AIBU to ask ‘what would make you go vegan’?

[Bastetcat]

Tangentially inspired by another thread, I wonder if there are specific obstacles standing in the way of people choosing to go vegan, and if so what they are?

I tend to presume that if perfect, indistinguishable replicas for meat / dairy / eggs etc could be created then virtually everyone would go vegan, but I would be interested in finding out if that’s actually the case!

@GetMeOffThisCycleOfMisery it’s just my opinion on veganism which is what the thread asked for. No deep & meaningful.

I eat meat and animal products because it's easy, affordable, normal/socially acceptable and I know I/my family like them and how to cook them etc.

If animal products suddenly became massively more expensive I might struggle to justify buying them. But I think small rises in cost wouldn't put me off. I buy free range eggs regardless of the price difference but so far when I've seen the differently priced meat due to differences in stall type etc, I have gone and stuck to the cheaper stuff... Not great. When our finances are less tight, I'll try to prioritise this.

If being non vegan became to be seen like wearing fur, I might struggle to reconcile that. And yes if I think about the conditions of animals raised for meat, eggs, dairy etc I don't realistically feel comfortable with it, but somehow because it is seen as normal you can ignore the cognitive dissonance about it.

If it became more complicated to obtain meat such as having to order from a specialised shop (or even just talk to a butcher tbh) or prepare it myself, that would put me off. I currently buy meat that's already processed into the form I want it. I might cut up a chicken breast, but I don't want to cut meat off bones. I'm also lazy and would rather chuck some sausages or chicken nuggets in the oven than whip up a curry or cook from scratch every night.

They are arseholes. They also exist and are put together in fields (to attack random hikers) in large numbers because of beef farming.

@Floribundance I disagree with you and I think it’s a bit arrogant to think that we think in a superior way to animals.

my chickens have choice. They can eat the corn I provide them or they can eat worms, meat food scraps, live mice. Every single time they go for the live mice, meat first!

Oats. Water. That’s what you need to make oat milk.

@BertieBotts thank you so much for a really comprehensive response, I appreciate it. I recognise a lot of myself before I went vegan in what you say, so I totally see where you are coming from.

It’s arrogant to think that your chickens aren’t sitting up discussing the ethics of meat consumption?

Watch the Earthlings documentary on YouTube. It’s nicknamed ‘The Vegan Maker’, it’s narrated by Joaquin Phoenix.

@dingleberryrose I can’t bring myself to watch it, or dominion. Props to those who do!

Oh god here we go again with ‘watch earthlings’. Veganism has become so cult like from when I first went vegan.

As a lifelong omnivore, I went vegan after watching Land of Hope & Glory on YouTube

I tried to watch that but it was too horrible.

I could see going vegetarian but not vegan. I like cheese and eggs and other products from animals. I am not interested in fake meat, though I've had quorn in bolognese for the texture.
A lot of vegan food is highly processed which kind of defeats the health aspect too.

@Floribundance haha maybe they are? 🤣 🐓 No seriously, they choose to eat the most densely nutritious food on offer first every time, which is other animals. Humans do the same thing, meat and animal products are far more nutritious than vegetables...

I would never become vegan because I disagree with the principles.

Vegan is not fundamentally better for the environment in this country, or others. It can be actively damaging. Farming works as a cycle of animal and crops. Everyone going vegan would increase food miles, offshore the carbon issue to other countries, create a huge reliance on chemical fertilisers, create nutrition deficiency in the general population, create a dangerous level of food security issues globally, injure local communities, endanger those in war zones, and destroy biodiversity.

So no, other than me moving to a remote tribe in the Amazon where there was a total abundance of balanced fruit and veg (no idea if its possible anywhere?) At which point I would try it, then nothing.

Don’t believe all you see on all those vegan documentaries. They cherry pick lots of stuff, there’s lots of propaganda....

It has and seeing ‘plant based’ on tubs of hummus makes me want to smack somebody but it’s part of a broader environmental movement - people being more aware of the impact of meat and choosing to reduce or stop their consumption of it.

I would go vegan if there were more varied protein sources than those that come from fungi (which I am intolerant to) or beans and pulses (which, tmi, make my IBS flare up horribly, as does soy and tofu). I was very ill the first time I tried quorn as a teenager and since then I also physically can't stomach mushrooms.

I think secondary to the above is the amount of faff involved in checking ingredients, severe limitations when eating out, having to cook from scratch a lot more when I'm already busy. It just seems like a lot of hard work, which puts me off. If it was quick and easy to be vegan, with more variety of protein, it might convince me.

I get that for people that are deeply invested in animal welfare, the work involved in being vegan is worth it, but personally, I want farm animals to be treated better, but also believe that as many breeds wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for human intervention, I don't think it is inherently immoral to kill animals for food.

If I was going to be vegan, it would be for environmental reasons, and honestly I think a lot of the vocal vegans would do better at convincing people if they took this tack, rather than the, for example, "you must hate animals to eat them and are probably a terrible person" strategy that two of my family are currently doing on FB.

@Bastetcat

Nothing would make me go vegan. NOTHING.

Would they be more interested in leftover veg if it wiggled about though? I spend a lot of time looking for the least calorie dense food lately.

What do vegans think about all the animals that die in vegetable farming?

What makes it ok for you to eat vegetables but it’s not ok for me to eat meat?

Please don’t accuse me of ‘whataboutery’ please actually try to answer the question.

@FET2020 That’s a fair point but there is a lot of pro-animal product propaganda too. We should be discerning of all information sources.

*Floribundance I though that too but I give them meat scraps and veg scraps and they always eat the meat first.

@Bastetcat yes I do agree with you

@FET2020 I don’t feel good about it. But I know that more crops are produced to feed farm animals than are produced to feed humans. If everyone in the world went vegan (just as a hypothetical) we would need less arable land for crop production than we currently need to produce domestic animal feed. Therefore going vegan still leads to a decrease in animal deaths.

I wonder what they’d choose if they had an unlimited supply of meat. Maybe after a few 100 generations you’d have carnivorous chickens roaming your garden.