No dude, to poor to even buy food sometimes. I have to eat with the money that I have at the time. If there's a promo on the frozen burger tha't what I'm eating. Yes too poor for vegetables. I'm sorry if some of us are poor. You may not think so but being vegan or even only vegetarian IS a luxury
I feel what you mean. But if you are willing to change, i woukd suggest to exchange meat with other protein sources when ever possible. I can highly recommend saitan!
Not really. I avoid telling people unless it comes up because I don't want to be harassed or interrogated. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does that.
As someone who isn't vegan, it's such an unfair reputation. Wanna know how someone is a meat eater? They can't keep their mouth shut the moment vegetarianism/veganism come up.
Because you don't like seeing people promote lifestyles that are objectively necessary for human life to be sustained on this planet in the long term?
Or because you don't have the discipline to overcome the upbringing that conditioned you to feel addicted to meat consumption, and you subconsciously realize that veg*nism is the morally and ecologically superior lifestyle and that leaves you with an inferiority complex that makes you lash out at others like an upset child?
Aggressively trying to force their ideas on people is obnoxious. People should be free to make their own choices. If people want to try vegetarianism, be a resource for them. Don't shove it down their throats and brag about your superior moral values. It makes other vegetarians look bad.
No one cares if you don't eat meat. As for lashing out I believe you already had that covered. And I can give you the greatest plot twist of this post. I've been a vegetarian for over 25 years; I've been vegan for over 7 at one point.
Your argument is completely invalid. Don't make me look bad because you want to brag about your convictions. This is why I dislike my fellow vegetarians.
I find that meat eaters' reactionary indignation to the facts of the harm caused by eating meat is way more aggressive than veg_ns trying to point out to people that we're literally killing ourselves as a species.
It's somehow even stupider when people who are veg_n like yourself act like it's offensive to promote the importance of veg_nism to a world that will otherwise die.
I really don't care how many people like me when it comes at the cost of the continued existence of humanity. I have no remorse about shoving an uncomfortable message into the faces of people who need to hear it.
When people are talked down to, they often dig in their heels due to an emotion called psychological reactance. The reactionary ape that still exists in every human feels challenged and that ape will not allow reason to stop it.
If you see such a reaction and allow yourself to believe "well that person was just an immature child", you risk giving yourself license to keep talking down to people. Repeat ad nauseum.
It doesn't matter that you're objectively correct about the effect meat has on the biosphere if you just keep going around that circle, creating 0 new vegans every lap
I mean scientists tried being polite and give gentle nudges with the climate crisis for decades and look where it got us. Civilization is driving towards a cliff and we've thrown away the steering wheel.
When I was younger I used to think that being nice to people and engaging them on their own terms is the best way to win people over to your cause, but at the end of the day people don't actually bother to change unless they realize that they need to for their own survival. So I'm done putting all my eggs into the respectability politics basket, and I'm not going beat around the bush on what a fucking cataclysmic crisis we're being faced with.
I certainly won't win anyone's affection, but if I can get at least one person to pause and ask themselves "..Am I in danger..?" then I'll take that as a win. If others think they can win people over with kindness, they're welcome to try.
Why are the animal's choices never considered in this equation? Freedom is something the west places a high value on, but it's generally agreed that freedom should never go so far as to harm others, yet your "freedom" to choose what to eat is resulting in a horrifying sort of perpetual holocaust.
Why is your fleeting sensory pleasure (something that can be had just as easily from plants) more important than the entire lives and wellbeing of all the animals you paid to have killed?
Being militant won't convince anyone for a cause. Being open to them asking questions will. Offer people to try things. Be a good friend. You will be far more successful. I say this from experience.
And if you have some recipes you swear by, feel free to PM them. I like cooking and trying new things.
For the planet? Doubt it, the amount of primary forests being razed to grow soy, displacing local wildlife be it flora or fauna, and especially with locals, usually already living in difficult situations before being forced to move, is horrid.
I am glad college gave me the habit of fact checking myself, turns out I was wrong as fuck. True, soy is a water intensive but not as water intensive as many other crops or meat. And a lot of companies buy cheap land, raze what was there, "poison" the soil with specific fertilizers that change the properties of said land so the soy can prosper, while also alienating the local plants, however most companies that do this, do it to feed livestock, since soy is very efficient and resilient when compared to most livestock feed.
