I've been a strict Vegan for over a decade now and even i tend to stay away from the crowd. It's a bit better offline, but depends on how much any person needs to boost their ego by signaling moral pureness.
The word you are looking for is Murderer, obviously 😉
But honestly, cutting out animal products helps animals, so thanks for that. Should it be all animal products? I'd say yes and live accordingly, but i can accept that other people arrive at other points.
The word you are looking for is Murderer, obviously
And yes, I know. I try to only eat suicidal animals, because I'm a good human!
My initial goal with switching more and more things to vegan was to reduce my ecological footprint.
For the animal products I still consume, I try to buy the fairest and highest quality available. If I'm responsible for their end, the life they had should at least be somewhat pleasant. But I guess they would prefer not to be eaten at all.
I don't know your options, but my work uses milk lab for speciality milks and the oat milk is good in my opinion. Well, good in coffee. I don't know how that translates to other uses.
I'm in Germany and the options are, well, not limited, but the quality varies a lot. Currently I'm testing a band from Lidl, because I was too late to drop into Aldi yesterday.
I'm in the exact same boat - I'm grateful that the person who introduced me to it never forced it on me, they obviously would cook vegan meals for both of us when I'd visit his house but that was pretty much the only exposure they gave me.
When I started looking more into it and taking it on, they were obviously very supportive and I intend to do just that in my own life - people know I'm vegan eventually just from seeing the meals I eat and eventually asking, but I don't mention it otherwise.
Doctor Who fans circa 15 years ago. I enjoyed the show for a while after the reboot. They were insufferable and I stopped watching at some point.
You know, that's what they act like come to think of it. A toxic fandom. They've got something good that I occasionally enjoy. But I'm not as into as they are so I'm not welcome. And that's fine. With Doctor Who I just stopped. With veganism I'll make myself some cool ass meals and never share the recipes.
If there's one group I hate serving more as a waiter, it's vegans
Every other dietary will put in their booking their dietary in order to allow the chefs time to prepare them something pre service (we usually run a chef's choice menu, set items)
Even FODMAP, arguably one of the most confusing dietaries, isn't this bad at it. But vegans will almost always show up unannounced and expect to be fed when the only item on the menu that's normally vegan is the bloody bread
I think this can be said about a lot of the groups focused on some ethical viewpoint. They come out with a lot of rage, which might be justified for their viewpoint but does more to generate opposition than support. One of those "you might be right but you're still an asshole" situations even for those who agree with them, but the type that provokes "you don't like that I do this, eh? Well I'm going to do it even more because I don't like you and I want to upset you" kind of responses in those who don't agree.
I'm a purist but I appreciate everyone doing their best. Everyone has different challenges and priorities and in the end a bacontarian is much better than eating meat all the time, according to me at least.
For me, I'd love to see the monoculture farms go away. Reduced meat eating would go a long way to that end.
It doesn't require completely abstaining but even a 10% reduction in the need for feed and other processed items would free up land that could be used in more sustainable ways.
To that end, I'm also a fan of alternative farming methods such as vertical farms and promoting even small balcony boxes that may only produce pretty flowers or herbs.
Every variety of greenery in as many places as possible would combat the poison we've pumped into the world over the past few centuries.
Veganism is by it's very definition harm reduction. There's a large difference between "cannot eat less meat" and "don't want to eat less meat". The first is technically even vegan, the second will never be.
vegans as well as linux users are nowhere near as outspoken and petty as they are made out to be.
personally i find jokes about that insufferable and ubiquitous.
The ratio of jokes about this to actually people like this existing is like 100:1.
my theory is, They get so much shit because them just existing reminds people of their own shortcommings, instead of applauding people doing the effort to pioneer a better world these people decide to make a snarky remark and continue being lazy and annoying with these jokes.
I know quite a few vegans in my life who are amazing, nonjudgmental people. On Lemmy, I've been called a "murderer" and a "carnist" for mentioning I'm reducing my meat consumption.
Yup. I posted the canadian food "plate" in one of the vegan communties as a sanier counterexample to the new US inverted meat pyramid. Canada fought its Ag industry tooth and nail to publish it. The pretty reasonable "protein" section is largly beans, nuts, fish and then red meat, in a way that mirrors actual health recommendations instead of industry demands.
I specifically called it a better version that recommended eating less meat. Immediatly hit with "all meat is murder" and had my comment deleted within the hour.
It doesnt change my personal views on veganism, but it did tell me not to interact with the community here, which is unfortunate. Id like to get more input and perspectives, and hell even recipe recommendations, but nah.
I went to a vegan community, agreeded that the US "EAT ALL THE RED MEAT" food guideline was asinine, then offered a "eat much less meat" option with an explicit statement that "it isnt ideal from a vegan perspective, but better."
Yes, I was surprised by the poor response. I'm offering support for reducing meat consumption, and was met by "good is not perfect so fuck you" zealotry. Its fine if they dont want non vegans to interact and learn more about veganism, but it would have been better to put that on the sidebar so those of us "interested, but not converted" stay out.
It does. It's just a word for people who follow the belief that it's normal, natural, and necessary to consume animals.
Since those people are the invisible majority, it's often taken as an insult to have their 'normal' status get a label. Veganism is the belief that we shouldn't exploit and harm animals, carnism is the belief that we should.
Which is hilarious in hindsight, because the reverse happens in other topics. Call someone in other circles 'normal' and they'll throw 15 label names at you for why they're not normal.
Carnism would still technically cover "vegan plus (animal-based) bacon". That's kinda like saying you're an atheist but believe in (insert god here).
Carnism would still technically cover "vegan plus (animal-based) bacon"
And this all-or-nothing approach is precisely what I'm referring to. I consider myself pretty well-read, and the only time I've ever seen the word "carnist" used in the wild is when someone who's vegan is hurling it as an insult
Sorry to break it to you, but if you believe that the Christian god exists yet don't think there was ever a guy named Jesus that rose from the dead after 3 days, you're still a theist even if you call it atheist.
And if you think it's acceptable to kill pigs because you like their cooked bodies, you're still practicing carnism even if you call it veganism.
It's not all or nothing, it's definitional! Why even have words describing concepts if everyone makes up their own version just to get mad at it.
Veganism is based on anti-speciesism, the philosophical belief that discrimination based solely (SOLELY) on species is immoral. It makes perfect sense, then, to find a word that describes the opposite stance. Carnism is that word.
This is, quite frankly, just as ridiculous as TERFs getting pissed at being called "cis". Or "TERF", for that matter. It's entirely reasonable that someone might not like people holding opposing philosophical views (TERFs, carnists), but that does NOT make those words insults in and of themselves.
All this is ENTIRELY divorced from whether reducing meat consumption is good (it is!).
Comparing eating meat with domestic violence is a laughable comparison and disingenuous at best. It's attitudes like that that make the average person unable to take vegans seriously.
Comparing eating meat with domestic violence is a laughable comparison
You're right of course, but not in the way you intend. The scope and scale of violence in animal agriculture is far greater than in domestic violence cases.
I'm perplexed and rather horrified that you are so unable to empathize with your fellow creatures that you think anyone who can is being disingenuous.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Vegan, is in fact, bacon/Vegan, or as I've recently taken to calling it, bacon plus Vegan. Vegan is not an diet unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning diet system made useful by the bacon, grease and vitals destroying components comprising a full obesity as defined by WHO.
All the linux "evangelists" I've seen online just shitpost with inside jokes, or talk about the benefits of FOSS, or explain what makes google and microsoft such evil companies, or post genuinely helpful content about software alternatives or advice for making the switch.
I've never seen a rabid linux user. On the other hand, some vegans get so rabid that they actually chase people away from their cause. You're never going to get people to change a core aspect of their lives such as eating habits by insulting them and going on a tirade about why they're evil.
For what it's worth, I've spent years as a vegetarian, and it took me years before that to gradually reduce my meat consumption to zero. I tried going vegan a few times but I would get grumpy, lethargic, and start craving things like cheese and eggs.
There is no room in vegan spaces online to talk about the process of reducing consumption or the struggle associated with it. That's pretty detrimental to the goal of a 100% meat-free society.
The only way we'll ever eliminate factory farming is through slow-incremental change. But the average vegan will never accept that. They're a classic example of "letting perfection be the enemy of progress."
A "rabid" vegan turned me vegan. There was some thread on reddit about dogs or animals. It's Reddit, so obviously crazy claims and discussions happened. One was a typical 30 comment deep discussion with a vegan. I thought he was a dickhead, like all vegans, injecting his preaching anywhere he could, like all vegans.
That's why I started researching veganism. I wanted to prove to him that he was obviously wrong. Jokes on me though, because he was right. Roughly 4 months later, I was vegan.
I think non-vegans MASSIVELY underestimate the bubble they live in. What kind of vegan will ever reach the average persons feed or frontpage? It's not the calm, nicely argued one. Just like with the "angry, yelling, colored hair feminazi", the only vegans reaching most people are the most aggressive, most divisive vegans. That says absolutely nothing about vegans in generally, but everything about how filter bubbles work.
I can't see into what your experience has been, but I can give my own 2 cents: 99% of the time people say vegans are aggressive or uncompromising, the non-vegans are just wrong. Secondly, I've had many a horrible experience with feminists (and anti-racists etc.) online. Yet, none of that kept me from doing genuine research and becoming "woke", and I most definitely didn't use the terminally online versions of a movement as a indictment of the validity of the movement.
idk the amount of times I've tried to explain my wife and kid's dietary restrictions that mean veganism is basically impossible for us in other places I get a lot of hate.
The kids are autistic and have major taste and texture aversions, which maybe we could work around with the right things. My wife though had a malabsorptive bariatric surgery that means she needs to eat Low carb, High protein, and most importantly Low volume meals. When you need like 1.5 cups of beans to get the same protein as like 3oz of ground beef and only have a 6 ounce stomach volume you kinda have to go with the one that gives you the most protein for the least volume.
I could imagine vegans being upset if you weren't vegan solely because your wife and kids can't be (like they are a shield or something, idk). Modern veganism should be about harm reduction. I know someone mentioned beans but I think seitan has more protein per punch (has more than steak according to a random google, *forgot about the carb limit tho, it looks like it wouldn't go over too much but depends on the source). I don't have much experience with your family's conditions. I need a bunch of fiber or else I get severely constipated, I was shocked at how little your wife gets. Sorry you got hate for your wife and kids. It sounds like your wife was (is?) in a bad spot, I hope her recovery gets better.
The only problem with that is we live on a fixed budget as I don't work since they all need varying degrees of care around the clock. We live entirely off my wife's disability and whatever assistance programs we qualify for. I have neither the time, the energy, nor the money to prepare meals for myself entirely separate from their dietary restrictions.
Each kid eats maybe a dozen things themselves, 20 for the oldest, and there's maybe 6 that overlap between them. By the time I've figured out what they're willing to eat and made it I almost zero desire to even look at food let alone prepare an entirely separate vegan meal with all of that no money I have to purchase vegan ingredients that again likely nobody but me would be able to eat.
(Edit: I should add I'm not completely against the idea of changing my own diet. It's just that by the time I'm feeding myself I'm so done with the whole thing that my "diet" is whatever I can easily shove in my food hole without fussing too much about it)
That sounds really rough, sorry you are going through this. I am also on disability and welfare and have a caregiver partner (so my benefits meant for 1 person have to be stretched for 2), but I do not have children (let alone disabled children). I'm guessing your wife isn't able to eat the seitan after all? That sucks. Seitan is chewier than tofu or tempeh but you know your kids the best. I hope you hang in there. You are doing your best and it is appreciated. I've read about caregiver burnout before, the suffering the people around us go through is awful. Fuck the system we live in.
I'm not sure we've never actually found seitan around to try it. Wholeheartedly agree about the caregiver burnout and the way the system works though. So much "invisible" care work it just expected to be done for free with zero support it's crazy.
The wildest part about that to me was that Medicare would pay me to care for her... if we weren't married. But because we are I'm ineligible for that.
Omg yeah, the system does not want disabled people married!!! Once a disabled person marries, their disability income gets cut and chore services gets cut. What a load of bs, both partners need to have an income in this stupid economy just to be able to live and a partner will absolutely burnout without support. It's the main reason I can't marry. If I marry, I essentially lose all of my benefits (also how is a limit of $3k in total assets for a married couple fair?!). Disabled people are penalized for having any type of savings or assets like life insurance ffs. Even with chore services, insurance will makeup excuses like some hypothetical person is providing free support and thus they don't give as many hours. Getting paid is a mess because of the EVV crap to "prevent fraud" aka just more spyware embedded in your phone. I've actually heard of people getting legal divorces just to get around this crap. Also people like me who can't get married but are terrified of being found to be "holding out" on marriage which can cause benefits to be cut completely. I've read articles on people having children out of wedlock (not that there is anything wrong with that) simply because of the disability welfare system. IT SUCKS.
So I mean this from a place of curiosity not trying to get you all to change anything, I'm not even vegetarian. Is there a particular reason your wife couldn't do several smaller meals over the day? Like do their organs not allow something like that anymore or more like it would be ridiculous to carry around a bag of beans to snack on over the course of 4 hours?
I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm going to be adding some addendums/emphasis and providing some additional context for some things about her condition in here. I do not mean any of this to say that I believe that you personally are or plan on discounting her condition. It is meant only for emphasis because the particular bariatric surgery she had, the Duodenal Switch is significantly more involved than most other surgeries. A lot of people end up having to have the surgery partially reversed because they can't keep up with the vitamin supplementation and end up hospitalized and dying of malnutrition.
The malabsorption means that she already has to have many small meals through the day. Then each of those meals needs to hit certain macros while being under that volume.
So like to give an example. She needs at least 200g of protein in a day while staying as far under 50g of carbs as possible (fiber included) to not be utterly miserable. That's not "the doctor told me to get this much" they told her to go for 150g. That's the levels she's found over the years result in her not being in significant gastrointestinal distress and actually having decent energy levels along with the roughly 50 vitamin supplements she HAS TO TAKE TO NOT DIE OF MALNUTRITION because and I cannot stress this enough the malabsorption means she CANNOT properly absorb most of these vitamins from food. They need to be very specific formulations at specific times of day to keep her levels up. Like 125,000IU+ PER DAY of Vitamin A (This is WILL KILL YOU levels for a normal person BTW) to still be partially night blind from deficiency (yes she has seen a doctor about it to make sure it's nothing else)
That 1.5 cups of black beans is around 22.5g of protein and 60g of carbs. So that's 2 entire "meals" of nothing but beans to have a little over 1/10th of the protein she needs in a day and 20% over the entire day's limit for carbs.
One might think "Why get this surgery then?" if it's like this. Which is a fair question. For my wife in particular she had a condition called pseudotumor cerebri where she was producing too much cerebrospinal fluid and not getting rid of it fast enough so it was compressing her brain and optic nerve much like a brain tumor (hence why it is called pseudo tumor). She was significantly overweight at the time and had this issue before. It resolved temporarily when she lost weight but due to heavy food insecurity and other trauma when she was younger she struggled to keep the weight off. So she had 2 options: Aggressive weight loss from bariatric surgery, or getting a shunt implanted in her skull to drain the fluid. She chose the bariatric surgery that gave her the best chance of not still needing the shunt, which was the DS. Since having severe OCD she knew for a fact she could keep up with the vitamin supplementation and use managing the vitamins as an adaptive outlet for the OCD.
Why specific formulations and times for vitamins? A couple reasons, one is ease of absorption. Certain formulations have to be basically digested a little first to get properly absorbed which because of the surgery her body just doesn't properly do. This is basically why she needs the supplements to begin with. Since her body only properly digests part of what she eats she doesn't actually absorb a bunch of the nutrients from it and needs to supplement the vitamins her body can't absorb well from food. The second is that certain vitamins interfere with the absorption of others, calcium inhibiting iron absorption for example.
well, akschually, assuming all that is true, at least your wife and kids are vegan, or could be. In the end, veganism is about doing what is "possible and practicable".
That being said, have you checked out TVP or seitan? They can roughly match protein content of most meat.
Finally, if you generally believe in the idea behind veganism, every little bit helps. Strangers on the internet can't really see though what exactly you could do. If you do what you can, that's already enough.
I haven't actually heard of TVP, I've heard of seitan though I've never had the chance to try it. But yeah that's the big problem, most of the plant based proteins that I'm aware of are either very high carb or you need a large volume of them to get that protein content. Both of which don't work with her restrictions.
