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ianbalisy t1_iumz5xy wrote

Reply to comment by I_am_Godfather1 in [OC] There are more self-described vegans than vegetarians among US users of Twitter by jasonjonesresearch

Vegetarian atheist here, there are a lot of reasons why people eat vegetarian but not vegan. One of the main ones is realizing that opting completely out of the animal derived foods market means you have next to zero influence on the well-being of livestock animals—we shouldn’t have to rely on dollars spent to equal action on animal welfare, but we live in a late stage capitalist economy where little else matters.

For example, not buying honey from good producers generally means bee keepers looking to nut tree pollination for revenue, which means bees are shipped to California from wherever they are, in incredibly stressful conditions, are doused with antibiotics and other chemicals multiples times, and die in huge numbers annually. Buying honey isn’t going to prevent that, nut tree pollination happens every year—but if honey producers who care for their bee colonies properly and increase local flora diversity by focusing on wildflower honeys don’t have to look to the nut tree industry for revenue, that’s a positive in my book.

Personally, animal welfare and environmental impact (see data on water footprint for eating meat compared to other protein sources) are the two main reasons I eat vegetarian, but there are plenty of other reasons that don’t necessarily lead to eat vegan.

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BigMtnFudgecake_ t1_iun7sy9 wrote

This might not be entirely related to what you're getting at, but I hit a wall when I was trying to be vegan and realized the extent to which animal products are in everything. It became this weird slippery slope and trying to shift my consumption habits to account for that was just too much.

Wool, leather, and stuff like that is obviously "off limits" but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Lots of beer/wine producers use animal products when producing alcohol (see Barnivore) and then some people start talking sugar that is processed using bone char or whatever. Hell, I even knew a hardline vegan person who accidentally bought something that had silk in it and he returned it.

At some point, I realized that I just wanted to try to do my part to reduce consumption, emissions, etc. without basing my entire lifestyle around it. Also, hitting ~2000-2500 calories a day on a vegan diet without leaning on highly processed foods and/or spending all day in the kitchen is not easy.

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ianbalisy t1_iunbeu8 wrote

Separate but definitely related. It is incredibly difficult to address all the animal harm related to everything we use or consume, and as much as organizations and other people might want you to think so it’s not entirely an consumer’s responsibility to ensure things are produced ethically. It is incumbent upon the producer to ensure production is ethical—logistics and retail, etc, are a separate issue too.

Without implying shame or anything, “becoming” vegan is also a fairly common way for people to just excuse themselves from any further critical thought on what they consume—e.g., how certain crop production affects local ecosystems. There’s just a ton to evaluate beyond just eating plants, because our food production processes are so heavily industrialized and damaging.

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