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.

@Cam77

I wasn't at all arguing that as we can't do anything then we can do anything.
I was just arguing that the "animal love" shown by vegans is selective. I chose specific examples of how a vegan might show they care about all animals but usually don't.

Also adding that eating meat is the most healthy option, can be environmentally sound and doesn't amount to cruelty if animals raised properly and killed humanely.

Cam77 What fucks me off though, is that some vegans aren’t just quietly getting on with their lives trying to do the best they can.

Many of my vegan friends just get on with it, do their own thing, state their reasons calmly if asked but don’t push. I support them just as they enthusiastically support me in trying to cut down on my meat consumption; while not making me feel shit that i don’t feel I’m in a position right now to go fully vegan.

The other vegans, who are likely in the minority but unfortunately pretty vocal - the ones who seem to revel in seeking out and sharing video after video of animal abuse; the ones who call farmers ‘rapists’ and ‘murderers’; the ones who are clearly more interested in saying how better than me they are... well, those are the ones who I bring out the hypocrisy arguments. Damn right I point out that their avocado likely contributed either to gang violence in Mexico or water drought in Chile. Or the millions of ‘pest’ species likely killed while farming their wheat/soy.

We can’t all be perfect, and we all have to do the best we can - but there is no need to be a twat about it!

I am a flawed human being, with views that can be explained, and views that cannot. Such is the very existence of our species.

I love my dog, my cat and my rabbit with my whole heart because I am dedicated to nurturing them, have bonded with them and now have reciprocal relationships with them where I 'need' them as much as they need me.

However, it is absurd to think that I, one individual person in this enormously populated world can love, nurture, protect and care for all of the animals in the world, and do them no harm. I will eat the flesh of some and admire the intelligence of others. I will recoil in horror at the sight of some, and melt into a puddle at the infant version of others. I can say that I generally have an interest and love of the natural world around me, including animals, but that in itself is not a clear cut blanket representation of a feeling. I pay directly to conservation charities (WWF, The Woodlandtrust and a Panda Sanctuary) each month by direct debit, and I look forward to a roast every Sunday. Does that make me a dichotomy of standards? Yes, but I have to accept that and accept that it doesn't make me uncaring or evil to support conservation and enjoy eating meat.

I, like millions am just a person who does a bit where they can to try and balance things out, for my own sense of meaning in the world around me, because in my mind, somewhere along the way in this life so far, I thought it important to help where I can, (but I cannot even tell you why those 3 specific causes are the ones that I chose. Presumably at the time when I signed up with them they meant enough to me that I felt compelled to support them.)

I generally like other humans, but I tend to have an adversity to people who are sinister and evil. But that doesn't devalue how I feel about my human partner.

When anybody tries to narrow down and simplify something as complex an issue as the food we process and consume into a guilt-inducing statement such as 'if you eat meat, you cannot be an animal lover' it is time to either explore further why they themselves feel unable to look at the wider perspective on it and have formed a very narrow view of what is 'right' and 'wrong' or investigate why you have had a reaction to it. Are you triggered by others seemingly judging you and your decisions in your life? Because there will always, always be someone, somewhere who would argue that there are 'better' ways of doing things to how you might do them. Doesn't make them right and you wrong, just makes it different.

That old fashioned saying of 'live and let live' is worth remembering- we are all here, trying to live life, not really knowing whether what we're doing is the 'right' thing, but trying to do our very best, nonetheless!

Live and let live is an ironic term to use when talking about the subject of mass slaughter.

HA live and let live indeed everyone. Put something else on your plate instead of an animal.

It would be better if everyone ate vegan a few meals a week, rather than meat every day.
So many vegans are so judgey and critical it puts people off though.
I worked with a vegan who criticised everything everyone else ate. Never wanted a burger more after a day with her. Her diet was also appalling, it did nothing to encourage copying her.

I wish people could be as offended by the animal hanging by its back legs about to have its throat slit than by another person's opinion....

yanbu OP

"talking about the subject of mass slaughter"

So one animal species eating another is "mass slaughter" now, is it?

I wish people could be as offended by the animal hanging by its back legs about to have its throat slit than by another person's opinion....
The majority of animals slaughtered in the UK are pre-stunned, including more than half in halal slaughter. Because, yunno, people didn't like the idea of the animal suffering before it died, hence the move to captive-bolt stunning.

To add to Grumpy and when they aren’t stunned they are cut and dead before they are hung, no animal welfare in the UK would allow an animal to be hung before being stunned/slit.

I'm sure a vegan would not define me as an animal lover. That's okay. They can think what they like, and define things how they like. It affects me not a whit.

For vegans. You really are on a diet that IS NOT good for you. Please give in to your body urges and eat some fat!

