This meme really only makes sense in response to something. I've definitely heard many non-vegans complain that a vegan diet is restricting. Most of those people do only eat like 3 veggies ever.
That being said, it's a meme, not a philosophical treatise.
Maybe not this single one, but if there's a running discourse that shows veganism is perfectly common and normal, more people are willing to become vegan. This is part of the nudges we humans are prone to.
Vegans aren't doing this to feel special, stop projecting. We just want people to stop harming animals and the only way to do that is to keep talking about it. Of all the responses vegans get, this is the most annoying one to hear.
I find vegans tend to have less empathy for their fellow man than we meat-eaters have for animals. It comes across as smug (and let's be honest, it's less insulting to call them smug).
You do realise that meat-eaters eat animals that were killed for them to be eaten?
Please explain to me how this is more empathetic than posting a meme that triggered some meat-eaters.
You do realise that meat-eaters eat animals that were killed for them to be eaten?
Yup. Animals that lived lives in the first place because they were going to be eaten. Why should anyone have an ethical problem with that? But honestly, I don't think it's just "were killed for them to be eaten" to you. I live in a deer population control zone. Hunters have a critical task of preventing deer overpopulation from devastating the area. Got any problems with the venison steak I had last week from deer that HAD to be killed?
Please explain to me how this is more empathetic than posting a meme that triggered some meat-eaters.
More empathetic? Because I'm not an anti-natalist. I know those animals would not have been born if not farmed. This is not a vacuum choice between "cows die" and "cows live". It never was, and it never will be. I know that most of them live better lives and die easier than their non-domesticated counterparts. Ever watch a cat play with a mouse, slowly torturing it to death? My local farm (plants) have animals that do exactly that every day with the goal of killing off pest animals so they won't destroy the harvest (a single pest animal like a squirrel can destroy 40 or 50 tomatoes in an hour).
Let's go another way. Statistically, odds are pretty good that my death will be 100x worse than how a farm animal dies. So no, me being ok that death exists in our world is NOT a lack of empathy. You don't get to make up my morals for me. The way I see it, giving farm animals a peaceful life is the height of empathy... so I look at you (your words) "triggering some meat-eaters" and note that statistically many of the people you go out of your way to "trigger" are going to end up dying long and painful battles with cancer. My view of empathy? Give them just a LITTLE bit more bloody peace while they're alive.
Here's my empathy. I fight for animal right laws. I strongly supported the free range chicken law that just passed in my state. I reject unethical and inhumane ways of treating and killing animals. But I'm not uneducated. I know how farming works. I know how the delicate relationship between agriculture and horticulture, while not perfect, leads to less death and less environmental impact than EITHER side of those alone.
Vegans are letting some crayola-colored dream be the enemy of good. And it's nothing more than flat-earther, tinfoil, antivax gibberish to me. And I don't care as long as they leave people alone.
That is the most insane sentence I've read. Vegans aren't slaughtering and eating you. What empathy do you have for animals you choose to exploit and kill for taste preference? Vegans want people to stop doing a bad thing, that doesn't mean we don't care about those people, but it does usually mean that we have to argue with them.
That is the most insane sentence I’ve read. Vegans aren’t slaughtering and eating you
Do you actually think you'll change anyone's mind by calling their well-conceived ethical frameworks "insane"? THIS is why you get the reputation of being smug. My life's knowledge, my grasp of philosophy, it's all worthless shit to you because I am morally convinced that it's acceptable to kill and eat animals. It doesn't matter why I'm convinced that (and I've learned the hard way it's not worth anyone's time to discuss the reasoning or the why's). I am beneith you.
Calling vegans "smug" is nicer than calling them dehumanizing and ignorant.
What empathy do you have for animals you choose to exploit and kill for taste preference?
As I said in another comment, proselytizing zealous vegans like to strawman non-vegans as all sitting there with a piece of bloody steak on a fork saying "I know some poor cute fluffy animal died a painful death for this but I LOVE the taste of murder". That's not us. If you can't see that, perhaps the first step in your recovery is to actually start to.
Vegans want people to stop doing a bad thing, that doesn’t mean we don’t care about those people, but it does usually mean that we have to argue with them.
As do I, and I have taken a lot of abuse from vegans over the years standing up to those bad things.
And more... That is Word. For. Word. what that guy on the subway says about my gay friends divorcing each other. Word. For. Bloody. Word.
I didnt call your ethical framework insane, I'm talking about your statement saying you have more empathy for animals than vegans have for you, which is beyond ridiculous to say. You literally strawmanned my argument, I didn't appeal to cuteness or scary words. It's a logical question that you just didnt answer. Taking 'abuse' from vegans... maybe we are just convinced its morally okay, or does being a victim not feel good to you? As for the last thing you said, I have literally no idea what you are talking about.
I didnt call your ethical framework insane, I’m talking about your statement saying you have more empathy for animals than vegans have for you, which is beyond ridiculous to say
Did I? What exactly do you think my ethical framework is if it's not either ignorance or lack of empathy... when you directly accused me of having less empathy for animals?
It’s a logical question that you just didnt answer.
Where do you ever ask me a question that I didn't answer?
Taking ‘abuse’ from vegans… maybe we are just convinced its morally okay, or does being a victim not feel good to you?
Rephrase please, so I don't get you even more on the defensive by answering the wrong question. Because this one came across as a softball one that you would not like the answer to.
As for the last thing you said, I have literally no idea what you are talking about.
I have sat through a "discussion" where several of my gay friends were told "we want people to stop doing a bad thing, that doesn’t mean we don’t care about those people". I have a friend who was kicked out of his home at 15 to almost that exact phrasing. Preachy Vegans come across EXACTLY like that to everyone else in the world. When I look a preachy vegan in the eyes, I see that bigoted Catholic dad who kicks his kid to the curb.
Do you have kids? What would you do if one of them came out non-vegan to you? What if they decided their calling was ranching? I've got a cousin who got a degree in dairy farming and he LOVES it.
No I heard your sentence and called it stupid and I still can't believe you are going with it because it is laughable. Go on, explain how you are nicer to animals more than vegans are to you. You are still alive so we haven't eaten you yet...
Do you kill and eat people you care about?
You said you are taking 'abuse' from vegans in the same comment you said you see nothing wrong with killing and eating someone. I can't take your victim point seriously when you refuse to acknowledge the feelings of your victims.
As your your gay friends thing, its a false equivalence despite what the words are. Gay people don't have victims. Nonvegans do. I'm defining "bad thing" as an action that harms others. Being gay is also not a choice and is nothing like being nonvegan. You aren't a fucking minority for being nonvegan. What a dumbass insulting argument.
I occasionally think about all the gametes I'm eating in vegetables. Other than rocky mountain oysters, I'm rarely eating sperm or ova when eating meat. There's roe occasionally, I suppose.
In not sure anyone is eating muskrat or opossum outside West Virginia mountain hermits, people born before 1890, and anyone who self identifies as a trapper.
They’re the least “gamey” out of most small game, less so than rabbit, and taste something like leaner dark meat chicken.
Awesome in a crockpot substituted for chicken in most recipes. Can fancy up squirrel with a Sous vide to make squirrel confit bánh mì tacos, or keep it old school and make squirrel pot pie.
You have to catch the possum first, then corn feed it for about a month or two to get the nasty taste out of the meat before you eat it. So basically, turn it into a pet, then kill and eat it.
Its how they did it for the Possum Festival in Florida when I was growing up, so its a thing, But I can't imagine anyone would do it just cause they like possum though.
The amount of work required to make a decent turkey simply isn't worth it when so many better poultry options exist. The best prepared turkey isn't going to come close to a good roast duck.
You gotta let people be people. Shaming someone for their dietary choices is not cool. Not everyone shares the same beliefs and that is fine.
I personally believe that people should not eat meat unless they have what it takes to kill it themselves so they understand what goes into it. Too many people eat meat all the time without understanding that something has to die for it to get there. I also disagree with mass agribusiness indoor livestock operations.
Some beliefs lead to immoral outcomes. I'm absolutely certain you can think of quite a few beliefs like that, right? Just picture a hill billy from Alabama, are all his beliefs fine?
In the end, morals is applied ethics, and politics is applied morals. We absolutely should legislate and not tolerate bad beliefs. The vague idea that "everyone has their own belief/opinion and we have to respect it" is a thought terminating cliche that makes the world a worse place. My dad wants me to respect his antivax beliefs, my grandfather wants me to respect his climate change denialism beliefs. Should I?
Well said, I'm glad to finally meet someone with your views that is able to express themselves.
I would say no to your question as those beliefs are contradicting science and they could cause harm to people. My beliefs do not contradict established science. I would also point out that not all rural Appalachian people are bigots, but I understand the point you were making with it. The difference in our views is that I don't see animals as people. I understand their intelligent, and I believe some may be sentient such as elephants and whales. I am against killing elephants and whales.
If you are curious to see it from my perspective, participate in a somewhat poor analogy. Imagine someone came out and said they believe that killing a tree is the same as committing murder, that trees are people. After all, we have proven that they communicate with other trees and with mycelium in very complex and even selfless ways, probably to an even higher degree than we have yet discovered. This person is adamant that the trees are being oppressed and that we need to stop farming trees for paper products. They say that you are a bad person for causing unnecessary suffering and destruction to trees. But imagine that you disagree with them, you do not see trees as people. You understand that trees are living and communicating and you would like to see less cut down, but you still use them for firewood to heat your house. You see it as no less humane to grow them and cut them down than it is to let them die from burning to death or being eaten alive by bugs or disease.
Not the best example, and there are plenty of holes you could point out of you feel so inclined, but hopefully the core of it can grant atleast a small glimpse into how I see the issue we are discussing.
More info on the trees talking thing. I find it fascinating that they have a whole complex economy going on underground, trading and even investing resources. DYK that as a last act when a tree is dying, it gives its resources to saplings that are of a different species than itself before it goes. There's some good podcast on it "radiolab, from tree to shining tree". Also an quick Google search article.
https://www.nationalforests.org/blog/underground-mycorrhizal-network
Neuroscience agrees that other mammals and birds are able to experience suffering. They feel pain and stress and fear. The majority agrees they are conscious of their emotions even. To ignore that is a conscious decision on your side. You decide their suffering is worth it, but you don't want people to confront you with it because it makes you uncomfortable. How ironic.
There is an obvious difference between kicking a puppy and cutting a tree. Trees do not have brains. Trees also cant move to get away from a predator, so why would they develop emotions we have? As complicated as my right hand is, it isnt sentient.
I see what you are saying about digging holes, there are a lot of arguments we could go on but the issue doesn't need to be overcomplicated. The animal industry absolutely is terrible for sentient beings and terrible for the environment, and being vegan vastly reduces the plants or animals we kill.
When someones dietary choice causes huge amounts of needless suffering and death to the victim (the innocent animal that was exploited and killed) then that's not "fine". That's a serious injustice that should be pointed out (at the very least)
i know this may be a shock but fish haven’t reached the industrialization part of civilization yet. they do not have the capabilities to grow crops and harvest them and make dishes
Think about the argument you're making here: "Wild animals do X, therefore humans should be allowed to do X".
I hope you understand how horrible this argument is. Here's a fun little list of things animals do:
Nothing like going to my local farm and eating their meat while watching a movie about how GOOD the meat I'm eating is because some other meat is so terrible.
Thanks for the idea :) I'm gonna bring it up for the next local farm-to-table
That is your belief. I respect it. My mom is a vegetarian and I respect her beliefs, she would cook meat for us as she respected ours.
To me, the world has been eating itself since the beginning of life. Wild animals die horrible slow deaths from sickness to starvation over the course of days/weeks to being eaten alive or left to die, and that is the natural way of things. If you want to live you have to die. You don't have to agree with me, but you should accept that different people see things differently than you.
I don't expect a person at the bottom of the economic scale to feed their family with expensive alternatives that they don't understand, and you should't shame them for doing the best they can with what they have or what they know. If someone has the means to eat along with their beliefs, then more power to them. But shaming others is not the way.
Lead by example. Offer affordable alternatives, give positive publicity, not negative publicity, to let people see how your way can be good. Allow people to see your way. Don't force them or they'll just dig in deeper on their own beliefs.
If you believe that then you should work to change people's minds, like actually research how to do that. The way you currently approach it will only make people disagree with you out of spite. Good luck to you.
Some people really think being a good example of the product of their beliefs and being obnoxiously obtuse and argumentative about their beliefs are equally effective at persuading others to think like them.
I can tell you no person ever in the history of humanity was convinced by the latter.
Wait do you think farming doesn’t hurt animals? I’m all for not eating meat, but pretending you’re not harming millions of insects, birds, and various mammals every time you eat a salad, you’re confused about how food production works.
The moral thing people can do is stop making so many people. And hopefully we find ways to produce food in a better way one day. But farming on the scale that feeds billions of people is absolutely fucked.
If you have the choice to avoid certain types of foods that kill more animals than other types of foods I don’t see much difference other than a relativism. So no coffee. No tea. Only organic local foods that are in season grown on a small farm you personally know the SOPs of…
Btw I avoid meat almost entirely. I just think the moral righteousness I see from Whole Foods Amazon vegetarians to be wholly laughable.
Taking a step crazier, there are some animals that produce SO MANY calories that they represent less animal deaths per calorie than eating crops. Cows and Pigs are an example of that. I'm not going to get into hard numbers because everyone likes to hate on the other side's numbers and my experience living in a farming community looks more like the numbers that make animals look bad. If you want to math it out, the farm industry estimates about 40 mouse deaths per acre farmed, and vegan advocates defend a 15 total animal deaths per hectare figure. Grass-fed cows are more death-efficient than corn (the gold standard efficient crop, if less efficient than potatoes) at around 10 deaths-per-acre of farmland. I've never seen an acre of farmland without at least 10 animal carcasses on it in a full growth+harvest cycle.
How many people do you estimate could be fed with grass-fed cows? What about the usage of water? What is with the thousands of hectare of forest that have been rode for pastures? What about the water you need for this type of farming? What about the fact that, if everybody would switch to a meatless diet you would need much less farmland overall?
I know why you do not want to get into hard numbers. Because they would refute your weak arguments.
How many people do you estimate could be fed with grass-fed cows?
Why are we going back to "grass-fed"? Do you have plans for that inedible plant waste that currently only ends up in animals or landfills?
What about the usage of water?
What about it? I'm not sure you understand how water works in agriculture/horticulture. Are you looking at "water footprint"? That's its own complicated topic with as many landmines. I'd like to point out that cows are basically as efficient as nuts (or any real vegetable protein), and even the waterfootprint site just suggests having a mix of chicken and beef.
From your unkind reply to me elsewhere... If you had to pick between the environment and fewer animal deaths, which would you choose? I like to talk cows with vegans because a mixed diet with beef as the only meat clearly consists of fewer animal deaths than a vegan diet. 700,000 calories a death is pretty hard to beat. Environmentally speaking (and water), the best way to get protein is from animals that have to die and locally sourced chicken. Chicken are pretty death inefficient though, aren't they?
What is with the thousands of hectare of forest that have been rode for pastures?
What about factory farms in third world countries with no safety controls? There's as much of a veg-packing industry as there is a meat-packing one. Are you going to stop eating vegetables because SOME FARM SOMEWHERE does something wrong? The meat I eat doesn't come from places where "thousands of hectares of forest have been rode for pasture".
What about the fact that, if everybody would switch to a meatless diet you would need much less farmland overall?
You seemed to have backed yourself into a corner with a non-argument argument. Is this from a position that land usage is unacceptable? Because the world is nowhere near overpopulated yet. Is this from an environmental standpoint? Then land use is the wrong figure. Are you really happy if we use less farmland but produce MORE net GHG? We need more farmland per calorie of crop if we don't have sufficient fertilization. But the fertilizers (synethic and manure) are the potential problem. To use less farmland overall, you need to produce more GHG overall. The balance for farmland is to have localized ecosystems of livestock fertilizing local plant farms which in turn use their waste to feed.
I'm gonna be crystal clear. I'm NOT saying beef is perfect. I prefer chicken and seafood from an environmental perspective. But I know a lot of vegans care more about "saving animal lives" than they do the environment. So I talk cow. I'll concede it straight - beef should NOT be foundational to your diet any more than veganism should be if your goal is a single sustainable diet for the entire world.
If you dont want to contribute to the comodification of sentient beings you'd also have to quit your job unless it somehow has literally zero impact on your physical and mental well being. Anyone got a job like that?
So, unless they can reduce the harm they cause to 0%, any and all attempts to reduce it are futile and pointless? This is the nirvana fallacy, and I hope you understand how horrible that would be if we lived by that rule. For example, I can't stop all racism, all human exploitation, all sexism because I live in a capitalistic hellscape built on the suffering of others. Therefore, I don't actually need to try, correct?
My arguement is if you want to reduce crulety, you have options to do so in your own life, which are far more productive than simply yelling at people online for not doing it the exact same way as you. You refusing to work somewhere you can support less exploitative practices because your comfortable in your job is no different then someone telling you they're not changing their diet because it works for them. You have the means and the capacity to change yourselves, yet you'd rather yell at people online to change themselves.
