[moobeams]

Honestly as a poor poc the idea that veganism is classist and racist, is itself classist and racist. It erases poor poc from the movement even though we are the majority and backbone of it and is usually said to make people feel better about eating animals and not out of genuine concern for poor poc.

The fact that veganism isn’t accessible to some poor poc is an example of how the animal agriculture is so massive and oppressive that it forces itself on the vulnerable, and implying it’s a fault of vegans puts the blame on vegan civilians , many who are poor themselves, instead of massive corporations that are killing animals,the planet, and poor people/poc.

[vegandesserts]

Vegan Raspberry Almond Magnum Ice Creams

o(〃＾▽＾〃)o

[severelynerdysheep]

““Much as we live in an economic and social order that is structured to exploit people, we live in one that is structured to exploit animals. We’re encouraged to understand both are natural and inevitable, but neither are. Both exploitations have long and contentious histories as part of the development of our modern economic order.””

— Bob Torres, Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights

[death-cowned]

[thinkveganworld]

Cow and pig playing.

[thinkveganworld]

Because most people never see farm animals being their most natural selves, people tend to think of them as almost inert.  When any animal other than a dog is playful or affectionate, people say, “That cow (or pig, etc.) ‘thinks he’s a dog,’ or is ‘acting like a dog’”  The reality is, most farm animals naturally romp, play, nuzzle, think, have best friends and show affection.  

[moobeams]

Look I’m okay with vegans! But the moment you stop being my yes man and actually disagree with me and don’t approve of my choices and challenge my viewpoint THAT’S when I’m gonna have a BBQ in front of your house😂😂😂😂😂😂

[theonlinevegan]

[captainaveragehero]

“Plant Based” - because for some reason we needed a more pretentious way to describe being Vegan.

[acti-veg]

‘Plant-based’ and ‘vegan’ are different terms which (shockingly) have different meanings, but I suppose that using a search engine would have been too ‘pretentious’ as well.

[butmakeitvegan]

period

[vegan-and-sara]

They’re also the corporations that want you to want their products. They’re the ones who want you to believe that meat and dairy and eggs are the most delicious and irreplaceable food items because that’s what’s good for their bottom line. Every company’s ultimate goal is to become indispensable in the public consciousness and every “vitamin B tho”, “plants tho”, “protein tho”, “animals are inferior tho”, and “circle of life tho” makes an animal product CEO’s dreams come true.

These big corporations deliberately cultivate your taste towards their products with insidious ad campaigns, subsidies, and school deals, and then use this manufactured cultural affinity to dismiss any less environmentally-taxing alternative (such as shifting to predominantly plant-based agriculture). They’re just feeding the world how the world demands to be fed!

Marx wrote about commodity fetishism whereby the consumer feels no connection to the production of the goods they purchase. When we buy products created by these huge polluters, we often genuinely feel we have nothing to do with the pollution at all. As consumers, we feel both righteous hatred for the producer and fierce loyalty to the product, all the while vehemently denying that they’re inseparable. These corporations are playing a clever game that keeps our anger utterly toothless to fight them. They know no one bites the hand that feeds them. So as much as possible, we need to stop letting the biggest polluters feed us.

[akinmytua2]

This is why I like the local model. The beef in my freezer? It’s from a half our away. The strawberries? From the farm down the road. We need to make more sustainable local food sources for people in this country. Even in cities, you can grown food, you can use hydroponics, we need to have food that can be grown locally grown locally.

[acti-veg]

When you are stuck buying a specific food local is always better than imported. However, while I’m sure that isn’t what you’re doing here,  the local model is far too often used as a way to essentially dismiss sustainability concerns. Beef is terrible for the environment yes, but I get mine locally so it’s okay. That just isn’t supported by the evidence at all.

Transport is a very small contributor to emissions, relatively speaking. For most food products, it accounts for less than 10% of total emmissions, and it’s much smaller for the largest GHG emitters. In beef from beef herds, it’s 0.5%. It is well established climate science that what you eat matters far more than where it is from. That an animal was reared and slaughtered somewhere close to your house does not mean that what was done to them was sustainable, and certainly not humane. Some foods just are unsustainable and cruel, no matter where they’re from, and beef is up there with seafood and dairy with the most  foods you can eat from an ethical and environmental standpoint.

Adopting a plant-based diet is the single biggest dietary change you can make to reduce your individual environmental footpring - nothing else even comes close. If you have the option to eliminate or reduce your intake of products which require animal exploitation and come at a devastating cost to the environment, then you absolutely should.

