Why aren't you vegan?

>Implying logistics aren't the main issue limiting all world food production

Vegan/Plant based diets are calorie for calorie less efficient that certain vegetarian diets that also eat seafood/insects/dairy with it comes to both health benefit and environmental impact. Insects for example are far, far easier to produce for protein with less resources and space than the likes of Tofu and Legumes

@decaf_wizard: Would you say a vegan + insect combination diet would be sustainable? While I can see the argument for that, I don't see how seafood and dairy is terribly sustainable on a global scale, and they're a lot more, well, gruesome for the animals being farmed.

Because of easy protein.

Tolerance. I lack any tolerance for limiting my food choices. Unless i honestly don't like it, I don't want it restricted from my food choices.

I tried it for about a year. I went full plant based, no junk food or anything (since pop is vegan). I did not see any changes. I would watch tones of videos on youtube where people had done it for a few weeks and they all said how they were healthier, happier, less tired, glowing skin, etc. But I didn't see any of that. At first I did lose about 10-15 pounds, which was actually bad for me, since I was already thin. I learned new recipes...um ya other than that not too much. I was already healthy to begin with...I do see a lot of people saying protein is their reason for not going vegan, but you can get easy protein from lentils, beans, broccoli, peas, spinach, the list is endless.

After my experiment I feel like diet is different for everyone, there is no one right way. You should adjust your diet accordingly to live your healthiest.

With dairy it depends what you are doing, and it doesn't really include traditional stuff either.

Seafood farming (aquaculture) is incredibly resource efficient if not done with some crappy methods like dredging. Especially “low-trophic level” species such as, shrimp, cichlid, catfish, shellfish and mollusks. Mollusks especially which just essentially filter feed and can be attached to objects and left to naturally grow. Plus if your issue is moral stuff, molluscs have an incredibly simplistic nervous system and can't really even think in the conventional sense

Basically a vegetarian diet that includes aquaculture and insect based protein, with beef and stuff as luxuries would be the optimal agriculture setup across the world in my mind

@trixie: So if there was no visible change in your health after experimenting veganism for a year, then why stop, considering the immorality of eating meat and the impact on environment?

This. My only issue is possible poisoning from seafoods cuz I’ve heard some horror stories.

ot: meat tastes too good.

When I watched how cattle went through slaughter houses and how they were treated, I got hungry. When I, and my family, go hunting and bag an elk, and we are skinning and preparing it, I'm not thinking, "Oh, this poor lil Elk Cow! She had so much left to live for! This is so gross.." I'm thinking, "Omg, I can't wait to have some noodles with some diced Elk meat in there, simply seasoned with some salt and black pepper."

When I fish and I am gutting it, I'm not thinking, "Oh, this poor lil fish! this is so gross!" but, "Man, I need to stop by the store and get some lemon juice for this."

I love animals. Truly do. I have cats and dogs, my gpa owned a ranch for a long time and I've spent a lot of time around pigs, chickens, cows, horses and even peacocks and turkeys [Both peacocks and turkeys are pricks. No turkey deserves to be pardoned. Eat them all and let God eat them next], and I love eating meat. I love it. Meat, potatoes, bread and cheese. My favorite things on this planet. I would eat dog meat if I went to a restaurant and they were selling it out of curiosity.

You aren't pulling at my heart strings with the vegan 'oh noes, the animals!' nonsense. I don't care if you believe it to be unhealthy as the entire idea of living past 80 is not something I want anyways [I'd rather not be that old guy in assisted living 'enjoying' his extra years]. I'm going to enjoy life as a member of the world's apex predator species.

@decaf_wizard:

I know you are probably referring to other types of mollusc but just to be clear some types of molluscs, particularly cephalopods (squid, octopus, etc.) are among the most intelligent and neurologically advanced aquatic creatures in the world. But you are correct if referring to things like oysters and mussels, I just wanted to clear up that point.