I don't yell at people. And I also don't think a Meme is similar to yelling at someone...
Perhaps people feel much more attacked than what is the intention of the one who posted the meme. It can't be that we aren't allowed to make jokes or talk about veganism online because people are selectively oversensitive. This meme is really really mild when compared to a lot of the other jokes posted here. Especially when you compare it to the amount of mockery and jokes many vegans and vegetarians have to endure in their personal life.
Meat eaters can't expect to bite all the time but than get all cranky when someone stubs them back.
Good thing I wasn't directly replying to the meme itself. I was replying to what's a now deleted comment. Wonder why they deleted it, maybe all that yelling they were doing turned out to be ineffective.
Thinking diet shaming can work to turn people Vegan is like thinking body shaming can make people skinny.
So ethics aren't a concern for you. How about the adverse health effects, or environmental impacts of the meat industry? Any considerations there, or is all about how delicious steak is to you?
You know there's a lot of valid ethical frameworks that do not espouse veganism?
It's safer to say "YOUR ethics aren't a concern to him", or to me. There's a lot of philosophers who eat meat. And it's not hypocritical. They just think you're wrong. You aren't God (and even if you were, God doesn't get to decide ethics).
As for adverse health effects, I have known dozens of ex-vegans, one with an degree in nutrition, who left veganism despite their ethics, for health reasons. Generally speaking, it's easier to "accidentally" have an reasonably ok diet with a full balanced mix of foods than it is for a vegan to intentionally have one.
or environmental impacts of the meat industry?
This is actually an incredibly complicated accusation, and unless you enter the conversation with the conclusion in mind, there's not enough evidence/arguments out there to show that it's "the meat industry" that's the real environmental problem with our food industry. As someone who has shared a table with experts on a few occasions and then done some of my own armchair research, I'm convinced the two real problems are non-local food and factory farming. The former creates polluting logicistical overhead in transport and over-storage of food (fossil fuels for driving, non-recyclable plastics, etc) and the latter in willful destruction of environment to get more output cheaper, when we have plenty of room and plenty of margins to "do it right"
As for "to do it right", part of doing it right is acknowledging that we have a compost/manure shortfall against crops NOT because we're not producing enough manure but because we don't have localized meat farms balanced in each area around their crop farms, and/or that it's considered acceptable to use fertilizers despite the presence of manure that would better fertilize a crop. So the better answer? Local meat, and transition away from factory farms. And if you've got the land and the courage for it, keep some chickens for eggs and goats for meat/manure.
My 2c anyway.
or is all about how delicious steak is to you?
AND it is about how delicious a steak is to me. Have you ever walked a local farm with the people who do all the work? Helped them pick out the pigs for the meal? Known the love that is involved in the whole process, and the fact that the animals have it 100x better than they'd have had it in nature.
So yes, there is nothing like cutting into that pork chop having a REAL appreciation for the pig's sacrifice, a real appreciation for the work everyone put into it all.
My ethical concerns go beyond raising animals, it's the unnecessary killing them without their consent where it becomes problematic. Particularly when the "sacrifice" is for the trivial reason to satisfy the killer's taste buds; when our taste buds can be satisfied in so many ways that don't involve a victim.
And yes, I grew up on a farm where we raised all our own meat, including pigs. I've personally killed more animals than the average person, and I can say with certainty that every animal wants to live. To violently take another's life "because it tastes good" and then go through such convuluted reasoning to justify it is very puzzling to me. It suggests a lack of empathy that seems to be endemic in our society. To speak of "the love" that is involved in the process doesn't hold much weight with me. Serial killers love to kill, don't they?
Understand that you don't get to pen the ethical frameworks for the world, only for yourself. Even in ethical frameworks where "consent" and "killing" are given extreme weight, there are always other factors... And under most of the foundational ethical frameworks (Utilitarianism and Natural Law Theory come to mind), the argument for necessary-veganism is unsupportable.
So if you want to hate meat eating, say "I think it's wrong to eat animals" or "my morals don't allow it". Don't tell people who eat meat they don't care about ethics, because that statement is simply dead wrong.
Particularly when the “sacrifice” is for the trivial reason to satisfy the killer’s taste buds
My biggest complaint about proselytizing vegans is the way they oversimplify the equation. Like every single person who ever eats meat for any reason stops with a fork in their hand saying "Is this bite of food more important to me than murder? YES IT IS".
To violently take another’s life “because it tastes good” and then go through such convuluted reasoning to justify it is very puzzling to me.
With all due respect, reality is not as simple as you're making it out to be. If you cannot see that there's more to the discussion than "meat tastes good" and "animals don't want to die", then nobody can help you. But pretending that people use convoluted reasoning to justify it is an ignorant take, whether willful or out of being blinded by your own zealous position on the matter.
It suggests a lack of empathy that seems to be endemic in our society
You do understand that from a psychological point of view, human empathy and animal empathy are different factors and rationally exist in different amounts. Honestly, my personal take is that zealous vegans show less empathy towards fellow man than other people. LOOK at the way you're thinking about supermajority of humanity? Why should I not see that as a lack of empathy as well?
And for that matter, there are several empathy-related disorders where a person's mispaced empathy goes so far as to affect their relationships and quality of life. And again, that's only for that rare person staring at meat on a fork commenting about how murder tastes good. The ones who simply categorize animals or plants or insects differently from you in their empathy don't suggest anything of the sort.
Serial killers love to kill, don’t they?
Tell it to me straight. Are you so far gone that you cannot understand the moral, ethical, or psychological difference between being an actual serial killer and simply not being vegan?
Quite the opposite actually, as a farmer raising my animals ethically is a daily fact concern. I just don't buy into your supposition that raising them is inherently unethical.
How about the adverse health effects
If I live long enough that eating meat is the primary thing that got me killed, I see that as an absolute win. I like riding motorcycles, I also like beer and sugar and baked goodies. I fully expect something else to get me well before a lifetime of eating meat has the chance. And I'm okay with that, I'd rather live a few years less and get to keep partaking in the things I enjoy. Plenty of people live into their 80s without giving up meat, and living into my 80s sounds plenty long to me.
environmental impacts of the meat industry
I believe that until nuclear is being seriously considered as the solution for clean electricity, then it isn't worth worrying about which of my habits are supposedly causing the climate crisis.
Any considerations there, or is all about how delicious steak is to you?
I wouldn't say it's "all about" how delicious steak is. But I would say that in all of your examples "less steak" doesn't seem to be the most prudent place to start, or to consider at all.
I've watched animals die in nature. Unless I'm talking to an anti-natalist, I cannot fathom how they think the life of a farm animal is worse than the life of a wild animal. To me, it comes back to a colorblind view of the trolley problem: "It only matters if we're part of decision that leads to pulling the trigger"
I really feel like the preachy vegans have crossed some line and cannot be reasoned with. And the non-preachy vegans don't go out of their way to have the discussion (more's the pity, since they'd probabliy have a more balanced view before turning preachy)
Is it still anecdotal if literally any farmer will tell you the same? Because they will.
A surprisingly large amount of effort goes into trying to keep the livestock from hurting themselves or getting themselves killed. That's inevitable when essentially turn off natural selection, they end up losing any sense of self preservation. And why not, they do have multiple humans who's entire career centers on keeping them alive until they're ready for slaughter.
enslaved animals try to commit suicide after being forcefully impregnated and kicked around and having their children stolen from them immediately after birth
They are hearty for sure and that can be seen as an urge or will to live. Animals are dumb and have a shocking lack of self preservation. Are you talking about conscious 'I want to live, I better not do that' or 'I will find a way to live in my circumstances'?
I disagree with the comment on the point about it being a leftist naivety, but it is naïve nonetheless. Life feeds on life and all that. That they're sentient doesn't matter, some people argue plants are sentient too (not that I necessarily agree)
A lot of people in the comments can't seem to make the distinction between what they have been fed since they were little and that they are used to, and what is good, or tastes good.
There's more than three affordable animals lmao. Even if you count fish as one you still have crawfish, shrimp, fish, beef, chicken, pork, lamb, venison, turkey, etc. This also doesn't even account for the million ways to prepare the meats
Plants make excellent side dishes, unfortunately I can't spend a third of my day shoveling quinoa and lentils by the bucket load just to get enough protein, so meat it is.
I cut beef out of my diet almost entirely, both because it's unsustainable for the ecology (cattle require more resources per pound than any other animal) and because red meat isn't as good for you. Also it's expensive.
This is the fair and balanced take. Of course it would be better for the planet and our wallets to not eat meat, but our diet more or less requires some amount of meat for iron and protein; the responsible thing to do is to be selective about types and frequency. We don't need meat in every single meal or even every single day, but you've got a better chance of pitching meatless Monday to most Americans than full vegetarianism. And even a small reduction is better than no reduction.
Vegans, even life long vegans, exist. We do not need meat.
And the reformist position overlooks the question whether it actually works. Convincing 10 people to CONSISTENTLY AND FOREVER decrease their meat intake by 10% is the same as convincing just 1 person to go vegan (aka 100% reduction). I don't have studies either way, but anecdotally people are extremely bad at keeping up dietary/lifestyle changes, but veganism is a lot simpler. "No animal products" is simpler than "have I reached my 90% yet?".
Again, would love some studies on this, but it just seems more like wishful thinking. Additionally, we could just encourage both.
Convincing 10 people to CONSISTENTLY AND FOREVER decrease their meat intake by 10% is the same as convincing just 1 person to go vegan (aka 100% reduction).
I don't think so. 10 people reducing it by 10% is nothing in a society where everyone claims they have reduced it and only eat happy to be killed animals from their uncles farm. On the other hand one vegan could show hundreds of people that there is no magic to not abusing animals and change some. It is not only about the personal impact but when veganism hits a critical mass and changes society.
Vegans, even life long vegans, exist. We do not need meat
I know lifelong smokers. The human body is resilient. If your argument is that veganism is healthy, you need a lot more than "I'm vegan and I'm not dead".
I mentioned elsewhere about protein intakes. It's not a controversial take that protein is one of the most important things we need in a day, that protein is easiest to find in meat, and that our body isn't as good at digesting plant protein. For the rest, telling someone to go plant-based when you need a lot more than just a multivitamin to hit the Iron and B-12 content you need.
Whether or not veganism can be healthy (it might be), it is a known quantity that naive veganism is absolutely unhealthy. So my problem with "getting them vegan is easier than getting them to cut 10% meat" is that you're trying to create naive vegans. That means you're trying to create smokers.
Considering half the country threw a temper tantrum over being asked to wear a mask during a respiratory pandemic, I don't think you're being realistic in your view of everybody being able to go vegan. Many of these people threw a fit over AOC "wanting to take away your cheeseburgers" even though that wasn't what she was proposing; they just knew that it would rile up the rural base.
I think it's much more reasonable to convince people to make two easily implemented changes: no more meat at breakfast, and meatless Mondays. With these two easy changes, only 12 out of 21 weekly meals is eligible for meat, which is a ~43% reduction. Not everybody will do it obviously, but the same people willing to cut 10% will probably cut 43% when presented in this way. Especially if you bring up the financial cost, health risks, and storage inconvenience of buying and eating so much more meat than is necessary.
I also think it's a little silly to say that it's easier to go vegan. You need to study food labels and nutrition facts to see if there is some animal byproduct involved. When you go out to eat, it's not always clear whether options on the menu are vegan friendly, but restaurants are getting better about that nowadays. But I think you're also assuming that people have the means to always choose a product that may be significantly more expensive. I think you'll have better luck convincing people to occasionally think about whether their stirfry really needs steak or if mushrooms are actually enough to carry that earthy, satisfying bite they're looking for this time.
Of course it would be better for the planet and our wallets to not eat meat, but our diet more or less requires some amount of meat for iron and protein
I think people really get a skewed view of this. It's better for our planets if we eat less meat, and if people who need high protein intake won't stop eating meat it's a bit better if you eat zero meat to competensate. But it's a "little vs a lot" thing . We still need meat to support the horticultural industry.
I mean, the cows and pigs in my area serve the important purpose of providing much of the fertilizer for all the vegetable farms in my area. They would still be there, getting fed, if nobody ate them or drank their milk. Their deaths would just be more of a waste. There is a point where too many cows/pigs are producing more fertilizer than crop farms need. But you want to hear something scary? WE AREN'T THERE YET; not even close. In the US at least, we only produce enough manure to support 20% of our horticulture, and the rest is supplemented by compost and synthetic fertilizer. And that synethetic fertilizer? Pretty terrible for the ecosystem and wild animals as well.
The real answer is that we haven't solved the problems. It does "feelgood" to know that we can genuinely help a little by eating a little less meat. And we should all be doing that. But all of us going vegan is a real problem for reasons unrelated to the (very real) nutritional issues.
The meme is questionable, no argument (aren't most?)
But point 3 is just straight up wrong.
There's vegan body builders, including some that have literally never eaten a single piece of meat.
There's also a SIGNIFICANT difference between "enough protein to be healthy" and "enough protein for my entirely optional hobby".
90% of the (wannabe) body builders I know still supplement with artificial proteins (powders, shakes, bars, etc.). You could do the same with vegan sources
Most people also forgo taste pleasure anyway, eating just rice and chicken, or plain greek joghurt. At that point, might as well eat a block of Tofu
Counterpoint. Nutritionists (many, not all) tend to agree that protein is under-represented in the average non-plant-based diet already, and the body processes plant protein at 50-67% effectiveness compared to a similar amount of animal protein. And people with particular common medical issues have nutritional need for higher protein amounts. My wife's nutritionist wants her at 100-120g protein per day, counting plant proteins at 50% (so 240g if plant). Her food intake is about 12-1500kcal.
I challenge you to find a healthy way to to hit 180-240g of protein at a reasonable calorie intake. The best I can find is about 20 to 1 (which would be 3600 calories of high-protein meals to hit 180g). Or she could eat one 600cal steak and then whatever else she plans on in the day.
More importantly, my doctor wants me around the same, if only 100g. But I don't want to eat 3000calories a day.
capitalism does not beget a wide range of meat for the average household. people eat "the same 3 dead animals" because it's what's affordable and even that's becoming less and less true
As a fellow omnivore trying to eat more vegan/vegetarian recipes, I think rainbow plant life on YouTube has the best recipes that I've tried. If you've read Salt Fat Acid Heat, most/all of her recipes are based on that technique/ideology. Her red lentil curry is really good and I make a double batch about once every other month to keep in the freezer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHRyfEbhFFU
I live with people that don't like coconut milk so I just use a mixture of heavy cream and milk. I also sub half of the red lentils for brown lentils for extra fiber.
Thank you very much for the hint, I checked out the red lentil curry video and it does look quite delicious. Chicken curry is actually my favorite food and I tried green, brown and red lentil curry before, but didn't quite like them, even though I'm half asian, lol. I'll try her recipe, though.
Tofu is pretty versatile as a meat replacement or even just a general texture thing. I like to fry small tofu cubes and use them in place of the cheese in palak paneer, or instead of chicken in something like General Tso's. It takes a bit more work since you have to press the tofu and find a good way to cook it so it doesn't turn out soggy (and it's usually more expensive), but I'm a meat eater and it's satisfying to me.
Beyond/Impossible Meat is also pretty good imo. I actually tend to like it better than real beef, but that's definitely not a majority opinion. If you like the taste, you can crumble the patties for ground beef texture or break them into chunks for more of a meatball vibe. I've even done a sort of faux bulgogi with chunks and gochujang sauce that works surprisingly well.
One more thing I think can help is to not try to replicate meat for everything. There are ways to make vegetarian/vegan food that let it stand on its own and still be satisfying (beans and chickpeas can help a ton), without it feeling like it's trying too hard to be meat. Things like cauliflower stir fried or batter fried and coated in some sort of sauce can be good just as cauliflower in sauce.
Finally, mushrooms, if you like them. Soaking dried mushrooms will get you stock that can replace chicken or beef stock for most things, and frying even the cheap baby bella mushrooms that come pre washed and sliced can give you a meaty texture in something that needs it.
We eat tofu every now and then and like it a lot and I did already try out some meat "substitutes" and some of them are actually pretty good, but not cost-effective. I'm not saying I have to look at every cent I spend, but things have gotten harder in recent years, not gonna lie.
I don't need or want to replicate meat everywhere. I'm totally fine with non-meat dishes, but my complaint is that many of them don't taste as good as people (especially vegans) claim, even in restaurants. It's been quite disappointing multiple times to try that "really, really delicious curry", that in the end didn't really taste that great and it's been a recurring thing for me / us when trying to eat more plant-based foods. This is also true with cauliflower, for instance. I like it in "traditional" meals as side-dish, but no, to me, batter frying cauliflower doesn't make it good.
Mushrooms are a staple in our cooking, because I really like my umami flavor (I also use MSG a lot), but unfortunately, my daughter doesn't like any type of mushroom. I guess, it's the texture. Tried several different things and she always puts them away.
