Veganism

With many things you have the "true believers" and the "hangers on" whose commitment is less robust!

I understand, and do not totally disagree with, veganism philosophy.

I believe that human beings are naturally omnivores but as we have become used to a much more animal product based diet and there are far greater numbers of human beings we are destroying acres of the world in pursuit of meat and other animal based protein.

I do accept I would find it very hard to be totally veggie and even harder to be vegan but do try hard to increase plant based meals. Much grazing land is not suitable for arable crops so it is not completely right to say that if we had no meat we could use the land for plant protein instead. We could easily change the balance of animal product and plant product that we eat. I am trying to do that!

Some meat eaters I know go "on and on" about how vegitarians and vegans apparently go on and on about it.
If any vegans in the room then stick up for themselves said meat eaters point at them as "proof" they were right like "see! Look! Theyre talking about it again!!"..... but only because the meat eater brought it up...

Why oh why do we have to defend ourselves. Can't we just be allowed to eat what we want without labels on us.
I have been veggie for 30 years or so and know plenty of vegans.
Once the carnivores start to interrogate they always have the same old arguments such as what would you eat on a desert island or if there wasn't anything but animals. Really. We could always eat what the animals eat.
I host a lot of people from all over the world who never seem to mind eating vegetarian or vegan in fact many youngsters in their teens and twenties are vegan I find and are surprised that we eat eggs and cheese.

Of course people can choose the diet they prefer and should not need to either feel the need to a) promote or b )defend their position.

I think it is beholden on all of us to listen honestly to the arguments for reducing the amount of animal based products we consume as well as the arguments for being omnivorous.

We had our vegan family here today. One of the children is extremely allergic to all dairy products, eggs and sesame, which was why the family all became vegans after she nearly died as a baby after going into anaphylactic shock when given cows milk formula. One of the parents has recently been diagnosed with celiac condition so has to have gluten free food. Not a fad, a medical need.

We also had other family members, some omnivores, some vegetarians and one who is on a slimming diet.

It was not difficult to feed them. The children had Linda Macartney vegetarian sausage rolls (which are OK for vegans) with plenty of veg. For the adults I made a chilli using soya mince, onions, garlic, fresh chillis, tinned tomatoes, tomato paste, veggie stock cube, soya sauce and tinned kidney beans which we had with plain boiled rice and salad. The slimmer skipped the rice and had lots of salad. Everyone seemed perfectly happy and no-one lectured anyone.

I do not give a toss what people choose to eat or not eat, or the reasons they do it. I only ask that if they have any eating restrictions, including allergies, they let me know in advance so that I can cater appropriately.

We went away for a week this summer with 12 friends and family members. The party including 2 vegetarians and 2 people with serious allergies. We never even discussed the issue of catering for the vegetarians or allergists, let alone making a big deal about always having vegetarian food or excluding allergies.

I just made sure that everyone had a choice of dishes to meet their requirements at our buffet supper every evening. No problem, no diva-ish hissy fits, no virtue signalling. Just a meal we could all enjoy while chatting about what we had done during the day.

Exactly, Monica it's not that difficult to accommodate everyone without making any sort of fuss about it. It just needs a bit of thought and consideration.

Sounds like a great meal Varian and very sensible adults!

Oh and yours too M0nica

Varian, how often have you asked vegans why some of them think their slogan "Meat is Murder" is perfectly acceptable?

Well, it is murder, so its the truth, as unpalatable (pardon the pun) as that is to us meat eaters.

MissA The Oxford Dictionary defines murder as “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another“
So ‘meat is murder’ is nonsensical, unless we’re talking about cannibalism, and even ‘eating meat is murder’ is inaccurate.

I hadn’t heard of that slogan, but perhaps it demonstrates that using emotive terms to get one’s message across is perhaps counterproductive, if all it serves to do is alienate those one might wish to influence.

Yes, I just looked up, and you're right, its not murder unless its a human killing another human.
Unnecessary killing, perhaps?

