From what I’ve heard, the fact that yeast is “alive” is enough to bother some of the more extreme vegans. (“extreme vegans”, hehe)
Plants are technically alive too. Soon extreme vegans will be against the use of antibiotics.
After all, being right is all that counts.
Oh, darn it, I’m mocking veganism now. Don’t worry vegetarians. I won’t mock you.
I’d never mock a vegetarian. My daughter and her husband are vegetarians and if someone held a gun to my head I could easily become vegetarian.
But vegans? Heh. I’ve met one (just recently) and I totally don’t get it. If I learned a vegan was going to be present for a meal I was preparing, I’d gently suggest they might want to skip the meal.
The Buddhist in question is Eric Ripert, chef at Le Bernadine. He has published many vegetarian cookbooks. My understanding was he ate seafood but not meat, but I could certainly be wrong. He does put a lot of effort into promoting vegetable consumption.
I appreciate that you demonstrated exactly what I described in my post. This is how you take them down a peg morally so that you achieve (a perception of) moral superiority.
The fact that you made it so black and white is telling. You didn’t even say most, you said they all think this way. Which is necessary for your attempt to discredit them – none of them are genuinely motivated by morally decisions, they’re all corrupt and evil and just trying to inflict their will on you for evil reasons. Therefore no nuance or careful evaluation of a moral position is necessary - you are downright righteous and heroic for resisting their evil attempts to moralize and control you.
Your entire view on this is simply implausible. It is implausible to think that among millions of people who all have varying values and reasons for what they’re doing, none of them are genuinely motivated by concerns for animal cruelty or the impact on the environment. If a view cannot even pass a plausibility test, then your motivation for believing it is likely strong.
Do mushrooms bother them, too? This is something I have never come across. I mean, I suppose there is someone out there somewhere who thinks this, but I’m finding it hard to believe that it has any traction beyond somebody’s odd idiosyncrasy.
Sangria, also, though, like other wines and beers, may or may not be vegan not just only based on obvious ingredients like honey, but also because they may filtered/fined with animal-derived products like isinglass or gelatin.
Define “better for the world.”
Most vegetarians/vegans I have met do it because they do not want animals to die. But, the reality is quite different.
Ask any farmer about the apocalypse that happens when harvesting. All sorts of animals die for your salad. Lots and lots of them.
The usual response is that you have to grow grain to feed cattle and so more animals die for that steak (and, of course, the cow). Which is a fair point.
But make no mistake that you (general “you”) existing are a drain on the environment. Even if you are a vegan you are killing loads of animals to exist and only feel better because it is at some remove…the salad is not an animal so now that salad is “ok.”. Maybe if you live on some farm where you grow all your own food and harvest by hand you can say you are living those ideals.
Mostly it is willful ignorance.
I’ve never been a vegan or vegetarian, but the only ad campaigns I remember that tried to mock or apply peer pressure to modify their diets were for beef** and cheese***.
Similar ads for milk were more focused on the purported nutritional benefits of the food (“I’m drinking milk”).
** “Real Food for Real People”.
*** “Bob Dole thinks he’s a doofus”. Dole portrayed himself in the ad, speaking in his trademark third-person style, about a ficticious politician who’d publicly turned down a cheese snack on the campaign trail.
Less suffering created, less damage to the environment.
I’ve encountered this argument before and it’s a pretty poor one. Yes, animals die as part of modern agriculture. It’s unavoidable. However, cows take 20 calories of feed to generate 1 calorie worth of beef. 20 times as much crops are harvested to feed a cow to feed you beef. If you eat the crop directly instead of the cow, right there there’s a 95% reduction in whatever animals die as part of the agricultural process. This, of course, doesn’t even address the animal you’re eating, which if course makes it worse.
Okay, so you’re also doing another thing I already pointed out and pre-addressed:
Imagine there was someone who drove a Hummer and modified it to coal roll people. Hell, let’s say on weekends they take used motor oil and pour it on ducks. They hurt the environment every way they can and they get a thrill out of it.
On the other hand, we have someone who takes mass transit as much as they can, walks and bikes where they can, buys second-hand clothes, attempts to consume less, and otherwise tries to minimize their impact on the environment.