@devils_advocate: Because I don't consider it immoral, and veganism can/has negatively impacted the environment as well.

even Animals eat other animals for food & don't want to strict themselves

**intense triggering intensifies**

Fine, I'll specify. Bivalves

How is cutting off the horns of cows without applying painkillers moral? How is ripping away babies from their mothers moral? How is torturing and brutally slaughtering billions of defenseless living creatures not immoral?

Even animals? Are you implying that animals are more intelligent than us, and we must follow in their wise footsteps?

@devils_advocate: I'm just saying animals just like to eat and kill for meat for the longest history in nature.

@gokluma: And children just like to flush Rolexes down the toilet for the longest history in families. Why should we copy individuals much less intelligent than us?

Not to mention, most that eat meat do it because they actually have to, and cannot survive without it.

@devils_advocate: Oh alright and i'm just wondering about whole saving animals thing by just being vegan.

@gokluma: Well, if you are vegan, you don’t eat meat or animal products. If you don’t eat meat or animal products, then businesses don’t have to supply as much meat and animal products. If they don’t have to supply as much meat and animal products, then less animals are tortured and killed for food. Vegans save animals.

@devils_advocate: Oh alright just curious

Because I'd kill myself.

@devils_advocate: You would need to apply that same way of thinking to insects. No one is 100% vegan. You support a show where they eat meat, why?

@trixie: The brains of insects are too simple to experience emotion, and it is even debatable if they feel pain (it depends on the kind of insect). These two factors differentiate them from animals and make their lives less valuable, but these same factors don’t differentiate animals from humans, as both are perfectly capable of feeling pain and emotion. Even so, I still value insect life, and never take it away just for kicks.

That second part makes no sense. A vegan is a person who doesn’t eat or use animal products. A TV show isn’t an animal product. That TV show could also contain murder, but does that mean that I support murder if I like the show?

I cannot be vegan for the same reason I am a vegetarian...because of my religious beliefs.

This line of argument always struck me as amusing.

So, after this, then what?

Let us say, every human on the planet becomes vegan. Then what?

What happens to chickens? To cows, which, I'm sure you know as such an animal right lover that many breeds of cows cannot reproduce without human assistance anymore? Are they going to be released into the wild? Animals that have become so domesticated that very, very, very few breeds have the tools, or even instinct, to survive? Pigs? Into the wilds when hogs are already very, very real menace to civilization in various parts of the world, even first world nations like the United States isn't free of the sheer destructive capability of hogs?

What happens? What happens when there are no longer hunters to control animal population and the preservationist lose the funding they get from said hunters? And before you go, "But they don't," do some googling before you speak.

Should we introduce new predators to control the rising prey populations before they eat everything, starve and begin to wander into human centers of population?

Or should cows, chickens, pigs be transported to that magical farm parents tell their kids all their beloved family pets go to? But that doesn't exist. And if you think their population will be kept up because, 'muh animals' then you are delusional.

These species are alive because they are food. Unlike, say, dogs or cats, there is no, and I repeat, no reason for cows to become household pets. Pigs, maybe, but cows? No.

So what happens? Most of them die. Either from being 'put down humanely' or by starving in the wild as they fail, over and over, at reintroducing them without throwing whatever sense of balance that used to exist into the fire. They end up in zoos as quaint little attractions? Their species only surviving to serve as a mild curiosity to mankind?

Vegans don't save animals. You remove their purpose of existence. Meat eaters save animals. We give a reason to keep them. A reason to breed them. A reason for them to exist and the means with which to exist.

So next time you are driving and you see a lovely herd of dairy cows grazing, know that they are only alive because your friend likes his milkshakes because the truth of the matter is, veganism is nothing more then a cute luxury of first world citizens.

Just because, that's why.

BECAUSE even though plants can provide protien it's not the same protien and my body rejected pure vegen. Gotta have a little meat

I just genuinely do not care.

Sentience - The ability to Think and feel.

Sapience - A being capable of wisdom.

it's sapience not sentience that differentiates most animals from humans...

Depriving myself of necessary nutrients just for some animals is dumb. Not to mention how hard it is to find good vegan foods. And don’t even get me started on the price and taste.

