The motivation is that animals aren't objects, they're individuals. So we shouldn't treat them like objects to simply use and consume for our own benefit if we can avoid it.
If you want some extra help going vegan, I recommend https://challenge22.com/ . They'll hook you up with professionals for free to plan a fully plant-based diet for 22 days, taking into account your personal challenges. After that, it will just be a routine for you.
It’s a real thing. Actually it’s cited more commonly than animal welfare as the reason people adopt a vegan diet. And vegan diet is like 98% of veganism.
You can adopt a plant based diet for the environment, but if you’re not doing it for ethical reasons to reduce suffering of animals, that’s not being vegan. The definition of veganism states nothing about the environment or health.
Plant based is for health (assuming whole foods) and environment
Veganism is for animals.
That’s weird. So if the outcome is the same (animals are saved) it’s not vegan? Even if the actions to result in that outcome is the same? Why gate-keep so hard? Why not just admit you can be vegan because our planet is getting cooked by green house gases and cows are the #1 contributor. I feel like we should make our tent bigger.
Because that’s just not veganism plain and simple. And you can still eat a plant based diet for the environment and visit an unethical zoo, for example. Or you can eat plant based but breed dogs for profit. Or buy cosmetics tested on animals, buy a new leather jacket (because it’s more sustainable in their minds).
If a person is only for the environment there might be situations where it outshines the ethics. I had a vegan friend who started eating fish because “it’s better to eat local fish than to transport soy from across the globe”. That way of thinking was false anyway in that particular situation but do you see why veganism is only for reducing animal harm now?
I get what you’re saying but people who eat fish aren’t following a vegan diet. What you’re basically saying is that people who don’t do it for the animals will backslide. This may or may not be true, since there are many reasons to be vegan. And don’t forget that people often start doing it for the animals, at least in part, once they’re already doing it for other reasons.
There’s a lot of ways people can help animals if they are not fully vegan, such as simply not eating animal products. Someone who doesn’t eat animal products might not be vegan because veganism extends to other things like only buying vegan shampoo, not buying leather or wool products, not horse riding, etc. that also mitigate animal suffering.
It’s always possible to be a more perfect vegan. I think vegan diet is 98% of it, if not 99%. There’s literally billions of animals being created, tortured, and destroyed for food every year. Compared to the thousands for animal-tested cosmetics that most “vegans” still buy because it’s practical to them. Many vegans also eat bone char refined sugar but that’s like 0.001% of the demand that eating a cheeseburger makes. It’s leftover scrap, although in a perfect world with all perfect vegans, it would be boycotted (and people might be more metabolically healthy)
I think we should give the vegan label to people who eat a vegan diet while recognizing they’re failing to grab some low-hanging fruit if they still buy leather, for example. It would help our image and ultimately help more animals faster, since in my experience diet is the major stumbling block.
I agree it’s always possible to be a “more perfect” vegan. Although again I think that is still unified by the shared value of wellbeing of animals, rather than other reasons someone might have a plant based diet such as to lose or maintain body weight or because of purely environmental reasons.
Whether there are benefits to labeling veganism to all animal excluding diets regardless of moral philosophy, I’m unsure. If someone did it for weight loss, they could just as easily eat meat again when they’re happy with their weight, uncaring towards the other consequences of such consumption.
I think the benefit to not being so nit picky about labels would be less annoyance from non-vegan people towards vegans, since I think regardless of how people talk about veganism like a dietary choice, most people still seem aware that veganism is a philosophy for animal wellbeing.
I agree it would probably reduce annoyance at vegans by non-vegans. I’m not sure I agree that people eating a vegan diet will drop the diet if they weren’t doing it for the animals. Because once people are eating a vegan diet, they tend to adopt animal welfare principles.
Like, almost no one respects animal abuse. People ignore the consequences of their actions because their actions are hard to change. Especially food choices. Once someone is walking the walk, for any reason, or 98% of the walk since they’re technically only strictly plant-based, I’d slap the “vegan” label on them and say “see? You’re doing it, you’re a vegan! Congratulations!”and then point out that some other products here and there have animal cruelty connected to them that can be avoided.
