to find vegans really annoying?

[seriouslynowdontbesoearnest]

Just that really. I know a few and my god do they ever preach on and on about their coconut oil macha powder cacao powder chia seed energy balls and milk industry and calves being killed etc. It's the over earnestness and attitude that they are the most enlightened people to walk this planet that wind me up. It reminds me of being 18 again.

Yes, to whoever asked, I've seen footage of 'artifical insemination' in cows. Fucking brutal, it was. Had me in floods of tears. How about you? I saw it in real life on my parents' dairy farm. There was no writhing in agony. The cow just stands there the same as when the bull mounts her.

Actually, if you're talking about mass delusions, detachment from reality and cultishness, I think the majority of meat eaters are much more suited to that label than Vegans, Cote. If it was otherwise, we'd have school trips to abattoirs rather than city farms.

And you think I care abut the cultish beliefs of deluded strangers who judge the "morality" of an omnivore species eating animal products 

We are far more similar to herbivores actually, we have fingers (for picking fruit and berries) a small mouth opening, long intestines, no massive incisors, alkaline urine.. shall I go on

Rtft, rockaby. Sadly lots of MNers think this way, I've discovered.

Dbfr (don't be fucking rude). I was agreeing with you ffs.

I'm not suggesting you should care, Cote. I was more amused than perturbed, mostly, when my friend's Jain granny looked horrified that I ate potatoes. But as far as I can see the most vocal 'vegans are annoying' people on this thread seem to feel that the mere existence of people who eat differently to them on ethical grounds is a major reproach, and that it is vegans' job in life to make omnivores feel OK about their own choices.

Vegans, in my experience, tend to mind their own business. I would suggest that huffy omnivores who find the mere fact that vegans exist a major reproach to their own choices get over it and do the same.

You hear exactly the same thing on here over and over again, vituperative complaints about any stance or practice that has clearly been arrived at via thought, whatever its merits ,as though it's specifically intended as a reproach to the person who has not given it any.

And yes, I'm aware that some meat-eaters take endless precautions to buy only humanely-reared and slaughtered meat, or hunt their own, and own that decision, just as I think about the fact that my decision to continue to consume dairy products involves animal slaughter. Those are not the people I'm talking about. I'm talking about people whose default mode on any issue is 'It's never occurred to me to give that any thought, so I resent you for having done so.'

I've knowingly known two vegans, iyswim. One was okay. The other is a recent convert, and preaches away merrily, equating welfare standards (or the lack of) in South Korea with how animals are farmed here, and posting on FB videos from that most dodgy of outfits, PETA.

It got so on my nerves in the end that I asked some intelligent questions about what one should do about deer overpopulation, and rabbits eating crops, and I was told I was dreaming up 'hypothetical scenarios' or something.

Vegans like that I do find annoying. The others, not so much. Or at all, really.

Moomin - To let some people know how fucking ridiculous they are being. As a public service. Not because I am bothered by their hoisted judgy pants about the supposed immorality of omnivores eating what their bodies have evolved to eat over millenia. HTH

Nothing rude about asking you to read the full thread rockaby. You asked a question. I answered it. No need to swear.

Carrots in agony and salad alive as you eat it - do we have a full bingo card yet?

www.mumsnet.com/info/acronyms

Rtft is not 'read the full thread'. It's 'read the fucking thread'. I'll assume that was an honest mistake on your part .

Almost there Laura! Nothing about God yet. Or how we would feed everyone if we all went vegetarian

I am not vegan but DH is. he's never preachy, and you'd never guess either.(Not least because the hippy stereotype is as boring as the preachy stereotype. He's not a hippy, but a late 50's suit-wearing Tory-voting banker).

In the past 15 years though I have seen people get extremely aggressive and defensive towards him when they realise. It's like they take his food choices personally. It's really quite bizarre.

user we use AI on both cattle and sheep and I can assure you none of it involves 'ramming your arm in'
Firstly we ensure that the cows/sheep are actually at the correct point of their cycle otherwise we are wasting our time and money. We observe their behaviour and if we decide they are showing all the signs of 'bulling' then a straw is inserted into the cow, this straw is maybe a MM in diameter. Sometimes yes our arm does go in too, dependent on the size and length of the canal off the cow but a lot of lube is involved and if a 60kg calf can get out of there I don't really think she's going to notice my arm much! Relative to size it's probably less intrusive than when we use a tampon.
Our calves where possible are born outside, live outside and only brought into the shed during bad weather.
For the PP who asked if we get attached, yes of course we do, we spend all day with these animals. However they have no idea they are being reared for meat, they are living a happy life and one day are loaded up and that's it. They don't wake up everyday thinking oh I hope I'm not getting eaten today, they just wander about eating grass, interacting with their buddies and hopefully sleeping in the sunshine. I can send them off knowing I've made their lives as good as possible and done my bit to ensure a supply of high welfare meat.
Our produce is sold under the Scotch Beed banner, which does represent higher standards, in a multinational supermarket, some of you may have eaten one of my cows. We do everything in our power to ensure our animals have the best possible life while they are on this earth.

