Question for all vegans!

Vegan message board for support on vegan related issues and questions.
Topics include philosophy, activism, effective altruism, plant-based nutrition, and diet advice/discussion whether high carb, low carb (eco atkins/vegan keto) or anything in between.
Meat eater vs. Vegan debate welcome, but please keep it within debate topics.

What made you decide to become a vegan?

general observation of life
4
27%
a documentary
3
20%
A habit from when you were young
1
7%
a friend
3
20%
a social media/media personality
1
7%
A lifestyle/health choice
3
20%
Recovery from an eating disorder
0
No votes
Other? (will explain below briefly!)
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 15

Lauradf36
Newbie
Posts: 33
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2016 2:42 am
Diet: Meat-Eater

Question for all vegans!

Post by Lauradf36 »

Hey everyone! So, I am not a vegan at this current point in time. However, I'm very interested in ethics so I'm completely open to peaceful & respectful ethical discussion.

My question for vegans is - what made you decide to become a vegan?
Last edited by Lauradf36 on Wed Jun 22, 2016 5:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
thebestofenergy
Master in Training
Posts: 514
Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 5:49 pm
Diet: Vegan
Location: Italy

Re: Question for all vegans!

Post by thebestofenergy »

You'll find out that most vegans chose the lifestyle for emotional reasons mainly.
Not many are well informed about the effects of having a standard diet, and all its moral consequences. In most cases, it's empathy for animals that change people into becoming vegan; health and environmental reasons, and a full realisation of what it means to slaughter billions of animals, usually come after.

But to answer your question: the reason I became vegetarian was simply because I cared about animals. I made the connection between my dog and other animals I was eating, and felt a strong emotional response when I was realising that animals were killed in order for me to eat them, and that was enough for me.
Why I became vegan though, that has more complex reasons behind it.

Starting purely from an ethical side: animals are sentient beings (some more, some less). That means they have a complex neural network that allows them to have interests, feel, be aware of their surroundings and have true learning capabilities.
The more complex the neural network is, the higher the level of sentience becomes. A dog is more sentient than an ant, and a chimpanzee is more than a dog.
Sentience, specifically the ability to have wants/interests, inherently gives that being moral worth.

However, plants aren't sentient. They have no kind of intelligence. They lack neurons and they lack a nervous system, just as much as a rock does. There are some plants that react to stimuli, but that is purely an electro-chemical reaction that doesn't involve cognitive capabilities/responses. Just like pressing a button on your computer gives a response doesn't mean that the computer is sentient. Or in the same way that a sunflower follows the sun, a solar panel can keep facing the sun if programmed to turn around following the light.
The only moment plants gain moral worth is when 'killing' them would cause negative consequences for sentient beings (like deforestation/global warming or destroying habitats).

Knowing that, we can agree from a logical standpoint that killing plants is a more preferable thing to do than killing animals.

Mind you, there are a few animal species that aren't sentient: like sponges, and potentially oysters. However, there is no doubt that animals in possess of a neural system are.

That said, this is not just about killing animals. The meat and dairy industry keeps animals in horrible conditions.
You have to keep breeding billions upon billions of animals to sustain the demand, and the only way to do so and have a very profitable business is by caging them in spaces that are way too small for them and treating them like property.
This leads to all sorts of gruesome treatments. You can check documentaries like Earthlings if you're interested.
Not everywhere animals are treated horrendously, but it'd be impossible to meet the enormous demand having them roaming free. Just the amount of space that it'd require tens of billions of animals to have enough space to live decently and be looked after properly, it'd make it an unsustainable and unprofitable business.

And that said, animals would still be killed. And killed prematurely, at that.
Cows are forcefully impregnated regurarly to have babies, so that they can give more milk. The calves are taken to the slaughterhouse (since they are of no other use), while the milk is taken. If a cow doesn't give enough milk anymore, it's taken to the slaughter. In the same manner, whenever a chicken starts laying fewer eggs , there's not enough profit left to keep the chicken alive. That leads to cattle being killed young after leading a miserable life.
Those are the ways used in the vast majority of cases. There are some few exceptions, like having a chicken of your own that lays eggs for you and that is taken care of, but that is not the case for the billions.

And that is just dealing with the moral side regarding the animals.
Factory farming is the worst when it comes to environmental damage, leading in deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and waste.

