To ask why do meat eaters have such a problem with vegans?!

[CadyHeron]

Ok, genuine question, and I've been around here long enough to know this is probably going to descend into a bunfight but meh
Seriously. Why?! I've only recently noticed it since doing Veganuary and mainly carrying it on now even though it's finished. Up until then, I eat everything - fish,meat, cheese.....but at the same time eating lots of vegan and vegetarian food too as DH is a long time vegetarian.
(Who's gone vegan after completing Veganuary.)
Been out for dinner today.
"Surely you can have a little bit?!" (Erm, no )
We've also had "but it's not healthy!" (that all depends on how you do it,surely? I know I was eating a lot healthier during Veganuary as I was conscious about what I was eating and not just mindlessly shovelling stuff in - even though I love mindlessly shoving stuff in
Or you'll get a bacon sandwich shoved in your face. "You want this bacon, don't you? Don't you?"
Erm,no not really.
I don't give a shit whether people eat meat, why are they so bothered that I'm vegan for a while?!
Must be exhausting to be a proper one!
not including the militant ones that tell you meat is murder as they can just go away and practise the saying each to their own...

@Eggzandbacon how so?

Er, why? It's well documented that per kg meat uses far more resources (particularly water) plus produces more greenhouse gas.

I can't tell you exactly. I have a friend who is an environmental activist and says it's much better if people eat meat from small local producers than the processed fake meats available.
Also I think issues with use of substitute milks like almond milk and their production and transportation. I think a lot of depends where your fruit and veg is sourced from.
I just don't think necessarily it's the best choice automatically.

She's a (non judgemental) vegan by the way. She eats a locally grown plant based diet, mostly grown herself. She takes transportation into account a lot.

@kubex it's absolutely true.

I have no issue with vegans that get in with it and don't try to convert others. At all. I'll happily cater for them (and make a mean vegan Cupcake).

But a vegan diet, even one prepared by someone that has studied the subject, isn't the healthiest diet for every individual.

I take no issue with vegans.

Those who are vegetarian for ethical reasons, however - I've tried and cannot understand that.

Er, why? It's well documented that per kg meat uses far more resources (particularly water) plus produces more greenhouse gas.

1. hundreds of thousands of acres in this country are not capable of being cropped, but are grazed as part of a low input rotation for my sheep and cattle. If we were a vegan nation this would be taken out of rotation and have to be managed as no one will keep and feed commercial livestock for shits and giggles.
2. a lot of fruit and veg in this country has to be drilled under bio degradable plastic. That’s not great for the environment.
3. if glyphosate is the new devil, and people are going to campaign about pesticides and insecticides like they are doing, how are we going to grow enough produce to sustain a nation? Without covering the east in glass houses? Organic systems which don’t use chemistry yield about 10-15% less than conventional farming.

I’m a farmer, in the East of England.

Oh but my vegan friend thinks animals will just be all set free if we all turn vegan

Much of the north (and Scotland) is only suitable for grazing.

I’m a meat eater and have no problem with anyone else’s diet. I do have issue with evangelical people who insist what they are going is right and if you’re not with them you’re wrong and an idiot.

I worked with a guy for ages and he didn't know that I was vegetarian as it hadn't come up. One day, when asked which Xmas dinner I wanted for a work meal, when I requested the veggie option he started questioning me. He actually came out of his office to stand by my desk and ask whether I made my (then) 4 year veggie too. When I said no, he asked which meats I cooked for her. I had to explain her entire diet and that she was at nursery 4 days a week having non-veggie food and her father's house twice a week for dinner ... she wasn't vegetarian. He also tried to engage me in an ethics argument - I was vegetarian for personal reasons and couldn't understand why it was all such a problem for him.
I have met some vegans and vegetarians who are preachy, and that is also tiresome.

I don't mind vegans. I don't mind eating vegan food or going to a vegan restaurant. I don't even mind being told people are vegan or seeing pictures of food, I eat a wide variety of foods and I enjoy a few veggie places to eat as much as I do a steak house when I'm int he right mood.

What I do mind is the emotive language some vegans and vegetarians choose to use, dead flesh, corpses, pus filled milk, chicken periods and similar to describe an omnivores meal. Either a simple 'how was your meal?' Will suffice and if you can't manage that, maybe discuss the weather instead?

He actually came out of his office to stand by my desk and ask whether I made my (then) 4 year veggie too. When I said no, he asked which meats I cooked for her. I had to explain her entire diet

Why did you have to?

I would have told him to mind his own

It's well documented that per kg meat uses far more resources (particularly water) plus produces more greenhouse gas.

There’s meat and meat. Backyard chickens use little resource. Grazing sheep and goats on upland areas and scrub isn’t taking away land that could be used for arable crops - there’s literally nothing else we can grow there in any volume. It’s a more efficient use of the land. Slaughter and distribute locally and it’s efficient.
Beef raised in slash and burn cleared rainforest is another matter. Beef fed in feed lots from grain grown on prime arable land is another matter. Both of those have a heavy environmental footprint.
So not all meat is ‘bad’ for the environments (most of those upland areas have no lack of water.)

And not all veggies are good environmentally. Almonds are horrendously bad. Bloody palm oil in everything is bad. Avocados and other exotics shipped across the world is bad (although some offsetting byvusing empty return journey capacity.)

The most environmentally friendly option is probably to eat locally sourced meat and seasonal veg as much as you can. Support your local farmers and dairy farmers.

Avocados and other exotics shipped across the world is bad

I got flamed for daring to denigrate precious avocado. Fact is they are grown in boiling hot countries whilst needing 300 litres of water to grow one kilo.

Locally sourced meat is far more friendly to the environment.

I don't accept that vegans have a moral high ground over omnivore people.

I suspect that the British definition of vegan, that you can ONLY be vegan for animal protection reasons, may make British vegans especially preachy and believing that they own a moral high ground. Just like people newly converted to a charismatic religion tend to be obsessive and evangelical (if my family is anything to go by).

I'm finding it odd that I know nobody who is vegan under the British definition,or maybe I do and they aren't the preachy sort. Which would be great. I once dated a fussy vegetarian. Any girlfriend had to be veggie & he wouldn't let his lodgers cook meat at home; those things were all to do with a personal aversion, though, not deeper principles.

Funnily enough,I was wondering why vegans have such a problem with meat eaters!

I only have a problem when I'm having to cater. Vegans who turn up and then eat the vegetarian or the meat option when they decide it's "ethically farmed meat". After I have specifically cooked for you whilst dealing with toddlers. Feckers.

If I do not have to feed you then happy days eat what you like...

Although meat is flesh, we are fully aware of that fact, the emotive language is so rude, corpses, chickens period, etc.

Vegans and veggies eat pretty revolting stuff. Eating mushrooms i.e. the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus.

Pretty revolting to eat fungus but I wouldn't be so rude as to say that to people eating them.

I'm a meat eater. Eat what you like, follow whatever lifestyle you like, and let me do the same! Do not preach to me about my life and food choices. Bloody sick of being preached at because I choose not to be a vegan.

I'm a meat eater who isn't very interested in what anyone outside of my own family eat. What I don't understand is this; if being a vegan is so wonderful why don't they seem happy ?

I know some happy vegans