Anyway, thank you for your comment. Beyond meat has been on our "try out list" for quite some time.
Honestly I think the important thing is to just try alternatives. You don't have to end up liking them or completely replacing meat if it's not practical, just try to find ways to add more vegetables.
That's what I'm doing. I like to eat "traditional" salads and stuff like that, but I grew up with them being side dishes most of the time and I think, it's hard to break habits.
From a moral standpoint, I'd like to go vegetarian or even vegan at some point, but this requires me to find things that I'll actually like to eat on a regular basis. Often times, when I search for vegan recipes, something often throws me off. Be it the flavor, the texture, the strength of the flavor or lack thereof, etc. Maybe it's just that I'm not used to it or that animal fats are carrying so much flavor that I'm now kinda addicted to it? I know, it sounds really stupid, but when I go to the grocery store, I often gravitate towards animal products automatically.
My first goal will be to reduce meat intake to one, maybe two times a week.
Try out Indian cuisine, we got a ton of great vegetarian food here but depending on where you are, getting all the good spices needed could be quite difficult and pricey.
Soy Curls is honestly my favorite 'meat replacement' (though, I'm not too hot on 'replacing meat'). They work for doing things like mongolian beef, or just lightly frying after marinading for 'chicken strips' to top salads or sandwiches. https://thevietvegan.com/vegan-mongolian-beef/
Soups are of course, pretty easy. I like Lentil Chilli, heavy on the seasonings and beans aside from lentils. Minestrone or lemon orzo are both also great. Thai curry or pho are both more work imo, but amazing (though, both broth bases can often have chicken or shrimp in them).
Burgers, and while impossible meat et. al. are fine I guess, they're a bit pricey. I honestly prefer a good chipotle black bean burger over them 9/10 times. They're pretty cheap to buy, but also not very hard to make, with most of the ingredients being cheap.
I personally like seitan, but I know quite a few other vegetarians don't, so it might be divisive. BUT, in terms of cheap protein, its damn near rock bottom in price. It is some work to make stuff out of it from scratch, but 'indian mock duck' is usually seitan, and can be bought from indian stores if you just want to try it. But seitan works to replace burgers, chicken tenders, steaks, sausage, etc. Tons of recipes out there.
You need to try a lot "plant-based meat" products. Many of them are meh and taste like meat flavored cardboard, but I've personally found some that taste waaaay better than meat.
I would advice, apart from tying out new recipes, try to look at how you cook rice, make a green salad and tomato based sauce again. Often there are a few basic things one can improve that elevate all other dishes as well. This doesn't have to be expensive, you save a lot of money by not buying the meat, after all.
(A few of these things you will probably know, but perhaps you learn something new.)
For rice try the following:
most children prefer basmati rice and rice with tumeric
cumin also tastes good in rice but not all kids like it
most types of rice have to be rinsed a few times, a good job for kids lol
when you let the rice soak in water (~30 min) after rinsing it, you get more predictable results
when you want to fry the rice, use rice you cooked the day before
try different rice varieties from different brands because they all tend to need a different amount of water for best results
when your family really becomes rice fans invest in a good rice cooker because it saves time and older kids can make their own
after cooking, let it steam for a few minutes on the turned-off stove
For a good tomato sauce try the following:
diced or crushed tomatoes in cans often have low quality, when using cans use whole peeled tomatoes and cut them when still in the can
do not crush garlic, instead chop it very fine
use a really good oil, it has to taste so good, you would eat it with bread with nothing else
oil is a whole beast, try different types and be careful which of those can be heated to which temperature
some finely chopped celery often tastes good in tomato sauce
heat very slowly and don't make it boil, don't cook too long
add sugar to taste, baking soda if it is too acidic
add herbs only when the sauce is finished, perhaps add oil again
some people think tomato sauce tastes better the next day
Some tips to make your salad better:
the oil hint from above
for vinegar all the hints for oils apply
mix something crunchy into your salad, many kids love sunflower seeds or peanuts, which are less expensive than walnuts and similar
when you want roasted sunflower seeds, buy them raw and roast them shortly without oil in the pan until you can smell them
wheat grains roasted taste great, they smell amazing as well
top your salad with something hot, for example caramelized pear slices or seasoned tofu cubes, marinated fried champignons, etc.
get a salad spinner if you don't have one already
some children like vegetables raw they do not eat cooked, for example fine broccoli florets and zucchini slices
good mustard or lemon juice on the side
General tips for vegan and vegetarian recipes:
a good rule when it has to go fast is: combine grain + green + bean
experiment a lot with combinations of textures
grating vegetables adds lots of moisture, can be good or bad...
roast whole spices without oil until their smells hit you before you cut them and put them into your dishes
make your own vegetable broth by freezing clean vegetable scraps (skins and ends) and simmer them when you have a bag full
maple syrup + non-dairy milk mixed make a crust on baked goods
infuse oil yourself with herbs, chilli, garlic
learn to sauté a base of spices, garlic and onions before adding your ingredient
learn how to make natto, get used to the taste and then addicted to it
now that you are a pro with herbs, make your own fresh tea and experience a new world of taste
Ingredients which you perhaps never used before but are very useful:
Honestly. I’m looking for vegan and vegetarian recipes and while it usually tastes “fine”, it’s mostly just “meh”.
If it's about eating ethically, I highly suggest trying to eat locally instead. It's much better for the environment, and you can usually get a better nutritional balance.
I mean, if eating "meh" makes you feel good, go for it. Just please make sure to study all the supplements you need and keep researching because there are regularly discoveries that might change the supplement intake you require.
Transport is a teensy tiny part of the climate/environmental impact for food. In 99.9% of cases, a plant-based food will beat out any meat from next door.
That being said, local in the sense things that actually grow locally and are in season is still a good idea, though more from a community building perspective.
For context, ALL manure CO2 emissions is only 2.6 gigatons (full disclosure. I lost and re-found this link, and see another source estimates manure closer to 7B. I'm sure you know my thoughts on that. Food Transport is still of dominant significance and fertilizer impact cannot be that effectively reduced). And in many cases, that manure is less harmful to the environment, yes EVEN CO2 impact, than the other fertilizer options that replace it when used in crop farms.
There's a strong argument for "less meat" being good for the environment, but I am convinced (in part from hands-on experience) that the only arguments for "no meat" being any good are entirely fabricated.
I don't agree with Hannah, in this case. Specifically, I challenge anyone who leaves cow methane on a chart or in an argument without covering the CO2 production by non-manure fertilizer or the fact that only depopulation will stop cows from pooping. And unfortunately, a plethora of studies are showing that synethetic fertilizer production creates massive amounts of methane gas as well. I'm fairly convinced she is (perhaps inadvertantly) including that under "cow farm" when it should be under "plant farm".
She also just handwaves saying transport costs are low despite studies she opted not to cite or rebut that place them at 20%. But here's the funny part. That was the first link. The second agrees with the 20% figure for logistics (though she uses the term "Supply Chain" and separates physical transport from processing, packaging, and retail storage (all of which are cut out or down from local). Digging into supply chain figures in the left article's graph, she just disagrees with herself (and, to be honest, other experts).
In fact, the numbers on her second article suggest bias to me in her first article. She blames land use for 1/3 of beef GHG production. But in the second article, only 2/3 of Land Use GHG goes to animal, with the other 1/3 going to "land use for human food". I'm sure you can see the next line. If Land Use is such a large part of meat GHG production and crops are so good at everything else, then Land Use should be dominant and in-your-face on the crop chart in the first article. Instead, apparently she's undecided about that?
Look. I can see why you might decide that eating less meat might be the wrong choice for you. But when there are studies that say eating local is important and studies saying eating less meat is important, one article is not going to get me to change my entire life, and risk the environment, just to feel good about myself.
And unfortunately, a plethora of studies are showing that synethetic fertilizer production creates massive amounts of methane gas as we
Obviously, not only from the the Haber-Bosch process which is the most energy intensive single process worldwide, it is used for Ammoniak, nitrogen.
The mining of phosphor leaves huge wastelands and will be rare in about 100 hundred years if we continue.
But manure is not created from thin air. You need to feed animals a lot feed until you get something to eat back. It wastes 20 times more crop compared to plant based diet. Manure will not save us, it destroys nature, water and air.
The IPCC 2022 states even giving up every form of fossile fuel animal industry would push us over 3° increase.
I do not eat any animal products, but the main reason for it that I do not want to kill others if I can avoid it. I don't want you to import any fancy exotic food for a plant based diet. I don't, I get my potatoes from my neighbor and mostly buy local foods anyway. Don't act like you can't eat local plants and are therefore forced to eat others.
But manure is not created from thin air. You need to feed animals a lot feed until you get something to eat back. It wastes 20 times more crop compared to plant based diet. Manure will not save us, it destroys nature, water and air.
What exactly do you think we should plan to do with all the grass and waste product currently being used in feeding animals? There's a complex web of dependency between plant and animal farming that I have seen firsthand, and all I ever hear is that cutting half that web off entirely will magically "Just word" and be better than what we have no. Most importantly, I'm convinced I eat carbon neutral even with eat, or at least as close to that as reasonably possible. And I've never seen a plan to scale to a world where meat eating is ended, and the massive inefficiencies that would introduce.
The IPCC 2022 states even giving up every form of fossile fuel animal industry would push us over 3° increase.
This is not preciately how I took it. Instead, I took it as more "we need to do everything we can, and the whole world going vegan is more likely than the other major sources". Ultimately, we would already be in a good place if 7 businesses became carbon neutral. IPCC 2022 cited a LOWER number than most do for methane, only 14% of world methane, only 1/3 of human caused methane. The one or two "experts" I found who specifically pushed for sudden international veganism have also failed to account for the above issues I mentioned. I argue it's easier to find technologies that can mitigate and reverse emissions than it is to find technologies to let the world cut out meat entirely.
I do not eat any animal products, but the main reason for it that I do not want to kill others if I can avoid it.
Which is absolutely your right. I have become convinced that my mixed diet leads to ultimately less death than a plant-based diet would (trolley problem), but it is not the foundation of my mixed-diet choice. I'm not an anti-natalist, and I'm perfectly fine with the quality of life a typical farm cow lives when compared to a cow in the wild when the alternative is to not be born at all. I know plenty of people who suffer in their lives more than a farm animal will, and yet never once think those people should never have been born.
don’t want you to import any fancy exotic food for a plant based diet. I don’t, I get my potatoes from my neighbor and mostly buy local foods anyway. Don’t act like you can’t eat local plants and are therefore forced to eat others.
Huh? I DO eat local plants. I have a farm down the road and buy almost all the produce we don't grow there. When we do have to buy from retail establishments, we buy 99% of our produce locally. Yes, about once a year I buy a dragonfruit because it's a guilty pleasure. So sue me.
But I also get eggs from my neighbor, and occasionally chicken. We have a deer overpopulation problem in my area. When I can, I pick up locally hunted deer from the butcher. My wife has PTSD and it triggers her regarding hunting, so I don't hunt my own despite the fact she and I are morally on the same page as that. I support that because I consider it ethically better than being vegan because I believe pulling the lever on the trolley is always the right choice, and because I am convinced "what we have is ethical because it is better than the real world alternatives". There is no trolley track without any bodies on it, in this world.
or the fact that only depopulation will stop cows from pooping.
Yes. We kill 80 billions mammals and trillion fish each year and billions are lost to diseases, fire and low profitability. If the whole word would decide to not abuse animals farmers would gas or burn the animals. Once, and not the perpetual killing all meat eaters have no problem with, but the fantasy scenario where we stop killing is a problem?
So you're an anti-natalist? I try to avoid arguing with anti-natalist vegans because as morally disgusted as I am of their position, there is no way to convince them to change it.
I mean I think it's pretty telling that there are lots of plant based versions of meat based food, but not the other way around. Nobody is trying to replicate the taste of salads in meat form
I’ve eaten chicken, turkey, sheep, cow, pig, duck, rabbit, snail, deer and horse. It’s a bit more than 3, and that’s just the general category (for example, counting boars and pigs as only one type) and only land animals. If we list each fish species, crabs, squids, calamari…
I'd easily eat humans if it were legal and they processed in our bodies correctly! I don't get it, why you would want to let all that meat go to waste?
That's a jump, from "I'd eat a human" to necessitating the human have been purposefully killed to be consumed. The previous poster even pretty clearly said not wanting to waste meat, implying the human was already dead and would just be burnt/buried otherwise.
I definitely didn't say that. My views on eating animals isn't relevant to this conversation. Just pointing out you're framing the words the previous poster used in a vastly different light than what they said. Kinda like you tried to do to mine.
That said, honestly yeah, if you accidentally kill an animal, use it's meat.
Question: For any aspiring vegetarians/vegans, what are the best foods to ease the transition?
For instance, I'd ideally be looking for something with complete protein and few to no additional carbs, to be accompanied by the vegetable dishes I already eat. Beyond meat tastes great but still manages to find exemplary ways to be unhealthy with things like saturated fats, and probably doesn't do much to resolve any exploitation issues, though it at least appears to be a step in the right direction.
For people looking to move to vegetarianism, possibly as a bridge to veganism, could it reasonably be said that animal products from animals raised in cruelty free and free range conditions are ethical? Can any organizations assure that?
Lentils and mushrooms are high in protein and have a mealy texture with a give. They've been my meat-substitute best friends during becoming vegetarian :) Legumes in general are a good bet if you're a fan of them.
It's hard to find animal products you can be sure are cruelty free, unless you get them from a farm where you're familiar with the owners, and you don't consider animal products to be inherently unethical.
The industry standard nearly everywhere for the egg industry is to shred male baby chicks alive regardless of if they claim to be "free-range", "organic", "cage-free", etc. Here's a good video about that
Buckwheat (must buy eastern european kind) with diced avocado thrown in and a few pinches of salt is the shiznitz.
If I had to choose only one meal to eat for the rest of my life - this would be it.
edit: buckwheat prep: boil for 10-20 mins until most of the water boils away. Add some water if it boils away too soon. Leave some water/moisture to boil away while it's cooling and not to get buckwheat burned and stuck on the pot surface. Throw in some diced avocado chunks. Add salt to bring out the buckwheat flavor. Done.
There's bland salad, bland tomatoes, bland onions, potatoes, an assortment of bland root things, a couple bulby things that taste kinda terrible, and some fruits.
The way forward is encouraging people to try better things. The warmth and joy of food is felt through the people that make it. Affordable and accesssible healthy food is becoming a custom, so migration from processed foods is easier.
You're the ones hurting innocent animals almost entirely for pleasure or convenience. Someone innocent getting hurt completely unnecessarily is good reason to cause a ruckus
Listen. If you personally are against eating meat and choose not to, great, I'm happy for you. But going and giving other people shit for their own dietary choices is as bad and obnoxious as telling people they shouldn't have abortions. Shut the fuck up and let people live, you're only making people hate you.
Many anti-lgbtq+ folks think that people who support or are a part of the lgbtq+ are insufferable, but here we are making progress for peoples rights.
If you want to be a bigot against nonhuman animals and their rights, i can't stop you. But at least be aware that that's what's happening. People perpetuating injustice are never going to be happy with those against it no matter how it's presented, so i'd rather just be as clear and concise as I can
LGBTQ+ and veganism are very, very different topics. LGBTQ+ supporters are fighting for the rights of themselves, their friends and family, etc. - other human beings. You're attempting to fight for the rights of wild animals that do not have the capability to communicate, nor have the ability to even comprehend the concept of death itself.
I'm not here to argue about morals, I'm here to argue that you should mind your own fucking business. The world would be a better place if you did that one simple thing. Don't like gay people? Okay, just mind your own fucking business. Not okay with people choosing to have an abortion? Great, mind your own fucking business. Hate the idea that people enjoy eating meat? Mind. Your. Own. Fucking. Business. If anything, that mindset is quite literally the opposite of being a bigot.
Ok, mind your own business when it comes to nonhuman animals. Paying to have them exploited and killed is the opposite of minding your own business, it's forcing your views onto them, and i'm here to tell you stop forcing your speciesist views onto innocent nonhuman animals
You do realize stopping the meat industry altogether implies letting all livestock die, right? Very few people could afford keeping a cow or a pig as a pet and without the financial incentive there, farmers wouldn't waste their money feeding the livestock. They can no longer survive in the wild.
I'm not in favour of how it works right now either, I'm all for more animal rights and better conditions, but to think we could just stop and everything would be nice is just plain naive.
Ok, so lets stop breeding them first. Stop paying people to force them to get pregnant.
Ideally we'd be able to release them into the wild or have sanctuaries for them, but that's just not really possible. But if we stopped forcing more of them into existence then the remaining ones would all be killed pretty fast, which is far better than them and their children and their childrens children, and so on for the foreseeable future being killed.
More realistically, if animal liberation is achieved the population of farmed animals will gradually decline as fewer people support animal ag until there are only a few of them left, on sanctuaries or reserves or something, or they go extinct
I just eat what I like, which is a combination of plants and animals.
Quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality either. Many plants are edible in the regard that they won’t kill you, but are mostly unpleasant to eat. Because if we are going to compare apples to apples we can surely eat over 80,000 different species from the animal kingdom.
I always thought “an apple a day keeps the doctor away“ was something parents said because children would rather eat a painful fruit like a kiwi than visit a doctor.
Turns out apples don’t taste like pain. I’m allergic to them. Like, all-variants-they-sell-in-local-supermarkets allergic.
I used to be allergic to apples as well. Couldn't have apples, peaches, cherries, pistachios, macadamia nuts, and a handful of other foods that I can't remember. Went nearly a decade with allergic reactions. Then just a few years ago, it all went away. I can't even begin to express how satisfying a perfectly ripe peach is, now that my mouth and throat doesn't start to swell.
If we're putting bacon, sausages, cutlets, and ribs in the same category because "it's all pig". Then I want to make sure that bulb onions, shallots, scallions, and leeks are also counted as one thing because they're all just onions.
Look me in the eye and tell me that bulb onions and shallots are different but bacon and cutlets aren't.
Plant-based meat has been a thing for a hot minute so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make
edit: for chicken nugget enjoyers, I like the morningstar farms equivalent. Pop in the toaster oven/air fryer, coat in sweet & sour or orange sauce, put on a bed of rice, + sprinkle some sesame seeds on top. ooh that shit's so good
It's the default reponse to a shitpost like the above mainly. 80,000 plants don't make a good hamburger unless the cow does the work processing it into beef first.
And you don't need that much protein. 10% of your calory intake is enough, even if you're living a sporty lifestyle. People overthink their protein need all the time—I blame the sports nutrition industry and their aggressive marketing campaigns.
I love me some boiled lentils and chickpeas. Put a bit if olive oil on them and whatever spices you like (I like citric-y stuff like coriander, lime juice) and bam. Goes great with sundried tomatoes and maybe some chopped cucumber.
Personally I've given up trying to convince those with the "meat is better" mentality... been vegan for years, vegetarian before that. Just happy to see you fighting the good fight. Thank you!
Some thoughts — the appeal to emotion is always going to be a turnoff here. Every time. I do get it, but if the people you were trying to convince cared about how fluffy and sad their food was, they would already be vegetarian.
Also, don't think I won't eat a human just because they're sentient. Or an ostrich. Have you ever met an ostrich? They're unapologetic dickheads. I'll eat an ostrich's babies on purpose. So mostly it qualifies as a guilt trip that goes nowhere, especially for those who hunt animals that need frequent culling like deer.
I think just trying to convince people to try recipes is more likely to hit, because who doesn't want something new and inexpensive that they don't have to feel fat about?
On that note, thank you for the reminder that I do really need to try tofu. I keep meaning to and forgetting, was not aware til last year how much protein it actually has (plants have a terrible rep), and I'm just gonna plan a dish at random and set a whole reminder for myself at this point. This is ridiculous. Would there be anything off the top of your head that's your favorite?
Completely agree with you, I was finding the comment lovely until that part and making mental notes, but that just felt like unnecessarily provocative.
Not everything that elicits emotion is an appeal to emotion. If I argue with a conservative and say that "anti-trans legislation leads to more trans suicides of the children you pretend to protect", is that an appeal to emotion just because the conversative might get emotional?
An appeal to emotion is backed solely by the other persons emotion, nothing else. The very accurate description of what meat is backed by logic and the morality of most people, if we're being honest.
Now, regarding effectiveness, I don't know what's better. All I know is that the people that aren't activist always seem to know exactly how to do activism correctly. This applies to anti-racism, or feminism too. "I agree with your message, but your actions are too extreme/disruptive/emotional/etc." Personally, I believe that the correct activism is ALL the activism: The loud, and the practical, and the friendly.
Veganism is not a diet, so just giving recipes without a philosophical backing will likely not create a lifelong lifestyle shift.
Regarding tofu I'd say think of it like plain chicken. It has zero real taste of it's own, so just put it into stuff that's tasty. Since it doesn't have to be cooked for a specific time like chicken or lentils, I often just crumple a bit into whatever I'm making if it's lacking "mass". I would honestly recommend an actual, real life, paper cookbook over following youtube videos. They're often more detailed, and better for beginners esp.
Not everything that elicits emotion is an appeal to emotion. If I argue with a conservative and say that “anti-trans legislation leads to more trans suicides of the children you pretend to protect”, is that an appeal to emotion just because the conversative might get emotional?
Yes.
Appeals to emotion are intended to cause the recipient of the information to experience feelings such as fear, pity, or joy, with the end goal of convincing the person that the statements being presented by the fallacious argument are true or false, respectively.
the statement "Look at the suffering children. We must do more for refugees." is fallacious, because the suffering of the children and our emotional perception of the badness of suffering is not relevant to the conclusion.
If you cut out the part where they're a terrible hypocrite if they don't agree, that would be a logical argument instead of an emotional one. For the topic,
"You should switch because it costs less, is more environmentally sustainable, and carries much the same nutrition while being more advantageous to your health" is a logical argument. All of these are verifiable and the reader may decide on their own how persuasive the facts are.
"vegetarianism is cheap and healthy, you should switch because killing is wrong and you're making poor, defenseless animals suffer and be repeatedly raped, and you're a terrible person behaving immorally," is a emotional argument, and laughably manipulative.
The problem is morals are subjective. You might think stomping bugs is mean. I might stomp all day. We can argue about bugs all day long and never get anywhere, because you're trying to force me to feel something I don't actually believe. I'm more likely to listen to data I can't physically argue with.
Now, regarding effectiveness, I don’t know what’s better. All I know is that the people that aren’t activist always seem to know exactly how to do activism correctly. . . . Veganism is not a diet, so just giving recipes without a philosophical backing will likely not create a lifelong lifestyle shift.
The philosophy part seems to fall short a lot those reasons. Most meat-eaters are well aware, they just value something else more. Be that finances/accessibility (hunters), self-image (Red-blooded American Tradition, Grrr, Manly Caveman), or simplicity/dependability and the transient comfort of familiarity (me @ the horrors of life).
If you're like me and giving more energy to struggling, your instinct might be to go, "Ooh, animals are suffering? Food is sad? Mfer I'm sad too, I can't even afford laundry."
With their values elsewhere, the likelihood any will go Full Plant forever is small at best. But if I continue eating eggs/steak and replace burgers and chicken with their just-as-good meatless counterparts, I still consider it a partial win vs a total loss. More open to the idea. Less money to the industry.
It has to be far and beyond exhausting to have the people you're convincing correct your speech instead of ever focusing on the content. I grant you that.
I'm not pulling it out of my ass because I want The Activists to leave me alone, it's my stance because years of perceived bitching never swayed me any more than it seems to persuade anyone else in this thread. Being nagged and told you're a bad person isn't going to make most people want to hear about all the ways they're bad.
What got me to consider it was a former friend who never pushed the issue except to offer me some of her plate. It was fucking delicious. A bit expensive, still, since that's just where fake meat is right now, but I'd buy it again.
Asking a vegetarian sub about an unidentified dish in a wedding spread didn't net me answers, sadly, but for someone whose main concern is a tendency towards anemia, a user showing me tofu has slightly more (non-heme) iron than meat put it on my radar. Way more fun than the 40% chance of being dogpiled and called a murderer.
I will admit that "on my radar" turned out to be more "info my handicapped brain filed away to be accessed only if I ever saw it in a section I associate with ice cream," so that will be rectified.
Regarding tofu I’d say think of it like plain chicken. It has zero real taste of it’s own, so just put it into stuff that’s tasty. Since it doesn’t have to be cooked for a specific time like chicken or lentils, I often just crumple a bit into whatever I’m making if it’s lacking “mass”.
I've heard that, not surprised. A bit sad, but easy to work around. If there's no set cook time, is there...a disadvantage to cooking it? As in, it's easily burned or something...? Maybe I'm asking too many things. The only cookbook I've ever owned was an heirloom from WWII, so I have some stuff to look up 😅
A bit off topic, but I just want to say I really appreciate how your comment provided disagreement and criticism but in a friendly and polite tone that's often lacking these days. Please continue to be this sort of person even if you get a bunch of down votes from people who just disagree.
For tofu, I've never cooked it myself, but am a fan of the fried tofu from my local Japanese restaurant. Maybe a simple pan-fried recipe is a good place to start?
I always try really hard to do that, and even more so now that I've left reddit. Now and then, I still find myself backspacing ingrained reddit snark or editing and re-editing things to make them more neutral and concise.
Sadly, the rambling is clinical, I still tend to get in my own way if I'm talking about something personal, and I've found that nothing. Absolutely nothing. Will piss people off faster than telling them to be nice to or even hear each other. I just want things to be better, and in all but the most dire cases, anger doesn't do that.
For the recipe, I already have one saved to my phone :3
You'd be surprised how many people don't make the connection that nonhumans aren't just flesh robots. Also a basic syllogism:
Causing unnecessary suffering is wrong
nonhuman animals are sentient, the things we do to them cause them to suffer in huge numbers at an industrial scale
it's unnecessary to eat them, we can thrive on a plant based diet (in fact, the environmental impact of animal ag means we're making ourselves less likely to thrive in the future if we keep eating them)
therefore, eating them causes huge amounts of unnecessary suffering
Ok, but. I would still eat a dead human pretty readily if they didn't taste like veal, so. Not to mention, my overly-literal ass can confirm from everything I know of every area of medicine and mechanics, we definitely are meat robots, yes. The distance as a consumer helps, but if I had to kill something myself, all it would take is getting hungry enough. An empty stomach knows no morality.
I think you're underestimating how little emphasis most really place on this over making their own survival as simple as possible. Myself and others are not unaware that dying is painful or we'd likely be kept in a room somewhere, and acting otherwise is infantilzing.
Deriving enjoyment from being talked down to is so far from the norm it's a distinct fetish, so it rarely accomplishes more than making the target dig in their heels. It's by far the main reason that every time a vegetarian/vegan is at all vocal, they tend to get laughed out of the room.
Unless they're six, people already know animals suffer and they eat them anyway. It's just what they've always done, they already know it's available and delicious, and it's easier not to change anything more than they absolutely have to.
So make the change simple. The empathy route isn't playing to strengths, here, the way just getting someone to try and hopefully integrate vegetarian meals would.
Horrendous? Yes. Also true. Mostly what people do is suck. If you want someone to do something for you, make it worth their while.
I have no moral problem eating a human or nonhuman if they're already dead. Kinda weird but whatever. The issue comes when you are the one who took their life from them without consent.
We're meat robots worth moral consideration, because we're sentient. If a metal robot was sentient they'd be worth moral consideration as well, since they could experience what was done to them.
We're a social species, i think it's worth voicing dissent. Let them know that what they've been doing should change and that other people think they're doing something terrible. Get them to reflect on it more deeply and see if they're really ok with hurting others for the sake of convenience and taste and if they are, they should know that about themself rather than living in ignorance
I have no moral problem eating a human or nonhuman if they’re already dead. Kinda weird but whatever. The issue comes when you are the one who took their life from them without consent.
But...then wouldn't the activism be directed solely at slaughterhouse workers? Who..obviously won't listen, given they chose to work there, and the only one of them I ever knew still has a special hatred for chickens decades later?
I'm not the one killing anything. Only thing I've ever killed is bugs, and I stopped enjoying that when I hit ten. I still inarguably fund the ones who do. Those who hunt by themselves and do kill tend very much to be poor enough to make hunting a welcome option, which I wouldn't take issue with until they have others available.
This ideally has to range beyond the killing part if it's to reach literally anyone whose financial situation does not depend upon continuing to kill things.
As for other people telling me they think I'm terrible, I get that all the time already, whether I've actually done anything or not. If you're on the internet, stuff like that becomes noise. I don't like me either.
Sorry, i didn't word that well. Funding the killing is still a big ethical issue, and trying to find different jobs for those people is an important thing to do, since there's also a good chance they'd rather not do that if they had better options. For example, iirc ptsd rates are high among slaughterhouse workers
another major funder of animal agriculture is the US government, which is why i support the agricultural fairness alliance which lobbies against unethical farming and in favor of transitioning animal farmers to plant farming https://agriculturefairnessalliance.org/
This is definitely a sane and logical take. I've been eating plants for almost a year and no meat. Not only am I still waiting for my soy manboobs to come in but in surprisingly not a mummy lol.
Meat is not essential for human diet. However, many of the nutrients found in meat are essential for our health. Protein, iron, and B vitamins are just some of the nutrients found in meats. Meat provides our bodies with proteins, vitamins, and minerals that are necessary for proper muscle and organ function.
Sure there is a pill for everything but its the same as getting a IV with fluids instead of drinking. You will still be thirsty... again finding balance is the key, not every meal requires meat.
However, many of the nutrients found in meat are essential for our health. Protein, iron, and B vitamins are just some of the nutrients found in meats.
These nutrients are found in non meat sources as well. Meat doesn't carry anything unique besides B12 because we wash the fuck out of our vegetables. Plant based diets make it pretty difficult to miss nutrients unless you're just sitting around eating oreos all day.
…and you could do the same thing and eat exclusively from the animal kingdom too.
If you don’t want to eat anything from the animal kingdom for your own reasons, cool. But when you start saying anything about what other people eat, imo you are no different than someone saying their religion/beliefs are best. Just don’t.
Humans are omnivores and always have been, society and technology today has only recently allowed humans to strictly become vegetarians on any kind of scale. Specific eating habits for moral reasons is a thing people who aren’t poor in first world countries have the privilege of doing. People in 3rd world countries/poor people are simply going to eat whatever is available to them.
Again, no one is wrong here, until one starts advocating that their way is best or better.
People in 3rd world countries/poor people are simply going to eat whatever is available to them.
There is an entire such country with over a billion people in Asia where almost half the population is vegan/vegetarian. I'll leave you to guess which one. It's not about price, but rather accessibility. Their entire food economy is centered around it. Modern western diets push meat way more than others. You do NOT need it every single day.
Actually, they ate meat as much as they could. Just wasn’t always available without good ways to store it long term. But there’s a reason why they were called hunter gatherers and why humans evolved to be able to run long distances and are heat tolerant, because our ancestors ran down prey by exhausting it.
But as far as we know all people hunted at least until early agriculture started being practiced
true, love me both some cashew and beans too bad both are also horrible strains on the environment like 6k liter for 0,5kg cashews buth that is a whole other debate
I’d go farther in saying that staying the fuck away from "industrialy" grown meat, and overly processed food is the way to go (for health). Reducing a maximum the meat consumption, and subside it for higher quality one is what’s necessary for the environment.
Going vegetarian (mostly) is even more efficient in both cases as long as the diet is well crafted for balancing all the body needs.
This meme changed zero minds but made a few vegans feel pretty special.
This meme really only makes sense in response to something. I've definitely heard many non-vegans complain that a vegan diet is restricting. Most of those people do only eat like 3 veggies ever.
That being said, it's a meme, not a philosophical treatise.
Maybe not this single one, but if there's a running discourse that shows veganism is perfectly common and normal, more people are willing to become vegan. This is part of the nudges we humans are prone to.
Well I mean I can imagine on living without meat. But I can't life without cheese. I mean what meaning does life have if you can't eat cheese?
Vegans aren't doing this to feel special, stop projecting. We just want people to stop harming animals and the only way to do that is to keep talking about it. Of all the responses vegans get, this is the most annoying one to hear.
I find vegans tend to have less empathy for their fellow man than we meat-eaters have for animals. It comes across as smug (and let's be honest, it's less insulting to call them smug).
You do realise that meat-eaters eat animals that were killed for them to be eaten? Please explain to me how this is more empathetic than posting a meme that triggered some meat-eaters.
Yup. Animals that lived lives in the first place because they were going to be eaten. Why should anyone have an ethical problem with that? But honestly, I don't think it's just "were killed for them to be eaten" to you. I live in a deer population control zone. Hunters have a critical task of preventing deer overpopulation from devastating the area. Got any problems with the venison steak I had last week from deer that HAD to be killed?
More empathetic? Because I'm not an anti-natalist. I know those animals would not have been born if not farmed. This is not a vacuum choice between "cows die" and "cows live". It never was, and it never will be. I know that most of them live better lives and die easier than their non-domesticated counterparts. Ever watch a cat play with a mouse, slowly torturing it to death? My local farm (plants) have animals that do exactly that every day with the goal of killing off pest animals so they won't destroy the harvest (a single pest animal like a squirrel can destroy 40 or 50 tomatoes in an hour).
Let's go another way. Statistically, odds are pretty good that my death will be 100x worse than how a farm animal dies. So no, me being ok that death exists in our world is NOT a lack of empathy. You don't get to make up my morals for me. The way I see it, giving farm animals a peaceful life is the height of empathy... so I look at you (your words) "triggering some meat-eaters" and note that statistically many of the people you go out of your way to "trigger" are going to end up dying long and painful battles with cancer. My view of empathy? Give them just a LITTLE bit more bloody peace while they're alive.
