this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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vegan options? like produce, grains, and legumes? are you in a food desert yourself?
the "vegan options" you're referring to are at the supermarket, and they are the cheapest items in there.
I have plenty of friends who are vegans. I also have a few who tried it and failed because it’s not a switch you just turn off.
Giving the advice “just go vegan” is bad advice and counterproductive. There should be research into what it means and how to eat healthy vegan meals. You don’t just turn off the meat, which is what a lot of people assume they should do.
As a matter of fact I’d give the advice “go vegetarian, keep the milk eggs and fish, and if you like it and want to go further look into replacing those with some good vegan options.” It should be a process. Unless you start buying Soylent (the product not the movie), but that’s disgusting.
Consuming meat doesn't automatically make you have a balanced and nutrituous diet. If you cared about that, you should inform yourself even if your not vegan.
Also "go vegetarian, keep the [...] fish", lmao.
I went vegan on a random Thursday a few years ago after learning about the ethical reality here, that harming animals for pleasure or convenience is unjustified.
It didn't happen all in one day (the learning that is), but I didn't do any meal planning. Didn't even order vegan food before I decided to go vegan. Next time I went to the store I only bought vegan things. Since then anytime I have the ability to buy vegan goods, I do (which has been 100% of the time because I live in the west in the 21st century).
If you're homeless in the middle of Palestine being bombed relentlessly by a genocidal state, yeah I'm not going to complain about you eating eggs that were given to you from a homeless shelter. If you're rich enough to drive to the store and buy groceries yourself in the U.S or Europe, you have no excuse.
cost, convenience, and culture are the three reasons im not actively vegan. i drink soylent and huel. i do (a lot of ) my own baking. i have lots of vegan friends.
but nothing quite hits the convenience/cost equilibrium like 2/$1 gas station hot dogs. 500 hot calories available 24 hours a day literally on my way anywhere to do anything.
and i'm a community organizer. part of that is meeting people where they are. if i refuse to eat what they're eating, it sets me apart. so i can't very well turn down culturally relevant foods like burgers or hotdogs or whatever is at the picnic.
these aren't excuses. they're reasons. to overcome them, you've got to beat gas station hotdogs on cost and convenience, and convince my region to go vegan. i'm not spending my time on that.
I understand the reasons why people aren't vegan. I also understand the reason why slaughterhouse workers have far higher rates of violence (domestic and non-domestic). I understand why people do terrible things, people aren't born evil. Even Nazis weren't born with some disposition to be evil. It's not like literally millions of Germans just had some natural predisposition to be unbelievably evil and that went away once they lost WW2.
These are learned behaviors. I understand the reasons. They're still not an excuse. You're failing to do what you need to do, and just because I understand why you're failing doesn't mean you're not failing.
Maybe you don't care, maybe you like animal abuse, maybe you know you're doing something wrong and see yourself as a failure. No matter your own views, the mass torture/genocide is still happening, and you're supporting it. Hopefully one day you grow enough as a person to stop.
This comment is straight up vegan propaganda.
If you want to make arguments, do it. But leave emotion at the curb.
This comment makes me want to eat MORE meat.
I've talked to literal fascists on the Internet who said the same thing, that my arguing with them "made them look into it" and they ended up "hating trans/Jews/Muslims more".
Just because you have an inability to correctly process information doesn't make it my fault you're going to continue being a piece of shit.
another comparison between eating meat and Nazis. is this Godwin's alt account?
animal agriculture is not torture or genocide
It is torture there's no argument there. Genocide is always a weird one, people argue that what's happening to Palestinians isn't genocide etc.
There are definitions of genocide that it fits, and there are ones that it won't. If you think systemic mass killing for pleasure doesn't fall under the definition of genocide, cool. It's still systemic mass killing for pleasure.
it's not killing for pleasure, it's killing for food.
Oh no, I'm so sorry for your poor friends. It must have been so hard to not abuse animals. I understand, not abusing animals is hard. When I stopped beating my dog with a rolled up newspaper every day, I was so depressed. I'm sure your friends are going through the exact same thing as me now that they aren't paying for companies to put animals in cages and kill them.
no one does that.
If you don't think meat comes from locking animals in cages and killing them, where the fuck do you think meat comes from?
i don't pay companies to do that. no one does.
Lots of people pay for meat
yea. but the people doing the caging and killing are paid before that meat ever lands in a supermarket or restaurant. and they're usually paid by the people who own the facility.
Who get their money from the supermarket, who get their money from...?
interestingly, after you spend money, it's not yours anymore, and you don't get to decide how the recipient spends it.
And that's why you shouldn't give your money to killers, or to people whose job is to pay killers.
most people don't.
Most people do, that's what happens when you buy meat. Your money pays for the animals to be abused.
we just established that's not true.
No, we just established that's true. The farmers and slaughterers are paid by the grocery store, which is paid by the meat eaters. That's where the money to abuse and kill animals comes from. If you don't think they get their money from meat eaters, where do you think it comes from?
even vegans spend money at grocery stores.
Do you mean to say that grocery stores are spending money from vegan sales on meat orders to subsidize an area of the business that isn't making them any money?
I'm saying grocery stores don't keep a pile of money segregated that only-comes-from-and-is-only-spent-on vegan food. when the 4th of July rolls around, they stock up on hotdogs with whatever money is on hand.
I'm also saying your policy of not giving money to grocery stores just isn't workable for most people.
Grocery stores keep budgets and expense reports. They downscale whatever products aren't selling or making them money. It's called running a business.
they may. I don't get to decide how they make decisions or which ones they make.
But you get to influence which decisions are profitable. When you pay them money in exchange for dead animals, you create incentive for them to arrange for there to be more dead animals
they have free will. I don't get to make their decisions for them.
Wow, you found a way to pay for corpses and somehow contrive yourself into not being responsible for the deaths
I'm not responsible for what other people do
So if I gave money to an assassin and told him to kill you, I wouldn't be responsible for his actions?
this analogy doesn't hold up: the meat is on a shelf and everyone has been paid before I decide whether to buy it.
Okay, let's say there's a serial arsonist who's been burning down houses in your neighbourhood. Now he's on GoFundMe asking for money to buy more gasoline. I like burned down houses, so I give him money with the knowledge he will use it to burn down your house.
Do I share any responsibility for what happened to your house?