4 ms·

It may be different in different parts of the world, but where I'm from vegans tend to be middle-class/upper-class people who are blissfully unaware of how clas

It may be different in different parts of the world, but where I'm from vegans tend to be middle-class/upper-class people who are blissfully unaware of how class barriers dictate the way you eat. And instead of trying to engage with it meaningfully (i.e. understand and propose ways for poor people to live on a vegan lifestyle when $$$ is tight and calorie intake needs are bigger) they just believe that anyone can live the same way they can afford. My personal pet peeves are that a) some of the arguments for veganism try to convince me that I should not eat animals because they're sentient beings and since the 70s we've started to see evidence that the concept of "sentience" is very very ephemeral and that plants also exhibit intelligent behaviour. I think this argument is incredibly homo-centric and I honestly find it a bit insulting to my own beliefs. b) the concept of going vegan being environmentally friendly is fine to me, but it's not just about not eating cattle. It's also about reducing carbon footprints of industrialised food production (i.e. going back to eating seasonal veggies!). Most vegans just eat whatever has the "vegan" label (i.e. quinoa) regardless of the fact that for it to get to their hands it had to be transported in a non environmentally friendly way. c) the biggest environmental offenders are companies. Instead of focusing on who's eating meat I'd rather start prosecuting companies with large carbon footprints.

KitDuncan 7y ago
Most vegans I know are students that live on a very tight budget. The notion that it is expensive to eat vegan is so ridiculous. Sure if you want to eat only beyond burgers or something like that it might be expensive, but nobody does that. Beans, rice, veggies, fruit, there is nothing expensive about that. Sure you don't get heavily subsidized milk for pennies, but you don't realistically need any milk replacements. As for c, you can do multiple things at once to approach climate change. Especially since they are completly unrelated.
- wickerman 7y ago
  That's why I started my post with "in my part of the world". Beef is not that expensive and it's an incredibly efficient source for both calories and protein, both which are essential for say, construction workers. Students don't need to be doing heavy lifting 9 hs a day.
  - KitDuncan 7y ago
    Well beef is heavily subsidized in most of the world as well. Protein is also not an issue on a vegan diet. I got like 5kg of Saitan (isolated wheat protein) for 10€. I cook with it regularly. It's higher in protein than meat and you can do delicious stuff with it. I don't disagree that it's easier for most people to just keep the status quo, but it's definitely not impossible to change.
sametmax 7y ago
> It may be different in different parts of the world, but where I'm from vegans tend to be middle-class/upper-class people who are blissfully unaware of how class barriers dictate the way you eat. I disagree: my mother spent her entire life living with the minimum wage or less. She always had a very balanced diet, eating mostly veggie organic food, often from the farmer market. Several reasons: - education. Our current generation has zero food education. They have no idea how to cook, choose a product, where to buy stuff, etc. Things like dried beans/peas, full grain rice, sunflower seeds, whole potatoes, green leafs, tomatoes, brassicaceaes, onions, apples, bananas and carrots can all be obtained at a fair price. You can cover a lot with those. - life choices. She lives in the country side, not in a city. Doesn't have a smartphone or a TV. She takes enormous care of her things (she had the same washing machine and fridge for 20 years, I gave her a laptop 7 years ago, she still uses it). She buys most stuff second hands, including the totality of her clothes. She trades stuff/work with neighbors/friends, and borrows from them. She has free pleasures: going to the library, hiking, etc. - she lives in France. The US makes it very hard. I went in the valley several times for work, and damn those fruits and vegetables suck. Even the expensive ones. So how do you want people to eat that and not a cheap delicious burrito at the local fast food ? It's hard enough in my own country, but in yours, feeding yourself properly is a part time job. - people think too much about extremes. You don't have to go full throttle vegan to start making a difference. It's a spectrum. You can adjust depending of your resources. - priorities. It's not that much a problem of the cost of a vegan diet than a problem of what you think is important in life. It takes a lot of dedication to change what you eat, and if your life is already hard, I understand you don't want to focus on that. As a Python dev freelancer, I have plenty of energy to think about stuff like that. My Levoritox dependent unemployed depressed friend ? Not so much.
- wickerman 7y ago
  Food access is not the same everywhere in the world. If she could buy organic food in her time in her place of the world then more power to her, but don't assume that access to fresh food is the same everywhere in the world.
  - sametmax 7y ago
MagnumOpus 7y ago
> understand and propose ways for poor people to live on a vegan lifestyle when $$$ is tight and calorie intake needs are bigger That is a lazy excuse - literally the cheapest diets are vegan. Rice&dal will give you both calorie intake and protein at a cost of less than a dollar a day (which is why a lot of the world's poorest people subsist on it...). > start prosecuting companies with large carbon footprints Prosecuting? On what legal grounds? Easier solution. Companies will immediately stop doing it if emitting carbon gets more expensive than not emitting it. Simple solution, carbon tax.
- wickerman 7y ago
  >That is a lazy excuse - literally the cheapest diets are vegan. Rice&dal will give you both calorie intake and protein at a cost of less than a dollar a day (which is why a lot of the world's poorest people subsist on it...). The world's poorest people subsist on it but tell of how nutritiously healthy they are solely because they eat rice. >Prosecuting? On what legal grounds? You know that any country at any point in time can create any law they want, particularly when they want to preserve the environment. If there isn't legal grounds, one can be created. (My point here is not that this should be a law - there's better ways to go about getting companies to be a bit more eco friendly than just banning. What I try to say that we should be shifting the focus a lot more on companies rather than people, because they are the biggest contributors to this mess than poor Jose who works at the factory 9-6).

