A good friend of mine has turned Vegan (rant alert)

[LEMmingaround]

And is banging on about how disgusting the meat industry is etc etc, putting provocative shit on facefuck and generally shoving it down my throat. (and her other friends too i imagine). She has two young children and is now thinking about feeding them a vegan diet too - great, im sure its very healthy, whoopie. But i don't want to become a vegan, i was veggie for a while but found it too restrictive i am too lazy and expensive to eat properly. Whatever.

You know what - if you want to be veggie, great, if you want to be and can manage to be vegan - respect! but fuck off with trying to make me feel guilty for not doing the same thing. EVERY fucking time i see or talk to you. especially when the last time i saw you shopping in tesco before you met a new group of friends you were buying battery farmed eggs

She tried to make me have soya milk and really got shitty when i said, no i'll have proper milk please, because actually, and i can't be 100% sure it was the soya or quorn but i had an allergic reaction and had to be blue lighted to hospital when i ate a veggie spag bol once before, so no thankyou very much. Thinking back i could have just had black coffee but was tired and mind fucked from her going on about the poor fucking cows....

Rant over

didyoureallysaythat I don't believe that you think that all meat eaters consciously or subconsciously think that eating meat is cruel; when I say that eating meat is not cruel, do you think I'm lying?

exexpat - that looks like my perfect breakfast. Possibly the only way to improve it is to drop a teabag into the milk...

(I drink vast quantities of soya milk, and have for years, as I always have a cup of tea in my mitt, and cows milk gives me migraines.)

I shouldn't have soya milk because it depresses thyroid function, and mine is already depressed! So it irritates me when vegans see it as a wonder food and don't feel they should have to tell you you're drinking it. (Almond milk is ok though.)

I do find the concept of "vegan food" as something other than food people would normally eat a little baffling. Unless it's something like the stale cheezy wotsit scented abomination that's soya "cheese" (srsly, just use houmous - much nicer) it's just food.

And I'm sticking with my muesli or soya milk porridge with banana for breakfast, regardless of what Mercola says in that great scientific journal, HuffPo. That's vegan. The splash of lactofree in my bucket of coffee most definitely isn't. Nor was the sausage I snaffled before eating my "vegan" muesli, this morning.

LEMmingaround
After my allergic reaction - which involved me puffing up like a puffer fish, being given intravenous anti-histamine my face looked very hmm hmm when i pitched up at my GPs to tell them all about it and expected to be offered allergy testing (as i have really bad hayfever) and people to be generally running around offering me epi-pens and telling me what food to avoid - nup, just told it was probably a one off!

In your shoes, I would get this looked at again, with a different doctor. To dismiss an extreme reaction as a 'one off', without further investigation, seems like utter madness. My son has a nut allergy, has had skinprick tests, periodic appointments at the allergy clinic, and has an epi-pen at school and home. None of the reactions he has experienced so far have required immediate medical attention (i.e. yours sounds more serious). My understanding is that if you have already had one reaction, you are more at risk than others of further reactions. Another reaction could be worse and less easy to manage.

If you haven't had a proper diagnosis, you are less likely to know what you are allergic to (could be soya, quorn, another ingredient in the spag bol, a cross contamination issue, or something other than the spag bol), and I'm guessing that you are less likely to manage your possible allergy/allergies as rigorously as you would if you had more information. And you don't have an epi-pen.

didyoureallysaythat

I watched your video.. wasn't anything new, the meat trade stuff has been posted in chunks by my meat is murder friends on facebook.

However an awful lot of that trailer was about actual cruelty to animals, rather than the meat trade although i was happy to see they've included the pulling off the skins of live animals for the fake ugg boot trade.. a lot of people don't realise what goes into their cheap boots. i didn't see the bog standard slaughter house you get in the UK.. or is it just the extreme, unregulated stuff for maximum effect they show?

and no it really didn't make any difference to me wanting to eat meat.. sorry.