I don't have particularly high hopes for seitan given what I've heard about it as far as like the texture aversions in the house go. She's in the spectrum too and most likely where there kids get it from. She actually got kind of informally diagnosed through them being diagnosed before her health started really going downhill. But I'm willing to give anything a shot, especially if there's a chance to make the food budget stretch a bit more with all these dietary restrictions in the house with our limited income. I'll be on the lookout for them.
They are two very different things to discuss. First, eating is vital, computing with computers is not. People eat to survive and 44% of the people in the world live in poverty, so they probably don't get to choose what to eat to survive. This statistic takes China into account, outside of China, the fight against poverty is way more ineffective, to put it mildly. The USA has been okay with an increasing amount of poor people, in the range of 10-15% by more than half a century. There are countries with >80% of people living in poverty in Africa.
But even if you can choose, my opinion is that achieving a balanced diet is the goal, not being a vegan.
And the enemy of progress. If everyone arrived for "good enough" we'd get further than people who refuse to try for fear of not achieving perfection. And this is problem comes not only from that person, but from the external pressure to be perfect. Fuck that shit. My old man used to get on me as a kid, "You only want to be good enough?" Yeah, that's fine. I get everything done that I need to, and I can go be good enough at some other shit too, and I think I make the world around me better with all of my good enough shit.
Being overly pushy and judgmental towards people who want to make a change in the right direction is a great way to repel them from your cause. I prefer to welcome them and offer them the proper resources to get started.
It’s entirely possible that once the people who want to go vegan but aren’t ready to give up bacon/cheese/that one other food get used to a vegan diet and substitutions, they will eventually be ready to let go of those last few products on their own.
Being overly pushy and judgmental towards people who want to make a change in the right direction is a great way to repel them from your cause.
Someone who openly eats bacon because they enjoy it and claim themself vegan is far away from the vegan cause. If you don't like to ear the truth or face simple criticism i would argue you are not really looking to make much change in the right direction.
I would argue that the person willing to give up 95% of their meat consumption cares more about making a change than the one telling them not to bother at all because it’s not the full 100%.
That applies to any cause. Every time I see people going all in and fighting anyome with 1 inch of different opinion I think "you are only pushing people away".
Once someone is moving is the right direction, let them go. If you still don't agree 100% it's ok, people can improve with time.
Be tolerant of people and you'll see a lot of improvement.
Radicalism will never, in any areas, be good or make the world better
Gatekeepers are the fucking worst. Every time I start reading up on something there's always a handful of miserable condescending shitheads being nasty to people because they're 'not 'doing it right.'
Most vegan threads I come across usually has some of these, insulting anyone that's not 100% on board even if they're trying to get into it. Audiophiles are pretty much on the same level as hardcore vegans when it comes to being obnoxious (recently saw someone ask why the op was bothering setting up a music system if they didn't have thousands of dollars to spare, for example). Linux users on support threads is a coin flip of whether they'll be helpful or insulting.
Let people ease into things, stop demanding perfection right out of the gates!
I am seeing more and more folks go veg simply because the price, and that's great! Build a culture of veg meals and normalize the epic curries, chillis, soups, stews, spreads, and tofu / seitan/mushroom dishes
I really like Derek Sarno's YouTube channel for this reason. I feel very welcome watching his content because he doesn't browbeat folks who aren't fully vegan, he just presents an epic mountain of some of the most mouth watering vegan food I've ever seen.
Instead of purity tests to keep folks out, we need more people like Derek who hold the door open for everyone, so they can smell the amazing food cooking inside.
Can't upvite this enough. I'm not really vegetarian, but I love the fact that it is gaining traction, since it's just so much better food. If there is a vegan option of anything, I'll go for that.
The best burger I've ever eaten had a giant mushroom as the main thing in it, sterotypically served by a trans girl at a street food vendor in the gay quarter of Amsterdam.
It literally ruined burgers for me, I'm still chasing that high. I think if you want to be a vegan activist, learn to cook well and open a restaurant. That's how they got me.
This also applies to renewable energy btw. Some people seem to think we can't start with the energy transition before we've figured it all out, including storage for the winter and at night.
Let's just build solar panels and wind mills and see how far we can go with that :D much more productive that way.
i always wanted to quit smoking, but couldn't drop the first cigarette with my morning coffee. it took me way too long to make peace with that single cigarette, turns out i can easily forgoe the other 19 I've been smoking every day
I think there is also a cooking skills gap no one acknowledges. For example tofu is way different than chicken/beef/pork. Scares a lot of people away because poorly cooked tofu is 100x worse than poorly cooked meat.
Our family eats about half vegetarian because the cost difference is still minimal and variety is fun. Animals are also way more evil than most people realize. Cows are basically the only one that won't eat it's friend when they are bored. Not saying it justifies earing them, but I've never understood why vegans put animals on a pedestal.
I don't put them on a pedestal. I would still be vegan even if I hated animals. You don't have to love or even like somebody to not want them to be tortured and killed. The conditions that chickens, pigs, and cows live in aren't something I would wish on my worst enemy.
I think tofu is just an acquired taste. When I first started cooking it, I did all the things. Pressing, freezing then thawing, brines, breading, sauces, air frying, etc.
But the more eating it became habit, the less all that stuff mattered. When I'm preparing it now, I usually take it out of the package and immediately crush it with my hands into rough chunks into whatever I'm cooking. I actively crave the stuff enough that I will pretty much always eat a raw chunk as I'm crumbling it.
That, and their magical ability to convert things humans can't eat (grass) into things humans can (beef, milk). This is fundamentally why"food" animals were domesticated.
Sometimes it tastes better. The last 10 years has been really depressing, because I've discovered that there are quite a lot of people who are unwilling to change even in the face of pandemics and environmental collapse.
Nope! Change is bad. Always. Just cross your arms and dig in your heels.
Yeah. Taste is a very subjective thing.
I have tried chicken, fish, prawn and squid from well known restaurants and I can still just make a salted steamed potato that I would like better.
Turns out I just don't like meat stuff.
Well, at least I know I can digest them in case it is required in emergencies.
I might add health concerns to that list along with cost and taste. Allergens and sodium content, for instance. Also a concern about being "highly processed".
Not that that's not an issue with animal-based foods. But Impossible is still "new and different" and if Impossible turned out to be terrible for you, it wouldn't be the first time something new and different (even something new and different that was touted by some as being better for you) resulted in a public health crisis. (I'm referring to trans fats in particular here.)
It’s already cheaper it’s the tastes just as good part that is expensive. The faux meat is still expensive but vegetables have been cheap. If you didn’t care about variety you could eat chicken soup with a Costco chicken for a whole week for like $8
I don't get why you make such an effort to avoid meat only to seek out vegetables prepared to mimick meat dishes. I'd argue that's not what vegetables are good at. There's plenty of vegetable dishes that are delicious without needing to pretend there's meat involved. Indian cuisine has a ton of them.
This is such a conundrum for me because I absolutely support people eating less animals and animal produced products but veganism is not a diet it is a philisophy. You are not vegan if you do this and you should not call yourself vegan. Dilution of the term IS harmful. At its core veganism is the belief that animals should not be exploited for anything under any circumstances. They have every right to this earth as we do and it is our responsibility to insure their lives are not harmed by us.
But the point of this is literally don't let perfect be the enemy of good. There's a rather large subset of the population that hears "oh no animals products at all? Forget that." And they commit to no animal product reduction at all. So then the question is harm no animals, or harm less animals?
There's a rather large subset of the population that hears "oh no animals products at all? Forget that."
Then they aren't getting the message. The answer to that is not to give up the message. It's to find a way to communicate that message so that it's understood.
Do you genuinely believe this? If I hear "X is bad", I don't need someone to tell me "oh, but less X is still good step". I can understand that with even my two braincells.
Where's the proof that people don't understand that? Do we need to start preaching harm reduction and "perfect is the enemy of good" in other areas of activism? Feminism, anti-racism?
I actually believe this. I believe people are both more ignorant and petty than even you or I can imagine. I also think that people can be persuaded. Make people think that these ideas were something they came up.
trying to wean myself of genocide one bit at a time
the issue here is that it frames veganism as someone trying to become better by denying themselves treats, when in reality it's someone becoming less of a monster by not denying others the right to life.
vegans are not good people because they're vegans, veganism is only about not committing evil. It's literally the absolute minimum. Carnists are evil, but it is so normalized people don't see it that way.
vegans are not denying themselves cheese, we simply are not denying a baby the right to live.
The focus in veganism, like with every liberation movement, should be on the oppressed and not the treatlerites trying to be a bit less brutal. And that's my issue with this tweet. Babystepping is for libs and people don't get a pat on the back for no longer being part of the cow genocide. Either you have solidarity with the oppressed, in which case you'd be horrified at the thought of eating bacon, or you're still looking at yourself and what you're ""sacrificing"". Centering once again the humans when its about non-human animal liberation.
Either you have solidarity with the oppressed, in which case you'd be horrified at the thought of eating bacon, or you're still looking at yourself and what you're ""sacrificing"". Centering once again the humans when its about non-human animal liberation.
Oof. I want to print this out and frame it.
After being vegan for several years, it just hit me one day. I was thinking about how when I was a carnist, I felt like I had a right to eat a cow or a pig if I wanted to. That sense of entitlement to someone else's body is insane!
But you're still "the crazy one" for pointing it out. And don't you dare break the norms of civility pointing out the mass murder and enslavement that is animal ag.
Veganism is a philosophy to you, but maybe not to others.
What genuine difference does it make to you if someone goes 100% vegan as a dietary choice? Your personal goal is still fulfilled by them no longer eating meat, regardless of whether they agree with you or not philosophically.
It's about all animal products. Leather shoes are not vegan, medicine with gelatin is not vegan, cleaning products might not be vegan. Veganism is about animal liberation and not about the vegans. That's where the focus should be. "What genuine difference does it make to you" is the wrong question, it doesn't matter what difference it does to the vegan, it's about what difference it does to the animal getting a bolt rammed through its skull.
Silly downvoters. You're absolutely right. Veganism has diet as a component, but at its core is a desire to limit harm to animals in every possible aspect.
If you eat only plants/mushrooms, but still buy leather shoes, down pillows, or wool socks - that's not veganism, that's just following a plant-based diet. The two concepts overlap, but they are distinct from each other.
This sort of pedantry also annoys and turns people away from the cause though. Typically when people say they're vegan, they're talking about their diet, and it's easy to infer that based on context. I really hope you don't go around browbeating self-professed vegans by going "nuh uh, you're a liar, that's a leather strap I see on your watch"
Lol, of course not. What would be the point of that? I can acknowledge someone being gifted a leather watch, or continuing to wear old leather shoes they bought from before they went vegan, as a vegan still trying their best.
But pointing out a verbal distinction on a chat board like Lemmy isn't the same as calling people out in-person. The distinction matters, and this is an appropriate place to make that point. Harassing people for their choices is an entirely different scenario.
There isn't really a verbal distinction though. "Vegan" is an overloaded word that has multiple definitions, and you can very validly use it to describe your diet. "Correcting" people by telling them they should say "plant based" instead is just pedantry.
The fact that most people don’t think about it critically doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be explained and telling people who belong to a group that they can’t tell you what their group specifically is about is entitled and absurd.
Veganism is not a diet and there are a number of diets you may adopt while being vegan.
I can accept that the harm reductionism that Danielle is advocating for is good compared to the lack of restraint we have as a culture, but this does not make it vegan.
And the fact that you assume people "aren't thinking critically" when they use a word in a way you don't like says a lot about you. Makes you seem like the entitled one, actually.
If you can't accept that saying "I eat vegan" or "I follow a vegan diet" is just as valid as someone saying "I'm vegan" in the context of taking about food/diets, you're gonna have a tough time, because that's just how our language is used.
I’m sure you can get away with telling trans people what they are without trans people or defining atheism without atheists. But sure. Sound off like the ignorant ass you are.
It also gets super annoying when people start learning the watered-down meaning.
The number of times people have asked "But you eat fish, right?" because pescatarians call themselves vegetarians instead of taking 3s to explain "It means I eat plants and fishes" is real annoying.
Labels with a specific meaning that have practical applications should not be muddied with use like that.
Not pedantry.
Veganism is an ethical position, distinct from carnism, which is also an ethical position.
That may not be how the majority use the term, but it is possible for a majority to be misinformed. If vegans yield the term and it comes to mean "mostly eats plants, sometimes eat fish or pig or perhaps bear",
what should they call
"tries to minimize animal abuse as far as possible and practical"?
Wouldn't the new term also be eventually devoured?
So when you go to a restaurant and they say "do you have any dietary restrictions", you can reply "I'm Catholic" and they should guess what that means?
Vegan is an overloaded word that is both a diet and an ethos. Don't try and restrict the language. You will not win.
The issue here is that veganism is regarded as a diet by the popular culture and fad dieters, not vegans. Your insistance that we not try to correct the record is like asking middle easterners not to set things straight when people assume all of them are Arabians or Muslim.
It is most commonly discussed in terms of diet, because that is something that is encountered most frequently. How often do you eat compared to how often you buy new shoes? A few times per day vs a few times per year?
Veganism most definitely goes beyond diet, even if food is by far the most common context .
All kinds of people call themselves a vegan without without actually being one.
It's not a no true Scotsman because I'm using the actual definition for what veganism is, the one given by the vegan society. You're making a category error here.
I will absolutely fight language when language is wrong. I have had several times in my life where I gave up the colloquial definitions that I've lived with in order to have my views more accurately reflect the words that members of specific communities use to define themselves. Otherwise I'd think that bisexuals only dated men and women, ace people are incapable of romantic attraction, all feminists hate men, and that trans people can't be trans without clinically diagnoseable dysphoria.
Thanks for the luck, but I'm blocking you. Have a lovely day.
An issue with boycotts in general is that people are constantly talking about what not to do and not what to do alternatively or the specifics on how to get there. Eventually it makes you realize that literally anything you do will cause someone to get genocided or abused somewhere, and when they way out isn't clear or straightforward, now you're overwhelmed with thousands of things you hate that you do and have to figure out how to change on your own one by one, and those changes result in new problems that overwhelm you or turn out to also be unethical and you have to change them yet again. And in the end you hate yourself because your change attempts made you miserable while you're still doing doing harmful things and other people hate you because you're still causing genocides and the rest think you're an idiot or a hypocrite for trying at all, while meanwhile everyone else around you is just enjoying themselves and not giving a fuck, and you'll always be a terrible person anyways so you might as well give up.
I think if more people instead of saying "don't do this" instead said "do this instead" when they talked about what to boycott and why, that would help with harm reduction a lot more.
Unless someone is a on a serious carnivore diet, then we probably eat "vegan" more than we realize.
I had an English muffin with some homemade wild raspberry jam and a banana with my tea this morning. I have already planned an Indian lentil curry and rice for supper tonight. I don't know what I'm having for dinner today, but I could have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I suppose.
A whole day without meat. Not that I actually considered doing that because "vegan." But because that's what sounds good to eat today. Tomorrow, maybe some smoked oyster stuffed venison loin chops for supper perhaps or some eggs and bacon for breakfast.
Except Kirkland oat milk which is pure ass, although then I switched to the Califia Farms stuff on Costco's website and I like it better than cow's milk now
When I finally tried it I was honestly blown away by how good of a milk-alternative it is! The fact that it has a much lower environmental impact and is super easy to make at home is just the icing on top!
To each their own, but I'd say give some different brands a shot. Some are very oatmeal foward, but I've found brands like Silk and Chobani to be smooth and just lightly oatey.
Maybe the next step is cutting out some more dairy somehow
The only things stopping me are cheese and various chocolates. I'm so sorry, you fucking asshole twits, but no matter how lovely watery oat porridge or thin almond paste can be (and their cute tensiony surfaces can be so delighting) in all sorts of intriguing and cute recipes that dance on your tongue as they nearly force (with kindness) your mouth into a smile with soft harp music in the background, hot chocolate that doesn't suck your stomach out your asshole with those horrible oil adjacent bitch baths isn't possible. Oh! But to softly stir the oat syrup into the flour and delicately knead it with fingers... what joy!
I think giving up cheese would be a lot easier if there were widely available cultured plant-based options. We have some really bang-up plant-based butter and cream replacements at this point, I've had plant-based cottage cheese and white cheese that both were solid.
You can culture plant-based products, that's really not a problem, but no manufacturer has tackled plant-based cultured cheeses at scale.
