How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World | Hacker News Reader

How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World

literaryreview.co.uk

67 pointsjseliger213 comments

I tried doing a strict vegan diet for about a year and found it was endless misery for me. I could never get adjusted to it. There was a constant feeling of torture and self-flagellation.

Staying vegetarian is easy enough because it didn't take long before the concept of consuming animal flesh started to repulse me. Even after about 6 years I still feel occasional impulses, probably because I grew up on southern BBQ, but it's really small and easy to pass.

So here's what I will say about this. Not everyone's dietary choices are rooted in ignorance. Everyone has different bodies; different hormones and chemistry; different synapses. All we can ask is for everyone to try eating mindfully at minimum. That alone is a great start and will make a huge impact.

As for how we feed our pets, I agree with this article, and I'll add pets have such short lifespans, and very few needs, the least we can do is try to give them the highest quality version of the few needs they have. For better or for worse, my cat is a spoiled princess because of this.

It's true that our bodies are all different, but this is a very common point made by carnists (folks who use animal products, basically the opposite of vegans), yet I've never been able to find any research on anything that comes from animal products that prevents health issues. I'm genuinely curious if someone could point me in the direction of some material which talks about what it is in animal products that prevents these ailments from occurring.

I wonder if it's almost always the case of folks making a dietary switch and not making sure they know how to get everything they need in a balanced diet from non-animal sources, which is actually not hard.

EDIT: I may have misread your comment and interpreted your misery as being due to the diet itself, not the psychological toll of the veganism, so apologies if that's the case! Still interested in any research for what I asked about though, if anyone has it handy!

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-nutrients-you-cant-ge...

Further, many nutrients are far more bio-available than their plant based counterparts. Supplementing for them also isn’t the best substitute.

There’s still a demonization of saturated fats despite the heart claims being largely falsified by the sugar industry, and claims of unprocessed meats causing colon cancer being exaggerated substantially (even for processed meats, there’s an increase, but as I recall it’s minimal. Larger chance of lung cancer from city living than colon cancer from occasional processed meat)

Each person I believe (key word) has ancestral lineage that describes what foods they can handle best. Hence why we see some people thrive on plant based, and others (like myself) was completely miserable despite taking all the necessary steps. Going the opposite (carnivore) was better in blood markers and we’ll-being for me.

That article starts with:

"Vegan and vegetarian diets are both very healthy ways of eating. They’ve been linked to multiple health benefits and a lower risk of excess weight, heart disease, and even some types of cancer."

Which was an interesting choice for you, I think. Also there are some seriously misleading facts in the article:

B12 doesn't from from meat, and meat only has B12 today because animals are supplemented with it.

DHA comes from algae, so again, the animals you eat have it as a result of having eaten plants.

Creatine, carnosine, and taurine are considered nonessential, in the very article.

And with regard to iron: "However, iron deficiency is easy to avoid on a well-planned vegan diet", according to the article.

But this is kind of irrelevant, because even if these things _were_ hard to get for vegans and supplements were needed, it still makes veganism a moral imperative, because the small price to pay of taking a pill to save billions of sentient animals every year is a no brainer.

If people stop eating meat, who is paying for the well being of those billions of animals?

I'm not trying to be glib. If humans did not ever eat meat, we would not have ever domesticated cattle, but we did. So if everyone stops eating meat, what happens to all of cattle?

We can set them free, but we have bred out most of their ability to compete in nature on their own, we would be leaving most for death. Or we can continue to farm historically domesticated animals benevolently.

You're totally right, we can't just set them all free, as it would ruin ecosystems. What we can do is taper our meat consumption down so the animals that are alive now will be killed and used, but we would stop adding new ones to the system.

That way we ween off of livestock, their suffering ends, and we avoid an ecological disaster. Farms will have top adapt, because we don't want all the folks in animal agriculture to be out of a job all of a sudden, so it'd take some time. But we can do it, for sure.

But asking those kinds of questions is really important, so thank you for posing it.

Livestock only lives for some months before slaughtering. Just keep slaughtering while not breeding new ones, and after a few months there will be no livestock left.

> yet I've never been able to find any research on anything that comes from animal products that prevents health issues

From what I've heard from carnivore people, it's usually the opposite. It's not that eating meat prevent health issues, it's that eating some vegetables causes them. Carnivore is a form of elimination diet, which can help some people. For example, if you are gluten intolerant, being carnivore will make you feel better. If you are sensitive to nightshades (some people claim to be and I don't want to dismiss their experience), carnivore will work too. Veganism can work the same way for some people (lactose intolerant people for example, people that get allergic to mammal meat due to Lyme's).

I personally think that we tend to underestimate the variations from individual to individual, and that studies don't help with that as nutritional studies are usually self reported and not really solid, and don't take into account confounding factors. For example, vegans and carnivore both have a huge healthy user bias compared to the standard american diet. I think everyone should try different diets and use what's best for them.

One big difference between carnivore (or even keto) and veganism however is that veganism is also a diet based on moral and values. As such, it's hard to see vegans as less biased than keto followers or carnivore followers.

If you are sensitive to nightshades, removing nightshades from the diet would do the trick, people dont have to go full blast carnivore

The same would apply to people sensitive to gluten and going vegan, people don't have to go full blast vegan. But many vegan may be benefiting from it and think it's the vegan diet. Unless you remove everything and reintroduce everything one by one it's hard to know exactly what makes you react or not.

Veganism is not only related to food, it is conscious decision to lessen the unneeded suffering and exploitation of animals. Which includes using them for food but is not limited on food.

People on carnivore diet do not have that overarching ethical stance which guides their decisions.

So saying "people don't have to go full blast vegan" is not the same as "people don't have to go full blast carnivore" because people rarely go vegan because of the diet, they do it because of the animals.

Doing it only because of the diet would probably be called "plant based" eating now a days.

This doesn’t really address what I was saying. Anecdotal stories of people feeling better only eating meat aren’t useful for the discussion.

Besides, even if we accept your premise that nutritional data are unhelpful in understanding the effectiveness of any diet, this can said of both plant-based and carnist diets, meaning we can’t say one or the other is better, or worse, or more or less nutritious.

In that case, I think we should then choose the diet which we definitively know causes the least suffering.

I have no reason whatsoever to believe that someone feeling good on a carnist diet but bad on a plant based diet is anything other than not knowing how to have a balanced plant based diet, which is easy to do when armed with the knowledge.

> Anecdotal stories of people feeling better only eating meat aren’t useful for the discussion.

That's where we disagree. I think they are because I think we underestimate the differences between people.

> Besides, even if we accept your premise that nutritional data are unhelpful in understanding the effectiveness of any diet, this can said of both plant-based and carnist diets, meaning we can’t say one or the other is better, or worse, or more or less nutritious.

Again I disagree. My conclusion is that everyone should experiment with different kinds of diet and see what works. We may not know at the humanity level, but we can learn more at the individual level.

> In that case, I think we should then choose the diet which we definitively know causes the least suffering.

I don't agree with your premise (or maybe put individual suffering of humans at a higher level than animals), but I do agree with your conclusions. I don't know if you count climate impact in "suffering" in general but that's a good argument for veganism too.

> I have no reason whatsoever to believe that someone feeling good on a carnist diet but bad on a plant based diet is anything other than not knowing how to have a balanced plant based diet, which is easy to do when armed with the knowledge.

I think that's shortsighted of you for two reasons. First, as I said, I think you underestimate the individual variations between people. Second, considering how many people suffer from obesity in America, I don't agree that having a balanced diet, be it plant based or anything else, is easy.

