Just joined yesterday and it seems like these communities are pretty empty. Is there a bigger one somewhere?
I'm vegan. I had started a vegan only instance a while ago, but it didn't get any traction so I closed it.
I tried being vegan, but it's basically impossible in Eastern Europe. I settled for just being a vegetarian trying to reduce my cheese & milk consumption and made my peace with that.
Veganism, as it is defined, is an ethical framework that seeks to, where practicable and possible, eliminate all forms of exploitation and harm to animals, directly or indirectly, that we can control. We tend to be specific on terms so that our movement doesn't get bogged down, so forgive me for sounding rude or dismissive as that is not my intention.
That being said, what is available to you? Perhaps I could help you out if you'd like advice. I currently use some products that would be harder to find outside of the United States, but when I first decided to be vegan I didn't have the same access and relied on much more simple ingredients
Edit: idk how to dm mods, but let me know if that breaks rule 2
I guess by that definition I'd be an aspiring vegan :))
The issue isn't access to raw ingredients, when we have the time my gf and I do cook vegan food (we made a vegan butter "chicken" just a few days ago). The issue is when we go to a restaurant or order takeaway due to work obligations and being super busy, there are no vegan options and normally 1 vegetarian option laden with cheese.
So the issue that vegans like myself would have with that is that we don't agree that convenience is more important than an animals life. Veganism is very binary due to the definition. If you're a star wars fan, think yoda: "do or do not, there is no try". The fact that its an ethical framework means that as strong men, women, and nonbinary adults we hold ourselves to what we think is moral and right. A vegan, at a work dinner where there are no vegan options, just doesn't eat that meal and is hungry. Super inconvenienced and annoyed, but hungry. I personally believe that a lot of the things that seem hard about veganism go away with 2 things: understanding the why, and experience. As far as understanding the why, I would recommend this: https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch
Edit: this movie is graphic. If you aren't in a good mental place, wait till later. It is important for people to see what they pay for that's not a block of cheese that they buy from the store
I am definitely a hard-liner when it comes to meat. I do find it harder to be such a hard-liner with other animal products, even though I'm aware of the conditions in dairy factory farms. I do agree with you, I'm just saying it's difficult.
Respectfully, I'm new to lemmy so I dont know how strict the mods are here, but I think that you want to continue this discussion. We should move this conversation to direct messaging or to another community of your choice, due to the rules of this sub. Happy to continue talking though
In proportion I believe we are more here than in more mainstream places like reddit.
I left reddit definitely when a post about how hunting was fun in the japanlife subreddit shows that the majority of it's user are totally ok with that.
Lemmy, having a better community today is definitely better to have conversations about any topic. Hopefully we won't have the problem of admins skewing the conversations by biaising the algorithm like in reddit and all the moderators competing to be the worse human being.
I mean, the issue is that most people are ok with that, not just users, but hey. If lemmy is about to grow it would benefit the animals to create a strong vegan culture here from the start