This is kinda why I'm doing. If I see a vegetarian option for something, I'll pick that over the meat option. Vegetarian sausages are definitely not all created equal...
Absolute treat brained. The veal industry is secondary to the dairy industry. The baby cows are considered a waste product of cow milk production. Meaning if people stopped eating veal but still consumed dairy products it would make no difference to the cows.
People who aren't honest about what it means to not be vegan won't last and in most cases won't change. If it's only about denying themselves so they can become a better person, like some ascetic then they will fall back into their genocidal ways. If they're scared about what others think of them they won't last. Vegans are the safest group of people to make fun of. I know what made me go vegan and it was people not dancing around the fact that these animals that are slaughtered on a conveyor belt had siblings, at least a mom, probably friends who loved them. That me continuing with what I was doing was monstrous.
The people trying to be nice about it I could just ignore. "Agree to disagree" or whatever.
The approach of being confronted by your "murderous" ways worked for you
That same approach won't work for others. It may work for some, but if 20% of people see what you're saying, and how you're saying it, and agree - then you have finally got 20% of people to consider veganism.
The other 80% are reading what you write with a feeling that its over the top and emotive language that doesn't resonate with them, and only turns them more against the idea of veganism.
Of course, the %s I came up with are made up, just for example - and for the sake of argument I would like you to know that I completely agree with veganism, and agree that what we do to animals is abhorrent and should absolutely change in every aspect.
With that in mind, your approach comes from a place of hatred and negativity and pushes fear and anger. Sure, people such as yourself may be swayed by that approach, but that very same approach is what stops a large number of people taking veganism seriously.
I completely agree with veganism, and agree that what we do to animals is abhorrent and should absolutely change in every aspect.
But I take it you are still part of the literal orphan killing machine? Why should I take your opinions on how to get others to see the evil they're a part of seriously when it seems it stalled with you on a mere hypothetical level? It doesn't flatter me that you "agree" with me, if your lifestyle still requires murder or enslavement we are not on the same side. So if your way of convincing others would have others "agree" with me on a theoretical level but not practically, then I'm gonna steer well clear of it.
This is gonna sound really harsh but you're essentially like a liberal zionist that thinks what they are doing is horrible but continues to live on stolen land.
This is why I disagree with vegans who don't want to watch footage from slaughterhouses and stuff like that. "Oh, I already know what happens there, so I don't need to traumatize myself." Okay, I'm not going to force anybody to watch anything, but I will say one thing. It's really hard to go back to reading meat after that. It makes it much more visceral, in a very literal sense.
It reminds me of that saying "To know and not to do is not to know". Once you know, there really isn't any going back.
And you are the reason people think veganism is an on/off thing and will eat meat out of spite.
It’s better to eat less meat, right? I’m still eating the exact same amount of cheese I used to, but my meat consumption is well under half of what it used to be 5-10 years ago.
But if you're the kind of person who eats meat out of spite, then I've already given up on trying to persuade you. I'm going to move on to talk to somebody who's actually compassionate and not an asshole.
It's like that Trump voter argument: i.e. some people voted for Trump because leftists were too extreme. No, they voted for him because he said something that appeared to a nasty part of them, and it's easier to blame the left than to admit that.
If you're still eating the same amount of cheese then it makes 0 difference. So no, it's not better. It's still the same amount of baby cows that need to be murdered so their moms produce milk. It just means the baby corpses rot and aren't devoured.
Do you think halving your meat consumption over a span of 10 years is anything but glacial? This is what I mean by the focus still being firmly on the oppressor and not the victims that still have to suffer because Adolf Treatler just cannot stop killing their young (but they aren't eating as many of them as they did 10 years ago!)
Cheese is the one thing I break from being plant-based on. Not even dairy in general, because non-dairy replacements of other things (e.g. ice cream) are quite good.
I'm hoping to see synthetic dairy (precision fermentation or otherwise) become more mainstream and used for a wider variety of products.
Vegans will hate me for this but I only eat animals that I don't find particularly cute.
I don't eat pig or cow meat because they are beautiful, intelligent animals with great personalities. I do eat lamb because I've worked on sheep farms and they are dumb assholes. I eat chicken because they are basically vicious dinosaurs who would eat me if our sizes were reversed.
I've yet to get first hand experience with live sausages in their natural environment so I proceed with caution on a case by case basis.
How about game sausage? Deer are bag of rocks stupid, though harmless.
But at least they get to live a natural life before walking round a corner into an rpg on the way back from the betting shop.
I'm not a hunter myself, but plenty of venison on the menu in my childhood in rural Arkansas. It's definitely inferior to good beef. But, if you treat it like a tough, lean cut of cow, it's fine. Usually this means adding fat, slow cooking, or both. I never found the taste bad, but chewy and ropy is definitely the default texture unless you work hard to make it more palatable.
When I cook at home, I'm vegan (beans, quinoa, cheese substitute, mostly), but when I go out I can certainly appreciate all meats and dairies.
No that's a pretty cool stance to hear as a vegan, it means you're fine with me shooting you because I think you're a dumb asshole. One less corpsemuncher and they actually wanted it this way.
what you believe is not shown by what you just tell yourself in your head, but shown by how you act. it means that if you say you believe in the ideals of veganism but can't give up a meal of bacon for it, you simply don't hold that value strong enough.
which is fine, its okay to be unsure about your values, but lets not confuse ourselves here by saying we can hold certain values without behaving like we actually do.
The reason why we hate it is because it creates confusion about what a "vegan" is. Nobody cares if you want to eat an entirely plant-based diet except for bacon, but calling it "vegan + bacon" is misleading. It would be like if a Christian went around calling themselves an "atheist" because they disbelieve in all gods except for the one true God in the Bible. That isn't how the term "atheist" is commonly used and understood.
Vegans already have to deal with people who think that vegan is the same as vegetarian, or that veganism has something to do with health (it doesn't), or that it means you're also gluten-free, etc.
I recently ordered a sandwich labeled "vegan" at a restaurant. Mayonnaise was listed as one of the ingredients. Of course, there is vegan mayo, but I thought I better ask just to make sure. Maybe these people don't know what "vegan" is. Sure enough, the mayo was made in-house, and it contained eggs! I was trying to explain to the lady that eggs weren't vegan and her menu was misleading people, but her English wasn't very good and she couldn't understand me. So I finally just gave up and ordered the sandwich without mayo.
As with any group, the most unreasonable ones who have a desire to shit on people are often the loudest and get disproportionately more attention.
That's the same dynamic why conservatives think feminists hate men, for example. It doesn't mean it's representative.
Most vegans have been meat eaters for most of their life and didn't went vegan overnight either. Many also recognize that going 100% vegan can seem very daunting to people who have never tried being vegetarian for a week or something like that yet. It certainly seemed daunting to me at first.
I now wish we could stop all factory farming today, but that's not how human psychology works, and it's not how societal change works. Some vegans aren't emotionally able to accept that, but most probably will at some point.
The main struggle for the accessibility of vegan food is having more plant-based options in supermarkets and restaurants, and more people who are trying/choosing the alternatives (when they are available and decent) would go a long way to make it easier for all. So I'd always encourage people to take steps to improve the situation.
The "all or nothing" mentality just creates unnecessary barriers and some people really need to recognize that. People have to be able to take positive steps without feeling the need to make a big commitment.
'I'm anti rape except on tuesdays. The anti rape people hate this'
Yeah wonder why.
If you recognize something is morally wrong it's fucking weird to carve out arbitrary exceptions.
*Oh weird, the people who don't think it's wrong to hurt animals are upset by the idea that vegans see hurting animals as wrong. If you actually think something is morally wrong you would find the hypocrisy to be offensive.
Some people think the definition of "freegan" means dumper diving and a hardcore anti consumerist attitude, but it could also mean "I don't buy meat, and am comfortable abstaining from it, but if it's given to me/made for a party, I am not against eating what's there." which I like.
I very often have whole days in my week, probably 2 or 3 where I don't eat any meat at all. I am definitely no vegetarian, I love pork in all it's forms. But the whole idea of having to have meat with every meal is ridiculous. Beans, falafel, cheese, tofu, etc are all tasty ways to get protein and are usually quite cheap as well.
And yeah the only non open source software I use is games. It took a couple years to get off windows, but I've been Linux as my daily driver since 2015 or 2016.
You can get a lot if not most of the Ecological and Health benefits by simply eating less meat (also fish, but mainly meat) and a way to do that is to replace some meat or fish meals with vegetarian or even vegan meals.
People in most of the West eat much more meat than it's nutritionally recommended, so reducing one's meat intake is a win-win and far more easy than fully switching to a vegetarian (or, even harder, vegan) diet.
Granted, that doesn't actually address the moral beliefs around rearing and killing animals for food that inspire many vegetarians and vegans, but that's a whole separate conversation that's about one's personal moral posture, not about Ecology or Health and should be discussed in that plane - a person who has already willfully reduced the amount of meat they eat should be no harder for Vegetarians or Vegans to convince that rearing and killing animals for food is immoral, than any other people, probably even easier since they're already comfortable with eating vegetarian or vegan meals so that specific resistance to change is already lower.
On the one hand I approve of this strategy, on the other hand there are so many people that lie to me and themselves that they only eat animal products rarely or only from the most local grass fed farmer and then you spend time with them and you see they always choose the meat option, every single opportunity and since its the cheap corner restaurant that pece of meat has never seen grass in its' life. It's disheartening.
When food comes up the subject comes up and some people have a more guilt driven reaction to the topic. My impression is that they feel bad about knowing about the animal abuse and environmental damage, but not having the personal resolve to do something about it. They feel guilty and probably feel like I would be judging them so they make up these scenarios to feel less bad about the whole thing.
I feel like this is a labels issue though... Lots of people don't want to go "vegan" or "vegetarian" because of a small group of vegans, but if you were to give them a meal without announcing it was vegan they'd probably enjoy it.
Same to an extent for me: I could never give up dairy because I love milk, cheese and butter too much, but I do eat (asian style) vegetarian meals multiple times a week and have at most one meat meal per day, instead of at every meal, and I have a mindset that meat is nice but not that you can't make other nice dishes with mushrooms, tofu, cheese, etc. - you just have to make different things.
Reframing it as "look at these nice things you can have" seems a lot more accessible than telling people they shouldn't eat meat, or they should eat less meat, or that the other proteins are just a substitute for meat, which makes it seem like you're missing out on something.
Even Stalman treats games as a special category given the artistic game assets. I think he'd still prefer the engine was FLOSS though and I assume the DRM is definitely verboten.
I joined a group of people who wanted to eat more vegan/vegetarian. It was going fairly well, but then a guy joined the group who kept shaming us for eating any animal products, and a lot of us (myself included) dropped out. Shame.
I've started eating more fatty, sustainable fish, both for my health as well at the environment, and less red meat. Trying to do what I can.
What I’d really like to pull off is Kangatarianism. Based off Australia, the idea is you can eat meat, but only of “pest animals” we have too much of.
It would be hard to set up, and may face regulatory scrutiny by USDA. I imagine a lot of deer/pig/turkey hunters would like having a way to sell their catch on. We’d also need to watch for “rat catcher” problems where people see the animal as suddenly lucrative and grow its population intentionally.
Some of the homeless in Seattle do that, one of my ex partners used to when they were homeless too. Sometimes you do what you gotta do and pigeons is cheap calories
In a sense they're not wrong, but it depends on what is actually happening, and what the person's attitude is. It's good to pursue a lifestyle that's increasingly less dependent on animal products, even if imperfect. But is an actual progression occurring? It can often be the case, especially with dietary things, that a person will do something they believe is good once, and then treat themselves with a "cheat" day three times to that one good choice.
My change didn't happen overnight. But I approached it the same way that I did when I quit smoking: I kept track of how long I went without eating animal products. When I messed up and caved in, I would start over at 0 the very next day, and resolve to go even more days without animal products than I had done on the previous attempt.
One of the larger barriers I had to break through was an anxiety about nutrition. By that point I had a pretty firm grasp of nutritional science already, and knew that people can get all of their nutrients from plants. Consciously I knew better. But unconsciously there was still this wild fear as to whether or not I could keep living on plants only. It felt dangerous. I was going up against a lifetime of propaganda.
The last time I intentionally ate meat was some pepperoni. At that point I had gotten so used to living on plants that it didn't taste the same anymore. For one, it turned out at least for me, that after being without meat for long enough, it didn't smell the same anymore. The odor became more rotten. It didn't and doesn't matter how fresh the meat is, it all smells like putrefying carcass now. That was one thing that made the pepperoni taste off. The other was that apparently I had gotten used to having less salt in my diet, because it was a completely overpowering, disgusting salt bomb.
And something had clicked in my head by that point. As I was eating it I kept thinking, "Why am I doing this? I'm not even enjoying it. I don't need it. This isn't right." So I stopped eating it, and I haven't felt the need to consume any animal body parts ever again.
Anyway, I think where things become frustrating depends on how a person is framing their habits. If it's something like, "I'm trying, I am working on doing better," then it's understandable. But if it sounds more like the person is trying to justify eating animals or their products, and they're either talking about it in a way where they're trying to seek validation or using "militant vegans" as a strawman to criticise (see: the majority of the comments here) - that kind of makes it hard to remain diplomatic.
In cases like the latter, why are you so preoccupied with what other people think? It's not about vegans, it's about the animals. Going vegan requires going against an immense tide of social pressure, and that burden will never go away. You need to learn to think for yourself. Because when you do, you can look more objectively at how humankind treats every other species of sentient being on the planet and use your own internal moral compass to finally recognize what's right in front of your face: it is wrong to eat them. It is wrong to exploit them. What happens in factory farms and slaughterhouses is horrific. And it can never stop until we stop supporting it.
It's a hard conversation because y'all are demanding we tiptoe around a vast injustice that is urgent and actively resulting in the extreme suffering and deaths of billions every year. That's not even getting into the other issues like health problems, environmental destruction, and pandemic and zoonotic disease potential.
There are FOSS games, in all the major genres. They are generally acquired the same way you acquire other applications in your OS. For me it's aptitude on the command-line, but that's far from the most common experience. (I really like "Singularity" which is a strategy game where you play as a newly sentient AI; Wesnoth is also good.)
There are a near endless supply of gratis independent games on itch.io and probably other sites. I do think there's some FOSS trackers that will help you manage game installations that are not done through the OS application management, but I can't name one.
I just use steam, but I'm not a purist in what I consume -- I also use Discord and have a YT Premium subscription. I AM a purist in what I force other people to consume: what I publish is always under AGPLv3 or CC-SA or some other "strong copyleft".
How would a person build a properly FOSS games store
Never in the history of software has people been able to deliver software over the internet in an easy way until Steam came out. It was revolutionary. People cried and shit their pants with the sudden and seismic shift that occurred. Every other form of software delivery pales in comparison to the Steam app.
If I make a game, I will package it for flatpak if I can. Hopefully there is some way for me to distribute that on Linux. I can't imagine how it would happen though... woe is me. Don't look at flathub!
And don't look at Itch.io either since none of it is open source at all. Don't look at the itch.io github. Don't look at its package delivery system that is so much worse than Steam. Don't look at it! It is bad! Stop looking at open source software that competes with the value proposition of Steam!
And then there's the Steam interface. It is made in React.js and we all know that FOSS cannot use React.js. There are not enough FOSS react devs out there to compete, so unfortunately Valve will just always produce better software than the FOSS world. It is inevitable. FOSS GUIs that equal or surpass closed-source commercial giants? Never happened once, never will happen in the future.
I'm not at all shitting on you specifically. There's just a mindset of "we can't even try" that exists out there on lemmy and reddit and the greater web that I really hate.
See, that's probably the most reasonable argument I've heard in an online post.
There are also some good tips here about being more ethical in your meat purchases (essentially, avoid over purchasing and wasting meat, learn your labels to avoid cruel producers, if you have the luxury buy from local farms) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sVfTPaxRwk
learn your labels to avoid cruel producers, if you have the luxury buy from local farms
I feel like this is insanely hard to do this right, since the treatment of the animals is never made transparent. Even if you only buy animal products from local farms, how do you know the actual living conditions? You'd have to visit the farms and the slaughterhouses yourself, and even then you wouldn't see all the stuff, like how the workers really treat the animals day to day and which procedures the animals go through, how they are separated after birth and so on. To get a fair, unbiased impression, you'd need to work there for some time, for every farm you buy from.
