12 replies to this topic

[ChloesCritters]

I'm not gonna be vegan ever. I just thought  do you have to be vegan to like animals??? It maybe just my kid brain just being dumb..

[Kikya]

I'm not gonna be vegan ever. I just thought  do you have to be vegan to like animals??? It maybe just my kid brain just being dumb..

Being vegan is not the pinnacle of being kind to animals. In fact, veganism causes more death to small creatures like hamsters, mice, rabbits, and wild life than raising a herd of cows.

 

From pesticides, to killing animals during harvesting, to shooting birds to protect the crops, these are all things that have to be done when you are large scale factory farming.

 

I protect animals by making sure I source my family's meat from places that take care of their animals and treat them humanely. I don't support factory farming as much as possible and I try to get my vegetables from local farms that don't use pesticides.

 

We need to eat animals to live but as human caretakers it's our responsibility to make sure those animals live a good life in the meantime.

Edited by Kikya, 03 February 2022 - 10:38 PM.

[A~HM]

Yes it is hypocritical to claim to love all animals but you aren't vegan. You would be better off calling yourself a 'pet lover' or something similar. Being vegan is not about being perfect, it is about doing the least harm possible.

[Remy]

We need to eat animals to live but as human caretakers it's our responsibility to make sure those animals live a good life in the meantime.

We don’t need to eat meat to live. If we did, I would have withered away and died by now. I went vegetarian 3-4 years ago and I’ve been vegan for about 2 years. I’ve gotten a couple blood tests since then and they’ve always come back without any evidence of deficiencies. The only supplement I take is for B12. I get all my iron, calcium, omega 3s, etc. from plant sources.

[Kikya]

We don’t need to eat meat to live. If we did, I would have withered away and died by now. I went vegetarian 3-4 years ago and I’ve been vegan for about 2 years. I’ve gotten a couple blood tests since then and they’ve always come back without any evidence of deficiencies. The only supplement I take is for B12. I get all my iron, calcium, omega 3s, etc. from plant sources.

Yes, yes, I have been studying vegans for a long time and that's what they all say until they deteriorate. You are living off your body's stores for a while. Your body will eat itself until there is no more stores.

 

You brain is 40% cholesterol, when you don't eat animal foods, your nerves and your brain will suffer. The myelin sheath around all of your nerves is made of cholesterol, which is why so many vegans and people that don't eat enough animal foods suffer from anxiety. This is why I suspect that long term vegans are also very angry, it's hard to control your emotions when your nerves are being overstimulated all the time.

 

Which type of B12 do you take? Methylcobalamin or cyanocobalamin? Because you know the vegan doctors can't agree one which is the best.

 

Also, the range of normal iron levels is HUGE, range from 40-450. Just because you are within that range doesn't mean it's good. Especially as women, we bleed away our iron stores very quickly. I was a vegetarian for 10 years of my life and I suffered from iron deficiency even though I was "technically" within normal ranges.

 

B12 isn't the only missing nutrient from a vegan diet. Hear from your vegan doctors.

 

Edited by Kikya, 03 February 2022 - 11:44 PM.

[Kikya]

Yes it is hypocritical to claim to love all animals but you aren't vegan. You would be better off calling yourself a 'pet lover' or something similar. Being vegan is not about being perfect, it is about doing the least harm possible.

 

This is a standard vegan argument, the deaths during large scale farming crops don't matter but they love to judge you as a non animal lover. Deforestation of the rain forests for your banana smoothies aren't loving toward animals.

 

This is a poor argument since vegans only seem to care about pets and not the wild life that is destroyed in the name of farming.

[♥~kitkat7♥]

I'm not gonna be vegan ever. I just thought  do you have to be vegan to like animals??? It maybe just my kid brain just being dumb..

I have thought about this many times, and what I think is no.

You don't have to be vegan to love animals. 

Killing animals is inevitable and you don't have to feel guilty about eating some meat. 

[Sparrow]

Not being vegan does not mean that you don't love animals. You can absolutely show your love for animals through sourcing your meat and produce from places that are treating their animals well.

Any vegan who claims that they are vegan to avoid the killing of animals are either in denial or hypocritical or both. Millions of small animals, birds and larger wildlife die horrible deaths as a result of mass farming.

That one bag of lettuce most likely contributed to more animal deaths than a single chicken that was purposefully raised to be slaughtered and eaten. At least that chickens death was not for nothing, it provided you with nutrients, whereas that crow and that colony of mice and that fox that died during the process of growing and harvesting the crops where just left there to rot away.

Unless you see a vegan who 100% grows their own food from scratch, never used any chemicals and is not taking supplements, they are just as much responsible for animal deaths as a non-vegan person.

I grew up on a farm in Poland with my grandmother. She grew her own fruit and veg, had raised her own cows, chickens, ducks, turkeys and pigs. I would help her as much as I could with the animals. The food she wasn't producing herself, she would trade with neighbouring farms - all which were small scale farms that just tried to do their best to provide for their families and the community.

She raised the animals that were to be eaten herself, she took extremely good care of them and treated them all with love and respect. Most of her garden was tend to by hand with the help from people around the community who wanted to earn some extra cash. She did have a tractor and such but unless it was absolutely necessary to use it, she wouldn't.