I was a Vegan for 12 years between the ages of 18 and 30. I was literally the worst advert for a Vegan diet imaginable primarily because I was so angry all the time.

I'm much less angry now I'm a Vegetarian.

I agree, but this does raise one question for me. If we are to eat mindfully, should we not have pets at all? This seems to be a population, resource, and global warming constraint.

Unpopular opinion, but I would completely outlaw any pet ownership or animal husbandry on the simple basis that it's impossible for animals to consent to being owned.

They didn't consent to nature either.

And that's why we don't use "but Nature did it first" as a justification in moral discussions.

I think that's too simplistic.

Here's an animal. The options are: - Owned/managed by a human - Living in nature - Not existing

The animal has consented to exactly none of those. But living in nature is not a bed of roses. Is it moral to subject an animal to that?

In that analysis, human ownership (if humane) seems like the most moral option. And "nature did it first" has nothing to do with the analysis.

I disagree it's too simplistic. It's a logical fallacy that we wouldn't be advocating for in any other context than our treatment of non-human animals.

It's also just a disingenuous argument. If our actual concern were the welfare and lives of animals in the wild, we would be capturing and caring for those individuals - not breeding new ones into existence.

Even humane ownership generally implies reproductive restrictions. I don't see how that could be considered the most moral option.

Neither did a child being born

Nor do any of us have the real option to consent or withdraw consent to living in the society we are born into (assuming emmigration is not an option, or that the alternatives are no better)

What do you think about cooperative hunting between humans and dogs? Not the same as modern domestication, but some have theorized dogs may have domesticated themselves by eating scraps and/or leaving scraps progressing into sharing, hunting and training with humans. These relationships could have slowly progressed to human ownership of dogs. If we gloss over the hunting ethics, where would you draw the line for when this ethical cooperation between unequal partners turns unethical? Or do you reject the premise?

If people separate themselves from nature and do not have personal friendship and daily interaction with animals, I think it is more difficult to care about them generally, based on the social rule of "statistical numbing" where studies have shown that we care more about individual creatures that we know something about than groups that we don't (1,2).

(1) https://bigthink.com/risk-reason-and-reality/statistical-num...

(2) https://www.ibtimes.com/why-we-care-more-about-death-lion-th...

But then the better solution is to have the people interact with useful animals, like service animals or agricultural animals. Pets would be superfluous when there are other animals that could provide interactions and another useful purpose. This would be a more efficient use of resources and more climate friendly.

I'm not sure how you got this conclusion, it seems like the exact opposite of what they're saying.

Placing animals in buckets of "useful" and "useless" is not empathy; that's back to the point of treating them like tools or exploitable resources.

Love and empathy is not intended to be conditional on what value you can reap from it. At best that's a business relationship, and at worst it's something very dark.

"...treating them like tools or exploitable resources."

Everything is a resource regardless of whether it is exploited. The person saying empathy comes from having exposure to pets is in essence saying pets are a resource to cultivate empathy and should be exploited as such. The issue is resource constraints. Pets consume a lot of argicultural and pharmaceutical resources.

You talk of love and empathy being unconditional, but when you live in a resource constrained world, should we spend money creating, housing, and feeding pets? Or should we care for the vulnerable humans? Should we stop keeping pets so that we don't need the agriculture that is required to support them, thus feeding people or allowing the land to return to the natural world and it's native animals?

Resources are a part of the equation. It seems many people ignore the n-order impacts. It's the same as people buying their processed food or meat without ever seeing the source and process. Probably even more so with kibble since it doesn't look like food to us.

Utilizing a relationship with a pet to cultivate empathy is a form of exploitation in the same way that being kind and generous to people in order to feel good about oneself is a form of selfishness. The Dalai Lama refers to this as "wise selfishness."

As long as the animal is also happy and cared for, then utilizing a relationship with a pet to cultivate empathy is a healthy, normal, pro-social behavior which makes the world a better place. You could say it's a symbiotic relationship of wise exploitation.

(EDIT: To clarify, the difference here is that challenges which arise in such relationships serve to grow and enhance empathy and love. Whereas with a work animal / tool, challenges in the relationship means discarding the beast and replacing it with something more useful)

As far as the hypothetical situations go, it's a red herring that I don't have the time to dive into.

You are ignoring the n-order impacts like resource allocation. You are clearly not generating empathy for the animals that your pet is consuming. It also seems any positive impact is negligible give the current status quo.

"As long as the animal is also happy and cared for, then utilizing a relationship with a pet to cultivate empathy is a healthy, normal, pro-social behavior which makes the world a better place." emphasis mine

This is a highly speculative opinion that provides no cost benefit analysis.

Yet practically all pet owners use and exploit their pets emotionally. The term "pet loves you unconditionally" used as an argument for pets is revealing: They are mostly kept to give the owner a feeling of being loved, which is much harder to get from other human beings. Ideally suited for increasingly narcissist population. Second, they are used to virtue signal, to increase social capital. The saying goes, if you cared for pets, you would be a good person, and in reverse, if you did not like pets, you would be a bad person. This is obviously wholly unsubstantiated, and there are numerous counterexamples. This is true even more for "rescues", which makes the owners feel like saviors. And as usual, because many people have incorporated the meme of pet ownership so deeply into their identity, they cannot argue about this rationally.

This is a fake argument. Owners of carnivores happily feed meat of numerous chicken, pigs and cows to their pets. Keepers of free-roaming cats accept that each of those kills 100 birds and rodents per year.

Adopt stray animals, dont buy.

And do not show them off, in order not to entice others to buy.

For what its worth the increase in plant-based foods has made veganism an easier lifestyle choice. I've been vegan, a health decision advised by a doctor, for a year now and its made a positive impact to my overall health proven by routine full lab work, pre and post. I wasn't overweight and my weight has only decreased by a few pounds. It is changed how I view food too. We truly are what we eat. We should know that intuitively – our fuel is food.

I generalize that for many people less meat and meat products may lead to positive health outcomes, but I am no scientist.

Finding new vegan restaurants, recipes, or food staples has given my sense of culinary adventure. There are times when the food is not good or my expectations were too high, but there are plenty times when my taste buds are elated and my body fully satiated. ymmv

Counterpoint: I've been Keto, also advised by a doctor, and have eaten basically nothing but free-farmed meat and cheese, along with lots of veggies, and my overall health has gone from "OK" to roughly "great." (labwork, etc.)

I've since transitioned to low-carb rather than proper keto, but the increase in keto foods (things made with healthy fats, allulose rather than table sugar, etc.) has made it much easier to do proper keto.

As parent said: YMMV, and we all have different bodies, needs, etc.

Corollary - I did keto for just over a year while on a vegetarian diet with the main goal being weight loss. During that time I felt extremely energised and healthier. While not strictly vegan, my diet was basically the low-carb nuts, legumes, mushrooms, fruits, vegetables, eggs and cheeses. I did have to add a few supplements, otherwise I'd feel like utter shit, magnesium and electrolytes mainly had a significant effect on my mood. But otherwise it's the healthiest and most alert I've felt since I was a teenager.

People I mention this to assume the toughest challenge is variety but as I love to cook it wasn't too hard to make it interesting each day. The toughest challenge was convenience, you grab a coffee or a lunch with friends and there's very few places that cater for all. The second most challenging aspect was cooking meals for the family, as I am the main cook for my wife and kids who did not at all buy into a vegetarian diet let alone keto, but that again wasn't too bad since I could just cook a normal meal, scrape out the bits I can have and whip something up for me afterwards.