For food from normal restaurants (which aren't $100 per meal), the employees have no idea where the animal products come from, and if they have to compete with the prices of other restaurants, well, it's all factory farmed anyway or they would already be out of business.
Just buying the plant-based burger or whatever is just so much more practical than trying to be a conscientious meat eater in a world where you're not supposed to ask any questions about how products were made. If you try to get some real transparency, the odds are stacked against you, and the industry will make sure to keep it that way. They'll just push for some labels that make people feel good and that can be used for marketing, but don't actually tell you much, and they know that's good enough for most people.
This is what I did. Now at home the only animal proteins i eat are fish/shellfish, cheese, and yogurt. I'm lucky enough to have easy access to imitation soy substitutes. On the rare occasion I go to a restaurant i will usually order a nice meat based meal.
But it probably helps i always thought chicken and cow were mid.
Plus queens are often dewinged so they don't fly away.
Not dewinged. Beekeepers don't go around pulling wings off of queens.
Some beekeepers will clip part of a queen's wing, similar to how people with pet birds will sometimes clip a wing. This doesn't hurt the queen just like it doesn't hurt the bird.
That said, I don't think it's as common of a practice as it once was, as its benefits are pretty questionable (especially vs the risks). I expect when it happens, it's new/hobby beekeepers who read about it in a book somewhere and don't know any better.
I've heard, but have next to no proof, that in winter, drones are suffocated because they will eat the honey that they make instead of humans getting it.
That's ridiculous. You've been lied to.
It's true that drones die in winter, but it's because the hive itself makes the decision to evict the drones - the workers force them out and then they starve, freeze, or are eaten by predators. This is true of wild colonies as well as managed ones, and is how the life cycle of the honey bee has evolved.
Bees are literally the worst example of humans exploiting an animal. The bees choose to live in the beekeepers boxes. They can and do leave if they decide they are not treated well by the keepers.
They overproduce honey when in a keepers box. They do not use it all and any competent keeper does not take all the produced honey at once.
Similar to how we harvest cinnamon, we take enough to use but not enough to cause detriment to the source.
Bees are not like chickens or other livestock where they're forced into small areas and kept only as long as useful then slaughtered. The biggest thing that threatens bees is not the keepers but anyone nearby who uses pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides.... Which isn't usually the keepers.
Honey is bad now? Don't wee need bees for have food? Can wild bees even handle all the fruit plantations? Like, are we sure that it we stop breeding honey bees wild bee populations will recover to the levels farming requires?
No, it's not. Honey bees are bad in some places because of the loss of local pollinators to those honey bees, but it's really hard to "abuse" bees in general.
I'm not foss at my core OS level unfortunately because of nvidia hardware and my brother insisting "Windows 11 is fine dude! Stick with Windows!", its funny hes got a AMD card...
I have a Windows 11 gaming 4070 SUPER Desktop as well as an elderly Windows 10 TV "Console" 2070 desktop. I have both LCD & OLED Steam Decks and some "revived from Windows bloat" linux laptops.
I am tempted to convert the "console" to Bazzite once I get the time to set that up but its my old gaming PC and I know they're old irreplaceable files I want to scoop up before I wipe it and install that.
That all said, on my windows machines I use foss whenever available.
My issue 2ith veganism when they trying to imitate the real thing, which is an ultra-processed food with fake, depression inducing taste. I feel like this is the largest reason why people are 'relapsing back' to meat products.
Bare in mind, I'm not vegan or vegetarian, I just sometimes cook such, or compliments with other ingredients.
The only problem I see with this is that eating is often a social thing and carnivore hate when vegetarians/vegans make their own rules and exceptions. They often take it personal if you eat meat in one case and then not with them.
Not at all what the meme is implying. It's more like: "I am against animal abuse but i have been conditioned to normalise eating animals from childhood onwards. Since i can't let go of one specific product or product group i will continue to eat it, maybe until further down the line, while otherwise cutting out animal products from my life."
Reducing your animal product use is something that helps animals. Period. Are you interested in the welfare of animals or in feeling better about yourself because you feel morally pure?
There is a related community of people who refer to themselves as “plant-based, whole-food” eaters. I recently switched to this from a lifetime of meats and processed foods (mostly, it’s a work in progress to avoid cheat meals).
I vastly prefer the PBWF people to vegans. Less evangelism, less shaming, less zealotry… and PBWF is actually stricter than vegan. I find vegan communities insufferable but I may have found my new home with PBWF.
Yeah, I won't start eating meat just because of a annoying person online, I just find this all or nothing attitude among vegans to be hurtful towards the cause of making people eat less meat. I probably won't label myself, but I will continue to promote vegan/vegetarian like lifestyle.
"I don't like that my morals are too weak to fit a morale label, so if you don't change the label to make it less moral, I'll be more immoral on purpose!"
What is this stupid ass stance? Are people suddenly becoming mentally 6 years old when it's about morals?
Since when reducing 90% of their meat intake is being a hypocrite? It's objectively reducing the suffering of animals.
I don't eat much meat because I know that morally it's the correct choice, but personally I don't care for the animals that died when I do eat meat. I'm completely aware that their murder is fueling my tastebuds, and I don't hide it. I don't think I'll ever go full vegan unless the food offering changes, because I personally don't care enough for the animals. I'd say that rn I'm 90% vegetarian, meaning that I probably eat meat only once a week.
Call me whatever you will but saying that eating meat once a week is better for animals than eating it every day is objectively true, and I'm not a hypocrite for promoting the reduction of meat intake.
Idk how long you've been alive bilut the reduction of meta intake in Europe has been notorious in the last 20 years. The biggest impact is not from people going cold turkey, it's from all the families that reduce their intake by half. So yeah, meat intake reduction IS having an impact.
And letting people imply that you can be vegan and eat meat will weaken the stance of veganism until it's like vegetarianism now, with vegetarians saying that they can eat fish, or meat that they don't buy, or insects, or or or
I get where you're coming from, but perfect is the enemy of good enough. You can't expect everyone to go vegan, but you can encourage people to give up as many animal products as possible.
That would already be a massive step in the right direction
You can have people understand that while eating less meat is better, it is not good enough
And if people stopped having this absurdly stupid behaviour of wanting to always look like they are perfect, they would be fine saying "yes, I know that I'm still eating bacon and that it's immoral, but I'm working on improving and eliminating meat altogether from my diet eventually", instead of "yeah I'm amazing because I'm vegan, but I still eat mean yknow"
I don't know why it is so hard for people that they might do something immoral. We are in such a self-centered, obnoxious period of time that people seem to define morals on their behaviour, as long as they do something they will have to justify that it's moral one way or the other.
I'm not a vegan because I don't think I can be right now. Yes, it's immoral of me to give money that exploits and abuses animals, and if and when I can I try to minimize it.
Am I going to start pretending that it's fine? No, of course not. But not everything can be magically and instantly perfect. What matters is to admit it, which is exactly the opposite of what this post (and almost all the comments) do.
Getting the whole world on a 95% plant based diet is effectively the same as getting 95% of the world to be vegan. Which do you think is more immediately achievable when there is always this much push back from meat eaters?
You think the majority dictates whether an industry or law exists? Why aren't private planes illegal yet? Why are we still dependant on oil? Why don't women have the same rights as men? Why do police have juducial immunity to murder? Why does the military industrial complex exist? There are systems and forces greater than just a majority.
Excuse the idiom, but we have to boil a frog, and it's easier to do it through slowly turning up the temp. To get someone to move to a mostly vegetarian is easier when you tell them "sure you can still eat meat." Then, when meat isn't a staple of the dish, it's much easier to transition them to full vegetarianism/veganism.
On top of that, the meat industry (who is actually dictating how much meat is in the US diet) would collapse if people are eating meat less than 2 days a month.
All these examples typically don't have a majority agreeing on it. You think that there is a majority that strongly wants to ban private planes, stop sexism, or so? Nah, most people don't care. But veganism is actively, strongly opposed to animal abuse, so if a majority is vegan, things would change.
And I never said that people who eat meat should be bullied, my point is that eating meat shouldn't be seen as completely fine, and especially not as compatible with veganism.
It's like saying "yeah, I'm antifa+nazi", it doesn't make sense and only weakens the concept of veganism
A lot of vegans are communists too. We want human exploitation to end just as much as animal exploitation. You will normally hear that rhetoric from liberal vegan "humans are the disease" ecofascist types. Granted, you cannot live under capitalism without human exploitation. I cannot eat most if not all foods without what I consider to be effectively slavery. It drives me mad.
No human is ever treated the way animals are though. And they made the society that they're suffering from.
And humans can communicate and know what is going on.
I think you need to look into how rare earth minerals are mined. Or how slavery works. Humans treat humans as bad as any animal if they can make a profit.
Consider that humans sometimes bully other humans to death simply for the power trip. That is some pretty horrific physiological torture.
We're not that far from accepted child labor. Chimney sweeps. Heck there's a chance clothes we've worn this week were sewn by children in a sweatshop. Or the phone or computer metals were mined with child slave labor.
This is why veganism is hard for me, it's absolutely not possible to live a cruelty free life unless you're living on your own land with your own spun clothes and never consuming medication (all tested on lab mice).
Drawing the "perfect line" at eating only plant based food is fine, but it's a far cry from a cruelty free life. Folks get very serious optimizing on one dimension of cruelty (foods not being animal products) but then completely ignore everything else. And then bully others who do not do the same.
I'd rather see a universe like the OP, better to celebrate every step folks do take in the right direction, not tell them it's not enough. Everyone should be celebrated for:
making clothes last longer
buying used clothes
keeping the same vehicle longer
choosing vegan dishes when they can
delaying PC and phone upgrades, buying used when they do
taking the bus over driving, walking instead of taking the bus
You've put my feelings about these sort of hyper focused movements into words very well.
There is so fucking much wrong with the world, and we should be celebrating steps in the right direction rather than playing crab bucket about what's good enough.
The overwhelming majority of the issues in the world didn't get this bad overnight, and expecting things to just jump straight to the end state is just silly. Especially when there are forces out there devoted to maintaining the status quo.
That, plus the overall attitude I see so often of "the only possible reason things could be this bad is because everyone else but me is stupid" drives me up a wall. That one I can chalk up to youth at least.
Sadder is that you can explore plant-based bacon options.
Sure it may take a few tries to find a brand or recipe you like. But like, I still eat bacon. It's just not made with animal sources.
I SO missed bagels with cream cheese and egg salad. Tofutti cream cheese is garbage amd tastes like water. Daiya has a meh taste and awful aftertaste. Kite Hill is perfect (for me). And it turns out, pummeling a block of tofu and adding yellow mustard, vinegar, black pepper, and black salt satisfies my egg salad craving!
That's a more debatable thing. You'd have a necessity to not change, which makes it less immoral obviously, but it does put into perspective the question of the worth of a life, and whether a human life is worth a lifetime of meat eating/killing.
But that's not the case for a huge majority of people, so I would call this an edge case which is less obvious.
Not everything is obviously good or bad, some areas are grey, but it doesn't mean that some areas aren't. Eating meat for personal pleasure/comfort is obviously immoral, once everyone aligns behind this we can start debating the edge cases.
Also, people like you would typically be a good reason to keep on developing cellular meat, independently from vegetal alternatives to meat.
Other than survival needs, nothing warrants killing and eating sentient beings, in case you were suggesting otherwise. And if you were, then your morals are completely fucked up.
Interesting question, if everyone stopped consuming beef and dairy tomorrow, what do you think the industry would do with the cows that no longer generate product but do still cost a lot to feed and house?
Animals are bred then killed for meat. All those animals that you mentioned are going to get killed. If the meat industry crashed and they killed all the animals, it would effectively end in fewer deaths as (I can't believe I even have to write that down) killing generations and generations of animals is worse than killing a single generation of these same animals
Nothing says that the industry would kill them, they could release them or whatnot, and as the previous point mentioned it would never kill as much as if the industry continues
What farmers do is unrelated to consumers. If I tell you that if you don't buy my slaves, I'll kill them, are you the murderer if you refuse? Of course not, that's stupid.
Nothing prevents governments for getting involved, which would be another way to prevent the killing
Are you really trying to pretend that killing and eating animals is okay, because else we would kill animals?
Seriously, if you're going to debate in bad faith, at least put some work in your fake arguments.
But never announce it on social media. The purists will fight you.
Vegans have the worst PR department ever
I’ve never encountered a group I mostly agree with that I want to avoid more
I've been a strict Vegan for over a decade now and even i tend to stay away from the crowd. It's a bit better offline, but depends on how much any person needs to boost their ego by signaling moral pureness.
I'm a bacontarian like in the image, but I love sharing recipes with all folks. This works even for the hardcore vegans.
Baconarian?
The word you are looking for is Murderer, obviously 😉
But honestly, cutting out animal products helps animals, so thanks for that. Should it be all animal products? I'd say yes and live accordingly, but i can accept that other people arrive at other points.
And yes, I know. I try to only eat suicidal animals, because I'm a good human!
My initial goal with switching more and more things to vegan was to reduce my ecological footprint.
For the animal products I still consume, I try to buy the fairest and highest quality available. If I'm responsible for their end, the life they had should at least be somewhat pleasant. But I guess they would prefer not to be eaten at all.
I'm just, in this moment, testing a new oat milk, and thus far I like it. It's a worthy contender against Oatly Barista
I don't know your options, but my work uses milk lab for speciality milks and the oat milk is good in my opinion. Well, good in coffee. I don't know how that translates to other uses.
I'm in Germany and the options are, well, not limited, but the quality varies a lot. Currently I'm testing a band from Lidl, because I was too late to drop into Aldi yesterday.
no, it doesn't.
this is stated without any supporting evidence, and can be dismissed without any evidence.
oh, here you go
I'm in the exact same boat - I'm grateful that the person who introduced me to it never forced it on me, they obviously would cook vegan meals for both of us when I'd visit his house but that was pretty much the only exposure they gave me.
When I started looking more into it and taking it on, they were obviously very supportive and I intend to do just that in my own life - people know I'm vegan eventually just from seeing the meals I eat and eventually asking, but I don't mention it otherwise.
Doctor Who fans circa 15 years ago. I enjoyed the show for a while after the reboot. They were insufferable and I stopped watching at some point.
You know, that's what they act like come to think of it. A toxic fandom. They've got something good that I occasionally enjoy. But I'm not as into as they are so I'm not welcome. And that's fine. With Doctor Who I just stopped. With veganism I'll make myself some cool ass meals and never share the recipes.
If there's one group I hate serving more as a waiter, it's vegans
Every other dietary will put in their booking their dietary in order to allow the chefs time to prepare them something pre service (we usually run a chef's choice menu, set items)
Even FODMAP, arguably one of the most confusing dietaries, isn't this bad at it. But vegans will almost always show up unannounced and expect to be fed when the only item on the menu that's normally vegan is the bloody bread
If it's bloody, the bread probably isn't vegan either.
I think this can be said about a lot of the groups focused on some ethical viewpoint. They come out with a lot of rage, which might be justified for their viewpoint but does more to generate opposition than support. One of those "you might be right but you're still an asshole" situations even for those who agree with them, but the type that provokes "you don't like that I do this, eh? Well I'm going to do it even more because I don't like you and I want to upset you" kind of responses in those who don't agree.
The purists will hate you, and those that hate the purists will also hate you.
I'm a purist but I appreciate everyone doing their best. Everyone has different challenges and priorities and in the end a bacontarian is much better than eating meat all the time, according to me at least.
For me, I'd love to see the monoculture farms go away. Reduced meat eating would go a long way to that end.
It doesn't require completely abstaining but even a 10% reduction in the need for feed and other processed items would free up land that could be used in more sustainable ways.
To that end, I'm also a fan of alternative farming methods such as vertical farms and promoting even small balcony boxes that may only produce pretty flowers or herbs.
Every variety of greenery in as many places as possible would combat the poison we've pumped into the world over the past few centuries.
Ah, I guess I'm more of a dietary purist.
Veganism is by it's very definition harm reduction. There's a large difference between "cannot eat less meat" and "don't want to eat less meat". The first is technically even vegan, the second will never be.
Its so refreshing to hear someone just be reasonable like this. Thank you.
vegans as well as linux users are nowhere near as outspoken and petty as they are made out to be. personally i find jokes about that insufferable and ubiquitous. The ratio of jokes about this to actually people like this existing is like 100:1. my theory is, They get so much shit because them just existing reminds people of their own shortcommings, instead of applauding people doing the effort to pioneer a better world these people decide to make a snarky remark and continue being lazy and annoying with these jokes.
