Question Might Become Vegan

[Tom L.]

Hi, Jamie.

I'll want to think a bit about your posts above before addressing them maybe. In the meantime, here's where I'm coming from: because of my care for animals, I stopped eating meat when I was 16, and fish when I was 20. I think it was about 20 years ago when I became aware of what the dairy and egg industries do to animals, and started cutting back on dairy and egg. I'm not currently vegan because I still use "byproducts" of animal slaughter which vegans do not use (such as shoe leather); I don't see that a boycott of those things would change anything for animals because they're not raised or killed to meet market demand for them.

About your argument above:

It's the argument that without our meat eating, the animals would not exist at all. Some vegans discuss this argument rather abruptly in articles and books in even a single sentence, which surprises me. One argument is that a bad life is better than no life. But I am not so sure about that. It just seems to be a philosophical debate that is too hard to resolve.

I'm not sure my reason for not eating animals or their body products has much to do with this. My view is that animals enjoy their lives- and to kill them before their time is to do them harm, even if they are killed painlessly. But this isn't comparable to not causing an animal to be born in the first place. Before an animal is conceived, there is no individual to miss out on anything- so if my not eating meat, egg, or dairy causes the livestock industry to raise fewer animals than it would have, I still don't see it the same way as if I were to cause an already-existing animal to be killed.

Besides, as Andy_T's second post above points out, livestock animals aren't born into a vacuum: many wild animals are displaced (either killed, or prevented from existing) by the animals people raise for human consumption.

 

[Blobbenstein]

I think if the whole world went vegan, then some of the food animals could be kept in reserve, like a farm zoo; then if society collapsed then they could be bred again for their milk and eggs, by the remaining humans.....I think having an animal that can turn straw into milk, through the wintertime would be very useful for a low technology society, as it was in the past. It must even have made the difference between life and death at one stage, or else lactose tolerance would not have arisen in some races of human. People must have died because they weren't lactose tolerant, or at least, not had offspring.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Thanks again for all your support.

I have just seen Speciesism: The Movie and am feeling more convinced than ever about all this.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the "never having existed" argument I mentioned in post 14.

Apart from that, I am feeling pretty well ready to put the for and against arguments of eating meat behind me and move on to another topic.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Hi, Jamie.

Besides, as Andy_T's second post above points out, livestock animals aren't born into a vacuum: many wild animals are displaced (either killed, or prevented from existing) by the animals people raise for human consumption.

Ah, I have just seen page 2 of this thread, sorry, just seeing that now. Oops. This is actually a great reply to the "never having existed" argument and perhaps a more manageable one for some situation where you are with a group of people and only have a few seconds.

I guess you mean something like this:

1. To have so many factory farmed animals, it means somewhere there are many huge fields of soy and corn or whatever in order to provide them feed.
2. These fields support less wild animals than if they were left to nature (I'm guessing this is true? But this is the one part of the argument that would need actually checking out.) whether because of a worse system or animals being chased off or killed by owners.
3. Such wild animals are therefore prevented from existing by the existence of the factory farmed animals.
4. If everyone went vegan, less of the world would be given over to crop production, and therefore more wild animals would exist.

Of course, the number of wild animals (at least of a similar size/intelligence) that would exist would probably still be less than the factory farmed animals (at a guess?) so it then becomes a trade off about whether a smaller amount of animals living a natural life is better than a larger amount living in suffering and captivity. Which, I think it is personally.

Thanks a lot, that is a good insight.

 

[ledboots]

Thanks again for all your support.

I have just seen Speciesism: The Movie and am feeling more convinced than ever about all this.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the "never having existed" argument I mentioned in post 14.

Apart from that, I am feeling pretty well ready to put the for and against arguments of eating meat behind me and move on to another topic.

Well, certainly humans have bred certain animals into meat/milk/egg/wool commodities, but that doesn't mean that we have to keep using them as such.

Perhaps cows could gradually be bred to make enough milk for just her calf, as manmals do. As it is, wild pigs, chickens, goats, fish, ducks, turkeys, quail, pheasant, sheep, etc do exist in the wild.

Certainly the world will not go vegan overnight, so as hopefully the demand for animal products decreases, fewer will be forcibly bred, and slaughtered.

 

[AeryFairy]

Certainly the world will not go vegan overnight, so as hopefully the demand for animal products decreases, fewer will be forcibly bred, and slaughtered.

And if the entire world did go vegan overnight, I'm sure 7 billion vegans could figure things out between them

 

[Jamie in Chile]

4. If everyone went vegan, less of the world would be given over to crop production, and therefore more wild animals would exist.