It’s not hard to eat a vegan diet and the food can be just as scrummy as any other food. It just requires a bit of thought to change what you’re used to. Eating less meat and dairy is necessary for the planet for all sorts of reasons. So just having a go at vegans for not being “true” vegans or whatever doesn’t help. We should do as little harm as possible to our fellow inhabitants of this planet, human and animal, if that means killing fewer animals, destroying less wildlife , eating less processed food, caring more about how our food is produced, then that has got to be a good thing. Sneering at people who don’t wish to eat animals because they aren’t perfect in every ethical way, does not justify continuing along the destructive path we are travelling.

If meat is murder. What about killing rats, mice or other vermin?

I can understand that anyone might want to avoid eating meat because they don't like animals being killed or worry about the planet. I certainly hate factory farming and the way the animals are kept in order to have cheap meat. However, if everybody gave up eating meat and dairy products, what would happen to farm animals? I can't imagine many people keeping them as they aren't cute and cuddly in the same way as, say, cats and dogs. Would we let the different species die out?

Mixed farming is essential for the good of the environment. Without animals, farmers have no choice but to use chemical fertilizer. The organic movement has been growing over the years and our soil has benefited. Undoing all that good would be madness.

Nothing wrong with cutting down on meat and eating more vegetables but it all needs to be kept into perspective.

Farm animals have been inbred by humans and the wild species of goats, pigs, oxen, sheep etc wouldn't necessarily die out unless humans go on destroying their habitat. They have only been bred to exploit and aren't really "natural" species.

So what do you want then, suzied?

Describe the perfect scenario where farmers can grow enough food to feed a growing population whilst fending off marauding wild boar. The natural habitat for oxen, sheep, goats, pigs etc., won't last long unless it's carefully managed.

I don't think we will be overrun by wild boar somehow. Just because the whole world isn't going to be vegan doesn't mean no-one can. Surely if we want to lessen our impact on climate change, destruction of forests, pollution of oceans, we should try to do so.
We could feed more people with less land, water and resource usage if people eat less meat. A Cornell University article states that the US alone could feed about 800 million more people “if all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people”.

We already grow more than enough food to feed the world even with a larger population.

A third of the world food supply rots or deteriorates before it gets to market, Many famines, like those in Yemen and Sudan are caused by warfare, or, as in Zimbabwe, by poor governance, others arise from natural disasters, displaced people caused by the above. Then there are the many who are too poor to buy food.

But there is no starvation in the world caused by there being too little food to go round globally.

In developed countries there is gross wastage of food through households over buying and not respecting food and supermarkets setting unrealisitic standards for fruit and vegetables that leads to farmers ploughing crops back into the fields.

As has already been pointed out animal (and human) excrement is, and always has been, an important fertiliser of soil and the only alternative is inorganic fertilisers made from, among other things, natural gas.

I haven’t read all the posts on here but I’ve just googled- has meat eating made a contribution to human development ? and there seems to be a consensus of opinion that it has.
I also appear to have a set of teeth that seem consistent with meat eating.
That said I really don’t care what other people choose to eat but I will continue to eat meat about 3 times a week

Canine teeth- not a good argument to eat meat- most mammals have canine teeth and many are herbivores, even those with the largest teeth such as hippos.
Gorillas have huge teeth but are almost exclusively herbivorous. Mountain gorillas prefer a diet of foliage — leaves, stems, pith, and shoots — and a small amount of fruit. Lowland gorillas also eat leaves and pith, but they eat more fruits, and, occasionally, tiny ants or termites. Gorillas’ giant canines have nothing to do with eating meat.

I thought of this thread whilst in Sainsbury's this morning. A man asked a shop assistant where he could find Coconut Cacao Powder. She looked a bit baffled and reached for her gadget to type in the details. I'd just passed it (thinking, What the heck is this?) so butted in and told the man where to find it.

The cheeky blighter took a really good look in my trolley as he thanked me. I had some gluten free pasta ✓ GF wholemeal bread ✓ fresh vegetables ✓ and organic vegetable stock powder ✓✓

Unfortunately there was an extra large chicken plonked on top. and I'm sure I detected a 'tut'

I was looking over nearby farmland with a farmer recently and he told me that to have a few sheep in the fields when the land could be far more productive was a waste of good land. He's not vegetarian but like John Seymour back in the 70s, thinks we should all be more involved with the growing of the food we eat and grown locally would mean fewer air miles and less waste.
In Victorian times it was possible to grow quite exotic fruit in the UK. So why can't we still?