Philosophical Vegan Forum

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum, and I guess I signed up with a reason. I'm a meat eater, and have often wondered a few things that vegans justify, but have few vegans in my community to discuss with. As such, I've come here with questions, curious about a few things in the interest of ethics, logistics, and personal curiosity.

For my first point, I have to pose a question, as I'm not legitimately sure about this, but I have often wondered. Do most vegans also associate with the organic lifestyle choices, or would it be safe to say it's split fairly evenly? I know a good number of meat eating 'organic' people. They eat free-range chicken, organic fruits and vegetables, and various other specific style foods. Is it similar among vegans, or do the numbers spike a bit more in favor of organic foods, due to the increase in vegetable and fruit intake? The main reason I pose this question, is that from my understanding of organic farming, animals are required for production of manure. This means, any increase in vegan organic eaters, also increases the number of animals kept as workers on farms. While it may not sound like a difficult job, many such many such manure producers keep the animals locked up most of their lives so that they don't miss any droppings that can be used for farming. They are fed specific foods to produce the best kinds of manure, foods the animals would not normally eat in the wild, and are over-fed to produce quicker. Additionally, as these animals are often more tender fleshed from their position in work force, they are considered delicacy meat, and are then sold to butcheries to produce meat. Like all industry, in the background the companies work together for higher profits.

For my second point, vegans often discuss the ethics of food, and cite it as a main reason people should not eat meat. However, there are more than seven billion people in the world. While some of us do have the option of eating vegan diets, the cost of educating and converting food sources to vegan friendly food producers for large increase, would spike cost of food. As it is, even in first world countries, this could cause economic strife on lower middle class and lower class homes, making the cost of vegan foods more expensive and difficult to justify, while lowering the cost of meats and making it harder to justify not purchasing them, supply and demand. In time the market will shift, but companies rarely lower prices in these situations, maintaining them as high as they can to continue producing revenue, a standard practice in free markets. That being said, I'm stuck wondering, how one could justify encouraging people to go vegan, rather than encouraging them to be educated. Knowing that the world will likely not go 100% vegan in any near future, it would be safer, smarter, and more economically sound to push for education about the differences between omnivorous and vegan-friendly diets. As a species that is tasked with making decisions, the first step should always be education, not reformation, however, watching Vegan Atheist's videos and other such vegans, I never hear them pushing for education, but pushing for making the "right decision" about which diets to choose. While in one person's world view it's the right decision, doesn't it make more sense to educate the difference rather than proclaim it 'better'?

As an addendum to my previous point on ethics and economics, it is often said that the treatment of animals is cruel and inhumane. While I will definitely agree with that statement for butcheries that practice Halal or Kosher diets, ones where the method of executing the animal is painful and slow, many butcheries do not practice such horrific actions. Yes I do agree that killing a sentient animal is not a lovely thought, but many people, even in first world countries, rely on these industries to survive. Among lower income houses, sometimes low grade meat products far out weigh in value to vegan foods, and drawing people away from those industries will cause them to suffer. At the end of the day, if you were forced into making the decision of harming a human or harming an animal, I would assume as humans you would choose to put the lives of your fellow species first. Obviously my opinion is biased, so I've tried to steer clear of opinionated discussion, however, I must additionally add that as a medium income home, I do have /some/ option to what I eat. I am still limited by budget constraints, and sometimes meat, pound for pound, is cheaper. When planning out a month's worth of food, I have to take in to account what money I can save, so that my other bills are paid as well. If the lower cost meats were to grow less common from an increase in vegan eaters, my selection would become less acceptable, and more than likely it would eventually dwindle out, leaving only the higher end meats and produce. While I agree 100% that a vegetarian diet or a vegan diet can provide all necessary to life ingredients, one must consider that the cost varies heavily throughout the country on this, as does the budget available to the consumer. As once stated by one of the world's leading food experts, the privileged who have the blessing of choice should be the last and quietest to speak about which to choose, Norman Borlog. He's the one who cultivated the world leading plant production, which leads to vegetarian and vegan diets, but requires animal testing. Without this, the nearly 8 billion people in the world would fall to nearly 6 billion, and that doesn't take into account if everyone who had the option of changing to vegan foods changed. So even with vegan foods, that still requires animal testing and death, just instead of eating the animals, they are dissected at younger ages to use their body in experiments.

