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Veganism: Great lifestyle. Wretched, toxic community (mostly).
EDIT: I want to add I'm very much pro-vegan. They're literally right. I probably will go vegan as soon as I work out a solution to my eating disorder (ARFID). You just won't see me in any community. They just seem psychologically unhealthy.
As a vegan, can confirm.
When I was on reddit, I could not be part of the r/vegan community, it was fucked.
The community here on Lemmy was better (though I wasn't subbed because these communities are mostly newcomers to the vegan scene coming fresh off the high of being morally superior to the carnists).
The good vegan communities were the ones focused on recipes.
If you want to discus animal liberation, good, go do that, but I don't want to my feed to be a combination of dinner and animal abuse. I'm trying to move past that...
Sounds like someone should start a recipe only sub
veganhomecooks@lemmy.world
Good for y'all.
What is your best breakfast recipe that isn't oatmeal?
The texture horrifies me, but it seems to be the go-to these days.
I like peanut butter toasts, but my son is allergic to peanuts and coming to that age where he touches everything. So I need to find alternatives.
I highly recommend scrambled tofu.
By the name, I assume that it is similar to scrambled eggs, but with tofu?
I'll look into that. Thanks
I hate that Vegans are defined by the psychopath edge cases.
I know 3 vegans. Two of them have cats. They aren't delusional. They know cats are carnivores. They wish people ate more veggies. But live your life, you know?
The other vegan I know choose veganism because of serious life-threatening issues where meat was causing hospital visits. She went cold turkey and will watch you eat a steak and wishing she could do the same.
It's fucking weird watching people shit on them. All because a psychopath on the internet speaks for all vegans and shoves broccoli into a cats mouth.
I'm not judging vegans. I'm judging vegan communities. Big difference.
The other vegan I know choose veganism because of serious life-threatening issues where meat was causing hospital visits. She went cold turkey and will watch you eat a steak and wishing she could do the same.
That doesn't really sound like a vegan to me, that's just a person who is on a plant based diet. Veganism is a moral stance
I wish I knew 3 vegans (or if they tell me who they are). While I have no plans to go there, I’ve been on a kick of learning to cook for other cultures. It’s been a wonderful experience learning to prepare new foods and even helping my teens experience a much more diverse cuisine than otherwise. I’m all for learning to prepare some vegan meals, but so far just lookin at recipes online is not giving me enough “flavor”
I’m most persuaded by the environmental argument for veganism and am totally open to less animal products or fewer meat days
It's like being a non-smoker on a party where everybody smokes. Almost nobody wants to hear that they're doing something wrong. Toxicity is literally in the non-vegan community, warming up the climate and all, decreasing biodiversity, mistreating and killing animals for pleasure.
You see, when you come into a comment thread defending your stance and still decide you need to act like a cunt, that's exactly why people don't like vegan communities.
That didn't seem particularly cunt-ish to me.
Yeah I don't get all these crazy harsh responses to this particular comment.
They specifically responded to someone who has dietary issues and tried to make them feel bad for something OP didn't choose.
Literally no reason to add the last part except to make themselves feel superior.
You just can't help yourself can you?
Have you stopped to think that plants also suffer stress when being picked?
It's kinda one-faceted to just ignore that suffering while focusing on other suffering don't you think?
True ethical consumption doesn't exist the way you have it defined.
Have you stopped to think that plants also suffer stress when being picked?
Yes. And they don't
you can't prove this
And you can't prove it either. provide some evidence for your claim (that isn't some unrelated study misinterpreted by silly news anchors)
while you can't prove a negative, it is possible to find evidence for a positive claim. so, very much, you don't know that. the truest thing anyone can say is that there is not a conclusive study that supports the claim.
