Not directly related to the post, but what is it with people getting all pissy when they find out you’re vegetarian/vegan? More than once I’ve had someone act like I told them I punch babies for fun when they find out I don’t eat meat. I don’t bring it up unprompted, it’s always in relation to a dietary concern. For example, I ordered a veggie dish at a restaurant, and they brought me the meat equivalent. I politely let the server know I ordered something else (apologetically I might add, because I feel like I’m being difficult to a service worker even though it’s about a dietary restriction), and she acted like I was out of line. Rolling eyes, huffy, and asked me if I wanted her to take it back (um, obviously?).
This has happened to me or friends in various social settings, and I just don’t get it. I even attended a cookout once where the host got mad at me for not eating his burgers. After I responded to the dietary restriction email. And brought my own dish. People act like you’re being a bitch for not eating meat! I’ve never once pushed my diet on anyone or brought it up out of necessary contexts, but people still talk behind my back like I’m being dramatic for not eating things I don’t want to.
The tension that results can make us feel stressed, irritated, and unhappy. But instead of resolving it by changing our beliefs or behaviour, it’s quite normal to blame these feelings on something else entirely – all without realising we’re doing it
In the case of eating meat, Rothgerber suggests we have a number of strategies – around 15 – which allow us to avoid facing up to the meat paradox. These include pretending that meat has no link to animals, imagining that we eat less of it than we really do, wilful ignorance about how it’s produced
[…]
Unfortunately, most of these are derailed by the presence of vegans.
According to Rothgerber, people tend not to think of meat eating as an ideology. The dominance of meat eating around the world helps the omnivores among us to avoid the idea that it’s a choice – it’s just what everyone else is doing. But when a vegan turns up at a dinner party, suddenly we’re bumped out of the comfortable “mainstream diet” category and into the unsettling “meat-eating” category. By their mere existence, vegans force people to confront their cognitive dissonance. And this makes people angry.
I’m always weirded out when people can’t just get over it. Things get hungry murder eat then shits it out. We all amount to nothing but one step in the great poop circle.
I mostly eat meat when it’s served to me, but if making my own food or eating out, it’s mostly vegetarian. At the same time, though, I fish and eat the fish I catch.
A friend of mine makes faces at me when I mention fishing and says stuff like how she feels bad for the poor fish. When I point out she is not a vegetarian or vegan, she just straight up says she tries not to think about it. But “poor fish” when I look at my kill directly and gut it with my own hands. 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah, people much prefer the far away abstract violence compared to a softer violence they have to face
I have so much more respect for hunting for food than industrial agriculture. But in some ways there’s a stigma that hunting carries in a way industrial agriculture doesnt, even though the way it treats animals is infinitely more horrifying
I’m skeptical of this… I think it’s because vegan-ism is so puritanical, and everyone hates puritans.
It would be different if 1) it was necessitated by a health concern, or 2) they were just people who tried to eat as few products made from commercial farming as possible, but would eat animal products as circumstances necessitate. But they cut out all animal products, to the point that it can be really really difficult to prepare food for them. And I understand that usually vegans try to be accommodating and just bring their own food; they aren’t trying to be dicks to everyone. But they still forgo the aspect of social bonding created by preparing food for others and sharing food with others, which drives social distance between themselves and others on purely ideological grounds.
…or in some cases it’s much simpler: some of us have conditions that make it impossible for us to survive or to thrive on a vegan diet and we’re sick unto death of vegoons pushing Evangelical Veganism and acting like we don’t exist or we’re making it up to justify the moral failing of eating meat. And there’s the constant push to normalize veganism, which just expands the number of places I can’t eat and/or people I can’t eat with.
If that type of vegan didn’t exist I wouldn’t immediately start side-eying vegans until I find out of they’re safe or not.
Additionally, what conditions make it impossible to survive or thrive on a vegan diet? I’m not challenging you, I’m genuinely curious. Is it like multiple allergies? I know some people believe the “you can’t get nutritionally complete diet from veganism” thing, which isn’t true. All vitamins, proteins, and nutrients we need are available while vegan. Is it like a fiber sensitivity or allergy problem?
There are about a dozen common ones that limit bioavailability of things like vitamin A or iron from plant sources. I don’t keep the list in my pocket, and the enshittification of search has risen to the point where trying to find it again just gets me lectured by an AI about how I should go vegan.
Also:
some people believe the “you can’t get nutritionally complete diet from veganism” thing, which isn’t true. All vitamins, proteins, and nutrients we need are available while vegan.
While that’s technically true, it’s not actually easy to get things like Omega-3 from plant sources, and most of the nuts and seeds that have it are expensive and/or difficult to source.
You also have to basically spend a lot more of your free time figuring out a meal plan that will allow you to actually get all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients you need on a plant based diet, and you’ll still likely wind up eating the same meals every week bcs there’s only so many vegan sources of things your body really needs.
At the end of the day, veganism is a consumerist solution to structural problems. Much like snake oil to “reduce your carbon footprint”, it pushes responsibility for a societal problem back on the individual.
Is eating less meat, and having that meat be mostly fish and poultry a good thing for both your health and the environment? Absolutely. Is it nearly as impactful on either as getting rid of your car? I’d say probably not.
There are not many nutrients only available on meat, but they do exist nevertheless, just as there are some nutrients on vegetables not present at all in meat, and the same for mushroom with these two.
