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Can you link me to the interview wherein they shared their motivations?

'Cause I can see you deplore 'snowflake' culture, so I know you're definitely not making stuff up that you can get all self-righteous and ranty about.

Being Vegan, really being Vegan, is an unsustainable approach towards the world and one which can end up harming the environment in multiple ways. I also think that many (if not the majority of) Vegans use the term when they really just lean vegetarian. My understanding has always been that Vegans don’t just abstain from any animal food, but also from any product of any kind that has been deprived from animals or even from animal labor. Honey, leather, wool, silk, and even arguments about agriculture in general being non-Vegan if beehives are used as “labor” to pollinate crops.

Replacing all animal products requires replacements with plastics, so I guess the cow is happy but the planet is just fethed in other ways.

Now, I am not vegetarian, but I do see the wisdom of increasing your plant intake rather than protein and animal fats to an extend. And I am a big fan of sourcing your meat from local and humane producers. Just because I am pro-meat doesn’t mean I have to be an donkey-cave about it and support places that don’t raise animals in a humane fashion.

You can't be vegan and eat vegetables. Crops are grown with manure from cows which makes them non-vegan.
This article summarizes it pretty well:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/476754-vegetables-vegan-forage-manure/

Everyone knows if you can't be utterly perfect in something you seem to do then you are a howling hypocrite who should give up entirely.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Can you link me to the interview wherein they shared their motivations?

'Cause I can see you deplore 'snowflake' culture, so I know you're definitely not making stuff up that you can get all self-righteous and ranty about.

I even faked the 1 hour vlog in English by the organizers that I already linked to, huh, and you're definitely not ignoring any evidence that doesn't support your own views.

d-usa wrote:Being Vegan, really being Vegan, is an unsustainable approach towards the world and one which can end up harming the environment in multiple ways. I also think that many (if not the majority of) Vegans use the term when they really just lean vegetarian. My understanding has always been that Vegans don’t just abstain from any animal food, but also from any product of any kind that has been deprived from animals or even from animal labor. Honey, leather, wool, silk, and even arguments about agriculture in general being non-Vegan if beehives are used as “labor” to pollinate crops.

Replacing all animal products requires replacements with plastics, so I guess the cow is happy but the planet is just fethed in other ways.

Now, I am not vegetarian, but I do see the wisdom of increasing your plant intake rather than protein and animal fats to an extend. And I am a big fan of sourcing your meat from local and humane producers. Just because I am pro-meat doesn’t mean I have to be an donkey-cave about it and support places that don’t raise animals in a humane fashion.

Your understanding of veganism is incorrect.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:You can't be vegan and eat vegetables. Crops are grown with manure from cows which makes them non-vegan.
This article summarizes it pretty well:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/476754-vegetables-vegan-forage-manure/

So is the understanding of Russia's flagship agitprop broadcaster.

The most widely accepted of veganism is "the exclusion of animal exploitation wherever possible". We are not mandated to St. Francis cosplay and the standard is not one of perfection.

It's worth noting that the majority of vrgans I have encountered consider that 'animal' includes human beings.

lord_blackfang wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Can you link me to the interview wherein they shared their motivations?

'Cause I can see you deplore 'snowflake' culture, so I know you're definitely not making stuff up that you can get all self-righteous and ranty about.

I even faked the 1 hour vlog in English by the organizers that I already linked to, huh, and you're definitely not ignoring any evidence that doesn't support your own views.

The one that does not in any way shape or form agree with you as to their motivations? Because, for clarity, I don't dispute that the protest happened; I dispute the motivations that YOU attributed to the protestors and that you cannot support in any factual manner.

So you are in fact making things up so that you can get offended by them. There is a term used to describe people like that. It momentarily escapes me.

Man, people love those month-long challenges where you grow a beard or don't honk the fandangler for a month, but they're really having problems with the idea of people freely choosing to eat plants for 30 days.

where the heck does this violent reaction to veganism come from? Are people actually followed around by angry college protestors in weird "Then Everybody Clapped" scenarios?

I live in a city that's like 1/3 college students, I've seen animal rights protestors with the nasty mutilated animal signs, but like..I've seen 10 times more fundamentalist christian protestors telling me I'm going to hell because abortions and gay people.

