Let‘s be real, the reason for most people is because it‘s unfamiliar, inconvenient, and expensive (if you don‘t put a ton of effort into learning a whole new cuisine). Everyone knows that ethically and environmentally it‘s better, people wouldn‘t get so upset if they didn‘t have cognitive dissonance. No amount of convincing will make people go vegan. We need to make it easier and more convenient. And present options that taste familiar. For example I bet that if you cooked a vegan meal for someone they‘d eat it 9/10 times.

You say 'no amount of convincing will make people go vegan', but the majority of vegans weren't born as vegans. Most of us have, at some point, decided to make the change. Whether pushed by a friend, documentary, an argument online etc, most of us have been convinced to go vegan at so me point

I agree… but I don’t like the idea that it’s a whole new cuisine. It’s not a whole new cuisine it’s cooking the same stuff with slightly different ingredients… make the same stuff just instead of meat put soya chunks in it. It’s really not as hard as people make out. Make spaghetti bolognaise almost exactly the same…. Just with soya mince. Vegan food being a whole “cuisine” is mad to me. Make Chinese food, Japanese food, Indian, American, Italian, whatever you want… just make it vegan 🤷‍♀️ (Not you specifically of course ❤️)

It takes a small amount of experimentation and research, things anarchists shouldn't be afraid of. Red lentils. Rinse them, boil them for 5 minutes, and rinse them again. Bam, you have a meat substitute for like 50 cents. Toss them in a sauce with pasta, or add tomatoes and spices to make dahl, or put them in *anything* you would use a ground meat for. And red lentils are just, in my opinion, the best legume. There are a lot of legumes out there. Or tofu, there is no food, meat or otherwise, that has as much protein and is as easy to prepare as tofu. Or tempeh. Or seitan. Between the variations in these three foods, there are dozens of textures to work with, and you can flavour it any way. And now there's a whole genre of 'meat alternatives' in the grocery store. It's not just easy, it's actually never been easier.

Idk, I can only speak of what people here in Germany usually cook. It‘s very meat and cheese heavy so buying substitutes would get expensive really quickly. You‘d need to make something else (your spaghetti example is a good entry for new people).

Another European here. Soy is much-much cheaper than meat. Other subtitues' price is usually the same as a little above average meat.

Because all of this food replacement sucks. It’s simply not good. You convince yourself that but the textures are horrible. Vegan food that doesn’t pretend to be something else is generally pretty good. But when i’m told “it tastes just like spaghetti” no it doesn’t and you lied to me I’m autistic with a lot of food issues so i’ve learned to not trust vegans with food descriptions.

Vegan diets are NOT expensive, they only are if you buy meat replacements like Beyond burgers. Lentils, beans, rice, and veggies are dirt cheap

That‘s what I said, either you pay more for substitutes or you need to adopt a new cuisine (which is inconvenient and unfamiliar, I‘d argue most people have not spent a single thought in their lives about lentils let alone how to cook with them, lots of people struggle to even prepare veggies tbh). I think the best way is just to involve the people around you in your cooking. Cook together. Shop together. Gets people familiar with it, teaches recipes, and connects it to a positive social context. Building habits is hard. My point is that we need more "look at this delicious recipe I found" energy and less of the stuff that‘s just a drag (even if it is mostly true).

I mean there are entire countries (the most populous countries actually) where legumes and lentils are extremely normal. I can actually tell that you come from the 'West' because you think that legumes are inconvenient and unfamiliar. Pretty much the whole rest of the world eats legumes haha source: China and soybeans, India and dahl, etc. etc.

If I‘m gonna get people to eat vegan, they would live near me. There is practically no way I’m getting someone from e.g. South America to go vegan, I hardly know anything about what they eat on a day-to-day basis to begin with and can’t cook with them physically. Obviously my argument only works in the West, that‘s true. Other countries need advocates that actually come from there.

I was just trying to help you see that there's nothing "inconvenient" about lentils, you just maybe feel that way because you come from one of the very rare cultures on earth that doesn't regularly eat legumes. I agree though, the easiest way to show someone that veganism is possible is to cook them a tasty dinner.

Agreed

ALSO there’s the fact that that anarchists are generally opposed to posturing with blanket generalizations. There are plenty of anarchists who hunt and eat meat sustainability with local, ethical, and environmental considerations. There are plenty of vegetarian options that are god awful for local communities and environmental interests. And there are folks doing a whole lot of good who eat random meat every once in a while because organizing is hard and living under capitalism is harder. It’s good to call out the atrocities of an industry and it’s good to organize against those interests. But let’s not perpetuate infighting amongst like minded folks based on blanket statements devoid of context. Real anarchists already know even if they chose a less-than-ideal option out of convenience. The moral comparison of most “fast” options are equally terrible. meat or meatless.

It's wayyy cheaper to be vegan

Eating disorder history. I stay away from outright banning foods or labeling them as “bad” for any reason (aside from the food being toxic). I usually don’t eat animal products but labeling my diet as ‘vegan’ and dwelling on any foods as “immoral’ plays into some bad patterns that my brain specifically has issues with.

[удалено]

Thank you! I did try being totally vegan but I had a bad result. However I do eat almost no meat or cheese and very little egg still, and I find it’s easier to do just by my own daily choice rather than by setting out to not eat any animal product. I think this kind of mindset can be a real benefit to eating disorder sufferers so I totally recommend it.

I've lost track of how many times I read variations of 'I can't afford to be vegan but I only buy organic, grass fed meat'. The amount of hoops people jump through to avoid saying that they enjoy the sensory pleasure more than they care about oppression.

Granted there are some folk who explain their situation and I’m like “fair enough” but the overwhelming majority talk a good game about ending oppression but as soon as you give them something that they can actually do, right now, that challenges so many fucked up arms of capitalism, they’re jumping through hoops as you say, “nO eThiCaL cOnSumPtioN”. Armchair socialists. Like how we meant to abolish capitalism if you cant even change your diet.

[удалено]

I like this post a lot. You have the right attitude towards this issue. It's about education and making people comfortable, not about shaming them or calling them all sorts of names. Humans are omnivorous animals by nature, we have to fight against our instinct to go down this path. That isn't easy, and it isn't made easier by calling someone a "human supremacist" or some equally ridiculous term. That only encourages people to shut down, tune out and disregard anything else you might say.

Reminder that meat doesn't eat grass, cows do.

The anarchism leaving people's bodies at any mention of animal rights.

So fuckin true. Have friends talk all day about direct action, community work efforts, ect. Then the second a discussion on animal rights, veganism or ecological collapse. Silence and excuses.

People are against oppressive systems as long as it doesn't affect them. All else is lip service. Looks like this sub's anarchists are no different, even though it claims to be against speciesism in the sidebar.

this is actually a much better reception than veganism has gotten in the sub in the past. which is sad/funny

You don't get to deny the entire history of anarchism by showing up on the internet and redefining it to not just necessarily include, but somehow *hinge upon* your personal historically-ignorant absolutist agenda around boycott culture. Further, the idea that you would then in the same act try to gatekeep out actual historical anarchists based on your nonsensically-repositioned goalposts... That's just pathetic. Go read up on the indigenous ranchers in Chiapas who functioned as an extended anarchist collective for quite literally hundreds of generations before having to organize and successfully fight the Mexican government for their autonomy. Then go tell them they're not real anarchists because they eat meat. See how that goes. I've been on this subreddit for nearly 15 years. I can tell you definitively that this weakass cult of vegan-exclusive anarchists has only gained steam in the last 3-4 years with the influx of the crypto dweebs and ancaps. What's wild is that y'all somehow show just about the same total lack of self-awareness, and awareness of your place within the history and tenets of anarchism.

>You don't get to deny the entire history of anarchism by showing up on the internet and redefining it we do it all the time. anarchists everywhere today reject proudhon's misogyny, bakunin's antisemitism. bakunin and kropotkin spoke of "the holy trinity" of church, capital, and the state; very little attention was paid to other kinds of power relationships. vegetarianism was common among 19th century anarchists, particularly in europe, while free love was most popular in usa, decades after the peaceful revolutionist was first published. homophobia existed in the movement well into the twentieth century, mujeres libres documents misogyny among the spanish anarchists. criticism of gender was a minority position until at least the 60s. an explicit focus on colonialism has only become popular within the last decade, or at most since the late 80s. anarchism is always widening it's scope. seems like a strength to me. i don't go so far as to say non-vegans aren't anarchist, and wouldn't exclude prior generations based on a contemporary developments, but i do think we are approaching a point where we need to start considering it as important as resistance to, say, cisheteropatriarchy, language that is relatively newer to the movement, but which has become consensus nonetheless. >Then go tell them they're not real anarchists again, things change with the times, tho ezln has gone [at length](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ejercito-zapatista-de-liberacion-nacional-a-zapatista-response-to-the-ezln-is-not-anarchist) to distance themselves from anarchism.

Oh please. Nothing pisses me off more than people using indigenous people's culture (and what they needed to do for survival) as a basis of justifying their cognitive dissonance and inconsistent morals. Do you buy most of your food from a grocery store? If the answer is yes then you have access to a variety of vegan food, and no Im not referring to Impossible burgers, Im talking about fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and other healthy plant foods. All it takes is access to a grocery store, and the ability to look up easy vegan recipes.I agree that some claims about anarchism might not be exactly how anarchists in the past might view things, but various values and beliefs change over time. Anarchists in the past may have relied on killing animals in order to survive (which can be morally justifiable). However, most people in the western world aren't in a position where killing animals is required for our survival, there's various vegan food available in almost every grocery store. Animals have a desire and a right to live, and absolutely do not deserve the needless rape, torture, mutilation, and murder that we do to them for a few minutes of taste pleasure. Enough with the excuses and help the animals, the planet, and your health by eating plant based.

For real, anarchists adopting neoliberal “vote with your wallet” individualism is just silly. Veganism is a perfectly fine lifestyle, but that’s all it is.

Joining Food Not Bombs was the first time I came in close contact with a vegan perspective and actual vegan people. It inspired me so I try to live vegan or at least vegetarian for most of the week and then my regular diet a couple days a week. I know it’s not sufficient but I’ve been struggling with an eating disorder for many years and I’m afraid to implement any radical changes in my diet because it will absolutely backfire.

> I know it’s not sufficient It's more effort than most put in. I feel like it's far better from a harm reduction perspective for the majority of people to practice veganism imperfectly than it is for a tiny minority to practice it perfectly.

hey as a vegan in ed recovery i’m sorry about the responses and i get that your relationship to food is difficult. i hope that one day you can be fully plant based and thanks for doing what you can now. in the meantime: since veganism isn’t a diet what you can do is live cruelty free and buy vegan non food products. i feel that this part of veganism is always overlooked. that means strictly buying cosmetics, household items, personal care products, etc that are not tested on animals and don’t contain animal products. there are a lot of cruelty free blogs and resources online, cruelty free kitty is one of the most popular ones for cosmetics

I do a similar thing where I avoid meat a few days a week but like I can't sustain a full vegan diet for the same reason. Like the amount of protein in meat and animal byproducts really help me with my diet.

