if you are a member of one of the affected groups but were raised in such environment.
I agree, but I think framing the goal is important.
I think the better way to go about it is to commit fully from the start. Maybe there’s some hiccups, and then you can reset and try again. I guess it’s very personal however. Some people might benefit from another mindset. Anything that gets people away from abuse, I’m all for.
The friction is precisely why I recommend start small. Better someone eat less meat and stick with it long term, than a full meat diet long term because they went completely meatless at once for a week or two and couldn’t handle it
When it comes to misogyny or rasicsm you wouldn’t tell someone to just try and do less of it.
Idk, these are very different things. If I think about how much I hate (some group) then I may be a racist based on that alone. If I don’t consume animal products but I fantasize about eating a cheeseburger I would still be a vegan.
Nobody is going to literally say “just do less racism” but in practice we often only deal with small parts of someone’s racism.
Well, frame it as “not one person doing it perfectly but thousands doing it imperfectly”
I’m not saying it’s bad.
Maybe in my mind, I just think it’s a bit weird to glorify it in a way. If someone would come to me and proudly say “I’m only 20% racist now!”, I don’t think my initial reaction would be “Great, keep going!”. It would probably be more like “Why are you any % racist in the first place?”.
All of us are subconsiously a tiny percent racist due to growing up in racist power structures. You’re not a true ally if you think you’re perfect and zero % racist
Maybe it was a bad example, excuse me.
What I mean is, some things in society are absolutely not accepted, and we wouldn’t congratulate people on just doing less of these things. For me, factory farming of animal products is one of these things. I do realize that some people don’t consider it to be.
Again, I wouldn’t say I disagree with the original comment, I just have some conflicting thoughts about it I guess. Hope this makes sense.
comparing women and minorities to animals is what misogynists and racists do
And realizing that all humans are animals is what biologists do.
Analogies don’t prove anything, so we can play this game all day
Agreed.
When it comes to misogyny or rasicsm you wouldn’t tell someone to just try and do less of it.
On a societal level that IS how we progress… Sorry but don’t let idealism block progress
That’s the thing. If we could use less meat, use less cars, use less fossil fuels, we would all be happier. But me choosing to do these things sounds to people as just bending over for somebody else to use what I don’t use. I just want a happier lifestyle? I’m not doing it for politics or self sacrifice, I’m just taking a step backwarda and realizing that mcdonalds sucks, car commuting sucks.
But I will use the car when I need to go to the countryside and there is no BETTER alternative!
Nah
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Good on you. I poisoned myself once because I used lemon juice instead of vinagre to lower the ph while making it.
Stick to the recipe, the ingredients and keep everything clean.
Fun fact: The actor in this scene is vegetarian, so they used mushrooms instead of steak
Which is kind of wild, because I don’t know if a steak has ever looked better on film than the cut shown in this scene. I understand that sentiment may not hold true for folks on vegetarian or vegan diets based on ethical grounds, but that may as well be the Platonic ideal of “fancy steak”.
Visually, yes.
However I’ve not met a mushroom that tastes and feels like beef. Impossible burgers get close but it’s far from a steak.
I make mushroom steak from lions mane. My meat eater friends say its a pretty damn good substitute
Have you tried the
impossibleBeyond steak? Highly recommendI’ve never had Impossible Steak. Do you like Beyond? I’ve noticed some people like one or the other.
Have you tried Lions Mane steak?
Herbivorous Butcher is really good too and they have a cookbook to make your own.
There was a brand called Meati that made steaks out of mycelium that were so goddamn good. Closest to the real thing I’ve had so far. Unfortunately some shady financial shenanigans cost them their production plant. There’s a new owner trying to get them up and running again though so fingers crossed there.
I used to see their billboard a lot when I worked in Downtown Denver. Never got to try it.
Oh shoot my bad I actually meant beyond steak- I kinda hate the taste of everything Impossible makes lol
Whooaa, cool! I haven’t but I definitely need to; thanks for sharing!
Every time I visited the twin cities I’d stop by their shop and stock up on a bunch of stuff. Their vegan BBQ ribs and vegan chorizo were so good. I heard that their store burned down a few years ago, but I didn’t realize they kept their online shop open!
Yea, it’s funny because when I heard about them, I heard they made a cookbook after closing down. Like Miyoko’s new books. That it was just a local shop.
I only found the site from looking for the cookbook and found out they are still running and ship now.
Funner fact: the actor in the original Oldboy is also vegan, but he still ate that live octopus.
