# Star Trek Replicators and Vegans **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 28, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142 "2016-07-28T20:52:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/21 "2016-07-29T10:58:00Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > The canon suggests yes. Vulcans push that whole IDIC thing that makes them all vegetarians. Yet we know that Tuvok bought chili dogs for breakfast (when they were in the 20th Century). This suggests that he has eaten hot dogs from the replicator, and thus didn’t realize the real ones contain meat. > > Like I said, just a suggestion–but coupled with the fact that all vegan complaints seem to go away when a replicator exists, and it seems a pretty good head-canon. > > Of course, alternatively, not all Vulcans take the IDIC to mean they must be vegetarians. Maybe Tuvok is a rare meat eater. Either that, or Vulcans being creatures of logic will make exceptions to their vegetarianism when such food is not available and food is required to maintain health and strength? Much like Jews will break kosher rules when the alternative is starvation. Sustaining life takes precedence. Spock was seen to eat meat on occasion, again, usually when there weren’t alternatives. You could excuse that as him being half human, but really, being half human sometimes led him to be more Vulcan than the average Vulcan. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/22 "2016-07-29T17:43:58Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Isn’t that…all of them? 😃 Not sure why someone always has to make negative comments about vegans. That said, there are differences of opinion among the vegans I know. Some maintain that eating vat-grown meat encourages the mindset (or at least the unthinking assumption) that animals are for human use, and is therefore inappropriate if not actually directly hurting an animal. Others point out that (so far) vat-grown meat gets its start from actual animals whose flesh is cloned, and thus constitutes using/eating/hurting another sentient being. Eventually, should replicator technology come far enough, that particular facet of the argument might lose relevance. Complicating any such discussion is the issue that veganism, although it has a clear definition established by the movement’s founder, has been claimed by many people, who may or may not understand/adhere to the founding principles. For example, one may find people who eat fish claiming to be vegan, or people who advocate for “humane treatment of farm animals” (followed by slaughter). So not everyone who asserts they’re vegan – or _partly_ vegan, whatever that means,\* – knows whereof they speak. \*Seriously, I see people saying they’re “partly vegan” because they only eat meat, or wear leather, or go to animal entertainment, _occasionally_. It’s not unlike a serial killer telling you he’s “partly” a killer because he only kills occasionally. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/23 "2016-07-29T21:46:01Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Logically, Captain, if replicated hot dogs are ok for Vegans (I keep wanting to say Vogons), then it follows that replicated barbecued human flesh should be okay for all of us. . . . We’d know it was parasite-free, so, sure, why not? I was at a bug-festival last weekend, and there was a booth where you could eat meal-worms and grasshoppers. I wouldn’t do it. But a “hamburger” that’s made from re-constituted mealworm meat, so long as I don’t have to see it being made? Sure. At that point it’s a “hamburger.” Eventually, bacterial-paste will be all we can afford. So long as it’s yummy, I don’t care all that much. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/24 "2016-07-29T22:01:49Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Not sure why someone always has to make negative comments about vegans. Well, we are talking people who won’t eat honey because the bees are stressed by having _some_ of their food stolen. (No beekeeper removes so much honey that they harm the hive’s health). Or that don’t wear wool because even though the sheep need to be sheared, it is only because we cross bred them centuries ago to produce more wool. Or that don’t drink milk, even though the cows give it freely, because left to their own, a cow might not get pregnant every matimg season. Dennis ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/25 "2016-07-29T22:07:37Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Not sure why someone always has to make negative comments about vegans. People find them scary. And I honestly don’t know why. I wish I figure it out, so I could harness that potential power somehow. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/26 "2016-07-29T22:25:20Z")
Please tell me I’m not the only one who read this thread title as “Star Trek Replicators and Vaginas.” ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/27 "2016-07-29T22:33:49Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > People find them scary. > > And I honestly don’t know why. I wish I figure it out, so I could harness that potential power somehow. I think it’s mostly because we’re running out of things it’s okay to ridicule but vegan-shaming is still mostly acceptable. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2016, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/28 "2016-07-29T23:07:31Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Logically, Captain, if replicated hot dogs are ok for Vegans (I keep wanting to say Vogons), then it follows that replicated barbecued human flesh should be okay for all of us. See A. C. Clarke, “Food of the Gods” (in the Wind From The Sun collection) ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/29 "2016-07-30T01:51:56Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Logically, Captain, if replicated hot dogs are ok for Vegans (I keep wanting to say Vogons), then it follows that replicated barbecued human flesh should be okay for all of us. > > By that analogy, I can see that perhaps there is an argument for Vegans declining the replicated hot dogs. Risotto? ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/30 "2016-07-30T02:52:19Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Either that, or Vulcans being creatures of logic will make exceptions to their vegetarianism when such food is not available and food is required to maintain health and strength?.. That point was brought up in the episode of **Star Trek: Enterprise** when T’Pol’s second foremother was stranded on Earth during the 1950s. Also IIRC some traditional Vulcan soups are made from insects, but I might be thinking of something else. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/31 "2016-07-30T02:56:51Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > Well, we are talking people who won’t eat honey because the bees are stressed by having _some_ of their food stolen. (No beekeeper removes so much honey that they harm the hive’s health). > > Or that don’t wear wool because even though the sheep need to be sheared, it is only because we cross bred them centuries ago to produce more wool. > > Or that don’t drink milk, even though the cows give it freely, because left to their own, a cow might not get pregnant every matimg season. > > Dennis Is that what you think? You should educate yourself. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/32 "2016-07-30T03:50:30Z")
