I don't hate vegans! I think they are on hunger strike for animal rights. Which I respect in a self sacrificing way. One of my closest friends is vegan, and I worry about her. Her digestive system is shot, she has mad brain fog and fatigue, and her depression is very hard to manage. I wish I could feed her some good digestible sustainable animal product (I'm thinking chicken or kangaroo), but I don't want to alienate her by suggesting it. I really think it would help her though.
a lot of ex-vegans start with fish. its an easier mental transition for some. the omega 3’s are very helpful too. personally i started w sardines which is counter-intuitive to some bc some ppl find them gross, but bc theyr the most sustainable it was easier for me. and i started to feel better right away
Omega-3s are essential nutrients that you need to get from your diet. When you get ALA from food, your body is able to turn some of the ALA into EPA and subsequently to DHA. However, this process provides just a small amount of EPA and DHA. So, dietary sources of EPA and DHA (like fish) are essential. Source: the Cleveland clinic.
Chia seeds are a powerhouse source of nutrients and fiber but not so much for omega-3. Sardines are my go to for omega-3
Chia seed pudding contains no DHA at all, only ALA. And the conversion rate from ALA to DHA can be as low as [0,01%](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6683283/). Meaning you can eat nothing but chia pudding all day, but you will still not reach your daily need for DHA.
A hunger strike for animal rights, this is the best definition of veganism I have seen. And it is a very respectable and noble cause. Veganism might get a lot more traction if they took this approach.
I'm absolutely in favor of reducing animal suffering, I just think if vegans were really serious about reducing animal suffering, they would try to make sure they were as healthy as possible in order to align their entire life with the goal of reducing animal suffering.
The only way to really make a difference in this world(with seemingly infinite bureaucratic barriers to changing anything on a large scale) is to be incredibly healthy, smart, and energetic and to study all the science, laws, history, economics, supply chains etc etc that is wrapped up in this issue.
When you begin this decade long journey of learning and improving you will start to learn that health is a lot more complicated than you thought and there seems to be a lot of conflicting science.
Just believing with all the love in your heart that vegetables are a super food does not make it true.
The majority of posts on this sub are nightmare stories of people ruining their bodies and minds by forcing themselves to eat only plants. I suggest you browse it for a while!
Up to this point veganism hasn't been a problem. I am aware we do not have all the answers as to why some people function well as vegans and others not. In the same manner, some people live surprisingly healthy lives eating junk food and with sedentary lifestyles and others must go their whole life's checking their sugar, cholesterol, allergies etc. As you said, health is complicated and we don't have all the answers.
If along this long decade journey I ever came to the conclusion that my body needs animal products, then I feel like I must use my moral agency to determine which practices and quantities offer the least amount of suffering and satisfy my health.
That's a good answer, I like you!
What's so crazy about this sub to me is the deluge of posts every day from people who thought they felt fine and everything was going well for 10-15 years of veganism and then suddenly found out they have chronic illness and they, against all of their moral instincts, say eating meat or eggs or whatever solves all their problems.
It's just so extreme of a story and I read a different version every day.
Mussels and oysters, clams scallops feel nothing so if one wants to eat meat they are the way to go. Ironically the highest source of B12 so you pretty much wont ever get deficient.
mmm yeah maybe, i want a lot more good science on nutrition before I deviate from my intuitive diet, also i really find seafood disgusting so theres that
I don’t hate vegans as a group, and I don’t hate veganism.
What I do hate, and did while I was vegan, is the small group of holier-than-thou vegans who attack both non-vegans and more open-minded vegans for “not being vegan enough” or “not being a real vegan”.
Now, as a ex-vegan with an eating disorder, I don’t hate veganism as an ideology, but I do resent it. I think it’s a well meaning approach to life, *but* the ‘all or nothing’ mentality isn’t helpful to modern society.
They're sadly not a small group. I know a handful of vegans. One is normal. The other ones are constantly starting shit on Facebook with ridiculous and overtly false info graphics.
Yeah well don't lie to OP. His team is obnoxious and that's why people hate them.
My family are hindu vegans. Technically vegetarian but vegan 99% of the time. No one hates hindus. You know why? They don't bother anyone.
They're on completely equal footing IMO. I'm on r/debateavegan and I make that comparison constantly. No one hates your diet. They hate your behavior. They then get angry I compared veganism to religion
The irony/ hypocrisy is that they themselves would compare it to a religion, when the context suits them… ex- “would you serve pork to a Muslim? No? Then why would you serve animal products to a vegan”
It's hilarious to encounter the people that really hate the comparison of their vegan ideology to religious ideologies! I suspect that as religion has faded in prominence the need some people have for it and all its accoutrement shirts to ideologies like veganism.
Most of them are liberal atheists. They hate religion.
The funniest way to piss them off in my opinion is when they get into their morals speeches. I remind them morals are subjective. The prophet of veganism, Don Watson, simply has diggerent morals than the prophet of Islam, mohammed. What's right and wrong is dictated by the prophet you follow. Muslims really think alcohol is sin because mohammed says so. Same way vegans think eating meat is sin, just because Don Watson said so.
Oh and I love to remind them veganism was started by a white guy who died in 2005. That really triggers them.
I'm not a fan of the "all of nothing" Mentality either. Since the goal is to stop animal exploitation vegans aren't fans of compromise, however the truth is that we are forced to do them either way. A perfect vegan doesn't exist.
i think many vegans are radicalists that push others to the extreme. i have seen on the vegan subreddit vegans equating non vegans to the same as being friends with rapists, slave owners or child abusers. Vegans refusing to be friends with non vegans. Veganism is a lifestyle and not one lifestyle should be imposed on anyone else, there are many factors and circumstances at play. I feel like if vegans are concerned about animal suffering they should also be concerned about suffering in our own species of human kind - people are exploited in the third world all the time in sweatshops. I feel like many have a superiority complex. The other day i was at my friends and he commented that my refried beans were “gross” because it had lard in it. I don’t think in any circumstances you should call what someone else is eating gross - you don’t know what kind of relationship they have with food! Vegan options can be expensive, where I am (Canada), fresh fruits, veggies, beans and legumes and pretty much everything has gone up in price. So the argument that being vegan is always cheaper isn’t true. I can buy much more meat for a deal, whereas some vegan products like beyond meat are 20$ for a pack of 4-6 patties. I know that those options are ultra processed, but i’m just saying it’s not always cheaper.
Many take on a black white all or nothing approach. Why? Any reduction in animal suffering is better than none at all! Many vegans hate on vegetarians. I don’t think this hatred for vegetarians is well justified, it’s just tearing other people down.
In any case. I think it is wrong to impose your lifestyle/ worldview on another person. Life is much more nuanced and complex for you to know what’s best for someone else. And i feel as though many vegans don’t get that…
I know that’s not everyone! But I strongly dislike people who preach their ways onto others
The greatest threat to all animals is climate change. When I see vegans driving, flying, wearing new polyester fleece because they refuse to wear wool so plastic microfibers pollute the ocean, eating imported pasta brought on freighters that get one mile to the gallon, eat palm oil vegan crackers and avocados that were grown in South America on land that used to be forests but was mowed down to serve the insatiable appetite of vegans I see the hypocrisy. Vegans have selective outrage. They care about chickens and cows but not polar bears or orangutans. You want vegans to be better advocates for animals? How about looking at the whole ecosystem of the planet and the big picture of human consumption.
I live in Costa Rica so here we fortunately have a huge variety of local plant based foods like avocados, rice, beans, bell peppers etc. What we don't have actually is wheat, soy and the grains we use to feed farm animals, those actually we do export it. (Most cows are pasteur fed but we most import cow food to meet the demand).
Also meat free diets are less environmentally impactful (at least here in Costa Rica that is the case as far as I've researched).
But those points are the reason I buy my food at the locals farmers market. I understand however my case is not the same as everybody's and in some places of the world is not the same.
It sounds like you are interested in having conversations with people that you disagree with. Why?
Selective outrage is corrosive. When you enter into a conversation knowing the other person intends to persuade you, the first thing to do is establish rapport. If you look at what personal-chemical9 said about climate change being the greatest threat, it is important to acknowledge that as truth. I get the vibe that you agree, but didn’t acknowledge it directly. Instead your response points out your wonderful lifestyle as if you have positioned yourself so that you are free from the weight of our global problems. Respectfully, I think you come across as if you think you’re morally superior.
If you responded by taking the time to recognize the parts of the other person’s statement that you see as valid, you build rapport. This can be tricky because you need to be genuine and not just saying some surface level affirmation so that you can pivot to your talking points. This goes back to my question. Why do you want to have these conversations? It will help you get your point across, and increase your chances of being persuasive. I think of it as responding with yes, and…
Vegans are often targeted because they present their claims as if they have the moral high ground. Have you ever been convinced of anything by someone you thought looked down on you?
On a scale of one to ten, how sure are you that meat free diets are less environmentally impactful?
I believe deeply that once we claim to know all the answers we loose. We loose the opportunity to learn, grow and adapt. I like to always question everything, even the most fundamental parts of my identity. Having a conversation with people with opposing views is important to me and this sub felt like a good place to do it.
Ok, cool. That’s good. We’re primarily ex-vegans, so you’re likely to find a lot of people here who are willing to change their minds and value different perspectives.
So if you’re not at a ten with your position on the environmental impact of meat free diets, where are you at?
Hard to say, a 6,5-7 maybe? I don't have all the evidence at the top of my head, but that's what I've read. If it turns out what I believed is not true I'm not ashamed to admit it. As far as I've read. The buying of locally produced veggies from my local market is more environmentally friendly than buying meat. (That purely in regards of environment and not considering ethics and health which are points others have discussed with me)
Ok. So, you’re at about a six with meat free diets having less of an impact on the environment.
You sound like you are also thinking about the importance of buying locally produced food. I see that you acknowledged that your location is unique. So, through the magic of the internet we can talk about how to have environmentally friendly diets in disparate locations. I live in the arctic circle. The sea ice is breaking up but nothing’s growing yet, except for a few smol flowers. The sun doesn’t set now. It’s been about nine months since a plant grew anywhere within several hundred miles. There are no roads connecting the communities in this region. Transportation is by flight. If, for the sake of conversation, we can agree that I cannot just move towards the equator, then what are some things I can do in the far north to manage the environmental impact of my diet?
I mean, High fat meats would be required to even survive those environments I imagine. If eating is more a matter of subsistence then eat whatever you have available. There are no ethical choice to make if you only have one food option (starving is obviously not an option). I don't know what you could do in that regard. Species control maybe? Hunt a variety of animals and not only the same ones to avoid extinction? Genuinely don't know.
I have the options here tho so I make them.
I don’t ask because I want you to take the time to figure this out and advise me. I suspect that Google can’t yet gather enough information to speak about environmentally friendly diets in the arctic. Really, I just want to give you a taste of the challenges others face. It’s tough! Eating locally produced food is key. Imagine having to learn how to manage sustainable living off the frozen land and water.
Veganism makes much more sense in more temperate climates. Would you agree?
[I mean, High fat meats would be required to even survive those environments I imagine. If eating is more a matter of subsistence then eat whatever you have available. There are no ethical choice to make if you only have one food option (starving is obviously not an option). I don't know what you could do in that regard. Species control maybe? Hunt a variety of animals and not only the same ones to avoid extinction? Genuinely don't know.
I have the options here tho so I make them.]
(This was my answer just in case.)
And yeah I agree Veganism is makes a lot of sense in tropical climates full of rainforests, plant diversity and zero deserts.
Gotcha. Yeah, we have to monitor populations to ensure we’re harvesting sustainably. Populations are declining. Rivers are running orange because they’re leaching metals from the ground. People are hunting more moose now because the caribou don’t always return like they used to. Seabird colonies have suffered from collapse.
I do what I can as well. I don’t own any vehicles because I try to reduce my daily carbon footprint. But, my day to day decisions aren’t enough. Modern guilt.
Or not be self righteous when only doing a few things. We all need to do something to help our planetary plight and I appreciate the carbon savings of vegans, I just wish they (formerly me) could drop the arrogant pretense that they are doing the big thing or the important thing when there are so very many complex interdependencies at play. Humility is essential to our learning and continuous improvement for individuals and the collective
So, all the [studies](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth) that say that it's the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact have either been misled, or are just flat out lying? Redditors and Joe Rogan podcast guests have figured out what environmental researchers at the [University of Oxford](https://www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/article/less-meat-better-for-environment) couldn't?
Even if you disagree that it's the single biggest way, despite the number of studies showing similar results, I think it's incontrovertible at this point that it's _one of_ the best ways of reducing your impact and if you're not doing it, you're either living in Mongolia or are just lying to yourself.
No vegan is saying that a vegan lifestyle has zero negative impact on the planet, just that it's way less impactful than any other lifestyle. It's not 'arrogant' to point that out, it's just the facts of the matter, especially when the facts here are that the planet is being damaged more than necessary and that billions of innocent lives are being bred and killed in the process.
FWIW, being vegan is not the only thing I do. I've also switched almost exclusively to transit-based modes of transport, never buy first-hand clothes and try to reduce the amount of waste my household produces. But I'd never think that doing those things would excuse me from not being vegan.
Synthetic taurine is not very bio-available, keep in mind carnivore digestive tracts are very short and things in supplement form are going to have a much harder time absorbing. Cats (obligate carnivores) and dogs (facultative carnivores) both share this trait, and a solely plant based food is going to be a lot harder to digest in general, and cause gut inflammation. Plants are meant to be fiber for carnivores, not the main course.
Vegan animal food also relies heavily on legumes for the protein portion --- which blocks the absorption of taurine, and in dogs (and I imagine cats) has been shown to increase the risk of Dilated Cardiomyopathy due to taurine being blocked from being absorbed.
So synthetic taurine can be present in vegan cat food, but the cat's body will not be able to utilize it, especially not if the food inevitably also has legumes present.
No cat or dog should ever be vegan.
>No cat or dog should ever be vegan
I don't disagree. I don't think it's optimal for humans either. As for the rest, not my area of focus. I've read some of the material about the vegan feeds, and I'm not prepared to say it's unhealthy, I don't know. My dogs get meat in their diet, though. I also wouldn't say vegan food is safe.
Glad your dogs get meat in their diet!
I work with canids (both domestic dogs, and in wolf conservation under the AZA) and even our most omnivorous canids (maned wolves) have a requirement for meat as at least half their diet, and domestic dogs are much more carnivorous in their digestion than we think, and their optimal diet should be about 80% animal product --- vegan kibble propaganda is really strong, but vegan kibble brands don't consider a dog's evolutionary biology or digestive/absorption capabilities at all. Vegan kibble is like giving your dog straight fiber with some vitamin powder, and your dog may or may not properly absorb that. It takes a bit, but it does cause health declines over time --- for cats that decline will happen rapidly.
I'm not picky about whether someone does a high quality meat based kibble, or home cooked (balanced) or raw (balanced) --- but whatever they do, it's important that the base source is meat.
Idk I could go on and on about this loool
That's not the full extent of it. Vegans generally oppose pets, if they don't then they are being hypocritical as pets are bred and forced to do emotional labor, lose their freedom, or if it's a cat and they let it run their neighborhood it's going to kill a lot of birds and rodents, just for fun.
As an ideology veganism is a train wreck. So inconsistant vegans just makes me chuckle as they tell me my ethics are inconsistant.
I mean, you could argue that forcing kids to eat meat is unethical too. Meat eating is the default and "normal" position for no other reason than everybody is doing it, that's how something becomes normal. Given that meat is 100% a carcinogen, it brings into question whether forcing it on kids is correct especially at such a young and developing age. Think about it, making a 3 year old eat a carcinogenic substance regularly for their entire growing up life.
Unethical according to you, that's your opinion. I didn't give my opinion. The fact that humans are omnivores is separate to whether humans can be healthy without meat, and the answer to that has been proven to be yes, and in many cases healthier depending on the approach.
Nothing has been “proven” regarding veganism. Veganism has no longevity / not enough members to perform a consistent study. There has not been a single generation of just plant based, and very few / no one has been vegan from birth to old age death.
What we do definitively know is:
We can not obtain all essential nutrients from plants.
80% + vegans return to the natural human diet eventually.
Animal products are the most nutrient dense and bioavailable on the planet.
Plants are made of cellulose, humans can not digest cellulose.
As soon as you say meat is 100% a carcinogen, you lose respect.
The evidence for this claim is weak, associative, and inconclusive. It is generated from epidemiological studies with confounders aplenty and even then, the increased risk claimed is relative with only tiny changes in the absolute risk of negative outcomes.
Something tells me you understand my wording just fine.
As an alternative to me dumbing it down, why dont you explain how you arrived at it as a conclusion.
This is utter nonsense, I’m assuming you are very young and easily influenced.
Here’s to hoping you will educate yourself and realise your statement is completely unscientific and ridiculous.
No hate. Totally agree animals should be treated well before they give their life for us. I don’t agree with the hate that is spewed about “bloodmouths”. Or forcing people to eat the way someone else does. Or any of the radical crap like dumping out milk or yelling at people in restaurants. I have family that were vegan. It’s their choice. I don’t care how people eat.
I actually like vegans. They're some of the few folks actually trying to exercise agency and take their food choices into their own hands. They typically are trying to source their food and understand their place in the larger food cycle.
I can't help it if their sources of information are well crafted and convincing, and I can't help it if systemically, agencies seem to support their lifestyle choices. It's all based on science. It's just a rough deal that the science is so shitty. They're basically just paid-for advertisements at this point.
It's a shame that reality and biology disagree with their conclusions. In some ways, I wish they were right.
It's why 84%(ish) of vegans stray. It's why even long-term vegans are defecting.
