Shaming non-vegans is not right.

[Something Funny]

@Michael569 with all the shit being dumped into our oceans, it's hard for me to believe that there are any healthy fishes left. But I don't have any data to back this up, so ok.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Most of our food tends to be contaminated with something. It is a huge issue of our age. Something ought to be done about it but humanity would have to cease being so foolish.

Only fish from ponds and lakes of certain parts of the world can be considered really clean imo. Fortunately I have access to them

 

[Schizophonia]

29 minutes ago, Michael569 said:

Yes, I have an objection. We've had this debate a thousand times yet I see you keep sliding back to these nonsensical arguments. 

You're an intelligent dude (I genuinely mean that), you read a lot about health and you make tons of good arguments and comments. Yet when it comes to veganism you remain stubborn as a mule.  Btw saying this, I am not vegan so I have no horse in this race. 

Hitting 2500 calories on vegan diet is incredibly easy if you plan it right and so is hitting your protein goals. Vegans do eat more legumes than other people but they don't eat "only" legumes. There are so many ways to meet your protein and calorie goals. 

People don't just eat curries with rice or beans with rice. Only the vegans who don't care about their health eat terribly/ With some creativity you can turn your kitchen into a paradise. And honestly, the better I get with plant cooking the more appealing for me it is to eat out because I end up dissapointed a lot. 

take some examples: 

• There is a hundred ways to create pasta dishes all  the way from napolitana to home-made basil pesto, to vegan variations of mac&cheese to, ginger & pumpkin puree, mushroom puree, tofu paste pastas with home made nut roast flavouring. Not to mention that wholegrain and legumes pastas come at 20-28g of protein per 100g which beats the protein content of chicken. And that's just the pasta bit. Add a tofu/mushroom sauce and you get 45g of protein  per portion. 
• You have vegan burritos, quesadillas, tacos and all things in wraps. All the way from Mexican, Korean, Lebanese, Italian, Moroccan, Indian. Endless combinations that would make your mouth water if somebody ever perpared it for you properly. I wish I could send you a sample of my home made Quesadillas (plant based), I bet it would blow your mind. 
• Next , burgers, falafels, nut roasts, wholegrain roasts, all those things where you mash ingredients together and bake them in a specific shape, again hundreds of variations 
• vegan soups - so many flavours and options, you can load tons of protein in vegan soups, not to mention the content of fibre, antioxidants and essential nutrients. Again, I would love to send you a sample of my broccoli, pea, mint, canellini  bean soup, would make you reconsider your position ! 
• risottos and all sorts of rice bowl dishes 
• and I haven't even gone into all the things you can do with obvious protein sources like tofu, tempeh, seitan , natto etc. 

 

So yeah, you're right if you ate rice and beans , then your life would be pretty miserable but once you become good enough you'll realise that all the people who bash on vegan diets being boring and dull actually have the dullest diets themselves eating chicken , potatoes, chips type of foods all the time. They are just too afraid and too brainswashed. 

Btw hope that meme wasn't offensive. I used it jokingly knowing that you can do better

 

I agree about the variety of vegan foods, i was responding to a post about beans.

Otherwise

1) My other comments were mainly in relation to the micro-nutritional composition of meat.

2)I have access to the variety you show, except that i have additional foods that are more local and less expensive, i can inflate my calories quickly and easily with milk, eggs, chicken wings with skin, fatty pork, and fresh sardines, again all local and not too expensive even during inflation.

Bean cakes, tofu or even worse seitan which is probably one of the most allergenic and inflammatory foods in the world will not replace meat in terms of taste, durability or nutrition. + you still haven't explained to me where most of the calories and especially protein come from if they don't come from beans. Virtually they will come from two blocks of tofu per week and pasta.

It's great that you can make hamburgers and the like, the real question is concretely, virtually, what your daily diet will look like, the price, the practicality, the taste and whether it's nutritious or not.

Maybe you manage well and it satisfies you but for me it's just painful.

29 minutes ago, Michael569 said:

 

You're an intelligent dude (I genuinely mean that), you read a lot about health and you make tons of good arguments and comments. Yet when it comes to veganism you remain stubborn as a mule.  

Thanks, you're smart too, too bad you're English and vegan.
We can't be perfect.

