To feel guilted into being vegan??? AIBU?

I know. What’s this fake narrative that vegans are always talking about being vegan? It’s exactly as you say - someone notices what you’re eating and that bangs on justifying eating meat, grilling you on your views and asking you - are your shoes made of leather?

it’s the meat eaters that are always obsessed with trying to justify themselves boring you to death. Often men with their low key ribbing when you’re stuck in their company at a wedding or a work event

I have had similar dilemmas but I tried going vegetarian and it didn't work for me - I was exhausted all the time. But other people thrive on vegetarian and vegan diets so if it's worrying you why not try it?

I found a compromise solution which I'm happy with. I buy one high welfare chicken a month and use all of it to make a roast plus two other meals plus stock. I stopped buying beef and lamb and buy venison instead because I figure deer are culled anyway. I found a lot of new veggie recipes and try to eat veggie dinners more. I try to eat more fish like sardines and mackerel rather than farmed or endangered fish.

It's noticeable how much better tasting good quality meat is too.

I also started getting a local veg box so I can eat seasonal and local fruit and veg.

Lol, nearly all soy is grown to feed livestock. Nice try though!

there are more farmers growing crops to feed animals than feed humans - you need ten times the land for meat and most of that is growing the crops for their feed

I eat meat occasionally and I am fully aware of hideous way we treat farm animals
I struggle with it and definitely would struggle to be vegan but I’m considering it seriously.

I think it’s very ignorant not to even think about how your food got to your plate.
Barbaric treatment has been publicly reported for decades now there is really no excuse.

Do whatever works for you and your mindset

but then crop farmers are more likely to cut down hedges etc so there go's breeding for our native birds livestock eats or trims hedges etc so must be better

You have to eat if you want to live

eatung veggie / vegan has the lowest Impact

there is no perfect , there is just better

...You must both logically know this just isn't true though? Aside from anything else the majority of soya is fed to animals and lentils are a sustainable crop - low water useage, nitrogen fixing and resource efficient. Where have you seen the fields that have been treated so now nothing else can live on them? Think it through at least. And we should all care about bees, we are absolutely fucked without bees.

so spraying fields etc kills all the good insects kills native flowers etc that then passes on to butterflys etc bees worms what not compared to cattle grazeing fields

Snap! Was about to post this the environental destruction caused by the cropping of soy beans and lentils is huge. And it kills all the little insects when they spray the fields. No animal can live on it.I read somewhere, and now I can't remember where, that more animals are killed by a vegan diet than an omnivore diet. Obviously these animals are crickets and grasshoppers and such so not sure if they count to a vegan. Though they do worry about bees.

Ten times or more less wildlife dies for a veggie diet than a meat one

thats significant

why

becuase it takes ten times less land

people do relise that to grow there vegan diets a lot of wildlife dies due to your crops being grown and more needs for crops means more crop fields but less area for our native wildlife least with meat production wildlife can live along side can bet more wildlife is killed and shot to grow crops than meat animals

Apologies, this went on longer than intended and was definitely triggered by yet another fucking wedding this weekend where some insufferable bore interrogates me about my diet (and no, I don't tell anyone but the waiter always goes 'and who's having the vegan risotto/salad/random slice of roasted vegetable') and spends the entirety justifying to me why they eat meat.

But yes, as others have said, baby steps. Try only eating meat when you're out, or cutting them out one at a time. I think milk and eggs are actually the hardest ones to give up - hardest to adjust to oat milk in tea and eggs are in so much!!

I am not a huge meat lover, but love the occasional beef burger, steak or nice roast dinner. I am a bit of a dairy fiend though, so not sure how I would cope.

RE this bit, I felt similar about steak so I just stopped eating chickens. Didn't make much lamb anyway. Then stopped eating pigs. I never had a "last steak", I just found that one day despite fancying the taste of one, the idea of actually eating it was really unappealing, so there was no need for willpower.

Just start where you feel able and see where you end up on your journey. There's no shame in making the changes you feel good about and seeing where you end up. You're your own person and you don't need to be a "barbaric meat eater" or a "perfect vegan".

We're all just here to do our best so be gentle with yourself.

Arguably, we were all guilted at some point into being vegetarian/vegan. I don't know anyone who is vegan for any reason other than animal welfare. For me just the entire concept of animal products is abhorrent, and illogical. We eat cows/sheep/pigs but not horses/dogs/cats? Why? We KNOW that pigs and octopi exhibit high intelligence but we'll torture them so we can eat them? Why? Cows can have best friends, pigs are as smart as a toddler, sheep recognise each other - what gives us the right to deem them 'less' than us?