Hopefully by then Veganism will have been a long discarded fad from the past, like bloodletting is today. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/33 "2016-07-30T04:15:48Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Some people in the future still eat organic food (as opposed to replicated food). Benjamin Sisko’s father taught him to cook, believing that replicated food was lacking, and he owned a restaurant. Will Riker went fishing in Alaska with his father and also learned to cook. I’m sure most people replicated their own food by the 24th century, but there were still some who preferred fresh food every now and then. Tribbles dig quatro-triticale, and so do the folks on Sherman’s Planet. ETA: And I think the spore-huffers in ‘This Side of Paradise’ were farmers as well. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/34 "2016-07-30T11:09:27Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > What if the replicator recycles poop atoms to make the steak, bearing in mind that the poop contained billions of living bacteria from your gut; but that these bacteria would have died anyway? > **[Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed for July 19, 2012 | GoComics.com](https://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/2012/07/19)** > > July 19, 2012 Just had to get this in here. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/35 "2016-07-30T11:51:01Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Either that, or Vulcans being creatures of logic will make exceptions to their vegetarianism when such food is not available and food is required to maintain health and strength? I doubt it. They were in Los Angeles, California. Even if you restrict him to gas stations–as he appeared to be–I’m pretty sure he could find suitable vegetarian fare. Tuvok went for chili burritos and foot-long hot dogs and “Goliath Gulps”. (For breakfast, since he was supposed to seem weird.) Spock’s eating meat doesn’t matter much, for the same reason the other stuff didn’t. The 23rd Century didn’t have replicators, but they did have protein resequencers. Getting meat still does not need to involve animals. He did eat real meat voluntarily once, but he was also falling in love and doing other emotional things. This was blamed on him being sent 5000 years in the past without being “processed,” causing him to regress. * * * But, anyways, I forgot a much better answer. Chakotay is confirmed to be a vegetarian, yet does not have a problem when Harry Kim provides salami sandwiches for lunch on a mission in the Voyager episode Timeless. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/36 "2016-07-30T13:51:18Z")
Is it possible that Tuvok simply didn’t know what a chili dog was? He knew that they were food, he knew that he needed food, he got food. It might not have even occurred to him to ask if they were vegetarian, coming from an age where all food (unless you go out of your way otherwise) is vegetarian. And in between those who just replicate everything and those who insist on growing all food the old-fashioned way, there are also some in between who replicate ingredients and then prepare them themselves (I think Keiko O’Brien does this, for instance). Apparently they just enjoy cooking as a hobby. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2016, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/37 "2016-07-30T14:10:26Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Is that what you think? You should educate yourself. People who will make arguments similar to those _do_ exist. They’re a small fringe and are really more on the Animal Liberation side rather than veganism AFAIK and it’s just unfortunate that they lend themselves to a gross caricaturing of all vegans. Myself I’m all right with “no harm to animals” if that’s someone’s bag. But when we get into “no human use of any animal resource, ever” then I shake my head. People in general hate to be morally proselytized on any subject. To those who’ll teach about the health and environmental advantages of veganism, I’m all ears. To those who’d lecture on how livetock are slaves, I join the :rolleyes: chorus. Again, the issue in the post-TNG universe is whether the concept of either vegetarianism or veganism is significant in the world of the Replicator. In the TOS series you have still protein resequencers and reconstitutors so you could imagine their meatloaf to be some sort of soy/quadrotriticale veggiemeat – which would lead to a storyline in the time period between ST6TUC and TNG with people engaging in this very debate, arguing whether by switching to the transporter pattern for actual flesh you were actually taking a step backward because somehow it’s intrinsecally immoral to enjoy what is now chemically indistinguishable from actual meat, and someone replying “what about the non-human/non-vulcan races, are _they_ being immoral?” As for the Vulcans, as mentioned before and seen in many instances in all the TV and film series, Vulcans tend to be utilitarian pragmatists… and also kind of weasels about finding loopholes for themselves when it suits them 😉 . ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2016, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142/38 "2016-07-31T02:36:54Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > [Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed for July 19, 2012 - GoComics](http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/2012/07/19) > > Just had to get this in here. > > Sorry. ??? Nothing comes up, only a blank page. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-replicators-and-vegans/761142.md?page=1)