Vegans

[V]

Are there any vegans on here?

I'm just curious whether, if there are vegans here, whether they have experienced prejudice against their eating habits from meat-eaters. Or if you aren't a vegan, do you make judgements about vegans automatically as soon as you learn they are a vegan?

I was speaking to a friend of mine who is vegan, he was saying how if you are vegan and you say you are when someone asks, a lot of the time they automatically judge you, think you're an animal rights activist sympathiser or something, or a 'hippy cow hugger', as he put it. I'm not a vegan, but I did tell everyone I was vegetarian when I was a kid so I wouldn't be served beef or eggs when I was in school, or at people's houses. Nobody ever said anything about it to me... I don't think anyone cared if I was, it was a minor inconvenience to have to remove the meat from my food. The last ten years or so though I have seen a rise in people being judgemental about the tiniest and stupidest things. Like, assuming that a vegan is someone to be looked down on, or that vegans automatically look down on non-vegans, and are going to give you a lecture to make you feel guilty the first chance they get.

It seems like this is how a lot of people see vegans now? Couple of years ago I worked for a little quango in my university, and my boss (who was a very cool person) was vegan. People knew he was vegan in the office, and some of them would just come in and start arguments about meat and animal killing with him, or deliberately buy meat products for lunch and offer them to him. And him being him, he would argue back with a whole load of stuff he researched about how meat can cause cancers, about what's fed to the meat while it's alive and ends up in you when you eat it, and so on. But I was just amazed at how people picked up on the tiniest thing to disagree and form preconceptions on, when it makes no real difference whether you eat meat or not, it's not important - and then use it as a cue for bitching. But I know some vegans do have quite strong beliefs about cruelty, and some are vegetarian for religious reasons, and if I meet a vegan, I might wonder why they are a vegan (because it immediately makes them 'stand out' a bit more in your mind from everyone who isn't one)... but it's their business not mine, and I could see myself trying veganism for a while, so there is no reason I would want to argue with them about it. I can't understand why people can be raving about either side at each other like it's going to make an ounce of difference. Meat eaters are not going to stop eating meat, and vegans aren't going to be convinced to eat it by a meat eater unless they want to.

Does anyone else see this at all? Are eating habits worth disagreeing over?

I'd actually love to go vegan myself, but I can't get enough variety of vegetables here that would make it an interesting diet.

 

[Blitz]

Well, speaking as an onivore, My best friend in middle school was a vegan. At his house I never complained about his parents serving only vegan food. When I told him I was a meat-eater too, he slowly started to resent me, and the calls from him asking me to go to his house lessened, and when I called him, he was always busy and couldn't come over.

 

[lorddemolatron]

For me Im more user of balanced diet,but recently I added more vegetables to It, and It still not qualifies as vegan diet. Im still meat eater

 

[V]

@ BlitzDanzye
Wow, I can't see how that should rationally happen between friends.

I guess sometimes it's a disagreement on an almost religious level about two people's beliefs about meat, and they just can't agree to disagree, or something.

Sure, I've talked with vegans about meat, some care about the animals and some don't, but I never end up arguing with them about it. I actually agree with both sides of the usual argument. That killing other animals/ending their lives when you don't need to (not these days with all the man-made supplements and vitamins we have means you can still get a balanced diet and never eat meat) is questionable when you have the power to let them live. And at the same time, I think people are animals too, and like other animals, they have as much right to kill and eat an animal as any other animal. It's not like Man is totally outside of nature and shouldn't participate in it.

The usual argument I hear from the vegans is that slaughterhouses are awful (they are, I saw inside one once when I was helping my friend fill vending machines there, there were bits of flesh and blood on the floor of the canteen walked through from the abbatoir... and the noises/smell from there! God!) And that it's like fur - we don't need to kill animals for fur any more... so if we don't need to eat meat either, why kill? I can understand that we don't need to, so the killing is purely for our enjoyment because we personally wouldn't starve if we stopped. I do feel something for the animal when I think about it, but at the same time, if it wasn't me eating it, it would die eventually anyway and be eaten by mould and bacteria. Or it would never have existed in the first place, because it was bred for meat. I do have issues with the way animals are kept and bred for it: conditions should be good for the animals while they are alive, and that people who keep them in disgusting conditions/treat them cruelly should go to the slammer.

But everything dies, so why not let them live a fairly comfortable life and eat them when they die?

 

[Autumn]

I want to be vegan since it gives you psychic powers.

I don’t think I judge people by what they eat. If someone told me they were vegan, I would wonder why. And I would be more interested in how they get by social situations. It’s hard enough going out for a meal with my friends when I’m just trying to eat healthy!

