Veganism...why?

[TwiZtah]

I want to be a vegetarian, I don't like how animals are treated. Or how much 1 kg of meat costs the planet to make, it's an insane amount of spillage to make 1 kg of meat.

 

[Jammy2003]

I'm not a vegan, but I've cut eggs and the majority of meats out of my diet, plus moved onto soya milk. Reasons? Variety of them:
a) To me, bugger all difference between cow milk and soya therefore why not? Any of you looked at the pus content in cow milk? There is a pretty large quantity of it floating about in there that I'd rather not have in me.
b) The dairy industry supports the veal industry. Baby cow can't have mommys milk or that would mean not enough for us right?
c) The egg industry is pretty appauling, even free range. There was a pretty big thing about "Happy Egg Co" a while back, where the conditions were found to be pretty bad, despite the fact it is a Free Range Egg company.
d) I don't believe we are naturally carnivores, nor are we naturally herbivores, we are opportunistic omnivores. We eat whatever we can get our hands on at the time, be it meat or veg. Veg and plants in the summer, and meat in the winter. But predominantly we had a vegetation diet. This means the actual amount of protein we need in our diet is low not that high daily. You can get 30-40% of your RDA from a serving of beans damn it, and we are oversaturated with it, a pizza I ate the other day? 160% of RDA of protein in one meal.
In a college urine sample I got told to eat less protein and drink more as I was actually pissing the stuff.
e) The intelligence of animals is higher than most of you give them credit for. I was surprised with the feelings chickens can actually show, grief for example.
f) The enviromental impact of the meat production worldwide is huge. One third of arable land worldwide is used in cattle grazing and feed production, so if everyone reduced the amount of meat they ate, we could pretty much solve world hunger, lower greenhouse emissions helping global warming, and generally have a more efficient life.

So to sum up, I don't see anything inherently wrong with eating meat, but the industry is terrible, both in its practices and its impact. We no longer NEED to eat meat, and if we carry on the way we are going, we'll eat ourselves to death.

Mostly though? This thread just pissed me off with the ignorance and anger. I've seen at least one person here say vegans piss them off simply by making that choice, and when one person got defensive:

I don't tell you how to live your life and you don't tell me how to live mine.

At no point did i tell you how to live your life. I merely expressed my opinion as it currently stands, if you see that as "telling you to live your life", you've got problems.

This happens then... Double standard much?

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Unless vegans are growing their own food, on their own land, with no pesticides, they're hypocrites.

Countless animals are killed during the farming of grain and other plants.

As for why they do it.

No idea.

I understand vegetarianism to a degree, but not veganism.

So, what, just because any way of producing food kills animals, it's hypocritical to try and kill less of them? And what about all of the people that can't afford to buy their own land and grow their own food? (which basically does mean all of the people)

I imagine everything that applies for vegetarianism applies more so for veganism. More efficient use of land, less animal suffering, etc.

Look, I understand the ideology surrounding it, and I have no problems with those who keep it to themselves, but the ideology is flawed.

'Oh, well, my diet kills less animals than yours.'

Okay, I'll accept that.

What about milk? Milk doesn't harm any animals, but they still refuse to drink it.

Just look at organisations like PETA.

They're hialriously hypocritcal, but I understand that they only represent a minority of vegans.

Well, Daystar, as a vegetarian, I may be able to add at least some insight with my own personal views, which you didn't ask for and more than likely don't even want! (insert friendly but cagey grin here)

Basically, for me, meat just doesn't sit well. Not sure why. Didn't like the taste or indigestion, so I stick to stuff that doesn't have meat. I'm not going to pretend that my diet kills less animals: Cows, chickens, pigs, etc., get killed every single day, and my eating french fries doesn't prevent the Big Macs. That sort of mindset is just stupid.

Besides, if you eat meat, good on ya! More for you. Its just not my thing. Like... Real Time Strategy games, or Dog Ownership. They may not be my thing, but I won't say they're bad at all, no sir!

Kind of what I mean.

I just hate the 'moral high ground' argument, because whether you eat a burger or not, the animal that went into making it is still dead. You didn't save anything by being a vegan.

I'v got absolutely nothing against vegans or vegetarians, just so long as they don't act like they're a better human beings.

 

[Jammy2003]

Kind of what I mean.

I just hate the 'moral high ground' argument, because whether you eat a burger or not, the animal that went into making it is still dead. You didn't save anything by being a vegan.