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis-diet/201903/the-brain-needs-animal-fat?fbclid=IwAR367sK-X0ftyx-pbnyLVawa_ozw97ga8kIRRU45HN3jTGXzC4C76yJsuXE

"Plant foods contain absolutely no DHA

For those who choose vegan diets, it is important to know that plant foods contain no DHA. The omega-3 fatty acid found in plant foods like flax, walnut, and chia is alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). Unfortunately, it appears to be rather difficult for the adult human body to make DHA out of ALA, with most studies finding a conversion rate of less than 10 percent.
However, when it comes to children younger than 2 years old, the science is clear that this conversion pathway cannot and should not be relied upon to keep pace with the DHA demands of the rapidly growing body and brain. Therefore, most experts agree that caretakers should provide infants and very young children with dietary or supplemental sources of DHA, as ALA alone is not sufficient to support healthy infant development.

DHA status and intake recommendations are based on blood levels, not brain levels. Unfortunately there is no way to measure brain DHA levels in living human beings, and it’s unclear whether blood levels reflect brain levels.

Bearing this in mind, it has been estimated that as many as 80 percent of Americans have suboptimal blood levels of DHA.

DHA: Don’t leave home without it

Include animal-sourced foods in your diet if you can

The USDA has not established specific DHA intake targets for the general population; instead it recommends everyone consume at least eight ounces of seafood per week. The easiest way to obtain DHA is to include some fatty fish in your diet, but as you can see from the table below, there are other options.

Data from USDA National Nutrient Database 2016.
Source: Data from USDA National Nutrient Database 2016.
Minimize consumption of vegetable oils....

[from the articles]
[Vegans collapsing and fanning themselves]

To answer your original question op no you're not an animal lover if you eat meat you're a pet lover.

BobLob love that speech by Phil Wollen he's so knowledgable. He also wrote an interesting piece on PCE (profit centred earnings) in relation to big business and the vegan industry.

@ScreamingLadySutch I get my DHA from algae it's quite simple.

ScreamingLadySutch I’m sorry, but I find posts like yours as irritating as the posts from militant Vegans.

I eat meat. My dinner last night consisted of pasta with bacon bits; chased down with some chocolate digestive biscuits and some cider. Not a vegetable in sight (I was having a “fuck it” day). Pretty sure most vegans ate a damn sight healthier.

All this handwringing over getting the exact right amount of compounds nobody has heard of or even gives a shit about if it’s not being used to hassle vegans.

@Dyrne your point is?

What the (researched) article is saying, is a biological point: the short human gut, that does not have a rumen or a large hind gut to ferment vegetable cellulose, CANNOT manufacture certain long chain fatty acids required by our large human brains.

That our human brains are largely made up of FAT, therefore we need to eat animal fat. That is the point. You carry on rambling about bacon bits or whatever.

Nice try, but my point was quite clear - I find posts like yours irritating.

Are you honestly saying that you have always been passionate about ensuring you get the exact right balance of DHA in your diet?

I think it’s way more likely that you’ve latched onto this article as a way to slate vegans.

As PP have said, there are non-animal sources of DHA. Otherwise they can just take a simple supplement and carry on with their life.

Most people with any sort of diet will be deficient in some vitamin or another and no one hand wrings about them - but say you’re a vegan and all of a sudden people are dieticians with an acute concern about the ‘balance’ of the vegan diet.

Struggling to give a shit about whether a vegan defines me as an animal lover or not. I love my dogs and my horses. I don't love the cows that live next door. I think they're cute and funny and deserving of good care but I don't love them and will happily eat them. And I was also vegan for 3 years and it made me very unwell. Trying to balance my disability (which makes shopping and food making very difficult) with attempting to eat a balanced vegan diet was not possible.

So now I eat everything again and am physically and mentally much more healthy.

If that makes me "not an animal lover" to some? Oh well. Shame. What other people believe about me is not top of my priority thinking list.

I agree ( I think I always have done but damn that cognitive dissonance). I'm a newbie vegetarian but am gearing up for veganism, probably when the dc are older. I know, I know, where's the logic in that, but I'm on the way.

Why yes I do love animals, and yes I do eat some of them. I’m also an animal myself and an omnivore to boot and thus acting according to my own nature. They also seem to bond with me pretty well for some reason and not just the domesticated ones, I have had the occasional wild animal or bird accompany me on walks.

I do however think we should strive to harmonise better with nature where we can. Just because we are omnivores does not mean meat should comprise anything approaching the majority of our diets. No shade to vegans I mean you guys do you, but I do find it an extremist viewpoint that. I suppose essentially I both love and respect nature and nature is red in both tooth and claw.

To be honest I think a philosophy like Veganism can only come about from a humanity that is both divorced from and fundamentally detached from nature itself.

Short answer - yes, YABU. I love some animals - especially my dogs and CatBastard - but I think others are less lovable, and are delicious.

If you loved all animals you would stop eating root vegetables and fruit too as mass production kills off a lot of insects.