Vegetarianism/Veganism

[CurlewKate]

Why is Mumsnet so hostile? Just that really…

Er, money…exactly same reason why many vegans still eat complete crap which is the UPF meat and dairy substitutes

Absolutely this!! It drives me mad 'all vegans think they're morally superior and it annoys me' well, they are morally superior!

It's quite clearly more moral to not kill an animal than to kill one otherwise we wouldn't have animal cruelty laws or the RSPCA etc etc. it's just people have decided they like the taste of some animals and so therefore it's okay to kill them and if you disagree with that then you're a sanctimonious so and so who probably eats loads of avocados and 'frankenfood' so you can be dismissed as a preachy, inconvenient nutcase

That's such a strange take - do you feel the same about all animals? Dogs/ cats/ swans/ giraffes/ meerkats? Or just the ones you've been conditioned to eat?

Why is it strange? We're omnivores and have been for tens of thousands of years. Eating animals is the default state of humans. I have had cats as pets for all my life but I daresay if I lived somewhere where it was the norm not to have cats as pets I'd eat it.

Its quite hard to get hold of meerkat or giraffe in the UK and I gather they don't taste nice, but again if I lived somewhere where it's the norm I'd eat it.

Royals used to eat swan, I don't think they do these days, but I don't view eating swan as any different to eating turkey, chicken or goose.

So rather than using ‘Frankenstein foods’ why not just use actual vegetables? FFS - the idea that most vegans live of a diet of processed burgers and other UPFs is such a MN trope. I am sure some vegans do in the same way lots of meat eaters do.

When people are kind enough to host me there is always a vegan dish, which funnily enough hasn’t once included any processed meat, probably because they’re all good and inventive cooks and probably because it’s easy to find vegan easy to prepare dishes as a one off. if they were struggling to find something in the past I’ve offered to bring something with me.

I became a vegan 10 years ago after being vegetarian for the previous 30 years and it was purely a personal decision, I do most of the cooking and my husband and teen children are pretty much (and happily) vegetarian these days, rarely eat UPFs at home and we eat a varied and healthy diet. It hardly ever comes up in conversation because it’s literally just what I choose to eat and of little interest to others.

People talk about preachy vegans, but on most threads that mention veganism, it’s the meat eaters that get really offensive. IRL, some meat eaters go out of their way to tell me I’ll be ill, tell me I need a bacon sandwich, that I’m still harming animals etc, usually it’s because I’ve ordered a vegan meal or asked what the vegan option is in a restaurant, said I can’t eat something etc, so not questioning their choices at all.

I’ve had the comments about fake meats and upfs despite the fact I rarely eat those foods and the comments come from people who eat lots of bacon, ham and other upfs. These are not people who have a healthy diet containing meat and other animal products so quite why they feel they can comment on my diet is a mystery.

I have been vegan for about 20 years and was vegetarian for 10 years before that. I brought my kids up vegetarian as I was vegetarian when I had them. One is still vegetarian, one is vegan and I get told I’ve brainwashed them etc. I’ve learned to ignore the comments.

I once posted here to give someone a vegan recipe which they were asking for and got a PM from someone that was really nasty. I gave advice to someone having a vegan wedding and some of the comments I received were disgusting and were deleted. Some people are just arseholes.

Veganism. A heinous crime second only to paedophilia on MN.

This
It’s also become a culture war issue out there in the wider world. Vegan = woke plus real red blooded men apparently need meat

But that's a dramatic cultural shift in long term norms of morality.

One side of the argument is killing animals and the other side is saving them. You can’t ’live and let live’ on those grounds.

Well it’s not saving them is it because they wouldn’t exists like as not - there won’t be farmers growing cows just for the sake of it

one side is killing animals and the other isn't but it isn’t saving them

I once posted a menu for my own birthday party which I was paying for and hosting. It was a fully vegetarian/ vegan menu, (all my friends and family know I’m vegan) and was told that I was awful (or words to that affect) because there was nothing for meat eaters to eat… 🙈

It's not about saving animals but not creating them in the first place. If you don't exist, you can't suffer.

It’s a red herring to go down the morality route

by being alive , in a consumerist society, you are condemning billions to miserable lives and climate breakdown

so to take the moral high ground you would need to think a lot more broadly than being veggie/vegan

I know someone who eats meat but doesn’t have a car and doesn’t fly - her footprint is smaller than many vegans

humans are animals too and their lives matter just as much as the pigs

I Am very much of the mindset of you do what you can, it might not be enough but it’s a start (and before anyone asks I don’t own a car and avoid flying where I can too).

Don't disagree @itsthetea but one of the problems is this:
you are condemning billions to miserable lives and climate breakdown
We should not exist in the numbers that we do.

I have not really experienced any comments like this, and I've been either vegetarian or pescatarian for 30 years. I'm not preachy at all, my diet is my business and no one else's. I'll explain my reasons if asked although mine aren't limited to animal rights. I also have a vegan friend and she isn't preachy either. I'd say the majority of my friends, colleagues and family are meat eaters and they have never commented negatively. It doesn't really affect them anyway so why should they?

If people gave me any shit about my diet they'd get a fair amount back and I'd stop associating with them. Don't put up with comments about your diet by idiots.

Are you alright hun? Vegans aren’t saving animals? Okay then. If you don’t breed them, you don’t have to kill them.

Veganism is like a religion. There are certain beliefs you hold if you’re a vegan. If you are saying ‘yeah, you do you’ to a meat eater you are not vegan, you just eat plant based. You have to disagree and say you don’t believe people should eat meat. A Christian wouldn’t say ‘you do you’ to a murderer. They would have to condemn it. You may find that offensive but that’s the reality of the difference between a true vegan and a plant based eater.

We are a vegan family ,there's definitely less choice in the shops food wise than there was 3 or 4 years ago .
There was two vegan cafes in reach of us untill they both closed last year .
I tend to stay of the negative vegan bashing threads on here ,but yes people can be negative to what they don't understand

Another vegan family here sending love!

That's a fact is it? You speak for all vegans?

Look up the definition of veganism if you want and tell me how I am wrong.

I don't know any other vegan families,or any vegans except my family ..
I keep thinking I should start a vegan chat thread ,,but I didn't think there were many vegans on Mumsnet

I'm vegan and I don't 'have' to do anything that you think i should.