I mean, it's up to you but I'm very bored of hearing all the same arguments. Yes we're omnivores but that actually means we can survive perfectly well on vegan diets - not that we need to eat animal products. Yes, soya is indeed bad for the environment but over 90% of soya is used for animal feed not human consumption. Yes, no foodstuff is victimless, but at least I'm trying to minimise the victims my food has. Yes, airmiles on food, but I don't see you worrying about that in your diet while you're eating your Balinese seafood, European cheeses and New Zealand lamb. Yes, we do need to take an iron supplement and a bit of vitD/B12 but probably so do you Ms Omnivore and actually if you're in the UK a lot of your food is fortified anyway (for good reason) so your diet may not be as balanced as you think. Yes, I'm absolutely sure you do eat only local, grass fed, sung lullabies meat, you never ever just grab whats on offer in tesco and you check the provenence of every sandwich, and you never have a latte with bog standard mass farmed milk and you personally track down the farmer responsible for the meat at every restaurant you attend and make sure they're all nice ruddy faced farmers with happy little storybook animals skipping round the fields AND I bet that because the animals know you only shop in the local butchers (like fuck you do) they feel much less fear in the packed death lorry and abattoir.

We're not righteous - I know I'm not perfect but at least I'm bloody trying! We're just bored off our tits hearing you all rationalise animal cruelty in service of your tastebuds. Do what you want but don't bore the shit out of me trying to make yourself feel less guilty. Nowadays, eating animal products, and certainly eating meat, is unnecessary, cruel and irresponsible re the environment. You want to do it, fine, but don't kid yourself it's anything but that!

But - speaking as one vegetarian to another - don't you find the animal welfare justification for vegetarianism a bit hypocritical?

The dairy industry is pretty horrendous and even free range eggs aren't usually cruelty free. If we really cared about animal welfare, then the only logical approach is surely to go vegan?

As things stand, I don't actually want to go vegan so I'm not, but I do realise that it eliminates any kind of moral high ground that I might be able to claim as far as vegetarianism is concerned.

Everyone is different and I don't judge what others eat. I'm unconvinced that eating high welfare standard meat a couple of times each week is any less morally acceptable than using supermarket dairy products etc.

Its barbaric and can’t understand people having such thick skin to the suffering of animals for a taste!

All I can say is that every vegetarian and vegan that ever ate meat has felt like you do.

It's shit because you now have to decide between what you want and what you feel is right. The hardest part is the choice, once you decide and make a few swaps it just becomes your life and for most people, it isn't their whole personality.

But it is such a personal choice and it's OK to give yourself time.

Don't overcomplicate it in the pursuit of perfection or doing things "right".

As long as you don't eat a load of upf shit, you'll be eating the same food as most of the rest of the world: rice, beans, pulses, lentils and veg. Coupled with a multivitamin, you'll be fine.

My husband asked me to buy him some chicken wings today. I got a pack from the supermarket which had some writing on about the chickens being treated well...they were slaughtered and stuffed in a plastic tub 🤢

Sounds a very uncomfortable life. Full to bursting with milk. Being bred to be a milk bearer doesn’t make it any nicer.

Reduce meat and diary is good for your health
and the planet

buying as ethically as you can helps the animals. be willing to pay for decent meat - game is often more “natural” than cheap beef or chicken

choose your own path - mine is meat once a week
becuase I find my body seems to need it, fish a few times and a bad cheese habit but oat milk

Agree. And being vegetarian still has a positive impact.

There's more to just diet too. I haven't bought a single item of make up, skin care, cleaning products that have been tested on animals for over 30 years. It all helps not be part of the cruelty and for the most part has sent positive messages to the makers who now proudly announce cruelty free (and vegan) products.

No point bothering then, is there? Might as well go back to eating the baby cows and chickens as well as having milk and eggs.

You want to be a vegan be a vegan no one cares but this dramatic ''oh I feel so opressed I feel so guilty what am I going to do'' if someone I know tried this I would tell them it comes across as attention seeking

So yet again another righteous vegan. Go away. Those of us who CHOOSE to be vegetarian are perfectly happy with our choice. And loathe vegan activists trying to remove our choice.