To ask everyone to eat less meat and meat products?

[Breadandwine]

There are 3 reasons I eat a plant-exclusive diet:

1. I feel I'm healthier (I became veggie to avoid BSE - and my osteoarthritis has been stopped in its tracks since I went vegan)
2. Animal welfare issues (I went vegan after looking at the inevitable cruelty involved in the meat and dairy industries)
3. Global warming/climate change (the single most important thing anyone can do to fight GW is to go vegan - the world's livestock industry contributes more to GW than does transport!)

Before global warming reared its ugly head, I was quite reticent about my veganism, only talking about it when I was asked. But now that our children's and our grandchildren's future is threatened, I'm a lot more vocal.

And now there's me and the Pope on the same side - who'dda thunk it?

Interesting links, of course I knew that soy is in some animal feeds (although not mine as we are certified organic so the majority of off the shelf feeds are not allowed).
However you slice it, soy production is responsible for some deforestation but I guess that is part and parcel of the human population being at the level it is.
Obviously this is a bad thing but what I felt needed clarifying is the fact it is not a simple case of vegetarian diet = good for the environment / meat = bad for the environment as the OP and many other preachy veggies would have you believe. They both have pros and cons and it is up to the individual to weigh it up after establishing all the facts. You will notice in my post I acknowledged that meat production has it's shortcomings, however it is important that people are aware of the full facts - not a one sided load of propaganda produced to support a fanatical believe system.

I would also be interested to hear where veggies / vegans sit with cereals and vegetable production with regard to pest control.

I don't have much arable land but a few friends do. We shoot a great many bunnies and pigeon each year for crop protection purposes as they can do a serious amount of damage to a yield.

Then there is crop spraying which kills literally thousands of insects per acre (I think it's about 4,000 per acre but I'm not 100% on that).
Given that an average family of 4 omnivores consumes the equivalent of 5 acres a year worth of produce (so a veggie family will be even higher) I work that out to be 20,000 insects per year.... what do you think about that - or don't insects count because they're not cuddly enough?!

Do you go to great lengths to buy cereal from farms that don't do this, or do you just think 'oh well it's just a few mice, out of sight out of mind' and all that?

Sorry if my tone is ranty but evangelical veggies (in fact anyone who tries to push their beliefs in people's faces) really piss me off.

My sister is a vegetarian but you'd never know it She won't berate you for eating meat in front of her, she prepares it occasionally for her DH without all the dramatics I have seen from other veggies 'oh my god it's dead animal, get it out of here...I'm going to be sick...' ... get a grip!

I would also be interested to hear where veggies / vegans sit with cereals and vegetable production with regard to pest control.
I wondered about this when writing my last post upthread. Uncontrolled rabbits can devastate a field of crops - I see this regularly when walking the dog. Like it or not, human beings on this planet essentially compete with the wildlife for the available calories.

Why do you sound so angry?

I try to buy veg that hasn't been treated, or I grow my own. I don't use pesticides in my garden as I think snails etc have a right to life - I don't even kill flies, for the same reason. I live with my omni husband and kids and don't make any fuss at all when they eat meat or dairy, but I don't want to eat it myself. If they ate meat everyday (which they don't) I'd think it was excessive (not to mention expensive) and ask them to cut down.

As for cereal, I don't eat it myself but could try harder there. Difficult though as the kids are weetabix fiends....

"She has obviously hit a raw nerve in some"

Yes, it's the nerve that is so perfectly targeted by Jehovah's Witnesses and other peddlers of nonsense that knock on your door uninvited and try to convert you.

"I don't use pesticides in my garden as I think snails etc have a right to life"

Not in my garden. There aren't many these days, but one year when we got positively inundated with thousands of them for some reason, DC's babysitter collected them in four large plastic bags and took them home to cook them à la française. Apparently they were very tasty indeed.

Maybe my cats are Eco warriors. One likes to bring live unharmed items home and release them, presumably thinking the house makes a nice 'permaculture' and wees on the strawberry patch as natural pesticide.
The other kills all those inconvenient things that tend to eat crops. Although she eats them and both wear fur so perhaps I should educate her.
Neither is keen on dairy, and both occasionally look like they're tree hugging too.
Most importantly both would be more likely to put forward a coherent and reasoned, logical, argument forward to promote veganism for the environment than any I've yet heard.

