Can vegans...

[ginger_vitus]

would it still be wrong for a vegan to eat a giant plate of Salad with little bacon bits in it?

Yes. A vegan wouldn't eat that.

Except Bac-Os. They're actually 100% soy, and were one of the first imitation-meat products mass-produced in the US. BAM! History.

As to the original q's, it depends on the vegan. I know a number of vegans who only do the dietary thing, myself included, either because they're just making a statement about the food industry and not animal rights, or because they aspire to have a totally vegan lifestyle, but don't have the spare cash around to throw out their Doc Martens/Wool Blankets and replace them with non-animal alternatives, or because they've yet to find vegan-friendly products that perform as well as they need to. Depending on what specifically we're talking about, I could cite a personal example for all three. (And yeah, I know TONS of people who want my vegan powers revoked for that.)
But the one I really wanna nail down is the fossil fuels. The truth is, there's no such thing as a "pure" vegan. Anyone who claims this is either delusional or rabidly immature. Why? Because there's animal in everything. If you drive, take a bus, or ride a bike to work or school, never mind the gas, there's an animal bone derivative in tire rubber, and in most shoe rubber too. If you take any kind of medication for anything, not only has it absolutely been tested on animals in the past (FDA regulations require it), but it probably has gelatin or bone char in it. But no sensible person would advocate that you stop taking prescribed meds or walk everywhere barefoot to stick to the letter of the law of veganism. It's incredibly short-sighted and counterproductive to the cause at large. It just makes the sane vegans seem like assholes.
So in short, no vegan eats meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, eggs, or any other animal product. If you see one wearing a wool cap or a leather jacket or using a commercial toiletry product or whatever, it doesn't disqualify them, it just means they have different priorities or are poor or need to use normal stuff or whatever. Anything beyond the dietary is case-by-case and (imho) not as important.

 

[BonsaiK]

snip

Don't ask me how it happened, but I meant to quote this guy, and ended up quoting you. Whoops.

Can Vegans (i guess im talking about ethical vegans mainly)...
wear leather?
wear wool?
use fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, and natural gas)? cos fossil fuels are basicly made up of dead organisms (including animals).

Hope you can quench my curiosity

~Ish

I know of a Vegan who would eat fish and animal IF AND ONLY IF caught or killed it herself. It was the only way the she deemed it ethically sound.

... I don't get it.

Most vegans not the PETA vegans. Say that they will not eat anything because they do not agree with how it is acquired. This person would hunt and fish themselves so that they could say that they agree with how they got the food.

That's not what I meant. I'm confused as to why killing an animal yourself is somehow more morally correct than having someone else do it for you.

Oh right. I think the issue there is twofold:

1. If you're doing itself you know you're not carrying any impurities into the food (or maybe you are, but hey then you only have yourself to blame, right?)
2. If you're doing it yourself then you can make sure you're not makling the animal suffer any more than is absolutely necessary to get the job done.

Having said that, a vegan would not kill and eat animals, period.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Nothing stops a vegan from doing any of these things. Being a vegan only implies that they do not eat animal products. I'd be willing to bet a great many vegans would also refuse to use animal products like leather and such as many of them chose to be vegans for "moral" reasons rather than health reasons.

 

[Fanta Grape]

snip

Don't ask me how it happened, but I meant to quote this guy, and ended up quoting you. Whoops.

Can Vegans (i guess im talking about ethical vegans mainly)...
wear leather?
wear wool?
use fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, and natural gas)? cos fossil fuels are basicly made up of dead organisms (including animals).

Hope you can quench my curiosity

~Ish

I know of a Vegan who would eat fish and animal IF AND ONLY IF caught or killed it herself. It was the only way the she deemed it ethically sound.

... I don't get it.

Most vegans not the PETA vegans. Say that they will not eat anything because they do not agree with how it is acquired. This person would hunt and fish themselves so that they could say that they agree with how they got the food.

That's not what I meant. I'm confused as to why killing an animal yourself is somehow more morally correct than having someone else do it for you.

Oh right. I think the issue there is twofold:

1. If you're doing itself you know you're not carrying any impurities into the food (or maybe you are, but hey then you only have yourself to blame, right?)
2. If you're doing it yourself then you can make sure you're not makling the animal suffer any more than is absolutely necessary to get the job done.

Having said that, a vegan would not kill and eat animals, period.

I would.


I'm a vegan by moral choice and to simplify why, it's because I'm lazy.

Modern day processes of animal and animal products are a mix of humane and sadistic. For example, many cows are kept in cages for their entire lives or chickens made to walk in their own filth in a barn with a hundred others, having severe medical problems.
But I have no problem with animals dying. Animals die all the time. It's natural. If I truly did what I believed in, I'd find a place that treated animals with respect and then try to promote them. But I'm lazy, so it's easier to go vegan.

Regarding the question itself, I use as little wool as possible, I have a leather belt and shoes but try to minimise them, and yes, I use fossil fuels because the animals didn't suffer needlessly. But having said that, the modern world is pretty horrendous at being vegan friendly. Mock-leather is extremely pathetic junk, wool is everywhere, and there's animal products in nearly everything. Gelatine is a huge problem...

and I know there's many people out there who may think, "What's the point? It doesn't change anything and you're obviously still helping the industry by using products. <refer to "products made from cattle" image>"
Just because it won't change anything, I'm not going to support something I don't believe in. I have no problem with people eating meat at all. I'd prefer it if they wouldn't, but they just don't share the same belief as I do. It's a personal choice. But I do as much as I can.

