I think it's interesting that when it comes to Factory Farming, meat consumption, and veganism and vegetarianism the conversation is always focused on absolutes. Like people advocating for animal...
Exemplary
I think it's interesting that when it comes to Factory Farming, meat consumption, and veganism and vegetarianism the conversation is always focused on absolutes. Like people advocating for animal welfare always seem to advocate for 100% veganism/vegetarianism lifestyles instead of simply reducing meat consumption, if for only as a first step.
Like I consider myself a "flexitarian" because there's no word for what I am. Veganism is 100% no animal products, vegetarianism is 100% no meat but ok on animal products, pescetarianism is 100% no meat except for fish.
And the reason I consider myself flexitarian at all and not a normal meat eater or whatever, is because I regularly eat vegan and vegetarian meals, I would even go as far as to say I prefer vegan and vegetarian meals as the majority of the food I consume, however I'm not going to lose sleep over a burger every once in a while, or adding bacon to my beyond burger. But my consumption of meat has GREATLY been reduced and I'll often choose the vegan option as opposed to meat.
And it's funny because my interactions with normal people around this has people who aren't vegan saying "Oh, I can't eat that, I'm not vegan," or looking at me weird when I have Bacon on a Beyond burger, and I'm like wtf you don't have to be vegan to eat vegan food, and mixing vegan with bacon isn't illegal. I used to get asked a lot when I ordered vegan food at a work lunch "Oh, are you vegan?" and I was always like "No, that just sounded good and I was curious what vegan shrimp was like."
And the funniest thing ever is watching a waitress stare at me blankly when I ask for bacon on a Beyond Burger and not comprehending what I'm asking and like they are suddenly entirely unsure of their concept of reality. "Sorry, we don't have Beyond Bacon." "Oh, real bacon is fine." "So you want a normal burger?" "No, a Beyond Burger with bacon." "But it doesn't come with bacon." "It says here adding bacon is $1.50, so can I add that?" "I'll have to check with our cooks, but I think we can do that..." Comes back, "So you want the bacon on the side?" "No, in the burger is fine." "You wanted a Beyond Burger, right?" "Yes. A beyond burger. With bacon." "And the cheese is also vegan, is that ok?" "Yes, that's perfectly fine." "Oh ok, let me get that for you..." Then I get my burger and the bacon is on a separate plate given to my partner and not me. I can't help but think of this scene from A Bugs Life. lol
But It's crazy how many people simply haven't even considered they can eat vegan and vegetarian food just fine, or that you can mix and match and the world won't implode. Or how many people haven't even considered the idea of meat reduction in a diet is an option instead of going full vegan or vegetarian.
I think back to the story about how American Airlines removed one olive from their salads and saved over $40,000($100,000 today) a year, and can't help but to think that if applied to meat consumption that if everyone had 1 vegan or vegetarian meal a week with no meat, even THAT would have significant impact on Factory Farming. And then move from there.
But I don't see anyone really advocating for that kind of thing. It's always all or nothing and going cold turkey on meat, which is a lot for people to adapt to and why it never sticks, and why people glaze over when an activist hands them a flyer about factory farming at the county fair.
Being whey intolerant gets me much the same reaction, like dairy allergies are unheard of. Just don't butter the bun or use real cheese on my burger, how hard is that. I do often eat vegan since...
Being whey intolerant gets me much the same reaction, like dairy allergies are unheard of. Just don't butter the bun or use real cheese on my burger, how hard is that. I do often eat vegan since that's (almost always) safe. (Polyols are also a no go, not uncommon in fruits, including avocado, the usual vegan "creamy" choice. There's also vegan whey now, which makes trips to vegan ice cream shops fun and confusing for all involved.)
The diet culture war and its adherence to teams and treating foods exclusive to a diet is wild. I think sometimes we really do rock someone's social reality with non-standard orders.
I can't even convince my folks to try a bite of my tofu stir fry, that's food for vegetarians and they eat meat! Nevermind the food they eat that's incidentally vegetarian/vegan, that doesn't count for some reason. I don't know how to make folks realize they don't have to go all in if I can't get them to take a single step. Or that if you're going to eat meat, you better know how it's getting to you. But folks take that as an attack on them and their morals.
And like I'm not a perfectly consistent individual, I know all of this and still choose a burger sometimes, I certainly don't expect others to be better. Perhaps that's part of the problem for folks, they'd like to think that they act perfectly morally and being flexitarian forces you to face the morality of meat consumption while not acting in perfect accordance to that moral. I imagine that's where this all or nothing attitude comes in. I say, at the very least, know the implications of your actions and try to do your best even if it isn't perfect.
Edit: I've also known a lot of vegans, the depiction of the rabid zealot is quite the caricature. Most live and let live, are happy to hear about folks taking a meat free day, that sort of thing. The zealots would find some other moral to lord over folks and boost their ego if it weren't veganism.
We tend to forget this, but food is an inherently cultural artifact. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people involved with any given food product you buy at the grocery store, and each of...
We tend to forget this, but food is an inherently cultural artifact. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people involved with any given food product you buy at the grocery store, and each of them has piles of subtle meanings behind them.
One interesting thing I've heard people discussing lately is women using their dates' opinions on tofu to see if they will be a good match. It seems insane at first, but when you hear their reasoning about how they don't want to deal with men who have their masculinity threatened by a block of bean curds, it starts to make sense.
To be honest, though, I don't know any so-called "militant vegans" in real life. I've seen them online, for sure - I mocked them when I was younger, even. When it comes to me, personally, I only wear the title "vegan" half-heartedly. I didn't start living like this for the animals, I did it for my health. Everything else was just a bonus. There are times when I break down and have food with dairy in it; I actually had a bread pudding not even a week ago. To me and to everyone else I've met traveling this path, we don't care if you aren't successful in avoiding eating animal products 1% of the time; what's more important was the 99% of the time when you were doing better than you did before, and 100% of the time you're doing better than the people who refuse to even try.
Greenpeace, WWF, the UN, SPCA International (under flexitarian), Kurzgesagt (near the end, where they say to spend the same money on less meat), etc. (edit) (PETA was a little harder, but they...
But I don't see anyone really advocating for that kind of thing.
So ... there's no lack of messaging around eating less meat. Complete guess, but if some organization ran an ad campaign of "please eat one fewer steak a week" vs. "you're a literal Nazi for eating cows! Stop torturing animals! Here's a picture of an animal carcass!", would the former even register five minutes after seeing it? Whereas, would the latter tick up the counter of offensive ads in your brain?
Like people advocating for animal welfare always seem to advocate for 100% veganism/vegetarianism lifestyles instead of simply reducing meat consumption, if for only as a first step.
I don't. Honestly I don't see anyone doing that, at this point, because it's pretty clear that that policy hasn't worked, so people that care about effectively addressing the problem have stopped using it. When researching the above list, the only environmental groups I could think of which bucked the trend were literally the Vegan Society. Even this Reddit /r/vegan thread, where an angry person decries how Meatless Mondays are killing vegans (or something; I skimmed their post), the top several responses are that it's genuinely better to have some change rather than none.
[the waitstaff are confused by your order, and ask to clarify]
As a person who doesn't eat meat or animal products, I really like it (and tip accordingly) when someone paid minimum wage cares enough to ask me if I'm OK with the sauce, or the silently added cheese -- since it has milk in it. Several friends have food sensitivities, and they'll either go into anaphylactic shock in the restaurant, or be incapacitated for a day with severe gut pain, if an order is misheard and something they can't eat gets mixed in. So second guessing it can save a lot of suffering.
I'm sorry that this inconveniences you, or makes you feel singled out for your beliefs. It's helping people you're not seeing, though.
Then I get my burger and the bacon is on a separate plate given to my partner and not me.
The vegans I used to work with would request that the deep fryer used for chicken wings did not touch their french fries. One person went so far as to ask that separate gloves were used to handle the vegan lunch buffet vs. the omnivorous buffet. People get very sensitive about this, and the line chef probably kept your food separate so as not to contaminate anyone else's. Again, sorry for the inconvenience, but if it helps your sacrifice is helping others avoid suffering.
I think it is interesting that I seem to read "it's crazy that everyone is so black and white on this" way more than I have ever encountered it. I would wager I come across more "harm (meat)...
I think it is interesting that I seem to read "it's crazy that everyone is so black and white on this" way more than I have ever encountered it. I would wager I come across more "harm (meat) reduction" messaging in my life and am interested in where many people seem to encounter these inflexible views! Even my vegan friends do not proselytize to this extent but will suggest animal free alternatives they think are particularly good, which I'm happy to receive.
Yup, same ... I'm perhaps quick to attribute this to a bias in human memory (e.g. availability bias, meaning we estimate the occurrence of an event by the speed with which we recall it, not at its...
Yup, same ... I'm perhaps quick to attribute this to a bias in human memory (e.g. availability bias, meaning we estimate the occurrence of an event by the speed with which we recall it, not at its actual observed frequency. Emotionally engaging material -- positive or otherwise -- will stand out, making it feel more common than it is).
Maybe there are genuinely pockets of truly insufferable vegans floating around, accosting people one on one? I know that I'd passed a couple protestors in a public square, a year ago, who were trying to make a statement with some televisions depicting slaughterhouses against a haunting soundtrack. Perhaps there're just ... more of them, somewhere?
People who proselytize tend to be extremists and tend to piss people off, this includes the protein obsessed MAHA grifters, religious people, and vegans alike. And those who have been harassed can...
People who proselytize tend to be extremists and tend to piss people off, this includes the protein obsessed MAHA grifters, religious people, and vegans alike. And those who have been harassed can have an extreme reaction too, even to much more reasonable statements. Add in that new converts to any any belief system also tend to be more militant and extreme in their adherence to it... And you end up with a handful of bad encounters that shout way louder than their actual numbers or percentages. There are plenty of non-assholes, we just don't hear them as much because they're not assholes.
You also hear from asshole vegan haters more often for similar reasons.
