Alternative Ethical Eating Lifestyles

Although Veganism is something we strive for society at large to accomplish, we gladly accept any reduction in the consumption of animal products. A person who is making an effort needs to be congratulated and encouraged (especially in a society where meat-eating is the norm), rather than ridiculed for not going far enough. Reducing harm to animals is not all or nothing, and it may be more useful to advocate for a more compromising approach when getting involved with activism.

Of course, we should be critical of people who claim that they are doing enough and don't need to do anything further (which extends to many vegans as well), but every meal without animal products in it is one more step towards a Vegan world. This article lists several different ethical dietary lifestyles that are also viewed to be done out of the concern for animal welfare, and we will also be exploring different types of Vegan diets.

Vegetarian

Not strictly vegan due to occasional or theoretical intentional inclusion of some animal product, but excludes animal flesh. There are many types of vegetarian.

Beegan

Beegan was a term invested to avoid confusion with vegetarians who would eat dairy or egg, although technically a form of vegetarianism, the title may be a useful descriptor. Very close in terms of harm reduction compared to Veganism, with the exception of honey.

We consider honey to be a much less important issue compared to meat, dairy, eggs, fur, leather, etc. and we actively discourage condemning people who are otherwise Vegan who also consume honey. However, that doesn't mean there is absolutely zero harm associated with honey, since bees, while much less sentient than cows, chickens, and pigs, still have their sentience, and are very likely harmed during honey production. But focusing too much on honey risks Vegans looking crazy and uncompromising, so it's best to keep these debates between Beegans rather than people who are unacquainted with Veganism.

The best argument against honey is the health argument (it's probably even worse than high-fructose corn syrup), but again if someone doesn't care about health, it's a moot point.

Flexi-Vegan

This is a person who avoids animal products 99.99% of the time, but if it's convenient, will partake in the consumption of dairy and egg products.

Non-vegetarian

OstroVegan

While technically non-vegetarian due to the inclusion of animal flesh, this form of eating is vegan in all but oysters. Due to their probable non-sentience and possibly beneficial environmental impact with some farming methods, this dietary practice is likely on par with veganism.

Localvore

Localvores can be vegan, as in "vegan localvore", but are not necessarily so. The general hypothetical benefit of local eating applies in either case.

OK this is a diet we REALLY have an issue with, in particular due to it being a misguided attempt to reduce harm but does not only NOT reduce harm, but may even increase it.

Regardless of food type, the overwhelming majority of the embodied energy is due to production of the food, not the transportation, which makes up a tiny part of the footprint, as discussed in the Vean section of Localvore. But what makes a Non-Vegan localvore potentially worse, is that locally produced animal products usually have aa higher carbon footprint. The animals at these locally sourced farms tend to live longer, which means they stay alive longer to consume food, water, and release more emissions. It's also fairly dudbious to state that the animals here are not treated unethically (just not as unethically than if they were on a factory farm).

Regardless of how well they're treated, they're still being killed at the end for their animal products, which we DON'T need to eat to be healthy. It isn't possible to ethically kill a sentient being that has a vested interest in being alive, especially when there's no need for it.

Freegan

In terms of harm due to food, a freegan diet completely eliminates it due to not contributing to any demand. Even vegan diets result in some amount of harm, with crop deaths and greenhouse gases (though obviously compared to standard meat diets the harm is much smaller). We actively encourage Freegan diets to people who want to stop harming animals but aren't willing to give up meat (and for people who want to save a bit of money).

Although this type of diet negates all harm, it's not something we obligate people to do, due to concerns about cleanliness, being able to eat healthfully easily, and also it sacrifices the ability to promote mock meats which helps more animals in the long run (net positive impact).

Of course there are health concerns with eating food from a dumpster (especially if it includes animal products), but, while we encourage people to eat as healthfully as possible, we don't really care if someone wants to be healthy. We are not the health police; If your lifestyle is only harming you, and you alone, that isn't anyone else's business.

But being Freegan can still be fairly healthful, if you focus on eating plant foods found in the garbage (which can be difficult depending on a few factors), and if you're taking proper safety precautions when dumpster-diving, such as having gloves, mask, cleaning your findings, and foraging in a group.

Parasitivore

Compared to the other diets here, this diet probably does GOOD, rather than just reducing harm.

While we place moral value on the overwhelming majority of animals to varying degrees, some animals we regard as evils due to the suffering they cause, and killing them would be a good thing to do. Primarily speaking, invasive species come in the form of parasites like mosquitoes, fleas, ticks & leeches, and parasitic worms. If you want to collect a bunch of these and cook them up to eat go for it.