The animals were well fed, clean and majority was trusting of humans due to how much kindness was shown to them throughout their lives. She would only take the amount of eggs that was necessary and leave at least a few in each nest as to not upset the Chickens and trust me, you knew when the chickens were distressed. They were also let out into a massive run where they could free-range.

Her cows were talked to while she cleaned out the barn and she would often rub their heads and necks. They were let out into one of the fields at 6 am and brought back into the barn as it got dark. The cows were naturally impregnated by neighbours bulls and only once per lifetime. They were being kept milked as to not dry out the supply - it is in no way cruel, especially if done by hand. In fact, I do this myself to myself to donate human milk after having my baby. The more you pump/extract, the more milk is produced and so long as you keep doing it, the supply, in theory, does not dry out. It doesn't hurt the cows, it's not strenuous on their bodies - they just need to be given extra nutritious food. The barn was warm and dry, and great care went into keeping it clean.

The animals were given a lot of respect, my grandmother took a lot of pride in treating them all well and as they would be brought over to the butcher, it was so with the knowledge that this animal is fulfilling it's purpose in this world. The meat was frozen and distributed throughout the community and a lot of people were able to eat as a result. We would be thankful to the animal and respect it, with the knowledge that it did not die needlessly.

.........…......

As a side note, two years ago I adopted a three legged black cat from a vegan family who fed the cat a vegan diet. The cat till this day is losing its hair because lack of proper nutrition in it's formative years. She lost the leg as a result of her vegan diet. She got a little scrape and her body was unable to fight the infection. The vet treating her as worried that her organs will start failing any day, she was extremely weak. It's been two years but Cleo is still having a lot of health issues. Please tell me that this vegan family loved animals when they actively mistreated this poor cat in the name of their beliefs?

[Remy]

Spoiler

Yes, yes, I have been studying vegans for a long time and that's what they all say until they deteriorate. You are living off your body's stores for a while. Your body will eat itself until there is no more stores.
 
You brain is 40% cholesterol, when you don't eat animal foods, your nerves and your brain will suffer. The myelin sheath around all of your nerves is made of cholesterol, which is why so many vegans and people that don't eat enough animal foods suffer from anxiety. This is why I suspect that long term vegans are also very angry, it's hard to control your emotions when your nerves are being overstimulated all the time.
 
Which type of B12 do you take? Methylcobalamin or cyanocobalamin? Because you know the vegan doctors can't agree one which is the best.
 
Also, the range of normal iron levels is HUGE, range from 40-450. Just because you are within that range doesn't mean it's good. Especially as women, we bleed away our iron stores very quickly. I was a vegetarian for 10 years of my life and I suffered from iron deficiency even though I was "technically" within normal ranges.
 
B12 isn't the only missing nutrient from a vegan diet. Hear from your vegan doctors.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO--6mFLcTg&t=98s

Respectfully, Kikya, I’m more inclined to trust my doctor rather than a post from someone who seems to enjoy a channel that refers to vegans as “soy boys” and “social outcasts”. You’ve linked this YouTube channel more than once before.

In fact, veganism causes more death to small creatures like hamsters, mice, rabbits, and wild life than raising a herd of cows.

Factory farmed animals are fed soybeans, hay, corn, etc. If you factor in all of the crops animals eat before slaughter, and subsequently all the deaths caused by growing and harvesting them, then how can eating vegetables and other crops directly cause more deaths than eating them indirectly through meat?

[Kikya]

Respectfully, Kikya, I’m more inclined to trust my doctor rather than a post from someone who seems to enjoy a channel that refers to vegans as “soy boys” and “social outcasts”. You’ve linked this YouTube channel more than once before.



Factory farmed animals are fed soybeans, hay, corn, etc. If you factor in all of the crops animals eat before slaughter, and subsequently all the deaths caused by growing and harvesting them, then how can eating vegetables and other crops directly cause more deaths than eating them indirectly through meat?

Those are just clips of vegan or plant based doctors. I linked it because it's a very interesting compilation of several doctors at once. Otherwise, you'd have to go through hours of video to get all of this information.

 

Also, I highly recommend people DON'T EAT cows that eat soybeans and corn, a cow's natural diet is grass. Fed anything else and they get very sick. Large amounts of soy aren't good for you or the animals. Though that is just a percentage of what soy and corn are used for. Soybean and corn are used in manufacturing plastic, fuel, food additives, cleaners,etc. There is corn or soy oil, in just about every single processed food in the store. Read the labels sometime, you'll see either the words vegetable oil or soybean oil or corn oil in just about everything. I also advise people to avoid soybean meal and corn in their hamster food.

 

Here is one small list: https://www2.education.uiowa.edu/html/eportfolio/tep/07es102folder/miniweb/usesofcorn.htm

 

You should know, there is no such thing as a vegan B12 supplement as B12 does not exist outside of animals. Most of the B12 supplements you can buy come from factory farmed chickens. As with most things factory farmed, nothing goes to waste if they can make a buck off it. They will resale you chicken poop and you'll take it with a smile lol

 

Not to mention, they are terrible for the environment, the production of supplemental B12 uses coal derivatives and releases benzenes into the air, which is cancerous to humans and animals. Did your doctor tell you that?

