How is it any people cannot put themselves in that place with imagining? Even animals could identify with what would not be desirable. Humans should have the sensibility to know they would not want what the animals being used are put through, we can likewise choose to not have anything to do with that, and we can already find out ourselves that there are ways to be very healthy this way without products from animals. And the same amount of use of resources for it and contribution to damage to environments with loss of species does not need to be continued then. https://healthyaging.emory.edu/could-eating-30-plants-a-week-be-the-answer-to-better-health/
OP, per Rule 3, posts with an image of text should have a transcription in the body or the alt-text.
Since I totally dropped the ball and missed this by nearly a day, I’ll make one myself:
Cattle are killed at 12 months. Cattle can live 20 years. Pigs are killed at 5 months. Pigs can live 20 years. Chickens are killed at 5 weeks. Chickens can live 10 years.
These animals that you are paying to be tortured and killed are babies. They have lived only a fraction of their lives and what they have endured would make any sane person weep.
Please, in the future, be mindful of this rule. Making the world accessible for everyone is a worthwhile cause and based on the same principles of empathy and equity that veganism is.
Friends looked at me weird when I pointed out I’ve eaten babies.
… Then I pointed out what I meant.
Then, with their ignorance shattered, they looked at themselves weird too.
and everybody clapped!
?
Just a nitpick on the numbers. It very much depends on environment, species, the farmer, and other factors as to when animals are harvested. I only farm vegetables personally today. But I know a lot of farmers. I imagine it also varies by country as well. If you want to make a good defense against animal products to an audience accustomed to them, being accurate can be important
Chickens are processed at 10-16 weeks depending on breed. They are not tortured when processed. They are tortured when they are alive. Be upset at factory farming not eating meat. A properly raised and processed bird doesn’t suffer and has a happy life. Problem is, that costs a lot more.
Source: raise and eat my own chickens and eggs
Eating flesh requires factory farming to be viable at a scale large enough for billions of humans. It’s literally impossible for every human that eats chicken flesh to raise their own chickens, this is a non-starter.
I’m not so sure about that.
Almost sounds like industry propaganda to prevent us realising we each could raise our own chickens.
Could convert a wall to be a chicken farm.
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Yeah, I suppose you could raise chickens in a confined space where they’d be unhappy and unhealthy.
That’s the same problem with extra steps.
Just stop eating them. It’s way easier and cheaper than becoming a backyard farmer anyway.
I mean maybe but we could make it better allow people to raise birds in their yard for eggs and stuff. People just don’t want to.
But not everyone could actually do it - a lot of people don’t even have yards, or share yard-space with neighbors, or have other animals that wouldn’t be safe around chickens. A lot more people don’t have the time or energy to modify their yard to actually be a reasonable enclosure for a chicken with enough space for her to be healthy and happy, or to clean up after her or feed her or take care of her when she’s sick. This can’t be a solution to factory farming for the majority of humanity, it’s not even worth discussing.
Also, I actually had a chicken when I was young! She’s why I’m vegan, too. I realized I didn’t like the idea of killing her because she was my friend, no different than killing a pet dog or cat. I think, if more people raised chickens, they’d also realize that they don’t want to kill their friends. It’s easy to have empathy for a sweet innocent animal that you care for and would never hurt you.
I think we should normalize pet chickens, because I think people would start to see it as no different than killing 16-week old dogs.
Moved goalposts.
No I didn’t. My goalpost was “not everyone could raise chickens, factory farming is the only way for everyone to eat meat.”
And that’s a fact.
Going with your number of 16 weeks and the 10 years from the OG post, that’s equivalent to 160 weeks of life for a human with an life expectancy of a 100 years. Just about 3 years. Regardless of your death or how you spent these years, few people would call that a ‘happy life’.
The way the word “processed” is used so casually is really saddening.
If you’re going to do this at least be honest about it instead of hiding behind these words to make it seem less terrible. You’re killing and dismembering these birds.
Sure doesn’t bother me and I kill and butcher my own animals.
Honestly i could not care less how you frame it. Words are just words and somebody could just as well say euthanazied and prepared and it would mean the same thing.
I personally find this kind of things extremelly naive. Prey animals life is horrible and filled with constant dread of everything even without human intervention.
Reason why im against eating meat is because meat industry is bad for enviroment and modern day humans, at least in developed countries dont need that industry to survive.
