to think that the McDonalds protest is a bloody stupid idea that will not get anyone onside?

[PyongyangKipperbang]

Protester are blockading Maccies distribution centres to try and get them to commit to be fully plant based by 2025.

Now I cansee the argument about meat production affecting the environment but.......McDonalds sell what people want to eat! They are a business and are not going to agree to do something that could decimate their customer base!

And this kind of protest just pisses people off, if you want to take the kids for a maccies on the way home from shopping because you cba to cook then finding out that they have no food in then you are hardly going to feel very well disposed to the people who have caused it are you?

I used to make fun of vegans. Never got angry but took the piss a bit. In my case it's because I'm a massive animal lover and seeing their choices pricked my conscience.

My OH says that’s the reason too. He says it’s guilt because they know animals do suffer and it adds to climate change etc, but they don’t want to think about it. He says vegans just being in their vicinity raises uncomfortable questions for meat eaters that do care about animals and the world they live in. I’m sure that’s not the reason for everyone, but definitely for some.
He still bloody eats meat though. 🙄🤣

I got a lot of grief when I gave up drinking, maybe it is similar, it highlights that we are all making different choices

I also used to make fun of non-drinkers (although only in my head!). I am now sober because I drank way too much!

I got a lot of grief when I gave up drinking, maybe it is similar, it highlights that we are all making different choices.

Yes, I think that’s probably very similar. I drink (too much sometimes😬), but I didn’t drink for a few years and constantly got comments about it, despite never mentioning anyone else alcohol intake.

I think you just have to be comfortable with your choices and definitely be tolerant of others.

*elses

You are probably right. And yes, it is a shame.

Maybe one day it’ll happen.🤞 I like hearing other people’s views.

I think many people care about the welfare of other sentient creatures, be they fellow humans or other species. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

Some humans need animal products for optimal nutrition (not everyone does well on a vegan diet). So it IS a sum zero game.

Yanbu but then again beef production is respobsible for mass deforestation.

Responsible*

@KaleSlayer

CuriousaboutSamphire

As a vegan though, if you do anything to educate, you’re called ‘preachy’....so we can’t win really.

Then you clearly have difficulty with the difference between "educate" and "berate".

Educating is: "Try this, it's delicious. Here's how I made it..."

Nothing preachy there, see?

Berating is: "Meat is murder, don't you know that you're killing baby monkeys?"

@KaleSlayer

Childlike? The same could be said of the protesters lying in the road having a hissy fit over something they don't agree with. Sounds a lot like a toddler throwing themself onto the floor to have a tantrum.

The huge and very important difference is they are doing it because they feel it will help their cause and bring about change. People on here have said that they will have a McDonald’s just to annoy these protestors....so yes, a very childish mentality.
One person even said that they wanted to reduce their meat intake but will now go to McDonalds... utterly pathetic.

I'm sure that a toddler feels that tantruming will help their cause. Weak parents even cave in, which teaches the toddler that it is effective. Governments maintain a policy of not negotiating with terrorists for pretty much the same reasons.

Just when was the last time that a protest of this sort actually make a positive impact? Suffragette militancy is widely considered to have postponed enfranchisement.

No, I won't be told what to do. I certainly won't be bullied into changing my ways. I stand up to bullies and defy them.

Then you clearly have difficulty with the difference between "educate" and "berate".

🙄

No. The fact is that if you are vegan, you really don’t need to say much for some people to get annoyed. I think I already said on this thread that I have had meat waved and animal noises made at me for simply sitting at a table eating my vegan meal.
Someone else asked me on a night out why I was vegan. I said I thought it was best for animal welfare and the environment and got called preachy. They asked me my reason for being vegan because they heard me ordering a vegan meal. I wouldn’t have mentioned it.

@WomenAreBornNotWorn

Scrowy Meat production requires a much higher amount of water than vegetables. IME state that to produce 1kg of meat requires between 5,000 and 20,000 litres of water. This includes the agricultural farming needed to produce the food for them. Not just what they drink from a trough daily.

I'll just take a look out of the window...

Yeah, the hill farmers here are not short of water.

Yeah, the hill farmers here are not short of water.

🤦🏻‍♀️

Or maybe, given the realities of all things sexual in some countries, that should be 'educate the men'!
@CuriousaboutSamphire no, female education and emancipation are key to birth control. Educate a woman to a high level and relax antiquated social rules which would otherwise make her reliant upon a man (think places where women must be accompanied in public by their father/brother/husband/son) and she will be too busy building a career to have kids.

@KaleSlayer

Yeah, the hill farmers here are not short of water.

🤦🏻‍♀️

It's true, they really aren't. What does it matter if the sheep here drink from mountain streams and eat grass if the water was only going to run into the sea anyway?

