Whoa there... No one is attacking you or your creed @typo_tilly .
The thread started with me sharing a poem, written in the style of Roald Dahl's Revolting nursery rhymes. Baa Baa Black Sheep was turned into Oink Oink Pink Pig. The pig kills everyone apart from the boy. He cunningly disguises himself as a sheep... and still gets roasted.
@alnair , a vegan, was horrified I was teaching this. Not because of boys shooting things, but portraying the love of meat as the norm. It started a mass debate. 12 pages long. @alnair was pretty patient with a lot of meat eaters blundering into bad jokes involving eating animals. Which he basically considered an insult in the same vain that you can insult someone's religious beliefs. Apologies were made on both sides. The debate raged from climate issues, what a vegan could eat, tribes of people who eat only meat. Teeth. The need for vegan Ice-cream / chocolate (vegans have it tough!) Health. Lifestyle choices.
In the end. It just boiled down to personal choice. A vegan cannot stop the death of animals eaten, or even the coincidental deaths of other living things simply caused by the big footprint of any humans habitation (loss of habitat for animals to grow crops etc)
However a meat eater is careless if he does not know his effect on the planet, where his food comes from and the effect on his health. (Something vegans are pretty much on the ball with)
I tried some vegan options (after a conversation that they can be shunned as soon as the words 'vegan option' is labelled on the food) and @BelgarathMTH started a vegan diet to improve his health... hey how about an update. Are things still going good?
@alnair left. A whole was ripped into the vegan side. Perhaps if you can master your anger you can take leadership of the green side in his absence?
@typo_tilly tbh honest I don't really see many people here disparaging vegans in general, just those who are very loud and in your face about it. I'm sure the situations you referenced about people bringing up your lack of meat-eating then getting defensive are very frustrating (and probably fairly common), but I don't know why that is directed at anyone in this thread. Also I don't see many people saying that vegans are hypocrites. I know that I said quite the opposite.
@typo_tilly Why don't you look at your own posts and tell me who's defensive or attacking. Hint: You come across as very defensive and someone might even thing verging on attacks. I know full well what constitutes an argument and how to use a dictionary. I don't need you to tell me that.
Hell, I even tried a vegan diet for about a month.
Yeah... It did not help that I missed the whole main point of my last post in saying...
It is okay to disagree on this. Feel free to pursue what you feel is right. It is a personal choice. No one should feel bad / be attacked / or be disowned by their lifestyle choices.
...
Works for a lot of things not just diets.
@mlnevese ... A lot worse has been stated earlier in this thread. The participants have all managed to be friendly and cordial to each other in the end.
I've been kind of dreading getting tagged back into this thread, and wondering if it would happen. I thought I was going to escape commenting here again. I guess I still could, but this issue is important to a lot of people, I like to be honest, and I consider a lot of the people here to be friends. Maybe sharing my experience will add something productive to the dialogue.
I'm sorry to admit that I have "fallen off the wagon" with my attempt to become a vegan. It started as a slippery slope. The price of soy milk in my area has risen to roughly twice the price of cow's milk. I decided that I just couldn't afford that on my budget, so I started allowing myself to buy and consume cow's milk again, even though I know how those cows are treated and how much they suffer. My guilt is amplified by the fact that when I first started, I argued in this thread that the soy milk and other expensive vegan products were affordable. I think I was in denial.
After the milk, I started allowing myself to use tuna in my veggie dishes. Alnair had me read several articles about the nervous system of fishes, and that they do feel pain and can suffer. But I thought after some time, surely the brains of fishes don't allow them to suffer on the same level of magnitude as a mammal.
From there, it was a gradual breakdown into just eating whatever again. Within a couple of months, I was back to my old habits.
So, what sorts of results did I get from my experiment?
The main reason I started, other than the carnivore's guilt, was to see how it would affect my health. The bottom line is that it seemed to help, but only a little. There was no significant weight loss, because I ate too many peanut products and cereals. It is definitely a myth that you go hungry or are in any way nutritionally deprived on a vegan diet. Getting enough calories and feeling full and satisfied was absolutely no problem. It was easy to eat too much and stay fat.
I think my digestion and elimination were easier and better. The vegan diet is great for the digestive system. My triglycerides may have gone down, but I never got the blood work to be sure about that. I know that eating huge, greasy non-vegan meals often makes me feel bloated, gassy, and nauseous for up to twelve hours after, and all those symptoms of reflux, heartburn, and indigestion went away with a vegan diet.
