For example:
Carnist: "Hey, you want a slice of this pepperoni, triple cheese pizza?"
Vegan: "Sorry, no thank you, I'm vegan."
Carnist: "Oh, wow! Nice! I respect that! Yeah, I would go vegan, but I just would struggle with protein, B12, and iron if I did! Like, I tried being vegan for a week and got so sick! I still eat plant-based alternatives every now and then, though! And I totally get where you're coming from with your ethics! Yeah, the way they treat animals on those factory farms is crazy, bro! I hope those cruel practices can be abolished one day. Complete solidarity with you and the animals, dude! ✊ In the meantime, I absolutely try my best to get my meat, dairy, and eggs from local, free-range, humane, and organic farms!"
Vegan: "Okay?"
Like, seriously, just saying "Oh, okay." and moving on with your life would be preferable over this shit.
Sorry, we'll try to do better about not offending meat eaters in our vegan comm. I hope you have a good day.
The first 2 people I told I was vegan after I switched over both got super defensive about eating meat and would only back down after I told them it was for health reasons due to me having gout.
The fucking worst is when smug carnists say "plants are living things too"
Like, you're fully embracing one of the worst takes imaginable? Voluntarily? Of your own volition? Damn.
as if harvesting the fruiting structures of plants kill them.
That is not really an argument though. A good margin of what we eat is not the fruit and you directly need to kill the plant, and as with growing animals to collect milk, eggs, wool, etc, you eventually also kill fruit plants in some cases/to some extent. I'm not arguing this is comparable, plus this is a whole other level to animal exploitation
Ask them what their B12 and iron levels are lol. Ask them what their daily protein intake is. If they are actually so worried about it, they can answer that.
For example. I hit my daily B12 and iron goals every day and just for lunch today, I consumed 40g of protein. I think I was actually lower on carbs than I tend to aim for.
In the words of UlyssesT: I HATE CONCERN TROLLING! I HATE CONCERN TROLLING!
My current battle is with the dumb fucks that try to say that growing plants for vegan diets kill more critters than growing plants for factory farming, when 70% of crops go towards factory farms regardless. You don't even need to know math to figure that one out.
Ah, the "crop deaths" argument is their new fancy, fangled "gotcha" that was popularized by losers like Piers Morgan and Joe Rogan. I've heard it a billion times.
They also love to bring up grass-fed cattle if you mention the fact that most crops are actually eaten by livestock, but grass-fed cattle still eat more than just the grass on the pasture land, especially during dry seasons and winter time, and you still have to account for so many other things like the bugs they trample, the fact that the cattle are sprayed with pesticides as a protective measure, the immense extra deforestation that raising grass-fed cattle requires, ocean dead zones, predators that get shot to protect the cattle, zoonotic diseases, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Even if the stuff about grass-fed cattle were true, it would be totally unsustainable for the world's population to survive off of grass-fed cattle alone, as that requires way more resources. It's also nutritionally inadequate.
If we lived in a vegan world and had vegan farmers, we could just switch to veganic farming systems that ensure minimal to no animal deaths in the process of crop production.
I literally told a friend of mine this morning that there seems to be this "law" in arguing with carnists: "Every dragged-out conversation with an ignorant non-vegan will involve them bringing up crop deaths at one point or another."
I said this to her because she was going back-and-forth with this carnist on social media who exhausted every other argument like "lions tho," "it's legal tho," and "we've been doing it for thousands of years tho." Once she shot all of that down, of course, he had to resort to this awful
-type argument that they use every 5 seconds nowadays.It's also entirely disingenuous because, even if plant-based diets caused literally zero deaths, these people still wouldn't go vegan, so it's just a cheap-ass tu quoque that they think should yield them a free pass to exploit animals.
The crop deaths thing isn't new, it's a pretty old gotcha just like "PETA kills animals too".
"So you're saying that killing animals is bad?"I have to admire the empathy carnists have for bacteria, bugs and field mice that thoughtless vegoons kill by the millions. Maybe one day they'll have some empathy for cows, pigs, chickens and (insert factory farmed animals) too.
Damn
What was that lunch
I find it hard to get in high density vegan protein in that isn't ultra processed soy type stuff or like 'protein bar' type mega dry and chewy protein epic bars
I don't wanna lie and say it was super healthy lol. It was a Lenny and Larry's cookie that is like 16g and a shake that was 20g. Those cookies aren't super processed but far from whole food. They are super convenient on the go tho.
Hell yeah vegan junk food gang rise up
I may have given up carnism but you'll never take away my desire to eat like a teenager
Ironically I got on this kick because up until recently, we would go get fast food quite a lot and the only vegan option is Impossible Whoppers(debatable, I know) and fries from select places. We do have taco bell but they fuck up my order so much there that I just gave up since it was wasting food. We have a giant drug store here and I found out they have a whole bunch of vegan protein bars and snacks. So when the family would go get stuff, I would just head there and pick up a few things and call it dinner. I was usually getting enough for a full meal for $6 or so whereas a Whopper meal runs $12 here.
Also shoutout to my local vegan food truck that has perfected veganifiying fried junk lol.
just for lunch today, I consumes 40g of protein
What did you have for lunch today?
I think it was actually 36g but I had a Lenny and Larry cookie and a protein shake.
Carnist: Animal Product?
Vegan: Nah I'm good dawg.