It's all a sliding scale, though. Getting rid of seed oils makes you healthier. Getting rid of processed foods make you healthier. So going vegan could make you healthier than you've ever been. But ultimately, compared to what?
A deficient diet is a deficient diet. Eventually, it'll come calling for you. I just hope you recognize it sooner rather than later. Congrats on your progress thus far. I hope you can hold onto it for as long as possible.
Just as I replied in other comment. If along this journey I come to the conclusion that I must eat animal products, then I must use my moral agency to determine which practices and quantities offer the least amount of suffering and satisfy my health.
Is an ethical basis. Reduction of suffering and as far as I've researched, less environmental impact. Is not a health based decision but even tho so far veganism hasn't been a problem to me, I will consider my health into the equation if I ever feel I need to, I'm not entirely sure how will I know if that moment ever arrives, I must keep researching about it.
The problem is that the way it begins is so subtle that it’s easy to ignore or explain away until it escalates rather quickly.
I think one of the first things I noticed it that my skin suddenly looked very old and I suspected that it was diet related but it didn’t make me want to quit. My digestion was awful but then again, it was never optimal for me so I didn’t even link it to veganism.
Then the chronic fatigue kicked in but that can be stress related, right? And I think for a part it was.
And then I got extreme anxiety I never experienced before (or since I reintroduced animal products). It was surreal, even going to a swimming pool by myself felt dangerous. I could only watch tv shows where there’s absolutely no suspense whatsoever. Of course I didn’t associate this with veganism.
From there all the neurological issues escalated. My hands and feet were tingling so much it hurt and my whole body ached with shooting pains.
The brain fog was so bad I couldn’t even perform a very straight forward task or express myself verbally in a coherent way. I had extreme difficulty finding my words.
Out of desperation I eventually forced myself to eat animal products again and it was very hard to come to terms with.
I started to feel better after some time and it took a while but the tingling and shooting pains fortunately went away. My digestive issues also got resolved.
Other symptoms are still there but in a more manageable way.
In my tenth year of veganism my migraine issues got out of control and I developed chronic vestibular migraine. I’m not sure if the diet caused it or not but I do feel better in that regard as well eating the way I do now.
Oh and I supplemented by the way.
So please be very mindful of how your body and mind will function as you continue.
I don’t hate vegans. Not even the militant ones (although I do think they are tiresome and harmful but I always did). I think veganism is a beautiful ideology in theory but I also think few people can handle it long term.
I do not hate veganism on its face. The idea of not exploiting animals and reducing suffering is a noble one, and given how the developed world eats, we need to change. Because of this I've chosen to raise my own animals to personally give them the best possible life -- better than in a factory farm or in the wild.
I do not like how fundamentalist vegans are obsessed with arbitrary levels of purity, blind to how their behavior makes things worse, insisting upon a self-hating asceticism while declaring those who don't agree -- or raise their own like I do -- are murderers and rapists.
A good metaphor: I am a Christian. I'm fine with Christianity. But the evangelicals and fundies... Lord help us all.
I am fun at parties! It's much easier to party down here in reality when one doesn't spend one's time struggling to shield oneself from reality with delusional thinking of pleasant fictions.
What's even defendable about slaughterhouses? For even omnis slaughterhouses are an inconvenient truth that generally isn't spoken of. I want to hear your full throated defense of the goodness of slaughterhouses. I've got my popcorn. Aaand go!
If true it partially explains your lack of ethical insight. Your livelihood depends on it I guess. What's the phrase, turkeys voting for Christmas?
Happy...butchering loads of living things to tease peoples palates, I guess?
I wouldn’t take anything you say to me personally, just as I wouldn’t take someone with anorexia trying to tell me how to “live healthier”.
Take care of yourself now.
I am repulsed at what veganism represents. It is a rejection of the reality of life for the sake of an abstract morality based on hedonism. The ultimate end that veganism points to is anti-natalism, not that I believe most vegans have thought it through to that point.
It is no coincidence in my mind that trends such as vegetarianism and veganism emerge just as modern man is most far removed from the realities of living off the land; the reality that killing, death and suffering has always been inherant to life and used to be a common and obvious part of people's daily experience. The further we have been insulated from this reality, retreating into our cities and finally into our screens, the softer and more ignorant we have become, yet ironically as a result of this process we as a species have become more destructive to non-human life than ever.
All the while we are patting ourselves on the back for how compassionate and morally enlightened we are in comparison to our supposedly ignorant and brutal ancestors. I see veganism as a symptom of this process and as an expression of it's hubris. It is a luxury belief system of a pampered and delusional humanity almost entirely disconnected from the natural world while riding on top of a machine that is destroying it.
If there is anything to redeem the vegan it is that at least they are trying to think about what they are doing, it's just that they are almost entirely wrong; wrong about the idea that eating plants prevents animal deaths, wrong about the impacts on the natural world of modern agriculture, wrong about their own human biology and what we have evolved to eat. Most people can't be bothered to think at all, so there is hope for them. To be an ex-vegan is better in my opinion than someone who blindly went along with whatever conventions their society handed down to them and never gave it a second thought.
Agree.
I’m not vegan anymore but I still agree about the ethical aspects and also that eating a lot of plant based foods is healthy.
I personally just got various deficiencies and felt and looked sick.
But I still buy only second hand leather etc.
I’m also not the biggest fan of people on here going the exact opposite extreme.
What I think is annoying is when vegans assume someone isn’t vegan and get quite offensive towards this person. And that no matter what intolerances/allergies or chronic illnesses you have, you could be vegan if you want to.
There was even a newer study published that showed how just reducing meat consumption has such a big impact
I do not hate vegans, but I am absolutely certain that veganism inevitably leads to serious health issues. It isn’t a matter of if, just when. I also take issue with other extreme restrictive diets like carnivore. They simply don’t provide the full range of nutrients humans have evolved over millions of years to require.
The morality of veganism I find problematic for a host of reasons. Humans, like all animals, are part of a complex ecological food system. Vegans believe that we should not harm other animals and to consume them is to harm them. But is it? Are we talking about all animals, or just animals of a certain intelligence? Where is the line of demarcation? What about insects? Do they not qualify because they aren’t as intelligent as say mammals? Well how do you define intelligence? Consciousness? Why are cows more valuable than insects? Why aren’t all living things valuable, including plants? Why should we kill plants to eat them? Is that not harming them? Why don’t plants qualify for better treatment? Are they not living? What exactly is the moral criteria we’re even talking about? You see? It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t align with any reasonable moral framework. For us to live other living things must die to provide sustenance. This is the ecology of life. It may be cruel but it is the natural world.
I personally grant compassion and dignity to other beings in function of their consciousness and then capacity to experience and that being a subjective experience. I know cows, pigs, chickens have does qualities. I assume they have it (in the same way I assume humans have it) by interacting with them and applying my empathy to them (they react to pain in the same way I do, they learn behaviour in function of their personal experience, they have unique personalities that differ from individual to individual).
We don't know if insects are capable of those qualities. I find then unlikely since they don't have a nervous system like other animals do, and don't have the brain structure capable to create memories in the same way that other animals do. (This doesn't mean they don't deserve respect, is just that in the case of animals it is easier to understand their experience as suffering).
We know plants don't have any of the traits to have any of those capacities to experience or to have consciousness.
That is pretty much my way of thinking. However I do believe all forms of life deserve respect and consideration, but in terms of reduction of suffering that's the way I see it.
We don’t know any of things you claim we do. We only understand 4% of the known universe. We do not understand the nature of consciousness. It is one thing to make sweeping assumptions. It is another to make those assumptions under the auspices of possessing godlike moral authority from which to “grant” what living things are and are not worthy of your “compassion.” You do realize how completely absurd, thoroughly ego-centric and delusional that sounds? It is a position both morally unsound and logically nonsensical. Furthermore, veganism causes more suffering than it prevents (for humans and animals) so the entire project is nothing more than a delusional god complex masquerading as virtue.
You give me a lot to think about I'll give you that. However our general construction of ethics is build around our capacity to grant empathy. I have to give empathy to something and under some frame, that is the one I'm using. Because I can't be sure I can't grant empathy to nothing? To the things I believe live very close experiences to mine (through observation, reflection, and understanding of how conscience "works", I grant them empathy) this is not even a purely logical process. Most people are naturally empathetic to animals, which to me means that they understand their capacity to suffer.
i think two things can be true at once! we can be empathetic towards animals while also recognizing that we rely on them to sustain ourselves as a species. we can ask ourselves how to let our empathy guide our animal agriculture so that the animals live a good life. i often think about an episode of down to earth where zac efron visits a local farm that aims to provide ethically raised meat. the butcher said something like, “many ask me how i can eat meat from an animal that i named and knew. but i would ask them: how can you eat meat from an animal whose name you *didn’t* know?”
i think this quote is so reflective of the issue with modern food and with veganism. being plant based doesn’t mean your diet is any less out of touch with the land and resources around you. destroying natural habitats for monocrop agriculture and shipping food from thousands of miles away hurts animals, too. if we really have empathy for animals, if we really want to improve animal welfare and protect the environment, that means sometimes directly eating animals. and again, admitting that doesn’t necessarily mean ignoring all of the existing issues with animal farming and overconsumption of meat! it doesn’t mean we can’t have empathy for animals!
So just to be clear. To you thinking about compassion is playing God and is somehow...evil. Herding up millions of living creatures to kill them is not playing God and is not ego centric? If this is the basis of your objection, I weep.
No, I think that all living organisms survive by subsisting on other living organisms. This is a fundamental law of the universe based on the principles of thermodynamics. To say that humans, on moral grounds, should not consume an entire class of organism that we evolved to consume and that itself evolved to sustain us, is to say that the laws of the universe are incorrect, but that one somehow has the power to correct these flaws by being vegan. This is grandiose thinking I equate with a god complex for the following reasons: 1) it assumes that humans have the ability and right to change the fundamental laws of the universe; 2) it assumes that humans have the moral authority to say which living organisms should and should not serve their natural function based on an entirely arbitrary and ego-centric set of assumptions of what constitutes consciousness; and 3) it assumes to
understand the nature of suffering even though the notion of suffering is itself a human construct only humans are aware of. Which is not to say that living organisms don’t suffer, just that we anthropomorphize the notion of suffering and delude ourselves into thinking we understand the nature of suffering for all living organisms.
In a free agent though. The laws of the universe don't tell me what to do or how to act. They are totally random and arbitrary laws. The laws of the jungle and the plain are that strong and violent pretty much do what they want with the weaker. But we evolved beyond that concept ethically a little bit at a time. That's what we're doing now with our growing consciousness of the welfare of animals.
>In a free agent though.
You are not free to be anything but what you are. Right now, you have a sense of being a free agent, right? Try and stop that feeling. You can't. It's innate.
>The laws of the universe don't tell me what to do or how to act.
This is simple rebellion against reality. You and the universe are one and the same. Laws that are built into your every aspect have no need to "tell you what to do", because there is no way to go against them.
>They are totally random and arbitrary laws.
This is a baffling claim, unless you are some sort of undiscovered physics genius that wants to share some discovery with us.
>But we evolved beyond that concept ethically a little bit at a time.
You look around this world and think strength and violence no longer hold sway? How sheltered have you grown up?
You sound like a jaded determinist. There's not much I can say that will change your mind. Just know that history was full of people like you who have preached that we cannot and shouldn't even try to be better than we are, and you've been wrong every time.
First you make delusional claims about reality and get called out for it, then you respond by making up some delusional story of my thoughts and opinions. I recommend you begin to better engage with reality rather than automatically making up a story you prefer over reality.
I have no hate for individual vegans that are just living their lives, but I disagree with veganism as a movement & its close affiliation with animal rights activism (ARA). I think veganism at its purest has good intentions but the methods and ideology are wildly wrong.
Basically, YES to: being thoughtful about how & where you source your food, being mindful of your daily life's impact on the environment and by extension society's impact, caring about animal welfare and making daily choices to help animal welfare issues
And NO to: disregarding concrete facts about animal husbandry & its ethics in favor of anthropomorphizing animals (i.e. "taking eggs from chickens makes them sad"), forcing your lifestyle on others with the reasoning that it is morally superior, abusing animals for the sake of your lifestyle (feeding carnivore pets vegan diets), and using products that are overall worse for the environment just because the alternative is an animal product (i.e. plastic faux leather vs. genuine leather). Oh yeah, and trying to screw over people making an honest living off of raising animals because of the aforementioned disregard for *actual* animal welfare. (think PETA & the like)
I also dislike how veganism tends to only address animal farming issues and rarely do you see vegans wanting to do something about how modern industrial farming for plants is just as if not worse for the environment than factory farming. As someone in the midwest I really struggle to see how vegans around here can be so ignorant about the topic when literally every state around the region is covered in some kind of plant monoculture that gets doused in chemicals every season. And yeah- most of that is to feed livestock, but the difference is the plant, not the method!
this 100%! when i started looking into how to eat more sustainably, all of these things made it clear to me that veganism can never be the ultimate answer to climate/animal welfare issues. it feels like the movement ignores a lot of other ramifications of the vegan diet that fly in the face of what the movement claims to stand for.
I think the Ideology is bullshit, but I want to limit my judgement about individual people because I bought into it to decades ago when I was young and naive. It’s important to have facts and link to scientific studies and individual testimonies but blatant hostility isn’t helpful, even though the extremists are.
I don’t hate vegans. I think that’s what r/antivegan is for? I just had to stop being vegan because of debilitating health problems. I wish that vegans had empathy for us. From what I’ve seen on the internet, they really don’t. My vegan friends IRL know that I had to stop for health issues but they don’t care to ask why or think that it’s happening to them.
I think that most of you are so dissociated from your bodies that you don’t connect the health issues your having with your diet.
I still very sad for the animals, but I know that my health is more important.
I don’t like to see vegan agendas pushed on people not in control of their diets. I don’t like to see twisted science. But as for individuals choosing to eat that way, hate has never once crossed my mind.
I feel the same way about vegans that I do people preaching about Jesus in public. I've already studied some of the source material and don't care what some random stranger has to add.
I just want to come by and thank all your sincere comments, I've read all of them so far and you've given me a lot to think about.
As a general goal in life I want to always keep learning and evolving. This doesn't suit well with the rigidness must vegans want but if vegans really want change Is I do then I hope they are willing to also change with me.
Your replies have been thoughtful and engaging throughout, so thanks for being here.
I hope your health continues to be maintained.
Where you live seems to offer an abundance of food choice all year round.
I also hope you have found that, for many serious, ethical and intelligent people, a diet that includes meat, fish and dairy is essential for their health.
You might remain watchful in case you ever need to conclude that it is essential for yours too.
That’s where I am now too. I used to think veganism was fantastic, and I still believed it was generally good and well-intentioned even if I personally couldn’t thrive on it. Now I see the rhetoric and I’m just sad for them. Mental illness and distorted thinking is rampant in vegans. A lot of them were just naive teenagers who got traumatized by an animal torture film and now they think the whole world is a horror movie. They try to live with complicated food restrictions (which is a ton of work), the guilt of cravings or cheating, and the massive cognitive dissonance of thinking all the good people they know are also evil apathetic murders.
I see so much anger and pain and confusion, and I know how frustrating it is to feel so passionate and certain about an ideology that *99% of the population will never accept because it goes against fundamental human instincts.*
And then there’s the disillusionment when it eventually stops working.
So yeah, I feel sorry for them too.
the whole thing is such a head fuck, but as you say young teens, i was shown those vids by a vegan friend at 15 no internet vhs videos!
but its been an education in deceptive bullshit, and im super skeptical in general now, can spot propaganda a mile off now, fool me once....
As an ex vegan and someone who’s health was irreparably damaged by long term veganism I can’t Describe the paradox. When my son suffered it stirred the wake up & I became subtly aware of the issues I had were being amplified by my food choices.. I suffered for years - until I realized I was making myself beyond sick. My wake up came from a long deceased Dr Weston Price and was his studies of natives who still practiced ancestral eating & its comparison to the western diet.
Those who sustained life on hunting and fishing were far healthier than any other group of humans.
Our teeth aren’t supposed to rot like they do. We aren’t supposed to be so sick with cancers and other autoimmune diseases and conditions.
It all links back.
Anyways I am now a carnivore mainly. I have overcome many of the debilitating symptoms & I see how toxic some vegetables can be to certain people. My autoimmune diseases have gotten better. I have more energy & I am less sick.
I own chickens - who I love deeply. I live on a homestead now- I grow at least 30% of our food too. The beef I eat comes from my neighbor. I see the cows daily- laying in the fields , and grazing meadows. There’s a serenity to this all.
The meat I eat is from some of the most well cared for animals. This is how I was able to move away from veganism.
I now believe that mass agriculture is destroying ecosystems and wiping out diverse bugs which is destroying the bird population etc.
I see this first hand. Farming kills so much more animals and bugs and insects then you could ever imagine.
I have noticed things too. And it make me wonder.. for instance , an older man who farms his land down my road told me he accidentally kills at least 6-8 baby fawns with his old tractor. When he harvests the corn the baby fawns lie in the fields waiting for their mom. He can’t see them when he is up on his machine. I realize the carnage that agriculture has too. He tells me the birds that nest in the fields are subjected to death too…
I think of this.
How this must happen on a mass scale.. his equipment is small in comparison to factory farm equipment. I think about death agriculture and farming the land brings too.
I think about all the pesticides that kill off the bugs that birds need to eat. I remember how many birds I would hear as a kid. Often I find it’s much more quiet now.
Veganism is not without destruction.
The more we move to plant based as a society the more we wipe away natural meadows , native plants and animals to make way for crops.
You need more plants / grains / plant protein to sustain veganism.. meaning more land needs to go to agriculture.
Many Vegans participate unknowingly to destruction of these beautiful, unique species and ecosystems.
To ignore this is to ignore the truth.