I have to admit I'm quick to recall the emotionally charged arguments I've been on the receiving end of over the more neutral. Even when I'm in agreement with the position I become prickly to...
I have to admit I'm quick to recall the emotionally charged arguments I've been on the receiving end of over the more neutral. Even when I'm in agreement with the position I become prickly to arguments presented this way! Which is unfortunate from my perspective because I suspect the people making these arguments have become so emotionally invested for very good reasons.
I feel bad admitting that today I found myself having this bristling reaction to an NPR story about validating women's pain in medicine--(a position I think I hold!)--where the argument was made in such a way that I thought it was hard to sympathize. Which sucks! The people presenting the discussion was very well informed and had great reasons for why this mattered to them, they are women physicians and had suffered because of their pain not being taken seriously. But argument was so emotionally charged that I felt I was the bad guy somehow by working in medicine. (Perhaps this says more about me than the people presenting the information!)
Anyways, I go into all of this because the one person with an inflexible veganism position I've met has this stance because they witnessed the animal suffering at factory farms growing up in the midwest. Which is totally valid, but somehow doesn't turn me towards becoming vegan myself.
I've searched for it just now and didn't didn't find it either. It might have been a rerun of a previous story, but I didn't find it in the archives either.
I've searched for it just now and didn't didn't find it either. It might have been a rerun of a previous story, but I didn't find it in the archives either.
That's an unfortunately very reasonable take ... I hope I haven't proselytized too hard, before, and caused similar issues, for the causes that I care about. Something to keep in mind, I suppose....
That's an unfortunately very reasonable take ... I hope I haven't proselytized too hard, before, and caused similar issues, for the causes that I care about. Something to keep in mind, I suppose.
(edit) (admittedly, now that I reflect upon it, I have been a pest to some folks who've stepped on my toes, once or twice 😅 a habit that I should nip in the bud)
I mean I think we all have things we are passionate about. It's definitely possible to talk about those things without trying to actively convert people, which is where the proselytizing line...
I mean I think we all have things we are passionate about. It's definitely possible to talk about those things without trying to actively convert people, which is where the proselytizing line probably gets crossed. And it's even possible to do it without being an asshole. But you remember the assholes, not the reasonable people.
This is how my partner and me eat. I usually cook 5-6 homemade from scratch dinners every week, the only protein we consume is poultry and I try and make it about 50/50 poultry/vegetarian meals....
This is how my partner and me eat. I usually cook 5-6 homemade from scratch dinners every week, the only protein we consume is poultry and I try and make it about 50/50 poultry/vegetarian meals. Some of those vegetarian recipes are also vegan. As long as the meal had been designed from the start to be vegetarian or vegan it usually works really well. Indian cuisine is a great example of being able to eat vegetarian with no compromise.
I've always thought of veganism as a semi religion, the ideology comes first instead of just trying to live your best life, do what you can and don't worry if you need to consume an animal based product. Neither of us at home are interested in consuming vegan cheese, so when that comes up in a recipe I just swap in real cheese. No big deal. I don't see any reason to be extremist about it.
My family has shifted so that our weekday lunches are almost always vegetarian, and more recently we've been trying for one vegetarian and one pescatarian dinner per week. I have seen this...
But I don't see anyone really advocating for that kind of thing. It's always all or nothing and going cold turkey on meat, which is a lot for people to adapt to and why it never sticks.
My family has shifted so that our weekday lunches are almost always vegetarian, and more recently we've been trying for one vegetarian and one pescatarian dinner per week.
I have seen this strategy advocated for, which is likely where I got the idea to try it myself. But in general, if you're passionate enough to strongly advocate for an idea, you are also likely passionate enough to take that idea to the extreme (in this case, "extreme" is just veganism), which is why you don't see a lot of strong support for this partial-vegan strategy.
Promotion of strict veganism/vegetarianism may have done more harm than good. I’m also flexitarian (I prefer to say “fake vegetarian” as it’s funnier). Most people clearly do not care enough about...
Promotion of strict veganism/vegetarianism may have done more harm than good. I’m also flexitarian (I prefer to say “fake vegetarian” as it’s funnier). Most people clearly do not care enough about animal suffering to make drastic changes. But you can coax people into slightly modifying their habits much easier.
Sometimes vegetarians will cite a PETA video as the moment of their dietary philosophical inception. For me it was a tweet/tumblr post/whatever that said something like “You say you could never cut meat out of your diet. Okay. So why not just red meat? Or just one meal a day?”
There are many other people who, like me many years ago, are primed for that message. We should share it more readily.
I recently saw a reel about something similar. It was something to the effect of "I could eat only vegan for the rest of my life, but BACONNNNN" and the response was, "Why not go vegan but bacon?...
I recently saw a reel about something similar. It was something to the effect of "I could eat only vegan for the rest of my life, but BACONNNNN" and the response was, "Why not go vegan but bacon? Who is telling you to cut bacon out of your life?" It was from someone who is vegan and said the best way to move the needle was to be accepting that not everyone can give up meat/dairy altogether and we need to be reasonable and compassionate.
I'm mostly vegetarian now, and I couldn't have done that if my almost entirely vegan (BUT CHEESE) bff weren't there to help guide me on how to use certain foods or how to prepare tofu in ways that worked better for me.
I suspect that the rise of the term "Plant-Based" is because the term "Vegan" has too much of a negative connotation now. Whether it's right or not, the term alienates anyone who associates it...
Promotion of strict veganism/vegetarianism may have done more harm than good.
I suspect that the rise of the term "Plant-Based" is because the term "Vegan" has too much of a negative connotation now. Whether it's right or not, the term alienates anyone who associates it with a whole lifestyle and identity.
(imo: plant based shows up because veganism isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle -- they often cut out leather, beeswax, carnauba wax, etc. Plant-based diets are laser focused to how one eats, not how...
(imo: plant based shows up because veganism isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle -- they often cut out leather, beeswax, carnauba wax, etc. Plant-based diets are laser focused to how one eats, not how one conducts the remainder of their lives)
This has also been my understanding, to the extent of seeing vegans tell other folks that those folks are plant based not vegan due to it being not a moral stance or full lifestyle shift. This...
This has also been my understanding, to the extent of seeing vegans tell other folks that those folks are plant based not vegan due to it being not a moral stance or full lifestyle shift.
This isn't just an online thing. I've had two close vegan friends (and a number of others more distant) that I can think of and one was super chill (also Muslim, celiac and queer, her life was complex) and the other was kind of a dick about it, but not all the time. Like some of it was frustration at the world, but some of it was directed at the people around them regardless. It was not a big deal to me, and I think they were frustrated when they couldn't live up to their own standards and took it out on others. The latter is the one who would make the distinction between the two. I just tried to find the vegan marshmallows or non-gelatin candy for them when I was shopping
I mean in the end, that’s what it is? Don’t call yourself vegan if you’re not vegan. I have been vegan for 2 years and plant based for a few months before that. If you only think about your food-...
This has also been my understanding, to the extent of seeing vegans tell other folks that those folks are plant based not vegan due to it being not a moral stance or full lifestyle shift
I mean in the end, that’s what it is? Don’t call yourself vegan if you’re not vegan.
I have been vegan for 2 years and plant based for a few months before that. If you only think about your food- you’re plant based. It’s good, but you’re not vegan.
Veganism is not a diet, it’s about choosing to not see animals as a resource to be exploited.
It’s also kind of shifting the discussion away from the actual topic of veganism, when people call themselves vegan even though their reasons for not eating animal products are not based on ethics.
I was clarifying that it wasn't just non-vegan plant-based people using the label but also it was some vegans telling others they were "actually" plant-based. I'm neither, so whether they're...
I was clarifying that it wasn't just non-vegan plant-based people using the label but also it was some vegans telling others they were "actually" plant-based.
I'm neither, so whether they're correct or not isn't my point. I understand the distinction between the two and rarely would I know why someone I don't know well is avoiding animal products if I was, say, eating dinner with them, so unless we're friends enough to share moral philosophies, I don't really care which someone is. I was just cosigning the explanation above me as the one I understood from my personal experience.
I see, I must’ve misread some stuff then. This distinction between what is vegan or not is a big topic in general. And a huge problem for the vegan movement - I used to think it’s basically only...
I see, I must’ve misread some stuff then.
This distinction between what is vegan or not is a big topic in general. And a huge problem for the vegan movement - I used to think it’s basically only crazy people. Until I really looked into it and it seemed quite logical.
But then you have spiritual vegans, raw vegans, fruitarians, which technically follow a vegan diet but as far as i know don’t really come from a moral/ethical perspective but often just a pseudoscientific angle- which for me is something that would rather push me away from a topic
Yeah it sounds like the sort of intra-group conversation that is easily incredibly heated, frequently misunderstood outside of it, and honestly none of anyone else's business mostly. Worth...
Yeah it sounds like the sort of intra-group conversation that is easily incredibly heated, frequently misunderstood outside of it, and honestly none of anyone else's business mostly. Worth explaining if relevant to a conversation, certainly, but more as a niche r/hobbydrama style thing for most people.
What do you mean by that? I've been vegan 30 years, I hardly mention it online because I'm worried I'll get drawn into discussions that will get me banned, especially in a forum like this. Am I...
Whether it's right or not, the term alienates anyone who associates it with a whole lifestyle and identity.
What do you mean by that? I've been vegan 30 years, I hardly mention it online because I'm worried I'll get drawn into discussions that will get me banned, especially in a forum like this.
Am I alienated now, would you suggest? Or do people just get triggered?
Maybe we shouldnt be having a discussion about it then. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make. Why would any brand want to put a word on their label that evokes such a strong reaction in people?
I hardly mention it online because I'm worried I'll get drawn into discussions that will get me banned, especially in a forum like this
Maybe we shouldnt be having a discussion about it then. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make. Why would any brand want to put a word on their label that evokes such a strong reaction in people?