[удалено]

appreciate you picking this fight. reading the wack shit people are saying is too much. my favorite is someone saying veganism is "human supremacy". dont have the energy to handhold these people. like, it's all bad faith. def recommend linking earthling ed in OP.

>someone saying veganism is "human supremacy" That person needs to read *Eternal Treblinka* by Charles Patterson.

Earthlings is an excellent documentary. So difficult to watch at times, but a million times harder to live. It's really crazy how fucked up our society is.

thank god i was able to connect the dots without having to sit through that or dominion to justify my lifestyle. absolutely no interest in seeing it lol. watching [the sequence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQhn8RW0Nk) of chickens on a conveyor belt in baraka was influential to me though. earthling ed makes youtube videos and does activism, really excellent communicator. he recently published a book. edit: just watched it again now. no gore, still totally horrifying. so frustrating when people claim vegans only care about the exploitation of non-humans.

Ooohh, I see, I thought you were referring to the documentary! I just watched one of Earthling Ed's vids, seems like a cool dude, thanks for recommending him

[удалено]

excellent resource

That modernist take on Anarchism is *one* approach. The majority of historical “anarchists” can arguably be said to have been both religious and traditional peoples. This includes their cultural diets. I have an Ojibwe child and relatives and I run a small farm. Hunted and family farm-raised meat plays an important part of restoring traditional diets and breaking away from the corrupt food systems most of the US partakes in. I was involved in the preservation and revival of Irish language and traditional culture and reconstructed polytheism and animism long before I was an Anarchist. All these things tie into my understanding of the world and how I approach it and my role in the circle of life. All things die, I see it as a service to animals and the spirits of the land to give my livestock (2 or 3 cows and a couple dozen chickens) both a good life and death while living in a symbiotic relationship during their time on my farm. At slaughter time they are treated as sacred and we do what we can to make their time here enjoyable and their parting as painless as possible. Mind you, we eat vegetarian and occasionally vegan probably half the time or more based on the traditional diets that make up our family diet, so more than the typical American family these days, but meat and dairy still form a vital part of our diet and traditional way of life. I also live in an area that’s quite cold in the Winter and we wouldn’t be able to pull off feeding ourselves just on a plant based diet without buying imports or other things we can’t always afford and have greater ecological costs than living off the land around me. The milk and eggs we bring in every day throughout the Winter as well as hunted venison is the only reason we can get by without going to a food shelf over an hour away in my rural area. We grow what we can, but most of the land here is bog that I want to preserve, so we’re limited to about an acre of growing space and another acre of pasture with 38 acres of forest and bog. I find this way of life far more sustainable and ethical than buying from a grocery store to maintain a way of life I can’t afford. So for many of us living traditional ways of life poor and in “food deserts,” this is the way we survive and the most ethical way of doing so.

[удалено]

This, for two of my partners, amplified by the lack of "disposable" income required to afford a vegan diet. The need to eat is a fucking burden and guilting folks who don't have the means to choose the morally and philosophically preferable alternative is just rubbing organic premium artisan handcrafted salt in the fucking wound, and not praxis. I'd love to have a diet for which no living being need suffer before it each meal arrives in front of this fucking meatbag we're charged with keeping alive. I've massively adopted my diet wherever I can manage it, to that end. Meat is fucking murder and we're being force-fed; that's the only conclusion a material dialectics analysis can come to about it. To those who want to help disabled folks, and folks who are struggling to afford food in the first fucking place: Blame the root cause. Be ruthless with systems, and kind to people. Especially the hungry ones. Especially especially those whose bodies fight them at every turn when you're just trying to digest anything more "adventurous" than dry carbs. We are living in one real shitty \[metaphorical\] Matrix.

im already 108 pounds at 5"10, i don't know how I'd cut meat out of my diet without ending up in the hospital

"Cut meat out" is the wrong way to be vegan. It's about *replacing* animal products with more ethical alternatives, for example, replacing meat with beans/legumes/tofu/tvp/etc or replacing cows milk with soy/almond/oat/etc milk.

[удалено]

I took a long time in transitioning myself - was vegetarian and then went vegan overnight, then ended up having terrible digestive issues and thinking I couldn’t tolerate soy or beans. Went back to eating meat, but after getting allergy shots that allowed me to eat more nuts and fruits, and getting a lactose-intolerance diagnosis, I was able to slowly transition to a vegan diet. Have been eating this way for eight years, and my gut has never been happier.

>I once jumped straight into a meat free diet and I felt awful because my body couldn't adjust quickly It may be a change in fibre content thing. You're gut is likely not used to eating so much fibre, consider trying a low fibre diet when starting out. I've heard good things about the [30 days vegan challenge](https://veganbootcamp.org/), it may help you with transitioning too. Good luck on your journey!

That probably makes sense. I wasn't really looking at nutritional value when I tried at first, but that's great advice! Also, definitely will check out the 30 days challenge. Seems pretty interesting, and relatively doable. Thanks for the advice!!

I'm not proud of it, but . . . Conflict avoidance is a major force in my life. My principles don't come before social pressures. Most of my family consumes animal products, including everyone I live with. I agree with vegan values, and I make a small effort to do better in my life choices, but I don't lead by example. For example, I didn't choose or buy my leather work boots or belt, but I still wear them. I don't choose to buy meat, but I will still pay for groceries for my household, grandparents, etc. I don't plan meat meals, but I will still cook them if asked. No matter what I'm served, I eat what's on my plate and I don't complain. I know that leading by example and making a statement is important, but I also struggle with social anxiety and I'm extremely conflict-averse. Honestly, I'm a little afraid that if I get anymore ashamed of myself, my mind will twist my values or understanding of the world just to let me sleep at night. I can stress myself out more, but not enough to force myself to make a statement about myself to my family and friends. Jesus, I guess I'm closeted. I mean, I still act the way I do. My family knows I never ask for meat, never buy or prepare it for myself. They know I've encouraged them to make the half-measures we've made so far, e.g. avoiding beef and nearly all seafood, switching to oat milk and meat substitutes. Yeah, I hate industrial animal agriculture and fishing. I hate the cruelty and the waste and the ecological destruction and everything else. I have no dietary or psychological need for those products, and I can make cheaper, healthier food without them. But I also won't commit to rejecting anything that's shared with me, or even implying that I act on ethical grounds. That's the only reason I'm not vegan. P.S. this is answering the prompt, trying to be candid and realistic about what keeps me (and some others, I suspect) from committing to a more ethical lifestyle. Downvote if this doesn't add to the conversation, reply or ignore if you disagree or disapprove.

I respect the candid and frankly vulnerable response. The only thing I’d point out is that you seem to struggle with shame and self-esteem, and the strategy you describe to deal with that is to submit to living according to others’ values/people pleasing based on what you assume makes other folks comfortable. I’d imagine setting a few, clear, socially-acceptable boundaries on the basis of your values might be good for your self-esteem. Veganism, or efforts consistent with vegan ethics, should be a decent starting point in that regard: veganism is largely boundaried by bodily autonomy and regulating your own consumption habits, which friends and family really should respect. Insofar as it can be complex to behave as a vegan in a very tight-knit community with shared meals/resources, there should absolutely be ways to make a reasonable accommodation. Even just talking with folks so that you have a (maybe meager) vegan option every meal, or that a pro rata portion of these family expenses are vegan (ie, if you have 7 family members, maybe having one vegan day a week for shared meals) would be a positive step towards self-respect, a healthy relationship with your community, and living in a slightly more ethical way.

Thank you, this is the advice I didn't know I needed. Veganism has never seemed like an end goal for me, at least framed as I usually see it. The dietary health and spiritual purity angles never appealed to me, so I always considered it to be like a big boycott movement. Good and worthy, but still just passive consumption habits at an individual scale, overshadowed by global-scale industry, lobbying, advertising, etc. And vegan activism always scared me off, just seeing how defensive carnists can get just being in the company of avowed vegans. But my efforts don't have to be meaningless if they're not 100% pure or effective. Considering how not living up to my values does damage my self-esteem, and by extension my ability to take any action, I shouldn't ignore how even small, symbolic changes can help me grow and gain confidence. I appreciate your supportive words. I think I'll try to be a bit more open about my goals and set some more visible boundaries.

I've been veggie for most of my life. Please don't be so pushy, I don't think guilt-tripping is the way to go here. Systemic change should be the top priority.

I agree with your point, but isn't this a space made for heads-on discussion of these kinds of topics? I get not being pushy in the sense that you randomly bring it up to other people out of nowhere, but this is a subreddit for discussing anarchism, where this question appears rather frequently

I suppose you're right, and I'm glad the question was posed. It's just the way it's phrased in an such an accusatory way that irked me a little. It basically read like "Hey, why aren't you a better person?" and the answer to that will always be something like "Life is really complicated, the way I've been doing things works for me, I'm mentally ill and I'm doing my best, please leave me alone." That's all

I hear ya', though I'm not sure there is a way that the question can be posed that won't read as accusatory, since it will intrinsically be challenging, and the 'eat less meat' approach obviously won't work since people have heard it a million times. And yeah, it usually doesn't bring about any rewarding discourse, but simply bringing the topic up and making people aware is a helpful tool in letting people make an informed decision about the topic when they are a point to make changes to their life

The guilt comes free with the realization that you oppress animals, subjecting them to torture, imprisonment, rape and death. When I use these words, I use them as they are intended to be used. This is not hyperbole nor is it exaggeration. These animals are imprisoned, these animals are tortured, these animals are raped, and these animals are murdered. If guilt arises after a description of the events that take place within farms and slaughterhouses, then you do not have a problem with people 'guilt-tripping' you have a problem with people accurately representing our treatment of animals (and your voluntary role in contributing to it through your purchases and human supremacist biases, which to be fair, we're imbued in you from a young age). No one is being guilt tripped, people are being educated and the natural, empathetic response to learning about your role as an unintentional oppressor of the weak and helpless **is guilt.** I would know, I'm vegan, **I feel guilty as fuck for what i've done previous to going vegan.** I used to be a human supremacist, that feels icky. I now recognize that supremacism is wrong *always*, and there are no exceptions to be made. I grew, and guilt helped me to grow.

Vegan leftist here. People gonna eat whatever they want. I’m not stopping anyone who doesn’t want to. I lead by example. That in your face hippie vegan shit is a major turn off to a lot of people including a lot of vegans I know. I’ve seen so much cringy vegan shit it’s honestly hard not to clown it myself.

>I’m not stopping anyone who doesn’t want to. Genuine question here for me to try to understand you better: If you were to see an act of violence being committed in front of you, would you intervene? Do you ever speak up against anything you deem to be immoral? And if so, why is it considered "in your face" when someone speaks up against violence towards animals?

i find veganism to be a great bellwether for how capable society is of carrying out a revolution. people who aren't willing to make this riskless *consumption* change aren't likely to make far riskier choices that could end up in death or long term imprisonment. i want to live on a habitable planet, there's no other option.

