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Consuming for survival is not unneccesary harm. All complex life takes life to continue living.
The vast majority of humans can thrive/be healthy on a vegan diet, therefore it's not consuming for survival. That's an excuse or ignorance (again, for the vast majority of humans, especially those who are reading this. There are always exceptions tho)
The vast majority of humans can thrive/be healthy on a vegan diet
I don't think so
the scientific consensus is that a well planned vegan diet can be healthy for all stages of human life. Plant staple foods are some of the cheapest foods around (rice, beans, grains)
Conveniently forgetting that the only reason a healthy nutritionally balanced vegan or vegetarian diet is even remotely possible is due to globalised trade and access to internationally produced and shipped vegetables.
To maintain a nutritionally complete vegan diet for an individual year round actually requires far more use of fossil fuels and directly released carbon emissions due to limited seasonality and local accessibility than a cow produces for the same nutrient density and complexity locally.
Here’s a “fun” fact, first world demand for fruit and grain variety has out priced primary sources of food for local populations in third world countries including things like lentils, quinoa, and avocados.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-there-s-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/veganism-environment-veganuary-friendly-food-diet-damage-hodmedods-protein-crops-jack-monroe-a8177541.html https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans-stomach-unpalatable-truth-quinoa
Or that nutritional deficiencies caused by incorrectly managed vegan diets are why doctors in Italy and Belgium are pushing for it to become illegal to feed children vegan diets, because the number of malnourished and dead children of vegan parents are rising in those nations.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37034619 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/16/parents-raise-children-vegans-should-prosecuted-say-belgian/
Capacity is not the same as actuality.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-there-s-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands did you read the editors note at the bottom?
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/veganism-environment-veganuary-friendly-food-diet-damage-hodmedods-protein-crops-jack-monroe-a8177541.html the main thrust of the article is buy more locally grown food, grow your own food? I agree with that lol. To go a step further, community gardens are good!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans-stomach-unpalatable-truth-quinoa yeah I agree eat less quinoa and asparagus. See also the footnote
Those things are failures of our food system, and problems we could and should solve. The cool thing about eating plants is it doesn't inherently require exploiting other sentient beings, but it does still happen unfortunately. That goes for animal ag too tho, and animal agriculture inherently depends on the exploitation
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37034619 last two paragraphs
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/16/parents-raise-children-vegans-should-prosecuted-say-belgian/ the vegans in that post make good points. Obviously negligent parents are a problem, vegan or no
To maintain a nutritionally complete vegan diet for an individual year round actually requires far more use of fossil fuels and directly released carbon emissions due to limited seasonality and local accessibility than a cow produces for the same nutrient density and complexity locally
did I miss the source on this?
Here's a source for you to read, I read the ones you linked https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00795-w
while this doesn't go super in depth, it's a counterpoint to the idea that veganism (And definitely vegetarianism) is only possible with global trade. https://www.iamgoingvegan.com/vegan-cultures/
Tell that to the 12.8% of Americans that have food insecurity without the struggle of attempting veganism. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-security-and-nutrition-assistance/
Tell which thing? I wrote a lot
but, one thing we could do is divert the massive subsidies and bailouts the US gives to animal agriculture (and a lot of the subsidies to plant ag too! It leads to a tremendous waste, iirc the reason corn syrup is so common is we grow too much corn cause it's overly subsidized. People need good food, not corn syrup) and spend that on actually feeding those people
While we're redirecting funds, the military budget could use some massive cuts that could also be used to provide food, shelter, and healthcare to people
none of those mean that the vast majority of humans can thrive or even be healthy on a vegan diet. and while the food itself may be cheap, it may lack convenience or cultural appropriateness, and therefore come with costs that are hidden at the checkout counter.
sure, there are a lot of factors that would make it difficult. If most people can't afford to be vegan (for monetary or other cost reasons especially) that reflects a failure of our food system. Our food system hasn't even gotten to the point of ensuring nobody goes hungry, we should be using our cropland to feed humans not other animals (look up how much of our crops go to livestock)
we should end the biggest problems first, and start with ending factory farms, but we should also remember that culture is not a good reason to hurt others
we should also remember that culture is not a good reason to hurt others
I suspect we disagree about the relevant definition of "others"
Almost certainly we do. But, do you think if there was a culture that ran dog fights, that would be ok just because it's part of their culture?
I would not find that ok, because all sentient beings are worth moral consideration, and culture is not a good reason to hurt sentient beings. I might not focus on it especially if that culture was already marginalized and discriminated against and there were bigger problems to solve, but I'd still have the understanding that it's bad
Our food system hasn’t even gotten to the point of ensuring nobody goes hungry, we should be using our cropland to feed humans not other animals
do you have a plan to accomplish that? until such a plan is implemented, there is not even a question whether it's moral to eat meat, seafood, dairy, or eggs: most people have no volition in the matter and no one can actually change that.