Plus, only about 6% of soy is destined for human consumption, about 90% of it is used as a cheap livestock feed. I still oppose to veganism from a moral standpoint, and consider that buying local would make a far greater impact, but now I can go back to buying tofu without feeling guilty.
You oppose veganism from a moral standpoint...? You think it's immoral to subsist without needlessly torturing animals, or is there some other agrobusiness propaganda wedged in your brain that you haven't taken the time to debunk yet?
I think it is immoral to expect me to increase my workload by a ton through cooking, when I don't even have the time to take care of myself thanks to capitalism. Sadly, due to enormous subsidies meat is cheap, readily available and vegetarian/vegan options are scarce and overpriced where I live.
Added to the fact that the effort vs impact table is pretty much meaningless when you assess all the damage to the world that the rich are doing, it just feels like a gargantuan waste of my energy and resources, to not even move the needle.
And I get to piss off sanctimonious, preachy people like you in the process, win/win.
I'm eager to acknowledge the systemic challenges of being veg_n since those were barriers for me in the past myself. I'm privileged to not have those issues anymore, but I still recognize the premium that I pay to be veg_n (my partner and I refer to it as "the vegetarian tax").
I harbor no animosity towards people who can acknowledge the sustainability crisis of the meat industry but aren't in a position to personally separate from it. The expectation that I have for decent and informed people, in order from the bare minimum to the absolute most is:
Don't pointlessly disparage veg_ns or spread misinformed agrobusiness propaganda. This in fact takes negative effort.
Occasionally examine whether you have any opportunities to reduce your meat consumption.
Talk to people you personally know about the sustainability crisis and see if you can find others in your circle who are interested in reducing their meat consumption. Work together to figure out effective strategies for doing so in your situation.
BTW, sorry for getting defensive. But yeah, I work on what I can and since my country is very shitty about disabilities, and being disabled, cooking and any manual labor take me forever, and for me the morality aspect of it is placing the burden of vegetarian and vegan diets on the consumer, when in reality is is easier and cheaper to manufacture, if we exclude subsidies.
I don't harbor any animosity against vegetarians or vegans, it is a lot of work, I used to be vegan myself, but convenience and prices pushed me out. I always question myself before giving an argument, and finding out I am wrong is a great way to grow and remind myself how fallible we people are.
Already doing that, and living a mostly sustainable life, trying to reduce my carbon footprint as much as I can without sacrificing the little joys an exploited and burned out worker can.
I hate that vegetarian/vegan options require so much work on my part and/or are expensive as hell at least where I live, thanks to the massive subsidies the meat industry gets.
Hell, if I am having a tough day, which I often do, I don't have the energy to make myself a lentil patty, just so I can eat a burger, or buy the grossly overpriced ones at the shop, but when I can buy a bag of them for less than a dollar each patty, convenience wins. That is one of the factors that made me stop being vegetarian. Got tired of all the work it takes.
It is great that you could bring up the curiosity to bust the soy myth.
There is no moral consumption of animal products. Many people a lot smarter than both of us (or at least mor dedicated / funded / in their jobs) have made the research and come to this conslusion as well.
The most people who oppose this fact feel attacked at first because it can't coexist with their own behaviour. It is the same as with every debate where emotion gets brought up as a reasoning though (e.g. refugees, climate change, homeopathy, etc.).
I like how you engage politely, and nourish discourse. Part of the issue is the fact that time and money are not commodities that I sadly posses, and when the behemoth of the meat industry has bribed their way into massive subsidies, to the point where they can sell oven-ready beef patties for a dollar each, which sure, I can go cheaper and more tasty with lentil patties, but the time and effort they take, that is time that thanks to capitalism and exploitation, I don't posses.
And the added inconvenience of having to carry your food everywhere, be hungry or pay for the outrageously overpriced vegan options out there, when one can instead just buy a hot dog without even breaking a stride.
Personally I don't have a moral issue with killing animals for food, but the industrialization of the practice is immoral and dehumanizing. I have raised chicken and goats for food, and when you do it in a sustainable, cruelty free way, I am fine with their deaths, but capitalism and the race for profits make it impossible to do, due to the competition being a soulless, entirely for profit, global machine.