Moderation is usually a good philosophy in many different aspects of life, though its been ruined somewhat by the "fence sitting centrists" in politics. "All or nothing" is rarely a convincing...
Moderation is usually a good philosophy in many different aspects of life, though its been ruined somewhat by the "fence sitting centrists" in politics.
"All or nothing" is rarely a convincing argument for most people. Reduce, reuse, recycle is a great way to think about it, reducing to 0 would be ideal, but its also a lot harder to do that.
That's hilarious. People love their little clubs, their othering, their orthodoxy. Light your hair on fire and jump in the river, server. It's time to live dangerously and put the damned pig...
That's hilarious. People love their little clubs, their othering, their orthodoxy.
Light your hair on fire and jump in the river, server. It's time to live dangerously and put the damned pig product in with the damned plant patty!
Honestly I still believe that veganism is a better response to factory farming than any given attempt to make the government affect a change, at least here in the US. There’s a chance that an...
Honestly I still believe that veganism is a better response to factory farming than any given attempt to make the government affect a change, at least here in the US. There’s a chance that an individual can be convinced to give up meat and dairy. I’d say it’s easier to convince someone on a carnivore diet to switch to veganism than it is to convince the government to change its agricultural policies contrary to the desires of “Big Ag”. They have huge well oiled lobbying machines and even if they didn’t they can always claim “if you don’t pass my laws, people will starve”, which seems to work regardless of the continued lack of veracity of those statements. Asking the government to change things contra to what big ag wants is like trying to wring blood from a stone.
Personally convincing people to go wholly or partially veg isn’t going to make a huge difference to the world. But it does make a difference, and on the individual level it can be extremely impactful. Especially when it comes to health outcomes. The more people we can collectively convince to change, the less powerful animal agriculture will have over government, and that is how we will come to those big impactful changes. Heck, we’ve already got at least one major victory - the latest USDA publication of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans actually provides advice for vegan diets, and that happened during a conservative administration! A lever has been placed; we just need to keep pulling on it.
I'd have to disagree. Relying on individuals moral choices to ensure animal health seems fragile at best. It's also of course not an either or situation. People can go vegan/vegetarian/partially...
I'd have to disagree. Relying on individuals moral choices to ensure animal health seems fragile at best. It's also of course not an either or situation. People can go vegan/vegetarian/partially so and at the same time we shouldn't give up the on affecting government. This doesn't necessarily have to be through federal law. I imagine local and state government could have an impact on animal welfare no?
agreed. how moral can raising animals in a contained space for slaughter or being milked their entire lives be? I like to think of the thought experiment of a vastly more alien species treating me...
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agreed. how moral can raising animals in a contained space for slaughter or being milked their entire lives be? I like to think of the thought experiment of a vastly more alien species treating me like that. Would I be okay with that?
I'm sorry but I don't think you're being the remote bit rational about this. Given food insecurity in the United States right now, I don't think it's valid to assume that people have the economic...
I'm sorry but I don't think you're being the remote bit rational about this. Given food insecurity in the United States right now, I don't think it's valid to assume that people have the economic ability to eat vegan.
The current statistic for food insecure Americans is currently somewhere around 13%, 42 Million, or 12% of Americans were on SNAP in 2025, while 40% of food is wasted anyways!
You just can't expect average Americans to make an individual change in their diet when they can barely keep food on the table. It's a nonstarter. That's not even getting into the preparation time required for vegan food, (whereas poor Americans might be working 2nd or 3rd jobs and just won't have the time), food deserts, the culture war, or underfunded school lunch problems!
Of course the AG industry is going to lobby hard, and be really hard to shift. While Americans weren't watching, corporations took over the country, and now lobby really hard for their own priorities. Individual decision making fixes nothing,.
Heck, we’ve already got at least one major victory - the latest USDA publication of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans actually provides advice for vegan diets, and that happened during a conservative administration! A lever has been placed; we just need to keep pulling on it.
That's just MAHA adding in their rider to the USDA's policies. It satisfies their base in the Trump coalition. They love to promote the science of an alternative healthy diet, while slashing medicare and public health policy. While they were doing that, by the way, the USDA was also threatening my home, as an economic weapon for my home state.
Please look around you. The time is for collective action, not hoping that enough individual decisions will actually influence power.
I get the feeling that you are very passionate about this so I'm going to do my best to avoid turning this into an argument. Generally speaking, food insecurity in the US is not an issue of there...
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I get the feeling that you are very passionate about this so I'm going to do my best to avoid turning this into an argument.
Generally speaking, food insecurity in the US is not an issue of there not being enough food, it's an issue with access. People cannot access food because they cannot afford to buy it.
But lets imagine for a moment that it was an issue with the amount of food available. If that were the case, the government would actually have a better case against eating meat. Meat spoils very quickly, especially when comparing to dried staples such as grains and legumes which can last for years without refrigeration. Raising animals at scale take a huge amount of resources that humans need to live - things like water, food, and land. You might want to check out this interesting website for a better picture: https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture
I believe you might be under the impression that vegan food is something extremely difficult and costly to make. But that couldn't be further from the truth. There are some high profile vegan foods that are very overpriced, true, but that's not the majority of what vegans eat. For me persionally, a meal is more often than not some vegetables that I either shredded to add to spring rolls (which don't require any cooking), or tossing some frozen veggies in the microwave with a sauce and some tofu. Both of these are very cheap and about as fast as a homecooked meal can be. I could make more complex dishes, I suppose, but like most people, I'm lazy. I eat like this because I'm on a whole food plant based diet, but if I weren't I'd have a lot more options including fast and tasty processed foods like ramen and whatever "next generation vegan protein" like Impossible and Beyond - which, admittedly, I do eat from time to time, especially when I'm out of the house.
I also want to state for the record, for both you and @archevel, that I'm not really against collective action to end factory farming. I'm actually very in favor of it. I'm just disenchanted and demoralized. It just feels like too much of a bar to pass. Even with that, though, that doesn't mean that it's not important to get everyone around us to eat less - preferably no - meat or animal products. I'm sure I don't need to go into detail, but the shortlist is climate change, animal exploitation, climate change, human exploitation, climate change, political corruption, and have I mentioned climate change? That last one's a big one.
Of course, there is the added benefit that people who are living a vegan lifestyle are much more likely to be motivated to advocate for the policies you want. You say the time is for collective action, and I'm saying to build the collective. We're actually on the same page, but the two of you are just more optimistic about change than I am. Or perhaps it's more accurate to call me jaded.
I'm not disputing anything you say. Specifically, I am saying the following: I agree that Factory farming is a blight. However, assuming that a sufficient amount of people could adopt veganism as...
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I'm not disputing anything you say. Specifically, I am saying the following:
I agree that Factory farming is a blight.
However, assuming that a sufficient amount of people could adopt veganism as a tool against factory farming is an inexcusable, and non-sequitur argument due to the issue of food insecurity in our country.
Food insecurity is not immediately caused by the issue of factory farming, but the two are inter connected as systemic issues within agriculture in this country.
Any plan of action that requires individuals to adopt a personal change of their own volition falls apart against systemic issues.
I believe you might be under the impression that vegan food is something extremely difficult and costly to make.
I'm actually not, and at this point I'm getting a little frustrated that people in this thread would assume that. My household regularly prepares vegan and vegetarian foodstuffs, and my wife and I have had long discussions about what ingredients we use on a regular basis. Ultimately, we decided that it was not worth going fully vegan, as eggs and cheese are important cheap staples that cannot be easily readily replaced.
Specifically:
We found that Aquafaba and plant based egg substitutes were insufficient for our daily needs
The additional prep time spent on Tofu wasn't worth using it as a universal meat replacement, Costco rotisserie chicken is an easier and quicker option for protein at roughly the same price. Additionally the chicken bones can be used for cooking stock.
We like cheese, and vegan cheese has not reached the quality of regular cheese.
Vegan products were not as sufficiently varied for our preferences.
Non food related, but pleather is an insufficient substitute for real leather.
Additionally, my wife was raised in a rural area, and grew up having first hand farming experience. She additionally spent several of her teen years in a food insecure household. I additionally, have worked at a non profit serving people with food insecurity in my community. These are massive, systemic issues, and veganism is ultimately a personal choice that does not address this.
You say the time is for collective action, and I'm saying to build the collective. We're actually on the same page, but the two of you are just more optimistic about change than I am.
I think we do agree. Personally, I want a better, healthier future for people and the environment.
I don't know how to build a collective, but I can tell you right now it's not by having a bunch of people make a personal individual decision about the food they put in their bodies. Additionally, there is an argument being made right now by the MAHA movement, that we should decimate the medical system and replace it with personal decisions to diet and exercise better. That makes arguments about personal choice in diet a bit of a red flag, in my opinion.
I'm just going to point out issues where I see them. That's my best hope at shifting the needle for the people around me. I figure we're already damned though.
Thank you for responding. I guess the part where I'm confused, though, is why you seem to think that people going vegan will increase food insecurity. As I have stated, most plant based food tends...
Thank you for responding. I guess the part where I'm confused, though, is why you seem to think that people going vegan will increase food insecurity. As I have stated, most plant based food tends to last longer than animal products, typically with less energy required to store them.
That's the opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying that people who are food insecure are not inclined to become vegan. Specifically, a person who is food insecure will be more inclined to getting...
That's the opposite of what I'm saying.
I'm saying that people who are food insecure are not inclined to become vegan. Specifically, a person who is food insecure will be more inclined to getting non food insecure, rather than focusing on the content of the food.
Additionally, I'm saying that so many people are currently food insecure, and that the argument falls apart at scale.
That does make sense, but I feel like it just opens up so many more questions! I'm glad that you feel so strongly about food insecurity because it is a bigger issue than most people understand,...
That does make sense, but I feel like it just opens up so many more questions!