Here's my empathy. I fight for animal right laws. I strongly supported the free range chicken law that just passed in my state. I reject unethical and inhumane ways of treating and killing animals. But I'm not uneducated. I know how farming works. I know how the delicate relationship between agriculture and horticulture, while not perfect, leads to less death and less environmental impact than EITHER side of those alone.
Vegans are letting some crayola-colored dream be the enemy of good. And it's nothing more than flat-earther, tinfoil, antivax gibberish to me. And I don't care as long as they leave people alone.
That is the most insane sentence I've read. Vegans aren't slaughtering and eating you. What empathy do you have for animals you choose to exploit and kill for taste preference? Vegans want people to stop doing a bad thing, that doesn't mean we don't care about those people, but it does usually mean that we have to argue with them.
Do you actually think you'll change anyone's mind by calling their well-conceived ethical frameworks "insane"? THIS is why you get the reputation of being smug. My life's knowledge, my grasp of philosophy, it's all worthless shit to you because I am morally convinced that it's acceptable to kill and eat animals. It doesn't matter why I'm convinced that (and I've learned the hard way it's not worth anyone's time to discuss the reasoning or the why's). I am beneith you.
Calling vegans "smug" is nicer than calling them dehumanizing and ignorant.
As I said in another comment, proselytizing zealous vegans like to strawman non-vegans as all sitting there with a piece of bloody steak on a fork saying "I know some poor cute fluffy animal died a painful death for this but I LOVE the taste of murder". That's not us. If you can't see that, perhaps the first step in your recovery is to actually start to.
As do I, and I have taken a lot of abuse from vegans over the years standing up to those bad things.
And more... That is Word. For. Word. what that guy on the subway says about my gay friends divorcing each other. Word. For. Bloody. Word.
I didnt call your ethical framework insane, I'm talking about your statement saying you have more empathy for animals than vegans have for you, which is beyond ridiculous to say. You literally strawmanned my argument, I didn't appeal to cuteness or scary words. It's a logical question that you just didnt answer. Taking 'abuse' from vegans... maybe we are just convinced its morally okay, or does being a victim not feel good to you? As for the last thing you said, I have literally no idea what you are talking about.
Have you ever heard of the personal incredulity fallacy?
Did I? What exactly do you think my ethical framework is if it's not either ignorance or lack of empathy... when you directly accused me of having less empathy for animals?
Where do you ever ask me a question that I didn't answer?
Rephrase please, so I don't get you even more on the defensive by answering the wrong question. Because this one came across as a softball one that you would not like the answer to.
I have sat through a "discussion" where several of my gay friends were told "we want people to stop doing a bad thing, that doesn’t mean we don’t care about those people". I have a friend who was kicked out of his home at 15 to almost that exact phrasing. Preachy Vegans come across EXACTLY like that to everyone else in the world. When I look a preachy vegan in the eyes, I see that bigoted Catholic dad who kicks his kid to the curb.
Do you have kids? What would you do if one of them came out non-vegan to you? What if they decided their calling was ranching? I've got a cousin who got a degree in dairy farming and he LOVES it.
No I heard your sentence and called it stupid and I still can't believe you are going with it because it is laughable. Go on, explain how you are nicer to animals more than vegans are to you. You are still alive so we haven't eaten you yet... Do you kill and eat people you care about?
You said you are taking 'abuse' from vegans in the same comment you said you see nothing wrong with killing and eating someone. I can't take your victim point seriously when you refuse to acknowledge the feelings of your victims.
As your your gay friends thing, its a false equivalence despite what the words are. Gay people don't have victims. Nonvegans do. I'm defining "bad thing" as an action that harms others. Being gay is also not a choice and is nothing like being nonvegan. You aren't a fucking minority for being nonvegan. What a dumbass insulting argument.
I occasionally think about all the gametes I'm eating in vegetables. Other than rocky mountain oysters, I'm rarely eating sperm or ova when eating meat. There's roe occasionally, I suppose.
What three animals everyone else eating? We’ve got chickens, ducks, pigeons, quail, geese, cranes, turkeys, cows, deer, elk, moose, antelope, armadillo, beaver, bobcats, coyotes, foxes, lynx, bear, bison, caribou, goat, musk ox, pronghorn, sheep, muskrat, opossums, pigs, porcupine, rabbits, squirrels, pheasant, chukars, and tons of tasty insects to choose from.
You forgot the many difference species of fish/creatures-of-the-sea.
I didn’t even go there because of so many tasty options to list!
Tell me with a straight face that you eat a fucking squirrel
THAT'S the one you take issue with? Lol
In not sure anyone is eating muskrat or opossum outside West Virginia mountain hermits, people born before 1890, and anyone who self identifies as a trapper.
There's parts of the Florida Panhandle where opossum is a serious delicacy. They even have a festival in August.
Huh. Weird.
Muskrat was classified as non meat for Catholics, so some people ate it, but anyone I know who did is dead now.
Well squirrel was the funniest one within that context imo.
Eat the elongated muskrat!
Squirrel are fantastic.
They’re the least “gamey” out of most small game, less so than rabbit, and taste something like leaner dark meat chicken.
Awesome in a crockpot substituted for chicken in most recipes. Can fancy up squirrel with a Sous vide to make squirrel confit bánh mì tacos, or keep it old school and make squirrel pot pie.
I'm from Kentucky, friend. I've definitely had a squirrel or two in my day.
Tennessee checking in - I’ve had squirrel as well.
I grew up eating squirrel. Its very common in rural areas,
Dove, too.
Knew someone that tried to eat possum once, said it was the nastiest, greasiest thing he'd ever tried.
You have to catch the possum first, then corn feed it for about a month or two to get the nasty taste out of the meat before you eat it. So basically, turn it into a pet, then kill and eat it.
Is.. is that actually true, or are you having a laugh? I genuinely cant tell.
but if its true, thats an awful lot of effort to make something nasty taste decent.
Its how they did it for the Possum Festival in Florida when I was growing up, so its a thing, But I can't imagine anyone would do it just cause they like possum though.
They're good too.
"very common" is generous. I grew up in rural GA and never once saw someone actually eat squirrel
I used to live in rural Kansas, so yes
Squirrel is actually pretty good. Some of those others though...
Man the size of the of the ones in my neighborhood could replace our thanksgiving turkey if it wasn’t illegal to hunt them (I checked).
I mean tbf, the majority of Americans don't eat anything aside from chicken pork and beef, with the occasional turkey
True, but the majority of Americans also eat only a handful of plants, especially when counting brassica as one plant.
That's only true because turkeys aren't that good.
Turkey is amazing when done right. Though I guess that can be said for damn near anything.
Fucking heretic.
The amount of work required to make a decent turkey simply isn't worth it when so many better poultry options exist. The best prepared turkey isn't going to come close to a good roast duck.
yeah they're mid af
To get 80k they're obviously counting variations. How many breeds of cow have I eaten?
I don't have access to that many animals, nor that many plants. Maybe 5 animals and about two dozen plants.
OP probably meant fish, octopus, and squid
lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats
Skip a bit, brother
Pls don't eat fox or lynx, they cute.
Not after you cook them?
And the slothes, and the orangutans, and breakfast cereals
I eat meat AND vegetables
You gotta let people be people. Shaming someone for their dietary choices is not cool. Not everyone shares the same beliefs and that is fine.
I personally believe that people should not eat meat unless they have what it takes to kill it themselves so they understand what goes into it. Too many people eat meat all the time without understanding that something has to die for it to get there. I also disagree with mass agribusiness indoor livestock operations.
Some beliefs lead to immoral outcomes. I'm absolutely certain you can think of quite a few beliefs like that, right? Just picture a hill billy from Alabama, are all his beliefs fine?
In the end, morals is applied ethics, and politics is applied morals. We absolutely should legislate and not tolerate bad beliefs. The vague idea that "everyone has their own belief/opinion and we have to respect it" is a thought terminating cliche that makes the world a worse place. My dad wants me to respect his antivax beliefs, my grandfather wants me to respect his climate change denialism beliefs. Should I?
Well said, I'm glad to finally meet someone with your views that is able to express themselves.
I would say no to your question as those beliefs are contradicting science and they could cause harm to people. My beliefs do not contradict established science. I would also point out that not all rural Appalachian people are bigots, but I understand the point you were making with it. The difference in our views is that I don't see animals as people. I understand their intelligent, and I believe some may be sentient such as elephants and whales. I am against killing elephants and whales.
If you are curious to see it from my perspective, participate in a somewhat poor analogy. Imagine someone came out and said they believe that killing a tree is the same as committing murder, that trees are people. After all, we have proven that they communicate with other trees and with mycelium in very complex and even selfless ways, probably to an even higher degree than we have yet discovered. This person is adamant that the trees are being oppressed and that we need to stop farming trees for paper products. They say that you are a bad person for causing unnecessary suffering and destruction to trees. But imagine that you disagree with them, you do not see trees as people. You understand that trees are living and communicating and you would like to see less cut down, but you still use them for firewood to heat your house. You see it as no less humane to grow them and cut them down than it is to let them die from burning to death or being eaten alive by bugs or disease.
Not the best example, and there are plenty of holes you could point out of you feel so inclined, but hopefully the core of it can grant atleast a small glimpse into how I see the issue we are discussing.
More info on the trees talking thing. I find it fascinating that they have a whole complex economy going on underground, trading and even investing resources. DYK that as a last act when a tree is dying, it gives its resources to saplings that are of a different species than itself before it goes. There's some good podcast on it "radiolab, from tree to shining tree". Also an quick Google search article. https://www.nationalforests.org/blog/underground-mycorrhizal-network
Neuroscience agrees that other mammals and birds are able to experience suffering. They feel pain and stress and fear. The majority agrees they are conscious of their emotions even. To ignore that is a conscious decision on your side. You decide their suffering is worth it, but you don't want people to confront you with it because it makes you uncomfortable. How ironic.
Lol it does not make me uncomfortable. Everything dies somehow, modern slaughterhouses are a lot more humane than mother nature.
There is an obvious difference between kicking a puppy and cutting a tree. Trees do not have brains. Trees also cant move to get away from a predator, so why would they develop emotions we have? As complicated as my right hand is, it isnt sentient.
I see what you are saying about digging holes, there are a lot of arguments we could go on but the issue doesn't need to be overcomplicated. The animal industry absolutely is terrible for sentient beings and terrible for the environment, and being vegan vastly reduces the plants or animals we kill.
When someones dietary choice causes huge amounts of needless suffering and death to the victim (the innocent animal that was exploited and killed) then that's not "fine". That's a serious injustice that should be pointed out (at the very least)
Wait, fish can eat other fish, but I can't? How's that fair?
animals in the wild do a lot of unethical shit
Monsters, all of them. Someone should eat them, just to keep the others safe.
i know this may be a shock but fish haven’t reached the industrialization part of civilization yet. they do not have the capabilities to grow crops and harvest them and make dishes
I mean, meat is still murder, right?
So you're using the "Lions rape and murder, therefore it's okay to do the same." argument?
Weak.
Think about the argument you're making here: "Wild animals do X, therefore humans should be allowed to do X". I hope you understand how horrible this argument is. Here's a fun little list of things animals do:
That's your take on my argument. I haven't extended it beyond the ethics of meat eating.
Than why am I not allowed to eat other humans? They are made out of meat, too. And why do we not allow animals to eat humans?
I won't think about you at all.
Watch dominion while you eat
Nothing like going to my local farm and eating their meat while watching a movie about how GOOD the meat I'm eating is because some other meat is so terrible.
Thanks for the idea :) I'm gonna bring it up for the next local farm-to-table
That is your belief. I respect it. My mom is a vegetarian and I respect her beliefs, she would cook meat for us as she respected ours.
To me, the world has been eating itself since the beginning of life. Wild animals die horrible slow deaths from sickness to starvation over the course of days/weeks to being eaten alive or left to die, and that is the natural way of things. If you want to live you have to die. You don't have to agree with me, but you should accept that different people see things differently than you.
I don't expect a person at the bottom of the economic scale to feed their family with expensive alternatives that they don't understand, and you should't shame them for doing the best they can with what they have or what they know. If someone has the means to eat along with their beliefs, then more power to them. But shaming others is not the way.
Lead by example. Offer affordable alternatives, give positive publicity, not negative publicity, to let people see how your way can be good. Allow people to see your way. Don't force them or they'll just dig in deeper on their own beliefs.
If you believe that then you should work to change people's minds, like actually research how to do that. The way you currently approach it will only make people disagree with you out of spite. Good luck to you.
Some people really think being a good example of the product of their beliefs and being obnoxiously obtuse and argumentative about their beliefs are equally effective at persuading others to think like them.
I can tell you no person ever in the history of humanity was convinced by the latter.
Wait do you think farming doesn’t hurt animals? I’m all for not eating meat, but pretending you’re not harming millions of insects, birds, and various mammals every time you eat a salad, you’re confused about how food production works.
The moral thing people can do is stop making so many people. And hopefully we find ways to produce food in a better way one day. But farming on the scale that feeds billions of people is absolutely fucked.
Yeah. But not all of it. Factory produce framing is murder too.
We were taking about the death of animals.
If you have the choice to avoid certain types of foods that kill more animals than other types of foods I don’t see much difference other than a relativism. So no coffee. No tea. Only organic local foods that are in season grown on a small farm you personally know the SOPs of…
Btw I avoid meat almost entirely. I just think the moral righteousness I see from Whole Foods Amazon vegetarians to be wholly laughable.
In my experience, my organic local crops still involve animal deaths. And need cows to fertilize.
Balanced is simply better than vegan. Not everyone eats balanced, but people who do should not be shamed for it.
Taking a step crazier, there are some animals that produce SO MANY calories that they represent less animal deaths per calorie than eating crops. Cows and Pigs are an example of that. I'm not going to get into hard numbers because everyone likes to hate on the other side's numbers and my experience living in a farming community looks more like the numbers that make animals look bad. If you want to math it out, the farm industry estimates about 40 mouse deaths per acre farmed, and vegan advocates defend a 15 total animal deaths per hectare figure. Grass-fed cows are more death-efficient than corn (the gold standard efficient crop, if less efficient than potatoes) at around 10 deaths-per-acre of farmland. I've never seen an acre of farmland without at least 10 animal carcasses on it in a full growth+harvest cycle.
How many people do you estimate could be fed with grass-fed cows? What about the usage of water? What is with the thousands of hectare of forest that have been rode for pastures? What about the water you need for this type of farming? What about the fact that, if everybody would switch to a meatless diet you would need much less farmland overall?
I know why you do not want to get into hard numbers. Because they would refute your weak arguments.
Why are we going back to "grass-fed"? Do you have plans for that inedible plant waste that currently only ends up in animals or landfills?
What about it? I'm not sure you understand how water works in agriculture/horticulture. Are you looking at "water footprint"? That's its own complicated topic with as many landmines. I'd like to point out that cows are basically as efficient as nuts (or any real vegetable protein), and even the waterfootprint site just suggests having a mix of chicken and beef.
From your unkind reply to me elsewhere... If you had to pick between the environment and fewer animal deaths, which would you choose? I like to talk cows with vegans because a mixed diet with beef as the only meat clearly consists of fewer animal deaths than a vegan diet. 700,000 calories a death is pretty hard to beat. Environmentally speaking (and water), the best way to get protein is from animals that have to die and locally sourced chicken. Chicken are pretty death inefficient though, aren't they?
What about factory farms in third world countries with no safety controls? There's as much of a veg-packing industry as there is a meat-packing one. Are you going to stop eating vegetables because SOME FARM SOMEWHERE does something wrong? The meat I eat doesn't come from places where "thousands of hectares of forest have been rode for pasture".
You seemed to have backed yourself into a corner with a non-argument argument. Is this from a position that land usage is unacceptable? Because the world is nowhere near overpopulated yet. Is this from an environmental standpoint? Then land use is the wrong figure. Are you really happy if we use less farmland but produce MORE net GHG? We need more farmland per calorie of crop if we don't have sufficient fertilization. But the fertilizers (synethic and manure) are the potential problem. To use less farmland overall, you need to produce more GHG overall. The balance for farmland is to have localized ecosystems of livestock fertilizing local plant farms which in turn use their waste to feed.
I'm gonna be crystal clear. I'm NOT saying beef is perfect. I prefer chicken and seafood from an environmental perspective. But I know a lot of vegans care more about "saving animal lives" than they do the environment. So I talk cow. I'll concede it straight - beef should NOT be foundational to your diet any more than veganism should be if your goal is a single sustainable diet for the entire world.
If you dont want to contribute to the comodification of sentient beings you'd also have to quit your job unless it somehow has literally zero impact on your physical and mental well being. Anyone got a job like that?
So, unless they can reduce the harm they cause to 0%, any and all attempts to reduce it are futile and pointless? This is the nirvana fallacy, and I hope you understand how horrible that would be if we lived by that rule. For example, I can't stop all racism, all human exploitation, all sexism because I live in a capitalistic hellscape built on the suffering of others. Therefore, I don't actually need to try, correct?
