Why isn't everyone vegan?

[Forest Nymph]

I think you live in Canada, and I can only speak for the US.

Here conservatives push animal consumption like its one of the ten commandments (which is why Dominion by Matthew Scully is especially impressive) and a lot of liberals are self indulgent amoral humanists...Ive also discovered in Enviro Sci that assistant profs who are under 50 (and more like under 40) discuss climate change with more realistic urgency and validating veganism...while the old farts who have tenure and/or are "advisors" are Ivory Tower scum who downplay climate change to protect themselves socially and do dumb outdated garbage like talk about "sustainable fishing" and "benefits of hunting to conservation" like its 1993. I actually dream of slapping my current advisor sometimes. ..Im just glad the social climbing Type A materialist isnt in charge of anything important. Of course her undergrad is in Psych and her Masters in Nature Interpretation, she probably only had two science classes as a college student, shes advising people earning BS while she only has an MA, I need an adultier adult - at least the dept chair has a PhD in Forestry.

 

[Forest Nymph]

Oh and as an afterthought, lest any misguided casual observer accuse the senior profs of something noble like "scientific objectivity"...allow me to explain...my advisor has a BA in a social science from the early 90s. She was required to take 6-8 credit hours at most for a Bachelor's. Just for my Associates, I had to take 18 credit hours of science PLUS statistics for science majors (people in social science like psych take a dumbed down version of stats even in CA). So I took more science for my Associates than my "advisor" even did for her Bachelor's. Plus of course I am/will take 14-17 more credit hours of hard science to complete my BS. As a professor she got credit by work experience through the National Park Service.

One of my other profs who is tenured, mid 50s and an actual scientist gleefully mocked vegan students in his class while describing himself as a lifelong hunter. I have it on good authority that his lectures are basically rehearsed repeated scripts without critical updates each new year. Hes going on "sabbattical" next spring. Good.

My geology prof was awesome as people in climate or energy or earth science tend to be more blunt and less disingenous than those in biology and interp.

The good news is that many of my ES peers are vegetarian if not vegan. Should I have shelled out the bigger bucks for UCLA? I dont know if it would have changed anything substantially.

 

[Consistency]

I think you live in Canada, and I can only speak for the US.

Here conservatives push animal consumption like its one of the ten commandments (which is why Dominion by Matthew Scully is especially impressive) and a lot of liberals are self indulgent amoral humanists...Ive also discovered in Enviro Sci that assistant profs who are under 50 (and more like under 40) discuss climate change with more realistic urgency and validating veganism...while the old farts who have tenure and/or are "advisors" are Ivory Tower scum who downplay climate change to protect themselves socially and do dumb outdated garbage like talk about "sustainable fishing" and "benefits of hunting to conservation" like its 1993. I actually dream of slapping my current advisor sometimes. ..Im just glad the social climbing Type A materialist isnt in charge of anything important. Of course her undergrad is in Psych and her Masters in Nature Interpretation, she probably only had two science classes as a college student, shes advising people earning BS while she only has an MA, I need an adultier adult - at least the dept chair has a PhD in Forestry.

Hopefully you'll understand the humor in the following picture.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Macaca_arctoides.png#mw-jump-to-license

 

[Kellyr]

There were several factors that kept me from going vegan way back when I first went lacto-ovo vegetarian:

#1 - I fell prey to all the fear and lies that eating a vegan diet was hard and that if you didn't do it right you'd trash your health. (Fact is, a great deal of western culture's health is already trashed because of all the garbage they eat, whether it's animal protein or not.)

#2 - I was like many pre-vegans: I loved dairy and didn't want to give it up. I also liked eggs and didn't want to give those up. And finally it was far, far easier to find menu options when eating out if I allowed eggs and dairy. Likewise in social situations - "Oh, I'm vegetarian, but I can eat eggs or cheese." (omnivore providing a meal wipes their brow - whew!!)

#3 - Social stigma. Example: Everyone knows vegans are extremists, fundamentalists, and pretty damn irrational. They'll slap that burger out of your hand while screaming "MURDERER!!!" in your face. They alienate and ostracize all their family and friends for not "getting it", or being uneducated and stupid. Essentially they hold the moral high-card and everyone else is beneath them and deserving of their scorn. At least that's what I thought at first. And actually, I still experience being attacked by the fundamentalists because I'm just too "soft". Fortunately, I've learned that the above scenario doesn't fit the majority of vegans I know, and I've learned I don't need justify myself to vegans any more than I need to justify myself to omnivores.