[Sugarcoat]

I wouldn't say it's wrong because I understand the vegan perspective and I think it can be reasonable to be angry about people contributing to the suffering of living beings. The thing is that it doesn't WORK most likely. If you shame a meat eater most likely they'll just dislike you and feel attacked and automatically get defensive, thats how the human mind works. Instead a more calm approach, presenting arguments without personal attacks, inviting people to learn, that's probably more efficient. 

[Emerald]

15 hours ago, AION said:

Veganism is not cheaper if you have to factor in all the vitamin pills, doctor pills, blood checks, health problems and hospital bills on the long term. If I was vegan I would have to eat much larger amounts of food to feel satiated. I think some eggs and chicken legs won’t steam roll your bank account if you eat it twice a week. If you count all the hidden costs veganism I think it is more expensive. For example legumes and rice will become boring after a while and you will want avocados and that bad for your wallet and for the environment (because of transportation co2). Of course every diet can be made as cheap or as expensive as you want but if you live in a western country and you are on a budget, getting some fresh cut cheap meats like chicken, eggs or ground beef once a week and eating it in small portions is more accessible and more affordable; and you would still be able to eat your rice, legumes, potatoes and such. It will create a denser diet which will allow you to eat less volume. It is a lesser strain on your body and environment, and healthier. 

I only take and have only ever taken a daily Muti-vitamin. 

The only thing that actually needs to be supplemented is b-12, and you don't even need to take that every day.

And I've never been prescribed "doctor pills" because I'm Vegan. I don't have blood checks. I don't have health problems or hospital bills... and statistically I'm less likely to because I eat a Vegan diet.

Vegan diets are associated with lower instances of all-cause mortality... especially heart attack and stroke compared to an omnivorous diets. That's because there's less saturated fat in the diet which leads to lower levels of LDL cholesterol.

So, Veganism is a great way to avoid the #1 killer in wealthy nations. And higher consumption of plant foods and lower consumption of animal food is associated with health and longevity.

Also, avocados aren't more expensive than meat, unless we're talking about bologna and hot dogs. And most people who eat meat, eat it with every meal. 

And I currently eat about 1800 calories per day and I'm always stuffed because there's a lot of fiber and protein in my diet. There's also a lot of variety because 95% of whole ingredients are Vegan friendly. 

And no... it isn't just rice and legumes. That would be boring. There's lots of different dishes that are Vegan or easily turned Vegan.

[sholomar]

On 1/8/2025 at 10:49 AM, Emerald said:

That's just a fantasy. It's not a real solution.

Plus, 60-80% of farmland is used to feed the meat the we eat. And those are the big mono-crops like corn and soy. 

So, animal agriculture in any form is going to decrease biodiversity because the only way to feed the volume of cows, pigs, and chickens humans eat every year, we need lots of mono-crop farmland.

And it takes 16 lbs of grain to produce 1 lb of beef. So, meat is a very inefficient food to produce.

We also use farmland, quite large amounts of it, to grow corn which we turn into ethanol which fuels vehicles which I'm rather questionable is actually a good thing or not, and they're going to push E15 soon over E10.

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/us-corn-based-ethanol-worse-climate-than-gasoline-study-finds-2022-02-14/

[sholomar]

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

I wouldn't say it's wrong because I understand the vegan perspective and I think it can be reasonable to be angry about people contributing to the suffering of living beings. The thing is that it doesn't WORK most likely. If you shame a meat eater most likely they'll just dislike you and feel attacked and automatically get defensive, thats how the human mind works. Instead a more calm approach, presenting arguments without personal attacks, inviting people to learn, that's probably more efficient. 

Meat eating is simply part of our evolutionary nature. We evolved during the paleolithic era consuming meat.  Many animal species eat other animals. The moral argument is one that is really just man made.. yes animals suffer but they suffer in nature as well, often in far more cruel deaths than having their throats cut by man to become a ribeye.  There's no easy answer because we don't want rainforest cut down to grow more cattle for south americans but at the same time we can't and won't force veganism on the planet.  We really don't want to keep growing the population in my opinion... those people like Musk who say we should keep breeding, the planet can handle 30 billion people, in my opinion contribute to the problem.  Prepping 3 lbs of ground beef to grill into burgers as I speak.  Unlike many I would eat insects or various other meat related compounds if they managed to make them taste good. Not going to live off grains and vegetables however.... my diet is lower carbohydrate.