After about a year on that diet I ran a sub-1hr 12km charity race which isn't exactly a world record, but not bad for a 40-something always-recovering alcoholic with weight and mental health problems. I'd definitely recommend keto (with proper medical supervision) but... maybe not at the same time as trying to eat less meat.

> We truly are what we eat.

Well, I’m not trying to be a vegetable.

> I generalize that for many people less meat and meat products may lead to positive health outcomes, but I am no scientist.

And you fail to take into account the healthy user bias. Plenty of people become vegan because it's advertised as healthier, which means it filters people that don't want to be healthy more than some other diets. Also, vegans are very aware that they diet may lack X or Y so they pay more attention to nutrition. For example, lack of B12 was a meme against vegans at some point, which means now most of them are aware of B12. I can't say the same for the rest of the population.

When it comes to the "healthy bias", i just do what healthy people do as long as it's kinda supported by science. Even if we don't have the evidence yet it's still worth looking to see which was the science is poining

It is so obscenely hard, if even possible, to get sufficient nutrition on a vegan diet. 95% of vegans don’t do a good job and are visibly malnourished.

Otoh, it’s trivial to get a complete nutritional intake on an animal diet. You’re made out of mammal parts, so it’s pretty much guaranteed you can get what you need by eating animal parts. Compare a serving of pâté to literally any plant.

It really isn't that hard. All protein on the planet comes from plants and photosynthesis. Dietary supplemental vitamins are needed on both a vegan and non-vegan diet. Human teeth cannot eat raw animal skin/meet, they don't cut it. Watch "The Game Changers".

Read the book Eat to Live. It is evidence based, written by an M.D. and has nearly 1,000 references/studies. I've been doing the ETL lifestyle now for 16 years now, and feel great on it!

> It really isn't that hard

Then why is almost every vegan so malnourished?

> It is evidence based

I doubt it. Nutrition “science” right now has abysmally low evidentiary standards. We don’t have a scientific (i.e. experimental) basis for making strong low-level nutritional predictions beyond “if you don’t get any of this you will die eventually”. Basically the only thing you can do right now is make sweeping observations (“what is the apparent health of populations on this diet?”) and a-priori reasoning (“what is my prior on the evolutionary optimization criteria affecting my metabolic system?”).

> I've been doing the ETL lifestyle now for 16 years now, and feel great on it!

I’ve been eating keto/carnivore for two years now and I feel great (so not looking to improve on that front). I also don’t have any health problems associated with nutritional deficiency (in fact I am in perfect health, and I wasn’t when I ate the S.A.D.), and I don’t have to put in any special effort to maintain that state of affairs.

They aren't. Do you look at all the obese people and say, man, that non-vegan diet you are on looks really malnourishing?

> Watch The Game Changers and read Eat to Live.

The Game Changers was manifestly stupid propaganda. If you fell for it, this is a really bad sign wrt your ability to filter out dietary-pseudoscientific nonsense.

> Do you look at all the obese people and say, man, that non-vegan diet you are on looks really malnourishing

The average obese American is on a diet much closer to a vegan diet than a meat-based diet. They get most of their calories from bread, rice, peanut oil, soy products, corn syrup, canola oil, etc. etc.

> The Game Changers was manifestly stupid propaganda. If you fell for it, this is a really bad sign wrt your ability to filter out dietary-pseudoscientific nonsense.

How is watching olympic athletes, proving they are getting even better, propaganda?

I feel like you didn't even watch the film.

> The average obese American is on a diet much closer to a vegan diet than a meat-based diet. They get most of their calories from bread, rice, peanut oil, soy products, corn syrup, canola oil, etc. etc.

And meat, cheese and eggs.

The average American gets the overwhelming majority of their calories from vegan items. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2016/december/a-look-at...

Watch The Game Changers and read Eat to Live.

Why do you believe that almost every vegan is malnourished? How do you know who is vegan, and how do you know who is malnourished? Are you basing this off of anecdotes you've read of people eating plant-based and then feeling unhealthy? If so, that's not very reliable info.

On the other hand, here is every large nutrition institute around the world agreeing that veganism can be totally healthy for all stages of life: https://youaretheirvoice.com/pages/the-clear-consensus

> How do you know who is vegan

They’ll usually tell you pretty quickly.

> here is every large nutrition institute around the world

Why would you ever trust a “large nutrition institute”? Who is the kind of person who would come to power at a place like that? Certainly not someone who is dispassionately interested in promoting human health. It’s mostly vegans, seventh day adventists, and other dietary-religious groups.

When has a “large nutrition institute” ever released dietary advice that stood the test of time?

Most vegans I know do not tell anyone. The number of closet, covert vegans is significantly higher than the overt, "preachy" vegans.

If you go to a restaurant or eat with them in any context it becomes obvious very quickly.

Read again what you just said..

If you're saying they are unreliable as source, the onus is on you to say why. You just posed some questions without actually stating anything, made an assumption with no evidence ("Certainly not someone who is dispassionately interested in promoting human health", "It’s mostly vegans, seventh day adventists, and other dietary-religious groups.")

So, do you actually have any sources on why we shouldn't trust them?

This is an HN comment thread, not a scientific paper. There’s no “onus” on me to do anything, and if there were, it certainly wouldn’t be up to you who got to make comments without fulfilling some evidentiary ritual. If you’re actually interested, you could very easily google it, but I’ll give you a starting point: https://www.nutritioncoalition.us/news/2020-dietary-guidelin...

> 95% of vegans don’t do a good job and are visibly malnourished

Uh, is it even worth asking for a source for this?

I love this response. Such a pleasure when a Registered Dietitian chimes in with an informed opinion based on data on the internet.

If anyone want to get some high quality info from an actual registered dietitian, check out Simnett Nutrition https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpyhJZhJQWKDdJCR07jPY-Q

I've seen a lot of people lately making the "you’re made out of animal parts, so eat animals" argument, which is reasonable on its face. But there's a pretty serious problem with it: those animals get everything they need from plants. And now we're in very murky territory, because now you have to prove—not just hypothesize, but prove—that the human animal is different from other animals in some very specific ways, or you have to weaken the initial claim to the point where it doesn't really say anything at all.

Dental are actually a great way to show this. The diversity of teeth in our mouths are evidence that we evolved to eat an omnivorous diet.

Good that you should mention dentition, given that a plant-based diet causes humans’ teeth to rot out.

Human teeth, like human metabolism, support the consumption of plant material, but not very well.

Interesting - can you share your sources?

I'd like to read more about this.

My teeth have not fallen out yet and my dentist gives an OK after many years on a plant based diet.

> because now you have to prove—not just hypothesize, but prove—that the human animal is different from other animals in some very specific ways

Are you being ironic? We know what a ruminant digestive system looks like and why humans can’t do what they do.

What I do is try to stay vegan/plant based as much as possible, which basically means everything I make in my house is plant based, but if I go to a restaurant that makes a really great X that's not vegan I might get it. Or if I choose to make something in my house that's not vegan, I'm going all out, getting the top ingredients I can get my hands on and making it a truly great version of that meal. I'm done having mediocre burgers at BBQs, smothered with cheap bacon and cheese. This food isn't good, but since we just cover it in tons of fat we convince ourselves otherwise, and along the way we ignore the massive amounts of animal suffering, deterrents to our health, and carbon costs we're inflicting because of these decisions.

You don't have to go 100% vegan/plant based, just stop making meat/dairy/animal by products the only thing you eat. Once you start you begin to get repulsed at the lack of vegetable options available to you at most places. Why is it such a crazy view point to eat something actually nutritionally good for you.

