8 ms·

It’s ironic how accepted vegetarians, who have a dietary preference, are in society, and how hated vegans, who have an ethical argument against unnecessary kill

It’s ironic how accepted vegetarians, who have a dietary preference, are in society, and how hated vegans, who have an ethical argument against unnecessary killing of sentient animals, are in society. I only turned vegan a couple of years ago as something clicked and I was able to make the connection between the food I was eating and the animals who were being killed, almost certainly unnecessarily, for that food. But before then I disliked vegans a lot, and was completely fine with vegetarians. I’m honestly unable to reconcile my thinking. It’s kind of like how I don’t understand how I strongly believed in god before I lost faith. Now the idea that I ever could, or ever did, believe in a personal god seems unbelievable to me. Human psychology is ridiculously interesting.

hellojesus 2y ago
My assumption is that the weight of including vegans socially is too much to bear for some. On the extreme end, you can't use store pasta because it was made in a facility that processes eggs and dairy. But even on the lighter end, social eating modification is pretty extreme: don't use butter when cooking, or eggs, or honey, etc. It's a lot easier to accommodate vegetarians than vegans. Though I do have a vegan friend that always brings her own food to gatherings, and it does make things far easier.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  butter is one of the most easily substituted things around and most vegans i know don’t care about honey. definitely more restrictive but i think the dairy/cheese thing is the big one people also feel that vegans are judging them morally and people are very defensive about their eating habit, hence the dislike
  - leetcrew 2y ago
    depends what you’re trying to do. there are plenty of alternatives for spreading on toast or frying/sauteing. but it’s still a pretty central ingredient for western cuisine. I have no idea how I’d make a vegan roux, just for example. my guess is that would break the illusion of whipped margarine pretty quickly.
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      I've made plenty of vegan rouxs, but I also don't have much experience making non-vegan roux... so hard for me to give an honest comparison. Margarine burns more easily but this hasn't been a problem for me, so I imagine you are talking mostly about flavor difference or?
throwaway3287 2y ago
The problem with veganism is that, unless you grow your own food, it does not change the fact that an immense amount of pain and suffering is inflicted on other beings in the production and transportation of the food you eat. It's pure virtue signaling. If they genuinely cared about minimizing suffering, they'd be Jains, not vegans.
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  I think you didn’t understand veganism: the goal is not to remove all suffering but to reduce it by finding ways that are still practicable, without major economic, pleasure or whatever downside. All vegans kill insects when they walk in the wood but stoping walking altogether would make their life miserable. On the other hand, eating plants and mushroom is quite enjoyable when you get used to it. And it certainly remove a bug part of suffering inflicted. Think Pareto. I don’t think jainism can be applied without changing your life altogether and removing many thinks you used to.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  uhhhh explain? is there some extreme amount of suffering that goes into the production of root vegetables because afaik that’s the only distinction between jainism and veganism?
  - barbazoo 2y ago
    Maybe the temporary foreign worker living in economic servitude to the farm that guarantees their job. /s For many, perfect is the enemy of the good. Either you remove all suffering or you're a hypocrite. Meanwhile us that genuinely care about our impact on the environment make incremental changes to reduce our negative impact.
- samuelbalogh 2y ago
  Veganism is about reducing suffering as much as practical and possible. Some people (you included) have a problem with that and reject it altogether because of cognitive biases. Yes there are crop death and suffering due to veganism. A plant based diet however reduces this by about 75%. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
y-curious 2y ago
The problem I have always had with veganism, as someone who has had stints of vegetarianism, is the absurdity of certain restrictions. Milk, I can agree, is bad because of how it's derived. Honey and eggs (sourced ethically) are a restriction I cannot stand behind. I think the dislike of self-labeled vegans is aligned with someone publicizing an extreme decision.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  eggs could easily have multiple arguments for it, honey i’ve personally never met someone who was vegan who didn’t have honey
  - y-curious 2y ago
    At the risk of this devolving into a typical online veganism argument: why are eggs bad? Say I keep 3 chickens in a coop in my backyard. They're going to produce unfertilized eggs that will just go to waste
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      1. I have personally never met someone who only eats backyard eggs. The conditions of commercial egg producers are well documented. 2. You are still essentially using another living being for resources. Why keep the chickens in the first place? They are only going to waste because you bought the chickens in the first place, probably also from an industrial breeder, essentially subsidizing the industry. 3. If your way of producing eggs is more ethical, you could sell your backyard eggs to displace the (pretty awful) commercial producers rather than eating them yourself. I agree that the case against exclusively consuming your own backyard eggs is weaker, but I also don’t think we are describing a considerable proportion of actual egg consumers in the West.
      - leetcrew 2y ago
        1. how? healthy chickens lay an egg every 1-2 days. a small number of chickens produce more than enough for an entire household. everyone I know who keeps chickens gives most of the eggs away. 2. chickens are the ultimate garbage disposal. you can feed them any excess food from your household and they turn it into fresh eggs. 3. see 1. the volume of eggs gets out of control fast, but not quite on the scale that it’s viable for random people to build an FDA compliant business out of it. it’s hard to get rid of all of them, even for free.
freedomben 2y ago
This is just from my personal experience, but as someone who is very sympathetic to the moral/ethical arguments from vegans but is not vegan themselves (though did try it out for a bit, lost a dangerous amount of weight and developed an intolerance to potatoes which further reduces available food to absurd levels sine potatoes are in tons of vegan food), is that it's the minority of vocal/aggressive vegans that have largely (though certainly not entirely) caused the poor reception. My reasoning: People don't like to be judged (at all, but especially when the data behind the judgment is not so clear cut correct), and even just being in the presence of vegans can make some people feel judged. Even if the vegan says nothing, people can feel like they're being judged (to be clear, this is not the vegan's fault!). Now, add a small but vocal and aggressive minority of vegans who will explicitly judge/criticize, and you have a recipe for contention. It shouldn't be this way IMHO, but it's human nature.
cthalupa 2y ago
I don't really care about either of them - people can eat what they want, it doesn't effect me any. But vegans of European descent are, from my anecdotal experience, the most likely to moralize towards me on the atrocities I am committing by eating meat. (I have worked with a many many people who are vegans due to their religion. I have never had ANY of them try to lecture me on this subject.)