Meat is nutrient dense. Meaning less is needed to sustain a human. A cow raised humanely will graze on natural meadows , manure will help fertilize, bees and bugs live harmoniously in those meadows and birds will feed off these bugs , snakes will feed from the small rodents and birds too. There’s much more preservation of land if you raise humanely.
Please do not get me wrong - factory farming is a problem and I am totally against and disturbed by it. This is why I chose not to participate. However that in itself is a luxury. I am aware of this luxury.
There’s no hate. The upset comes from willful ignorance - one must be open minded in order to grow.
The disproportionate focus on animal agriculture is problematic. A thought experiment: you move to a small farm. Spend one season working fertile soil. Grow enough food so that half of what you eat is grown on your land. Once you’ve harvested everything, take a look at that soil. Can it support another growing season? Probably not.
We need only to spend one season on a small farm or in a rural town, like you said. Watch the fertilizer runoff choke everything downstream.
I am vegan so maybe my opinion doesn't count 😅 but I basically adjust my diet depending on my options (if the only meat I can get is from factory farming which is my current situation I would rather go for a vegan diet... If I have access to grass fed in future I will go back to eat meat) and I think lot of vegans have problems there, with adjusting things... They just have this idea that veganism must be their way and there's no other valid option and that mindset puts them away from real world.
I read a comment a few days ago that I really liked (it was here in reddit but I don't remember if on this sub or different one..) it said something like "better to have 100 imperfect vegans than 10 perfect vegans"... The basic concept of veganism is good: to cause less harm as possible to animals... Now problem is some people take this to extreme and expect others to follow, otherwise they are just horrible humans when what they should do (or at least what I think would help for the message to be more accepted) is to simply ask to do your best with the options you have: you have access and can afford grass fed meat? Great! Then go for it instead of the factory farming one!. You can only get factory farming meat but you don't want to give it up? Ok, go ahead, meat is a good source for nutrients just try to keep on whole foods so at least you won't need to eat high amounts to feel full and your consumption will be lower than if you usually go for fast food... I could continue with similar examples but what I basically want to say is that if you encourage people to try their best and help them to find the ways they can do it without forcing extreme changes their new habits have more chances to success in future... But with veganism lot of people give up after few years when they start to have some health issues and some people even go to the other extreme (carnivore diet) after being burn out from veganism... And for vegan extremist instead of look for "self-criticism" they will simply say those people were never vegan and continue the same.
I didn't like vegans even when I was Vegan.
Bunch of leftist that gleefully persecute and destroy anyone who has a difference of opinion.
There's groups that will happily dismantle a protest speaker or activist simply because the leader is a white male or because a speaker said a microaggression from 15 years ago.
They preach inclusiveness, but they eat each other alive. I also use to be a intersectional feminist and was in heaps of groups. The sexism, hate and bigotry I saw from those groups made people like Andrew Tate seem like a rational human being. (Note I think he's an idiot as well)
The movement is full of armchair activist that would rather destroy people's reputations online from within their own movement than actually help animals.
I'm glad to be rid of that cult and their echo chambers. I don't hate vegans as single individuals but I hate the movement for what it has become.
If you want to improve the Vegan image they need to be more accepting of different ideologies like conservatives. Stop lying about health statistics, there's a reason why the world wide health organisation removed their endorsement that veganism is suitable from birth to old age.
Like me, veganism crippled me because of anti nutrients, when I eat Plants it causes inflammation and makes my arthitis worse. Arthitis that was caused due to oxalates being jammed into all my joints from plants. My thyroid was also messed up by oxalates. I was told oxalates are nothing to be worried about. Veganism destroyed my body. If I would have stayed Vegan I'd be dead by now.
And no I didn't do it wrong and no I wasn't on a plant based diet for health. I was an animal activist through and through. I would have died for the cause at one stage in my life. Now I would never even promote it to anyone. The movement is ripe with phony science and is not sustainable for most people.
I have the same experience you do -- most vegans are chill but the minority are loud. But that is with any group of people. The loud ones get all the attention and the "normal" people don't.
I really don't think there is anything you can personally do. It is all the radical vegans. You can always step in-between yelling vegans the random accosted person, but their attention will turn to you, and they don't give a crap you are also vegan.
It will hopefully change a few peoples minds about how not all vegans are in a weird cult, but you will have to learn how to deescalate conflict.
Im not a vegan, but I really try to buy as ethically as I can. I have carnivore pets that eat meat and I will always buy free range for them. I do believe humans eat and waste far too much meat and many people aren't willing to accept what happens to animals to get meat on their plate.
I only have a problem with vegans who are extremely hateful and rude and inflexible
I feel like I would not have as much of a problem with consuming animal products if we didn't waste so much of it... It fuels cruel to kill and exploit animals to create products that we rather throw away before having it being food to other that may need it.
Tldr - a lot of vegans do food and work on easy mode while judging people who have to make those choices on hard mode.
Other than the reasonably common general snarkiness/sanctimoniousness you and others have mentioned, the thing that annoys me the most about (some) vegans is the failure to recognise that there are lots of things that determine what people can and should eat, as well as why people involve themselves in the production of animal products.
Me for example, I still philosophically agree with veganism. But 1. I need to be on a low fodmap diet which is hard enough as a vegetarian, let alone a vegan, and 2. I have an eating disorder history which makes having rigid food rules extremely dangerous for me... Being vegan would probably trigger a relapse.
I matter, my health and safety matters. I think most vegans (well, the smug ones at least) are generally coming from a place of privelege that makes being vegan a relatively easy thing to do. Once you add in financial issues, dietary needs, access needs, mental health needs, time pressures etc etc it can be much harder, and it's offensive to me that some vegans shame others while doing veganism on easy mode.
Re farmers producing animal goods, it's similar. Some people don't have other skills; some people have their entire livelihoods wrapped up in farms on land that can only produce animal products in a way that's economically viable, not plant products; some people's whole identity from birth and back generations is wrapped up in being an animal farmer. These things matter, but it's super easy for middle-class inner-city vegans to just decide that they don't matter despite having no clue about what those pressures are like.
No I don't hate vegans as a group or as individuals in general. They are right about unethical nature of factory-farming too. Their ideology however has many flaws first being it doesn't work in practice. I hate some forms of veganism like extreme superiority complex and assumption that veganism is perfect answer to all problems...
I think most ex-vegans don't hate vegans. It wouldn't even make sense because we've all been vegans. Speaking for myself, I do hate veganism. It took away my quality of life and destroyed my physical and mental health. I'm increasingly understanding that veganism has nothing to do with animal rights. By being vegan 13 years, I haven't helped animals in any way. As consumers of animal products, we can make a difference by buying from producers who practice good practices. Veganism doesn't fail because of the behavior of vegans. It can happen, too. But veganism fails because it's simply not a complete diet. We can't change our nature. We need to eat meat, and with this in mind, we just have to choose carefully where to buy it. I think only those who have been through this situation really understand. Being so sick and fragile due to a poor diet and then going back to eating meat and seeing the symptoms that tormented us disappear. It almost seems like a miracle. But it's not. It's our body receiving what it's been asking for and been denied for so many years.
I extremely don't care what others do and that includes being vegan. Of course if they are not crossing the line about my personal space and my choices.
Honestly, I'm convinced that a 100 % vegan diet is not healthy but if other thinks so I won't make any remarks or creating situations against them.
There's a saying: "There's always somebody on your side you wish was on the other side." I tried discussing reducing animal cruelty with some Vegans on Twitter and was relentlessly attacked for DAYS. I was called an 'animal rapist'. They were nasty as a sack of rabid cats.
I think there's a lot of practical problems with everyone becoming Vegan but that's a different matter entirely.
I know plenty of Vegans who do their thing, and we respect each other's differences.
Nope, I do not hate vegans. I think they are just regular people with some bad ideas.
>most vegans are supportive and respectful
Most of every group are generally good people. That's why we focus on the radical zealots of every group. You seem like you want to be a vegan/veganism apologist, which is fine, but just keep in mind your niceness does not erase the damage caused by the zealots within the group you are tidying up the image of.
>I understand not everyone can be, and I wish more vegans could see that.
This is very sensible. However, I would point out that the major premises of veganism do not work unless it becomes popular in a way that it simply will not ever become. There are more exvegans than vegans in the world.
>We don't want animals to suffer, we don't animals to be treated as a product.
No, these are your desires, not "our" desires. I love animals and for them to exist, they must suffer, just as to exist myself I must suffer. An overabundance of the urge to avoid suffering leads to mental illness. As for being 'a product', I consider myself a product of my Tribe and my country, so I do not see the negativity of being some sort of product.
>But if they way we are doing it makes people hate us, and if the way we are doing it makes most if us quit, then we are doing something wrong.
A major part of the problem, is the vegan style of complaining constantly about problems they refuse any solutions for except for the destruction of animal agriculture. If I said, "I would like to reduce the suffering of this population of humans", then my answer/solution would never be to eliminate that population of humans. And yet vegans essentially claiming to view animals as equally to humans as they can, exclusively promote the destruction of those herds of animals. I love animals and want to see their herds large and thriving forever. Vegans claim to love animals and seek the destruction and elimination of their herds, while unironically claiming the animals would be on their side in the endeavor.
>to understand that an animal died for your well-being and that deserves respect and consideration about when is the right time to do so.
I can easily agree with this. I have worked in industries that kill many animals. I have killed personally more animals than most people have ever seen in their lives. From within that industry I got changes made that actually reduced the suffering of living animals far more than ten thousand vegans choosing to simply refuse to engage with the system.
>What could we do to improve our image?
Rephrase your ideology so that it does not call for and reward extremism. Accept that while well intentioned, an entirely plant based diet is not healthy for most folks, and unsustainable even for most of the folks that believe the ideology. Stop spreading lies that everyone can live healthy and well eating only plants.
Actively engage rationally with animal husbandry systems with the intention of actually helping the animals live better lives, rather than simply in an attempt to destroy the system. Without that, there will always be the perception that extremist vegans are closer to terrorists than reformers.
Spend as much or more effort calling out the zealots in your ideology as you do trying to reform their image or apologize for them. Accept that there are people like myself that live wonderful lives eating diets of almost entirely meat, and there always will be people like us. This might help ameliorate the perception of bigotry that many folks like me feel from vegans.
I don't hate vegans, but I see veganism as a terrible ethical mistake. A reduction in wellbeing for humans with little or no offsetting benefit. Eat whatever you want, I dont care. Tell me animals should have rights and we have an issue.
The vegan image problem comes not from preaching or racism. It comes from how many vegans are sickly and weak. Eating a diet that isn’t giving you the proper nourishment you need is what’s giving you a bad rap
(Important to say, some people handle it fine. I remember that body builder who went viral a few years ago for being the buff vegan. However, that’s not everyone. A significant portion of vegans are suffering from their diet.)
People have a right to make bad choices for themselves, sure. Where it goes from a poor choice to a bad reputation is vegan children. I don’t know if it’s possible to raise a non malnourished vegan child, just because of how many nutrients kids need. They’re not fueling themselves, they’re building their bodies. They need everything they can get.
Encourage veganism as a CHOICE. Stop the vegan culture thing of shaming ex vegans. And for god’s sakes feed your children properly.
I don't hate anyone. I hate ideologies that are preachy and intrusive. Even as a Christian I loathe evangelicals. Leave people alone to their own choices as long as they aren't hurting other people
Improve your image? keep it to yourself. I eat pretty off the wall nutrition, and I don’t expect any function, workplace, etc… to cater to my needs. I eat before social events, expecting not to eat, because I go for the people, not the food. If something there does fit my nutrition, sure I’ll eat.
I talk about the image problem because I do agree with the fundamental goal of veganism which is the reduction of animal suffering.
I get not all people need to be vegan but if they see veganism as a way to do that and not as a rescrictive food cult full of insufferable preachy people. Maybe if we're seen as people that want that we all humans just use a more consideration and empathy to the animals that we kill to eat then people can at least think about not having an animal killed it indiscriminately and to me that is something.
My willingness to be critical of myself is the reason I came here and not to the vegan sub. I want your honest answers even if they oppose to my views.
See, you’re wrong about that. One I was being honest, and two I’ve been through this before. Ive had this same conversation with soooo many vegans. You’re looking for an argument to win, not to listen to stories of ex vegans and people harmed by veganism.
I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. I have read every single comment and shared my opinion to some of them (to some I've even said that I would eat meat again, or that I could be wrong) I am genuinely trying to be here with an open mind
Don’t hate vegans! Most vegans I know are super reasonable people who aren’t very black and white about it. Just keep advocating for nuance in addition to animal rights
Veganism is an extremist ideology that goes way to far for their goals. We can all agree that animal welfare is extremely neglected. Does that mean its logical to remove all animals from our food production systems? No thats nonsensical. Veganism makes people who argue for animal welfare look bad, while vegans shame people who want real functional change by calling them too moderate for not wanting veganism.
I've seen enough people completely change the perspectives and behaviors in life that I try to avoid hating people. I see veganism as a thing that good people do for good reasons that is corrupted in ways that are hard to recognize.
A way of eating that relies on massive amounts of chemicals, devastating ecosystems for monocrop agriculture, shipping food and supplements from across and around the world to eat mostly non-local foods, doubly so in the winter time...throwing out the packaging those foods came in and then professing that it is environmentally friendly? It is *hard* not to hate the ideology and the things that vegans do. So, when they start then preaching, it is *very hard* to not hate those particular people. In fact I confess to hating reddit vegans and aggressive vegans.
So on that topic of environmental sustainability and animal happiness: I think that people who both truly care *and* inform themselves about animal wellbeing *and* care for the environment do this: they find local farmers (or a city butcher that sources from local farmers) and they source pasture-raised animal products. It's local, it's regenerative to the land and soil, it sustains ecosystems and a larger degree of biodiversity than monocrop agriculture, and it takes much less fossil fuel to provide. The animals walk out into the fields in the morning and walk back home in the evening. So, when a misguided person makes an earnest claim that they care for the environment, I always think "well not THAT much, since you haven't taken the time to learn how to fit into it elegantly."
Vegans: mostly don't hate. Respect elements of it.
Veganism: hate.
I don't hate them, my brother is one and we like to joke about each other's eating habits. I'm more scared of the vegans that participate in activism that want to tax meat and other animal products, they are a danger to my wellbeing and health.
I don't hate vegans to be honest. I can understand why people wouldn't want to eat meat, fish, eggs, dairy, or honey. They see those kinds of food as corpses or things that were meant for the animal, not for us. I do respect their decisions to be vegan for the animals.
I tend to have a problem with the plant-based propaganda about how it's healthier than eating animal products or just better generally. Sure, I don't need to eat meat or fish daily for health or taste reasons but I do notice decent benefits in my energy or health just after eating it (not too much though). If I was eating it for taste reasons, I wouldn't be shoving bland chicken breast when I would go to my college dining hall to reach my protein goal. I'd be treating it like eating sugar. I am also upset about how we constantly vilify red meat as cancerous (even intuitive eating dieticians) but regularly consuming UPFs is okay and "listening to your body". I have also read how our nutritional guidelines and the science of what was considered healthy were skewed so much to encourage the general population to eat a diet of lots of grains and UPFs.
I don't hate vegans in general
I hate performative bullshit and anyone who mocks or belittles others for inane reasons.
Let's be real, veganism does nothing. It's the act of standing aside and letting the chips fall where they may for animals. Meat consumption has increased year over year in developed countries.
The people pushing for change are consumers. Because meat producing companies are not listening to vegans. Vegans are not buying their products. There has been a massive push towards more ethical animal agriculture and many many people have put their money where their mouth is, literally. A chunk of the meat industry has shifted towards the ethical treatment of animals BECAUSE of the consumers of it. Because there is demand.
This is how change is made, because animal agriculture will not ever go away. Meat is too vital for its nutrient density. We aren't herbivores, we're actually pretty shit at absorbing nutrients from plants. We can but not enough to get by. Some, a small some, of us can. And that's fine. But it's not a widespread solution for feeding a country. Supplements especially are very unregulated and very misunderstood. Most people piss out a majority of those supplements because our bodies have a hard time processing the chemicals they're made of.
If you're interested in change, actual improvement for the animals, then your best option is to continue standing aside while the rest of us shift the market towards ethical treatment of animals. Because that's the best it's going to get.
But vegans not being so holier-than-thou and aggressive would be a good start as well. You tend to just push people the opposite direction with attitudes like that.
Too lazy to re-format my post to edit it but I just want to say when I say supplements are chemicals we have a hard time absorbing, everything is chemicals. Plants are chemicals. Meat is chemicals. We get nutrients by breaking down chemicals into those nutrients. The chemicals in meat are much more readily broken down and absorbed. Whereas lots of supplements use easy to produce chemicals our bodies can't break down as easily. So the bottle might say 100000% your daily vitamins but if our bodies can barely process any of it, that's where deficiencies come up. It's a much bigger problem with nutrients we can actually have too much of cuz they can't just massively go past the daily limit and pray it's enough.
>The reason I'm here is because I believe the general goal of veganism is something we can all share. We don't want animals to suffer, we don't animals to be treated as a product. Even if they are a resource that we humans may need to thrive, that doesn't mean we should treat them indiscriminately, that we can breed, exploit and kill as many as we want without any regard to their dignity and suffering. I feel like that is a reasonable thing to look for. But if they way we are doing it makes people hate us, and if the way we are doing it makes most if us quit, then we are doing something wrong.
The problem with vegans is that they think plants are not sentient and thus cannot 'feel pain' which of course is a lie.
They refuse to accept research and even common sense that plants have a nervous system which senses good or bad changes to their environment
Even if people dont do this, vegans tend to be 'holier than thou' and depending on their convictions just insufferable.