This is how I do it. Anything I buy and cook for myself is vegetarian at a minimum, more often vegan (the occasional cheese dip and eggs for brownies slip through), but if I go out somewhere with friends and they don't have a good veggie/vegan option, I do eat meat. Likewise if I go to someone's house where they're cooking of preparing food. I've found this to be a really good compromise to it, and often only eat meat one or two meals a week.

Really? For me switching process was long, but now that I’m vegan, I can’t tell you how much I enjoy the food I eat. Also, there was never an easier time to switch, so many substitutes (if you need them), so many great vegan restaurants (at least where I live). Again, variety of food, options, the flavours..just have to discover new things.

Btw, I was hardcore meat eater most of my life, but then things changed, I realized what I’m eating, what impact it has on my health, on the environment and it just started feeling wrong.

Can you please email me at elijah@elijahlynn.net? I would like to connect with you and other vegan tech folk (ideally a video chat). This is open to anyone on this thread.

I've been nutritarian vegan (Eat to Live book) for 16 years, fwiw.

Hey, you should check out the Humane League, and consider becoming a Changemaker. I did it a couple months ago and now I have a large network of vegan folks around the country that have been a great support system. Many of us are in tech, too!

Thanks, I'll check it out. I'd like to chat with you more about it. Can you email me at elijah@elijahlynn.net?

I've just hit my 16 year veganniversary...

Number of times I have been to the doctor for protein deficiency... zero.

I have found that the biggest problem with being vegan is depression, depression because you have no friends. You basically go through this very traumatic learning experience to learn the truth about where food comes from and then you are isolated. Friends make jokes about you, and become not so good friends anymore. Then you become depressed because of the isolation and then _some_ think it is because of the diet, which it could be, but likely isn't. And it is because of the isolation. (watch the film Happy)

The evidence based book Eat to Live will guide anyone interested in a vegan or plant-based diet to nutritional excellence, so they aren't missing any nutrients etc.

However, it won't get you friends and help others be more compassionate and open minded, it is quite miserable. So, I suggest that priority #1 if anyone goes vegan is to move. Yes, move to a city where there is a vegan community, along with that comes more compassionate individuals. We did that and moved to Portland, Oregon and now I have a TON of friends (I did work hard at it, meeting people in real life on FB groups) and I encourage more to come to Portland as well! There are over 40 vegan-only restaurants, 40 more that are vegan and vegetarian and over 80 more that have vegan menu items. This means there is quite the population already here, so move here, make it better, get in a good supportive bubble!

If you move here for the vegan community, hit me up and I'll introduce you to others!

elijah@elijahlynn.net

> Friends make jokes about you, and become not so good friends anymore.

It sounds like they weren't good people in the first place. I've been on the other side, having a friend that became vegan, and it's not that hard to plan a bit more ahead or ask if he's okay with eating something different.

Edit: something that I should add is that we both respected each other's boundaries. I didn't question his choice to not consume animal products, and he didn't question mine to consume them. I can understand that if you believe that animals are a really important cause you have to push other people to follow you, but I think that if I was constantly questionned we wouldn't have remained good friends. On the other hand, I also understand that some people wouldn't want to associate with people that consume animal products because their values aren't the same.

Maybe this was a thing 15+ years ago but I don't think this is really a thing anymore??? People go vegan and no one gives a shit.

I have many friends/acquaintances who are vegan and none of them are like - "I am such a victim, no one will eat with me! All my friends left me for meat!"

Hell - people are much more judgmental these days to people who are just picky eaters! If you're vegan - no one cares. Picky eater though? You ain't getting married, buddy.

Entirely a function of where you live. Here in the midwest I live in a very liberal city and there are still plenty of places where someone looks at you like you have two heads if it comes up that you don't eat meat. I can't imagine how bad it must be for anyone living in a more rural environment who tries to become vegetarian or vegan.

I think it's a regional thing. Veganism spread out from a few "cultural centers" [1] where there was already a critical density of restaurants and shops catering to vegan diets. In places that just got their first local vegan option when fast food adopted Beyond/Impossible, it's still a joke. Other places that are getting their third vegan restaurant have normalized it and veganism has lost any comedic novelty. Chain and family restaurant empires spread out geographically to make use of economies of scale in logistics so there's a natural rate at which this transformation happens.

[1] not culture in general but places that already had lots of vegans

In case it makes you feel better, either from misery-loves-company or from the similar-situation-on-other-side perspective, I feel very similar to you in terms of social isolation and I'm almost entirely carnivore with basically 0 plant consumption.

Sadly I think part of this is human nature. Doing anything so different from status-quo-of-your-social-circle is very very very isolating. Don't get me started on trying to plant flowers instead of a lawn. :D

Congrats on the 16 years veganniversary!

> You basically go through this very traumatic learning experience to learn the truth about where food comes from and then you are isolated.

Definitely feels isolating, a special kind. Luckily there are subreddits to retreat to. The learning experience is not an easy one. Can't imagine not living in a big city. Happy cow plans my destinations now.

Agreed that different people have different synapses based on how they grow up. I didn't drink a lot of milk and never had cheese for most of my life. We used coconut milk for the creamy base. But I grew up eating, limited but regular, meat. I was ready to give up dairy before I could give up my lamb chops. I grew What I crave is seafood. So I go to a local fisherman for that. I'm vegan in all other aspects and I don't give an F about some people preaching me.

The vegan cheeses (Miyako in particular), Oat Milk (the barista kind) and Just Egg are great substitutes btw. Impossible tastes just like meat to me now.

I know this wasn't your main point, but IMHO it's not helpful to think in binary terms: "strict vegan" or "not at all". In terms of animal welfare, or in terms of environmental impact, or whatever impels one to consider a plant-based diet, why not just view it as a spectrum?

I don't want you (or anyone) to feel tortured or self-flagellated about their diet.

I am pleased to see this shared.

> Mance may overstate his case, but he is spot on to make us confront the horrible truth that the vast majority of us are supporting animal suffering every time we shop

It took me a long time to understand that there was a link in the actual world between the delicious food I was enjoying and horrible animal suffering that went in to producing it.

I used to make fun of vegans and never for a moment took their position seriously. I couldn't imagine how anyone could voluntarily give up cheese.

Now I see that something as seemingly benign as cheese isn't made in an ethical vacuum. It's very often the product of a system that creates animal suffering.

I would encourage anyone who was in my position to confront the realities of what goes in to producing what you eat and consider trying a vegan diet and advocating for animal welfare.

> I used to make fun of vegans and never for a moment took their position seriously. I couldn't imagine how anyone could voluntarily give up cheese.

Curious. Did you never question why they gave up cheese?

I am ashamed to say that initially I didn't engage seriously with their reasons, perhaps because I knew it would require behavioural change on my part, which at that time I was unwilling to consider making.

I have decided to eat less meat because I can't afford to consistently purchase cuts from pastured animals, and I don't have the capacity currently to hunt or raise animals myself.

I just can't afford to eat chicken that is pastured in the same way that I would eat the tasteless breasts and thighs that are 1.99 a pound. I haven't eat beef more than a few times since COVID. We eat less pork now, more for supply issues than cost issues. Fish is a delicacy.

Most people will not make these decisions. I still don't eat eggs from pastured hens, again because of logistical issues more than anything else. None of the cheese I eat comes from responsibly managed cows (maybe it is, but how would I know?).

The solution to these things is pragmatic regulations that are not ideological in nature. The level of care and respect we show for animals reflects a level of care and respect we have for ourselves.

But it's facetious to talk about this in the current US context. Because of the commerce clause, and the continually eroding protections at the national level, not only are we lowering the standards (for animal welfare, product quality, and safety) in the US, we are also exporting our already low standards to other countries.

