vegan parents convicted in child starvation case

Great Debates
41

As other posters have said, animal products are taken by force by humans, not offered freely by the animals. Lactating cows and goats, under any set of normal circumstances, wouldn’t allow strange or unknown animals drink their milk. Birds wouldn’t willingly offer their eggs to predators.

What if everyone became vegan? Sure, lots of animals that were bound for the slaughterhouse would die, but they would have died in the slaughterhouse, anyway. The world could benefit so incredibly much if everyone went vegan. The ONLY negative repercussion would be that the many people involved in the meat and dairy industries would be out of a job.

If you’re seriously interested in more vegan issues, check out one the book Food Revolution by John Robbins. It touches base on every aspect of veganism, is extremely well-researched, has clear cites and references, and isn’t at all cheesy healthfood store fluff.

Other interesting books are Our Stolen Future, which deals with the repercussions of antibiotic and hormone use in livestock. Also, Food Politics deals with all the red tape involved in the food and nutrition industry. These 3 books show, from 3 very different perspectives, that the public really knows very little about the food they buy and eat everyday.

Best,

TGD

42

Two questions: 1) no one has responded to my question about service dogs.
2) What would bees do with their honey if we didn’t take it?

the_great_dalmuti – I have a big vegetable garden, so don’t worry too much about my food, & I will check out Food Revolution, thanks.

43

I didn’t respond to the service dog question because I don’t think you’ll find a consistent answer amongst AR folks. I can imagine two responses to the question:

  1. Any system that treats animals as means to a human end is fundamentally flawed. Service dog training subordinates a dog’s inherent interests to the interests of a human being, and is therefore problematic.
  2. Service dog training, if conducted as reward-based training, matches the interests of the service dog with the interest of a human being. As long as the service dog is treated respectfully and compassionately, keeping such a dog is ethical.

But you’ll need to talk to a genyoowine animal rights advocate, not just some guy who plays one on a message board, for an answer to that question :).

(To clarify: I used to read a lot of AR literature when I was younger and hang out with a lot of AR folks. Although I’m somewhat sympathetic to the philosophy, I don’t hold it myself)

RE: your second question. Maybe I’m not getting what you’re really asking, but just in case I understand your question: the bees will eat the honey. You do realize that’s why bees make honey, right? to feed to their larvae?

For an excellent introduction to medium-scale beekeeping, check out Sue Hubbell’s beautifully written book, A Book of Bees. A tremendous read, fascinating and cozy.

Daniel

44

Just a word to DrDeth as he seems honestly to be asking for some clarification here…

Most vegans I know would in fact have no problem consuming the milk/eggs produced on a small personal farm of their own in which the farm animals spent their days prancing about in glee across the daisy-covered meadows, etc. The reason many of them are vegan in the first place is because they don’t own personal farms upon which they can ensure that the animals are happy, organically-fed, allowed to form close-knit family units, whatever. And unfortunately, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, it is virtually impossible to run a large farm for economic profit in this manner. For example, I only buy eggs from “free-range” chickens, but I have read the reports of many an investigation into such “free-range” chicken farms in which the chickens were treated only marginally better than those in normal farms. This is surely not up to the standards of many vegans.

However, as it should be plain for all to see, human breast milk is, as far as I know, not economically produced on a large-scale by machine-milking poor caged women whose husbands/children are then slaughtered for profit. It thus has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this. Are you seriously implying that you can’t see this?

45

Daniel – sure I understand that bees feed honey to their young – but the average hive produces a lot more than is needed by the hive, just as my 60 acre farm produces more fruit and vegetables than one family needs. And sure, I understand that I choose to sell or give away what I don’t need & bees don’t make that kind of choice. Still don’t think it’s wrong to eat honey.

I’ve thought of keeping bees myself, and have no plans to give them cute names and keep them around just for their pleasant buzzing – and my fruit trees, flowers & vegetables do well with any pollenization that comes from wild bees.

By the way, a vegan friend tells me Pic 'n Pay has the best shoes that are vinyl but “really look like leather.” Is this a bad case of hypocrisy?

46

Bees that build up enough honey will, if I understand bee behavior properly, usually increase their population accordingly until there are enough extra bees that they form a swarm and create a new hive. They certainly don’t leave it to rot in the hive.

I should also mention that some AR folks exclude insects from their purview, on the theory that insects show no signs of self-awareness in the same way that, for example, a pig does.

Finally, how is it hypocrisy to shun leather but like leather-appearing vinyl? If you shun leather because it hurts cows, but you like its appearance, why not purchase a non-cow-hurting product that gains you that appearance?