I'm glad that you feel so strongly about food insecurity because it is a bigger issue than most people understand, but I don't think it was the best thing to bring up in this conversation. Food insecurity means that you often don't have a choice of what food you eat, so I think it goes without saying that nobody is asking people suffering from that issue should be forced into something they may simply not be able to do. But at the same time, I feel like it's not quite as much an insurmountable issue for this category of people as you think it is. I won't push that particular issue though.
Food insecurity, lack of time and childcare, and all of these problems you bring up are definately big problems, but they do not invalidate the problem of factory farming. All of them are problems that we should all be collectively trying to fix.
You know what's vegan? Rice. Beans. Corn. Lentils. Frozen vegetables. Most cooking oils/fats. Most packaged ramen. Oreos. If someone has no time at all for cooking, it's true that fast food almost...
You know what's vegan? Rice. Beans. Corn. Lentils. Frozen vegetables. Most cooking oils/fats. Most packaged ramen. Oreos. If someone has no time at all for cooking, it's true that fast food almost always includes meat. But if someone barely has enough money to keep food on the table, eating vegan is less expensive than eating meat.
Until recently meat was really good bang for your buck, protein and calorie dense, cheap, and easy to cook. It always really bothered me how cheap meat is. I know that they made meat cheap by...
Until recently meat was really good bang for your buck, protein and calorie dense, cheap, and easy to cook.
It always really bothered me how cheap meat is. I know that they made meat cheap by creating the factory farms that people switch to veganism in order to protest. I know that swapping to a more humane way of providing meat for us citizens will make meat more expensive. I’m okay with that.
Instead we’re in a situation where meat is no longer cheap and its still factory farmed slop quality. Because we couldn’t pass any regulations to fix it. I don’t think its the consumers fault and when I was so poor that ramen was expensive I would buy ground beef on sale and mix it with my rice and beans cause that shit was like $2 a pound at Walmart where I live.
And really, meat was only ever cheap because it's heavily subsidized. There are certain cases of pasture farming where the land use doesn't really make sense for produce and so rearing livestock...
And really, meat was only ever cheap because it's heavily subsidized. There are certain cases of pasture farming where the land use doesn't really make sense for produce and so rearing livestock makes economic sense, but in most cases it's always going to be cheaper to eat the produce directly as opposed to having another animal eat it for you and then eating that.
We’re still kinda stuck in that problem though like we made meat cheap, everyone relied on it cause it was cheap calories, and now its expensive and everyone still relies on it. What the...
We’re still kinda stuck in that problem though like we made meat cheap, everyone relied on it cause it was cheap calories, and now its expensive and everyone still relies on it.
What the government really should do is pass the laws and then subsidize the extra expense, but theres no way in hell they’re gonna stop spending billions on war machines to but a few million into better food quality for Americans.
Chicken thighs and ground pork are still fairly affordable (at least relatively) but yeah its really hard to beat rice/beans on value. I eat a ton of all of them and "save" a lot on groceries...
Chicken thighs and ground pork are still fairly affordable (at least relatively) but yeah its really hard to beat rice/beans on value. I eat a ton of all of them and "save" a lot on groceries because of it. (By save I mean spend about the same as I did a few years ago because of how much more expensive everything has gotten)
Agreed 😅 and another great part about cheap vegan diets is that they also lean heavily on shelf stable, pantry staples. A simple meal of lentils and pasta costs pennies, and sprucing it up with...
Agreed 😅 and another great part about cheap vegan diets is that they also lean heavily on shelf stable, pantry staples. A simple meal of lentils and pasta costs pennies, and sprucing it up with cheap spices + tomato paste tastes great.
IMO, but a huge part of the perspective that vegan diets are exclusionary, expensive, or difficult, comes from the fact that many western nations don't have a vegan/vegetarian food culture to start with. Many people will reach for vegan/vegetarian replacements for their standard meals, and find that that ends up costing a tonne: Just Egg is ridiculously expensive, aquafaba is a PIA and wastes tonnes of chickpeas, fake meat burgers are just as unhealthy as the real deal, etc. Whereas, for example, some people in China would be familiar with a local Buddhist temple serving delicious vegetarian dishes, or much the same for Indians. That instantly gives them hundreds of delicious dishes, from basic on-rice, veg forward meals, to complex fried seitan dishes, or a spot of mock duck. It's not "weird" anymore, or expensive, it's just one of the background choices which one selects to move to the forefront.
The only vegetarian dish my father was aware of was macaroni and cheese. Literally everything else involved meat of some variety. Asking people -- who struggle with feeding themselves heathfully and consistently to begin with -- to now go do research on vegetarian cooking techniques, palates, etc. is nuts. My personal bone to pick is with vegan chefs who make elaborate, eye catching meals: no one has time to make these, and they only push a healthy lifestyle further out of reach for the average person. Telling someone, whose staple meal is a tuna sandwich, that they need to go buy handpicked Chicken 'o the Woods mushrooms, buy a cast iron skillet, and to marinade that sucker for several hours in advance is actively harmful.
Auuuugh. Sorry for the rant. It's really frustrating to know that there are genuine cheaper, more healthy, ways to live and eat, but the gap we need to bridge is culture and I hardly see anyone discussing that.
Foodways are something I find really interesting to the point of almost wanting a degree in something adjacent. You have to have people from within in the culture(s) adopt the new thing(s) and...
Foodways are something I find really interesting to the point of almost wanting a degree in something adjacent. You have to have people from within in the culture(s) adopt the new thing(s) and adapt them to fit rather than imposing them externally. You can't ignore that affording meat feels like a status symbol that we're not that poor to the working class.
But also, it's much harder to adapt without time and energy to learn and try new things, without feeling like you can afford to make a mistake and order a pizza (or make hotdogs and kraft mac and cheese) if you ruin dinner. And hell, if you don't eat a lot of fiber now that dense bean salad is going to make your digestive tract revolt even if it tastes delicious, better go back to what you know.
Meatless Monday is/was one of the smarter ways to approach getting folks to try new meat-free recipes IMO, because I feel like it was starting to catch on even in the midwest before it disappeared (at least to me) in a pile of The Liver King, Protein Protein Protein, Raw Milk nutrition advice. But I started seeing people experiment and a lot of "comfortable" recipe ideas. In contrast, Lenten Fridays as a kid were usually cheese pizza, spaghetti with butter/parm, and maybe fish sticks and Kraft Mac and cheese; my parents did not have an extensive meatless selection in the cute wooden box of recipe cards. (Veggies were present I'm sure, but I was a child and the veggies were steamed to death.)
I can go without meat fine, but a) tend to get anemic and b) tend to eat carbs and cheese as a default, which is unsurprising. Because I like plenty of other foods but don't know how to/feel confident in making them. It's absolutely about culture because you can't just tell people to change their food in a vacuum or offer only foods you're culturally comfortable with that they're not!
Sorry I tend to avoid vegan threads but food culture is a thing I'm passionate about.
(sorry that I haven't replied to this, but it's an extremely interesting topic, and I had never had the term "foodways" to dig into it! I'm still researching the subject and collecting my thoughts...
(sorry that I haven't replied to this, but it's an extremely interesting topic, and I had never had the term "foodways" to dig into it! I'm still researching the subject and collecting my thoughts on the matter, but thank you so much for pointing it out!)
Aquafaba is indeed a PIA, but it shouldn't waste chickpeas. You can actually use just about any bean to make aquafaba; chickpeas are just the most common one because it has a vaguely eggy color to...
Aquafaba is indeed a PIA, but it shouldn't waste chickpeas. You can actually use just about any bean to make aquafaba; chickpeas are just the most common one because it has a vaguely eggy color to it and a relatively neutral taste. But you should also eat the chickpeas. They're tasty. 😋
Also, fake meat burgers are "just as bad" as the real thing in terms of calories, but there are studies out there saying they're better for you in the long run.
I really wish more Americans ate tofu. Tofu is so good in so many situations. It takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it in! The same is true of konjak and shirataki.
Now if you'll excuse me, your mention of a tuna sandwich reminded me of a delicious chickpea "tuna salad" I haven't had in forever, and I am very hungry.
While I agree with your overall point about a lot of Americans simply not having a cultural place for plant-based meals being a key part of why it's so difficult to lower meat consumption, I think...
Whereas, for example, some people in China would be familiar with a local Buddhist temple serving delicious vegetarian dishes,
While I agree with your overall point about a lot of Americans simply not having a cultural place for plant-based meals being a key part of why it's so difficult to lower meat consumption, I think China is an interesting choice to bring up when talking about vegetarianism from a food culture perspective tbh. I can say from experience that, absent very recent changes that I'm not super familiar with, it's actually pretty hard to eat vegetarian in China, despite the fact that Chinese cuisine is absolutely chock full of dishes that center plants and tofu without meat in it, and this is in large part because they don't have a clear concept of "vegetarian" with the same meaning it has in the West (or at least they didn't 10 years ago when I visited -- if it's more of a thing now, that's a recent change). My roommate when I studied abroad in Shanghai was a full-on vegan, and not only did she have to flex to vegetarian for the trip, but it was a lot of effort to find truly vegetarian dishes for her, because in China even otherwise plant-based or tofu-centric dishes will include small amounts of meat or be cooked in lard or beef broth for flavor. Luckily our program coordinators did put in the effort to always get her a few truly vegetarian dishes for group meals (and as we ate family style, I can say for sure that they were as delicious as the meat-based ones!) and we found an occasional vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai, but overall I was surprised by how difficult it was -- especially in comparison to the Muslim guy on the trip, who had a much easier time avoiding pork and finding clearly-labeled halal restaurants.
Buddhist monks and nuns in that part of the world are expected to be vegetarian afaik, but they're also expected to abstain from certain "pungent herbs/spices", which includes most (maybe all?) alliums and would result in a wildly different food experience than the average Chinese person (or even the average Chinese Buddhist) has. I'm sure there are some delicious dishes that can be made within these constraints, but especially as someone whose biggest interest in China is the food, this restriction cuts you off from a LOT there. An acquaintance visiting Taiwan brought a little card that says "I'm vegetarian but I can eat pungent herbs/spices" in Mandarin in an attempt to communicate what your standard Western idea of "vegetarianism" is when ordering food. The differences in food culture end up being a lot more complicated than countries with a history of Buddhism necessarily having a stronger understanding of vegetarianism.