This is true but I’m genuinely not sure if it’s worse that they are babies or of it would be worse if they were matured to say 60 or 80 percent lifespan in the same conditions before visiting the slaughter house…
Yup.
I do prefer mutton to lamb.
Good luck finding mutton in this economy.
Commercial breeds of poultry are bred to be quick growing genetic freaks. If they live much longer they suffer under their own weight. I’ve seen first hand what happens when you let a Cornish cross live past its market desired weight. Not pretty.
Then why do they make themselves taste so good?
It’s humans who have selectively bred them for taste. Modern chickens collapse under the weight of their own muscles. Stop victim blaming and trolling.
They selectively bred them for size and feed efficiency, not taste, specifically the Cornish cross and other adjacent breeds. Try a heritage breed raised on dirt and in the sunlight. Now that’s a tasty chicken.
They breed for size and growth not taste.
Did you know they call human flesh “long pork”?
If we didn’t eat cows there would probably not be many cows at all.
Look up what happened to sheep in America after people mostly stopped eating mutton.
Man you should be glad we torture you on a daily basis, otherwise you wouldn’t even exist.
People have a really odd look on farms. Unless farms are way different. Most cattle farms don’t torture their animals and they are free roaming. Now feed lots where they go to be killed are another matter but that is last stage not their whole life.
Would you rather live to be exploited to death or not be born at all?
Sheep are not native to the Americas and are not extinct, far from it actually.
Assuming this is even accurate… it’s bad because…?
If they’d go extinct then either let them or help them. How is forcefully breeding them just for torture and genocide better than them going extinct?
Torture most cows I see live a pretty good life. Roam around outside eat and are feed in the winter. Not all cows are killed at that age. And this is slightly wrong for cows usually butchered around 2. I mean at least be accurate.
okay sheep are fucking idiots though. they can’t survive on their own. cows can.
Cows are pretty stupid and very inefficient animals. Never spent time on a farm?
My guys the cows were bred by humans in the first place, farming is not a conservation charity. The only reason people value cows is for their bodies anyway.
The only reason people value cows is for their bodies anyway.
And dairy.
And aesthetics and spirit. (Joyous to spend time with ~ & think of hinduism’s take on cows too).
And fertiliser (& soil biome). (Yay, more plants growing better, without chemical fertiliser).
And more. (Not all of it pleasant ~ e.g. bull fighting and perversions).
Not just meat, leather & bone broth.
When I said their bodies I also meant for milk exploitation. While I agree that spending time with cows is cool, this is not the reason they’re bred. Farmers earn their living from selling and exploiting cow’s bodies, this is why they breed them, not because they’re nice to be around, not because they think it’s cool that cows exist, not for the cow’s benefit and best interest. This is not to say that farmers hate the animals they raise or that they are evil or intentionally want to cause them harm (I believe most of them don’t), but animal farming is never in the animal’s interest.
I still don’t think it’s a big deal, it’s not like the world population will go vegan overnight. To enjoy some time with cows I suggest people visit their local animal sanctuary to support the animals who were rescued from the industry and can be free.
Oh noes not the cows that won’t be alive to notice that they aren’t alive.
55% of all biological life on Earth dies every single day. Most of that is ocean bacteria killed by bacteriophage … but still, life is fucking harsh. If you dont want to eat animals … good on you, but dont press your complex onto others.
I don’t enjoy the idea of killing for food, but I genuinely gag when I eat most veggies.
Pasta, rice, lentils, peas, chickpeas, beans, mushrooms, mock meats… There are plenty more options other than animal exploitatin products and veggies.
I found that I had to kind of ‘reset’ my diet for me to like veggies. About a year ago, I ate much more veggies for like a month and now I like them a lot. Before, I struggled to eat a cucumber in a week, now I regularly eat an entire cucumber for one meal.
There’s some things to learn, e.g.:
- Soy sauce kicks up their taste.
- Adding chili allows combining multiple kinds of veggies.
But I believe, the biggest change is the microbiota in your gut. They can chat with your brain. And if you’ve cultivated microbiota that eat food A, then if you switch to food B, they will tell you to fuck off. But if you keep it up for a few weeks, the old microbiota will decline and new microbiota that enjoy food B will join the party.
I’m now one of those nerds that has to have veggies for almost every other meal, otherwise I will see my mood go down, and I do think that’s the microbiota controlling my brain.
Having said all that, I should perhaps add that I was already vegan before that. Yes, I was vegan and did not really like veggies.