So your "argument" is, if we can't be 100 % cruelty free, we shouldn't reduce cruelty?
My arguement is if you want to reduce crulety, you have options to do so in your own life, which are far more productive than simply yelling at people online for not doing it the exact same way as you. You refusing to work somewhere you can support less exploitative practices because your comfortable in your job is no different then someone telling you they're not changing their diet because it works for them. You have the means and the capacity to change yourselves, yet you'd rather yell at people online to change themselves.
I don't yell at people. And I also don't think a Meme is similar to yelling at someone...
Perhaps people feel much more attacked than what is the intention of the one who posted the meme. It can't be that we aren't allowed to make jokes or talk about veganism online because people are selectively oversensitive. This meme is really really mild when compared to a lot of the other jokes posted here. Especially when you compare it to the amount of mockery and jokes many vegans and vegetarians have to endure in their personal life.
Meat eaters can't expect to bite all the time but than get all cranky when someone stubs them back.
Good thing I wasn't directly replying to the meme itself. I was replying to what's a now deleted comment. Wonder why they deleted it, maybe all that yelling they were doing turned out to be ineffective.
Thinking diet shaming can work to turn people Vegan is like thinking body shaming can make people skinny.
Imagine being a pro-capitalism vegan lmao
Nah.
Steak is delicious, and at the end of the day it's only a cow.
Plenty of foods are delicious.
So ethics aren't a concern for you. How about the adverse health effects, or environmental impacts of the meat industry? Any considerations there, or is all about how delicious steak is to you?
You know there's a lot of valid ethical frameworks that do not espouse veganism?
It's safer to say "YOUR ethics aren't a concern to him", or to me. There's a lot of philosophers who eat meat. And it's not hypocritical. They just think you're wrong. You aren't God (and even if you were, God doesn't get to decide ethics).
As for adverse health effects, I have known dozens of ex-vegans, one with an degree in nutrition, who left veganism despite their ethics, for health reasons. Generally speaking, it's easier to "accidentally" have an reasonably ok diet with a full balanced mix of foods than it is for a vegan to intentionally have one.
This is actually an incredibly complicated accusation, and unless you enter the conversation with the conclusion in mind, there's not enough evidence/arguments out there to show that it's "the meat industry" that's the real environmental problem with our food industry. As someone who has shared a table with experts on a few occasions and then done some of my own armchair research, I'm convinced the two real problems are non-local food and factory farming. The former creates polluting logicistical overhead in transport and over-storage of food (fossil fuels for driving, non-recyclable plastics, etc) and the latter in willful destruction of environment to get more output cheaper, when we have plenty of room and plenty of margins to "do it right"
As for "to do it right", part of doing it right is acknowledging that we have a compost/manure shortfall against crops NOT because we're not producing enough manure but because we don't have localized meat farms balanced in each area around their crop farms, and/or that it's considered acceptable to use fertilizers despite the presence of manure that would better fertilize a crop. So the better answer? Local meat, and transition away from factory farms. And if you've got the land and the courage for it, keep some chickens for eggs and goats for meat/manure.
My 2c anyway.
AND it is about how delicious a steak is to me. Have you ever walked a local farm with the people who do all the work? Helped them pick out the pigs for the meal? Known the love that is involved in the whole process, and the fact that the animals have it 100x better than they'd have had it in nature.
So yes, there is nothing like cutting into that pork chop having a REAL appreciation for the pig's sacrifice, a real appreciation for the work everyone put into it all.
My ethical concerns go beyond raising animals, it's the unnecessary killing them without their consent where it becomes problematic. Particularly when the "sacrifice" is for the trivial reason to satisfy the killer's taste buds; when our taste buds can be satisfied in so many ways that don't involve a victim.
And yes, I grew up on a farm where we raised all our own meat, including pigs. I've personally killed more animals than the average person, and I can say with certainty that every animal wants to live. To violently take another's life "because it tastes good" and then go through such convuluted reasoning to justify it is very puzzling to me. It suggests a lack of empathy that seems to be endemic in our society. To speak of "the love" that is involved in the process doesn't hold much weight with me. Serial killers love to kill, don't they?
Understand that you don't get to pen the ethical frameworks for the world, only for yourself. Even in ethical frameworks where "consent" and "killing" are given extreme weight, there are always other factors... And under most of the foundational ethical frameworks (Utilitarianism and Natural Law Theory come to mind), the argument for necessary-veganism is unsupportable.
So if you want to hate meat eating, say "I think it's wrong to eat animals" or "my morals don't allow it". Don't tell people who eat meat they don't care about ethics, because that statement is simply dead wrong.
My biggest complaint about proselytizing vegans is the way they oversimplify the equation. Like every single person who ever eats meat for any reason stops with a fork in their hand saying "Is this bite of food more important to me than murder? YES IT IS".
With all due respect, reality is not as simple as you're making it out to be. If you cannot see that there's more to the discussion than "meat tastes good" and "animals don't want to die", then nobody can help you. But pretending that people use convoluted reasoning to justify it is an ignorant take, whether willful or out of being blinded by your own zealous position on the matter.
You do understand that from a psychological point of view, human empathy and animal empathy are different factors and rationally exist in different amounts. Honestly, my personal take is that zealous vegans show less empathy towards fellow man than other people. LOOK at the way you're thinking about supermajority of humanity? Why should I not see that as a lack of empathy as well?
And for that matter, there are several empathy-related disorders where a person's mispaced empathy goes so far as to affect their relationships and quality of life. And again, that's only for that rare person staring at meat on a fork commenting about how murder tastes good. The ones who simply categorize animals or plants or insects differently from you in their empathy don't suggest anything of the sort.
Tell it to me straight. Are you so far gone that you cannot understand the moral, ethical, or psychological difference between being an actual serial killer and simply not being vegan?
Quite the opposite actually, as a farmer raising my animals ethically is a daily fact concern. I just don't buy into your supposition that raising them is inherently unethical.
If I live long enough that eating meat is the primary thing that got me killed, I see that as an absolute win. I like riding motorcycles, I also like beer and sugar and baked goodies. I fully expect something else to get me well before a lifetime of eating meat has the chance. And I'm okay with that, I'd rather live a few years less and get to keep partaking in the things I enjoy. Plenty of people live into their 80s without giving up meat, and living into my 80s sounds plenty long to me.
I believe that until nuclear is being seriously considered as the solution for clean electricity, then it isn't worth worrying about which of my habits are supposedly causing the climate crisis.
I wouldn't say it's "all about" how delicious steak is. But I would say that in all of your examples "less steak" doesn't seem to be the most prudent place to start, or to consider at all.
I've watched animals die in nature. Unless I'm talking to an anti-natalist, I cannot fathom how they think the life of a farm animal is worse than the life of a wild animal. To me, it comes back to a colorblind view of the trolley problem: "It only matters if we're part of decision that leads to pulling the trigger"
I really feel like the preachy vegans have crossed some line and cannot be reasoned with. And the non-preachy vegans don't go out of their way to have the discussion (more's the pity, since they'd probabliy have a more balanced view before turning preachy)
I've raised quite a few farm animals. They don't have an urge to live. My goodness do they take every chance to get themselves killed...
Maybe a problem with your farm?
Is it still anecdotal if literally any farmer will tell you the same? Because they will.
A surprisingly large amount of effort goes into trying to keep the livestock from hurting themselves or getting themselves killed. That's inevitable when essentially turn off natural selection, they end up losing any sense of self preservation. And why not, they do have multiple humans who's entire career centers on keeping them alive until they're ready for slaughter.
wow i fucking wonder why dude
They are hearty for sure and that can be seen as an urge or will to live. Animals are dumb and have a shocking lack of self preservation. Are you talking about conscious 'I want to live, I better not do that' or 'I will find a way to live in my circumstances'?
Oh boy I love leftists naivety
Most people, including leftists, are meat eaters.
Did you assume he was a lefty because he used a word with more than 4 syllables?
He has "anarchist" in the nickname lol
I disagree with the comment on the point about it being a leftist naivety, but it is naïve nonetheless. Life feeds on life and all that. That they're sentient doesn't matter, some people argue plants are sentient too (not that I necessarily agree)
Oh man, do I have some bad news for you...
Plants CAN feel pain.
You not understanding the pain or finding a way to measure the pain does not mean there is no pain.
I don't care for debate so I'm just gonna share this tofu stir-fry recipe I like. I sub gochujang for the sambal oelek and skip the peanut garnish
now that's what i call praxis
This is the way
See, that's what I'm talking about. I'm saving that :D
I've never heard of sambal in my life, much less gochujang, but I guess we're going on an adventure.
Sambal is fantastic. Gochujang is too, and pretty much required for any kind of korean cooking.
You had me until skipping peanuts.
Okay, but what if nut allergy :(
Its hard out here, being a vegan allergic to nuts.
You can eat both vegetables and dead animals at the same time. We call that a stew.
Is it vegan to sit on that high horse?
I'm French so I'd eat Kermit too.
Hon hon hon hon
Oui Oui Baguette
Sorry, was I supposed to eat them while they are alive?
No, just supposed to let them live
Says who?
Basic empathy for fellow sentient beings
A lot of people in the comments can't seem to make the distinction between what they have been fed since they were little and that they are used to, and what is good, or tastes good.
There's more than three affordable animals lmao. Even if you count fish as one you still have crawfish, shrimp, fish, beef, chicken, pork, lamb, venison, turkey, etc. This also doesn't even account for the million ways to prepare the meats
Who's gonna fall for this ragebait?
apparently many people on this thread
So you love plants? Name all plats then!
Man, here's the thing. I can't digest fermenting ogliosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols.
So no beans, mushrooms, onions garlic wheat rye or barley, apples, apricots, most berries, etc etc etc.
I also lead a "fairly" active lifestyle against my own wishes. So where does my protein come from? Meat. Chicken, eggs, and hard tofu.
If I cut meat from my diet, I'm eating three meals a day of hard tofu. What even is the point of life, then?
There's more than three animals that you can eat.
You don't even eat all 80000 of those plants.
Plants make excellent side dishes, unfortunately I can't spend a third of my day shoveling quinoa and lentils by the bucket load just to get enough protein, so meat it is.
I cut beef out of my diet almost entirely, both because it's unsustainable for the ecology (cattle require more resources per pound than any other animal) and because red meat isn't as good for you. Also it's expensive.
This is the fair and balanced take. Of course it would be better for the planet and our wallets to not eat meat, but our diet more or less requires some amount of meat for iron and protein; the responsible thing to do is to be selective about types and frequency. We don't need meat in every single meal or even every single day, but you've got a better chance of pitching meatless Monday to most Americans than full vegetarianism. And even a small reduction is better than no reduction.
Vegans, even life long vegans, exist. We do not need meat. And the reformist position overlooks the question whether it actually works. Convincing 10 people to CONSISTENTLY AND FOREVER decrease their meat intake by 10% is the same as convincing just 1 person to go vegan (aka 100% reduction). I don't have studies either way, but anecdotally people are extremely bad at keeping up dietary/lifestyle changes, but veganism is a lot simpler. "No animal products" is simpler than "have I reached my 90% yet?".
Again, would love some studies on this, but it just seems more like wishful thinking. Additionally, we could just encourage both.
I don't think so. 10 people reducing it by 10% is nothing in a society where everyone claims they have reduced it and only eat happy to be killed animals from their uncles farm. On the other hand one vegan could show hundreds of people that there is no magic to not abusing animals and change some. It is not only about the personal impact but when veganism hits a critical mass and changes society.
I know lifelong smokers. The human body is resilient. If your argument is that veganism is healthy, you need a lot more than "I'm vegan and I'm not dead".
I mentioned elsewhere about protein intakes. It's not a controversial take that protein is one of the most important things we need in a day, that protein is easiest to find in meat, and that our body isn't as good at digesting plant protein. For the rest, telling someone to go plant-based when you need a lot more than just a multivitamin to hit the Iron and B-12 content you need.
Whether or not veganism can be healthy (it might be), it is a known quantity that naive veganism is absolutely unhealthy. So my problem with "getting them vegan is easier than getting them to cut 10% meat" is that you're trying to create naive vegans. That means you're trying to create smokers.
Considering half the country threw a temper tantrum over being asked to wear a mask during a respiratory pandemic, I don't think you're being realistic in your view of everybody being able to go vegan. Many of these people threw a fit over AOC "wanting to take away your cheeseburgers" even though that wasn't what she was proposing; they just knew that it would rile up the rural base.
I think it's much more reasonable to convince people to make two easily implemented changes: no more meat at breakfast, and meatless Mondays. With these two easy changes, only 12 out of 21 weekly meals is eligible for meat, which is a ~43% reduction. Not everybody will do it obviously, but the same people willing to cut 10% will probably cut 43% when presented in this way. Especially if you bring up the financial cost, health risks, and storage inconvenience of buying and eating so much more meat than is necessary.
I also think it's a little silly to say that it's easier to go vegan. You need to study food labels and nutrition facts to see if there is some animal byproduct involved. When you go out to eat, it's not always clear whether options on the menu are vegan friendly, but restaurants are getting better about that nowadays. But I think you're also assuming that people have the means to always choose a product that may be significantly more expensive. I think you'll have better luck convincing people to occasionally think about whether their stirfry really needs steak or if mushrooms are actually enough to carry that earthy, satisfying bite they're looking for this time.
Personally I like fish, I meal prep mostly with fish and they're far easier to farm and it's less damaging than most land animals.
I think people really get a skewed view of this. It's better for our planets if we eat less meat, and if people who need high protein intake won't stop eating meat it's a bit better if you eat zero meat to competensate. But it's a "little vs a lot" thing . We still need meat to support the horticultural industry.
I mean, the cows and pigs in my area serve the important purpose of providing much of the fertilizer for all the vegetable farms in my area. They would still be there, getting fed, if nobody ate them or drank their milk. Their deaths would just be more of a waste. There is a point where too many cows/pigs are producing more fertilizer than crop farms need. But you want to hear something scary? WE AREN'T THERE YET; not even close. In the US at least, we only produce enough manure to support 20% of our horticulture, and the rest is supplemented by compost and synthetic fertilizer. And that synethetic fertilizer? Pretty terrible for the ecosystem and wild animals as well.
The real answer is that we haven't solved the problems. It does "feelgood" to know that we can genuinely help a little by eating a little less meat. And we should all be doing that. But all of us going vegan is a real problem for reasons unrelated to the (very real) nutritional issues.
The meme is questionable, no argument (aren't most?)
But point 3 is just straight up wrong.
Counterpoint. Nutritionists (many, not all) tend to agree that protein is under-represented in the average non-plant-based diet already, and the body processes plant protein at 50-67% effectiveness compared to a similar amount of animal protein. And people with particular common medical issues have nutritional need for higher protein amounts. My wife's nutritionist wants her at 100-120g protein per day, counting plant proteins at 50% (so 240g if plant). Her food intake is about 12-1500kcal.
I challenge you to find a healthy way to to hit 180-240g of protein at a reasonable calorie intake. The best I can find is about 20 to 1 (which would be 3600 calories of high-protein meals to hit 180g). Or she could eat one 600cal steak and then whatever else she plans on in the day.
More importantly, my doctor wants me around the same, if only 100g. But I don't want to eat 3000calories a day.
"You ever plow a field? To plant the quinoa or sorghum or whatever the hell it is you eat. You kill everything on the ground and under it.
You kill every snake, every frog, every mouse, mole, vole, worm, quail… you kill them all.
So, I guess the only real question is: how cute does an animal have to be before you care if it dies to feed you?”
-John Dutton
80k plants and vegans only eat like 20 anyway
And half of them are actually just Brassica oleracea.
Maybe it goes to show you just how yummy those 3 animals are?
I resent that. I eat more than 3 species of animals.
capitalism does not beget a wide range of meat for the average household. people eat "the same 3 dead animals" because it's what's affordable and even that's becoming less and less true
Sorry, I'm trying. Honestly. I'm looking for vegan and vegetarian recipes and while it usually tastes "fine", it's mostly just "meh".
I don't get the hype for things like lentils or quinoa either. Both are "meh" at best.
So far, I'm unable to find meat-free recipes that truly satisfy me.
And no, I'm not a bad cook.
Tell me your reasonably priced vegan and vegetarian recipes that little children will eat, too. Serious request.
As a fellow omnivore trying to eat more vegan/vegetarian recipes, I think rainbow plant life on YouTube has the best recipes that I've tried. If you've read Salt Fat Acid Heat, most/all of her recipes are based on that technique/ideology. Her red lentil curry is really good and I make a double batch about once every other month to keep in the freezer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHRyfEbhFFU
I live with people that don't like coconut milk so I just use a mixture of heavy cream and milk. I also sub half of the red lentils for brown lentils for extra fiber.
Thank you very much for the hint, I checked out the red lentil curry video and it does look quite delicious. Chicken curry is actually my favorite food and I tried green, brown and red lentil curry before, but didn't quite like them, even though I'm half asian, lol. I'll try her recipe, though.