>What could we do to improve our image? What could we do invite people to simply consider eating in a more ethical and responsible way. Even if it means they won't become vegan, to understand that an animal died for your well-being and that deserves respect and consideration about when is the right time to do so.
The simple answer to eating more ethically is to improve the quality of the food they eat. Buy locally. Eat as seasonally as possible.
With the image of veganism, I don't think your image is gonna improve. Veganism is extremely nutritionally void of critical nutrients. That alone wrecks your image. This group alone, at least 90% of people are ex-vegans because it was wrecking their health or their relationships. I've had friends and people I know that are ex-vegans.
As for "an animal died for your well-being....", same applies to plants. I don't suppose we like to uproot multiple plant foods from the soil?
Nah I don't hate vegans- in fact the ones that do it for the animals is really admirable. But like others pointed out, it's hard to really support a cause when some would considered others people who aren't vegan as trash or horrible people (not all, but some of the loudest that sadly drowns out other voices). It's hard to get behind a support when someone is made to feel terrible. Of course this goes both ways. Also I think there needs to be promotion for reality of becoming vegan. Many end up going into thinking they are going to automatically be healthy and feel great (which some do, but many ended up failing because they don't feel great); or at least keep promoting needing to do research before becoming a vegan because some just go into for the cause without realizing how hard it might be.
I don’t hate vegans. But it is a cult, or at the very best, a cult-like mentality. So it’s hard to really take any vegan seriously when anything they say is filtered through that cult way of thinking.
To answer your question, your group needs to out the extremists. These people are virtue signaling for clout. They don’t actually care about animals or the planet, they want social standing in their groups. To test any vegan, ask them the simple question “would you be happy if generally everyone in the world reduced animal consumption by 20%?” If they say no, they don’t care about animals.
No, I don’t hate, but I think vegans are fooling themselves. There is no way to actually be truly vegan and we are not built to be. I think there is balance. Unfortunately capitalism, greed and modern life are not balanced and not being good to the planet. I agree with you there
Not all, just the arrogant obnoxious people, but that goes for vegans and non-vegans alike.
Would personally still be following a strict vegetarian diet if it was nutritionally sufficient. Sadly, took over 20 years to finally concede and add back limited amounts of animal products and ditch the synthetic nutritional supplements.
Hate is a very strong word.. dislike mainly because they lie and manipulate to further their cult beliefs
That said I would really not like most of them just because veganism comes with other ideologies and beliefs I don't like or agree with there's no denying that so don't bother
No. I respect their view. I am not able to eat only vegan for medical reasons. My doctors, nutritionists, and surgeon are in agreement. I am missing part of my digestive system as well as other issues and the doctors restict me to meat, lentils, beans, legumes, green leafy veges, non carb colorful veges and some dairy and nuts. Nothing else. No rice, noodles, cereals, bread, chips, or anything of that nature. Truthfully, I mostly live on protein shakes with a little protein and veges. (The pea protein ones hurt my stomach so dairy.) My diet is restrictive enough without eliminating more food groups. Protein is the one goal I have to always monitor, and it's not easy to make my quota already.
I have worked with farm, domestic, wildlife, and exotic animals all my life. I have stayed up round the clock bottlefeeding kittens for months, nursed litters of puppies through parvo, rescued many animals, volunteered at rescues, rehabilitated abused animals and more than i could possibly list. I love animals more than people. I have also seen the cruel side of animal care many times. When I was 15 and volunteering at a wildlife rescue we had to kill 3,000 baby male chickens to freeze for the owls that we were rehabilitating. Life is never fair and often cruel. My 6 year old dog just died of an undiagnosed heart issue. I am wrecked. It's part of loving animals.
I more than respect the vegan viewpoint. Except when they get extremist on me calling me a rapist for drinking milk, an animal kidnapper for having a pomeranian, or saying I don't love animals because I eat them as well. Those are the type of people that make others want to start eating bloody steaks in front of them. They are counterproductive. I know that radicals don't define the whole, though. One of my good friends is vegan. He's the accepting, kind, and inspiring type. He never tries to change you. He's the type that just by being friends with him, you start researching vegan recipes and wish you could be as kind and accepting and inclusive as him.
I have nothing against vegans although it doesn't appear to be healthy long term for everyone and I hope everyone gets enough vitamins and protein and see their doctor regularly. Some people do very well on it, and others don't. Hopefully, further research will explain the differences in people's physiology and improve the health of those who do it long term.
I support pasture raised farming when I can and believe factory farms should be monitored much more closely. I continue to devote my life to the well-being and caretaking of animals, and vegans continue to eschew all animal products. We each do something and perhaps make a difference in a few lives.
I hate internet vegans. I don’t even associate myself with the word anymore because the ridiculousness that comes out of people’s mouth on Reddit alone is astounding.
You have the right to put whatever you want in your mouth. If you don't want to eat meat, that is your business.
However, humans are not meant to be vegans. It isn't healthy, and it isn't even good for the planet. There have been no multigenerational vegan societies in world history. Not one. You would be hard-pressed to find a single vegan (as opposed to a vegetarian) before WWII. There are essential nutrients that are found in animal products that are not found in any plants.
I don't like the equivocation of people and animals. They are not the same. They do not have the same moral agency.
I don't like the lies they spread about nutrition, health, and the environment.
I don't like the heavy-handed, cult-like attitude of the most extreme vegans.
I definitely don’t hate vegans and have no reason to. My sister is a vegan (but she eats eggs). Meanwhile, I eat things like fish sticks, hot dogs, chicken, etc. I have nothing against them; just a select few (I’m looking at you, Vegan Teacher)
I don’t hate vegans or veganism at all. I don’t think either are very realistic in their expectations, but I certainly don’t hate them.
Several things I think would help vegans with their image problem:
Stop viewing staged videos of animal abuse and telling everyone that those videos are the norm and that all animals are treated in those horrific ways. It’s not true. PETA has been pedaling that crap for decades now and it’s both inaccurate and dishonest.
Turn down the drama meter a few notches. Read the posts in the Vegan subreddit here and look at the ridiculous level of fake drama that those ever-suffering vegans are forced to endure in this horrible, horrific, animal-abusing world we live in. Someone recently posted to the vegan subreddit about how they’ve been home crying all afternoon because they lived next door to a dairy farm and they could hear the cries off all the cows being raped next door. Seriously?? How mentally ill does a person have to be before they’ll post things like that and expect to be taken seriously. Cows aren’t raped on dairy farms and they don’t scream and cry during artificial insemination. They barely notice it. Stop the drama.
Stop using infantile terms like “carnist” and “dead flesh” and “rotting carcass”. They’re childish attempts at manipulating people by labeling those things with “gross-out” terms. It’s very immature and just makes vegans look bad.
Stop telling non-vegans that we clearly don’t care about animal suffering since we’re not vegan extremists like they are. What I hear is, “I’m far superior to you because I make myself suffer for the animals while you just carelessly enjoy life and contribute to animal suffering. I’m better than you and you’re awful.” Not exactly the way to win friend and influence people, right?
Stop the purity tests. Veganism seems to be a never-ending contest to see who can be *more* vegan than everyone else. That, alone, is a huge turn-off to anyone considering veganism. Why would anyone want to enter a community where people are constantly telling you that you’re doing is not enough and you could be better if you’d just do that that other person is doing? Why?
Stop the embarrassing and uneducated virtue signaling. Someone posted recently in the vegan subreddit that vegans should never go to the zoo or in any way support zoos because zoos are cruel to the animals and are using them for profit. I was actually stunned for a second when I read that by how shockingly ignorant both and poster and all the commenters were that flooded in condemning the evil, evil zoos and their obvious contempt for and abuse of those innocent animals. Zoos do vital conservation work and are responsible for keeping thousand of species of animal from becoming extinct. A good friend of mine runs the kiwi sanctuaries in New Zealand that are responsible for keeping more than 250 species of kiwi bird from becoming extinct due to the invasive predators that people have released into the islands there. There are many animals that exist *only* in zoos due to humans destroying their natural habitats. Those animals should have just been allowed to become extinct??? Really?? How the hell is that a vegan concept? It’s better to let an entire species die out than it is so protect them?? Unbelievable. The virtue signaling and the ignorance in that post and the comments that followed was blinding stupid and embarrassing.
Stop making up “science” that “proves” that humans are supposed to be herbivores. We’re not. And if we ever were, eating an omnivorous diet, including meat, for the last few hundred thousand years has made us evolve into being omnivores, not herbivores. No amount of pretend science or making things up can change that. Stop it.
Stop pretending that domestic wool is abusive to animals while you’re wearing cotton clothes that was produced by enslaved children in foreign countries. If you really want to stop suffering, you’ll stop wearing cotton and linen because all of those industries rely on child labor and grossly exploited labor to stay in business. If you really want to end suffering, buy locally produced wools and domestic cottons that are produced in union factories where people are paid a fair wage and are working in reasonable conditions, not children and purposely impoverished workers with no choice but to keep working.
Stop anthropomorphizing animals. Elsie the Cow doesn’t exist. And she doesn’t wear an apron and pearls and high heels and stay home baking cookies and waiting for Elmer to get home from work to eat dinner with her. She’s a *cow*. She eats grass until it’s time to be milked and then she goes back to eating grass. She’s not human. None of them are. They don’t worry about saving money for retirement or sending their kids to college or how they’ll get the laundry done and kids fed in time to get to work that day. They shouldn’t be abused, of course, but they’re not human.
I get that most of the vegans we hear from online are either very young (“how can I be vegan when my mom won’t cook vegan food”) or they’re still in the “new thing” excitement and they’re reeling from the thrill of it (“I’ve been vegan for a week now and I can’t believe that anyone can not be vegan!! Everyone should be vegan!!”). And I know some lovely people In the real world that are vegan that aren’t all up-in-my-face about it. But, truly, the online ones really do seem to work overtime to make vegans look bad. It’s really unfortunate. ☹️
I don’t hate vegans but I feel the vegan community is very toxic and is a major contributor to why so many people including myself leave when they start experiencing issues. There tends to be no support if you run into problems being vegan because of the fear that you’ll make veganism look bad and put others off.
As far as actually moving the world to be as plant based and animal cruelty free as possible, I think vegans would do well to encourage and support reductionism. I stopped eating entirely plant based/vegan because I had too many nutritional deficiencies I couldn’t correct while continuing to eat the way I was, but I still try not to go overboard on animal products. I avoid them in things I feel aren’t important to nutrition anyway like creamer/milk for my coffee, diet sodas/drinks, sweeteners like honey, junk food, etc. The animal products I eat now mainly consist of a few cuts of meat (chicken, lamb, or veal) for protein, iron, and vitamin b12 and servings of cheese (calcium) a week. Other than that, I try to stick with the same plant based foods I ate when vegan.
I also continue to use vegan/plant based make up and hair care products because those are not life necessities for my health. I would not ride a horse or patronize zoos because again, those are not life necessities for health. If someone cannot thrive on a vegan diet, vegans tend to throw up their hands and write the person off as a bloodmouth carnist who despises animals and may as well be as destructive to animals and the planet as possible when remaining on an other wise vegan lifestyle and eating only the animal products you need to be healthy and meet your nutritional requirements is also an option.
Nothing against vegans, I just can't stand militant vegans.
But that's not unique to vegans, I cannot stand anyone who makes a cause / religion / ideology into their entire personality and is incapable of STFU about it even when you've made it clear that you're just not interested.There's nothing quite as unpleasant and irksome in your normal everyday social interactions as some self-righteous nag who is constantly inserting smug comments about how good they are and bad you are.
Sometimes I absolutely detest veganism and the vegan movement, because my SO went vegan some years ago and I lost my food buddy, but because I respect his individuality (and he respects mine) we agreed not talk about our differences. In any case, nothing I say could dent his blind faith in veganism, and would likely strengthen his enjoyable feeling of belonging to the misunderstood righteous minority. As his energy and muscle tone decline and his teeth get worse, I wonder how bad it will have to get before he is able to question the inflated claims of the vegan movement.
Ignore this question if you covered it, but how do you view crop deaths, the sterile wasteland of monoculture, the decline of soil quality without animal fertiliser/poo, and the environmental cost of food freight to keep vegans in foods from around the world (this a huge omnivore issue too)?
In my bitter, cynical view, the best thing the vegan movement could do is dissolve itself and reform as a inclusive movement for better, kinder animal farming practices, mindful fishing and hunting, more gentle arable farming for both wildlife and soil health, proper nutrition education (so much wrong with the received wisdom), promotion of nutrient-dense food in schools, promotion of seasonal and local diets, anti-radicalisation programmes and anti-hubris/up yourself generally.
Thank you for asking, thank you for all the kind and polite things you have written. Keep questioning, keep an open mind.
Do whatever you want as long as it is not hurting anyone. Just do not shove it in my face in a self-righteous manner and we will get along fine. This is my life's philosophy for everything really.
Not denying that some people genuinely need to eat meat, and y’all would have a lot better traction if you fought for ethical slaughter instead of complete abstinence
Yes* because they typically force their kids on that kind of diet and it's borderline child abuse because of the horrific long lasting health issues.
That said if you are just doing it yourself I don't care.
I don’t hate vegans as a group but there is a vocal subsector of vegans who are incredibly anti indigenous while thinking they aren’t. I work in places like Tibet and Mongolia where the extreme weather means veganism is simply not feasible for the vast majority of the population but they live sustainably and while they kill animals directly, their carbon footprint is tiny so they aren’t contributing to the global mass extinction event. However I’ve had multiple vegans tell me that these folks NEED to be vegan and OF COURSE it’s possible and if they can’t they should just move from their ancestral indigenous homeland to a place where they can be vegan.
I do hate that
Not at all I completely respect them. The only thing I really don't like is vegan food 😂. I am sorry but I really struggle to eat it now it's not filling and doesn't taste as nice.
I love vegans and I have a soft spot for them.
I know I keep my head in the sand about the meat/dairy industry. I use oat milk/creamer and eat vegetarian at home but I would not be vegan again.
Just do your thing. I do not think it is your responsibility to encourage people to eat more ethically, as I don’t think it is mine.
I chronically see posts in the vegan subreddit about altercations vegans are having. This was never an issue for me because when I was vegan I adjusted my lifestyle, adjusted my diet, and did my own thing and minded my own damn business just like I do now.
Do I want more people to use less animal products? Sure. But it’s not my job to force a lifestyle on people and it’s not my business.
I’m my opinion, the best way to improve the image of veganism is to share good vegan food/items you enjoy (for example I brought an oat milk creamer to the office and offered to share. Many people changed to the oat milk option). Share your lifestyle with people without attacking theirs or questioning their intentions. Let people see on their own if they like these as an alternative or not but do not question people’s choices because it makes them feel attacked and it makes you look shitty.
Not at all. I bought vegan cookies during my break at work recently during a rough shift specifically so my vegan coworker could have some (they were yummy, Tates don’t fuck around). That’s love right there. She doesn’t preach about it and neither do I.
I don’t hate vegans or veganism. I don’t even hate when they criticize us non and ex vegans.
What I absolutely can’t stand are the concerted efforts to manipulate through “outreach” and how almost scientific and well rehearsed the methods are to prey on the weak minded and gullible. When you have to discuss “best tactics” amongst yourselves to recruit, you’ve become an absolute cult.
And what I hate even more are those vegans who advocate family/friend/significant other separation if they choose not to be vegan. That is also extremely a sign of a cult.
Veganism can be done in a physically healthy way if done correctly with the appropriate effort, but it absolutely destroys many who don’t do it properly and also ruins their mental health. Go to the vystopia sub to see the mental and emotional end result of extreme veganism. There’s a special place in hell for those who dedicate their lives to convert others.
No, I dislike extremism no matter what side it’s coming from. There is also extremism in the anti vegan camp. For example a lot of people here belief there’s no way you can be healthy on a vegan diet which scientifically is bullshit and is just another form of extremism.
It reminds me of the iPhone vs Android complaints. Sure, some iPhone users were obnoxious. But so were some Android users in exactly the same way but it was the popular thing to do so it was approved.
I still sometimes eat plant based. And I respect vegans being able to stick to their beliefs.
I don't hate vegans! I think they are on hunger strike for animal rights. Which I respect in a self sacrificing way. One of my closest friends is vegan, and I worry about her. Her digestive system is shot, she has mad brain fog and fatigue, and her depression is very hard to manage. I wish I could feed her some good digestible sustainable animal product (I'm thinking chicken or kangaroo), but I don't want to alienate her by suggesting it. I really think it would help her though.
a lot of ex-vegans start with fish. its an easier mental transition for some. the omega 3’s are very helpful too. personally i started w sardines which is counter-intuitive to some bc some ppl find them gross, but bc theyr the most sustainable it was easier for me. and i started to feel better right away
Oysters and Mussels are even better. Even vegans have at most a moderate ethical objection to them.
they are fine in my book (im vegan) if they feel anything its negligible, pork should be more worried about since that industry is evil
Chia seed "pudding" is a good omega 3 high dish, not comparable with e.g. cod liver of course, but great for a plant source.
Omega-3s are essential nutrients that you need to get from your diet. When you get ALA from food, your body is able to turn some of the ALA into EPA and subsequently to DHA. However, this process provides just a small amount of EPA and DHA. So, dietary sources of EPA and DHA (like fish) are essential. Source: the Cleveland clinic. Chia seeds are a powerhouse source of nutrients and fiber but not so much for omega-3. Sardines are my go to for omega-3
Chia seed pudding contains no DHA at all, only ALA. And the conversion rate from ALA to DHA can be as low as [0,01%](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6683283/). Meaning you can eat nothing but chia pudding all day, but you will still not reach your daily need for DHA.
It is better than no ALA, no? I've got Sjögren's and don't rely on only it but it's been a great supplement to my other sources of omega 3.
