Yeah, people much prefer the far away abstract violence compared to a softer violence they have to face

I have so much more respect for hunting for food than industrial agriculture. But in some ways there's a stigma that hunting carries in a way industrial agriculture doesnt, even though the way it treats animals is infinitely more horrifying

I don't believe that meat consumption has to involve (much) animal suffering, and I'm in favor of taking steps toward that goal.

Hopefully lab-grown meat will take off soon and the whole argument will be a moot point.

Thanks for the conversation. :)

I too want lab grown meat! Anyway ditto - cheers

I meant within this conversation. The options you presented did not include that and made a false claim on my beliefs

I understanding that everything I say is being distorted through the lens of anger, but please don't make the worst interpretations of what I am saying

I want you to vision the future you want to see. If the future in your vision is, at minimum, a world without factory farming, that's going to require massive decreases in animal product consumption and production. That's going to take require action from all of us to get there

I mean, it's not really fair because plants don't have any of the same "parts" we do that would constitute a body as such. When I think of growing my body, I think of organs and tissues such as muscle, bone, blood, neurons, etc. These are primary components of what would be considered nutritional intake from a dead body that would be reconstructed for use in our own body. Plants do not have muscles, bones, etc. We are using basic nutrients like cats, proteins, and carbohydrates as building blocks for our own parts. As noted elsewhere it takes a fraction of the plant matter necessary to build our own muscles than it does to feed a pound of meat to them use to build muscle from that. So even by your flawed logic, it's still less plants to eat them directly than it is to eat meat grown from them.

Additionally, the vast majority of plant products don't even require a plant to "die" to eat. Many fruits and vegetables are just the reproductive structure of the plant, not vital for the health of the plant at all. I am an avid gardener and the only plants I can think of that have to "die" for me to eat them are root vegetables. Even then if you're diligent you could save, for example, the tops of carrots or bottom of onions to regrow.

They are completely different concepts and it's bad faith to argue otherwise.

...or in some cases it's much simpler: some of us have conditions that make it impossible for us to survive or to thrive on a vegan diet and we're sick unto death of vegoons pushing Evangelical Veganism and acting like we don't exist or we're making it up to justify the moral failing of eating meat. And there's the constant push to normalize veganism, which just expands the number of places I can't eat and/or people I can't eat with.

If that type of vegan didn't exist I wouldn't immediately start side-eying vegans until I find out of they're safe or not.

Plants can feel pain the same way a machine can learn. Which means not at all outside of marketing.

In reality they simply have mechanisms to react to damage. But that's not pain.

Pain is the processing of injury in a nervous system. Plants lack the nervous system required to feel anything.

Just like a brain dead human, sponge or bacteria plants cannot feel pain in any meaningful way.

I mean, there's no rule that says that one must consider nature, as a whole, to be ethical. It's perfectly possible to believe that nature itself is "messed up" in a moral sense and merely outside the capacity of humans to change for the foreseeable future. One's own behavior is much easier to impact by contrast.

Should be a vegan zombie movie where they eat grains.

Coming off the back of an asshole vegan calling meat eaters 'genocidal monsters', yeah im not seeing this supposed unprompted hate on vegans.

My cat would put me in an air fryer if she could.

I should note that technology is increasingly helping provide more options. With precision fermentation, there is a lot of ways to biologically identical proteins, enzymes, etc. For instance, you can now buy non-animal whey protein, egg white protein, non-animal heme iron, and more in the stores. It's super cool stuff and ironically the dairy industry was a big pioneer of it in the 90s for one of the enzymes they use widely in cheese. There's a lot more coming down the pipeline with it

A good friend of mine is vegan and has been actually assaulted (old lady slapped him, which isn't exactly being attacked with a tire iron, but it's still fucking assault) because of it.

Another good friend is vegetarian, and when we went out for pizza, he ordered this one fancy pizza, and told them to hold the meat (entire pizza is veggie except for prosciutto). They brought it out with prosciutto on it, and when he said "I don't eat meat" the server replied "it's very thin" as if that made a difference to it being meat. It was genuinely quite funny in the moment. Lol. They did replace the pizza without any qualms or attitude, but I'll never forget that moment. It's thing, so it doesn't count!

... Also, I do wish they'd left that pizza instead of taking it back. It looked so good, and whenever I visit them they like to starve me to death because they're all tiny people with caloric deficits D:

Generally I don't care. I prefer phrasing it as dietary restrictions. I can't eat wheat or lentils. And a lot of fruit makes my lips tingle and itch.

We know plants can respond to stimuli, saying they feel pain is a big jump to conclusions

There's a single Real Life Comics strip about that, but that comic is impossible to search.

the number of places you can eat at went from like 99% of restaurants to like 97% because of vegan places opening up. youre not a victim here.

A token "fuck you" to the bitch that down voted you

Let's say that plants really feel pain. How do we reduce that pain to a minimum?
To get 1kg beef you need roughly 50kg plant matter. So eating only plants would be much more humane.

It points out how shameful and lazy meat eaters are to their face, and people don’t like having their poor choices pointed out to them.

It is the same when telling people that you dont drink or take other drugs..

I'm a lot like you, I make vegetarian food myself. But if I'm visiting someone and they serve meat, I'll have a slice.

My exception is game, as a large chunk of my family are hunters

Hugs.

This is why I don't bring it up to other people.

I'm positive on veganism as a whole, but consuming corpses to grow stronger is kind of metal as hell

it's all stars maaaaaaan

Because your lifestyle choices are an affront to their lifestyle. In many places in the world eating meat is an important part of the culture. Saying that you don’t eat meat is seen as a rejection of the culture. And they will immediately label you as “the other”.

