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[Yoink]

The main/only difficulty with having a healthy vegan diet is getting enough vitamin b12. From what I've read a deficiency of that is pretty bad.

There are, of course, ways around that, such as supplements or this weird shit called "nutritional yeast" (which I plan on trying in the near future, apparently it's delicious too), but they can be expensive.


Fakeedit: apparently the low-salt version of Vegemite contains b12. That sounds awful, though. I might try it sometime anyway, to see if it somehow miraculously tastes like the real thing. That'd be real nifty.

[hops]

Most of the difficulty of being vegan can be attributed to society which is pretty shit tbh. Olants can taste as good as meat if our scientists actually gave a damn.

[Yoink]

Well, there are a lot of spot-on mock meats available, but again, unless you make them yourself they tend to be expensive.

Personally I've never really missed meat much, though... veggies are already delicious! The one thing I really missed were those battered fish burgers from Maccas/Micky D's, but it turns out fish is one of the cheapest/easiest meats to emulate.


...Man I just noticed that emulate is "emu late". Scary stuff.

[JoshuaFH]

I always thought of veganism or vegetarianism as the products of myopic sentimentality, and therefore token and irrelevant. If you don't eat meat, those animals aren't being saved, even if everyone decided to stop eating meat, they're still doomed. The cows, chickens, whatever, they're a doomed species, they only continue living at our demand, and if the demand ceases, then I highly doubt they can live in the wild from the centuries of focused selective breeding that only cared about bigger, meatier, and more delicious, and nothing else. So if their demand ceases, they all die, fish and other animals harvested from natural environments will appreciate it, but commercially farm harvested animals will perish.

Then, is the actual goal to show mercy to those creatures by exterminating them? Or is it more humane thing to continue just being a meat eater, therefore prolonging the cycle of these creature's suffering? I think it kinda reflects on what life is, and why people cherish it so much.

To be clear though, veganism or vegetarianism for any other reason, like you just don't like meat, obviously doesn't apply, I'm just thinking about sentimental vegetarianism.

Writing this down, I have the strongest feeling I'm badly wrong about something, as it's just my musing on the topic and I haven't done any hard research, it's just the first conclusion I came to, which makes sense as I'm so pessimistic I suppose...

[Yoink]

Well yeah, obviously you'd have a hard time re-homing billions of emancipated cattle. Maybe in the event that enough people cared to shut down the industries in question, people would care enough to donate enough land to be made into national parks for the creatures to live in (and I guess there would be a lot of freed-up land that previously was used to grow their feed), but even just putting them out of their misery and ceasing to breed more sufferers to take their place would be a great outcome.

And of course, refusing to eat meat doesn't make the meat industry cease existing. On a selfish level one feels happier for having made an effort to be a better person, but the increasing number of people choosing to forgo animal products is slowly-but-surely making a tangible difference - I have seen numerous reports of farms and dairies taking increasing losses as demand lessens, and every day there is more and more shelf space devoted to vegetarian and vegan products in the supermarkets.


...I know I tried to change the topic, but as one of the few things I care about in the world I can't exactly not respond to discussion on the issue.

[hops]

I think the main reason meat eaters react negatively to vegans is the insinuation that they're directly responsible for the issue at hand when in reality it is a complex issue perpetuated by culture and industry.

[Tack]

Frankly I'd prefer it if meat returned from staple to delicacy. I will forever want to eat steak, but frankly I'm quite happy eating it once a week, or once a fortnight. Past that, I make an effort to eat free range and that's about as far as my omni-face is willing to go.

.I know I tried to change the topic, but as one of the few things I care about in the world I can't exactly not respond to discussion on the issue.

You're being a cool cucumber about it. I'd say it's kosher.

[Rose]

Personally, couldn't care less about the health or environmental effects of eating meat.

I just think it's disgusting.

[wierd]

^--- Which is a decision I have no problem accepting from somebody. (It's the same reason I dont eat sweet peas, asparagus, or raw peanuts. Those things are just plain nasty.)

However, the "Cruelty" and "Harm" arguments are pretty easy to torpedo giant holes into. Personally, I prefer free-ranged poultry and cattle products, because they have a different texture and flavor profile (and are healthier for you too), as well as creating an industry that attempts to retain a diverse ecosystem to provide fodder for the animals in question.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, that's perfectly fair. Everyone has foods they don't like.