KitDuncan 7y ago

Most vegans I know are students that live on a very tight budget. The notion that it is expensive to eat vegan is so ridiculous. Sure if you want to eat only beyond burgers or something like that it might be expensive, but nobody does that. Beans, rice, veggies, fruit, there is nothing expensive about that. Sure you don't get heavily subsidized milk for pennies, but you don't realistically need any milk replacements. As for c, you can do multiple things at once to approach climate change. Especially since they are completly unrelated.

wickerman 7y ago
That's why I started my post with "in my part of the world". Beef is not that expensive and it's an incredibly efficient source for both calories and protein, both which are essential for say, construction workers. Students don't need to be doing heavy lifting 9 hs a day.
- KitDuncan 7y ago
  Well beef is heavily subsidized in most of the world as well. Protein is also not an issue on a vegan diet. I got like 5kg of Saitan (isolated wheat protein) for 10€. I cook with it regularly. It's higher in protein than meat and you can do delicious stuff with it. I don't disagree that it's easier for most people to just keep the status quo, but it's definitely not impossible to change.

sametmax 7y ago

> It may be different in different parts of the world, but where I'm from vegans tend to be middle-class/upper-class people who are blissfully unaware of how class barriers dictate the way you eat. I disagree: my mother spent her entire life living with the minimum wage or less. She always had a very balanced diet, eating mostly veggie organic food, often from the farmer market. Several reasons: - education. Our current generation has zero food education. They have no idea how to cook, choose a product, where to buy stuff, etc. Things like dried beans/peas, full grain rice, sunflower seeds, whole potatoes, green leafs, tomatoes, brassicaceaes, onions, apples, bananas and carrots can all be obtained at a fair price. You can cover a lot with those. - life choices. She lives in the country side, not in a city. Doesn't have a smartphone or a TV. She takes enormous care of her things (she had the same washing machine and fridge for 20 years, I gave her a laptop 7 years ago, she still uses it). She buys most stuff second hands, including the totality of her clothes. She trades stuff/work with neighbors/friends, and borrows from them. She has free pleasures: going to the library, hiking, etc. - she lives in France. The US makes it very hard. I went in the valley several times for work, and damn those fruits and vegetables suck. Even the expensive ones. So how do you want people to eat that and not a cheap delicious burrito at the local fast food ? It's hard enough in my own country, but in yours, feeding yourself properly is a part time job. - people think too much about extremes. You don't have to go full throttle vegan to start making a difference. It's a spectrum. You can adjust depending of your resources. - priorities. It's not that much a problem of the cost of a vegan diet than a problem of what you think is important in life. It takes a lot of dedication to change what you eat, and if your life is already hard, I understand you don't want to focus on that. As a Python dev freelancer, I have plenty of energy to think about stuff like that. My Levoritox dependent unemployed depressed friend ? Not so much.

wickerman 7y ago
Food access is not the same everywhere in the world. If she could buy organic food in her time in her place of the world then more power to her, but don't assume that access to fresh food is the same everywhere in the world.
- sametmax 7y ago

MagnumOpus 7y ago

> understand and propose ways for poor people to live on a vegan lifestyle when $$$ is tight and calorie intake needs are bigger That is a lazy excuse - literally the cheapest diets are vegan. Rice&dal will give you both calorie intake and protein at a cost of less than a dollar a day (which is why a lot of the world's poorest people subsist on it...). > start prosecuting companies with large carbon footprints Prosecuting? On what legal grounds? Easier solution. Companies will immediately stop doing it if emitting carbon gets more expensive than not emitting it. Simple solution, carbon tax.

wickerman 7y ago
>That is a lazy excuse - literally the cheapest diets are vegan. Rice&dal will give you both calorie intake and protein at a cost of less than a dollar a day (which is why a lot of the world's poorest people subsist on it...). The world's poorest people subsist on it but tell of how nutritiously healthy they are solely because they eat rice. >Prosecuting? On what legal grounds? You know that any country at any point in time can create any law they want, particularly when they want to preserve the environment. If there isn't legal grounds, one can be created. (My point here is not that this should be a law - there's better ways to go about getting companies to be a bit more eco friendly than just banning. What I try to say that we should be shifting the focus a lot more on companies rather than people, because they are the biggest contributors to this mess than poor Jose who works at the factory 9-6).