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

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#201

Post by okmokmz » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #63

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…

I guess I'm lucky to have grown up in an area where restaurants almost always had some vegan options just as a matter of course. Tomato pie vs pepperoni pizza, pasta places with spaghetti so good, it doesn't matter if you get pomodoro or carbonara, dry fried szechuan string beans that sounds like "just a side" but eats like a meal, tacos with chicken, pork or veggies. Veg/vegan food was always just food to me, so all…

That's definitely not the norm. I'm in Seattle, and while it isn't hard to find restaurants with vegan options, you certainly won't "almost always" find vegan options if you just go into a random restaurant. I found the same thing to be the case in LA, lots of vegan options but they definitely were not in every restaurant. Perhaps you just self-select vegan friendly restaurants?

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#202

Post by jl6 » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

zrobotics wrote: post #147

chosenbreed37 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly tangential but I noticed that the one of the cleaning fluids in the bathroom said "Suitable for vegans"...:-)

Same thing as 'vegan' imitation leather products: a vegan doesn't intend on eating their wallet or belt, but they won't buy genuine leather goods for ethical reasons. Thus, a vegan belt. For the same reason, a vegan would avoid animal fat based soaps. Still humorous though, reminds me of the bleach drinking memes.

I genuinely expect Apple to sell an upcoming iPhone as vegan.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#203

Post by rhn_mk1 » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

jonfw wrote: post #186

bigwavedave wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Personally, if I died and there was a deity that gave me a choice to either be reincarnated into a slave that would be tortured from birth to death only to be eaten by my slavers at the end or the deity would go back in time to make it so my parents never met, I'd wholeheartedly choose the latter.

I'm not much of a philsopher, but if you're at all interested in the other side of thinking I would suggest Viktor Frankl. He was a jewish person in a nazi concentration camp and he make a much stronger argument than I can for this point of view. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl > After enduring the suffering in these camps, Frankl concluded that even in the most absurd, painful, and dehumanized situation,…

Thank you for the link!

After reading a little bit about meaning, it seems that it's something that has to be found first

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_(existential)

so even if there's meaning in the most miserable of lives, it's not guaranteed that it will be found. However, I haven't found anything suggesting that meaning makes life worth living, only a passing mention of it bringing happiness, which doesn't square with my understanding of torture or concentration camps. Am I misunderstanding what meaning is?

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#204

Post by yters » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

taffer wrote: post #196

yters wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it better for a being to not exist entirely than suffer? If so, then would this imply that if animals suffer even more in the wild that they should be wiped out?

And if not, does that mean we should ban contraceptives?

Not getting the connection here. I don't think contraceptives are used to prevent the existence of a child living a life of suffering. They seem most often used to avoid inconvenience on the side of the potential parents.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#205

Post by okmokmz » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

ph4 wrote: post #163

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…

>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.

I found this to be the case too. It wasn't particularly challenging to stop eating meat, and if anything I felt physically and mentally better afterwards

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#206

Post by GeneralTspoon » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

jonfw wrote: post #186

bigwavedave wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Personally, if I died and there was a deity that gave me a choice to either be reincarnated into a slave that would be tortured from birth to death only to be eaten by my slavers at the end or the deity would go back in time to make it so my parents never met, I'd wholeheartedly choose the latter.

I'm not much of a philsopher, but if you're at all interested in the other side of thinking I would suggest Viktor Frankl. He was a jewish person in a nazi concentration camp and he make a much stronger argument than I can for this point of view. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl > After enduring the suffering in these camps, Frankl concluded that even in the most absurd, painful, and dehumanized situation,…

Not to minimize his suffering, but spending ~3 years out of his 92 year life being tortured isn't the same as a whole life of torture with no meaning or hope of escape.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#207

Post by jonfw » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

taffer wrote: post #198

jonfw wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The question really comes down to whether or not you consider the opportunity to experience life, even a particularly difficult life, as a blessing. This seems to be an extreme pro-life point of view. You could ask exactly the same question about contraceptives.

Just because I don't think it's unethical to produce life in that circumstance, doesn't mean that I think it's your ethical imperative to produce life. Things don't go immediately from unethical to a moral imperative, there is a substantial gap that needs to be crossed.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#208

Post by okmokmz » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #68

As interesting as this is, it's just the takeaway sector. As someone in the higher-end restaurant sector, I certainly haven't seen increased demand for vegan options. It also doesn't help that many vegans are very price sensitive, not to mention have a disproportionate amount of other dietary restrictions.

>many vegans are very price sensitive, not to mention have a disproportionate amount of other dietary restrictions

Price sensitive as in not willing to pay as much as traditional customers? In my experience vegans tend to pay more for their food, as many of them look for local produce, fair trade, organic, etc. which drives the price up. I'd also be curious to learn what other dietary restrictions they may have. Aside from a few that avoid gluten, most of my vegan friends only avoid animal products with no other restrictions

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#209

Post by okmokmz » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #106

Mikeb85 wrote: post #68

As interesting as this is, it's just the takeaway sector. As someone in the higher-end restaurant sector, I certainly haven't seen increased demand for vegan options. It also doesn't help that many vegans are very price sensitive, not to mention have a disproportionate amount of other dietary restrictions.

I wouldn't be surprised if higher-end restaurants end up lagging on this trend, simply because they have a bit of a reputational hole to dig themselves out of with the vegetarian, and particularly vegan, crowd. For a lot of reasons. For starters, the options a lot of higher-end restaurants offer have a history of tending to be either really unsatisfying "twigs and berries" type food, overly rich (a lot of vegans aren…

Entirely anecdotal, but I went to a 10 course tasting menu restaurant in Portland last year that was about $300 per person and they had a vegan menu. I've seen other high end restaurants providing vegan or vegetarian menus as well in Seattle

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#210

Post by rhn_mk1 » Wed, Aug 28, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #181

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are good questions, but about a different topic (except the last one). The choice here is not between raising animals for eating in factories as opposed to raising them in the wild. It's between raising them in factories versus not bringing them to life at all. Wild animal suffering is a different beast altogether. Your last question is on the point though. Do the animals raised for meat have lives worth living…

Is it better for a being to not exist entirely than suffer? If so, then would this imply that if animals suffer even more in the wild that they should be wiped out?

The answer to the existence question depends on what you consider to be more valuable: life or suffering.

As to the second question, that is an active topic of research:

https://foundational-research.org/the-importance-of-wild-ani...

with some info on Wikipedia as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_animal_suffering#Ecology_...