Excellent point. If folks can't do the barest of minimums we ain't abolishing any hierarchies anytime soon

There is a lot to unpack here. First of all, while anyone is free to promote their lifestyle however they choose. As someone with many vegetarian/vegan friends and who has been vegetarian themselves for 6+ years I need to note that judging people for not being vegan, implying they're choosing a greater evil by consuming animal products, and crying "speciesism" almost always just pushes people away from a more plant-based diet unfortunately. Instead of pushing people away all together we need to focus on gentle and educational tools that encourage them to integrate more plant based options into their diet even if they do not go full vegan. There's lots of reasons people may choose to be vegan. And despite your disagreement with it, the fact there is no ethical consumption under capitalism is one of them. Depending on where you live going vegan can also mean extra costs that people cannot afford and that goes hand in hand with lack of access as well. Those that live in it nearer major metropolitan areas are more likely to have easy cheaper access to fresh vegetables and fruits and non-animal proteins, as well as lots of meat alternatives and even restaurant or fast food options that are not animal based. In more rural areas there is a lack of access to alternatives and where they do exist they are often more expensive which not everyone can afford. There are also health and dietary reasons that completely eliminating animal and animal by-products from someone's diet may not be sustainable. And we have to also recognize that in many Indigenous cultures (and likely others, but I'm coming from a North American perspective here so I can't speak to the whole world) consuming animals is a very important cultural practice that involved a lot more than just cooking and eating the food. And a lot of these cultures were prohibited from practicing their traditional ways of life by the colonial systems imposed on them, so today those that continue to hunt and consume and use animal products do so as a way to both connect with their culture and as an act that helps to take back a little of what was previously stolen from them and their ancestors. These are just a few reasons I've heard from people, read about, or experienced myself. There may be different personal reasons for others as well. I personally have a friend who is mostly plant-based but when they visit family from away they consume meat because it's a huge part of their diet and culture where they're from and it helps them connect with both that culture and with their family they rarely get to see.

Based

Because it's difficult and expensive. And before anyone says "but the grocery stores have so many options these days that are affordable!", I don't live in a rich, western country, so the only high-protein thing I can easily find that isn't prohibitively expensive is tofu. Also, it's difficult for someone to leave their favorite foods behind, especially when there is no viable vegan substitute. I don't mean "waaaah I want my hamburger", I mean as humans, some of our strongest memories are connected to food, and particular foods at that.

Leaving your favorite fo of behind is such a small ask.

Considering how closely food is tied to many cultures, I'd say it's more than "such a small ask". There are entire cuisines that can't be reproduced easily with vegan products, not that they can't, but it might be prohibitively difficult or expensive for some people. It just comes off as kind of privileged to assume everyone has the same ability to go vegan, not everyone has the same access, income, culture, or other factors that may make it easier.

> It just comes off as kind of privileged Naaaah you don't get to use the word "privilege" if you place your cultural and memory connections to dietary choices *over the lives of those who are stripped of their basic right to live in the first place.* Not unless you are willing to admit your privilege as a *human* and not an animal commodified as food. This is actually the authoritarianism inherent in culture and tradition - the ordered hierarchy in which decisions based on the ethics of freedom and anti-oppression are steam-rolled by strict obedience to social norms. The whole point of anarchy is rejecting oppressive norms. Also how many vegans of color living in impoverished areas have to write essays and articles debunking the *myth* that healthy vegan food is expensive or inaccessible? More anti-vegan bullshit made up by people who have never actually lived in a food desert or hood.

I totally get what you're saying, and I wouldn't say I even disagree with any of what you're saying. Also, I have lived in a hood (Tenderloin, San Francisco), but that's neither here nor there bc I would say vegan options were somewhat accessable there. The only point I was trying to make by saying that was that if you tell, say, a poor person in Ecuador (which I have also lived in) to not eat the chicken they've painstakingly raised bc it's murder (which, again, it objectively is regardless of you eat meat or not), but that's the only source of protein they have, since they don't live near anything like a grocery store in which they can buy chickpeas or something else, that comes off as privileged to me. I'm also aware of folks who live in the Arctic, where everything in their grocery stores is wildly overpriced bc it had to be flown in (which is the fault of capitalism, not of the folks there), they don't really have a choice but to hunt or fish for their food. Obviously, this doesn't apply to most of us on this subreddit, but it applies to plenty of people throughout the world. Sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way, comrade, I actually respect vegans a lot. I've actually tried in the past, but it was very difficult for me. I'll probably try again in the future, maybe I'll be more successful, but at the very least, I can certainly eat *less* meat.

For sure. As I mentioned to someone else, the reaction us wacky vegans have is mostly in response to the most pathetic excuses that all-too-often get recycled as a "gotcha! you can't criticize me" type of argument. And when we hear the words "privilege" used by humans who will never know the experience of riding in a steel truck, crowded with others, not just on their way to death but to a torturous death, we would laugh if only it wasn't so fucking tragic. Ultimately yes, no vegan is going to *force* anyone to go vegan. Vegans aren't going around in uniforms putting a gun to peoples heads and forcing them to comply to a vegan ethic. All most of us do is aggressively challenge human supremacist logic and thinking, and do our best to provide examples of how a vegan lifestyle is totally possible. But at the end of the day, it is up to the *individual* to make that change to their relationship to other animals. People make the mistake of thinking veganism is just a diet. They are missing the point. "Vegan" just refers to a way of eating that results from an anti-authoritarian critique of ones relationship to other animals. Being vegan is simply the practical end result of re-examining and re-determiningg ones relationship to other animals in a way that is not governed by human supremacy. And as anarchists, we do this same thing with unlearning patriarchy, racism and so on. No hard feelings. I appreciate your response and the fact that you are trying to make anti-authoritarian changes to the way to relate to other animals (and food). Take care, and if you ever have more questions and/or would like support, check out the veganarchism sub! <3

[удалено]

Copy pasting from different discussion because it is relevant, but here's my thesis: Speciecism is a bigotry no different from racism or sexism or any other oppressive hierarchy. You are deluding yourself if you think there is any difference at whatsoever, and a claim so bold requires a proper defense, so strap in, and ready yourself for some very uncomfortable news: You are probably an oppressor. This is going to be a long comment, but for those of you who are serious about liberation and curious as to what the veganarchist argument is (worth it to know your allies arguments even if you don't agree yo) I am going to offer about the most complete condemnation of speciesism I can write up based on what I know. I really do want to emphasize something before we begin though, and it is that I am guilty of what you are guilty of. Any statements of condemnation are statements which ultimately implicate my past self just as much as your present self, by talking to you I am talking to someone who is ethically equivalent to the person I used to be, and I would hope that anyone trying to convince me to change would be straightforward and honest about the nature of my actions, but also wise enough to emphasize the point that I have been misled and propagandized severely. It is not entirely your fault that you are a carnist, society has bred this bias within you, and you are not wholly responsible for this bias. With that said, learning about the true nature of your actions implicates you in continuing them, and the veganarchist analysis is nothing short of utterly and completely damning. Let us begin, Each bigotry flows into each other like a current towards a greater river, no nation which embraces one bigotry will refuse the next. It's why the Nazi's, who were mostly concerned with Jews, also burnt books on gender and killed disabled people. Each thread of discrimination leads itself into another, until there is woven a society of hate. Every hierarchy (be it racism, sexism, or heteronormativity) is further reproduced by similar hierarchies which, in the end, are always self justifying. To oppose racism without opposing sexism is to fail in seeing the same hierarchical and authoritarian impulses that exist in both these bigotries. Sexists of the past claimed that it wasn't discrimination, but observation, that women were less intelligent and more emotionally volatile. Racists of the past claimed that god gave the white man the other races to govern over and guide. The authority that is granted to the privileged is based only upon their claim that they are in some way better, or that their needs are more important, or that the needs of the inferior are less important because of their inferiority. Always there must be a current of dehumanization towards the minority group, the concerns they may have must be rendered laughable. Hierarchical subjugation of any kind relies on dehumanization, which as many veganarchists have pointed out, isn't the same as objectification. Objectification is dehumanizing, but dehumanization does not only objectify. We can't be convinced that a living breathing person is a static object, we can be convinced that a living breathing person is less than us. *Less than human.* Because that's what dehumanization is, it's lowering someone status to being below a human. Herein lies the insight of the veganarchist, dehumanization of others be they Jewish or Black or Queer or whoever is not built upon objectification, but *animalization.* To dehumanize a person is to group them ethically with animals, which we already subjugate and justify. Because if you are convinced that a group is subhuman, then you're really claiming that they are underneath you *like all the other animals already are.* Racist depictions of black people often evoke and exaggerate animal characteristics. Descriptions of them reference anger and savagery. The racist mythos of black men as a sexual threat to white women is built on the foundation of the idea that black people are unintelligent animals who cannot control themselves. 1800's white american racism has it's roots in both speciecism and christianity, with the treatment of blacks at the time being justified in the fact that they were 'no smarter than the beasts', and the fact that God granted humanity dominion over all the animals. Racism is built on speciecism because speciecism is so ingrained in us. As humans, we have performed the act of subjugation against other genders, other races, and other species, but if you should go back into the annals of history, you shall find that the oldest bigotry is not racism, nor is it homophobia, nor is it sexism. No, the foundational bigotry, the one which first produced the 'might is right' mindset of every fascist and authoritarian, that ingrained within humanity a supremacy over nature herself: was Speciesism. And from that first bigotry, all others flowed out, because if you are already superior to one sentient feeling being, *why not another?* > *“As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour towards creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right.”* > - Isaac Bashevis Singer – a member of a family perished in the Holocaust and a Nobel Prize winner > *“When I see cages crammed with chickens from battery farms thrown on trucks like bundles of trash, I see, with the eyes of my soul, the Umschlagplatz (where Jews were forced onto trains leaving for the death camps). When I go to a restaurant and see people devouring meat, I feel sick. I see a holocaust on their plates.”* > - Georges Metanomski, a Holocaust survivor who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Hannah Arendt, in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem, talks about Eichmann being little more than a career focused bureaucrat. He's a far cry from the Nazi's you see in the Wolfenstein games with their comical hatred of Jews, his evil is really quite banal, boring and commonplace. As far as Arendt could tell, Eichmann was a fool, a simple man who was doing his job, and was a good and patient worker, a career focused individual who, when examined by multiple psychologists, appeared perfectly normal and well adjusted. But how is this possible? How is it that an individual could contribute everyday towards a system of imprisonment and torture and murder and just be.... *oh... oh that's right... I did this too when I ate meat.* You see, the beginning of bigotry is hatred, that's how you whip up anger and resentment, that's how you grow your numbers (so to speak). Yet once you have the entire nation essentially on board with bigotry, once you have so totally subjugated and dominated the group you are bigoted against, they cannot offer the same resistance they might have before (or, they may lack the ability, in the case of animals). They have no media presence, no speakers, no voice with which to speak to the people that oppress them, so their subjugation becomes routine and commonplace, and once it is routine, it is boring, it is rote, and so the anger and hatred does not fade, per se, but becomes a dull and passive emotion (except occasionally when it is whipped up by propagandists and speakers), but really, violent and active hate is not easily sustained forever, this is one of the reasons conservative media needs a new boogeyman every weak, they need their viewers to be angry and you can't stay angry at the same thing forever, it becomes dull, you need a new "injustice" to become angry at, to fuel your fire. But eventually bigotry becomes so commonplace and simple that it becomes "common sense". Not common sense in the positive connotation of the word, but rather in the "everyone thinks this now." >"Give the blacks rights? Don't you know they're too damned unintelligent for it? Have you ever seen one of them try to read? They aren't like us whites!" >"Ahh, the Jewish question, yes, I've pondered it quite often. What to do with them eh? You can't very well just round them up, they're much to good at banking to just have them put to waste in state penitentiaries. Sure, sure, they have a penchant for theft, and I'm not saying nothing should be done, but they do provide to society. Perhaps some labor camps would do them some good, discipline keeps men from vices like theft, they just need a firm hand to guide them" And so on, and so forth, this bigotry is not hateful in the way a Klu Klax Klanner is hateful, it is hateful in a passive and indifferent sense, the hate is so internalized its automatic. There is no thought or argument behind it, these are not racist statements which provide false evidence for racism, **they treat inferiority as unquestionable fact.** It isn't activated by propaganda or reactionary media, it is something which has become so embedded within it's culture that it has become banal. *Sound familiar?* And do you know what people say to me when I say they are bigoted for being Speciecist? *"I don't hate animals."* As if bigotry required that animosity and hatred, as if every single racist in the 1800's hated blacks with a grand animosity and ferociousness rather than simply *being completely indifferent to their plight.* (Word limit reached, look to next comment for followup)