Carnist: Oh that's crazy bro, it's so hard to not find animal product. Like I don't look actively try to look for alternatives, nor do I make any effort to do so. I romanticize having the willpower to do what you do because I understand it's a good, but I will never do it.
Vegan: Cool? Do we have to do this every time you animal Product?
Carnist: lol yeah we do.
Why shouldn't a vegan be allowed to say
? Because it's not ”the norm”? You're sounding a lot like those ”I like gay people as long as they stay in the closet” types.This type of conversation can occur in multiple forms, where even refraining from directly mentioning that you're vegan can still elicit these kinds of responses. For instance, if a person talks about a tofu recipe that they enjoy making, just the mention of tofu alone can often lead to a conversation of this variety. The hypothetical in particular was just used as one example to serve the point that I was trying to make with the post, but I could've used many other examples.
One that occurred to me in real life is when I actually had to take a rideshare from a vegan restaurant because of bad weather and the driver directly asked me, "Are you vegan?" when she saw the name of the restaurant and then proceeded to actually do some of the damage control that the post is referring to once I said "Yes." I didn't even say anything about ethics to this Uber driver because why would I?
And regardless, carnists don't need to do all of this damage control upon hearing any mention of veganism. They themselves can simply be decent people. Someone bringing up the fact that they're vegan in and of itself shouldn't be something that automatically leads to people pissing out tons of excuses as to why they are not vegan and/or goofy statements about how they "respect" veganism as a "personal choice." If it triggers that kind of response, then at that point, that carnist needs to look from within.
With that in mind, are you vegan?
The shibboleth for this community is just answering correctly when asked ”Are you vegan?” and I love it
It's so annoying that I almost prefer the "for every animal you eat I'll eat three lol!" (I hate Maddox so much) kind of carnist. Good thing everyone in real life has been the "oh, okay" kind to me.
Oh my God, I wasn't expecting a reminder of that guy today.
The cringy ass flashbacks to his anti-veganism are rolling in!
The only reason I even remember that guy is because carnists still think that quote is hilarious. It's basically The One Joke of anti-veganism. That and "People Eating Tasty Animals 😂" I guess.
Don't forget, "If vegans love animals so much, then why do they eat their food?" or some variation of that shit.
Totally unrelated to veganism, but this brought back a suppressed memory of a guy telling me he had Maddox's book. "It has a Chuck Norris joke at the beginning!" This was around 2012 or so
I just hear someone say they couldn’t be vegetarian because they wouldn’t get enough food. Just eat more it’s not that hard. I’m vegan and I probably eat too much.
They make up so much stuff on the fly. Almost no one buys those “local small humane farm stuff”
I heard the excuse a lot recently “but rich people fly private jets, flaunted covid rules during the pandemic and eat lots of meat! So therefore I’m completely excused from doing the right thing”
Or
“Focus on the governments and corporations not the everyday joe who is struggling”
Who is voting for those out of touch governments and buying those cruel animal products in stores from cargill? 👉 You my guy!
There is always an excuse made for unethical behaviour. I wish carnists would just stop making them.
Almost no one buys those “local small humane farm stuff”
It'd be easier to just go vegan than exclusively buy "humane" meat products "ethically" raised on your uncle's farm.
Yeah like oh wow, really? You never eat frozen meals or meat dishes at restaurants and you only eat the most expensive and difficult to source raw meat cooked yourself? Wow, if you're already going that far, the jump to being vegan should be easy AND save you money!
(they were not going that far)
Yeah, it's super awkward. I can never really respond how I want to respond without feeling like the bad guy (I'm averse to offending others to a fault).
And I totally get where you're coming from with your ethics! Yeah, the way they treat animals on those factory farms is crazy, bro! I hope those cruel practices can be abolished one day.
this is the most annoying discussion point to me. I am vegan and of course I would rather everyone around me was as well, but I don't make a fuss about it with others unless they ask and show interest in veganism. I understand that not everyone cares, not everyone has the spoons to switch, and frankly I spent a lot of my adult life as a carnist and so it's both hypocritical and irritating for me to be some wild hardliner about discussing veganism. however, when people admit that they're morally wrong and say things like 'oh good for you, I'd love to do that but I can't because I like treats' it's like shut the fuck up, coward.
Yes! It is so annoying. Was at a work dinner recently and the person next to me insisted on asking about my diet, making excuses for themselves (and how hard they try, and ethics are complicated, etc), then apologized for eating meat near me.
I literally never brought it up. You are insisting you are doing something wrong, just drop it lmao. Not like I'm going to start something with senior people in the workplace over their diet.
It's a real tell about their own feelings and cognitive dissonance. Just existing as a vegan is enough to make people defensive, because by existing as a vegan you're showing that being vegan is possible. This shows people that they don't have to be aboard the carnist treat train, but they are.
No apologism.
I'm not going to condone babysteps. If someone tells me that they're going to "reduce" their animal product consumption, I, at my best mood, will be like, "Okay, sure!" but I absolutely will not cheer them on as if they're doing something spectacular.
You always should convey an abolitionist, vegan message, and if what you get out of it is them saying that they'll "reduce," you obviously can't "force" them to go vegan overnight, and I understand that such a change can be initially hard to grasp for many people, but it's important to remain principled in conveying the vegan message at all times.
If I condone babysteps as a "good" thing, I'd be inadvertently giving off the notion that "some animal slavery is okay." You can acknowledge the flaws of such an approach while not being "rude" or "disrespectful." Being unapologetic and kind are not mutually exclusive.