I am a pretty nonviolent person, but I love playing violent computer games. I don’t consider that hypocrisy, either.

Daniel

47

Just asking, Daniel! Does seem to me that if one opposes the use of leather on moral/ethical grounds, one would want to avoid the appearance of condoning its use.

If I opposed drinking alcohol (I don’t) for moral/ethical reasons, I wouldn’t want people to think my gingerale was a highball.

Playing violent video games isn’t really violent. If you are truly opposed to violence, but wear movie makeup in order to make people believe you engage in a lot of fights, that’s a different matter.

48

DrDeth: Don’t be dumb.

Disclaimer: I am not a vegan. I try to steer clear of animal products in my diet, but purely for health reasons, not ethical ones. However, I know a lot of vegans and am pretty familiar with the typical ethical stance. That having been said…
The difference between a strict vegetarian (one who does not eat animal products) and a vegan, is that vegans avoid the use of all animal products in their lives, to the greatest extent possible–that is to say, they don’t eat animal products, they don’t wear leather, they don’t use beeswax chapstick. Vegans do not use animal products because unless you’re going out into the wild and collecting honey from wild bee hives, or milking wild animals, the use of animal products necessarily involves the exploitation of animals. It doesn’t matter if your cow is the happiest cow on the face of the planet, it’s still being confined, kept pregnant and lactating, and blah blah blah. Yes, the cow does have to be bred every single year to begin a new lactation cycle. Therefore, roughly fifty percent of calves (the males) will be slaughtered. Male holstein cattle are extremely violent, unpredictable animals, and almost no dairies ever keep an actual, live bull on the premesis–so there’s not even a select few that get to be kept around for breeding. It’s all done A.I.

Human milk is considered vegan because… are you listening? Here’s where we come to the “don’t be dumb” part. Okay, get this–the difference between dairy cattle and breastfeeding humans, is that humans are able to give legal consent. The woman in question is not being strapped down and milked every day, she has the choice to give her breast milk or not, if she so chooses. A dairy cow doesn’t have that choice.

Do you get it? Being vegan doesn’t mean avoiding all animal products for the sake of avoiding animal products. It’s done for ethical reasons. Obviously, there’s no breech of ethics for a mother breastfeeding her child.

Peace,
~mixie

49

Sorry; I didn’t mean to sound snarky. I’ve heard this question many times in various forms, but I’ve never understood it.

If I didn’t drink alcohol, but I liked the taste of the stuff, I’d have no problem drinking a virgin Margarita. If someone asked me why I was drinking it, of course, I’d be happy to tell them it was nonalcoholic.

Same thing with shoes. As a man, I have to have shoes that at least look leathery for work, for weddings, for all sorts of occasions. You can’t wear high-tops to a funeral. When I was really trying to avoid leather, I paid extra to buy fake-leather shoes from a Web-based company.

No animals were harmed in the making of the shoes. And I really, really doubt anyone looked at my feet to find out whether to purchase leather. So no animals were harmed by my fake-leather propaganda, either.

Daniel

50

I think it depends on the vegan’s reason for wanting her shoes to look like leather. Personally I don’t want people to think that my shoes are actually made of real leather, but merely dislike an overly plasticky look.

51

I’ve had this discussion with my SO - I am vegan, he’s an omnivore. Our plan is to keep a vegan/vegetarian household after we get married, since more than likely, I’ll be the one doing the cooking, but he’ll eat meat from restaurants or he’ll prepare his own meat at home.

As far as our children, it will be the same thing. They’ll eat vegetarian at home, and their dad can take them to McDonalds every once in awhile as a special treat. When they get older, they can make the choice for themselves to eat completely vegetarian or to eat omni. My fear with raising children completely vegetarian is the fact that if they do choose to eat meat in the future, I don’t want their digestive system to rebel against them, which is why I’ll let their father prepare meat for them or take them out to eat every once in awhile. I’m primarily veg for health reasons - I find that if I cut out animal products, I have less of a tendency to gain weight or have cravings. Since chubby children can run in my family, I want to start my kids eating healthy at the youngest age possible.

And yes, I do plan to breastfeed. For me, the part of my veganism that is a moral issue, I eschew animal products because of the harm to living things. To breastfeed isn’t harmful to me, and will in fact be helpful to both me and my baby - so I can’t see any reason not to do it (aside from the fact that I may not be able to because of a surgery I had several years ago - but I’ll do whatever I need to do so that I can breastfeed).