hellojesus 2y ago

My assumption is that the weight of including vegans socially is too much to bear for some. On the extreme end, you can't use store pasta because it was made in a facility that processes eggs and dairy. But even on the lighter end, social eating modification is pretty extreme: don't use butter when cooking, or eggs, or honey, etc. It's a lot easier to accommodate vegetarians than vegans. Though I do have a vegan friend that always brings her own food to gatherings, and it does make things far easier.

whimsicalism 2y ago
butter is one of the most easily substituted things around and most vegans i know don’t care about honey. definitely more restrictive but i think the dairy/cheese thing is the big one people also feel that vegans are judging them morally and people are very defensive about their eating habit, hence the dislike
- leetcrew 2y ago
  depends what you’re trying to do. there are plenty of alternatives for spreading on toast or frying/sauteing. but it’s still a pretty central ingredient for western cuisine. I have no idea how I’d make a vegan roux, just for example. my guess is that would break the illusion of whipped margarine pretty quickly.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    I've made plenty of vegan rouxs, but I also don't have much experience making non-vegan roux... so hard for me to give an honest comparison. Margarine burns more easily but this hasn't been a problem for me, so I imagine you are talking mostly about flavor difference or?

throwaway3287 2y ago

The problem with veganism is that, unless you grow your own food, it does not change the fact that an immense amount of pain and suffering is inflicted on other beings in the production and transportation of the food you eat. It's pure virtue signaling. If they genuinely cared about minimizing suffering, they'd be Jains, not vegans.