Even if plants might feel pain, we are certain that animals feel pain. Also if you think for whatever reason that plants feel pain, then, well, a vegan diet uses less plants because its a more efficient food source. Plants feeling pain, whether true or false, isn't an argument against veganism in any way.
the crux of the argument that they might feel pain is not that it is wrong, but that it is inevitable, so it cannot be wrong
I had a stroke while reading this. Can you clarify what you meant?
when somebody raises the objection that plants feel pain, it's not an appeal to hypocrisy. it's a statement of fact whether we can prove it or not. and it's the premise of a larger argument. that argument goes
pain is an inevitable facet of food production
food production is a moral good
an inevitable facet of food production cannot make food production bad
therefore
food production remains a moral good
your rebuttal was targeted at defending against the accusation of hypocrisy, but the devastating bit has nothing to do with the hypocrisy.
They don't, but they also kinda do .... They communicate with each other and with animals, they have different chemical reactions to different stimuli, etc. just because they're different from you doesn't mean they don't suffer. Probably less than factory animals, that's for sure, ofc. But not everyone that eats meat supports that shit.
The plants communicate for survival because of natural selection, not because they are avoiding pain
I just want to ask for more details on the "they're litterally right" part. Mostly cause I didn't think the had an official organized statement to be right about. But I don't really follow them, so maybe I'm missing something.
Veganism is, in fact:
A. Far more sustainable.
B. Perfectly healthy.
C. Completely possible to adapt to.
Veganism, without a doubt, would be better for the planet, and probably better for humans. I simply don't like the communities.
I will agree with you on B and C. Not so much on A. Not saying A isn't true, just that it isn't as simple as most people think. And probably is impossible to prove due to all the unknown side effects. An example of a side effect not related to veganism is the effect monocrop farming has on bees. Noone saw that coming until it happened. So changes to what is planted and such to support veganism could turn out to be less sustainable for reasons we can't fathom. Similar on the "better for the planet". We can't really know that. So I wouldn't put that under "litterally" right. Just probably right. In general I think diversity is better than one thing or the other. In the US the balance is way over toward the animal side. Shifting toward less of that would for sure be good. But going all the way to no animal products will probably have it's own issues on things.
I didn’t think the had an official organized statement
There sort of is. The term "vegan" was coined by some members of the Vegetarian Society of the UK in the 1940s (at the time veganism and vegan diet were mostly referred to by terms such as "strict vegetarianism" or "no animal food" etc.), who shortly after founded the Vegan Society [of the UK]. The latter has an "official" definition of veganism:
Of course individual vegans may have slightly different definitions, and may interpret them differently, but as a whole this seems to be a fairly accurate definition for many vegans (although there are some exceptions, e.g. people who adopt plant-based diets for (percieved or actual) health benefits, or religious reasons, sometimes (but not always) also refer to themselves as "vegans").
As to the "literally right" part (I assume the OP was referring to veganism in general, not the specific issue of the thread), it mostly boils down to whether or not we think the statement "it is (morally) wrong to unnecessarily cause harm to animals" is correct. Since most people (with perhaps the exception of some with rare medical conditions) can survive just fine on a diet free of animal products (same goes for clothing etc.), we can conclude that it is at least unnecessary to use animal products. Thus, if we agree with the rest of the statement (i.e. that exploiting animals for their meat or other products causes them harm) we should also agree with veganism as an ethical stance. Naturally this could be discussed in much more detail and with many caveats, but for me this is more or less the core of the argument. And as it turns out, a lot of moral philosophers from different meta-ethical schools (such as utilitarianism, Kantian ethics or virtue ethics) seem to agree at the very least that the arguments in favour of veganism are much stronger than those in defense of eating meat (and particularly those in defense of factory farming). Some further reading for those interested:
kant himself was not a vegetarian, and did not advocate for it. modern philosophers who have attempted to shoehorn animal rights into Kantian ethics are thoroughly rebutted.