I know quite a few vegans in my life who are amazing, nonjudgmental people. On Lemmy, I've been called a "murderer" and a "carnist" for mentioning I'm reducing my meat consumption.
Yup. I posted the canadian food "plate" in one of the vegan communties as a sanier counterexample to the new US inverted meat pyramid. Canada fought its Ag industry tooth and nail to publish it. The pretty reasonable "protein" section is largly beans, nuts, fish and then red meat, in a way that mirrors actual health recommendations instead of industry demands.
I specifically called it a better version that recommended eating less meat. Immediatly hit with "all meat is murder" and had my comment deleted within the hour.
It doesnt change my personal views on veganism, but it did tell me not to interact with the community here, which is unfortunate. Id like to get more input and perspectives, and hell even recipe recommendations, but nah.
You went to a vegan community and posted propaganda advocating consumption of animals and you're surprised at the response?
I went to a vegan community, agreeded that the US "EAT ALL THE RED MEAT" food guideline was asinine, then offered a "eat much less meat" option with an explicit statement that "it isnt ideal from a vegan perspective, but better."
Yes, I was surprised by the poor response. I'm offering support for reducing meat consumption, and was met by "good is not perfect so fuck you" zealotry. Its fine if they dont want non vegans to interact and learn more about veganism, but it would have been better to put that on the sidebar so those of us "interested, but not converted" stay out.
Doesn’t carnist just mean someone who eats meat?
It does. It's just a word for people who follow the belief that it's normal, natural, and necessary to consume animals.
Since those people are the invisible majority, it's often taken as an insult to have their 'normal' status get a label. Veganism is the belief that we shouldn't exploit and harm animals, carnism is the belief that we should.
Which is hilarious in hindsight, because the reverse happens in other topics. Call someone in other circles 'normal' and they'll throw 15 label names at you for why they're not normal.
Carnism would still technically cover "vegan plus (animal-based) bacon". That's kinda like saying you're an atheist but believe in (insert god here).
And this all-or-nothing approach is precisely what I'm referring to. I consider myself pretty well-read, and the only time I've ever seen the word "carnist" used in the wild is when someone who's vegan is hurling it as an insult
Sorry to break it to you, but if you believe that the Christian god exists yet don't think there was ever a guy named Jesus that rose from the dead after 3 days, you're still a theist even if you call it atheist.
And if you think it's acceptable to kill pigs because you like their cooked bodies, you're still practicing carnism even if you call it veganism.
It's not all or nothing, it's definitional! Why even have words describing concepts if everyone makes up their own version just to get mad at it.
Veganism is based on anti-speciesism, the philosophical belief that discrimination based solely (SOLELY) on species is immoral. It makes perfect sense, then, to find a word that describes the opposite stance. Carnism is that word.
This is, quite frankly, just as ridiculous as TERFs getting pissed at being called "cis". Or "TERF", for that matter. It's entirely reasonable that someone might not like people holding opposing philosophical views (TERFs, carnists), but that does NOT make those words insults in and of themselves.
All this is ENTIRELY divorced from whether reducing meat consumption is good (it is!).
"I'm reducing my meat consumption by doing (x)."
"Fuck off, carnist!"
It really isn't being used that way when the intention is flagrantly insultive.
no. it's a term made up by vegans to describe people who don't have their ideology. just like how Christians talk about sinners
Yeah, most terms are made up. In this case the alternative is “non-vegan non-vegetarian” so I think making up a shorter term is worthwhile lol
What was wrong with "omnivore"?
all terms are made up. this one in particular was made up by vegans to identify non-believers.
please go ahead and share the discussion with us
Lemmy has plenty of mentally unwell people, who feel identifying strongly with some or another cause gives their life meaning.
I speak from personal experience. I once tried talking about reducing meat consumption and got attacked. Never again.
I got banned from a vegan community for calling someone out for equating meat consumption with domestic violence.
You think violence and violence aren't comparable?
Comparing eating meat with domestic violence is a laughable comparison and disingenuous at best. It's attitudes like that that make the average person unable to take vegans seriously.
You're right of course, but not in the way you intend. The scope and scale of violence in animal agriculture is far greater than in domestic violence cases.
I'm perplexed and rather horrified that you are so unable to empathize with your fellow creatures that you think anyone who can is being disingenuous.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Vegan, is in fact, bacon/Vegan, or as I've recently taken to calling it, bacon plus Vegan. Vegan is not an diet unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning diet system made useful by the bacon, grease and vitals destroying components comprising a full obesity as defined by WHO.
I see what you did there…
most people are chill, but there are people who act like if you aren’t a vegan or a linux user, you are an evil and morally compromised person
which is understandable coming from vegans, imo. bad tactic and all but yeah, animal consumption is pretty messed up.
coming from linux evangelists it’s fucking laughable
All the linux "evangelists" I've seen online just shitpost with inside jokes, or talk about the benefits of FOSS, or explain what makes google and microsoft such evil companies, or post genuinely helpful content about software alternatives or advice for making the switch.
I've never seen a rabid linux user. On the other hand, some vegans get so rabid that they actually chase people away from their cause. You're never going to get people to change a core aspect of their lives such as eating habits by insulting them and going on a tirade about why they're evil.
For what it's worth, I've spent years as a vegetarian, and it took me years before that to gradually reduce my meat consumption to zero. I tried going vegan a few times but I would get grumpy, lethargic, and start craving things like cheese and eggs.
There is no room in vegan spaces online to talk about the process of reducing consumption or the struggle associated with it. That's pretty detrimental to the goal of a 100% meat-free society.
The only way we'll ever eliminate factory farming is through slow-incremental change. But the average vegan will never accept that. They're a classic example of "letting perfection be the enemy of progress."
A "rabid" vegan turned me vegan. There was some thread on reddit about dogs or animals. It's Reddit, so obviously crazy claims and discussions happened. One was a typical 30 comment deep discussion with a vegan. I thought he was a dickhead, like all vegans, injecting his preaching anywhere he could, like all vegans.
That's why I started researching veganism. I wanted to prove to him that he was obviously wrong. Jokes on me though, because he was right. Roughly 4 months later, I was vegan.
I think non-vegans MASSIVELY underestimate the bubble they live in. What kind of vegan will ever reach the average persons feed or frontpage? It's not the calm, nicely argued one. Just like with the "angry, yelling, colored hair feminazi", the only vegans reaching most people are the most aggressive, most divisive vegans. That says absolutely nothing about vegans in generally, but everything about how filter bubbles work.
I can't see into what your experience has been, but I can give my own 2 cents: 99% of the time people say vegans are aggressive or uncompromising, the non-vegans are just wrong. Secondly, I've had many a horrible experience with feminists (and anti-racists etc.) online. Yet, none of that kept me from doing genuine research and becoming "woke", and I most definitely didn't use the terminally online versions of a movement as a indictment of the validity of the movement.
idk the amount of times I've tried to explain my wife and kid's dietary restrictions that mean veganism is basically impossible for us in other places I get a lot of hate.
The kids are autistic and have major taste and texture aversions, which maybe we could work around with the right things. My wife though had a malabsorptive bariatric surgery that means she needs to eat Low carb, High protein, and most importantly Low volume meals. When you need like 1.5 cups of beans to get the same protein as like 3oz of ground beef and only have a 6 ounce stomach volume you kinda have to go with the one that gives you the most protein for the least volume.
I could imagine vegans being upset if you weren't vegan solely because your wife and kids can't be (like they are a shield or something, idk). Modern veganism should be about harm reduction. I know someone mentioned beans but I think seitan has more protein per punch (has more than steak according to a random google, *forgot about the carb limit tho, it looks like it wouldn't go over too much but depends on the source). I don't have much experience with your family's conditions. I need a bunch of fiber or else I get severely constipated, I was shocked at how little your wife gets. Sorry you got hate for your wife and kids. It sounds like your wife was (is?) in a bad spot, I hope her recovery gets better.
*edit
The only problem with that is we live on a fixed budget as I don't work since they all need varying degrees of care around the clock. We live entirely off my wife's disability and whatever assistance programs we qualify for. I have neither the time, the energy, nor the money to prepare meals for myself entirely separate from their dietary restrictions.
Each kid eats maybe a dozen things themselves, 20 for the oldest, and there's maybe 6 that overlap between them. By the time I've figured out what they're willing to eat and made it I almost zero desire to even look at food let alone prepare an entirely separate vegan meal with all of that no money I have to purchase vegan ingredients that again likely nobody but me would be able to eat.
(Edit: I should add I'm not completely against the idea of changing my own diet. It's just that by the time I'm feeding myself I'm so done with the whole thing that my "diet" is whatever I can easily shove in my food hole without fussing too much about it)
That sounds really rough, sorry you are going through this. I am also on disability and welfare and have a caregiver partner (so my benefits meant for 1 person have to be stretched for 2), but I do not have children (let alone disabled children). I'm guessing your wife isn't able to eat the seitan after all? That sucks. Seitan is chewier than tofu or tempeh but you know your kids the best. I hope you hang in there. You are doing your best and it is appreciated. I've read about caregiver burnout before, the suffering the people around us go through is awful. Fuck the system we live in.
I'm not sure we've never actually found seitan around to try it. Wholeheartedly agree about the caregiver burnout and the way the system works though. So much "invisible" care work it just expected to be done for free with zero support it's crazy.
The wildest part about that to me was that Medicare would pay me to care for her... if we weren't married. But because we are I'm ineligible for that.
Omg yeah, the system does not want disabled people married!!! Once a disabled person marries, their disability income gets cut and chore services gets cut. What a load of bs, both partners need to have an income in this stupid economy just to be able to live and a partner will absolutely burnout without support. It's the main reason I can't marry. If I marry, I essentially lose all of my benefits (also how is a limit of $3k in total assets for a married couple fair?!). Disabled people are penalized for having any type of savings or assets like life insurance ffs. Even with chore services, insurance will makeup excuses like some hypothetical person is providing free support and thus they don't give as many hours. Getting paid is a mess because of the EVV crap to "prevent fraud" aka just more spyware embedded in your phone. I've actually heard of people getting legal divorces just to get around this crap. Also people like me who can't get married but are terrified of being found to be "holding out" on marriage which can cause benefits to be cut completely. I've read articles on people having children out of wedlock (not that there is anything wrong with that) simply because of the disability welfare system. IT SUCKS.
So I mean this from a place of curiosity not trying to get you all to change anything, I'm not even vegetarian. Is there a particular reason your wife couldn't do several smaller meals over the day? Like do their organs not allow something like that anymore or more like it would be ridiculous to carry around a bag of beans to snack on over the course of 4 hours?
I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm going to be adding some addendums/emphasis and providing some additional context for some things about her condition in here. I do not mean any of this to say that I believe that you personally are or plan on discounting her condition. It is meant only for emphasis because the particular bariatric surgery she had, the Duodenal Switch is significantly more involved than most other surgeries. A lot of people end up having to have the surgery partially reversed because they can't keep up with the vitamin supplementation and end up hospitalized and dying of malnutrition.
The malabsorption means that she already has to have many small meals through the day. Then each of those meals needs to hit certain macros while being under that volume.
So like to give an example. She needs at least 200g of protein in a day while staying as far under 50g of carbs as possible (fiber included) to not be utterly miserable. That's not "the doctor told me to get this much" they told her to go for 150g. That's the levels she's found over the years result in her not being in significant gastrointestinal distress and actually having decent energy levels along with the roughly 50 vitamin supplements she HAS TO TAKE TO NOT DIE OF MALNUTRITION because and I cannot stress this enough the malabsorption means she CANNOT properly absorb most of these vitamins from food. They need to be very specific formulations at specific times of day to keep her levels up. Like 125,000IU+ PER DAY of Vitamin A (This is WILL KILL YOU levels for a normal person BTW) to still be partially night blind from deficiency (yes she has seen a doctor about it to make sure it's nothing else)
That 1.5 cups of black beans is around 22.5g of protein and 60g of carbs. So that's 2 entire "meals" of nothing but beans to have a little over 1/10th of the protein she needs in a day and 20% over the entire day's limit for carbs.
One might think "Why get this surgery then?" if it's like this. Which is a fair question. For my wife in particular she had a condition called pseudotumor cerebri where she was producing too much cerebrospinal fluid and not getting rid of it fast enough so it was compressing her brain and optic nerve much like a brain tumor (hence why it is called pseudo tumor). She was significantly overweight at the time and had this issue before. It resolved temporarily when she lost weight but due to heavy food insecurity and other trauma when she was younger she struggled to keep the weight off. So she had 2 options: Aggressive weight loss from bariatric surgery, or getting a shunt implanted in her skull to drain the fluid. She chose the bariatric surgery that gave her the best chance of not still needing the shunt, which was the DS. Since having severe OCD she knew for a fact she could keep up with the vitamin supplementation and use managing the vitamins as an adaptive outlet for the OCD.
Why specific formulations and times for vitamins? A couple reasons, one is ease of absorption. Certain formulations have to be basically digested a little first to get properly absorbed which because of the surgery her body just doesn't properly do. This is basically why she needs the supplements to begin with. Since her body only properly digests part of what she eats she doesn't actually absorb a bunch of the nutrients from it and needs to supplement the vitamins her body can't absorb well from food. The second is that certain vitamins interfere with the absorption of others, calcium inhibiting iron absorption for example.
well, akschually, assuming all that is true, at least your wife and kids are vegan, or could be. In the end, veganism is about doing what is "possible and practicable".
That being said, have you checked out TVP or seitan? They can roughly match protein content of most meat.
Finally, if you generally believe in the idea behind veganism, every little bit helps. Strangers on the internet can't really see though what exactly you could do. If you do what you can, that's already enough.
I haven't actually heard of TVP, I've heard of seitan though I've never had the chance to try it. But yeah that's the big problem, most of the plant based proteins that I'm aware of are either very high carb or you need a large volume of them to get that protein content. Both of which don't work with her restrictions.
I don't have particularly high hopes for seitan given what I've heard about it as far as like the texture aversions in the house go. She's in the spectrum too and most likely where there kids get it from. She actually got kind of informally diagnosed through them being diagnosed before her health started really going downhill. But I'm willing to give anything a shot, especially if there's a chance to make the food budget stretch a bit more with all these dietary restrictions in the house with our limited income. I'll be on the lookout for them.
They are two very different things to discuss. First, eating is vital, computing with computers is not. People eat to survive and 44% of the people in the world live in poverty, so they probably don't get to choose what to eat to survive. This statistic takes China into account, outside of China, the fight against poverty is way more ineffective, to put it mildly. The USA has been okay with an increasing amount of poor people, in the range of 10-15% by more than half a century. There are countries with >80% of people living in poverty in Africa.
But even if you can choose, my opinion is that achieving a balanced diet is the goal, not being a vegan.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
And the enemy of progress. If everyone arrived for "good enough" we'd get further than people who refuse to try for fear of not achieving perfection. And this is problem comes not only from that person, but from the external pressure to be perfect. Fuck that shit. My old man used to get on me as a kid, "You only want to be good enough?" Yeah, that's fine. I get everything done that I need to, and I can go be good enough at some other shit too, and I think I make the world around me better with all of my good enough shit.
Being overly pushy and judgmental towards people who want to make a change in the right direction is a great way to repel them from your cause. I prefer to welcome them and offer them the proper resources to get started.
It’s entirely possible that once the people who want to go vegan but aren’t ready to give up bacon/cheese/that one other food get used to a vegan diet and substitutions, they will eventually be ready to let go of those last few products on their own.
Someone who openly eats bacon because they enjoy it and claim themself vegan is far away from the vegan cause. If you don't like to ear the truth or face simple criticism i would argue you are not really looking to make much change in the right direction.
I would argue that the person willing to give up 95% of their meat consumption cares more about making a change than the one telling them not to bother at all because it’s not the full 100%.
According to one survey, which has some interesting statistics on veganism:
Research suggests that people are more likely to stick to habits that they adopt gradually rather than suddenly making drastic lifestyle changes, and it’s much easier to reach 100 from 95 than it is from 0. Maybe a better vegan substitute for bacon will be invented in that time and they’ll give it up even sooner.
As another user here says, don’t let perfection be the enemy of good.