But even if we don’t count that, the amounts and forms matter. For example, both have iron, yeah, but almost only animals have hemo iron, while there’s barely vegetables with hemo iron, although in mushrooms is more common, but even then in those two hemo iron is found in really low concentrations, and the non-hemo iron is barely metabolized by human body because it needs structures that we humans lost. Like, cows have a crazy big stomach with four compartments to be able to process non-hemo iron. And even if so, they still have to be most of their day eating to be able to survive, because vegetal nutrients are simply not as dense as their counterparts in meat.
Those nutrients solely available in meat are easily replaceable by your body. I do not eat any meat, and most weeks I eat only vegetables. I am not deficient in any nutrients. Much of Southeast Asia and India eat only vegan or vegetarian, and aren’t nutrient deficient. The nutrient excuse has been endlessly debunked, scientifically and practically. Again, you can choose to eat meat for your own reasons without shaming or excuses.
The problem is that’s an elitist and exclusionary take.
Vegan and vegetarian replacements are way too expensive for almost the 99% of the population, and while you can theoretically replace some of these with medication and supplementation, it will never be the same as the synthetic replacements will never have the exact nutritional matrix that the natural animal source has, and as such it will not interact the same with our metabolism and our organs, thus causing a higher probability on related diseases and health issues.
This take is also especially crazy to me because I’m dirt poor, like one missed check from homelessness poor. I’m living entirely off of savings while I try to earn a certification and also work full time to survive. Kinda insulting to call it elitist when I’m barely surviving.
Bro, I’m fucking Venezuelan, here the fucking income for a decent work is less than $4/month, I can’t even study because of that, I’m unemployed because both AI and the horrible administration in my country are crushing any work possibilities out there, my mom’s need an special diet and I have to take 6 fucking chronical meds that are expensive as hell, I eat the same shit everyday because I can’t afford anything else, I only have a house because it’s the same one from my mom-side grandfather and it’s falling into pieces, I fucking know what I’m talking about.
I’m not suggesting everyone must go vegan, but I guarantee there are Buddhists in your community in similar economic positions that are vegan or vegetarian. It sounds like it’s more a mental bandwidth thing than a requirement. It’s objectively cheaper to eat vegan if you subsist on rice and lentils, like much of the most impoverished do. Again, I’m not suggesting you need to do anything, but the idea that going vegetarian or vegan is an elitist or privileged thing is objectively false, economically. You could absolutely go vegan for cheaper than you are eating now, if you were willing to restrict your diet. It’s not the right decision for everyone, but don’t make it about money or privilege.
Not going vegan or vegetarian because you have more important things to worry about than a diet change is a totally valid reason. Don’t make excuses or punch left because your feelings are hurt. You can choose to not go vegan or vegetarian for your own reasons without shaming those that make the difficult choice to do so.
Yeah, I understand that, and actually, I’m sorry for the really harsh response, I was a bit stressed although that’s not justification, I felt bad afterwards.
And I’m not trying to shame those who want to be vegan. I have vegan family, and I respect and love them. But I’m tired of being shamed and attacked for being omnivore (I’m not even carnist, and I hate industrialized meat production).
But it’s not objectively false my claim.
Maybe I was too broad, it can be more nuanced, but at least where I live, is cheaper not to be totally vegan, and I know because I have to read the price of everything everytime I go to buy stuff with my mother (I’m the one that knows how to use the calculator, she doesn’t). Meat consumption should be reduced, nevertheless, but never totally removed.
I know you’re not forcing anyone to be vegan too, but there’s a really noisy group of vegans and vegetarians that want to ban it, and will demonize and shame and attack non-vegan and non-vegetarian people in the process.
What? You don’t need replacement meats. I eat veggies and cheap plant protein crumbles or tofu, both cheaper than meat equivalents, and I have regular blood work done and all levels are normal. I don’t take any supplementary vitamins either. Going vegetarian is definitely not more expensive, and going vegan isn’t either if you’re willing to change your diet. Obviously, one to one replacements for egg, cheese, and meats are gonna be pricey, but you don’t need those.
I should note that technology is increasingly helping provide more options. With precision fermentation, there is a lot of ways to biologically identical proteins, enzymes, etc. For instance, you can now buy non-animal whey protein, egg white protein, non-animal heme iron, and more in the stores. It’s super cool stuff and ironically the dairy industry was a big pioneer of it in the 90s for one of the enzymes they use widely in cheese. There’s a lot more coming down the pipeline with it
The problem is that’s an elitist and exclusionary take.
Vegan and vegetarian replacements are way too expensive for almost the 99% of the population, and while you can theoretically replace some of these with medication and supplementation, it will never be the same as the synthetic replacements will never have the exact nutritional matrix that the natural animal source has, and as such it will not interact the same with our metabolism and our organs, thus causing a higher probability on related diseases and health issues.
As they scale up, the costs will be lower. It’s a supply chain thing, not a fundamental limitation. The input costs are lower. In the broader sense, plant-based diets from whole-foods are actually already cheaper
It found that in high-income countries:
• Vegan diets were the most affordable and reduced food costs by up to one third.
• Vegetarian diets were a close second.
• Flexitarian diets with low amounts of meat and dairy reduced costs by 14%.
• By contrast, pescatarian diets increased costs by up to 2%.