China is a really interesting place to look when it comes to food culture. The interesting thing about it is that it hasn’t always been so difficult to find dishes without meat products to my...
China is a really interesting place to look when it comes to food culture. The interesting thing about it is that it hasn’t always been so difficult to find dishes without meat products to my understanding. Yes, they have a different cultural understanding of vegitarianism as you pointed out but a mixture of cultural revolutions and rising affluence made meat more accessible and mainstream.
I'm sorry, but I don't think you're understanding what food insecurity is. Additionally, I think you're misunderstanding my argument. I'm specifically talking about how veganism as a personal...
I'm sorry, but I don't think you're understanding what food insecurity is. Additionally, I think you're misunderstanding my argument. I'm specifically talking about how veganism as a personal decision is insufficient for motivating agricultural policy.
Low / No Income: i.e. someone's income is insufficient to purchase sufficient food, regardless of the quality.
High Cost of Living in an Area: i.e. an area has higher costs than the income someone has to procure food.
Lack of Access: Food deserts, especially when factoring in public transportation options.
13%, or 42 Million people are food insecure. These are people who are struggling to keep food on the table. This not a simple fix of "people need to stop buying more expensive options," this is a fundamental problem in my country. Additionally, 13% is the low estimate from 2025. Data collection has gotten spotty in this administration, especially for figures that sound bad.
For people who have the ready access to afford a vegan lifestyle, your argument holds some water. However, I personally gave up on 'people should individually make the ethical choice' arguments after Covid.
Finally, Oreos, per their [official website](Many OREO products are suitable for Vegans but may include cross-contaminants of milk, so please check allergen advice. You can find a complete list of our Vegan certified products on The Vegan Society Website.), are not certified vegan, as they risk cross contamination from Dairy.
Whenever people get high and mighty about the ethics of past societies and figures, I remind them that distant future humanity will most certainly view our current era as an age of mass cruelty on...
Whenever people get high and mighty about the ethics of past societies and figures, I remind them that distant future humanity will most certainly view our current era as an age of mass cruelty on par with slavery, as we anonymously raise and slaughter tens of billions of sentient beings a year for our palates. When we ask, "how could they?", the answer is the same as the answer to "how could we?"
Not equating them is anthropocentric and is a failure of human moral imagination to value the intrinsic value of non-human intelligent, sentient life and their conscious experience and...
Not equating them is anthropocentric and is a failure of human moral imagination to value the intrinsic value of non-human intelligent, sentient life and their conscious experience and perspective. We know that pigs are intensely socially intelligent: capable of love, empathy, and friendship. And yet every year 1.5 billion of them are killed.
There has been a strong trend of human empathy increasing and human moral imagination increasingly integrating non-human life and becoming less anthropocentric. Prior to the 1800s, people used to burn cats in bonfires for fun at festivals. Bullfighting is quickly falling out of fashion. There was a time when dogs were used purely as tools and people used to kick and abuse them freely, and now people see them like children: some dog owners have died trying save their dogs.
If we extrapolate that trend of increasing moral consideration for animals out to the next, I don't know, 100,000 years, inevitably at some point in the distant future human moral imagination will finally completely encompass non-human life. Someday, people will give as much moral consideration to other intelligent animals as they do to dogs, and today's factory farming will be seen as a holocaust of trillions of sentient beings (it's about 1 trillion per 12 years), a moral crime of incomprehensible cosmic scale.
In the three minutes I took to write this comment, 450,000 animals were slaughtered.
You're right it's not on par with human chattel slavery. It's worse.
I can also think of multiple things we're doing to other humans currently that probably could weigh even heavier on future humanity's judgement of our current age. It's not like we're super...
I can also think of multiple things we're doing to other humans currently that probably could weigh even heavier on future humanity's judgement of our current age. It's not like we're super enlightened except for our dietary habits.
I think it's interesting that when it comes to Factory Farming, meat consumption, and veganism and vegetarianism the conversation is always focused on absolutes. Like people advocating for animal welfare always seem to advocate for 100% veganism/vegetarianism lifestyles instead of simply reducing meat consumption, if for only as a first step.
Like I consider myself a "flexitarian" because there's no word for what I am. Veganism is 100% no animal products, vegetarianism is 100% no meat but ok on animal products, pescetarianism is 100% no meat except for fish.
And the reason I consider myself flexitarian at all and not a normal meat eater or whatever, is because I regularly eat vegan and vegetarian meals, I would even go as far as to say I prefer vegan and vegetarian meals as the majority of the food I consume, however I'm not going to lose sleep over a burger every once in a while, or adding bacon to my beyond burger. But my consumption of meat has GREATLY been reduced and I'll often choose the vegan option as opposed to meat.
And it's funny because my interactions with normal people around this has people who aren't vegan saying "Oh, I can't eat that, I'm not vegan," or looking at me weird when I have Bacon on a Beyond burger, and I'm like wtf you don't have to be vegan to eat vegan food, and mixing vegan with bacon isn't illegal. I used to get asked a lot when I ordered vegan food at a work lunch "Oh, are you vegan?" and I was always like "No, that just sounded good and I was curious what vegan shrimp was like."
And the funniest thing ever is watching a waitress stare at me blankly when I ask for bacon on a Beyond Burger and not comprehending what I'm asking and like they are suddenly entirely unsure of their concept of reality. "Sorry, we don't have Beyond Bacon." "Oh, real bacon is fine." "So you want a normal burger?" "No, a Beyond Burger with bacon." "But it doesn't come with bacon." "It says here adding bacon is $1.50, so can I add that?" "I'll have to check with our cooks, but I think we can do that..." Comes back, "So you want the bacon on the side?" "No, in the burger is fine." "You wanted a Beyond Burger, right?" "Yes. A beyond burger. With bacon." "And the cheese is also vegan, is that ok?" "Yes, that's perfectly fine." "Oh ok, let me get that for you..." Then I get my burger and the bacon is on a separate plate given to my partner and not me. I can't help but think of this scene from A Bugs Life. lol
But It's crazy how many people simply haven't even considered they can eat vegan and vegetarian food just fine, or that you can mix and match and the world won't implode. Or how many people haven't even considered the idea of meat reduction in a diet is an option instead of going full vegan or vegetarian.
I think back to the story about how American Airlines removed one olive from their salads and saved over $40,000($100,000 today) a year, and can't help but to think that if applied to meat consumption that if everyone had 1 vegan or vegetarian meal a week with no meat, even THAT would have significant impact on Factory Farming. And then move from there.
But I don't see anyone really advocating for that kind of thing. It's always all or nothing and going cold turkey on meat, which is a lot for people to adapt to and why it never sticks, and why people glaze over when an activist hands them a flyer about factory farming at the county fair.
Being whey intolerant gets me much the same reaction, like dairy allergies are unheard of. Just don't butter the bun or use real cheese on my burger, how hard is that. I do often eat vegan since that's (almost always) safe. (Polyols are also a no go, not uncommon in fruits, including avocado, the usual vegan "creamy" choice. There's also vegan whey now, which makes trips to vegan ice cream shops fun and confusing for all involved.)
The diet culture war and its adherence to teams and treating foods exclusive to a diet is wild. I think sometimes we really do rock someone's social reality with non-standard orders.
I can't even convince my folks to try a bite of my tofu stir fry, that's food for vegetarians and they eat meat! Nevermind the food they eat that's incidentally vegetarian/vegan, that doesn't count for some reason. I don't know how to make folks realize they don't have to go all in if I can't get them to take a single step. Or that if you're going to eat meat, you better know how it's getting to you. But folks take that as an attack on them and their morals.
And like I'm not a perfectly consistent individual, I know all of this and still choose a burger sometimes, I certainly don't expect others to be better. Perhaps that's part of the problem for folks, they'd like to think that they act perfectly morally and being flexitarian forces you to face the morality of meat consumption while not acting in perfect accordance to that moral. I imagine that's where this all or nothing attitude comes in. I say, at the very least, know the implications of your actions and try to do your best even if it isn't perfect.
Edit: I've also known a lot of vegans, the depiction of the rabid zealot is quite the caricature. Most live and let live, are happy to hear about folks taking a meat free day, that sort of thing. The zealots would find some other moral to lord over folks and boost their ego if it weren't veganism.
We tend to forget this, but food is an inherently cultural artifact. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people involved with any given food product you buy at the grocery store, and each of them has piles of subtle meanings behind them.
One interesting thing I've heard people discussing lately is women using their dates' opinions on tofu to see if they will be a good match. It seems insane at first, but when you hear their reasoning about how they don't want to deal with men who have their masculinity threatened by a block of bean curds, it starts to make sense.
To be honest, though, I don't know any so-called "militant vegans" in real life. I've seen them online, for sure - I mocked them when I was younger, even. When it comes to me, personally, I only wear the title "vegan" half-heartedly. I didn't start living like this for the animals, I did it for my health. Everything else was just a bonus. There are times when I break down and have food with dairy in it; I actually had a bread pudding not even a week ago. To me and to everyone else I've met traveling this path, we don't care if you aren't successful in avoiding eating animal products 1% of the time; what's more important was the 99% of the time when you were doing better than you did before, and 100% of the time you're doing better than the people who refuse to even try.
As with most zealots, it’s about power and holier-than-thou superiority, if not of one variety then another. Wherever they can get their fix!
Greenpeace, WWF, the UN, SPCA International (under flexitarian), Kurzgesagt (near the end, where they say to spend the same money on less meat), etc.
(edit) (PETA was a little harder, but they also support meatless mondays, except for when their social media editor goes insane)
So ... there's no lack of messaging around eating less meat. Complete guess, but if some organization ran an ad campaign of "please eat one fewer steak a week" vs. "you're a literal Nazi for eating cows! Stop torturing animals! Here's a picture of an animal carcass!", would the former even register five minutes after seeing it? Whereas, would the latter tick up the counter of offensive ads in your brain?