He’s vegetarian not vegan. It’s incredibly hard to be a vegan in korea, but it’s very easy to be a vegetarian. The vast majority of halmeoni cooking your food over there basically equivocate vegetarianism and vegan to be the same thing. A lot of traditional foods have hidden animal products in it like shrimp paste for seasoning.
I once tried talking to my like 85 year old Korean granny about it and she strongly explained to me that things like krill were more like plants than animals, which in some ways is kinda true.
It’s incredibly hard to be a vegan in korea, but it’s very easy to be a vegetarian.
A lot of traditional foods have hidden animal products in it like shrimp paste for seasoning.
Sounds like it’s easy to be a pescatarian, but not actually a vegetarian.
Restrictive Asian diets don’t sort neatly into western buckets.
By your definition, most practicing ‘vegetarian’ Buddhists are omnivores because of oyster sauce, yet they eat far less animal products than the average western vegetarian due to the low prevalence of dairy products.
Jains, for example, can drink milk and eat butter and ghee, but cannot eat root vegetables, fungi, and fermented foods, while the opposite is true for veganism.
So what do you call people who are vegetarian except for 1% of their diet? I would find it disengenuous to equate that to a regular omnivore diet.
Again, it’s kinda weird. I would say it’s fairly easy to be vegetarian since there’s a cultural understanding of vegetarians due to the cultural/religious practices of Buddhist monks.
For one, they typically have more bland foods, and typically live in the mountainous regions where there’s less access to sea food. And again, what a lot of east Asian people consider meat varies from the western nomenclature.
Where instead of basing the ethical delineation on a scientific taxonomy, it’s based more on whether something possesses a soul/conscious. If we examine the issue through that lens it can make sense that an invertebrate like a krill or even coral are closer to plants than mammals.
So nothing, basically.
TIL 200k tons of krill are harvested each year.
To be used in omega 3 supplements and fish farming. At the same time one can cut both by using omega 3 DHA & EPA supplements based on algae. Doing it for 7 years now. Also the less krill, the less whales and the less whales, the less flourishing ocean eco systems, because of the whale poop loop and whale falls.
Same in Japan… it’s so hard to be vegan.
Ahhh, okay. I thought I had read he was vegan, maybe I misremembered or maybe the article was wrong.
May have been the article if it was originally from a Korean source. Like I said they tend to use vegan and vegetarian interchangeably a lot.
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That’s slightly less fun. I’ll eat a pig or a chicken or a cow but octopodes are too smart for me to eat.
I eat smart things only to get smarter. You are what you eat after all. Octoponi, Chimpansessies, Peeps, Dolphones, etc. Ant too since I want hive mind. My brain grows.
Okay Sylar…
I think this is a very arbitrary line to draw, and I honestly don’t think it’s backed up by science. Octopuses may outperform pigs and cows at some tasks, but how do you measure their overall intelligence in a way that’s comparable?
I stopped eating them recently for that reason.
Same. cephalopods in general for me. I still feel bad about eating meat otherwise but I can’t even think about eating octopus
Pigs are smarter than dogs, that’s what makes em taste so good!
Just realised looking at this that it’s the same actor as Ralph from The Sopranos. I’ve watched both recently too!
But who plays Cypher in the Matrix in The Sopranos universe?
Ralphie
TIL!!!
And Ralph’s wig in The Sopranos is modelled on Christopher Nolan’s hair when he was directing Memento, which also stars the same actor.
Non-vegans should support vegans, even if they continue to eat meat, because vegans drive better treatment of animals and also drive more attractive non-animal food options.
However, a person must have a brain and also not have meat eating tied to their masculinity.
Yeah, you can’t say the conditions we’re subjecting livestock to is “good”. You don’t give up your rights to eat bbq if you admit it.
Non-vegans should support vegans
What really drives me mad is that there’s a dead simple solution - lab-grown meat - that can obviously be the best of both worlds with a bit more development (and in fact is being commercialized already), but is being lobbied against by the meat industry precisely because it’ll be cheaper and better. And nobody seems to be talking about it.
Ecofeminism has a lot to say about meat/masculinity/fascism.
My meat eating isn’t even close to being tied to my masculinity. I hardly even care how myself and others perceive my masculinity.
My meat eating is nearly entirely tied to my enjoyment of the taste of meat.
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As a cis dude who wears skirts, pink ball caps, and like dick as much as pussy… Please tell me how much my perceived masculinity matters to me.
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Okay Keep telling yourself that. Whatever you need to feel better about yourself.
Lower demand for animal products lowers prices for others.
Obligatory mention that you don’t need to cut out meat from your life entirely to have a significant impact on your carbon footprint and your health. Going mostly vegetarian is also an option and its basically been the default of humanity since the agricultural revolution.