That applies to any cause. Every time I see people going all in and fighting anyome with 1 inch of different opinion I think "you are only pushing people away". Once someone is moving is the right direction, let them go. If you still don't agree 100% it's ok, people can improve with time. Be tolerant of people and you'll see a lot of improvement. Radicalism will never, in any areas, be good or make the world better
It's absolutely fine to do this, but it's just as reasonable to not call that veganism. Reducitarian or Flexitarier are right there.
Maybe I'm reaching, but this stuff feels like stolen valor. They want the label, without doing all the work.
You've convinced me, I'm going vegan + meat + dairy + animal fat.
Well, no eggs at least ;-)
I bet they simply forgot about them. What an idiot. Who would do that?
Oh yeah! Dammit.
Gatekeepers are the fucking worst. Every time I start reading up on something there's always a handful of miserable condescending shitheads being nasty to people because they're 'not 'doing it right.'
Most vegan threads I come across usually has some of these, insulting anyone that's not 100% on board even if they're trying to get into it. Audiophiles are pretty much on the same level as hardcore vegans when it comes to being obnoxious (recently saw someone ask why the op was bothering setting up a music system if they didn't have thousands of dollars to spare, for example). Linux users on support threads is a coin flip of whether they'll be helpful or insulting.
Let people ease into things, stop demanding perfection right out of the gates!
I am seeing more and more folks go veg simply because the price, and that's great! Build a culture of veg meals and normalize the epic curries, chillis, soups, stews, spreads, and tofu / seitan/mushroom dishes
I really like Derek Sarno's YouTube channel for this reason. I feel very welcome watching his content because he doesn't browbeat folks who aren't fully vegan, he just presents an epic mountain of some of the most mouth watering vegan food I've ever seen.
Instead of purity tests to keep folks out, we need more people like Derek who hold the door open for everyone, so they can smell the amazing food cooking inside.
Can't upvite this enough. I'm not really vegetarian, but I love the fact that it is gaining traction, since it's just so much better food. If there is a vegan option of anything, I'll go for that.
The best burger I've ever eaten had a giant mushroom as the main thing in it, sterotypically served by a trans girl at a street food vendor in the gay quarter of Amsterdam.
It literally ruined burgers for me, I'm still chasing that high. I think if you want to be a vegan activist, learn to cook well and open a restaurant. That's how they got me.
That's awesome. I've had some bad experiences with mushroom burgers. I need a good one like this.
This also applies to renewable energy btw. Some people seem to think we can't start with the energy transition before we've figured it all out, including storage for the winter and at night.
Let's just build solar panels and wind mills and see how far we can go with that :D much more productive that way.
Dont get caught up in labels. If you want to vegetarian but don’t want to give up bacon just do it. Doesn’t matter what you label it it’s just a diet.
https://xkcd.com/871/
Vegan restaurants and tiktok chefs do infinitely more for veganism than posters.
I eat more veggies and less meat than ever
That's down to iterative changes.
If the only option was a hard-line cold-turkey (lol) approach, I'd very likely have never changed a thing
It's definitely easier if you do it one format at a time.
i always wanted to quit smoking, but couldn't drop the first cigarette with my morning coffee. it took me way too long to make peace with that single cigarette, turns out i can easily forgoe the other 19 I've been smoking every day
Last year I nearly quit smoking weed, except when I'm playing Dungeons & Dragons.
that's fair enough, you probably don't play d&d every day
even if they do play d&d daily, it's still less than if they were a morning/noon/night smoker.
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly
When the vegetarian option becomes cheaper and tastes just as good though, continuing to eat the meat version is an explicit choice.
I think there is also a cooking skills gap no one acknowledges. For example tofu is way different than chicken/beef/pork. Scares a lot of people away because poorly cooked tofu is 100x worse than poorly cooked meat.
Our family eats about half vegetarian because the cost difference is still minimal and variety is fun. Animals are also way more evil than most people realize. Cows are basically the only one that won't eat it's friend when they are bored. Not saying it justifies earing them, but I've never understood why vegans put animals on a pedestal.
I don't put them on a pedestal. I would still be vegan even if I hated animals. You don't have to love or even like somebody to not want them to be tortured and killed. The conditions that chickens, pigs, and cows live in aren't something I would wish on my worst enemy.
I think tofu is just an acquired taste. When I first started cooking it, I did all the things. Pressing, freezing then thawing, brines, breading, sauces, air frying, etc.
But the more eating it became habit, the less all that stuff mattered. When I'm preparing it now, I usually take it out of the package and immediately crush it with my hands into rough chunks into whatever I'm cooking. I actively crave the stuff enough that I will pretty much always eat a raw chunk as I'm crumbling it.
This would be an argument for not breeding them into existence in the first place. Creating an evil entity is not a good thing.
The meat animals are selected for tastiness, not friendliness.
That, and their magical ability to convert things humans can't eat (grass) into things humans can (beef, milk). This is fundamentally why"food" animals were domesticated.
Sometimes it tastes better. The last 10 years has been really depressing, because I've discovered that there are quite a lot of people who are unwilling to change even in the face of pandemics and environmental collapse.
Nope! Change is bad. Always. Just cross your arms and dig in your heels.
Taste can go either way, but meatless options are almost overwhelmingly the winner in the texture department.
Yeah. Taste is a very subjective thing.
I have tried chicken, fish, prawn and squid from well known restaurants and I can still just make a salted steamed potato that I would like better.
Turns out I just don't like meat stuff. Well, at least I know I can digest them in case it is required in emergencies.
I might add health concerns to that list along with cost and taste. Allergens and sodium content, for instance. Also a concern about being "highly processed".
Not that that's not an issue with animal-based foods. But Impossible is still "new and different" and if Impossible turned out to be terrible for you, it wouldn't be the first time something new and different (even something new and different that was touted by some as being better for you) resulted in a public health crisis. (I'm referring to trans fats in particular here.)
It’s already cheaper it’s the tastes just as good part that is expensive. The faux meat is still expensive but vegetables have been cheap. If you didn’t care about variety you could eat chicken soup with a Costco chicken for a whole week for like $8
for some people
I don't get why you make such an effort to avoid meat only to seek out vegetables prepared to mimick meat dishes. I'd argue that's not what vegetables are good at. There's plenty of vegetable dishes that are delicious without needing to pretend there's meat involved. Indian cuisine has a ton of them.
Well, let's deal with that when it happens.
This is such a conundrum for me because I absolutely support people eating less animals and animal produced products but veganism is not a diet it is a philisophy. You are not vegan if you do this and you should not call yourself vegan. Dilution of the term IS harmful. At its core veganism is the belief that animals should not be exploited for anything under any circumstances. They have every right to this earth as we do and it is our responsibility to insure their lives are not harmed by us.
But the point of this is literally don't let perfect be the enemy of good. There's a rather large subset of the population that hears "oh no animals products at all? Forget that." And they commit to no animal product reduction at all. So then the question is harm no animals, or harm less animals?
Just don't call it veganism because that is not what it is
Then they aren't getting the message. The answer to that is not to give up the message. It's to find a way to communicate that message so that it's understood.
Give them the gateway to veganism.
Do you genuinely believe this? If I hear "X is bad", I don't need someone to tell me "oh, but less X is still good step". I can understand that with even my two braincells.
Where's the proof that people don't understand that? Do we need to start preaching harm reduction and "perfect is the enemy of good" in other areas of activism? Feminism, anti-racism?
I actually believe this. I believe people are both more ignorant and petty than even you or I can imagine. I also think that people can be persuaded. Make people think that these ideas were something they came up.
the issue here is that it frames veganism as someone trying to become better by denying themselves treats, when in reality it's someone becoming less of a monster by not denying others the right to life.
vegans are not good people because they're vegans, veganism is only about not committing evil. It's literally the absolute minimum. Carnists are evil, but it is so normalized people don't see it that way.
vegans are not denying themselves cheese, we simply are not denying a baby the right to live.
The focus in veganism, like with every liberation movement, should be on the oppressed and not the treatlerites trying to be a bit less brutal. And that's my issue with this tweet. Babystepping is for libs and people don't get a pat on the back for no longer being part of the cow genocide. Either you have solidarity with the oppressed, in which case you'd be horrified at the thought of eating bacon, or you're still looking at yourself and what you're ""sacrificing"". Centering once again the humans when its about non-human animal liberation.
Oof. I want to print this out and frame it.
After being vegan for several years, it just hit me one day. I was thinking about how when I was a carnist, I felt like I had a right to eat a cow or a pig if I wanted to. That sense of entitlement to someone else's body is insane!
But you're still "the crazy one" for pointing it out. And don't you dare break the norms of civility pointing out the mass murder and enslavement that is animal ag.
Fewer.
Veganism is a philosophy to you, but maybe not to others.
What genuine difference does it make to you if someone goes 100% vegan as a dietary choice? Your personal goal is still fulfilled by them no longer eating meat, regardless of whether they agree with you or not philosophically.
It's about all animal products. Leather shoes are not vegan, medicine with gelatin is not vegan, cleaning products might not be vegan. Veganism is about animal liberation and not about the vegans. That's where the focus should be. "What genuine difference does it make to you" is the wrong question, it doesn't matter what difference it does to the vegan, it's about what difference it does to the animal getting a bolt rammed through its skull.
Because that's plant-based plus bacon. Veganism is an ethos, not a diet.
Silly downvoters. You're absolutely right. Veganism has diet as a component, but at its core is a desire to limit harm to animals in every possible aspect.
If you eat only plants/mushrooms, but still buy leather shoes, down pillows, or wool socks - that's not veganism, that's just following a plant-based diet. The two concepts overlap, but they are distinct from each other.
This sort of pedantry also annoys and turns people away from the cause though. Typically when people say they're vegan, they're talking about their diet, and it's easy to infer that based on context. I really hope you don't go around browbeating self-professed vegans by going "nuh uh, you're a liar, that's a leather strap I see on your watch"
Lol, of course not. What would be the point of that? I can acknowledge someone being gifted a leather watch, or continuing to wear old leather shoes they bought from before they went vegan, as a vegan still trying their best.
But pointing out a verbal distinction on a chat board like Lemmy isn't the same as calling people out in-person. The distinction matters, and this is an appropriate place to make that point. Harassing people for their choices is an entirely different scenario.
There isn't really a verbal distinction though. "Vegan" is an overloaded word that has multiple definitions, and you can very validly use it to describe your diet. "Correcting" people by telling them they should say "plant based" instead is just pedantry.
The fact that most people don’t think about it critically doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be explained and telling people who belong to a group that they can’t tell you what their group specifically is about is entitled and absurd.
Veganism is not a diet and there are a number of diets you may adopt while being vegan.
I can accept that the harm reductionism that Danielle is advocating for is good compared to the lack of restraint we have as a culture, but this does not make it vegan.
And the fact that you assume people "aren't thinking critically" when they use a word in a way you don't like says a lot about you. Makes you seem like the entitled one, actually.
If you can't accept that saying "I eat vegan" or "I follow a vegan diet" is just as valid as someone saying "I'm vegan" in the context of taking about food/diets, you're gonna have a tough time, because that's just how our language is used.
I’m sure you can get away with telling trans people what they are without trans people or defining atheism without atheists. But sure. Sound off like the ignorant ass you are.
It also gets super annoying when people start learning the watered-down meaning.
The number of times people have asked "But you eat fish, right?" because pescatarians call themselves vegetarians instead of taking 3s to explain "It means I eat plants and fishes" is real annoying.
Labels with a specific meaning that have practical applications should not be muddied with use like that.
Not pedantry. Veganism is an ethical position, distinct from carnism, which is also an ethical position. That may not be how the majority use the term, but it is possible for a majority to be misinformed. If vegans yield the term and it comes to mean "mostly eats plants, sometimes eat fish or pig or perhaps bear", what should they call
"tries to minimize animal abuse as far as possible and practical"? Wouldn't the new term also be eventually devoured?
this claim is made without evidence and can be dismissed without evidence
So when you go to a restaurant and they say "do you have any dietary restrictions", you can reply "I'm Catholic" and they should guess what that means?
Vegan is an overloaded word that is both a diet and an ethos. Don't try and restrict the language. You will not win.
The issue here is that veganism is regarded as a diet by the popular culture and fad dieters, not vegans. Your insistance that we not try to correct the record is like asking middle easterners not to set things straight when people assume all of them are Arabians or Muslim.
Veganism is regarded as a diet by vegans. The diet kind of vegans. You're doing a No True Scotsman.
You can certainly try to fight language. It doesn't usually work. Good luck!
It is most commonly discussed in terms of diet, because that is something that is encountered most frequently. How often do you eat compared to how often you buy new shoes? A few times per day vs a few times per year?
Veganism most definitely goes beyond diet, even if food is by far the most common context .
It can, sure. It's also a convenient way to tell the waitress you don't eat animal products, even if you do wear leather.
mushrooms and yeast aren't plants though, so it's also also "fungus-based" as well
An issue with boycotts in general is that people are constantly talking about what not to do and not what to do alternatively or the specifics on how to get there. Eventually it makes you realize that literally anything you do will cause someone to get genocided or abused somewhere, and when they way out isn't clear or straightforward, now you're overwhelmed with thousands of things you hate that you do and have to figure out how to change on your own one by one, and those changes result in new problems that overwhelm you or turn out to also be unethical and you have to change them yet again. And in the end you hate yourself because your change attempts made you miserable while you're still doing doing harmful things and other people hate you because you're still causing genocides and the rest think you're an idiot or a hypocrite for trying at all, while meanwhile everyone else around you is just enjoying themselves and not giving a fuck, and you'll always be a terrible person anyways so you might as well give up.
I think if more people instead of saying "don't do this" instead said "do this instead" when they talked about what to boycott and why, that would help with harm reduction a lot more.
Unless someone is a on a serious carnivore diet, then we probably eat "vegan" more than we realize.
I had an English muffin with some homemade wild raspberry jam and a banana with my tea this morning. I have already planned an Indian lentil curry and rice for supper tonight. I don't know what I'm having for dinner today, but I could have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I suppose.
A whole day without meat. Not that I actually considered doing that because "vegan." But because that's what sounds good to eat today. Tomorrow, maybe some smoked oyster stuffed venison loin chops for supper perhaps or some eggs and bacon for breakfast.
FUCK YES to oat milk. I love oat milk. I also love cheese and haven't really found a good substitute yet, but oat milk is the GOAT milk.
Moderation is my favorite word
I am very fun at parties
I support small changes for self improvement. Buying pints instead of fiths is a start.
To this day I've stabilized around vegetarian + the occasional pepperoni pizza.
I've been more, I've been less. Maybe the next step is cutting out some more dairy somehow.
I find oat milk is just way better than regular milk anyhow
Replacing milk with oat milk is easy and works well.
Cheese though...
Oat is goat tbh
🐐
Okay my Lemmy client doesn't support emojis, but that is fucking adorable and did a little to brighten my day! Tiny goat!
Except Kirkland oat milk which is pure ass, although then I switched to the Califia Farms stuff on Costco's website and I like it better than cow's milk now
When I finally tried it I was honestly blown away by how good of a milk-alternative it is! The fact that it has a much lower environmental impact and is super easy to make at home is just the icing on top!
I Aldo don't like cow's milk, but I don't like oat milk either. Tastes like oatmeal, which makes sense. Soy and macadamia are my preferences.
To each their own, but I'd say give some different brands a shot. Some are very oatmeal foward, but I've found brands like Silk and Chobani to be smooth and just lightly oatey.
The only things stopping me are cheese and various chocolates. I'm so sorry, you fucking asshole twits, but no matter how lovely watery oat porridge or thin almond paste can be (and their cute tensiony surfaces can be so delighting) in all sorts of intriguing and cute recipes that dance on your tongue as they nearly force (with kindness) your mouth into a smile with soft harp music in the background, hot chocolate that doesn't suck your stomach out your asshole with those horrible oil adjacent bitch baths isn't possible. Oh! But to softly stir the oat syrup into the flour and delicately knead it with fingers... what joy!
I think giving up cheese would be a lot easier if there were widely available cultured plant-based options. We have some really bang-up plant-based butter and cream replacements at this point, I've had plant-based cottage cheese and white cheese that both were solid.
You can culture plant-based products, that's really not a problem, but no manufacturer has tackled plant-based cultured cheeses at scale.
This is kinda why I'm doing. If I see a vegetarian option for something, I'll pick that over the meat option. Vegetarian sausages are definitely not all created equal...
And cheese. I’ve tried but vegan cheese isn’t it.
