AIBU to suggest that you aren't really an animal lover if you're not a vegan

[KylieKoKo]

I'm a meateater but I was chatting to a vegan friend of mine about this and I think she has a point. It makes no sense to call yourself an animal lover if you pay others to kill animals or take their milk and eggs when its perfectly possible to live without them. I couldn't help but agree with her, and, as a non-vegan, had to conceed that I don't really love animals. In fact, I'm putting the fact that they taste nice above their lives and well-being on a daily basis.

I thought it would be interesting to see if anyone on here had an argument against this.

I'm a animal lover but I also love cheese. Therefore not a vegan.

Do vegans not consider snails, slugs, bees, butterflies, all manner of insects, field mice, rats, caterpillars, voles, rabbits, hares, pigeons, blackbirds, pheasants, crows, geese, frogs, toads and snakes as animals then?

Because I can assure you your friendly local vegetable grower isn't letting them anywhere near his or her crops. In this country or any other.

All this scrambling to try and make vegans the baddies aswell is quite funny

I'm not scrambling? It's the truth? Isn't it?

Why do the facts make vegans look bad?

Nah

You don't get to pick and choose

Well - yes, you DO get to pick and choose what meats you will eat or not!
While there are choices that can be made of course people will have preferences!
If I were starving I would eat just about any meat, including human.
But at the moment I have choice - I will eat most fish, chicken, beef, pork, lamb and goat - but not snails, mussels, winkles, cats, dogs, veal, sparrows or whale, to name a tiny percentage of the edible animal kingdom.
Some animals I refuse to eat for emotive reasons (dogs, horses) - most of the others I just don't fancy the sound of or find actively vomit inducing (snails, insects)

So slugs and snails and caterpillars aren't killed in their millions to bring you your kale and your cauliflower then, is that what you are claiming Arya?

Or is it more convenient to the vegan message to turn a blind eye to the untimely deaths of vegetable dwelling creatures? Do their lives not count as much as the life of a cow?

@BMW6 I'm saying meat eaters can't pick and choose what animals other people choose to eat. I don't know what this long speech was about.

@gamerchick Well I don't know about all of that. I'm just saying that meat eaters who kick up a fuss about what meat other people eat are hypocrites.

Frankly the militant vegans are often thoughtlessly disablist.

I have type 1 diabetes, I cannot eat suggested vegan meals on an everyday basis because many are simply far too carbohydrate heavy. I don't think you can eat a sustainable vegan diet that is at least moderately low in carbs. I love vegetarian and vegan meals and really enjoy dinner at places like Mildreds in London, this isn't about turning up my nose at the food.

Type 2 diabetes is a MASSIVE burgeoning global health problem and pushing a diet that depends on vast quantities of quinoa/ rice/ all grains/ fruit is not helpful.

@absentmindedwoman I think vegans are less likely to be diabetic than non-vegsns

www.nhs.uk/news/diabetes/vegan-diet-helps-people-better-manage-type-2-diabetes/

I'm definitely more of a meat than an animal lover, but as a biologist I'm deeply interested in all animals, not just the cute ones, like most "animal lovers".

I don't think type 1 diabetes cares if you are vegan or not. you are making Absentmindedwoman's point nicely for her.

@AbsentmindedWoman Even as just a vegetarian as a type 1 diabetic I have to be very careful as my carb intake is higher than a typical meat eaters. I simply wouldn’t be able to keep myself at a good level if I removed all animal products from my diet.

@KylieKoKo given that the NHS article you linked says:

"A healthy diet is likely to improve diabetes control, but this study does not show convincingly that a vegan diet is superior to other healthy diets for people with diabetes. And you don't have to go vegan to improve the quality of your diet."

and that the participants weren't actually completely vegan anyway:

"While vegans exclude all animal products from their diet, including dairy products and eggs, the researchers defined a plant-based diet as one where 10% or less of daily calories came from animal products"

I'm not sure the article backs up the point you're trying to make. NHS dietary advice is notoriously out of date for diabetics anyway, though they're definitely beginning to move with the times I wouldn't hold them up as gospel.

I will say it again - the global burden of diabetes is a major problem and accelerating at speed, in high middle and low income countries.

A low income vegan diet in particular depends on rice and beans and cheap grain, these days likely shored up by widely available cheap sugary products for satiety. Really not a good approach from a public health perspective.

I was just making the point that veganism doesn't equal diabetes.

I'm not advocating for everyone to go vegan anyway. I was just interested in how people reconcile believing they are animal lovers with eating meat, dairy and eggs when we don't need to.

@SimonJT agreed. My wife is pescatarian so I tend not to eat much meat anyway, mostly when we go out, but I couldn't manage to eat a balanced and satisfying diet with diabetes without things like cheese, eggs and greek yogurt.

Its bloody hard enough as it is!