It was a process for me.
1. Watching animal sanctuary videos showing cows/chickens/pigs etc just playing around and having fun. This was far more impactful for me than slaughterhouse videos. I think most meat eaters know it ain't pretty already.
2. Having a pet. I looked into my cat's eyes one day, and I saw, for lack of a better term, a "cat soul". There is a real being in there who has feelings and thoughts of their own. And I couldn't come up with a reason that "food animals" were any different.
3. I had always been told that chickens were stupid and therefore had no idea what was going on. But then I saw an organization that recorded a rescue of a bunch of chickens that for whatever reason the farmer agreed to let go. One of those chickens, curled up on the rescuers shoulder like any pet would, and genuinely looked terrified. Like they had seen some shit. For all the accusations of "anthropomorphization" of animals, I just couldn't see anything else in that chicken's face but terror.
4. And with all of this, there's one thought that kind of haunts me: What if the animals know? What if, in their own way, animals like pigs and cows in factory farming understand they're being raised for slaughter? I understand animals in the wild are constantly under threat, and I doubt they have the same type of "understanding" a human would have, but if a pig is supposedly as smart as a young child (same as crows/corvids), if elephants mourn and hold funerals... how and why do we assume that all animals are so completely unaware? And even if they're not, if they're not "smart"... does that make it better? This is one of those things that troubles me the most. Nature vs Man.
This is a copy paste comment I share anyone vegan curious or new vegan:
Here’s my veganism educational resources doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ot4yc8145yqGsWWXylXMoOW6zIud6acVqK8FtE-cfVc/edit great place to start. Also recommend watching recipe vids and grocery hauls by the cheaplazyvegan and Madeline Olivia on YouTube especially their older videos and going into university I was super into Madeline Olivia’s easy cheap 3-5 ingredient recipes. (Also personally rec gardein canned meals and minute rice all very much lifesavers for me when I was at school)
Different methods to consider:
substitution not removal: where you instead of getting rid of different products in your fridge you start slowly introducing new plant based products to try and over time the idea is you’ll find many more plant based products you like and will have replaced most of the animal products and then the last transition to removing the final animal products will be much easier.
one day at a time: taking veganism one day at a time by everyday saying “I’m going to be vegan for today” instead of saying “I’m going to be vegan from this day forward.” The purpose of this method is to remove the daunting commitment of deciding to make a lifelong change and instead taking the beginning one day at a time and giving yourself grace through mistakes. Mistakes can make people feel like giving up but ultimately eating an animal one day doesn’t mean you should give up and eat an animal the next day too. It means you grow and learn and this method makes that easier.
cold turkey: this is technically what I did but only after years of wanting to be vegan and having tried lots of vegan foods and recipes by this point. I went vegan overnight because the guilt got to me and I realized if I didn’t commit right now when I knew what I’m doing is wrong, how could I ever expect myself to commit? Like I was asking myself what really was holding me back but myself and I realized in that moment the commitment was what I needed. 3 years+ strong.
challenge22 which I’ve heard has quite the high success rate
10 week program. I don’t know anything about this I’ve just seen others recommend it. It seems a lot like challenge22 just significantly longer.
So as you can see different methods work best for different people and obviously this is not an exhaustive list.
End of copy paste
~
I’m vegan out of a belief that animals deserve to live free of exploitation and commodification and that it’s our duty to live that value in practice no matter how much our individual choices have an impact. So basically I believe in collective liberation for both humans and non human animals and I also see how our liberation is connected and dependent on one another
just learn more about nutrition. watch the 'nutritionfacts' youtube channel for example. if you know enough about nutrition you won't want to eat dairy or meat again, or at least severely limit it.
don't think about going vegan as a whole, just play it one meal at a time. surely you can make your next meal vegan pretty easily, and then the next one, and so on.
also, messing up doesn't mean you have to quit it entirely! give yourself some grace
The motivation is that animals aren't objects, they're individuals. So we shouldn't treat them like objects to simply use and consume for our own benefit if we can avoid it.
