We have to do it. Some of us have to do it in different ways. Doing small things where you can is all well and good but literally none of us are making a single impact in capitalism by making different choices about how we're forced to participate in it. Focus on tearing it down together rather than picking apart individual choices because those individual choices still result in participating in capitalism.
I think veganism is very comparable to the ‘don’t buy fast fashion’ argument. For some people, it is extremely doable. It will cost more, but some people have the means to. For others, they cannot afford to buy sustainable clothing (because like a lot of vegan products, sustainable clothing has become extremely overpriced). But I do wonder if most vegans would be upset if you tried to guilttrip them if they ever buy any fast fashion. As well I wonder if there are more people who can go vegan or buy sustainable clothes but refuse to do so because it’s hard work.
Also so few of these discussions ever include the amount of abuse and exploitation of humans that goes into most food. If you care about all suffering, you would have to completely make all of your own ingredients. But just as one should care about that when using it as an anti-vegan argument, they should care for it when it applies to animals as well.
But everyone here will just continue to get mad at each other for each’s own personal choices instead of working to better themselves, because superiority (on both sides) feels the best. Being nuanced just means you aren’t the best leftist when in fact very few here will ever be that because it is impossible.
Also sometimes leftists just have... different goals. Some people care firstly about environment, or ensuring free healthcare, or prioritizing the global south. I know I above all prioritize the safety and protection of Roma when it comes to my beliefs and actions. And it’s fine if sometimes you don’t prioritize what other’s do.
I did some work with a christian non-profit a while back, and one of the few excellent nuggets of thought I got there was that everyone has a different "calling." Spirituality aside, the idea was that its ridiculous to be mad at someone because they're focusing on say, feeding the homeless, rather than ending domestic violence.
Both of these things are good. One person can not possibly devote all of their time to every cause, and being frustrated with someone over what you perceive as their laziness or uncaring attitude is ridiculous because more often than not they're doing what they can.
Your average leftist doesn't need to be told how cruel the conditions are in meat-packing facilities. Hell, I worked in one while I was working at that non-profit. We're on the same side, but life is hard, and food is expensive and sometimes I just need to grab a quick, shitty, disgusting burger on the way to work because I can't afford to be late again or I'll get fired.
The cool thing for me is that leftists with different goals working together can achieve all of those goals together. In fact I think that's the only way we'll achieve anything; intersectionality is absolutely critical to any real leftist movement.
Yeah I wanted to add that into my second comment but felt I said enough lol. It’s better for us all to have different areas of focus (while still caring about everything else too) because like if one person only knows how to garden, who’s going to build the houses... or some type of metaphor like that. 😩 And I like learning about these issues from others. I’ve learned a shit ton from my environment activist friends and I know I have educated people a lot on Romani things. It’s cool and good to be unique individuals.
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I'm calling bullshit, veganism is not expensive. Black Americans are more likely to be vegan
I didn’t say ALL vegan products are expensive, but they do have the tendency to be. I also don’t see any mention of prices in that article? Who’s to say these are not more well-off Black Americans, as not all Black people are poor in America... Regardless, in my experience, stores around me have expensive vegan products but obvi that’s not everyone’s experience or neighborhood.
I also am coming from the idea that sure, fruits and vegetables aren’t that expensive (unless you’re going for organic). But people worry all the damn time about proteins in veganism. Nuts are expensive. Vitamins are very expensive. Look at peanut butter vs almond butter. Even just a $1 or $2 or $3 more adds up in the long run. My bank account has ended up being in single digit dollars before after grocery runs. Those little things count to people. Also I’m not sure 100% how food stamps work in America, but I have a feeling it probably isn’t enabling a healthy, balanced, or vegan diet either. Again I’m not trying to give excuses to not be vegan, I’m trying for people to be nuanced and understand things are not all black and white nor fully ‘easy’ or ‘hard’ for people to do.
That's what you wrote. Veganism can be expensive, so can carnism. Veganism can be as cheap or even cheaper than carnism. You are giving excuses to not be vegan, bad ones at that. I've heard them all, there's no good ones. There's reasons not to be vegan, which usually come back to it being easy and common.
This is getting back to my point about no one being nuanced. “hey, maybe some products are more expensive, but that’s capitalism for ya! may take more time to learn about which brands are less expensive, but it’s doable if people have the time to put in! though not everyone does, but isn’t our goal to one day live in a world where no one is overworked so much to not be able to have the time to actually understand and research what they’re putting into their bodies?” this just is how i’d go about it, personally...
you know why they're called baby steps? Because they're like stepping on babies. If you give carnists any reason not to be vegan, any excuse, how flimsy it might be, most of them will use it to not do absolutely anything.
I'm sorry if I come over jaded or pissed, but I've heard all of the excuses everyday for years. Why would I listen to a non-vegan on how to spread veganism? if you wanted me to succeed you'd be vegan yourself.
Said this to another commenter here, but I never said I wasn’t vegan myself. People of the same ideology can — and should — criticize each other too.
You being vegan makes carrying water for carnists worse, not better. Bully them if you want to help them, coddling them won't change their mind
going back to my original point: “But everyone here will just continue to get mad at each other for each’s own personal choices instead of working to better themselves, because superiority (on both sides) feels the best.”
Then you're doing apologia for people you know do be doing something ethically wrong, which is about the most liberal thing I can think of.
Lentils and beans are dirt fucking cheap. So are lots of pulses, rice, peas, whole grains, etc. I understand that some of this isn't even available in some food deserts in the US, but anywhere you have a real grocery store all of this should be far cheaper than the same amount of food/protein in dairy or meat.
