To say that being a vegan is no better for the environment than being a meat eater?

[OnlyInYourDreams]

Unless you eat only home grown, locally sourced products?

Obviously some people are vegan because they don’t like the idea of using any kind of animal products. But all too often people say that they’re vegan because “it’s better for the environment when this is categorically not the case.

Lots of fruit/veg have to be imported which is actually worse for the environment because it involves pumping man-made substances into the environment.

Products like almond milk are terrible for the environment because e.g. it takes 1600l of water to produce 1l of almond milk. Coca-Cola is practically a green product in comparison…

If people want to be vegan, why not just say you want to be vegan. Coming up with reasons such as “it’s better for the environment” which are just rubbish and laughable is only going to increase the amount of people who don’t take vegans seriously.

I don't really understand the argument.

I mean, no food is really vegan, is it? Unless you grow absolutely everything yourself, all commercially grown vegetables use blood and bone fertilisers which are obviously animal products.

Even if everyone stopped eating animals, they'd still need their bodies for fertiliser so they'd still need to be farmed, it'd just be for a more wasteful purpose

@ElphabaTWitch odfod with that bullshit. Not all vegans look sickly and unhealthy at all. I wonder what your body is like inside though.

There are some worryingly thick uneducated people on this thread when it comes to meat, health and animal welfare.

We need to find another justification for not making the change because that one is risible

Nobody should have to justify what they eat.

FWIW, many can't properly absorb nutrients from vegetable sources or supplements. So the justification is that they need animal sources to stay healthy. That should suffice.

can a meat eater honestly watch the footage of how a standard supermarket chicken lives its life and think that it is acceptable?

No. But I can separate it off in my brain. I have worked on battery egg farms and in a abattoirs and it's pretty grim. But somehow I can remove that from my brain. Not justifying it. But it doesn't really bother me that much.
I guess there are a lot of similar things..the way people criticise things the Tories do but still vote for them. Buying clothes produced in sweat shops. Continuing to drive cars while knowing children are dying due to poor air quality. People are inherently selfish I guess

@ElphabaTWitch

Let’s all eat a plant based diet. Given that our bodies and teeth are made for eating meat it’s no wonder vegans look so fucking unwell and sickly. Try to prove me wrong but it won’t work. I just hear ‘ bla bla bla whinge whine vegan earth mum bla’. You will not change my mind.

One of our prop forwards is a vegan, hes absolutely massive, nothing sickly or unwell looking about him.

I can’t imagine a time where people won’t share their opinions

The problem is the preachy and those who want to impose their 'opinions' on others.

@justchecking1

I don't really understand the argument.

I mean, no food is really vegan, is it? Unless you grow absolutely everything yourself, all commercially grown vegetables use blood and bone fertilisers which are obviously animal products.

Even if everyone stopped eating animals, they'd still need their bodies for fertiliser so they'd still need to be farmed, it'd just be for a more wasteful purpose

I don’t think it really matters though. As I said upthread, we don’t need 0.0000001% of the population living totally perfectly ethical lives (and I’m not even sure that’s possible) - we need everyone pulling their weight. That’s why we recycle, it’s a very very basic thing you can do to help the earth. So is buying bar soap/deodorant over aerosol. Not using ear buds. Reducing plastic consumption, walking instead of driving, reducing food waste, buying second hand. All little things that add up to a big change.

@mustlovegin

I can’t imagine a time where people won’t share their opinions

The problem is the preachy and those who want to impose their 'opinions' on others.

How would you stop that? No more political canvassing, no more environmental movements, no feminism! I suggest either finding something else to annoy you or working on a better counter-argument.

@Pumperthepumper I agree. It doesn't matter to the planet why we do what we do, just that we do it.

The only difference it makes is to the ethical ethos behind veganism (which obviously not all vegans share)

Yes, yabu, as what you have said is completely untrue.

You are incredibly misinformed, or willingly peddling what you know not to be true.

