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.

@Hillarious I think you’re showing that it’s both possible and sensible to take a flexible and nuanced approach to this.

Not everyone is going to want to be vegan or vegetarian, and that’s fine. But anything we can do to reduce worldwide meat consumption is good for the planet. Veganuary is one way of promoting that.

Nobody benefits from any argument that insists meat eaters are all evil bastards, or that vegans are all nutritionally deficient. There are lots of way to eat a healthy diet, and there are lots of ways to reduce meat consumption and minimise the environmental impact of our lifestyles without everyone needing to be vegan.

Let’s live in the middle! Let’s appreciate nuance! Let’s be accepting of each other! Let’s not feel the need to get entrenched in our views! There is space for everyone to improve without having to do so in the same way.

I think if someone wants to try being vegan for january so they can check how realistic a lifestyle choice for them is, without long term commiting to it, then thats great.

If they think that going vegan means that they will save the world, then they might be disappointed.

If all the meat eaters want to laugh and point out the occasional vegan food that is possibly a bit dubious, whilst stil being officially vegan, in order to discredit anybody that wants to do a bit of harm reduction in their diet then that is completely dull and boring

About two thirds of the animal feeds marketed in the Republic of Ireland are imported, compared to 37% in the UK, 27% in France, and 26% in Germany. However our sheep eat grass and silage (in winter) the vast majority of the time.

It's ridiculous. I'm fairly certain that after they've Instagramed their unhealthy Greggs vegan sausage roll they probably pop off home for their usual dinner. It's just a silly phase for most of them that I'm sure won't even last until the end of January! The shops are all jumping on the money train as they can sell cheaper products (veg!) for a fortune as they are special food for the special vegans. Each to their own, but I worry about the long term effects that cutting out major food groups will have on people's health. I may be wrong but I don't think we can get all we need from plants.

You are wrong

I actually think it's a wonderful thing. I will fully support anything that makes people stop and think about their lifestyle choices, their poor eating habits, the long term health implications of eating so much processed shit, cutting back on their personal consumption, the damaging environmental impacts, the horrific animal welfare standards within our meat and dairy industries, etc.

I'm not a vegan and I know I would seriously struggle with Veganism, but I started doing a lot of research and making positive changes towards the end of last year to cut down our personal meat and dairy consumption. I was absolutely horrified by some of the things I learned, especially in terms of 'free range' and 'organic' meat/dairy labels, and what they actually mean. I felt genuinely sick learning about the health implications of eating processed meat, because it is so, SO bad for our bodies. It just about broke my heart researching animal welfare standards - I thought I knew far more than I did!

Educating small ignorance's can have a huge impact on your personal choices. And those personal choices are ultimately what drives the supply and demand wheel. Thinking your small consumptions have zero impact on the wheel is wrong. If we all made just a few small tweaks here and there to cut back a bit, we could change things for the better. It's things like knowing how much PUSS is in our cows milk. It's knowing exactly what we do to our poor wee surplus male dairy calves. It's researching the cancer risks associated with eating processed meats. It's realising just how pumped full of drugs and infections and god knows what other nasties our poultry are - and we're ingesting all of them too when we eat them. It's knowing the percentage of antibiotics being fed to our livestock - ask yourselves why.

Ultimately, I see it as the promotion of wider awareness that could potentially lead to doing a little less harm. How can that possibly be something to sneer at?

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!

This is the problem nowadays. Unless it can be done right now, right here, people just won't do it.

Everyone has a space and time for 1 plant. Even if it's just a pot with their favourite herb, it will make a difference as they don't need to buy it, hence no plastic wrapping and ferrying it from point a to b. Same with regrowing lettuce. If you have a space for a bowl on a windowsill, you got a space for a plant. Now it's a great time to start buying seeds btw.

I am doing veganuary.

There are vegans in my family.

I can no longer be bothered to make more than one kind of food.

Hence why doing veganuary.