Technically this is not vegan (although you can argue that it's practicable to do something that's helpful, in concordance with the definition provided by the Vegan Society), it's one of those times where sacrificing Veganism would yield positive consequences.

It may be Vegan in the sense of being a net positive, similar to being left with no choice but to eat meat. Being stranded on an island with no food to eat but pork from the pigs to live there is still Vegan, since it is not possible or practicable to eschew animal products since your life depends on it. So yes, being an Parasitivore may not Vegan, but in the most meaningless way possible, basically.

These animals do not play any important ecological role (if anything, given their name, they're HARMFUL for their ecology), they're just terrible creatures that cause suffering, and have very little sentience anyways (if they had more sentience, like in the case of feral cats, it makes more sense to advocate spaying and neutering programs to reduce their populations rather than killing them off, which may not be that effective anyway).

Killing odd order predators

Other terms like Freegan, Ostrovegan, etc. are important to express a variety of concepts in ethical food choices. So whatever this would be, it would need its own term to express that concept, furthering understanding and avoiding confusion. Whether it is in fact ethically equivalent to veganism is another question. It may not be ethically equivalent. It may not be plausible to define odd order predators, nor if you could to kill them in a way that wouldn't risk causing other problems, it might not be generalized to a large number of people (even less than freeganism can), and the idea that these predators do net harm to begin with it's not confirmed. It's possible that it ranks somewhere near entovegan at best, probably below invasivore-vegan, and almost certainly below vegan-freegan-ostrovegan which are regarded as approximately equivalent. Now if you only killed invasive odd ordered predators that specifically had a lower level of sentience than their prey, that would probably kick it up to the vegan-freegan-ostrovegan level.

It may not it's a realistic assessment that we can make at this time. If it were possible to do such a count, then still no. There may not necessarily believe that in many cases, such as a frog eating insects, that the insect life day value lost exceeds the frog life day value gained. Frogs may be tiny utility monsters to insects, and given there's no vegan alternative diet for them or obvious equivalent animal to replace them without eating insects, it doesn't follow that removing them from the environment is a net good and it may be a net loss of goods. Predators usually exceed the sentience value of their prey. In the case of frogs and the average insect, by nearly a hundred times just in raw neuron count. And at these numbers, increase in value is likely more exponential of neuron count, since many non-value generating functions occupy the first few hundred thousand to million or so neurons. Most insects are only just barely intelligent at all. Frogs are substantially so. If only killed invasive odd ordered predators that specifically had a lower level of sentience than their prey, that would probably kick it up to the vegan-freegan-ostrovegan level. It may not be true in many cases, such as a frog eating insects, that the insect life day value lost exceeds the frog life day value gained. Frogs may be tiny utility monsters to insects, and given there's no vegan alternative diet for them or obvious equivalent animal to replace them without eating insects, it doesn't follow that removing them from the environment is a net good and it may be a net loss of goods.

Predators usually exceed the sentience value of their prey. In the case of frogs and the average insect, by nearly a hundred times just in raw neuron count. And at these numbers, increase in value is likely more exponential of neuron count, since many non-value generating functions occupy the first few hundred thousand to million or so neurons. Most insects are only just barely intelligent at all. Frogs are substantially so.

It's safe to assume a frog is many many thousands or more likely millions of times more valuable than an insect rather than tens or a hundred times more valuable. Insects also lose very little time to being eaten by large predators, because they're usually eaten in the final stages of their lives (the winged mating phases) many of which don't even have functional mouth parts. So even eating a thousand insects a day, and costing the insects collectively a thousand insect days of life, it seems more plausible that a frog day of life is worth more than that. We're not saying it's impossible, but It's more likely that you're doing net harm eating the frog.

Now the snake that would have eaten the frog is probably comparable or less sentient than the frog. They apparently have roughly 1/3rd the neurons, although a snake large enough to eat a given frog would likely have more than the average snake vs average frog. If frogs are a positive, snakes may be a net negative by removing frog life days. This, however, is complicated by how infrequently snakes actually feed. And you'd have to add the insect days to the snake days and subtract the frog days. It could go either way, but for any given predator anticipate the addition of some net value as part of a complete ecosystem that maximizes the amount of flourishing life in an exvironment.

Invasive species may give a better argument, because by reducing biodiversity and upsetting the ecosystem, these animals may through collective impact be a net negative.

Parasites on the other hand, fleas, ticks, parasitic worms... these have virtually no sentience and cause inordinate suffering while providing essentially no substantive role in an ecosystem beyond burdening sentient life with said suffering and reducing the ability of sentient organisms to thrive. If you want to go eat fleas and ticks and fry up some parasitic worms you've collected from the environment, have at it. Parasitivorism can be strongly justified, but it may not be a viable option due to the impracticability of collecting the food source.