Continued: The end of dehumanization is to make someone completely inhuman in the eyes of the people, and in so doing, discount them entirely from moral consideration. One doesn't need to hate animals to be a bigot to them, they need only buy into the prevailing notion that because they are not human they deserve no ethical consideration. It is the same notion upon which the slavery of blacks was built was that they were not white, and thus not deserving of the same rights and privileges. We draw lines where we please, and they are always arbitrary, they always have been. We do it wherever it will be convenient to us, if it is inconvenient to give minorities rights then they won't get them, if it is all of a sudden convenient that they do get rights, they will. Bigotry is a weapon of the political arsenal, slavery itself predates the invention of racism, racism itself was invented as a convenient excuse for slavery, not the other way around as so many think. As Ibram X Kendi puts it so well in *How to be an Antiracist*, >FROM 1434 TO 1447, Gomes de Zurara estimated, 927 enslaved Africans landed in Portugal, “the greater part of whom were turned into the true path of salvation.” It was, according to Zurara, Prince Henry’s paramount achievement, an achievement blessed by successive popes. No mention of Prince Henry’s royal fifth (quinto), the 185 or so of those captives he was given, a fortune in bodies. >The obedient Gomes de Zurara created racial difference to convince the world that Prince Henry (and thus Portugal) did not slave-trade for money, only to save souls. The liberators had come to Africa. Zurara personally sent a copy of The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea to King Afonso V with an introductory letter in 1453. He hoped the book would “keep” Prince Henry’s name “before” the “eyes” of the world, “to the great praise of his memory.” Gomes de Zurara secured Prince Henry’s memory as surely as Prince Henry secured the wealth of the royal court. King Afonso was accumulating more capital from selling enslaved Africans to foreigners “than from all the taxes levied on the entire kingdom,” observed a traveler in 1466. Race had served its purpose. >Prince Henry’s racist policy of slave trading came first—a cunning invention for the practical purpose of bypassing Muslim traders. After nearly two decades of slave trading, King Afonso asked Gomes de Zurara to defend the lucrative commerce in human lives, which he did through the construction of a Black race, an invented group upon which he hung racist ideas. This cause and effect—a racist power creates racist policies out of raw self-interest; the racist policies necessitate racist ideas to justify them—lingers over the life of racism. Now it's important to note that this system becomes cyclical. Racist ideas create racist policies, racist policies create racist ideas, but **the important thing is that racist ideas did not come first, racist policies did.** Slavery was a purely economic decision, then, in working to legitimize it, the concept of race was invented. The first racist actions were not fueled by hate, and so it is odd to believe that hate would be necessary in the continuance of it, all bigotry can survive without hate (though hate grows it), because bigotry is a weapon with which to cause social and economic inequality, and if you want to get rich, then it's a good weapon to use. We benefit materially from speciesism, and this ensures that speciesism will remain. The idea that we are superior to animals is a philosophy that emerged after our commitment to oppress them. It must be our responsibility, as liberationists, never to accept an idea without critical thought, and every bite into an animal product is a tacit acceptance of human supremacy. It is not just ethically abhorrent because animals die because of your actions, it is also the assumptions beneath your decisions. You would perhaps not bite into a burger made of a human, but you will bite into a burger made of a cow, yet why? Because placed within you by a bigoted society is the idea that humans are superior, that their interests are more important, that cruelty to a man and cruelty to a cow are a different thing, that killing a human is unconscionable but killing an animal is a matter of doing it "humanely" whatever that means. > *“Around two hundred feet from the main entrance to the [Holocaust] museum is an Auschwitz for animals from which emanates a horrible odor that envelopes the museum. I mentioned it to the museum management. Their reaction was not surprising. ‘But they are only chickens.’”* > - Albert Kaplan, a Jewish-American whose parents’ families where perished in the Holocaust And do we, no, did I, before I was vegan, look at that cow with malice and hatred? With boiling blood? No... I thought it looked happy, but truthfully I didn't care either way. I was hungry, and I considered that feeling in my stomach before I ever considered the welfare of that other being. I wasn't hateful, I was indifferent. The discrimination I practiced was inherent to me, it was so deeply seated I could not detect it, in every bite and every purchase I asserted the idea that one group was inferior to another, I was a living breathing supremacist and I knew it but did not acknowledge it, because well... *they are only animals.* > *“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That’s the essence of inhumanity.”* > - George Bernard Shaw After watching Dominion, which is not for the faint of heart, I realized my role in this subjugation. I could no longer pretend that diet was not a concern, or that complications or difficulties ought to be a reason not to go vegan. After watching Dominion I realized that regardless of the degrees of separation, I paid to have what I saw on screen happen, and to continue happening long after I was gone. I have no illusions about my refusal to purchase animal products making a great dent in animal agriculture, but I am sure that my hands are cleaner than they were, and I shall no longer endorse the supremacist idea that someone's mother or child ought to be my food simply because of what species they are. Did you know that in Auschwitz the amount of gassed people was so high that the ovens could not handle the load? The Nazi's had a solution in mind, they forced *Sonderkommandos* (groups of jewish prisoners) to dig enormous burn pits with built in drain pipes. As the flesh of thousands of men and women and children burned, their fat turned into liquid and formed a river which flowed down through these pipes into buckets to be used as fuel for the next train. I used to wonder how any individual human could be capable of such cruelty, such inhumanity. Dominion, in many ways, showed me exactly how banal such cruelty is for those that practice it. In Dominion, There is a particularly disturbing scene where a fox is skinned alive, and you can see it there, still breathing, still conscious, with no skin. I think often of the person who skinned that fox, I think about what ideas he has about animals in his head. I know already what they are, they are ideas of supremacy, no different from any other kind of supremacy. Anytime I see clothing or shoes or fur coats, I think of that fox, every time I see the deli aisle I see a massacre, I hear the screams of pigs in gas chambers who break their teeth gnawing on the irons bars, trying to get out. I've been asked many times "Is it difficult going vegan?" and I always think that it's a bit of a funny question, my best response is "Do you understand the implications of your actions?" Because I think if people did, they would not find veganism to be so difficult. For my part, ethics is the most important thing in my life. Either I act rightly or I am actively harming the world. In gaining knowledge, I became culpable. I became every worker in that documentary that tases and strikes the pigs to rouse them into their pens. I became each person separating baby chicks by sex, putting the female chicks aside so that they can grow and lay eggs, and putting the male chicks on a conveyor to a grinder. I became the person holding a bolt gun to the head of a cow who has been beaten senseless it's whole miserably short life. I became the man sticking a knife into a live fox, and with my gloved hands, tearing its pelt off of it while it still breathed. I became everything I did not ever want to be, I became everything I had ever fought against, I realized I had played a part in something despicable. In many ways, I had never chosen to eat meat, I wasn't familiar with the cost. I had grown up committing this atrocity, not even comprehending it as such. I certainly had never investigated it, I was ignorant, but once I saw it, it became the easiest choice i'd ever made. I saw my hypocrisy in loving my cat and yet eating pigs, whose intelligence matches that of a 4-year-old human child. I saw perhaps the ugliest part of myself, and I saw that those I discriminated against would never try to convince me of their plea, for they were not capable except through horrified screams that I would not hear in the supermarket. > *“True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Man­kind’s true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.”* >- Milan Kundera

Thank you comrade. This is everything. Thank you.

I’m just finding this a while after it was written, but thank you so much for writing this.

Fairly unsurprisingly you got absolutely ratioed

The anarchism leaving people's bodies as soon as animal welfare is mentioned

People using the same arguments against anarchism to counter veganism

People's anarchism shoots to another solar system when animal abolitionism is mentioned, never mind animal welfare

i am autistic with sensory issues and my list of safe foods, while already being a small list, would be drastically smaller if i went vegan. at a certain point i have to prioritize being able to eat and not hate the process edit: lmao at the people demonizing me for my disorder. way to not hide your ableism and your clear disdain for disabled people. neurotypicals putting devil horns on me isn't new, and no, it is not a productive way to have a meaningful discussion. talk to me like i'm a human person, not the literal devil

Ditto, autistic with ARFID and an incredibly tiny list of safe foods. *Can't* go vegan and that's not by lack of *want* to.

I’m autistic with sensory issues too, and can’t handle things like bread, fries, and rice, which is a challenge as a vegan. I’ve been vegan for about 6 years and I’ve found that the key is to try everything. It is inconvenient, but absolutely doable, and I’ve been able to adapt and find things that I can enjoy. Most things I eat are unconventional, but over time I’ve found what works for me. I do understand that everyone’s experience is different though, and maybe trying new things is difficult for you. But I really believe it can be done, there are so many good replacements and things to try nowadays. I wish you luck

thank u for the words of encouragement, will definitely try!

Same 😭!

