101–110 of 136 posts
The unnecessary inclusion of 'spider' in the article makes the claim 'vegan' suspect. It's plant-based silk. There are many creatures that spin silk, no need to mention "spider-like" specifically.
The unnecessary inclusion of 'spider' in the article makes the claim 'vegan' suspect. It's plant-based silk. There are many creatures that spin silk, no need to mention "spider-like" specifically.
this comment is a knee jerk reaction, it's pretty obvious why it's appropriate, please make more of an effort (spider silk is associated to strenght, regular silk is weak & for appearance)
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> For instance: Is a thin and light plastic used once and incinerated in a state of the art facility (that might produce heat/electricity in the process) necessarily worse than re-useable glass that is much heavier, may require more energy to produce, and require energy and resources (including water) to re-use? I would also like to know the answer to this. In Germany certain glass and plastic bottles that work with…
I don't remember exactly but I think it was a Quarks&Co waay back that compared glass bottles in the Pfandsystem with plastic ones and plastic ones that don't get reused IIRC. But don't quote me on that, try to find the episode :) What I do remember is that it's not actually as clear cut as one might think. They also accounted for the fact that glass is much heavier and thus you need to use more gasoline to ship it a…
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I think they generally only do this in the short term, though.
Short term is relative though. Is it short term relative to a couple years, a human lifetime, or the life times of generations? Two good examples of industries that historically only looked at short term interests: Oil and Tobacco. These companies fought and tried to change reality as we know it. They tried to spin a narrative that said global warming was fake or that cigarettes are healthy. The long term effects of…
Nuclear waste doesn't have fallout. Coal today is causing more radiation deaths than nuclear.
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It was meant in jest, but if you must take it seriously, my opinion is that veganism as a movement has largely been coopted by high-gloss, low-impact "plant based foods" marketing that follows all the aesthetics and few of the values of older movement. There isn't a measurable decrease in meat production or consumption, just a noted increase in overpriced prepackaged vegan food products. I say that as a vegan of more…
Could you describe what the values of the older movement are? I would have assumed them to fall under the umbrella of "don't consume animal products and reduce suffering when possible", which the new type of products still achieve. I think it also likely that much of today's raising of consciousness - for veganism or otherwise - comes from successful marketing; is that inherently bad? Lastly, two of the largest milk…
Fast forward to 2021, you have meat conglomerates like Tyson creating brands like Raised & Rooted, which sells nuggets that are half-chicken and half-plant. Ostensibly this decreases the need for as many chickens (or else they're producing only half-dead chickens), but it doesn't really work that way; AFAIK (and I admit I am not a market expert, just an interested bystander) their chicken production is still growing (https://craft.co/tyson-foods/metrics), and the Frankenuggets are just an additional snack item on top of their existing product lines. It supplements the cruelty, the icing on top of the torture, rather than seeking any sort of transformative change.
And by and large the market is headed more and more that way, towards industrial food conglomerates buying up or creating in-house vegan brands to add a greener sheen to their bloody enterprise, without actually changing the way they do business or the way they treat any vulnerable part of the system.
Veganism as its core was, in my opinion, about consuming LESS so that others may live more. Plant-based foods, as a health & diet craze, is more about supplementing your existing diet (and profit) with more manufactured products that ultimately come from the same industrial giants that made it all fucked up to begin with.
It's the difference between back-to-the-land whole-food farming/eating and Soylent, the vegan artificial meal drink.
But that's just my interpretation. Others are free to disagree.
Within that bigger context, though, are plant-based foods still a net improvement even if they don't drive transformative change? It's dubious to me. I think it encourages a mindset akin to recycling: "just do it, don't think about it" in that both are minimally impactful in and of themselves, but make people feel good that they're doing it. I forget the scholarly term for it but there's a body of research suggesting that if you can provide a small action for people to take to alleviate their guilt over something, they're less inclined to make bigger, transformative changes to their lives. Anybody can pick up a package of Frankenuggets and think they're doing the world a favor, and that's enough. But does it result in a net decrease in meat or dairy production? Not as far as I know, but if there is an analysis on this, I would love to be informed.
Regarding the dairy bankruptcy, actually I did not know that, and reading more (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/01/06/borden-da...), they do cite the rise in plant-based alternatives as one factor in their continuing decline. So maybe it does help? I know that would contradict my earlier points, but data is data. Personally I would be skeptical of too quickly attributing plant-based foods as the major determining factor in that, but time will tell. It's easier for capital to introduce new product lines that match consumer fashions than for executives to reexamine their values. But if I'm wrong, just let me know.
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I have not yet verified the references, but this SciShow episode seems to propose exactly that: https://youtu.be/JvzvM9tf5s0
Maybe I'm quoting the wrong part of the video but he suggests you need to use the re-usable heavy bag six times not hundreds of times to equalise the environmental impact? This looks about right to me - he's comparing with the very heaviest re-usable plastic bags which I could imagine have at least 6 times the mass of the single use bags. I typically use the lighter re-usables plastic bags - unless I need to carry a…
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Because single use plastics are transformatively essentially for the entire modern way of life? Until we acknowledge that reality any solution will only sound hypocritical and be ineffective in the end. The only real solution I see for plastic waste is just to incinerate it and try to build carbon capture plants to undo that fire.
What's to acknowledge? Paper bags work just as well, much of the products absolutely don't need that much plastic packaging, and people lived fine with reused glass bottles/jars (at least some countries still recycle that).
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Could you describe what the values of the older movement are? I would have assumed them to fall under the umbrella of "don't consume animal products and reduce suffering when possible", which the new type of products still achieve. I think it also likely that much of today's raising of consciousness - for veganism or otherwise - comes from successful marketing; is that inherently bad? Lastly, two of the largest milk…
IMHO only -- I don't claim to be representative of any other planteater but myself -- it sought holistic, transformative change. Rather than just "eat less meat" (like Meatless Mondays, which is supposed to be a stepping stone), it was maybe more aligned with the Slow Food movement ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Food ) in that it wanted people to think about how our food systems are connected to not just animal…
I consider veganism a philosophy that leads to inevitable action in the world, contrasted against a plant-based diet which is just that - flexible (e.g. those half-meat abominations, or blended cows milk with oat milk), not particularly rooted in selfless ideology/thought process, and excludes all the other ways that other beings could suffer from our consumption practices.
Your analogy to recycling I think is also spot on, especially in the context of plant-based diets - there's a fleeting feel-good thought of "I'm doing my part!" that falls apart under any serious scrutiny. Similarly, companies like Nestle adding plant-based options very squarely fit the definition of greenwashing, IMO.
To supplement my case that vegan replacements are the main disruptors to those industries, let us look no further than the incredible amount of recent lawsuits that attempt to limit how they're labelled, under the false pretense of "customers are getting confused!!1!" [0][1][2][3]
Thanks for sharing your perspective, and mad respect for how long you've been vegan - feel free to drop me a message if you're in the Austin area! There are plenty of hip, plant-based places to quietly criticize while sipping a beer.
[0] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/robindschatz/2020/02/20/why-veg...
[1] - https://vegnews.com/2019/3/arkansas-outlaws-labeling-caulifl...
[2] - https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21507907/louisiana-veggie...
[3] - https://wholefoodsmagazine.com/grocery/news-grocery/oklahoma...
silk is still an animal product, so really, it's not vegan at all.