Why the opposition to ideologically inclined regulations? Genuinely wondering. Is it just because it tends to make the issue so heated?

I think there are a lot of good reasons to continually regulate animal agriculture so as to be less pervasive because of the environmental impact alone, but the most important reason in my opinion is because it's just wrong to enslave sentient non-human animals.

Is it wrong to use that justification as the basis for change in the industry? Curious what you think.

We have been omnivores for tens of thousands of years. Part of the reason we were so successful at colonizing the planet was due to our omnivorous nature.

People with a vegan ideology (not just a vegan diet) have an exceptionally narrow comprehension of the nature of food as culture, as it relates to cost and convenience, and the true ecological impacts of any sort of agriculture.

Ideas like this:

> it's just wrong to enslave sentient non-human animals

Are so unfathomably ignorant in the context of the global human condition, both historically and in the current era.

I agree we have eaten animals for thousands of years, and large parts of our culture revolve around eating animals. But its sort of a fallacy to use that to explain why we _should_ do it it, or why it's morally permissable. There are loads of things we did for a long time that we stopped doing because they were bad. Simply put, just because we've done it forever doesn't mean we should anymore, as things have changed.

> so unfathomably ignorant in the context of the global human condition

How so? I'm not saying there aren't other issues, I'm just saying that this is _also_ bad. I'm curious what you meant, because I think you and I actually probably agree on a lot of stuff.

Factory farming is not tens of thousands of years old. Equating that to hunting and fishing (which I think you are doing, but maybe I'm misreading you) would be "unfathomably ignorant" as well.

That’s a very broadly generalization. I have a vegan ideology and I understand the culture behind food. But I also know that culture is constantly changing. We are also very aware of ecological impacts of agriculture (may not be the “true” ecological impact as I’m not sure if there are any long term studies on that). What I know is there might be some communities/ countries that can’t move away from animal based protein yet, but for a lot of people living in industrialized countries like USA/UK, eating animal bodies/products is not a necessity for survival (or a healthy life).

First of all - thanks for thinking about this critically and choosing to reduce your meat consumption.

Humans evolve and we create new technology that allows us to live better than we did in the past. We have reached a point where a lot of humans on this planet don't need to kill (or pay others to kill) to survive anymore. It's mostly about taste and pleasure - not survival.

Ethan Brown - founder of Beyond Meat - created his company because he knew you can't change culture overnight. But if you offer something that is like meat or better and cheaper then people would switch.

If you live in nature and you need to hunt or raise animals to survive - sure you got to do what you need to survive. But a lot of us are not living under those conditions anymore.

Factory farming is causing a lot of destruction and we need to find more sustainable ways to feed the world.

I really appreciate that you are not taking this issue as an ethical binary (100% vegan or "I could never do that"), but instead treating it as a spectrum on which our various competing values play out, with various costs and benefits. I wish our collective conversations about this took your tone more often.

Here we go, I'm prepared to sacrifice all of my meager HN karma and die on this hill:

I don't get it. I will never get it. I can't relate at all to the idea that the comfort and well-being of animals is an important thing to be concerned about.

This doesn't mean that I'm an asshole to animals (opinion!). I'm not cruel to animals that I meet (meat?). Generally we get along fine. I don't have a problem with people being concerned about the welfare of animals. You do you, boo. The world (probably) needs somebody to do it. Just kinda leave me out of it OK?

> What really threatens animals today is not cruelty, so much as thoughtlessness.

I'm guilty of thoughtlessness where animals are concerned, and I don't care. It's not my fight.

It's a bit like the blight of "Everyone needs to learn computer programming" of a few years back. Just because you're interested in something and it's important to you, doesn't mean you need to impose it upon other people! It seems obvious to me that not everything is for everybody, but there are an awful lot of people who don't feel that way.

You really don't see anything wrong with the mistreatment of animals? Not even the animals people commonly have as pets?

It's not that I don't see anything wrong with it. It's just that it's not a priority for me. I see a lot more wrong with the way people treat people than the way people treat animals, and I don't have headspace for every problem. I guess it doesn't really affect me - out of sight, out of mind?

I know people who treat their dogs like people. Sometimes those same people treat other people worse than dogs. I endeavor to treat people like people, even as I treat my dogs like dogs.

I get only having so much room on your plate for worrying about things... but it seems like you're trying to turn that into an Appeal to Relative Privation. Just because there are other issues you can rank higher in importance, doesn't mean this one ceases to be important.

You treat your people like people, your dogs like dogs, and your cattle like cattle

> Just because you're interested in something and it's important to you, doesn't mean you need to impose it upon other people!

We're talking about a moral issue though. If you want to argue against advocates on moral grounds, that's one thing - but how is "it's not important to me" a relevant argument?

If you don't donate to battered women's shelters, can you still refrain from domestic abuse? If you don't advocate for the protection of children, can you still treat them with respect personally?

You don't have to take an interest in animals or veganism or farming or any of that to recognize a moral argument about them. If you think that argument is flawed, engage it at that level. Otherwise, I just don't see how your sentiment matters in this discussion. It wouldn't be mentioned in any other discussion about morals.

I'm not really here to argue about it.

Do I think that perhaps too much energy is devoted to this issue when there are a lot of other things going badly that need attention? Yes. Do I condemn people who disagree and prioritize issues of animal suffering over issues that are important to me? No.

I do think that the author of the article (and Mance, certainly) implies that I should be concerned about this, and that's where I take issue. I won't take issue with your calling this a moral issue either, although I think the argument could be made that it isn't.

> It is bizarre that in a supposedly animal-loving country, where half of all households have a pet, so many feed them on other animals that have lived miserable lives in factory farms.

> Henry Mance, describes as ‘the meat paradox’: a state of affairs where ‘people who care about animals manage not to care about farm animals’.

Hardly bizarre, _most_ of the comforts we enjoy are subsidized with extensive human exploitation. I think it's completely consistent with the rest of our habits.

Okay so I can go vegan but how to reconcile the pet dilemma? Surely my dog or cat cannot live on cauliflower and broccoli.

It would be a cruelty to your dog to force them to be meatless; from what I understand of vegan ethics, your dog's consumption of meat is ethical.

Dogs at least can easily live happy, healthy lives on a plant-based diet. It isn't cruel at all, as long as you're feeding your pet all the vitamins and minerals they need.

> your dog's consumption of meat is ethical

If eating meat is wrong, why does it matter whether it's a human or a dog doing it?

Depends on if one needs to do it to survive. This is why vegans try to hold humans accountable, but not lions. The "who" has very significant moral implications.

dogs don't need meat to survive (and neither do they need to be hold captive by humans)

Oh I know, I agree with you :) I'm vegan. I was speaking more generally about how the idea of needing to eat animals to survive is what makes it ethical, but that is VERY rarely ever the case

set him free - who gives you the right to enslave "your" dog?

Is this sarcasm? I fail to understand how taking a dog from a loving household into scrounging on the streets is at all an ethical solution.

Would you agree to be locked at some place even if "they treat you real good"?

I agree it's not an ideal situation, but I honestly think it's better than the alternative.

In your example of me personally, this is kind of the tradeoff most small humans (including myself) made for the first ten years of life. Supervision, lack of freedom, etc. in exchange for food, shelter, and hopefully companionship.

As it's not ideal, I could agree with you on reducing breeding so we don't have to make this choice in the future. But currently, for domesticated animals who can't be released into the wild without high chance of extreme pain to themselves (dogs) or major ecological damage (cats), it seems like our kindest option is to put as many of them in loving & protective situations as possible.