I don't. Honestly I don't see anyone doing that, at this point, because it's pretty clear that that policy hasn't worked, so people that care about effectively addressing the problem have stopped using it. When researching the above list, the only environmental groups I could think of which bucked the trend were literally the Vegan Society. Even this Reddit /r/vegan thread, where an angry person decries how Meatless Mondays are killing vegans (or something; I skimmed their post), the top several responses are that it's genuinely better to have some change rather than none.
As a person who doesn't eat meat or animal products, I really like it (and tip accordingly) when someone paid minimum wage cares enough to ask me if I'm OK with the sauce, or the silently added cheese -- since it has milk in it. Several friends have food sensitivities, and they'll either go into anaphylactic shock in the restaurant, or be incapacitated for a day with severe gut pain, if an order is misheard and something they can't eat gets mixed in. So second guessing it can save a lot of suffering.
I'm sorry that this inconveniences you, or makes you feel singled out for your beliefs. It's helping people you're not seeing, though.
The vegans I used to work with would request that the deep fryer used for chicken wings did not touch their french fries. One person went so far as to ask that separate gloves were used to handle the vegan lunch buffet vs. the omnivorous buffet. People get very sensitive about this, and the line chef probably kept your food separate so as not to contaminate anyone else's. Again, sorry for the inconvenience, but if it helps your sacrifice is helping others avoid suffering.
I think it is interesting that I seem to read "it's crazy that everyone is so black and white on this" way more than I have ever encountered it. I would wager I come across more "harm (meat) reduction" messaging in my life and am interested in where many people seem to encounter these inflexible views! Even my vegan friends do not proselytize to this extent but will suggest animal free alternatives they think are particularly good, which I'm happy to receive.
Yup, same ... I'm perhaps quick to attribute this to a bias in human memory (e.g. availability bias, meaning we estimate the occurrence of an event by the speed with which we recall it, not at its actual observed frequency. Emotionally engaging material -- positive or otherwise -- will stand out, making it feel more common than it is).
Maybe there are genuinely pockets of truly insufferable vegans floating around, accosting people one on one? I know that I'd passed a couple protestors in a public square, a year ago, who were trying to make a statement with some televisions depicting slaughterhouses against a haunting soundtrack. Perhaps there're just ... more of them, somewhere?
People who proselytize tend to be extremists and tend to piss people off, this includes the protein obsessed MAHA grifters, religious people, and vegans alike. And those who have been harassed can have an extreme reaction too, even to much more reasonable statements. Add in that new converts to any any belief system also tend to be more militant and extreme in their adherence to it... And you end up with a handful of bad encounters that shout way louder than their actual numbers or percentages. There are plenty of non-assholes, we just don't hear them as much because they're not assholes.
You also hear from asshole vegan haters more often for similar reasons.
I have to admit I'm quick to recall the emotionally charged arguments I've been on the receiving end of over the more neutral. Even when I'm in agreement with the position I become prickly to arguments presented this way! Which is unfortunate from my perspective because I suspect the people making these arguments have become so emotionally invested for very good reasons.
I feel bad admitting that today I found myself having this bristling reaction to an NPR story about validating women's pain in medicine--(a position I think I hold!)--where the argument was made in such a way that I thought it was hard to sympathize. Which sucks! The people presenting the discussion was very well informed and had great reasons for why this mattered to them, they are women physicians and had suffered because of their pain not being taken seriously. But argument was so emotionally charged that I felt I was the bad guy somehow by working in medicine. (Perhaps this says more about me than the people presenting the information!)
Anyways, I go into all of this because the one person with an inflexible veganism position I've met has this stance because they witnessed the animal suffering at factory farms growing up in the midwest. Which is totally valid, but somehow doesn't turn me towards becoming vegan myself.
I couldn't find the NPR article with a quick search, at least not a recent one (it may not be transcribed yet). Could you link me?
I've searched for it just now and didn't didn't find it either. It might have been a rerun of a previous story, but I didn't find it in the archives either.
Ah ok I found a number of older stories. Was just trying to get a read on it.
That's an unfortunately very reasonable take ... I hope I haven't proselytized too hard, before, and caused similar issues, for the causes that I care about. Something to keep in mind, I suppose.
(edit) (admittedly, now that I reflect upon it, I have been a pest to some folks who've stepped on my toes, once or twice 😅 a habit that I should nip in the bud)
I mean I think we all have things we are passionate about. It's definitely possible to talk about those things without trying to actively convert people, which is where the proselytizing line probably gets crossed. And it's even possible to do it without being an asshole. But you remember the assholes, not the reasonable people.
This is how my partner and me eat. I usually cook 5-6 homemade from scratch dinners every week, the only protein we consume is poultry and I try and make it about 50/50 poultry/vegetarian meals. Some of those vegetarian recipes are also vegan. As long as the meal had been designed from the start to be vegetarian or vegan it usually works really well. Indian cuisine is a great example of being able to eat vegetarian with no compromise.
I've always thought of veganism as a semi religion, the ideology comes first instead of just trying to live your best life, do what you can and don't worry if you need to consume an animal based product. Neither of us at home are interested in consuming vegan cheese, so when that comes up in a recipe I just swap in real cheese. No big deal. I don't see any reason to be extremist about it.
My family has shifted so that our weekday lunches are almost always vegetarian, and more recently we've been trying for one vegetarian and one pescatarian dinner per week.
I have seen this strategy advocated for, which is likely where I got the idea to try it myself. But in general, if you're passionate enough to strongly advocate for an idea, you are also likely passionate enough to take that idea to the extreme (in this case, "extreme" is just veganism), which is why you don't see a lot of strong support for this partial-vegan strategy.
Promotion of strict veganism/vegetarianism may have done more harm than good. I’m also flexitarian (I prefer to say “fake vegetarian” as it’s funnier). Most people clearly do not care enough about animal suffering to make drastic changes. But you can coax people into slightly modifying their habits much easier.
Sometimes vegetarians will cite a PETA video as the moment of their dietary philosophical inception. For me it was a tweet/tumblr post/whatever that said something like “You say you could never cut meat out of your diet. Okay. So why not just red meat? Or just one meal a day?”
There are many other people who, like me many years ago, are primed for that message. We should share it more readily.
I recently saw a reel about something similar. It was something to the effect of "I could eat only vegan for the rest of my life, but BACONNNNN" and the response was, "Why not go vegan but bacon? Who is telling you to cut bacon out of your life?" It was from someone who is vegan and said the best way to move the needle was to be accepting that not everyone can give up meat/dairy altogether and we need to be reasonable and compassionate.
I'm mostly vegetarian now, and I couldn't have done that if my almost entirely vegan (BUT CHEESE) bff weren't there to help guide me on how to use certain foods or how to prepare tofu in ways that worked better for me.
I suspect that the rise of the term "Plant-Based" is because the term "Vegan" has too much of a negative connotation now. Whether it's right or not, the term alienates anyone who associates it with a whole lifestyle and identity.
(imo: plant based shows up because veganism isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle -- they often cut out leather, beeswax, carnauba wax, etc. Plant-based diets are laser focused to how one eats, not how one conducts the remainder of their lives)
This has also been my understanding, to the extent of seeing vegans tell other folks that those folks are plant based not vegan due to it being not a moral stance or full lifestyle shift.
This isn't just an online thing. I've had two close vegan friends (and a number of others more distant) that I can think of and one was super chill (also Muslim, celiac and queer, her life was complex) and the other was kind of a dick about it, but not all the time. Like some of it was frustration at the world, but some of it was directed at the people around them regardless. It was not a big deal to me, and I think they were frustrated when they couldn't live up to their own standards and took it out on others. The latter is the one who would make the distinction between the two. I just tried to find the vegan marshmallows or non-gelatin candy for them when I was shopping
I mean in the end, that’s what it is? Don’t call yourself vegan if you’re not vegan.
I have been vegan for 2 years and plant based for a few months before that. If you only think about your food- you’re plant based. It’s good, but you’re not vegan.
Veganism is not a diet, it’s about choosing to not see animals as a resource to be exploited.
It’s also kind of shifting the discussion away from the actual topic of veganism, when people call themselves vegan even though their reasons for not eating animal products are not based on ethics.
I was clarifying that it wasn't just non-vegan plant-based people using the label but also it was some vegans telling others they were "actually" plant-based.
I'm neither, so whether they're correct or not isn't my point. I understand the distinction between the two and rarely would I know why someone I don't know well is avoiding animal products if I was, say, eating dinner with them, so unless we're friends enough to share moral philosophies, I don't really care which someone is. I was just cosigning the explanation above me as the one I understood from my personal experience.
I see, I must’ve misread some stuff then.
This distinction between what is vegan or not is a big topic in general. And a huge problem for the vegan movement - I used to think it’s basically only crazy people. Until I really looked into it and it seemed quite logical.
But then you have spiritual vegans, raw vegans, fruitarians, which technically follow a vegan diet but as far as i know don’t really come from a moral/ethical perspective but often just a pseudoscientific angle- which for me is something that would rather push me away from a topic
Yeah it sounds like the sort of intra-group conversation that is easily incredibly heated, frequently misunderstood outside of it, and honestly none of anyone else's business mostly. Worth explaining if relevant to a conversation, certainly, but more as a niche r/hobbydrama style thing for most people.
What do you mean by that? I've been vegan 30 years, I hardly mention it online because I'm worried I'll get drawn into discussions that will get me banned, especially in a forum like this.
Am I alienated now, would you suggest? Or do people just get triggered?
Maybe we shouldnt be having a discussion about it then. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make. Why would any brand want to put a word on their label that evokes such a strong reaction in people?
Okay I’ll shut up.
Moderation is usually a good philosophy in many different aspects of life, though its been ruined somewhat by the "fence sitting centrists" in politics.