Is it like, out on the godless liberal coasts we attract all the fundies and all the militant vegans head inland to tell the square-staters they're all meat murderers, or something?

'Cause being vegan is dangerous and unsustainable.

It's why I died of malnutrition repeatedly over the last seven years.

the_scotsman wrote:
where the heck does this violent reaction to veganism come from? Are people actually followed around by angry college protestors in weird "Then Everybody Clapped" scenarios?

Well, people probably mostly just don't like being called murderers maybe? Although I have no idea if anyone is being confronted in that way or how often.

I'm not vegan, but I do really appreciate that they exist, because I have a milk allergy and so it is annoying how many "non-dairy" things actually have milk protein in it (which is precisely what I have a reaction to) and what non-dairy actually means is non-lactose. The fact that vegans exist generally gives me more options on things to buy and places to buy them. Although it is bothersome how much soy goes into those sorts of products, because anything other than soy protein (which most soy products in the US tend not to be made exclusively from, in my understanding) is something I have trouble digesting.

 H wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
where the heck does this violent reaction to veganism come from? Are people actually followed around by angry college protestors in weird "Then Everybody Clapped" scenarios?

Well, people probably mostly just don't like being called murderers maybe? Although I have no idea if anyone is being confronted in that way or how often.

I'm not vegan, but I do really appreciate that they exist, because I have a milk allergy and so it is annoying how many "non-dairy" things actually have milk protein in it (which is precisely what I have a reaction to) and what non-dairy actually means is non-lactose. The fact that vegans exist generally gives me more options on things to buy and places to buy them. Although it is bothersome how much soy goes into those sorts of products, because anything other than soy protein (which most soy products in the US tend not to be made exclusively from, in my understanding) is something I have trouble digesting.

I guess it's just odd to me that folks are so easily offended. I mean, it's someone (someone not even involved in this conversation, just someone theoretically out there somewhere) calling you a word. In the craziest example brought up in this thread, it escalated to the level of slapping a fast food sandwich out of your hand. You get worse abuse than that if you wait 0.000001s after the light turns green to hit the gas around here.

It's like if I got mad at some old lady for wishing me a merry christmas because I'd walked past a screaming fundamentalist protestor earlier that day. And that's even a religion, with a fixed creed and tenets and all that, I have more reason to believe that little old lady shares the sentiments with the sign-waving street crazy than I do believing some rando going on a particular diet thinks I'm a monster because PETA does.

And that all leaves aside that PETA is basically just an outrage machine at this point. They've got an identical business strategy to the Westboro Baptist Church, they just try really hard to piss off a different crowd of people and bait them into doing something they can litigate.

folks on the internet are such snowflakes these days.

To be fair, I think all those month-long challenges are beyond stupid. This one is no different. If you're going to go vegan, go for it entirely. I applaud your motivations, even if I think that at best you're treating a symptom rather than the cause.
Doing it just for a month seems half-assed at best.

The entire point of Veganuary is that it's a short-term "introduction" designed entirely to show people who are reluctant to go vegan/plant-based (because yes there is a difference) that the reasons that they are reluctant are probably entirely overblown.

It's presented this way precisely because it is much easier to get people to make a commitment for a month rather than one that is duration indefinite, especially in a sight-unseen situation like this.

So you try it out for a single month and if, for whatever reason, you don't want to continue come February 1, you walk away.

Literally no downside.

Bran Dawri wrote:
To be fair, I think all those month-long challenges are beyond stupid. This one is no different. If you're going to go vegan, go for it entirely. I applaud your motivations, even if I think that at best you're treating a symptom rather than the cause.
Doing it just for a month seems half-assed at best.

Maybe. But hey, I've been hitting a bit of a weight plateau lately and I want to kick off another losing phase over the winter where I don't care as much about muscle gains. So I'm stocking up on recipes and I'm gonna give it a shot, see how it compares to just the calorie control I've been doing so far. I'd love to drop down another 30 and hit 150lbs for the first time since...god, middle school?

So, FWIW, I dropped 80lbs in the first seven months of being vegan, to ca. 160lbs where I've pretty much stayed for the last six and a bit years.