[acti-veg]

Vegans have nothing to gain by misleading you. Things really are that bad, animal agriculture really is killing the planet and animals really are treated that poorly. Becoming vegan is genuinely the most clear-cut positive decision I have ever made. I will never again intentionally allow any sentient being to be harmed in my name and I cannot describe how good that feels. 

If you can, just give it a try. You owe them that much.

[sobadpink]

Life can be so bad for farmed fish they literally lose the will to live

Underwater factory farms are condemning fish to live "on the edge of what they can tolerate". 😢🐟

Up to a quarter of fish in fish farms have stunted growth and float lifelessly at the surface of the tanks. These fish are known as 'drop outs.' According to research by Royal Society Open Science, these fish exhibit behaviours and brain chemistry almost identical to those of very stressed and depressed people.

“Fish are capable of complex behavior and their brain system has a lot of similarities with that of mammals, including humans” says Marco Vindas, Royal Society of Open Science.

This research suggests that the way fish cope with stressful environments is not dissimilar to the way we ourselves do. Other studies have discovered that the intelligence of fish far surpasses what we once thought. A specialist in fish behaviour from Macquarie University (NSW), Dr Culum Brown has said 'Fish are more intelligent than they appear. In many areas, such as memory, their cognitive powers match or exceed those of 'higher' vertebrates including non-human primates'.

[sub-mechano-deactivated20210527]

[deeplyrooteddread]

Just cuz PETA is trash doesn’t mean the meat industry is okay

[deeplyrooteddread]

this shit aint even controversial and ppl find a way to be pissy and offended.

[radicalgraff]

“Eat the Rich, it’s vegan”

Seen in Strasbourg, France

[rocket-sk8s]

A life without meat would be an incredibly shit life.

[vegan-and-sara]

Unfortunately, your life with meat is a substantially more shit life for the 75 billion farmed animals slaughtered annually.

[thatlittlesoything]

It’s also a shit life for all the immigrant workers who work in slaughterhouses to prepare the meat you eat.

[sobadpink]

It’s a shit life for the indigenous tribes and vulnerable communities whose land is being burnt and plowed to grow billions of tonnes of livestock feed and ranch land for the western demand for that meat

[acti-veg]

It’s a shit life for just everyone effected by climate change now and in future generations, too. Animal agriculture is responsible for at least 18% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than the exhaust fumes of every car, boat and plane on earth combined. It is also responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas with 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.  

Things are set to get worse, with emissions from animal agriculture projected to increase 80% by 2050. The situation is now so dire that even if we completely stop all fossil fuel use now, we will still exceed our 565 gigatonnes CO2e limit by 2030, just from raising animals for food. This is why the United Nations have told us that: “a substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products.”

[spoonie-elf]

Some omnis will be like “I’m not an anti-vegan, I just disagree with most of veganism, and don’t think any of your activism is valid.” Then they’ll share a link to a study funded by Tyson.

[livelaughvegan]

Vegan mac & cheese ✨

Vegan food instagram 💚

[despazito]

[thewavesofasgard]

“Vegan” leather is worse for the environment than real leather and i feel like that’s something everyone should be taught

[acti-veg]

Yes, they should be all ‘taught’ this blatant falsity on the basis of what… a meme? Text posts which never have any sources or evidence. It turns out there is a very good reason these claims are never backed up with anything substantial - and that is because they are demonstrably false. That you require literally zero evidence for any of this is such a blatant example of confirmation bias that it would be funny, if tens of thousands of people weren’t swallowing it as truth despite having been presented with absolutely nothing to back it up.

No, vegan leather is not worse for the environment than cow’s leather, that claim is objectively untrue. According to the Higg Sustainability Index, which is pretty much the industry standard for measuring the environmental impact of fabrics, cow leather is the second least sustainable material measured, only behind alpaca wool, and worse than even plastic. If you don’t believe that, look it up on literally any fabric sustainability comparison. Cow’s leather is worse than plastic in absolutely every category, from production to disposal.

Besides, this entire discussion is a blatant example of false dichotomy. Vegan leather is not a synonym for plastic, there are plenty of sustainable plant-based fabrics which are far better for the environment than both plastic and wool. There are recycles materials, there is pinatex, bark, cork, pineapple fibre, coconut fibre, bamboo, hemp… Hell, I have a wallet made out of literally just leaves I’ve had for six years with no sign of it falling apart. This comparison is completely and obviously biased, but even in this incredibly unfair comparison, where we compare the least sustainable vegan material with cow’s leather, the vegan material still wins.