i don’t wanna start Discourse on someone else’s post, so i have screenshotted the relevant phrase in order to say: so much Weird And Confusing Vegan Talk makes a lot more sense when you realize people have no goddamn idea where animal fibers come from.
i mean, if you’re such an absolutist that the death of a single insect four days early is unacceptable, of course follow your heart. but like.
bombyx morii moths do not have a life after the cocoon. they don’t have mouths. they mate and then starve to death. maybe they die with a deep sense of satisfaction, i dunno, maybe boiling the cocoon is depriving them of their ultimate life fulfillment, absolutely no one has any idea what moths think. but they are not going to go out and travel the world as beautiful flutter fairies. they’re going to fuck and die. that’s nature, folks.
it does not take thousands upon thousands of dead bugs to make enough silk thread for a kerchief or pair of gloves or whatever. the highest estimate i’ve seen is about 60 cocoons for the type of meter-long scarf you tuck under your coat collar, but that sounds high to me when you do it by weight. a silk scarf that weighs 100 grams is a hefty thing. 100 grams of wool is enough to make a thick pair of socks with enough left over for fingerless gloves, and silk is spun much finer. i would estimate, going by weight, that a meter-long oblong scarf would take more like 30 cocoons.
not 100,000.
the dead bugs aren’t just tossed out, btw. they’re a good source of protein, humans eat them in some places, and in others they’re used as part of animal feed. since they’re raised on mulberry leaves and nothing else, usually indoors, they’re a very clean and safe food source.
i realize this isn’t going to stop people being vegan, and it’s not my intention to anyway. you do you. i just want people to make their choices based on what’s actually happening in reality, not weird guesses or alarmist nonsense. if you’re imagining mountains of dead moths deprived of the best part of their lives, good news, that’s not a thing!
ps shearing doesn’t hurt sheep either. it’s a haircut. it’s exactly the same as what a dog groomer does.
“there are sustainable ways to use animal products, leather is good resource, indigenous people hunting sustainably is not an environmental problem”
and “individuals should take some responsibility for the environment, veganism and plastic-free lifestyles should be heavily encouraged”
and “veganism/vegetarianism/plastic-free is not an accessible lifestyle for everyone”
and “large corporations and corruption are directly responsible for the climate crisis, and dismantling them and not having a fossil fuel based economy is the most important thing in saving the environment”
are all coexisting and complementary.
“it’s acceptable and sustainable to use animal products/indigenous people should have the ability to hunt sustainably without shame” and “veganism should be encouraged” are mutually exclusive statements, not complementary ones.
i get what you’re trying to get at, but equating veganism to environmentally friendly eating is not inherently accurate and if we’re going to recognize that there are ethical and sustainable ways to produce and consume animal products, we can’t ALSO say “be vegan tho”. most vegans do not support any use of animals or animal products, and if i’m going to recognize that leather and meat can be made sustainably… i’m not also going to encourage people to be vegan. i’m gonna encourage people to source sustainably and from ethical sources.
eating local should be encouraged. buying from local producers supports local economies, small farmers, and is better for the environment.
every day i find new ways to loathe white western vegans who willingly remain ignorant of indigenous cultivation and culinary traditions
like, in southern mexico, the maya have been tending honey bees for thousands of years. it is part of tradition, nutrition, and cultural endurance. meanwhile, the white vegan demands to use agave nectar as an alternative. but agave nectar, which comes from the desert plant the agave, requires an absurd amount of water to grow in order to meet the rising demands for this honey alternative. so not only does the white western vegan participate in an unnessary usage of precious desert water, which they pretend to care so deeply about when they somewhat correctly critique the meat and dairy industry, they are also diverting water from communities (to a growing form of industrial agriculture) and ignoring the cultural value of a foodstuff, honey, that has been sustainable for thousands of years in the hands of indigenous central americans (among others).
Didn’t white western vegans also make quinoa so expensive that the indigenous people who were cultivating it for thousands of years couldn’t afford it?
that’s usually how colonized agriculture works yeah but tbh I don’t know much about quinoa production
We can and should still work however to reduce the current impact agriculture has on our environment because there are big issues with both animal and crop agriculture for sure. The current state of ag is a byproduct of capitalism puts profit before anything else.
I am all for having proper factual discussions over how we need to improve ag but ARAs aren’t the people we should be talking to because they straight up lie and/or are easily susceptible to believing lies.
people really will say “v*ganism isn’t about being perfect if you still rely on some animal products it’s okay” and then turn around and be like “anyway animal agriculture is entirely unnecessary and needs to stop entirely because no one needs animal products” literally in the same post
The best way to get over your cheese addiction, is to watch a mother cow scream for days as her newborn child is ripped away from her; so that you can have her milk.
HOLD THE PHONE
IMA STOP YOU RIGHT THERE
CHECK YOUR FACTS
Hi there, I’ve worked on a dairy farm. Lemme just correct you.
1. Uhm the cows don’t scream for days, maybe like for an hour at the most but they get over it as soon as you feed them. Seriously. Baby, forgotten.
2. The calves still receive their mother’s milk. In fact, they receive MORE milk than they’d normally be getting, since farmers have figured out the exact amount of colostrum a calf needs to grow up healthy, and they can give this to the baby, whereas with natural feeding the calves often get too little.
3. They receive colostrum from the healthiest cows to insure that their immune system is bolstered enough. Infections and disease are INCREDIBLY common in dairy cows allowed to suckle. Farms even freeze colostrum from the healthiest mothers, just to insure that all calves will be able to have a sufficient quality of healthy, infection-free mother’s milk.
