Like, I do think in an ideal world everyone would be vegan and all animals would be free not to be our food...
...Buuuttt I've been eating their products for my entire life and they constitute the vast majority of my favorite foods/drinks and foods/drinks I just like in general, and am thus unwilling to give them up even if I know it would be the better thing to do.
I mean, I probably could if I really, really wanted to, but I just don't want to.
Sorry if I seem rude, but could you expand upon what the dietary problem is? I've never heard of any illness that means you have to consume meat to survive?
Maybe in the future I’ll be able to wean myself off meat, but for now I’m focused on dodging this heart attack that’s a few years away
Do you understand how paradoxical this sentence is?
Losing weight can be really hard and being obese is WAY more of a risk factor than eating meat for heart attacks. Don't be an idiot.
Anecdata: I lost 100 pounds in the first year of being vegan, with no other lifestyle changes.
This has no ethical or moral bearing, but the substitutes absolutely do not taste exactly the same. A better argument might be that they just taste good.
Some do. But they are kind of prohibitively expensive.
Pulled jackfruit can taste exactly the same as pulled pork, but does not have high enough protein content to be a good sub on its own. Properly cooked Beyond/Impossible (I forget which) looks and tastes like meat. I've done both of these as side-by-sides with real meat for mixed crowds and been able to fool people.
They are pricey, but worth it for a special occasion.
The other ones, I agree. Something like field roast is kind of similar to a chicken sausage, but it's best if you think of it as its own thing. Still tasty.
The cheapest "nearly spot on" substitute I've had is the Trader Joe's soy chorizo.
I don't have the budget to have full control over my diet; (meaning i buy what's cheaper) I oscillate between 70 percent vegetarian / 30 percent meat, living in an area that has a large livestock economy; I'm interested in ways of meeting full nutritional needs without meat, but that would mean being "picky" with my food, something i currently can't afford.
I am lucky that I can find some extra firm tofu that costs the same as decent ground beef. If you have an Asian grocery store near you, you might be surprised at how inexpensive some vegan/vegetarian alternatives are. It just takes a little practice to get good at cooking it.
Sadly there are no Asian grocery stores in this small town; It's one of the things i miss the most from the big city! I think one of my best bets would be texturized soy as meat replacements or stuff like that; it's easier to find down here.
"Yeah I could try making a difference in the only thing that might slightly inconvenience my life, …Buuuttt"
Real online leftist hours.
Almost every vegan started off thinking they couldn't possibly give up all meat / byproducts, but here we are, and it didn't take superhuman effort
If you recognize it as the right thing, then you just need to will yourself to action, which means keeping the suffering of animals in mind; knowing they're tortured and killed--and really thinking about that--makes animal byproducts inedible, and just a non-option. I can't eat a cow body part any more than I can eat a human one
Once you give it up it really becomes the new normal; plus plant-based alternatives are so good that I'm not missing a thing
Under any system, the standard American diet is unsustainable. You might as well start adjusting now. Sooner or later you'll need to.
I mean, if you listen to liberal vegans sure. But we all know liberals love turning all structural issues to individual ones. But a lot of leftist vegans exclusively point out the harmful nature of all modern agricultural industries, not just the meat and dairy ones. Locally grown and available food is always better. But it's not a question of either/or. You can support both local industries and not eat meat/dairy.
yeah you're right. voting with your wallet is stupid and not going to enact systemic change. but that's a separate issue from the ethics of eating meat. I'm not saying this is going to bring systemic change. I agree with you it wouldn't.
Oh yeah, I think Mexie had a very good discussion with someone a while ago that brought up indigenous practices as a counter to her "meat-always-bad" veganism stance. And she ended up changing her views!
Breathing out co2 is not contributing to a climate crisis. That co2 is already in the carbon cycle. Adding co2 to the carbon cycle by burning fossil fuels is the problem.