You can do the veganisms without eating particularly healthily. You should largely be able to swap out meat with legumes and nuts, without changing everything else.Yes, that’s also a diet change, where you have to learn things (for example, pre-soak lentils to make them less farty) and have to get new microbiota into the mix. But it helps to do these dietary changes one at a time, rather than try to swap out everything at once…
Unless that’s a phobia, I think you can learn to like them.
It’s like drinking coffee, it’s gross until you love it (i think… I still hate it, but I hear that’s most people’s experience).
And maybe you should be cooking or serving up your vegetables in different ways to make it easier to lean into adding them more and more into your diet.
(I’m not vegan sadly but vegetables are an important part of your diet, I think it’s beneficial for everyone to try to incorporate them in, because you may have a better life idk im also not a nutritionist)
My aversion to veggies is basically anything that tastes like farts or garbage (cruciferous veggies): cabbage, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, baby corns, cauliflower, etc.
I fuck with garlic and all the “onions”. I lucked out with the cilantro gene, and love floral tastes, can tolerate grassy tastes with heavy sauces, but cruciferous veggies kill me lol. I don’t even want to be in the same room as them being cooked. Fun fact:I feel the same way about bacon.
You’re supposed to cook the potato first.
There are tasty meals as alternatives, and I can be helpful.
Try some cumin or caraway with your veggies
Don’t post images of text
Pinned a transcript as hopefully a passable compromise. I screwed things up by not checking for alt-text when I saw this post earlier, so I won’t punish the OP and commenters for it.
And citations?
Good for them dying so young, or else 90% of them would need antidepressants
So honest question about veganism here, since it relates to animal suffering - are vegans limited to what medicine they can use, since nearly all of it required animal testing? Especially since usually these animals suffered WAY more than livestock does, due to how medicine is tested.
If yes, and the philosophy does allow medicine, then does that mean raising your own chickens in ideal conditions and only eating them at an old age / near death is fine in that case, for example?
Especially since usually these animals suffered WAY more than livestock does, due to how medicine is tested.
You already got some good answers for the rest, but this part is also questionable. Lab animals tend to be kept in better conditions than most farmed animals. And while toxicity tests are terrible (esp the ones for cosmetics) they don’t tend to last as long as intensive farming. Chickens in factory farms can barely move, some collapse under the weight of their own muscles, 70 to 80% of them have broken bones. It is trully hell and that’s just one example.
Also when you look at the numbers, proportionally eating animals is a way bigger issue. Most meat eaters would be “responsible” for the killing of around ~100 animals a year just for food. For medicine, proportionally it would be way, way less, since the test happened only once.
To be honest for me veganism is not a set of rules, it’s a way of looking at things. Taking into consideration that animals are sentient beings and being honest to myself about the implications. Also on how my actions impact the world. I can’t justify not taking most medicines if I need them. However I also can’t justify not making the effort to look for cruelty-free cosmetics.
EDIT: I should clarify that there’s not one vegan philosophy. There’s many different philosophies that could lead to veganism. Animal personhood being the most extreme end of it, but vegans also include people who believe in harm minimization, people who just hate factory farms and live in cities, Buddhists, radical interpretations of halal, and more. I answered these questions from a harm minimization perspective.
General principle is minimization of harm. The classic example is “You’re on an island alone, slowly starving to death. There’s a pig. Would you kill and eat the pig?”
For quite a few vegans, the answer is yes. Luckily, that’s not the situation we find ourselves in, we can live healthy and happy lives without harming many animals in the vast majority of situations.
To directly answer the question: it depends. Is there an alternative that hasn’t been tested on animals? Is this medicine life-saving, or just very slight quality of life bump, like getting over a hangover slightly faster? Those questions would guide you to an answer.
To answer your chicken question, I don’t think there’s any moral issue with eating the body of a being that’s died of old age. I don’t think many vegans would do that anyway though, because after a long time without meat, it tastes “wrong” to eat meat (not sure exactly how to describe it). Same reason not many long-term vegans are that interested in lab-grown meat.
Kinda how it wouldn’t be immoral to eat your dog who died of old age, though it would be weird and icky
@Barbarian @Lumisal A vegan who didn’t spend their time looking for people to enable them to be less vegan online, would wonder what the Pig has been eating, rather than wonder what the Pig tastes like.
Veganism is not about animal suffering, but needless animal exploitation.