We as humans can't fully escape the use of animals while feeding our population. The more one type of food is eaten, the more the animals that are owned by humans become used to produce that food. The only true way to remove animals from use would be if everyone grew their own farms and ate exclusively from it, or traded with others who did the same. As many people do not have time to do this while maintaining a full time job, animals take over the labor, and experiments take over for the lack of producing people. Consider this, if you're alive to read this statement, the odds of you having ever seen a real banana are 0%. All yellow bananas, as you know them without seeds, are clones of one single tree. This cloning process required animal testing. A vegan can not eat bananas without contributing to the use of animals as test subjects. This is true with many foods, corn, bananas, mushrooms, these are all foods that require animals to produce in the numbers needed to feed today's quantity of vegetarians/vegans. It you can accept that animals died to make non-animals reach your plate, what is the difference in eating that versus the animal that gave it's life to feed you? This isn't meant to be an attack, but more of a curiosity if this is commonly discussed among vegans in this format, or if these types of details are often brushed aside or not mentioned.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this, I hope I get some information to show alternatives to meat. I've considered a vegetarian diet in the past, and hope to hear about the vegans' standpoint on these subjects.

Indigo wrote:For my first point, I have to pose a question, as I'm not legitimately sure about this, but I have often wondered. Do most vegans also associate with the organic lifestyle choices, or would it be safe to say it's split fairly evenly?

For me its what ever has a "Certified Vegan" logo from vegan.org. Also, I am pretty sure even non-organic foods also use manure so if there is no other option I will unfortunately have to consume it.

Indigo wrote:For my second point, vegans often discuss the ethics of food, and cite it as a main reason people should not eat meat. However, there are more than seven billion people in the world. While some of us do have the option of eating vegan diets, the cost of educating and converting food sources to vegan friendly food producers for large increase, would spike cost of food. As it is, even in first world countries, this could cause economic strife on lower middle class and lower class homes, making the cost of vegan foods more expensive and difficult to justify, while lowering the cost of meats and making it harder to justify not purchasing them, supply and demand. In time the market will shift, but companies rarely lower prices in these situations, maintaining them as high as they can to continue producing revenue, a standard practice in free markets.

This is amusing that everyone drops being a meat eater and switches to veganism. As of now I am in a middle class home and live fine with eating vegan.

Indigo wrote:Yes I do agree that killing a sentient animal is not a lovely thought, but many people, even in first world countries, rely on these industries to survive.

I will never tell someone who would not be able to survive on a vegan diet to go vegan. If that person is incapable of going to a store and purchase vegan food I will not impose my thoughts onto them. (I only impose my thoughts if they ask me to.)

Indigo wrote:So even with vegan foods, that still requires animal testing and death, just instead of eating the animals, they are dissected at younger ages to use their body in experiments.

I am "okay" with animal testing as long as it is not for cosmetics.



Lastly, Welcome! I hope we can answer your questions.

Indigo wrote:I must additionally add that as a medium income home, I do have /some/ option to what I eat. I am still limited by budget constraints, and sometimes meat, pound for pound, is cheaper. When planning out a month's worth of food, I have to take in to account what money I can save, so that my other bills are paid as well. If the lower cost meats were to grow less common from an increase in vegan eaters, my selection would become less acceptable, and more than likely it would eventually dwindle out, leaving only the higher end meats and produce. While I agree 100% that a vegetarian diet or a vegan diet can provide all necessary to life ingredients, one must consider that the cost varies heavily throughout the country on this, as does the budget available to the consumer