I'v got absolutely nothing against vegans or vegetarians, just so long as they don't act like they're a better human beings.

Yes, and I get somewhat annoyed at moral high-ground arguements myself sometimes, because as long as you've looked at evidence and made an actual informed choice, then its unfair to be all superiour just because you came to a different conclusion.

But this is a bit of a shortsighted view. Yes that animal is still dead, if anyone eats it or not, but there is supply and demand. If it isn't eaten maybe the next one won't be killed as it would be a waste. And by not eating it, you don't support an industry you don't agree with.

 

[Woodsey]

Just look at organisations like PETA.

They're hialriously hypocritcal, but I understand that they only represent a minority of vegans.

Wait, what? I thought PETA represented the criminally insane?

OT: Treatment of animals, I guess. I'm not really sure how it's possible to milk a cow inhumanely, but there you go.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Just look at organisations like PETA.

They're hialriously hypocritcal, but I understand that they only represent a minority of vegans.

Wait, what? I thought PETA represented the criminally insane?

OT: Treatment of animals, I guess. I'm not really sure how it's possible to milk a cow inhumanely, but there you go.

That too

Don't like meat?

Fine, whatever, just don't think you're better than me because of it.

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

snip

I'm sorry, what? How is somone exploding and telling me to fuck off for asking the question and simply stating that i currently disagree with veganism a double standard? Are you defending the guy? If so, at what point did i say "veganism is objectively stupid and meat-eating is the only acceptable diet"?

Please, enlighten me.

 

[Jessy_Fran]

Yeah, I hate vegans!!!

How dare they stand up for those who have no voice?
How dare they value thousands of innocent lives over their mere taste buds?
How dare they strive to make the world a better, more cruelty-free place for all?
How dare they challenge my blind, ignorant habits with logical thinking?
How dare they live a lifestyle of compassion and love?

Seriously guys, what a loads of idiots!!1!

 

[doodger]

Tought about giving veganism a try, but only for the nutritional purposes... I personally think it's a bit silly to justify it with "The animals are suffering!"

 

[Jammy2003]

I'm sorry, what? How is somone exploding and telling me to fuck off for asking the question and simply stating that i currently disagree with veganism a double standard? Are you defending the guy? If so, at what point did i say "veganism is objectively stupid and meat-eating is the only acceptable diet"?

Please, enlighten me.

Well to begin with, if you actually read the full contents of my post you would understand what I was saying. I wasn't calling you out on a double standard, just the double standard of those within the forum, the attitude of the collective as a whole.

People are aggressive to vegans a lot of the time, and so a question in a forum such as this, can often be seen as sarcastic or attempting to dig at them, so they get defensive back. The post of the guy who DID say that seems to have been eaten by the internet worms, so I can't seem to find it right now, but you can't deny that largely the tone of this thread has been on the offensive, meaning people come to it on the densive, as something they believe in is being attacked.

But yeah, I'm not going to bother arguing with you if you don't even read my post to get my view from that, if you do read it then I'll talk.

 

[Charli]

Unless vegans are growing their own food, on their own land, with no pesticides, they're hypocrites.

Countless animals are killed during the farming of grain and other plants.

As for why they do it.

No idea.

I understand vegetarianism to a degree, but not veganism.

I can't quite put it better than that.
Vegans also have this horrible tendency (not always and if you don't you can have your obligatory hand-shake, but it's a trend) to bring up the fact that they're a Vegan unprompted. The only time it is appropriate to discuss it is if you are being served food by somebody else. Otherwise, sit down, put your 'better than everyone else' card away and be quiet.

It's a little irksome, I had the misfortune of going on a rigorous (meaning few supplies and lots of hiking) school camping trip in my teens with 2 vegetarians/1 Vegan, and one of the assignments was to clean, gut and cook a fish. They gave me so much grief I almost wanted to substitute one of them for the poor fish.

...I ate it very exaggeratedly in front of them.

Yeah, I hate vegans!!!

How dare they stand up for those who have no voice?
How dare they value thousands of innocent lives over their mere taste buds?
How dare they strive to make the world a better, more cruelty-free place for all?
How dare they challenge my blind, ignorant habits with logical thinking?
How dare they live a lifestyle of compassion and love?

Seriously guys, what a loads of idiots!!1!