@wut: Well, ​it always strikes me as amusing to see people who are fine with farm animals having their throats cut in their billions simultaneously showing deep concern about their potential extinction.

The vast majority of current livestock is the result of breeding - artificial insemination. Acknowledging that the world won't turn vegan overnight, and considering the short lifespans of the animals, farmers willhave more than enough time to reduce artificial production in response to the decrease in demand. The existing, artificially created animals will die off after a full life, and we will be left with a low animal population. We can sustain that population with some breeding if the species eventually becomes endangered, but that is about it. Farm animals aren't taking over the world any time soon.

@devils_advocate: allegedly and maybe. also vegans are against honey from bees, so using insects is ok.

@devils_advocate: I do not, nor have I ever, claimed to care about the lives of animals. In fact, in an earlier post I made I even stated as such. So trying to appeal to my empathy instead of the cold truth of the matter will get you nowhere.

So your 'solution' is that farmers, who have zero reason to keep these animals now, would keep a small amount of them... just cause? Yeah... no. I don't know if you know this, but pigs and cattle? Are expensive. Hay is expensive. So, no, that isn't happening. So, what happens is what I said happens. A few wealthy people might keep them for laughs, a family here or there that has the land for it might have one as a pet. Zoos will take in some of the more exotic members of the species to 'preserve', but congrats, you 'saved' them by causing the vast majority of their species to be wiped out.

Brought species that outnumbered humanity and put them on the endangered list and handed extinction to the rest. Hail the glorious savior upon his mound of corpses!

Correct, most humans are indeed far more intelligent than animals. But does intelligence really affect the value of a living creature's life?

Murdering a 3-year-old child would provide a one-way-ticket to jail just as easily as murdering an adult, even though adults are much more sapient than 3-year-old children. Heck, abortion rights are hotly debated against even though the baby is not even born yet, and makes farm animals look like Stephen Hawking.

You can say that the human child is expected to provide future benefit to society, but is that really the reason killing him is illegal? Or is it simply immoral to take a life so innocent? We can also imagine a disabled 3-year old child, unable to make intellectual progress. Guess what? Killing him is just. As. Illegal. First, doesn't that demonstrate great bias, given that some farm animals (pigs) are just as intelligent as 3-year old children? Doesn't that mean that the current legal and ethical systems do not consider intelligence to be a factor when determining the value of living creatures? And if that's the case, then why are we holding in captivity, torturing, and slaughtering living beings who experience sadness, fear, and pain just as well as any of us?

>does intelligence affect the value of a life

No, no life has any inherent value. The value of a life is based on the value that other beings assign to it. This is the unfortunate truth and there is no way around it

>Equating human life to animal life

Complete idiocy

>Claiming animals (beyond whales elephants basically) can feel the same breadth and width of emotion that humans are capable of

Complete idiocy

@decaf_wizard I'm more interested in seeing the movie showing the 'full life' of a cow that was so worth wiping out 99.99% of its race for.

Imagine all the wondrous written works that cow could produce! Of the machinery that could change the world! Of the new politics it could fashion to better the lives of its fellow cattle as it makes its way through a bad neighborhood and through college working 3 jobs as it fights the social-economic difficulties placed upon it from its bad starting position! What of the ART?! Think of the art! God, please let this movie be in black and white, and it has to be a silent film, I will allow for nothing else!

Oh... huh... wait... Cows... they... don't do any of the stuff... You mean.. they just stand around all day grazing, occasionally sleeping [they don't sleep as much as you think], getting pregnant, giving birth... more standing... more grazing... being patted by their evil human oppressors because, for some reason, we are pretending a gilded cage isn't still a cage and that said gilding was worth wiping out their entire species for,... more standing... more grazing.. occasional mooing... Yeah... that... that sounds like a... full life that was worth damning numerous species to extinction for.

Highly untrue. A Pescatarian diet in nearly all studies has proven to be healthier than veganism.

@wut: Inb4 feedlot argument, as if anybody actually thinks thats how farms should be run

This is also true

@devils_advocate: There is no objective morality.

Nothing is moral or immoral.