So, I wrote my Sustainability thesis on this topic, more or less.
Obviously, my research isn't the only research out there, and you will find studies that "prove" one diet is better than another (often funded by companies/organisations with a vested interest). Ultimately, I found that whilst in general, eating less (or no) meat is, environmentally speaking, better, eating a vegan diet is generally even better for the environment than a vegetarian/meat diet.
There are, however, a lot of nuances to this.
Where you live, where your animal/non animal products come from, where the food to feed your animal products came from, what either is packaged in, who produced it, if it was organically produced or not, the method of transport to get it to you, if it was processed before transporting to the point of sale etc etc all play a part in informing sustainable choices.

And that's without mentioning the fact that processed and red meats (in particular) have significant health risks that in turn cause an environmental impact. Etc etc.

Generally speaking, though, the more local, more organic, more plant based eating you do, the better it is for the planet, so, yes, YABU.

@ElphabaTWitch

Let’s all eat a plant based diet. Given that our bodies and teeth are made for eating meat it’s no wonder vegans look so fucking unwell and sickly. Try to prove me wrong but it won’t work. I just hear ‘ bla bla bla whinge whine vegan earth mum bla’. You will not change my mind.

Could you give me a clue, are these sickly and unwell looking vegans you see so often around the place the alarming number of people in the UK who are overweight? I had never realised before that they were vegans...

Seems a bit pointless to worry about emissions tbh. For every person who turns vegan in the West, 10 will start eating meat in China.

Add to that the fact that the West grew rich on the back of emissions and now the RoW wants to achieve parity. They pay lip service to climate targets etc, but the reality is that their emissions are going to grow and grow at a far greater rate than Western emissions are going to fall.

So the world's climate IS going to change. Lots of people are going to die as a result. It may even kick start WWIII as people displaced from coastal cities fight for land and resources elsewhere. We're screwed whatever we do. We may as well enjoy our food as the apocalypse arrives

Opinions don't irritate me, I love listening to other opinions. People forcing their opinions on others irritates me.
A bit like the leave/remain argument...
A bit like my Bible preaching grandparent...
It's tedious when a discussion gets dominated by one person's opinion, and they can't accept differing views.
Agree to disagree. Much easier.

The data is quite clear on this question. It's up to every individual to decide on their own diet but let's not start trying to make vegans out to be hypocrites. People make their dietary choices for lots of reasons but if we chose on carbon emissions it's clear that vegan diets are better.

ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

@Sixsillysausagessizzlinginapan

Opinions don't irritate me, I love listening to other opinions. People forcing their opinions on others irritates me. A bit like the leave/remain argument... A bit like my Bible preaching grandparent... It's tedious when a discussion gets dominated by one person's opinion, and they can't accept differing views. Agree to disagree. Much easier.

Easier, sure, but nothing ever changes if nothing ever changes and all that.

nothing ever changes if nothing ever changes and all that

Who gets to dictate what needs to change?

You are talking absolute nonsense and no I'm not vegan but I'm fully aware the meat industry is a huge reason the planet is being destroyed...here is some examples I know of

Industrial meat is the single biggest cause of deforestation globally

The climate impact of meat is equivalent to driving and flying every car, truck and plane in the world

It's increasing the risk of future pandemics like coronavirus , 3/4 of new diseases come from animals

It's a totally inefficient way to eat, over 1/4 of world land used is to graze animals. 1kg of chicken takes 3.2kg of crops to produce. If all the grain used for animals was fed to humans W could feed a extra 3.5 BILLION people

We need to eat 70% less meat globally by 2030 to prevent climate breakdown ..! And that's a FACT.

@mustlovegin

nothing ever changes if nothing ever changes and all that

Who gets to dictate what needs to change?

Sharing opinions is hardly dictating!

