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Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity.

Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying the premium for more sustainably raised meat. Opting out of meat entirely does nothing to change the industry, because most people will always eat some meat if they can afford it.

Meanwhile, as vegans focus on the elimination of meat from our diets, they practically ignore the industrialized food that wreaks direct reproducible havoc on our metabolisms causing epidemic obesity and diabetes. Consider the effect of refined and reconstituted carbohydrates made from federally subsidized crops that make the most devastatingly unhealthy food items also the cheapest. Just the effects of soda pop alone are worthy of an international movement.

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I agree with most of what you have to say, but I want to make a note about this:

Opting out of meat entirely does nothing to change the industry, because most people will always eat some meat if they can afford it.

I think opting out does a few things. It puts pressure on restaurants to offer alternatives to meat, so we're not all forced to eat it because it's the only healthy option. It pushes our culture to give people a choice. Honestly, all I really want as a vegan is for people to have a good choice every day, at each meal, about how much/what kind of animal products they consume. Right now in most places there just aren't choices, because 99% of people have a "well, I'll just keep eating what I always have" mentality.

Also, opting out of meat does get me into conversations regularly about the meat industry. The fact that I only eat very specific kinds of meat in specific occasions opens up conversations with other people about when and why they eat meat. I don't care if people eat meat on purpose, for their own reasons, but I do care that they wolf down pounds of it every day for no particular reason because it's what's put in front of us. My opting out creates a context for other people to consider opting out.

And given that's my motivation, I'm pretty careful about how I engage people. I don't shame people, I don't push them. I honestly don't give a shit what they decide. I just like having the options all out there.

Note: I consider myself vegan. I eat meat and dairy sometimes. I eat vegetables, and vegetables are grown with animal products. Meat and dairy are not the basis of my diet. I eat a plant-based diet, so I consider myself vegan. You can call this "reform vegan" to the "orthodox" if you like. But anyone who's really looked at the realities of the situation (including the OP) comes to understand that there is no such thing as 100% vegan, and that what matters most is the health of the whole ecology.

Most of the animal products that are used in the growing of vegetables, are by-products of the livestock (meat,eggs,dairy) industries. If we were able to successfully eliminate those industries, then I highly doubt that they would be able to raise animals just for the creation of those by-products and still make it economical.

Feel free to correct me as I haven't researched this extensively.

What animal products are used in the growing of vegetables? You mean fertilizer? Almost all fertilizer is synthetic; there are a few places that use manure, but they are the exception.

There's a lot of bone and fish meal used in organic farming. Conventional farming is much more vegan than organic.

>And given that's my motivation, I'm pretty careful about how I engage people. I don't shame people, I don't push them. I honestly don't give a shit what they decide. I just like having the options all out there.

A very important point. I'm a vegetarian myself, and the subject comes up from time to time. I always end up advocating deliberate, thought-through decisions over any particular choice of diet.

I'm a large consumer of meat and I completely understand your point of view.

I personally realise a lot of the consumption is habit based and has no basis of defense if questioned. I prefer to eat locally grown produce and (attempt) to grow my own vegetables. I do think a lot about reducing consumption both from a calorie and cost point of view - I'd rather have two good steaks than 7 bad ones. I'd like to take this further but being in a family does tend to restrict the ability to dictate the diet, especially if you don't produce the majority of the meals.

I have no intention of ever giving up meat products but there is a lot in what you say that people should honestly appraise what they are eating and ask if it is because it is what they really feel like eating, or what they should be eating, or if it is just because it is 7 oclock and time to consume some dead animal. I'm going to re-appraise this and see if I can approach it from a different angle.

I think you could actually be doing more harm then good if you are focusing on "meat or no meat". This really still re-enforces factory farmed meat because it acts like the only meat choice is factory farmed. If the choice is between the environmentally destructive technique- grain fed factory meat or sustainably raised grass-fed meat, that would actually make the meat situation better.

Grass-fed meat is often worse for the environment. See e.g. http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2010/04/08/grass-fed-be...

In any case, consider an analogy: suppose you wanted to end human slavery. Would supporting "sustainable" slavery end it more quickly, or not supporting any slavery at all?

I realize that slavery is not the moral equivalent of eating meat, but in terms of the effectiveness of boycotts, they are pretty similar. I can't really imagine a way in which the boycott to buy only "sustainably" slave-made goods would hasten the end of slavery more quickly.

Reminds me of something Slavoj Zizek once said:

"The worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it."

none of the "science" (or blogs in your case) people quote about pastured meat is close to correct. This blogger assumes that all methane from cows will be released into the atmosphere like in the factory model when it is in a big pile by itself. This assumption does not hold when the cow manure is spread out and worked into the soil by nature. Methane is probably the least of our concerns in such a comparison anyways- there is a much greater damage done to find and burn all the fossil fuel for the fertilizer to grow the grains with and other energy used in this process- by some estimates a calorie of factory farmed meat comes from 10 calories of oil. Compare this to grass fed meat where most of the energy input is solar to grow the grass, and the topsoil actually grows instead of being slowly degraded while growing grains.

I am really not going to bother debating a ridiculous comparison of eating meat with slavery. It is essential for our health and we don't need to feel bad about it when we aren't destroying the environment or torturing animals.

actually, I remember now that most methane emissions from cattle are from burping. But I still have never seen someone analyze the whole system- equally important is how much methane is absorbed back from the atmosphere in a pasture.

I don't. I focus on the ecology of animals and people and environment and trying to make it better. There are dozens and dozens of considerations.

But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity.

That's a weird statement. When is "movement size" ever a good indicator of truth?

Anyway, veganism is not about "veracity", it's about a different set of moral beliefs, or a particular diet, or...

You speak of vegans as if it was a monolithic group, and you paint it with a negative brush because of a few crazy individuals. That's like dismissing entire religions and countries because of a handful of fanatics.

Really? All of the vegans I know care a lot about eating a balanced and healthy diet (at least, more than the average non-vegan).

  > Really? All of the vegans I know care a lot
  > about eating a balanced and healthy diet (at
  > least, more than the average non-vegan).

Not necessarily. I know a number of vegans that don't necessarily eat that healthy.

The thing that irks me is when vegans proclaim that the 'vegan diet' will make everyone healthier, cure obesity, etc. There are plenty of unhealthy foods that are perfectly vegan. I say this as a vegan myself. I see these people as 'hurting the movement' because they are spreading un-truths, even if they are well-intentioned (and the messengers believe the false message).

[Edit] Don't take this as a claim that the 'vegan diet' (I use quotes because it is such as broad term) is necessarily unhealthy. It's just that there are many foods that are completely vegan, yet unhealthy:

  - Skittles (since they removed gelatin as an ingredient)
  - Oreos
  - Sugar
  - Soda
  - A lot of potato chip varieties
  - Transfats (i.e. burned oils)

(note: That I can only confirm things like Skittles or Oreos in the US. I know that in different countries the formulas are different. Skittles may still have gelatin in Canada, for example) [/Edit]

"Plant based whole foods" is the way.

Not necessarily. I know a number of vegans that don't necessarily eat that healthy.

You know all of the parent's vegan people?

The marketing aspect of things related to animal rights and vegetarianism/veganism is done very poorly, and I wish we could undo all the bad stuff that's been spread throughout the last 20+ years. Is it true that veganism is more healthy if done properly? The differing research out there makes that inconclusive, in my opinion. To me it's a "it works for me, YMMV" sort of thing.

Well, statistically speaking, vegans live longer, right? That does not necessarily imply that all the benefits come from the diet, and it certainly does not say that going vegan is guaranteed to make you live longer, but it does mean that if you choose a random vegan they will be healthier than a random omnivore.

So I think if you have to choose between the statements "vegans are healthy" or "vegans are unhealthy," there's not a lot of evidence to argue for the latter.

> Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan.

There are, you'll be pleased to hear, many vegans with stronger ethical arguments than "meat is murder". Such as, in summary:

* unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable.