If you want some extra help going vegan, I recommend https://challenge22.com/ . They'll hook you up with professionals for free to plan a fully plant-based diet for 22 days, taking into account your personal challenges. After that, it will just be a routine for you.
What about owning pets?
What do you think the implication would be?
If I said that humans shouldn't be treated like objects, would that entail people not adopting? Would it entail people not breeding humans for profit?
I realized I didn't want to be someone who exploited animals for pleasure or convenience, so I had to stop doing it.
Watch Earthlings and Dominion online for free, do it tonight, do it
Then check out Simnet Nutrition on YT for infinite easy healthy meal ideas!
It might look scary but really it can be very easy
i find these questions really strange.
In the beginning, it might help to go to vegan restaurants, try things & explore. Talk to others & show curiosity in learning more.
Didn't want to be a hypocrite. I could not claim to love animals and own pets and yet eat other animals and pay for their suffering.
Also, eating vegan is genuinely easy as fuck. There are so many options nowadays.
The only reason to go vegan is empathy. If you don't have it, you can't do it. Plant-based? Care about your health.
Learn more. Do better.
Best of luck
Earthlings on YouTube for animals, thats what got me.
Forks over knives for health, YouTube
I mean, people go vegan for the planet, too. Not sure that fits in the “empathy” category.
🙄
It’s a real thing. Actually it’s cited more commonly than animal welfare as the reason people adopt a vegan diet. And vegan diet is like 98% of veganism.
You can adopt a plant based diet for the environment, but if you’re not doing it for ethical reasons to reduce suffering of animals, that’s not being vegan. The definition of veganism states nothing about the environment or health.
Plant based is for health (assuming whole foods) and environment Veganism is for animals.
That’s weird. So if the outcome is the same (animals are saved) it’s not vegan? Even if the actions to result in that outcome is the same? Why gate-keep so hard? Why not just admit you can be vegan because our planet is getting cooked by green house gases and cows are the #1 contributor. I feel like we should make our tent bigger.
Because that’s just not veganism plain and simple. And you can still eat a plant based diet for the environment and visit an unethical zoo, for example. Or you can eat plant based but breed dogs for profit. Or buy cosmetics tested on animals, buy a new leather jacket (because it’s more sustainable in their minds).
If a person is only for the environment there might be situations where it outshines the ethics. I had a vegan friend who started eating fish because “it’s better to eat local fish than to transport soy from across the globe”. That way of thinking was false anyway in that particular situation but do you see why veganism is only for reducing animal harm now?
I get what you’re saying but people who eat fish aren’t following a vegan diet. What you’re basically saying is that people who don’t do it for the animals will backslide. This may or may not be true, since there are many reasons to be vegan. And don’t forget that people often start doing it for the animals, at least in part, once they’re already doing it for other reasons.
Also, I didn’t know there were ethical zoos.
There’s a lot of ways people can help animals if they are not fully vegan, such as simply not eating animal products. Someone who doesn’t eat animal products might not be vegan because veganism extends to other things like only buying vegan shampoo, not buying leather or wool products, not horse riding, etc. that also mitigate animal suffering.
It’s always possible to be a more perfect vegan. I think vegan diet is 98% of it, if not 99%. There’s literally billions of animals being created, tortured, and destroyed for food every year. Compared to the thousands for animal-tested cosmetics that most “vegans” still buy because it’s practical to them. Many vegans also eat bone char refined sugar but that’s like 0.001% of the demand that eating a cheeseburger makes. It’s leftover scrap, although in a perfect world with all perfect vegans, it would be boycotted (and people might be more metabolically healthy)
I think we should give the vegan label to people who eat a vegan diet while recognizing they’re failing to grab some low-hanging fruit if they still buy leather, for example. It would help our image and ultimately help more animals faster, since in my experience diet is the major stumbling block.
I agree it’s always possible to be a “more perfect” vegan. Although again I think that is still unified by the shared value of wellbeing of animals, rather than other reasons someone might have a plant based diet such as to lose or maintain body weight or because of purely environmental reasons.
Whether there are benefits to labeling veganism to all animal excluding diets regardless of moral philosophy, I’m unsure. If someone did it for weight loss, they could just as easily eat meat again when they’re happy with their weight, uncaring towards the other consequences of such consumption.
