The morality thing, really, is what bugs me. I don’t think it’s immoral to consume meat. Most vegans I know don’t even take medicine because it was “tested on animals.” That stuff I just can’t get behind and find it obnoxious. I find it obnoxious being called a murderer.
Is it morally better to consume a plant based diet. Ok maybe, I can do some gymnastics in my head to get there. But eating meat = immoral I just can’t and won’t get behind, and it’s the sanctimonious shit I find unbelievably annoying.
I find the environmental arguments FAR stronger than the ethical/moral arguments. I can and have gone vegan for periods of several weeks. I only eat fish and poultry 95% of the time. But the arguments are usually on the morality of it, and that irritates me. Combined with the fact that vegans, among a lot of other groups like anti-vaxxers, evangelicals, hard-core astrologists, etc. have this weird cult-like tribe mindset (reinforced by a shitload of propaganda) that compounds the obnoxiousness for me.
Most of the vegans I’ve known (not many) eventually reveal mythical beliefs about health and nutrition. Like, I’d guess there’s a significantly higher rate of organic, gluten free, all-natural ingredients buyers in the vegan sub-population. When I’ve probed them, they’ve told me about things that seem to frequently appear on the YooToobz and not in, say, academic journals. Or they take something that is true (aspartame is a neurotoxin) and extrapolate it to something there is no evidence for (it causes brain cancer). Edit: I think jmakin is pointing out mostly the same thing I’m saying.
Yeah it’s probably rooted in some very fanciful slippery-slope thinking that has them picturing an all-veggie menu within a year or something. The fast food equivalent of “next thing ya know they’re gonna make me get gay-married!”
In a vacuum I agree, but I think the world of industrial agriculture that feeds most of us has an awful lot of direct and indirect immorality that makes vegetarian-ish diets more defensible (but still hugely problematic). Vegetarians and vegans are right that the way they eat is usually better, but not for the reasons many of them give. They often end up on the correct side of the argument by accident.
As a counter-example, my stepfather is a srs biz hunter so I eat a lot of venison and other game. This is horrifying to many vegetarians, all vegans, and a lot of people who think nothing of eating a Bic Mac for lunch. But it is unquestionably a more responsible source of food than a factory raised chicken or heavily-processed vegetable patty. (Unfortunately it also isn’t scalable, which is a problem with all Michael Pollan-esque locavore diets.)
Whether or not it’s wrong to eat an animal is an overly simplistic question that doesn’t even have a meaningful answer. However, avoiding or minimizing meat in your diet is a pretty good way to increase the chances that you’re doing the right thing even if the precise mechanism is a bit murky.
Being a vegan in Scotland I would say before the EU was impossible I’d say and after Brexit, we’ll who knows. But it’s not looking good.
Before Sir Walter Raleigh’s introduction of the potato to the British Isles, the Scots’ main source of carbohydrate was bread made from oats or barley. Wheat was generally difficult to grow because of the damp climate. Food thrift was evident from the earliest times, with excavated middens displaying little evidence of anything but the toughest bones. All parts of an animal were used.
Even today its still evident that most Scottish food used Dairy products and our main dishes contain very little meat, but use all other parts off the animal.
Good Luck being a vegan after Brexit Ukers.
My brother and niece is Vegan, they never complain and are usually silent on the subject.
Vegetables
Clapshot
Curly kail
Neeps and tatties (swede turnip and potatoes)
Rumbledethumps – a traditional dish from the Scottish Borders with main ingredients of potato, cabbage and onion
Fruits
I don’t eat meat because I’m married to the taste. I’ve had great-tasting vege and vegan meals with seitan and could easily live off that. What I don’t want to do is drink a gallon of pea protein shakes daily to get my PUMP on. Also, fuck carbs.
But it’s not looking good.