* some non-human animals (notably the ones we eat most of) are as capable of suffering at the physical level as humans are. We shouldn't discount their suffering just because they aren't members of homo sapiens.

* factory farms raise most animals in conditions of unnecessary extreme suffering.

* therefore, it is ethically wrong to eat those animal products.

(This is actually an argument for eating humanely-raised meat instead of veganism, but finding verifiably humanely-raised meat is difficult enough that I'm not sufficiently interested to bother, and there are practical advantages in eating a predictable diet. So I just eat vegan.)

By the way, I hate the federally subsidized crop situation too. I wish I could do something substantial about it. It's disingenuous for you to say that vegans are uninformed about health issues or industrial practice or the farm lobby just because they don't "focus" on it; that doesn't match my experience of other vegans at all, and it's obviously untrue that someone can only pay attention to one issue.

It's difficult to find humanely raised meat? I just go to the farmer's market and buy it straight from the farmer who raises grass-fed free range cows. If I would like to verify, I can head to her farm and see how she raises the cows myself.

Or I buy fish that are caught in sustainable ways, which have grown in their natural habitat and not subjected to any suffering beyond the catch (which is a necessary part of consuming them).

Yes, humanely raised meat (and milk, eggs, other animal products) is more expensive, but it's also tastier, and it feels good know the people who have grown and raised the food you eat. I balance out the extra expense, and impact of raising animals, by eating meat or fish only about 2 or 3 times per week; the rest of the time, I pick vegetarian options. That also makes it easier for me when dining with people; I leave my couple of omnivorous meals for the weekend, so I can have whatever's being served without having to cause extra trouble for my hosts.

I agree with most of what you said (although fish are never killed humanely, so I'm not up for that), but I don't own a car and I live in a city -- the difficulty involved in heading to a farm to see how their animals are raised is just large enough that I don't think the reward is worth it for me. I don't have any quarrel with someone who finds it an acceptable choice, though.

You might be surprised how easy it is to get local farm-raised meat delivered or handed off via a local restaurant or purveyor. It's totally worth it.

Your "never" makes me uneasy. As a fisherman, I've often killed fish as humanely as possible. Many others do the same. And while commercial standards are likely very poor, for certain species great care is taken regarding the quality of the meat with the side effect of relatively humane treatment. For example, tuna are often stunned and pithed using the "Taniguchi Method": http://wwwx.spc.int/coastfish/Fishing/Sashimi_E/Sashimi.pdf

> As a fisherman, I've often killed fish as humanely as possible.

Thanks! That's a good link. Yes, I should have said "Commercial fish being caught in quantities large enough that you aren't dealing with each one individually immediately (so, using nets, for example) are not killed humanely". I appreciate the correction.

The "tastier" organic myth is a myth in at least some cases. Double blind taste tests of 2 halves of the same product reveal that the half presented as "organic" is often chosen as being "tastier", despite being identical to it's other "non organic" half.

IMHO, he organic food "movement" is marketing targeted at the guilty conscience of the well-heeled consumer of organic foods.

lambda never mentions anything about Organic. Organic is not the same as humanely raised meat, nor hormone free. And, IMHO, Organic standards are so varied and in many cases silly that the green label isn't even a tell for a desirable product by my terms.

In my experience, texture is very noticeable when comparing "supermarket" meat vs locally raised, hormone-free meat.

As far as Veganism goes: I rather not take a vitamin supplement--it seems unnatural.

LOL>

Every time I buy normal, mass-market chicken or eggs that are not in some way organic/cage-free/free-range/nataural, I am so disappointed in the result that I vow never to buy it again (until I'm sucked in by some sale months later). For me, the difference is too striking to be only a placebo effect of sorts.

If you live in Australia, you can also get kangaroo in most supermarkets. They're taken from the wild and killed with a high-powered rifle shot to the head (plus they're a native animal == less enivronmental damage) so they're about as guilt-free as you can get and still be eating meat.

I was under the impression that they are farmed now, although they are much friendlier to the environment per-head than cattle are.

Kind of hard to farm them, since they can jump fences pretty easily, plus you have to compete with hunters:

http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/RJ9830035.htm

I believe that the most humane way you can get your meat is, in many places, to hunt for it. Because humans have reduced habitats and/or eliminated other predators in many places, wildlife management agencies have to use human hunting as a tool to keep populations at sustainable levels.

Example: if there is enough food in a given area for 100 deer to survive the winter, but there are 200 deer, that doesn't mean that half of the deer will starve to death before spring--it means that all of them will eat quite well for the first half of the winter, after which food will become extremely scarce and most of them will starve to death.

Wildlife management agencies constantly monitor population levels in order to determine how much of the population needs to be culled each season in order for the remainder to survive. Bag limits or tag quotas are set accordingly. I currently live in a place with so much deer overpopulation that local hunters never kill enough each fall, so professional hunters have to be hired each year to get the herds down to a sustainable size.

If you hunt with respect for your game and only take shots which are likely to be clean, you will give your kill a quick death instead of a very likely slow and painful death by starvation. Also, the life it would have lived up until that moment would have been about as humane as possible.

No matter how well a farmer treats his cattle or chickens, the fact is that they were raised for the express purpose of being slaughtered. Wild game is a natural part of the ecosystem that is only killed out of necessity to keep that system in balance. Either way, an animal is dying so that you can eat.

I certainly enjoy beef, chicken, lamb, and other farm-raised animals, and eat far more of those than of things I've killed myself. I also realize that many people simply would not want to hunt. However, for any who have never tried it, and who are looking for ways to make their meat consumption more humane and ethical, they should consider giving it a try.

If you are into hunting, I think you should make things fair for both sides. Leave the gun at home and try something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o

Why should we go for "fairness" when hunting for food? Using our brains isn't fair? Animals won't show any restraint when using their strengths to kill any weaker prey.

So, according to your definition of fairness, we should for example nuke Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia et al., as terrorists show no mercy with our women and children, so why should we bother? Or maybe Microsoft was just right to use its OS/Office monopoly to kill Netscape and many others, as they were in top of the food chain...

IMHO, fairness is necessary linked to bringing balance into the world. Using our brains is of course fair, but we should agree that there is much less brain work in the average modern hunter, drinking beer in a hideout and waiting for an opportunity to shoot a power rifle from a safe distance, than in any of the hunters depicted in the video. I of course cannot do what they do, but it was very humbling and moving to see such display of respect and fairness.

I think that you and parent both played the straw man against each other. This isn't a binary issue, it's a continuum. Modern hunters have a wide range of tools to choose from, at various points on the spectrum of "fairness." I would posit that "fairness" isn't even the primary factor in choice of equipment for most hunters in modern countries. Other considerations such as "challenge level" and laws/regulations probably have much more to do with it. For example, in the U.S. most areas have two deer seasons: a longer, earlier season where only bows and/or muzzle-loaders are allowed and a shorter, later season where modern high-power rifles are allowed.

This is, of course, anecdotal, but I don't know any hunters who use high-power rifles from blinds. Typically, deer stands are used by bow hunters. High-power rifles are typically used from much greater distances where the shots are correspondingly more difficult. I'm not really into deer hunting (I prefer upland fowl), so my experience with the subject is limited. Either way, the "brain power" part of it went into the development of the tools, not so much into their use. Also, only an idiot mixes alcohol with firearms (or broadheads). Yes, there are people out there stupid enough to do so, but they are a very small minority (it tends to be self-enforcing). Hunting from a deer stand typically involves getting up before dawn and climbing up onto a rickety platform to shiver silently for hours hoping that a deer comes by close enough to shoot. That's why I'm not a big fan of deer hunting.

Let's also not conflate "fair" with "humane." As I mentioned, the area where I currently live is so overpopulated with deer that professional hunters have to be hired to kill a few hundred each year (it's truly astounding how fast the local herds grow). If they don't kill enough, even more will die by starvation and disease. If they were overly concerned about fairness, they wouldn't be able to kill enough deer in time, and that would be inhumane.