As far as the couple in the article, they may have referred to themselves as vegans, but as cod-liver oil is NOT vegan, they most certainly were not. I know plenty of vegan parents and all of their children are healthy, happy, and well-nourished. In fact, their kids seem to be more willing to try foods beyond the typical PBJ, chicken fingers, and french fries that one normally sees kids eating in restaurants. I have a vegan friend who’s raising 2 1/2 year old twins, and her son and daughter will eat just about anything off of her plate. At a Mexican restaurant, they had tortillas, refried beans, guacamole, salsa, just like the rest of us - and they loved what they were eating.

Ava

52

I’ll also add that I have referred to myself as a strict vegetarian for awhile - and if people ask, I always say “I don’t eat eggs or dairy”, and got the response “Oh, you’re vegan?” so many times that it saved time to just say I’m vegan. But while I don’t eat animal products, I do use them at times - as I said, I’m primarily vegan for health reasons, the ethical reasons are secondary. However, many people have no idea what a strict vegetarian is and think a vegan is simply someone who doesn’t eat animal products. So while I refer to myself as a vegan most of the time, I’m not a vegan in the strictest sense of the word - it just makes it easier to explain my eating habits and beliefs to people without getting into a huge, long discussion about it.

Ava

53

I do the same thing. Most people don’t realize that being a vegetarian means you don’t eat any animal products-- and that it’s an ovo-lacto vegetarian who eats milk and eggs but not meat. It’s easier to call myself vegan, even though I tend to dislike the connotations it brings. I am most certainly not an animal rights activist, and I do not avoid animal products in my daily life–just for food intake.
Incidentally, I do so for pretty much the same reasons you do, meat and dairy and eggs are pretty calorically dense foods. I find it much easier to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight eating a strictly vegetarian diet than when I allow myself animal products. But I’m a bad vegan. Cheeseburgers are tasty.

Peace,
~mixie

54

I don’t mean to be snarky, but most people don’t realize this because that’s not what the word means in common English.

I have noticed what appears to be a politically-motivated trend among some vegetarians to redefine the word to exclude all animal-related products, but the word’s generally-understood meaning simply excludes the consumption of animal flesh. If you don’t believe me, google recipes for vegetarian burritos, vegetarian pizza, vegetarian lasagne, or vegetarian nutrition, or just look the word up in a dictionary. You’ll find that the recipes generally have eggs and/or cheese as ingredients, and that dictionaries mention “vegetarians” as possibly including dairy and eggs in their diet.

“Strict vegetarian” is a good term for describing folks who are vegan in diet only; even “vegan” is often used to describe a solely dietary proclivity (and the dictionaries I looked at backed this usage up). Although the various prefixes to vegetarian can be useful, in common parlance, the word simply refers to abstinence from animal flesh.

Again, I don’t want to be snarky. I make an issue out of this only because generally when I see the word artificially restricted in this fashion, it’s because a strict vegetarian is trying to gain some level of moral superiority over an ovolactovegetarian, which annoys the bejeebus out of me. I don’t think you’re doing this, but I want to make sure the word continues to be used in its traditional sense.

I’m also a descriptive grammarian, but that’s a whole nother rant. :slight_smile:

Daniel

55

I don’t mean to be snarky either, that’s just how I had it explained to me by the vegan/vegetarians I’d discussed it with. I didn’t know myself, because I don’t do it for politically-motivated reasons, I just don’t want to be fat. So I don’t care what you call it. The breakdown I got was: vegan = no use of animal products whatsoever in daily life, vegetarian = no use of animal products for food, ovo-lacto-vegetarian = no consumption of meat for food. By the way, I’ve never seen or heard anyone acting “superior” in the various levels of vegetarianism, but I have met a lot of pushy, “holier than thou” vegans. This seems to be because a lot of vegetarians (including “strict vegetarians”) do it for health reasons, while vegans do it primarily for ethical ones–i.e. one person just wants to be healthier, the other is trying to save the world.*

The only reason the name thing made sense to me, is that there is a separate name for people who eat eggs and dairy, but do not consume meat. The phrase “ovo-lacto vegetarian” has existed for as long as I can remember–it doesn’t seem like a “politically motivated” thing to me.

Also, why would there be political motivations behind having the word vegetarian mean “one who does not consume animal products”? I can suss out a lot of sneaky, underhanded word-play in animal-rights-activist-speach, but I can’t see how it applies here.

Peace,
~mixie

*In my experience, please don’t flame me, YMMV, etc.