Sometimes I think that vegans want to be the biggest mass murders of them all just on account of a principle.

If everybody stopped eating meat today, what would happen to all of those animals who were no longer needed for food.. do you think they'll be let go to lead free and happy lives frollicking in the fields?

Ask her the rabbit question.

You are a farmer growing crops, your crops are being decimated by rabbits. You have to rid the land of rabbits and the most humane is shooting them.

What should the farmer do with the dead rabbits? Surely it is more ethical to use them for meat than dump them in landfill?

DH and I are long term vegetarian (by choice)
Our DC are not (my choice to let them have their own choice)

I had loads of friends at school who were the militant veggie (I hate that phrase) I HATE meat types , who after a year or so , reverted back.

I've been vegetarian for 34 years, and it's unlikely anyone would know unless it's a food situation (like a lunch at work or meal out)
Sometimes the checkout operators scan through my shopping and ask "Are you vegetarian" (then I explain the non-vegetarian food is for the DC)

sashh - the perfect vegan answer would be "feed them to her cat"!

(Seriously, vegans who feel their cats vegan diets make me rage. Harming an animal's health and reducing its' lifespan by your deliberate actions = not a very vegan thing to do, IMO.)

(Seriously, vegans who feel their cats vegan diets make me rage. Harming an animal's health and reducing its' lifespan by your deliberate actions = not a very vegan thing to do, IMO.)

How does a properly formulated vegan cat food do these things?

Sympathies OP.
I loathe preachy people, and of course the thing about vegans is that their breath is so very stinky of wholesome lentils and granola.

So not only do you have some one in your face preaching, but their breath honks as their toothpaste and mouthwash are all vegan too. Don't get me started on when they start to use alternative vegan, chemical "free" deodorant, and wear plastic clothes, and shoes (made from hydrocarbon products- no guilt about climate change and pollution then...)

If she gets all worked up, and spittle-ish, you can remind her she needs to take her vitamin B group supplements, for anxiety, as she's not getting any from her restricted diet.

Of course you can always tell her to shut up!

The EU has very strict laws and guidelines about the life and death of animals bred for meat, eggs and milk, and wool / leather / fur / feathers unlike the USA (where there are surprisingly few guidelines and laws about this) and the american information she's been brainwashed with, isn't relevant to those animals reared for meat and associated animal products in the EU, where we have agricultural animal welfare laws.

Hear hear trinovantes, it's animal cruelty to feed a carnivore vegetables.

I've had the egg chat with vegans too, and Honey. Because if chickens are on a farm being fed well and looked after they have a much better life than they would otherwise and eggs are a by-product of that. I don't understand why they wouldn't want to promote that.

Same with honey, we haven't enough bees in the wild so why be angry with people who look after them and love them and just happen to take their by-product.

I reckon if you could ask a chicken they would be happy to swap their eggs for good food, shelter and safety.

Actually sashh, it's not ethical to eat those shot rabbits. Rabbits who are wild may have eaten plants sprayed with all kinds of things, herbicides and pesticides, and the meat can have high levels of toxins, and it's not recommended to eat wild animals for this reason.

Also the lead shot used can be toxic too of course.

If you want to eat rabbit, farmed rabbit is best, as they know what the rabbit has been eating, and it's killed humanely, not just shot at indiscriminately.

Most commercially available vegetables are fertilized with animal byproducts. Bone meal and blood meal are exactly what they sound like they are. Always a good tidbit to drop on a sanctimonious vegan/vegetarian.

Although, to be fair, I know a lot of vegetarians and a handful of vegans, and almost all of them are perfectly nice people who don't care what I eat.
I like quite a lot of vegetarian foods, but I get genuinely unwell if I don't eat red meat at least 2 or 3 times a month. I try (it's not always available and I can't always afford it) and buy from a local farmer who has grass fed, 'free range', cows and, when the time comes, has a mobile slaughter unit come out to the field where the cows are happily frolicking and singing hippie songs. I do this because the meat tastes better and is healthier, the humanitarian aspect is a pleasant side benefit. I've never personally met an in-real-life veg* who had a problem with that. Or, at least, never one who lacked basic manners enough to say anything.