"All or nothing" is rarely a convincing argument for most people. Reduce, reuse, recycle is a great way to think about it, reducing to 0 would be ideal, but its also a lot harder to do that.
That's hilarious. People love their little clubs, their othering, their orthodoxy.
Light your hair on fire and jump in the river, server. It's time to live dangerously and put the damned pig product in with the damned plant patty!
Honestly I still believe that veganism is a better response to factory farming than any given attempt to make the government affect a change, at least here in the US. There’s a chance that an individual can be convinced to give up meat and dairy. I’d say it’s easier to convince someone on a carnivore diet to switch to veganism than it is to convince the government to change its agricultural policies contrary to the desires of “Big Ag”. They have huge well oiled lobbying machines and even if they didn’t they can always claim “if you don’t pass my laws, people will starve”, which seems to work regardless of the continued lack of veracity of those statements. Asking the government to change things contra to what big ag wants is like trying to wring blood from a stone.
Personally convincing people to go wholly or partially veg isn’t going to make a huge difference to the world. But it does make a difference, and on the individual level it can be extremely impactful. Especially when it comes to health outcomes. The more people we can collectively convince to change, the less powerful animal agriculture will have over government, and that is how we will come to those big impactful changes. Heck, we’ve already got at least one major victory - the latest USDA publication of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans actually provides advice for vegan diets, and that happened during a conservative administration! A lever has been placed; we just need to keep pulling on it.
I'd have to disagree. Relying on individuals moral choices to ensure animal health seems fragile at best. It's also of course not an either or situation. People can go vegan/vegetarian/partially so and at the same time we shouldn't give up the on affecting government. This doesn't necessarily have to be through federal law. I imagine local and state government could have an impact on animal welfare no?
agreed. how moral can raising animals in a contained space for slaughter or being milked their entire lives be? I like to think of the thought experiment of a vastly more alien species treating me like that. Would I be okay with that?
I'm sorry but I don't think you're being the remote bit rational about this. Given food insecurity in the United States right now, I don't think it's valid to assume that people have the economic ability to eat vegan.
The current statistic for food insecure Americans is currently somewhere around 13%, 42 Million, or 12% of Americans were on SNAP in 2025, while 40% of food is wasted anyways!
You just can't expect average Americans to make an individual change in their diet when they can barely keep food on the table. It's a nonstarter. That's not even getting into the preparation time required for vegan food, (whereas poor Americans might be working 2nd or 3rd jobs and just won't have the time), food deserts, the culture war, or underfunded school lunch problems!
Of course the AG industry is going to lobby hard, and be really hard to shift. While Americans weren't watching, corporations took over the country, and now lobby really hard for their own priorities. Individual decision making fixes nothing,.
That's just MAHA adding in their rider to the USDA's policies. It satisfies their base in the Trump coalition. They love to promote the science of an alternative healthy diet, while slashing medicare and public health policy. While they were doing that, by the way, the USDA was also threatening my home, as an economic weapon for my home state.
Please look around you. The time is for collective action, not hoping that enough individual decisions will actually influence power.
I get the feeling that you are very passionate about this so I'm going to do my best to avoid turning this into an argument.
Generally speaking, food insecurity in the US is not an issue of there not being enough food, it's an issue with access. People cannot access food because they cannot afford to buy it.
But lets imagine for a moment that it was an issue with the amount of food available. If that were the case, the government would actually have a better case against eating meat. Meat spoils very quickly, especially when comparing to dried staples such as grains and legumes which can last for years without refrigeration. Raising animals at scale take a huge amount of resources that humans need to live - things like water, food, and land. You might want to check out this interesting website for a better picture: https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture
I believe you might be under the impression that vegan food is something extremely difficult and costly to make. But that couldn't be further from the truth. There are some high profile vegan foods that are very overpriced, true, but that's not the majority of what vegans eat. For me persionally, a meal is more often than not some vegetables that I either shredded to add to spring rolls (which don't require any cooking), or tossing some frozen veggies in the microwave with a sauce and some tofu. Both of these are very cheap and about as fast as a homecooked meal can be. I could make more complex dishes, I suppose, but like most people, I'm lazy. I eat like this because I'm on a whole food plant based diet, but if I weren't I'd have a lot more options including fast and tasty processed foods like ramen and whatever "next generation vegan protein" like Impossible and Beyond - which, admittedly, I do eat from time to time, especially when I'm out of the house.
I also want to state for the record, for both you and @archevel, that I'm not really against collective action to end factory farming. I'm actually very in favor of it. I'm just disenchanted and demoralized. It just feels like too much of a bar to pass. Even with that, though, that doesn't mean that it's not important to get everyone around us to eat less - preferably no - meat or animal products. I'm sure I don't need to go into detail, but the shortlist is climate change, animal exploitation, climate change, human exploitation, climate change, political corruption, and have I mentioned climate change? That last one's a big one.
Of course, there is the added benefit that people who are living a vegan lifestyle are much more likely to be motivated to advocate for the policies you want. You say the time is for collective action, and I'm saying to build the collective. We're actually on the same page, but the two of you are just more optimistic about change than I am. Or perhaps it's more accurate to call me jaded.
I'm not disputing anything you say. Specifically, I am saying the following:
I agree that Factory farming is a blight.
However, assuming that a sufficient amount of people could adopt veganism as a tool against factory farming is an inexcusable, and non-sequitur argument due to the issue of food insecurity in our country.
Food insecurity is not immediately caused by the issue of factory farming, but the two are inter connected as systemic issues within agriculture in this country.
Any plan of action that requires individuals to adopt a personal change of their own volition falls apart against systemic issues.
I'm actually not, and at this point I'm getting a little frustrated that people in this thread would assume that. My household regularly prepares vegan and vegetarian foodstuffs, and my wife and I have had long discussions about what ingredients we use on a regular basis. Ultimately, we decided that it was not worth going fully vegan, as eggs and cheese are important cheap staples that cannot be easily readily replaced.
Specifically:
We found that Aquafaba and plant based egg substitutes were insufficient for our daily needs
The additional prep time spent on Tofu wasn't worth using it as a universal meat replacement, Costco rotisserie chicken is an easier and quicker option for protein at roughly the same price. Additionally the chicken bones can be used for cooking stock.
We like cheese, and vegan cheese has not reached the quality of regular cheese.
Vegan products were not as sufficiently varied for our preferences.
Non food related, but pleather is an insufficient substitute for real leather.
Additionally, my wife was raised in a rural area, and grew up having first hand farming experience. She additionally spent several of her teen years in a food insecure household. I additionally, have worked at a non profit serving people with food insecurity in my community. These are massive, systemic issues, and veganism is ultimately a personal choice that does not address this.
I think we do agree. Personally, I want a better, healthier future for people and the environment.
I don't know how to build a collective, but I can tell you right now it's not by having a bunch of people make a personal individual decision about the food they put in their bodies. Additionally, there is an argument being made right now by the MAHA movement, that we should decimate the medical system and replace it with personal decisions to diet and exercise better. That makes arguments about personal choice in diet a bit of a red flag, in my opinion.
I'm just going to point out issues where I see them. That's my best hope at shifting the needle for the people around me. I figure we're already damned though.
Thank you for responding. I guess the part where I'm confused, though, is why you seem to think that people going vegan will increase food insecurity. As I have stated, most plant based food tends to last longer than animal products, typically with less energy required to store them.
That's the opposite of what I'm saying.
I'm saying that people who are food insecure are not inclined to become vegan. Specifically, a person who is food insecure will be more inclined to getting non food insecure, rather than focusing on the content of the food.
Additionally, I'm saying that so many people are currently food insecure, and that the argument falls apart at scale.
Does that make sense?
That does make sense, but I feel like it just opens up so many more questions!
I'm glad that you feel so strongly about food insecurity because it is a bigger issue than most people understand, but I don't think it was the best thing to bring up in this conversation. Food insecurity means that you often don't have a choice of what food you eat, so I think it goes without saying that nobody is asking people suffering from that issue should be forced into something they may simply not be able to do. But at the same time, I feel like it's not quite as much an insurmountable issue for this category of people as you think it is. I won't push that particular issue though.
Food insecurity, lack of time and childcare, and all of these problems you bring up are definately big problems, but they do not invalidate the problem of factory farming. All of them are problems that we should all be collectively trying to fix.
You know what's vegan? Rice. Beans. Corn. Lentils. Frozen vegetables. Most cooking oils/fats. Most packaged ramen. Oreos. If someone has no time at all for cooking, it's true that fast food almost always includes meat. But if someone barely has enough money to keep food on the table, eating vegan is less expensive than eating meat.
Until recently meat was really good bang for your buck, protein and calorie dense, cheap, and easy to cook.
It always really bothered me how cheap meat is. I know that they made meat cheap by creating the factory farms that people switch to veganism in order to protest. I know that swapping to a more humane way of providing meat for us citizens will make meat more expensive. I’m okay with that.
Instead we’re in a situation where meat is no longer cheap and its still factory farmed slop quality. Because we couldn’t pass any regulations to fix it. I don’t think its the consumers fault and when I was so poor that ramen was expensive I would buy ground beef on sale and mix it with my rice and beans cause that shit was like $2 a pound at Walmart where I live.
Yeah, when it was a good deal, it was a good deal. I don't think we're in that world anymore.
And really, meat was only ever cheap because it's heavily subsidized. There are certain cases of pasture farming where the land use doesn't really make sense for produce and so rearing livestock makes economic sense, but in most cases it's always going to be cheaper to eat the produce directly as opposed to having another animal eat it for you and then eating that.
We’re still kinda stuck in that problem though like we made meat cheap, everyone relied on it cause it was cheap calories, and now its expensive and everyone still relies on it.
What the government really should do is pass the laws and then subsidize the extra expense, but theres no way in hell they’re gonna stop spending billions on war machines to but a few million into better food quality for Americans.