I don't. I try to get people's goals to align and recognize that these are important issues, and I'm working to grow more of my own food and get in a position where I'm able to have more of an impact, but no I don't have an answer for everything and I don't need one to be able call out injustice when I see it. And like most people I'm a hypocrite in some ways, I see these massive injustices and I still buy avocados and contribute to capitalism and waste time watching tv and arguing with people online instead of using that mental energy to actually do something in the world. I'm working on being better tho
All of Lemmy be up in arms here. Just vote with your wallet when you can. Buy the eggs at the farmers market, or the veggies if you won't eat eggs. If you don't have the funds, buy what you need to survive. I want my animals treated well before butchering, and I'll mix the vegetarian meal into my diet regularly because it's health for me to not eat meat every meal. I'm still going to eat animals, and most people have already decided what they are ethically ok with. Vegetarianism isn't the biggest ethical concern for me at this time.
we should end the biggest problems first, and start with ending factory farms
it's not clear either that this is "the biggest problem" or, if it is, that the best method of solving our ecological woes is to attack it first.
Vegans just casually creating a class system to value one life above others.
We have a name for the class of animals that eat grass, stay in packs for safety, and lack the individual skills necessary for individal survival. And even they are smart enough to be opportunistic omnivores.
The only species of animal stupid enough to consume against their needs and instincts are humans.
What? That's what you took from vegans saying "stop killing others unnecessarily"?
Carnists are literally putting out an idea that values someones sensory pleasure over the lives of others and then acting accordingly and killing by the billions each year.
The word you're looking for is omnivore, not carnist.
How many house plants have you killed not for the purpose of your own survival? Nobody can disregard life like a militant vegan.
Carnist, omnivore, speciesist. If the shoe fits 🤷
To the best of my knowledge plants are not sentient. If they were I would take much better care of houseplants and still be vegan because eating other animals still kills way more plants (google trophic levels)
Disingenuous, ignorant, mentally deficient from years of choline deficiency. You're right. If the shoe fits.
Eating keeps things alive, only a vegan would think taking something out of its natural environment and subjecting it to worse living conditions and a shortened lifespan without the purpose of benefitting another lifeforms ability to survive as being less harmful.
We kill for survival, you kill for pleasure and ego.
Classist vegans only care for sentience, not life.
We kill for survival, you kill for pleasure and ego.
Why do non-vegans always have the stupidest takes wrapped up in some pseudo-intellectual bullshit. You obviously don't believe that someone killing your houseplant or lawn is as bad as someone killing your dog, so why say something so blatantly untruthful and dumb?
And how are vegans killing for pleasure when they have a more restricted diet than you?
Go out and continue the circle of life in your local Publix, you ferocious lion you!
Wow, do you even hear yourself? How lacking in compassion must you be to not have any care for plant life.
I think you're a troll, ignorant, projecting, or some combo of the above, so I'm going to stop responding to you now. Peace ✌️
I'm going to assume you can't defend your position so you're going to curl up in your ego to keep warm. Enjoy!
plants are not sentient
this cannot be proven, but even if it's true, it doesn't matter. sentience is an arbitrary charcteristic on which to base your diet.
Sentience is what I base my ethics on (i'm a sentientist or sentiocentrist), which has implications on diet when considering whether to exploit and/or kill sentient beings for food. I don't think it's arbitrary, if someone is sentient, they are morally relevant because they can experience positive and negative valence (pleasure/pain, to put it more plainly but lose some nuance). If something is not sentient, I don't see how it can be ethically relevant except in cases where the nonsentient thing matters to a sentient being
if you're looking for arbitrary, the anthropocentrists are that way
Also I agree we can't prove that plants aren't sentient, that's why I said "to the best of my knowledge"
if someone is sentient, they are morally relevant because they can experience positive and negative valence
this is a moral virtue only to utilitarians.
there are other approaches to sentientism that aren't based on valence. I don't feel like writing a book on the different ones, but to give an example of a rights based one that I think is strong is that every sentient being has, at the very least, a right to their body, since that's the one thing they're born with and that is (almost certainly) what gives rise to their sentience in the first place. And to violate another sentient beings bodily autonomy is to forfeit your own (a sort of low level social contract), which allows for self defense and defending others
but to go back to utilitarianism, I think there's a strong argument that most ethical frameworks can be defined in terms of a sufficiently creative definition of utility. I don't really feel like getting into the weeds of that discussion though, and I don't think it's particularly relevant to the conversation anyways
to give an example of a rights based one
I have to admit, I skipped the rest of this sentence on I don't foresee myself attempting to read it: I don't believe in rights as an objective phenomenon, either.
but to go back to utilitarianism, I think there’s a strong argument that most ethical frameworks can be defined in terms of a sufficiently creative definition of utility.
this is a good reason to doubt the validity of the theory: it is constructed in a way that it is not disprovable.
if you’re looking for arbitrary, the anthropocentrists are that way
this is just a tu quoque
I explained why it's not arbitrary, then pointed to a group that does draw arbitrary distinctions. That's not tu quoque because I'm not saying "you also"
you're saying it's not arbitrary. "no, you" is still a form of tu quoque. you haven't actually made a case that sentience isnt an arbitrary standard, and there isn't a case to be made: sentience isn't a natural phenomenon outside of human subjective classification. without people, there would be no concept of green or warm or sentient, and any of those attributes is an arbitrary standard to use to judge the ethics of a diet.