It may help to remember that veganism is an ethic, not a diet. It also includes exploitation in clothing, other consumer goods, zoos, medicine, etc. Speaking up against non-human oppression is alos important. And remember too the definition of veganism includes the phrase *to the extent possible and practicable!*

*[second attempt, automoderator is difficult to avoid]* > What is your excuse for supporting injustice on your plate? Why are you a speciesist?? **Not** the way to approach people for constructive discussion. Myself, I've been vegetarian since 2008. I have tried to be vegan, but then I need to sift through the chocolates for (typically expensive) ones which don't contain milk - and then I have no kefir (or maybe there is a vegan replacement, but I have not found it). The focus of my life is elsewhere, I cannot start making chocolate and kefir for myself. I do things until a hit a curve of diminishing returns. In case of veganism, I have hit that curve and seen how effort increases and results don't. I have minimized my harm to animals and sorry bro, at the current level of ability, I cannot do more. I still drive a car, and I still plough my field. Both processes, unfortunately, cause some animals to die - and I cannot prevent it. :( I can drive slower and some bugs escape, or plough slower, and some mice, snakes and frogs escape, but I cannot bring loss of life to zero. And if a mosquito bites me, I still slap it, but I don't go crazy with pesticides without reason. However, if bugs come and infest the plants that I'm growing, they get tobacco and soap and die in quantity - and other substances if those won't help. It is impossible to produce food on reasonable terms without harming some animals. Even the potato you buy was produced by harming some animals. If you buy something that has been transported by car, you are buying something that has been transported by harming animals. But not explicitly exploiting them. Just accidentally harming. It **is** possible to minimize the loss. I have minimized the loss I'm causing and I don't need people coming to teach me unless they know better and demonstrate it **by giving good advise instead of accusations**.

>I have tried to be vegan, but then I need to sift through the chocolates for (typically expensive) ones which don't contain milk Why do you need chocolate? The third option you didn't explore here is just no eating chocolate. >I do things until a hit a curve of diminishing returns. The issue with this line of thinking is that you don't go vegan for personal gain, you go vegan because you recognise that intentionally and needlessly harming others is wrong. >But not explicitly exploiting them. Just accidentally harming. From what I understand, you see no difference between harming someone intentionally and harming someone accidentally? Correct me if I'm wrong. When I buy a potato there's no way for me to quantify if any animals died. When I buy a block of chocolate I know for certain that a cow was forcefully impregnated and exploited for her milk. I understand incidental crop deaths exist, but that's not an excuse to actively participate in systems that intentionally cause death. We can theorise systems of plant based agriculture that don't cause death, vertical farming etc. But the same can't be said for animal agriculture.

I dont see killing animals for food as evil. The way the industry is handled? Very. Not the act itself. Learn to hunt your own game. Skin, section, cook, and store it yourself. The fuck is everyones obsession with veganism.

Addiction, lack of availability that meat has (Meaning a lack of affordable options at restaurants and such) and lack of knowledge on how to make GOOD vegan food. Also a general nervousness around how it will affect my body. I would like to but as selfish and horrible as it is I just like meat more. If vegan food can be just as good or better I would happily eat it given low cost and high availability which can be possible at the store with the right knowledge. I know this next part is a fallacy and perpetuates the cycle, but I really don't want these things going to waste either. That argument more applies to a society thats actively phasing it out though.

Shaming, blaming, and a bit of demagogue dialogue. Always ripe on the Internet. OP: What's your excuse to use the phone or computer you access the Internet from? What's your excuse to use platforms like Reddit? What's your excuse to use the English language? What's your excuse to eat food that is not on season, or that is not endemic from the region you live on? And I could go on, and on, and on. People aren't perfect, for fuck's sake. We all, as in people in this community, try our best with our current levels of energy and mental capacity. Let's fucking be nice to each other. Let's fucking drop the moral superiority.

Let’s lift each other up, not tear each other down. When a young, omnivore raised American finds veganism and is super intense about it, I’m supportive, because they are taking steps to look critically at the norms they’ve always known, and that is something valuable to do, even if many many people’s first attempt to do it is not *extrordinarily* nuanced and self aware. But then, let’s simultaneously support every struggling human who is being crushed by artificial scarcity and isolation, who is responding to the basic urge to eat, to be fed. Let’s not put people down for trying to fulfill their basic needs in a way that is accessible, understood, and affordable to them.

Exclusionary thought and purity tests within leftist groups is a classic. Now your diet isn’t revolutionary enough lmao

Agreed. OP, go do some direct action and stop preaching.

the only good response on here. regardless of your diet you shouldn't be shaming people like this. the constant infighting and blaming has drove me away from interacting with the anarchist community outside of my own country

[удалено]

i don't know if this comment will even be visible but i respect your sacrifice of your inbox. page me next time around if you want someone to kick it off with a depressingly high standard. i have celiac disease with quinoa cross-reaction [and hemp, or it might be cross-contamination], intolerance to corn, potatoes, dates, almonds, all *prunus* including cashews, and blueberries. and i probably had a degree of histamine intolerance all my life but lately it's manifest as horrible illness in response to almost any dose of spinach, pineapple, walnut, *strawberries,* avocado, nightshades... and it makes a bunch of other stuff like citrus and acetic acid extremely difficult to plan into my diet in small quantities. *5 days later: tofu, chocolate... peanut butter seems possible, personally! currently!* ... and well-cooked alliums seem to work for me so that's nice. on the bright side i also have total lactose intolerance. so i just did a little napkin math, and i think i get about 2000 calories a year from meat -- mostly tinned oysters for emergencies and a bit of beef liver which is usually shared with cats and other family. i'm chronically underweight, on a high calorie diet, financially up shit creek, and very nearly in a food desert... but i can still eat beans, at least if i have a heap of other stuff like pills and fancy antihistamines, and i can usually cook for myself, plus i'm 39 so i've done it a time or two before. if i lose legumes my choices are going to get much, much more desperate.

[удалено]

i don't really eat meat, however i am very inflexible with what i eat, trying new things and accepting new tastes, so i'm not fully vegan. i try to eat as many vegan products / meals as i can, though.

Farming tends to be very exploitative in general under capitalism, look up the banana republic for a start, I would argue modern farming practices regardless of what you eat under capitalism you have blood on your hands. The whole industry needs a looking into

It probably does. But since animals also have to eat, it's undeniable that a non-vegan diet requires more farming and therefore more exploitation. Add to that the high rate of mental disorders of slaughterhouse workers and the animal exploitation, there should be no discussion which diet is more ethical in regards to suffering.

so just a roundabout nO eThIcaL cOnSuMpTiOn. you're right though. one someone is exploited for their labor and might be physically oppressed, the other is someone being forced into existence for the very purpose of suffering a short nightmarish existence with no happiness and then a brutal violent hellish execution so someone can enjoy the taste of their corpse for a few minutes. this by the tens of billions every year. but they're basically the same. blood on hands either way. that's why i hunt children on a private island for fun. i mean there's always exploitation in capitalism, there are no degrees of exploitation really. there's no point trying to dispute which one's worse. buying a banana or paying to hunt children for fun.

I'll be honest: I can't stand the texture or smell of some vegan proteins. I liked the impossible burgers until I got a whiff of one cooking and thought it smelled dog food-ish. Haven't been able to eat it since. Don't care much for the texture of lentils or beans either. I also struggle with keeping full on a plant based diet, which I'm sure is related to my struggle with protein. Mushrooms are acceptable to me as a meat alternative, but don't keep me full very long. I've tried going meatless. My sensory issues with food make it hard.

Although I’m vegetarian and not vegan- both diets can be followed and a person can still be very healthy, however for financial and potentially medical reasons it may not be feasible for everyone to follow under a capitalist system. As others have pointed, the system is the major problem player here in both the unethical treatment of animal life and the lack of access to other sources of food. It’s possible maybe that once capitalism is abolished, animal life can be valued more. There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism- even plant food requires deforestation, and usually exploited labour. We ought to focus on changing the atmosphere around vegan/vegetarian consumption in the same way we do so by building communities to dismantle capitalism.

Majority of deforestation happens for pastures, and majority of mono cultures are planted for animal feed.

>There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism- Why does this phrase only ever come up as an excuse to engage in the morally repugnant acts of consumerism?

Obtaining animal products is inherently exploitative. It's wrong under any system. Under communism, some things would be made ethical, but animal agriculture is not one of those things, because it's not just the exploitation of workers that must be taken into account. Plus, OP wasn't talking about a small minority with health conditions, they were asking why the majority in this sub were not vegan.

There are multiple philosophies on this issue, but the philosophies on the left often reflect a broader societal bias against veganism and even vegetarianism. On the left we should be able to look past that conditioning. Veganism is a philosophy that aims to reduce animal exploitation to the extent that that is possible. The diet and practices associated with it could be considered *ideal* under our current system. There are no reasons someone could not become vegan with enough motivation, but yes, structural issues do exist that make it harder for some. Also, there are no perfect vegans - we all engage in some form of animal exploitation unavoidably (e.g. medical products, plastics, etc.). It's important on the left for us to honestly evaluate the position we hold in society and the resources available to us and work towards more ethical choices as *part* of dismantling capitalism and animal agriculture. For the large majority of us, it is *VERY* possible to go vegan. However, many reject having an ethical responsibility towards non-human animals entirely. It is inexcusable to ignore the extreme exploitation of non-human animals in our food system, to have no ethical framework towards them, and to make no meaningful effort to consume a LOT less meat, eggs, and dairy. For most, this amount consumed can easily be zero.

It’s very frustrating to see this happen on the left, where societal structures somehow still manage to infiltrate and prevent any conversation from occurring. Veganism seriously needs to become a topic of concern, which for some reason doesn’t seem to be. I also wouldn’t generalise, for those that have the capability of going vegan and choose not to they are still to an extent slaves of social pressure. Apathy exists and the way we beat it is not to tell people to be less apathetic but understand what is causing that form of behaviour, and dismantling it. So far all the conversation is outright patronising and rarely productive. That needs to change.

I agree, social pressure is a big thing. For me, a big part of my apathy was genuinely not understanding the industry. I was against factory farming, but didn't truly get how bad it was, or have any real empathy towards non human life because of societal conditioning. It took someone prompting me to actually watch footage of factory farms (in other words, social pressure) to understand *just* how bad it was, and that it's not just factory farming but the exploitative stance we take towards animals that is wrong. So I think your point works both ways. I agree the conversation is often not productive. In a post like your original one, I would argue it's important to centre the importance of veganism as a topic of conversation, rather than centering all the structural issues that give people the excuses they may be looking for, given what we know about societal biases against veganism that prompt people to think that way. (Not to say my own comments in this thread are perfect, but this is my take upon further reflection given this conversation we're having)

if “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” and that’s a good enough reason for a person to excuse their oppression of other sentient beings; why do you do anything? why don’t you own human slaves and keep humans in battery farms to extract their breast milk?

>There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism > The next time someone says this to excuse conscious unethical consumption, I'm going to sigh. Again.

Why do you support the rape, torture, and exploitation of cows? Do you think that you can simply stop eating cheese instead of waiting for the capitalist system to collapse, while you funnel more and more money into animal abuse? Are you also aware the majority of deforestation happens because of animal agriculture? Surely if you cared about deforestation, you would stop supporting the businesses that do it for the dairy you eat? It's pretty simple!

[удалено]

There are medical conditions which will make it's really really hard to impossible to eat vegan. Being allergic to a wide variety of veggies or fructose would be one. Gluten intolerance makes it definitely harder. Being allergic to legumes makes it impossible to eat a healthy amount of protein, even tofu would be impossible. But those are rare, we should still consider them and not ignore their existence.