 

[zen5887]

Modern day processes of animal and animal products are a mix of humane and sadistic. For example, many cows are kept in cages for their entire lives or chickens made to walk in their own filth in a barn with a hundred others, having severe medical problems.
But I have no problem with animals dying. Animals die all the time. It's natural. If I truly did what I believed in, I'd find a place that treated animals with respect and then try to promote them. But I'm lazy, so it's easier to go vegan.

and I know there's many people out there who may think, "What's the point? It doesn't change anything and you're obviously still helping the industry by using products. <refer to "products made from cattle" image>"
Just because it won't change anything, I'm not going to support something I don't believe in. I have no problem with people eating meat at all. I'd prefer it if they wouldn't, but they just don't share the same belief as I do. It's a personal choice. But I do as much as I can.

1. Totally.

The reason I'm not a vegetarian is because the meat production in Australia isn't that bad. I've been around farms pretty much all my life, and I've never seen anything other than open pastures and the like (for cows and sheep at least, I can't comment on poultry, but make sure to buy free ranged when I can). I'm certainly not against eating animals at all, what with the food chain and all.. But I'm totally against animal cruelty. If I was living in North America things may be different.

2. I really dig this paragraph, and I wish I could show it to a lot of people. Props.

 

[BonsaiK]

a vegan would not kill and eat animals, period.

I would.

Then you're not a vegan, regardless of any other factors. You may still like to call yourself one, but you would be incorrect in terms of any standard definition of the term. You could of course try and get that definition changed if you wanted to, so it encompassed people such as yourself, good luck with that.

 

[Fanta Grape]

a vegan would not kill and eat animals, period.

I would.

Then you're not a vegan, regardless of any other factors. You may still like to call yourself one, but you would be incorrect in terms of any standard definition of the term. You could of course try and get that definition changed if you wanted to, so it encompassed people such as yourself, good luck with that.

I would, but I don't.

 

[BringBackBuck]

I had a vegan friend who would not do paintball because the paint pellets contain gellatin in the casing.

Also if she was being bitten by a mosquito, she would gently remove it and shoo it on it's way.

She was freakin' nuts.

 

[BonsaiK]

a vegan would not kill and eat animals, period.

I would.

Then you're not a vegan, regardless of any other factors. You may still like to call yourself one, but you would be incorrect in terms of any standard definition of the term. You could of course try and get that definition changed if you wanted to, so it encompassed people such as yourself, good luck with that.

I would, but I don't.

If you would, but you don't, then you wouldn't (notice how "wouldn't" is like a contraction of the words "would" and "don't" - not a coincidence!), which means you are a vegan.

 

[irani_che]

in reality
vegans do whatever they want to.
they are like a relgious group but without a book of fables to unify their sense of morality

 

[Swny Nerdgasm]

I remember back in high school my health teacher gave us an assignment where we had to be vegans for a week, that lasted until lunch and i went to get a burger.

 

[Fanta Grape]

a vegan would not kill and eat animals, period.

I would.

Then you're not a vegan, regardless of any other factors. You may still like to call yourself one, but you would be incorrect in terms of any standard definition of the term. You could of course try and get that definition changed if you wanted to, so it encompassed people such as yourself, good luck with that.

I would, but I don't.

If you would, but you don't, then you wouldn't (notice how "wouldn't" is like a contraction of the words "would" and "don't" - not a coincidence!), which means you are a vegan.

This is turning into a bad Abott and Costello routine real fast...

 

[Mr.Numbers]

Echem...

EATING HARVESTED CROPS KILLS MORE ANIMALS THAN IT SAVES.

Eating Soy based products and cereal crops kills a LOT of small field animals in the process, whilst the slaughter of paddy raised beef capitalizing on otherwise unfertile land (IE Not grain fed, soy fed) requires one death and feeds lots of people, harvesting kills lots of small things to feed one person.

This includes mice, rats, snakes and slow birds.

Also: Chickens are a vegetable. Nothing that stupid and aggressive can be classified as sentient creature.

 

[Nunny]

2. Yes, because the animal doesn't have to be killed first.

The wool you wear was cut from a sheep with a wicked sharp set of shears. That sheep was wrestled to the ground & held down as it was shaven all over with those big shears, thrashing about, getting nicked all over.

Just thought you might want to know.

I've seen a sheep being shaved, they don't always struggle as much as you would think, and a professional sheep shearer will rarely nick the sheep (you don't want to make a mess or distress the animal more than necessary).

Not saying your wrong, but you are exaggerating a bit.
If you want to call the wool industry cruel you need only point to the practice of mulesing.

Its where they clip the skin around the sheeps rear until it dies and drops off. Its done for good reason though, as seen here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulesing

Still far less cruel then what its preventing.

Flystrike is some nasty shit

 

[Maclennan]

Paints and lubricants for mass consumption are not made from cow products anymore, rendering the components is too expensive when byproducts of reactions using petroleum often gives the same or a chemically comparable product. Oil based lubricants are superior in mechanical applications because even with treatment oils from animal products is prone to burning if it is worked too hard.
Ironically you can still get adhesives, paints and lubricants made from animal products, but they tend to be sold in stores specializing in green products where a stereotypical vegan is most likely to shop. It is unlikely you would find lubricants and paint containing animal products at home hardware though they would probably have animal based glue if you looked for it.

 

[Karilas]

snip

snip

snippy

...but bacon bits in salad? Yuck!...

Really!? Never had a BLT? Bacon and salad go together like, er, rama lama lama ke ding a de dinga dong. I shit you not.

 

[zen5887]

Still far less cruel then what its preventing.

Flystrike is some nasty shit

But there are far more humane ways of preventing it.