Ethical basis for Veganism or Vegetarianism?

[i_am_i]

Whitney, I agree with you that everybody should eat whatever they want to eat.   I also feel that everybody should say whatever they want to say about why they eat whatever they eat.  

in what many view as an extreme, unappealing, and very inconvenient manner.

It's true that many view it that way, agreed.    

It's also true that they are simply wrong.   A vegie diet is not extreme, unappealing or very inconvenient.   No supplements are needed.   No special knowledge or Harvard courses required.  Common sense gets the job done just fine.

Typist, I agree with you. What an articulate and well-written post. An excellent read!

I also agree that no suppliments are needed.  

[Whitney]

A vegie diet is not extreme, unappealing or very inconvenient.  

It is for some of us....esp the unappealing and inconvenient part.  It's inconvenient for me to try to find vegetarian meals my husband will eat and unappealing for him to eat most vegetarian meals.  He hates almost all veggies including onions (broccoli and spinach are about all that are okay other than tomato products; not tomatoes) and I don't care for most beans; esp not if I've had them more than once that week.  We'll both eat tofu but apparently now people are raising concern about estrogen in soy so it's bad to have that very often...whatever.

I don't care how much vegetarians and vegans try to claim that an all or mostly veggie diet is easy to maintain; you're either lying or have no social life   .  I know vegetarians and see them trying to go out to dinner with friends and having to eat before hand because they can't eat anything at most restaurants...that's inconvenient.   Not to mention having to learn how to cook with only vegetables without ending up producing something that is smothered with cheese in an attempt to create flavor....I know a lot of vegetarians well, I'll just say that a higher percentage of them end up making meals for group events that I wouldn't want to eat as related to those who just make something without food group restrictions.

now...if vegetarian allowed for  ecologically harvested dumb sea creatures (ie, not eating Flipper) and eggs; then that would be fine.  I basically only cook with chicken, turkey, and fish anyway...wouldn't be that hard to cut out the turkey and chicken if I felt there were a need to do so. I still don't think I'd cut it out completely though...that's where the extreme comes in; I don't like the idea of deciding never again (or never) on something unless it is habit forming.

[pckizer]

It is for some of us....esp the unappealing and inconvenient part.  It's inconvenient for me to try to find vegetarian meals my husband will eat and unappealing for him to eat most vegetarian meals.  He hates almost all veggies including onions (broccoli and spinach are about all that are okay other than tomato products; not tomatoes) and I don't care for most beans; esp not if I've had them more than once that week.  We'll both eat tofu but apparently now people are raising concern about estrogen in soy so it's bad to have that very often...whatever.

I don't care how much vegetarians and vegans try to claim that an all or mostly veggie diet is easy to maintain; you're either lying or have no social life   .

Or they are merely committing the "I am the world" fallacy thinking that since they find it easy then everyone could find it as easy and fulfilling without taking into consideration that people do have have different metabolisms and physiological needs and might really have severely differing dietary requirements.

[Typist]

Maybe we're talking about two different things, being a vegie, and becoming a vegie.

Yes, I can see how the transition from one diet to another can be challenging.  As example, after 40 years of being a vegie, it would be challenging indeed for me to eat a steak.  

Imagine moving to Thailand.  At first the foods common there might  seem weird and unappealing.   But after we'd been locals for awhile, we'd get used to it, and then we'd probably come around to enjoying it.  If we stayed long enough, we might lose all desire for our old diet.  We might even come to hate our old diet.

Actually, meat eaters who are currently considering aspects of a vegie diet are the experts on the experience of transition.   I made the transition 40 years ago, and it's a memory blur to me.   So yes, during the transition, various aspects of the vegie diet might very well be experience as inconvenient, unappealing etc.

All I really have to contribute is the experience of seeing this from beyond the transition.

[Will]

I've got plenty of tasty vegetarian recipes. There's fresh basil pesto, great for anything from pasta to sandwiches, roasted, stuffed portable mushrooms, lentil soup, onion rings, mint onion quiches, mozzarella sticks, pasta with walnuts and fetta cheese, breakfast tacos (everyone to ever have these breakfast tacos has loved them), collard greens, and spiced red lentil soup with cashews. And these are just off the top of my head, I've got loads more. Shoot, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is vegetarian. And everyone loves a PBJ (unless they're allergic to peanuts, in which case they'd only love it until their throat swelled shut).