OK, I've already said that the "being a vegan is totes like being Black, gay or Muslim" thing is both ridiculous and offensive.

But I am now agog at the "eating meat is rape and slavery" thing. Ridiculous and offensive barely begins to describe it. It also posits veganism as a kind of personal purity thing, the highest, most ethical point of human existence without acknowledging that we all make choices, every day, about how we live our lives, and all of those choices are imperfect in some way. And sure we could improve, eat less meat, eat meat which has had a good life and all the rest of it, but leading an ethical life is a whole thing, and what I choose to focus on may well be different to what others do. My attempts at ethical choices are about what makes a difference in the world, rather than what keeps me "pure".

Someone upthread wrote about their preachy vegan friend who still is a frequent flier, and who thus almost certainly is more responsible for the destruction of animal life - indirectly through climate change, and the loss of habitat, but responsible all the same - than I could hope to emulate if I ate nothing but panda sausages from now until I die. (I fly maybe once a decade, and have arranged my life so that I don't have to drive a car, specifically for ethical and environmental reasons.)

And take palm oil. I do sometimes eat things with palm oil in them, but I will always choose the non-palm alternative if there is one (and I always look), because I rather like orang-utans. I email the companies who make the products I love which have palm oil in them, urging them to find an alternative and praising them when they do, and I have even written to the Bank of England to ask that they not replace the tallow in the new fiver with palm oil, because I think it would be unethical.

I am most emphatically not saying that there's no point in being a vegan unless you also refuse to fly, refuse to drive a car, etc etc - anything anyone does to make the world a little better is a good thing, even if it's not everything and perfect - but I am saying that the vegan/not vegan world isn't divided on a cruel/not cruel axis which perfectly overlaps it. And I will continue to be revolted by a movement that equates cows to people. Are they deserving of compassion? Yes. But they aren't people.

'sometimes the arm does go in'

'they have no idea they're being reared for meat' - how could you possibly know whether your cows are contemplating their own mortality, or indeed mentally reciting the complete works of Shakespeare? Those statements are classic minimising. Three huge babies came out of me, but if a man suddenly showed his arm up there I'd bloody well notice!

And if you can supply footage of a cow being fisted and not looking remotely cross about it, I'd be very surprised. The one I saw was absolutely livid.

Three huge babies came out of me, but if a man suddenly showed his arm up there I'd bloody well notice!
A huge (say 6kg) baby is waaaaaay smaller than a 60kg calf. Pink's tampon analogy sounds about right.

And I very much doubt that beef cattle know that they're being reared for meat. I've read enough about animal cognition over the years to be fairly sure on that one.

A tampon? No way. More useful to substitute the limb of a proportionately smaller mammal. A dogs paw. That I'd definitely resist and notice. (this is getting weird)

Last night a ewe was having a difficult birth. My shepherd had to pull out the lamb and had to put her hand into the uterus. Should she just have let the lamb and the ewe die?

AI is not rape because bulls and cows do not have a long and meaningful sex. It is a quick in and out job.

I am no longer a member of the Christian church I grew up in. I don't want to join another religion so I avoid the whole you are not as vegan as me bullshit (mainly on the internet).

Most people are trying to do their best and cause as little harm as possible. For me that means I eat a vegan diet and (as far as I know) not use animal products. If I was prepared to kill an animal then I would be ok with eating it. I am not so therefore I don't.

Other people can do what they want so please don't get defensive if you come across someone else who has a different diet to you!

YANBU preachy types are just a bore and those who announce their new found veganism and want special catering at a party at the moment are just worst

Of course I'd notice if someone shoved their arm up there but I'm
a person! In relative terms even a 10lb baby is a between 1/10th or 1/12th of the size of calf then if you bunched 10 or 12 tampons together then it'd probably be the size of an arm.

We've AI'd cattle loose in a pen, without restraining them, they were more interested in eating the feed I'd given them so definitely not distressed.
Also animals can't contemplate the future, they will remember things that have happened to them, they learn routines but they genuinely have no idea that they are being reared for meat, how could they??

Pink ponies - I assume you've surveyed all animals to check their grasp of the future? Also, we're animals and we grasp the concept of the future reasonably well, so not sure what you're on about really.

And leaving tampons, dogs paws and huge farmers' forearms out of this for just a second, the main issue here is whether it's right to go around violating other species with any implement, purely so we can drink milk intended and evolved specifically for their babies. And the fact that we kid ourselves a) that this is an easy parting. It isn't - cows mourn their calves for a long time and b) that their milk is a suitable drink for us - it isn't - cows milk allergies are rife. A large proportion of adults lack the necessary enzymes to digest it anyway.