Based on primary data (n = 1040) collected through an online survey, representative of the Portuguese population, through logistic regressions, it was possible to conclude that plant-based consumers, particularly vegan, are associated with lower food expenditures compared to omnivorous consumers. In fact, plant-based consumers are shown to spend less than all other consumers assessed
EDIT: I should also note that in an increasing list of countries, non-whole plant-based things like this are already cheaper too. With meat prices rising further, that’s only likely to increase more
But most countries are underdeveloped, or in ways of development, and there it’s not really viable now.
Also, take into account this. The scalability IS a fundamental issue because the quantity, quality and speed of production needed to feed the global population are not compatible with the limited space, resources and the physics, chemistry and biology of soils. You will cause massive soil losses due to the mere fact that such soils will be above their limits.
There’s also enviromental and echological issues, such as the point that you’ll be displacing many native species (both from plants and animals) to be able to grow others that are edible to us, massively altering ecosystems. If with the scale of plant production that we now have that’s a serious problem, imagine with such a drastic increase. We wouldn’t give enough.
Moreover, think on the issues of transport: not all plants are able to grow in every country, and as such you’ll have to move a massive amount of these around the globe, boosting the carbon footprints of global transport.
And then we have all the hydric issues, and all the issues with fertilizers and insecticides.
And it could go on, but it would never end.
I have to look better at these studies, tho, I’ll do it later because nevertheless it looks like there are interesting advances I haven’t heard of before, and that makes me a bit excited because anything that can help both humanity and animals is good.
Perhaps counterintuitively, it’s the other way around. Meat, dairy, etc. production is what does not scale well. Low income countries don’t have nearly as much of it because high income countries have to subsidize the hell out of animal farming to make it as common as it is. It actually takes significantly less plant farming to eat plants directly
we show that plant-based replacements for each of the major animal categories in the United States (beef, pork, dairy, poultry, and eggs) can produce twofold to 20-fold more nutritionally similar food per unit cropland. Replacing all animal-based items with plant-based replacement diets can add enough food to feed 350 million additional people, more than the expected benefits of eliminating all supply chain food loss.
Pesticide and fertilizer use is significantly lower
To produce 1 kg of protein from kidney beans required approximately eighteen times less land, ten times less water, nine times less fuel, twelve times less fertilizer and ten times less pesticide in comparison to producing 1 kg of protein from beef
For transport, it’s actually not the driver of food emissions. The production itself is more important, especially when it comes to animal products
Transport is a small contributor to emissions. For most food products, it accounts for less than 10%, and it’s much smaller for the largest GHG emitters. In beef from beef herds, it’s 0.5%.
Not just transport, but all processes in the supply chain after the food left the farm – processing, transport, retail and packaging – mostly account for a small share of emissions.
This data shows that this is the case when we look at individual food products. But studies also shows that this holds true for actual diets; here we show the results of a study which looked at the footprint of diets across the EU. Food transport was responsible for only 6% of emissions, whilst dairy, meat and eggs accounted for 83%.
Heme iron, specifically in animals, is in fact from blood. Heme being short for hemoglobin which is the protein in red blood cells that transfers oxygen around the body (both for humans and most non-human animals). Being able to make that from precision fermentation is pretty cool
You’re taking veganism much too personally. I can count on one hand all the places that don’t serve meat at all within my city. Your options are not limited. Other’s dietary choices are not a slight to you. It is so easy to find a place that has at least one dish for either dietary preference. What if they were Buddhist, or another religion that restricts diet around meat, would that irk you as well? Why must others consume meat for your comfort?
Huh. I haven’t heard of anything that explicitly requires meat protein for you to live, what do you have? And if you prefer not to say, obviously that is fine, I’m just curious. And not a vegan.
You must be like the only person in 100,000 to have a good reason to fear a vegan restaurant opening up nearby.
For me it’s a neuropsychological issue, not a digestive one.
I “can’t” eat most fruits and vegetables because they trigger my gag reflex so hard I can’t swallow them. After years of working with a dietician and a therapist, I’ve managed to get to the point where there are a few things I can eat that aren’t meat, bread, or ultra processed trash, but it’s hard.
Also: to be clear, I have just as much or more disdain for any other voluntary dietary restrictions. Kosher and Halal get the same side eye from me, having lived to middle age with both the constant side-eye from people who like to rag on “picky eaters” and the constant struggle of trying to find something to eat when out with friends, I view anyone who limits their eating options just because they can and they think there’s any kind of morality to what you eat as a person throwing away the massive gift of being able to just eat.
I hear you. I was raised vegetarian (mom is awesome) and have flip flopped between that and veganism my whole life. Growing up meatless and male has been a weird experience, with countless people telling me I’m not manly be cause I don’t eat dead animals. Wtf.
Sadly, I’ve also received the opposite, telling me I don’t really care because I’m not vegan enough (sigh)
Remind yourself that a lot of people fall into the trap of boosting themselves at the expense of others around them because it’s a low-hanging-fruit way to make themselves feel better. Their comments aren’t really about you. Someone’s always going to judge, no matter what we do. At least you try, that *is *worth something.
A good friend of mine is vegan and has been actually assaulted (old lady slapped him, which isn’t exactly being attacked with a tire iron, but it’s still fucking assault) because of it.
Another good friend is vegetarian, and when we went out for pizza, he ordered this one fancy pizza, and told them to hold the meat (entire pizza is veggie except for prosciutto). They brought it out with prosciutto on it, and when he said “I don’t eat meat” the server replied “it’s very thin” as if that made a difference to it being meat. It was genuinely quite funny in the moment. Lol. They did replace the pizza without any qualms or attitude, but I’ll never forget that moment. It’s thing, so it doesn’t count!
