Things I don't like about some vegans

[Jebus]

On protein, I wrote a blog to sum up how I see it:
https://whytryveg.wordpress.com/2017/03/05/getting-enough-protein-is-easy/

Good blog, although I think the methionine factor should have been included.

[EquALLity]

Brimstone Salad, it's true that the idea that one is said to have saved 46 animals is this year is quite absurd in its precision, if you mostly ate beef rather than chicken becoming vegan and were already an occassional meat eater then the true number might be 5. if you were a regular seafood eater the true number might be 200.

But....far more importantly...the whole idea that you are "saving" animals by becoming vegan is completely false. With the exception of wild caught fish, going vegan doesn't save hardly any lives, not of land animals anyway.

When someone becomes vegan, it's not as if a few pigs are released into the wild. Almost of the animals in our factory farms are going to die for food period. Their lifetimes are very short, easily able to react to demand by birthing less new animals rather than doing anything to ones alive today.

When a person becomes a vegan, it means that animals that would have had a chance to live a crappy life will now not be born and have no life at all. They are "saved" from suffering by not existing at all. Hooray!

The idea that vegans "save" (land) animals is a tiresome argument that is so very prevalent and constantly unchallenged, and yet so clearly wrong.

The truth about veganism is that it doesn't benefit doomed farm animals at all. It's humans and wild animals that benefit from veganism due to more available land for them.

I will add that the fact that vegans are not saving any animals does not work as a moral defence for meat eating. Imagine a parent trying to defend child abuse by saying the child wouldn't be there at all if it wasn't for them. The fact of an animal having been bred for food does not provide a moral defence of cutting their throat.

Exactly, we are saving them from being born into lives of misery and constant abuse. That is the point. Would you rather live a life in a factory farm, where your limbs are chopped off w/h anesthetic and you are bled to death by a slitting of the throat, or never be born?

[brimstoneSalad]

Brimstone Salad, it's true that the idea that one is said to have saved 46 animals is this year is quite absurd in its precision, if you mostly ate beef rather than chicken becoming vegan and were already an occassional meat eater then the true number might be 5. if you were a regular seafood eater the true number might be 200.

Likely higher than 200. A fish eater can eat several fish a day, depending on the size of the fish, even dozens. Also, you have to consider bycatch.
Unless they're just eating very large fish like Tuna.

When a person becomes a vegan, it means that animals that would have had a chance to live a crappy life will now not be born and have no life at all. They are "saved" from suffering by not existing at all. Hooray!

The idea that vegans "save" (land) animals is a tiresome argument that is so very prevalent and constantly unchallenged, and yet so clearly wrong.

They are saved from a horrible death and likely short lives of suffering. If it's not a life you would want to live, you shouldn't impose it on other beings. Not existing relative to misery is being saved that misery.

I agree that we could make it more clear that animals aren't being released (which is distinct from being saved a life of suffering, but that people could easily mistakenly think we mean). Although in the case of wild caught fish, those fish may have just continued to live out their natural lives.

The truth about veganism is that it doesn't benefit doomed farm animals at all. It's humans and wild animals that benefit from veganism due to more available land for them.

This is true, although I'm skeptical of wild animal biomass being such a positive (I regard it as mostly neutral). We may in the future help wild animals too, by eliminating parasites and disease and making their lives even better.

[Jamie in Chile]

For my comment "if you were a regular seafood eater the true number might be 200" perhaps 200 is too low now I think about it. But my point is that the website that calculates an exact number is silly. I get that people are just looking for something feelgood rather than a rational analysis but I think looking at how much CO2, land, water, fuel etc you've saved makes more sense.

On the "saving" question I think "saving animals from suffering" (although it's still a little disingenuous) would be acceptable to me but just "saving" on its own is at best dubious and at worst plain false.

On methionine, I think the evidence suggests that if you eat a balanced vegan diet with enough total protein, you will automatically get enough methionine. http://veganhealth.org/articles/protein shows the results of a study showing that vegan men had above the RDA. Although it is the second lowest after lysine. The book I read on vegan nutrition Becoming Vegan does not seem to mention methionine at all.

https://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/high-methionine-foods.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methionine
http://www.livestrong.com/article/443362-natural-sources-of-methionine/

[Jebus]

on methionine, I think the evidence suggests that if you eat a balanced vegan diet with enough total protein, you will automatically get enough methionine.

It's not an issue about vegans not getting enough. It's an issue about non vegans getting too much.

