Vegan ask me anything

[Zeze247]

Ask away

I know @spudlet7 but it's something I recognise. The faux tolerance. Vegetarians confuse me.

So OP if you come back, seriously I would love to know how it is that vegetarians confuse you. You don't know their reasons for not eating meat so how can it confuse you. It might be environmental and if so being a vegetarian is a very logical decision.

Or it might be a personal but visceral revulsion to meat which an individual doesn't experience for dairy or eggs.

As a vegan you would know it's not easy so finding it confusing that vegetarians don't cut dairy out of their diet. Vegetarians can eat out without trailing miserably from one pub/restaurant to the next just hoping there will be something to eat. It's not something to leap in to lightly.

pulses are beginning to be grown in the UK. Some stuff on British grown vegan food in the second half of this article: www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/veganism-environment-veganuary-friendly-food-diet-damage-hodmedods-protein-crops-jack-monroe-a8177541.html

Zeze247

How do you feel about eating vegetables? As animals/insects are killed in the process of vegetable farming
It’s a sad consequence but unavoidable

You could become mostly self efficient and grow your own vegetables.

Do you use plastic, the consequences of mastic are killing birds and fish.

Do you have a mobile phone and drive a car?

Thank you for answering my first question. :-) Could you answer the second one too please.

"What do you think should happen to pests like wild rabbits, deeer and pigeons that eat vegetable crops?"

Why do vegans don't eat honey but eat fruits and vegetables? Insects' hard labour there and there.

I thought of doing one of these but know what the general reaction to veganism is here so wasn’t up for the comments!

Have a few questions

How long have you been vegan?

Are those you live with vegan?

What made you go vegan (i.e. documentary, veganuary, book, conversation)?

What’s your favourite recipe?

Is your city/ town vegan friendly?

Do you do any advocacy for animals? Is it something you’re considering?

Do you take vitamin B12 and D, iodine and omega 3 or just use fortified products/ seeds?

Has your health improved since making the change?

@Onecutefox- I’m sure the OP will answer herself but there’s a difference as the bees don’t feed the fruits and vegetables to their babies.

@GeradalovesLili the OP will no doubt have her own answer but see www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/03/veganic-farming.html

kikisparks thanks for the link. Is there anywhere in the UK that does vegan farming? Is there a stamp we should look out for on products?

kikisparks my uncle keeps bees and they leave the vast majority of honey. He always leaves enough for them. No idea why people have a problem with honey. We need more bees for our ecosystems and bee keepers positively contribute to that.

I’ll come back and answer these all later.

@kikisparks Thank you, but it doesn't really explain what to with rabbits/pigeons etc. I understand the concept, but I suspect that dealing with persistent pests is more difficult than "A magical natural balance" sorts it all out.

I keep bees. Last year I didn't take any honey at all and they have a vast surplus. Despite giving them a new super they are fast running out of room. If I don't take at least some of the honey they will swarm and leave the hive.

Vegans rely on "un-natural" hive bees for pollination because there just aren't enough wild bee colonies. What should I do with the honey surplus?

Do you feel that eating meat is immoral, therefore all meat eaters are immoral/bad people by proxy? This is the attitude I pick up from a lot of posts on Facebook where vegans share videos about what happens in slaughterhouses, etc.

Question 1 is, do you really think insinuating meat eaters are bad people and should be shamed for their choices is the best way to get them on side?

Question 2 - many meat eaters, myself included, already know what happens in slaughterhouses, we’ve seen the videos, it’s not pleasant granted, but neither is it surprising, and it’s not enough to make me give up meat. If guilt tripping isn’t working, what do you think is the best way to convert meat eaters?

kikisparks , my family have beehives. The bees have more than enough honey for their babies. The bees are well looked after throughout the year, no-one is disadvantaged.

What should I do with the honey surplus?

Forcefeeding?

Onecutefox I think the PETA website has a lot of misleading propaganda on such issues which misinform people, similar with wool farming too.

Johnnyfinland very good point, is there anything that would make you consider eating less/not eating animal products?

The thing with honey is that strict vegans (as opposed to, say, plant-based eaters or people who eat predominantly plant /vegan foods for environmental reasons) disagree with any exploitation of animals. www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism
It works at that level of principle. So if the bees would move on if the honey wasn't collected, that would be fine, as they would consider it was not human beings' business to use it in the first place.

An additional argument I have seen is that domesticated honeybees are squeezing out wild bee species, but accompanied by links reports from the US which don't actually say that. Research from the UK has been saying for a long time that wild bees suffer because of habitat loss, e.g. via changes in farming practices friendsoftheearth.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/beesreport.pdf (There are also feral domestic bees www.bbc.co.uk/nature/28290890 )

@RrreCansada I think some irrefutable science about the environmental impact would be most effective for me, because I don’t have an ideological opposition to eating meat per se. I believe if humans weren’t the top of the food chain, some other species would be farming and eating us, because that’s just how food chains go. Animals eat each other, and we’re animals at the end of the day. I do think you can rear animals ethically and humanely, and that cruelty is unnecessary, but I’m not morally opposed to eating them.

@Johnnyfinland I already said this in another thread a few days ago (and I am not a vegan, just someone who eats more vegan meals these days and for years have gone for months at a time without eating meat) but given the recent shift in public opinion about disposable plastic, I think that environmental grounds, especially now that there is a lot more vegan food available, make more sense as a way of 'converting' people.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth

I've known probably since preteen years in the 80s, about typical farming practices, but am disgusted by the more recent statistics about the extent to which humans and their livestock have squeezed out wild animals and birds - estimates of this have been around for a few years but this more recent one suggests only 4% wild mammals to 60% livestock and 36% humans, and 70/30 for domestic versus wild birds: www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study

I'm not really exploiting my bees am I if I haven't collected their honey? If they "move on" (become feral bees, or are collected by another bee-keeper and put into another hive) I'll still have at least 50lbs of uncollected honey, from unexploited bees who have chosen to leave it behind. Which it would be criminal to leave uncollected.

My choice to keep bees is so that there are pollinators in urban environments for gardeners and allotment keepers (who presumably include vegans growing crops that take advantage of bees that wouldn't be there if I and other keepers didn't choose to have hives). Domesticated bees in the UK are not causing population collapse of wild bees. There just wouldn't be enough bees if we didn't chose to keep hives. No bees=not enough pollinators=not enough vegetable food for anyone.

For me the honey is secondary to the pollination, but most years there will be a honey surplus which needs to be collected or wasted.

I don’t think anyone can call themselves vegan if they use a mobile phone, computers, most forms of transport, eat farmed fruits and vegetables, and use products with things like palm oil in and use plastics. All these things exploit animals in some way. It just suits people who say that they are Vegan to use them. I think that’s why the term vegan us so ridiculous. And why people who say they are vegan should pull themselves off their moral high ground.

And I say this as someone who hasn’t eaten meat and dairy for 25 years.

@tillytillytilly2018 the definition of vegan is to avoid animal exploitation as far as possible and practical. It’s not possible not to eat farmed vegetables. In this day and age it’s not practical not to have a phone. If we can do some good now why shouldn’t we? In an ideal world these things wouldn’t involve animal exploitation and hopefully in the future they won’t but for now we do the best we can in the world we live in.

We aren’t on a moral high ground, I’m sure you share the same morals as me, that it’s wrong to harm sentient beings intentionally.