Guilty conscience meat eaters use concern trolling to salvage their own self-esteem. In my experience, those expressions of worry are back handed compliments at best. They never come from people who are in better shape than I am and they don't come from people with better nutrition either.
I lost 58kg and the only things I ever heard was concern trolling from my friends that resented me for doing what they could not.
Never heard word one about my body while I was unhealthy and unhappy, and the shitty remarks started as soon as the weight reduction became noticeable.
"Woah slow down, don't want you to disappear!"
"You've proven your point! You can eat a donut!"
"Why do you want to be miserable and only eat seeds?"
"Fuck dude you're vanishing! Eat a hamburger!"
"You think you're better than everyone now!"
"It's actually really unhealthy to be as lean as you've become."
"Don't like hanging out anymore, you make me think about every molecule I put in my damned mouth!"
"You look like a skeleton now."
Wow those are shitty people. Good on you for losing that weight, as a hefty fellow it's fucking haaaaard work and you should be proud of the effort you put in!
I'm gonna be honest, I wanted to argue against this, but I can't deny it. I'm part of a relatively overweight family (actually mostly because of immune system problems that thankfully I didn't inherit) and all I get from my parents are "You're looking skinny" or "You're worrying too much about weight" just because I want to exercise and eat well. Even then, I'm ~20lbs over weight. To be devil's advocate, I think part of it is that overweight people have struggled with problems of being too hard on themselves before, and so don't want to you fall into that, but go too far the other way.
The conversation of overweight/vegans doesn't exactly overlap perfectly, but it made me think of it.
Assuming you're asking about things like impossible and beyond meat. They are generally not "healthy" but one stark difference is they don't have cholesterol.
The unhealthiest part about them is just gonna be that they're salty, fried and greasy, just like other fast food. It's just a lump of plant fibres (usually peas or wheat these days, I find) thrown in a frier.
I assure you these people are not eating healthy meals lol, it's all bad faith because the idea of them not eating meat makes them feel threatened about the size of their peepee.
To be fair, meat eaters who come into a vegan community to be whiny little dicks because their masculinity is threatened don't represent the majority of normal people.
Anyone who eats meat is a murderer. I eat meat but only what's hunted myself so I can be sure that animal wasn't raised to die or all the other animal rights violations that come with the farming industry. I wouldn't mind being hunted by a human or a bear aslong as I had a decent life and was able to experience things like freedom and they didn't use any tools that I consider to be unfair like guns (knives and bows are okay but I prefer handmaking them on site) so the argument of "but what if u were the animal" doesn't work for me because that's how I got to this position.
I'm writing this mainly cause I'm curious abt your thoughts on my position. Do u think I'm as bad as farm industry users because I don't mind eating meat, do u think I'm just a bit depressed and/or psychopathic because I wouldnt mind dying and killing or do u think my position is actually reasonable but its just not how u personally view the issue.
that's how I feel about pro choice communities. a lot of mumbling that just serves to justify their murderous tendencies. except murdering a baby is worse than murdering an animal.
Scrolling down half i the comments has give me a true headache. Why do you guys feel the need to explain your consumption to vegans? Not like we have not heard your "arguments" a thousand times before.
Oh wait, you arent trying to justify your actions to us but to yourself?
I've done both vegan and keto for over a year at some point during my life and what I will say is that I naturally cover my nutrition bases through preferences and desires, while vegan though I had to hunt down (forgive the pun) b12 and complete proteins combinations a little more diligently to cover my nutrition needs.
Or put differently, I think it's easier to mess up a vegan diet than a keto one.
Vegans should honestly just take a B12 pill. B12 is naturally produced by bacteria, but most good natural sources amount to using an animal gut as a fermenter. Pills just cut out the middleman and use an industrial fermenter rather than one that moos.
You could eat dirt or drink unclean water instead, but the pills are cheap, easy and natural.
Protein combining is an old myth. You don't need to eat a complete protein at each meal. It's fine if they average out to be complete over the course of a day or two, which is quite easy. If you have a sandwich for lunch and lentil soup over cauliflower rice for dinner you've eaten a complete protein.
