Hey guys I am working on a project and I really could use your help! I want to find every single argument that's possible against veganism. Have you ever had a discussion with someone about veganism that are against it? I would love to hear from you what those people have said or what most people usually say and what they argue against it! Thank you!!:)
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some great links on humane approaches to deer population issues, shared by Prad in this thread: http://www.30bananasaday.com/forum/topics/deer-starving-because-we-...
I heard a new one today, so my grandmother was eating a beef sandwitch and i asked her if she wanted to hear how the cow got in her sandwich, and yada yada yada shes says that a cow chased her once and that that justifies it.
Umm but it wasn't that same exact cow that chased her O.o where the heck to people come up with such lame justifications?
good point, deer "overpopulation" is a bi-product of our killing (kinda like hunting?) of their predators, oh and fences work wonders :D
"Where do you get your protein if you only eat plant foods?"
I will answer your question with one of my own: where did you get that question? It is easily observable that, in cases where there is caloric sufficiency,
there are healthy groups of people who eat plant-based, some purely out of an economic situational necessity, and other groups for whom it is a lifestyle. It is quite a simple thing to find a person or group who eats
this ways thanks to the internet, and it can be seen that there is no absence of muscular development where the correct approach to resistance training is
undertaken with sufficient knowledge of the body's need for rest. If your curiosity is piqued because you haven't seen any good examples of the sort, then
please look towards Douglas Graham to start your nutrition education. This is a man verging on 70 years of age
whose diet consists "only" of fruits and greens. The chances are that his regular strength feats will be of such an advanced level that even physically fit
people in their 20's cannot match him. (Please also see: Adam Frewer, Chris Califeno, Ruth Heidrich and Harley Johnstone a.k.a durianrider)
It is essential to remember that here I am not necessarily arguing which dietary approach is the best; my purpose here is only to show that a plant-based diet
does not lead down the path of deficiency as is so confidently assumed.
It is vital also to remember that babies require less than 4% of their total calories consumed to be coming from protein; this is during a time in which they
are growing so rapidly that their total mass doubles in a matter of weeks. Clearly, no bodybuilder can match this extraordinary feat of gains, and so we are forced
to reasonably conclude that if the baby requires less than 4% of total calories for such a feat, then we need considerably less than even that. Some health organisations recommend as much as 20-35% protein in their dietary guidelines!
Any increase in protein for athletes would come about as the result of the increase of total calories on a plant-based diet; NOT the escalation of
protein in the macronutrient ratio. Good nutrition does not consist in tedious, characteristically modern (and shortsighted) micromanagement of this or that component.
It consists in eating whole plant foods.
As an example if my macronutrient ratio is 80% carbs, 10% fat and 10% protein and I wasn't getting enough fuel on a very active lifestyle - let's say 2200 calories,
if I from here up my caloric intake to 3200 without altering my protein ratio, I would still be consequencially consuming more protein. In other words,
you would simply eat more food if you wanted more protein. No protein shakes, no obscure paleo diets; just another plate of potatoes or some bananas.
Cheap, sustainable and empowering - abandon the unfit, overweight supplement-peddling gurus.
It is a constant fascination to me that the most ardent among those who say a plant-based diet is deficient in protein, are the people that are
selling protein supplements.
"Don't eat that way because you won't get enough protein." they say while selling whey protein to people who are eating animal products anyway!
It appears that no amount of protein will satiate this fetishistic ignorance..vegan, paleo or otherwise.
---It should be noted that cow's milk contains protein levels that far exceed our nutritional needs. One reason is very straight-forward, that: cow's milk is
designed by nature to grow a calf into an 800lb adult bovine. One would have to be a wishful thinker to suppose that the consumption of this wouldn't cause health
maladies in humans.---
"Supposing that you are right about the animals, I still don't see how Veganism helps them in any way."
Veganism is not, at least by myself, proposed to be the end of the road in the liberation of animals - the end of the road would start to materialise as and
when the property status of animals were abolished.
Veganism is simply a logical minimum that
is necessary if your actions are to be aligned with all the things we say about loving animals.
. It would not make very much sense for the agents of abolitionism during the time
of racist slavery to own a slave or two, and justify that with a glib "Abstaining wouldn't further their cause anyway" - because it doesn't work that way.