I feel this is a false dichotomy. If we really stop breeding pets, and do this consequently and with an honest effort, this will become a non-issue in, like, 10 years.

You are making unstated assumptions: we have no idea if dogs, by this point, have been bred to seek human companionship, which we believe generally to be the case. If left alone, lacking companionship (since most pet owners don't tend to be abusive, though it can happen), I would argue the animal would potentially be much less happy on the street.

That has nothing to do with me wanting to own a pet, and everything to do with there being plenty of pets available who I would rather get loved by someone than, well, die on the street.

Are you a dog?

This kind of personifying glib is what gives vegan/vegetarian ethics a bad name. It completely ignores domestication and how dogs evolved as human-following scavenger animals. Most dog breeds are not adapted to living without humans. Dogs in the wild live much shorter lives and get parasites.

>Are you a dog?

Yes, I am a sentient dog with an internet connection.

>Dogs in the wild live much shorter lives and get parasites.

This is true of humans as well. Honestly, I think a dog would outlast many of us in the wild. Your point is moot.

It's not, my points are clear and well argued ;)

You aren't a dog, so your preference for not living under the care of a human owner is not relevant. Dogs do not outlast us in the wild, because "the wild" is the real world we live in today. Stray dogs are invasive in most ecosystems, and are usually not well adapted to their environments.

Dogs are intelligent enough to show preferences, and thanks to tens of thousands of years of selective breeding, they generally prefer people. Strays are a tragedy.

Ok, so I cannot comment on dogs since I am not a dog,

But somehow you, who are not a dog as well (I presume), just happen to know that dogs prefer domestic life.

Nice dissonance there, pal.

There is no dissonance, the reasoning you gave was that you (or the reader) would certainly not prefer to live with benevolent captors as an emotional support object, so a dog likely would not either. This is not invalid reasoning, but Man's relationship with The Dog is more complicated than that. Domesticated dogs were created by selective breeding by humans over thousands of years, and this is well established.

I posit that dogs on average prefer domestic life because they were selectively bred to prefer it for thousands of years. I am honestly surprised this is controversial. We know for a fact that many dog breeds are not compatible with living in nature without human help, and would not survive.

What is the ethical thing to do now, that we cannot change the past, and domesticated animals exist? I don't think breeding dogs is ethical. I also don't think lettings dogs out into nature is ethical, at all.

100% agree with you. Keeping a "pet" locked on your home for the purpose of vanity and keeping you entertained for a few mins/day is outrageous. Praising animal rights but choosing to ignore this is the ultimate hypocrisy.

Your assumptions are showing. There are a thousand reasons people keep pets that have nothing to do with either vanity or entertainment.

Pets offer an extremely potent form of emotional therapy, and that is a very personal connection that has nothing at all to do with vanity or entertainment. Both of the latter are typically secondary effects, not primary.

>Your assumptions are showing.

Well, of course, I didn't type my comment by accident!

Regarding your point:

Number of service dogs in the US: ~500,000 [1]

Number of dogs kept as pets in the US: ~76 million [2]

It's not even 1%. I understand the argument you bring but in practice is literally a rounding error. The overwhelming majority of pets serve a function of vanity and/or entertainment.

1: https://share.america.gov/service-dogs-save-lives/ 2: https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/reports-statistics/us-p...

Again, you are making assumptions here that are invalid. You are talking about service dogs; I am not.

Service dogs do save lives, and are immensely important, but that is explicitly not my point.

I am talking about the fact that many pet-owners do gain emotional value and support from animals. Emotional animal support can be extremely effective therapy for humans, but would not count as a service animal. However, I don't think that anyone in their right mind would argue that situation is a function of vanity and/or entertainment.

And before you go try and find data: no, there aren't a lot of registered 'therapy animals,' because that is a hot-topic political issue, and people don't differentiate them well from service animals. Not to mention that society continues to think 'mental health problems' are mostly either made-up or to be looked down upon.

There not being a lot of registered ones does not mean that the emotional support and stability gained by having a pet does not do absolute wonders from a therapeutic perspective.

It has been formalized a bit[1], but has been going on informally for centuries, since animals and humans do form close emotional bonds.

[1] https://www.healthline.com/health/pet-therapy

Oh, I do derive emotional value from eating meat. Since when is this an argument?

Since the parent tried to make the case that people only have pets for vanity. This is my point; there are lots of reasons people have pets, and the top one, usually, is an emotional connection.

You do not derive the same emotional value from eating meat. One is sustenance, and the other has been bred for centuries to have an extreme emotional connection with humans.

Do you have any concrete data that could challenge the argument that pets are mostly a vanity asset?

Because, ...

>you are making assumptions here that are invalid

... I would really like to know which side of the story is the most plausible one.

Yes, and we control their reproductive needs by shaming them for wanted to hump a leg every now and then, or keeping an opposite sex companion away from them, keeping them in isolation, never giving them the ability to have sex, a natural part of their species. Or we perform surgery on them to not have babies.

Or we let them breed, but we pick their partners and then take their babies. If we did this to humans there would be outrage right?

It's fine to feel that animal husbandry is unethical, but considering that domestication occurred already, how do you propose the management of domesticated species?

Just letting them free would be cruel, because the domesticated animals and surrounding ecosystem have not adapted to eachother. They will probably either hurt the ecosystem (cats and pigs) or die out after losing human care (cattle).

It doesn't seem ethical at all to just pretend that domesticated animals are people and so need human rights. They need animal rights, which depending on the species may be completely different.

No. We should just stop breeding pets altogether, and all these moral problems will just solve themselves in a few years.

Have you ever owned a dog? I think you underestimate how much dogs have coevolved with/been bred to like humans.

People believe what is convenient for them. It's not easy to accept that pets can't consent to being pets if you really want to have pets.

Exactly! And I can't believe people are downvoting you. If we replace "dog" with "human" it would get upvoted. This is called "speciesism".

>If we replace "dog" with "human" it would get upvoted. This is called "speciesism".

To put it lightly, I don't think this idea holds water in the general case.

I'm the vegan in this house, not the dogs. Just this morning on my daily pre-WFH walk I was reminded that many non-humans eat other animals (crows aren't quick about it, either) and that they do not share my ethics, nor should be expected to. Enjoy the canned rabbit, Rover.

I'm not sure your animal's will simply existing is a reasonable argument for allowing their will to be enacted, which sounds like what you're implying. And even if you're implicitly restricting this to food choice, your dog would not put animals in poor farming conditions of his own volition.

But this is only a critique of your statement. I feed my animals farmed pet food.

No, their dog would chase down and kill animals wherever they are, poor farming conditions or not, of their own volition. Animals are interested in eating meat, full stop. How that meat is raised is consequently of no interest to them, though it may be of interest to you.

Technically, if we weren't blocking dogs from leaving the house, they would be out there and eating anything they could get their paws on; they would be enacting their will, on other pets, rodents, etc.

From a strict vegan perspective, you're supporting the killing of other animals in support of your pet. Isn't that inconsistent?

Ah, I see the Hypocrisy Police are as responsive as ever. When the shelters are empty of animals, we will no longer have pets. Mull that over and you'll have your answer.

If I understand correctly, then I would say it's your choice to perpetuate owning a pet, specifically a dog. And in fact, as pointed out elsewhere in this thread, with careful planning dogs can be plant based, and there are even synthesized amino acids available that normally only come from animals but can be grown from yeasts and mushrooms. So you can have your dog and not need to support killing other animals.