ItsAllGoing a cat is an obligate carnivore. Even the Vegetarian Society doesn't consider supplemented vegan "catfood" to be adequate nutrition for cats.

If the preachy types really gave such a shit about animals, they wouldn't keep pets at all. The environmental cost of pet ownership is huge, which of course has a knock-on effect onto all the other animals on the planet.

Even the Vegetarian Society doesn't consider supplemented vegan "catfood" to be adequate nutrition for cats.

www.vegsoc.org/factsvegetariancats

Actually they point out that there are synthetic versions of the essential nutrients, and then go on to link to their list of approved cat foods, and suppliers.

If the preachy types really gave such a shit about animals, they wouldn't keep pets at all. The environmental cost of pet ownership is huge, which of course has a knock-on effect onto all the other animals on the planet.

I do agree with this though. The most unenvironmentally friendly thing you can do is have children.

Actually they point out that there are synthetic versions of the essential nutrients, and then go on to link to their list of approved cat foods, and suppliers.

Huh, they didn't use to - I'm obviously out of date. Thanks! (I still think a vegan owning a cat is ridiculous, though. There's also the "inhibit natural behaviour by keeping it indoors" -v- "let it roam and kill birds" dilemma, too, as well as the overall environmental impact.)

geniusismysterious
To the people who aren't happy about the mass industrial slaughter of male chicks, can i ask what you think would happen to these male chicks if they were born in the wild?

Modern breeds of domesticated chickens
Wouldn't exist in the wild! They're as natural as Ragdoll cats! They are bred in the numbers they are solely for human needs.

Would a modern flock of Orpingtons or whatever do well if abandoned in the wild of the UK? No. They descend from a species of bird that is native to Asia.

But they exist because we created them, so responsibility for what happens is entirely on humans and 'it's better than what would happen to them in the wild' is irrelevant.

The chicken's ancestor, the Red Jungle Fowl (which incidentally can fly a bit) is in danger of extinction, by the way, because of hybridization. Similar situation to the Scottish wildcat.

Tilly, you're obviously lying. Otherwise all my chickens descend from T-Rex' jokes are obsolete

Sorry!

But didn't those jokes go the way of the dodo?

But didn't those jokes go the way of the dodo?

snigger<

Smiled along with the first posts at the born again vegan then skimmed down looking for the 'Angry Vegan' post. There always has to be one. I think it's a law.

If the angry vegan in question is still around then I'd just like to say that I had a nice bit of pork today and it was delicious mmmm.

Animals are lovely. Especially surrendered by a few vegetables.

Not sure about the ethics of killing vegetables that can't even run away. Never been quite sure how vegans live with that.

VenusDeWillendorf
I loathe preachy people, and of course the thing about vegans is that their breath is so very stinky of wholesome lentils and granola.

So not only do you have some one in your face preaching, but their breath honks as their toothpaste and mouthwash are all vegan too. Don't get me started on when they start to use alternative vegan, chemical "free" deodorant, and wear plastic clothes, and shoes (made from hydrocarbon products- no guilt about climate change and pollution then...)

If she gets all worked up, and spittle-ish, you can remind her she needs to take her vitamin B group supplements, for anxiety, as she's not getting any from her restricted diet.

Aha, a fire and brimstone style sermon about preachy vegans.

Vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9 are all obtainable from vegan sources. B12 is found in a number of fortified foods (cereals, yeast extract, soya milks etc).

There is more, but I'm reluctant to fulfil that preachy vegan stereotype.

Venus advising people not to eat wild rabbit because of pesticides and herbicides is absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with ethics. It's a health concern, though probably even then a hugely overstated one.