So why didn't I stay on it? Well, for one, there is just no cultural support for it. The anti-vegan pressure was overwhelming. Trying to eat in restaurants turned from a pleasant experience with friends into a nightmare of looking at all the food I couldn't eat. What was I supposed to wear? I just never even tried to live without leather belts and shoes. I already owned leather furniture and had leather car seats. Animal products are *everywhere*.
Then there was the phenomenon that @typo_tilly is talking about. People who are not vegans tended to have an extremely negative emotional reaction to my making that choice. It was as though their carnivorism was a religion, and I had joined an evil cult. I was often treated in discussions as though I were a member of a terrorist group. That was after *they* started the discussion. I would only begin to state my reasons for being vegan when asked. I would calmly present the reasons point by point, and the calmer and more reasonable I was, the more emotionally upset they would become. They would often resort to ad hominem argumentation, calling me names, questioning my sanity, and attacking my character as though I were doing something bad or morally wrong by not eating the same things they were eating.
It was very surprising to me how normally friendly, cheerful, helpful, polite, kind people, could suddenly turn vicious in their attacks over this issue. Add to the old advice about polite company and parties, "Never discuss politics and religion -- or veganism". Except with veganism, the "polite company" often starts verbally attacking you because they notice what you're not eating.
I'm glad I tried it. It gave me new insights into human nature, and showed me another way to live. I'm embarrassed that I couldn't make it. I still think it's the most enlightened and unselfish choice. I especially didn't want to tell Alnair that I couldn't do it long term. But I now admire very much people who can. It takes amazing willpower, personal conviction, honesty, and strong character.
@BelgarathMTH Maybe it's different for you, but I can share some points from my experiment:
1) Milk is not an essential product
2) "Carnivore's guilt" is not a thing, at least not for me
3) There are "traps" in the vegan diet, like peanuts and olives, that are very fatty. Beans on the other hand are brilliant. I'm still making bean chili over beef even though I abandoned the vegan diet. I agree on feeling a lot less bloated etc.
4) I agree on the restaurants, but I shrugged it off by not asking if the vegetarian dishes were vegan or not, lol
5) I never experienced the sort of negativity you describe. Perhaps you need better company?
In conclusion I also decided I can't make it. It simply wasn't worth it for me, but I'm glad I learned lots of new things, like making great sallads and the lovely bean chili.
Amazing story @BelgarathMTH ! I only thought you stopped eating meat not go the whole shebang! Good on you for following your convictions! And why worry you have fell off the wagon? Unlike alcohol and smoking, you really are not putting anyone at risk. That you followed through and took action is something to derive pride from. I'm proud of you and refuse to apologise for summoning you back here. I think @typo_tilly feels similarly to some of the points made about how others treat vegans.
I have made much, much smaller steps. I believe more in sustainability and our place within the life cycle. So... I do not dismiss the vegan option. In fact sometimes it is the best option available! I have become a big fan of meaty vegetables. Mushrooms, aubergine, marrow, that can replace meat.
I am also holidaying at a free range farm this year. As well as learning and helping to run the farm, we will be eating the produce. Okay. This may make a vegan wince. But at least, I know exactly where my food is coming from. My daughter will learn too. I am always a big fan of education!
If I do find myself in conversation with a vegan I will change the tack and talk about the tastiest meal they have had. Sometimes, just as with religion, people suddenly see the vegan and not the person.
*sigh* I eat meat. I don't have a problem with anybody being vegan though. It's not my problem, and of you want to get of an especially stylish pair of leather shoes pm me:P I can't say I'm a fan of the way meat is raised though, but I am in no position to make any change. I guess I could "do my part" but most people won't, so F it. Not eating meat won't change the way the animals a raised anyway. It just get one farm at a time closed when the demand goes down, and puts a lot of people through a unhappy time.
I don't really have a problem with killing animals to eat(though killing for sport is certainly wrong. I am definitely an animal person.) as long as it's not wasteful(the meat industry really isn't. We pretty much use the whole animal, as far as I know.) It's just the way the world is. Things kill to survive. It's not perfect, but we live in a broken world.
But like I said, if you think you're making the world a better place, then kudos to you for you discipline. Your not really hurting anyone. (Except the meat farmer.... I think he'll be ok).