From what you wrote, it sounds like you are under the impression that vegan products are more expensive than animal products. Even with animal products getting all the government subsidies, the cheapest foods per calorie are vegan foods by far. I did the calculations for myself recently, and If I bought in bulk, and focused most of my meals around Legumes, Whole Grains, and seeds, I could actually live in the 50-99 cents range per day (for 2000 calories) of very healthy food. I live in California too, so it's not like i'm in a third world country . It blew my mind when I figured this out. Some fresh produce like dark leafy greens and fruits are going to be more in line with meat prices, but they aren't required to meet your daily nutrition requirements, so just buy them if you have the money to. I don't believe price is a serious issue when it comes to eating vegan. It's seems to be more that people want convenience or are ignorant about how cheap plant food can be.

This makes sense if you think about it. You just need to understand that the food we feed the animals, (which is where all the calories in meat and dairy comes from) could simply be used to feed humans without all the extra waste that occurs with basic living and growing of the animal. There is also the extra labor, transportation, disposal, and animal maintenance costs that would have to be passed on to the consumer. It doesn't make sense that this could ever be a cheaper way to get our calories.

Indigo wrote: For my first point, I have to pose a question, as I'm not legitimately sure about this, but I have often wondered. Do most vegans also associate with the organic lifestyle choices, or would it be safe to say it's split fairly evenly?

That's a good question, I'm unsure of the split. I'm anti-organic, and I avoid purchasing it whenever possible.

Organic farming is a marketing gimmick, it's not healthier, and it may actually be more dangerous. The pesticides used in Organic farming are just "natural" pesticides, but they're poisons and that doesn't mean they're safe (remember, cyanide is natural).
Modern pesticides are designed to target the pests, like to prevent eggs from developing, and focus on special substances like chitin in insects, so they don't hurt humans (since humans don't have chitin). Organic pesticides harm humans and insects more equally.

Here's a good article that touches on the gimmick:
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/the_kids/2014/01/organic_vs_conventional_produce_for_kids_you_don_t_need_to_fear_pesticides.html

Organic agriculture also produces less yield, which means destroying more forest and wild lands for the same amount of food. These are serious problems.

There's nothing harmful to health about synthetic fertilizers used on crops, and they provide more food per acre and help feed the world. I do not support manure as a fertilizer (which also contains potentially dangerous intestinal bacteria, etc.).

Even if you support organic, that doesn't mean you have to use manure. Animals are not kept to fertilize plants alone- they are kept for meat, the manure is a byproduct. Plants can easily be grown with veganic methods, using compost from food waste, and the parts of plants we don't eat.

You would be right about the hypocrisy of vegans who want to eat organic, grown in animal feces. But that's not typically the case. Even the vegans who support organic prefer veganic, which is more environmentally sustainable and healthier.

Indigo wrote:For my second point, vegans often discuss the ethics of food, and cite it as a main reason people should not eat meat. However, there are more than seven billion people in the world. While some of us do have the option of eating vegan diets, the cost of educating and converting food sources to vegan friendly food producers for large increase, would spike cost of food.

As others mentioned, this is a misunderstanding. Farmed animals are largely fed corn and soy, which are products that can be processed into human food.

Look into thermodynamics and tropic levels. It always requires more food input (in the form of vegetable matter) to create meat than to feed the food to humans directly.
If we feed the crops grown to feed animals to humans, there will be no increase in food price. Vegan food (the simplest foods, like rice and beans) is cheaper than animal products.

You also misunderstand retail economics here.
There is an issue of economy of scale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale
This is where, as more people buy something it becomes cheaper. This is due to faster retail turnover, and purchases in larger bulk which have more efficient distribution and production. A great example is tofu, which has been falling in price in the U.S. because more people are buying it. In Asia, it's incredibly cheap (compared to meat) because of the higher demand and the cheaper input (soybeans are of course cheaper than meat, due to thermodynamics as I mentioned above).

As these products become more popular, the price also goes down due to competition and innovation.

Indigo wrote:In time the market will shift, but companies rarely lower prices in these situations, maintaining them as high as they can to continue producing revenue, a standard practice in free markets.

