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Comment by andrew_ | Hacker News Reader

As a human who is concerned with the treatment of bull (male) calfs born on dairy farms and their treatment for the production of veal, I have absolutely no clue why being a vegan has any pertinence. Why is it such common practice to insufferably proclaim one's ethos as a vegan?

In all seriousness, the conditions under which bull calfs for veal production is abhorrent, and I have great difficulty in balance sympathy for the plight of dairy with the practices of the industry. While the article mentions CAFOs, which are the largest contributors to veal production, I'd been hard-pressed to find a family run dairy farm in my home, midwestern state, which didn't at the least sell their bull calfs to outfits that do produce veal.

Next time you see that on the menu, take a moment to think about where it's coming from and how it's made.

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> the conditions under which bull calfs for veal production is abhorrent

To you!

To me (also vegan) any animal in a cage is abhorrent. I want to be free and wild and I also want all others to be free and wild. Maybe some humans deserve to be caged for their behavior. Animals can never be guilty...

> Next time you see that on the menu, take a moment to think about where it's coming from and how it's made.

Exactly. Was someone (NOT something) caged? Was a baby taken away from a mother, right after birth, in order to steal (=take what is not given) the milk that mum produces for baby?

And after this consideration: go for one of the plant options on the menu!

This is yet more the kind of nonsensical, insufferable drivel that turns people away from rationally thinking about their food. Someone's preference for how and what they eat contributes nothing to conversation, and exists only to project a belief of superiority and collect pats on the back from like-minded thinkers.

If a sentient AI with superhuman intelligence were observing us, they would be utterly puzzled at the amount of waste and destruction we perpetuate through the meat & dairy industries for no reason other than ephemeral perceived pleasure through our taste buds.

If "someone's preference" - a completely subjective thing - is objectively less efficient and more harmful than doing something else, we can and do intervene to discourage such practices. No one should have to apologize for promoting something clearly better.

If you love meat and are willing to burn the planet down so you can keep eating it, fine. But don't pretend it's a choice without consequences or that it's necessary.

Or it would be wondering why we don’t eat any piece of meat we possibly can in order to maximally extract nutrients from our surrounding environment.

Maximal extraction of resources would involve focusing on eating plants. Feeding the plants to animals and then eating them is tremendously inefficient in terms of both calories and nutrients.

Humans like eating meat because it is nutritious. It is not just a random preference and it is not something that anyone can just switch off, therefore it is not a matter of morality, as you are trying to portray it ("If you love meat and are willing to burn the planet down so you can keep eating it...").

It is possible our taste for (cooked) meat gave us an evolutionary advantage that made us who we are today:

However, accessing more calories was not the primary reason our ancestors decided to cook food. “Scientists often focus on what the eventual benefit is, rather than the immediate mechanism that allowed our ancestors to make the choice. We made the choice because of deliciousness. And then the eventual benefit was more calories and fewer pathogens.”

Human ancestors who preferred the taste of cooked meat over raw meat began to enjoy an evolutionary advantage over others. “In general, flavour rewards us for eating the things we’ve needed to eat in the past,” said Dunn.

In particular, people who evolved a preference for complex aromas are likely to have developed an evolutionary advantage, because the smell of cooked meat, for example, is much more complex than that of raw meat. “Meat goes from having tens of aromas to having hundreds of different aroma compounds,” said Dunn.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/07/how-early-hu...

> It is not just a random preference and it is not something that anyone can just switch off, therefore it is not a matter of morality, as you are trying to portray it

Every declaration you made in this sentence is incorrect.

A superhuman intelligence would, basically by definition, have no problem understanding why an evolved being enjoys foods which it specifically co-domesticated itself with. After all, I understand that that, and I'm not superhumanly intelligent, also by definition.

I said co-domesticated and I mean it: a substantial number of humans of European and Nilotic descent have a mutation which makes them able to digest raw milk well into adulthood. I have to rely on the cultural technology of fermenting milk with lactobacillus, sadly.

> Someone's preference

It's not a personal choice (preference) when it cause another being to suffer (caged, artificially inseminated (raped), babies taken away, fed horrible food, etc.)

Thinking that it IS a personal choice, to me, puts one on borderline insanity: total disdain for other forms of sentient life.

I hope the taste of that meat/dairy/eggs makes it all worth it for you. I cannot imagine taste bud pleasure trumps ethics.

>> I hope the taste of that meat/dairy/eggs makes it all worth it for you. I cannot imagine taste bud pleasure trumps ethics.

You are putting a morality spin on something that has a biological basis. Humans like the taste of meat because it is a very good source of necessary nutrients. It is possible that our preference for meat and dairy (in particular, fermented dairy, like cheese) has provided us with an evolutionary advantage that has made us who we are today:

Human ancestors who preferred the taste of cooked meat over raw meat began to enjoy an evolutionary advantage over others. _“In general, flavour rewards us for eating the things we’ve needed to eat in the past,_” said Dunn. (My underlining)

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/07/how-early-hu...

You've replied with this article to multiple comments as if it carries any weight. Why do you feel like we're bound to the same dietary behaviors as our ancestors?

I do not think we are bound to the same behaviours. I think we are bound to the same preferences.

For every vegan that posts, there is also the insufferable drivel of someone that is above veagns. The person that has to tell the world they will continue exploiting and abusing animals because vegans are annoying. Not sure why you act like you are adding so much rich information to the conversation by complaining about a vegan.

Here's what I don't understand about this reasoning: many of the animals you're defending -- such as cows -- have been domesticated to the point of relying on humans for survival. For these, the choice is not "live in captivity, or live free", it's "live in captivity, or not at all".

My question is therefore: were you unaware of this, or do you prefer the disappearance of (e.g.) cows over their captivity?

Most vegans would support the extinction of domesticated cows over their forced inpregnation and commodification.

These domesticated cows aren’t necessary for keeping the ecosystem in balance, and any cow we don’t breed into existence won’t suffer. There aren’t a group of unborn cows being sad that they never got a chance to exist.

There isn’t a strong reason to support cow breeding for the sake of cows existing.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-09-07

So you support genocide ;)

At least in USA, veal consumption is low enough that most of those surplus bulls are slaughtered as "mature" steers at ~20 months of age, not as calves. (Some people may not consider that much of an improvement!) Also there is sexed semen, which avoids the issue completely.

This is fascinating. I've spent some time looking into the sexed semen, had no knowledge that was a thing prior. Thank you for sharing that.

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