This post is deplorable. I have nothing more constructive for you.
Go away and think more about your views, you're clearly not world weary enough.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

While I admire vegans? discipline of their diet, I just think it?s far too much hard work for something that?s so impractical and futile in the end (unless they?re vegan for health/medical reasons). But if they want to do it, then that?s fine. It?s not harming anyone.

I?m an omnivore, and I personally tend to flip-flop on the ?morality? (entirely artificial and man-made social construct, but whatever) of killing animals for food, even if it?s done in the most humane way possible. I mean, there are many vegetarians today that do survive comfortably having a meat-free diet (and many of whom, including my friend, just flat-out don?t like the taste of it, whether or not their vegetarianism is at least in part based on ethical reasons), and maybe there?s not any real need to kill animals in the modern age. But, for someone like me, it?d be such a stress to try and go out to the supermarket, and stock up for a week or a month without any meat in any form.

Also, many humans don?t see the slaughter, so it doesn?t affect them. They don?t care where the Meatball Marinara on their plate came from, but it?s cheap and tasty, who cares? And we humans have grown far too accustomed to a certain, unrestricted (because, you?ve got to admit it, vegetarianism does basically restrict you from a wide market of food that you could eat) standard of living to just drop the carving knife cold turkey (pun intended) and start digging into a bowl of tofu. It sucks, and I couldn?t probably look a cow in the eyes and kill it before eating the beef that it came from, but all this is shielded from us to the point that you may as well just forget that our cost-effective bacon sandwich used to be a pig. It?s somewhat hypocritical that I?m fervently against animal testing and don?t kill flies even if they?re annoying me, yet I?m fine with eating free range eggs, but aren?t all humans self-destructive and self-serving hypocrites that live by a pretty skewed and arbitrary set of morals?

 

[Jessy_Fran]

Honestly? Ugh, this thread is filled with carnists who are unable to see past their bacon sandwich. I think the point of my post went flying past you right there.

My boyfriend is not vegan. Neither is my best friend who I live with, nor my family. I don't know any vegans in real life. Do I hate all of those people? No. Do I disagree with their actions, yes I do. But not as much as I hate the fact that meat-eaters can get all up in my face, ignoring facts, calling it a 'personal choice', telling me about how damn tasty burgers are and so on and so forth while I have to sit there taking it because my opinion is unpopular.
No. I'm not a pacifist and I'm quite happy to give as good as I get.

This post is deplorable. I have nothing more constructive for you.
Go away and think more about your views, you're clearly not world weary enough.

Please tell me why you consider this to be 'deplorable'? An uncomfortable truth maybe, but not deplorable surely.

 

[Jessy_Fran]

Shit, double post.

 

[The White Hunter]

Look, I understand the ideology surrounding it, and I have no problems with those who keep it to themselves, but the ideology is flawed.

'Oh, well, my diet kills less animals than yours.'

Okay, I'll accept that.

What about milk? Milk doesn't harm any animals, but they still refuse to drink it.

Just look at organisations like PETA.

They're hialriously hypocritcal, but I understand that they only represent a minority of vegans.

It's also always worth noting that you get more food by mass from farming animals than grain per unit area. I.e. you get more food off a field of cows than a field of the same size full of wheat, by mass, kg/m^2 (i dont know how to superscript sorry).

Also, I can't imagine animals like sheep would be doing particularly well for themselves at this point in time if we didn't keep them for food. They're pretty dumb things and they tend to die if they run too far.

 

[Vegan_Doodler]

Wow I haven't seen so much hypocracy, denile and feeble excuses to justify ones actions in a single thread.

snip

So I did have this enormous Pice of text ready but then I stupidly clicked the next page (seriously why can't the text just stay there)
So I'll just reply to some as brief as possible.
OP, I am vegan, can't speak for every one but I do it to cause as little unnecacery suffering as possible, and it is unnecasery because no one has to eat meat, I haven't for years and I'm in great shape.
It's hipocracy to say "I think we're animals and we have a place on the food chain that must be adhered to, it's our duty as humans to keep the lower species in check." = animals and humans are equal but their are also "lower species", that's a paradox.
It's arrogant to think humans are in some way superior, the most common argument is humans are more intelegent 'look at all the amazing things we've done' when in actuality it has been a hand full of exceptional humans that have elevated those around them by shear accident, the vast majority of humans are dull creatures (before any ones says, yes! I include my self in that statistic).