To keep the staggering numbers of cattle, they need a huge amount of food and water. It takes more than 2400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while it takes 25 gallons to produce 1 pound of wheat.
About 70% of crops grown in the US are fed to livestock, which transforms in a huge waste of food.
The space required to raise animals and their crops is about 30% of earth's landscape. And that is why the meat and dairy industry is the leader in deforestation - lack of space.
You can look all these statistics up yourself.
If you want to read up on it and have some statistics, you can read
http://na.unep.net/geas/getUNEPPageWith ... icle_id=92
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/549
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environme ... etarianism

And then, of course, there is the health part of it. Which is pretty extensive. I can talk about that if you're interested in health reasons too.

Please, don't hesitate to ask questions or argue about something you disagree with :)
For evil to prevail, good people must stand aside and do nothing.
Lauradf36
Newbie
Posts: 33
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2016 2:42 am
Diet: Meat-Eater

Re: Question for all vegans!

Post by Lauradf36 »

thebestofenergy wrote:You'll find out that most vegans chose the lifestyle for emotional reasons mainly.
Not many are well informed about the effects of having a standard diet, and all its moral consequences. In most cases, it's empathy for animals that change people into becoming vegan; health and environmental reasons, and a full realisation of what it means to slaughter billions of animals, usually come after.

But to answer your question: the reason I became vegetarian was simply because I cared about animals. I made the connection between my dog and other animals I was eating, and felt a strong emotional response when I was realising that animals were killed in order for me to eat them, and that was enough for me.
Why I became vegan though, that has more complex reasons behind it.
So I'm guessing that's the... "other" category? Haha. Was there a particular moment that sparked it or just a general understanding over time? (as you can see I'm quite curious. That's it really.)
Starting purely from an ethical side: animals are sentient beings (some more, some less). That means they have a complex neural network that allows them to have interests, feel, be aware of their surroundings and have true learning capabilities.
The more complex the neural network is, the higher the level of sentience becomes. A dog is more sentient than an ant, and a chimpanzee is more than a dog.
Sentience, specifically the ability to have wants/interests, inherently gives that being moral worth.
It's really interesting way to define worth that I had never heard of! So if an ant has some level of sentience, does that give it moral worth too?

The plant stuff makes sense. This bit was interesting:
Mind you, there are a few animal species that aren't sentient: like sponges, and potentially oysters. However, there is no doubt that animals in possess of a neural system are.
Ooh, does that mean vegans can eat oysters?
Side note: how is sentience measured?? By like... an IQ test? idk.

Your other reasons I had heard before - factories, environment, health, etc. I do have some arguments against them, but then again my aim here isn't to start an argument haha. And I'm pretty sure you guys are way more educated than me so I don't dare try!

Anyway. Thanks for sharing your opinions. Always interesting to hear :)
User avatar
thebestofenergy
Master in Training
Posts: 514
Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 5:49 pm
Diet: Vegan
Location: Italy

Re: Question for all vegans!

Post by thebestofenergy »

Lauradf36 wrote:Was there a particular moment that sparked it or just a general understanding over time?
Not really a 'Shit, how didn't I think about this before' kind of realisation, more like a spectrum. The more time passed, the more I felt compelled that giving up meat was the right thing to do.
But I really always felt about it that way, just not with as much intensity as when I made the decision though. Constantly seeing meat in my plate and connecting it with the suffering and where it actually came from, it was like dropping water in a bucket. And it was just about time that a drop of water would make the bucket overflow. At a certain point I just decided to stop it.
Lauradf36 wrote:So if an ant has some level of sentience, does that give it moral worth too?
Yes, definitely. As long as it has a level of sentience, it's worth taking into consideration.
It doesn't have a huge impact, meaning that if you compare it with beings that have more complex neural networks, it's not as aware and doesn't have the same intensity of emotions/wants as them. It's a very primitive and basic neural system that insects have.
The amount of moral worth it has might not be so relevant that you have to change your life around it, but it's higher than zero.
Lauradf36 wrote:Ooh, does that mean vegans can eat oysters?
There is a big part of the vegan community that doesn't agree.
But there is no evidence that oysters have a neural system that allows sentience, so whether it makes you vegan or not in the eyes of the others, it's not something you should worry about.
At the end of the day, vegan is just a label. It's about what the right thing to do is in every different situation and context, and in the case of oysters there's nothing supporting you're doing harm by killing them.
There are other things you have to consider though: like environmental damage caused from the methods the company that you're buying oysters from uses.
Lauradf36 wrote:Side note: how is sentience measured?? By like... an IQ test? idk.
There is no clear-cut way that gives beings precise measurments of sentience.
However, you can see the differences between an ant and a dog. You can run tests to see their cognitive capabilities.
Also, a more complex neural system is associated with higher cognitive capabilities and sentience. You can see a scale of intelligence based on the amount of neurons animals have. Usually larger animals are higher on the scale.
And it's mostly self-evident, a lot of the times. You can see that 0<ant<pig<chimpanzee<human.
To summ it up, the complexity of your brain dictates where you are on the 'sentience scale'.
For evil to prevail, good people must stand aside and do nothing.
User avatar
miniboes
Master of the Forum
Posts: 1578
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 1:52 pm
Diet: Vegan
Location: Netherlands

