I’m so fed up with all this vegan wankery

[TitaniaQueenOfTheFairies]

To all you actual vegans, amazing, I wish you a long and happy life.

I am just so fed up with veganism taking over the world, when I have yet to come across an actual one. *edited to say that some places in the world don’t have a choice

Restaurants falling over themselves with vegan menus offering fake meat and plastic cheese.

Veganuary - people just going to the supermarket and buying fake meat, rather than actually trying to eat differently.

People eating ‘vegan food’. Just eat an apple, or a carrot with houmous or any other naturally occurring food that an animal hasn’t produced. It’s not hard.

And I can’t even begin with all the plant based twattery. Many people have been quietly eating less or no meat, fish, eggs & dairy for many years and have had no need to pontificate about it.

I know I am probably being unreasonable but I just need to say it.

Well thank God underneaththeash has happened upon this thread! She’s here to settle the debate with an informative and decisive post to put us all straight!
And to think she nearly missed it!

The ridicule some people lash out to vegans is just gross behavior for a human being to exhibit, just repellant.
There are some right twats out there, some are vegans and some are not. But I think I would prefer a twat who doesn't mock pain, fear, suffering and death over those who do.

“If a mouthy vegan came up to me at a shop or cafe I'd ignore and eat my burger like it's the most orgasmic burger in the world and the mouthy vegan ain't even there. Which to many would be worse than me mouthing off back.”

Bless you and your wee scenario. I’ve never had my meal interrupted by a mouthy vegan in a cafe in my entire life but I’m sure the sight of you orgasmically relishing your burger would be enough to send anyone packing.

There have been a few protests poo up though. A vegan (protestor) got a punch in the face on a Pizza Express recently.

I have seen the whole vegan thing just shift over to take over the vegetarian options.

So the meat/poultry/fish eaters aren’t making concessions to diets at all - vegetarians are having their choices limited.

Im not a vegan but i think its common for a minority to be frowned on by an oppressive majority who think their way is the norm and therefore superior. The rampant hatred of cyclists on mumsnet follows the same narrow minded bollox. Just let vegans be.

pictish I am a little bit in love with you. Brilliant repartee, love it!

@pictish 😁😁👍

@underneaththeash

"Vegan diets DO NOT provide enough nutrient and minerals to sustain humans and therefore are not healthy or balanced. "

How do you know this? Please share your sources?

Before I went vegan (after seeing the horrific routine abuse dairy cows and newborn calves suffer) I asked two relatives (with access to up to date scientific papers- one a GP and one a kidney scientist) to research whether or not it could be a healthy diet. This was as well as doing my own extensive research.

They both came back and said 'yes!' (They are both meat eaters so had no agenda - unlike a lot of the info out there which is obviously or not so obviously funded by the meat and dairy industry. (They want our money remember!)

It surprised me too initially, but now 5 years in I've never felt better and don't have to worry about my weight. Win win.

You will be able to watch the videos of the mindless torture the Neanderthal workers inflict on the living creatures in their care. Still, it's all good fun isn't it, it's only meat. Kicking a pig to death to make a you tube video doesn't matter does it?

This is not a standard though. The fact that few do it doesn't mean people eating meat are ok with it. These people are and should be properly punished. Animal is supposed to be stunned and not kick to death. Quite obviously. Using this is a same like some people using aggressive vegans attacking people eating meat, to support their arguments. Both are a minority and both of these minorities should be seriously dealt with and suffer appropriate consequences.

Does veganism widen menu choices for vegetarians in a positive way though? A lot of veggies I know love cheese and eggs. A lot of menus now lump together their vegan and vegetarian option. If I was vegetarian I’d be angry at the vegans for stealing my cheese.

Serious question. Really not taking a piss.

Can vegans eat jellyfish?

Cruelty in slaughter is almost a definite for all creatures passing through UK abbatoirs. Do your research, Google your local one. Or even better, go and visit them, if people insisted on seeing how their meat is killed, abbatoirs would start to self regulate rather than depend on undercover activists to tell them what's going on.

@IAmALazyArse

Yes those incidents are hopefully not standard. However there is no rule for slaughterhouses to currently have CCTV so I bet a lot goes on.

Unfortunately it's the routine suffering I object to. In order to 'produce' milk the cow must be 'artificially inseminated' against her will Some call it rape, some don't and I'm not getting into that. But the process is not vastly different to anyones eyes.

Next after birthing the baby it is removed permanently from the mother at 24-72 hours old (I emailed Tesco, Sainsbury's and step Valley to confirm) Seeing footage of this broke my meat eating heart 😭

If the calf is female it is raised often alone in a small pen, no physical contact at all- torture for a baby animal. If it is male it is sometimes raised for veal (and killed at a young age).

