Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years • Hacker News Board

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#161

Post by jsinai » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 4:31 PM UTC

schnevets wrote: post #69

strict9 wrote: post #16

After 15 years of not eating meat, the past 1-2 years have been a golden era of vegetarian options in the grocery store, restaurants, and fast food. Based on anecdotes and my social circles, the number of people completely avoiding meat hasn't changed. But omnivores adopting a semi-veg lifestyle has increased. If I had to pick one thing, I'd say environmental concerns are the main reason my omnivore friends and colle…

To me, it's less about new products and more about people's tastes. People are eating very different things now because of new popularity in some cuisines (Indian, Thai, and Mexican come to mind) and the popularity of "superfoods" (Avocado, Acai berry... ever notice there are never any animal-based superfoods?).

Salmon is usually considered a superfood

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#162

Post by jonfw » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #133

Iv wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me that's a mix of ethical and environmental concerns. I agree that there is a point in the belief that it is unethical to kill animals. That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world, there are a lot of things to argue about, but in general, I agree that in an ideal world, we should not do that. The environmental concerns, I only buy half-heartedly. I don't really believe that land-owners wil…

> That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world I'm just going to refer to the factory farming article from 80000hours: https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/factory-farming/ Considering that "Each year, 50 billion animals are raised and slaughtered in factory farms globally. Over a billion animals live in factory farms at any point of time in the United States. Most experience serious levels o…

People aren't going to start keeping the equivalent numbers of livestock as pets. If factory farmed animals fall out of fashion, most of these animals will all die without reproducing and their bloodlines will cease to exist.

I agree that factory farming isn't ideal, but it seems to me that it is less ideal from the perspective of the animal for their entire bloodline to be terminated. To make a strong argument against factory farming, you have to provide a feasible alternative that IMO doesn't exist.

The question really comes down to whether or not you consider the opportunity to experience life, even a particularly difficult life, as a blessing.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#163

Post by ph4 » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

I stopped eating meat at the start of this year after reading "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Saffran Foer. My primary concerns were ethical. I'm not necessarily morally opposed to eating meat, but I am opposed to the inhumane conditions of factory farming.

I am shocked at how easy it was to stop. I always pictured some long and tormented inner battle, but the book made the necessity of the decision self-evident. I eat meat maybe once per month now, a 99% reduction in intake, with no significant physical or psychological struggle whatsoever.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#164

Post by Half_pint » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #146

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world I'm just going to refer to the factory farming article from 80000hours: https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/factory-farming/ Considering that "Each year, 50 billion animals are raised and slaughtered in factory farms globally. Over a billion animals live in factory farms at any point of time in the United States. Most experience serious levels o…

Do the animals experience more suffering than if they lived in the wild? Is industrial slaughter more or less traumatic than death in the wild? Are there any benefits animals experience living in captivity vs living in the wild? Is there anything positive about more such animals getting to live in the first place due to demand for meat?

People rarely seem to ask these questions when it comes to dogfighting. Somehow we agree it's bad to breed dogs in captivity to suffer when it's a behavior we don't engage in... but when it requires personal change everyone is suddenly Descartes asking the deep questions.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#165

Post by impostir » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

strict9 wrote: post #16

After 15 years of not eating meat, the past 1-2 years have been a golden era of vegetarian options in the grocery store, restaurants, and fast food. Based on anecdotes and my social circles, the number of people completely avoiding meat hasn't changed. But omnivores adopting a semi-veg lifestyle has increased. If I had to pick one thing, I'd say environmental concerns are the main reason my omnivore friends and colle…

As a someone who falls into the semi-veg bucket, I would say I agree. It is mostly from an environmental concern, but I am also uncomfortable with factory farming. The thing that surprised me the most is that I don't really crave meat. Anecdotally, I now feel sluggish and tired after eating meat.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#166

Post by UnpossibleJim » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

deevolution wrote: post #156

slothtrop wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, health and nutrition. Among health nuts many who consume meat advocate reducing intake whilst increasing legumes and veg. Even aping the popular aggregate "blue-zone" diets and the Mediterranean diet (the most researched of all) will lead to more restricted meat consumption than the standard western diet permits. For those who like to heavily politicize diet, this is a perspective that gets buried by absolutist…

Avoiding meat consumption eliminates all dietary cholesterol intake, which is awesome for heart health.

A lot of that has been debunked with regular exercise. Many of the plaques and fatty deposits can be linked directly to high carbohydrate and high processed sugar diets in combination with sedentary lifestyles. That's been shown with the prevalence of putting type one diabetics on cholesterol medications in their upper thirties or lower fourties, as a practice, regardless of any other factors due to free sugars in their blood streams. Dietary cholesterol hasn't shown much of a spike in cardiovascular cholesterol at all, on recent studies, to be honest.... let me see if I can find the studies and I'll try and link it, if it wasn't behind a paywall. It might have been a Johns Hopkins, and I think they are paywalled.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#167

Post by sandworm101 » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #160

sandworm101 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vegan can also mean food that doesn't involve the exploitation of animals. That version of veganism means no food that requires insect pollinators. A cutting-edge vegan discussion is whether lab-grown meant can be vegan. An animal need not have a brain to be an animal. And an animal grown in a vat is still an animal.

> An animal need not have a brain to be an animal. How does that work? If I grew a chicken breast in lab, without the rest of the chicken, that's not an animal, right?

Is a human without a brain still a human? There are plenty of people in hospitals with zero brain function, some with virtually no brain matter, that still have full rights as humans.

If a jellyfish not an animal because it doesn't have a brain? A worm? Many vegans choose not to draw lines between different types of animals.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#168

Post by Half_pint » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

jonfw wrote: post #162

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world I'm just going to refer to the factory farming article from 80000hours: https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/factory-farming/ Considering that "Each year, 50 billion animals are raised and slaughtered in factory farms globally. Over a billion animals live in factory farms at any point of time in the United States. Most experience serious levels o…

People aren't going to start keeping the equivalent numbers of livestock as pets. If factory farmed animals fall out of fashion, most of these animals will all die without reproducing and their bloodlines will cease to exist. I agree that factory farming isn't ideal, but it seems to me that it is less ideal from the perspective of the animal for their entire bloodline to be terminated. To make a strong argument again…

Do you think it's a blessing for dogs engaged in dogfighting to exist rather than not?

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#169

Post by UnpossibleJim » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

deevolution wrote: post #156

slothtrop wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, health and nutrition. Among health nuts many who consume meat advocate reducing intake whilst increasing legumes and veg. Even aping the popular aggregate "blue-zone" diets and the Mediterranean diet (the most researched of all) will lead to more restricted meat consumption than the standard western diet permits. For those who like to heavily politicize diet, this is a perspective that gets buried by absolutist…

Avoiding meat consumption eliminates all dietary cholesterol intake, which is awesome for heart health.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6024687/

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#170

Post by zeveb » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 4:40 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #125

Iv wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me that's a mix of ethical and environmental concerns. I agree that there is a point in the belief that it is unethical to kill animals. That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world, there are a lot of things to argue about, but in general, I agree that in an ideal world, we should not do that. The environmental concerns, I only buy half-heartedly. I don't really believe that land-owners wil…

> It is just not practical for me to go full-veg, where I live I would need to cook one hour a day for it, Why does eating meat mean you can cook less?

Meat is remarkably easy to cook: apply heat to meat, done. Vegetables take preparation, require more-complex treatment, need to be managed well (I have no problem eating a quick meal of just a steak or chicken breast; I really would hate eating a quick meal of only carrots or just onions).

Meat's convenient in a way that vegetables aren't.