To ask why you aren’t vegan

[Whereisthecoffee]

I’m not vegan , I know it’s good for the planet kinder to animals etc but it’s something I just can’t seem to get to grips with. I’ve been thinking about starting vegan January but I’m not sure. Thinking about my choices and it’s prevalence in the media has made me curious about others so tell me why aren’t you vegan? I think my main reason is convenience.

I went mainly vegan about 18 months ago because I started reading about how how animals are maintained and kept and I couldn't justify my previous omnivore diet with the amount of animal cruelty it involved. I know some animals are kept well but the vast majority are factory farmed as is the vast amount of dairy. And standards in many abbatoirs are horrific so even an animal with a nice outdoorsy life often has a horrible, prolonged end. I don't have a huge issue with game for example- I choose not to eat it but but I don't think shooting a wild rabbit is equivalent to e.g., a farmed chicken.

I eat the occasional egg from some hens kept by a local woman. And i haven't chucked out my leather sofa. But I don't feel my love of roast chicken (and I did love it) can justify the suffering it entails.

Regarding my own health, you can have a rubbish diet whether you are vegan, veggie or as a meat-eater. Personally I now eat better i think following a (mainly) vegan diet because I cook and eat a wider variety of fresh plant-based food and eat less processed food and definitely less sugar. I also now take B12, iron etc. And there are so many vegan alternatives nowadays plus I eat a lot more curries, chillies etc, which are easily vegan.

It's completely up to other people what they eat, I'm not that interested, each to their own and all that - but I get loads of people commenting on my choice.

I find it difficult to know how to have a balanced vegan diet. Not that I have a balanced diet normally....

People are so hung up on the eating and food aspect of veganism, they are forgetting the other important factors of veganism;

Leather products can't be used. Think about how many leather products you own - sofas, handbags, shoes, car seats, steering wheels etc.

How many clothes, carpets etc contain wool - loads.

Vaccines and medication is tested on animals. Are vegans anti vaxxers and refuse all medication as they should be (however idiotic that's stance is).

Lots of makeup and cosmetics are tested on animals.

If you own a pet you are controlling an animal and restricting its natural lifecycle.

It is impossible to be truly vegan as your everyday life would be impossible when you think about the above.... some things you can mitigate but others you can't at all!

I have no problem what people choose to eat or not whatever the case may be but I do have a problem with people that think they have the right to lecture anyone else.

Yes, to all of this.

Goodwordguide Agree and understand your point about not wanting to fund or support farms whose animals aren't well cared for which is why I only buy local produce or UK higher welfare traceable.

There will always be the bad apples sadly but most farmers in the UK do give their animals good care and treat them well. Farmers have a saying that if you look after your animals they will look after you and it's a fair statement.

Because veganism would fuck up biodiversity and kill off all our natural wildlife.

Interested as to why people think vegan foood is over processed shite?

Yes they are many more vegan junk food type products around now but to equate that with most vegans having a bad processed diet is illogical, there is way more non vegan junk food! There are people on both sides of the camp who have ‘bad’ diets.

Totally skip past this bit of you are not interested.. Typically what I cook in a day is porridge/overnight oats for breakfast which you can make as simple or extravagant as you like. Sometimes make a smoothie in the summer. Salad/soup/leftovers for lunch depending on the time of year or how busy I am. Dinner you have lots of options really curry, risotto, pasta dishes, stir fry, jacket potatoes and roast dinner just without the meat is lovely! Cottage pie with lentils instead of mince is one of my favourites at this time of year.

The argument mentioned a few post ago about being able to live to 90 instead of 88 by going vegan and those two years not being worth it. Ok I get what you are saying, but just imagine this, even if both diets were exactly the same heath wise, cost wise just as easy to shop and cook for and so on the only difference one you prefer the taste of and the other causes untold suffering to other living beings, which would you choose and why?

Another way to look at it imagine it was the other way around and you were a meat eater in a world of vegans would you still argue so loudy for your animal product diet without the strength in numbers you have now? It’s easy to come on these threads and be pro meat and dairy because so many other people will come along and reaffirm your beliefs, imagine if that was not the case?

Regarding eating eggs a happy well looked after chicken has layed in your garden. Apparently if it’s not fertilised the chicken eats it itself again, but I don’t think these chickens are the issue, I care about the male chicks ground up because they are no use and chickens in mass production egg farms. Also even free range cage free hens, even if they have a happy life laying eggs they don’t go to a chicken retirement farm when they have stopped laying.. treating any animal as a product rarely ends well for them.

Lastly I am not anti vaccines and certainly not an mlm bot! Also I’m from farming family, I am certainly not a trendy, hippy, townie jumping on a fad.