#4 - Perfectionism. This kind of falls under #3 above. I think a lot of us want to feel like we're doing everything "right" in our lives. Perfectionism is a huge problem for me at times, and a lot of the time it actually leads to procrastination, because why bother doing it at all if I can't do it right? I try to be more gentle with myself now and take the approach of "progress, not perfection."

I do agree that there seems to be a larger and larger shift towards veganism. The WFPB way of eating is steering people in that direction. And while perhaps their only motivation in that realm is personal health (some might still care less about the animals), it's at least achieving less demand for slaughtered animals.

The whole ketogenic diet fad, however, seems to be digging in its claws. It definitely has its adamant supporters. And while you can do a vegan ketogenic diet, we all know that probably 90% of the people doing keto are definitely NOT vegan. But I can tell you they are 100% convinced that keto = perfect health.

I look forward to keto dying out, and hopefully there will continue to be more and more shifts towards WFPB that also leads people to also feeling more compassion for animals.

Why'd I finally step away from lacto-ovo? Because I'm approaching this with animal compassion and every time I'd eat an egg, I'd picture those poor baby chicks being tossed alive into meat grinders. It still makes me emotional.

 

[TopoGigio]

1. Tradition 2. Tastes good 3. Peer-pressure

 

[Jinendra Singh]

If the entire population switched to a vegan diet it would have a negative effect on public health, a new study claims.

According to researched published by the US National Academy of Sciences, everyone turning vegan would likely leave many people deficient in various nutrients.

The researchers set out to examine the impact of the meat industry on greenhouse gas emissions and wanted to find out what would happen if every person in the US adopted a vegan diet.

they found that if all animals were removed from the planet, the amount of food available to humans to eat would increase by 23 per cent. This is because the grains that are currently used to feed animals could be consumed by humans.

This would lead to an increased supply of certain important nutrients, including carbohydrates, copper, magnesium and cysteine. There would actually be more than the population needs.

 

[Kellyr]

Living in reality, we all know the entire world isn't going to suddenly go vegan in one day (let alone even a single country), so I find these studies that say it'll have a negative effect to pretty useless and just a means of fear-mongering.

I do find your post a bit confusing, however, since the first half says it would be negative then the second half points out benefits. Maybe you were just putting your own perspective in on the second half there?

 

[Lou]

If the entire population switched to a vegan diet it would have a negative effect on public health, a new study claims.

According to researched published by the US National Academy of Sciences, everyone turning vegan would likely leave many people deficient in various nutrients.

The researchers set out to examine the impact of the meat industry on greenhouse gas emissions and wanted to find out what would happen if every person in the US adopted a vegan diet.

they found that if all animals were removed from the planet, the amount of food available to humans to eat would increase by 23 per cent. This is because the grains that are currently used to feed animals could be consumed by humans.

This would lead to an increased supply of certain important nutrients, including carbohydrates, copper, magnesium and cysteine. There would actually be more than the population needs.

I think its a good idea when discussing a study to leave a link to it.
Here it is
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/11/07/1707322114

I didn't read the study but read an article about the study. (the study is an article intended for scientists to read). But I did skim the study, examined some of the tables and charts, and read the conclusions.

There are also a number of easier to read articles about the study.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/what-would-happen-if-all-americans-went-vegan
https://qz.com/1131428/if-the-entire-us-went-vegan-itd-be-a-public-health-disaster/
https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article184662103.html

I was unimpressed with the study. (I admit) mostly because the authors didn't unequivocally endorse a shift to a vegan diet. I also thought some of their assumptions and conclusions biased or at least not well thought out.

For instance, they seem to only reluctantly admit that the reduction of greenhouse gasses was a good thing. They also claim that those benefits would be limited because of the plant waste that is now eaten by animals. I'm pretty sure that if we had an excess of plant waste it would not take very long for some very smart people to figure out what to do with it and not just burn it.