I heard something on TV today about people who eat raw food and them getting a lot of flak for it mostly for the social situation again.

As for the cruelty side, I don’t believe any animal should be killed unless you’re going to eat it but like you said, we don’t really need to eat meat to survive any more. In the old days, they used to use up every part of the animal since food was scarce or expensive. I watched a program where they showed you all the old recipes of using up all the meat of the animal and the bones.

The only thing that riles me is people who say they’re vegetarian but still eat fish. Fish is meat too, as far as I’m concerned.

(Sorry, my thoughts are a bit scattered today)

 

[DreadnoughtDT]

I want to be vegan since it gives you psychic powers.

Is that a Scott Pilgrim reference?

OT: I have nothing against vegetarians or vegans. They seem to have something against me, though. Something like what happened to Danzye happened to me. Had a friend who was vegan. Soon as I let it slip that I was an omnivore, they just cut off contact with me. It was actually kinda heartbreaking, to be split up by such a little thing...

 

[Autumn]

Is that a Scott Pilgrim reference?

^_^ and i was worried someone might miss it!

 

[Vergil's Waifu]

Wow, Blitz & DT, that is just awful...

I'm a meat eater... (or else i wouldn't eat pasties... what good is a pasty without meat?)
I too don't have a problem with them, but they honestly have a problem with everyone that does eat meat.

I'm not going to say anything nasty or bullish, but all i want to know... what came first the meat eaters or the vegetarians/vegans?
Does anyone think there were vegetarians/vegans cavemen? Surely the stuff they needed to survive was mostly in meat?

 

[Ebony]

I'm envious of vegans - I wish I could control what I eat more! I've never come across any Predudice amongst anyone I know about what people choose to eat. I'm actually quite shocked to read that friendships had ended because of this.

 

[V]

Does anyone think there were vegetarians/vegans cavemen? Surely the stuff they needed to survive was mostly in meat?

Before they invented weapons and traps, I guess they would have eaten leaves and roots, and fruit and seeds when they were in season, and maybe the occasional animal that couldn't get away. I reckon early humans ate anything they could get, but meat would have been precious to them. You can eat a small amount of meat and get the same energy from that that you would have to eat piles and piles of leaves to get. I think it's why wild primates like chimpanzees absolutely go nuts when they manage to catch a smaller monkey. Normally they have to eat leaves and fruit all day long to get the energy they need, and they really love meat when they can catch it. They actually get madly excited about it.

Our taste for meat might well have been what saved us when other types of primeval human became extinct, because it probably caused the first cavemen to sharpen sticks for spears and make traps and nets and tools, which would have given them an advantage over animals and other types of human.

And without meat, there's no way humans would have been able to populate the colder parts of the world where nothing grows. Even today there are people who eat almost nothing but seals and fish.

Yeah I'd say without doubt our ancestors were happily meat-eaters.

 

[Tony_Redgrave]

As usual there is always a group of people in life that takes things on a whole other level than it needs to be.
This is wrong - obviously. Instead of focusing on doing extreme things for whatever reason, it's always best to keep a balance, whether it's about eating or any of the other stuff that we do. However, even if you do take things to the next level (it's your choice and no one should have a say to that) then that's your business and nobody else's. As long as you do not try and force your way of living to others, they shouldn't have any reason to do the same thing to you.

For better or worse, people who take things to the extreme, tend to have really strong beliefs behind doing so. Not everyone, but a large part of them. This means that they really believe that what they are doing is the correct thing that everybody should be following. Again, not everyone. But yeah, for these people, who have kinda of a one-way of understanding things it is usual and normal to disapprove of those who are not like them, prefering to have an inner circle of friends/associates that are/think like them. I suppose that the family of BlitzDanzye's friend was kinda like that.

The above part is not directly connected with (all) vegans (only) but with a larger group of people.

As to them getting shunned by other people who eat meat, well I guess that only shows that some people find it difficult to accept that other people like different things than them.

"I like this, so why shouldn't he? He's obviously faking! He just believes he's better than us. Let's test him!" - situations happen all the time. And yeah they are bad. But it doesn't happen only to vegans.

People who shun other people because they are different from them are (kinda) at fault. And they just show how close minded they are. However that's how they "work" so it might be better for both "parties" if the one that believes they can't see the other as friends anymore for whatever reason, just says so. It saves a lot of potential trouble of it being on hold as it will eventually explode. That's where the "kinda" went.