No, that's a standard practice in a monopoly. In competitive free markets, competition pushes prices down. We have seen this with tofu and soy milk/almond milk/ etc. The price falls all the time as more people buy, and more companies get in the market.

The case where this isn't true is patents, and there may be some innovations in plant food production that suffer from patents and higher prices for a little while (perhaps like "the impossible burger"), but over time patents expire.

http://www.earthandtablelawreporter.com/2016/06/20/patenting-the-quest-for-a-more-perfect-veggie-burger/

All of these patents will be expired in 20 years, but more than that, these companies are in competition with meat are each other, so it is in their interest to (as economies of scale kick in) reduce the price of them below meat to take over the market.
The materials are cheaper than meat, so it's totally possible to charge less for these pound for pound than meat costs. More people just have to buy them.

Indigo wrote:That being said, I'm stuck wondering, how one could justify encouraging people to go vegan, rather than encouraging them to be educated. Knowing that the world will likely not go 100% vegan in any near future, it would be safer, smarter, and more economically sound to push for education about the differences between omnivorous and vegan-friendly diets.

You're right that it is very important to teach people why to go vegan. Unfortunately, most people don't know the facts I outlined above.
People need all of the facts, and to be able to make the decision for themselves -- you can't force or bully somebody into changing.

Once somebody understands that:
1. Vegan can be much healthier because animal products are unhealthy (cardiovascular and cancer risk)
2. Veganism is better for the environment and other human beings, because animal products are inefficient and the process is polluting
3. Animals are sentient beings who don't want to die, and we shouldn't harm their interests needlessly, and veganism is better for animal welfare

Hopefully that person will make the right decision, and reduce meat consumption, maybe some day go vegetarian or vegan.

Indigo wrote:While I will definitely agree with that statement for butcheries that practice Halal or Kosher diets, ones where the method of executing the animal is painful and slow, many butcheries do not practice such horrific actions.

Halal and Kosher may in some cases be worse in terms of practice, but that doesn't mean the others are kind. Slaughterhouses, even with the best standards (which are rare) process animals too quickly. Stunning is not 100%, and many animals pass through fully conscious to have their throats slit and bleed out upside down. When you buy meat, you are accepting the mistakes and the harm inherent in the whole process. You're eating a mix of animals who were properly stunned, and those who suffered death and terror fully conscious.
This is an inevitable part of mass production. Just as in any manufacturing there are errors, these errors are not harmless: they result in profound suffering. There is no guaranteed 100% painless way to kill an animal. And particularly none that are reliable but economically viable.

The only 100% stunning method is the most horrendous possible -- in itself it is probably as terrifying and creates as much suffering as un-stunned slaughter -- it's called "CO2 stunning" and it's roughly the equivalent of the torture of having a plastic bag taped over your head until you suffocate. Every hold your breath for a minute and feel that panic inducing tingle? Imagine doing that without the option to breathe.

Please be sure to watch the video and read the article here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2942309/Disturbing-footage-pigs-struggling-breathe-killed-CO2-stunning-method-used-supermarket-abattoirs.html

In theory, animals could be stunned with argon instead of CO2, which would be 100% effective and without pain or suffering. But nobody does it, because it's too expensive.
0% of the meat you eat is stunned without some cruelty, and most of it probably not even reliably and with significant cruelty.

And even if animals are killed painlessly, this still isn't right. Consider the golden rule: Would YOU like to be killed painlessly well before your natural lifespan? Is it OK to kill human children painlessly for no good reason?
And there isn't a good reason, because we in developed countries don't need meat (maybe tribal herders in undeveloped countries do, but we don't).

Indigo wrote: Yes I do agree that killing a sentient animal is not a lovely thought, but many people, even in first world countries, rely on these industries to survive.

This is not true.
Nutritionally, it's totally unnecessary.

This is the foremost authority on nutritional science in the world:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864

ADA wrote:It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.