“But it’s awkward in social settings”, “What if I’m going out to eat”, “What if it’s the only option”, “What if I am trying but don’t realize something has an animal product”
Idk dude then eat meat in those settings I guess. 95% of your food is consumed outside of those settings so just be 95% vegan or vegetarian.
This. The stuff I cook at home is 100% vegetarian, which is most of my meals. I simply stopped buying meat when I’m grocery shopping.
When I visit people I eat whatever they have, if they have good vegetarian options i prefer that though.
When I’m going out to eat I do the same. If you’re not in the mood to have a discussion about it during lunch with your coworkers or whoever just tell them that you do eat meat but chose that one vegetarian option because it looked tasty or whatever.
Since people in my social surrounding think mostly the same I’m about 99% vegetarian.
Obligatory mention that the “carbon footprint” is a tool of the billionair class to put all the blame that belongs to them on us, the consumer without any real power in the markets.
So the best way to cut down on carbon footprint is to be politically engaged. Without systemic change your personal sacrafice will not really do anything.
It’s really beef that is the vast majority of emissions just cutting that out of your diet gets most of the environmental benefits of vegetarian.
And sheep. Cutting dairy is generally a pretty easy swap.
In this economy I’m buying less meat just because it’s so expensive
Sadly the price of beans and tofu is also rising, unless you buy in bulk.
25lbs of pinto beans and 20 lbs of dry rice is a month of staple meals and costs ~$35 at costco
We have a new word for it where I live; flexitarian (not a joke). It’s like you’d eat meat sometimes. Sounded weird but I actually like it now.
I think I know this word since the late 2000s.
Imagine someone being disturbed because you choose not to eat something. 🤣
It’s usually vice versa: someone who chose not to eat something is disturbed by anyone and everyone else who does not do the same
Well the meat industry does in fact affect climate (synthetic fertilizers are made with fossil methane), which indeed disturbs everyone.
But whatever you choose not to eat has absolutely no effect on anyone.
the meat industry does in fact affect climate
true for any industry. look for how badly we have fucked up our soil
whatever you choose not to eat has absolutely no effect on anyone
it does. what I choose to not eat I need to compensate, so there is no choice of not eating something, only real choice is what to eat
Consider the amount of corn and soy grown for livestock.
consider the amount of whatever we will have to grow to substitute meat
That would be much less than what we grow for that meat.
Possibly. Does it sound like “yeah, the problem of humans pushing other life forms into starvation and extinction is solved with this one simple trick”?
You forget to consider amounts. Some industries and foods have more effect than others, and the less you eat, the less of an effect you have.
*the less humans are on the planet, the lesser footprint we leave. It should be handled this way but alas, we are not even close
The reason we take care of a fish tank, is to maintain the fish.
We did not setup the planet to plant humans here now, did we?
I don’t care what people eat. I can genuinely go months or years without thinking about vegans. I never challenged any vegan, vegetarian or whatever other diet out there.
I have been bothered by vegans on multiple occasions including at restaurants more than once.
I have been bothered by people but I never asked about their eating habits or watched them eat.
Everyone I know actually unironically feels this way lol and always comes to me for advice on going more vegan. Vegan hatred is a strong flea dip for me though, basically any% criticism of vegans ensures I will likely never speak to you again.
basically any% criticism of vegans ensures I will likely never speak to you again.
Tbh this is kind of a stupid behavior, if it’s a valid criticism i don’t see why you’d have to react like that
It’s not, because criticising “vegans” is done to avoid discussing veganism, which is objectively better than meat eating. This does not include people who say, argue whether starving people should eat meat to survive, which is not a criticism of vegans. I’m open to discussing any real life actual moral paradigms with reasonable people.
Basically you’re assuming it’s not purely coincidence. Plenty of my friends eat meat lol. They’re just rational and not the type of person who thinks I deserve to be cross examined for the actions of all people who are also vegan. People who act like I should like, idk, answer for PETA? My life has objectively improved by letting those bridges burn naturally. It’s done wonders for my mental health.
because criticising “vegans” is done to avoid discussing veganism
In that case it’s probably not a valid criticism
Basically you’re assuming it’s not purely coincidence
I am not gettin this, sorry
Maybe don’t be a bot that doesn’t understand the social connotations around being vegan? Idk lol you are getting blocked
No really i did not understood the phrase, english is my 2nd language so I do not understand some stuff…but i guess we gotta be rude :/
Is it awful of me to have stopped eating meat from animals I think are beautiful and sweet, like cows and pigs, but still eat meat from some animals I think are ugly and mean, like chickens and sheeps?
Sheep aren’t mean. Just very, very, very stupid.