 

Edited 9 hours ago by sholomar

[Sugarcoat]

5 minutes ago, sholomar said:

Meat eating is simply part of our evolutionary nature. We evolved during the paleolithic era consuming meat.  Many animal species eat other animals. The moral argument is one that is really just man made.. yes animals suffer but they suffer in nature as well, often in far more cruel deaths than having their throats cut by man to become a ribeye.  There's no easy answer because we don't want rainforest cut down to grow more cattle for south americans but at the same time we can't and won't force veganism on the planet.  We really don't want to keep growing the population in my opinion... those people like Musk who say we should keep breeding, the planet can handle 30 billion people, in my opinion contribute to the problem.  Prepping 3 lbs of ground beef to grill into burgers as I speak.  Unlike many I would eat insects or various other meat related compounds if they managed to make them taste good. Not going to live off grains and vegetables however.... my diet is lower carbohydrate.

 

I don’t have a problem with meat eating per se. I have a problem with modern factory farming. That’s cruel and unsustainable. Science says a plant predominant diet is optimal, so we don’t need so much meat, just a little bit one can eat. And if eating it’s preferably grass finished and sustainably  raised. That’s the ideal. So I understand vegans who shame meat eaters because many people eat too much meat and eat it conventionally raised in factory farms which isn’t good.

I agree about not increasing the population. I’m open to insects etc too. But as I said one can lower meat intake and eat predominantly plants and eat sustainably raised meat, I think that could potentially be sustainable for a lot of people if not the whole planet somehow

[Scholar]

On 8.1.2025 at 0:03 AM, Basman said:

Veganism is extreme relative to what is normative. When I call veganism extreme is descriptive not pejorative.

Then what you say meaningless. Every single human right has been achieved by extremism, according to this standard. Every single moral step forward in the history of mankind was extreme, relative to what was normative.

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, sholomar said:

We also use farmland, quite large amounts of it, to grow corn which we turn into ethanol which fuels vehicles which I'm rather questionable is actually a good thing or not, and they're going to push E15 soon over E10.

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/us-corn-based-ethanol-worse-climate-than-gasoline-study-finds-2022-02-14/

That's definitely important to question. But the majority of farmland isn't used to produce ethanol.

I forget the exact statistics on it, but I think it's only like 10%. Though look that up because it's been a while since I looked at the breakdown.

But depending on which region, anywhere between 60% and 80% is used to grow mono-crop grains to feed cows, pigs, and chickens in factory farms. So, that's how the vast majority of our agricultural land is being used.

[Emerald]

@Something Funny @Scholar Methinks the ladies doth protest too much.

[Basman]

2 hours ago, Scholar said:

Then what you say meaningless. Every single human right has been achieved by extremism, according to this standard. Every single moral step forward in the history of mankind was extreme, relative to what was normative.

So you agree then LOL.

[Buck Edwards]

7 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

I wouldn't say it's wrong because I understand the vegan perspective and I think it can be reasonable to be angry about people contributing to the suffering of living beings. The thing is that it doesn't WORK most likely. If you shame a meat eater most likely they'll just dislike you and feel attacked and automatically get defensive, thats how the human mind works. Instead a more calm approach, presenting arguments without personal attacks, inviting people to learn, that's probably more efficient. 

Are you a vegan personally? 

Edited 3 hours ago by Buck Edwards

[sholomar]

7 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

I don’t have a problem with meat eating per se. I have a problem with modern factory farming. That’s cruel and unsustainable. Science says a plant predominant diet is optimal, so we don’t need so much meat, just a little bit one can eat. And if eating it’s preferably grass finished and sustainably  raised. That’s the ideal. So I understand vegans who shame meat eaters because many people eat too much meat and eat it conventionally raised in factory farms which isn’t good.

I agree about not increasing the population. I’m open to insects etc too. But as I said one can lower meat intake and eat predominantly plants and eat sustainably raised meat, I think that could potentially be sustainable for a lot of people if not the whole planet somehow

It really is the most efficient way to not waste anything though, that's the problem. The land can't sustain animals free ranging, especially when so much of the land is used to grow corn to make ethanol for cars.  It's an inefficient use of land and manpower to have chickens all free range, and even if you let them, often they spend most of their time in the barn anyways because it's protection from the elements and predators.

