If you are vegan for environmental reasons...

[drspouse]

What would you consider adding back into your diet that's an animal product?

I'm just doing a Vegan Lent at the moment but I think I probably want to try and be a bit more planet-friendly in my eating after this.
But for example we can get free range milk produced

Bear in mind rice milk will be a small amount of rice and a lot of water, ditto soya milk and oat milk. Soya milk has been proven to use less greenhouse gas than dairy milk so it’s strange you’d go back to dairy milk.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/soy-versus-dairy-whats-the-footprint-of-milk-8498

“Cornell University scientist, David Pimentel, has found it takes about 14 kilo-calories (kcal) of fossil-fuel energy to produce 1kcal of milk protein using conventional milk production. Organically produced milk might require a little less than 10kcal of fossil-fuel energy per kcal.

In comparison, Pimentel’s data suggests that in a conventional soybean production system, one kcal of fossil energy invested produces about 3.2kcal of soybean. For 1kcal of fossil energy invested in organic soybean production, you get an average of 3.8kcal of soybeans. This means it takes between .26 and .31kcal of fossil fuel to make 1kcal of soybeans (contrasted with 10-14kcal to make 1kcal of dairy milk protein).

Pimentel states that soy protein accounts for about 35% of those kilocalories, so it appears that making soy protein is more energy-efficient than dairy protein”

“A 2010 “current and possible futures” study into greenhouse gas emissions across the top 45 food commodities in the UK recommended dairy milk and products be replaced by soy-based milk products.

A recent Dutch study comparing the water footprints of soybean and equivalent animal products found that soy milk and the soy burger have much smaller water footprints than cow milk and the average beef burger. The water footprint of the soy milk products analysed in this study was 28% of the water footprint of the global average cow milk. The water footprint of the soy burger examined was 7% of the water footprint of the average beef burger in the world.

Another important environmental parameter to consider is how much phosphorus is used to produce food. Modern agriculture is dependent on phosphorus derived from phosphate rock. It’s a non-renewable resource, and current global reserves may be depleted in 50 to 100 years. Meat and livestock production are associated with high phosphorus use and a vegetarian diet demands significantly less phosphate fertilizer than a meat-based diet.”

Australian article but European/ UK stats.

Out of interest what do you think about the ethical arguments like male chicks being minced alive or dairy calves being taken from their mothers or mothers being killed at a fraction of their natural lifespan or male calves being killed as babies?

I ask as my husband went vegan in part for environmental reasons but since he no longer uses animal products he has come round to totally agreeing with the ethical argument. He was quite defensive when he ate meat (as of course he was paying for animal slaughter) but once no longer using the products he had nothing to be defensive about and realised that our treatment of animals is unethical and there’s no logical basis for it as a moral species.

"But actually free range eggs and backyard hen eggs are worse for the environment as the chickens that produce them need to be fed 18% more grain than battery hens to produce the same amount of eggs. Organic eggs are worse again."

If you use chicken manure on your vegetable garden doesn't that reduce the impact somewhat?

And generally what is the vegan view about using animal manure?

I don't like soya milk, so I won't be drinking it for that reason.
I have never had a problem with killing animals for food, I've never been vegetarian except for the odd month or two similar to now. I'll be looking more closely at individual sources of food (e.g. the comments about salt marsh lamb are very helpful as that's readily available to us and would be good to substitute for a lot of the meat we currently eat as a family).
It's also a financial luxury to eat entirely vegan - my family wouldn't eat just beans and rice, and most other things work out very expensive especially cooking family meals for quite young children where I have to balance their vitamins etc (It's a lot cheaper to give them animal products than buy them vegan vitamins!). For example the price of fish fingers versus a vegan alternative.

Lonicera obviously we can’t prevent manure being used at present but in the perfect vegan world it would be vegetable compost- look up veganic farming if you’re interested.

I find being vegan much cheaper and I was raised vegetarian and think my parents found it pretty cheap even though I was a fussy child. Vegan Quorn isn’t any more than meat from a butcher. Lentil soup, baked potato and hummus, pasta with soya mince, veggie shepherds pie, tacos, veggie pizzas, salads, tofu quiche, smoothies, this is just a few things, your kids may not eat those but there will be some things they will. Vegan vitamins are pretty cheap. These would last 2 months per child uk.iherb.com/pr/Gummi-King-Multi-Vitamin-Mineral-For-Kids-60-Gummies/34007?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsPvYr6bi2QIVir_tCh1INAZXEAQYCSABEgJolvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Oat milk is a good option if you don’t like soya milk.

As for the ethical argument it’s not just about killing animals (although of course killing is harming them) but about separating calves from their mothers, grinding up day old male chicks, mutilating them without painkillers, transporting them crammed into hot trucks without water, and these are all standard, humane, RSPCA approved practices. Watch some UK slaughterhouse video footage, it’s sober viewing. Pigs are as intelligent and emotional as dogs- ask if it would be ok to do it to a dog just for taste and convenience.