Anyone who chooses a vegan diet out of guilt is making their choice for the wrong reason. Does a cougar feel guilt after catching a deer for dinner? No, of course not, and neither should we even if we are only picking out some select choices at the butcher. My advice to anyone feeling guilty over how food animals are treated needs to address *why* they are feeling guilty since they are not the person who might be mistreating the animals. The only way to avoid any guilt over using or consuming products which might have been made by mistreating either animals or humans (yes, technically humans are animals even though we shouldn't act like animals) would be to move out into the country and make all of your own clothes and grow your own food in a garden.
My advice to anyone who is getting upset at those who are vegan would be to calm down and quit worrying about other people's choices.
I've been away from the forum mainly because of a new job, and I still don't have a lot of spare time, so I won't be able to answer to all of the posts I've missed in these last few months.
On the plus side though, I can see that most of the remarks I would like to answer to are the usual run-of-the-mill tritenesses about veganism, ranging from "everybody has to kill to survive" (then I must have died 8 and a half years ago without noticing) to "it's not fault of the consumers if animals are mistreated" (but paying someone else to do it on their behalf is)... that's just to mention the latest ones.
Fortunately, I've long since found a very useful help in answering this kind of things, quite literally a sidekick:
Really, just have a look at his (usually pretty amusing too) drawings and you will easily understand what would take thousands of words on my part to express...
I could remove some of my very early posts in this thread. But I think they are not inflammatory when viewed from my previous position of ignorance. Plus the apologies afterwards would not make any sense. @alnair kept a cool head and earned lots of respect! It was after all a simple poem about a pig that started this 12 page thread epic!
Animals , like plants , are organic robots : the sole difference is that they have a nerve system in common that enables them animation. The sole living things on this planet are us as far as I have experienced in 28 years , if that is not clear for you too. Who states it otherwise will be just too arrogant ; I mean come on , are cats and dogs or cows this stupid that in 1 million years they are still licking the pavement and you building scrapers ? No , because they don't have an "independent decision system". They are all programatically operating , and they can not act independent of what is ongoing, so don't compare yourselves to plants or animals. Not that it's an insult to you , it certainly is not if you're doing the comparison , but it will be an insult to them
And , apart from the robots of the planet , even if you punch a wall without a reason , you are likely to get harmed ( which I see no possible reason to punch a wall with bare fists now ). So , killing animals is the same thing as killing plants if you are killing them out of a possible reason you can give. This planet needs workers that will not think about Hawaii or Siberia every gddamn 5 minutes. Would that be you ? I don't think so.
I like my planet and the robots that occupy it , our sun is a little hot but it's good too. Do not create fantasies over them , just let it go. Eating robots are fine , as long as you keep your sanity intact and that is easy by doing nothing unreasonable. I mean what am I going to eat ? No plants , no animals ? And I think you have heard of a certain plant that also digests animated robots , what are they called ,? venus plants ? Now the nature is giving you some lessons there...
And no , animals or plants don't need you , so don't bother acting like a "mother of robots" and forcing yourself emotions. They can survive in environments your city body probably would halt. What others are doing is none of my concern , too.
And about the subject , I remembered , I don't think dinosaurs are extinct because of a starship or something such shielded it could bypass mass incineration , falling down or something. They are probably the ancient 'gold' , no one would care about you unless you had a T-Rex teeth as a necklace ? Now that is what I'm talking about when I say "unreasonable". Because survival of honesty & peace of mind is not.
Comments
Because @demented's comment was not in any way sarcastic or a joke at all.
You would eat a mummie!
Nice jerky!
The thread started with me sharing a poem, written in the style of Roald Dahl's Revolting nursery rhymes. Baa Baa Black Sheep was turned into Oink Oink Pink Pig. The pig kills everyone apart from the boy. He cunningly disguises himself as a sheep... and still gets roasted.
@alnair , a vegan, was horrified I was teaching this. Not because of boys shooting things, but portraying the love of meat as the norm. It started a mass debate. 12 pages long. @alnair was pretty patient with a lot of meat eaters blundering into bad jokes involving eating animals. Which he basically considered an insult in the same vain that you can insult someone's religious beliefs. Apologies were made on both sides. The debate raged from climate issues, what a vegan could eat, tribes of people who eat only meat. Teeth. The need for vegan Ice-cream / chocolate (vegans have it tough!) Health. Lifestyle choices.