@marydollnesbitt you've just illustrated exactly what I was saying earlier- "all ag is bad". Apologies if you're not in the UK but did you know many supermarkets here have (rightly) banned routine use of antibiotics in poultry from their suppliers. In larger animals they will almost always only be used when an animal is ill, and I don't think anyone would begrudge that. All antibiotics have strict 'withdrawal times' that mean they are clear of the animal's system-just as they would be in a human- before they go into the food chain. I can tell you (because by law I have to record it) exactly what medication my animals have had during their lives and it is minimal. "Poor wee bull calves" are rarely shot at birth now partly-correctly- due to public pressure but also because they actually have a value and a purpose. A lot of McDonald's beef now is actually from dairy herds where the cow is crossed with a beef bull. This won't placate the vegan who believes we shouldn't eat them at all, but it's important that false measages like these are challenged for the benefit of those who are undecided. Not as catchy as an emotive video with sad music, but facts are facts.

That's just one set of counter points to the sort of ideas people get sold by social media and so on. I'll agree with you though that organic isn't necessarily what people assume it is, but equally anyone naive enough to think free range means an animal has total freedom to roam wherever it likes probably needs to think that through a little more.

Can't understand what The issue is.
And I'm not vegan or vegetarian.

@kimikoglenn - omnivores - definition - all / everything ... its not about talons, catching wild food ... sounds like bollocks words to spew on fact in the hope that it changes it ... it doesn't, humans are omnivores

Soooo. No one is joining us for grow your own March?

Apparently not @OftenHangry we are just so untrendy.

@Pachyderm1 - let's do lunch!

@MadToBeMe so lame😂 We should really think about our lives now😂

I grew my own last year, not just in March but right the way through to October. I made jams and chutneys and salsas and even raspberry wine, and froze lots of fruit and veg too. I'm now slowly using it all up and have of course included it in what I'm eating for Veganuary!

I'm up for grow your own March! We are moving house and while our garden will be smaller it is a blank canvas rather than a collection of previous owners' plants, our efforts and ground elder. I try planting salad leaves every year but the neighborhood cats dig them up and wee in the tubs however much I try to protect them (we don't have space for a greenhouse), so not having them around will be nice. I have quite a few herb plants - sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, lavender - that we will take with us along with some wild strawberry plants and the blueberry bushes, although I'm not sure if the raspberry canes can be transplanted quite so easily. And obviously the apple and plum trees will have to stay.

Never been very successful at growing veg but I would like to try butternut squash although I will be having a baby round about when they are harvested/in the key fattening up season. And I will definitely be getting a chilli plant.

So yes I do already do a bit of grow your own, but I understand that it's not so easy for everyone and my point earlier about needing to eat today wasn't so much about us all being so immediate these days but that you can only grow so much of it yourself unless you are a full time allotmenteer or have no other hobbies, and in the meantime while things are growing - and in the winter/ early spring, there's a good chance you would have to buy extra food anyway.

Yet another go at vegans it's getting boring.
Try it before you slate it.

Zzzzzz.

All vegans are evil. Obviously.

Give me a faux vegan over boring bashers any day.

I think for the majority it's a perfect opportunity to practice their virtual signalling whilst wearing sackcloth and ashes and being 'worthy' for a month. I wonder how many tuck into a nice, fat, juicy steak on 1 Feb?

It's things like knowing how much PUSS is in our cows milk

Cats getting into the milk, whatever next?

Just to add a Brexit No Deal observation: learning some vegan recipes using shelf stable products is a very good idea.

@Whatsnewwithyou & @DuggeesWooOOooggle
Wooohooo. Another members of untrendy club. Congrats on your successes! Honestly.

Cats are annoying. We are battling them here too.

Fridge and freezer in Sainsbury’s full of processed vegan crap. Example: falafel balls with 20g saturated fat, hardly healthy.

Is that in the whole pack though?

I agree, vegan food doesn’t deserve the health halo that it gets. It’s just food without egg or dairy. Some healthy, some not.

I’m up for Grow your own March, as I said earlier I already grow my own, some seeds are already sown for this year.