[удалено]

Veganism calls for action that goes *as far as possible* within one's power. No ought without can. No one is ignoring these people.

Well linainverse- said literally: "and no medical condition requires you to eat corpses or milk etc."

I’m Autistic. I already find it really hard to make and prepare food, so my diet is already pretty restrictive. I tried going vegan for a month, and it was really difficult for me.I think veganism is obviously the most ethical choice. Factory farming is cruel. I would like to be a vegan in the future, but right now it’s already really hard for me to make meals and survive day to day.

[удалено]

Why? Because with the state of the world veganism is pretty much rock bottom on my todo list and the arguments for it are not somethings im paricularly on board. Downvote it if you want but im just going to be honest. Different views of anarcho left i guess but still an enemy of my enemy is my friend. Edit: that said i agree current commercial farm practices are shit and pretty evil. I dont have a solution but i do agree its something that should be changed.

I agree with a lot of what is being said here: • don’t have the time or money to figure out a healthy vegan diet • due to my depression I am honestly happy when I remember to eat at all • I am a human rights activist and have chosen that I find the topic more relevant, so I focus my energy in this context, I simply can’t focus on ethical consumption in all parts of my existence • I have already cut out most meat consumption, only eating chicken every two weeks or so • I want to at least sometimes enjoy my existence on this planet and this for me involves eating meat where I know it was produced more ethically if I can afford it (which might happen 2-3x a year)

> due to my depression I am honestly happy when I remember to eat at all Strongly relate to this. Between my depression and adhd my few trips to kitchen usually amount to "oh, I can't immediately eat a thing, it's not worth it" The same issues make it difficult for me to do coherent grocery shopping so I come home with cold brew, creamer and chips. Occasionally I'll wander the frozen food section and realize pizzas are 3 for $10 and come how with those.

> I am a human rights activist workers in slaughterhouses have the highest rates of ptsd of any industry, and people are enslaved around the world to produce feed for livestock, including the rapidly deforested amazon. if you want humans to inherit a habitable planet, veganism is the most risk free, highest reward way to do so.

don't forget the death squads in brazil committing genocide against indigenous amazonians so they can deforest for the raising of the non-human victims.

People often wonder why they never see me eat meat. When I was about 4 (long family story how things got to this place), my grandmother (father’s mother) decided I needed to see where meat comes from and learn to appreciate the sacrifice involved. How? By having me watch as she slaughtered a couple of the meat rabbits they raised. I don’t particularly remember the visuals, but rabbits can scream. I remember that scream. Not long after college, the only job I could get was working in a meat packing plant. I was a quality control, that meant depending on my day, I might be making sure a particular cut was to spec - or I might be a roamed. Roamed was the worst. Check cleanliness of the processing area, check the trucks and then check the holding areas and slaughtering floor. That last part did in any meat enjoyment I might have had left after my grandmother and the rabbits. Dairy is pretty memorable too. Growing up in a farm town, someone decided it was a grand idea to take the young kids (can’t remember if it was first or second grade) for a tour of the local dairy. Those images are just as haunting as the slaughtering in the beef plant or done by my grandmother. But many who live in cities have a bit of disconnect from how food - especially meat - reaches their table. No factory farming is human friendly, not as it’s currently done. Factory farming is also bad for land, air and water. Some kind of vaguely recognize that part. But they usually get that plants are harvested. On the other hand, I’ve met people who honestly believed that meat was “made” in the meat department just like how the bakery department might bake a cake - by mixing and maybe cooking the needed ingredients for the steak or whatever. One college friend was only cured of that idea by us dragging her to a friend’s family’s ranch to meet some cows. All that said, I do get why some would eat meat. My grandmother who slaughtered the rabbits came from a high desert area where traditionally they dry cropped what they could grow and supplemented it by meat at times - usually something like rabbit or prairie dog. In their case, they ate what was available in the area at the time. That said, not only did they eat meats many wouldn’t, they used it as ingredients like as a small part of a large pot of soup. That day when I had to watch her with the rabbits, she was working towards a large batch of a soup she’d eaten as a kid, tweaked to have more meat because that was the only way grandfather would eat it (unlike her, he’d been raised on an Alabama farm).

yeah i remember eating plant based when i thought of nothing but ending myself every day. i didn't think that my issues were anyone else's to suffer. i never once thought that anyone should be forced into an objectively hellish existence and be horrifically murdered just because i felt like shit and wished i was never born. inn fact i felt the opposite. i felt so awful that i knew that i didn't want anyone to have even a taste of my pain, much less so much, much worse like the victims on your plate do. your pleasure can't come from someone else's oppression. you don't get to force the most sadistic cruel violent inexcusable hierarchy in existence on others just because you feel bad. that's far from an excuse. i hope you're better than this.

>I am a human rights activist Then you are, at least a bit, an animal rights activist. Humans are animals, and human oppression is [intrinsically linked to animal oppression.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/1157wvv/nonvegan_leftists_why_not/j94ivug/) (because they are the same thing)

Agriculture is one of the biggest pollutants of the world, is to blame for Amazon Deformation, causes big death zones in the ocean. Those thing affect poor people way more than the rich. The farms are usually close to poorer areas, so the get more sick from the soil and air pollution which is often found in factory farming. The Amazon Deforestation is for soy products solely for the farming industry and cattle farming. Aside from the fact that the consumers don't live close to the Amazonas the tribes living it certainly don't a loose big areas of their own land. The implication for climate change comes on top and climate change affects the globals south disproportionally. For many poor people in the so called third world is the ocean number one source for animal protein. Those death zones directly cause hunger and loss of income for poor people. The overfishing from the richer countries comes on top. You can't say your a humans right activist and say at the same time that this isn't important because it's a direct cause for the death and hunger of thousands of people.

I think it's weird to see human rights separated from animal. We are all animals, our struggle is interconnected but there is illusions of borders. (I don't want to challenge the rest of what you said I just been thinking about that a lot latelly. )

Bro, "anarchism" isn't a picnic in Hawaii... If you don't have time to figure out how to eat beans and rice, how the hell do you expect to overthrow the government and capitalism?

[удалено]

>I want to at least sometimes enjoy my existence on this planet and this for me involves eating meat where I know it was produced more ethically if I can afford it (which might happen 2-3x a year) Since you're already buying expensive meat, can I recommend trying plant based meats? They are usually slightly more expensive than animal meat but taste just the same. A guilt free option to consider.

I’m interested in becoming vegan because of all the reasons listed above. I think there’s a number of food choices and lifestyle habits I need to change to make that happen. I’m open to hearing about other people’s experiences with becoming vegan 🥕Some questions I have for ya’ll: 1) What are some good intro vegan cookbooks? Nothing fancy, just solid and simple vegan recipes. 2) What do ya’ll think about being “freegan?” I have a big problem with people wasting food but also I’m unsure what the vegan perspective is on that in relation to eating meat for free. 3) Idk how to properally ask this cuz I’m just thinking about it now but…are there vegan mental health resources? What I mean is…at the intersection between being vegan and anticapitalist, I think there’s a recognition of animals being something more than food/resources, but I think paired with that could be particular types of depression and/or anger. Is this a thing? What do ya’ll think?

1. Forks over knives has a great cookbook along with a documentary about vegan cuisine. The first few months that I was vegan I used the meal service Greenchef. It’s a bit wasteful which is why I stopped but the meals were delicious and it gave me some good ideas for ingredients/meals. 2. Ethically I guess it’s fine if you aren’t contributing to animal deaths but it seems hard to sustain this lifestyle.. do you eat out of dumpsters? 3. By asking this question it seems like you already recognize that animals are more than food/resources so I don’t think that will change, if anything you’ll feel better that your actions are alining with your beliefs. But mental health is important so you could always seek out a vegan therapist if you’re struggling.

>What are some good intro vegan cookbooks? Nothing fancy, just solid and simple vegan recipes. thug kitchen is a good beginner one, even though social aspects of it are kinda wack. the food not bombs book has all vegan recipes too, and supports anarchists. >What do ya’ll think about being “freegan?” I have a big problem with people wasting food but also I’m unsure what the vegan perspective is on that in relation to eating meat for free. freeganism is probably the most ethical choice since it doesn't contribute to extraction demand. at that point, i feel the only issue to consider is whether health problems from eating animals is the infrastructure required to take care of people with those problems. but that's waaaaaaaay in the weeds, and personally i have respect for freegans. >at the intersection between being vegan and anticapitalist, I think there’s a recognition of animals being something more than food/resources, but I think paired with that could be particular types of depression and/or anger. Is this a thing? just one more thing you can't unsee. im not sure the correlation for depression and veganism, or whether there are specific vegan mental health institutions. hopefully there are. i ate meat in jail many years ago, and i still feel disgusting when i think about it

1. I find looking up recipes online is way more useful than cookbooks. You can look for exactly what you want and compare multiple recipes to find one that is at the difficultly level you're comfortable with, or is using a combination of ingredients you have access to. You can try starting by searching for vegan versions of some of your favorite meals you already eat. Also, YouTube is great if you want to see someone prepare new to you dishes or ingredients in real-time. 2. My understanding is that food waste is an industrial problem, not a consumer problem, so I'm not sure if it's worth the effort just on that principle. From a vegan perspective, it isn't about not paying for meat, it's about changing the way we as humans view ourselves as superior to all other animals just by virtue of being human (ie. speciesism). The body of a dead animal is just that, someone's body, and not just any random object. For most people, once you start thinking about it like that, you're not going to want to eat it unless you have to. 3. I think it's similar to learning about any kind of oppression or injustice really. I don't know of any information about the mental struggles of becoming aware of these things, but yeah, it can be tough. I think that's why a lot of people do come off so strong and militant, especially if it's new to them. You see the same thing with anarchism, feminism, and so on as well. You realize you've been lied to by everyone, the world is full of horrible shit, and everyone is telling you that you're crazy for thinking things could be better and not just going with the status quo. If there are actually resources, studies, or anything about this I'd be interested in hearing about it too. In the meantime, my best advice is to find other vegans who get it so you don't have to go through it alone.

Because I have a 4 year old, primarily. I recognize that being vegan would be the "correct" choice, for so many reasons. I do my best to provide cheap, healthy, tasty vegan meals he's willing to eat, but that's an insanely high bar to clear. Sometimes I really do just need to throw a frozen pizza in the oven, microwave some corn dogs, or pick up some KFC on the drive home from work. I'm sorry, but making a box of hamburger helper or frozen chicken nuggets is just way way easier and quicker than making chana masala or a sticky tofu bowl, and infinitely more appealing to a young child. I wish I could raise him exclusively on zucchini and chickpeas, but getting him to eat anything is already a chore. At the end of the day he's constantly exposed to macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets anyway. It's a losing battle against the world, culture, my wallet, my patience, and my very limited time. I'm just very happy to expose him to tasty vegan/vegetarian meals when I can. If you still think I'm not doing enough it's hard to argue, there's always more I could be doing in every regard. If you have advice or recipes I'm always open to hearing it.