Many males are simply shot at birth (over 50,000 in 2013.)

If you see slaughterhouse footage it is clear to see even if everything is carried out PERFECTLY by the rules (and our rules are better than imported meat) The animals are terrified, they are killed at an age a fraction of their natural lifespan. They know what's coming. They are innocent and trusting. We don't need to do this to them. So why do we really?

I agree with @bluebluezoo and others on the last page that it isn't all or nothing.
I'm trying to cut down on animal products to reduce my carbon footprint but find that if I eat completely vegan every meal I can get a bit bloated from the beans/ lentils etc, and a bit tired from low iron. DD1 is vegan, DD2 veggie and DH omnivore. It's easiest to mostly cook vegan for everyone, but once in a while I cook meat for me and DH ( no more than once a week, probably slightly less). I also do pizza once a week or so for the 3 of us that eat cheese.
It annoys me if people think it's all or nothing, and I'm hypocritical if I ask for the vegan menu at a pub (when I know there is one) but occasionally eat meat.

• Sorry that was meant to say Yeo Valley not 'step Valley'

Seems to me there's far more meat-eating twattery going around than there is vegan wankery.

OP @TitaniaQueenOfTheFairies - have we answered your original question do you think?

*Clayplease
However there is no rule for slaughterhouses to currently have CCTV so I bet a lot goes on.

You'll be glad to know that there is.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/cctv-in-slaughterhouses-rules-for-operators

@taybert - yes! I’m now seeing the veggie options replaces with vegan choices - and often it’s just a couple of side dishes thrown together! I don’t like dairy alternatives. I like cheese, sour cream, eggs... I’m actually finding food (in cafes, restaurants etc) worse now than with was when I became veggie (1984!)

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

That's such good news! I don't know how that passed me by, I remember signing petitions in support of it, so that's great.

Thank you for the info on cctv. I hope it will offer some protection against abuse.

@LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD It's not as bad as the 80's, we could only have salads then, we couldn't even have butter or margarine on bread because it had fish oil in it. Also everything was tested on animals. It was horrendous back then, we had to shop at health stores for everything!

See I'm not bothered about the veggie option being taken over by a vegan one, but get that others may be.

I do think the op needs a massive though.

I did ok in the 80s - even in France! Now it’s greasy roast veg, lumpy grains and loads of oil.

Clayplease, yes, isn't it. (About time too, though.)

And we can hope that the legal requirement for slaughterhouses to have CCTV in them will mean that the horror-videos on the internet are all of them more than a year old, now, and no new ones can be made in this country.

PlaceYourItemInTheBaggingArea, butter really had fish oil in it in the eighties? I have always had to check ingredients on everything I buy, to make sure soya hasn't somehow got into it so that it will make me ill ("Willow" is not butter!) and never noticed. I am sure that in order for something to be sold as butter now, the only ingredients allowed are milk and salt. Otherwise it has to call itself something else, like maybe a spread.

Margarine quite often contains milk -- I had to check that for a friend of mine who was severely lactose-intolerant.

@GoldenKelpie
I’m by no means an expert, but I wouldn’t be so sure that humans “have always” eaten substantial quantities of meat. Eg, blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/human-ancestors-were-nearly-all-vegetarians/
It’s very much still an area of under discovery. Certainly our digestive systems are far from ideal for eating meat. We can eat (cooked) meat, but are pretty poorly designed for doing so.

You don't have to go back that far, you know. Meat was not much part of the diet in England for any except the wealthy, from the Norman conquest onwards. In the early 20th century most people living in Oxfordshire villages were lucky to see it more than once a week, and when it was available (often bacon to boil) most would go to the working man of the family, with the wife and children making do with the "broth" it had been boiled in, along with potatoes. And of course in the thirties meat was certainly too much of a luxury to be afforded by a large part of the population!

At the end of the second world war the weekly ration for an adult was
Bacon & Ham 4 oz
Other meat value of 1 shilling and 2 pence (equivalent to 2 chops)
Butter 2 oz
Cheese 2 oz
Margarine 4 oz
Cooking fat 4 oz
Milk 3 pints
Sugar 8 oz
Preserves 1 lb every 2 months
Tea 2 oz
Eggs 1 fresh egg (plus allowance of dried egg)
Sweets 12 oz every 4 weeks

Locally-grown fruit and vegetables were not rationed, but people started saving up dried fruit for a Christmas pudding some time in about July as far as I can make out.

And it was all carefully worked out to make sure everyone had enough to eat, too, and the right sort of nourishment to keep them reasonably healthy.