If you think that something is a grave injustice-which even meat-eaters usually admit the process is-it does not bode well to participate.
It has been said previously that the comparison of animal rights to human slavery is in itself racist, because I am allegedly comparing animals to people of colour.
I have two things that I want to say to respond to this common accusation:
1) That no person is being compared to any animal; only the relationship and justifications for their property status are the objects of comparison
2) It is only offensive to be compared to an animal if you view them as subordinate to your existence. So it is a prejudice of my accusor which offends,
as that prejudice evidently did not originate in my beliefs - I after all appreciate the uniqueness of every animal.
I am doing something like this myself. I'm compiling all the most common anti-vegan arguments and picking them apart as best I can:
"Animals don't have an interest to continue living in the same way that humans have an interest to continue living"
Taken the way this this statement is often meant, it is like saying an eye is not interested in seeing. Actually, it is more than ample evidence of the animal's
will to exist that it, indeed, does continue to exist. As all living things are some kind of gesture or expression of the cosmos, that is (italics)a will(italics) from "the source" of being made manifest.
This is contextually true in all cases except for perhaps, arguably, the 'lemming'
rodent notorious for its seemingly suicidal behaviour patterns. As a broad rule of thumb however this applies.
For why else would an organism be endowed with such faculties as sight, smell, taste, nervous pain, digestive
organs, myotactic reflexs, social co-operation capacities (play, group foraging, non-sexual companionship) and acute instincts of sexual reproduction and danger avoidance, if not to maximise their vitality
and longevity.
Without doubt, the human partakes in a great deal more anxiety over his eventual death because he possesses the
faculties to know that death is as sure a bet as bets get. However it would be a grave error to suppose that because
we indulge in more death-anxiety than the animal kingdom, that this elevates the essential importance of our lives above
theirs to such a point in which we ultimately use our own neurosis of our mortality as the very justification for their exploitation.
There can be no doubt as to whether animals enjoy simple pleasures in their lives. Birds of all types can
frequently be seen to chase one another and create dazzling formations, all seemingly just in the expression of the
visceral enjoyment of being a body. Chickens, a dinner-time favourite, are well-known among the permaculturists as being curiously advanced
in their ways of socialising; often splitting off into sub-groups and preferring the company of their selected
friends, often grooming one another and visibly enjoying affectionate interaction-and conversely-wandering listlessly when in solitude.
In the end, the quoted line of argumentation must be taken to really mean "The lives of animals are not important because they are not important" or some similar perfectly circular thinking. It has been objected that morality
is too subjective to even begin to make head or tail of the matter. I view this as a cop-out, because the amorphous nature of morality does not impede us from decision-making in any other moment -
statements about our entitlement to the flesh of another should not ever be viewed as intellectually careful thinking. The person who I could take seriously in saying this would be the person
who suspends their consumption of animal products until they are more fully decided, as it is only logical to eschew that which you suspect could be quite unethical. Alas,
the norm is to make a platitude about the vagueness of morality and to speak no more of the matter.
It is a great deal closer to something like objectivity to notice the
delicate or joyful behaviours of animals, because they are actual. Notions of our superiority in relation to them are deeply steeped
in ideological conditionings including but not limited to: habits of industrial
capitalist production and consumption and/or half-formed misunderstands of social Darwinism.
Any species' given survival potential is determined by its capacity to co-operate with the existing elements of the ecosystem of which it is a part;
not in violently dominating it.
Ignorant people think veganism is extreme.
I got the most ridiculous comment a few months ago, someone said that most of the people promoting veganism are promoting it for the wrong reasons. When I saw that I couldn't help but think oh yeah totally, saving the environment, reversing heart disease and cancer, saving animals and saving starving people are such bad reasons to go vegan(NOT)
Honestly there are many good reasons to promote veganism and very few(if any) wrong reasons.
The best anti-vegan argument is:
"We are just highly evolved primates and nothing more. We are no different than wild animals in the sense that we can "take" but not "steal", "kill" but not "murder".
The only ultimate meaning in life is the meaning I create to make myself happy. Since that is true, it doesn't matter whether or not I kill animals. You have no way to PROVE that killing animals is morally wrong.
As far as what is healthy for me, you can't prove that a vegan diet is healthier, and even if you could, it is my life and when it comes to my lifestyle I am free to do what makes me happy."
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