Are you a vegan? If not, why not?

[Compassionist]

I was raised to be an omnivore. I first became a vegan on 1 August 2006 but I was unable to sustain it due to my ignorance. However, I became a vegan again in 2010 and again failed. Then I tried again from 4 January 2018. Apart from rare exceptions when I gave in to eating milk chocolate or dairy ice-cream or egg products, I have been managing to be a vegan. Are you a vegan? If not, why not? I really want to understand your position. Since there are Christians on this forum, please note: "Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food." - Genesis 1:29, The Bible (New International Version). Thank you.

[Compassionist]

My reason isn't on the list.

Because I do not believe that killing is always wrong.

I don't yet have a good argument that a mountain lion is permitted to eat a deer but I am not. Frankly I don't consider myself better than the mountain lion. We each simply get what we get. If he can make a kill, then he gains a meal, and if I can capture, tend, breed and farm (really this is how it ought to be done) then I gain many meals. If someone gives me meals in exchange for money I have fairly earned, it's less than ideal but I still see nothing in this that the mountain lion is not allowed to do.

I only wish we lived in a less cutthroat efficiency-driven business world so it wouldn't be absolutely necessary to abuse animals so horribly when farming them for food. Yes, I have seen the documentary Earthlings, and I believe it was very informative.

Opinion: In our world, the business simply cannot spare a penny to make an animal more comfortable or happy, because someone else will forgo that penny and offer the consumer a product that costs a penny less, thus winning the day on the free market. His business will flourish and his competitor will languish, and all regulation does is send people mixed messages while advantaging those who cozy up to officials and gain exception, or manage to skirt or cheat the rules. It also builds a culture of falsehoods and lies, since you can't know whether that "cruelty free" label was bought and paid for, or whether some magnanimous official simply decided that it passed muster.

I tried to be vegetarian for a while and it certainly didn't impact my health positively. I was deficient in B-complex vitamins despite supplementing.

https://www.cleaneatingkitchen.com/vega ... rs-health/

I don't think (opinion) vegan diets are always the healthier choice and to me (opinion) it's not a good idea to completely ignore what your body is telling you; if you make a change and start to feel cruddy, perhaps (opinion) you should reverse that change. I lasted almost three years, and I still had people telling me that I was feeling that way because I had yet to fully adjust to the diet, even though I was getting worse, not better.

That's aside from the opinion that a plant-based diet doesn't even cause less death than a diet of grass-fed beef. Some people believe (opinion) that more mice die under the plough for your salad than cows died for my hamburger.

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pr ... sm/4660498

Take the example of what happens when you grow grains or pulses. In all the towns around Australia that are wheat producing towns or centres, on average about every five years they have a mouse plague. And these mice get killed in the millions and millions, mass slaughtered in horrible ways that cause their deaths to be really unpleasant. And that is going into producing grains. Some of those grains are fed to cattle, but they are also the core of the diets for a lot of people who don't want to eat any meat.

There are opinions that being vegan doesn't even reduce animal death, and I can't even find a good argument that killing animals is wrong in the first place. I know how that sounds, but the alternative (to me, just my opinion) sounds just as bad: It's alright for animals to die so that I may eat, as long as I do not eat their corpses.

To me (opinion) the idea that you can kill them as long as you don't eat them sounds lawyeristic (in other words, losing all sight of what you're doing/causing and instead focusing on what technically counts as what, or focusing on absolution for the act itself).

Being a vegan requires you to be more vigilant about ensuring that you are getting all the nutrients. For example, I get my vitamin B12 from nutritional yeast as you can't get that from plants. Yes, we evolved to be omnivores but we are not obligate omnivores the way lions are obligate carnivores. Please see https://www.carnismdebunked.com Thank you.

[Purple Knight]

Being a vegan requires you to be more vigilant about ensuring that you are getting all the nutrients. For example, I get my vitamin B12 from nutritional yeast as you can't get that from plants. Yes, we evolved to be omnivores but we are not obligate omnivores the way lions are obligate carnivores. Please see https://www.carnismdebunked.com Thank you.

I am not the only one who has been vigilant and still failed. Not everyone has the ability to absorb B12 from supplements.

So what of the mice, then? More mice are crushed under the plough for equal calories of grain or vegetables, than cows die for a hamburger.

Do the mice not matter? Or is it fine that we kill them so that we may eat as long as we waste their corpses rather than consume them?

[Compassionist]

Being a vegan requires you to be more vigilant about ensuring that you are getting all the nutrients. For example, I get my vitamin B12 from nutritional yeast as you can't get that from plants. Yes, we evolved to be omnivores but we are not obligate omnivores the way lions are obligate carnivores. Please see https://www.carnismdebunked.com Thank you.

I am not the only one who has been vigilant and still failed. Not everyone has the ability to absorb B12 from supplements.

So what of the mice, then? More mice are crushed under the plough for equal calories of grain or vegetables, than cows die for a hamburger.

Do the mice not matter? Or is it fine that we kill them so that we may eat as long as we waste their corpses rather than consume them?

Yes, not everyone has the ability to absorb B12. I didn't say that veganism was perfect. We don't live in a perfect reality. We evolved in a reality which doesn't care about us. Most of the universe is devoid of life and is hostile to life. Mice do matter. Ideally, we should genetically engineer all living things to be able to photosynthesise like plants so we wouldn't need to eat any other living thing. Our technology is not there yet but one day we may be able to do that.