Thier other big issue was that the food that we produce with have shortcomings in the world's population of needed nutrients. I looked over the list and its nothing surprising. It's exactly the stuff that we as vegans already solve with our diet.

The Science Magazine article does a good job of putting some holes in the original study. The Science Mag article suggests the reduction of greenhouse gases would actually be larger because if we were vegan we would stop importing meat. Thus reducing the greenhouse gasses other countries produce. It also brings up that changing land use - growing different fruits and vegetables would take care of the nutritional differences.

Like I said i didn't read the original article - just skimmed it. But I think it left out what I consider a very important fact. A vegan agricultural system would require less land for the same amount of food. Some land used for animals is not usable for crops. But it won't be needed for food. It can be used for other things. So there is a problem most Land Use Planners would love to have. What to do with all those acres. Parks, wind farms, solar farms, cow sanctuaries? Again I think some very smart people will have to figure it out.

 

[walterbyrd]

Among the reasons people won't consider, certain religious beliefs should be mentioned as a contributing factor. A Jewish person, for example may point to the passover lamb and the Talmudic traditions surrounding feasts, and a Christian may point out that in certain passages of the New Testament Jesus ate or provided fish. On the other hand, there are numerous verses that indicate Veganism is and was the preferred way (Genesis diet, Daniel's Diet, some passages in Isaiah and even the Last Supper where no animal products were on offer or Christ's driving out both the money changers and those with animals for sale). The point is, each group (within this particular religious tradition) is going to point to the verses that backs up their position and ignore the others.

Jew: "But the passover..."
Christian: "But Jesus ate/provided fish..." or "Paul taught this..."
Muslim: "But Mohamed taught..."

Is all some people need to ignore all the data on health/environment/sustainability etc and to consider Veganism some sort of "cult" because of it.

Sorry to reply to an old thread, but all of those religions stem Judaism. There are passages in the old testament that indicate that god prefers humans to be vegetarian, or vegan.

For example: in genesis, there are verses claiming god created animals as companions to man - not food, *companions*. Also in genesis, there is a verse instructing man that plants will be your food. In god's ideal world, the lion will lie with the lamb - no bloodshed. There are a few verses in the bible that denounce animal cruelty. God does not forbid eating meat, but seems to prefer that people not eat meat.

 

[Mom2vegan]

I think our society is too rich, and meat and animal products are too readily available for one thing. It's expensive to raise animals but the expense is nothing to us. In societies where the population is much more dense and people don't have much $, they eat much less animal products and animal products are considered luxuries. Whether people choose to be vegan or not, the poorer they are the less animal products they can eat.

The rest is mostly about convenience, traditions, habits and not wanting to learn new things. It would be SOOO easy to make healthy vegan fast food, which would be quite convenient, but people's traditions and habits and unwillingness to learn new things would make it difficult for a vegan fast food business to stay open.

There are so many feelings associated with childhood memories of happy times eating with family, and when we eat certain things we don't even have to consciously remember anything, our bodies just seem to respond with happy good feelings when we eat foods we were served as children.

Emotions and foods are so tightly connected. Both good and bad emotions - when I was a child my parents left us with their friends (a married couple). The friends were very unhappy and having a terrible fight while we were there. They served us spanish rice. Their fighting was so intense that I was afraid and became physically ill. I still hate Spanish rice.

 

[Lou]

I think our society is too rich, and meat and animal products are too readily available for one thing. It's expensive to raise animals but the expense is nothing to us. In societies where the population is much more dense and people don't have much $, they eat much less animal products and animal products are considered luxuries. Whether people choose to be vegan or not, the poorer they are the less animal products they can eat.

True in places in India and Africa. But here in America, the working poor eat a lot of Burger King. Two whoppers for $5.
I think it was in What The Health where they show the parents of two kids. Both parents worked and I think the dad had two jobs. So they were taking the kids to the BK drive-thru cause there was no time for shopping and cooking.

 

[walterbyrd]

True in places in India and Africa. But here in America, the working poor eat a lot of Burger King. Two whoppers for $5.
I think it was in What The Health where they show the parents of two kids. Both parents worked and I think the dad had two jobs. So they were taking the kids to the BK drive-thru cause there was no time for shopping and cooking.