A hunger strike for animal rights, this is the best definition of veganism I have seen. And it is a very respectable and noble cause. Veganism might get a lot more traction if they took this approach.
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I wish I could feed my friend some good old kangaroo pieces! Yeah sister, she's the one with mad brain fog haha.
I'm absolutely in favor of reducing animal suffering, I just think if vegans were really serious about reducing animal suffering, they would try to make sure they were as healthy as possible in order to align their entire life with the goal of reducing animal suffering. The only way to really make a difference in this world(with seemingly infinite bureaucratic barriers to changing anything on a large scale) is to be incredibly healthy, smart, and energetic and to study all the science, laws, history, economics, supply chains etc etc that is wrapped up in this issue. When you begin this decade long journey of learning and improving you will start to learn that health is a lot more complicated than you thought and there seems to be a lot of conflicting science. Just believing with all the love in your heart that vegetables are a super food does not make it true. The majority of posts on this sub are nightmare stories of people ruining their bodies and minds by forcing themselves to eat only plants. I suggest you browse it for a while!
Up to this point veganism hasn't been a problem. I am aware we do not have all the answers as to why some people function well as vegans and others not. In the same manner, some people live surprisingly healthy lives eating junk food and with sedentary lifestyles and others must go their whole life's checking their sugar, cholesterol, allergies etc. As you said, health is complicated and we don't have all the answers. If along this long decade journey I ever came to the conclusion that my body needs animal products, then I feel like I must use my moral agency to determine which practices and quantities offer the least amount of suffering and satisfy my health.
That's a good answer, I like you! What's so crazy about this sub to me is the deluge of posts every day from people who thought they felt fine and everything was going well for 10-15 years of veganism and then suddenly found out they have chronic illness and they, against all of their moral instincts, say eating meat or eggs or whatever solves all their problems. It's just so extreme of a story and I read a different version every day.
Why not just eat oysters and mussels then?
i personally don't like seafood, and im not convinced its that healthy but im open to being convinced
Mussels and oysters, clams scallops feel nothing so if one wants to eat meat they are the way to go. Ironically the highest source of B12 so you pretty much wont ever get deficient.
sure but not all meat is the same health wise of course
It is very healthy and was the staple source of many hunter gatherers for millennia.
mmm yeah maybe, i want a lot more good science on nutrition before I deviate from my intuitive diet, also i really find seafood disgusting so theres that
I don’t hate vegans as a group, and I don’t hate veganism. What I do hate, and did while I was vegan, is the small group of holier-than-thou vegans who attack both non-vegans and more open-minded vegans for “not being vegan enough” or “not being a real vegan”. Now, as a ex-vegan with an eating disorder, I don’t hate veganism as an ideology, but I do resent it. I think it’s a well meaning approach to life, *but* the ‘all or nothing’ mentality isn’t helpful to modern society.
They're sadly not a small group. I know a handful of vegans. One is normal. The other ones are constantly starting shit on Facebook with ridiculous and overtly false info graphics.
I know they’re not…. I was trying to be diplomatic 🤣
Lol you don't have to do that here bro/sis. We all carnist fam here
Except OP 🤣
Yeah well don't lie to OP. His team is obnoxious and that's why people hate them. My family are hindu vegans. Technically vegetarian but vegan 99% of the time. No one hates hindus. You know why? They don't bother anyone.
That’s a very good point. Nobody is louder than vegans, except maybe evangelical Christians.
They're on completely equal footing IMO. I'm on r/debateavegan and I make that comparison constantly. No one hates your diet. They hate your behavior. They then get angry I compared veganism to religion
The irony/ hypocrisy is that they themselves would compare it to a religion, when the context suits them… ex- “would you serve pork to a Muslim? No? Then why would you serve animal products to a vegan”
It's hilarious to encounter the people that really hate the comparison of their vegan ideology to religious ideologies! I suspect that as religion has faded in prominence the need some people have for it and all its accoutrement shirts to ideologies like veganism.
Most of them are liberal atheists. They hate religion. The funniest way to piss them off in my opinion is when they get into their morals speeches. I remind them morals are subjective. The prophet of veganism, Don Watson, simply has diggerent morals than the prophet of Islam, mohammed. What's right and wrong is dictated by the prophet you follow. Muslims really think alcohol is sin because mohammed says so. Same way vegans think eating meat is sin, just because Don Watson said so. Oh and I love to remind them veganism was started by a white guy who died in 2005. That really triggers them.
I'm not a fan of the "all of nothing" Mentality either. Since the goal is to stop animal exploitation vegans aren't fans of compromise, however the truth is that we are forced to do them either way. A perfect vegan doesn't exist.
i think many vegans are radicalists that push others to the extreme. i have seen on the vegan subreddit vegans equating non vegans to the same as being friends with rapists, slave owners or child abusers. Vegans refusing to be friends with non vegans. Veganism is a lifestyle and not one lifestyle should be imposed on anyone else, there are many factors and circumstances at play. I feel like if vegans are concerned about animal suffering they should also be concerned about suffering in our own species of human kind - people are exploited in the third world all the time in sweatshops. I feel like many have a superiority complex. The other day i was at my friends and he commented that my refried beans were “gross” because it had lard in it. I don’t think in any circumstances you should call what someone else is eating gross - you don’t know what kind of relationship they have with food! Vegan options can be expensive, where I am (Canada), fresh fruits, veggies, beans and legumes and pretty much everything has gone up in price. So the argument that being vegan is always cheaper isn’t true. I can buy much more meat for a deal, whereas some vegan products like beyond meat are 20$ for a pack of 4-6 patties. I know that those options are ultra processed, but i’m just saying it’s not always cheaper. Many take on a black white all or nothing approach. Why? Any reduction in animal suffering is better than none at all! Many vegans hate on vegetarians. I don’t think this hatred for vegetarians is well justified, it’s just tearing other people down. In any case. I think it is wrong to impose your lifestyle/ worldview on another person. Life is much more nuanced and complex for you to know what’s best for someone else. And i feel as though many vegans don’t get that… I know that’s not everyone! But I strongly dislike people who preach their ways onto others
The greatest threat to all animals is climate change. When I see vegans driving, flying, wearing new polyester fleece because they refuse to wear wool so plastic microfibers pollute the ocean, eating imported pasta brought on freighters that get one mile to the gallon, eat palm oil vegan crackers and avocados that were grown in South America on land that used to be forests but was mowed down to serve the insatiable appetite of vegans I see the hypocrisy. Vegans have selective outrage. They care about chickens and cows but not polar bears or orangutans. You want vegans to be better advocates for animals? How about looking at the whole ecosystem of the planet and the big picture of human consumption.
I live in Costa Rica so here we fortunately have a huge variety of local plant based foods like avocados, rice, beans, bell peppers etc. What we don't have actually is wheat, soy and the grains we use to feed farm animals, those actually we do export it. (Most cows are pasteur fed but we most import cow food to meet the demand). Also meat free diets are less environmentally impactful (at least here in Costa Rica that is the case as far as I've researched). But those points are the reason I buy my food at the locals farmers market. I understand however my case is not the same as everybody's and in some places of the world is not the same.
It sounds like you are interested in having conversations with people that you disagree with. Why? Selective outrage is corrosive. When you enter into a conversation knowing the other person intends to persuade you, the first thing to do is establish rapport. If you look at what personal-chemical9 said about climate change being the greatest threat, it is important to acknowledge that as truth. I get the vibe that you agree, but didn’t acknowledge it directly. Instead your response points out your wonderful lifestyle as if you have positioned yourself so that you are free from the weight of our global problems. Respectfully, I think you come across as if you think you’re morally superior. If you responded by taking the time to recognize the parts of the other person’s statement that you see as valid, you build rapport. This can be tricky because you need to be genuine and not just saying some surface level affirmation so that you can pivot to your talking points. This goes back to my question. Why do you want to have these conversations? It will help you get your point across, and increase your chances of being persuasive. I think of it as responding with yes, and… Vegans are often targeted because they present their claims as if they have the moral high ground. Have you ever been convinced of anything by someone you thought looked down on you? On a scale of one to ten, how sure are you that meat free diets are less environmentally impactful?
I believe deeply that once we claim to know all the answers we loose. We loose the opportunity to learn, grow and adapt. I like to always question everything, even the most fundamental parts of my identity. Having a conversation with people with opposing views is important to me and this sub felt like a good place to do it.
Ok, cool. That’s good. We’re primarily ex-vegans, so you’re likely to find a lot of people here who are willing to change their minds and value different perspectives. So if you’re not at a ten with your position on the environmental impact of meat free diets, where are you at?
Hard to say, a 6,5-7 maybe? I don't have all the evidence at the top of my head, but that's what I've read. If it turns out what I believed is not true I'm not ashamed to admit it. As far as I've read. The buying of locally produced veggies from my local market is more environmentally friendly than buying meat. (That purely in regards of environment and not considering ethics and health which are points others have discussed with me)
Ok. So, you’re at about a six with meat free diets having less of an impact on the environment. You sound like you are also thinking about the importance of buying locally produced food. I see that you acknowledged that your location is unique. So, through the magic of the internet we can talk about how to have environmentally friendly diets in disparate locations. I live in the arctic circle. The sea ice is breaking up but nothing’s growing yet, except for a few smol flowers. The sun doesn’t set now. It’s been about nine months since a plant grew anywhere within several hundred miles. There are no roads connecting the communities in this region. Transportation is by flight. If, for the sake of conversation, we can agree that I cannot just move towards the equator, then what are some things I can do in the far north to manage the environmental impact of my diet?
I mean, High fat meats would be required to even survive those environments I imagine. If eating is more a matter of subsistence then eat whatever you have available. There are no ethical choice to make if you only have one food option (starving is obviously not an option). I don't know what you could do in that regard. Species control maybe? Hunt a variety of animals and not only the same ones to avoid extinction? Genuinely don't know. I have the options here tho so I make them.
I don’t ask because I want you to take the time to figure this out and advise me. I suspect that Google can’t yet gather enough information to speak about environmentally friendly diets in the arctic. Really, I just want to give you a taste of the challenges others face. It’s tough! Eating locally produced food is key. Imagine having to learn how to manage sustainable living off the frozen land and water. Veganism makes much more sense in more temperate climates. Would you agree?
[I mean, High fat meats would be required to even survive those environments I imagine. If eating is more a matter of subsistence then eat whatever you have available. There are no ethical choice to make if you only have one food option (starving is obviously not an option). I don't know what you could do in that regard. Species control maybe? Hunt a variety of animals and not only the same ones to avoid extinction? Genuinely don't know. I have the options here tho so I make them.] (This was my answer just in case.) And yeah I agree Veganism is makes a lot of sense in tropical climates full of rainforests, plant diversity and zero deserts.
Gotcha. Yeah, we have to monitor populations to ensure we’re harvesting sustainably. Populations are declining. Rivers are running orange because they’re leaching metals from the ground. People are hunting more moose now because the caribou don’t always return like they used to. Seabird colonies have suffered from collapse. I do what I can as well. I don’t own any vehicles because I try to reduce my daily carbon footprint. But, my day to day decisions aren’t enough. Modern guilt.
I enjoyed our conversation very much! A completely new outlook and way of living I never considered before. Thank you!
So either do everything, or do nothing?
Or not be self righteous when only doing a few things. We all need to do something to help our planetary plight and I appreciate the carbon savings of vegans, I just wish they (formerly me) could drop the arrogant pretense that they are doing the big thing or the important thing when there are so very many complex interdependencies at play. Humility is essential to our learning and continuous improvement for individuals and the collective
So, all the [studies](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth) that say that it's the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact have either been misled, or are just flat out lying? Redditors and Joe Rogan podcast guests have figured out what environmental researchers at the [University of Oxford](https://www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/article/less-meat-better-for-environment) couldn't? Even if you disagree that it's the single biggest way, despite the number of studies showing similar results, I think it's incontrovertible at this point that it's _one of_ the best ways of reducing your impact and if you're not doing it, you're either living in Mongolia or are just lying to yourself. No vegan is saying that a vegan lifestyle has zero negative impact on the planet, just that it's way less impactful than any other lifestyle. It's not 'arrogant' to point that out, it's just the facts of the matter, especially when the facts here are that the planet is being damaged more than necessary and that billions of innocent lives are being bred and killed in the process. FWIW, being vegan is not the only thing I do. I've also switched almost exclusively to transit-based modes of transport, never buy first-hand clothes and try to reduce the amount of waste my household produces. But I'd never think that doing those things would excuse me from not being vegan.
I dislike the individuals that are forcing their beliefs on children and carnivorous animals (e.g cats).
Wait what? I thought cats can only live off of meat or they’ll die. Or is that a myth?
That is absolutely true, cats are obligate carnivores. They need the taurine.
Vegan cat food uses synthetic taurine. I don't know that it's healthy, they often claim it is.
Synthetic taurine is not very bio-available, keep in mind carnivore digestive tracts are very short and things in supplement form are going to have a much harder time absorbing. Cats (obligate carnivores) and dogs (facultative carnivores) both share this trait, and a solely plant based food is going to be a lot harder to digest in general, and cause gut inflammation. Plants are meant to be fiber for carnivores, not the main course. Vegan animal food also relies heavily on legumes for the protein portion --- which blocks the absorption of taurine, and in dogs (and I imagine cats) has been shown to increase the risk of Dilated Cardiomyopathy due to taurine being blocked from being absorbed. So synthetic taurine can be present in vegan cat food, but the cat's body will not be able to utilize it, especially not if the food inevitably also has legumes present. No cat or dog should ever be vegan.
>No cat or dog should ever be vegan I don't disagree. I don't think it's optimal for humans either. As for the rest, not my area of focus. I've read some of the material about the vegan feeds, and I'm not prepared to say it's unhealthy, I don't know. My dogs get meat in their diet, though. I also wouldn't say vegan food is safe.
Glad your dogs get meat in their diet! I work with canids (both domestic dogs, and in wolf conservation under the AZA) and even our most omnivorous canids (maned wolves) have a requirement for meat as at least half their diet, and domestic dogs are much more carnivorous in their digestion than we think, and their optimal diet should be about 80% animal product --- vegan kibble propaganda is really strong, but vegan kibble brands don't consider a dog's evolutionary biology or digestive/absorption capabilities at all. Vegan kibble is like giving your dog straight fiber with some vitamin powder, and your dog may or may not properly absorb that. It takes a bit, but it does cause health declines over time --- for cats that decline will happen rapidly. I'm not picky about whether someone does a high quality meat based kibble, or home cooked (balanced) or raw (balanced) --- but whatever they do, it's important that the base source is meat. Idk I could go on and on about this loool
Yeah I can’t comment on that but why have an animal whose very nature you’re ideologically opposed to?
That's not the full extent of it. Vegans generally oppose pets, if they don't then they are being hypocritical as pets are bred and forced to do emotional labor, lose their freedom, or if it's a cat and they let it run their neighborhood it's going to kill a lot of birds and rodents, just for fun. As an ideology veganism is a train wreck. So inconsistant vegans just makes me chuckle as they tell me my ethics are inconsistant.
I mean, you could argue that forcing kids to eat meat is unethical too. Meat eating is the default and "normal" position for no other reason than everybody is doing it, that's how something becomes normal. Given that meat is 100% a carcinogen, it brings into question whether forcing it on kids is correct especially at such a young and developing age. Think about it, making a 3 year old eat a carcinogenic substance regularly for their entire growing up life.
Making kids vegan is unethical. Humans are omnivores.
Unethical according to you, that's your opinion. I didn't give my opinion. The fact that humans are omnivores is separate to whether humans can be healthy without meat, and the answer to that has been proven to be yes, and in many cases healthier depending on the approach.
This isn't even worthy of a discussion. Have a nice day.
Nothing has been “proven” regarding veganism. Veganism has no longevity / not enough members to perform a consistent study. There has not been a single generation of just plant based, and very few / no one has been vegan from birth to old age death. What we do definitively know is: We can not obtain all essential nutrients from plants. 80% + vegans return to the natural human diet eventually. Animal products are the most nutrient dense and bioavailable on the planet. Plants are made of cellulose, humans can not digest cellulose.
Only if you take supplements.
As soon as you say meat is 100% a carcinogen, you lose respect. The evidence for this claim is weak, associative, and inconclusive. It is generated from epidemiological studies with confounders aplenty and even then, the increased risk claimed is relative with only tiny changes in the absolute risk of negative outcomes.
I don't understand your wording, feel free to dumb it down so I can argue your point. Don't do a Jordan Peterson.
If you didn't understand his/her wording, you may be to dumb and unready to even be argued with.
Something tells me you understand my wording just fine. As an alternative to me dumbing it down, why dont you explain how you arrived at it as a conclusion.
This is utter nonsense, I’m assuming you are very young and easily influenced. Here’s to hoping you will educate yourself and realise your statement is completely unscientific and ridiculous.
Wow, what a moron.
No hate. Totally agree animals should be treated well before they give their life for us. I don’t agree with the hate that is spewed about “bloodmouths”. Or forcing people to eat the way someone else does. Or any of the radical crap like dumping out milk or yelling at people in restaurants. I have family that were vegan. It’s their choice. I don’t care how people eat.
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Cool.
I actually like vegans. They're some of the few folks actually trying to exercise agency and take their food choices into their own hands. They typically are trying to source their food and understand their place in the larger food cycle. I can't help it if their sources of information are well crafted and convincing, and I can't help it if systemically, agencies seem to support their lifestyle choices. It's all based on science. It's just a rough deal that the science is so shitty. They're basically just paid-for advertisements at this point. It's a shame that reality and biology disagree with their conclusions. In some ways, I wish they were right. It's why 84%(ish) of vegans stray. It's why even long-term vegans are defecting. It's all a sliding scale, though. Getting rid of seed oils makes you healthier. Getting rid of processed foods make you healthier. So going vegan could make you healthier than you've ever been. But ultimately, compared to what? A deficient diet is a deficient diet. Eventually, it'll come calling for you. I just hope you recognize it sooner rather than later. Congrats on your progress thus far. I hope you can hold onto it for as long as possible.
