Caramel Baloney

genderbitch:

The View From My Brain: Dear Vegans

caramelbaloney:

genderbitch:

Didn’t I reblog a link recently about a book that debunked a huge chunk of the vegan statistics about water usage and etc and pointed out huge destructive effects of soy production and a few other things?

A lot of vegan stats are pretty heavy bullshit, on the same level as a lot of meat industry’s bullshit “facts”

True, soy production is very damaging. But far less soy would need to be produced if we ate it directly instead of feeding most of it to livestock. Maybe some facts are bullshit. But the UN report I cited contains 34 pages of references to the peer-reviewed scientific literature. That’s about as unbiased as we can hope for. As an environmental scientist, I agree with many of their conclusions.

The UN report is fine, “a lot” certainly isn’t all and definitely the meat industry needs to be changed intensely. I found the link too so read through that and figure out which of your stats are bad and which are good.

My concern is actually more how you’re inadvertently defending the ableism and classism of the other vegans involved in this by telling us not to get pissed at ableist, classist vegans because the system is mean to them.

Lemme make this clear, the system is super fucked up to trans people and it upsets me a lot because of how it screws me over. But that is never an excuse for me to act bigoted on any other axis of oppression when I’m upset. I do not have free reign to be racist anymore than they have free reign to be classist and ableist.

Do kindly leave your tone argument and apologism at the door.

Thanks for the link. It’s true that humans can only obtain protein from the grasslands of the western US, for example, by eating animals that can digest grass. Pigs can be fed on crop residues, but most of those residues are coming from crops grown to feed animals. Neither of these arguments work because the demand for meat is way too high. Even the very few animals that are not factory fed have caused extensive overgrazing out west. Even this book states that if we ate only products from animals sustainably raised on marginal lands with minimal inputs and impacts, we might be able to produce half the current supply (though he doesn’t mention the really high cost). I’d be thrilled if everyone cut their consumption of animal products in half. Still, all of this ignores the animal rights arguments. While animal protein may have been vital in hunter-gatherer cultures, the deaths and suffering of animals have been rendered an unnecessary extravagance (not a “benign” one, according to the book’s title) by agriculture. But most people won’t listen to it.

I’m still unclear, after reading many posts, how vegan arguments are classist or ableist. Both of these statements seem to rest on the beliefs that vegan meals are either more expensive or more complex. Neither of these are true and have been refuted, yet those arguments against veganism have appeared repeatedly. For example, the USDA provides a database of simple, economical recipes by cost per serving. Not all of those listed as vegetarian are vegan, but many can easily be converted at often reduced cost. Just keeping them as is drastically reduces consumption of animal products. Vegweb is all vegan and full of simple recipes, but it is not searchable by cost. While a vegan diet is healthier for most people, vegans aren’t arguing that people truly requiring animal products due to health issues shouldn’t put their own health first. Furthermore, in response to accusations of culturocentrism: “I’ve never seen a vegan argue that those people living on subsistence farms with unfertile soils in abject poverty shouldn’t eat the animals they’ve raised. But that’s probably not most of us on tumblr.” It’s also not an excuse for the rest of us.

There is an important point, though, regarding access. Not everyone has the time or ability to shop at the local grocery store and prepare even simple meals. For example, maybe somebody works two or three jobs and only has time to stop for lunch at the McDonald’s drive-thru on the way between them. Everyone knows the burgers are cheaper than the salads. Maybe we should be asking why the most accessible foods for these people are those highest in refined sugars and saturated fats. Isn’t that classism/racism? From the National Institutes of Health: 6.6% of non-Hispanic whites, 7.5% of Asian Americans, 10.4% of Hispanics, 11.8% of non-Hispanic blacks, and 14.2% of Native Americans had diagnosed diabetes. It’s ridiculous that pop and chicken nuggets are subsidized when healthier foods are not. Many vegans protest these subsidies and the food pricing structure; perhaps others should as well.

By dismissing vegan arguments as bullshit, ableist, and classist, you are inadvertently defending animal abuse, excessive environmental damage, and further impoverishment of certain groups. I fully agree that the system is fucked up. But instead of wasting effort criticizing vegans, who are trying to make changes through individual choices or public activism, shouldn’t that effort be directed at challenging this system?

Source: jemimaaslana