… Also, I do wish they’d left that pizza instead of taking it back. It looked so good, and whenever I visit them they like to starve me to death because they’re all tiny people with caloric deficits D:
Some people are just clueless. I was asking the hostess at a restaurant we were considering if they had anything vegan. And she said “we have shrimp?” Like, what rock are you living under?
I try not to, but sometimes I have to for dietary reasons. I have to choose between going somewhere that has nothing I can eat, ordering a drink or a side, saying “I’m not hungry,” and eating at home, or risking peeving others with the audacity to not consume meat.
Because your lifestyle choices are an affront to their lifestyle. In many places in the world eating meat is an important part of the culture. Saying that you don’t eat meat is seen as a rejection of the culture. And they will immediately label you as “the other”.
It’s like if a person says they are an atheist in a country where everyone is religious and religion is an important part of daily life. Even when the atheist isn’t judging anyone the atheist will receive negative reactions and even violence.
The same goes for the vegan/vegetarian side too, tbh.
Like, it’s something more related to group dynamics. Give people a way to distinguish themselves and they’ll build all of their identity around it, then they’ll discriminate the out-group and suck the in-group’s balls even if they’re wrong.
As of myself, I’m omnivore and I can’t get carnists nor vegetarians and/or vegans points, but I do respect them as long as they respect me too.
My main point is that meat is really bad for the environment. It takes way more water, land, and lets off more emissions by far for the same amount of food, since you need to feed the livestock.
It’s something understandable. I push for a more sustainable, ethical and with less suffering farming and livestock as much as my situation lets me to do so.
weirdly ive noticed alot of behavior like this even on lemmy and even in leftist communities on here. people just get really mad when a post even mentions someone being vegan. similarly i see people demonizing people who for riding bikes and i just get so confused at why they are on lemmy (a very leftist platform) if they despise commonly leftist things
There’s a name for this in the broader sense, though riding bikes may or may not fill into this (can if it’s for environmental reasons)
Do-gooder derogation is a phenomenon in moral psychology where a person’s morally motivated behavior leads to them being perceived negatively by others. The term “do-gooder” refers to a person who deviates from the majority in terms of behavior, because of their morality
The only instances when i noticed it happening is when a vegan post ridicules or mocks who eat meat, though, i’d like to note that I don’t see many vegan posts on my feed
That is when you also mention you need to speak to a manager. l know it is now considered a “Karen” thing, but sometimes it really is the right course of action.
Yeah it’s weird, I thought what’s the difference it’s like beans when I tried a vegan diet. Nope, I’ve never had anything that made my body want to vomit unless it was spoiled.
I’ve never once pushed my diet on anyone or brought it up out of necessary contexts
And that’s a good way to go about it. But unfortunately that’s not the case for every vegetarian or vegan, and as for every demographic, the loud and confrontational ones are always the ones that get the most attention. And this is coming from an atheist that doesn’t talk about religion unless directly asked about it, so I can sympathize.
The sad fact is that most people that are wary of vegans and vegetarians are like that because they’ve run into ones that are varying forms of asshole about their diets. Some of the antagonists throw insults, some will be dishonest, most will be some mix of the 2. Of course it’s not fair that those bad impressions are being applied to you as an individual, but it’s unfortunately also just human nature.
Just going through the other responses on here. Pretty much every other responder is trying to come up with some complicated Psychology 101 argument as to why people don’t like vegans despite the answer being simple.
Hell, I’ve run into vegans criticizing keto (which is weird because you can be vegan/vegetarian on a keto diet), and their tactic was to throw out something like 14+ research papers and pretend that they all backed up their claims. I went through all of the papers, and 1/3 were completely irrelevant, 1/3 weren’t even looking at proper keto (or even properly low-carb) diets, and the final 1/3 contraticted their points.
While this may have seemed like a tangent, it’s relevant to my point: people are messy, and they’ll sometimes be dishonest and/or contradictory, especially when they think they have the moral high ground. And people that are on the fence or disagree can see that dishonesty and it leaves a bad impression for the whole group.
To recap: just like with atheism, a lot of the issue is a small number of bad apples that give the group a bad name. All you can do is mind that fact and try to avoid being one of the bad apples yourself.
Not sure how much you know about keto, but the diet comes with a real risk of serious permanent damage. It only takes one bad day for you to go from ketosis to ketoacidosis, which can straight up kill your ass. I have a friend who had a heart attack at 25 from that. So there is a safety standpoint there.
And that also happens to carnist ppl and omnivore ppl (I’m from the latter category, I eat everything except fish because I’m allergic to it plus I can’t tolerate its flavor because of neurodivergency issues).
I’m really moderated and it really pisses me out how so many carnists and even omnivore ppl can be such assholes. Like, please, just fucking respect other ppl dietary decisions.
And this leads me to the worst part: the ones who want to completely ban and prohibit meat eating, without considering that a) vegan and vegetarian diets are expensive asf, so they’re being actually elitists and fascistoids as they’re pushing for an standard only they can afford, and b) they’re not taking into account that a human can’t actually live without eating meat if they don’t then replace it with something that can more or less give them the same nutrients but not animal-based, and that’s something that’s 1) not scalable, 2) again expensive as hell and 3) makes you more prone to develop dietary issues and even dietary diseases.
They’re living in their priviledge bubble and pretend us to adjust to their power fantasy.
