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Comment by bbrian | Hacker News Reader

Some people seem to go vegan because they're emotionally off-kilter. I'm in a few vegan Facebook groups and I've seen posts where people are way over-reacting to food cooked on the same surface, or talking about their emotional breakdown over the suffering of animals. I'm vegan almost two years and I'm pretty sure I ate mayo on a burger two weeks ago. I ordered it explicitly without, but sending it back would just create waste and no benefit.

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I definitely agree with your reasoning about sending things back. I've been a vegetarian my whole life, but I don't see the point in making a stink if people didn't know or made a mistake.

I've eaten meat a few times just to avoid making a scene. Got invited out to dinner by colleagues on several different occasions (diff people) and they were sushi and steak places. No vegetarian options. Such is life.

I manage to have positive impact with 99.9%.

Interesting. Speaking as a carnivore, I find eating human flesh morally wrong, and would be quite insulted if someone cooked my burger next to some 'man' burger.

So I can understand their point of view.

You are not the target audience for the Impossible Burger.

I was responding to the parent, who despite being an ex vegan, can't understand why other vegans wouldn't want their food cooking with meat based food.

I'm not a vegan, or vegetarian, and I can understand that point of view.

So I don't understand how your comment is at all relevant.

Eh, even with the lengths this comment went to present a working framing I still don't accept it.

Either cannibalism is so objectionable that I'd refuse to patronize a restaurant that served human flesh, or I'd probably not mind them being cooked side-by-side.

That might be a bigger things for vegans, by buying even vegetarian stuff from burger king you're supporting a company that financially motivates a lot of actions you find unethical - that is logically consistent at least.

Interestingly I don't think it'd be the only logical stance for an ethical vegan - purchasing beyond meat products would signal the company of the increased relative demand of vegetarian substitutes potentially leading to that company investing more in beyond meat products and lowering their meat purchases, decreasing the market stability and liquidity for real meat products.

I'm struggling to think of suitable analogue that would work for someone who eats meat. If you have a better suggestion ill go with that.

You're trying to bring logic into a moral decision. While I agree that that's the way I would approach it, it isn't the only way to approach it. As I said I'm a meat eater so I don't follow all the logical steps to being vegan, but that logical step I do understand.

I think the closest analogue you can find is peanut allergies, but (as far as I've ever seen) no body has that sort of anaphylaxis reaction to meat or the taste of it.

Cooking the burger in beef/pork fat would likely be noticeable, but that is pretty trivial to avoid and _usually_ grills are crudely scraped down between different grillings, that will remove everything but trace amounts.

An allergy isn't a moral choice. Not eating meat is, for many people at least.

This isn't complicated. Many vegans would prefer to never eat where meat is being served, but recognize the practical reality that if you want business to start providing more ethical alternatives, you need to actually patronize those businesses. So they compromise by providing that revenue, while still trying to avoiding cross-contaminating what they're eating with what they see as murder-byproducts.

So I don't disagree with anything in this statement, but what is it about cross-contaminating that's an issue here specifically? Is there a health reason to avoid any intake of meat products or an ethical/moral one?

For the later case... I'm on board with sane things (don't fry veggie burgers in animal fat) but less with (don't prepare this food where meat products were prepared) simply because... I feel like the same amount of effort should be taken with each meal and vegetarians shouldn't require separate processing things.

To draw a parallel, I'm lactose intolerant myself, but I've always felt it's a bit silly that <GENERIC COFFEE PLACE> has separate blenders for milk/soy/other (except almond, due to the factor of nut allergies).

For the particular extreme religious community (almost cult) I grew up in, meat eating was a sin (more or less). Financial support for a company wasn't really a big deal, it was more about keeping their bodies "pure" for God. I even knew a rancher who raised cattle to sell, but wouldn't eat any kind of animal products himself.

which religion is this ? I know many Hindus & Jains are strictly vegetarian.

My parents are Christians. There are a few Christian denominations/groups/cults with strict food rules, but definitely fringe.

>... by buying even vegetarian stuff from burger king you're supporting a company that financially motivates a lot of actions you find unethical...

Vegans say this all the time. You can choose to be 100% consistent with ethics but how far do you take it? Do you shut out your family and close yourself off from most of society?

Yeah, I’m a happy meat eater and will actively defend having meat options at workplace cafeterias for example, but that is exactly the analogy that pops to mind. I would be grossed out eating meat cooked on the same grill as human meat, and expect vegans to be grossed out the same way by food cooked on the same grill as animal meat.

> Some people seem to go vegan because they're emotionally off-kilter.

And a lot of people have religious reasons for not eating meat.

Those two statements aren't mutually exclusive. Some are religious, some are off-kilter and some are both.

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