There's also some massive hiypocrasy going on it this thread, if your argument is that its natural to eat meat then why do you get other people to kill it for you, why don't you hunt it down ad kill It your self, that would be far more natural then buying it from a shop. I honestly have no problem with eating meat as long as people killed it themselves,
because by this logic I would have the right to be heavy weight champion of the world if I payed someone else to fight for me.

Unless vegans are growing their own food, on their own land, with no pesticides, they're hypocrites.
Countless animals are killed during the farming of grain and other plants.
As for why they do it.
No idea.
I understand vegetarianism to a degree, but not veganism.

No, a hypocrit says "don't smoke" and then smokes, someone saying 'I don't want to harm animals' and then actively trying to cause as little harm as possible isn't hypocracy, that's called trying to be a decent person.
Most people don't have the land required to grow there own food.
There is animal death in the production of milk, the cow must get pregnant, give birth, and then the farmer kills the calf so that the mother wont resist when the farmer takes the milk, I have no idea where this notion that cows constantly produce milk comes from.

So if the slave trade had continued long enough that Africans developed particular genetic traits making them more useful as field workers, it would be okay to continue their bondage forever?
If not, please give me a scientific difference between the two situations.

The difference is of course that human slaves are not animals.

But you haven't given a reason as to why they differ, Farming and slavery are about the exploitation of another creature, the only reason people find the latter more objectionable is because the creature in question is human.

 

[ShaqLevick]

Well when we're just examining Veganism then it's mostly pertaining to Dairy and Eggs. While I have no problem with eggs, they are for the most part an aborted fetus... sort of, and considering how some religious idealist crack pots feel about human abortion they might just need to rethink how other animals are treated (I don't give two shits however).

Dairy I have a big problem with, it's not good for you at all really (unless it's human). Every nutritional value found in a glass of milk can be better found in just about any vegetable. Animals are not supposed to drink other species milk, because alongside with Calcium and vitamins a mothers milk is absolutely loaded with species specific hormones and White Blood Cells, and if your drinking another species White Blood Cells then you are just having a big old glass of Pus!

I'm not a Vegan by any means, but I do try to eat properly when I can (but we all have our vices). Let's put bull shit morality aside, we are Apex predators and it's a very big universe, and if we aren't going to eat these animals we would certainly have to consider getting rid of the ones that don't benefit us. We can't get bogged down with nonsense about mistreating lower animals... when we can treat our fellow man with respect and dignity then it may be time to consider the Chickens and Cows.

It's important to note that there is nothing remotely as bad for you in red meat as is in a KitKat bar! Simple sugars are literally tearing society apart, but that is all part of a much larger debate regarding farm subsidies which is a big part of the Economically Fucked world we are creating!

 

[spartan231490]

Why? Because people are illogical. It doesn't make any sense, and if you follow veganism to it's logical conclusion, it doesn't result in peace and happiness for all of the little animals, but extinction.

 

[Jammy2003]

It's also always worth noting that you get more food by mass from farming animals than grain per unit area. I.e. you get more food off a field of cows than a field of the same size full of wheat, by mass, kg/m^2 (i dont know how to superscript sorry).

Also, I can't imagine animals like sheep would be doing particularly well for themselves at this point in time if we didn't keep them for food. They're pretty dumb things and they tend to die if they run too far.

I'm sorry but that just doesn't work. Grazing animals are a secondary tier source of food, and by simple biology CAN'T be more efficient than growing crops. What do they eat? Whatever is growing in the field (grass we'll say). The cow can not get more energy from eating the plants than the plants have in the first place. The cow then uses energy before we eat them, and they aren't so much more efficient of stripping the nutrients from the plants that its better to use them as a middle man.

Besides, mass is not the issue, its volume of food per unit area that matters, and the concentrations of the nutrients inside such food.

The only way a field of cows could be more efficient than a field of crops is if you are feeding the cows crops from another field, which then means that they aren't just using up opne field, they are using up multiple ones.

 

[Vegan_Doodler]

Yeah, I hate vegans!!!

How dare they stand up for those who have no voice?
How dare they value thousands of innocent lives over their mere taste buds?
How dare they strive to make the world a better, more cruelty-free place for all?
How dare they challenge my blind, ignorant habits with logical thinking?
How dare they live a lifestyle of compassion and love?

Seriously guys, what a loads of idiots!!1!

And right on queue one of those ones that gives vegans a bad name.

Bravo!

Why? she's making a valid point, and I completely get the frustration, just look at this forum, the general consensus is that vegans are arrogant, snobby, hypocrites.