I mean this in no way applies to me right now, but in certain climates meat can become an extremely efficient way of obtaining calories. For example, on the steppes. It doesn't rain enough to sustain agriculture, but does rain enough to sustain grass. Said grass is inedible to humans but can be eaten by animals, who in turn may be eaten by humans. Nomadic omnivorous humans roaming in this region would be carbon neutral at the very least.
Introducing agriculture to areas not suited for agriculture, and clearing native flora for introduced Western crops also may not be the best thing for the environment. I live around farms (eastern, but not coastal Australia) that every decade or so get absolutely demolished by the Australian weather & El Nino and they have to rely on mutual aid and government assistance to survive. Then they get back on their feet, they think it's a one off disaster and continue farming wheat or sometimes in the worst case cotton in the driest (non Antarctica) continent on the planet. Also they're much less fire resistant than native flora, I'm sure you've seen what the bushfires are like. The native Australians have been living in this region for 40,000 years and have flourished. Controlled burns of overgrowth. Not planting a fuckload of more flammable plants in close proximity to maximise profit. The Anglos have been here for 200 and need to resort to begging to survive every decade or so, just to maintain a European diet instead of eating like the people of the nations they invaded.
A strict vegan living here eating a western diet, 100%, undoubtedly does more damage to this environment than an omnivore eating mostly native plants but the occasional kangaroo.
tl;dr some climates do not agree with plant based diets, though OP's statement is generally correct.
A strict vegan living here eating a western diet, 100%, undoubtedly does more damage to this environment than an omnivore eating mostly native plants but the occasional kangaroo.
australia could not feed 25 million people off native plants and animals, high intensity food production is better then clearing more land or hunting animals to extinction
Probably not, but nor could any variation of current western diets, vegan or omnivorous. Wheat simply is not suited for the vast majority of the Australian continent. In a fantasy land where private property is abolished and so is for profit farming and the entire concept of Suburbia (fuck America for inventing this, btw), I would say even high intensity food production would not be able to meet the needs of modern Australia, let alone a future one. It's simply too dry to sustain a western diet as the sole caloric intake. There are many indigenous plants not being utilized by the European inspired diet. Certainly bush tucker is much more suited for the environment than anything else currently available, but good luck trying to persuade Anglos at large into that.
On top of that, there are vast swathes of western NSW and west-ish Queensland (i.e. not desert) that could possibly support grass and therefore grazing animals but not intense farming. Every square centimeter of land must be utilized as efficiently as possible if humanity hopes to survive without destroying the planet and/or having a bunch of poor people die. However this is a dream not likely to be realized. There are profitable cotton farms that must be protected by local/state governments, you see. Water must be first diverted to the rich before the commoners. At least on a local level, I see cotton farmers being lumped in with "the farmers" as if their production is actually as necessary as food. Propaganda for saving these water intensive crops because they're supposedly 'salt of the earth farmers just trying to make a living' when in fact they're underpaying overseas workers for a visa to continue to grow their non-indigenous crop and siphoning water from already struggling people is disgusting and yet again we find the long arm of capitalism impeding the needs of the people.
or idk im kinda drunk
More like eat vegetarian heavy. Not going out of my way to get meat. If its in a meal a friend made for me not gonna flip shit and tell 'em off.
I'm a vegetarian who should go vegan, but instead of going vegan I want to buy to chickens to raise with my wife(currently fiancee) and trade for cheese. Or if we can get somewhere nice, get some goats and make our own cheese.
I just want to be a farmer lesbian okay?
This is good, home raised free range chickens have good lives, and the eggs are SO MUCH BETTER AND FRESHER, good for making proper poached eggs.
Indian food bruh. It's a good way to go vegetarian. Then just cut out all the dairy like replacing paneer with tofu etc. That's what I do.
You don't have to go vegan or veg to have a huge impact in your personal CO2 reduction. Cutting out just beef and lamb makes a huge difference.
That's true, but carbon footprint is only one of many reasons to do it.
You could start with vegetarian stuff. Dairy and eggs can help the transition