I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't eat a lot of meat. This week I'm having half a fresh salmon filet from the fish market and half a chicken breast. Other than that, my protein is coming from eggs, soy milk, brown rice, beans and nuts.

[Whitney]

Or they are merely committing the "I am the world" fallacy thinking that since they find it easy then everyone could find it as easy and fulfilling without taking into consideration that people do have have different metabolisms and physiological needs and might really have severely differing dietary requirements.

Yes, that is probably more likely than lying or not having a social life  

[bfat]

When I first decided to be a vegetarian (when I was 12), I ate a ham sandwich like 6 hours later.  Half way through, I looked down at what I was eating and I was like "whoops..."  I didn't finish it, but it made me realize how totally ingrained meat eating was in my life.  My aunt had made it for me, and I don't think I'd yet announced my decision to the world.  Also, for like the next 5 years, my dad would repeatedly bring me hamburgers and chicken, etc. from take-out restaurants because he forgot (or "forgot" because he was more against my decision than anyone else) that I'd stopped eating meat.  It is a really tough transition to make.  And you're right, it is a pain in the ass trying to eat out (especially now that I don't eat cheese).  I get pretty sick of veggie burgers or salads that are 90% iceburg lettuce, which are the only options at most normal/chain restaurants.  Sometimes I really feel like saying "screw it" and ordering mac 'n cheese or something.

Slowly, though, restaurants are coming to realize that there are vegetarian customers, and offering more options.  Hopefully, as the world becomes a little more open minded, the choice will become easier for people who struggle against the convenience factor.

[karadan]

As I understand it, a lot of why vegetarians are vegetarians has to do with things like the way animals are treated before and during slaughter and what effect the meat industry has on the environment. I believe I understand both of these complaints, in fact I do what I can to buy responsible, locally grown, free-range meat. I even send out for grass-fed beef when I occasionally eat it.

Let's say, hypothetically, as time goes on more progressive elements in government can put in place legal protections for animals and more environmentally friendly procedures and practices. Animals are fed organic, locally grown grass and seeds instead of corn, live full and happy lives, are killed in a painless and un-frightening way, and are bought at the farm by local people. In other words, how would you feel about meat if the cruelty and environmental costs were reduced significantly or even removed? Would you still be a veggie?

I am vegan because when I intentionally and needlessly harm another thinking, feeling creature it causes me harm, as well. It's simple compassion, without a lot of nasty denial in the way.

Humans are animals, too, right? So, what if children were fed good, healthy food and then painlessly killed and served up?

Everyone is born atheist. Similarly, we have to be taught to ignore our disgust at the slaughterhouse.

How does owning chickens and using their eggs for consumption constitute cruelty? My sister's chickens are very happy. They actually make very good pets and their eggs...oooh, their eggs are amazing. The yolks aren't yellow, but a deep orange colour. That is the difference between eggs laid by a happy chicken and eggs laid by a battery-farmed chicken. One of my sister's chickens regularly lays double-yolk eggs too. As a vegan, you wouldn't eat those eggs. Why, exactly?

I have a fair amount of disdain for vegans. Not only do they stink (they never understand that the vast amounts of methane they produce is actually rather intolerable - especially in the lunch room!!) but are usually very highly strung individuals. Personally, i get quite offended when someone looks at my food and professes it to be 'immoral and disgusting'... Vegans are also usually quite sickly and have to eat constantly to get enough energy to do anything remotely labour intensive. I'm saying all this from personal experience. I used to live in Devon in a village populated mostly by hippies

Furthermore, we are omnivores. There's a reason we have canine teeth. Our bodies need the vitamins given to us from animal products.
My auntie became a vegan a few years back. It turned her into an asshole. I guess her brain started to cry out for all the essential vitamins and minerals people who eat a normal varied and healthy diet usually receive. Within a year she started to get major health issues. Luckily she saw reason and started eating animal products again, to the great relief of my family.

[SSY]

Good post Karadan, I agree with it a lot.

