5 ms·

There are literally 10s of thousands of little things like this in your life. Most of them you will not be aware of. Some of them require huge amounts of effort

There are literally 10s of thousands of little things like this in your life. Most of them you will not be aware of. Some of them require huge amounts of effort to figure out. On top of that what you're saying isn't true for huge swathes of the population. They can't afford to eat ethically raised meat, they can't afford to not eat meat protein, and even if there is some (probably imaginary) way for them to do that, it requires a disproportionate amount of effort for them to do so. Most people will think chicken is just chicken. They may be peripherally aware that there's some sort of intensive farming going on, but not really what that entails, or how horrific it is. And so some governments around the world have stepped in and stopped those practices. But not the US. Hence the trade arguments you may have heard about chlorinated chicken. It's not the chlorination that's the problem, it's WHY they need to be chlorinated. Because you need to do that to chicken to make it safe to eat if you grow them in those sort of horrific conditions. So next time you think about blaming the consumer, stop and think. You've been dead wrong once. Government intervention works. Are you wrong again?

kapp_in_life 5y ago
>they can't afford to not eat meat protein, and even if there is some (probably imaginary) way for them to do that, it requires a disproportionate amount of effort for them to do so. Didn't know eating beans instead of meat for protein was a disproportionate amount of effort. It's even cheaper to boot. Those people are not invalids, they just don't care about the lives of farm animals. They may say they do, but their actions prove otherwise.
- jimmygrapes 5y ago
  While you are not wrong about beans as a protein source, this argument always strikes me as a sort of "let the poor people eat bland mush their entire life, and if they want better food they can get rich like me and have meat from ethical sources." A large part of why factory farming exists is to drive down costs as demand rises, but you gotta keep in mind that the demand rises because eating beans and rice for every meal your entire life is miserable.
  - kapp_in_life 5y ago
    I'm a vegan so they would be eating the same food I do. I never eat out and barely ever try the expensive vegan faux-meats. Adding a few spices and a can of tomatoes make beans and rice delicious. Chana masala, black bean bowls, navy bean soup, the number of dishes you can create from a base of rice and beans is innumerable and they're all relatively simple. The same could be said about unseasoned chicken meat on rice.
    - belorn 5y ago
      I have a challenge for you. Try live a month eating nothing except for seaweed as your protein source and test how easy and enjoyable it is to completely replace one protein source for an other which has completely different taste, smell, texture, and cultural place in your diet. Bonus points if you actually do not like the smell and taste of seaweed and have to work really hard with seasoning to eat it. It is vegan. It simply just a very different diet from what you are used to.
      - kapp_in_life 5y ago
        That's a hilarious false equivalency. Almost every culture has had a bean based dish, and eating meat with every meal is a relatively recent phenomenon in the last hundred years. There's a reason why I replaced meat with beans and thats due to the flexibility and variety of dishes you can cook with it, across and within cultures.
        selimthegrim 5y ago
        Gandhi famously had problems eating pulses - he had to get his protein from goat milk. Not everyone is blessed with your digestive system.
        kapp_in_life 5y ago
        Not sure what the point of this comment is, I doubt a large majority of people eating meat or animal products have a dietary need to.
- xf1cf 5y ago
  I was unaware of a way to get the recommended amount of protein for a physically active person (0.5-1g/lb of bodyweight) was possible with beans. At least in a way that doesn't involve shoveling 10 cups of lentils in your mouth a day. If you're really sticking to the vegan trend you can't even use butter to make them taste better. Meat (and animal products in general) is a far more efficient source of protein. Ethics aside, nothing will change this. Pound-for-pound there is no better source of the necessary building blocks for muscle. But hey, I guess the person who shops for $1/pound manager special chicken breast because it's in budget and tasty is the problem - right? It's possible that to all but the most privileged, ethical concerns on how you're going to eat enough to live just don't really matter as much as you think they do.
sweetheart 5y ago
If you can afford meat protein, you can afford protein from plants. There is really no excuse why anyone who is already able to afford a life of the basic comforts cannot do so on at least a plant-based diet, if not a vegan lifestyle. Plant-based diets being prohibitively expensive is a myth, and nothing more. We know this. Nutrients, proteins, etc. It's all there, and for the same price or less than animal products.

kapp_in_life 5y ago

>they can't afford to not eat meat protein, and even if there is some (probably imaginary) way for them to do that, it requires a disproportionate amount of effort for them to do so. Didn't know eating beans instead of meat for protein was a disproportionate amount of effort. It's even cheaper to boot. Those people are not invalids, they just don't care about the lives of farm animals. They may say they do, but their actions prove otherwise.

jimmygrapes 5y ago
While you are not wrong about beans as a protein source, this argument always strikes me as a sort of "let the poor people eat bland mush their entire life, and if they want better food they can get rich like me and have meat from ethical sources." A large part of why factory farming exists is to drive down costs as demand rises, but you gotta keep in mind that the demand rises because eating beans and rice for every meal your entire life is miserable.
- kapp_in_life 5y ago
  I'm a vegan so they would be eating the same food I do. I never eat out and barely ever try the expensive vegan faux-meats. Adding a few spices and a can of tomatoes make beans and rice delicious. Chana masala, black bean bowls, navy bean soup, the number of dishes you can create from a base of rice and beans is innumerable and they're all relatively simple. The same could be said about unseasoned chicken meat on rice.
  - belorn 5y ago
    I have a challenge for you. Try live a month eating nothing except for seaweed as your protein source and test how easy and enjoyable it is to completely replace one protein source for an other which has completely different taste, smell, texture, and cultural place in your diet. Bonus points if you actually do not like the smell and taste of seaweed and have to work really hard with seasoning to eat it. It is vegan. It simply just a very different diet from what you are used to.
    - kapp_in_life 5y ago
      That's a hilarious false equivalency. Almost every culture has had a bean based dish, and eating meat with every meal is a relatively recent phenomenon in the last hundred years. There's a reason why I replaced meat with beans and thats due to the flexibility and variety of dishes you can cook with it, across and within cultures.
      - selimthegrim 5y ago
        Gandhi famously had problems eating pulses - he had to get his protein from goat milk. Not everyone is blessed with your digestive system.
        kapp_in_life 5y ago
        Not sure what the point of this comment is, I doubt a large majority of people eating meat or animal products have a dietary need to.
xf1cf 5y ago
I was unaware of a way to get the recommended amount of protein for a physically active person (0.5-1g/lb of bodyweight) was possible with beans. At least in a way that doesn't involve shoveling 10 cups of lentils in your mouth a day. If you're really sticking to the vegan trend you can't even use butter to make them taste better. Meat (and animal products in general) is a far more efficient source of protein. Ethics aside, nothing will change this. Pound-for-pound there is no better source of the necessary building blocks for muscle. But hey, I guess the person who shops for $1/pound manager special chicken breast because it's in budget and tasty is the problem - right? It's possible that to all but the most privileged, ethical concerns on how you're going to eat enough to live just don't really matter as much as you think they do.

sweetheart 5y ago

If you can afford meat protein, you can afford protein from plants. There is really no excuse why anyone who is already able to afford a life of the basic comforts cannot do so on at least a plant-based diet, if not a vegan lifestyle. Plant-based diets being prohibitively expensive is a myth, and nothing more. We know this. Nutrients, proteins, etc. It's all there, and for the same price or less than animal products.