4. The calves are also removed from their mothers due to the high calf mortality rate when left with their mothers. Cows, ESPECIALLY first-time mothers, have the tendency to not care properly for their babies. We’ve had calves with broken legs because their mother stepped on them after birthing (and yes, they have adequate space, they’re just clumsy animals) A lot of new mothers will abandon the calf, or not care for it properly, or not allow it to nurse. Other cows may push around the calves. It’s much safer and healthier for both mother AND child if the calves are removed and placed in a safer area.
5. Calves get EXCELLENT care. They are bottle-fed mother’s milk, placed in roomy, well-bedded box stalls, blanketed, cleaned, vetted. The farm kind of obviously needs them as healthy as possible?
6. Most farms nowadays don’t even completely “take them away”. The farm I worked on would allow the cows to run with their calves for most of the time. They were fed separately for the health reasons listed above, and the cows would be brought in to be milked twice a day, and separated at night so no accidental nighttime injuries happened in the box stalls. They are weaned very gradually, and spend most of the time with their mothers, contrary to what PETA would have you believe.
THIS HAS BEEN A PSA ON BEHALF OF DAIRY FARMERS THANK U FOR TUNING IN REMEMBER TO CHECK UR FACTS NEXT TIME PLEASE
As someone who comes from a long line of dairy farmers THIS SO MUCH THIS THANK YOU VERY MUCH
Inuits in the Arctic can survive perfectly on a plant based diet 😤
indigenous hunting is like, the ONE kind of hunting that shouldnt offend anyone and yet
listen, i fucking love whales. i do. i have advocated against cetacean captivity and whale hunting since i was like 13. i HATE whale hunting. but have you ever seen the prices for food in a grocery store in indigenous areas, if they even have one?
i can guarantee no vegan has ever paid $22 usd for a bag of grapes, and you cannot farm that far north. they can forage for some foods, but its not enough to sustain themselves and get a nutritionally complete diet. this isnt just cultural or religious practices (although cultural and religious practices are significant and shouldnt be stripped from them), its literal survival. indigenous people hunt in a very sustainable way (a single bowhead whale can feed an entire community for a year), they arent out here killing a bear just to hang it on their wall. they are trying to survive. subsistence hunting by native tribes is 100% morally correct, even if (like me) the thought of animals dying makes you sad. fight against the japanese whaling fleets who kill hundreds of whales under the guise of research and then sell the meat. fight against wealthy americans who kill animals just to stuff them and put them on their wall. fight against seaworld and their disgusting cetacean captivity practices. but dont come at native people who depend on subsistence hunting to survive. fucking colonizers.
Discourse entirely to the side, I’m here for a little girl who hears, “This is going to be dinner for us,” and just tries to take a bite out of the tail. I mean, that’s peak toddler logic, right there. Relatable to any parent ever.
(Also, indigenous practices are not equivalent to trophy hunting and thirty dollar bags of grapes are nothing short of fucking appalling. But mostly cute toddler.)
1.) The hunting family DID NOT force the woman to eat meat. They didn’t. She tried to force them into her vegan lifestyle but they didn’t try to force her into theirs. So stop trying to act like they’re the bad guy.
2.) Hunting is 100% more ethical than the meat industry. It’s sustainable, it exists solely on the ‘kill only what you need’ axis. That’s the entire reason these people switched to hunting their own food. They hate the meat industry.
They’re not ‘killing animals for fun’, ‘killing for luxury’, they’re fucking eating it. This isn’t trophy hunting this is the most cruelty free, sustainable way to eat meat.
What do you all have against vegans/veganism? I genuinely want to know.
Okay, here goes:
I don’t hate vegans or veganism – if you want to be vegan, that’s cool. Sometimes it genuinely is better for people and works for them and that’s great!
My problems are with common attitudes and rhetoric that many vegans spread. Particularly false propaganda, shaming people, outright lying, putting down animal welfare, doing things that truly hurt animals, and refusing to listen to or consult people who actually have studied and work with animals. These are the things I criticize when I criticize veganism. Some examples:
-spreading just blatantly untrue things about animal agriculture (“its standard practice to break sheep legs during shearing”)
-purposefully doctored footage to solicit unpleasant emotions (that video of a dairy cow going to a very quick and peaceful slaughter with sad music and words about her “being dried up and no longer useful” when she has a full udder and clearly a severe leg injury)
-the ALF just released thousands of game bird chicks from a farm. the chicks died of dehydration.
-shaming people for the food they eat (this shit literally fuels eating disorders)
-racism (being especially volitile towards Asian people/countries because of the dog meat trade in a few countries, overlap of white nationalists and veganism)
-saying all farmers/zookeepers/etc lie about animals and should never be trusted as a source about animal behavior or welfare, despite us spending years studying and 24/7 working with animals, while many vegans do not have the knowledge or hands-on experience we do
-supporting sanctuaries blindly, even when there is clearly poor welfare and accusing anyone who points out bad welfare of being a “shill for big ag” (Skylands Sanctuary and that extremely underweight cow)
-saying shit like “anyone who was unhealthy on a vegan diet did it wrong” and pretending no one can genuinely have health issues with veganism (again, food shaming and in some cases literally dangerous)
etc.
I’m genuinely happy to talk to people about agriculture and what happens to animals. And it’s fine if not everyone is comfortable with animal death or eating dead animals. But when y’all insist that a) people like me are capitalist idiots (when most farmers are making jack shit and aren’t saving their business with arguing with people on the internet) that can NEVER be listened to and b) outwardly shaming and othering people who can’t or won’t prescribe to the same diet as you, that’s when I have a problem. And a lot of online vegans fall into that group.
Yeah all of ag needs pretty serious reform. It’s not just crop or animal ag and the two are super closely intertwined anyway. I wouldn’t say any diet is inherently bad because it isn’t the consumer that’s at fault here, it’s just… the whole system is messed up.
ifesbob 