There is not inherent value to a human, an animal or anything. We are infinitesimally small specs of cosmic space dust nothing more.

It is through wisdom that we can have an understanding of the world around us, it is through wisdom we can develop our subjective morality.

What is value you may ask? To get that answer you must first ask yourself who defines value.

The only things that have value are those things that beings with wisdom value.

but since value is subjective the next logical question is who get's to determine who is right? the bigger group with the sharpest weapons.

@decaf_wizard: Lol right? If you prefer the free-range cruelty free method be the standard, okay. I don't care, I won't stand in your way if you want to lead that crusade, but the sheer self-delusion of grandeur that is the belief that you are 'saving' farm animals by not eating them and encouraging others to not do so? Is ludicrous. The idea that its 'totes okay' to wipe out 99.99% so that 0.01% could live in gilded cages when more then that percentage already live in same, or better, environments? Blows my mind that someone would drink that much of the kool-aid.

1. Not healthy

2. I need energy

3. It's in our nature - hunt and gathering you know. We are predators and herbivore both but predators at first.

4. Denying point 3 is a religion, religion is a hypocricy and I hate hypocricy.

They taste delicious.

Because I don't hate myself.

+1

Well, there are different levels of vegan. I'm not vegan at all, actually, I am vegetarian, and I recognize insects as a lesser form of life. If you disagree with vegans' position on insects, that's fine, I disagree too, but most other things brought up by vegans simply cannot be argued against.

Thing is, I am arguing that humans assign too little value to animal life. White people assigned little value to black people 2 centuries ago, but human ideals and ethics have progressed and evolved throughout the years, and we currently realize that black people have just as many rights as any of us, and their lives are every bit as valuable. Humans assign little value to animals right now, but hopefully, in time, they will also realize that animals' lives are indeed valuable, with the only differences being intelligence (which is irrelevant as you agreed), visual appearance and language (both of which aren't a legitimate cause for discrimination in modern society). You're basically saying that we shouldn't consider animal lives valuable because we don't assign value to animal lives. That's my point. We should.

And yes, animals are pretty similar to humans when it comes to emotion, they simply cannot communicate it through the same language we do. Take my cat, for example.

• Anger/revenge - he expressed anger by shitting on my bed after getting punished for scratching furniture
• Disgust - he demonstrates disgust by refusing to excrete in a litter box where another cat already went
• Fear - he anticipates it when we are about to go for a medical check, and starts shivering in fear even before leaving the house to the car
• Jealousy- he is jealous of the other cat for taking up his owner's attention, and keeps attacking him. When his owners are nearby, he's the best cat ever

You get the point.

Pigs are actually a lot smarter than cats/dogs, and there are multiple videos of cattle unsuccessfully trying to escape moments before their slaughter. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/cow-escape-poland-island-dies_us_5a9195b2e4b01e9e56bc3b05 In this case, the cow actually managed to escape, swam away to an island, evaded capture for weeks, but died of stress when she finally got recaptured. Her will to live was pretty strong if you ask me.

Look at what I said above. The white people determined that black people were meant for slavery a couple centuries ago, and use their sharp weapons to enslave them. That doesn't make it right, does it? People now can be wrong in assigning value, just like they were wrong then.

There are currently about 70 billion farm animals getting artificially produced and slaughtered each year. We have two options. Either

1. Stop breeding so much, decrease that number to about a billion, and continue using that amount for animal products (those animal products will now have very high demand). The purpose of this method is to maintain the cattle species.
2. Stop breeding altogether, and let the cattle species go practically extinct. Never being born is better than having a life of captivity, torture, and slaughter as far as I'm concerned.

I'd personally go with the second method because it eliminates all of this cruelty, but both methods prevent at least 99% of the slaughter. And you can help implement those methods by becoming vegan, or at least vegetarian. You pretty much stated that you don't give a **** about animal life, and to see animals as food even before they become it is extremely rare among the meat-eater population.

Cause I don't have too. Give me a Big blue cheese bacon burger with hot sauce!! Gone baby gone.

Cause meat tastes good.

@jagernutt: You're a mind reader.