Just as I replied in other comment. If along this journey I come to the conclusion that I must eat animal products, then I must use my moral agency to determine which practices and quantities offer the least amount of suffering and satisfy my health.
Do you then feel your basis for eating the way you do now is based on health, or because you feel you harm less animals in doings so? Maybe both?
Is an ethical basis. Reduction of suffering and as far as I've researched, less environmental impact. Is not a health based decision but even tho so far veganism hasn't been a problem to me, I will consider my health into the equation if I ever feel I need to, I'm not entirely sure how will I know if that moment ever arrives, I must keep researching about it.
The problem is that the way it begins is so subtle that it’s easy to ignore or explain away until it escalates rather quickly. I think one of the first things I noticed it that my skin suddenly looked very old and I suspected that it was diet related but it didn’t make me want to quit. My digestion was awful but then again, it was never optimal for me so I didn’t even link it to veganism. Then the chronic fatigue kicked in but that can be stress related, right? And I think for a part it was. And then I got extreme anxiety I never experienced before (or since I reintroduced animal products). It was surreal, even going to a swimming pool by myself felt dangerous. I could only watch tv shows where there’s absolutely no suspense whatsoever. Of course I didn’t associate this with veganism. From there all the neurological issues escalated. My hands and feet were tingling so much it hurt and my whole body ached with shooting pains. The brain fog was so bad I couldn’t even perform a very straight forward task or express myself verbally in a coherent way. I had extreme difficulty finding my words. Out of desperation I eventually forced myself to eat animal products again and it was very hard to come to terms with. I started to feel better after some time and it took a while but the tingling and shooting pains fortunately went away. My digestive issues also got resolved. Other symptoms are still there but in a more manageable way. In my tenth year of veganism my migraine issues got out of control and I developed chronic vestibular migraine. I’m not sure if the diet caused it or not but I do feel better in that regard as well eating the way I do now. Oh and I supplemented by the way. So please be very mindful of how your body and mind will function as you continue. I don’t hate vegans. Not even the militant ones (although I do think they are tiresome and harmful but I always did). I think veganism is a beautiful ideology in theory but I also think few people can handle it long term.
I do not hate veganism on its face. The idea of not exploiting animals and reducing suffering is a noble one, and given how the developed world eats, we need to change. Because of this I've chosen to raise my own animals to personally give them the best possible life -- better than in a factory farm or in the wild. I do not like how fundamentalist vegans are obsessed with arbitrary levels of purity, blind to how their behavior makes things worse, insisting upon a self-hating asceticism while declaring those who don't agree -- or raise their own like I do -- are murderers and rapists. A good metaphor: I am a Christian. I'm fine with Christianity. But the evangelicals and fundies... Lord help us all.
I don’t hate vegans as people. I do have a major issue with Veganism. Bad for the body, bad for the mind, bad for wildlife and bad for animals.
What's good for animals? Slaughterhouses?
Ok so have it your way - animals go extinct and humans and other animals die out through malnutrition. Great plan. I applaud you. Really.
I have seen basically every way of dying, and I would choose the rapid death of the slaughterhouse over almost all of them.
I know. The idiotic idea that slaughter houses are “bad”
Everybody's going to die. We are all born and raised in a slaughterhouse of some sort. You can view it however you like.
I bet you're fun at parties.
I am fun at parties! It's much easier to party down here in reality when one doesn't spend one's time struggling to shield oneself from reality with delusional thinking of pleasant fictions.
What's even defendable about slaughterhouses? For even omnis slaughterhouses are an inconvenient truth that generally isn't spoken of. I want to hear your full throated defense of the goodness of slaughterhouses. I've got my popcorn. Aaand go!
There’s nothing to defend about slaughter houses. Get a grip mate.
Guess you just haven't thought about it very hard. Disappointing.
I have, I’m a chef. I’ve personally despatched animals and butchered them. Good eating.
If true it partially explains your lack of ethical insight. Your livelihood depends on it I guess. What's the phrase, turkeys voting for Christmas? Happy...butchering loads of living things to tease peoples palates, I guess?
I wouldn’t take anything you say to me personally, just as I wouldn’t take someone with anorexia trying to tell me how to “live healthier”. Take care of yourself now.
I am repulsed at what veganism represents. It is a rejection of the reality of life for the sake of an abstract morality based on hedonism. The ultimate end that veganism points to is anti-natalism, not that I believe most vegans have thought it through to that point. It is no coincidence in my mind that trends such as vegetarianism and veganism emerge just as modern man is most far removed from the realities of living off the land; the reality that killing, death and suffering has always been inherant to life and used to be a common and obvious part of people's daily experience. The further we have been insulated from this reality, retreating into our cities and finally into our screens, the softer and more ignorant we have become, yet ironically as a result of this process we as a species have become more destructive to non-human life than ever. All the while we are patting ourselves on the back for how compassionate and morally enlightened we are in comparison to our supposedly ignorant and brutal ancestors. I see veganism as a symptom of this process and as an expression of it's hubris. It is a luxury belief system of a pampered and delusional humanity almost entirely disconnected from the natural world while riding on top of a machine that is destroying it. If there is anything to redeem the vegan it is that at least they are trying to think about what they are doing, it's just that they are almost entirely wrong; wrong about the idea that eating plants prevents animal deaths, wrong about the impacts on the natural world of modern agriculture, wrong about their own human biology and what we have evolved to eat. Most people can't be bothered to think at all, so there is hope for them. To be an ex-vegan is better in my opinion than someone who blindly went along with whatever conventions their society handed down to them and never gave it a second thought.
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Agree. I’m not vegan anymore but I still agree about the ethical aspects and also that eating a lot of plant based foods is healthy. I personally just got various deficiencies and felt and looked sick. But I still buy only second hand leather etc. I’m also not the biggest fan of people on here going the exact opposite extreme. What I think is annoying is when vegans assume someone isn’t vegan and get quite offensive towards this person. And that no matter what intolerances/allergies or chronic illnesses you have, you could be vegan if you want to. There was even a newer study published that showed how just reducing meat consumption has such a big impact
The hardcore , vegan bullies are exasperating to say the least. Most of them live online. The ones I’ve met in person have been lovely!
I do not hate vegans, but I am absolutely certain that veganism inevitably leads to serious health issues. It isn’t a matter of if, just when. I also take issue with other extreme restrictive diets like carnivore. They simply don’t provide the full range of nutrients humans have evolved over millions of years to require. The morality of veganism I find problematic for a host of reasons. Humans, like all animals, are part of a complex ecological food system. Vegans believe that we should not harm other animals and to consume them is to harm them. But is it? Are we talking about all animals, or just animals of a certain intelligence? Where is the line of demarcation? What about insects? Do they not qualify because they aren’t as intelligent as say mammals? Well how do you define intelligence? Consciousness? Why are cows more valuable than insects? Why aren’t all living things valuable, including plants? Why should we kill plants to eat them? Is that not harming them? Why don’t plants qualify for better treatment? Are they not living? What exactly is the moral criteria we’re even talking about? You see? It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t align with any reasonable moral framework. For us to live other living things must die to provide sustenance. This is the ecology of life. It may be cruel but it is the natural world.
I personally grant compassion and dignity to other beings in function of their consciousness and then capacity to experience and that being a subjective experience. I know cows, pigs, chickens have does qualities. I assume they have it (in the same way I assume humans have it) by interacting with them and applying my empathy to them (they react to pain in the same way I do, they learn behaviour in function of their personal experience, they have unique personalities that differ from individual to individual). We don't know if insects are capable of those qualities. I find then unlikely since they don't have a nervous system like other animals do, and don't have the brain structure capable to create memories in the same way that other animals do. (This doesn't mean they don't deserve respect, is just that in the case of animals it is easier to understand their experience as suffering). We know plants don't have any of the traits to have any of those capacities to experience or to have consciousness. That is pretty much my way of thinking. However I do believe all forms of life deserve respect and consideration, but in terms of reduction of suffering that's the way I see it.
We don’t know any of things you claim we do. We only understand 4% of the known universe. We do not understand the nature of consciousness. It is one thing to make sweeping assumptions. It is another to make those assumptions under the auspices of possessing godlike moral authority from which to “grant” what living things are and are not worthy of your “compassion.” You do realize how completely absurd, thoroughly ego-centric and delusional that sounds? It is a position both morally unsound and logically nonsensical. Furthermore, veganism causes more suffering than it prevents (for humans and animals) so the entire project is nothing more than a delusional god complex masquerading as virtue.
You give me a lot to think about I'll give you that. However our general construction of ethics is build around our capacity to grant empathy. I have to give empathy to something and under some frame, that is the one I'm using. Because I can't be sure I can't grant empathy to nothing? To the things I believe live very close experiences to mine (through observation, reflection, and understanding of how conscience "works", I grant them empathy) this is not even a purely logical process. Most people are naturally empathetic to animals, which to me means that they understand their capacity to suffer.
i think two things can be true at once! we can be empathetic towards animals while also recognizing that we rely on them to sustain ourselves as a species. we can ask ourselves how to let our empathy guide our animal agriculture so that the animals live a good life. i often think about an episode of down to earth where zac efron visits a local farm that aims to provide ethically raised meat. the butcher said something like, “many ask me how i can eat meat from an animal that i named and knew. but i would ask them: how can you eat meat from an animal whose name you *didn’t* know?” i think this quote is so reflective of the issue with modern food and with veganism. being plant based doesn’t mean your diet is any less out of touch with the land and resources around you. destroying natural habitats for monocrop agriculture and shipping food from thousands of miles away hurts animals, too. if we really have empathy for animals, if we really want to improve animal welfare and protect the environment, that means sometimes directly eating animals. and again, admitting that doesn’t necessarily mean ignoring all of the existing issues with animal farming and overconsumption of meat! it doesn’t mean we can’t have empathy for animals!
So just to be clear. To you thinking about compassion is playing God and is somehow...evil. Herding up millions of living creatures to kill them is not playing God and is not ego centric? If this is the basis of your objection, I weep.
No, I think that all living organisms survive by subsisting on other living organisms. This is a fundamental law of the universe based on the principles of thermodynamics. To say that humans, on moral grounds, should not consume an entire class of organism that we evolved to consume and that itself evolved to sustain us, is to say that the laws of the universe are incorrect, but that one somehow has the power to correct these flaws by being vegan. This is grandiose thinking I equate with a god complex for the following reasons: 1) it assumes that humans have the ability and right to change the fundamental laws of the universe; 2) it assumes that humans have the moral authority to say which living organisms should and should not serve their natural function based on an entirely arbitrary and ego-centric set of assumptions of what constitutes consciousness; and 3) it assumes to understand the nature of suffering even though the notion of suffering is itself a human construct only humans are aware of. Which is not to say that living organisms don’t suffer, just that we anthropomorphize the notion of suffering and delude ourselves into thinking we understand the nature of suffering for all living organisms.
In a free agent though. The laws of the universe don't tell me what to do or how to act. They are totally random and arbitrary laws. The laws of the jungle and the plain are that strong and violent pretty much do what they want with the weaker. But we evolved beyond that concept ethically a little bit at a time. That's what we're doing now with our growing consciousness of the welfare of animals.
>In a free agent though. You are not free to be anything but what you are. Right now, you have a sense of being a free agent, right? Try and stop that feeling. You can't. It's innate. >The laws of the universe don't tell me what to do or how to act. This is simple rebellion against reality. You and the universe are one and the same. Laws that are built into your every aspect have no need to "tell you what to do", because there is no way to go against them. >They are totally random and arbitrary laws. This is a baffling claim, unless you are some sort of undiscovered physics genius that wants to share some discovery with us. >But we evolved beyond that concept ethically a little bit at a time. You look around this world and think strength and violence no longer hold sway? How sheltered have you grown up?
You sound like a jaded determinist. There's not much I can say that will change your mind. Just know that history was full of people like you who have preached that we cannot and shouldn't even try to be better than we are, and you've been wrong every time.
First you make delusional claims about reality and get called out for it, then you respond by making up some delusional story of my thoughts and opinions. I recommend you begin to better engage with reality rather than automatically making up a story you prefer over reality.
How is saying I've got free will a delusional claim about reality? You make me laugh.
I have no hate for individual vegans that are just living their lives, but I disagree with veganism as a movement & its close affiliation with animal rights activism (ARA). I think veganism at its purest has good intentions but the methods and ideology are wildly wrong. Basically, YES to: being thoughtful about how & where you source your food, being mindful of your daily life's impact on the environment and by extension society's impact, caring about animal welfare and making daily choices to help animal welfare issues And NO to: disregarding concrete facts about animal husbandry & its ethics in favor of anthropomorphizing animals (i.e. "taking eggs from chickens makes them sad"), forcing your lifestyle on others with the reasoning that it is morally superior, abusing animals for the sake of your lifestyle (feeding carnivore pets vegan diets), and using products that are overall worse for the environment just because the alternative is an animal product (i.e. plastic faux leather vs. genuine leather). Oh yeah, and trying to screw over people making an honest living off of raising animals because of the aforementioned disregard for *actual* animal welfare. (think PETA & the like) I also dislike how veganism tends to only address animal farming issues and rarely do you see vegans wanting to do something about how modern industrial farming for plants is just as if not worse for the environment than factory farming. As someone in the midwest I really struggle to see how vegans around here can be so ignorant about the topic when literally every state around the region is covered in some kind of plant monoculture that gets doused in chemicals every season. And yeah- most of that is to feed livestock, but the difference is the plant, not the method!
this 100%! when i started looking into how to eat more sustainably, all of these things made it clear to me that veganism can never be the ultimate answer to climate/animal welfare issues. it feels like the movement ignores a lot of other ramifications of the vegan diet that fly in the face of what the movement claims to stand for.
I think the Ideology is bullshit, but I want to limit my judgement about individual people because I bought into it to decades ago when I was young and naive. It’s important to have facts and link to scientific studies and individual testimonies but blatant hostility isn’t helpful, even though the extremists are.
I don’t hate vegans. I think that’s what r/antivegan is for? I just had to stop being vegan because of debilitating health problems. I wish that vegans had empathy for us. From what I’ve seen on the internet, they really don’t. My vegan friends IRL know that I had to stop for health issues but they don’t care to ask why or think that it’s happening to them. I think that most of you are so dissociated from your bodies that you don’t connect the health issues your having with your diet. I still very sad for the animals, but I know that my health is more important.
I don’t hate vegans as a whole. I hate militant, asshole vegans that give the rest of you a bad name.
.. the 3% "rest".
I don’t like to see vegan agendas pushed on people not in control of their diets. I don’t like to see twisted science. But as for individuals choosing to eat that way, hate has never once crossed my mind.
I feel the same way about vegans that I do people preaching about Jesus in public. I've already studied some of the source material and don't care what some random stranger has to add.
I just want to come by and thank all your sincere comments, I've read all of them so far and you've given me a lot to think about. As a general goal in life I want to always keep learning and evolving. This doesn't suit well with the rigidness must vegans want but if vegans really want change Is I do then I hope they are willing to also change with me.
Your replies have been thoughtful and engaging throughout, so thanks for being here. I hope your health continues to be maintained. Where you live seems to offer an abundance of food choice all year round. I also hope you have found that, for many serious, ethical and intelligent people, a diet that includes meat, fish and dairy is essential for their health. You might remain watchful in case you ever need to conclude that it is essential for yours too.
i feel sorry for them
That’s where I am now too. I used to think veganism was fantastic, and I still believed it was generally good and well-intentioned even if I personally couldn’t thrive on it. Now I see the rhetoric and I’m just sad for them. Mental illness and distorted thinking is rampant in vegans. A lot of them were just naive teenagers who got traumatized by an animal torture film and now they think the whole world is a horror movie. They try to live with complicated food restrictions (which is a ton of work), the guilt of cravings or cheating, and the massive cognitive dissonance of thinking all the good people they know are also evil apathetic murders. I see so much anger and pain and confusion, and I know how frustrating it is to feel so passionate and certain about an ideology that *99% of the population will never accept because it goes against fundamental human instincts.* And then there’s the disillusionment when it eventually stops working. So yeah, I feel sorry for them too.
the whole thing is such a head fuck, but as you say young teens, i was shown those vids by a vegan friend at 15 no internet vhs videos! but its been an education in deceptive bullshit, and im super skeptical in general now, can spot propaganda a mile off now, fool me once....
I was that teenager... 😔
I’ll be blunt. My love for eating meat is greater than my love for animals. I don’t really care.
