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.

Nobody want to answer my question??

Probably because don't want to substitute meat for supplements.

Sorry, I said meat. I meant fear, pain etc...

Loving your unbiased source there entitled “why nutritional yeast is not a vegan health food” . Yes, both are grown/farmed in an appropriate environment, and then preserved in appropriate way to the product. Very similar. Do you cook your food? That also causes “thermal degradation and loss of nutrients”.

Nutritional yeast is grown in a lab. It is cultured then processed. It’s a processed food (and quite good for you regardless.) but it is processed

the costs of poor national health are everyone’s (apart from the super rich)

What costs? Like smoking we make a massive profit as a country from people who die young and cheap. If your benchmark is people you live until 90 declining gradually with dementia and other chronic conditions of old age, then people volunteering to die young is great financial news. It was people stopping smoking, as well as Brown’s mad raid on dividend tax, which bankrupted defined benefit pension schemes. If people want to have a heart attack in their sixties, forgoing twenty or more years of pension, who am I to complain?

Vegan farming cant feed the worlds population. for example a percentage of the worlds farmland can only be used to grow grass (think of the Welsh hill farms with shallow topsoil). Humans cannot eat grass. Animals can convert it to meat, milk and wool.

If you choose to be vegan that's your choice. Stop pretending veganism can save the world, it can't.

You can’t really say factory farmed, intensively bred animals are “ natural” food can you? They re all given supplements, vegans just cut out the middle man - taking the supplements themselves if they wish to. If you were going out catching your own wild animal I might see it as more natural, but those plastic slabs in the supermarket ugh.

If you choose to be vegan that's your choice. Stop pretending veganism can save the world, it can't.*

It can though

You can’t really say factory farmed, intensively bred animals are “ natural” food can you?

Free range lamb is pretty natural. The beef from our local farmer (grass fed, very free range cattle) is natural. The eggs from the farm near us are natural - the chickens wander round quite happily. The wool I sew and knit with is from well kept flocks and is more environmentally friendly than polyester, or acrylic which don’t degrade and shed microplastics at each wash (or cotton which uses shitloads of water and pesticide.)

I don’t buy factory farmed meat or eggs. Well farmed though? Yup

@Userschmoozer what do you think all the animals eat? How many factory farmed and naturally living animals are there across the world? Where do we grow their food? Of course there's enough space, 'we' just choose to use it to support the mass slaughter of animals at the moment.
@reflectentminatomism that's a very selfish attitude to have- not everyone thinks money is the be all and end all. Anyway how much money do you think it costs the NHS every year to manage people living with obesity, high cholesterol, heart conditions etc let alone the pain and suffering it causes to their family.

@ReflectentMonatomism even.

You can’t really say factory farmed, intensively bred animals are “ natural” food can you?

But most of such meat is meat I fo not eat. I buy meat raised by the farmer and sold direct by him. From land which is useless for crops, largely, and within fifty miles of where I live. Unless you are going to claim the uk is short of water or that hillsides can be farmed, I fail to see the environmental argument.

Yes, eating ethically sourced meat is a position of privilege. But so is almond milk, which is environmentally catastrophic.

Factory farmed or organic it all ends up in a slaughter house. Aside of having to take a vitamin B12 supplement (which isn't strictly a vegan issue anyway) it seems extreme/cruel to eat sentient beings that want to live purely for pleasure?

Think of the amount of grain they consume. If we have space to grow that we definitely have space enough to grow veg and grain for humans. We also have the intelligence to make our food cruelty free and tasty. Surely, its not too much of a sacrifice?

I've started a thread in vegan asking for help to become vegan. Everyone who has responded is pretty clear that it's almost impossible for our family!

You don’t have to be vegan to help the planet and your own body. Just eat less meat and dairy, and more plant based meals. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing!!!

I am a Vegan, I don’t expect everyone to be one too.

Think of the amount of grain they consume.

Almost none in the UK. Free range lamb on upland pasture ? Zero. They eat grass. The land isn’t suitable for much else

That's not true Bowlofbabelfish, loads of grain is produced here.

If you choose to be vegan that's your choice. Stop pretending veganism can save the world, it can't.

Not sure what you meant by the world. Do you mean the planet itself? Or do you mean save the starving people in the world?

The planet itself will survive whatever we humans do to it. It's us and other species that are going to struggle to survive if we don't address some of the more pressing issues.

Think of the amount of grain they consume. If we have space to grow that we definitely have space enough to grow veg and grain for humans.

No, that isn't true. A percentage of farmland is only capable of growing subsistence crops such as grass which we can't eat. If we all go vegan it will mean less land available for food production.

Try to read an alternative POV; we all need to switch to eating more locally produced food, and reject giant agribusiness and monoculture whereever possible.
www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804?tag=mumsnetforum-21

That's not true Bowlofbabelfish, loads of grain is produced here.

On upland welsh grazing pasture? Really?

Factory farmed pigs in the U.K. eat soybeans, meat bonemeal and grain

It's also been widely reported that dairy cattle are fed fish bonemeal and soyabean meal as it's shown to increase milk yield. So to think that all farm animals graze naturally is a bit naive. Hence why so many farmers supplement their animals diet with B12. Because it's just not present in meat in enough quantities anymore. So in many instances meat eaters are in fact already taking a b12 supplement it just goes through the animal first.

So my question still stands if we can supplement our plant based diet with any of the vitamins and minerals we need why are we still slaughtering millions of animals to get the same nutrients??

Because I have coeliac disease so my diet is restricted enough. I don't buy gluten free bread etc as it's too expensive. I also don't buy meat as good quality meat is too expensive.

We're not in Wales