To ask what the point of Veganuary is?

[MadToBeMe]

Because it appears to be a load of people rushing out to buy fake processed junk rather than rethinking their eating habits.

It just strikes me that veganism is a life choice to avoid certain foods and products. Are all these faux vegans still wearing their leather shoes, eating avocados and almonds?

I’ve seen threads asking about buying ‘vegan food’. Err, fruit, veg, pulses, nuts, grains...when in reality I think they want the answer to be pulled pork made from soya and 20 different chemicals.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Veganism is not perfection. It is intention. The intention to do the least possible harm that is reasonable and practical. Vegans know this and accept they are not perfect and can never be, many omnivores choose to hold vegans to this bizarre impossible standard as a way of using the inevitably of some harm for their justification for unnecessary harm. Why bother at all right? Why stop harming circus animals if I step on an ant? Why boycott foie gras if a spider dies when I'm cleaning? Its not an all or nothing, its the best that each individual possibly can.

If you believe that plants are the same as animals in their life source, then you really should go vegan, as by eating the plants directly rather than through the energy inefficient middleman you'd actually be saving more of them. Also, you don't really believe this, because I bet you'd swerve onto the grass to avoid killing an animal in the road and wouldn't think twice about the plants. Its just one of the many ways omnivores try to undermine veganism.

What people seem to misunderstand is, in the nicest possible way, we don't care what you think, we care what we believe. And of course you are very welcome to do the same.

flumpybear
Omnivores catch their prey in the wild and eat it raw with talons and fangs and a digestive system that allows this. Not by factory farming billions of animals in hideous conditions while polluting the planet Humans are like all the great apes, who subsist on a diet of mostly plants and some insects.

Well, DP and I have gone vegetarian for January. We don't want to be vegan or vegetarian but do worry that we consume too much meat for our health and the environment.
So we thought if we went vegetarian for a month we would then find t easy to reduce our meat consumption when we switch back. It would also make me be more creative and discover some lovely vegetarian dishes to use.

I don't really understand why people get so upset about people trying out veganism or vegetarianism.... surely it's better than never even considering it as an option?

@kimikoglenn I wish we had a 'like' button. Your post said everything I wanted to say, only better.

YABU OP.

Incidentally, and this is a genuine question: if active promotions are being led to try to encourage non-vegans to eat vegan for a month (presumably with the hope of 'converting' them permanently) - how would vegans or vegetarians feel if there were simultaneous campaigns aiming to encourage non-meat-eaters to start including meat in their diets for a month at least, just to give it a go?

I know there have been campaigns to get people to eat more meat or different kinds of meat or specifically British or New Zealand meat; but how would you feel if there were promotions clearly aimed at tempting vegans and veggies back to meat in the equivalent way that Veganuary and the like is clearly trying to tempt meat-eaters away from eating any meat or animal products at all - as must clearly be the intention considering that meat-eating humans don't eat nothing but meat and veganism means no meat whatsoever - not just less.

I think what I'm trying to ask is, why not have positive campaigns to encourage people to eat all kinds of tasty, healthy foods, all of which happen to be vegan-friendly; rather than negative campaigns based around getting people to eat anything as long as it doesn't come from an animal? In the same way you would see "Buy British pork" but never "Buy British pork - but make sure you don't have any vegetables with it!".

I'm sure that vegans who do it for ethical beliefs (as opposed to those who dislike meat and cheese or those who care only for their own perceived optimal health and see meat and dairy as poison) would (quite fairly) tell me that that's the whole point; but it just seems to me that campaigns surrounding veganism are negative, all about telling people what they must avoid, rather than positively promoting the delicious and health-promoting things that they can choose to enjoy.

@kimikoglenn - seriously! Think you need to listen more in biology class 😂

I think veganuary is just a way to try some different foods and eating patterns for a month. If people want to do that then great, some habits and new foods may stick, some not. It's a good way to discover new recipes when it's sometimes nicer to stay in during winter too. If people want to buy lots of processed food because it's labelled "vegan" then I don't worry about it.

A bit off the point but DS (older teen) insists on pronouncing it Ve-january. He says it must be that because it's about eating Veg. Veg-anuary. I don't entirely believe he's done that by mistake.

Aw nuts. I was gonna defend veganary & say that OP is far too cynical for me. Then someone posted that the point of Veganary is precisely to promote veganism. Wanting to improve your diet or seeing other perspectives is fine, but if Veganary is about evangelical spread of a world philosophy... meh. You guys brought the backlash on yourself.

I haven't eaten since yesterday & now pondering a nice cheesy tortilla.