My diet is all I changed. Now I do a whole-ton of yoga and play hockey; but I didn't back then.

the_scotsman wrote:
I guess it's just odd to me that folks are so easily offended. I mean, it's someone (someone not even involved in this conversation, just someone theoretically out there somewhere) calling you a word. In the craziest example brought up in this thread, it escalated to the level of slapping a fast food sandwich out of your hand. You get worse abuse than that if you wait 0.000001s after the light turns green to hit the gas around here.

I guess. But this is the state of dialogue nowadays. People don't actually discuss things with other people, generally, it's just telling them how they are either explicitly wrong, or the speaker is explicitly right. I mean, it's not real surprising that people get offended when others say things meant to be offensive though. Sure, you could hear it and take an approach of non-offense, but then again, the other person could take the same approach in speaking to you. But this is dialogue today, predicated on (as Janet Yellen says) conflict, jargon, competition and outrage. That's what "sells" in the media, and in our media saturated lives, we implicitly do the same in most dialogue, "selling" our argument not to how we are arguing it to, but rather to everyone else listening.

It's sort of like virtue signaling, but also different. That's part the conflict/competition aspect. You have to say what "team" you are on, because the only thing worse than being on the wrong team is not being on a team at all. And that's how we now talk to each other all the time. it seems to me.

the_scotsman wrote:
folks on the internet are such snowflakes these days.

See, you've done it well right there. You got your "jargon" in there, with "snowflakes," you've got your implicit layer of "conflict" and "competition" (that it's could either be, internet vs "regular" (i guess) people, or "snowflakes" vs whatever the opposite it) along with the implied "outrage" at the paradigm itself. It's quite a dense little sentence there, give how much is packed in to so few words. And I think it excellently encapsulates the whole paradigm of "modern" discussion.

 H wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I guess it's just odd to me that folks are so easily offended. I mean, it's someone (someone not even involved in this conversation, just someone theoretically out there somewhere) calling you a word. In the craziest example brought up in this thread, it escalated to the level of slapping a fast food sandwich out of your hand. You get worse abuse than that if you wait 0.000001s after the light turns green to hit the gas around here.

I guess. But this is the state of dialogue nowadays. People don't actually discuss things with other people, generally, it's just telling them how they are either explicitly wrong, or the speaker is explicitly right. I mean, it's not real surprising that people get offended when others say things meant to be offensive though. Sure, you could hear it and take an approach of non-offense, but then again, the other person could take the same approach in speaking to you. But this is dialogue today, predicated on (as Janet Yellen says) conflict, jargon, competition and outrage. That's what "sells" in the media, and in our media saturated lives, we implicitly do the same in most dialogue, "selling" our argument not to how we are arguing it to, but rather to everyone else listening.

It's sort of like virtue signaling, but also different. That's part the conflict/competition aspect. You have to say what "team" you are on, because the only thing worse than being on the wrong team is not being on a team at all. And that's how we now talk to each other all the time. it seems to me.

the_scotsman wrote:
folks on the internet are such snowflakes these days.

See, you've done it well right there. You got your "jargon" in there, with "snowflakes," you've got your implicit layer of "conflict" and "competition" (that it's could either be, internet vs "regular" (i guess) people, or "snowflakes" vs whatever the opposite it) along with the implied "outrage" at the paradigm itself. It's quite a dense little sentence there, give how much is packed in to so few words. And I think it excellently encapsulates the whole paradigm of "modern" discussion.

Yeah, it was intended as a joke. One of the folks getting all offended by the idea of someone suggesting people try a particular diet for a month complained about "Snowflake culture" earlier in the thread.

If anything, going vegan for a month works better for one of those silly month-challenge deals because it's A) a lot of people are actually afraid to do/don't want to do and B ) would actually improve most peoples' diets by getting them to eat fewer calorie-dense foods.

Sure, I guess theoretically you could spend all of "Veganuary" eating french fries and oreos, but I feel like you'd probably get bored.

Unlike not thrashing your doodler for a month, which is really just a meaningless "can I willpower" thing. If you're going to do a monthlong challenge, why not do something that might give you good habits?

There's an open question as to whether Oreos are vegan. They're definitely plant-based, but with the Palm Oil content many people - myself included - feel they're disqualified from being vegan.

the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, it was intended as a joke. One of the folks getting all offended by the idea of someone suggesting people try a particular diet for a month complained about "Snowflake culture" earlier in the thread.