I think it's easier to mess up a vegan diet than a keto one.
People often worry more about vegan diets than other diets. But somehow people's concerns aren't proportional to the risk of messing up your nutrition needs.
It's not about health risks; it's more about their personal feelings. Most people don't like that animals are killed for food, but giving up tasty meat and cheese is tough. Instead of supporting vegans, they question them. This might be because admitting they eat meat just for its taste feels wrong. So, they deflect by questioning veganism. It'd be great if there were more understanding and supportive and less defensiveness about food choices.
I'd be nice to occasionally hear "Good for you! I'm happy that you make choices that are in line with your values!" But alas, most responses tend to be "But aren't you barely allowed to eat anything now!?"
So much time and effort online and on TV is expended arguing against eating plant based food. It's hard not to see through this.
My god, your post history is fucking tragic. I'm not going to engage with you, you sad sorry little man all im going do is block you. So take your weird right wing troll bullshit to twitter or truth social or even reddit. Because just like every other aspect of your life, the people here don't want you around because you gleefully make everything worse for everyone else.
I went to college with a girl who would make butter popsicles - she just stuck popsicle sticks into sticks of butter and froze them, then ate them like popsicles. She didn't have any kind of special diet, she just liked butter popsicles.
it's defensiveness. a person who eats 19 strips of bacon for every meal doesn't threaten the average omnivore. that person is arguing that they should do more of what they want to do anyway. the existence of a happy, healthy vegan, OTOH, threatens omnivores. it tells them that there is a choice other than meat, and what that does is force them to acknowledge that eating meat is a choice and that if you make that choice you're responsible for the consequences. if you live in a world where meat is necessary, let's call it the ferret diet because they're my favorite obligate carnivores, then you didn't really have a choice at all. as factory farming imposes cruelty on animals at the individual level and huge damage to the environment and climate on a collective level, the ferret diet allows you to say "🤷🤷 what are you gonna do?" veganism is an attempt to answer that question, and it's a valid one. there are plenty of people who don't eat any sort of animal product and are still happy and healthy. veganism threatens them because it makes the suffering they create a choice that they've made, rather than an inevitable consequence of being an obligate omnivore. bitching at vegans, trying to poke holes in vegan diets, all it is is an attempt to shed responsibility for your own life choices by pretending there never was a choice.
Yes and no. Keto and other low carb diets encourage you to eat bacon, but do be aware that you need to keep watching your salt intake as well as the type of fats used to prepare the bacon. Aditionally, this would also mean you do not get to eat most breads and pasta for instance. So yes to lots of bacon but no to lots of other good eats so that's why these diets are for those that need them due to e.g. pre-diabetis 2 or other health scares/risks.
Bacon's really not a healthy food however you swing it, unfortunately. Salt, nitrites, saturated fat, processed red meat, it's definitely one to enjoy in moderation rather than every day.
I don't care what keto folks say, it's not a healthy diet. You might lose weight but all that shit is going to damage your heart. Keto is a very specific diet that should be used under very specific circumstances but it's blown up recently because bacon...
Keto includes vegetables, mushrooms, and tons of other food beyond just meat. All Keto is is cutting carbs.
Essentially, stop eating grasses because you don't have the digestive equipment large herbivores need to do so. Corn, rice, wheat, etc. Also cutting out sugar. I haven't seen a single diet recommend eating sugar in my life, but maybe some bulking diets do?
It's possible to be both vegan and keto. Incredibly expensive and difficult, but they aren't mutually exclusive.
Kind of. I went on keto over the past 6 months and lost 60 lbs. I ate bacon almost every day. Keto is about maintaining ketosis by keeping carbs to a minimum (no fruit, no starches like rice and potatoes, no sugars, no bread, etc). You can eat as much no-carb food as you want. You lose a lot of weight.
I'm no nutritionist, but I'm reasonably sure that any reasonable diet, whether keto or vegan can be accomplished while maintaining proper nourishment.
