About outspoken vegans?!!!

[meatup]

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with eating meat, nothing wrong with being a vegetarian, nothing wrong with being a vegan. As long as you are happy and healthy then fine.

But why oh why do some vegans take it upon themselves to be so rude & overly graphic about their choices, shoving it down everyone's throats.

I know this has been done to death but recently an old school mate has been posting this sort of vitriol on Facebook (have since unfriended!) but in the next photo his cat is eating meaty chunks..... erm?

I know which friends are vegetarians or vegan - funnily enough I've never actually shared a meal/picnic or anything with them but I still know. They on the other hand would never know I don't touch seafood - but then I don't feel the need to tell them.

I remember one mum at my 4 YO party launching herself at my friend who was helping dishing out the pizza as her son was vegetarian (although he obviously thought a bit of ham pizza looked nice) Bonkers.

I am amazed no-one has mentioned Morrissey in this thread- mind you he is outspoken about a lot of other subjects, such as his wish for the monarchy to be abolished.

my best friend became a vegan 6 months ago and it is literally all she ever talks about. every single conversation. She sends me graphic videos of slaughter and posts them on fb. EVERY DAY. Then she texts me that she's on her way to mcdonalds for a burger because she says eating meat doesn't count when you are hungover. I was a vegetarian for ten years and a vegan for two and she doesn't even know it. she's driving me nuts.

Disclaimer: Vegetarian here, slowly turning vegan as I think about it more

Disclaimer 2: I do NOT preach or post facebook things etc. If people ask, I discuss it, but always carefully and minimally as I don't want to sound judgey. Only a very few times have I 'argued', when the meat-eater has been spouting factually incorrect nonsense.

I used to be a staunch meat eater, never considered being a vegetarian, believed all the crap about needing meat etc, believed that 'one person can't make a difference', believed that not eating meat was stupid and nutritionally dangerous, believed that as long as the meat was free range there were no ethical issues, believed that meat wasn't as bad for the environment as people made out, etc etc.

Then over a few years I slowly came round to actually realising that I was kidding myself, and that with my academic background (biologist) and understanding of environmental science I couldn't justify my choices. The big thing for me was realising that actually I could be perfectly happy and healthy without meat, as I wasn't really eating much of it anyway. The facts are indisputable, they are not opinions.

Opinions come in when we decide whether we can justify ignoring the facts for our dietary choices, and I don't want to argue that- I never do, and I recognise that you can't deny someone's right to an opinion. You can, however, make the facts available to them. Shoving them down their throats is unpleasant, but sharing posts about veganism on facebook is in my opinion perfectly valid. I don't do it myself, and I know many many vegans who don't, but I have a few friends who do and they don't do it in a preachy way, they do it in a 'raising awareness' way.

To be honest, I think some people get upset because they are uncomfortable with the truth- I say that because I was that person once, and I tried everything to justify to myself why vegetarians/vegans were being ridiculous. Then I realised what I was doing and realised that actually those 'dietary choices' were becoming more popular and easy to switch to as we are becoming more aware of what is involved.

It's very easy to scroll past- if you don't want to think about what they are raising for discussion, scroll past. If they pounce on you at a BBQ and start demanding that you put your burger down that is of course different- but I don't believe that happens nearly as often as people make out! (Though I have had people demand that I eat a 'proper' burger...)

TBH I've come across many meat-eaters who are just as vociferous about the idea of not eating meat.

I agree over the 30 odd years I've been vegetarian I've had:

'It's not natural'

'You're probably really weak due to all that rabbit food you eat'

'Go on, try a bit of X meat, I bet you really miss eating it'

'women will think you are gay'

'You've been brainwashed by animal rights activists'

Perper, I agree that a lot of the really aggressive attitude I've experienced comes from feeling defensive. I've had people act like I've just told them what awful people that are, when I've just ordered a veggie burger at the pub. I know meat eaters who sometimes choose a veggie burger, so they didn't even necessarily know I was vegetarian!

And, as another poster has mentioned, people become vegan because they believe that there is something (usually ethically) wrong with eating meat- and generally, when people see something unethical happening, they like to raise awareness of it. If you want to be oblivious to it, then just scroll past :) I manage with all the religious posts I see on facebook, and I don't let them wind me up, because I feel secure in my beliefs/lack of.

Some questions I am tired of:

But WHAT do you eat for Christmas dinner?

Do you eat chicken? What about ham?

What if you were stranded on a desert island?

Don't you think it's cruel to not let a child make their own choices?

