VeganMania

[David]

I think for certain people it's more about the tag than anything else. Is one person being a chest-thumping vegan who has it on their Twitter handle and adopts it as their persona worth more than 20 people who quietly go about removing meat from much of their diet, but who aren't perfect and don't claim the moral high ground? 

I don't think so.

It's that majority who choose to buy vegan or vegetarian alternatives in Tesco as much as they can, who try the odd vegan recipe here & there and make changes as best they can to their diets and the diets of their families who will make the difference.

It's not an all or nothing game, as has been shown in this thread over the past few pages. Can Loki claim to care about animal welfare and still eat meat? Of course he can, if he's making conscious choices to change how he goes about sourcing his food, and if he's switching from a traditional home-made curry on a Wednesday night to a veggie or vegan curry, if he's actively supporting animal welfare charities then he's doing his bit, and that should be commended. Not every bugger can dive head-first into "kicking off" outside slaughter houses and running facebook groups. That's fine for the young and those with no real responsibilities. And that's not a jab at those people, by the way. We were all there at one time in life.

The twats who define themselves by being vegan, and who judge others by where they see the line being drawn, all the while conveniently drawing their own line to suit themselves are actually counter-productive to the wider acceptance of veganism. 

As I've mentioned previously, I went vegetarian for over a year but it simply wasn't something me and my other half could sustain, but we certainly do our level best to shop responsibly, eat vegetarian and even vegan where possible, when we eat out we almost always give our business to local vegan restaurants and so on. 

I'm nowhere near perfect on the matter, and as such I'll not judge others who choose to eat meat. I'll often suggest they try the restaurants I go to, or will suggest the vegan/veggie alternatives that I buy, but I know that if I get all holier than thou and start banging on about how they must hate animals it won't ever end with them saying "you know what Dave, you're right. I'm a cunt. I'll start eating vegan tomorrow."

[Keith Houchen]

Maybe Loki is a Tom Brady vegan, like 50% of the NFL.  Now THAT's a callback!!

There is undeniably a few who adopted veganism as a fashion accessory or a lifestyle as opposed to an ethical choice but at least it's one that is doing the world some good.  It's not like they're Real Ale Twats, now there is a fashion accessory lifestyle we can all hate together!

[DEF]

I like this thread, pop in quite often. I'm intrigued by the idea of going Vegan more as a challenge to see if I can do it rather than anything ethical.

Having said that I have had a niggling guilt for years that I tend to ignore most of the time because meat is delicious.

Since I was doing the shopping after work this morning I thought I'd give vegan friendly stuff a shot. I guess I'm a vegetarian for the day because I also have a bunch of chocolate I was given for my birthday yesterday but it might be the first step in changing some of my habits and at least cutting down.

By sheet coincidence the case of beer I plan to drink today is also Vegan.

One of my motivations is my Wife who has developed a dairy and gluten intolerance and the lack of options for her bums me out. Obviously Vegan stuff knocks the diary on the head is there any chance most vegan stuff is Gluten free? 

EDIT - So on Friday's I get done for the weekend and buy a bunch of snacky shite to sit and munch whilst I wait for the family. Normally a ginsters pasty or sausage roll that tastes like ass or what not. Today I swapped it out for a Fry's Family Sausage Roll. You know what I'm pretty impressed. It's basically the exact same pretty shitty taste like ass taste and consistency as Ginsters or Sainsbury's own brand meat sausage rolls.

Edited January 10, 2020 by DEF

[TheSurgeon]

I watched 'The Game Changers' on Netlix over Christmas, and it was an interesting watch to say the least.

My wife has been vegetarian since she was about 12, so since getting together our eating habits have always been very different. After having watched the documentary, I decided it was time to give in and try some of her Quorn products. I tried the bacon, chicken nuggets and chicken pieces and to be fair they were all pretty good.

I'm not going to go vegetarian, but i'll swap out a few things here and there.

Edited January 10, 2020 by TheSurgeon

[UK Kat Von D]

14 hours ago, David said:

 

I think for certain people it's more about the tag than anything else. Is one person being a chest-thumping vegan who has it on their Twitter handle and adopts it as their persona worth more than 20 people who quietly go about removing meat from much of their diet, but who aren't perfect and don't claim the moral high ground? 

I don't think so.

 

Everything in your post is either misinformed or just flat out wrong. I only talk about Veganism in the Vegan thread, I know lots of Vegans and I can’t think of anyone who uses it as their whole identity.  I know that I have a lot more about me than just this. If someone has the name of their football club in their twitter bio does that become their whole identity?

I’ve also never claimed to be an all knowing moral high ground, it’s just basic common sense to say if you care about something you don’t pay to have it killed. 

Not many people jump straight into being a full blown activist after going Vegan, I did it quietly at first too. Once you have distanced yourself from all animal abuse that nagging guilt a lot of people have becomes intensified, because they see the issues a lot more clearly. 

People seem to have this mad concept that Vegans do it because they want to bring people down. That idea can fuck right off. People try to get othera to go Vegan for two reasons. Saving animals is the first one. It’s not enough for me to not harm animals when I know I could save more by stopping other people from harming them. 

The second reason is I have a strong desire to share this amazing feeling I have with other people. Incase you haven’t noticed, Vegans love being Vegan. I want other people to feel the benefits and happiness they will get. It’s like introducing someone to their new favourite band times a thousand. Whenever I get a message saying I’ve helped someone go Vegan it is the best feeling.