You certainly show a level of maturity that is not common among typical hunters. I understand that you enjoy the process of hunting, not only the result, and I can sympathize with that. Thanks for augmenting my perspective on the subject.

On the one hand, I appreciate the second two sentences of your post. On the other hand, the first sentence wipes out any semblance of goodwill:

"You certainly show a level of maturity that is not common among typical hunters."

This is just plain stereotyping. I don't know how you formed your perception of the average maturity level of a typical hunter, but it clearly wasn't by actually interacting with typical hunters. Furthermore, I'm not even sure what a "typical" hunter is. That's kind of like a "typical" golfer, or a "typical" swimmer. I move around a lot, but I don't like to hunt alone, which unfortunately means I don't get to hunt very much any more. It also means that I'm always looking for new people to hunt with, and I've found hunters from all walks of life, often in very heterogeneous groups where the only thing they share in common is hunting.

If anything, hunting promotes maturity: when you teach a ten year old how to utilize a deadly weapon, and all of the ways you can accidentally hurt or kill yourself or others with it, and all of the rules for avoiding such mishaps, and all of the myriad ways you can get hurt or killed outdoors even without weapons involved, the sudden load of responsibilities tends to instill maturity in a way that less hazardous activities can't. True, some kids simply aren't ready for it as young as others, but most parents/mentors see this quickly and wait another year before resuming the lessons. Much like alcohol use in conjunction with firearms, it's rather self-enforcing: would you want to hang out in the middle of nowhere with an immature kid wielding a lethal weapon? Neither would I. Does it happen? Sure. Is it common? No.

I have no problems changing my mind when proved wrong, but there are facts that cannot be ignored. It is very difficult (and definitely not advisable) to stereotype individuals, but certain qualities can be easily attributed to groups of people. For example, I can say that the "typical swimmer" is not black, which shows no prejudice, just the statement of a fact. Likewise, I can also infer that the "typical" golfer is an upper-class/rich guy. Please bear in mind that I cannot say anything about a single individual, but there are certainly some common characteristics.

I apologize if I offended you in anyway, perhaps I have been just unlucky with my prior shallow and brief interactions with hunters.

Not sure why this is getting down-voted: I had assumed the comment to be tongue-in-cheek, and that video is absolutely fascinating. I'm completely in awe of those guys.

It's very hard to find humanely slaughtered meat. To quote Foer, who in turn was citing a review of some audits of slaughterhouses (emphasis in the original):

>[Grandin's report found] deliberate acts of cruelty occuring on a regular basis at 32 percent of the plants [slaughterhouses] she surveyed during announced visits in the United States. It's such a shocking statistic I had to read it three times. Deliberate acts, occurring on a regular basis, witnessed by an auditor - witnessed during announced audits that gave the slaughterhouse time to clean up the worst problems. What about cruelties that weren't witnessed? And what about accidents, which must have been far more common?

So if animals were raised and killed in humane manner would you be more willing to eat meat? This seems to be the most coherent ethical stance. Otherwise you enter into the "like-us conundrum" wherein the value of a living organism is directly proportional to it's similarity to our species.

> So if animals were raised and killed in humane manner would you be more willing to eat meat?

Yes. It seems plausible to me that I'll start eating meat again within a decade or two, once industry practices improve.

So, don't buy industry. Buy local, humanely raised and killed animals.

e.g., our turkey for thursday was processed today, at a family's small farm here. Our eggs come from the back yard. We've gotten pork from another local person who raises a few pigs on the side. FWIW, poultry seems to be the hardest to source for us, and maybe that's because the margins are so damn slim for the factory birds.

Humanely killed from whose perspective, ours or the animals'? I'm guessing if we could ask, most animals would prefer to live regardless of how painless their death would be or how enjoyable their lives were up until that point. I eat meat so I don't have a problem with killing animals for consumption, I'm just trying to understand the whole "humane killing" idea.

This gets into deeply philosophical, unanswerable questions. If we didn't bring them into the world as food, would they have existed in the first place? Is is it better that they existed for a shorter period of time than not at all? Do the animals we eat for food have the capacity of preferences? Due to their brain capacities, is it more humane to eat fish and birds versus pigs and cattle?

Both, really. Ideally, the animal would be having a happy life until it suddenly wasn't, and didn't exist anymore. Practically, that can mean that they're kept in their normal surroundings until the last moment, and then they're killed as quickly and painlessly as possible.

For example, the farm around the corner has a mobile slaughterhouse come to their pasture. The cows to be killed are put in one pasture, separate from the others. They're killed with a gunshot to the head, then taken away. There's no chance for the cows to stress in transport and know that the day is any different from any other, until the very last second. I'd call that humane.

Does that scale? If everyone did it, would it work?

* unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable.*

I'm wondering, what is the vegan's position on eating: fish; oysters/mussels; squid, octopus; crabs etc.

They don't eat those.

> I'm wondering, what is the vegan's position on eating: fish; oysters/mussels; squid, octopus; crabs etc.

It's complicated. The largest problem is that all of these animals are killed either by suffocation after they're removed from the water, or by having their organs explode from decompression sickness. Sure seems to me like the least possible humane way to kill an animal. (I guess I'd go with the organ explosion, if I had to choose.)

On the other hand, I think that we should care about animal suffering proportional to how capable of suffering the being we're considering is. Animals without nervous systems are clearly less capable of suffering than, say, mammals, so I don't think it makes sense to be as upset.

Anyway, I don't eat any fish. :)

The largest problem is that all of these animals are killed either by suffocation after they're removed from the water, or by having their organs explode from decompression sickness.

I grew up fishing, and that's not necessarily true. You generally try and either kill or stun the fish before they sufficate, largely so the fish doesn't flop around so much. In most cases (average sized salmon, for instance) this is done by bleeding, though often larger fish are clubbed in the head to stun them before bringing them into the boat.

For large fish, like bigger halibut, we actually carried a revolver on board so we could shoot them in the head before we brought them on board. This was a safety measure--100 pounds of halibut flopping around is enough force to break your legs. Unfortunately we never caught a fish that big.

If you have time, sit back and read this excellent essay by David Foster Wallace on eating lobster, which examines the issues from a humane, non-dogmatic perspective:

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...

This was the title essay in one of DFW's essay compilations.

I can see the issue with animals with brains.

However, Oysters/mussels should be separated out of this list as they don't. After watching this Ted video, http://www.ted.com/talks/stefano_mancuso_the_roots_of_plant_... , I think high level plants may be functioning at near the same level as low functioning animals.

> finding verifiably humanely-raised meat is difficult enough that I'm not sufficiently interested to bother, and there are practical advantages in eating a predictable diet.

http://slowfood.org/

"finding verifiably humanely-raised meat is difficult"

One word: hunt.

> One word: hunt.

I know you're probably expecting me to be outraged or something, but I don't have an ethical issue with someone killing an animal painlessly to eat -- it's a vast improvement from life on a factory farm!

One problem is, of course, the painlessly part; I would (and should) feel guilty when, inevitably, I miss my shot and don't manage to kill the animal straight away.

On average, dying from even an imperfect shot is more humane for the deer than how it would die naturally in the wild (most likely starvation).

I wouldn't really call those arguments. They assume that animals can suffer without giving an argument that animals can suffer. Whether animals can suffer is the core issue which should be addressed, and is not addressed by these statements.

I believe suffering is caused by, roughly, difference between one's preferences and reality. But animals do not have preferences (this is controversial. will you agree that if that controversy goes my way, then being a vegan is a mistake?)

You haven't even said what you think suffering is. If you just assume it's physical pain ... well that is false. We know it's false because sports players and fetishists often enjoy limited amounts of physical pain, and do not suffer from it.

> I wouldn't really call those arguments. They assume that animals can suffer without giving an argument that animals can suffer. Whether animals can suffer is the core issue which should be addressed, and is not addressed by these statements.

No, you're decades out of date. It is established fact, on all sides of the animal rights argument, that animals suffer and feel pain. I'd be shocked if you could find a single credible source arguing otherwise at this point.