[Jamie in Chile]

Ah, I see.

[Cloppy]

2. When I get shown videos of animal getting killed or anything. Yes, I know they die but please, don't show this.

3. When I join a group for vegan recipe and someone post something about animal cruelty or again some video about animals getting killed. Not really hungry anymore after that.

Many people are turned off by this. I would be curious to hear your views about why.
I think it makes people angry because it's uncomfortable to watch. I don't think anybody likes watching that stuff... but if we look at history, photos of war really help the public to reduce its support of it. So, I don't know. I'm on the fence about this one.

6. When they call me a murderer and a rapist because I'm not vegan. Yeah, I know you have feelings for the animals but I don't. I have feeling for humans but not animals and this doesn't mean I'm a bad person.

You must care some about animal suffering, right?
You just care more about humans? I think most of us do.

I hope you don't mean that you don't care about animals at all. If that were the case, you wouldn't mind the videos of animals being killed, right? I know some people who are more psychopathic like to watch those and laugh at them. You're certainly not that kind of person, I think you have a good heart but you just haven't connected as much with animals.
I hope you care a little, though.

8. People who take it to the extreme. So I can't play minecraft now? Or I have to play vegan minecraft or anything like that? It's just a game and it's not real.

I know what you mean, that's pretty silly. Some people don't understand that veganism is to reduce suffering... animals in video games don't suffer (yet).
Maybe some day with advanced AI the enemies in video games will be like real humans and animals and they will suffer. I hope not.

10. When they say that I will die from a heart attack or cancer. Seriously? Yes, I know the risk are increased, but that doesn't mean I will die and I can still be a healthy meat eater. There are many healthy meat eater.

There are also many people who smoke until 90, or play Russian Roulette and survive. Death is a matter of probability.
Saying anything like that for certain (even telling somebody that he'll die if he jumps out of an airplane without a parachute or off a skyscraper) is not correct. People can survive anything if they're lucky enough.
It would be good if people would explain probability more when they say that kind of thing. But unfortunately, people have a hard time understanding probability.
The message that you will be healthier if you eat vegan is a good one... but the message that you will certainly die of X if you don't, or you won't die of X for sure if you do, is a little extreme.


I'll add another one:

All of these communist/anti-capitalist/anarchist vegans make veganism sound like some kind of radical Marxist ideology, and really turns off conservatives and centrists. Particularly when they're very hostile to conservatives.

I don't like when they show the videos on group where people share vegan recipe. I have seen those videos and yeah, I already know. If you share them share it on another group than a group about vegan recipes. I'm there for the food and not for watching animals getting killed.

As for the animals, yes I don't care much about them I don't really have feelings for them, but it would be good if we leave them alone.

As for the games even if it's realistic and everything, I don't see a problem with that it's just a game.

Meat isn't as bad as smoking, you can be healthy even if you eat meat and while your risk of cancer or heart attack are higher you can still avoid that if you don't eat too much meat. The average life expectancy is still pretty high and most people are meat eaters.

And yeah about those communists, anti-capitalists and anarchist vegan, I don't like them either. Most hate their country because it's a capitalist country and they want communism. The thing they don't understand is that capitalism is what got the biggest amount of people out of poverty. When you look at communist countries a big percentage of the population is poor and life is very hard. Look at north Korea for example. Poverty still exist in capitalist countries but it's lower than the rest. Anyway, veganism should be about health and also about reducing animal suffering (even if I don't care that much about the suffering of animals, some do care about it) and not about communism or anarchism. It has nothing to do with it.

[Jebus]

The average life expectancy is still pretty high and most people are meat eaters.

Pretty high compared to what? Certainly not compared to the Loma Linda adventists, and as far as I know that's the only group we have as comparison.

[Red]

The average life expectancy is still pretty high and most people are meat eaters.

Pretty high compared to what? Certainly not compared to the Loma Linda adventists, and as far as I know that's the only group we have as comparison.

I guess Cloppy means for a human. Some countries have an average less than 60! I know my share of people who are in their 80s and 90s, and are still sharp.

I heard we may have immortality in the next 40 or so years.

[Jebus]

I guess Cloppy means for a human. Some countries have an average less than 60! I know my share of people who are in their 80s and 90s, and are still sharp.

Of course she meant humans. What is it supposed to tell us that you know sharp people in their 80s and 90s? Are they vegans? Are they meat eaters? Is 80-90 supposed to mean really old? If so compared to what? I don't see the point of your post.