• Silvally@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I’m a vegetarian.

    I was, and still am, surprised by how often people will go into a long rant justifying why they eat meat to me as soon as they find out I’m vegetarian. All the while I’m just sat there, not saying anything, because I literally do not care whether or not they eat meat.

    Me being a vegetarian is a personal choice for me and myself only. You do you. I don’t care. You don’t need to explain yourself to me. It makes me feel so awkward.

    People will often ask me why I’m a vegetarian too. But it feels like a very personal and heavy question to ask someone immediately after finding out they’re vegetarian… I don’t especially want to talk about animals dying all the time and how it makes me sad especially to strangers.

    Edit/Addition: It feels like a lot of focus is brought on how vegetarians/vegans force their views onto other people but my experience personally is non-vegetarians/vegans trying to force me into conversations about this topic.

  • mizu@mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    got nothing against vegans it’s just when they try to force it into others

    • max@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      Very few will force it on others, though. Anyway, I find it hilarious how people can get riled up about the idea of a person not eating meat or any animal products. I’ve seen it often that they take it personally for some reason and will “compensate by eating extra bacon/steak/chicken”. It’s bonkers.

      • taj@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Eh, I don’t care what you eat. But I find very offensive, naive, and just plain wrong the idea that it’s impossible to sustainably raise animals for meat, eggs, dairy, etc as many vegans will try to insist.

        Does it cost more? Yes. Can we raise as many as we do today using conventional farming techniques? No. Will/should we all cut back on our meat, dairy, etc? Yes. But, then again being more mindful of what we all eat is going to be required regardless, if we’re going to manage to feed everyone.

        • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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          1 year ago

          Claiming that something is on its whole sustainable is rather loosely defined (i.e what level of impact is considered sustainable and on what metrics), so let’s look a little closer. What many are saying there is that process is still going to inherently be much more inefficient compared to growing plants directly for human consumption

          It turns out to be the case that the worst-case production of any plants-based production comes out ahead compared to best-case production of meat, dairy, etc. on virtually all environmental metrics

          If I source my beef or lamb from low-impact producers, could they have a lower footprint than plant-based alternatives? The evidence suggests, no: plant-based foods emit fewer greenhouse gases than meat and dairy, regardless of how they are produced.

          […]

          Plant-based protein sources – tofu, beans, peas and nuts – have the lowest carbon footprint. This is certainly true when you compare average emissions. But it’s still true when you compare the extremes: there’s not much overlap in emissions between the worst producers of plant proteins, and the best producers of meat and dairy.

          https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat

          Plant-based foods have a significantly smaller footprint on the environment than animal-based foods. Even the least sustainable vegetables and cereals cause less environmental harm than the lowest impact meat and dairy products [9].

          https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/8/1614/htm

          Even true of synthetic fertilizer usage compared to the best case of animal manure

          Thus, shifting from animal to plant sources of protein can substantially reduce fertilizer requirements, even with maximal use of animal manure

          https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344922006528

          In terms of biodiversity

          Livestock farmers often claim that their grazing systems “mimic nature”. If so, the mimicry is a crude caricature. A review of evidence from over 100 studies found that when livestock are removed from the land, the abundance and diversity of almost all groups of wild animals increases

          https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/16/most-damaging-farm-products-organic-pasture-fed-beef-lamb

          If we compare more typical production rather than best to worst, the differences are even more apparent

          To produce 1 kg of protein from kidney beans required approximately eighteen times less land, ten times less water, nine times less fuel, twelve times less fertilizer and ten times less pesticide in comparison to producing 1 kg of protein from beef

          https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25374332/

            • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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              1 year ago

              Because I see quite a lot of misinformation in this area, I created a doc of sources where I put relevant quotes as I look into things. It’s now 28 pages. You’ll probably see more walls of text from me on that front :)

              • roux is a lib@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Actually, do you have a link to those 28 pages? I’d be interested in reading through it all.