I personally love coconut milk.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=BHRyfEbhFFU
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Tofu is pretty versatile as a meat replacement or even just a general texture thing. I like to fry small tofu cubes and use them in place of the cheese in palak paneer, or instead of chicken in something like General Tso's. It takes a bit more work since you have to press the tofu and find a good way to cook it so it doesn't turn out soggy (and it's usually more expensive), but I'm a meat eater and it's satisfying to me.
Beyond/Impossible Meat is also pretty good imo. I actually tend to like it better than real beef, but that's definitely not a majority opinion. If you like the taste, you can crumble the patties for ground beef texture or break them into chunks for more of a meatball vibe. I've even done a sort of faux bulgogi with chunks and gochujang sauce that works surprisingly well.
One more thing I think can help is to not try to replicate meat for everything. There are ways to make vegetarian/vegan food that let it stand on its own and still be satisfying (beans and chickpeas can help a ton), without it feeling like it's trying too hard to be meat. Things like cauliflower stir fried or batter fried and coated in some sort of sauce can be good just as cauliflower in sauce.
Finally, mushrooms, if you like them. Soaking dried mushrooms will get you stock that can replace chicken or beef stock for most things, and frying even the cheap baby bella mushrooms that come pre washed and sliced can give you a meaty texture in something that needs it.
We eat tofu every now and then and like it a lot and I did already try out some meat "substitutes" and some of them are actually pretty good, but not cost-effective. I'm not saying I have to look at every cent I spend, but things have gotten harder in recent years, not gonna lie.
I don't need or want to replicate meat everywhere. I'm totally fine with non-meat dishes, but my complaint is that many of them don't taste as good as people (especially vegans) claim, even in restaurants. It's been quite disappointing multiple times to try that "really, really delicious curry", that in the end didn't really taste that great and it's been a recurring thing for me / us when trying to eat more plant-based foods. This is also true with cauliflower, for instance. I like it in "traditional" meals as side-dish, but no, to me, batter frying cauliflower doesn't make it good.
Mushrooms are a staple in our cooking, because I really like my umami flavor (I also use MSG a lot), but unfortunately, my daughter doesn't like any type of mushroom. I guess, it's the texture. Tried several different things and she always puts them away.
Anyway, thank you for your comment. Beyond meat has been on our "try out list" for quite some time.
Honestly I think the important thing is to just try alternatives. You don't have to end up liking them or completely replacing meat if it's not practical, just try to find ways to add more vegetables.
That's what I'm doing. I like to eat "traditional" salads and stuff like that, but I grew up with them being side dishes most of the time and I think, it's hard to break habits.
From a moral standpoint, I'd like to go vegetarian or even vegan at some point, but this requires me to find things that I'll actually like to eat on a regular basis. Often times, when I search for vegan recipes, something often throws me off. Be it the flavor, the texture, the strength of the flavor or lack thereof, etc. Maybe it's just that I'm not used to it or that animal fats are carrying so much flavor that I'm now kinda addicted to it? I know, it sounds really stupid, but when I go to the grocery store, I often gravitate towards animal products automatically.
My first goal will be to reduce meat intake to one, maybe two times a week.
Try out Indian cuisine, we got a ton of great vegetarian food here but depending on where you are, getting all the good spices needed could be quite difficult and pricey.
Sticky tofu is hands down my favorite. Something like this: https://veganonboard.com/sticky-lemon-tofu/
Soy Curls is honestly my favorite 'meat replacement' (though, I'm not too hot on 'replacing meat'). They work for doing things like mongolian beef, or just lightly frying after marinading for 'chicken strips' to top salads or sandwiches. https://thevietvegan.com/vegan-mongolian-beef/
Soups are of course, pretty easy. I like Lentil Chilli, heavy on the seasonings and beans aside from lentils. Minestrone or lemon orzo are both also great. Thai curry or pho are both more work imo, but amazing (though, both broth bases can often have chicken or shrimp in them).
Burgers, and while impossible meat et. al. are fine I guess, they're a bit pricey. I honestly prefer a good chipotle black bean burger over them 9/10 times. They're pretty cheap to buy, but also not very hard to make, with most of the ingredients being cheap.
I personally like seitan, but I know quite a few other vegetarians don't, so it might be divisive. BUT, in terms of cheap protein, its damn near rock bottom in price. It is some work to make stuff out of it from scratch, but 'indian mock duck' is usually seitan, and can be bought from indian stores if you just want to try it. But seitan works to replace burgers, chicken tenders, steaks, sausage, etc. Tons of recipes out there.
Thank you very much for all your suggestions. In fact, I even plan to do my first seitan batch today. I'll follow this video and see how it goes.
I'll save all your guys suggestions and try them out, thanks again!
You need to try a lot "plant-based meat" products. Many of them are meh and taste like meat flavored cardboard, but I've personally found some that taste waaaay better than meat.
Sloppy joe made with lentils is an easy dinner for a night and kids love a sloppy joe
Seems to be pretty american. I'm from Germany and never had that.
Ok, this is going to be long!
I would advice, apart from tying out new recipes, try to look at how you cook rice, make a green salad and tomato based sauce again. Often there are a few basic things one can improve that elevate all other dishes as well. This doesn't have to be expensive, you save a lot of money by not buying the meat, after all.
(A few of these things you will probably know, but perhaps you learn something new.)
For rice try the following:
For a good tomato sauce try the following:
Some tips to make your salad better:
General tips for vegan and vegetarian recipes:
Ingredients which you perhaps never used before but are very useful:
If it's about eating ethically, I highly suggest trying to eat locally instead. It's much better for the environment, and you can usually get a better nutritional balance.
I mean, if eating "meh" makes you feel good, go for it. Just please make sure to study all the supplements you need and keep researching because there are regularly discoveries that might change the supplement intake you require.
Transport is a teensy tiny part of the climate/environmental impact for food. In 99.9% of cases, a plant-based food will beat out any meat from next door.
That being said, local in the sense things that actually grow locally and are in season is still a good idea, though more from a community building perspective.
Food Transport is estimated to be as high as 3 gigatons tons of CO2 emissions per year, a full 20% of all food-related CO2 emissions. From my point of view (not considering all animal-related CO2 emissions as a single line-item), that makes transport the single largest cause of CO2 related impact in the entirety of agriculture/horticulture.
For context, ALL manure CO2 emissions is only 2.6 gigatons (full disclosure. I lost and re-found this link, and see another source estimates manure closer to 7B. I'm sure you know my thoughts on that. Food Transport is still of dominant significance and fertilizer impact cannot be that effectively reduced). And in many cases, that manure is less harmful to the environment, yes EVEN CO2 impact, than the other fertilizer options that replace it when used in crop farms.
There's a strong argument for "less meat" being good for the environment, but I am convinced (in part from hands-on experience) that the only arguments for "no meat" being any good are entirely fabricated.
https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions
I don't agree with Hannah, in this case. Specifically, I challenge anyone who leaves cow methane on a chart or in an argument without covering the CO2 production by non-manure fertilizer or the fact that only depopulation will stop cows from pooping. And unfortunately, a plethora of studies are showing that synethetic fertilizer production creates massive amounts of methane gas as well. I'm fairly convinced she is (perhaps inadvertantly) including that under "cow farm" when it should be under "plant farm".
She also just handwaves saying transport costs are low despite studies she opted not to cite or rebut that place them at 20%. But here's the funny part. That was the first link. The second agrees with the 20% figure for logistics (though she uses the term "Supply Chain" and separates physical transport from processing, packaging, and retail storage (all of which are cut out or down from local). Digging into supply chain figures in the left article's graph, she just disagrees with herself (and, to be honest, other experts).
In fact, the numbers on her second article suggest bias to me in her first article. She blames land use for 1/3 of beef GHG production. But in the second article, only 2/3 of Land Use GHG goes to animal, with the other 1/3 going to "land use for human food". I'm sure you can see the next line. If Land Use is such a large part of meat GHG production and crops are so good at everything else, then Land Use should be dominant and in-your-face on the crop chart in the first article. Instead, apparently she's undecided about that?
Look. I can see why you might decide that eating less meat might be the wrong choice for you. But when there are studies that say eating local is important and studies saying eating less meat is important, one article is not going to get me to change my entire life, and risk the environment, just to feel good about myself.
Obviously, not only from the the Haber-Bosch process which is the most energy intensive single process worldwide, it is used for Ammoniak, nitrogen.
The mining of phosphor leaves huge wastelands and will be rare in about 100 hundred years if we continue.
But manure is not created from thin air. You need to feed animals a lot feed until you get something to eat back. It wastes 20 times more crop compared to plant based diet. Manure will not save us, it destroys nature, water and air.
The IPCC 2022 states even giving up every form of fossile fuel animal industry would push us over 3° increase.
I do not eat any animal products, but the main reason for it that I do not want to kill others if I can avoid it. I don't want you to import any fancy exotic food for a plant based diet. I don't, I get my potatoes from my neighbor and mostly buy local foods anyway. Don't act like you can't eat local plants and are therefore forced to eat others.
What exactly do you think we should plan to do with all the grass and waste product currently being used in feeding animals? There's a complex web of dependency between plant and animal farming that I have seen firsthand, and all I ever hear is that cutting half that web off entirely will magically "Just word" and be better than what we have no. Most importantly, I'm convinced I eat carbon neutral even with eat, or at least as close to that as reasonably possible. And I've never seen a plan to scale to a world where meat eating is ended, and the massive inefficiencies that would introduce.
This is not preciately how I took it. Instead, I took it as more "we need to do everything we can, and the whole world going vegan is more likely than the other major sources". Ultimately, we would already be in a good place if 7 businesses became carbon neutral. IPCC 2022 cited a LOWER number than most do for methane, only 14% of world methane, only 1/3 of human caused methane. The one or two "experts" I found who specifically pushed for sudden international veganism have also failed to account for the above issues I mentioned. I argue it's easier to find technologies that can mitigate and reverse emissions than it is to find technologies to let the world cut out meat entirely.
Which is absolutely your right. I have become convinced that my mixed diet leads to ultimately less death than a plant-based diet would (trolley problem), but it is not the foundation of my mixed-diet choice. I'm not an anti-natalist, and I'm perfectly fine with the quality of life a typical farm cow lives when compared to a cow in the wild when the alternative is to not be born at all. I know plenty of people who suffer in their lives more than a farm animal will, and yet never once think those people should never have been born.
Huh? I DO eat local plants. I have a farm down the road and buy almost all the produce we don't grow there. When we do have to buy from retail establishments, we buy 99% of our produce locally. Yes, about once a year I buy a dragonfruit because it's a guilty pleasure. So sue me.
But I also get eggs from my neighbor, and occasionally chicken. We have a deer overpopulation problem in my area. When I can, I pick up locally hunted deer from the butcher. My wife has PTSD and it triggers her regarding hunting, so I don't hunt my own despite the fact she and I are morally on the same page as that. I support that because I consider it ethically better than being vegan because I believe pulling the lever on the trolley is always the right choice, and because I am convinced "what we have is ethical because it is better than the real world alternatives". There is no trolley track without any bodies on it, in this world.
Yes. We kill 80 billions mammals and trillion fish each year and billions are lost to diseases, fire and low profitability. If the whole word would decide to not abuse animals farmers would gas or burn the animals. Once, and not the perpetual killing all meat eaters have no problem with, but the fantasy scenario where we stop killing is a problem?
So you're an anti-natalist? I try to avoid arguing with anti-natalist vegans because as morally disgusted as I am of their position, there is no way to convince them to change it.
To be fair, one of those three animals basically perfected it's flavor to the point where everything else tastes just like it.
All these tasty meats and people decide to eat what the food eats.
I mean I think it's pretty telling that there are lots of plant based versions of meat based food, but not the other way around. Nobody is trying to replicate the taste of salads in meat form
I’ve eaten chicken, turkey, sheep, cow, pig, duck, rabbit, snail, deer and horse. It’s a bit more than 3, and that’s just the general category (for example, counting boars and pigs as only one type) and only land animals. If we list each fish species, crabs, squids, calamari…
If I wasn't meant to eat pigs, why is every single part of a pig so damn delicious?
It's pretty ironic that ribs evolved to prevent a pig from being killed
I'd easily eat humans if it were legal and they processed in our bodies correctly! I don't get it, why you would want to let all that meat go to waste?
Prions are a great reason.
Worth noting that other animals too have prions such as the one that causes mad cow disease. Not to mention diseases like E. Coli, Salmonella, etc.
That's a jump, from "I'd eat a human" to necessitating the human have been purposefully killed to be consumed. The previous poster even pretty clearly said not wanting to waste meat, implying the human was already dead and would just be burnt/buried otherwise.
I definitely didn't say that. My views on eating animals isn't relevant to this conversation. Just pointing out you're framing the words the previous poster used in a vastly different light than what they said. Kinda like you tried to do to mine.
That said, honestly yeah, if you accidentally kill an animal, use it's meat.
you are aware animals eat animals right
Yes. Cook it with bacon or in bacon grease.
Does pleasure justify killing someone sentient?
ok vegan
Most people are going to say beef, chicken, and pork.
Yet goat is the most popular meat worldwide. And I'm good with that, those weird-eyed hellspawn need to die.
Question: For any aspiring vegetarians/vegans, what are the best foods to ease the transition?
For instance, I'd ideally be looking for something with complete protein and few to no additional carbs, to be accompanied by the vegetable dishes I already eat. Beyond meat tastes great but still manages to find exemplary ways to be unhealthy with things like saturated fats, and probably doesn't do much to resolve any exploitation issues, though it at least appears to be a step in the right direction.
For people looking to move to vegetarianism, possibly as a bridge to veganism, could it reasonably be said that animal products from animals raised in cruelty free and free range conditions are ethical? Can any organizations assure that?
Lentils and mushrooms are high in protein and have a mealy texture with a give. They've been my meat-substitute best friends during becoming vegetarian :) Legumes in general are a good bet if you're a fan of them.
It's hard to find animal products you can be sure are cruelty free, unless you get them from a farm where you're familiar with the owners, and you don't consider animal products to be inherently unethical.
I work at a health food store chain and we have allegedly "extremely high standards" for eggs and meat BUT I always wondered how true that really is.
The industry standard nearly everywhere for the egg industry is to shred male baby chicks alive regardless of if they claim to be "free-range", "organic", "cage-free", etc. Here's a good video about that
Most vegan food is awful if you don't like lentils tbh.
Hahahaha, what a funny meme here on c/memes. I'm literally laughing my ass off.
Buckwheat (must buy eastern european kind) with diced avocado thrown in and a few pinches of salt is the shiznitz.
If I had to choose only one meal to eat for the rest of my life - this would be it.
edit: buckwheat prep: boil for 10-20 mins until most of the water boils away. Add some water if it boils away too soon. Leave some water/moisture to boil away while it's cooling and not to get buckwheat burned and stuck on the pot surface. Throw in some diced avocado chunks. Add salt to bring out the buckwheat flavor. Done.
your grocery stores have more than 30 kinds of vegetable?
There's bland salad, bland tomatoes, bland onions, potatoes, an assortment of bland root things, a couple bulby things that taste kinda terrible, and some fruits.
Of which anything more exotic than peaches costs an arm and a leg, of course.
Potato, rice, grain... What's the rest?
3? Really?
Almost correct. It's 6 dead animals in my case actually
I love taste.
It's far easier to slap a chook in the oven and end up with something delicious than what I've been able to figure out that's only plant based.
The way forward is encouraging people to try better things. The warmth and joy of food is felt through the people that make it. Affordable and accesssible healthy food is becoming a custom, so migration from processed foods is easier.
And yet the most consumed plant in the US is one that is barely edible for humans, and inedible for most the animals we feed it to.
Cool, vegans are invading this community. You're all insufferable.
You're the ones hurting innocent animals almost entirely for pleasure or convenience. Someone innocent getting hurt completely unnecessarily is good reason to cause a ruckus
Listen. If you personally are against eating meat and choose not to, great, I'm happy for you. But going and giving other people shit for their own dietary choices is as bad and obnoxious as telling people they shouldn't have abortions. Shut the fuck up and let people live, you're only making people hate you.
When an innocent victim is being harmed, silence is siding with the oppressor
Seems counterproductive, because you're never going to change anyone's mind by being an insufferable twat. Enjoy being hated.
Many anti-lgbtq+ folks think that people who support or are a part of the lgbtq+ are insufferable, but here we are making progress for peoples rights.
If you want to be a bigot against nonhuman animals and their rights, i can't stop you. But at least be aware that that's what's happening. People perpetuating injustice are never going to be happy with those against it no matter how it's presented, so i'd rather just be as clear and concise as I can
LGBTQ+ and veganism are very, very different topics. LGBTQ+ supporters are fighting for the rights of themselves, their friends and family, etc. - other human beings. You're attempting to fight for the rights of wild animals that do not have the capability to communicate, nor have the ability to even comprehend the concept of death itself.