In America, meat is subsidized.

 

[Mom2vegan]

Also, in America, even the poor are very rich compared to the rest of the world. Our homeless people eat better than most people in India.

 

[Forest Nymph]

I have something to add to this a year later.

I belong to another forum totally crawling with the worst kinds of paranoid conservatives. They'll deny science and have to have studies crammed down their throats to possibly accept meat is not sustainable (but they still might claim it's Big Brother).

Then I wonder why more people in my environmental science cohort know about the respective studies at Harvard and Oxford debunking grassfed cows as sustainable. My freaking county still is pushing local grass fed as more sustainable. That's why I MUST get a Master's degree, lest I seek a lifetime of setting fire to fast food restaurants and being arrested for arson.

Look, these people aren't about to give up things resembling meat. Be proud and happy of Gardein, Beyond Meat and Field Roast. These sorts of people are cultural loyalists not health food freaks. They really don't care about your oil free diet, and furthermore may not even believe you.

The only way to win them over is familiar high protein cultural foods, balanced by whole foods. Even to me, this seems pretty rational, that people like to enjoy things that are tasty and familiar.

But especially these people. They call PETA People Eating Tasty Animals and think vegans are all starving to death.

Please let them have their vegan meats. And stop acting like they are criminally unhealthy because they're processed. They are still better than animal products, and every stupid fuss you make about processed foods they're awaiting to use against you. They'll say see, steak is healthier than Beyond Burgers. And it will be your fault that they think this.

 

[Celibataire]

Like it or not, humans evolved as omnivores so going vegan (usually by going vegetarian first) requires a conscious decision. Also look at the fact that most coastal towns started as fishing ports (the exceptions being those towns which grew as purpose-built resorts from the 19th century onwards); whilst most inland towns grew up around a market. The English market town in which I was brought up had an abbatoir, a tannery, a leather works and a carpet factory (all of which have long-since closed); carpet-making would have started back in the day when wool rather than acrylic fibre was the material. So you see how our whole societies have developed with the exploitation of animals as a resource.

 

[Lou]

Like it or not, humans evolved as omnivores so going vegan (usually by going vegetarian first) requires a conscious decision. Also look at the fact that most coastal towns started as fishing ports (the exceptions being those towns which grew as purpose-built resorts from the 19th century onwards); whilst most inland towns grew up around a market. The English market town in which I was brought up had an abbatoir, a tannery, a leather works and a carpet factory (all of which have long-since closed); carpet-making would have started back in the day when wool rather than acrylic fibre was the material. So you see how our whole societies have developed with the exploitation of animals as a resource.

Sure but... one of my authors puts it this way:

Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Just because we once did doesn’t mean we always have to. Once we know better, I think we have the obligation and responsibility to do things better?​

​

Just Because We CAN Do Something Doesn't Mean We Should - Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

www.colleenpatrickgoudreau.com

 

[Paul Bradford]

I have something to add to this a year later.

I belong to another forum totally crawling with the worst kinds of paranoid conservatives. They'll deny science and have to have studies crammed down their throats to possibly accept meat is not sustainable (but they still might claim it's Big Brother).

Then I wonder why more people in my environmental science cohort know about the respective studies at Harvard and Oxford debunking grassfed cows as sustainable. My freaking county still is pushing local grass fed as more sustainable. That's why I MUST get a Master's degree, lest I seek a lifetime of setting fire to fast food restaurants and being arrested for arson.

Look, these people aren't about to give up things resembling meat. Be proud and happy of Gardein, Beyond Meat and Field Roast. These sorts of people are cultural loyalists not health food freaks. They really don't care about your oil free diet, and furthermore may not even believe you.

The only way to win them over is familiar high protein cultural foods, balanced by whole foods. Even to me, this seems pretty rational, that people like to enjoy things that are tasty and familiar.

But especially these people. They call PETA People Eating Tasty Animals and think vegans are all starving to death.

Please let them have their vegan meats. And stop acting like they are criminally unhealthy because they're processed. They are still better than animal products, and every stupid fuss you make about processed foods they're awaiting to use against you. They'll say see, steak is healthier than Beyond Burgers. And it will be your fault that they think this.

Do you have a link to the studies from Oxford and Harvard?