Now I think about it, alternative possibility is that if everyone went vegan (over a period of time), more people could be fed with existing resources, and the world's human population might increase instead with more people being supported with the same crop/plant amount, and the wild animals population might stay about the same.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Another thought just occurred to me. A simpler defence of the "never having existing" argument might be to say that since it would be morally wrong to just bring animals into existence for the purposes of torturing them for fun, never having existing otherwise cannot be a catch all justification for any kind of low quality life.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Well, I have started as a vegetarian and have not eaten meat for around 2-3 weeks, the last one was a pizza that I ate with some ham on. I did miss it, more the first week, less now.

Have not quite made "mostly vegan" to be honest. Maybe "partly vegan" is more accurate so far with "mostly vegan" more of a target over time. I eat no eggs and don't add cheese to anything but still eat cheese on pizzas for instance.

Sandwiches has been an issue. I don't want dry bread so I am still eating butter. Also cheese is quite a loss. Cheese and cucumber, cheese and onion, cheese and lettuce, cheese and tomato all work great. Take out the cheese and they all pretty weak. I have literally been eating things like a lettuce sandwich or a crisp sandwich when in a hurry.

I think I'll need vegan butter and cheese substitutes more than meat substitutes. Put those on my research list this week.

I am not much of a cook but I have tried a few things but they were very basic like pasta with some veg mixed in, but that's OK. My wife is not particularly happy about the vegetarian thing but she has done some nice things for me.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

I've been to the doctor and got my level of protein, calcium, B12 etc. I'll measure it again in a year or two and compare the results.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

My wife's not been particularly positive, especially on the thought of making the kids vegetarian.

I told me brother and sister and parents and grandparents. It's interesting to see the change through the family generations. My grandparents have no interest in anything, not even animal welfare. My parents get the animal welfare (preferring better treated animals when they can be sourced) and the low meat argument, but animal rights and speciesism and full vegetarianism is a step too far for them. My brother and sister are more open to it all. My sister eats quite a lot of vegan but it's more for welfare concerns I think. But extrapolating the opinions down the generations of my family implies a largely vegan world in about 2 generations!

I got in touch with a cousin who was vegetarian (the only one I know) for many years but she eventually went back to meat when she had the chance to hunt herself. Animal welfare but not animal rights again.

I don't know a single vegan and for most people the idea that it is fundamentally wrong to eat an animal at all is just a step way too far at this point.

 

[Calliegirl]

Sandwiches has been an issue. I don't want dry bread so I am still eating butter. Also cheese is quite a loss. Cheese and cucumber, cheese and onion, cheese and lettuce, cheese and tomato all work great. Take out the cheese and they all pretty weak. I have literally been eating things like a lettuce sandwich or a crisp sandwich when in a hurry.

Try substituting mashed avocado or better yet, guacamole for the cheese. It doesn't taste quite the same, but it is good.

 

[dormouse]

Congrats on your progress so far! Many of us find that family and friends get more accepting of our veganism/vegetarianism as time goes on. It stops being weird to them. Give it time.

Hummus and avocados are both key on sandwiches for me. They replace the fatty goodness of dairy cheese.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Not a huge fan of avocados, but since my last post I found a couple of vegan cheeses in a couple of vegan/veggie shops in Santiago. Found 2 small shops in the city. Small places with about 10 products for sale. I'd say they are about 3x the price of a regular cheese, and taste wise slightly worse. I think I'll eat cheese in the months I go to Santiago and just no cheese at all (at home) in the other months.

I also found a butter/margarine made out of vegetables. Just as cheap and tasty as a regular one, as well, and available in many supermarkets so easier than the cheese.

I'd say I am about 95% vegan at home now. (based on % reduction in amount of animal products and suffering). No meat/fish/eggs/dairy but the other 5% might be mainly due to chocolate, ice cream, bread and non-food products (clothes/leather/shampoo etc). I'm going to look into some of that other stuff. I think I'd like to be around 99% vegan, at least at home. Are there any products that I am missing that might contribute a sizeable amount of animal suffering - not things that have traces of animal product, but a substantial amount?

I'm not sure I see the point in striving to get to 99.9%, at least not for now. There have to be some reasonable trade offs to convenience, pleasure, and the fact that being obsessively vegan could cause you to ignore other issues in your life that may be more important than reducing your animal suffering by another 0.1%. There is also the argument that striving to be 99.9% vegan or 100% may make one seem too radical and not be a good advert for veganism.

As to actually eating meat, I did it once in the last 7 weeks since I gave it up, it was just a few tiny bits of chicken I ate without even thinking. (I am capable of some extreme absent mindedness!)