It's also worth noting that not everyone absorbs plant based iron efficiently, don't know if that's been mentioned somewhere on the thread as I haven't read the whole thing.

There is no such thing as truly vegan as we all absorb living beings. True fact.

Fascinating talk by a professor of biology that I can’t completely repeat as I’m not a scientist but something along the lines of tiny bacteria that live in us and get absorbed. Bit sideways thinking but tickled me!

Ok on the actual topic, Vegans kill animals too, to be vegan you need intensive crop production, this leads to mono cropping and the removal of pasture land and hedgerows etc. As plants don’t provide the same bioavailablr nutrients as animals.

Removing pasturelands and hedgerows and adding in the monocropping issue completely destroys natural wildlife and will quickly kill off our pollinators, without which we all die.

Not to mention the little bugs sprayed off crops and the field creatures swept up in harvesting.

Or the fact that it’s all irrelevant because there is not enough viable landmass to feed a global population on plant based within planetary boundaries.

Add in to that without animal agriculture you have no manure, so will need chemical fertilisers. Good luck not damaging the local wildlife with those!

So to be truly vegan we need to wipe out the majority of the human population (who wants to volunteer their family?), then only grow your own plants, and even then you are going to have to murder a few bugs and snails to stop them eating your plants first.

So. Erm, maybe we let what the farmer do beat continue and allow them to manage the land they understand. Just ensure bad farmers fall outside the law and are prosecuted for any animal welfare breaches?

In that way I am a pragmatic animal lover.

I feel guilty when I see a lorry full up with animals on the way to the slaughter house. I have been vegetarian before but dp isn't and I gradually slipped back to eating meat or fish every night.

I don't believe in veganism. What is so wrong with eating a egg laid by a chicken who lives in your garden and has a happy life? Or locally farmed honey? I get vegetarianism. I don't get vegan.

In my opinion if you are fine with eating animals you should be fine with dogs and cat being eaten

I see no problem with eating dogs and cats, they're not exactly endangered species.

A poster on another thread reckoned dog meat tastes like lamb. Sounds good to me.

Of course you cannot possibly love animals whilst simultaneously paying for them to be mutilated, abused and murdered for the sake of your taste buds.

It's the biggest load of bs meat eaters like to come out with. 'oh I love animals too, I have three dogs - I'll have the suckling pig for starters'

Being vegan is the least we can do. 🌱

Hahahaha just read some of the 'vegans kill insects though' comments. Yes, that is true. But those insects would also be killed to feed the animals that selfish, greedy, cruel people that choose to eat meat - despite no need to in the modern age - would then kill just to stuff in their faces.

So, nope. Saying 'vegans aren't perfect' as a pathetic attempt to justify raising and then murdering sentient, empathetic, feeling animals doesn't work.

Meat eaters get so triggered by vegans because they know we're on the right side of history and one day people are going to sit there and say 'i can't believe people used to eat other animals, drink their breastmilk and eat their ovulation'. I can't wait.

Aw that’s a bit harsh Bosh, not everyone can get what they need without eating all foods.

Many years ago my aunt had had 4 miscarriages and after the 4th then the doctor asked her about her diet, she was a vegetarian at the time and the doctor told her to try eating meat, well she did and about 10 months later she fell pregnant and went full term without any issues and had my little cousin, she had eaten meat the whole way through, I don’t know if miscarriages would be connected to not eating meat but it’s interesting that the doctor suggested she did, unless asking about her diet was irrelevant to losing the babies and he was just asking after her general health, she looked unwell a lot when she was a veg but this was back in the early 90s and back then then I don’t think vegetarians had lots of options like they do nowadays, can anyone confirm or deny this?

I can't confirm or deny in your aunt's case, and I'm sorry to hear about her miscarriages, that's awful
However, I have a ten month old daughter, born at full term 7lb 10oz at home - no problems at all throughout pregnancy or birth or 10 months of breastfeeding on a vegan diet. I was also signed off for a home birth, which requires additional blood tests to make sure your iron levels are high enough. So it wasn't true in my case, and the midwife was happy when I said I was vegan as she said most people don't eat enough variety of veg and fibre.

I am probably not an animal lover by todays standards. I eat a lot of meat and have no problem in doing so, I have pets that I keep for my own pleasure and I ride and compete horses for no purpose other than my self satisfaction. I enjoy watching equestrian sports, I don't agree with many practices of animal rescues, I don't believe in keeping an animal alive just because we can. I have no issue with animals being shot where crops are grown and I would use lethal methods of control for any pests in the home. I love my pets but I don't see them as an equal family member, I would save humans above an animal.

However, I do provide a foster home for animals awaiting rehoming, I spare no expense in treating sick/injured animals and I believe I give them a good quality of life but I accept that to many I will not be considered an animal lover and I am OK with that.