Good luck, I hope you won’t go back to animal products as that makes me feel sad for the animals but you’re going to do what you’re going to do of course, it’s your choice and whether I feel sad or not is neither here nor there.

The vegan view on manure is that it isn’t necessary. There are plenty of ‘green manures’ if you garden, eg quick growing crops to dig in to the ground. Avoiding veg that has been grown in ground that animal manure was spread on might be difficult.

I am surprised that you find eating meat cheaper than eating vegan. I’ve recently stopped buying animal products, bar cheese for my kids. They are meat eaters so cheese is a compromise. I’ve found that our food bill has decreased dramatically, and so has waste, despite most of my kids being anti-pulses...I’ve been buying a lot of quorn and associated products. I’d question the provenance of the meat you are purchasing if it is cheaper than vegetarian alternatives- eg how has it been raised and what are the risks associated with that? The price of meat doesn’t accurately represent its true cost to the environment and to people’s health unfortunately. Also, the vegan vitamins (the vegan society ones) I have are suitable for kids from age 2... and cost £15 for an adult 6 month supply. A child dose is half a tablet, so £15 for a years supply which is just over £1 a month.

DH doesn't like tofu (DCs do). Everyone likes Quorn thankfully. DH will tolerate lentils if well disguised, but he doesn't like chick peas. I don't cook different things for different people and neither does DH except for popping in vegan nuggets instead of chicken ones. DH and I eat separately from the DCs about 3 nights a week and we happily have veggie curry and the DCs will eat veggie stir fry but we already ate them so that's not a change to our budget.

But honestly meat and cheese are generally cheaper:

Sainsbury's Outdoor Pork sausages, £5/kg. Cauldron vegan sausages £5.80/ kg
Pollock fish fingers (more sustainable than cod) 31.1p/100g. Quorn fishless fingers £1.25/100g
Free range chicken breast fillets £16/kg, Quorn vegan pieces £8.93/ kg
Organic beef mince £7.50/ kg. Soya mince £10/ kg (i know it makes up more but I don't actually like it!)
Organic Mozzarella £9.60/ kg. Vegan cheese (basic) £13/ kg. (Also horrible)
These are all from Sainsbury's but Tesco do dairy free mozzarella at £12.50/kg
Outdoor bred ham £2.08/100g. Vegan ham slices £2.00/100g
Venison burger £11/ kg, Quorn burger £11.10/kg

So for the basic meals that my family like the only clear winner on the vegan side for price is the Quorn vegan pieces; but those are a definite addition to the menu, as is red lentils in pasta sauce.

We make our own compost so our garden doesn't have any animal manure on it. I was thinking about commercially grown vegetables and whether there were any guarantees about what had been used - whether it was just compost or manure.

Going by weight isn’t accurate, drspouse because meat products contain a lot of water/fat, which then evaporates or is drained off. Ham/chicken has water added to it, and often milk proteins too, to make it weigh more. Meat burgers shrink when cooked.

So, in our house we’ve swapped sausages at around £3 for 6 for Linda McCartneys, £2 for 6 (and then 3 for 2 means it actually works out cheaper than that). Kids don’t complain that they are hungry so I assume that although they might weigh less raw, they are just as filling. And you’ve got Quorn at half the price of chicken in your calculations. The vegan posh Mince we get from Ocado... last week I spent £5 on 2 packs...440g (which did 4 portions of lasagne/bolognese and 2 in the freezer), but Ocado’s own brand frozen would have been £1.75 for the same amount. I don’t ever buy fake ham/cheese... I tend to make my own cheese which works out cheaper and tastes nicer...bought vegan cheese is grim.

lonicera I don’t think I even want to ask whether commercially grown veg used manure or not as I’d worry that I’d end up eating nothing! I think that goes beyond what is practical!

Anyway drspouse I sounded a bit overly preachy sorry. It’s good that quorn pieces and lentils will be getting a place on your menu even if you go back to eating meat, as every meal that relies less on animal products is a good thing. My kids still eat meat, just not in my house, and I still buy cheese for lasagne/pizza, although my daughter likes home made fake Parmesan on everything else (cashews, garlic salt and nutritional yeast ground together...I think it’s nicer than real Parmesan). I’ve not tried them on the quorn pieces yet...I’m glad to hear they were a success in your house, it gives me more confidence to dig them out the freezer. We last tried vivera chicken style stuff, which was bearable (just), but I won’t be buying it again....

My DCs do rely on sandwiches an awful lot - one of them basically rotates tuna, ham or other sliced meat, peanut butter and hummus and the other one adds cheese to that so we do need to have something they recognise as sliced meat and as cheese. And those two are the ones that are about the same weight slice for slice. And if they take a packed lunch to activities often they aren't allowed the peanut butter!

DS already chooses Quorn burgers by choice at school so they must be pretty kid-friendly as he's the cheese refuser!

P.s. DH and I both really liked a mushroom and chestnut Wellington I made but I'm not wasting that on the DC - but again it's going into the repertoire. DD is too young for whole nuts but we'll try e.g. cashew stir fry when she's older.