The thing is, most people's diet isn't even providing full nourishment. There's usually something that's missing that people are simply not aware is missing, or they're getting in such low quantities that it's unhealthy. IMO, the main problem is a lack of education on the matter. I was taught the food pyramid in grade school. It's barely relevant, and it was literally the only diet and nourishment education I recieved from my first world primary/highschool education. Unless you are going into health science or nutritionist type college credits, nobody takes the time to learn anything further about it later on. They just eat, and don't really think about it. I certainly didn't for a very long time.
Additionally, when I learned about the food pyramid, the examples didn't really make a lot of sense to me, since at the time I had barely touched any food preparation tasks, nor dealt with food that wasn't ready to eat already (usually prepared by my parents), and I had no context for what a "grain" really was, or why bread was considered a "grain" in the pyramid. I was stupid. In many ways, I still am. Yet, later in life, I don't know of anyone who is running their meal plan through a professional nutritionist before making the food. I don't know of anyone who, even if they have a meal plan, even knows a nutritionist who can consult on whether the good that they eat will provide the nutrition that they actually need.
The general population seems to put most of their trust in food makers, the corporations that make ready to eat food, to have accounted for their nutritional needs. Places like fast food restaurants, normal restaurants and those that make recipes, and most of their interest is in making food you'll enjoy, more than food that will actually provide the nutrition you need.
On top of that, even most doctors won't, by default, order tests to ensure all of your nutritional needs are met, and unless you have a symptom resulting in a significant deficiency of something, you would never know if you're behind or not getting enough of something. I can hear the comments now, "but if they're not being affected, why does it matter?" .... The thing is, they are being affected, just not significantly enough for them to be able to draw a correlation or even really complain about it.
So at the end of the day, we're probably all malnourished in some way, or at least, there's a nontrivial amount of people who are unaware that they're malnourished, which isn't being caught, and nobody has the knowledge or understanding to know it's even happening. The education on nourishment is so lackluster that is easily forgotten by most and instead we learn about factorials and trigonometry which most people never use past highschool.
I'm summary, more people than you would expect are likely unaware that they're malnourished, and the education system would rather teach you maths you'll never use than ensure you can feed yourself properly. The whole thing is fucked, and it's ironic when people lecture or question anyone about their nourishment needs, given how little any average person has been taught about proper nourishment. Everything is fucked and everybody sucks.
On top of that, even most doctors won’t, by default, order tests to ensure all of your nutritional needs are met, and unless you have a symptom resulting in a significant deficiency of something, you would never know if you’re behind or not getting enough of something.
This makes me really appreciate my doctor. I emailed her and let her know I've been eating a vegetarian diet for the past two years and wanted to see if there were any gaps in my nutritional intake. She happily ordered a nutritional panel for me right away.
Oh, they'll order it for you when you ask, but I don't know of any test that doctors run without being promoted that will examine the nutritional state of a person. Once you ask for it, then you'll very likely get what you ask for, but the doctor isn't going to go out of their way to order it without being asked first.
So if you don't think about it, or it's just not something that you're looking into, then your doctor doesn't bother unless you report a complaint or symptom that may be related to some kind of malnourishment.
I get it, I don't blame doctors, assume it's fine unless there's a problem... Nobody wants to waste lab time on tests when everything appears fine and there's no complaints. But it's kind of a disservice to the health of the general public. There's a number of symptoms that go unreported simply because people have experienced them for so long and/or they're so mild that they can't be bothered... Some people just think it's normal to have that symptom, just a part of every day life, when it's not and it can take years or more before it's discovered. By that time, permanent damage may have already occurred.
I would still blame the education system for the primary issue, since there's so much we learn from primary/secondary education that we never use, and so many things we need to know every day, which isn't even mentioned in schools.