Agree! We raised three lambs at home and they were all unbelievably stupid and slightly suicidal.
Horses are even more stupid, but to be fair, we eat them too.
I get it. It’s like when nazis killed jews because they thought they are icky
comparing Jews to animals is what Nazis do
What did a sheep ever do to you!? They’re cute! What do you mean they’re ugly and mean!
Is this some weird reaction to ‘Keep the Sheep’?
To respond to the question, I think the vibe of this comment section would be ‘not awful’, maybe not the best reasoning, but not awful.
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If we go by bug logic, if it’s a freaky little bloodsucking chicken than maybe but I’m still not sure honestly
Oh but otherwise no that’s mean c’mon what’d chickens do
Id eat owls and raccoons because they like to murder the chickens. Does eating then for revenge count lol
As long as you serve them cold?
It took me a second to get this. As in revenge, a dish best served cold?
What are your thoughts on someone going into the woods and catching wild game?
Those are the kings woods and they should be hanged.
He deered to kill a King’s dare.
Keep your monarchy to yourself lol
If I go out into the woods and kill a person to eat, it is better than if I enslave a family, force them to breed, and then eat them one by one in perpetuity.
Similarly, hunting is better than factory farming, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to do, outside of some niche conservation projects.
Thank you for your perspective!
Are you doing it for sport or are you doing it to meet nutritional needs in lieu of factory farming / expensive and mass-produced plant proteins? This might be a controversial take but IMO hunting wild game can be morally superior to going vegan using supermarket products because of the ecologically destructive nature of modern industrial agriculture. Hunting can be done responsibly in a way that does not harm or even benefits the ecosystem, but it’s very difficult to exercise moral discretion in all of your grocery purchases due to a lack of transparency in supply chains.
To meet nutritional needs in lieu of factory farming / expensive and mass-produced plant proteins!
I’ve also been contemplating a small flock of chickens.
Vegans are not correct.
Vegetarians? Arguably yes. Not vegans.
If the cow I’m drinking milk from is living a decent happy life its not immoral for me to drink it.
I’m not even a vegetarian though, so I will say that the spirit of this tweet at least makes sense to me. I get it.
Um, maybe you should look up, why cows give milk in the first place? It’s not like it’s an animal that just randomly produces milk…little hint: why do human mothers produce milk when they gave birth, but don’t do it randomly their whole life 🤔
But is the cow you’re drinking milk from living a decent, happy life? What about the male calves that are born as a result of reproducing milk cows? What happens to them?
This thinking could extend to virtually every choice you make and is completely impossible to systematically justify for an ethical system without going completely and utterly insane.
It is the “Butterfly Effect” of ethics. A select path has impacts beyond the initial obvious moral consideration and then more considerations beyond that.
So where is the line? I don’t know that there is one, but I know that its a waste of energy to follow this line of thinking. One initial intuitive layer of moral consideration is more than the average person even remotely considers, and sometimes not even that much. The way elections have gone in the US over the past few years is a good example of this.
You can’t have mass milk products without killing many calf. I use lots of cow cheese but you need to know all process to have milk and cheese needs to kill calfs, as cow stop usual doing milk after something like a year, after a few month of reduced milk production.
Cows need to be pregnant to make milk.
As a Vegetarian I disagree. We’re the most schizophrenic when it comes to animal welfare. No meat as we don’t want to kill for our food, but milk and cheese is only possible when we kill calves and eggs are only possible when we shredder 50% of the baby chicks.
Yes, alternatives are starting to pop up, but they are still in the minority here.
If it’s not about animal welfare, but sustainability Vegans also win, because dairy is pretty bad in this aspect too.
In this sense, animals also would die anyways, so eating meat is sometimes justified aswell (would you eat a cow that would die soon anyway or just let it suffer a natural death? And then waste its meat?)
“You don’t eat the food I like, so you’re WRONG!!! 🤪” - 😂
No its not fine to oppress others even if you know you are wrong to. You sound like a founding father who writes that slavery is wrong but brutally exploits slaves anyway.
Yup. The leftism leaves so many leftists’ bodies the moment animal liberation comes up. If you recognize the problem, don’t be complacent on the solution.
Unlike so many other rights struggles, basic veganism doesn’t require action, but rather the cessation of harmful actions. In that regard, it’s easier than taking action against other forms of exploitation: simply stop consuming animal products. Plant-based alternatives are readily available (I went vegan in a food desert) and are better for you than eating some poor animal’s flesh.