Well, that second person takes the bus. And that bus uses gas. And that gas hurts the Earth. So really, their delusion that they’re helping the environment is just ignorance. They’re not any better than the coal rolling hummer driver, because they still hurt the Earth. They’re willfully ignorant of their negative impact on the Earth.
That’s what your argument looks like. Just by existing, no one is better than anyone else. Sure, the vegan may kill 95%+ less animals, but their existence results in animal deaths, so their choices are useless. They’re just as bad as anyone else. If they’re not perfect, everything they do is worthless. The only way they can possibly actually make a moral choice to be better for animals or for the environment is to kill themselves, otherwise they’re exactly equal to the Hummer guy that pours oil on ducks.
And really, what do you expect them to do? So they do what they can and minimize their animal product intake, but even that’s imperfect and there’s unavoidable animal harm that comes from that. Is killing themselves the only option that someone can take to reduce their damage to the environment (or creating the suffering of animals) in your view? Is a hypothetical 99.9999999999999% reduction in their impact useless?
This, too, is exactly in line with how I described the psychological process of attacks on vegetarians and vegans - reducing the cognitive dissonance of seeing someone actually doing the sort of things we all should be doing but don’t want to by knocking them down to our level. In your case, it’s “well they still cause animal deaths, so they’re no different from me”
Vegetarians/Vegans (I think most people don’t really know or make a distinction) earned a reputation as overbearingly preachy, dishonest, self-righteous and unrealistic (cats get sick and die on a diet of vegetables, no matter how hard one insists that vegetarianism is healthy"). So they get made fun of sometimes.
Sure, most don’t bother other people but that’s just it; you never hear from the ones that don’t bother people, so nobody notices them. It’s one of the most common reasons why all sorts of groups end up with a bad reputation; it’s always the obnoxious people who stand out.
This is a fantastic trip down guilt and projection.
This is total bullshit. My vegetarian friends tease me about being an obligate carnivore, so I’m not trying to coerce anyone else to stop eating meat. But I’ve talked to a huge number of vegetarians and vegans about their dietary choices. And they do it for some combination of
- their own health
- their religious or cultural practices
- they don’t like the idea of directly causing suffering, and don’t want animals tortured or killed on their behalf
- they are squeamish about eating dead animals, especially ones that look like dead animals. (I’ve known people who would eat hamburger, but not a whole fish.)
- they are concerned with the environmental impact of producing meat
- the convenience of accommodating a partner, eyc , who doesn’t eat meat.
- they don’t enjoy eating meat
I’ve yet to meet a vegetarian who was trying to coerce anyone. And i know a LOT of vegetarians and vegans.
In my case I’m a cashier at a grocery store and I can see what they purchase to eat. But most people wouldn’t know if the vegetarian didn’t volunteer the information.
Once in awhile I have a opportunity to ask them how they cook/use what they buy. Not because I’m a vegetarian. It’s because I like good food and do a lot of my own cooking. I’m often looking for new ideas so I don’t get bored with my own cooking.
I’ve yet to be preached at by a vegetarian while on the clock at my job.
There actually is kosher gelatin made from animals other than pig (cattle and sheep, mostly). It’s more expensive, of course. I don’t know if halal gelatin is available in the US but Muslims will use kosher products if they can’t find the halal variety. Every product that uses pork-containing gelatin has a kosher equivalent using non-pork-containing gelatin. It’s just not always easy to find.
That’s the assumption that vegetarians are vegetarians only for moral/ethical reasons.
Easily half the vegetarians I’ve known in my life were vegetarians simply because they did not like to eat meat. Including my mother-in-law. From a young age she simply didn’t like meat. People thought she was a bit nutty but put up with it. She wasn’t militant about it - if she found a crumb bacon in her beans she didn’t freak out - it was a personal preference. Like the way I don’t eat yogurt. I’m not militantly anti-yogurt, I just don’t like the taste/texture.
Others I’ve known have chosen vegetarianism for health reasons. Not that being vegetarian is automatically healthier, you have to do it right, but eating a plant-based diet has health benefits, particularly for certain types of medical conditions.