I think the benefit to not being so nit picky about labels would be less annoyance from non-vegan people towards vegans, since I think regardless of how people talk about veganism like a dietary choice, most people still seem aware that veganism is a philosophy for animal wellbeing.
I agree it would probably reduce annoyance at vegans by non-vegans. I’m not sure I agree that people eating a vegan diet will drop the diet if they weren’t doing it for the animals. Because once people are eating a vegan diet, they tend to adopt animal welfare principles.
Like, almost no one respects animal abuse. People ignore the consequences of their actions because their actions are hard to change. Especially food choices. Once someone is walking the walk, for any reason, or 98% of the walk since they’re technically only strictly plant-based, I’d slap the “vegan” label on them and say “see? You’re doing it, you’re a vegan! Congratulations!”and then point out that some other products here and there have animal cruelty connected to them that can be avoided.
Thats plant-based, not veganism.
Plant-based includes some animal products. It’s called “vegan diet” for a reason. Why gatekeep so hard?
Unless it's worry about how climate change will affect their own lives and not the lives of any other living being, that's still empathy
…yeah? So if I don’t press a red button that ends all life, does that take empathy or self-preservation? I’m just saying it’s not the best example.
It was a process for me.
1. Watching animal sanctuary videos showing cows/chickens/pigs etc just playing around and having fun. This was far more impactful for me than slaughterhouse videos. I think most meat eaters know it ain't pretty already.
2. Having a pet. I looked into my cat's eyes one day, and I saw, for lack of a better term, a "cat soul". There is a real being in there who has feelings and thoughts of their own. And I couldn't come up with a reason that "food animals" were any different.
3. I had always been told that chickens were stupid and therefore had no idea what was going on. But then I saw an organization that recorded a rescue of a bunch of chickens that for whatever reason the farmer agreed to let go. One of those chickens, curled up on the rescuers shoulder like any pet would, and genuinely looked terrified. Like they had seen some shit. For all the accusations of "anthropomorphization" of animals, I just couldn't see anything else in that chicken's face but terror.
4. And with all of this, there's one thought that kind of haunts me: What if the animals know? What if, in their own way, animals like pigs and cows in factory farming understand they're being raised for slaughter? I understand animals in the wild are constantly under threat, and I doubt they have the same type of "understanding" a human would have, but if a pig is supposedly as smart as a young child (same as crows/corvids), if elephants mourn and hold funerals... how and why do we assume that all animals are so completely unaware? And even if they're not, if they're not "smart"... does that make it better? This is one of those things that troubles me the most. Nature vs Man.
This is a copy paste comment I share anyone vegan curious or new vegan:
Here’s my veganism educational resources doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ot4yc8145yqGsWWXylXMoOW6zIud6acVqK8FtE-cfVc/edit great place to start. Also recommend watching recipe vids and grocery hauls by the cheaplazyvegan and Madeline Olivia on YouTube especially their older videos and going into university I was super into Madeline Olivia’s easy cheap 3-5 ingredient recipes. (Also personally rec gardein canned meals and minute rice all very much lifesavers for me when I was at school)
Different methods to consider:
So as you can see different methods work best for different people and obviously this is not an exhaustive list.
End of copy paste
~
I’m vegan out of a belief that animals deserve to live free of exploitation and commodification and that it’s our duty to live that value in practice no matter how much our individual choices have an impact. So basically I believe in collective liberation for both humans and non human animals and I also see how our liberation is connected and dependent on one another
just learn more about nutrition. watch the 'nutritionfacts' youtube channel for example. if you know enough about nutrition you won't want to eat dairy or meat again, or at least severely limit it.
Motivation- food good. Yummy food. Healthy. Hurts no animals. Animals good. 👍
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Well make up your mind!
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don't think about going vegan as a whole, just play it one meal at a time. surely you can make your next meal vegan pretty easily, and then the next one, and so on.
also, messing up doesn't mean you have to quit it entirely! give yourself some grace
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Go vegetarian and you’ll get a taste