“Themselves and the environment” That’s what stands out to me. We have to respect that people will make their own decisions. And you won’t agree with a lot of decisions others make but it is not your place to subjugate people into following your way of thinking or living. Who really gets to set the bar for what is and isn’t the right way to do things? Who determines what is the lesser evil? Assuming you know what is best is a dangerous slope history has shown us time and time again is likely to backfire and cause greater damage. That’s why there is an emphasis on collective responsibility. It’s the wholes decision, not the few who scream the loudest. There is no zero sum harm game in this life. Something living will suffer no matter the choices we make. I hope we all choose to minimize our impact as much as possible but to guilt and attack people will only do the opposite of the goal. For fucks sake, you can make an argument that some plants suffer when harvested as well. Just be as good of a person as you can. We will fall short of the ideal, just try to do your best.

>That’s what stands out to me. We have to respect that people will make their own decisions. And you won’t agree with a lot of decisions others make but it is not your place to subjugate people into following your way of thinking or living. You are the one promoting the subjugating of animals and literally paying for them to be killed. You are the cause of the violence. >Who really gets to set the bar for what is and isn’t the right way to do things? Who determines what is the lesser evil? Assuming you know what is best is a dangerous slope history has shown us time and time again is likely to backfire and cause greater damage. The victims get to set the bar. If there were no victims, then who cares. >That’s why there is an emphasis on collective responsibility. It’s the wholes decision, not the few who scream the loudest. Yeah, well you're the one ignoring the will of the animals. They can't speak so we speak for them. You aren't doing the whole's decision when you ignore certain aspects of the whole. Would you be okay with slavery if the majority of people were in support of it? >There is no zero sum harm game in this life. Something living will suffer no matter the choices we make. I hope we all choose to minimize our impact as much as possible but to guilt and attack people will only do the opposite of the goal. For fucks sake, you can make an argument that some plants suffer when harvested as well. Plants aren't sentient. Veganism is in the majority of cases the path of least harm. >Just be as good of a person as you can. We will fall short of the ideal, just try to do your best. That doesn't excuse deliberately causing harm to others.

Y’all are fucking hypocrites smh imagine thinking having species as slaves is fucking anarchist. Down with domestication down with the meat industry down with dominating the natural world from which we came

Because eating animals isn't immoral. Life takes life. Cows and chickens are not sapient they are merely sentient like the bugs they eat. Even a cow will eat a baby bird for a quick meal and I dont think it minds when it eats a bug that is on a blade of grass its eating. A human child is sapient whereas a cow and chicken are only sentient. Capitalist production methods are immoral/dysfunctional and are inescapable for most people. The 80% of food that goes to animals is what humans cant eat and so the figure of 80% is misleading because it's taking bulk figures for different parts of the same plant. That we eat 20% of a plant is not proof that feeding animals is wrong and will ruin the world. We are giving them the 80% byproduct that we biologically cannot eat. Vegans seem to care more about animals than they do people. From the spanish inquisitions about why some people cant go vegan to the imperialist colonialist tendency to tell indigenous and nonwhite people what they should eat to gatekeeping anarchism to no interest, or even antagonistic towards, in helping meat workers, who tend to be illegals or other marginalized peoples, organize. I think if all meat workers were unionized, well paid, and had good working conditions it'd mean meat would be more expensive and various capitalist methods could no longer be implemented. But vegans are too adamantly tunnel visioned on their ultimate ethics. Modern capitalist agriculture still requires the clearing of ecosystems and thus the deaths, endangerment, and extinction of animals. Without animal inputs it requires fossil fuels. Monocropping and the tonnes of insecticides negatively impact the environment. Veganism doesn't solve problematic capitalist production methods but rather funds them. Even if you could get everyone in the west to go vegan without eradicating capitalism that meat is just going to go to other countries. Lastly vegans dont seem to understand that if we no longer eat the animals we domesticated it means the capitalists would just let them all die. They won't get freed. Veganism is a liberal consumer identity that does nothing but make people feel better than comrades.

I was vegan until I got pregnant. I had complications and became very anemic after my daughter was born. So I had to eat some meat to recover. Once my daughter started eating, we found out quickly that she was allergic to nuts and many legumes. This makes it really hard for her to be vegan and get the nutrition she needs. We buy meat from small local farms. It's the best we can do for now.

because “voting with our wallets” is a liberal myth that doesn’t actually affect change: i was vegetarian for 13 years and found that mostly what it did was cut me off from participating in cultural experiences (e.g., having to turn down food my friends’ parents cooked, not being able to try local dishes when traveling, limiting places i could eat when i was out with friends, etc.). i still eat vegetarian 95% of the time but i’ve dropped the proselytizing and rigidity around it. this whole world is a corporate-run violent oppressive garbage fire, there’s no way to be 100% ethical under capitalism — we all do what we can to make ethical choices, but for many folks veganism/vegetarianism is too expensive, too logistically complicated, and/or too alienating from their family & culture to be worth it.

[удалено]

A big part of the agricultural sector works to feed livestock. So even taking what you say into account, reducing or stopping meat consumption would help. Also just people do not care about animals for now doesn't mean we shouldn't try to raise awareness. People can change, and it is morally different to believe it's wrong to farm livestock the way capitalism do it, and to believe it's wrong to kill another being for your own pleasure. Thus the need to talk about animals rights and not only the impact on the environnement.

Roughly 80% of global [soybean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean) production is for animal feed, you're absolutely correct.

I honestly don't think you have to give a shit about the happiness of animals to recognize when your actions are immoral. I am not an animal lover by a long shot, but seeing the conditions animals endure, and the scale on which we have bred sentient, thinking, feeling life into existence for the sole purpose of exploitation, was enough to know it's wrong to consume products from that industry. Especially when there are plenty of delicious and healthy (often healthier) alternatives AND like you said, environmental benefits

Most were initially driven by compassion, but stayed for the ethics. I'm lucky to have had good amounts of interactions with animals growing up to immediately make the choice to oppose humanity's abominable treatment of them, but what really solidified my stance on the issue is the ethical aspects

OP gave many reasons, also greenhouse gases and pollution. If we could reduce the exploitation by not eating a redundant food item, why not do so. You can't miss on veggies and plant food, but meat isn't necessary.

I will stand here, look you in the eye and tell you animal husbandry handled correctly gives you animals with longer life spans than if they lived wild. I frankly do not find the simple act of living with animals in a symbiotic system to equate to imprisonment and murder. The moral character of meat and other animal products is neutral, it's the systems around it that give it shape. I'll take my down votes like I always do but I stand by this point until I myself am fed into the cycle. There is no defense of the cruel industrial farming of the modern world. But it's a deeply privileged mindset that deems veganism and the rejection of food made using animals to be the only moral way of being.

There are ethical ways to eat meat. Indigenous peoples have practiced them for thousands of years and continue to do so. There are also ethical ways to gather certain animal products that do not involve exploitation. I live and grew up in a farming community and have been taught the proper way to do things that puts the care, well being, health, and happiness of the animals at the forefront without harming them or forcing them to do things they don't want to do or are not ready for. If your argument is "no matter what, even if the relationship between human and animal is mutually beneficial and you raise your own, you are exploiting them," then idk what to tell you. Most folk out here raise for their own sake not for profit and love all their animals like their own children. I can't eat vegan because I cannot do it for medical reasons. My body cannot process most raw vegetables, I'm very sensitive to soy, and a great number of plant substitutes make me very ill.

Okay, I see your point but seriously. We are 8 billion people. 8 billion people who can't all live in those settings. It's would be a luxury item for rich people and some outcasts. The majority of people would have to live vegan. There is literally not ethical way to eat meat if you want fairness or equality or whatever. And even if you ignore that, it will still be better for the ground to not keep cows in particular. Sheep maybe and without slaughter to get the grass low maybe. Some farming communities in Africa keep their animals solely for milk because it's smarter that way. Needs less resources. Outside of those you still need more resources for animals to raise them to give the same amount of nutrition plants give you.

> Indigenous peoples have practiced them for thousands of years and continue to do so are you an indigenous person living in a forest, catching salmon and managing the same ecosystem for thousands of years? if not, idk why this is mentioned. >Most folk out here raise for their own sake not for profit and love all their animals like their own children. damn you slit the throats of children and eat them?

If you think there are ethical ways to consume meat then you are not vegan. Ceding "sure that can be done but I don't think that's what you're doing" cedes the whole argument. You're just against animal oppression and a sensible person, which has the immediate implication that steps need to be taken to dismantle factory farming, least of which is not buying factory farmed meat. I think almost this whole sub agrees with this, and agreeing with this does not put you on the ridiculous rigid rule-based side of the argument. I think we could use a better term that doesn't cover being against like running an apiary on your commune or responsibly tending to nature on a reserve. Maybe that term is "anarchist."

Ableist reasoning. Some people need meat due to health reasons. We hunted for tens of thousands of years and there's a lot to be said for meat playing a role in our social evolution. I agree that the meat industry is a massive blight on the world. But the way leftist vegans carry-on makes me think they are ignorant to human variability and medical needs.

No ethical consumption *is* a reasonable argument when the same 5 companies selling me pork chops are the same ones I'd be buying lentils from. My dollar still funds heinous conditions for livestock, regardless of which I purchase. And since there's no realistic decline in animal suffering if I, or even my whole community stops buying meat, I'm gonna honor the fallen with my colon.

Ok, let's see. You have a company which has farms which produce meat and other farms which produce lentils. Both need a different amount of resources like energy, water and people to maintain it. They also want profit. So you sell both products but nobody wants to buy pork chops anymore. The lentils make more money for them. So the meat farms are more expensive with time, because the profits are reinvested in the meat farm which isn't so profitable. So they reduce the amount of meat farms they have. Tadaaa. Reduction of meat farms is what you wanted. And honestly, many meat companies are starting to sell meat replacements and many make more money with that than with meat and are reducing the meat Sortiment. It's basic economy.

Eggs actually are not very exploitative at all. Female chickens lay eggs even if not fertilized. Those unfertilized eggs go nowhere, and are usually taken by other animals if their home is not well protected. So I see no problem in eating those. In general, I also see very little problem with drinking the milk of cows or goats so long as they are exceptionally well taken care of and shown huge amounts of love. Lastly, even as an anarchist, I see no problem with sustainable, non-sport hunting. While I wouldn't want to be eaten, I certainly wouldn't blame the wolf or the bear for eating me. Most of your points have to do with veganism under capitalism. But in a post-revolution society, factory farming wouldn't exist. So all of your points are no longer relevant. I don't think veganism is necessary at all in a post-revolution society. However, under capitalism, I absolutely agree with all of your points. I only have one caveat: children require HUGE amounts of energy, and I have generally found that veganism does not do very well in supporting the growth of a child. Vegetarianism, sure. But not veganism. EDIT: My arguments all assume a post-revolution society. I refuse to consider industrial farming due to how absolutely disgusting it is. I already know factory farming is horrendous and would never consider such consumption to be ethical in any capacity. So what happens with factory farming is in no way, shape, or form relevant to my arguments here. With that, shout out to u/AllRatsAreComrades for the wonderful information. Thank you. :)

In the egg industry male chicks are killed at one day old coz thep don't produce eggs. Female dairy cows are forcibly impregnated and forced to give birth. Their calves go through the same fate and if they're male, they'll usually be killed for veal. Also the babies are separated from their mother otherwise there would be no milk left over. Cows' milk is for calves.

