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A Vegan No More

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Re: A Vegan No More

#101

Post by nkurz »

cjbprime wrote: post #35
lambda wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to find humanely raised meat? I just go to the farmer's market and buy it straight from the farmer who raises grass-fed free range cows. If I would like to verify, I can head to her farm and see how she raises the cows myself. Or I buy fish that are caught in sustainable ways, which have grown in their natural habitat and not subjected to any suffering beyond the catch (which is a necessary part of con…

I agree with most of what you said (although fish are never killed humanely, so I'm not up for that), but I don't own a car and I live in a city -- the difficulty involved in heading to a farm to see how their animals are raised is just large enough that I don't think the reward is worth it for me. I don't have any quarrel with someone who finds it an acceptable choice, though.

Your "never" makes me uneasy. As a fisherman, I've often killed fish as humanely as possible. Many others do the same. And while commercial standards are likely very poor, for certain species great care is taken regarding the quality of the meat with the side effect of relatively humane treatment. For example, tuna are often stunned and pithed using the "Taniguchi Method": http://wwwx.spc.int/coastfish/Fishing/Sashimi_E/Sashimi.pdf

Re: A Vegan No More

#102

Post by abeppu »

makmanalp wrote: post #83
abeppu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For bonus points, keep track of hidden meat , like gelatin in 'yogurt' and marshmallows, isinglass in your wine, or bonechar in your sugar, or lard, oyster sauce, fish sauce or chicken broth snuck into otherwise vegetarian dishes.

I appreciate the sentiment that you should know what you eat, but don't understand this mentality that I observe many vegetarian / vegans have. Oh no, gelatin snuck in your food, you're not a proper vegan / vegetarian anymore! Beat yourself up about it! It oddly reminds me of those tiny silly inconsequential rules that you're supposed to pay attention in some religions. Like no alcohol. What does that have anything t…

I was mainly trying to underline frossie's comment about how people eat meat unthinkingly, by pointing out that they may often also be eating meat unknowingly. It's shocking how pervasive dead animal products are in our society -- to the point that we use shellac (including dead insects) to wax apples, so even raw fruit may not be vegetarian.

For the record, I'm a vegetarian, but I drink filtered wine (isinglass or oxblood), eat cheeses made with rennet, eat sugar without knowing whether it was whitened with bone char, and last week ate a dessert that likely contained gelatin. I don't think those things mean I'm not a vegetarian, but I find it crazy that our society has so much dead animal hanging around that we've stopped keeping track of where we put it.

Re: A Vegan No More

#103

Post by cubix »

makmanalp wrote: post #83
abeppu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For bonus points, keep track of hidden meat , like gelatin in 'yogurt' and marshmallows, isinglass in your wine, or bonechar in your sugar, or lard, oyster sauce, fish sauce or chicken broth snuck into otherwise vegetarian dishes.

I appreciate the sentiment that you should know what you eat, but don't understand this mentality that I observe many vegetarian / vegans have. Oh no, gelatin snuck in your food, you're not a proper vegan / vegetarian anymore! Beat yourself up about it! It oddly reminds me of those tiny silly inconsequential rules that you're supposed to pay attention in some religions. Like no alcohol. What does that have anything t…

I thought the lighted hearted mockery of this mentality in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" was pretty funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIXv9N9PHO8&t=0m40s

Re: A Vegan No More

#104

Post by tomstuart »

dasil003 wrote: post #13

I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity. Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying…

I don't eat animals or animal products because I personally don't want to. What's wrong with that?

Re: A Vegan No More

#106

Post by wiredfool »

cjbprime wrote: post #32
Locke1689 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if animals were raised and killed in humane manner would you be more willing to eat meat? This seems to be the most coherent ethical stance. Otherwise you enter into the "like-us conundrum" wherein the value of a living organism is directly proportional to it's similarity to our species.

> So if animals were raised and killed in humane manner would you be more willing to eat meat? Yes. It seems plausible to me that I'll start eating meat again within a decade or two, once industry practices improve.

So, don't buy industry. Buy local, humanely raised and killed animals.

e.g., our turkey for thursday was processed today, at a family's small farm here. Our eggs come from the back yard. We've gotten pork from another local person who raises a few pigs on the side. FWIW, poultry seems to be the hardest to source for us, and maybe that's because the margins are so damn slim for the factory birds.

Re: A Vegan No More

#107

Post by anthonyb »

alone wrote: post #11
dejb wrote: post #4

> I never expected this post to get so much attention. There is nothing more popular than an anecdote that appeals to people's pre-existing biases. Unfortunately there will be many for which this one story will provide the same weight of evidence as the entire China Study.

And there are many people who will wrongly think the China Study is something to pay attention to: http://www.google.com/#q=debunking+china+study

"debunking" is a rather loaded term, don't you think? I would imagine that you're more likely to pull up crank sites than normal with a search like that.

In any case, there are (claimed) responses from the author of the China study which might be worth reading:

http://www.30bananasaday.com/group/debunkingthechinastudycri...

http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/campbell_china_response.h...

I haven't been able to find these on any "official" site though, so beware ;)

Re: A Vegan No More

#109

Post by jacquesm »

autarch wrote: post #82
jacquesm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think she misses out on that people need to justify stuff for themselves and those that do this justification loudly (for others to hear) are going to persist in that pattern no matter what their decisions. Personally I think that being a vegan, vegetarian or omnivore is an entirely personal thing and you don't need to blast it out like that. Also so that you can change your mind without having to do mental double…

I don't think Ginny's missing that at all. In fact, I think that's her main point, that Tasha's entire post is a post-facto attempt to rationalize a decision made for non-rational reasons.

Yes, but my point is that Ginny was not going after her when she was still rooting for 'her' team, probably for all the wrong reasons as well.

Ginny's post comes off as a very effective smear job against a 'former believer'.

Re: A Vegan No More

#110

Post by [deleted] »

pyre wrote: post #75
ced wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity. That's a weird statement. When is "movement size" ever a good indicator of truth? Anyway, veganism is not about "veracity", it's about a different set of moral beliefs, or a particular diet, or... You speak of vegans as if it was a monolithic group, and you paint it with a negative brush because of a few crazy individuals. That's like di…

> Really? All of the vegans I know care a lot > about eating a balanced and healthy diet (at > least, more than the average non-vegan). Not necessarily. I know a number of vegans that don't necessarily eat that healthy. The thing that irks me is when vegans proclaim that the 'vegan diet' will make everyone healthier, cure obesity, etc. There are plenty of unhealthy foods that are perfectly vegan. I say this as a vega…

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