aziaziazi 2y ago
I think you didn’t understand veganism: the goal is not to remove all suffering but to reduce it by finding ways that are still practicable, without major economic, pleasure or whatever downside. All vegans kill insects when they walk in the wood but stoping walking altogether would make their life miserable. On the other hand, eating plants and mushroom is quite enjoyable when you get used to it. And it certainly remove a bug part of suffering inflicted. Think Pareto. I don’t think jainism can be applied without changing your life altogether and removing many thinks you used to.
whimsicalism 2y ago
uhhhh explain? is there some extreme amount of suffering that goes into the production of root vegetables because afaik that’s the only distinction between jainism and veganism?
- barbazoo 2y ago
  Maybe the temporary foreign worker living in economic servitude to the farm that guarantees their job. /s For many, perfect is the enemy of the good. Either you remove all suffering or you're a hypocrite. Meanwhile us that genuinely care about our impact on the environment make incremental changes to reduce our negative impact.
samuelbalogh 2y ago
Veganism is about reducing suffering as much as practical and possible. Some people (you included) have a problem with that and reject it altogether because of cognitive biases. Yes there are crop death and suffering due to veganism. A plant based diet however reduces this by about 75%. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

y-curious 2y ago

The problem I have always had with veganism, as someone who has had stints of vegetarianism, is the absurdity of certain restrictions. Milk, I can agree, is bad because of how it's derived. Honey and eggs (sourced ethically) are a restriction I cannot stand behind. I think the dislike of self-labeled vegans is aligned with someone publicizing an extreme decision.

whimsicalism 2y ago
eggs could easily have multiple arguments for it, honey i’ve personally never met someone who was vegan who didn’t have honey
- y-curious 2y ago
  At the risk of this devolving into a typical online veganism argument: why are eggs bad? Say I keep 3 chickens in a coop in my backyard. They're going to produce unfertilized eggs that will just go to waste
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    1. I have personally never met someone who only eats backyard eggs. The conditions of commercial egg producers are well documented. 2. You are still essentially using another living being for resources. Why keep the chickens in the first place? They are only going to waste because you bought the chickens in the first place, probably also from an industrial breeder, essentially subsidizing the industry. 3. If your way of producing eggs is more ethical, you could sell your backyard eggs to displace the (pretty awful) commercial producers rather than eating them yourself. I agree that the case against exclusively consuming your own backyard eggs is weaker, but I also don’t think we are describing a considerable proportion of actual egg consumers in the West.
    - leetcrew 2y ago
      1. how? healthy chickens lay an egg every 1-2 days. a small number of chickens produce more than enough for an entire household. everyone I know who keeps chickens gives most of the eggs away. 2. chickens are the ultimate garbage disposal. you can feed them any excess food from your household and they turn it into fresh eggs. 3. see 1. the volume of eggs gets out of control fast, but not quite on the scale that it’s viable for random people to build an FDA compliant business out of it. it’s hard to get rid of all of them, even for free.

freedomben 2y ago

This is just from my personal experience, but as someone who is very sympathetic to the moral/ethical arguments from vegans but is not vegan themselves (though did try it out for a bit, lost a dangerous amount of weight and developed an intolerance to potatoes which further reduces available food to absurd levels sine potatoes are in tons of vegan food), is that it's the minority of vocal/aggressive vegans that have largely (though certainly not entirely) caused the poor reception. My reasoning: People don't like to be judged (at all, but especially when the data behind the judgment is not so clear cut correct), and even just being in the presence of vegans can make some people feel judged. Even if the vegan says nothing, people can feel like they're being judged (to be clear, this is not the vegan's fault!). Now, add a small but vocal and aggressive minority of vegans who will explicitly judge/criticize, and you have a recipe for contention. It shouldn't be this way IMHO, but it's human nature.

cthalupa 2y ago

I don't really care about either of them - people can eat what they want, it doesn't effect me any. But vegans of European descent are, from my anecdotal experience, the most likely to moralize towards me on the atrocities I am committing by eating meat. (I have worked with a many many people who are vegans due to their religion. I have never had ANY of them try to lecture me on this subject.)