I haven’t subjected anyone to anything they didn’t sign up to when they clicked on a Vegan thread. You are here of your own free will. I also don’t do anything particularly unusual either. How many people here have had debates about Brexit or defended their political party of choice?

It’s human nature to try and get people to do the right thing. If you care about animals, you’ll go Vegan. If you care about climate change, you’ll go Vegan. 

If humans were killed at the same rate as animals we would be extinct within 17 days. It doesn’t need to be that way.

Edited January 10, 2020 by UK Kat Von D

[SuperBacon]

37 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

If someone has the name of their football club in their twitter bio does that become their whole identity?
 

99.9% yes 

[Keith Houchen]

5 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

99.9% yes 

Especially if they wear items of clothing with their clubs name on it and even have tattoos of their club. Next they will sign up to forums with a username of an old player. 

[Chest Rockwell]

I just had Leon's vegan chipotle avocado burger. It was tasty but a little messy; lacking in structural integrity. Also could have had a bit more of a spicy kick. But overall it was nice.

[Sphinx]

I'm still wondering where I stand with vegan as an identity. I feel like with my family I've become 'The Vegan' so the go-to topic of conversation is what I eat, if it's difficult being vegan, where I get my protein from, if I'm offended if someone eats meat next to me etc.

On one hand, it's great to raise awareness and to help people understand it. We need more vegans in the world. On the other hand, I'm not one for 'selling' ideas. It's a choice I've made and it'd be grand if others did it but I don't yet feel comfortable being an ambassador for it. If someone talks shit about veganism I pull them up on it but I don't care to default to that conversation in general. 

I'm wary of it becoming my identity too much as I have more things to talk about and more to my personality than what I eat. And I'm not really much of a foodie anyway so if people are expecting me to be dead excited to talk about recipes or stuff I've eaten lately then they'll be disappointed. Primarily, there's no reason for animals to be abused and killed. More recently I've become more informed about the environmental impact and the climate crisis. They're more the reason than the actual food for me. 

[BomberPat]

A lot of the time, the notion of Vegan as an identity comes from the fact that vegans are perceived as talking about their diet all the time. When what really happens is that vegetarians and vegans just have more cause for it to come up, and that confirmation bias is that people don't see, "what did you have for dinner last night?" or "I went out for curry with the lads yesterday" workplace chat as dietary talk the way they do with veganism. If I talk about my diet, it's usually because it's in response to a question that requires it - someone wanting to order sandwiches for a meeting at work, or a buffet for a wedding party, will usually prompt me to have to say, "can you make sure there's a vegan option?". 

That said, there are a lot of people for whom veganism absolutely is an identity moreso than just a diet or a lifestyle choice. The #vegan leafemoji.png brigade. My local vegan and vegetarian Facebook group recently splintered into two separate groups, because the people following it just for pointers on where had new vegan menu items, or what shops were good for vegan options, got absolutely sick of the preaching and the posting of horrific abbatoir videos and photos by the other lot. And, amazingly, people in a vegan group don't really want to see that shit.

I've often said that if I wanted to be a militant vegan, I'd have all the arguments I needed primed and ready to go. But I've never known anyone change their diet because they've been insulted and hectored into doing so. Use that energy to put pressure on the corporations, not the consumers.

Edited January 10, 2020 by BomberPat

[Sphinx]

3 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

A lot of the time, the notion of Vegan as an identity comes from the fact that vegans are perceived as talking about their diet all the time. When what really happens is that vegetarians and vegans just have more cause for it to come up, and that confirmation bias is that people don't see, "what did you have for dinner last night?" or "I went out for curry with the lads yesterday" workplace chat as dietary talk the way they do with veganism. If I talk about my diet, it's usually because it's in response to a question that requires it - someone wanting to order sandwiches for a meeting at work, or a buffet for a wedding party, will usually prompt me to have to say, "can you make sure there's a vegan option?". 

Oh yeah, definitely. Once the topic moves onto veganism from that point it can go on a while and people might forget how it came up in the first place and remember it as 'bloody hell, the vegan's banging on again'. I answer questions on it and give my personal reasons but I'm not throwing it into conversations liberally like a Kat humble brag. 

[Chest Rockwell]

1 minute ago, Sphinx said:

I'm not throwing it into conversations liberally like a Kat humble brag. 

Come one now there's no need for that...

We all know Kat's never been humble about anything.

[tiger_rick]

Had one of these for lunch. Not a big fan of ready meals (these days) but picked it up in Aldi for convenience. Pretty nice, I thought. Better than veggie dippers and veggie meatballs anyway.

[UK Kat Von D]

On 9/24/2018 at 5:12 PM, UK Kat Von D said:

So after being told repeatedly that Vegan discussion should only be allowed in a special Vegan Food thread I decided to make one. Obviously if you post anything other than photos of awesome Vegan food or positive responses to Vegan food you will be breaking the rulez. 

 

This is the first post in this thread. I don’t think I’d ever even posted about being Vegan on here before I posted in the chippy tea thread. Made a thread to post photos of food without the intention of it ever becoming an ethics discussion. Hundred pages later I’m now the angry Vegan.

[SuperBacon]

On 9/25/2018 at 8:22 AM, UK Kat Von D said:

Yeah, fuck those people they can just find a new job. I think ten years is totally realistic.

 

The China market is pretty volatile and can have big shifts in consumer trends 

In reality Kat, it only took 3 pages