The Vegan Thread

The key is to plan ahead. I went to Japan a couple of years back as a vegetarian and didn’t plan ahead and it was very very difficult especially because of the language barrier – in Japan, “vegetarian” is often understood to include fish… – but if I had planned ahead it would have been doable. The best resource is HappyCow (for both vegetarians and vegans) and googling “vegan in [destination]” to find blog posts people have written which will include good areas to stay that have good access to food options. You can use HappyCow on demand but if you’re in a country with limited options you might find that the nearest option is very far away, so it’s good to know in advance to structure your travel around being near food.

I travel to Alabama semi-regularly for work and that’s pretty difficult as they’re very much the opposite of London: there’s three places that have (limited) vegan options, I pretty much eat the same meals every single day there. I always travel with a supply of snackbars that I know I can depend on to keep me alive if I can’t find food. I have vegan friends who are less strict on holiday, i.e: if they find themselves without easy access to vegan food they will compromise with a vegetarian dish.

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I think they are two sides of the same coin. If you accept one, then the other is a by-product.

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Sadly it’s not so clear cut; broadly speaking different breeds of cattle are bred for the Dairy industry vs Beef. Cows which are good at milk production generally don’t make great quality meat (and vice versa).

@Anarchist that’s a great point to make – that vegetarianism is not deathless.

My point is specifically that dairy (and eggs[1] to an extent) requires what can only be considered a life of torture, whereas the life of a meat animal is shorter and significantly less torturous. There’s roughly 2 million dairy cattle any one time in the UK and roughly 2 million beef cattle are slaughtered per year (at 12 - 18 months of age usually) so there’s a lot more suffering caused by dairy if we measure it (invasive actions, i.e: milking) on a per-animal basis – although I guess there’s a calculation that could be made, the average person in the UK consumes 3 days of one cows worth of milk per year vs. eats 1/10th of a cow[2] so I’m valuing the dairy cow experience at least 10x worse than the beef cow experience.

[1] A meat chicken will be slaughtered between 1 and 2 months of age, whereas an egg laying chicken will live to about 18 months.

[2] That’s a rough estimate based on my “vegan’s understanding of animal agriculture”, don’t hold me to those numbers.

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An accidental vegetarian five days a week as of three years ago on account of making things comfortable and convenient for my girlfriend, but stretching my (cauliflower) wings lately

In Brewdog at Tower Hill after Craft Beer Rising earlier with a friend

Had the Beyond Meat burger. Would count as pretty average as a beef burger in a brioche bun, but both were vegetarian or vegan (unsure). I consider that a complement. The field has come on massively

IMG_20190223_194642962

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Good luck, I hope it goes well and that you enjoy it. :blush:

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I bought a pack of Beyond Meat burgers from Tesco. It’s been a few years since I had beef so I’m not 100% on the accuracy but they certainly tasted like meat to me, but otherwise nothing special. I oven cooked it from frozen though, so it might be better the way they recommend (defrost overnight and then fry).

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Thanks for the happy cow link. Never heard of it before and it’s been great in Ho Chi Minh. Quite a lot of vegan places here. :+1:

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I understand the reasoning, and it makes logical sense. Following this through, is it necessary to know the supply chain of the plant-based products one consumes (e.g. to ensure that no animals were used for harvesting or in the operations)? And would you extend it to non-food areas of one’s life? Should people not have pets, and do we need alternatives to, for example, seeing-eye dogs? Not trying to be provocative, but am interested in people’s experiences, as I find this a bit of a minefield!

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@jzw95 I’m not sure how much you know about veganism: veganism is a lifestyle that aims to exclude animal harm as much as is practically possible[1]. A component of veganism is a plant-based diet, many non-vegan people will use “vegan” to mean “plant-based diet” but if you’re having a conversation with someone who identifies as vegan you can be fairly confident that it extends to all aspects of their life – which includes things like excluding products tested on animals, and not wearing clothing containing animal products.

The world is very complex and it is unfortunately impossible to live a truly harm free life which is why vegans are aiming towards a goal of reduction rather than trying to live an unattainable absolute. The understanding of what is (and what isn’t) harmful is constantly evolving, both collectively and individually, it’s important – and helpful – to view it as a constant effort to better ourselves. The idea of what constitutes culpability for harm can be taken to an extreme, for example commercial farming displaces wildlife and small rodents are often killed by machinery, so someone who eats a plant-based diet is still contributing to harm – even if some of it isn’t intentional.

I consider myself vegan because when I have the choice I will always choose the viable option that causes the least harm. Different people have different ideas about how much harm is acceptable and what qualifies as a choice, for example some people might order a vegetarian burger without mayo (making it vegan) and then still eat it if it arrives with mayo to avoid wasting food (and because they feel they didn’t intentionally create demand), whereas others (like myself) are very strict and would choose to waste food before they would eat non-vegan food.