Is the medicine needed for you? Then it isn’t needless animal exploitation.
Do you have other options besides exploiting animals to death for food? Then it is needless animal exploitation.
I haven’t defined ‘need’ nor brought up speciecism.
I purposefully left for the reader to decide if the medicine is needed or not. No evaluation of the ‘need’ on my part. Just pointing out that if animal exploitation is needed, this animal exploitation isn’t needless.
@lalo “Is the medicine needed for you? Then it isn’t needless animal exploitation.”
“needed”
you are a speciesist.
That sounds clean, but it assumes that animals and humans sit in the same moral category. A lot of people simply don’t grant that equivalence. They can fully imagine the suffering and still judge it differently because they see humans as having a higher moral status.
There’s also a leap from empathy to obligation(or similar is to ought). Humans routinely recognize suffering and still accept it under various tradeoffs. Medicine, construction, law enforcement, even wildlife management all involve harm that people wouldn’t personally want inflicted on themselves. The fact that someone can imagine pain doesn’t mean they conclude “this must never happen.” It means they decide whether that harm is justified within their own moral framework. In the case of livestock, many decide that food, culture, convenience, or nutrition justify it. It catered to their hollow.
Just look at guns, drugs and cars… And all the dead children. I digress.
Not all land can grow crops. A large share of grazing land is only usable through animals. Most livestock systems convert otherwise inedible biomass into food. On the other hand, industrial animal agriculture clearly has major negative and positive impacts. The reality isn’t a clean moral on-off-switch. It’s a messy optimization problem with mutual tradeoffs, and people naturally disagree on where the balance ought land, and naturally for whom the bill tolls.
Animals avoid suffering, but many also inflict it without moral hesitation(fight vs flight). Humans are perhaps the only ones trying to build any ethical systems at all, so disagreement is predictable. The presence of empathy doesn’t produce one universal conclusion, nor should it ever when considering the endless facets of those perceiving whatever this is.
Cheers.
The argument has always been precisely to re-examine what we believe is morally justifiable. It’s no surprise that someone who supports animal agriculture finds it morally plausible - it would be stranger if they didn’t find it morally plausible while continuing to support it. People make loads of arguments in favor for continuing to consume animal products, but the most revealing question is - what if all animal products tasted like sand? Does any of the claimed nutritional value arguments or tradition or w/e really feel well argued if you are defending something that both tastes incredibly bad, and is as harmful as animal agriculture is?
Not all land can indeed grow crops, but hysterically much more fertile land is wasted on animal agriculture. Pointing out marginal factors like they paint the whole picture is misleading.
Your thought experiment quietly assumes that if a motivation includes pleasure, it becomes morally suspect. Odd. That’s not how we treat most other domains. People accept environmental damage for travel, resource use for comfort, even risk to others in things like driving or gun ownership or cohabitation. It’s typically because those activities provide value beyond bare survival.
Again, you can argue animal agriculture crosses a line, but then you need to explain why this tradeoff is categorically different, not just say “what if it tasted bad.”
Because replacing animal products with plant products is so very easy. 🙂 I think of it as minimal effort for maximum difference. Concerning other domains where we also choose pleasure over consideration, I would argue the “other options” are not so readily available.
Your personal experience doesn’t generalize cleanly. Cost, access, cultural norms, cooking knowledge, food allergies, digestive tolerance, and even just time and mental bandwidth all matter. What feels like a small adjustment to one person can feel like a constant friction to someone else. And when something becomes daily friction, it stops being “minimal,” even if it looks trivial from the outside.
Other options are abundant. Now I’m just starting to think you’re full of … Something.
For most people diet is a very small part of their “footprint.” And I’d argue other domains have more alternatives and are more viable and would make a greater difference than diet accounts for in its entirely.
Again, none of the cost, access, cultural norms, digestive tolerances etc. would matter to people if animal products tasted like shit. People would not be making an argument “i eat this horrible product three times a day because it’s my culture”. They eat it because they like the taste. This conversation could be over and done with much faster if people admitted this. And what other options are we talking about? Also, for most people diet is a big part of their carbon footprint, health issues, not to mention the suffering of the animals. This is not deniable science, and if you disagree with this, then I’m sure no argument in the world could ever reach you.
No one is arguing meat doesn’t taste good. Are you okay? Vegan-brained?