I don't have a vendetta against the school system, I just think they're teaching the wrong things for everyone to know. There's a lot of things that are taught that are only useful to a handful of professions, meanwhile being able to balance your chequebook, or vote, or feed yourself in a way that will maintain your health and nutrition are often not even offered and if they are, they're electives. But no, you need to be able to calculate the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle. Everyone needs algebra, despite the fact that not all jobs need any understanding of it. You have to read and understand the complete works of Shakespeare, and a handful of dusty old books and form a literary analysis of them because reasons.... But doing your own damn taxes? Get gud noob.
Been meaning to figure out a meal plan for balanced nutritious diet. Ideally something with at least a couple week's worth of variety so I'm not getting too sick of anything. Do you have any recommendations for going about that? Any websites or services to assist those efforts?
Certainly don't mind leftovers either, and I imagine I just need to make more grocery runs for fresh produce than I'm doing currently. It would be lovely to establish a bit of a routine that I can stick to easily to help avoiding take out and junk food.
No sweat, no pressure, but would happily welcome your insights!
I'm sorry, I don't have all this figured out for myself. I know I'm missing things in my diet and I did some preliminary analysis with the help of my GP and a testing lab, and I think I have a handle on the broad strokes for myself, and where I need to improve.
I'm technical, so for me the process is simply to identify the issue, and ratify the issue as best as I'm able. I've started the first part of this, I have yet to do the follow through. Unfortunately, I find myself in a bit of a difficult personal position and can't really afford to make any significant changes to my life at the moment. My long term plan is to grow a garden. I'm finally in a physical situation where that's viable (I recently moved out of an apartment, where it was very difficult to grow a garden at best, into a home with enough space to have a dedicated area for gardening outside). I want to eat as much of my own produce as I can, which will provide more fruits and vegetables than I would normally have access to, which will hopefully be good over a longer period of time. That's just to start. Better, cheaper, produce that's more easily accessed and readily available, to encourage myself to eat more leafy greens and such.
I know a garden big enough to continually do that (at least through the good seasons for growing), is a significant challenge, since it can occupy a lot of room that can't really be used for anything else. There's also nontrivial investments to be made into things like fertilizer, mulch, soil, tools, seeds, and so much more. And this is just step one for me.
I'm not in a financial position to go for it yet, and growing season is over for this year, but I'm going to save up and hopefully I can start next year.
The only reason I'm talking your ear off about it is that growing your own fruits and veggies is pretty much always a good option. Commercial growers tend to prioritize the size of the produce over everything else, so they can be paid more for what they grow. A good looking, large apple (as an example) sells better and for more money than a smaller, oddly shaped apple, even if the latter is much more nutrient-dense than the former. If you grow your own with even a modicum of research into which variety is best to grow for yourself, you're going to have better food to eat that costs less, all for a small amount of effort.
Apples are a bit tough, even if you're in a house, apples grow on trees and usually don't produce any fruit until they're a fair size; so that's probably a bad example, but the underlying point still stands. It's a good starting point, and, while difficult to do in an apartment, it's not impossible with a hydroponic type system. A small "grow" tent, with a rack and some deep plastic pans for the soil, plus some grow lights and you're good to make a small garden; but even dedicating only a few square feet to it may be a pretty significant ask depending on where you live specifically.
IDK, that's the only real thing I can contribute right now. I'm sure other commenters will have suggestions, and I'm certain there's plenty of info on the internet, just be weary of random search results, as much good information as there is online, there's also a lot of bad info trying to sell you something.
Meanwhile in alpha gal allergy land (allergy to mammal, the only known sugar allergy and the only known "slow onset" allergy, now the third most common food allergy in the USA thanks to Lone Star ticks and climate change), I'm happy that non-dairy cheese has come lightyears in the past decade, but wish I could easily find chicken and turkey sausage that doesn't use beef casing. Miyoko Brand cashew cheese is amazing but SO expensive.
Vegans should see alpha gal allergy folks as their allies, I think. Margaret Atwood, in her MaddAdam trilogy, imagined that alpha gal allergy was spread by ecoterrorists looking to reduce global meat consumption. While that is fiction, I sometimes think everyone should get the allergy. Basically ALL mammal consumption would cease. You'd still have sheep, alpacas, etc. for fiber production, but it would be a global food revolution unparalleled in human history, exceeding even the agricultural revolution from producing fertilizer from atmospheric nitrogen.