[2ndRateMind]

I am not a vegan. And I hope I never will be. So far as human biology is concerned, we evolved as omnivores, and I think it sensible on health grounds to go with what our genetic inheritance tells us.

Secondly, so far as food production and agriculture are concerned, by far the most efficient way to produce the calories and nutrients we require is by mixed arable farming, involving some livestock and some grain and some vegetables. And rotating between them appropriately. So the livestock grazes and manures the land, ready for the top of the soil fed grain, and subsequently the deeper rooted vegetables. And then it's time for the livestock again. This method avoids the need for chemical fertilisers, keeps the soil in good heart, and provides habitats not only for the intended production, but also for a wide variety of wild life, as well.

Nothing irritates me more than a monoculture vegan population, telling us they are moral because they do not mistreat animals, when those animals would never, under their system, have been born at all, seen a sunrise, or known the satisfaction of a full belly.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Tcg]

Nothing irritates me more than a monoculture vegan population, telling us they are moral because they do not mistreat animals, when those animals would never, under their system, have been born at all, seen a sunrise, or known the satisfaction of a full belly.

The idea that all farm animals have seen a sunrise doesn't match reality:



We are left to determine if a horrible existence is better or worse than no existence. Whatever the outcome of that determination, vegans are certainly not responsible for the horrible living condition pictured above.


Tcg

[2ndRateMind]

Nothing irritates me more than a monoculture vegan population, telling us they are moral because they do not mistreat animals, when those animals would never, under their system, have been born at all, seen a sunrise, or known the satisfaction of a full belly.

We are left to determine if a horrible existence is better or worse than no existence. Whatever the outcome of that determination, vegans are certainly not responsible for the horrible living condition pictured above.


Tcg

Indeed, so. But that is argument about the inhumane treatment of farm animals (which I detest as much as any vegan), rather than whether those animals should, or should not, have been born and achieved consciousness, at all.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Purple Knight]

The idea that all farm animals have seen a sunrise doesn't match reality:



We are left to determine if a horrible existence is better or worse than no existence. Whatever the outcome of that determination, vegans are certainly not responsible for the horrible living condition pictured above.

The fact that animals are mass-produced and live in horrible conditions is not so much of an argument against eating meat as it is an argument against overpopulation.

There would be no need for this if there weren't billions of unnecessary human mouths to feed.

Those chickens don't even show any major signs of distress. Not that there aren't examples of that; there are. They die horribly, choked to death in foam, if they suspect an avian influenza infection. Also watch the documentary Earthlings if you have a particularly strong stomach.

But note that every example of animal cruelty is caused not by humans eating meat, but by humans overrunning the planet like the filthy vermin they are.

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 37 by Purple Knight]

I cannot believe that God thinks there is any such thing as 'unnecessary' life, be that human, animal, or plant. Rather, it is up to us humans to modify and adapt our environment such that we may grace the world within it's ecological carrying capacity, all while leaving sufficient space for wilderness and wild life.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Purple Knight]

[Replying to post 37 by Purple Knight]

I cannot believe that God thinks there is any such thing as 'unnecessary' life, be that human, animal, or plant. Rather, it is up to us humans to modify and adapt our environment such that we may grace the world within it's ecological carrying capacity, all while leaving sufficient space for wilderness and wild life.

Best wishes, 2RM.

I simply meant that when people become so numerous that they can no longer leave space for wilderness and wildlife, no matter the ingenuity of the modifications to help them produce enough food, then there are excess humans - humans in excess of what is necessary.

If you believe in souls, fine. Let that necessary soul wait in line just a little longer. He can be born, just not right now. We're full up at the moment.

[Clownboat]

Being a vegan requires you to be more vigilant about ensuring that you are getting all the nutrients. For example, I get my vitamin B12 from nutritional yeast as you can't get that from plants. Yes, we evolved to be omnivores but we are not obligate omnivores the way lions are obligate carnivores. Please see https://www.carnismdebunked.com Thank you.

I am not the only one who has been vigilant and still failed. Not everyone has the ability to absorb B12 from supplements.

So what of the mice, then? More mice are crushed under the plough for equal calories of grain or vegetables, than cows die for a hamburger.

Do the mice not matter? Or is it fine that we kill them so that we may eat as long as we waste their corpses rather than consume them?

Yes, not everyone has the ability to absorb B12. I didn't say that veganism was perfect. We don't live in a perfect reality. We evolved in a reality which doesn't care about us. Most of the universe is devoid of life and is hostile to life. Mice do matter. Ideally, we should genetically engineer all living things to be able to photosynthesise like plants so we wouldn't need to eat any other living thing. Our technology is not there yet but one day we may be able to do that.

Genetically modify ourselves to become what we are not in order to escape what we are?

Since we cannot photosynthesise, will you stop eating grains and vegetables in order to save the mice?

Perhaps being vegan is a bit like sexuality? A bit fluid. Where one person is a vegan that makes exceptions when it comes to mice, and another person is a vegan, but makes exceptions that include more animals (maybe up to cows). The current definition of vegan would need to change though if this were the case.