In the end. It just boiled down to personal choice. A vegan cannot stop the death of animals eaten, or even the coincidental deaths of other living things simply caused by the big footprint of any humans habitation (loss of habitat for animals to grow crops etc)
However a meat eater is careless if he does not know his effect on the planet, where his food comes from and the effect on his health. (Something vegans are pretty much on the ball with)
I tried some vegan options (after a conversation that they can be shunned as soon as the words 'vegan option' is labelled on the food) and @BelgarathMTH started a vegan diet to improve his health... hey how about an update. Are things still going good?
@alnair left. A whole was ripped into the vegan side. Perhaps if you can master your anger you can take leadership of the green side in his absence?
Also I don't see many people saying that vegans are hypocrites. I know that I said quite the opposite.
Hell, I even tried a vegan diet for about a month.
It is okay to disagree on this. Feel free to pursue what you feel is right. It is a personal choice. No one should feel bad / be attacked / or be disowned by their lifestyle choices.
...
Works for a lot of things not just diets.
@mlnevese ... A lot worse has been stated earlier in this thread. The participants have all managed to be friendly and cordial to each other in the end.
How do you kill a vegetarian vampire?
With a steak to the heart
Dad jokes! They're everywhere!
I'm sorry to admit that I have "fallen off the wagon" with my attempt to become a vegan. It started as a slippery slope. The price of soy milk in my area has risen to roughly twice the price of cow's milk. I decided that I just couldn't afford that on my budget, so I started allowing myself to buy and consume cow's milk again, even though I know how those cows are treated and how much they suffer. My guilt is amplified by the fact that when I first started, I argued in this thread that the soy milk and other expensive vegan products were affordable. I think I was in denial.
After the milk, I started allowing myself to use tuna in my veggie dishes. Alnair had me read several articles about the nervous system of fishes, and that they do feel pain and can suffer. But I thought after some time, surely the brains of fishes don't allow them to suffer on the same level of magnitude as a mammal.
From there, it was a gradual breakdown into just eating whatever again. Within a couple of months, I was back to my old habits.
So, what sorts of results did I get from my experiment?
The main reason I started, other than the carnivore's guilt, was to see how it would affect my health. The bottom line is that it seemed to help, but only a little. There was no significant weight loss, because I ate too many peanut products and cereals. It is definitely a myth that you go hungry or are in any way nutritionally deprived on a vegan diet. Getting enough calories and feeling full and satisfied was absolutely no problem. It was easy to eat too much and stay fat.
I think my digestion and elimination were easier and better. The vegan diet is great for the digestive system. My triglycerides may have gone down, but I never got the blood work to be sure about that. I know that eating huge, greasy non-vegan meals often makes me feel bloated, gassy, and nauseous for up to twelve hours after, and all those symptoms of reflux, heartburn, and indigestion went away with a vegan diet.
So why didn't I stay on it? Well, for one, there is just no cultural support for it. The anti-vegan pressure was overwhelming. Trying to eat in restaurants turned from a pleasant experience with friends into a nightmare of looking at all the food I couldn't eat. What was I supposed to wear? I just never even tried to live without leather belts and shoes. I already owned leather furniture and had leather car seats. Animal products are *everywhere*.
Then there was the phenomenon that @typo_tilly is talking about. People who are not vegans tended to have an extremely negative emotional reaction to my making that choice. It was as though their carnivorism was a religion, and I had joined an evil cult. I was often treated in discussions as though I were a member of a terrorist group. That was after *they* started the discussion. I would only begin to state my reasons for being vegan when asked. I would calmly present the reasons point by point, and the calmer and more reasonable I was, the more emotionally upset they would become. They would often resort to ad hominem argumentation, calling me names, questioning my sanity, and attacking my character as though I were doing something bad or morally wrong by not eating the same things they were eating.
It was very surprising to me how normally friendly, cheerful, helpful, polite, kind people, could suddenly turn vicious in their attacks over this issue. Add to the old advice about polite company and parties, "Never discuss politics and religion -- or veganism". Except with veganism, the "polite company" often starts verbally attacking you because they notice what you're not eating.
I'm glad I tried it. It gave me new insights into human nature, and showed me another way to live. I'm embarrassed that I couldn't make it. I still think it's the most enlightened and unselfish choice. I especially didn't want to tell Alnair that I couldn't do it long term. But I now admire very much people who can. It takes amazing willpower, personal conviction, honesty, and strong character.
1) Milk is not an essential product
2) "Carnivore's guilt" is not a thing, at least not for me
3) There are "traps" in the vegan diet, like peanuts and olives, that are very fatty. Beans on the other hand are brilliant. I'm still making bean chili over beef even though I abandoned the vegan diet. I agree on feeling a lot less bloated etc.