Does it produce alpha gal as part of the milk? Even alpha gal levels that are too low to cause anaphylaxis are thought to cause an inflammatory response that dramatically increases the risk of stroke from the creation of unstable arterial plaque. [EDIT: hey downvoter that has targeted my account, did you know that I could start my own instance and determine what user you are, so I can report you? Think about that before you continue to downvote everything I ever posted or commented on lemmy, okay? This isn't reddit, and you aren't fully anonymous.]
I have literally stopped talking to a sibling becauase they think it is funny to make jokes about my veganism, or ask if I am still vegan (for life), or if I miss the taste of meat (no, I find the smell nauseating).
It is a lack of respect for life choices, made more loathesome because my choice is made on an ethical foundation, not a whim.
Honestly, that is just one reason. They are a jerk and a bully, like everyone else who comes on here feeling the need to dismiss veganism or claim feeling attacked by it.
Just like other kinds of prejudice, these negative reactions betray a profound level of ignorance that go beyond infuriating to pitiful.
nice strawman you've got there. people doing keto get harassed far more often about the bogus health implications of saturated fat. Shit I doubt the average person has ever even heard of anti-nutrients or thought twice about the nutritional value of plants beyond their prominent place in the antiquated food pyramid. but they know for a fact, duur fat=heart atak
Okay, but you do know that eating nothing but meat is bad for you? And eating buttloads of butter is not healthy? And vegetables have consistently proven health benefits?
Okay, but you do know that keto includes plenty of vegetables and is not "nothing but meat"? Spinach, broccoli, bell peppers, cucumbers, salad, asparagus, olives, eggplants, avocadoes etc
There are insanely unhealthy versions of pretty much any diet. I know plenty of vegans who gain weight because they end up chasing the same bad eating habits in plant form. Eating excessive amounts of fruit can still qualify you as a vegan but it won't change the fact that you are on the fast track to diabetes. The dirtiest forms of dirty keto can lead to insane consumption of artificial sweetness or natural sugar substitutes which are riddled with their own health risks.
That said... Veganism and really vegetarianism to some degree is still a diet that people still seek for non-dietary motivations, and pretty much any restrictive diet is going to require a degree of finesse and knowledge to make sure that diet will be nutritionally sound. It's not out of bounds to be concerned about someone you care about in those terms.
I had a friend at work years back who said she was vegetarian. She was really vegan, but at the time the term wasn't as well known. She didn't do it for some moral reason, it was because she was very heavy. After a few years she had lost a couple hundred pounds, and looked so different that thry had to take a new pic for her ID badge. She was healthy, and absolutely not "malnourished".
As a human, I think it is okay to eat people. Humans are currently overpopulating our planet and have completely taken over. We don't need that many humans. As a human, I may be very silly and cute, but when my species gets together to do something, we tend to make a big mess of it and just ruin everything. So we must reduce our population one way or another. Additionally, imagine how much meat one of us might have on our bones? Perhaps not as much as a cow, but when there are billions of us then that's like, billions of pounds of meat! Wow! You like meat right? I know I do. That's a lot of meat and it's just right there. I know that personally if any small dinosaurs came up to me and started chewing on my legs I'd let them do it. I don't need all my meat, you know?
Go green, eat human. Mother nature will thank you!
Sincerely,
- a human
Edit: oh no! I have made the human mistake of accidently saying I like meat on a vegan community post. This was a mistake because vegans do not like meat. I do not understand this because humans eat meat like all superior species. I do not understand why a human would want to eat only plants like human prey animals. I am a human and I like human meat, as it should be.
Edit 2: you know what, fuck this, y'all are way too dense. In what reality do people talk the way I was? Congrats, y'all ruined it.