We don't need anything from animal products to survive and thrive.

Indigo wrote: Among lower income houses, sometimes low grade meat products far out weigh in value to vegan foods,

This isn't true; beans are very inexpensive. You can eat as cheaply and much more healthfully as a vegan by focusing on beans and grains and healthier vegetable oils.

The only people who may "need" meat are people in undeveloped countries with primitive agriculture: nomadic tribal populations who subsist on herding. If you don't belong to one of those groups, you really don't need meat. In developed countries -- pretty much anybody who is on the internet -- it's a safe assumption that people can and would be better off going vegan.

Indigo wrote:and drawing people away from those industries will cause them to suffer.

No it won't. Animal agriculture comfortably employs very few people in the developed world; it's mostly large companies. Of those farmers who are not large companies, they are diversified, and animal agriculture only makes up a part of their incomes; something many can easily switch away from to producing more vegetables.

The main employment sector in animal agriculture is rendering. The people on an assembly line who cut apart the meat, remove the organs, squeeze the shit out of the intestines, etc. It's a terrible job.

These jobs have famously terrible working conditions.

https://news.vice.com/article/chicken-industry-workers-wear-diapers-because-bosses-allow-no-breaks-ngo-says

Vice wrote:The people feeling the squeeze the most are line workers in colossal poultry processing plants. They often end up working long shifts, at breakneck speeds to keep up with American appetites and tastes, with a single half-hour break, all while earning less than $10 an hour.

The pressure to keep up with the line speed is so great that supervisors routinely deny workers' requests to go to the bathroom, according to a new Oxfam America report, titled No Relief: Denial of Bathroom Breaks in the Poultry Industry.

To avoid the embarrassment of becoming so desperate that they urinate or defecate on the floor, many workers say that they've grown accustomed to wearing diapers while at work. "I had to wear Pampers," one worker told Oxfam. "I, and many, many others had to wear Pampers."

Nobody cherishes these jobs as a beloved career.

As people eat more vegan foods and less meat, jobs for these workers will open up in picking and processing vegetables, and in tofu and veggieburger making plants instead.

Indigo wrote: At the end of the day, if you were forced into making the decision of harming a human or harming an animal, I would assume as humans you would choose to put the lives of your fellow species first.

Of course, humans are the most sentient, and suffer the most. Which is why we must go vegan. Even if you don't care at all about non-human animals, animal agriculture is the single most easily preventable cause of global warming, which is already killing people:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/27/climate-change-kills-400-000-a-year-new-report-reveals.html

Nearly 1,000 children a day are now dying because of climate change, according to a path-breaking study published Wednesday (PDF), and the annual death toll stands at 400,000 people worldwide.
Climate change also is costing the world economy $1.2 trillion a year, the equivalent of 1.6 percent of economic output, reports the Climate Vulnerability Monitor, a study commissioned by 20 of the world’s governments whose nations are most threatened by climate change and released on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.

It's only going to get worse if we don't stop.
How could any humanist contribute to worsening that problem if it wasn't necessary?

Indigo wrote: I am still limited by budget constraints, and sometimes meat, pound for pound, is cheaper.

Meat isn't cheaper than plant foods; plant foods like grains and beans are bought dry. Meat is wet. You have to look at the dry and wet cost. When you add water to the beans and grains they become heavier, and pound for pound, they're cheaper than meat.

Indigo wrote:If the lower cost meats were to grow less common from an increase in vegan eaters, my selection would become less acceptable, and more than likely it would eventually dwindle out, leaving only the higher end meats and produce.

That's not how it works. As there are more people eating vegan foods, vegan foods will become increasingly cheaper, thus opening up new options for cheap foods. Beans are already cheaper than meat, and they'll keep getting cheaper, but so will premium vegan products like veggie burgers.

Indigo wrote:While I agree 100% that a vegetarian diet or a vegan diet can provide all necessary to life ingredients, one must consider that the cost varies heavily throughout the country on this,

The cost of veggie burgers and tofu may, but the cost of beans and grains doesn't very much. You can eat vegan on $2 or less a day without great difficulty.
If you would like help planning a healthy and affordable vegan diet, we'd be glad to offer suggestions.