The biggest hurdle, is the meat-eating culture, and how it is the dominant one in many places, right now. People need certain mental strenght to go againt the culture around them, especially when they have been raised up with it, and not all have that. If all people around you are vegans, and it is considered the norm, a lot of people would become vegan too, just to fit in. As long as meat-eating is seen as normal and people are raised to believe it is normal, many people will continue, even if they agree vegans are right.
Be the change. We’d get nowhere if everyone lets that stop them.
Oh yes, absolutely. I was trying more to make a point, about how it is important to understand the reasons behind, if we want to affect that behavior.
Certainly I would have a hard time being vegan if I visited Korea for instance, but there are ways. I look at them as different difficulty settings.
Also, the ethos is to avoid harming animals as much as practicable which will vary by individual and situation.
You can be a shitty vegan, it’s not against the rules hehe. Like you can avoid obvious meat or dairy but not bother reading the fine print—that’s better than most people. Or you can try your best but then go eat your craving on the second Sunday of every month, or give yourself two Mulligans a week, or whatever you want. There really are no rules.
Though I’d argue that once you secure your sources of regular plant based food, it’s actually quite easy to just go all the way and stick with it.
This was me and I still think it’s important to sit with this incongruity rather than try to weasel your way out of it with broken logic. Sit with the discomfort of being in conflict with your own ethical knowledge and let it work on you.
I’m not going to look down on someone who eats animal products even though they know better, because I was them not long ago. I know what it feels like to be on both sides of this, as do most vegans.
I would just urge them to keep thinking about it and trying in different little ways to reduce their reliance on animal products here and there.
If you’re open minded about veganism and the problems with animal farming you’re so much closer than you think to actually being able to do it yourself.
This was me and I still think it’s important to sit with this incongruity rather than try to weasel your way out of it with broken logic. Sit with the discomfort of being in conflict with your own ethical knowledge and let it work on you.
100% agree. That’s why I detest people that know it’s wrong, and then say things like what OP in the meme does about how you can “just be wrong” and “just live your life” at the expense of your victims. It’s not a personal choice when there are victims involved, and when you know there are victims and you have the ability to stop, you need to stop.
But when it comes to actually talking to people about this stuff, I agree with gently encouraging them to not run away from their cognitive dissonance and to follow those thoughts to their logical conclusions.
I’m in this picture and feel pretty neutral about that.
One time I had a hardcore combo meth-heroin addict who was vegan who candidly told me something to the effect of ‘idgaf what I put in my body I just have a moral problem with the livestock industry’ and I was like ‘you know what, based.’ The core issue of that conversation was that dietary sent a roll with dinner and they were like ‘naaah I can tell by the texture they used cows butter’ and like many things in the hospital they’re probably right and also at least they recognized I had no way of fixing it.
I have omnivore dentition. To take advantage of it I consume seitan through raw spinach through rare prime rib. The rest of you are welcome to dine on whatever.
You also have the genetic capability to procreate with your mother
Hail seitan!
I won’t argue for most of the animal-based market but I reject the idea that eggs are inherently unethical. Some of the ways they are produced certainly are (the vast majority even, I assume), but chickens just lay eggs in their day to day life and I don’t think anything is wrong with eating them, though I do acknowledge that finding ethical options is probably more complex than just paying a bit extra for the free range cartons.
I should find a local producer again, then they are usually both cheaper and not factory farmed.
Wild hens lay 10 to 15 eggs a year. We selectively bred them into the horror of daily laying.
We did a similar thing with sheep, they shouldn’t have that much wool at all
Guinea hens lay 30 - 180 depending on climate, food availability and predation in the wild. Domestic hens are not “bred” into daily laying, their instinctive nature to fill the nest drives them. Appropriate feed, housing and hydration allows that. That, in no way, excuses industrial egg production. However, small numbers raised as pets for egg production are treated very well and mourned at their passing. Is that acceptable?
Domestic hens were still bred into significantly higher egg output capacities.
If you want to tangent off specifically into niche birds, sure a guinea hen has a high natural egg laying capacity, as you stated, if you manipulate it’s environment. Typically in the wild, however, it would lay ~10-20 per year. Your more typical bred domestic chicken that this conversation is actually about has more than twice the capacity of the guinea hen’s natural limit. Let’s keep on topic here though, yeah?
The unethical part is the reason there’s so many more hens than cockerels (the male chicks get killed off early).
Let me know if you find a farmer who lets the males live, feeds them and cares for them, until they peacefully reach old age, getting absolutely nothing from them apart maybe the joy of seeing them happy.
no need to try to argue
Didn’t realize they are the king of what can be argued.
Well now you do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well obviously this person disagrees 🤷
Yeah this is why I could maybe be vegetarian in the future but never vegan.
