AIBU to think there’s no justification for eating meat and dairy any more?

[AnnoyingVegan]

People are educated now. People know that eating meat and dairy is disastrous for the planet. People know it’s causing an unprecedented climate crisis. People know it causes untold cruelty to animals.

So why are people still doing it? There is a vegan substitute for virtually every meat and dairy product you can think of. What is going on here?

The number of people I’ve seen on social media breaking their hearts over Australia shooting wild camels and horses because they drink too much water while still eating beef blows my mind.

clothes, coffee, cocaine, chocolate and diamonds have horrible goings on including murder in the supply chain. People still want them all.

Our climate is naturally green and suitable for dairy farming. The issue is destroying other habitats to make way for cows such as South America.

People are literally going to die because of the climate crisis and you’re like ‘but cheese tastes good’

I have yet to find a vegan cheese that doesn’t smell and taste rank. One of my DC is dairy free so I try a lot of cheese.

The vegan life style certainly is not environmentally blameless. Almond milk, almond butter etc seems to be a staple in any vegan cookbook, but looks what it is doing to bees www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/07/honeybees-deaths-almonds-hives-aoe I think people should eat less meat for sure, and from smaller farms rather than mass produced, but we are natural omnivores.

Annoyingvegan these threads never go well even when you are right. It is like vegan bingo. It is cognitive dissonance at its best. People come to veganism when they are ready and you will just get annoyed reading the answers!

Since when was vegan all trash food? What about plant based or clean food? Just eat natural foods.

Vegan coeliac is fricking impossible. Plus a load of vegan food, like almond milk, is super environmentally unfriendly. It isn't nearly as simple as you think.

None of the farmers around here use soy for feed.

The processing to get the produce to mimic meat is not highly natural

Meat tastes nice and locally sourced is even better

You haven’t addressed the avocado issue

Or chocolate

I live in Scotland, I eat Scottish lamb and beef and pork, all slow-reared, all perfectly designed for the environment they're grown in. I absolutely refute that this is 'adding to my carbon footprint' in any meaningful way. If I can help one farmer keep his land for farming instead of selling it for green belt housing, I'll take that as a win.

Chicken is troubling me and I'm probably going to give that up, I don't think there's any ethical way to eat it currently. Dairy I'm cutting back on, ditto.

What do you suggest we do with the vast swathes of land only suitable for animal agriculture? Put them under a sea of plastic like Spain, killing every fucking insect, bird and small rodent for miles?

@mrbob you’re so right, but sometimes the hypocrisy just chokes you and you have to let it out

You have no justification that you feel is reasonable for eating meat and dairy anymore. Other people feel sufficient justification to keep on doing so. These justifications will not seem reasonable to you. That's okay. You do you.

And where do you stand on monocropping and industrially produced plant-based foods? Particularly the impact that they have on the soil?

‘Haven’t addressed the avocado issue’ are you genuinely trying to suggest only vegans eat avocados? There are only 600,000 vegans in the UK, we aren’t creating a market for them by ourselves

LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett I'm the same about chicken. I've only had it a handful of times in the last year.

Because honestly? I don't really care.
Everyone bangs on about carbon footprints, technically mine is low. I have never flown, don't have a dishwasher or tumbledryer, don't drive unnecessary.
So if I want to have a bloody chicken dinner I will.

I like meat. I like dairy.

I will die a long time before the human race becomes extinct. I am not subjecting myself to what little time I have left with a miserable existence of frankenstein food made out of mushrooms (which I'm allergic to BTW!).

Really? I don’t know that. The cattle on the farm I grew up on were not treated cruelly.

Until their throats were lovingly slit

ooh, a goady thread. We haven't had one of those for about ten minutes.

I have nothing against vegans or veganism, I admire anyone who feels so strongly about something that they are willing to make huge sacrifices.

But I don't want to be a vegan myself. I also feel that veganism is something of a middle class western concern, since vaste swathes of the population of the world are happy to have any food at all, but that's a different discussion altogether.

@Fraggot good point well made

1. Because "vegan alternatives" taste like crap. Don't even get me started on the "cheese". People with nut allergies would also struggle badly.
2. Because it's a huge effort impossible to get a picky child to eat a vegan diet with enough protein and variety.
3. Because meat, eggs and dairy are extremely palatable & excellent sources of nutrition.
4. Because there is plenty of land not suited for plant based agriculture but which is suited to raising livestock & it's efficient to use that land in that way and consume the product.

Until their throats were lovingly slit

Everything has to die sometime. Circle of life.