@CuriousaboutSamphire

They aren't pets. There has to be a viable commercial plan to replace the existing husbandry, it's somebody's life and livelihood you are dismissing!

I don't know how many times, on several threads, I have tried to explain this to people. A poster once tried to tell me that those living in towns/countries whose main source of income is farming would be able to find some other form of employment (I notice they never say what that other form of employment is). Honestly, some people don't have a clue.

As a vegan though, if you do anything to educate

I don't understand the use of the term 'educating' in the context of veganism.

Why do non-vegans need to be 'educated' and need to 'learn'? Most people know what veganism means and they don't want to adopt it/don't agree with the concept.

Is it so difficult these days for some to accept that others do not and will never share their opinions?

@mustlovegin

I don't understand the use of the term 'educating' in the context of veganism.

Why do non-vegans need to be 'educated' and need to 'learn'? Most people know what veganism means and they don't want to adopt it/don't agree with the concept.

If you go back a few pages, a poster says something like, as a vegan ‘why not educate, not berate’ as that is what they do about something they feel passionate about. That is the only reason I mentioned ‘as a vegan, if you do anything to educate .......’, because it was suggested by someone else. Personally, I only talk about being vegan to meat eaters, only when asked and I definitely try to not get into it.

Is it so difficult these days for some to accept that others do not and will never share their opinions?

Both ‘sides’ can be guilty of that though.

And if you read any topic on mumsnet, yes, it seems people are very intolerant of others opinions.

@DdraigGoch

Or maybe, given the realities of all things sexual in some countries, that should be 'educate the men'! *@CuriousaboutSamphire* no, female education and emancipation are key to birth control. Educate a woman to a high level and relax antiquated social rules which would otherwise make her reliant upon a man (think places where women must be accompanied in public by their father/brother/husband/son) and she will be too busy building a career to have kids.

OK. Educate both, as approrptiate! But not one without the other. That would only exacerbate any conflict! You can't relax any social mores if you don't get a buy in from the majority of people involved!

And I am sure you must have understood my original, sarcaastic, meaning!

I did get the sarcasm, yes. I do appreciate that it takes two to tango but female emancipation is what makes the difference to birth rates.

The thing is that you can provide all of the cucumbers you like to boys in SRE classes but the thing which will make the most difference to birth rates is to find a reason for women not to keep having children. It's not that they (men and women) don't know how to stop conceiving. It's not even cultural barriers to contraception. It's that there's nothing else for a woman of no education or experience to do but raise children.

There was a thread a while ago about very large families and a poster (a child of one such family) said that her mother's entire life had been about child rearing. It gave her purpose in the same way that any other career would. So the couple continued having more children so that she had an occupation as each one in turn started leaving the house to go to school. This way of life would continue from one generation to another.

If on the other hand she'd had the encouragement to continue her education and get a career, children would have waited until she was around thirty (if at all) and there would be fewer.

By "education" I don't mean the current vernacular of "telling someone that x is bad" (where x here means "having kids"), I mean the traditional sense of "skills for the workplace".

The thing is that you can provide all of the cucumbers you like to boys in SRE classes but the thing which will make the most difference to birth rates is to find a reason for women not to keep having children. It's not that they (men and women) don't know how to stop conceiving. It's not even cultural barriers to contraception. It's that there's nothing else for a woman of no education or experience to do but raise children. I was thinking more of the male education consisting of "Don't subjugate women, They are not your inferiors or slaves"

@tofuschnitzel

Why is it always McDonald's being targeted as the evil corporation that must be stopped? They already offer plant based alternatives. They actually do have decent food standards in the UK, it's fast food standards in the US that are absolutely dire and need to change. Why protest against McDonald's only, why not all the other fast food companies too?

Because they're an easy target in the same way that Primark are targeted for fast fashion. There are far worse companies but it's the big names they go for.

DH and I were talking about this yesterday and I reckon the way forward is to try and persuade everyone to have one or two plant based meal days a week rather than telling us that we should all become vegan overnight. They probably upset more people than they convert at the moment.

I've been increasing our veggie/vegan meals over the last few years and when DS leaves home we may get it to 100% plant based!

I don't understand the use of the term 'educating' in the context of veganism.

As a meat eat I’ve learnt a few things from this thread, probably not what the op had in mind

But I hadn’t realised that slave Labour was used in the Amazon or about up to 50% of the chicken feed being transported to U.K. etc which is causing the deforestation.

My concern with eating meat, and I don’t eat a lot approximately 2/3 portions a week, is that soon enough we will be flooded with meat from US Mand Australia which isn’t if the standard with hormones and chlorine etc that worries me