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. If you kick a dog, which you shouldn't, it'll exhibit all the same physiological responses that we do to being kicked; it will be in obvious pain and distress, and measurably so; it might cry, it'll hide, it'll be scared of you in the future. What else is there?

> But animals do not have preferences

No, that's patently ridiculous. Many adult animals, and most especially other primates, hold long-term preferences and have tested at the cognitive level of young human children (toddlers). Again, why would you possibly expect anything else?

> You haven't even said what you think suffering is.

There are books upon books written about animal suffering, and I was giving bullet points, so not exhaustively defining my terms is hardly a fair criticism. You could read Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights#Animal_suffering

Wait till they discover Plant and Fungus Suffering. That should make things plenty more interesting :)

Plants and fungus don't have nervous system, so there are no scientifically demonstrable ways how they will use ability to suffer. Animals can move and suffering helps them find better conditions, for example if there is to hot an animal will seek another place, if something causes suffering animals will try to avoid it, plants on the other hand can't move and can't avoid suffering so plants don't need to feel suffering.

I think if plants can't move, that puts them into even worse circumstances compared to animals.

At least animals can try to get away from the danger, plants do not even have means for that. I feel more sorry for the plants now. Way to discriminate the whole kingdom of living creatures just because they did not happen to evolve the nervous system humans can understand. How can we say they do not suffer in ways we can not grasp at our current development level?

Oh, and also - some plants can move. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_plant_movement

>Plants and fungus don't have nervous system

Who says plants don't have a different, but equivalent way of sensing their environment?

Plants respond to stressors in the same way that animals do, they fail to thrive -- they wilt, or don't produce fruit, they grow more slowly, etc. Overtime, plants evolve defensive mechanisms like bark, thorns or poisons. Everything an animal does (or at least with strong analogies to animals), except plants aren't mobile.

Plants also respond to positive stimuli in the same way animals do, they thrive. Plants turn to face the sun, they grow faster, reproduce faster, produce more flowers and fruit, they stand taller, their leaves are fuller, their stems are firmer, all have strong analogies in the animal kingdom.

Anybody who's ever taken care of a house plant can attest to the fact that plants that are well cared for, doted over, with careful attention to making sure all of the plants needs are met, thrive better (seem happier) than those that aren't.

Plants don't need the mechanism of suffering, because it's useless for them, plant's can't run away from somebody who is harming them and can't move location from a bad place to a better place.

I have read the research and it's wrong. If you think otherwise you have not given an argument, you just appealed to authority.

> I have read the research and it's wrong. If you think otherwise you have not given an argument, you just appealed to authority.

You haven't explained why it's wrong. Surely the person who thinks that the almost-unanimous scientific consensus of the last few decades is "wrong" should be the person who is, you know, posting links to their crazy theories or whatever? I can't post them for you.

If you're serious about this, pick a paper you want to know what's wrong with, and email the cite to curi@curi.us, and I will reply by email with flaws in that particular paper (or a concession statement if I find none).

I do not want to pick the paper myself b/c then you can just say (quite correctly), "OK so one paper was flawed but that doesn't mean the others are." So it's important to start with you picking a paper that, if it's wrong, you'll have to rethink your views, and if it's right I'll have to rethink mine, and then we discuss that one.

I expect you to choose a paper you have read before, not just google one up now. (You did read some papers before posting claims about what the scientific consensus is, I hope.)

There is a strong ethical case for not accepting instrumentality in ending another creature's life -- ask a Jain. I'm not sure I buy it, but it has a long and proud tradition. I'm on the fence w/r/t my diet(1), but the animal suffering argument is by far the most compelling, and making the ethical decision to no longer participate in an unethical system is to my mind sufficient, particularly when the ethics are conflicted.

(1) http://homonculus.net/posts/personal/2010-10-30-veganism_con...

I'm not vegan, but I do advocate a more reasonable approach to meat. By eating less meat, you can afford to eat better quality meat. I've heard a few good suggestions that balance ethics, pragmatism, and nutrition, either following the rule "vegan before 6", so you save up meat and dairy products only for dinner, or "meat x3", where you eat high quality meat only three meals a week, with the rest vegetarian, which I've been trying to do, and it seems to work great, even in the midst of a workout routine.

I've also tried to convince people that shrimp and oysters are vegan, but I've had less luck with that.

Thank you for making that point. False dichotomies annoy the heck out of me.

I encourage people who are not to try and eat vegetarian (never mind vegan - and BTW I am neither) for one week as an intellectual exercise. The issue is not whether one eats meat, but how totally unthinking our meat consumption has become - bacon for breakfast, ham sandwich for lunch, burger for dinner.

The question isn't whether to be vegan or omnivore, but whether it is necessary to eat meat at every meal, as is now common in many Western countries. A lot of the ecological, social and humanitarian concerns of meat production can be significantly improved by just reducing red meat consumption.

A lot of our food choices are habitual choices that can be changed with minor effort. Have hummus instead of ham in that sandwich. Have shrimp instead of beef in your Thai curry. Don't eat a mammal every meal out of reflex - eat it mindfully, and pay a fair price for humanely reared meat. The planet (and probably your body) will thank you for it.

For bonus points, keep track of hidden meat, like gelatin in 'yogurt' and marshmallows, isinglass in your wine, or bonechar in your sugar, or lard, oyster sauce, fish sauce or chicken broth snuck into otherwise vegetarian dishes.

I appreciate the sentiment that you should know what you eat, but don't understand this mentality that I observe many vegetarian / vegans have. Oh no, gelatin snuck in your food, you're not a proper vegan / vegetarian anymore! Beat yourself up about it!

It oddly reminds me of those tiny silly inconsequential rules that you're supposed to pay attention in some religions. Like no alcohol. What does that have anything to do with the main idea of the religion? Oops, you ingested some chicken broth. Feel bad about it. Maybe we'll forgive you later.

It's not about 'rules' or 'regulations.' For some it's about morality. If I find it immoral to eat a dead animal, then why would it be 'ok' because it's 'only chicken broth?' I've still supported (with my money) the death of an animal.

[ Please don't break down into some 'but animals die all the time in the wild,' argument. It's slightly different when we created the animal just for the purpose of killing it for meat. We take issue with the idea of growing full-sized human clones just to harvest for organs in the event that the original needs a transplant (i.e. The Island), so why is it that different for animals? They are still living beings, but our society has been raised to treat them like a commodity. No different than some mineral that was mined out of hole in the ground. Unless they are one of the 'chosen' types of animal (e.g. dog, cat, etc) then it's totally immoral to treat them poorly or (god forbid) eat them. ]

>Please don't break down into some 'but animals die all the time in the wild,' argument.

Yeah, let's not bring up a totally valid objection!

Please expand on how it's valid.

[edit] I'm being open to debate here, but instead of debate, I get down votes? Is that really what HN is about? [/edit]

All animals are in one way or another a food source for other animals. It is in no way evil if an animal suffers unless that suffering is intentionally caused by a human. Our sin is in the mass production and mis-treatment of livestock while they are alive, not in the actual killing or eating.

Not eating mass-produced chicken or wearing leather makes sense, refusing free-range eggs or seafood does not. Not that there can be any real debate over an issue that predominately comes down to personal opinion. Always better to do what you are comfortable with and allow others to do the same.

You're inferring the feelings of an animal to make your judgement. No one actually knows the living preferences of a chicken or a cow.

Since you posit that huamn beings can infer the feelings of animals I posit that animals prefer to be factory farmed than spend what existence the animal has being constantly chased by predators. Therefore wearing leather and eating mass-produced chicken makes perfect sense and is in tune with the feelings of the animal.

  > You're inferring the feelings of an animal to make your judgement.
  > No one actually knows the living preferences of a chicken or a cow.

Does the lack of knowledge of their living preferences somehow bolster the argument that it's ok to factory-farm them though?

You can't make the decision one way or the other.