Not directly related to the post, but what is it with people getting all pissy when they find out you’re vegetarian/vegan? More than once I’ve had someone act like I told them I punch babies for fun when they find out I don’t eat meat. I don’t bring it up unprompted, it’s always in relation to a dietary concern. For example, I ordered a veggie dish at a restaurant, and they brought me the meat equivalent. I politely let the server know I ordered something else (apologetically I might add, because I feel like I’m being difficult to a service worker even though it’s about a dietary restriction), and she acted like I was out of line. Rolling eyes, huffy, and asked me if I wanted her to take it back (um, obviously?).
This has happened to me or friends in various social settings, and I just don’t get it. I even attended a cookout once where the host got mad at me for not eating his burgers. After I responded to the dietary restriction email. And brought my own dish. People act like you’re being a bitch for not eating meat! I’ve never once pushed my diet on anyone or brought it up out of necessary contexts, but people still talk behind my back like I’m being dramatic for not eating things I don’t want to.
The BBC has a good article on this concept
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200203-the-hidden-biases-that-drive-anti-vegan-hatred
I’m always weirded out when people can’t just get over it. Things get hungry murder eat then shits it out. We all amount to nothing but one step in the great poop circle.
I mostly eat meat when it’s served to me, but if making my own food or eating out, it’s mostly vegetarian. At the same time, though, I fish and eat the fish I catch.
A friend of mine makes faces at me when I mention fishing and says stuff like how she feels bad for the poor fish. When I point out she is not a vegetarian or vegan, she just straight up says she tries not to think about it. But “poor fish” when I look at my kill directly and gut it with my own hands. 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah, people much prefer the far away abstract violence compared to a softer violence they have to face
I have so much more respect for hunting for food than industrial agriculture. But in some ways there’s a stigma that hunting carries in a way industrial agriculture doesnt, even though the way it treats animals is infinitely more horrifying
I’m a lot like you, I make vegetarian food myself. But if I’m visiting someone and they serve meat, I’ll have a slice.
My exception is game, as a large chunk of my family are hunters
I’m skeptical of this… I think it’s because vegan-ism is so puritanical, and everyone hates puritans.
It would be different if 1) it was necessitated by a health concern, or 2) they were just people who tried to eat as few products made from commercial farming as possible, but would eat animal products as circumstances necessitate. But they cut out all animal products, to the point that it can be really really difficult to prepare food for them. And I understand that usually vegans try to be accommodating and just bring their own food; they aren’t trying to be dicks to everyone. But they still forgo the aspect of social bonding created by preparing food for others and sharing food with others, which drives social distance between themselves and others on purely ideological grounds.
…or in some cases it’s much simpler: some of us have conditions that make it impossible for us to survive or to thrive on a vegan diet and we’re sick unto death of vegoons pushing Evangelical Veganism and acting like we don’t exist or we’re making it up to justify the moral failing of eating meat. And there’s the constant push to normalize veganism, which just expands the number of places I can’t eat and/or people I can’t eat with.
If that type of vegan didn’t exist I wouldn’t immediately start side-eying vegans until I find out of they’re safe or not.
the number of places you can eat at went from like 99% of restaurants to like 97% because of vegan places opening up. youre not a victim here.
What do you mean “can’t eat at”?
Do you have an allergic reaction when you consume non-meat foods?
Something kinda like that, yeah.
Forgive my ignorance, but how tf are you alive?
Multivitamins and luck, mostly
Additionally, what conditions make it impossible to survive or thrive on a vegan diet? I’m not challenging you, I’m genuinely curious. Is it like multiple allergies? I know some people believe the “you can’t get nutritionally complete diet from veganism” thing, which isn’t true. All vitamins, proteins, and nutrients we need are available while vegan. Is it like a fiber sensitivity or allergy problem?
There are about a dozen common ones that limit bioavailability of things like vitamin A or iron from plant sources. I don’t keep the list in my pocket, and the enshittification of search has risen to the point where trying to find it again just gets me lectured by an AI about how I should go vegan.
Also:
While that’s technically true, it’s not actually easy to get things like Omega-3 from plant sources, and most of the nuts and seeds that have it are expensive and/or difficult to source.
You also have to basically spend a lot more of your free time figuring out a meal plan that will allow you to actually get all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients you need on a plant based diet, and you’ll still likely wind up eating the same meals every week bcs there’s only so many vegan sources of things your body really needs.
At the end of the day, veganism is a consumerist solution to structural problems. Much like snake oil to “reduce your carbon footprint”, it pushes responsibility for a societal problem back on the individual.
Is eating less meat, and having that meat be mostly fish and poultry a good thing for both your health and the environment? Absolutely. Is it nearly as impactful on either as getting rid of your car? I’d say probably not.
I agree, but every little bit matters. You’re preaching to the choir here, I’m a leftist that would very much like massive structural changes.
It IS true.
There are not many nutrients only available on meat, but they do exist nevertheless, just as there are some nutrients on vegetables not present at all in meat, and the same for mushroom with these two.
But even if we don’t count that, the amounts and forms matter. For example, both have iron, yeah, but almost only animals have hemo iron, while there’s barely vegetables with hemo iron, although in mushrooms is more common, but even then in those two hemo iron is found in really low concentrations, and the non-hemo iron is barely metabolized by human body because it needs structures that we humans lost. Like, cows have a crazy big stomach with four compartments to be able to process non-hemo iron. And even if so, they still have to be most of their day eating to be able to survive, because vegetal nutrients are simply not as dense as their counterparts in meat.