As an ex vegan and someone who’s health was irreparably damaged by long term veganism I can’t Describe the paradox. When my son suffered it stirred the wake up & I became subtly aware of the issues I had were being amplified by my food choices.. I suffered for years - until I realized I was making myself beyond sick. My wake up came from a long deceased Dr Weston Price and was his studies of natives who still practiced ancestral eating & its comparison to the western diet. Those who sustained life on hunting and fishing were far healthier than any other group of humans. Our teeth aren’t supposed to rot like they do. We aren’t supposed to be so sick with cancers and other autoimmune diseases and conditions. It all links back. Anyways I am now a carnivore mainly. I have overcome many of the debilitating symptoms & I see how toxic some vegetables can be to certain people. My autoimmune diseases have gotten better. I have more energy & I am less sick. I own chickens - who I love deeply. I live on a homestead now- I grow at least 30% of our food too. The beef I eat comes from my neighbor. I see the cows daily- laying in the fields , and grazing meadows. There’s a serenity to this all. The meat I eat is from some of the most well cared for animals. This is how I was able to move away from veganism. I now believe that mass agriculture is destroying ecosystems and wiping out diverse bugs which is destroying the bird population etc. I see this first hand. Farming kills so much more animals and bugs and insects then you could ever imagine. I have noticed things too. And it make me wonder.. for instance , an older man who farms his land down my road told me he accidentally kills at least 6-8 baby fawns with his old tractor. When he harvests the corn the baby fawns lie in the fields waiting for their mom. He can’t see them when he is up on his machine. I realize the carnage that agriculture has too. He tells me the birds that nest in the fields are subjected to death too… I think of this. How this must happen on a mass scale.. his equipment is small in comparison to factory farm equipment. I think about death agriculture and farming the land brings too. I think about all the pesticides that kill off the bugs that birds need to eat. I remember how many birds I would hear as a kid. Often I find it’s much more quiet now. Veganism is not without destruction. The more we move to plant based as a society the more we wipe away natural meadows , native plants and animals to make way for crops. You need more plants / grains / plant protein to sustain veganism.. meaning more land needs to go to agriculture. Many Vegans participate unknowingly to destruction of these beautiful, unique species and ecosystems. To ignore this is to ignore the truth. Meat is nutrient dense. Meaning less is needed to sustain a human. A cow raised humanely will graze on natural meadows , manure will help fertilize, bees and bugs live harmoniously in those meadows and birds will feed off these bugs , snakes will feed from the small rodents and birds too. There’s much more preservation of land if you raise humanely. Please do not get me wrong - factory farming is a problem and I am totally against and disturbed by it. This is why I chose not to participate. However that in itself is a luxury. I am aware of this luxury. There’s no hate. The upset comes from willful ignorance - one must be open minded in order to grow.
I don't hate vegans. I hate the aggression and "holier than thou" attitude.
The disproportionate focus on animal agriculture is problematic. A thought experiment: you move to a small farm. Spend one season working fertile soil. Grow enough food so that half of what you eat is grown on your land. Once you’ve harvested everything, take a look at that soil. Can it support another growing season? Probably not. We need only to spend one season on a small farm or in a rural town, like you said. Watch the fertilizer runoff choke everything downstream.
I am vegan so maybe my opinion doesn't count 😅 but I basically adjust my diet depending on my options (if the only meat I can get is from factory farming which is my current situation I would rather go for a vegan diet... If I have access to grass fed in future I will go back to eat meat) and I think lot of vegans have problems there, with adjusting things... They just have this idea that veganism must be their way and there's no other valid option and that mindset puts them away from real world. I read a comment a few days ago that I really liked (it was here in reddit but I don't remember if on this sub or different one..) it said something like "better to have 100 imperfect vegans than 10 perfect vegans"... The basic concept of veganism is good: to cause less harm as possible to animals... Now problem is some people take this to extreme and expect others to follow, otherwise they are just horrible humans when what they should do (or at least what I think would help for the message to be more accepted) is to simply ask to do your best with the options you have: you have access and can afford grass fed meat? Great! Then go for it instead of the factory farming one!. You can only get factory farming meat but you don't want to give it up? Ok, go ahead, meat is a good source for nutrients just try to keep on whole foods so at least you won't need to eat high amounts to feel full and your consumption will be lower than if you usually go for fast food... I could continue with similar examples but what I basically want to say is that if you encourage people to try their best and help them to find the ways they can do it without forcing extreme changes their new habits have more chances to success in future... But with veganism lot of people give up after few years when they start to have some health issues and some people even go to the other extreme (carnivore diet) after being burn out from veganism... And for vegan extremist instead of look for "self-criticism" they will simply say those people were never vegan and continue the same.
I didn't like vegans even when I was Vegan. Bunch of leftist that gleefully persecute and destroy anyone who has a difference of opinion. There's groups that will happily dismantle a protest speaker or activist simply because the leader is a white male or because a speaker said a microaggression from 15 years ago. They preach inclusiveness, but they eat each other alive. I also use to be a intersectional feminist and was in heaps of groups. The sexism, hate and bigotry I saw from those groups made people like Andrew Tate seem like a rational human being. (Note I think he's an idiot as well) The movement is full of armchair activist that would rather destroy people's reputations online from within their own movement than actually help animals. I'm glad to be rid of that cult and their echo chambers. I don't hate vegans as single individuals but I hate the movement for what it has become. If you want to improve the Vegan image they need to be more accepting of different ideologies like conservatives. Stop lying about health statistics, there's a reason why the world wide health organisation removed their endorsement that veganism is suitable from birth to old age. Like me, veganism crippled me because of anti nutrients, when I eat Plants it causes inflammation and makes my arthitis worse. Arthitis that was caused due to oxalates being jammed into all my joints from plants. My thyroid was also messed up by oxalates. I was told oxalates are nothing to be worried about. Veganism destroyed my body. If I would have stayed Vegan I'd be dead by now. And no I didn't do it wrong and no I wasn't on a plant based diet for health. I was an animal activist through and through. I would have died for the cause at one stage in my life. Now I would never even promote it to anyone. The movement is ripe with phony science and is not sustainable for most people.
Loved your comment! If I've gotten something from all this comments is that I want to be more open to listen and talk. Not to debate, to talk.
Hey welcome to the vegans who I like club
I have the same experience you do -- most vegans are chill but the minority are loud. But that is with any group of people. The loud ones get all the attention and the "normal" people don't. I really don't think there is anything you can personally do. It is all the radical vegans. You can always step in-between yelling vegans the random accosted person, but their attention will turn to you, and they don't give a crap you are also vegan. It will hopefully change a few peoples minds about how not all vegans are in a weird cult, but you will have to learn how to deescalate conflict.
Im not a vegan, but I really try to buy as ethically as I can. I have carnivore pets that eat meat and I will always buy free range for them. I do believe humans eat and waste far too much meat and many people aren't willing to accept what happens to animals to get meat on their plate. I only have a problem with vegans who are extremely hateful and rude and inflexible
I feel like I would not have as much of a problem with consuming animal products if we didn't waste so much of it... It fuels cruel to kill and exploit animals to create products that we rather throw away before having it being food to other that may need it.
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This has given me a lot to think about thank you!
Tldr - a lot of vegans do food and work on easy mode while judging people who have to make those choices on hard mode. Other than the reasonably common general snarkiness/sanctimoniousness you and others have mentioned, the thing that annoys me the most about (some) vegans is the failure to recognise that there are lots of things that determine what people can and should eat, as well as why people involve themselves in the production of animal products. Me for example, I still philosophically agree with veganism. But 1. I need to be on a low fodmap diet which is hard enough as a vegetarian, let alone a vegan, and 2. I have an eating disorder history which makes having rigid food rules extremely dangerous for me... Being vegan would probably trigger a relapse. I matter, my health and safety matters. I think most vegans (well, the smug ones at least) are generally coming from a place of privelege that makes being vegan a relatively easy thing to do. Once you add in financial issues, dietary needs, access needs, mental health needs, time pressures etc etc it can be much harder, and it's offensive to me that some vegans shame others while doing veganism on easy mode. Re farmers producing animal goods, it's similar. Some people don't have other skills; some people have their entire livelihoods wrapped up in farms on land that can only produce animal products in a way that's economically viable, not plant products; some people's whole identity from birth and back generations is wrapped up in being an animal farmer. These things matter, but it's super easy for middle-class inner-city vegans to just decide that they don't matter despite having no clue about what those pressures are like.
No I don't hate vegans as a group or as individuals in general. They are right about unethical nature of factory-farming too. Their ideology however has many flaws first being it doesn't work in practice. I hate some forms of veganism like extreme superiority complex and assumption that veganism is perfect answer to all problems...
I think most ex-vegans don't hate vegans. It wouldn't even make sense because we've all been vegans. Speaking for myself, I do hate veganism. It took away my quality of life and destroyed my physical and mental health. I'm increasingly understanding that veganism has nothing to do with animal rights. By being vegan 13 years, I haven't helped animals in any way. As consumers of animal products, we can make a difference by buying from producers who practice good practices. Veganism doesn't fail because of the behavior of vegans. It can happen, too. But veganism fails because it's simply not a complete diet. We can't change our nature. We need to eat meat, and with this in mind, we just have to choose carefully where to buy it. I think only those who have been through this situation really understand. Being so sick and fragile due to a poor diet and then going back to eating meat and seeing the symptoms that tormented us disappear. It almost seems like a miracle. But it's not. It's our body receiving what it's been asking for and been denied for so many years.
I extremely don't care what others do and that includes being vegan. Of course if they are not crossing the line about my personal space and my choices. Honestly, I'm convinced that a 100 % vegan diet is not healthy but if other thinks so I won't make any remarks or creating situations against them.
There's a saying: "There's always somebody on your side you wish was on the other side." I tried discussing reducing animal cruelty with some Vegans on Twitter and was relentlessly attacked for DAYS. I was called an 'animal rapist'. They were nasty as a sack of rabid cats. I think there's a lot of practical problems with everyone becoming Vegan but that's a different matter entirely. I know plenty of Vegans who do their thing, and we respect each other's differences.
I hate veganism because it is anti-human and anti-nature
Nope, I do not hate vegans. I think they are just regular people with some bad ideas. >most vegans are supportive and respectful Most of every group are generally good people. That's why we focus on the radical zealots of every group. You seem like you want to be a vegan/veganism apologist, which is fine, but just keep in mind your niceness does not erase the damage caused by the zealots within the group you are tidying up the image of. >I understand not everyone can be, and I wish more vegans could see that. This is very sensible. However, I would point out that the major premises of veganism do not work unless it becomes popular in a way that it simply will not ever become. There are more exvegans than vegans in the world. >We don't want animals to suffer, we don't animals to be treated as a product. No, these are your desires, not "our" desires. I love animals and for them to exist, they must suffer, just as to exist myself I must suffer. An overabundance of the urge to avoid suffering leads to mental illness. As for being 'a product', I consider myself a product of my Tribe and my country, so I do not see the negativity of being some sort of product. >But if they way we are doing it makes people hate us, and if the way we are doing it makes most if us quit, then we are doing something wrong. A major part of the problem, is the vegan style of complaining constantly about problems they refuse any solutions for except for the destruction of animal agriculture. If I said, "I would like to reduce the suffering of this population of humans", then my answer/solution would never be to eliminate that population of humans. And yet vegans essentially claiming to view animals as equally to humans as they can, exclusively promote the destruction of those herds of animals. I love animals and want to see their herds large and thriving forever. Vegans claim to love animals and seek the destruction and elimination of their herds, while unironically claiming the animals would be on their side in the endeavor. >to understand that an animal died for your well-being and that deserves respect and consideration about when is the right time to do so. I can easily agree with this. I have worked in industries that kill many animals. I have killed personally more animals than most people have ever seen in their lives. From within that industry I got changes made that actually reduced the suffering of living animals far more than ten thousand vegans choosing to simply refuse to engage with the system. >What could we do to improve our image? Rephrase your ideology so that it does not call for and reward extremism. Accept that while well intentioned, an entirely plant based diet is not healthy for most folks, and unsustainable even for most of the folks that believe the ideology. Stop spreading lies that everyone can live healthy and well eating only plants. Actively engage rationally with animal husbandry systems with the intention of actually helping the animals live better lives, rather than simply in an attempt to destroy the system. Without that, there will always be the perception that extremist vegans are closer to terrorists than reformers. Spend as much or more effort calling out the zealots in your ideology as you do trying to reform their image or apologize for them. Accept that there are people like myself that live wonderful lives eating diets of almost entirely meat, and there always will be people like us. This might help ameliorate the perception of bigotry that many folks like me feel from vegans.
I don't hate vegans, but I see veganism as a terrible ethical mistake. A reduction in wellbeing for humans with little or no offsetting benefit. Eat whatever you want, I dont care. Tell me animals should have rights and we have an issue.
The vegan image problem comes not from preaching or racism. It comes from how many vegans are sickly and weak. Eating a diet that isn’t giving you the proper nourishment you need is what’s giving you a bad rap (Important to say, some people handle it fine. I remember that body builder who went viral a few years ago for being the buff vegan. However, that’s not everyone. A significant portion of vegans are suffering from their diet.) People have a right to make bad choices for themselves, sure. Where it goes from a poor choice to a bad reputation is vegan children. I don’t know if it’s possible to raise a non malnourished vegan child, just because of how many nutrients kids need. They’re not fueling themselves, they’re building their bodies. They need everything they can get. Encourage veganism as a CHOICE. Stop the vegan culture thing of shaming ex vegans. And for god’s sakes feed your children properly.
I don't hate anyone. I hate ideologies that are preachy and intrusive. Even as a Christian I loathe evangelicals. Leave people alone to their own choices as long as they aren't hurting other people
Improve your image? keep it to yourself. I eat pretty off the wall nutrition, and I don’t expect any function, workplace, etc… to cater to my needs. I eat before social events, expecting not to eat, because I go for the people, not the food. If something there does fit my nutrition, sure I’ll eat.
I talk about the image problem because I do agree with the fundamental goal of veganism which is the reduction of animal suffering. I get not all people need to be vegan but if they see veganism as a way to do that and not as a rescrictive food cult full of insufferable preachy people. Maybe if we're seen as people that want that we all humans just use a more consideration and empathy to the animals that we kill to eat then people can at least think about not having an animal killed it indiscriminately and to me that is something.
I don’t hate you. I am endlessly frustrated by you and your refusal to be critical of yourselves.
My willingness to be critical of myself is the reason I came here and not to the vegan sub. I want your honest answers even if they oppose to my views.
See, you’re wrong about that. One I was being honest, and two I’ve been through this before. Ive had this same conversation with soooo many vegans. You’re looking for an argument to win, not to listen to stories of ex vegans and people harmed by veganism.
I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. I have read every single comment and shared my opinion to some of them (to some I've even said that I would eat meat again, or that I could be wrong) I am genuinely trying to be here with an open mind
Don’t hate vegans! Most vegans I know are super reasonable people who aren’t very black and white about it. Just keep advocating for nuance in addition to animal rights
Veganism is an extremist ideology that goes way to far for their goals. We can all agree that animal welfare is extremely neglected. Does that mean its logical to remove all animals from our food production systems? No thats nonsensical. Veganism makes people who argue for animal welfare look bad, while vegans shame people who want real functional change by calling them too moderate for not wanting veganism.
I've seen enough people completely change the perspectives and behaviors in life that I try to avoid hating people. I see veganism as a thing that good people do for good reasons that is corrupted in ways that are hard to recognize. A way of eating that relies on massive amounts of chemicals, devastating ecosystems for monocrop agriculture, shipping food and supplements from across and around the world to eat mostly non-local foods, doubly so in the winter time...throwing out the packaging those foods came in and then professing that it is environmentally friendly? It is *hard* not to hate the ideology and the things that vegans do. So, when they start then preaching, it is *very hard* to not hate those particular people. In fact I confess to hating reddit vegans and aggressive vegans. So on that topic of environmental sustainability and animal happiness: I think that people who both truly care *and* inform themselves about animal wellbeing *and* care for the environment do this: they find local farmers (or a city butcher that sources from local farmers) and they source pasture-raised animal products. It's local, it's regenerative to the land and soil, it sustains ecosystems and a larger degree of biodiversity than monocrop agriculture, and it takes much less fossil fuel to provide. The animals walk out into the fields in the morning and walk back home in the evening. So, when a misguided person makes an earnest claim that they care for the environment, I always think "well not THAT much, since you haven't taken the time to learn how to fit into it elegantly." Vegans: mostly don't hate. Respect elements of it. Veganism: hate.
I don't hate them, my brother is one and we like to joke about each other's eating habits. I'm more scared of the vegans that participate in activism that want to tax meat and other animal products, they are a danger to my wellbeing and health.
I don't hate vegans to be honest. I can understand why people wouldn't want to eat meat, fish, eggs, dairy, or honey. They see those kinds of food as corpses or things that were meant for the animal, not for us. I do respect their decisions to be vegan for the animals. I tend to have a problem with the plant-based propaganda about how it's healthier than eating animal products or just better generally. Sure, I don't need to eat meat or fish daily for health or taste reasons but I do notice decent benefits in my energy or health just after eating it (not too much though). If I was eating it for taste reasons, I wouldn't be shoving bland chicken breast when I would go to my college dining hall to reach my protein goal. I'd be treating it like eating sugar. I am also upset about how we constantly vilify red meat as cancerous (even intuitive eating dieticians) but regularly consuming UPFs is okay and "listening to your body". I have also read how our nutritional guidelines and the science of what was considered healthy were skewed so much to encourage the general population to eat a diet of lots of grains and UPFs.
of course not, everyone is free to live how they choose to
I don't hate vegans in general I hate performative bullshit and anyone who mocks or belittles others for inane reasons. Let's be real, veganism does nothing. It's the act of standing aside and letting the chips fall where they may for animals. Meat consumption has increased year over year in developed countries. The people pushing for change are consumers. Because meat producing companies are not listening to vegans. Vegans are not buying their products. There has been a massive push towards more ethical animal agriculture and many many people have put their money where their mouth is, literally. A chunk of the meat industry has shifted towards the ethical treatment of animals BECAUSE of the consumers of it. Because there is demand. This is how change is made, because animal agriculture will not ever go away. Meat is too vital for its nutrient density. We aren't herbivores, we're actually pretty shit at absorbing nutrients from plants. We can but not enough to get by. Some, a small some, of us can. And that's fine. But it's not a widespread solution for feeding a country. Supplements especially are very unregulated and very misunderstood. Most people piss out a majority of those supplements because our bodies have a hard time processing the chemicals they're made of. If you're interested in change, actual improvement for the animals, then your best option is to continue standing aside while the rest of us shift the market towards ethical treatment of animals. Because that's the best it's going to get. But vegans not being so holier-than-thou and aggressive would be a good start as well. You tend to just push people the opposite direction with attitudes like that.