As morally questionable as modern farming may be, corporations want to be efficient... they literally do use all parts of the animal, and if we want to make affordable mass market meat for every grocery small grocery store on the planet, there's not really an easy way to avoid it.   I would argue we should get rid of ethanol for vehicles and use that land for cattle feed or increased grazing/free range, and then we can stop growing things like Alfalfa (used as cattle feed) in california using that precious water and have more land resources to produce food instead of fuel.

I try to buy "certified humane" eggs when at all possible, and most beef cattle is not kept in pens, they mostly graze outside. It's dairy cattle that are kept in pens, chickens for eggs (if they are not "certified humane" not to be confused with "american humane certified"), and pigs. Don't really eat much pork personally.  That area in the great plains where it's too hilly to farm, like western south dakota, drive out there and you'll see the large numbers of beef cattle grazing on the land.

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-some-dairy-cows-kept-in-barns-instead-of-out-on-pasture

If they really wanted plant based meat consumption to increase they should have subsidized impossible and beyond like they subsidize the farm industry as a whole during Biden's term. Unfortunately because it's not "natural" and considered "processed" neither side (vegans or meat eaters) wants to embrace this (in my opinion) decent meat alternative, and it's too expensive to really consider replacing meat with without a subsidy to cut the price in half (or more)

 

Edited 1 hour ago by sholomar

[Buck Edwards]

@Sugarcoat what kind of meat do you eat (if you eat at all)? 

[Buck Edwards]

11 hours ago, Michael569 said:

I am not vegan

And the entire time I'm thinking you're a vegan. Facepalm 

I eat a lot of chicken and fish, it's my primary diet. I had low iron and hemoglobin levels and my doctor had advised me to incorporate meat and fish and eggs along with iron pills. 

Even though I might not need anything nutrition wise, I will still continue to eat meat, eggs and fish because I generally get the feeling that my health and mood are better when I eat them versus not eating them. I walk better, faster, I can do my work better. The animal protein helps me. There's a huge difference in how I feel if I have to say from direct experience. 

Regarding vegan diet, it doesn't fulfill me, I feel sloppy on it despite taking multi vitamins and I found that it's kinda expensive to maintain it in the long run, even options like free range eggs or grass fed meat, these are not cheap things. The moment anything is labeled organic it's expensive. 

[Buck Edwards]

9 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

I don’t have a problem with meat eating per se. I have a problem with modern factory farming. That’s cruel and unsustainable. Science says a plant predominant diet is optimal, so we don’t need so much meat, just a little bit one can eat. And if eating it’s preferably grass finished and sustainably  raised. That’s the ideal. So I understand vegans who shame meat eaters because many people eat too much meat and eat it conventionally raised in factory farms which isn’t good.

I agree about not increasing the population. I’m open to insects etc too. But as I said one can lower meat intake and eat predominantly plants and eat sustainably raised meat, I think that could potentially be sustainable for a lot of people if not the whole planet somehow

I don't agree with this. Number one reason being that factory farm meat is much  cheaper than grass fed and sustainably raised meat. Unless the prices are reduced, most people (especially low income groups) will stick with factory farm meat. They simply can't afford it sustainably. In the long run veganism might collapse as an elitist option because mostly rich people can afford all the organic options and if veganism has to win, then prices of grass fed sustainably raised meat need to be sufficiently lowered to appeal to low income groups. 

I saw the prices on organic grass fed free range eggs. And I was put off by that, although they taste better and are even healthier and I would have loved to get them, but I switched to my cheap regular white farm factory eggs to maintain my budget and I eat a lot of eggs to keep up my protein. Not to say that I don't eat vegetables. I do. But I like a balanced diet so I incorporate all kinds of things, both veggies, fish,chicken, eggs and whatever I can afford. So instead of being angry (and shaming) at people who eat farm factory meat, maybe vegans can support their movement by focusing on how to make organic options more cheaper and sustainable for folks who can't afford it. Shaming is not the way. You understand it, but it's not ethical to shame or bully a non-vegan. It will backfire badly. I get that I might be contributing to animal suffering but I don't wish to sacrifice much for it, not due to lack of empathy, but for concern for myself and I don't find that selfish  and I don't care about what Vegan science says because their science might be agenda driven so difficult to trust and if better options are available I might switch to them as in cheaper options in the future. 

 

Edited 12 minutes ago by Buck Edwards