That’s only one example.
Those nutrients solely available in meat are easily replaceable by your body. I do not eat any meat, and most weeks I eat only vegetables. I am not deficient in any nutrients. Much of Southeast Asia and India eat only vegan or vegetarian, and aren’t nutrient deficient. The nutrient excuse has been endlessly debunked, scientifically and practically. Again, you can choose to eat meat for your own reasons without shaming or excuses.
Copy-paste from another comment I made:
This take is also especially crazy to me because I’m dirt poor, like one missed check from homelessness poor. I’m living entirely off of savings while I try to earn a certification and also work full time to survive. Kinda insulting to call it elitist when I’m barely surviving.
Bro, I’m fucking Venezuelan, here the fucking income for a decent work is less than $4/month, I can’t even study because of that, I’m unemployed because both AI and the horrible administration in my country are crushing any work possibilities out there, my mom’s need an special diet and I have to take 6 fucking chronical meds that are expensive as hell, I eat the same shit everyday because I can’t afford anything else, I only have a house because it’s the same one from my mom-side grandfather and it’s falling into pieces, I fucking know what I’m talking about.
I’m not suggesting everyone must go vegan, but I guarantee there are Buddhists in your community in similar economic positions that are vegan or vegetarian. It sounds like it’s more a mental bandwidth thing than a requirement. It’s objectively cheaper to eat vegan if you subsist on rice and lentils, like much of the most impoverished do. Again, I’m not suggesting you need to do anything, but the idea that going vegetarian or vegan is an elitist or privileged thing is objectively false, economically. You could absolutely go vegan for cheaper than you are eating now, if you were willing to restrict your diet. It’s not the right decision for everyone, but don’t make it about money or privilege.
Not going vegan or vegetarian because you have more important things to worry about than a diet change is a totally valid reason. Don’t make excuses or punch left because your feelings are hurt. You can choose to not go vegan or vegetarian for your own reasons without shaming those that make the difficult choice to do so.
Yeah, I understand that, and actually, I’m sorry for the really harsh response, I was a bit stressed although that’s not justification, I felt bad afterwards.
And I’m not trying to shame those who want to be vegan. I have vegan family, and I respect and love them. But I’m tired of being shamed and attacked for being omnivore (I’m not even carnist, and I hate industrialized meat production).
But it’s not objectively false my claim.
Maybe I was too broad, it can be more nuanced, but at least where I live, is cheaper not to be totally vegan, and I know because I have to read the price of everything everytime I go to buy stuff with my mother (I’m the one that knows how to use the calculator, she doesn’t). Meat consumption should be reduced, nevertheless, but never totally removed.
I know you’re not forcing anyone to be vegan too, but there’s a really noisy group of vegans and vegetarians that want to ban it, and will demonize and shame and attack non-vegan and non-vegetarian people in the process.
What? You don’t need replacement meats. I eat veggies and cheap plant protein crumbles or tofu, both cheaper than meat equivalents, and I have regular blood work done and all levels are normal. I don’t take any supplementary vitamins either. Going vegetarian is definitely not more expensive, and going vegan isn’t either if you’re willing to change your diet. Obviously, one to one replacements for egg, cheese, and meats are gonna be pricey, but you don’t need those.
I should note that technology is increasingly helping provide more options. With precision fermentation, there is a lot of ways to biologically identical proteins, enzymes, etc. For instance, you can now buy non-animal whey protein, egg white protein, non-animal heme iron, and more in the stores. It’s super cool stuff and ironically the dairy industry was a big pioneer of it in the 90s for one of the enzymes they use widely in cheese. There’s a lot more coming down the pipeline with it
The problem is that’s an elitist and exclusionary take.
Vegan and vegetarian replacements are way too expensive for almost the 99% of the population, and while you can theoretically replace some of these with medication and supplementation, it will never be the same as the synthetic replacements will never have the exact nutritional matrix that the natural animal source has, and as such it will not interact the same with our metabolism and our organs, thus causing a higher probability on related diseases and health issues.
As they scale up, the costs will be lower. It’s a supply chain thing, not a fundamental limitation. The input costs are lower. In the broader sense, plant-based diets from whole-foods are actually already cheaper
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-cheaper-and-healthier-oxford-study
This is also true in real spending data
https://agrifoodecon.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40100-022-00224-9
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800915301488?via=ihub (looking at the US)
EDIT: I should also note that in an increasing list of countries, non-whole plant-based things like this are already cheaper too. With meat prices rising further, that’s only likely to increase more
Yeah, I understad that.
But most countries are underdeveloped, or in ways of development, and there it’s not really viable now.
Also, take into account this. The scalability IS a fundamental issue because the quantity, quality and speed of production needed to feed the global population are not compatible with the limited space, resources and the physics, chemistry and biology of soils. You will cause massive soil losses due to the mere fact that such soils will be above their limits.
There’s also enviromental and echological issues, such as the point that you’ll be displacing many native species (both from plants and animals) to be able to grow others that are edible to us, massively altering ecosystems. If with the scale of plant production that we now have that’s a serious problem, imagine with such a drastic increase. We wouldn’t give enough.
Moreover, think on the issues of transport: not all plants are able to grow in every country, and as such you’ll have to move a massive amount of these around the globe, boosting the carbon footprints of global transport.
And then we have all the hydric issues, and all the issues with fertilizers and insecticides.