I'm not here to argue about morals, I'm here to argue that you should mind your own fucking business. The world would be a better place if you did that one simple thing. Don't like gay people? Okay, just mind your own fucking business. Not okay with people choosing to have an abortion? Great, mind your own fucking business. Hate the idea that people enjoy eating meat? Mind. Your. Own. Fucking. Business. If anything, that mindset is quite literally the opposite of being a bigot.
Ok, mind your own business when it comes to nonhuman animals. Paying to have them exploited and killed is the opposite of minding your own business, it's forcing your views onto them, and i'm here to tell you stop forcing your speciesist views onto innocent nonhuman animals
You do realize stopping the meat industry altogether implies letting all livestock die, right? Very few people could afford keeping a cow or a pig as a pet and without the financial incentive there, farmers wouldn't waste their money feeding the livestock. They can no longer survive in the wild.
I'm not in favour of how it works right now either, I'm all for more animal rights and better conditions, but to think we could just stop and everything would be nice is just plain naive.
Ok, so lets stop breeding them first. Stop paying people to force them to get pregnant.
Ideally we'd be able to release them into the wild or have sanctuaries for them, but that's just not really possible. But if we stopped forcing more of them into existence then the remaining ones would all be killed pretty fast, which is far better than them and their children and their childrens children, and so on for the foreseeable future being killed.
More realistically, if animal liberation is achieved the population of farmed animals will gradually decline as fewer people support animal ag until there are only a few of them left, on sanctuaries or reserves or something, or they go extinct
But... I haz both.
Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol' steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it's a mighty good food
It's a grade A meal when I'm in the mood.
-Reverend Horton Heat
Frogs aren't vegan 😂
Same 3? Lol please.
I just eat what I like, which is a combination of plants and animals.
Quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality either. Many plants are edible in the regard that they won’t kill you, but are mostly unpleasant to eat. Because if we are going to compare apples to apples we can surely eat over 80,000 different species from the animal kingdom.
Oh, apple! Same as eggplant and kiwi:
They taste like pain.
I always thought “an apple a day keeps the doctor away“ was something parents said because children would rather eat a painful fruit like a kiwi than visit a doctor. Turns out apples don’t taste like pain. I’m allergic to them. Like, all-variants-they-sell-in-local-supermarkets allergic.
I used to be allergic to apples as well. Couldn't have apples, peaches, cherries, pistachios, macadamia nuts, and a handful of other foods that I can't remember. Went nearly a decade with allergic reactions. Then just a few years ago, it all went away. I can't even begin to express how satisfying a perfectly ripe peach is, now that my mouth and throat doesn't start to swell.
Oh I am happy that nothing swells! It’s just very painful for me. Happy to hear that you can taste peaches!
If we're putting bacon, sausages, cutlets, and ribs in the same category because "it's all pig". Then I want to make sure that bulb onions, shallots, scallions, and leeks are also counted as one thing because they're all just onions.
Look me in the eye and tell me that bulb onions and shallots are different but bacon and cutlets aren't.
I can look you in the eye and tell you that bacon and cutlets are different, but onions and shallots aren’t.
Find me a plant that tastes like a nice hamburger and I'm sold.
Plant-based meat has been a thing for a hot minute so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make
edit: for chicken nugget enjoyers, I like the morningstar farms equivalent. Pop in the toaster oven/air fryer, coat in sweet & sour or orange sauce, put on a bed of rice, + sprinkle some sesame seeds on top. ooh that shit's so good
It's the default reponse to a shitpost like the above mainly. 80,000 plants don't make a good hamburger unless the cow does the work processing it into beef first.
Most food animals would go extinct if humans stopped raising them for food. A number of food plants too.
Did you want another corona? Because this is how we get more corona.
I mean, if any of those 80,000 plants pack as much protein as any of the dead animals I'm all ears
All legumes.
And you don't need that much protein. 10% of your calory intake is enough, even if you're living a sporty lifestyle. People overthink their protein need all the time—I blame the sports nutrition industry and their aggressive marketing campaigns.
You gotta spell calorie right to be taken seriously my guy
It was super hard to extrapolate what they actually meant. Thanks for bringing up the real issue of [checks notes] typos.
Might be news to you, but not everybody on the internet has English as their first language.
Edit: my bad just teasing
I love me some boiled lentils and chickpeas. Put a bit if olive oil on them and whatever spices you like (I like citric-y stuff like coriander, lime juice) and bam. Goes great with sundried tomatoes and maybe some chopped cucumber.
Google search: https://youaligned.com/wellness/vegetables-pack-protein-meat/
Personally I've given up trying to convince those with the "meat is better" mentality... been vegan for years, vegetarian before that. Just happy to see you fighting the good fight. Thank you!
Some thoughts — the appeal to emotion is always going to be a turnoff here. Every time. I do get it, but if the people you were trying to convince cared about how fluffy and sad their food was, they would already be vegetarian.
Also, don't think I won't eat a human just because they're sentient. Or an ostrich. Have you ever met an ostrich? They're unapologetic dickheads. I'll eat an ostrich's babies on purpose. So mostly it qualifies as a guilt trip that goes nowhere, especially for those who hunt animals that need frequent culling like deer.
I think just trying to convince people to try recipes is more likely to hit, because who doesn't want something new and inexpensive that they don't have to feel fat about?
On that note, thank you for the reminder that I do really need to try tofu. I keep meaning to and forgetting, was not aware til last year how much protein it actually has (plants have a terrible rep), and I'm just gonna plan a dish at random and set a whole reminder for myself at this point. This is ridiculous. Would there be anything off the top of your head that's your favorite?
I love that - suggesting good vegan/vegetarian recipes instead. Much smarter! You cant argue with a good meal :)
Completely agree with you, I was finding the comment lovely until that part and making mental notes, but that just felt like unnecessarily provocative.
Not everything that elicits emotion is an appeal to emotion. If I argue with a conservative and say that "anti-trans legislation leads to more trans suicides of the children you pretend to protect", is that an appeal to emotion just because the conversative might get emotional?
An appeal to emotion is backed solely by the other persons emotion, nothing else. The very accurate description of what meat is backed by logic and the morality of most people, if we're being honest.
Now, regarding effectiveness, I don't know what's better. All I know is that the people that aren't activist always seem to know exactly how to do activism correctly. This applies to anti-racism, or feminism too. "I agree with your message, but your actions are too extreme/disruptive/emotional/etc." Personally, I believe that the correct activism is ALL the activism: The loud, and the practical, and the friendly.
Veganism is not a diet, so just giving recipes without a philosophical backing will likely not create a lifelong lifestyle shift.
Regarding tofu I'd say think of it like plain chicken. It has zero real taste of it's own, so just put it into stuff that's tasty. Since it doesn't have to be cooked for a specific time like chicken or lentils, I often just crumple a bit into whatever I'm making if it's lacking "mass". I would honestly recommend an actual, real life, paper cookbook over following youtube videos. They're often more detailed, and better for beginners esp.
Yes.
If you cut out the part where they're a terrible hypocrite if they don't agree, that would be a logical argument instead of an emotional one. For the topic,
"You should switch because it costs less, is more environmentally sustainable, and carries much the same nutrition while being more advantageous to your health" is a logical argument. All of these are verifiable and the reader may decide on their own how persuasive the facts are.
"vegetarianism is cheap and healthy, you should switch because killing is wrong and you're making poor, defenseless animals suffer and be repeatedly raped, and you're a terrible person behaving immorally," is a emotional argument, and laughably manipulative.
The problem is morals are subjective. You might think stomping bugs is mean. I might stomp all day. We can argue about bugs all day long and never get anywhere, because you're trying to force me to feel something I don't actually believe. I'm more likely to listen to data I can't physically argue with.
The philosophy part seems to fall short a lot those reasons. Most meat-eaters are well aware, they just value something else more. Be that finances/accessibility (hunters), self-image (Red-blooded American Tradition, Grrr, Manly Caveman), or simplicity/dependability and the transient comfort of familiarity (me @ the horrors of life).
If you're like me and giving more energy to struggling, your instinct might be to go, "Ooh, animals are suffering? Food is sad? Mfer I'm sad too, I can't even afford laundry."
With their values elsewhere, the likelihood any will go Full Plant forever is small at best. But if I continue eating eggs/steak and replace burgers and chicken with their just-as-good meatless counterparts, I still consider it a partial win vs a total loss. More open to the idea. Less money to the industry.
It has to be far and beyond exhausting to have the people you're convincing correct your speech instead of ever focusing on the content. I grant you that.
I'm not pulling it out of my ass because I want The Activists to leave me alone, it's my stance because years of perceived bitching never swayed me any more than it seems to persuade anyone else in this thread. Being nagged and told you're a bad person isn't going to make most people want to hear about all the ways they're bad.
What got me to consider it was a former friend who never pushed the issue except to offer me some of her plate. It was fucking delicious. A bit expensive, still, since that's just where fake meat is right now, but I'd buy it again.
Asking a vegetarian sub about an unidentified dish in a wedding spread didn't net me answers, sadly, but for someone whose main concern is a tendency towards anemia, a user showing me tofu has slightly more (non-heme) iron than meat put it on my radar. Way more fun than the 40% chance of being dogpiled and called a murderer.
I will admit that "on my radar" turned out to be more "info my handicapped brain filed away to be accessed only if I ever saw it in a section I associate with ice cream," so that will be rectified.
I've heard that, not surprised. A bit sad, but easy to work around. If there's no set cook time, is there...a disadvantage to cooking it? As in, it's easily burned or something...? Maybe I'm asking too many things. The only cookbook I've ever owned was an heirloom from WWII, so I have some stuff to look up 😅
A bit off topic, but I just want to say I really appreciate how your comment provided disagreement and criticism but in a friendly and polite tone that's often lacking these days. Please continue to be this sort of person even if you get a bunch of down votes from people who just disagree.
For tofu, I've never cooked it myself, but am a fan of the fried tofu from my local Japanese restaurant. Maybe a simple pan-fried recipe is a good place to start?
I always try really hard to do that, and even more so now that I've left reddit. Now and then, I still find myself backspacing ingrained reddit snark or editing and re-editing things to make them more neutral and concise.
Sadly, the rambling is clinical, I still tend to get in my own way if I'm talking about something personal, and I've found that nothing. Absolutely nothing. Will piss people off faster than telling them to be nice to or even hear each other. I just want things to be better, and in all but the most dire cases, anger doesn't do that.
For the recipe, I already have one saved to my phone :3
You'd be surprised how many people don't make the connection that nonhumans aren't just flesh robots. Also a basic syllogism:
Ok, but. I would still eat a dead human pretty readily if they didn't taste like veal, so. Not to mention, my overly-literal ass can confirm from everything I know of every area of medicine and mechanics, we definitely are meat robots, yes. The distance as a consumer helps, but if I had to kill something myself, all it would take is getting hungry enough. An empty stomach knows no morality.
I think you're underestimating how little emphasis most really place on this over making their own survival as simple as possible. Myself and others are not unaware that dying is painful or we'd likely be kept in a room somewhere, and acting otherwise is infantilzing.
Deriving enjoyment from being talked down to is so far from the norm it's a distinct fetish, so it rarely accomplishes more than making the target dig in their heels. It's by far the main reason that every time a vegetarian/vegan is at all vocal, they tend to get laughed out of the room.
Unless they're six, people already know animals suffer and they eat them anyway. It's just what they've always done, they already know it's available and delicious, and it's easier not to change anything more than they absolutely have to.
So make the change simple. The empathy route isn't playing to strengths, here, the way just getting someone to try and hopefully integrate vegetarian meals would.
Horrendous? Yes. Also true. Mostly what people do is suck. If you want someone to do something for you, make it worth their while.
I have no moral problem eating a human or nonhuman if they're already dead. Kinda weird but whatever. The issue comes when you are the one who took their life from them without consent.
We're meat robots worth moral consideration, because we're sentient. If a metal robot was sentient they'd be worth moral consideration as well, since they could experience what was done to them.
We're a social species, i think it's worth voicing dissent. Let them know that what they've been doing should change and that other people think they're doing something terrible. Get them to reflect on it more deeply and see if they're really ok with hurting others for the sake of convenience and taste and if they are, they should know that about themself rather than living in ignorance
But...then wouldn't the activism be directed solely at slaughterhouse workers? Who..obviously won't listen, given they chose to work there, and the only one of them I ever knew still has a special hatred for chickens decades later?
I'm not the one killing anything. Only thing I've ever killed is bugs, and I stopped enjoying that when I hit ten. I still inarguably fund the ones who do. Those who hunt by themselves and do kill tend very much to be poor enough to make hunting a welcome option, which I wouldn't take issue with until they have others available.
This ideally has to range beyond the killing part if it's to reach literally anyone whose financial situation does not depend upon continuing to kill things.
As for other people telling me they think I'm terrible, I get that all the time already, whether I've actually done anything or not. If you're on the internet, stuff like that becomes noise. I don't like me either.
Sorry, i didn't word that well. Funding the killing is still a big ethical issue, and trying to find different jobs for those people is an important thing to do, since there's also a good chance they'd rather not do that if they had better options. For example, iirc ptsd rates are high among slaughterhouse workers
another major funder of animal agriculture is the US government, which is why i support the agricultural fairness alliance which lobbies against unethical farming and in favor of transitioning animal farmers to plant farming https://agriculturefairnessalliance.org/
animal nutrition > plant nutrition. Gram for gram.
and there are essential nutrients in animals that you just cannot get, from plants.
1 cow can feed a whole person for a year.
Do you know what those self-mummifying japanese monks ate to mummify themselves? Plants. Not even very many plants.
I don't want to be a mummy.
This is definitely a sane and logical take. I've been eating plants for almost a year and no meat. Not only am I still waiting for my soy manboobs to come in but in surprisingly not a mummy lol.
I haven't eaten meat for over thirty years and feel great! Diet is a big part, but I also regularly exercise.
and after eating all 80.000 you'll still be hungry and feeling a bit weak...
face it, humans are omnivore we will always need both to thrive, balance is key
Meat is not essential for human diet. However, many of the nutrients found in meat are essential for our health. Protein, iron, and B vitamins are just some of the nutrients found in meats. Meat provides our bodies with proteins, vitamins, and minerals that are necessary for proper muscle and organ function.
Sure there is a pill for everything but its the same as getting a IV with fluids instead of drinking. You will still be thirsty... again finding balance is the key, not every meal requires meat.
Some of the vitamins you think are naturally from all meat sources are supplemented vitamins (just like taking a pill) into the feed of those animals
These nutrients are found in non meat sources as well. Meat doesn't carry anything unique besides B12 because we wash the fuck out of our vegetables. Plant based diets make it pretty difficult to miss nutrients unless you're just sitting around eating oreos all day.
…and you could do the same thing and eat exclusively from the animal kingdom too.
If you don’t want to eat anything from the animal kingdom for your own reasons, cool. But when you start saying anything about what other people eat, imo you are no different than someone saying their religion/beliefs are best. Just don’t.
Humans are omnivores and always have been, society and technology today has only recently allowed humans to strictly become vegetarians on any kind of scale. Specific eating habits for moral reasons is a thing people who aren’t poor in first world countries have the privilege of doing. People in 3rd world countries/poor people are simply going to eat whatever is available to them.
Again, no one is wrong here, until one starts advocating that their way is best or better.
There is an entire such country with over a billion people in Asia where almost half the population is vegan/vegetarian. I'll leave you to guess which one. It's not about price, but rather accessibility. Their entire food economy is centered around it. Modern western diets push meat way more than others. You do NOT need it every single day.
Just so you know, India is the largest contributor of undernourished people in the world so that fact might complicate the position you’re advocating.
Source: https://www.feedingindia.org/blog/understanding-the-malnutrition-crisis-in-india/#:~:text=As%20per%20the%20Government%20of,and%203%20percent%20are%20overweight.
Curry is definitely a very efficient and enjoyable way of making a vegetarian meal ;)
Actually, they ate meat as much as they could. Just wasn’t always available without good ways to store it long term. But there’s a reason why they were called hunter gatherers and why humans evolved to be able to run long distances and are heat tolerant, because our ancestors ran down prey by exhausting it.
But as far as we know all people hunted at least until early agriculture started being practiced
true, love me both some cashew and beans too bad both are also horrible strains on the environment like 6k liter for 0,5kg cashews buth that is a whole other debate
a quick google says that for cashews its mostly the same (waterwise), sorry for crap formatting
Foodstuff, Quantity Water consumption, litres Beef , 1 kg, 15,415 Sheep Meat, 1 kg, 10,412 Pork , 1 kg, 5,988 Butter, 1 kg, 5,553
🤡
I’d go farther in saying that staying the fuck away from "industrialy" grown meat, and overly processed food is the way to go (for health). Reducing a maximum the meat consumption, and subside it for higher quality one is what’s necessary for the environment.
Going vegetarian (mostly) is even more efficient in both cases as long as the diet is well crafted for balancing all the body needs.
I haven't eaten meat in almost a year and my fat ass is not exactly starving.
cookies aint animals are they 🤣