I'm lucky in that I can either produce, or buy from friends that do similar, much of the meat that I eat, which admittedly isn't a lot. Will be able to do my own dairy next year should I choose to as well. Can't grow veg on a scale that I need but do grow some stuff each year. I just don't like the idea that is pushed that all meat is produced on an industrial scale in 'factory farms' as it isn't. Equally, having visited some of the best of these you'd be surprised at the high standards of welfare when compared with what gets reported in the media. There's also confusion that some of the (not very nice) industrial ag processes found in the US etc are the same here, they really aren't. If you can find it and afford it you can get UK extensively reared meat and poultry but they will never be the norm when producers are competing against cheap imports in the supermarkets. Why anyone would buy a leg of New Zealand lamb in June, when UK reared meat is freely available, I'll never know but some supermarkets insist on stocking the two interchangeably. The rearing and processing impact of a lamb born in Wales and sold in London six months later is minimal compared with transporting half way across the world in cold storage.
Also this makes interesting reading but I don't know if it's been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet climatechangedispatch.com/new-research-methane-emissions-from-livestock-have-no-detectable-effect-on-the-climate/amp/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&%23038;utm_campaign=Feed:%20ClimateChangeDispatch%20(Climate%20Change%20Dispatch%20Latest%20News)

lambuary arf

I am trying it this year - meant to other years but wimped out. I don't think it's the perfect diet but I do think that the more we base our diets on plants the better. Probably 'grow-your-own' March would be better although many don't have the space, time or inclination to do it - plus we need to eat now and next week not merely in 5 months time! I have no issue with the concept of eating animal products but I am troubled by intensive farming and the environmental impact.

While I think it's always best from an environmental point of view to try and buy food that's as minimally processed as possible, I don't have any issue with sometimes having veggie sausages or veggie meatballs (two products in my fridge right now), for the many reasons posted upthread. Sometimes you want a bowl of roast veg and grains topped with hummus or tofu but dammit sometimes you just want a big fat sausage butty.

I haven't signed up officially for Veganuary, I haven't told anyone in real life apart from DH and although I started a thread on here, it was to find other people to share ideas and support with, not for 'oohs and ahhs' or likes on social media (not mentioning it on FB). Because humans are social and if we're trying out a new way of doing something then we tend to like to find other people doing it at the same time so we can share the journey. Kind of why Mumsnet was invented.

As I said on the other thread, the best philosophy/statement about diet I have come across is : Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

couch DH mused that he might find Vag-anuary a bit more fun

Duggees . Glad someone got it 😀 DS and DH were amusing the waiter in Pizza Hut the other day by asking what they had in their Vajanuary menu.

Vaganuary

*What I really hate though is people claiming that veganism is better for the environment. It isn't.

It's very naive to think that your fruit and vegetables are being grown in a way that doesn't harm wildlife even in the UK. You can bet every effort is made to make sure the bunny rabbits and the wood pigeons can't take a nibble out of a carrot or a lettuce, and that's before you even start thinking about the slugs, insects and bees.*

These are not of comparable scale. The environmental impact of meat and dairy absolutely dwarfs pesticides / rabbit trapping etc. They simply aren’t of comparable scales.

how would vegans or vegetarians feel if there were simultaneous campaigns aiming to encourage non-meat-eaters to start including meat in their diets for a month at least, just to give it a go?

I wouldn’t really care tbh. I already manage to deal with intensive advertising campaigns promoting meat products and the fact that most restaurants and supermarkets operate on the basis that eating meat is the norm. If they started targeting that at vegetarians and vegans particularly I would find it odd since for many people eating meat is the status quo whereas being vegan or veggie is often an ethical choice, but I wouldn’t be offended by it, just like I’m not offended by ads for Big Macs.

Yabu
The point of veganuary imo is to reduce reliance on animal products and to eat a more plant based diet

Not! It's a huge marketing exercise... there are a few winners. Farmers: gives them time / space to get the Easter lambs ready ... after the Christmas turkeys.
Food factories: selling even more processed foods by tapping into a new unexplored market. F
Supermarkets: selling cheap junk foods at inflated prices. They have a profits and cash flow to think about as January is known as quiet.

@kimikoglenn - Thanks for your very well-considered arguments. It's always good when adults can engage in a respectful debate rather than the way some just throw an abusive stink-bomb and run.

I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with people who choose a vegan or vegetarian diet for themselves - for whatever reason(s). People's dietary choices should be respected by others, although I don't see an issue with respectful discussions of those choices, if both parties are happy to do so, whether in person or on a public forum.

I apologise for my not making my division of the two groups crystal clear.

My issue is with the many vegans who vocally assume themselves uncontroversially to have the higher moral ground and preach to people who have made a different choice (often seeming to believe them to be stupid - i.e. 'if only they knew that meat comes from killing living animals, they would make the 'right' choice').

The intention to do the least possible harm that is reasonable and practical, whilst understanding that 'perfection' in your own ideal standards is impossible, is very admirable, and any omnivores who seek to hold vegans to the impossible extreme standard of their beliefs are highly intolerant and well out of order, while the said vegan is going quietly about their beliefs for themselves and not attempting to demonstrate their own undeniable piety at every corner.

However, if a vegan sees a person quietly enjoying eating meat and spontaneously decides to go on the attack, hurling insults at the meat eater for choosing not to agree with their (vegan's) ideal for themselves (meat eater's) at any level - whether or not (as most don't) they begin screaming that they are evil, sick murderers and brandishing placards showing scenes from abattoirs - then their intolerance will be met with my intolerance and a demand for them to justify how they are so perfectly pious if I am such scum.