As long as vegans - or whoever for that purpose - doesn't bother anyone, they could eat/drink/dance/whatever/wherever they want as long as they're not making others do it or annoy anyone with their stuff. And anyone that says differently should rethink it.

As for what the cavemen ate - roots were their food as well. And vegetables and stuff like that. Not all of them where muscular hunters. The weaker ones went to gather the safe food

And last but not least, I had seen this vegan metal cooking show. It's funny how the guy cooks and all but the stuff he makes are actually good so I thought I'd include him. Enjoy:

 

[DreadnoughtDT]

I have nothing against vegan dishes. Vegan food is actually pretty to-die-for sometimes.

It's kind of like how I'm shunned for being a scaly... People just don't accept things that are different than them.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

Like you said Lexy: it's one of those things where you judge on preconception. Vegans/vegetarians you've interacted with in the past form your opinion. Absent that you're left to conjecture.

I don't judge vegetarians. I grew up around lots of vegetarians so there really isn't any animosity with that. As a kid I made peace with it by saying "It sucks that you can't eat chicken nuggets but at least you don't have to eat meat loaf. At least you can still eat pasta." Child's logic is a wonderful thing, because I don't even have to critically think to justify it now that I'm an adult.

Vegans on the other hand I do judge. I don't blacklist them for life when I learn it, but there's some initial animosity that I need to get over when I find out. First there's the question of whether they do it for their personal health or whether they are after it for animal rights reasons. Personal health is well and good, power to them. If it's the latter then there's the question of how preachy they are about it. I don't want an ear-full about how the cows are kept pregnant and I don't want to be sat down and forced to watch videos of KFC processing plants - it's not going to change my mind. Ultimately I'm just going to question their taste in cinema.

The only vegan I knew personally was in high school (that's college to you brits ). We were actually great friends (she was a little preachy but I just stayed away from that particular topic). She stopped being a vegan after high school because she went to do community work in Nicaragua. Seeing how many people there would starve if they couldn't eat meat gave her a whole new perspective. I'm sharing this because it's a central part of my thoughts concerning vegans. The point is that they can collect as many cases of regular animal cruelty as they please but at the end of the day they are just as ignorant as anyone else. It helps eliminate animosity I may have towards them in a selfish sort of way. Maybe it's twisted, but like vegetarians I think it helps me keep a more open mind.

 

[V]

I honestly don't have a problem with the habit of veganism, I only have a problem with people who want to force an opinion down my throat. I don't think I've ever met a vegan who did that. I guess I'm just surprised to hear other people feel justified in their prejudice and vegans have felt justified in theirs against meat.

I mean, I have met 'moral' vegans, people who don't eat meat because it means killing and killing 'is wrong'. They've never tried to guilt me out for eating meat and I don't get all rubbed the wrong way because of what they believe in. It's not like any vegan has ever said I'm some kind of heathen for doing it, or that I'm disgusting. (That, to me, would be 'forcing' something down my throat. Not them just having their say). Or maybe it's because it's hard to guilt me out about it when my belief is that everything dies and gets eaten by something, and that's hard for anyone to deny.

I've met vegans who do it purely for health/weight loss, one of my close online friends is one and he basically says that he knows him going vegan isn't going to stop all those animals being killed, even if he did believe it was wrong. As it stands I don't think he does believe killing animals for food is wrong, and he does it because a vegan diet helps him to stay thin. So the moral vegans would be the type who either do it for themselves, to feel better personally, or else because of that plus some crusade to convince others that eating meat is wrong.

...How it can be completely 'wrong' though, I will never understand. I actually feel the same way about fur. While I don't think breeding animals for fur is 'right', if you are going to eat them, use the skin, don't throw it away. So some of these anti-fur people would actually rather be wasteful by saying don't use leather, don't wear fur, etc. as byproducts of the food industry, and I can't understand that at all. It's logic and moral, surely, to not be wasteful? Yet there are actually people going about saying that things like leather is cruel. No more cruel than the food industry and feeding people is, I guess.

 

[Meg]

I disagree with vegans about not eating animal products, but that's their beliefs not mine. I've nothing against them and if I did I would be an idiot. To each their own after all. However, I do have a problem with people that are rude and condemn me to hell for my beliefs: whether it's because I eat meat or whatever. I'll admit I do get nervous around vegans because of the number of times I have been yelled at because I eat meat and especially veal. I know that isn't fair to them. I try to not get nervous and just look past it and for the most part I am successful. Still, there is still that voice in the back of my head telling me vegans love to yell at me (which is total BS). It's the same deal with people who look down on me and may even attack me because I'm white, a woman, American, pro-life, hate Final Fantasy (trollololol), a feminist, young, and who the heck knows what else. It's exhausting being angry at people. If you want to hate me because I eat meat or whatever then fine, but I've got better things to do then hate you back.