Honestly I think there's a bit of a cultural problem with this. I'm coming to realize that more and more people just have no idea how to cook outside Western, meat-based cuisine. It's important to not underestimate the size of that barrier for a lot of people. I eat dirt cheap but if I ever go for a meal at my parents, I get crazy expensive chicken or sausage replacements because they have no repertoire of good vegan meals, despite having all the ingredients.
Ok, so you acknowledge the existence of food deserts but are you aware of how widespread they are? They can exist even in the middle of large cities if you live in the wrong area.
Where I live I can't even BUY Lintels most of the time. the one time I found them there were $5-6 for 1/2lb. I try to eliminate as much meat as I can but a truly vegan diet would require a near doubling of my food budget. I often can't find vegetables outside the normal tomato, carrot, onion, bell pepper spread aside from broccoli and yellow squash
Also, have you considered the TIME involved in cooking things like beans and lentils? or vegan in general? Not only does it require significantly more time shopping but it takes a significant amount of time to cook vegan food to release its nutrients. a lot of people simply don't have the time to prep and cook vegan.
you might argue that everyone can make that time but no, not they can't. Nero divergent people often can barely keep themselves fed. I struggle to both to make it to the store to buy food and to cook more than shittest of food most days.
You can advocate for veganism without shaming people. Shame is the LEAST effective motivator. focus on ENABLING. the brief period of time I ate the most vegan was the few times I was the recipient of food aid that was put together by donations from local farmers. there were agricultural products in that box that don't even get sold locally.
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Never said I wasn’t vegan. ‘Carnis’ is (and i hate saying this word) such a cringe thing to say.
putting animal bodies that have been semi-tortured to death in your mouth when you don't have to is even cringier! And it and causes diseases :)
Again, never said I wasn’t vegan.
The same polls shows that only 3% of hispanic folks are vegetarian, indeed, famously known for being rich and therefore not vegan.
Are... are you trying to manufacture an opppression olypics over whether hispanics or black people are poorer in amerikkka because black people are more vegan??
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/poverty-rates-for-blacks-and-hispanics-reached-historic-lows-in-2019.html
Poverty is higher in black communities.... but i don't know why you would even make a comment like that. Once again, please do research.
I'm not trying to manufacture anything. You're saying that poorer people are more likely to be vegan cause it's cheaper to do so. I'm offering a counter example of a cohort of people that are also poor but somehow don't know that vegan food is cheaper, so much so they're just as likely to be vegan as white people which are doing pretty well.
it's great that's there seems to be a higher willingness to make that switch but please let's not pretend that there aren't economic barriers for people to actually be able to make that switch and keep at it
it's interesting that black people who are faced with more of these struggles still manage to be more vegan by population than white people who commonly have less of these barriers, isn't it?
And this forum is mostly white.. hmm
Well something I think is important to keep in mind is that the areas containing a lot of the poor whites have Dollar General (or similar stores) as their main grocer. "Food Deserts" are a rapidly accelerating crisis in middle America. Not to say your critique is necessarily incorrect, just that these are very complex issues with a lot of facets to include in our analysis.
Another argument in the same vein is using Linux-based operating systems instead of the usual suspects. You're still feeding into the big SV monopoly that is at the forefront of surveillance capitalism, tracking and law enforcement. Even if you pirate every every piece of software, when someone asks for a report, essay, article or w/e you'll hand them a docx cause that's what you know how to do so there's never any pressure to use format that are not under their control. The perversity of it is that even if you "steal" the software you're still basically saying "no real alternative is possible".
The counters to not doing this are common counters to veganism: that sounds like effort I'm not willing to put in, i have to relearn how to do things i already know how to do, i have to learn how to do new things to supplant the old ones i can no longer do, but what about my video games (the bacon of computer programs) and so on.
The pros are also similar. It's something you "can just do". Most of the things you do are in a browser anyway nowadays so the OS matters a lot less. Yes there are people that absolutely require bespoke software that will not run on any other OS, 99% of people however, don't.
For the record I'm not trying to equivocate inflicting needless suffering on sentient beings with running Microsoft Office or something. They're not the same thing, obviously.
Yeah I was going to say it’s a harder comparison because not that the surveillance state is good but it is a different type of bad vs factory farms and sweatshops. But I get where you’re coming from in comparing the ‘why don’t we do this’. At the end of the day, we ALL do bad stuff. Stuff we can — and should — work on. But beating yourself up over it only inflicts guilt and not motivation to change, just as superiority makes you feel you’re good enough and have nothing to work towards.
shit that's well thought out
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While it may be the exception to the rule that is not true in large areas of my country, Canada. Around 100,000 people live in the northern territories and Nunavik. It is impossible to grow vegetables and fruits there and in the territories the bay is frozen for most of the year making shipping food very difficult. Most of the people who live in this area, >75%, are Inuit, and a vast part of their culture and diet relies on seal meat along with other sea animals. So for this group of people, yes, veganism is more expensive and hard, as a carton of orange juice in nunavut costs 26 dollars. Obviously this is a very small minority of people. But your comment is still a complete blanket statement with no consideration for food insecurity and indigenous cultures across the Americas.
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Damn so you growing your own food or are the mexicans still picking it for you?
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Nothing is cheaper than lentils and beans. Meat is far more expensive.
I'm not a vegan but I primarily have a vegetarian diet for this reason