Anyway merry Christmas to everyone whatever/whoever you are putting on your plate tomorrow

One last thing then I’m off, I accept in my life time it will probably never be possible to be truly 100% vegan for all the reasons stated above by the previous poster but I don’t think that is a reason not to try to do our absolute best to try.

I try to be polite and kind to people wherever possible but I’m human so I know I won’t manage it all the time but doesn’t mean I will say fuck it may as well not bother and behave like a total cunt 24/7!

@Guavaf1sh but it's not true that veganism is only open to people with money.

Chickpea curry cheaper than chicken curry; bean chilli cheaper than beef chilli; cottage pie made with lentils cheaper than beef or lamb

You might not like these foods but it's certainly not true that vegan versions of popular dishes are more expensive.

Anyone who feels attacked will go on the defence, especially if it’s something they kinda already know deep down is a bit wrong.

A vegan diet is hard if it goes against what you are used to, and some people probs just eat the same food and cut out the meat?! You shouldn’t do that.

People have to give up stuff they love for food intolerances etc and they manage it. You have really to want to do it, or else be made to for health etc. Loads of people loved smoking but still gave up eventually. But many do still smoke tho too..

I like meat, fish, dairy, honey etc.

Vegan food is tasty. But I like everything else too.

Cheese and bacon mainly

NutRoastNancy Great post, i agree with every word.

""Think of how you feel when you are angry, afraid, grief stricken. Bear in mind the physical feelings that accompany these emotions. These emotions, fear, grief and rage, produce chemical changes in our bodies. They do the same to animals. Their blood pressures rise. Adrenaline courses through their bodies. You are eating high blood pressure, stress and adrenaline. You are eating fear, grief and rage. You are eating suffering, horror and murder. You are eating cruelty. You are what you eat.
So when you sit down tomorrow to celebrate Christmas and wish each other a peaceful new year remember "Peace begins on you plate" ""

Lmao no, im eating meat, iron, protein. You dont eat cruelty, fear, grief or rage, thats something you attribute to meat, not me.

Time to get the ham and turducken in the oven......

""I care about the male chicks ground up because they are no use ""

I dare you to take in a mass of roosters then....
Evil birds, they attack anything that moves. We have 2, got them in a heap of hen chicks we bought. They have to be permanently separated from the hens and are never free range like our hens. Not only did they rip the hens apart trying to screw them, they would attack me, dp and dd. They can easily take out an eye and have drawn blood and put my knee out of line with one hit
Yeah its sad baby chicks killed but them baby chicks turn to unmanageable bastards

Lmao no, im eating meat, iron, protein. You dont eat cruelty, fear, grief or rage, thats something you attribute to meat, not me.
When you say that, you do realise that there is very solid, widely accepted evidence that both acute and chronic stress experienced by farmed animals significantly affects the taste, quality and nutrition of their meat - which is either an argument for better welfare or just not doing it in the first place, depending on your POV - but it’s not really hyperbole to say that when we eat meat (especially from animals killed in an abbatoir, transported long distances to the abbatoir, and/or intensively reared) we eat fear etc, as that fear significantly affects their meat.

The answer to day-old chicks being discarded is to not breed them in the first place btw, not adopt them out as pets, clearly!

I like what I eat and I know it is looked after well. I dislike being preached to and told how my choices are wrong simply because you somehow believe you are in some way superior because you make different choices.

Oh and the general anthropomorphism that goes along with veganism does my tits in. You can’t murder an animal- that word specifically applies to humans killing humans. You can slaughter, kill, cull, dismember etc, but you can’t murder an animal. Nor do they have the range of emotions that militant vegans seem so desperate to attribute to them, but that probably doesn’t suit their agenda to know that so they’ll carry on saying it.

I'm not vegan because I adore cooking and eating and don't feel vegan cookery is as interesting. Maybe I haven't tried hard enough. I wish I could be. Also, my family and friends aren't and I worry it would be is difficult at meals in their houses and in restaurants

but it’s not really hyperbole

Except it it...

The thing being eaten is called meat. Fear may affect the taste or whatever, but it's still just called "meat". We are eating meat, not fear itself.

It is *

Well that pretty much sums it up doesn't it.
The "thing" ... not the defenceless creature who lived in squalor and died in terror.

I am vegan, vegetarian and a meat eater. I try and be vegan 1 day a week and a vegy 1 day too.

These responses show that as a human race we are too selfish to change with respect to the environment. Animals, plastics, climate change, nuclear weapons, war. No, the future fur humanity is bleak.

Oh shut up Patsy.

Good comeback AGHHHH.