  "Monks, these two extremes ought not to be
  practiced by one who has gone forth from
  the household life. (What are the two?) There
  is addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures,
  which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary
  people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there
  is addiction to self-mortification, which is
  painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. Avoiding
  both these extremes, the Tathagata (the
  Perfect One) has realized the Middle Path; it
  gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to
  calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to
  Nibbana. And what is that Middle Path realized
  by the Tathagata...? It is the Noble Eightfold
  path, and nothing else, namely: right
  understanding, right thought, right speech,
  right action, right livelihood, right effort,
  right mindfulness and right concentration."
  - Siddhārtha Gautama, Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta

While we can't be sure to of the preferences of livestock, we can make pretty good guesses. If the responses of animals in a factory farm are more similar to the responses of an animal that is being injured than an animal that is not being interacted with, then the posterior probability of the factory farm situation being dis-preferred by the animal is reasonably high.

Factory farming or "wild" existence is a false dichotomy. There is the option of having pastured animals. And, critically, there is the option of not existing at all. Furthermore, I'd suggest that domesticated animals are different enough from their wild forebears that spending their existence being chased by predators isn't the default "non-factory farm" option.

From what I know of factory farms, pastured animal husbandry, and the probable preference functions of animals, I would guess the preferences would be: pasturing > non-existence > factory farm

largely from The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan

No one actually knows the living preferences of a chicken or a cow.

But does anyone know, without any doubt, the living preferences of a potato or an apple tree?

> You're inferring the feelings of an animal to make your judgement. No one actually knows the living preferences of a chicken or a cow.

Can you infer the feelings of other humans? If you're willing to accept human communication like speech to answer "no, I don't need to", but are unwilling to accept communication like adult cows being willing to go through physical pain in order to stay with their calves when the calves are being taken away, I think you have a speciesist arbitrary-line problem going on here.

We can make some guesses. See e.g. http://philosophyforprogrammers.blogspot.com/2010/11/who-fee...

  > free-range eggs or seafood does not

Personally:

1. Eating seafood supports the over-fishing of our water-ways.

2. The 'free-range' label, IIRC, only requires that the animals have 15 minutes of time outside of their cramped cages. It's not a huge improvement.

3. In general, when they are hatching new chickens for egg-laying they sort out all of the male chicks and then kill them. Industry-standard practice is to put them into garbage bags and suffocate them, or to toss them (in garbage bags) into a wood-chipper.

4. Egg-laying hens are only kept alive as long as their production is at a certain level. As soon as it drops below a certain level they are called 'spent hens,' and killed.

Pyre,

this morning, I woke up to this submission. Going trough my morning routine and walking to work, I completely felt bad. For the first time, I feel bad to be part of HN due to many illogical and harmful statements.

What I'm going to say is: Thank you for encouraging intelligent conversation in these threads. I'm giving each and every comment an upvote.

This is really not a valid objection. It is fairly well studied, and it's known as an "appeal to nature." You can see some info on it at these places:

* http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adnature.html * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

It's largely ignored in philosophical discussions because of the issues mentioned in these pages (and more!).

I'll be downvoted into oblivion for saying this but there are lots of ways that the average vegetarian or vegan every day supports killing animals for their own personal benefit. Animals are killed every day so that we can live a better life. It's not a big deal. Get over it or get off the grid.

I hope you don't drive on roads, or use anything produced by the petrochemical industry.

Hell, somewhere between your computer and HN a switch, server or piece of critical infrastructure is powered by burning dead animals. Or perhaps, it's just the plastic sheath on your ethernet cable that was made from petrochemicals.

I hope you're seriously considering refraining from using the internet because of the animals that were killed to make it.

Also, have you EVER considered how many field animals die to produce vegetables? You think a combine cares if there is a mouse in the way? Now, lets say you rely on a good shipped by trucking, train or ship, well then odds are somewhere along the line something was diesel powered, as we all know most diesel comes from oil fields, oil to the best of our knowledge contains dead animals.

If you're living you're consuming dead animals. Stop feeling bad about it and start enjoying the taste of meat. They died so you can live. It's the way of life, you think a tiger ponders the morality of eating a human?

Not eating meat is basically the sorriest excuse for making a difference I've seen, it's basically on par with believing recycling makes a difference. It's a small step to take with the aim of moralizing to everyone else how big of a difference you're making. Also, how many animals had to die because of habitat loss to make that nice house you're living in?

Meat may be murder, but so what? Pay soldiers to kill the animals then they are just casualties and it's no longer murder. We can now say the animal died in combat.

  > I hope you don't drive on roads, or use anything produced by the
  > petrochemical industry.

I've yet to hear that humans have successfully produced crude oil from livestock. Do you have a source of this?

  > Also, have you EVER considered how many field animals die to produce
  > vegetables?

1. You're creating a false dichotomy. Either a person eliminates all things in their life that affect animals, or they eliminate none. In the real world there are shades of grey.

2. Who are you to decide whether or not a person should care whether or not gelatin (or chicken broth or whatever) is in their food? You're coming from the opposite side and reacting against the idea that I'm trying to tell you what to do, but your response is just to tell me what to do. Seems a little ironic to me.

3. This entire post comes across as, "Yea! I really stuck it to that vegan guy! I win!"

  > Not eating meat is basically the sorriest excuse for making a
  > difference I've seen, it's basically on par with believing recycling
  > makes a difference. It's a small step to take with the aim of
  > moralizing to everyone else how big of a difference you're making.
  > Also, how many animals had to die because of habitat loss to make
  > that nice house you're living in?P

This is a very defeatist attitude. It borders on the, "I'm only one person. I can't make a difference. Why should I bother to vote," argument.

Secondly, who said anything anywhere about 'making a difference?' I certainly didn't. I've only talked about living according to my own moral code. Is living my own life according to my own moral code a 'small step to take with the aim of moralizing to everyone else?'

Regarding producing oil from livestock, you'll want to look into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization

I believe that ConAgra has a plant for doing this to left over bits of turkey.

More to the point as far as we know oil deposits are created by thermal depolymerization of plants and animals on geologic timescales. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Formation Therefor anything produced from petroleum very likely contains dead animals.

1. There are definitely shades of grey, but I tend to think that putting animals in your tank and on your plate are largely the same. If you think that eating dead animals is wrong, then why would consuming any product of which a component was dead animals be any different? Would it be ok to just kill an animal for no reason and not consume it?

2. I'm primarily attempting to point out that your actions and your moral code are hypocritical and thus you should be ignored as someone who advocates a standard for which they are unable or unwilling to meet themselves.

3. I don't really care how it comes across, if it effectively communicates to anyone else that the lifestyle choice and moral code of people who practice veganism or vegetarianism for moral reasons are hypocritical, then it has served it's purpose. If people who are not vegans or vegetarians for moral reasons laugh at the hypocrisy then it's also effective. Sometimes you have to make Modest Proposals in order to communicate effectively.

4. I think that voting is largely ineffective and that the electoral system produces results that are far more influenced by lobbying and money than by casting votes.

5. The entire point of the post was to convince you and others that don't eat meat for moral reasons that you are NOT living your life according to your own moral code. Or that your moral code contains arbitrary exceptions for the consumption of animals for whenever you find it convenient.

I think you're attacking a straw man who you want to represent all vegetarians and vegans. Different people make the choice to give up meat for different reasons, they define veganism and vegetarianism with differing boundaries, and they practice with various levels of consistency. There's no one vegan or vegetarian moral code for you to find hypocritical, or one set of goals that vegans and vegetarians are all trying to achieve.

But in point #1 above, I think you drifted off course; the problem from my perspective isn't dead animals but rather killing animals needlessly. An animal which was dead eons before I was born is not my moral responsibility. It is my responsibility if an animal dies so that I can eat steak, if I could have just as easily had beans.

Indeed. It's an attempt to make things black and white when they're grey.

In the same way you could argue that unless you become completely carbon neutral any attempt to minimise your carbon output is pointless, or indeed if you can't stop all crime, why bother trying and stop any.