And it could go on, but it would never end.
I have to look better at these studies, tho, I’ll do it later because nevertheless it looks like there are interesting advances I haven’t heard of before, and that makes me a bit excited because anything that can help both humanity and animals is good.
Perhaps counterintuitively, it’s the other way around. Meat, dairy, etc. production is what does not scale well. Low income countries don’t have nearly as much of it because high income countries have to subsidize the hell out of animal farming to make it as common as it is. It actually takes significantly less plant farming to eat plants directly
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1713820115
Pesticide and fertilizer use is significantly lower
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25374332/
Even if we maximally used manure, it’s still lower
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344922006528
For transport, it’s actually not the driver of food emissions. The production itself is more important, especially when it comes to animal products
https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
Ah fuck. I didn’t know iron was derived from animals. Fuck, it’s basically blood!
Heme iron, specifically in animals, is in fact from blood. Heme being short for hemoglobin which is the protein in red blood cells that transfers oxygen around the body (both for humans and most non-human animals). Being able to make that from precision fermentation is pretty cool
I was joking about being a vampire and that being blood on Discord, I didn’t know I was twlling the truth 😭
There is also plenty of non-heme iron, to be fair, which is not from blood. Plants have tons of it from the ground and such
Yeah, but it’s barely metabolized by our organism, it’s almost not bioavailable for humans.
You’re taking veganism much too personally. I can count on one hand all the places that don’t serve meat at all within my city. Your options are not limited. Other’s dietary choices are not a slight to you. It is so easy to find a place that has at least one dish for either dietary preference. What if they were Buddhist, or another religion that restricts diet around meat, would that irk you as well? Why must others consume meat for your comfort?
Huh. I haven’t heard of anything that explicitly requires meat protein for you to live, what do you have? And if you prefer not to say, obviously that is fine, I’m just curious. And not a vegan.
You must be like the only person in 100,000 to have a good reason to fear a vegan restaurant opening up nearby.
For me it’s a neuropsychological issue, not a digestive one.
I “can’t” eat most fruits and vegetables because they trigger my gag reflex so hard I can’t swallow them. After years of working with a dietician and a therapist, I’ve managed to get to the point where there are a few things I can eat that aren’t meat, bread, or ultra processed trash, but it’s hard.
Also: to be clear, I have just as much or more disdain for any other voluntary dietary restrictions. Kosher and Halal get the same side eye from me, having lived to middle age with both the constant side-eye from people who like to rag on “picky eaters” and the constant struggle of trying to find something to eat when out with friends, I view anyone who limits their eating options just because they can and they think there’s any kind of morality to what you eat as a person throwing away the massive gift of being able to just eat.
fuck that server though. what if instead of a voluntary dietary restriction you were allergic to meat?
What if – stick with me now – you wanted what you ordered and it was the server’s job to bring that to you? Fucking chaos, man.
I hear you. I was raised vegetarian (mom is awesome) and have flip flopped between that and veganism my whole life. Growing up meatless and male has been a weird experience, with countless people telling me I’m not manly be cause I don’t eat dead animals. Wtf.
Sadly, I’ve also received the opposite, telling me I don’t really care because I’m not vegan enough (sigh)
Remind yourself that a lot of people fall into the trap of boosting themselves at the expense of others around them because it’s a low-hanging-fruit way to make themselves feel better. Their comments aren’t really about you. Someone’s always going to judge, no matter what we do. At least you try, that *is *worth something.
A good friend of mine is vegan and has been actually assaulted (old lady slapped him, which isn’t exactly being attacked with a tire iron, but it’s still fucking assault) because of it.
Another good friend is vegetarian, and when we went out for pizza, he ordered this one fancy pizza, and told them to hold the meat (entire pizza is veggie except for prosciutto). They brought it out with prosciutto on it, and when he said “I don’t eat meat” the server replied “it’s very thin” as if that made a difference to it being meat. It was genuinely quite funny in the moment. Lol. They did replace the pizza without any qualms or attitude, but I’ll never forget that moment. It’s thing, so it doesn’t count!
… Also, I do wish they’d left that pizza instead of taking it back. It looked so good, and whenever I visit them they like to starve me to death because they’re all tiny people with caloric deficits D:
I think some cultures are entirely unfamiliar with the idea of not eating meat at all.
Like that line from Big Fat Greek Wedding. “He doesn’t eat meat? Is okay, I make lamb.”
They treat it the same way we might treat the phrase “he doesn’t drink.” Which means no alcohol, not “no consuming liquid of any kind.”
No meat is just taken to mean no whole meats, like cuts of steak. So you get “no meat in the soup, just a bit of the chicken stock for flavour.”
Some people are just clueless. I was asking the hostess at a restaurant we were considering if they had anything vegan. And she said “we have shrimp?” Like, what rock are you living under?
I think it partially has something to do with the internet brainrot propaganda against veganism/vegetarianism
Hugs.
This is why I don’t bring it up to other people.
I try not to, but sometimes I have to for dietary reasons. I have to choose between going somewhere that has nothing I can eat, ordering a drink or a side, saying “I’m not hungry,” and eating at home, or risking peeving others with the audacity to not consume meat.
That’s fair. I usually keep quiet and don’t eat, ordering a drink or maybe fries. I can understand and I’m glad you speak up for yourself though.
Because your lifestyle choices are an affront to their lifestyle. In many places in the world eating meat is an important part of the culture. Saying that you don’t eat meat is seen as a rejection of the culture. And they will immediately label you as “the other”.