Chicken thighs and ground pork are still fairly affordable (at least relatively) but yeah its really hard to beat rice/beans on value. I eat a ton of all of them and "save" a lot on groceries because of it. (By save I mean spend about the same as I did a few years ago because of how much more expensive everything has gotten)
Agreed 😅 and another great part about cheap vegan diets is that they also lean heavily on shelf stable, pantry staples. A simple meal of lentils and pasta costs pennies, and sprucing it up with cheap spices + tomato paste tastes great.
IMO, but a huge part of the perspective that vegan diets are exclusionary, expensive, or difficult, comes from the fact that many western nations don't have a vegan/vegetarian food culture to start with. Many people will reach for vegan/vegetarian replacements for their standard meals, and find that that ends up costing a tonne: Just Egg is ridiculously expensive, aquafaba is a PIA and wastes tonnes of chickpeas, fake meat burgers are just as unhealthy as the real deal, etc. Whereas, for example, some people in China would be familiar with a local Buddhist temple serving delicious vegetarian dishes, or much the same for Indians. That instantly gives them hundreds of delicious dishes, from basic on-rice, veg forward meals, to complex fried seitan dishes, or a spot of mock duck. It's not "weird" anymore, or expensive, it's just one of the background choices which one selects to move to the forefront.
The only vegetarian dish my father was aware of was macaroni and cheese. Literally everything else involved meat of some variety. Asking people -- who struggle with feeding themselves heathfully and consistently to begin with -- to now go do research on vegetarian cooking techniques, palates, etc. is nuts. My personal bone to pick is with vegan chefs who make elaborate, eye catching meals: no one has time to make these, and they only push a healthy lifestyle further out of reach for the average person. Telling someone, whose staple meal is a tuna sandwich, that they need to go buy handpicked Chicken 'o the Woods mushrooms, buy a cast iron skillet, and to marinade that sucker for several hours in advance is actively harmful.
Auuuugh. Sorry for the rant. It's really frustrating to know that there are genuine cheaper, more healthy, ways to live and eat, but the gap we need to bridge is culture and I hardly see anyone discussing that.
Foodways are something I find really interesting to the point of almost wanting a degree in something adjacent. You have to have people from within in the culture(s) adopt the new thing(s) and adapt them to fit rather than imposing them externally. You can't ignore that affording meat feels like a status symbol that we're not that poor to the working class.
But also, it's much harder to adapt without time and energy to learn and try new things, without feeling like you can afford to make a mistake and order a pizza (or make hotdogs and kraft mac and cheese) if you ruin dinner. And hell, if you don't eat a lot of fiber now that dense bean salad is going to make your digestive tract revolt even if it tastes delicious, better go back to what you know.
Meatless Monday is/was one of the smarter ways to approach getting folks to try new meat-free recipes IMO, because I feel like it was starting to catch on even in the midwest before it disappeared (at least to me) in a pile of The Liver King, Protein Protein Protein, Raw Milk nutrition advice. But I started seeing people experiment and a lot of "comfortable" recipe ideas. In contrast, Lenten Fridays as a kid were usually cheese pizza, spaghetti with butter/parm, and maybe fish sticks and Kraft Mac and cheese; my parents did not have an extensive meatless selection in the cute wooden box of recipe cards. (Veggies were present I'm sure, but I was a child and the veggies were steamed to death.)
I can go without meat fine, but a) tend to get anemic and b) tend to eat carbs and cheese as a default, which is unsurprising. Because I like plenty of other foods but don't know how to/feel confident in making them. It's absolutely about culture because you can't just tell people to change their food in a vacuum or offer only foods you're culturally comfortable with that they're not!
Sorry I tend to avoid vegan threads but food culture is a thing I'm passionate about.
(sorry that I haven't replied to this, but it's an extremely interesting topic, and I had never had the term "foodways" to dig into it! I'm still researching the subject and collecting my thoughts on the matter, but thank you so much for pointing it out!)
No worries at all! I think it's all really fascinating.
Aquafaba is indeed a PIA, but it shouldn't waste chickpeas. You can actually use just about any bean to make aquafaba; chickpeas are just the most common one because it has a vaguely eggy color to it and a relatively neutral taste. But you should also eat the chickpeas. They're tasty. 😋
Also, fake meat burgers are "just as bad" as the real thing in terms of calories, but there are studies out there saying they're better for you in the long run.
I really wish more Americans ate tofu. Tofu is so good in so many situations. It takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it in! The same is true of konjak and shirataki.
Now if you'll excuse me, your mention of a tuna sandwich reminded me of a delicious chickpea "tuna salad" I haven't had in forever, and I am very hungry.
While I agree with your overall point about a lot of Americans simply not having a cultural place for plant-based meals being a key part of why it's so difficult to lower meat consumption, I think China is an interesting choice to bring up when talking about vegetarianism from a food culture perspective tbh. I can say from experience that, absent very recent changes that I'm not super familiar with, it's actually pretty hard to eat vegetarian in China, despite the fact that Chinese cuisine is absolutely chock full of dishes that center plants and tofu without meat in it, and this is in large part because they don't have a clear concept of "vegetarian" with the same meaning it has in the West (or at least they didn't 10 years ago when I visited -- if it's more of a thing now, that's a recent change). My roommate when I studied abroad in Shanghai was a full-on vegan, and not only did she have to flex to vegetarian for the trip, but it was a lot of effort to find truly vegetarian dishes for her, because in China even otherwise plant-based or tofu-centric dishes will include small amounts of meat or be cooked in lard or beef broth for flavor. Luckily our program coordinators did put in the effort to always get her a few truly vegetarian dishes for group meals (and as we ate family style, I can say for sure that they were as delicious as the meat-based ones!) and we found an occasional vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai, but overall I was surprised by how difficult it was -- especially in comparison to the Muslim guy on the trip, who had a much easier time avoiding pork and finding clearly-labeled halal restaurants.
Buddhist monks and nuns in that part of the world are expected to be vegetarian afaik, but they're also expected to abstain from certain "pungent herbs/spices", which includes most (maybe all?) alliums and would result in a wildly different food experience than the average Chinese person (or even the average Chinese Buddhist) has. I'm sure there are some delicious dishes that can be made within these constraints, but especially as someone whose biggest interest in China is the food, this restriction cuts you off from a LOT there. An acquaintance visiting Taiwan brought a little card that says "I'm vegetarian but I can eat pungent herbs/spices" in Mandarin in an attempt to communicate what your standard Western idea of "vegetarianism" is when ordering food. The differences in food culture end up being a lot more complicated than countries with a history of Buddhism necessarily having a stronger understanding of vegetarianism.
China is a really interesting place to look when it comes to food culture. The interesting thing about it is that it hasn’t always been so difficult to find dishes without meat products to my understanding. Yes, they have a different cultural understanding of vegitarianism as you pointed out but a mixture of cultural revolutions and rising affluence made meat more accessible and mainstream.
I'm sorry, but I don't think you're understanding what food insecurity is. Additionally, I think you're misunderstanding my argument. I'm specifically talking about how veganism as a personal decision is insufficient for motivating agricultural policy.
Food Insecurity can be caused by multiple factors:
13%, or 42 Million people are food insecure. These are people who are struggling to keep food on the table. This not a simple fix of "people need to stop buying more expensive options," this is a fundamental problem in my country. Additionally, 13% is the low estimate from 2025. Data collection has gotten spotty in this administration, especially for figures that sound bad.
For people who have the ready access to afford a vegan lifestyle, your argument holds some water. However, I personally gave up on 'people should individually make the ethical choice' arguments after Covid.
Finally, Oreos, per their [official website](Many OREO products are suitable for Vegans but may include cross-contaminants of milk, so please check allergen advice. You can find a complete list of our Vegan certified products on The Vegan Society Website.), are not certified vegan, as they risk cross contamination from Dairy.
(I think your link to the OREO website is broken? Wikipedia suggested this archived link, which is probably what you were aiming for)
TIL Oreos are vegan, for some reason I always assumed the filling contains milk
Yeah, they're my go-to example when talking about how vegan is not inherently healthy. It can be, but it's not automatic.
Things like Beyond Meat sausages arent particularly healthy either (which is not to say that regular meat sausages are)
Well they are “chocolate Creme” cookies. But I don’t know if it’s ever actually contained cream before.
Whenever people get high and mighty about the ethics of past societies and figures, I remind them that distant future humanity will most certainly view our current era as an age of mass cruelty on par with slavery, as we anonymously raise and slaughter tens of billions of sentient beings a year for our palates. When we ask, "how could they?", the answer is the same as the answer to "how could we?"
While I agree that the future will not look kindly on factory farming, equating it to human chattel slavery is really gross rhetoric.
Not equating them is anthropocentric and is a failure of human moral imagination to value the intrinsic value of non-human intelligent, sentient life and their conscious experience and perspective. We know that pigs are intensely socially intelligent: capable of love, empathy, and friendship. And yet every year 1.5 billion of them are killed.
There has been a strong trend of human empathy increasing and human moral imagination increasingly integrating non-human life and becoming less anthropocentric. Prior to the 1800s, people used to burn cats in bonfires for fun at festivals. Bullfighting is quickly falling out of fashion. There was a time when dogs were used purely as tools and people used to kick and abuse them freely, and now people see them like children: some dog owners have died trying save their dogs.
If we extrapolate that trend of increasing moral consideration for animals out to the next, I don't know, 100,000 years, inevitably at some point in the distant future human moral imagination will finally completely encompass non-human life. Someday, people will give as much moral consideration to other intelligent animals as they do to dogs, and today's factory farming will be seen as a holocaust of trillions of sentient beings (it's about 1 trillion per 12 years), a moral crime of incomprehensible cosmic scale.
In the three minutes I took to write this comment, 450,000 animals were slaughtered.
You're right it's not on par with human chattel slavery. It's worse.
I can also think of multiple things we're doing to other humans currently that probably could weigh even heavier on future humanity's judgement of our current age. It's not like we're super enlightened except for our dietary habits.