Most vegetarians aren't hypocritical because they don't claim perfection, they just claim to be doing more in this one regard than the average and in that respect they're normally correct.

  > Regarding producing oil from livestock, you'll want to look into
  > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
  >
  > I believe that ConAgra has a plant for doing this to left over bits
  > of turkey.
  >
  > More to the point as far as we know oil deposits are created by
  > thermal depolymerization of plants and animals on geologic
  > timescales. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Formation
  > Therefor anything produced from petroleum very likely contains dead
  > animals.
  >
  > 1. There are definitely shades of grey, but I tend to think that
  > putting animals in your tank and on your plate are largely the same.
  > If you think that eating dead animals is wrong, then why would
  > consuming any product of which a component was dead animals be any
  > different? Would it be ok to just kill an animal for no reason and
  > not consume it?

You're equating the killing of animals with the death of animals. The animals that died eons ago to make oil were not killed by beings that had an active choice to make (i.e. "Do I kill this animal, or do I not kill this animal?"). An animal that died of natural causes was not killed, and a T-Rex (or a lion for that matter) does not have a moral dilemma when it comes to mealtime.

The only possible exception here is if you wish to postulate that some or all of the animals that crude oil comes from were killed by intelligent (and sentient) extra-terrestrial or terrestrial beings that left no trace behind for us to find.

I'm also clueless as to why you question if it's ok to kill an animal for no reason and not consume it. Most of the animal-based products that we have on the market today come from animals that humans have raised, and killed for the expressed purpose of creating that product. Do you not realize that these animals would not be killed if there were no demand for these products (or at least only a demand for similar products that were not animal-based -- e.g. faux leather).

  > 2. I'm primarily attempting to point out that your actions and your
  > moral code are hypocritical and thus you should be ignored as
  > someone who advocates a standard for which they are unable or
  > unwilling to meet themselves.

Please point to where I was advocating a standard.

  > 3. I don't really care how it comes across, if it effectively
  > communicates to anyone else that the lifestyle choice and moral code
  > of people who practice veganism or vegetarianism for moral reasons
  > are hypocritical, then it has served it's purpose. If people who are
  > not vegans or vegetarians for moral reasons laugh at the hypocrisy
  > then it's also effective. Sometimes you have to make Modest
  > Proposals in order to communicate effectively.

So you advocate ad hominem attacks on people based on some sort of stereotype that you have in your own mind, but which really doesn't match reality? As others have stated, you're trying to take the adjective 'vegan' and create your own definition of it based on the negative view you have of what some of the people it describes believe.

To use a religion analogy, you're trying to condemn all Christians based on the actions of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church in no way represents all Christian religions, but they are seen as the 'canonical' Christian religion in most people's minds. But in this case it's even worse, because the view points that you are attacking aren't even associated with some proper group or institution. It's just a view point that some people who are vegetarian/vegan hold.

  > 4. I think that voting is largely ineffective and that the electoral
  > system produces results that are far more influenced by lobbying and
  > money than by casting votes.

You're sort of missing the point that I was making with that comment. I was just using a common defeatist view point in pop-culture as an example.

  > 5. The entire point of the post was to convince you and others that
  > don't eat meat for moral reasons that you are NOT living your life
  > according to your own moral code. Or that your moral code contains
  > arbitrary exceptions for the consumption of animals for whenever you
  > find it convenient.

Where did I define my moral code for your review? Yet you assume that you know what it is, and attempt to viciously attack it to (presumably) gain some sort of personal satisfaction that you have 'proved' that you are right and someone else is wrong on the internet?

I also question why you are attempting to tell others that their moral code should be black-and-white. Is you own personal moral code this black-and-white? Is murder is always murder, and self-defense is no excuse? Or do you allow an exception in that case? A picture of a naked child is always child pornography, even if it's just the 'classic' bathtime photo of a baby? Are these not 'arbitrary exceptions?'

It borders on the, "I'm only one person. I can't make a difference. Why should I bother to vote," argument.

Whoa, here. The argument against voting is completely separate from the argument against supporting something you abhor in the market. In the latter case, all else equal, the industry will eventually do less of that thing than they would if you were supporting it, even if no one else ever changes. The effect seems small weighed against the sum total of usage, but over years, there are animals never born, raised, and killed if you choose to stop using animal products. The analogy with voting is poor, since if you, personally, choose to vote for the other side or not to vote at all, your decision has literally zero effect on the outcome.

If I'm following, your reasoning is that because (a) it's effectively impossible to live in the modern world without benefiting from the deaths of animals that (b) any attempt to limit the number of animals we kill to support our daily lives, or the kind of animals, or how they lived or died, must be pointless.

I find that jump from (a) to (b) is unfounded. There's a qualitative difference between (i) a mouse killed accidentally by a combine, (ii) a lab rat killed by a drug company, (iii) a pig raised and killed to be eaten, (iv) a mink killed for its fur and (v) an endangered mountain gorilla killed so a collector can stuff its head and hands. Different people draw their moral lines at different places.

A lot of people might have a problem with (v) but be okay with (i) through (iv). I can personally live with (i) and (ii), but have a problem with (iii) especially given the messed up fact that while almost a billion people on the planet are malnourished, the US has enough excess to give the majority of its soy and corn crops over to feeding livestock. As in, we're literally choosing to feed the pigs, cows and chickens we're going to kill before we feed the poor. I know of people who will accept (ii) if the research is for a compelling medical cause, but not if it's for something like cosmetics. I know plenty of people who can live with leather, but won't accept fur based on the crazy cruel stuff that happens on fur farms.

This stuff isn't black and white. You can't just equate animals that died millions of years ago that turned into oil with animals that we raise to kill; not all animal deaths are equal. The ethical and moral questions get complicated, and there's a lot of grey areas encountered when balancing human needs and desires against the potential suffering of creatures whose subjective experience we can't understand. And then there are health arguments and environmental arguments, and it never ends. Given that it's complicated, please have a little respect.

You write as though you expect that vegetarians and vegans must not be aware of natural predators or animals killed unintentionally by humans for reasons other than meat, or the weird, myriad ways we use highly processed animal products in the modern world -- and that if we had been aware we should obviously have come to the same conclusions you did. That presumption, that vegetarians and vegans must have made their life decisions out of simple ignorance of the facts, is a bit offensive. I'm not saying you should believe anything different about eating meat. But please don't flippantly talk down to people who have chosen to draw their moral distinctions in different places than yours.

Not arguing for or against it because the whole thing seems way too muddled for me.

But have you ever considered that the difference between your arguments (i) to (v) (with exception of (iii) maybe) is the intention of the humans involved not the suffering or the dead of the respective animals? This kind of moral reasoning is human and can be seen in other areas as well. For example, we care a lot more about the comparably "few" deaths caused by terrorism vs. the many caused by traffic, because presumably in the former there is intention of bad guys involved whereas in the latter its merely bad circumstances and chance. The result is the same: an animal or a human is killed. However, the moral reasoning is different. Just saying ...

Yes, human intent makes a difference, to some degree - shooting a tiger that's about to eat you is different from raising an animal in awful conditions to eat it later.

But there's also the issue of scale: while laboratories do kill quite a few animals (ideally in a somewhat humane fashion after a decent life, but that's not nearly always the case), the food industry kills a lot more.

I think human intentions do matter, at a qualitative level. And at a quantitative level, I hope we can agree that we're likely to kill fewer animals if we only kill them inadvertently than if we kill them both intentionally and inadvertently.

But even if you take a wholly consequentialist or utilitarian view (where the utility of animals gets some limited consideration), I would argue that eliminating (iii) through (v) is beneficial because it allows us to greatly reduce the animal suffering we cause, with minimal impact to our own wellbeing. In the modern age, pretty much no one needs fur, and certainly no one needs stuffed gorilla heads, and most people probably don't need meat. Steaks and mink coats are wasteful luxuries we can do without. However, getting rid of cases like (i) would require a great deal of effort, and getting rid of (ii) could block the path of medical advances which might significantly reduce human suffering from disease.