Although I am mostly vegan at home, when I eat out, it is a different matter. Many places here have 3-20 items on the menu and often not a single one is vegan. I tend to eat an empanada (pasty/pie) which means cheese, or a pizza which means cheese. Because I am avoiding meat options now when I eat out, my cheese consumption when I eat out is actually a lot higher!

Last week we were on holiday and it sure got boring the cheese empanadas which were the only option in beach restaurants focusing on fish/seafood. I dithered about all the seafood options because I am not sure if I am going to abstain from seafood (in the UK when we say seafood we generally do not refer to regular, fin fish). I thought about it later and read some articles online and decided that the benefit of the doubt on suffering and not wanting to eat a living being are probably the best argument. That said I think it's a personal choice here as it may be morally better to eat seafood than plants in some cases. Later realized that it actually would have probably more sense ethically to eat some of the seafood than the cheese.

I think I am going to change tack here and I was thinking I might explain to the restaurant that they have nothing vegan and ask if I can either a) bring my own food in the restaurant when eating with others, or b) if they can prepare something off menu, even it's just a simple plate of chips. Have not actually tried this yet but has to make more sense in getting the world slowly changed than just quietly eating an animal product.

Am currently reading The Animal Activist's Handbook and they make the fair point that someone mostly vegan who becomes an activist and converts even only one person has done more good than a quiet, 100% fruitarian. I think I am going to start some low level activism along the lines of raising the subject proactively but gently with friends and family (already started this), maybe leafleting in Universities, and occasional facebook posts. There's a reasonable argument that activism for vegetarianism and veganism will actually do more good than giving money to charity or almost any activity you can think of.

I found out that my wife's sister actually eats meat for health reasons or just because it's offered even though she doesn't like it and it makes her feel ill. I gave her and a couple of others a leaflet I found at the vegan store explaining how a vegan diet fulfills all nutritional requirements.

 

[ledboots]

Hi Jamie in Chile and welcome. Well lol, I really enjoyed your post. How many places in that post were you trying to excuse/explain/advocate for eating non-vegan food?

As far as the beach bar, I'm sure there is something they can make vegan: chips, no cheese salads, pasta with red sauce? I've had vegan garlic bread in pubs, I just ask to make sure they don't use butter. If they have fajitas or tacos, you can do something with that. Or rice. I eat before I go sometimes.

Anyway, please relax about how vegan your actions are, and just concentrate on not harming animals, k?

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Yes, I have a tremendous range of excuses for not being vegan going from convenience, not wanting to cause a scene and hassle for others, pleasure of taste, forgot, haven't got around to it yet, other things to worry about, image, further research required and so on.

 

[Andy_T]

I tend to eat an empanada (pasty/pie) which means cheese, or a pizza which means cheese.

Jamie, I simply ask the pizzeria to make me a pizza without any cheese.
Sure, surprises them the first time, but they get used to it and I definitely like the taste more than the cheesy stuff I ate earlier.

 

[Second Summer]

Jamie, I completely understand that this is not easy. It sounds like you've still made good progress.

How is your family taking it? Are they eating more vegetarian / vegan as well, or are you entirely on your own in this? I personally find that in terms of veganism, my life became so much less complicated once I moved in together with my wife who is also vegan.

Also, is there something like a vegan (or vegetarian) meet-up group, or a vegan society / organisation anywhere in Chile / Santiago that you could join? I'm sure they would be happy to have you, even if you're not 100%.

Anyway, I think finding like-minded people with whom to socialize can be very helpful.

 

[robert99]

It ain't easy to begin with, so think about yourself first, then plan on converting the rest of the planet.

There's a lot of BS out there but "taking the red pill" will ease your conscience but not make life easier! Just make sure you get your B12 etc - any good vegan book has plenty of tasty healthy dishes.

(watching videos like this recent one from French group L214 about Eco-slaughter (?!) being pretty much like every other type of slaughter - [Nouvelle enquête] Souffrances dans un abattoir certifié bio. - tends to re-confirm the faith)

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Pizza with no cheese, I think I could try it. See how they react.

I am pretty much on my own with this. I don't know any other vegans or vegetarians within family or friends. My wife (she does most cooking) at first would moan and say she won't cook me special meals but she is coming around. However, she's not interested in animal rights or vegetarianism herself. What she does is take the meat off my plate or make me a special meal that's different to what others are having.

She found some soy burgers for me and we even took a couple to a family barbecue. There are not very good though, I tend to prefer the meals that are more like quinoa/rice/pasta with vegetables type things, although it's good to have a mixture.

I did look online briefly for a vegan group in Santiago, but I didn't find one yet. However, it might be too far away to be worth the travel.

I am not really the kind of person that needs a lot of emotional support and circle of supportive people around them; I am mostly more of a logical, rational, analytical sort.