It’s like if a person says they are an atheist in a country where everyone is religious and religion is an important part of daily life. Even when the atheist isn’t judging anyone the atheist will receive negative reactions and even violence.

The only instances when i noticed it happening is when a vegan post ridicules or mocks who eat meat, though, i'd like to note that I don't see many vegan posts on my feed

Warning!

Instructions Unclear...

You have acquired a new skill:

[Cannibalism]

I hear you. I was raised vegetarian (mom is awesome) and have flip flopped between that and veganism my whole life. Growing up meatless and male has been a weird experience, with countless people telling me I'm not manly be cause I don't eat dead animals. Wtf.

Sadly, I've also received the opposite, telling me I don't really care because I'm not vegan enough (sigh)

Who doesn't love dying during childhood?

I think some cultures are entirely unfamiliar with the idea of not eating meat at all.

Like that line from Big Fat Greek Wedding. “He doesn’t eat meat? Is okay, I make lamb.”

They treat it the same way we might treat the phrase “he doesn’t drink.” Which means no alcohol, not “no consuming liquid of any kind.”

No meat is just taken to mean no whole meats, like cuts of steak. So you get “no meat in the soup, just a bit of the chicken stock for flavour.”

What do you mean “can’t eat at”?

Do you have an allergic reaction when you consume non-meat foods?

I think it partially has something to do with the internet brainrot propaganda against veganism/vegetarianism

Ah fuck. I didn't know iron was derived from animals. Fuck, it's basically blood!

And what is a nervous system really? Why is it so special and different from any other chemical reaction?

It's more the processing that's relevant for pain. No processing, no pain.

For instance, some humans have very specific genetic mutations that do not allow them to feel pain. The peripheral nerves still send the pain signals to the brain but it cannot process them. Therefore, no pain.

There could be a discussion on whether very simple nervous systems (like in jellyfish) without a central component (brain) can process pain. But I'm not a biological researcher or philosopher so that's outside my Lemmy paygrade.

And what makes them different from any other chemical reaction is a little disingenuous. Might as well ask what's the difference between burning a human on a stake and melting glass? Both are just chemical reactions involving heat from a certain perspective.

There is simply no organ comparable to the brain in plants that would allow for plant pain. That's pretty much it.

You're taking veganism much too personally. I can count on one hand all the places that don't serve meat at all within my city. Your options are not limited. Other's dietary choices are not a slight to you. It is so easy to find a place that has at least one dish for either dietary preference. What if they were Buddhist, or another religion that restricts diet around meat, would that irk you as well? Why must others consume meat for your comfort?

I try not to, but sometimes I have to for dietary reasons. I have to choose between going somewhere that has nothing I can eat, ordering a drink or a side, saying "I'm not hungry," and eating at home, or risking peeving others with the audacity to not consume meat.

Additionally, what conditions make it impossible to survive or thrive on a vegan diet? I'm not challenging you, I'm genuinely curious. Is it like multiple allergies? I know some people believe the "you can't get nutritionally complete diet from veganism" thing, which isn't true. All vitamins, proteins, and nutrients we need are available while vegan. Is it like a fiber sensitivity or allergy problem?

Heme iron, specifically in animals, is in fact from blood. Heme being short for hemoglobin which is the protein in red blood cells that transfers oxygen around the body (both for humans and most non-human animals). Being able to make that from precision fermentation is pretty cool

I was joking about being a vampire and that being blood on Discord, I didn't know I was twlling the truth 😭

Aren't we just like Quarks on the most basic level? So why would one arrangement of Quarks, produce feeling people and not another?

Maybe objects feel pain, but can't remember it, or react to it.

There is also plenty of non-heme iron, to be fair, which is not from blood. Plants have tons of it from the ground and such

No, no it's fine they were free-range, cage-free and organic humans /s

You said they were cage-free! This one has a call center name tag!

The same goes for the vegan/vegetarian side too, tbh.

Like, it's something more related to group dynamics. Give people a way to distinguish themselves and they'll build all of their identity around it, then they'll discriminate the out-group and suck the in-group's balls even if they're wrong.

As of myself, I'm omnivore and I can't get carnists nor vegetarians and/or vegans points, but I do respect them as long as they respect me too.

Lying about what a label means? That would be crazy

Bringing up a Tyson competitor, the farm manager wonders how other poultry companies handle supposedly free-range-raised chickens. The short answer: They don’t, really.

“Those birds don’t go outside — you know that,” the technician replies. “They don’t all go out … Look that up online.”

The manager chimes in: “It’s not like they make it like all of ’em come out and enjoy the sun.”

“That is strictly for commercial [advertising] purposes,” the technician says.

[...]

In 2017, the Intercept reported an investigation into a dozen California farms owned by a free-range chicken company that found no evidence of any animals spending any time outdoors. The chief animal care officer for Perdue Farms, a major chicken producer, has even said the vast majority of its free-range chickens stay indoors.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23724740/tyson-chicken-free-range-humanewashing-investigation-animal-cruelty

The problem is that's an elitist and exclusionary take.

Vegan and vegetarian replacements are way too expensive for almost the 99% of the population, and while you can theoretically replace some of these with medication and supplementation, it will never be the same as the synthetic replacements will never have the exact nutritional matrix that the natural animal source has, and as such it will not interact the same with our metabolism and our organs, thus causing a higher probability on related diseases and health issues.

Confirmed. Mushrooms are metal