Statement one: "It's impossible to be a perfect programmer, so it's stupid to even try."

Statement two: "It's impossible to never harm someone, so it's stupid to even try."

Surely you don't agree with statement one? So why does the argument hold for statement two?

I was mainly trying to underline frossie's comment about how people eat meat unthinkingly, by pointing out that they may often also be eating meat unknowingly. It's shocking how pervasive dead animal products are in our society -- to the point that we use shellac (including dead insects) to wax apples, so even raw fruit may not be vegetarian.

For the record, I'm a vegetarian, but I drink filtered wine (isinglass or oxblood), eat cheeses made with rennet, eat sugar without knowing whether it was whitened with bone char, and last week ate a dessert that likely contained gelatin. I don't think those things mean I'm not a vegetarian, but I find it crazy that our society has so much dead animal hanging around that we've stopped keeping track of where we put it.

I thought the lighted hearted mockery of this mentality in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" was pretty funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIXv9N9PHO8&t=0m40s

De-veganizing ray! ZUM!

People who don't eat meat regularly lose an enzyme they need to properly digest meat. When I find that I've accidentally consumed something with chicken broth in it, I am physically ill during digestion. Therefore, I ask whether a soup or a risotto is made with a meat broth, because it's not worth me getting ill over.

Chicken broth is used in too many places as "instant flavour" where water would do just as well, or a mushroom broth. There's no reason for it, and the chefs I spoke with in Italy were horrified by the use of chicken broth in making a risotto.

I choose not to have anything with gelatin in it, because it's a useless filler, especially to yogurt. If you really need to thicken yogurt because you're reducing the milk's fat content, use agar or pectin.

(I am ova-lacto vegetarian, although I reduce my lacto because I'm mildly milk intolerant, more's the pity.)

Why shrimp? I understand the part about oysters, but I've read that shrimp feel pain.

It really depends on how you define "pain", given how simple they are, I'd say it's more of a simple stimulus response.

But you're right that it is a little more debatable with shrimp than with oysters.

Actually veganism is much older than the word 'vegan', which was coined in the 1940s. There are many eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Jainism, that encourage various forms of veganism (not all of them necessarily healthy diets) in their monastic orders.

However, I think you are fairly liberally type casting vegans as single issue people. I would argue most vegans probably know about where their food comes from than you, as well as the affects that other parts of their lifestyle have on the environment.

From my own personal experience, I know there is exactly one vegan organic standard (which is the VON's "Stockfree" certification a sub-certification of British Soil association's UK-5 standard). That means if I eat organic produce living in the US a large amount of the fertilizer used is probably of animal origin. However, I'm between the rock and the hard place because I either choose harm the environment (and animals in other ways) or accept that some of the organic fertilizer will be manure. I didn't set up the system it isn't my fault. However I will choose to opt-out where-ever I sensibly can.

In my experience people become vegan for a variety of reasons, but most of those reasons are because they are conscientious, caring people. Like all groups there are a vocal minority who wish to harass other who disagree with them, but I don't like be tarred with that brush any more than you like being accused of murder.

Actually most Buddhist monks depend on alms, so they aren't required to adhere to a vegan diet; they eat whatever the populace around the monastery offers. The only thing the Buddha ever said about eating meat is that one should not accept meat if they even suspect that the animal was killed specifically for them.

Actually while monks do depend on alms it depends what Buddhist tradition you come from. In many schools of Mahayana ('Great Path') Buddhism all animal produce is to be rejected.

It's impossible to declare "the only thing the Buddha said" because the Pali and Sanskit writings we have today are accounts of the aural teachings from the Buddha written 500 years or more after his death. More than that while there is a lot of agreement over parts of the canon there is also disagreement over other parts leading to various traditions and schools of Buddhism.

You are right of course on both points, I was talking about Therevadan monks and was referring to an interpretation of the Pali canon when talking about what the Buddha said.

"Opting out of meat entirely does nothing to change the industry, because most people will always eat some meat if they can afford it."

FWIW, my opting out of meat entirely has motivated at least a few others to do the same. On a larger scale, I've seen an increase over the last 10 years in the number of vegetarian restaurants and vegetarian offerings in general-menu restaurants. I'd say there has been some change in the industry, driven by people who have opted out of meat entirely.

Even if you're skeptical about just how much change any one person can effect I fail to see how one might go about changing an industry while not at the same time demonstrating commitment to the ideals feeding that desire for change.

"Meanwhile, as vegans focus on the elimination of meat from our diets, they practically ignore the industrialized food that wreaks direct reproducible havoc on our metabolisms causing epidemic obesity and diabetes"

Really? I've not seen that. If anything the vegans I've encountered, either personally or through books and magazines, seem quite zealous about replacing meat with quality nutrition. In fact, I don't see how one can be a vegan and not have to bend over backwards to select food carefully.

I've known vegans who would admit to eating nothing but Doritos/Skittles/Coca-Cola on roadtrips rather than feed themselves some halfway decent, but non-vegan, nutrition available on the road.

I've eaten crap, too, rather than eat meat, but only when crap was the best non-meat choice. I don't advocate it, though, if there's real veggie food available.

Have to say though that it's a lot harder to eat vegan on the road than to eat veggie. But Skittles + cola? That shit'll kill you.

I often wonder where these veracious vegans are. I've yet to meet a vegan who has been evangelical, yet have met many omnivores who speak poorly of vegans. Is this a region specific problem?

>I often wonder where these veracious vegans are.

Two words: The Internet.

The punk/hardcore scene is filled with them. Earth Crisis, Vegan Reich, Hardline, vegan straight-edge, etc.

Although, outside of that scene, I haven't often ran into them, so my guess is that most people are referring to the internet zealots, who tend to be an issue for any political, social, or cultural group, no matter how radical or mainstream.

None of those bands have been relavent in hardcore (other than on the fringe) in 20+ years. I've been involved in the punk/hardcore scene since the mid-nineties (and vegan since 2002) and while the scene is a little more veg friendly then most, a majority of the punk/hardcore kids i've grown up with and know are meat eaters.

as for the internet - it's full of opinionated zealots no matter what the cause.

None of those bands have been relavent in hardcore (other than on the fringe) in 20+ years.

The fringe is specifically what I'm referencing. I'm not saying punk in general is vegan, or hardline, etc. But the proportion of people within punk who are, compared to the general populace, is obviously much higher.

And I disagree that the scene is only a little more veg friendly than most, I'd say it's much more, except maybe scenes like conscious hip hop or hippy festivals.

Of course, I was specifically involved in very politicized punk scenes, so YMMV.

Come checkout Portland sometime.

I used to share a flat with one when I was at University - he used to do things like hand out leaflets in the morning with pictures of partly butchered animals as we prepared breakfast.

Apart from those idiosyncrasies he was quite a pleasant chap - I had to respect him when he received some extremely painful medical treatment and he refused an anesthetic because it might have been tested on animals.

I wish someday that the next vegans I meet are the same bunch you've met. Almost every single vegan I've met has been the loud, obnoxious, moralizing, more righteousnesses than thou, I don't care if I'm being difficult and selfish and forcing everybody around me to adopt to my personal life choices and I won't bother to accommodate anything other people need and I make sure to make people go out of their way to make sure there's at least one vegan-certified pizza at the corporate pizza party at the cost of 4 of the other pizzas (and then I won't eat more than half a slice) type.

I have to give special notice to two of my vegan friends who are not like that, but they are a very rare exception to the rule.

  > Meanwhile, as vegans focus on the elimination of
  > meat from our diets, they practically ignore the
  > industrialized food that wreaks direct reproducible
  > havoc on our metabolisms causing epidemic obesity 
  > and diabetes.

This is a bit of a strawman. You're basically saying that if you can find any fault with someone that is vegan, then their entire message is null and void. Think about it. You've stated that vegans aren't perfect because while eliminating one 'bad' thing from their diet they are forgetting a completely different one. That's your argument.