Indigo wrote:As once stated by one of the world's leading food experts, the privileged who have the blessing of choice should be the last and quietest to speak about which to choose, Norman Borlog.

I believe he was speaking of modern plant agriculture. I agree with him on that point.
That doesn't apply to meat in developed countries, which is itself a privilege and a wasteful process.
I'm not saying people in undeveloped countries, or nomadic tribes, should be expected to go vegan. We need to help them have that option through modern agriculture first.

Indigo wrote:He's the one who cultivated the world leading plant production, which leads to vegetarian and vegan diets, but requires animal testing.

Food production doesn't require animal testing, the only reason it's legally required is because of crazy anti-GMO propaganda.

However, I haven't said anything against animal testing. If you'll look around here, you'll see most are not opposed to it. If you're testing on animals to save human lives, that's totally different from causing animal harm for taste at the expense of human lives. One is a "lose-win" proposition, which is more reasonable, the other is "lose-lose".

Indigo wrote:So even with vegan foods, that still requires animal testing and death, just instead of eating the animals, they are dissected at younger ages to use their body in experiments.

Some vegans are, but not all vegans are broadly opposed to animal testing. This is an unfair generalization. Why din't you ask this as a question, as you did about organic agriculture? Many vegans support animal testing to develop life saving technologies for humans. I think most vegans prefer humans to non-human animals.

It's incorrect to think this is required for food production, though. Where did you get that idea?

Indigo wrote:We as humans can't fully escape the use of animals while feeding our population.

No, we can easily escape it for food production, because it's not needed. Where we sometimes (less and less every year as cell culture methods and computer models are improved) need animal testing is in some medical technology. We may not be able to escape it for developing medications and surgical interventions to save human lives. That has nothing to do with veganism, though.

Indigo wrote:The more one type of food is eaten, the more the animals that are owned by humans become used to produce that food. The only true way to remove animals from use would be if everyone grew their own farms and ate exclusively from it, or traded with others who did the same.

What are you talking about? I don't know where these assertions are coming from.

A very small number of animals are killed in farming vegetables, but more are killed in meat production, directly and indirectly, as animals consume vegetables.

http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc

Here's a good graphic and explanation which may help you understand the issue.

Veganism causes less animal death and suffering. Just because nothing is perfect doesn't mean we should give up and cause as much death and suffering as we want.

Indigo wrote:As many people do not have time to do this while maintaining a full time job, animals take over the labor,

What are you talking about? We use machines to plow fields, not animals.

Indigo wrote:and experiments take over for the lack of producing people.

What?

Indigo wrote:Consider this, if you're alive to read this statement, the odds of you having ever seen a real banana are 0%. All yellow bananas, as you know them without seeds, are clones of one single tree. This cloning process required animal testing.

This is such a bizarre claim. No animals are required to propagate bananas.
You seem to be very confused about how agriculture works. Please tell me where you heard this rumor.

Simple propagation requires cutting the roots and replanting. No lab needed.

Lab based cultivation uses plant tissue cultures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0svFGiDJPhg

There are only a couple places where animal products could come in, the most important being the medium:

http://himedialabs.com/TD/PT076.pdf
This is the first medium I found. I see no animal products in this (please let me know if you think you do).

Another being the soil once planted. This video mentions manure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLoZbDnAPIk
But as I explained above, that's unnecessary. Manure is used because it's cheap and plentiful as an animal byproduct. Vegan compost is also a great fertilizer and soil component.

These tissue cultures are often tested for plant viruses to make sure they're clean. The key word there being plant viruses. You do not need animal subjects or even animal cell cultures to test plant viruses.

http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/bbtd/elisa.asp

This describes a simple chemical assay for testing for one virus. Antibodies today are produced in large amounts through genetically engineered plants or bacterium. Even classically, one would expect a plant antibody to be derived from a plant.