LadyPlumpington

It's not anger , more extreme irritation. One of my biggest pet hates of all time is people who try to evangelise their way of living and convert others.

I have the utmost respect for other people's choices, so long as I can still go about my life as I wish (within reason).
I don't tell other people what they can eat so why do people like the OP think they can try and 'convert' me?
FECK OFF I LIKE MEAT, I'M NOT DOING YOU ANY HARM SO LEAVE ME ALONE TO ENJOY MY STEAK PIE!!!
I don't give a shit what you like to eat or why, I never asked so what makes you think I am even the slightest bit interested?

DW has a friend like this , last time she came over I made sure there was a freshly shot deer hanging up in the yard with its belly slit open!
She hasn't been round I quite a while... Thank god!

Maninawomansworld I'm glad I don't know you in RL, you sound like a mature and tolerant addition to society.

I can see where maninawomansworld is coming from- I am afraid that anyone who is evangelistic about anything brings out the worst in me!
People like OP need to be told that it is counter productive and we do as people do and never as they say. If you want to make a difference set by a quiet example.

Well after reading this I prefer the evangelists to all the people moaning on about them tbh.

Mehitabel, I think that if someone bothers to explain a point of view that's different to your own it's a good idea to listen quietly and consider whether you can take anything from that viewpoint rather assuming that the other person is a fool and dismissing everything they say. Nobody is being evangelical and asking you to become a strict vegan. Of course it is only your business how you live. If somebody knocks on your door and tells you about their religious beliefs, yes, it is an intrusion, but perhaps they do have something of value to say to you. Perhaps you can take on board a little bit of what they say and it will benefit you. Or perhaps not - but you can still expand yourself by considering them. You don't have to be affronted that someone disagrees with you. It's a good thing that people try to advise each other and share their thoughts. I don't live in the UK and in the culture I live in it's considered a duty and a kindness to discuss ideas and to give and receive advice from the people around you.

manina u can express ur disagreement with the OP without becoming obnoxious u know.

It's goady to gloat about what u did with the deer, if in fact u did do that. Most people I know (who eat meat or otherwise) would be distressed to see that n am sure would agree with me that it was a vile thing to do to score points!

It is how they do it! Of course I will listen if I have asked them. I won't if they have decided for themselves and think I am just need educating!

I was pondering this further this morning (if you'll all indulge me).

Many vegetarians/vegans only consider themselves to be 'proper' veggies/vegans if they constantly post 'meat is murder', 'think of the poor fluffy bunnies'-type things on the internet, speak of nothing else and rant at the poor omnivores who just want to eat a free-range chicken sandwich in peace. Many of us NORMAL vegetarians/vegans share the same core beliefs as them but don't want to lose friends by being overtly twatty about it. So, when we say things like 'it might be a good idea to cut down on meat consumption, y'know', we are actually being immensely restrained compared to the real hardcore veggies/vegans out there. Believe it or not, we're holding back out of consideration for the feelings of our friends/family/people in general. So to be told that even this small amount of letting our feelings be known is preachy and ranty and over-bearing: well, it rankles a bit.

This civilised world is so very focused on animal-derived products already that it feels like we're constantly being slapped in the face with meat (so to speak). It's understandable that omnivores don't notice this, because it's normal for you. Hell, it was normal for me until last year. But to a person who doesn't want to eat those things, they're rather intrusive. It's also difficult not to mention your eating requirements to other people (friends/family/work colleagues), because so much of life revolves around food - lunches, BBQs, work dinners etc. You mention it and then people generally ask questions, because they're nice/curious, and then at some difficult-to-define point you become guilty of boring people with the subject when THEY ASKED YOU ABOUT IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Argh. It's a meaty minefield.