Do/eat/buy etc what you want by all means but why should anything be murdered to honour you choices?

Even Peter Singer - who is one of the world's most outspoken writer/activists on veganism and animal rights - has stated that (my words here) he tries not to be a total arse about it and will even eat meat in certain situations so as not to be an insufferable bore.

There's a time, place and audience for activism. FB is, in most cases, not it!

BasketOfDeplorables Don't forget:

Where do you get your protein?
What about B12?
You can't get all the protein you need without meat
We've evolved to eat meat
We're not herbivores
Our guts can't process plants
I only eat happy meat so why don't you just do that?
What will all the animals eat if we eat all their food?
How can we grow enough plants to feed everyone?
The animals will overrun us if we don't eat and kill them!

Etc etc- all genuine statements I have heard multiple times from people who have fundamental misunderstandings of physiology/ecology, and who are very repellent to any attempt at education (I am a biology teacher, with a PhD in ecology...). And in case any of you are in any doubt, no I do not bring it up as a topic of conversation, as it stresses me out how ignorant they can be!

he tries not to be a total arse about it and will even eat meat in certain situations so as not to be an insufferable bore.

If that is truly his view, he's just sunk in my estimation.

And I'm a carnivore in practice, vegan in spirit.

@TheWeeWitch FB is, in most cases, not it!

Why on earth not? As I've said, I don't post on FB (barely use it), but why shouldn't people use it to express their opinions or raise topics for conversation? Must it only be a place to show off pictures from your holiday/children/nights out?

It seems the perfect place to me, because it is so easy for people to scroll past if they don't want to engage.

Sxxcfghiiio

Oh god, perper! I've heard them all.

But what about vitam-
FUCKING MARMITE!

@ButchyRestingFace I don't agree. He's devoted his life to his activism. The context of his comment was a situation where someone had perhaps gone to great effort to prepare him a meal. He said he wouldn't be rude in that situation.

I was paraphrasing (I haven't time to find the footage and transcribe it) so should have perhaps said he would possibly eat meat rather than he does.

@ButchyRestingFace I don't agree.

And I disagree with your disagreement.

Your revised paraphrasing is better but he's still not out of the woods yet.

Not even BACON?

And don't forget of course, we must really hate plants...

Give it time? What a load of old crap. If you seriously think being vegan will stop you having heart issues etc you are mad. Plenty of people eat meat and don't have heart issues, honestly as a nurse some of the comments I see from both sides vegans meat eaters are just stupid

You're joking OP? IME it's completely the other way round with zealous meat-eaters seeming actively insulted when I don't eat meat. I'm veggie, not vegan though if that makes a difference.

Someone upthread mentioned soy production. About 85% of global soy production is to feed livestock. Much of the soy for human consumption is from small-scale farming.

I thought Peter Singer said that he is vegan but would eat vegetarian at people's houses occasionally, not that he would eat meat. That seems to me more reasonable. I don't think we should slate all people who try to be vegan but occasionally eat dairy products when in social situations or something. To have 10 mostly vegans is better surely (from an animal rights point of view) than to have one complete vegan. It's like the feminist thread on here atm - if you are told you can't be a feminist because you make some 'unfeminist' choices (eg wearing make-up), this is more likely imo to put people off. Of course if people claim they are 100% always vegan but aren't, that's a bit hypocritical. But if people say, I try to be vegan and I mostly succeed, then that's a workable and sound strategy.

bringbackfonzi Completely agree. Honestly, I think part of it is people taking glee in their 'failure' at being vegan- "haha, they claim to be vegan, but they're NOT, I saw them eat a cheese and onion crisp at a party!", as if it validates their disagreement with the vegan/semi-vegan's food choices.

Here's a Singer quote:

I think it’s more important to try and produce a change in the right direction than to be personally pure yourself. So when you’re eating with someone at a restaurant, and you ordered something vegan but when it comes there’s a bit of grated cheese or something on it, sometimes vegans will make a big fuss and send it back and that might mean the food is wasted. And if you’re in company with people who are not vegan or not even vegetarian, I think that’s probably the wrong thing to do. It’d be better off just to eat it because people are going to think, ‘Oh my god, these vegans…

It's quite ambiguous about what Singer thinks the vegan should do here - eat vegetarian or er, "go the whole hog".

I can certainly see why TheWeeWitch might interpret that to mean he's endorsing meat eating in certain situations.

If we think there's a certain percentage of people likely to bore on about their food choices in an aggressive manner, then just because of the numbers involved it's more likely to be a meat eater.