Edit 3: since you only want very serious answers here's a serious answer: the problem with human meat has less to do with morals or ethics and more to do with health and safety. Because you are a human, eating human meat, you can contract whatever diseases the human had before death if the meat is undercooked.
Additionally, there are a lot of parasites, like the lowly tapeworm, which are """safe""" when a human consumes tainted animal meat; because the tapeworm thinks it's in a human and is content to hangout in your intestines. However, if you consume tapeworm eggs that were laid by a "human" tapeworm, the tapeworms that hatch will think they're in a pig and will have no issues burrowing through your muscles, internal organs and brain.
Another factor is that you are what you eat. There is a reason why humans typically don't eat other predators like lions or tigers, and that's because toxins like heavy metals tend to bioaccumulate in them.
Finally, most importantly, for reasons beyond my weak understanding of medical science, humans carry a high risk of prion diseases. Unlike the issues of parasites and diseases, you can not cook a human well enough to eliminate prions and still eat it. The human would be nothing more than ash because you'd have to cook the meat at thousands of degrees to destroy any potential prions the human might have been carrying. These are not something you fuck with. You cannot cure a prion disease. If you have the misfortune of eating something that has been contaminated with a prion, and one of your cells decided to do something with said prion, the only solution is to put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye. You are now a dead man walking. You cannot be cured. A prion is not a virus. It is not a parasite, bacteria, or any form of fungus. It is simply a misfolded protein that your body thinks it can do something with. You will die. Your brain will look like swiss cheese. You will forget everyone you know and love, and there will be nothing you can do about it. Not only that, but again, for reasons beyond my understanding of medical science, your body will use that misfolded protein as a blueprint and will misfold other proteins to make them look like the prion. Your body will become a 3d printer for prions. Anyone who consumes your body will die.
As someone who has done keto in the past and someone who has been a vegan for years I agree, at least in regards to myself. But the key difference is veganism is not a diet, what vegans eat is just a consequence of their ethics. Vegans are insufferable because animal ethics are a serious moral issue. I disagree with the pompous part though. I don't pat myself on the back for being vegan the same way I don't pat myself on the back for not committing various other moral abuses. I'm not contributing anything positive to the world by being a vegan, but I'm hopefully stepping on the rights of others less.
When I am cutting on a LCHF diet I’ll sometimes take food with me to gathering so that I can remain focused. So, I’m not drinking, I’m staying well under 30g of sugar per day and I’m super focused on that and want to maintain a streak.
Friends have become majorly hetup with me for refusing their famous carbonara or something and eating from my lunch box.
Now, I understand how “weird” that is and I’ll take that but it’s not rude to decide what goes into my body. Check yourself.
I mean feed a hamster a vegan diet and see what happens if there's another hamster with the vegan one... Missing out on some critical proteins and they will gladly eat their own kin to satisfy the missing nutrients
Just browsing 'all' I'm not coming in here to hate, in fact i do love Buddhist meals with vermicelli and cloud ear mushrooms, 髮菜, and imitation abalone (braised wheat gluten)
That hamster should have invested in farming technologies and processed foods so he could eat a more varied and cruelty-free diet.
Oh wait, that's humans! Humans have the ability to do those things. I get hamsters and humans confused a lot, too.
(By the way, I'm not vegan. I just see a lot of people who aren't vegan, posting in a vegan community, with bad arguments and boring takes. I cannot stand bad arguments.)
I've never understood full veganism. Is it not morally okay to consume animal products (such as milk or eggs) from actual free roaming and happy animals? And not the BS marketed "free range" products in the US.
Say I have 10 acres and keep a dozen or so chickens to roam around and eat all the ticks on my property, is it morally wrong to eat their eggs?
Society doesn’t work on edge cases. But for the sake of argument:
If that’s all the animal products you eat, these chickens are not selected through the common practice of grinding male chicks, the hens are going to die of old age, etc etc etc - for what I’m concerned you’re vegan.
Veganism is about ethics, not diet. Diet is a mere consequence. Lab grown meat is more vegan than coconut gathered by enslaved monkeys (yes it’s a thing).