If anything, going vegan for a month works better for one of those silly month-challenge deals because it's A) a lot of people are actually afraid to do/don't want to do and B ) would actually improve most peoples' diets by getting them to eat fewer calorie-dense foods.

I get it, just pointing out how even just lampooning it can sort of contribute to the paradigm. I guess I just sort of imagine it how 4chan started (and still mostly is) a joke, but the jokes all too often tend to be taken as real by someone. And that's the descent into the extremes in a nutshell, probably, or so it sort of seems to me.

However, I do agree with the notion about less calorie-dense foods. Unfortunately for me, I have fructose malabsorption, so many vegetables are something of a digestive problem for me. Luckily, I've been able to maintain a fairly healthy diet still, even though I am pretty sure I still have too much sugar, despite dialing way back in the last year or so.

If Vegans are the extreme of vegetarianism, then I am at the exact polar opposite of that. I am a meatitarian. Veggies are a side dish that I rarely bother with (Although potatoes baked or mashed are tasty). I eat meat for every meal. Mostly steak, be it prime rib, porterhouse, T-bone, or the occasional filet mignon... I try to stay away from french foods though... I want to win the next war we fight, not drop our guns and capitulate.

People are free to do as they see fit, however I find it fairly humorous that it is usually the extremist people that want to try and force everyone else to bend to their way of life. I have yet to read a post that starts off with "Red meat and you ... the farmers had it all wrong!"

Not really trying to flame anyone here but I am honestly tired of being told what to do and how to live my life by people other than my doctor. Are you a Vegan? You are... well good for you. Am I... not a chance sweetheart, if there is a God he put omnivore teeth in my skull for a reason. I fully intend to eat the most reliable calories, that taste good to me, and I am well aware of how it was raised and taken care of. I speak of how the cattle were raised, but that also applies to how grain is raised as well. Do you know what pesticides were used on the grains you are ingesting? I don't because I can not source that kind of stuff local. The cows that I eat.... that is a different story. I know what antibiotics were given to them and that no a single one was ever popped with steroids. The same can not be said about grains... they are genetically altering grains and honestly it wiggs me out. That is why I could never be a vegan. That and Prime rib is, well... Prime.

 OIIIIIIO wrote:
If Vegans are the extreme of vegetarianism, then I am at the exact polar opposite of that. I am a meatitarian. Veggies are a side dish that I rarely bother with (Although potatoes baked or mashed are tasty). I eat meat for every meal. Mostly steak, be it prime rib, porterhouse, T-bone, or the occasional filet mignon... I try to stay away from french foods though... I want to win the next war we fight, not drop our guns and capitulate.

People are free to do as they see fit, however I find it fairly humorous that it is usually the extremist people that want to try and force everyone else to bend to their way of life. I have yet to read a post that starts off with "Red meat and you ... the farmers had it all wrong!"

Not really trying to flame anyone here but I am honestly tired of being told what to do and how to live my life by people other than my doctor. Are you a Vegan? You are... well good for you. Am I... not a chance sweetheart, if there is a God he put omnivore teeth in my skull for a reason. I fully intend to eat the most reliable calories, that taste good to me, and I am well aware of how it was raised and taken care of. I speak of how the cattle were raised, but that also applies to how grain is raised as well. Do you know what pesticides were used on the grains you are ingesting? I don't because I can not source that kind of stuff local. The cows that I eat.... that is a different story. I know what antibiotics were given to them and that no a single one was ever popped with steroids. The same can not be said about grains... they are genetically altering grains and honestly it wiggs me out. That is why I could never be a vegan. That and Prime rib is, well... Prime.

Not trying to flame anyone, but leads with xenophobia, progresses to Luddism and anti-science and then invents magic cows who don't eat grain and haven't been genetically-modified by humans.

Thanks for coming out.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
but with the Palm Oil content many people - myself included - feel they're disqualified from being vegan.

Wait what and why?

https://www.orangutantrekkingtours.com/orangutan-blog/palm-oil-products-are-killing-orangutans/

So let's go with a more constructive tack, shall we? Were I hypothetically to try this veganuary thing, I've got a 9 and a 6 year old. What are some vegan meals that would be appealing to kids, or that you've had success with and of course- are cheap?