[Tack]

Free-ranged poultry and cattle products creating an industry that attempts to retain a diverse ecosystem to provide fodder for the animals in question.

... Wot. Not sure what you're from but here it's just "room to move".
That sounds more like ecologist stuff.

[Hanslanda]

I guess I'm the exact opposite of Japa here. I just love being a omnivore. To be fair to living things, I also consume inorganic materials often. Salt, processed plastics, dirt, the souls of my enemies...

[wierd]

Free-ranged poultry and cattle products creating an industry that attempts to retain a diverse ecosystem to provide fodder for the animals in question.

... Wot. Not sure what you're from but here it's just "room to move".
That sounds more like ecologist stuff.

Short of veal, (which is not even weaned calf, trapped in a cage, and forcefed milk, and prevented from moving so its muscles dont develop tone), basically all cattle are "allowed to move around freely."

Free-ranged, at least as I have seen it, involves animals that get to move around, and eat things growing wild, or that they come across. For chickens, this is things like grass, grasshoppers, weeds of various types, et al--- chickens running around being chickens until you decide to butcher and eat them.  For cattle, this is cows who's only modification is getting their nards chopped off so they dont taste gamey-- but otherwise allowed to eat prairie grass, and wander around huge ranches. The local ones look a bit like this, even though this one is in Montana, and the local ones I know of are in rural kansas:

Spoiler: big image (click to show/hide)

Here's one of the local ones, (Flying W), but from the looks of it, they have over-pastured on this section. (Lots of yarrow, which cows wont eat because it is very astringent/bitter, and coarse. It grows on depleted soils that lack crowding from healthy grasses. Not all ranchers really know what they are doing, sadly.)

Spoiler: Flying W ranch (click to show/hide)

When I say "Free range chicken", this is what I mean.

Spoiler: more big image (click to show/hide)

Note that the grass is not some manicured monoculture, and no real effort to kill bugs is in effect. (though, as mentioned, the ranchers might not manage their properties well, resulting in poor biodiversity, and poor pasturage from neglect. Still much more diverse than monocropped veggies though.)

As long as the ranchers are not absurd in their practices, and reject feed-lot based ranching (what is pictured in the preceding link), you dont get the type of conditions that vegans find objectionable.  The deal is that you can get many times as many cattle per acre by using the absurd practices, and those beholden to the all-mighty dollar (the *REAL* problem in meat production is the slavish devotion to maximize profits, by increasing yeilds beyond sustainable levels in this way) will naturally think the fucking sick and stupid practice of feed-lot cultivation is "The way to go!"

So, when I say I prefer free-ranged meat, because it has better texture, flavor, and retains land in a diverse ecosystem, I mean exactly that.  I am willing to pay extra for it, so that it can compete in the market with the absolute **SHIT** that the greedy ass fucks doing feed lot based factory culture, and purchase from known good suppliers wherever possible. 

[overseer05-15]

I guess I'm the exact opposite of Japa here. I just love being a omnivore. To be fair to living things, I also consume inorganic materials often. Salt, processed plastics, dirt, the souls of my enemies...

Relatively certain that a soul's organic. It's like a metaphysical limb.

[Yoink]

However, the "Cruelty" and "Harm" arguments are pretty easy to torpedo giant holes into.

Maybe for a sociopath or similar. I know I am yet to hear a single good argument against veganism.
Obviously if one is extremely poor, suffers from certain food allergies or lives in a country with lacking food options it can be difficult, but I know of a great many people who still manage to survive and thrive despite one or more of those factors.

You're being a cool cucumber about it. I'd say it's kosher.

Thanks, that's good to hear. I try!


Since we're still on this topic, I bought some of that salt-reduced, b12-fortified Vegemite earlier - amazingly, it tastes like the real thing! And contains 25% of the recommended daily intake of b12!

And for yet another related wtf, I just did what is probably the single biggest grocery shop I've done in my entire adult life. Time to (try and) learn how to cook. Something more complex than fried tofu with luxury noodles, at least.
I intend to conquer my old foe, rice... this time I won't let it entrench itself on the bottom of the pot, impervious to the most determined assault with the scourer.