There is this popular meme that pet ownership is inherently good and makes owners morally superior. Hint: That is factually wrong. But it leads people to deceive themselves. And as long as this holds, pets will be bred to meet the demand, pet owners will give them to shelters and shelters will never get emptier. Worse: Every pet you take from the shelter will increase market pressure to resupply. The only way to get less pets in shelters is to decrease the supply. That means decreasing pet ownership overall. Make pet ownership frowned upon like smoking. Prohibit breeding altogether.

You’re getting a lot of comments along the lines of “aren’t you being inconsistent by letting your dog eat meat?” And I just want to add one point (not for you, OP, but for the group of replies). We don’t have to be perfectly consistent beings, and it’s often better that we are not.

Being a vegan owner who has a carnivore dog is still better than being a carnivore owner with a carnivore dog. It’s better to be inconsistently ethical than it is to be consistently unethical.

I think we can get into logic traps here on HN that ignore the realities (and benefits!) of the messiness of human behavior.

THANK YOU.

Nobody is perfect, and it isn't hypocritical to be imperfect.

Hi! I'm not a veterinary nutritionist, but I did used to teach metabolic biochemistry, and I spoke to a few veterinary nutritionists before putting my own dog on a vegan diet. Dogs are omnivores, so there are many vegan diet options dogs can live on healthily and happily. We like to think of dogs as friendly wolves, but they evolved a significantly different metabolism to co-exist with humans. I use a combination of Wild Earth and Bramble. Cats are obligate carnivores, so they require some chemicals (most notably Taurine) that don't naturally occur in plants. But there's no strong scientific barrier to us creating vegan cat diets through supplementation in the near future.

I don't really understand why you're being downvoted, this was my understanding as well. There are plenty of vegan dog foods that seem to have a history of success and meet all AAFCO standards.

I think as far as vegan cat food, I'm not sure it will be healthy or feasible at scale until/unless there's something like Wild Earth's mouse-meat kibble based on cultured cells (under development, but no time frame given for expected completion).

I'd love to hear the opposing perspective, though.

It is very difficult to imagine a vegan diet for cats that has enough plant-sourced protein while remaining palatable. Most commercial cat food is far too high in carbohydrates and is usually high in fat. This increases the palatability and lowers costs but is not healthy for the cats.

Cats are picky eaters, and they can refuse foods even when starving.

> Dogs are omnivores

It may be technically true that animals like dogs and humans with meat-optimized digestive systems can survive off plant material alone, but that doesn’t mean it’s advisable. Neither of us can metabolize cellulose, both of us run into metabolic diseases with excessive carbohydrate consumption (e.g. diabetes), etc.

I mean, I think everyone agrees that way too much sugar or eating nondigestible plants is not a good idea.

But a vegan diet has been approved for humans at all stages of life, and the vegan dog food I'm aware of meets all AAFCO standards (nutrients, digestibility, protein:carb:fat ratio) as well as passing tests for dog interest/palatability.

There's a big difference between a well-rounded plant-based diet, and living off sugar or cellulose-heavy raw plants.

> eating nondigestible plants is not a good idea.

Almost every plant is nondigestible.

> But a vegan diet has been approved for humans at all stages of life

Well if it’s been “approved” then no need to worry! Who exactly “approved” it and why do I care what they say?

> There's a big difference between a well-rounded plant-based diet, and living off sugar or cellulose-heavy raw plants.

There are like 4 edible plants that don’t provide 90% of their calories in the form of sugars (starches are a kind of sugar). There are also very few plants that don’t have a huge cellulose content.

I thought this was a very interesting pod cast about pet food. https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/v4h9wo5/pet-food-ho...

TL;DL: Feeding pets the animal byproducts of our own food production is not only a good symbiotic relationship, but also contains more of the nutrients the pets need (as opposed to grain-free or other specialty diets). But, the specifics for your pet will vary based on their own needs and allergies.

I haven't met a vegan who argues dogs should never eat meat. I have heard about it on nightly news from time to time, but I would think that's a very fringe, very uninformed niche of people who got the memo but didn't read it.

The vegan perspective is less "meat is bad" and closer to "compassion for a creature and its rights to exist freely within its own context". A killer whale should be able to nom as many seals as it wants, a dog can have some raw meat to chew on.

I think the dog problem has more to do with you killing animals to feed to your dog. As far as I can tell, vegans don't oppose animals in the wild hunting to survive (i.e. a killer whale).

However, paying for animals to be killed to feed your dog instead of buying vegan dog food seems like it falls under the same umbrella as buying meat for yourself.

[Not really sure how to address obligate carnivores, like cats. Could see a vegan feeding their cat they had meat foods until they died naturally, but getting a cat with the intention of buying meat for it over its lifetime seems non-vegan.]

Would welcome correction if I'm misguided, though.

Your second paragraph is basically why I will never own a pet.

I can't ethically feed my pet, therefore owning a pet is unethical.

I love dogs, clumsy waggy little fuckers, but I won't subject another being to my fuckery just because I can.

edit: And yes, I teeter-totter on the ol' "you should adopt an abandoned pet" vs "feeding it for the rest of its life means other animals will die" vs "but you eat meat too you sanctimonious fuck" every time I think about the subject. At the end of the day, easier just to say "no pets" and move on with life for me.

If feeding was the only thing keeping you from caring for an animal, you could either adopt an herbivorous pet (most small mammals, maybe?) or adopt an omnivore capable of eating a plant-based diet (dogs?). In either case it seems like a moral net positive to me.

...though I also understand the "no pets" and moving on attitude from a more personal angle. I've accidentally killed enough houseplants to scare me away from the "caring for a dependent living being" plan for now

Edit: just wanted to note that "people who got the memo but didn't read it" is now one of my favorite phrases. I've never heard it before, but something about it delights me

As a kid we didn't have a good run with pets so it's just easier to say "no" to owning animals and move on with a clear conscience.

Having said that, I do find myself always playing devil's advocate with myself: "But how can your conscience be clear when millions of abandoned pets are being put to sleep in animal shelters? So it's everyone else's job to deal with that is it? You would deny your children the joy of owning a cute little doggo woggo?" and to that nascent neurofractal I say, get in line, the CBT will get to you eventually.

So I dunno, I don't want to come across as being down on people who've made a decision to own pets, it's possible to overthink things and underthink things. I know many pet owners and the vast majority are kind and caring. I think it comes with the territory. Some have been more domineering and lord over their creatures like a ruthless dictator and I think that says a lot about a person, but I digress...

I pretty much agree with everything you just said, and I pretty much kill every plant I touch as well. Brown thumb gang!

You can try not "owning" another animal. Problem solved. Make friends with the squirrels.

Dogs can. Cats can't. Cats are obligate carnivores.

One reason more to not keep cats as pets. Stop breeding them, an the problem will solve itself within some years

best case for humane animal farms are those for health. When it can roam and forage, the meat quality is much higher. I find factory pork tastes weird....

A lot of illness comes from vitamin D deficiency. When the animal had a lot of sun, the vitamin D from the animal ends up in the fat.

And lastly, if everyone had a pig, we wouldn't throw away so much food. Instead we would add it to the pigs diet and convert waste back to good protein.

But this is complicated by the fact that we don't need to have _any_ animals for food at all, so there are still ethical problems with even raising animals lovingly in wide open pastures for years before killing them. For example, we still see it as wrong to kill a dog if we get bored with it after loving it for years and giving it an incredible life.

The developed world has entered a phase of civilization where we can get everything we need to live without farming animals for meat, so we have a moral obligation (in my opinion) to do so, as it means we don't have to kill _any_ pigs that don't want to die

I am a meat consumer/lover and still thought this was an interesting read. I agree with the author's pov that Mance's arguments are a bit naive and unaccurate.