It’s like if a person says they are an atheist in a country where everyone is religious and religion is an important part of daily life. Even when the atheist isn’t judging anyone the atheist will receive negative reactions and even violence.
https://lemmy.ml/comment/27989092
https://lemmy.ml/comment/27989092
It points out how shameful and lazy meat eaters are to their face, and people don’t like having their poor choices pointed out to them.
It is the same when telling people that you dont drink or take other drugs…
“You don’t smoke crack?! If I couldn’t smoke crack, I’d kill myself.” ~ them, probably.
The same goes for the vegan/vegetarian side too, tbh.
Like, it’s something more related to group dynamics. Give people a way to distinguish themselves and they’ll build all of their identity around it, then they’ll discriminate the out-group and suck the in-group’s balls even if they’re wrong.
As of myself, I’m omnivore and I can’t get carnists nor vegetarians and/or vegans points, but I do respect them as long as they respect me too.
My main point is that meat is really bad for the environment. It takes way more water, land, and lets off more emissions by far for the same amount of food, since you need to feed the livestock.
It’s something understandable. I push for a more sustainable, ethical and with less suffering farming and livestock as much as my situation lets me to do so.
weirdly ive noticed alot of behavior like this even on lemmy and even in leftist communities on here. people just get really mad when a post even mentions someone being vegan. similarly i see people demonizing people who for riding bikes and i just get so confused at why they are on lemmy (a very leftist platform) if they despise commonly leftist things
There’s a name for this in the broader sense, though riding bikes may or may not fill into this (can if it’s for environmental reasons)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-gooder_derogation
The only instances when i noticed it happening is when a vegan post ridicules or mocks who eat meat, though, i’d like to note that I don’t see many vegan posts on my feed
Coming off the back of an asshole vegan calling meat eaters ‘genocidal monsters’, yeah im not seeing this supposed unprompted hate on vegans.
Based
That is when you also mention you need to speak to a manager. l know it is now considered a “Karen” thing, but sometimes it really is the right course of action.
You’re probably right but my social anxiety would never let me lol
Generally I don’t care. I prefer phrasing it as dietary restrictions. I can’t eat wheat or lentils. And a lot of fruit makes my lips tingle and itch.
No dhal tadka? Damn, sorry to hear that mate. I’d be morose for ages. Also my favourite type of veggie burger.
Yeah it’s weird, I thought what’s the difference it’s like beans when I tried a vegan diet. Nope, I’ve never had anything that made my body want to vomit unless it was spoiled.
A token “fuck you” to the bitch that down voted you
deleted by creator
And that’s a good way to go about it. But unfortunately that’s not the case for every vegetarian or vegan, and as for every demographic, the loud and confrontational ones are always the ones that get the most attention. And this is coming from an atheist that doesn’t talk about religion unless directly asked about it, so I can sympathize.
The sad fact is that most people that are wary of vegans and vegetarians are like that because they’ve run into ones that are varying forms of asshole about their diets. Some of the antagonists throw insults, some will be dishonest, most will be some mix of the 2. Of course it’s not fair that those bad impressions are being applied to you as an individual, but it’s unfortunately also just human nature.
Just going through the other responses on here. Pretty much every other responder is trying to come up with some complicated Psychology 101 argument as to why people don’t like vegans despite the answer being simple.
Hell, I’ve run into vegans criticizing keto (which is weird because you can be vegan/vegetarian on a keto diet), and their tactic was to throw out something like 14+ research papers and pretend that they all backed up their claims. I went through all of the papers, and 1/3 were completely irrelevant, 1/3 weren’t even looking at proper keto (or even properly low-carb) diets, and the final 1/3 contraticted their points.
While this may have seemed like a tangent, it’s relevant to my point: people are messy, and they’ll sometimes be dishonest and/or contradictory, especially when they think they have the moral high ground. And people that are on the fence or disagree can see that dishonesty and it leaves a bad impression for the whole group.
To recap: just like with atheism, a lot of the issue is a small number of bad apples that give the group a bad name. All you can do is mind that fact and try to avoid being one of the bad apples yourself.
Not sure how much you know about keto, but the diet comes with a real risk of serious permanent damage. It only takes one bad day for you to go from ketosis to ketoacidosis, which can straight up kill your ass. I have a friend who had a heart attack at 25 from that. So there is a safety standpoint there.
I, too, hate it when people get all uppity about something.
And that also happens to carnist ppl and omnivore ppl (I’m from the latter category, I eat everything except fish because I’m allergic to it plus I can’t tolerate its flavor because of neurodivergency issues).
I’m really moderated and it really pisses me out how so many carnists and even omnivore ppl can be such assholes. Like, please, just fucking respect other ppl dietary decisions.
And this leads me to the worst part: the ones who want to completely ban and prohibit meat eating, without considering that a) vegan and vegetarian diets are expensive asf, so they’re being actually elitists and fascistoids as they’re pushing for an standard only they can afford, and b) they’re not taking into account that a human can’t actually live without eating meat if they don’t then replace it with something that can more or less give them the same nutrients but not animal-based, and that’s something that’s 1) not scalable, 2) again expensive as hell and 3) makes you more prone to develop dietary issues and even dietary diseases.
They’re living in their priviledge bubble and pretend us to adjust to their power fantasy.
About people that I had the bad luck to interact with (both online and offline).
And notice that it’s about “my own people” too.