You're also only commenting on the effects to humans, while ignoring the effects to animals (which is an important factor for some/most vegans).

In general though, if you want to blame something, blame capitalism, and a lack of care for proper nutrition by the general public. Capitalism drives food companies to become ever more industrialized, and do whatever necessary to increase profits (fiddle with the sodium-fat-sugar content of their products to attempt to make people feel the need to eat more, and never feel that they have satisfied their hunger). The consumer can combat this with their pocket book, but the consumer just doesn't seem to care.

Your accusation of strawman doesn't hold. It is a valid point that if you claim your movement is about health, but you ignore the biggest health problem there is (because it does not fit the ideology), the claims to health should be, if not entirely ignored, certainly not taken at face value. It's perfectly logical.

Are you claiming that everyone out there that claims to be vegan is part of some all-encompassing singular movement? Who is the leader? Where is the movement's webpage?

Are you claiming that nobody ever uses that argument?

That rhetorical device cuts both ways, which is why it is useless in actual logic.

I don't become paralyzed by the fact that I can't draw absolute boundaries around things, and I reject disingenuous invitations to be so paralyzed for your rhetorical benefit. Yes, this is clearly an argument made for veganism, by a significant proportion of vegan thought leaders. I reject the idea that people should be allowed to make arguments but as soon as they are challenged go hiding behind the claims that "well, not everyone thinks that way so you can't criticize it". That's just flat-out bullshit. The original argument was and is valid.

  > Your accusation of strawman doesn't hold. It is a valid point that
  > if you claim your movement is about health, but you ignore the
  > biggest health problem there is (because it does not fit the
  > ideology), the claims to health should be, if not entirely ignored,
  > certainly not taken at face value. It's perfectly logical.

You seem to be arguing against the validity of vegetarianism/veganism as a whole based on the statements of a few vegetarians/vegans. You also seem to be under the impression that vegetarianism/veganism is some sort of singular 'movement' that has extreme solidarity and a singular purpose.

None of this is the case though. People decide to become vegetarian/vegan for a variety of personal reasons ranging from health to animal welfare (aka 'animal rights') to religion.

There are a number of movements that advocate a vegan diet (e.g. Peta) but that is a lot different than what you seem to want to imply. Your 'strawman' is the idea that vegetarianism/veganism is some sort of 'movement' where everyone believes the same thing and has the exact same goals. [ What are 'vegan thought leaders' anyways? ]

Best line in the whole post: "I now no longer lie to myself about the fact that life requires death."

I never understood the "Meat is murder" slogan. It's factual. They should have used "Meat is torture". I think it's more accurate with their line of thinking.

I wonder what they think about plant death. You do quite literally kill plants when you rip them out of the ground and take a bite out of them. Even if you only ate nuts or beans you are still killing off their unborn child plants.

Plants to scream when you kill them. We just can't normally hear it.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15320720.800-stressed-...

There are very strong reasons for thinking that vertebrates feel pain in a way very similar to humans (see e.g. http://philosophyforprogrammers.blogspot.com/2010/11/who-fee...).

There is absolutely no evidence that plants feel anything.

> Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem.

It is almost as ridiculous to posit that humans should be held to the same standard as your average animal. The moral objection is that being able to comprehend the existence of other beings bestows an obligation to facilitate their well-being in addition to your own. You can disagree with that, but it is not "ridiculous". Personally I think that we as a "higher species" - in comparison with the rest of the lifeforms on this planet - should at least make an effort to move toward veganism. In the end, it may not fully work and it will never completely remove the need to kill animals, but I think it can go a long way to reduce unnecessary suffering.

A lot of people do and will continue to eat meat (and wear leather &c.) but that is not an argument to not attempt to change the situation - or just change your own habits if you feel no pull toward effecting social change. Your argument is also undermined by the very factual increase in vegetarian and vegan

Most vegans I know are quite aware of food quality and will avoid additives and processed foods. Some do not, some have very poor diets indeed. There is no dichotomy here, though.

On the topic, while the most hard-line vegans will disagree, I think milk, eggs and non-sentient beings like various clams, oysters and such are a reasonable compromise in ensuring one's nutrition. They - given humane and sustainable practices of course - do not cause much suffering to the animals involved.

Thanks for this. To put it another way -- if you're unwilling to object to causing suffering to other animals because "that's what they do to each other anyway", you lose the ability to make ethical objections to murder, rape, etc., when they're being performed by humans.

We know that other animals don't have the same evolved talent at empathy and compassion (and ethical reasoning) that humans do, so we don't expect them to become vegetarian themselves. The fact that humans are capable of these things introduces a responsibility for us to use them rather than ignoring them.

Just a minor point, but what do you mean by “sustainably raised meat”? It seems reasonable to assume that the production of non-industrialized meat needs just as much or even more energy. Meat is cheap because it is efficiently produced, mostly disregarding the animals’ welfare. How can energy consumption go down by shedding efficiency in favor of animal welfare? Is that not what you mean by sustainable?

Probably not more energy. Way more space though. Order of magnitude, at least.

For example, sustainably raised beef winds up needing a bunch of pastureland to rotate through, so that they don't overgraze any one section of grass. Feedlots cram them in and feed them corn or some other grain crop that's had it's own huge energy input.

Poultry needs the same sort of thing, or they will scratch their grass down to mud right quick. Most of the cage-free/free range criteria stop in the 5 sqft/bird range, but they need 10x that to not destroy the ground, if they're not moved every few days. (incidentally, vegetarian feed for chickens is good (hey, it won't contain other chickens), but chickens are _not_ vegetarians. They love bugs. Happiness is a flock of chickens and an ant hill.)

I don't eat animals or animal products because I personally don't want to. What's wrong with that?

I think there is nothing wrong with that as long as you feel healthy and are healthy. I think the point of the submitted post was that the author did not eat animal products and became very unhealty. That's pretty much it ...

I've always wondered what the plan is. Meaning, suppose the entire population is "enlightened" to the vegan diet and stops eating meat and using animal products, what are we supposed to do with the animals we're no longer eating?

The industry just in the U.S. consumes something like 150 million cattle and 9 billion fowl per year and that's not counting the animals we use for other purposes (dairy, eggs, etc.)

Are we to let them just starve and die in the fields? Pets? Let them go feral? (I can tell you that feral pigs are some of the scariest, meanest animals in the world). Can cows even go feral? Or have they been so domesticated over the last 10,000 years that they're pretty much useless in the wild?

No matter what, it would be intolerably cruel to the extant population of farm animals.

The life cycle of farm animals is very short (from few weeks to couple of years), much shorter than the "enlightening" process would take. We just need to stop to produce "replacement" animals for the eaten ones. Simple as that.

> We just need to stop to produce "replacement" animals for the eaten ones. Simple as that.

This brings up the second question, whenever I hear "we just" or "simply" or some other similar keywords, it often involves a wholesale change in the mindset of all of humanity to accomplish whatever is being posited.

(not to mention that many people would probably consider the forced sterilization of billions of animals inhumane and immoral)

> (not to mention that many people would probably consider the forced sterilization of billions of animals inhumane and immoral)

Hey, did you know that pretty much all commercial turkeys can't have sex anymore? We bred their breasts to be too big, so they can't physically penetrate any more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Breasted_White

You'll be finding this inhumane and immoral and refusing to eat turkey now, right? Oh, guess not. Weird how that works.

I imagine we just let them go extinct.

If killing and eating animals is inhumane and immoral, is mass genocide any better?

Actually veganism is about ethics, if you can survive without causing suffering, why would you need to cause that suffering, for pleasure?

Well that's the problem with radicalism...they live on the other side of the chasm, ignoring all non-revolutionary paths that might lead in that direction from current reality, so they have virtually no effect on mainstream discourse. Just like to them, the Dems and Republicans are "the same". It's an attitude I'm sure they enjoy having but it sure is ineffectual.

"I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom."

Yes. It's the way of the world. Radicals fight each other, and the compromises between them are perhaps the nearest you can get to the truth.

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