I’ll still get the veggie burger, but with real cheese 😆
Heck ya! An Impossible burger with real cheddar and bacon on top is delicious and undoubtably healthier than the full-meat experience!
Absolute treat brained. The veal industry is secondary to the dairy industry. The baby cows are considered a waste product of cow milk production. Meaning if people stopped eating veal but still consumed dairy products it would make no difference to the cows.
Dude, you're coming on too hateful with your comments.
Not everyone will just go vegan in the way you want, or expect. Some people take years, and plenty of change, to finally get there.
You talking to people this way dissuades people. They don't want to be like "you" which by extension, is vegan.
Just chill.
People who aren't honest about what it means to not be vegan won't last and in most cases won't change. If it's only about denying themselves so they can become a better person, like some ascetic then they will fall back into their genocidal ways. If they're scared about what others think of them they won't last. Vegans are the safest group of people to make fun of. I know what made me go vegan and it was people not dancing around the fact that these animals that are slaughtered on a conveyor belt had siblings, at least a mom, probably friends who loved them. That me continuing with what I was doing was monstrous.
The people trying to be nice about it I could just ignore. "Agree to disagree" or whatever.
That worked for you
The approach of being confronted by your "murderous" ways worked for you
That same approach won't work for others. It may work for some, but if 20% of people see what you're saying, and how you're saying it, and agree - then you have finally got 20% of people to consider veganism. The other 80% are reading what you write with a feeling that its over the top and emotive language that doesn't resonate with them, and only turns them more against the idea of veganism.
Of course, the %s I came up with are made up, just for example - and for the sake of argument I would like you to know that I completely agree with veganism, and agree that what we do to animals is abhorrent and should absolutely change in every aspect. With that in mind, your approach comes from a place of hatred and negativity and pushes fear and anger. Sure, people such as yourself may be swayed by that approach, but that very same approach is what stops a large number of people taking veganism seriously.
But I take it you are still part of the literal orphan killing machine? Why should I take your opinions on how to get others to see the evil they're a part of seriously when it seems it stalled with you on a mere hypothetical level? It doesn't flatter me that you "agree" with me, if your lifestyle still requires murder or enslavement we are not on the same side. So if your way of convincing others would have others "agree" with me on a theoretical level but not practically, then I'm gonna steer well clear of it.
This is gonna sound really harsh but you're essentially like a liberal zionist that thinks what they are doing is horrible but continues to live on stolen land.
You're assuming I'm not vegan. Just because I'm not being militant and vicious in my views and beliefs doesn't mean I believe any different to you.
Theres just a better way of going about it. Your tone is not helping your cause.
This is why I disagree with vegans who don't want to watch footage from slaughterhouses and stuff like that. "Oh, I already know what happens there, so I don't need to traumatize myself." Okay, I'm not going to force anybody to watch anything, but I will say one thing. It's really hard to go back to reading meat after that. It makes it much more visceral, in a very literal sense.
It reminds me of that saying "To know and not to do is not to know". Once you know, there really isn't any going back.
And you are the reason people think veganism is an on/off thing and will eat meat out of spite.
It’s better to eat less meat, right? I’m still eating the exact same amount of cheese I used to, but my meat consumption is well under half of what it used to be 5-10 years ago.
But if you're the kind of person who eats meat out of spite, then I've already given up on trying to persuade you. I'm going to move on to talk to somebody who's actually compassionate and not an asshole.
It's like that Trump voter argument: i.e. some people voted for Trump because leftists were too extreme. No, they voted for him because he said something that appeared to a nasty part of them, and it's easier to blame the left than to admit that.
If you're still eating the same amount of cheese then it makes 0 difference. So no, it's not better. It's still the same amount of baby cows that need to be murdered so their moms produce milk. It just means the baby corpses rot and aren't devoured.
Do you think halving your meat consumption over a span of 10 years is anything but glacial? This is what I mean by the focus still being firmly on the oppressor and not the victims that still have to suffer because Adolf Treatler just cannot stop killing their young (but they aren't eating as many of them as they did 10 years ago!)
most dairy calves are brought to full weight before slaughter
almost no calves become veal anyway
Cheese is the one thing I break from being plant-based on. Not even dairy in general, because non-dairy replacements of other things (e.g. ice cream) are quite good.
I'm hoping to see synthetic dairy (precision fermentation or otherwise) become more mainstream and used for a wider variety of products.
Btw the author is the maker of elementaryOS
Vegans will hate me for this but I only eat animals that I don't find particularly cute.
I don't eat pig or cow meat because they are beautiful, intelligent animals with great personalities. I do eat lamb because I've worked on sheep farms and they are dumb assholes. I eat chicken because they are basically vicious dinosaurs who would eat me if our sizes were reversed.
I've yet to get first hand experience with live sausages in their natural environment so I proceed with caution on a case by case basis.
Uh, I have bad news on where sausages come from....
Germany?
Animals should be respected equally the same way humans are. You don't disrespect ugly people, a lamb suffers as much as a cat or any other pet.
You or I may not, but some people absolutely do.
How about game sausage? Deer are bag of rocks stupid, though harmless. But at least they get to live a natural life before walking round a corner into an rpg on the way back from the betting shop.
Deer are "overabundant" in my area. Guy I knew hunted them. One day he brings some deer meat to work for everyone to try.
It's gross, it's chewy, ropy, and tastes like juniper. I guess it's free, but no thanks...
I'm not a hunter myself, but plenty of venison on the menu in my childhood in rural Arkansas. It's definitely inferior to good beef. But, if you treat it like a tough, lean cut of cow, it's fine. Usually this means adding fat, slow cooking, or both. I never found the taste bad, but chewy and ropy is definitely the default texture unless you work hard to make it more palatable.
When I cook at home, I'm vegan (beans, quinoa, cheese substitute, mostly), but when I go out I can certainly appreciate all meats and dairies.
Maybe your guy just wasn't a good cook ...
No that's a pretty cool stance to hear as a vegan, it means you're fine with me shooting you because I think you're a dumb asshole. One less corpsemuncher and they actually wanted it this way.
If you ever get a clean shot on me I encourage you to take it 🙏
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
Can you still be incorrigibly self righteous?
what you believe is not shown by what you just tell yourself in your head, but shown by how you act. it means that if you say you believe in the ideals of veganism but can't give up a meal of bacon for it, you simply don't hold that value strong enough.
which is fine, its okay to be unsure about your values, but lets not confuse ourselves here by saying we can hold certain values without behaving like we actually do.
The vegans mostly hate this. Which is probably why no one cares about outspoken vegans
The reason why we hate it is because it creates confusion about what a "vegan" is. Nobody cares if you want to eat an entirely plant-based diet except for bacon, but calling it "vegan + bacon" is misleading. It would be like if a Christian went around calling themselves an "atheist" because they disbelieve in all gods except for the one true God in the Bible. That isn't how the term "atheist" is commonly used and understood.
Vegans already have to deal with people who think that vegan is the same as vegetarian, or that veganism has something to do with health (it doesn't), or that it means you're also gluten-free, etc.
I recently ordered a sandwich labeled "vegan" at a restaurant. Mayonnaise was listed as one of the ingredients. Of course, there is vegan mayo, but I thought I better ask just to make sure. Maybe these people don't know what "vegan" is. Sure enough, the mayo was made in-house, and it contained eggs! I was trying to explain to the lady that eggs weren't vegan and her menu was misleading people, but her English wasn't very good and she couldn't understand me. So I finally just gave up and ordered the sandwich without mayo.
the problem is not the veganism, but the outspokenism. no one cares about outspoken anybodies.
As with any group, the most unreasonable ones who have a desire to shit on people are often the loudest and get disproportionately more attention.
That's the same dynamic why conservatives think feminists hate men, for example. It doesn't mean it's representative.
Most vegans have been meat eaters for most of their life and didn't went vegan overnight either. Many also recognize that going 100% vegan can seem very daunting to people who have never tried being vegetarian for a week or something like that yet. It certainly seemed daunting to me at first.
I now wish we could stop all factory farming today, but that's not how human psychology works, and it's not how societal change works. Some vegans aren't emotionally able to accept that, but most probably will at some point.
The main struggle for the accessibility of vegan food is having more plant-based options in supermarkets and restaurants, and more people who are trying/choosing the alternatives (when they are available and decent) would go a long way to make it easier for all. So I'd always encourage people to take steps to improve the situation.
The "all or nothing" mentality just creates unnecessary barriers and some people really need to recognize that. People have to be able to take positive steps without feeling the need to make a big commitment.
you cant just judge us (mostly) all like that
'I'm anti rape except on tuesdays. The anti rape people hate this'
Yeah wonder why.
If you recognize something is morally wrong it's fucking weird to carve out arbitrary exceptions.
*Oh weird, the people who don't think it's wrong to hurt animals are upset by the idea that vegans see hurting animals as wrong. If you actually think something is morally wrong you would find the hypocrisy to be offensive.
Oh no why won't the corpsemunchers like me 😢
Some people think the definition of "freegan" means dumper diving and a hardcore anti consumerist attitude, but it could also mean "I don't buy meat, and am comfortable abstaining from it, but if it's given to me/made for a party, I am not against eating what's there." which I like.
I very often have whole days in my week, probably 2 or 3 where I don't eat any meat at all. I am definitely no vegetarian, I love pork in all it's forms. But the whole idea of having to have meat with every meal is ridiculous. Beans, falafel, cheese, tofu, etc are all tasty ways to get protein and are usually quite cheap as well.
And yeah the only non open source software I use is games. It took a couple years to get off windows, but I've been Linux as my daily driver since 2015 or 2016.
Exactly.
You can get a lot if not most of the Ecological and Health benefits by simply eating less meat (also fish, but mainly meat) and a way to do that is to replace some meat or fish meals with vegetarian or even vegan meals.
People in most of the West eat much more meat than it's nutritionally recommended, so reducing one's meat intake is a win-win and far more easy than fully switching to a vegetarian (or, even harder, vegan) diet.
Granted, that doesn't actually address the moral beliefs around rearing and killing animals for food that inspire many vegetarians and vegans, but that's a whole separate conversation that's about one's personal moral posture, not about Ecology or Health and should be discussed in that plane - a person who has already willfully reduced the amount of meat they eat should be no harder for Vegetarians or Vegans to convince that rearing and killing animals for food is immoral, than any other people, probably even easier since they're already comfortable with eating vegetarian or vegan meals so that specific resistance to change is already lower.
Loving these hypothetical people, what are your thoughts on your lifestyle and how it directly affects the animals and their children?
On the one hand I approve of this strategy, on the other hand there are so many people that lie to me and themselves that they only eat animal products rarely or only from the most local grass fed farmer and then you spend time with them and you see they always choose the meat option, every single opportunity and since its the cheap corner restaurant that pece of meat has never seen grass in its' life. It's disheartening.
Why do you think they feel compelled to lie to you?
When food comes up the subject comes up and some people have a more guilt driven reaction to the topic. My impression is that they feel bad about knowing about the animal abuse and environmental damage, but not having the personal resolve to do something about it. They feel guilty and probably feel like I would be judging them so they make up these scenarios to feel less bad about the whole thing.
That you are judging them is the correct answer
I think my supposed judgment of others would not motivate them to lie to me or themselves if they had no guilt to go with it.
I feel like this is a labels issue though... Lots of people don't want to go "vegan" or "vegetarian" because of a small group of vegans, but if you were to give them a meal without announcing it was vegan they'd probably enjoy it.
Same to an extent for me: I could never give up dairy because I love milk, cheese and butter too much, but I do eat (asian style) vegetarian meals multiple times a week and have at most one meat meal per day, instead of at every meal, and I have a mindset that meat is nice but not that you can't make other nice dishes with mushrooms, tofu, cheese, etc. - you just have to make different things.
Reframing it as "look at these nice things you can have" seems a lot more accessible than telling people they shouldn't eat meat, or they should eat less meat, or that the other proteins are just a substitute for meat, which makes it seem like you're missing out on something.
Even Stalman treats games as a special category given the artistic game assets. I think he'd still prefer the engine was FLOSS though and I assume the DRM is definitely verboten.
I joined a group of people who wanted to eat more vegan/vegetarian. It was going fairly well, but then a guy joined the group who kept shaming us for eating any animal products, and a lot of us (myself included) dropped out. Shame.
I've started eating more fatty, sustainable fish, both for my health as well at the environment, and less red meat. Trying to do what I can.
I knew a guy who did this for a time. Ate only vegetarian, but fried bacon to every single meal, then crushed it and sprinkled the bacon on as salt.
He did that until he got a job as a chef, then he said it got too hard not to eat any of the delicious food he was preparing at work.
What I’d really like to pull off is Kangatarianism. Based off Australia, the idea is you can eat meat, but only of “pest animals” we have too much of.
It would be hard to set up, and may face regulatory scrutiny by USDA. I imagine a lot of deer/pig/turkey hunters would like having a way to sell their catch on. We’d also need to watch for “rat catcher” problems where people see the animal as suddenly lucrative and grow its population intentionally.
Heh. In my city there is a spot I regularly pass that is bird seeded and swarmed by pigeons.
Thought it was a sweet old lady doing it until I saw a couple guys pull up in a van and start grabbing them up.
Some of the homeless in Seattle do that, one of my ex partners used to when they were homeless too. Sometimes you do what you gotta do and pigeons is cheap calories
Pigeons are just doves, which are game birds. As long as you clean them properly, they should be fine to eat.
In a sense they're not wrong, but it depends on what is actually happening, and what the person's attitude is. It's good to pursue a lifestyle that's increasingly less dependent on animal products, even if imperfect. But is an actual progression occurring? It can often be the case, especially with dietary things, that a person will do something they believe is good once, and then treat themselves with a "cheat" day three times to that one good choice.
My change didn't happen overnight. But I approached it the same way that I did when I quit smoking: I kept track of how long I went without eating animal products. When I messed up and caved in, I would start over at 0 the very next day, and resolve to go even more days without animal products than I had done on the previous attempt.
One of the larger barriers I had to break through was an anxiety about nutrition. By that point I had a pretty firm grasp of nutritional science already, and knew that people can get all of their nutrients from plants. Consciously I knew better. But unconsciously there was still this wild fear as to whether or not I could keep living on plants only. It felt dangerous. I was going up against a lifetime of propaganda.
The last time I intentionally ate meat was some pepperoni. At that point I had gotten so used to living on plants that it didn't taste the same anymore. For one, it turned out at least for me, that after being without meat for long enough, it didn't smell the same anymore. The odor became more rotten. It didn't and doesn't matter how fresh the meat is, it all smells like putrefying carcass now. That was one thing that made the pepperoni taste off. The other was that apparently I had gotten used to having less salt in my diet, because it was a completely overpowering, disgusting salt bomb.
And something had clicked in my head by that point. As I was eating it I kept thinking, "Why am I doing this? I'm not even enjoying it. I don't need it. This isn't right." So I stopped eating it, and I haven't felt the need to consume any animal body parts ever again.
Anyway, I think where things become frustrating depends on how a person is framing their habits. If it's something like, "I'm trying, I am working on doing better," then it's understandable. But if it sounds more like the person is trying to justify eating animals or their products, and they're either talking about it in a way where they're trying to seek validation or using "militant vegans" as a strawman to criticise (see: the majority of the comments here) - that kind of makes it hard to remain diplomatic.
In cases like the latter, why are you so preoccupied with what other people think? It's not about vegans, it's about the animals. Going vegan requires going against an immense tide of social pressure, and that burden will never go away. You need to learn to think for yourself. Because when you do, you can look more objectively at how humankind treats every other species of sentient being on the planet and use your own internal moral compass to finally recognize what's right in front of your face: it is wrong to eat them. It is wrong to exploit them. What happens in factory farms and slaughterhouses is horrific. And it can never stop until we stop supporting it.
It's a hard conversation because y'all are demanding we tiptoe around a vast injustice that is urgent and actively resulting in the extreme suffering and deaths of billions every year. That's not even getting into the other issues like health problems, environmental destruction, and pandemic and zoonotic disease potential.
There are FOSS games, in all the major genres. They are generally acquired the same way you acquire other applications in your OS. For me it's
aptitudeon the command-line, but that's far from the most common experience. (I really like "Singularity" which is a strategy game where you play as a newly sentient AI; Wesnoth is also good.)There are a near endless supply of gratis independent games on itch.io and probably other sites. I do think there's some FOSS trackers that will help you manage game installations that are not done through the OS application management, but I can't name one.