“Undeniable science” + “no argument could reach you” isn’t a strong case… it’s a conversation ender. The cries of a closed mind before it retreats in defeat.
it assumes that animals and humans sit in the same moral category
No, just that animals deserve some moral consideration.
In the case of livestock, many decide that food, culture, convenience, or nutrition justify it.
Some decide that kicking dogs is a good way to exercise, doesn’t mean it’s a good justification. Especially when there are other options. Same with animal products, there are other options.
Sure but I prefer animals. Most of the meat is from hunting or butchering animals myself.
Sure, someone’s preference to exercise could be kicking animals. That doesn’t mean it’s a good justification to do so.
I cant stand how ppl downvote a vegan post in a vegan space.
There are no lies here. We farmed animals growing up. If thier early death makes you uncomfortable, stop eating animal products.
This post is in global feed.
The audacity!
Good
Up carrot.
Probably because this post is ableist and possibly AI generated slop?
If they linked to a good article, they’d get upvoted. Post an image of text, and you get immediately downvoted
We evolved to eat meats and vegetables. I won’t stop eating meat because of people spamming these vegan bs. I feel the best when my diet includes a lot of animal products and will therefore continue to do so.
North or south of 200lbs?
you can be fat and vegan. This isnt… its not it.
I don’t believe you
And their ancestors most likely ate like peasants not royalty. They can drink bacon fat at every meal, I’m still going to find them at least as annoying as the vegan.
Im really confused
Well /u/tryll1980 is a dumbass and harping for complete meat elimination to the masses ain’t going to happen, tired of hearing the same shit, you might not say that’s where OP was headed but again, been here, done that. We could start with the way factory farming is fucked but most of the core would rather have an all or nothing victory
Brave of you to comment this in the vegan community 😅
I’m also not vegan but I absolutely support ending factory farming, cutting down on meat in general (even free range), and having a veg-first diet. I think we can be better, even if we don’t go vegan. For me personally, the environmental impact (methane) is more significant than any moral directive.
OP, the cognitive dissonance you point out is totally valid. I honestly think it almost entirely boils down to how far removed we (the general population) are from the process that ends with ingredients in the fridge.
If you took me to a chicken coop, gave me a butcher knife, and told me I had to prepare dinner with one of the little fellas I’d probably make a run for it. Which is quite hypocritical of me as a chicken enjoyer.
Perhaps another small part of it is the boundary of what people can/cannot empathise with. To be completely honest I feel far less for things like shrimp and oysters than I do about cows and chickens. I don’t know if that’s backed by the science (they don’t “feel”/comprehend as much) or just my narrow mindedness about how other life forms work.
But think of the kids!
People eat way more meat than humans “evolved to eat” and more than is healthy. Stop pretending it’s about biology. It’s not. Humans are omnivores and are perfectly fine without animal products.
Eat meat if you want to, but please be honest to yourself. You don’t need it, you want it. And you support unfathomable cruelty doing so. That is not “vegan bs”, but reality.
I’m not vegan myself, not even strictly vegetarian. Still I can acknowledge OPs point wholeheartedly.
Edit: also I just noticed this is a vegan community. Just block it and go on with your life instead of whining about so called spam??
We absolutely are not okay without eating animal products. I have just been diagnosed with a vitamin B12 deficiency and have learned this lesson personally. We are now capable of living without animal products but we are by no means healthy without them.
It requires some of the most ultra processed creations in existence to compensate for that nutrient to exist without it coming from an animal product
We absolutely are not okay without eating animal products.
Please don’t spread pseudoscientific bullshit based on anecdotal evidence. Not only are humans “now” capable of living without animal products, but meta-analysis after meta-analysis (linked is just a sample) shows that humans are healthier for it.
The extent of that health benefit? That’s a grey area that can make for a rational discussion. That it’s blanket unhealthy? The exact opposite of what modern medical science says, and we don’t put up with it here – not for ethical reasons, because “plant-based dieting is healthy” isn’t a tenet of veganism, but because medical disinformation isn’t allowed on Lemmy.World (and shouldn’t be tolerated anywhere).
Not a vegan but since when is posting vegan content to a vegan community “spamming”?
Why are you even in here!?
Yeah, if you can’t respond to vegans respectably in their own space block it. I’m also not one, but I respect their lifestyle so I don’t feel the need to block them. Unlike the carnivore community which I can’t interact with respectfully and have blocked
Are you lost? Fuck off.