It can also be less expensive. Now that I’ve sorted out which legumes I’m allergic to and which I’m not it’s feasible for me to live as a vegetarian for a week or two when money is tight and still eat healthy. Plant protein is usually less expensive than animal protein. So there are people who are vegetarian due to poverty.
I’ve met people who are vegetarian because that’s they way the were raised. It’s simply how they’re used to eating.
The religions I’m familiar with that promote vegetarianism tend to frame it as a way to reduce suffering so that’s back to moral stances again. I can’t speak for other religions, but in Judaism maintaining a vegetarian kosher kitchen would be considerably less involved than maintaining one for both meat and dairy. It’s not required, but for some people eliminating the concern about keeping meat and dairy separate could either be to make their life easier or, again, due to poverty where maintaining two separate sets of kitchen equipment is cost prohibitive.
There’s also the matter of personal vs. public life. I know people who are vegetarian at home but less so when eating out in public, in restaurants, at family gatherings, etc. Since I don’t require moral purity in matters of diet I don’t consider them less vegetarian if they eat soup with a meat-based broth at a family reunion or while traveling a long distance. There are vegans who every so often will eat an egg or otherwise a bit of animal derived food to avoid B12 deficiency (the one I talked to insisted on an unfertilized egg from a free-range chicken under the rational that would never become anything other than an egg so he wasn’t taking a life in eating it). Whether or not I agree with a particular person’s stance or habits is irrelevant, it’s their body and they can choose what they do and don’t put into it, for whatever reasons they choose.
I have met far, far more meat-eaters who are pushy about their dietary choices than “militant vegetarians”.
To me they are very different. I know vegetarians and have no trouble cooking for them. I often prepare meals that are vegetarian and enjoy them.
I’ve only (knowingly) met one person who is a vegan. I wouldn’t attempt to cook for them, their standards are way too high and honestly I’m just not going to put the effort in to make a meal that meets their expectations.
That won’t tell you much. I’m an omnivore, but most of my trips to the grocery store don’t include any meat. Unless you remember all of your customers and what they buy every time they come in, but even then, it could be that they love meat so much that they get that from a premium butcher and only settle for grocery-store stuff for the sides. Alternately, you could have someone who is themself a vegetarian, but who still buys meat for other members of their household.
It’s really not all that hard to do, but you kind of have to have some experience/knowledge, I guess, to know some common snag points. Like sugar, for instance. Some is filtered with bone char. Or bread products – some may have milk and/or egg. My go-to is Indian recipes or even Middle Eastern mezes, and I just sub out ghee for oil if need be (lots of Indian recipes don’t even have ghee.) Or hell, simple Italian dishes; just don’t finish them with cheese. It’s a fun challenge if you’ve never done it before, and I could happily eat vegan for a spell before starting to crave milk products. (And this is coming from someone with two giant pork shoulders currently sitting in the basement freezer.)
All true - I have customers in all those categories. I also have one customer who hunts all his meat (we discussed venison recipes at one point). I have a few regulars who are vegetarians that I know are so because the topic came up, a couple whose households have both vegetarians and omnivores. Also, some people shop for other people who may or may not share the same dietary habits.
Still, what people regularly buy does give some hint as to the eating habits of them and their households.
I don’t ask prying questions but I do talk to customers and some talk more freely than others.
We have lots of Indian recipes that work, plus there are simple side dishes like roast root vegetables. I may be a carnivore, but i find it easy to cook delicious meals for vegans.
Once a few of us, one a strict vegan, wanted to go out to this fancy restaurant— fixed menu only. They were willing to make a vegetarian version, but not to whip up something vegan. That’s just one place, though (and the menu was supposedly determined in advance).
I knew a fellow like that once. He had once had a job in a slaughterhouse, and the conditions there disgusted him so much that he’d never eat anything that came out of such a place, but he had no problem with game (that he had hunted himself, or from anyone else) or with fish.
He usually described himself as “vegetarian”, because that was the simplest way to get something he’d find acceptable (a lot simpler than “vegetarian except for fish and game”), but he’d tell you the details if asked.