Dead deer doesn't distress me, and it shouldn't distress many other people either, unless they also get distressed walking down the meat aisle in a supermarket or restaurants etc. In fact viewing the carcass and being able to see how it died and the chance to see how it lived is the biggest motivation for me wanting to eat something.
We should all be open minded and open to solutions, but imagine if I began or appeared on a thread discussing the problem of Sen support in schools. And my solution was well look, children with adhd can be told to behave like everyone else, just take the child with asd aside and explain it's only noise from other kids, just practice the alphabet more with the child with dyslexia. Do you think anyone would be open minded to my solution? Or do you think they'd all decide I was displaying a huge deficiency of any knowledge on the subject whatsoever? Now if some of the others on the thread took the line I didn't mean any harm, I was just trying to help, albeit in a somewhat clueless way, and explained how Adhd, asd and dyslexia work and how therefore they aren't solved by my 'solutions', and in fact made far worse, chances are they would get a bit narked if I kept banging on that they should just try my methods and be open minded because I'm trying to help. What some pro veganism posters are doing is exactly the same.

"This civilised world is so very focused on animal-derived products already"

As opposed to 15,000 years ago when... Oh wait.

I might consider going vegan if I were to get vegan powers but if there's no vegan powers I'm just not sure it's worth giving up bacon.

Alright, I should have just said THE WORLD is very focused on animal-derived products. The 'civilised' bit is from another of my pet rants about animal rearing being adapted for mass production (clue: not a big fan). If we must rear animals then I'd prefer for it to be small-scale and local. I know that puts prices up though....

My vegan power is knowing many ways to generate tasty cake without having eggs, butter or milk in the house. A useful skill, whatever your eating habits!

It honestly is tasty, even my omni friends have admitted this

YABU and IMO are in no position to occupy the moral high ground.

If we assume as a vegan that you eat wheat then you can guarantee that, even in an organic system, the growing of the wheat crop will have resulted in the death of creatures - whether it's a field mouse, a rat in a grain store, a pigeon munching on oilseed rape seedlings, etc. What about the soya many veggies/vegans eat - most of world's soya it's grown on an industrial scale in America - do you imagine that is low impact?

It's an inevitability that us occupying this planet has an impact on other lives and we kid ourselves if we think that by just not eating meat we're lessening that significantly.

But ladyp your point about small scale and local ( and I presume with an emphasis on quality of life and stress free quick death) is a very valid one, that many agree with. When people preach veganism for environmental gain, or because it's wrong to kill, or because it's healthier it not only distracts from valid reasoning by getting people's backs up, it just comes across as silly because it's factually incorrect.
It's also worth noting that doing away with so many small scale local abbatoirs was a big death knoll to small and local animal farming, not just the quest for cheap food. And the general wholesale destruction of the rural economy.

Genuine question, why would the dead deer bother anyone? I'm veggie and I wouldn't bat an eyelid, nor would anyone else I know, not even any of the children on the ranch. We own a ranch in South America though, so perhaps people are a bit more practically minded out here? The only bit about it that would bother me was if our dogs tried to roll in the blood, because its a pain in the rear to try to shampoo three pale coloured seventeen stone each dogs. Sorry, hijack over.

Jains have the theoretical moral high ground wrt to not killing things, but the world population would starve under their rules after bugs ate all the crops.

The breakdown here says that energy generation, industry & land use change each generate more GHGs than the whole global agricultural sector combined.

I assume stars because deer are cuter than say chickens. And they'd rather know an animal had a shit life and shit end and conveniently forget it and concentrate on the vacuum packed end product because they can pretend if they didn't see it then it didn't happen, than see the unprocessed carcass of an animal that I presume had a good life and quick end.
The same people who use poison but who get morally offended when my dog/ cat kills a rat, or tell their kids it's a different lamb on the plate to the fluffy baa lamb at the petting zoo. The same people who used to get offended when dd wanted to showcase dead vermin to her friends who eat kfc.
Basically people who live in Disney films.

Ahh OK, thank you lurked, so its what my DH calls "the Bambi effect" I take it. Sadly anyone with those attitudes wouldn't last a minute out here, but I've never understood the being squeamish about where meat comes from, or about pretending something isn't happening.