I just use steam, but I'm not a purist in what I consume -- I also use Discord and have a YT Premium subscription. I AM a purist in what I force other people to consume: what I publish is always under AGPLv3 or CC-SA or some other "strong copyleft".
Never in the history of software has people been able to deliver software over the internet in an easy way until Steam came out. It was revolutionary. People cried and shit their pants with the sudden and seismic shift that occurred. Every other form of software delivery pales in comparison to the Steam app.
If I make a game, I will package it for flatpak if I can. Hopefully there is some way for me to distribute that on Linux. I can't imagine how it would happen though... woe is me. Don't look at flathub!
And don't look at Itch.io either since none of it is open source at all. Don't look at the itch.io github. Don't look at its package delivery system that is so much worse than Steam. Don't look at it! It is bad! Stop looking at open source software that competes with the value proposition of Steam!
And then there's the Steam interface. It is made in React.js and we all know that FOSS cannot use React.js. There are not enough FOSS react devs out there to compete, so unfortunately Valve will just always produce better software than the FOSS world. It is inevitable. FOSS GUIs that equal or surpass closed-source commercial giants? Never happened once, never will happen in the future.
I'm not at all shitting on you specifically. There's just a mindset of "we can't even try" that exists out there on lemmy and reddit and the greater web that I really hate.
See, that's probably the most reasonable argument I've heard in an online post.
There are also some good tips here about being more ethical in your meat purchases (essentially, avoid over purchasing and wasting meat, learn your labels to avoid cruel producers, if you have the luxury buy from local farms) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sVfTPaxRwk
I feel like this is insanely hard to do this right, since the treatment of the animals is never made transparent. Even if you only buy animal products from local farms, how do you know the actual living conditions? You'd have to visit the farms and the slaughterhouses yourself, and even then you wouldn't see all the stuff, like how the workers really treat the animals day to day and which procedures the animals go through, how they are separated after birth and so on. To get a fair, unbiased impression, you'd need to work there for some time, for every farm you buy from.
For food from normal restaurants (which aren't $100 per meal), the employees have no idea where the animal products come from, and if they have to compete with the prices of other restaurants, well, it's all factory farmed anyway or they would already be out of business.
Just buying the plant-based burger or whatever is just so much more practical than trying to be a conscientious meat eater in a world where you're not supposed to ask any questions about how products were made. If you try to get some real transparency, the odds are stacked against you, and the industry will make sure to keep it that way. They'll just push for some labels that make people feel good and that can be used for marketing, but don't actually tell you much, and they know that's good enough for most people.
Sure, but there are really good vegan substitutes for bacon now. I think that tempeh bacon tastes better, and it's healthier, too.
Vegetarian is the compromise for me. If they can make good cheese and egg products, I'm done
Just Egg is pretty good, or you can do tofu scrambles.
Cheese is my last hold-out.
This is what I did. Now at home the only animal proteins i eat are fish/shellfish, cheese, and yogurt. I'm lucky enough to have easy access to imitation soy substitutes. On the rare occasion I go to a restaurant i will usually order a nice meat based meal.
But it probably helps i always thought chicken and cow were mid.
If I went vegan+bacon I would just end up eating a grotesque amount of bacon.
I will use foss where I can. Gaming is a place where I can't. It is what it is.
I'm gonna do vegan + meat
Cutting out dairy, honey and eggs is a step in the right direction, thank you for your service.
Edit: I forgot about the existance of eggs apparently
Why honey?
Not dewinged. Beekeepers don't go around pulling wings off of queens.
Some beekeepers will clip part of a queen's wing, similar to how people with pet birds will sometimes clip a wing. This doesn't hurt the queen just like it doesn't hurt the bird.
That said, I don't think it's as common of a practice as it once was, as its benefits are pretty questionable (especially vs the risks). I expect when it happens, it's new/hobby beekeepers who read about it in a book somewhere and don't know any better.
That's ridiculous. You've been lied to.
It's true that drones die in winter, but it's because the hive itself makes the decision to evict the drones - the workers force them out and then they starve, freeze, or are eaten by predators. This is true of wild colonies as well as managed ones, and is how the life cycle of the honey bee has evolved.
Humans have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Bees are literally the worst example of humans exploiting an animal. The bees choose to live in the beekeepers boxes. They can and do leave if they decide they are not treated well by the keepers.
They overproduce honey when in a keepers box. They do not use it all and any competent keeper does not take all the produced honey at once.
Similar to how we harvest cinnamon, we take enough to use but not enough to cause detriment to the source.
Bees are not like chickens or other livestock where they're forced into small areas and kept only as long as useful then slaughtered. The biggest thing that threatens bees is not the keepers but anyone nearby who uses pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides.... Which isn't usually the keepers.
Honey is bad now? Don't wee need bees for have food? Can wild bees even handle all the fruit plantations? Like, are we sure that it we stop breeding honey bees wild bee populations will recover to the levels farming requires?
No, it's not. Honey bees are bad in some places because of the loss of local pollinators to those honey bees, but it's really hard to "abuse" bees in general.
And eggs
Lol. I knew i had forgotten something.
In my defence, animal products havn't been part of my life for a long time now. Still silly to not think of em.
Danielle is a national treasure. I've been an elementary OS user for years, but her outspoken nature has always impressed me.
I order vegetarian Pizza with extra Salami and it is soo delicious… :3
I'm not foss at my core OS level unfortunately because of nvidia hardware and my brother insisting "Windows 11 is fine dude! Stick with Windows!", its funny hes got a AMD card...
I have a Windows 11 gaming 4070 SUPER Desktop as well as an elderly Windows 10 TV "Console" 2070 desktop. I have both LCD & OLED Steam Decks and some "revived from Windows bloat" linux laptops.
I am tempted to convert the "console" to Bazzite once I get the time to set that up but its my old gaming PC and I know they're old irreplaceable files I want to scoop up before I wipe it and install that.
That all said, on my windows machines I use foss whenever available.
EXACTLY
Cheese man.
The upvote downvote ratio on this post does not cohere with the actual behaviour of Lemmy users lol
As on most sites, users are much more likely to upvote/downvote than to comment or even post.
I could never go vegan. But seeing pet porks and cows I am considering go vegetarian + chicken
As a vegan I'm in favour of this because it makes it very clear in what specific way I am superior to someone
My issue 2ith veganism when they trying to imitate the real thing, which is an ultra-processed food with fake, depression inducing taste. I feel like this is the largest reason why people are 'relapsing back' to meat products.
Bare in mind, I'm not vegan or vegetarian, I just sometimes cook such, or compliments with other ingredients.
The only problem I see with this is that eating is often a social thing and carnivore hate when vegetarians/vegans make their own rules and exceptions. They often take it personal if you eat meat in one case and then not with them.
Broadly speaking, nobody will fucking care if you’re not shoving it in their faces
"I'm against animal abuse, except when I like their taste"
Not at all what the meme is implying. It's more like: "I am against animal abuse but i have been conditioned to normalise eating animals from childhood onwards. Since i can't let go of one specific product or product group i will continue to eat it, maybe until further down the line, while otherwise cutting out animal products from my life."
Reducing your animal product use is something that helps animals. Period. Are you interested in the welfare of animals or in feeling better about yourself because you feel morally pure?
All or nothing, got it, I won't be vegan then.
There is a related community of people who refer to themselves as “plant-based, whole-food” eaters. I recently switched to this from a lifetime of meats and processed foods (mostly, it’s a work in progress to avoid cheat meals).
I vastly prefer the PBWF people to vegans. Less evangelism, less shaming, less zealotry… and PBWF is actually stricter than vegan. I find vegan communities insufferable but I may have found my new home with PBWF.
Highly recommend.
Yeah, I won't start eating meat just because of a annoying person online, I just find this all or nothing attitude among vegans to be hurtful towards the cause of making people eat less meat. I probably won't label myself, but I will continue to promote vegan/vegetarian like lifestyle.
And never will be. But I guess I don't care anymore about that label.
And because of that I also don't have to care anymore about what I eat. So I can eat everything again. Thanks for making that clear to me.
This is obviously worse for animals, but only the real vegans care about that I guess🤷
"I don't like that my morals are too weak to fit a morale label, so if you don't change the label to make it less moral, I'll be more immoral on purpose!"
What is this stupid ass stance? Are people suddenly becoming mentally 6 years old when it's about morals?
Always have been.
The point is that it's still less animals than if someone was eating a full non-vegan diet. You seriously can't be this dense.
I'm fine with that, but I was trying, but now I see that it doesn't matter, so I won't keep trying.
Obviously? Did you genuinely read the mastodon post in the picture as saying "You can be vegan and eat bacon"?
I mean sure. But it's better than continuing to eat all meat.
ye shaming people always works
And hypocrisy always leads to change.
Since when reducing 90% of their meat intake is being a hypocrite? It's objectively reducing the suffering of animals.
I don't eat much meat because I know that morally it's the correct choice, but personally I don't care for the animals that died when I do eat meat. I'm completely aware that their murder is fueling my tastebuds, and I don't hide it. I don't think I'll ever go full vegan unless the food offering changes, because I personally don't care enough for the animals. I'd say that rn I'm 90% vegetarian, meaning that I probably eat meat only once a week.
Call me whatever you will but saying that eating meat once a week is better for animals than eating it every day is objectively true, and I'm not a hypocrite for promoting the reduction of meat intake.
Idk how long you've been alive bilut the reduction of meta intake in Europe has been notorious in the last 20 years. The biggest impact is not from people going cold turkey, it's from all the families that reduce their intake by half. So yeah, meat intake reduction IS having an impact.
By the way, where is the hypocrisy in the post?
no, it's not. even being vegan doesn't reduce the suffering of animals.
Your stance will lead to more animal abuse instead of less, exactly as explained in the post
And letting people imply that you can be vegan and eat meat will weaken the stance of veganism until it's like vegetarianism now, with vegetarians saying that they can eat fish, or meat that they don't buy, or insects, or or or
I get where you're coming from, but perfect is the enemy of good enough. You can't expect everyone to go vegan, but you can encourage people to give up as many animal products as possible.
That would already be a massive step in the right direction
You can have people understand that while eating less meat is better, it is not good enough
And if people stopped having this absurdly stupid behaviour of wanting to always look like they are perfect, they would be fine saying "yes, I know that I'm still eating bacon and that it's immoral, but I'm working on improving and eliminating meat altogether from my diet eventually", instead of "yeah I'm amazing because I'm vegan, but I still eat mean yknow"
I don't know why it is so hard for people that they might do something immoral. We are in such a self-centered, obnoxious period of time that people seem to define morals on their behaviour, as long as they do something they will have to justify that it's moral one way or the other.
I'm not a vegan because I don't think I can be right now. Yes, it's immoral of me to give money that exploits and abuses animals, and if and when I can I try to minimize it. Am I going to start pretending that it's fine? No, of course not. But not everything can be magically and instantly perfect. What matters is to admit it, which is exactly the opposite of what this post (and almost all the comments) do.
Getting the whole world on a 95% plant based diet is effectively the same as getting 95% of the world to be vegan. Which do you think is more immediately achievable when there is always this much push back from meat eaters?
What?
If 100% of people eat 5% meat, meat consumption continues.
If only 50% (or even less) of people are vegan, meat production gets banned.
How can you believe it would ever be the same? The world cannot be reduced to a single percentage, this argument is really absurd.
You think the majority dictates whether an industry or law exists? Why aren't private planes illegal yet? Why are we still dependant on oil? Why don't women have the same rights as men? Why do police have juducial immunity to murder? Why does the military industrial complex exist? There are systems and forces greater than just a majority.
Excuse the idiom, but we have to boil a frog, and it's easier to do it through slowly turning up the temp. To get someone to move to a mostly vegetarian is easier when you tell them "sure you can still eat meat." Then, when meat isn't a staple of the dish, it's much easier to transition them to full vegetarianism/veganism.
On top of that, the meat industry (who is actually dictating how much meat is in the US diet) would collapse if people are eating meat less than 2 days a month.
All these examples typically don't have a majority agreeing on it. You think that there is a majority that strongly wants to ban private planes, stop sexism, or so? Nah, most people don't care. But veganism is actively, strongly opposed to animal abuse, so if a majority is vegan, things would change.
And I never said that people who eat meat should be bullied, my point is that eating meat shouldn't be seen as completely fine, and especially not as compatible with veganism. It's like saying "yeah, I'm antifa+nazi", it doesn't make sense and only weakens the concept of veganism
So what about the post do you disagree with?
But also a lot of vegans: "I am against abuse, but only if it is against animals. I don't care about humans"
A lot of vegans are communists too. We want human exploitation to end just as much as animal exploitation. You will normally hear that rhetoric from liberal vegan "humans are the disease" ecofascist types. Granted, you cannot live under capitalism without human exploitation. I cannot eat most if not all foods without what I consider to be effectively slavery. It drives me mad.
Yeah, it's a problem.
No human is ever treated the way animals are though. And they made the society that they're suffering from. And humans can communicate and know what is going on.
I think you need to look into how rare earth minerals are mined. Or how slavery works. Humans treat humans as bad as any animal if they can make a profit.
Consider that humans sometimes bully other humans to death simply for the power trip. That is some pretty horrific physiological torture.
We're not that far from accepted child labor. Chimney sweeps. Heck there's a chance clothes we've worn this week were sewn by children in a sweatshop. Or the phone or computer metals were mined with child slave labor.
This is why veganism is hard for me, it's absolutely not possible to live a cruelty free life unless you're living on your own land with your own spun clothes and never consuming medication (all tested on lab mice).
Drawing the "perfect line" at eating only plant based food is fine, but it's a far cry from a cruelty free life. Folks get very serious optimizing on one dimension of cruelty (foods not being animal products) but then completely ignore everything else. And then bully others who do not do the same.
I'd rather see a universe like the OP, better to celebrate every step folks do take in the right direction, not tell them it's not enough. Everyone should be celebrated for:
You've put my feelings about these sort of hyper focused movements into words very well.
There is so fucking much wrong with the world, and we should be celebrating steps in the right direction rather than playing crab bucket about what's good enough.
The overwhelming majority of the issues in the world didn't get this bad overnight, and expecting things to just jump straight to the end state is just silly. Especially when there are forces out there devoted to maintaining the status quo.
That, plus the overall attitude I see so often of "the only possible reason things could be this bad is because everyone else but me is stupid" drives me up a wall. That one I can chalk up to youth at least.
Do what you can, when you can. I'm not perfect by any means, but I am continually pushing myself to do better.
This is the perfect comment! Thank you for putting it so eloquently!
Sadder is that you can explore plant-based bacon options.
Sure it may take a few tries to find a brand or recipe you like. But like, I still eat bacon. It's just not made with animal sources.
I SO missed bagels with cream cheese and egg salad. Tofutti cream cheese is garbage amd tastes like water. Daiya has a meh taste and awful aftertaste. Kite Hill is perfect (for me). And it turns out, pummeling a block of tofu and adding yellow mustard, vinegar, black pepper, and black salt satisfies my egg salad craving!
Smoked tempeh makes for a good bacon. There are other options too, but this one is my favored.
That's a more debatable thing. You'd have a necessity to not change, which makes it less immoral obviously, but it does put into perspective the question of the worth of a life, and whether a human life is worth a lifetime of meat eating/killing.
But that's not the case for a huge majority of people, so I would call this an edge case which is less obvious. Not everything is obviously good or bad, some areas are grey, but it doesn't mean that some areas aren't. Eating meat for personal pleasure/comfort is obviously immoral, once everyone aligns behind this we can start debating the edge cases.
Also, people like you would typically be a good reason to keep on developing cellular meat, independently from vegetal alternatives to meat.
you don't know what others need
I know that most humans are not unable to survive without meat, it's basic biology and nutrition.
survival needs are the very bottom of the hierarchy
What are you even talking about?
Other than survival needs, nothing warrants killing and eating sentient beings, in case you were suggesting otherwise. And if you were, then your morals are completely fucked up.
Maslow
most people don't do that, anyway. but you're asserting this without evidence, so it can be dismissed without evidence as well
Interesting question, if everyone stopped consuming beef and dairy tomorrow, what do you think the industry would do with the cows that no longer generate product but do still cost a lot to feed and house?
Mull that one over
They would stop breeding new cows into existence.
"Mull that one over" :')
This argument is so bad I have to answer.
Seriously, if you're going to debate in bad faith, at least put some work in your fake arguments.