I didn't say anything about Kant himself (Kant also thought that non-human animals were basically just "things" without rationality or self-consciousness, which is however in direct conflict with the current scientific consensus. Kant still argued in favour of treating animals "humanely", just not for their own sake). Anyway, some well-known and well-respected contemporary philosophers who argue(d) from a Kantian perspective in favour of animal rights include e.g. Christine Korsgaard or Tom Regan, and many lesser known philosophers (see e.g. here for a recent example). I also see no indication that these types of arguments as a whole are supposedly "thoroughly rebutted" (not that serious philosophy really works like that anyway). Some other philosophers disagree with some of their arguments, of course (this is normal in philosophy), and many don't subscribe to Kantianism in the first place, but afaik most of them tend to take issue with how Kantian ethics is applied (or that it is applied) moreso than that they're trying to defend animal exploitation as such. Either way, none of that changes the fact that ethicists have been using Kantian ethics (among many other meta-ethical frameworks, as I said before) to argue in favour of animal rights, and that there aren't really many arguments in defense of killing animals for food (in particular in the context of factory farming) that find widespread support (among moral philosophers, that is).
I knew youd reference korsgaard. but her view is far from mainstream and incisively dismantled in Why Kant Animals Have Rights?
The author of the article you mentioned (Alex Howe) is a good example for what I insinuated: He takes issue with Korsgaard's argument (and, it seems, Kantian ethics more generally), but in his PhD thesis argues for granting "basic citizenship rights" to domestic animals (including farm animals), which is arguably a far more radical position than veganism, which merely posits that it is immoral to exploit (or be cruel towards) animals (e.g. as a food resource). Either way, if you have an issue with Kantian ethics and how they are applied to animal rights, I suggest you take it up with a Kantian (which I am not). And, even if I am repeating myself, none of this has any direct relevance to my earlier point, which is that many moral philosophers from many different schools of thought (including, but by no means limited to, Kantian ethics) have arrived at conclusions which are at least similar to the basic vegan stance, i.e. that unnecessarily causing harm to (sentient) animals, e.g. by exploiting them as food, is immoral.
far more kantian philosophers (or bare practitioners) reject claims for animal rights, and rightly so. mentioning kant in this context is falsely propping up the animal rights position. why not depend entirely on utilitarianism and other ethical philosophies which do support animal rights?
animal rights are simply incongruent with Kantian ethics, no matter how many academics attempt to make tenure on claiming otherwise.
Yeah, I don't consider any moral stance to be "litterally right". They seem like opposites to me. And clearly philosophy is by definition is a personal view point. Thanks for the history and such. Your comment adds a lot of value to the discussion, which is great to see.
I'm on a similar train. Once I get over myself, I'm going vegan.
I probably would have been diagnosed ARFID as a kid if it was a thing back then. But switching to a plant based diet ten years ago actually made me try MORE foods. Before that, it was tea and toast for breakfast, jacket potato or chips for lunch and crisps and chocolate for dinner. Maybe once or twice I week I might boil a bit of sweetcorn or carrot to go with my lunch. So yeah, very poor diet.
Even my mum, who was quite against my diet change at first, had to admit that it was the best thing for me. You tend to become more aware of what you're eating in terms of nutrition.
Also a lot of my physical and mental health problems eased up. I used to find it very difficult to eat breakfast if I had to wake up early, I'd feel sick and struggle to swallow food, I don't know why exactly, but after I switched, I can eat at 5 in the morning, no problem.
I'm not vegan (I eat a fish finger or two now and then, maybe 3 or 4 times a month), but yeah definitely I feel better in both mind and body since cutting out dairy and eggs (I know for a fact eggs were triggering my anxiety and low mood, dairy was the physical).
Here in the UK, it's much easier to follow a plant based diet in recent years. On the negative side, there's a lot more vegan junk food and highly processed meat alternatives available now.
The key to enjoying a plant based diet is to appreciate plant foods for what they are. Don't think that you need to replace your meat with a fake meat. It's more costly too.
Sorry for the essay. Good luck!
According to people following the carnivore diet, they're wrong.