I guess I’m breaking my year-long streak of tumblr inactivity to respond to this. Not that I expect my addition to this post to get nearly as much traction as the original post, but because maybe the person I’m reblogging this from will see it and realize this is not an “interesting perspective.” It’s a bunch of people making strawman arguments (”Vegans care more about animals than about humans!!!” Because yeah, obviously it’s one or the other, never both.) lightly supported with a handful of cherrypicked studies and “facts.”
I’m not going to spend hours here debunking every single claim in great detail and with links to multiple studies. This is a general info post. If you doubt any part of it, please do your own research. Look at multiple sources. I’m not here to do everything for you.
Point one: Veganism isn’t cruelty free.
It isn’t perfect. It’s pretty damn near impossible to live as a member of a capitalist society and harm no one in any way. Veganism is about doing our best to make conscious decisions to reduce needless and easily avoidable cruelty, and always striving to do better. Here’s a more eloquent response on this topic, with links that address Point 2: Quinoa, as well.
See the link above for some more comprehensive takes on the impact of quinoa’s rise in popularity. But the ethics of quinoa completely aside, since when has quinoa been a solely Vegan Thing ™? It’s a fad food. You can find it in just about every supermarket these days, right next to five types of gluten-free flour. If quinoa is the province of vegans, why do so many non-vegan quinoa recipes abound? See here and here. The Buzzfeed article features more non-vegan (non-vegetarian, even) recipes than the Epicurious one, but I think both make it clear that quinoa has been taken into the mainstream. It’s estimated that vegans make up between 1 and 3% of the population. We’re not not even close to solely responsible for the astronomic rise in quinoa’s popularity.
Point 3: Agricultural laborers, or “But I guess brown people don’t fucking matter”
Again, this is a strawman argument. Veganism isn’t about prioritizing non-human animals over humans. While pretending to care about the people picking your crops, you’re ignoring the fact that modern animal agriculture is just as bad, if not worse, about worker conditions. Many slaughterhouse workers are undocumented, face long hours and exploitative pay, dangerous working conditions with few regulations, and are injured frequently on the job. Oh, and they’re also at a much greater risk of those injuries becoming much, much worse thanks to exposure to all the antibiotics animals are routinely given. These links aren’t even close to giving the full picture.
All that was to say, don’t try to stand on the pillar of pretending to care about farm workers’ rights unless you actually care about all farm workers’ rights. Otherwise you’re just exploiting them further to make a point.
And once again, it is not a matter of either/or. Most ethical vegans do their best to avoid supporting unethical business practices. Modern society makes it really, really hard to avoid this altogether, but we can all work toward doing better. That’s what vegans are doing. We’re trying our best to change an unethical system for the better by exerting economic influence. For the good of animals and of humans.
Point 4: Veganism isn’t sustainable
The PBS article linked to claims that veganism isn’t sustainable because it doesn’t make use of perennial cropland, which is used to grow “a lot of the grain and hay used to feed livestock.” Hmm, something’s nagging me about that sentence. Oh wait!! Yeah, humans eat grain, as well. Grain that could be used to feed people is being used to feed animals destined for slaughter.
Everywhere you look these days there are conflicting articles about whether or not veganism is the absolute best dietary choice for the environment. I’ve yet to see an article conclude that veganism is bad for the environment after exhaustively examining every facet of what “sustainability” means, taking things like water usage, greenhouse gas emission, and deforestation into account in addition to land usage. Animal agriculture requires immense amounts of water and land, and produces the majority of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. 80% of the deforestation of the Amazon is due to cattle grazing, seriously threatening biodiversity on earth while simultaneously depleting a major greenhouse gas sink.
None of the above even take into consideration the incalculable amounts of animal suffering that non-vegan diets require. No matter how you slice it, meat is death. By eating meat, you’re advocating for the death of a creature who didn’t want to die. Most of the animals you eat had no quality of life before dying. From birth, through a brief, cruelty filled life, to death, sentient beings are treated as commodities. Eggs require death. Dairy requires death.
I’ve gone on much longer than I meant to, and even added a few links, despite what I said earlier. I could go on, but I’m tired and sad now. Time to take a break and eat some lentils (and destroy the world, I guess). ;)
“And I kinda thought we all shared common threads in that we gravitated here to challenge the conventions we’ve been fed by a culture that treats creatures like machines. And if you buy that shit then how long ’till it’s me who serves as your commodity?” – Propagandhi