Surely, it is for each individual to decide their own beliefs and what they personally wish to adhere to.

For example, Person A might have had a few long-term sexual relationships and shout abuse at Person B for going home with a different stranger every Friday night. Person C has only ever had sex with one person, and only within the confines of marriage, and believes both A & B to be thoroughly immoral - and vociferously and repeatedly tells them how disgusting they are. Meanwhile, Person D is a nun, who might find it impossible to believe that anybody could want to cheapen themselves in any way through carnal relations, and hurls accusations of vile impurity at A, B & C for wantonly having their varying levels of relationships, when 'everybody knows' they should be 'married to God' and that the only honourable state therefore is complete abstinence.

Alternatively, any of them could respectfully ask any of the others if they're interested in calmly and kindly discussing their different viewpoints in an adult fashion, asking how they arrive at them and if situation xxxx causes them any personal moral issues or if they feel no reason at all for that to be the case. It's all about respect.

If you believe that plants are the same as animals in their life source, then you really should go vegan.... Also, you don't really believe this, because I bet you'd swerve onto the grass to avoid killing an animal in the road and wouldn't think twice about the plants. It's just one of the many ways omnivores try to undermine veganism.

Obviously, I don't believe this at all. I believe that farmed crops and animals are equally valid as human food choices, however, I believe that animals can feel pain in a way that plants probably can't (and are usually considered more loved and/or valuable to their owners, if they are not wild), so of course I'd swerve to avoid accidentally hurting it, prioritising its life over that of crops. However, that doesn't mean that I would go trampling crops for wanton fun, estimating them as of no value at all, rather than using the footpath.

What people seem to misunderstand is, in the nicest possible way, we don't care what you think, we care what we believe. And of course you are very welcome to do the same.

I'm very glad that you, like many vegans, are happy to let other humans get on with their own life choices as they let you get on with yours. My only issue is with those vegans (who are NOT insignificant in number) who clearly DO care what (they perceive that) I believe and want to use force, shame or coercion tactics to make me change my choices to theirs without absolute freedom of choice on my part.

As I said, it's all about respect - and thank you for clearly demonstrating yours. I hope that mine has also clearly been conveyed.

flumpybear

Feel free to tell me how I'm wrong...

lljkk

Of course Veganuary promotes eating vegan. If it didn't it wouldn't be called that. Bizarre reasoning there.

how would vegans or vegetarians feel if there were simultaneous campaigns aiming to encourage non-meat-eaters to start including meat in their diets for a month at least, just to give it a go?

That's every month. Have a look around, the meat and dairy industry loves to advertise.

@ylvamoon I do think you're right, it taps into the 'new year new me' mindset which is cynical but very clever. Equally if people are doing to to have a go at a healthier diet, or commit to it because they don't want to eat stuff from animals, I don't think it's a bad thing, each to their own. It's the "all farming is bad" and "plants will save the planet" arguments that grate on me.
As an aside there are very few people farming both sheep and turkeys other than little smallholders like me 🙂 probably the two most frustrating animals to rear

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Agreed. Always much more productive to have a conversation like this. I used to be a meat eater, and used to eat my steak rare, I totally get it.

For me something just changed, and Veganuary did that for me, not in a preachy way, more like in a, its not as hard as you think way. It is a positive movement really, its meant to promote compassion for other animals. Not anything more than that.

Well done Scrowy Happy New Year!

I am not vegan or even veggie but surely the idea of being vegan is simply not to eat any animal products, no rule says it’s got to be healthy.

Any diet has the potential to be healthy or not. Some vegans like eating beans and fruit others like Linda McCarthy pulled pork and Oreos by the packet. In the same way some meat eaters buy organic good quality meat and fruit but others live on processed sausage & cookies 🤷🏻‍♀️ So I don’t see why “unhealthy” vegans get a battering the aim is to simply not eat animals products

As for Veganuary well people just need something to do after Christmas and a lot of people eat a LOT of meat over the festive period so maybe they just fancy something different? Can also be a good way to learn new veg recipes etc

I think anything that reduces meat consumption, even if it's only for a month, is worthwhile.

It helps people to realise we don't need to kill animals in order to eat and that they can do it.

I'm not vegan btw.

Veganism is more than a way of eating though, isn't it.

I did veganuary last year and stayed vegan, so it worked on me! Dh did it last year, him and dd are doing this year too although don’t intend to carry on afterwards.

DD did veganuary last year and is doing it again this year -she's away at uni and does her own cooking. When she got to the end of January last year, I asked if she felt better for following a vegan diet, and she replied "unfortunately, yes!" - she loves cheese. Inspired by this, I gave up meat and dairy for Lent, so was still eating fish and eggs.

So, what I learnt from this, and how I've changed my own diet, is to eat what I want, and that is mainly vegetarian and vegan, as the one remaining DC at home is vegetarian, and then having a bacon butty, or a roast dinner when I fancy it. I'm thinking about my own health and not aiming to save the planet or preach to others.