 Gitzbitah wrote:
So let's go with a more constructive tack, shall we? Were I hypothetically to try this veganuary thing, I've got a 9 and a 6 year old. What are some vegan meals that would be appealing to kids, or that you've had success with and of course- are cheap?

What do they like?

We’ve had luck reducing our meat content using vegetable soups with lots of beans and maybe mushrooms (we let the kid choose and add spices. It helps him feel invested in the meal.). Spaghetti squash with red sauce, cheese, black olives and sautéed zucchini tastes enough like spaghetti for our kid. Stir fry with lots of different types of veggies, and kid-chosen spices/sauce is pretty easy. Baked sweet potato with cheese and fake bacon bits is tasty sometimes. Fajita veggie burritos can trick the taste buds. Veggie egg rolls or falafels sometimes work. Would your kids eat a hummus and cheese sandwich?

Generally, we tend to add fish or turkey or beef to one meal a day, though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oops, just realized you said vegan and not vegetarian.

I have little experience feeding children, but on the few times I have beanburgers and seitan schnitzel have gone down well.

I can't imagine it's difficult to google "vegan meals for children", though. You know your kids, I don't.

It’s less difficult for him to ask the guy who’s big on Veganuary, though...

Who doesn't know.

I don't have kids and I know very few people who do. I don't cook for kids.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
So let's go with a more constructive tack, shall we? Were I hypothetically to try this veganuary thing, I've got a 9 and a 6 year old. What are some vegan meals that would be appealing to kids, or that you've had success with and of course- are cheap?

Based on my own picky brother growing up:

Katsu or Coconut based curry would provably be popular, especially with crispy fried tofu with Panko breadcrumbs. I know a few of parents who have sneakily swapped out the usual dinosaur chicken nuggets for slices of fried tofu with breadcrumbs and the kids either don't notice or like them better. I know I would. Coconut curry is good with sweet potatoes, carrots, gold potatoes, and mushrooms (though for kids you'd probably skip those). For Katsu curry you can chop mushrooms super finely and put them in the sauce with onions and potatoes and it just goes over the rice.

There's the obvious stuff like french fries, baked potatoes, peanut butter and jelly, baby carrots, corn on the cob etc you can still do.

I tried vegan tacos with some seitan chorizo, beans, corn, and a vegan version of the powdery Mexican cheese that actually tasted better than the stuff I usually buy. That was a good cheap meal.

Black bean burgers with ketchup would probably be good.

My brother would eat chili, as long as there weren't big tomato chunks in there, so a bean chili would be easy to do.

I feel like the challenge is probably not going to be making it cheap but getting kids to eat it. When i go grocery shopping on the weeks ive been doing vegetarian stuff its been way cheaper than when i buy meat. Maybe i just buy too expensive meat.

I don't know if I'd try doing vegan with kids. Working in vegetarian stuff would probably go over much better and get them to eat more than just chicken nuggets and burgers.

 Excommunicatus wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Can you link me to the interview wherein they shared their motivations?

'Cause I can see you deplore 'snowflake' culture, so I know you're definitely not making stuff up that you can get all self-righteous and ranty about.

I even faked the 1 hour vlog in English by the organizers that I already linked to, huh, and you're definitely not ignoring any evidence that doesn't support your own views.

The one that does not in any way shape or form agree with you as to their motivations? Because, for clarity, I don't dispute that the protest happened; I dispute the motivations that YOU attributed to the protestors and that you cannot support in any factual manner.

So you are in fact making things up so that you can get offended by them. There is a term used to describe people like that. It momentarily escapes me.

Ah, I see now. You want me to find a statement from vegans saying they do it to feel superior to the rest of us? While I'm sure I could find a handful of such admissions in the vastness of the internet, most people aren't so in tune with their core motivations that they would put them in their cult's manifesto.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I have little experience feeding children, but on the few times I have beanburgers and seitan schnitzel have gone down well.

I can't imagine it's difficult to google "vegan meals for children", though. You know your kids, I don't.

Seitan/Satan schnitzel and veganism. I’m pretty sure there’s a joke in their somewhere!