Edited by Kikya, 04 February 2022 - 01:19 AM.

[Remy]

You should know, there is no such thing as a vegan B12 supplement as B12 does not exist outside of animals. Most of the B12 supplements you can buy come from factory farmed chickens. As with most things factory farmed, nothing goes to waste. They will resale you chicken poop and you'll take it with a smile lol

B12 is produced by microorganisms, not animals. It’s actually been found in a plant called duckweed.
 

Not to mention, they are terrible for the environment, the production of supplemental B12 uses coal derivatives and releases benzenes into the air, which is cancerous to humans and animals. Did your doctor tell you that?

Most meat is classified as a carcinogen or probable carcinogen. And if we want to talk about terrible for the environment, animal agriculture is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

[Kikya]

B12 is produced by microorganisms, not animals. It’s actually been found in a plant called duckweed.
 

Most meat is classified as a carcinogen or probable carcinogen. And if we want to talk about terrible for the environment, animal agriculture is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

Even vegans know that having B12 is not the same as being viable for human consumption. Ask yourself this? However many generational vegans do you know? That their grandparents were 100% vegan, and their kids, and their kids. No society in the world has ever survived on 100% plants.

 

https://veganhealth.org/is-duckweed-a-source-of-vitamin-b12/

 

Also, cancer rates increased when processed foods became the norm and have nothing to do with consuming farm fresh, grassfed, naturally raised meats. Our great grandparents had extremely low rates of cancer and they ate much more meat on a daily basis then most people now do. Recipes from the 18th century are chocked full of recipes that use pounds of butter and use every part of the animal. They don't contain larges amounts of sugar and processed vegetable oils, however.

 

We have people in their late 20s and 30s being diagnosed with cancer every day and we eat less meat than even 50 years ago. Also, cancer loves sugar and all our food is laced with it, even foods that aren't sweet, because they have to make foods hyper-palatable because it's so devoid of nutrition to make us eat it.

 

We can continue in PMs if you want, I do very much want to help people realize that meat is not the problem, but our poor nutrition less diets laced with coal derivatives, factory farmed vegetables, abused animals eating soybean meal that is produced with hexanes. The thing that people always say is: it's just a little bit of chemicals, it doesn't harm us. Unfortunately, when you get a little bit from everything you eat, it's a lot. A little adds up.

 

But vegans, please don't try to take the high road on animal suffering. Shipping bananas and algae from all over the world, having slave labor pick your cashews and poison themselves in the process, is not kind to human or animal.

[daisy~]

I guess it depends on your worldview. Some people are approaching this issue with the view that humans never have the right to intentionally end the life of an animal and I understand that if that's your point of view you're never going to be able to reconcile liking animals and eating them. Personally I don't share that view. I think we need to be respectful of all life and treat it as humanely as possible but I don't think it's wrong to kill an animal as long as it's for a good reason, and food is a good reason in my opinion.

 

There are just a couple of points that I think are relevant here:

 

Firstly, we don't know all there is to know about nutrition yet. We don't know actually know about all the essential nutrients and all the nutrients that help with health. There are a lot of vitamins and minerals that we have identified, and we know their role in the body, and which foods they come from, and whether we can get them from plants only or whether we need to get them from animals, but there are probably other nutrients that we haven't discovered yet, or that we don't understand fully. When we test for nutrient deficiencies, we can only test for the nutrients we know about. A nutrient deficiency isn't always going to kill you or even make you feel or appear unhealthy. The body is quite resilient and can often carry on while deficient in some things but it won't be in tip top shape or running at 100%, and that might have health implications long into the future or it might have implications when one day you get ill and need all your bodily strength to fight the illness. We don't fully understand the causes of most of the common diseases humans suffer from, so there could be a nutritional element to them. Given an awareness of how much we don't know yet, it seems wise from a personal health standpoint to eat a varied diet consisting of plenty of plant foods, plus some meat and fish and dairy. This isn't a point just for vegans. We also don't know whether all the factory-farmed, grain-fed and highly processed meat we eat is deficient in something.

 

It's easier now to be a vegan than it ever was, but that's because we have access to foods imported from all over the world (nuts and nut milks, fruits etc) and that comes at an environmental price. Undoubtedly the meat industry as it is right now does harm to the environment but it's not either/or between eating factory-farmed meat and being a vegan. While I appreciate not wanting to eat animals, I think in many cases individuals could make more of a positive impact by focusing on locally produced, high quality meat, seasonal vegetables, fish if you live near the coast etc. Here in the UK there is a lot of land that isn't suitable for crop farming but is ideal for grazing sheep, cows etc. This form of farming has much less environment impact than factory-farming, is more humane, and the resulting meat is also healthier and more nutritious. Mass agriculture is the culprit here, not the eating of animals. Rather than let that land go to waste while they import soy, quinoa and beans, a local conscientious person could think about purchasing local lamb, beef etc. Making a difference isn't really as simple as just not eating animals.

Edited by daisy~, 04 February 2022 - 05:00 AM.