Re: Question for all vegans!

Post by miniboes »

For me, it was watching the documentary 'Forks over Knives', which makes an argument in favor of 'plant based' diets due to the unhealthfulness of meat, dairy and eggs. I am one of radical change, so after a day of researching nutrition I stopped eating meat, was a vegetarian for one day, then cut out dairy and eggs. It snowballed into me learning about the other aspects of veganism. Nowadays, the health aspect barely motivates me anymore (I can eat as junky or healthy as I want on a vegan diet) and the environmental and ethical concerns are my primary motivations.
"I advocate infinite effort on behalf of very finite goals, for example correcting this guy's grammar."
- David Frum
Lauradf36
Newbie
Posts: 33
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2016 2:42 am
Diet: Meat-Eater

Re: Question for all vegans!

Post by Lauradf36 »

Oh cool! Thanks for sharing! :D
Minos
Junior Member
Posts: 55
Joined: Sat Feb 20, 2016 8:49 am
Diet: Reducetarian
Location: Czech republic

Re: Question for all vegans!

Post by Minos »

Lauradf36 wrote:Your other reasons I had heard before - factories, environment, health, etc. I do have some arguments against them, but then again my aim here isn't to start an argument haha. And I'm pretty sure you guys are way more educated than me so I don't dare try!
Please share your arguments against. Personally I'd like to read them and it could be interesting discussion.

The reason I'm vegan is my SO as she brought the topic to my attention. At first it was an experiment trying to achieve lifestyle, then we watched Earthlings together. After this the ethical reasons became more and more important. With more documents watched I had more reasons to stick with veganism.
User avatar
thebestofenergy
Master in Training
Posts: 514
Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 5:49 pm
Diet: Vegan
Location: Italy

Re: Question for all vegans!

Post by thebestofenergy »

Lauradf36 wrote:I do have some arguments against them, but then again my aim here isn't to start an argument haha. And I'm pretty sure you guys are way more educated than me so I don't dare try!
Seems like I missed this part.
By all means, go ahead. This is a discussion forum, and discussion is more than welcome here.
If you don't argue and question, you can't really change your mind for the better. Unless you're uncomfortable with it, I encourage you to.
This is not your usual forum where you get an angry mob of people for disagreeing :)
For evil to prevail, good people must stand aside and do nothing.
User avatar
miniboes
Master of the Forum
Posts: 1578
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2014 1:52 pm
Diet: Vegan
Location: Netherlands

Re: Question for all vegans!

Post by miniboes »

And neither is it a forum of everybody agreeing with each other. Respectful disagreement and learning from each other is something we value highly. You seem to be very open-minded, Laura, that's awesome!

By the way, good to see you back thebestofenergy! Haven't seen you around in a while.
"I advocate infinite effort on behalf of very finite goals, for example correcting this guy's grammar."
- David Frum
User avatar
thebestofenergy
Master in Training
Posts: 514
Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 5:49 pm
Diet: Vegan
Location: Italy

Re: Question for all vegans!

Post by thebestofenergy »

miniboes wrote:By the way, good to see you back thebestofenergy! Haven't seen you around in a while.
Thanks :)
I didn't really have much time, I was mostly lurking and roughly seeing what was going on in the forum, skimming through posts.
For evil to prevail, good people must stand aside and do nothing.
Post Reply