So if you fine one such farm where animals are never killed or otherwise exploited then by all means, eat those eggs and call yourself a vegan. But something tells me you won’t find it.
Adding to this - I really want to emphasize how much of an edge case this is.
Around 60% of the world's population lives in urban environments, and only ~10-15% of the population works in agriculture where one might expect to encounter a scenario like this.
Living on 10 acres and raising chickens who you hug every night before bed and treat with the utmost respect is a nice ideal to strive for, but it is not achievable for most people, and there is no scenario where we maintain global meat & dairy consumption levels ethically/sustainably. Treating it as a viable solution is disingenuous because it's only a solution for a limited few.
I'm not Vegan, so I can't speak for them, but here's my understanding
if you live in an urban environment, it's basically impossible to get what you're referring to. Maybe if you were willing to have it shipped to you at great cost and not insignificant effort, but the only thing available at stores in the US is the BS marketed "free range" stuff. And even if you find a place that claims to be the real deal, how do you verify? Basically, it's easier for most people to just go Vegan then to seriously vet every source of animal products
Additionally, many vegans believe it to be a genuinely healthier diet than an omnivore diet. And please don't respond with " we evolved to be meat eaters" or something like that, because we didn't "evolve" to do practically any of the things modern life entails, including a lot of what we eat. Beyond that one BS counterargument though, I make no claims as to whether they're right. Anecdotally, my sister in law suffered from IBS her whole life until she went Vegan, when the problem went away entirely. So it certainly has benefit for some people
Finally, for a lot of vegans it's an issue of consent - some might say that you shouldn't eat those eggs in your example for the simple reason that they don't belong to you, and you can't morally take them, because theres no way to ask consent, and so you shouldn't. Again, you don't have to agree with the outlook, but that's the way several vegans have explained it to me.
If any actual vegans come along and think I'm misrepresenting something, feel free to correct it
@bitsplease@Poem_for_your_sprog Pretty much. Just also want to add that if we want to make eggs or dairy a staple of our diet (especially dairy), it requires essentially treating other living beings as factories to be abused until they die. Like, cows don't continuously produce milk all the time, right? They have to give birth and *then* they start producing milk (like literally every mammal). So if we want milk on demand, we need to keep cows continuously pregnant, clearly abuse.
Wanted to add a few arguments I saw about eggs, first that we selectively bred chickens to produce eggs at an extremely high rate (unsure what this does to their well-being, but apparently the laying itself is painless). Second, the chicken's eggs could be seen as the "work" they do in exchange for keeping them healthy and happy.
They are selectively bred to overproduce eggs which shortens their lifespan significantly. Also they cannot consent to you taking their eggs away, in the same way it is wrong to steal from someone else.
People are vegetarian and vegan for a variety of reasons. There is also no reason people need to live their life confined to a label. The labels are helpful for quick understanding, such as ordering meals and discussing these topics, but people are more varried than labels.
I've been a full vegetarian for over 22 years but before that I only ate meat that I hunted or fished myself. I didn't call myself a vegetarian then, but ordered vegetarian when eating out. I probably had similar ethos to some including a dislike of the commercial meat industry, while others would still abhor that I was harvesting my own meat from the forest.
So what I would say to your question is why do you worry about attaining the label of vegan? If you or someone else is sourcing animals in a way that you feel is ethical, then simply be a conscientious consumer who orders vegan when eating out. As a bonus, you sidestep all the confusion around the label and the different reasons people have for using it.
I think there's some information you don't know about milk and eggs: milk is produced by forcing a cow to be pregnant (they call the rack they tie them to for breeding the rape rack), and then forcibly removing her calves from her and stealing her milk. It's terrible. And eggs are forced to be produced by grinding up male chicks so that females produce more. It's honestly terrible.
I'm referring more to small farm chickens or chickens that are basically pets (they still plop out tons of eggs). All of the factory farmed products are definitely terrible.
And to clarify I'm not against veganism at all, just curious where/why lines are drawn.