Ultimately, a plant-based diet is the single biggest[2] harm reduction impact the average individual can have, if “harm” was measurable then switching to a plant-based diet would take the average person from the high end of the scale to close enough to 0 that it’s mostly indistinguishable from absolutely no harm (relative to the average person at least).

Pets are a point of contention, I don’t consider pets to be a pressing issue in the context of harm reduction but I do subscribe to the view that our relationship with pets is problematic. I think for most people seeing eye dogs would be an example of where veganism isn’t an absolute, personally I think if the animal is well cared for and there is no practical alternative then it is acceptable.

[1] Medication is a common area where it is almost impossible, as most medication has directly or indirectly been tested on animals or contains animal ingredients (lactose is very common in all sorts of pills).

[2] “Harm” as in physically harmful. There’s room for debate as to whether or not environmental harm is more problematic than direct physical harm given that the way we’re harming the environment is having very real negative consequences for the world’s poorest. Flying is very bad for the environment, a few flights a year are worse for the environment than a year of an omnivore diet, so it could be argued that no longer flying is the single biggest act of harm reduction someone could make.

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Interesting read, thanks for sharing. I would like to know where you got the information relating to flights being more harmful to the environment than an omnivore diet

Thanks for taking the time to write such a considered post. Lots to think about.

@M1cky there’s no single source as far as I know. I have an understanding of the various emissions associated with different things and came to the conclusion that flying is worse than meat. The main issue with flying is the distance, per km it isn’t too bad relative to other modes of transport but because of the distance we’re flying it adds up. The basis upon which I came to that conclusion is:

  • Average person in the UK eats about 80kg of meat per year[1]
  • Beef is the worst meat for emissions, at about 20kg of CO2 per kg of meat, chicken is the best (about 5kg) and pork is in the middle at 10kg[2]
  • A flight produces 244 grams of CO2 per passenger kilometer[3]

If we assume that the average person eats equal amounts of pork, chicken and beef (26kg each):

  • Beef, 20kg * 26kg = 520kg
  • Pork, 10kg * 26kg = 260kg
  • Chicken, 5kg * 26kg = 130kg

That’s a total of 910kg of CO2 emissions for the average person’s meat consumption. To produce 910kg of CO2 from flying we need to fly 3729 kilometers or 2300 miles which is less than the distance of a one way flight from London (LHR) to New York (EWR).

Carbon offsets aren’t perfect but they’re a better than nothing approach to addressing the consequences of flying. I don’t fly for leisure but I have to fly tens of thousands of km per year for work, unfortunately because of that my environmental cost is far higher than it ever could be if I ate meat :frowning:

I didn’t account for eggs and dairy because although they are certainly impactful, the figures for meat vs. flying demonstrate the point well enough. I’ve been thinking recently about developing a web-based calculator for people to track what they do and the impact (from diet to travel) but I’ve never got around to it. Maybe someday. I think it would be illuminating for a lot of people, because common ideas and wisdom are often wrong. I am constantly learning new things that I didn’t have even an inkling about, I recently learned that plastic isn’t recyclable in the way I thought.

[1] How much meat do we eat? – FullFact

[2] Evaluation of the livestock sector’s contribution to the EU
greenhouse gas emissions (GGELS) – European Commission

[3] Specific CO2 emissions per passenger-km and per mode of transport in Europe – European Environment Agency

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Im struggling with only 1 thing, what to use instead of cows milk in my tea.
Using sweetened soya it and just about drinkable for half the mug, and then I can’t take anymore. Suggestions from those who have switched?

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Cannot vouch for it in tea particularly, but the only one I have tried that came even close, texture wise at least, was cashew. Difference hard to notice with cereal

My partner is fond of oat milk, while someone at work likes almond milk (and they’re not even veggie/vegan). Worth experimenting for sure.

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I love oat milk in tea. Try Oatly!

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I eat mostly vegan and one thing I don’t get is all the faux meat products like vegan bacon. The physiological thought of eating “pretend” meat has ever really appealed to me. I am not a full vegan as I eat the occasional egg and on the rare occasion have some milk in my coffee but getting there!

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I hear this a lot and the fact is there’s loads of reasons to have “faux meat” products. Such as:

  • Ability to adapt recipes that use meat
  • Ease of transitioning to use less/no actual meat (this is a big one as “tofu is tasteless” is used as a justification by meat eaters, and also if there’s a direct equivalent that doesn’t taste any different then it’s harder to justify eating meat over a veggie alternative)
  • Some veggies may just miss the taste of meat
  • Many cite environmental benefits to not eating actual meat, it’s not the whole animal thing

I’m sure there’s others.

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Never thought of it like that some valid points!