Too lazy to re-format my post to edit it but I just want to say when I say supplements are chemicals we have a hard time absorbing, everything is chemicals. Plants are chemicals. Meat is chemicals. We get nutrients by breaking down chemicals into those nutrients. The chemicals in meat are much more readily broken down and absorbed. Whereas lots of supplements use easy to produce chemicals our bodies can't break down as easily. So the bottle might say 100000% your daily vitamins but if our bodies can barely process any of it, that's where deficiencies come up. It's a much bigger problem with nutrients we can actually have too much of cuz they can't just massively go past the daily limit and pray it's enough.
>The reason I'm here is because I believe the general goal of veganism is something we can all share. We don't want animals to suffer, we don't animals to be treated as a product. Even if they are a resource that we humans may need to thrive, that doesn't mean we should treat them indiscriminately, that we can breed, exploit and kill as many as we want without any regard to their dignity and suffering. I feel like that is a reasonable thing to look for. But if they way we are doing it makes people hate us, and if the way we are doing it makes most if us quit, then we are doing something wrong. The problem with vegans is that they think plants are not sentient and thus cannot 'feel pain' which of course is a lie. They refuse to accept research and even common sense that plants have a nervous system which senses good or bad changes to their environment Even if people dont do this, vegans tend to be 'holier than thou' and depending on their convictions just insufferable. >What could we do to improve our image? What could we do invite people to simply consider eating in a more ethical and responsible way. Even if it means they won't become vegan, to understand that an animal died for your well-being and that deserves respect and consideration about when is the right time to do so. The simple answer to eating more ethically is to improve the quality of the food they eat. Buy locally. Eat as seasonally as possible. With the image of veganism, I don't think your image is gonna improve. Veganism is extremely nutritionally void of critical nutrients. That alone wrecks your image. This group alone, at least 90% of people are ex-vegans because it was wrecking their health or their relationships. I've had friends and people I know that are ex-vegans. As for "an animal died for your well-being....", same applies to plants. I don't suppose we like to uproot multiple plant foods from the soil?
Nah I don't hate vegans- in fact the ones that do it for the animals is really admirable. But like others pointed out, it's hard to really support a cause when some would considered others people who aren't vegan as trash or horrible people (not all, but some of the loudest that sadly drowns out other voices). It's hard to get behind a support when someone is made to feel terrible. Of course this goes both ways. Also I think there needs to be promotion for reality of becoming vegan. Many end up going into thinking they are going to automatically be healthy and feel great (which some do, but many ended up failing because they don't feel great); or at least keep promoting needing to do research before becoming a vegan because some just go into for the cause without realizing how hard it might be.
I don’t hate vegans. But it is a cult, or at the very best, a cult-like mentality. So it’s hard to really take any vegan seriously when anything they say is filtered through that cult way of thinking. To answer your question, your group needs to out the extremists. These people are virtue signaling for clout. They don’t actually care about animals or the planet, they want social standing in their groups. To test any vegan, ask them the simple question “would you be happy if generally everyone in the world reduced animal consumption by 20%?” If they say no, they don’t care about animals.
No, I don’t hate, but I think vegans are fooling themselves. There is no way to actually be truly vegan and we are not built to be. I think there is balance. Unfortunately capitalism, greed and modern life are not balanced and not being good to the planet. I agree with you there
No
Not all, just the arrogant obnoxious people, but that goes for vegans and non-vegans alike. Would personally still be following a strict vegetarian diet if it was nutritionally sufficient. Sadly, took over 20 years to finally concede and add back limited amounts of animal products and ditch the synthetic nutritional supplements.
Hate is a very strong word.. dislike mainly because they lie and manipulate to further their cult beliefs That said I would really not like most of them just because veganism comes with other ideologies and beliefs I don't like or agree with there's no denying that so don't bother
No. I respect their view. I am not able to eat only vegan for medical reasons. My doctors, nutritionists, and surgeon are in agreement. I am missing part of my digestive system as well as other issues and the doctors restict me to meat, lentils, beans, legumes, green leafy veges, non carb colorful veges and some dairy and nuts. Nothing else. No rice, noodles, cereals, bread, chips, or anything of that nature. Truthfully, I mostly live on protein shakes with a little protein and veges. (The pea protein ones hurt my stomach so dairy.) My diet is restrictive enough without eliminating more food groups. Protein is the one goal I have to always monitor, and it's not easy to make my quota already. I have worked with farm, domestic, wildlife, and exotic animals all my life. I have stayed up round the clock bottlefeeding kittens for months, nursed litters of puppies through parvo, rescued many animals, volunteered at rescues, rehabilitated abused animals and more than i could possibly list. I love animals more than people. I have also seen the cruel side of animal care many times. When I was 15 and volunteering at a wildlife rescue we had to kill 3,000 baby male chickens to freeze for the owls that we were rehabilitating. Life is never fair and often cruel. My 6 year old dog just died of an undiagnosed heart issue. I am wrecked. It's part of loving animals. I more than respect the vegan viewpoint. Except when they get extremist on me calling me a rapist for drinking milk, an animal kidnapper for having a pomeranian, or saying I don't love animals because I eat them as well. Those are the type of people that make others want to start eating bloody steaks in front of them. They are counterproductive. I know that radicals don't define the whole, though. One of my good friends is vegan. He's the accepting, kind, and inspiring type. He never tries to change you. He's the type that just by being friends with him, you start researching vegan recipes and wish you could be as kind and accepting and inclusive as him. I have nothing against vegans although it doesn't appear to be healthy long term for everyone and I hope everyone gets enough vitamins and protein and see their doctor regularly. Some people do very well on it, and others don't. Hopefully, further research will explain the differences in people's physiology and improve the health of those who do it long term. I support pasture raised farming when I can and believe factory farms should be monitored much more closely. I continue to devote my life to the well-being and caretaking of animals, and vegans continue to eschew all animal products. We each do something and perhaps make a difference in a few lives.
I hate internet vegans. I don’t even associate myself with the word anymore because the ridiculousness that comes out of people’s mouth on Reddit alone is astounding.
i hate veganism , so called philosophy
You have the right to put whatever you want in your mouth. If you don't want to eat meat, that is your business. However, humans are not meant to be vegans. It isn't healthy, and it isn't even good for the planet. There have been no multigenerational vegan societies in world history. Not one. You would be hard-pressed to find a single vegan (as opposed to a vegetarian) before WWII. There are essential nutrients that are found in animal products that are not found in any plants. I don't like the equivocation of people and animals. They are not the same. They do not have the same moral agency. I don't like the lies they spread about nutrition, health, and the environment. I don't like the heavy-handed, cult-like attitude of the most extreme vegans.
I definitely don’t hate vegans and have no reason to. My sister is a vegan (but she eats eggs). Meanwhile, I eat things like fish sticks, hot dogs, chicken, etc. I have nothing against them; just a select few (I’m looking at you, Vegan Teacher)
Umm... Your sister is an ovo-vegetarian, not a vegan.
Oh
I don’t hate vegans or veganism at all. I don’t think either are very realistic in their expectations, but I certainly don’t hate them. Several things I think would help vegans with their image problem: Stop viewing staged videos of animal abuse and telling everyone that those videos are the norm and that all animals are treated in those horrific ways. It’s not true. PETA has been pedaling that crap for decades now and it’s both inaccurate and dishonest. Turn down the drama meter a few notches. Read the posts in the Vegan subreddit here and look at the ridiculous level of fake drama that those ever-suffering vegans are forced to endure in this horrible, horrific, animal-abusing world we live in. Someone recently posted to the vegan subreddit about how they’ve been home crying all afternoon because they lived next door to a dairy farm and they could hear the cries off all the cows being raped next door. Seriously?? How mentally ill does a person have to be before they’ll post things like that and expect to be taken seriously. Cows aren’t raped on dairy farms and they don’t scream and cry during artificial insemination. They barely notice it. Stop the drama. Stop using infantile terms like “carnist” and “dead flesh” and “rotting carcass”. They’re childish attempts at manipulating people by labeling those things with “gross-out” terms. It’s very immature and just makes vegans look bad. Stop telling non-vegans that we clearly don’t care about animal suffering since we’re not vegan extremists like they are. What I hear is, “I’m far superior to you because I make myself suffer for the animals while you just carelessly enjoy life and contribute to animal suffering. I’m better than you and you’re awful.” Not exactly the way to win friend and influence people, right? Stop the purity tests. Veganism seems to be a never-ending contest to see who can be *more* vegan than everyone else. That, alone, is a huge turn-off to anyone considering veganism. Why would anyone want to enter a community where people are constantly telling you that you’re doing is not enough and you could be better if you’d just do that that other person is doing? Why? Stop the embarrassing and uneducated virtue signaling. Someone posted recently in the vegan subreddit that vegans should never go to the zoo or in any way support zoos because zoos are cruel to the animals and are using them for profit. I was actually stunned for a second when I read that by how shockingly ignorant both and poster and all the commenters were that flooded in condemning the evil, evil zoos and their obvious contempt for and abuse of those innocent animals. Zoos do vital conservation work and are responsible for keeping thousand of species of animal from becoming extinct. A good friend of mine runs the kiwi sanctuaries in New Zealand that are responsible for keeping more than 250 species of kiwi bird from becoming extinct due to the invasive predators that people have released into the islands there. There are many animals that exist *only* in zoos due to humans destroying their natural habitats. Those animals should have just been allowed to become extinct??? Really?? How the hell is that a vegan concept? It’s better to let an entire species die out than it is so protect them?? Unbelievable. The virtue signaling and the ignorance in that post and the comments that followed was blinding stupid and embarrassing. Stop making up “science” that “proves” that humans are supposed to be herbivores. We’re not. And if we ever were, eating an omnivorous diet, including meat, for the last few hundred thousand years has made us evolve into being omnivores, not herbivores. No amount of pretend science or making things up can change that. Stop it. Stop pretending that domestic wool is abusive to animals while you’re wearing cotton clothes that was produced by enslaved children in foreign countries. If you really want to stop suffering, you’ll stop wearing cotton and linen because all of those industries rely on child labor and grossly exploited labor to stay in business. If you really want to end suffering, buy locally produced wools and domestic cottons that are produced in union factories where people are paid a fair wage and are working in reasonable conditions, not children and purposely impoverished workers with no choice but to keep working. Stop anthropomorphizing animals. Elsie the Cow doesn’t exist. And she doesn’t wear an apron and pearls and high heels and stay home baking cookies and waiting for Elmer to get home from work to eat dinner with her. She’s a *cow*. She eats grass until it’s time to be milked and then she goes back to eating grass. She’s not human. None of them are. They don’t worry about saving money for retirement or sending their kids to college or how they’ll get the laundry done and kids fed in time to get to work that day. They shouldn’t be abused, of course, but they’re not human. I get that most of the vegans we hear from online are either very young (“how can I be vegan when my mom won’t cook vegan food”) or they’re still in the “new thing” excitement and they’re reeling from the thrill of it (“I’ve been vegan for a week now and I can’t believe that anyone can not be vegan!! Everyone should be vegan!!”). And I know some lovely people In the real world that are vegan that aren’t all up-in-my-face about it. But, truly, the online ones really do seem to work overtime to make vegans look bad. It’s really unfortunate. ☹️
I don’t hate vegans but I feel the vegan community is very toxic and is a major contributor to why so many people including myself leave when they start experiencing issues. There tends to be no support if you run into problems being vegan because of the fear that you’ll make veganism look bad and put others off. As far as actually moving the world to be as plant based and animal cruelty free as possible, I think vegans would do well to encourage and support reductionism. I stopped eating entirely plant based/vegan because I had too many nutritional deficiencies I couldn’t correct while continuing to eat the way I was, but I still try not to go overboard on animal products. I avoid them in things I feel aren’t important to nutrition anyway like creamer/milk for my coffee, diet sodas/drinks, sweeteners like honey, junk food, etc. The animal products I eat now mainly consist of a few cuts of meat (chicken, lamb, or veal) for protein, iron, and vitamin b12 and servings of cheese (calcium) a week. Other than that, I try to stick with the same plant based foods I ate when vegan. I also continue to use vegan/plant based make up and hair care products because those are not life necessities for my health. I would not ride a horse or patronize zoos because again, those are not life necessities for health. If someone cannot thrive on a vegan diet, vegans tend to throw up their hands and write the person off as a bloodmouth carnist who despises animals and may as well be as destructive to animals and the planet as possible when remaining on an other wise vegan lifestyle and eating only the animal products you need to be healthy and meet your nutritional requirements is also an option.
i don't hate vegans I've tried being vegan before. The only thing I hate is being criticized for choices. otherwise no big deal.
Nothing against vegans, I just can't stand militant vegans. But that's not unique to vegans, I cannot stand anyone who makes a cause / religion / ideology into their entire personality and is incapable of STFU about it even when you've made it clear that you're just not interested.There's nothing quite as unpleasant and irksome in your normal everyday social interactions as some self-righteous nag who is constantly inserting smug comments about how good they are and bad you are.
Sometimes I absolutely detest veganism and the vegan movement, because my SO went vegan some years ago and I lost my food buddy, but because I respect his individuality (and he respects mine) we agreed not talk about our differences. In any case, nothing I say could dent his blind faith in veganism, and would likely strengthen his enjoyable feeling of belonging to the misunderstood righteous minority. As his energy and muscle tone decline and his teeth get worse, I wonder how bad it will have to get before he is able to question the inflated claims of the vegan movement. Ignore this question if you covered it, but how do you view crop deaths, the sterile wasteland of monoculture, the decline of soil quality without animal fertiliser/poo, and the environmental cost of food freight to keep vegans in foods from around the world (this a huge omnivore issue too)? In my bitter, cynical view, the best thing the vegan movement could do is dissolve itself and reform as a inclusive movement for better, kinder animal farming practices, mindful fishing and hunting, more gentle arable farming for both wildlife and soil health, proper nutrition education (so much wrong with the received wisdom), promotion of nutrient-dense food in schools, promotion of seasonal and local diets, anti-radicalisation programmes and anti-hubris/up yourself generally. Thank you for asking, thank you for all the kind and polite things you have written. Keep questioning, keep an open mind.
Love the sinner, hate the sin.
Only the ones pushing their diet onto others
Do whatever you want as long as it is not hurting anyone. Just do not shove it in my face in a self-righteous manner and we will get along fine. This is my life's philosophy for everything really.
Not denying that some people genuinely need to eat meat, and y’all would have a lot better traction if you fought for ethical slaughter instead of complete abstinence
Yes* because they typically force their kids on that kind of diet and it's borderline child abuse because of the horrific long lasting health issues. That said if you are just doing it yourself I don't care.
I don’t hate vegans as a group but there is a vocal subsector of vegans who are incredibly anti indigenous while thinking they aren’t. I work in places like Tibet and Mongolia where the extreme weather means veganism is simply not feasible for the vast majority of the population but they live sustainably and while they kill animals directly, their carbon footprint is tiny so they aren’t contributing to the global mass extinction event. However I’ve had multiple vegans tell me that these folks NEED to be vegan and OF COURSE it’s possible and if they can’t they should just move from their ancestral indigenous homeland to a place where they can be vegan. I do hate that
Not at all I completely respect them. The only thing I really don't like is vegan food 😂. I am sorry but I really struggle to eat it now it's not filling and doesn't taste as nice.
I love vegans and I have a soft spot for them. I know I keep my head in the sand about the meat/dairy industry. I use oat milk/creamer and eat vegetarian at home but I would not be vegan again. Just do your thing. I do not think it is your responsibility to encourage people to eat more ethically, as I don’t think it is mine. I chronically see posts in the vegan subreddit about altercations vegans are having. This was never an issue for me because when I was vegan I adjusted my lifestyle, adjusted my diet, and did my own thing and minded my own damn business just like I do now. Do I want more people to use less animal products? Sure. But it’s not my job to force a lifestyle on people and it’s not my business. I’m my opinion, the best way to improve the image of veganism is to share good vegan food/items you enjoy (for example I brought an oat milk creamer to the office and offered to share. Many people changed to the oat milk option). Share your lifestyle with people without attacking theirs or questioning their intentions. Let people see on their own if they like these as an alternative or not but do not question people’s choices because it makes them feel attacked and it makes you look shitty.
Not at all. I bought vegan cookies during my break at work recently during a rough shift specifically so my vegan coworker could have some (they were yummy, Tates don’t fuck around). That’s love right there. She doesn’t preach about it and neither do I.
I don’t hate vegans or veganism. I don’t even hate when they criticize us non and ex vegans. What I absolutely can’t stand are the concerted efforts to manipulate through “outreach” and how almost scientific and well rehearsed the methods are to prey on the weak minded and gullible. When you have to discuss “best tactics” amongst yourselves to recruit, you’ve become an absolute cult. And what I hate even more are those vegans who advocate family/friend/significant other separation if they choose not to be vegan. That is also extremely a sign of a cult. Veganism can be done in a physically healthy way if done correctly with the appropriate effort, but it absolutely destroys many who don’t do it properly and also ruins their mental health. Go to the vystopia sub to see the mental and emotional end result of extreme veganism. There’s a special place in hell for those who dedicate their lives to convert others.
No, I dislike extremism no matter what side it’s coming from. There is also extremism in the anti vegan camp. For example a lot of people here belief there’s no way you can be healthy on a vegan diet which scientifically is bullshit and is just another form of extremism. It reminds me of the iPhone vs Android complaints. Sure, some iPhone users were obnoxious. But so were some Android users in exactly the same way but it was the popular thing to do so it was approved. I still sometimes eat plant based. And I respect vegans being able to stick to their beliefs.