If you're concerned about the pet dilemma I want to plug rabbits -- these bunnies are great!

Cheap, zero smell, friendly and social. They're super easy to hide from your landlord and they won't terrorize/murder native birds if you let them play outside.

If we had some more space I'd get a couple goats to. In many ways they're more suited for urban living than dogs but are often against zoning ordinances for some stupid reason.

I think lab grown meat is the most sane solution for the largest number of people as it becomes simultaneously cheaper and better than raising cattle for meat; imagine getting wagyu every day for cheaper than regular cuts now, simply because you don't have to grow an entire cow and massage it its entire life, you can just grow it on a Petri dish.

Veganism on the other hand is not an economic solution but a moral one, which takes considerably more thought from the average eater than something like Impossible Foods or lab grown meat, simply because if it were cheaper than existing meat and tasted better, there is no reason to _not_ buy it (all else being equal).

But until lab grown meat arrives, I'll continue eating my meat.

There is a popular saying in the vegan community:

"Why love one but not the other?"

The main irony I find in many people that "love animals" and are vegetarian/vegan is these people tend to be just as likely to lock their pet up in a cage for 8-12 hours a day while at work. Then of course they also don't play with them. So the animals is essentially in a prison of boredom and minimal variety of food. It's like the Twighlight Zone episode where the guy goes to hell basically being trapped in a room for eternity.

I don't see how that kind of pet treatment has any link to whether someone is a vegan or not. And in my experience, the correlation is inverse if anything.

Agree with Mence, not the author. He comes over as arrogant. For example countering one of the stats Mence cited (Cows needing 20 times more farmland, which is true) with an argument that isn't necessarily relevant to the discussion. Mences argument is to massively reduce the amount of farmland, not make use of farmland that couldn't otherwise be used for growing crops!

Agree, though I give the article author credit for, while thinking Mence overstated his case, not extrapolating his perception of overstatement into "therefore vegans are dumb and I'm going to go get a factory farmed burger right now ha ha", which I still see all too often.

> Mance may overstate his case, but he is spot on to make us confront the horrible truth that the vast majority of us are supporting animal suffering every time we shop

Do house cats regularly dine on beef or fish? Is your 5lb tabby used to hunching over a stream and catching a 15lb salmon in their claws? Does it regularly stalk and kill a 1 ton cow for beef?

This is a bit ridiculous for my taste... if you want to feed your pet foods that are not, and never have been, in their diet - whilst being "humane" - why not purchase the food, sourced the way you prefer, and give it to them? Why the emphasis on buying your beef/fish/whatever as "pet food"?

tldr; humane/free-range/good-vibes sourced food and humane/free-range/good-vibes sourced "pet food" are two different things. If you just feed them "food"(not "pet food"), then the good-vibe-ish food gets a larger overall marketshare, and conditions improve for those animals slaughtered.

"The meat paradox" doesn't sound like a paradox to me at all.

What is paradoxical about caring more about some people/animals and less about others?

Nothing, but I don't believe that accurately reflects the situation. Almost everyone I've ever discussed animal ethics with is against unnecessarily harming animals - those we eat included. They're either left with trying to make the increasingly difficult and unsupported case that eating animals is necessary - or admit their own inconsistency.

How does the author justify owning a cat? A pet is an animal purely for your own pleasure and cats kill birds for no reason all the time.

That is also a thing that you learn when you start thinking about the way we interact with animals. I saved X number of dogs from the streets, some older, some just born who would 100% die in days. And they would grow to be your best friends, the same as that X000$ Pomerian. Point being, help the animal in need and don't fuel the cruel and unneeded industry. It is not for me to judge the nature of cat or a dog, and the morality of them eating a bird. But I can help them if I see they are suffering.

By showing them publicly, in your neighbourhood, and in social media, and by defending pets you are normalizing and encouraging pet ownership, encouraging others to keep pets as well, and thus indeed fueling that cruel industry. It's all about higher order effects.

Regarding the comment in the article about the relative quality of life in the wild vs life in various farming conditions: Surely that's irrelevant, as farmed animals would not exist - in the wild or elsewhere - if they were not farmed.

Edit: Note that this is not an opinion about farming, since some farms offer arguably better lives than in the wild, while others offer arguably worse lives.

The "humane" argument is flawed because in the end - factory or pasture - the animal is killed. Live a happy life and be slaughtered or a miserable life and be slaughtered.

What is the argument you're referring to, and how is it flawed due to the fact that factory-raised and pasture-raised animals are both killed, regardless of the nature of their killing and the nature of their lives?

The argument is that pasture raised cows is better than factory farmed cows. I am saying that in both cases the cows die.

Can you stomach eating fruits and vegetables from an industrialized farm knowing that more animals died to make your salad compared to my steak? Or are certain animals lives worth more than others?

What you bring up is an interesting topic, and you should try to increase the explicit information and reduce the hostility.

"crop deaths tho" is not a stable argument. Eating meat requires death. But there are ways to avoid killing animals when harvesting grains etc. And in any case, it's a very inflated view - you're still killing more animals by eating meat than you are by not.

> you're still killing more animals by eating meat than you are by not

Pure conjecture. All numbers I've seen show a higher quantity of deaths from crop farming per calorie.

I've seen this thoroughly debunked several times. What "numbers" are you alluding to? The most commonly cited number I've seen from a 2003 study is 7.3 billion crop deaths per year, which experts seem to agree is likely a large overestimate. Even if that were the case, that puts crop deaths at an order of magnitude smaller than the number of _land_ animals slaughtered every year; that number is further dwarfed if we included aquatic animals.

Additionally, the crops where some of the highest number of field deaths are encountered (such as soy and corn) are also primarily as animal feed.

So no. Vegans do not kill more animals.

Furthermore, most meat eaters additionally eat plants too, and the animals they eat also usually are eating industrially farmed plants, which really makes the crop deaths argument silly.

Farm animals are fed primarily crop byproduct that you can't digest and grass.

So what? If your argument is absolute number of deaths because of crop deaths, those crops would still be killing animals and thus it's still more than not eating meat.

Wave your hand, call it debunked and then pretend that we grow far more surplus crops to feed animals than we would need to of everyone switched to your disease riddled cult diet.

Feel free to cite something in defense of your argument.

You've already seen sources and are even able to cite estimates. Why would I waste time linking to something that will never change your opinion?

Yes, and the sources and estimates I've referenced disagreed with you. I'm completely willing to change my opinion, but you've presented nothing substantive so far.

So the slaves would not exist and would not be born if not for the slavers. Sounds legit.

Farmed animals are bred in extreme quantities over uncountable generations. There is obviously an argument for the original ancestor generations of farmed animals as to whether their lives would have been better if we did not farm them (and another, different argument for the current generation, if we decide to stop farming and have the choice of slaughtering them as normal or freeing them), but as we produced their descendants, that quickly became morally irrelevant as an argument for either side. E.g. it doesn't make sense to defend the concept of animal farming by saying that they are better off on a farm than in the wild if the ratio of the farmed population that would have been born otherwise is close to zero. So the question the cited person should have been thinking about is instead: Is it better to be farmed or to not exist? Since your sarcasm indicates a combative emotion, I'll let you know that I think the answer is obviously "to not exist" in the case of factory farms, but my moral opinion on the topic isn't what I was writing about.

I'm not a combative, I've just tried to put the things in a more relatable perspective.

It is easy for persons with power (over other people or animals) to justify why the exercise of power is justified or moral. But if we would try to imagine ourselves in their shoes or hooves and being subjugated for extreme exploitation, than that could open a door for a bit of empathy at least.

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