@Bhappy12

So, I wrote my Sustainability thesis on this topic, more or less. Obviously, my research isn't the only research out there, and you will find studies that "prove" one diet is better than another (often funded by companies/organisations with a vested interest). Ultimately, I found that whilst in general, eating less (or no) meat is, environmentally speaking, better, eating a vegan diet is generally even better for the environment than a vegetarian/meat diet. There are, however, a lot of nuances to this. Where you live, where your animal/non animal products come from, where the food to feed your animal products came from, what either is packaged in, who produced it, if it was organically produced or not, the method of transport to get it to you, if it was processed before transporting to the point of sale etc etc all play a part in informing sustainable choices.

And that's without mentioning the fact that processed and red meats (in particular) have significant health risks that in turn cause an environmental impact. Etc etc.

Generally speaking, though, the more local, more organic, more plant based eating you do, the better it is for the planet, so, yes, YABU.

Local yes, Plant-based yes, but sorry you mentioned organic - it makes me question whether you were actually competent to write a thesis because you certainly didn't ask the right questions.

The organic religion is extremely environmentally unfriendly, requiring in particular significantly greater areas of land for food development. While there are SOME techniques associated with organic farming that are useful, the practise as a whole is just a huge exercise in marketing and conning a gullible, middle class.

I'm hungry.
Bacon butty time.
All this food talk has me clamming

@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman

if we didn't use what they produce, a handful might survive as pets or for decorative purposes (silver-laced wyandottes are VERY pretty). They wouldn't survive as discrete breeds in the wild. Most of them would die pretty damn quickly. Some of the more primitive types would live long enough to reproduce, and the hardier (and more primitive) of their offspring would in turn survive, but you'd kiss goodbye to the Cayuga, the Light Sussex, the Jersey and the Welsh Mountain.

But in those cases isn't that pretty messed up in itself? That these animals have been bred purely for our consumption, to the point that they wouldn't have a chance of surviving in the wild?

Let's be real about what accounts for the vast majority of animal consumption, which is what is having a negative impact on the planet - it's not Jersey milk, duck eggs, or anything that's been within 10 miles of a mountain goat. It's cheap supermarket meat, intensive farming, fast food.

And I'd bet you a KFC bucket that 99% of those consumers wouldn't give a toss about any of the breeds you mention.

In this never-gonna-happen situation where the world turns vegan overnight I'm sure there would be some level of conservation for animals like this to preserve their somewhat unnatural existence.

@Sixsillysausagessizzlinginapan

I'm hungry. Bacon butty time. All this food talk has me clamming

Ah, I see now why you’re annoyed when people can articulate their opinions!

@Indoctro

You are talking absolute nonsense and no I'm not vegan but I'm fully aware the meat industry is a huge reason the planet is being destroyed...here is some examples I know of

Industrial meat is the single biggest cause of deforestation globally

The climate impact of meat is equivalent to driving and flying every car, truck and plane in the world

It's increasing the risk of future pandemics like coronavirus , 3/4 of new diseases come from animals

It's a totally inefficient way to eat, over 1/4 of world land used is to graze animals. 1kg of chicken takes 3.2kg of crops to produce. If all the grain used for animals was fed to humans W could feed a extra 3.5 BILLION people

We need to eat 70% less meat globally by 2030 to prevent climate breakdown ..! And that's a FACT.

Why do we need another 3.5 billion people? The world is overcrowded as it is, surely nobody wants cities covering everytgjng? A miserable chaste life with no freedom and an inferior diet isn't even worth living. You're wrong about pandemics. Vegans have weakened immune systems due to B12 deficiency, if a pandemic did start it would be much worse.

@ElphabaTWitch

Let’s all eat a plant based diet. Given that our bodies and teeth are made for eating meat it’s no wonder vegans look so fucking unwell and sickly. Try to prove me wrong but it won’t work. I just hear ‘ bla bla bla whinge whine vegan earth mum bla’. You will not change my mind.

Actually not true .. human were designed to have the same diet as chimpanzee.. who mostly eat fruit and veg with meat featuring in there diet about once a month.

We are actually meant to mostly not eat meat. So your facts are very much incorrect