4) I agree on the restaurants, but I shrugged it off by not asking if the vegetarian dishes were vegan or not, lol
5) I never experienced the sort of negativity you describe. Perhaps you need better company?
In conclusion I also decided I can't make it. It simply wasn't worth it for me, but I'm glad I learned lots of new things, like making great sallads and the lovely bean chili.
I have made much, much smaller steps. I believe more in sustainability and our place within the life cycle. So... I do not dismiss the vegan option. In fact sometimes it is the best option available! I have become a big fan of meaty vegetables. Mushrooms, aubergine, marrow, that can replace meat.
I am also holidaying at a free range farm this year. As well as learning and helping to run the farm, we will be eating the produce. Okay. This may make a vegan wince. But at least, I know exactly where my food is coming from. My daughter will learn too. I am always a big fan of education!
If I do find myself in conversation with a vegan I will change the tack and talk about the tastiest meal they have had. Sometimes, just as with religion, people suddenly see the vegan and not the person.
A small help... but maybe it'll catch on...
I eat meat. I don't have a problem with anybody being vegan though. It's not my problem, and of you want to get of an especially stylish pair of leather shoes pm me:P
I can't say I'm a fan of the way meat is raised though, but I am in no position to make any change. I guess I could "do my part" but most people won't, so F it. Not eating meat won't change the way the animals a raised anyway. It just get one farm at a time closed when the demand goes down, and puts a lot of people through a unhappy time.
I don't really have a problem with killing animals to eat(though killing for sport is certainly wrong. I am definitely an animal person.) as long as it's not wasteful(the meat industry really isn't. We pretty much use the whole animal, as far as I know.)
It's just the way the world is. Things kill to survive. It's not perfect, but we live in a broken world.
But like I said, if you think you're making the world a better place, then kudos to you for you discipline. Your not really hurting anyone. (Except the meat farmer.... I think he'll be ok).
My advice to anyone who is getting upset at those who are vegan would be to calm down and quit worrying about other people's choices.
I've been away from the forum mainly because of a new job, and I still don't have a lot of spare time, so I won't be able to answer to all of the posts I've missed in these last few months.
On the plus side though, I can see that most of the remarks I would like to answer to are the usual run-of-the-mill tritenesses about veganism, ranging from "everybody has to kill to survive" (then I must have died 8 and a half years ago without noticing) to "it's not fault of the consumers if animals are mistreated" (but paying someone else to do it on their behalf is)... that's just to mention the latest ones.
Fortunately, I've long since found a very useful help in answering this kind of things, quite literally a sidekick:
http://vegansidekick.com/
https://www.facebook.com/vegansidekick
https://twitter.com/vegansidekick
http://vegansidekick.tumblr.com/
Really, just have a look at his (usually pretty amusing too) drawings and you will easily understand what would take thousands of words on my part to express...
Cheers,
A.
I could remove some of my very early posts in this thread. But I think they are not inflammatory when viewed from my previous position of ignorance. Plus the apologies afterwards would not make any sense. @alnair kept a cool head and earned lots of respect! It was after all a simple poem about a pig that started this 12 page thread epic!
Congratulations on the new job @alnair !
Good to have you back!
And , apart from the robots of the planet , even if you punch a wall without a reason , you are likely to get harmed ( which I see no possible reason to punch a wall with bare fists now ). So , killing animals is the same thing as killing plants if you are killing them out of a possible reason you can give. This planet needs workers that will not think about Hawaii or Siberia every gddamn 5 minutes. Would that be you ? I don't think so.
I like my planet and the robots that occupy it , our sun is a little hot but it's good too. Do not create fantasies over them , just let it go. Eating robots are fine , as long as you keep your sanity intact and that is easy by doing nothing unreasonable. I mean what am I going to eat ? No plants , no animals ? And I think you have heard of a certain plant that also digests animated robots , what are they called ,? venus plants ? Now the nature is giving you some lessons there...
And no , animals or plants don't need you , so don't bother acting like a "mother of robots" and forcing yourself emotions. They can survive in environments your city body probably would halt. What others are doing is none of my concern , too.
And about the subject , I remembered , I don't think dinosaurs are extinct because of a starship or something such shielded it could bypass mass incineration , falling down or something. They are probably the ancient 'gold' , no one would care about you unless you had a T-Rex teeth as a necklace ? Now that is what I'm talking about when I say "unreasonable". Because survival of honesty & peace of mind is not.
Thank you.