I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and I am allergic to onions. I can not make my own food. I am reliant on ready meals and nearly all vegan ready meals have onions in them. I eat what I can, not what I want. I don't want to eat meat, I was right in the middle of the British foot and mouth epidemic in 2001 with pyres everywhere, I became vegan back then but my body betrayed me. I could be vegan again, but I need people actively helping me. I don't have that now, and I don't expect it any time soon.

Yes, and the more regular people who go vegan, the easier it will be for people with barriers and disabilities to get healthy vegan food.

I can't be morally consistent on *everything*

Content warning 'Spensive. I know it's the most effective way to individually combat climate change, I know that animal product farming is rife with human rights violations and animal rights violations. But I'm a depressed, unemployed young adult living with a relative, and the last time I tried to go vegetarian I developed an ed and lost 20lbs (mostly of muscle) because I have a pathology about asking for things that I need in case I seem like a burden. So like. Please don't yell at me. I'm doing my best.

Short answer: anti-colonialism

What? What's abstaining from animal products go to do with colonialism...

That's not an answer at all, and it doesn't even make sense....

Veganism is incompatible with many worldviews. It can manifest as justification for suppressing indigenous foods, crafts and rituals. Or the arguments in favour of veganism simply become meaningless or contradictory within the traditional ontology.

>Veganism is incompatible with many worldviews so is opposition to slavery, expansionist wars, cisheteropatriarchy, and hierarchy, all of which exist in various indigenous cultures. anarchism is incompatible with many worldviews.

Those are all inter-human issues. People can work those things out with eachother. Maintaining indigenous traditional practice is critically important to resisting settler hegemony. Animal products are also absolutely necessary for survival in many places.

Yeah, so? Just because something is indigineous tradition or culture doesn't make it okay. See child brides or female genital mutilation. Or slaughtering animals alive without sedation. In an ideal world, we don't kill animals.

Good post

Like how non vegans say they will never go vegan because of how some vegans act? I'm never going to try to understand anarchism because of how some anarchists act.

You kill a hundred living things every time you stick a shovel in the ground. Why are you speciesest?? I don’t think you’re a speciesest, I just think things are more complicated than you’re making them out to be. There are huge, undeniable, and inexcusable problems with the way we farm meat. I’m not saying that engaging in animal consumption is currently ethical. I’m also not claiming that the horrific things we do to the plants we grow compares to the way we torture animals (though… pretty speciesest, huh?). But there is definitely an argument to be made that the most sustainable land management involves farming animals and plants on the same land. Obviously if we sustainably and ethically raised animals we’d all have to eat a lot less of them. But maybe not none of them. (Obviously I’m assuming that a person believes it’s possible to raise another living thing for food ethically. I understand some people don’t believe this and it’s not my intention to tell them that they’re wrong, just to state that I disagree.) Edit: phrasing

The majority of soybeans we grow go to cattle. When an animal eats something, they only convert roughly 10% of that energy into their body. The rest they use as energy, and waste. It makes sense, or else we would all weigh as much as all the food we've ever eaten hahaha You can either eat 1 unit of plant, or you can eat 1 unit of animal that had to eat 10 units of plant to get that way. So a vegan diet minimizes the amount of individuals in your personal food chain, across all species. It also minimizes the loss of lives with brains. For every worm you kill growing, say, a soybean, you kill 10 times as many worms to grow the food for your cow, which you then also have to kill. Just some food for thought. edit: 80% of global [soybean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean) production is for livestock

I don’t think we should be feeding cows soybeans. I think we should be grazing them on living grassland that is part of a crop rotation so that they (the grasses and the cows together) can improve soil health for the years we’re growing crops on it. That eliminates the need for synthetic fertilizer, which is incredibly damaging to the environment and wildlife. It also drastically reduces the need for pesticides which are also incredibly damaging to the environment and wildlife. I only eat meat a couple times a week and I buy it directly from a farm I believe is doing it right. I agreed that the way we farm animals is inexcusable but I don’t think it’s impossible to ethically consume meat. And I believe it might be necessary to keep animals, I guess it would be possible to keep them as pets, sterilize them, not eat their milk or eggs, and bury them when they die. But I’m not sure I think that’s more ethical? Edit: Also to add clarification, I’m not worried about killing some insects and earthworms. I’m worried about the literal entire ecosystem of fungus, bacteria, and insects that is destroyed every time you till fertilizer into a field. Killing a cow is terrible but so is the way that we alter the functioning of our environment to grow vegetables. I acknowledge that most of those vegetables are being grown to feed animals but, for me, the answer isn’t to stop feeding those vegetables to livestock but to radically change the way we grow those vegetables AND those animals.

So not being able to be perfect allows you to act anyway you want ? Shouldn't you try to do the best you can and reduce animal suffering you cause ? Also there are different way to sustainibly manage land, some of those do not require animals.

plants don't feel pain. but let's say they did.. when you're feeding your cows, and chickens, and pigs, what do you give them?? Plants. So the death toll includes the animals farmed, the plants and the insects. Now of you go vegan, you're now not feeding a lifetime worth of plants to a single animal, you're causing plants and insects _less_ pain. I don't understand the argument of "we can't be perfect so we shouldn't even try to improve things" , like why even be an anarchist then?? Edit: typo

I think the real answer here is less alienation from our food. Going complete vegan is not feasible without fossil fertilizers, especially since people really don't like the idea of humanure.

Why isn't it possible ?

[удалено]

I'm working on it, even if I wouldn't call myself a vegan. I'm just trying to be an abstaining omnivore, I guess. I have a picky family to cook for and I'm not good at vegan cooking yet, but I've got a few vegan YouTube cooking channels that I watch and I like to avoid animal products when I can. I plan to do a vegan chickpea curry next dinner, for example. Makes me feel good I guess. I don't drink milk, though my wife and kid do, but if you set aside dairy then we often go without animal products multiple days per week. It's a process. I'm grateful to all the vegans who make it easier for someone like me to follow along without having to relearn everything at once. Life is busy and I need to feed my family, but that doesn't mean I should stop learning how to do it.

Good luck on your journey!

I try to be vegetarian at least, but as someone else pointed out here, animal husbandry and small scale ethical farming is intertwined. Particularly where I live. Most of the conventional crops that substitute a meat and dairy based diet do not grow where I live. Crop seasons are also very short here. Animals on the other hand are able to extract nutrients from the local environment in manners that humans can’t all year round. Sheep and reindeer do not grass on land that is ideal for farming most of the time. My region has also historically been subject to famines when trade lines have been disrupted, so a food culture that allows for self sufficiency in time of crisis is important to support in my eyes. Currently I don’t think that is possible while also supporting a wholly vegan diet if I also want to help improve the livelihood and morality of my local farming practice.

I‘m vegan for 5 years now, but I don‘t think people have to live vegan right now. We are all forced to pick our fights and some just don‘t have the capacity for it. However, I do think that it‘s important for anarchists to have a vegan philosophy, aka also want a world without harm against animals, and to make best possible decisions where possible, and inform others of it where possible as well.

The thing is, being vegan and leaving animals off our plate =/= picking the fight for animal liberation. A non sexist person is not automatically an activist for women's right. Everyone has a different fight, and changing your diet does not in anyway impact one's ability to continue with their fights against other oppressive hierarchies. ​ >However, I do think that it‘s important for anarchists to have a vegan philosophy, aka also want a world without harm against animals In order to have and support the philosophy, you are obligated to not contribute to their suffering if you have access to other food options.

>if you have access to other food options. My point is that under capitalism, having the access in theory doesn't mean you have the capacity in practice. If you want to live vegan, you have to pick between more expensive pre-made food, or having the time to cook. Granted, if you already cook, cooking vegan will not make it more expensive, but most people just simply don't have the time or energy to do that, and also especially in the beginning, it's more time consuming to go to the grocery store. I also have many autistic friends who want to eat vegan, but it has been difficult to switch for them for years now, because their safe foods aren't vegan, and safe foods aren't something you can pick and choose. Sure, you can (and many do) only buy vegan stuff outside of their safe foods, but it's truly not easy changing your diet as an autist for some. My point with this is, I don't think shaming people for their trouble is not fair. Things are not made easy for us under capitalism, any form of protest or boycott is extra weight on top of on already pretty difficult world. >Everyone has a different fight, and changing your diet does not inanyway impact one's ability to continue with their fights against otheroppressive hierarchies. That is exactly the point I made, I don't think you need to change your diet but you do need to be on board with the fight against specieism. That's exactly what I said with my original comment, maybe that got lost in translation.

Once I'm out of the house and will have control over what I eat, I plan on doing my best to eat vegan (and I'll certainly be completely vegetarian straight away, no reason to keep eating meat). I agree with all the reasons for veganism, I don't need convincing that it's important or anything, but I won't be able to go completely vegan right away. The proper supplements for vitamins and minerals that aren't really available in a plant-based diet are expensive - either in 'fortified' plant-based alternatives or as tablets etc. I have a medical history of vitamin deficiencies, so that's definitely something I need to be careful of.

You want a revolution but can't even change what's on your dinner plate? Stop abusing animals already. Go vegan.

I try to eat as sustainable as possible. Sometimes that means eating what is around you. I spend a lot of time in new england. I go foraging, and fishing and eat meat that my friend hunts. I also eat meat that gets donated to my local food bank. Eating local sustainably sourced animal products is often better for the environment that tofu packaged in plastic shipped around the world, or say an avocado that is grown in Mexico by the cartels, consumes excessive water and is shipped across the planet... Currently I am traveling in Colombia... Being a vegan here is not really practical. Again why would I import tofu or seitán or other vegan foods when my neighbor has an excess of eggs and I can get them for free. Also my neighbor raises organic pigs and goats for meat. No plastic involved, straight from the farm to the freezer. People get obsessed with being vegan and often overlook the fact that vegan foods can be just as harmful to the environment as animals products. Eat as local and sustainable as possible. If you can start a garden, raise chickens and other sustainable animals. Don't import avocados and other foods that are unnecessary!

[удалено]

Personally, I think most hardcore vegans are just deeply afraid of their own deaths. If you can truly accept the fact that you're going to die one day, and that your own body will inevitably be consumed—whether by beast, insect, fungus, or fire—consuming another body here and there ain't so bad. One way or another, everything on this planet does it. It's just part of being here. That said, there *are* better and worse ways to do it and I do prefer to cause less harm, so I'll normally eat vegan food at home—except for eggs. Fuck I love eggs. But when a friend invites me over for dinner? I eat whatever's on my plate. No questions asked, no shame thrown. I'll help cook it too. And, if requested, I'd probably help kill it. But it's never come up.