Here's a description of the process:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELISA

It sounds like one of the three possible methods uses non-reactive proteins which could be animal derived (like casein). In the future we could also use yeast based casein.

This isn't animal testing. It's testing that sometimes uses an animal protein because it's cheap and readily available to coat the plastic in the testing trays.
We're probably talking about a cup of milk for some millions or more bananas.

And I'm sure if I did more research into it than that I could show how it's not even necessary to use animal proteins for that method (there are probably other nonreacting proteins or substances to coat the plastic with). The protein isn't important in the reaction, it's just a non-reactive coating.

Indigo wrote:A vegan can not eat bananas without contributing to the use of animals as test subjects.

I hope I've shown above how that's nonsense.

Indigo wrote:This is true with many foods, corn, bananas, mushrooms, these are all foods that require animals to produce in the numbers needed to feed today's quantity of vegetarians/vegans.

False, false, false, and false. You're as wrong about all of these as you are about bananas. I really don't know where you're getting all of this.

It's totally untrue that animal testing (or even animal products or inputs anywhere) for these are necessary, but even if it weren't, you're completely missing the matter of scale.
Needing the products of ONE single dairy cow to feed a billion people bananas is VERY different from constantly killing cows in the hundreds of millions to feed those people meat.

Indigo wrote:It you can accept that animals died to make non-animals reach your plate, what is the difference in eating that versus the animal that gave it's life to feed you?

The animal did not give its life, the life was taken cruelly. Saying that just adds insult to injury. Giving one's life is a choice of sacrifice, a choice the animals were never given.
Any animal abuse is sad, but it's a question of scale and what humanity and the world is getting out of it.

Again, please see this link: http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc

Try to understand the issue of scale and proportion. Everything we do causes some harm, the question is how we reduce harm and cause as little as possible and practicable.

See the definition of vegan:

The Vegan Society wrote:Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism

Vegans take life saving medications developed by animal testing. Vegans just don't kill more animals without necessity to enjoy eating their dead bodies.

If you are in an undeveloped country and you have no choice, of course you have to eat meat. If you're stranded on a desert island and the only thing is fish -- then you have to eat fish. It's not practicable to avoid it. This is even true where humans will kill and eat another human to survive. But if you're in the middle of a supermarket and you can choose beans or beef, you should choose beans to save animals, to save the environment and your fellow humans, and to save your own health.

There are probably some inputs that may have links to animal agriculture somewhere along the way; they aren't necessary in a vegan world, but they're used because they're cheap. It's unfortunate, but it does many orders of magnitude less harm than going all out at directly eating the animals. It's the primary product which causes the most animal suffering; buying the meat fuels the process that produces the byproducts. If people didn't eat meat, then animals would not still be killed for manure and gelatin or bone meal.

I don't always agree with PETA, but this is a good article:
http://www.peta.org/living/food/making-transition-vegetarian/ideas-vegetarian-living/tiny-amount-animal-products-food/

I'm glad you've considered a vegetarian diet, and I hope you will think hard on it and consider reducing your animal product consumption, and maybe going veg some day. Welcome to the forum!

I'm beyond grateful that people responded to my post. I'm sorry for it's length. I've read every reply, and while I do not necessarily agree with the ethics side of the discussion, I have gained a lot of information that I wasn't aware of. I am interested in experimenting with the diet, but I won't claim that my eyes have been opened to ethical advantages. The reason I would like to experiment is more, as originally stated, I've been curious about it before.

Many times I've been corrected that the costs are not higher, and it may be my lack of education on purchasing vegetarian foods (I will not claim a vegan diet necessarily until I'm sure that's what I'm doing). I would like some ideas and suggestions. I understand basic cooking principals, so the idea of preparation doesn't concern me, but rather knowing which ingredients would be good for the beginner. I am going to post in a more appropriate forum however, for details.

I lived in the worst poverty of my life when I was vegan, but I was able to eat pretty good as one.