EDIT: Although my favorite thing to say to vegans who get on my case about eating meat because "that cheeseburger was once alive you know," is this: "And plants were once alive too, but you ate them anyway." That blows their mind. XD Some people just get baffled and don't know what to say, others say "well eating plants is not the same!" Oh really? Why not? And then they try to answer, but only proceed to shove their foot in their mouth. One vegan actually said that she tried not eating anything at all because she knows eating plants is wrong too, but it didn't work. That is dumb on so many levels. To each their own, sure, but seriously.

 

[DreadnoughtDT]

hate Final Fantasy (trollololol)

EDIT: Although my favorite thing to say to vegans who get on my case about eating meat because "that cheeseburger was once alive you know," is this: "And plants were once alive too, but you ate them anyway." That blows their mind. XD Some people just get baffled and don't know what to say, others say "well eating plants is not the same!" Oh really? Why not? And then they try to answer, but only proceed to shove their foot in their mouth. One vegan actually said that she tried not eating anything at all because she knows eating plants is wrong too, but it didn't work. That is dumb on so many levels. To each their own, sure, but seriously.

1. I see what you did there, Meg. XP

2. I agree with your edit. I did that to a Mega-Vegan (that's what I call the ones that force their beliefs down other's throats till they burst). They just completely shut down. I've never seen a funnier "open mouth, insert foot" moment.

 

[V]

If I were the arguing vegan I would say to that that plants don't have to be killed to take parts to eat from them, OR that plants have no nervous system and can't feel pain, so it's okay to eat them without being cruel. Then again, there are just some people who believe taking a life of any sort is wrong. Like pro-lifers in their own way with human beings, I guess, and they aren't going to appreciate the other side.

It's impossible to be alive without killing something though. Every second you are crushing some microscopic bug or other under you and ever time you breathe in or eat something, you are killing millions of bacteria. So then such people are just being highly selective about who or what's life to care about. And then that just comes down to being opinionated and to me all opinions are pretty much equal, unless they are true for everyone (facts).

 

[Vergil's Waifu]

"could you not hear the plant screaming as you tore it away from its root?"
(sorry, been watching to many old tv programs, tales of the unexpected i think it was, btw, that wasn't a quote)... but i wonder if plants do feel pain

 

[ZeroLove]

I only eat noodles and rice. Skinny as a flagpole I am, because of my metabolism. XD
But I don't really care about what's in the noodles. Sometimes it's chicken, somtimes it's pork, sometimes fish, but always alot of vegetables. And I don't care much about people's eating habits. So why am I writing in this thread, you might ask. Well, my sister is a vegan, or vegetarian, or whatever. She doesn't eat meat at all, but eats alot of other stuff to get the nutrition she needs, and also some vitamins and stuff like that to keep her body in balance. The thing is, she keeps nagging me for not caring about meat, animals getting slaughtered and so on and she is ALWAYS on and on about it. Recently there was something about Super Mario telling kids to wear fur, because he has a super power where he dresses up as a racoon. I laughed my ass off and my sister got totally offended about it. I love my sister, but I have never heard about anything so stupid like that. People are totally overreacting over absolutely nothing, about things that don't matter and forget about the important things in life. I don't get that.

 

[V]

"could you not hear the plant screaming as you tore it away from its root?"
(sorry, been watching to many old tv programs, tales of the unexpected i think it was, btw, that wasn't a quote)... but i wonder if plants do feel pain

Having done a degree in biology about ten years ago, I'd have said there is no point in a plant being able to feel pain. No point that would help them survive, that is. A plant can't move if it is damaged, so pain wouldn't help it like it would help an animal realize it's being hurt and make it move away. Also, animals aren't as good at regenerating themselves when they are damaged like plants can. As long as a plant's leaves or roots aren't all completely cut off it can survive a LOT of damage.

That was before my mum (who is a university botanist) brought this plant home called the "sensitive plant". I think we were having a disagreement about whether or not plants can feel anything and she wanted to prove it's possible for them to feel touch.

The sensitive plant can feel when you touch it, and it moves. So although it doesn't have nerves or muscles like animal tissues, it definitely has something to feel with, and it can feel the slightest touch. It can also react instantly to it. I got told.

So, plants can definitely FEEL touch. But they probably don't feel 'pain' like we do (although our sense of touch 'turns into' pain when our bodies take enough pressure to be damaged).