56

Hmm… and according to Dictionary.com the word “vegetarian” means:

adj.
Of or relating to vegetarianism or vegetarians.
Consisting primarily or wholly of vegetables and vegetable products: a vegetarian diet.

So I guess there’s room for animal products in the “consisting primarily of…” but it doesn’t sound that way.

Peace,
~mixie

57

I just thought of something.

Plastic is made from petroleum, right?

Well … isn’t petroleum a product of dead animal carcasses that have been buried deep under the ground for a few million years?

If you use gasoline or plastic, you’re using animal products!

58

Mixie, the first definition of “vegetarian” you quoted above referenced “vegetarianism.” Look that word up in the same dictionary:

Dictionary.com was the first dictionary I looked the word up in, when I was making sure I had my facts straight. :slight_smile:

I figured you weren’t doing it for political reasons, but I think that restricting the definition of “vegetarian” is a tactic that some vegans use to subtly shame folks who, for ethical reasons, limit themselves to eggs and dairy. It’s similar to fundamentalist Christians who artificially limit the meaning of the word “Christian,” in my opinion, in order to try to shame folks who aren’t as strict as they are.

Tracer, did you miss the whole discussion about WHY vegans avoid animal products? You’ll note that very few vegans object to using the body of an animal that wasn’t expressly killed for human consumption; in fact, I’ve seen vegans happily eat road-kill venison.

Daniel

59

Click the link I provided, and scroll down. There are a couple different definitions.
The first one, provided by dictionary.com is:
veg·e·tar·i·an ( P ) Pronunciation Key (vj-târ-n)
n.
One who practices vegetarianism.
A herbivore.

adj.
Of or relating to vegetarianism or vegetarians.
Consisting primarily or wholly of vegetables and vegetable products: a vegetarian diet.

Exactly as I quoted.

Merriam-Webster’s Revised Unabriged says:

vegetarian

\Veg`eta"rian, n. One who holds that vegetables and fruits are the only proper food for man. Strict vegetarians eat no meat, eggs, or milk.

Of course, then Wordnet says:

vegetarian

n : one who eats no meat or fish or (often) any animal products

So I guess it depends on what dictionary you happen to pick up, because some, like M-W have conflicting definitions in the same source, and the major vegetarian groups also have conflicting definitions.

I do think it’s sort of silly to believe that there’s some sort of veggie conspiracy theory regarding the use of the word vegetarian.
Out of curiosity, why do you suppose there are names for modified vegetarian diets, such as the ovo-lacto-vegetarian? When did that come about? Does it sound logical that the prefixes “ovo” and “lacto” were added to the word “vegetarian” to describe one who’s diet consists of eggs and milk in addition to a vegetarian diet? Is that part of the conspiracy? Did the militant vegetarians subtly infiltrate that word into the English language, so that the ovo-lacto-vegetarians would feel shamed and ostracized?
The International Vegetarian Union breaks the forms down, and basically says that a vegan excludes all use of animal products in any form, dietary vegan excludes all dietary use of animal products, the word vegetarian can be modifed, but encompasses all forms. It sounds as though the word vegetarian technically doesn’t mean any particular form of vegetarianism, but encompasses veganism, lacto- and ovo-lacto vegetarianism. Something like the word “Christian”? It sounds as though saying “I’m vegetarian” doesn’t necessarily mean you only exclude meat, but it also doesn’t necessarly mean you exclude all animal products, either.

I’m not so stubborn that I think I’m always right–I was just going on the information given to me by vegetarians I had talked to, and the dictionaries I checked.
What started that whole discussion was me saying I use the phrase “I eat a vegan diet” in order to specify the complete lack of animal products in my diet (okay, mostly, heh). I guess I’ll keep on using that phrase, because we both agree on what it means.

Adios,
~mixie

60

Mixie, I looked at all those dictionaries before I posted. If your diet consists “primarily” of vegetables and vegetable products, it must not consist “wholly” of them. Unless you practice pica, you’re eating some sort of animal product.

“Ovolactovegetarians” as a term exists for the same reason “strict vegetarians” exists: it describes a subset of vegetarians.

actually, what set me off was when you said,

Given the horrendous amount of confusion folks in this thread were already showing toward the motivations and eating habits of vegans and vegetarians, I didn’t want them to get further confused by thinking that vegetarians and vegans were necessarily identical in their diets.

If you want a single word that describes someone whose diet includes no animal products, but you don’t want to touch on their use of leather or whatever, I’ve got the perfect word:

herbivore.

Daniel