I knew one vegan who was overall, a top chap, he never evangelised, always brought up food issues in a really fun, jokey way and always took the terrible food he had to eat stoically. He was American, and used to tell me how he really, really missed fried catfish and steak, he still loved the smell of meat. I think a facet of it was his Buddhism, the same thing that prompted him to leave animals alone, prompted him to leave me alone when it came to meat and the like, his attitude was "I can get by without eating meat and diary, doing so reduces the impact I have on other animals, so I do it, and that's fine". Also, I think I remember reading something about chimp populations hunting smaller monkeys, and some think that a similar process happened with us, our increased protein intake allowed us to develop larger brains, sending us on the path to civilisation.

[Typist]

...sending us on the path to civilization.

A process which some vegetarians are trying to continue and contribute to.  

Civilization is a process of seeing that we'll benefit more by cooperating with others than by pursuing only our own personal agenda.   Concepts like "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" were invented to strengthen this civilization building process.

It's true that some vegies (especially new ones) can become moralizing pompous asses, which isn't very civilized.   It's also true that they may be clumsily attempting to "do unto critters as we would have critters do unto us" if we were in the weaker position.

For some, vegetarianism is about trying to learn how to not abuse those who are in the weaker position, ie. civilization.

I know that some meat eaters are offended by claims they are morally inferior.   Ok, that's understandable, we're ALL human, obsessed by our self images.

But at least nobody is eating you, eh?   You have the option to simply ignore moralizers if you wish.  You are not a victim.

[bfat]

I have a fair amount of disdain for vegans. Not only do they stink (they never understand that the vast amounts of methane they produce is actually rather intolerable - especially in the lunch room!!) but are usually very highly strung individuals. Personally, i get quite offended when someone looks at my food and professes it to be 'immoral and disgusting'... Vegans are also usually quite sickly and have to eat constantly to get enough energy to do anything remotely labour intensive. I'm saying all this from personal experience. I used to live in Devon in a village populated mostly by hippies lol

[pinkocommie]

When I was a vegetarian, I used to say exactly this when it came up - I'm a vegetarian, but I'm not an asshole about it.  One thing that always bothered me about being a vegetarian was the presumption that my diet was somehow fair game for judgment, but I dare not respond by pointing out that I found their food just as gross as they found mine or I was one of THOSE vegetarians.  I accepted that the double standard existed for me because THOSE vegetarians existed and were really annoying and often overbearing, but it still pissed me off a little whenever it happened.

[Kylyssa]

I limit my meat for environmental and economical reasons.  I eat meat, I just eat little of it.  I use it for flavor, rather than substance in my meals that contain it.

I grew up on a farm so I know just how much goes into raising meat.  We used pasture (cellulose rich grass humans cannot digest) but factory farms don't, they use grain.  Cows are very poor converters of grain to meat, worse than humans, actually.  Pigs are far better and chickens better still.  

Veggies, grains, and fruits are cheaper than meat.  I'm poor so I eat little meat.

But I do eat meat, dairy, and eggs.  I don't do well at all on a vegetarian diet.  I got sick (now that would probably be even sicker) a lot and had horrible headaches and PMS.  People generally tell me that means I was doing it wrong.  

So I have an egg, a bit of meat, or cheese every other day or so.

[SSY]

Snip

What? Was that specifically aimed at the part you quoted? That really was one crazy salad of a post you made, I am not sure I really know how to respond.

I made a post mostly about a vegan friend of mine, and ended on a point about protein intake and the possible evolutionary effect it had on us, as a little follow on to Karadan's mentioning of the important role animal products play in our diet and our adaptation to them.

I never said vegetarians were uncivilised, nor that they are incapable of empathy, I am almost at a loss when it comes to rest of your post, I feel like you were responding to some other post, but quoted mine for some reason? Your point about meat eaters being offended, I can only speak for myself, but more than being offended, I am being irked by hypocrisy of those who claim to occupy some position diametrically opposed to my own, when really, they just give slightly more of a shit than I do about animals (debatable but still. . .).

I am not being eaten, but am completely baffled as what point you were trying to make, I make this post in a genuine haze of confusion.

[Typist]

Hi SSY,

You said...

our increased protein intake allowed us to develop larger brains, sending us on the path to civilization.

And I said....

A process which some vegetarians are trying to continue and contribute to....   For some, vegetarianism is about trying to learn how to not abuse those who are in the weaker position, ie. civilization.

That is, now that we have larger brains, we're trying to use them to create a civilization that involves a bit less killing.  The civilization process you described is still unfolding....