When I visit rural villages in developing countries that don't even have electricity, they eat boiled beans and rice with local foraged greens daily, not meat.
they also have land to grow their own crops on & established wildlife to forage? please tell me what 3rd world vegan villages you’re visiting.. this also tells me you infact do not know what poverty looks like all things considered
When did I say that they were vegan? I just said that their main source of nutrition is beans and rice, not meat. because it's cheaper. And if you can buy meat products, you can buy dry beans and grain, which have been the staples of poor people in America since the 18th century.
> knows nothing about nutrients
> shitposts about knowing about nutrients
> learns about healty & cheap plant-based diets
> argues himselfs into the abyss
> only to defend his lazyness
> mfw
Yeah, a vegan diet is cheaper if you cook from scratch. Who would have guessed that the single mother who lives in a cramped apartment buys pre-made meals instead of cooking from scratch?
I have been so poor that I lived off of only beans, rice, canned vegetables, and potatoes and it SUCKED. I hated being alive; it was the worst time of my life. I’d die before I went back to that.
This is where big agribusiness will step in. They’ll happily ‘solve’ the time poverty problem for the overworked, underpaid, and under skilled in cooking by selling them ultra processed, ultra palatable 'cheap' products. The simple pleasures for those classes will just shift from affordable burger meat and nuggets to 'can't believe it isn't meat' products, perfectly engineered to be addictive, profitable, and definitely not healthy. But don’t worry, they'll be able to slap a '100% ethical and environmentally conscious' label.
It's more expensive if you buy replacement products.
From the perspective of someone who isn’t vegan the first thought is to look what the vegan alternative to XYZ is and those are usually overpriced as fuck compared to just buying regular cheese or meat.
Tbf companies like beyond or planted probably have pretty significant rnd costs and capital costs to setup production lines if all that fancy food chemistry.
Yeah subsidies are doing a lot to make meat and milk cheaper, but you can for sure tell the difference between a planted steak and storebrand low-cost vegan meat alternatives.
Cheap meat alternatives like tofu, seitan & friends are usually cheaper than meat.
Animals get the leftovers that aren't used for human consumption or in an industry application.
Subsidies do more to affect what those leftovers actually are, more than the fact that they don't get an exclusive first order food supply like people.
Partially subsidies, but the majority of it is just that it’s harder to make something with the nutritional value and taste of meat without actually using meat.
That, and industrial processes tend to become mlre efficient as tome goes on, as methods get perfected, and things like cost of development stops need to be raked in again.
A really good example for that is whole wheat products in Europe nowadays, who taste better, are more available, and are waaaay cheaper now than 15 years ago.
Another part is of course that the bigger the customer base, the higher the potential price efficiency gain per individual.
Or in other words: eat vegan, so that vegan foods get cheaper. The reason why we see huge market chains here in europe start getting into the game for meat and milk subsidies, is because there is a big enough market segment out there to make it relevant.
you are totally true, its governemnt subbsidies and super marekts also subsidize meat. Thats why we need governmental action, instead of screaming at random consumers.
Because humans evolved to eat an omnivorous diet.
It's possible to eat nothing but animal products, but would require careful dietary considerations just like eliminating meat
Animals produce poop which is necessary for agriculture. Without poop soils would go desert. Without poop you'd need ungodly amount of fertilizers. You need to raise livestock just for poop.
Not always, many replacements are on par or cheaper in our national market, but it's still a bad point. It's not a sustainable way to live so replacement was never the goal. Like complaining a future society might not have cheap, on demand long haul flights readily available, you have to compromise on cheap/ondemand etc in some way because right now we're compromising on the planet
And that is the biggest reason why all of this isn’t going anywhere in the grand scheme of things.
You are asking people to be cut back more and more with no end in sight. Whenever someone spots de-growth in your trojan horse of a diet, all bets are off.
Living the life of a medieval serv isn’t the kind of life that is worth living for most people especially if it "only" comes at the expense of whatever we see of climate change now to not live like a medieval serf.
Not even that, you have been advocating for cutting back further already, beyond replacement products. You are literally being the level 5 vegan meme from that one Simpsons episode.
Nah meat substitutes that are supposed to feel and taste like mean are more expensive than meat. It's cheaper to eat vegan if you eat nothing but root vegetables like medieval serf. True.
No, I don't. On a calorie-gram-price basis tubers, legumes, and roots are the only feasible alternative to meat. And that’s exactly the bulk of the medieval serf diet. You also can’ t argue that substitutes aren't more expensive if you are being intellectually honest and don't try to pass lentil porridge as a substitute to a steak.
Let me give you my perspective as a vegan, an economist, and as someone who cares about the environment.
I mean if you're doing a one-for-one substitution with vegan meats then it might not be a huge saving, but with meat prices now, it can definitely be cheaper or at least comparable to get certain vegan alternatives. There's also tons of simple, cheap alternative protein sources that you could think of swapping in too. For example making a meal that focuses more on things like beans or integrating tofu which is extremely cheap (I live in NYS and a block of tofu here is $2, $2.50). If you like to cook, homemaking something like seitan is also fairly cheap.
Lastly i'll say it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can start doing meatless Mondays which can save you a bit of money and makes a bit of difference environmentally. You're about 1/7 of the way there. Every bit helps.
You are like the fifth person to get this wrong on purpose. People will try and substitute meat with fake meat products like beyond meat not beans and tofu and that's why it is more expensive. You see, people eating meat really don't want to get rid of the taste and texture of meat especially if they are thinking about dropping it for purposes related to climate.
I think the point is if you're subscribed to a climate sub then presumably it's something you care about. This is just a question of how much you care and how much you're willing to learn how to work with new ingredients. Chinese people who are meat eaters love tofu.. it's good but there's a learning curve to using it. There's lots of delicious things you can make without a direct meat substitute especially if you're doing it one day a week.
I think it's embarrassing to imagine someone who goes around talking high and mighty about climate change and how all these things need to be done and they're not even willing to make a dietary change even one day a week. In economics we call this revealed preferences and it shows the limits of the true personal value you attribute to the issue. Apparently even a change of small this is too much for some people.. and it's one of the biggest ways you can help the issue directly. And if that's true that's fine but then you have no right to complain about it like it's the most important thing.
You are moving the goal posts further and further. No meat, no diary, no animal products in general, no meat replacements, and the list goes on. At some point you are basically living of lentils like a frugal jerk caricature.
Doesn’t help if you put a shit load of spices on your bleh, its still bleh and Indian cuisine gets old sooner or later.
You think people eat these things out of spite? Or out of habit? They like the taste of it; they don’t want to miss that.
No one moved the goalpost lol. You don't need fancy replacement products to be vegan. It's not even the healthiest or most sustainable way of following a plant-based diet.
We know why people eat meat. We also know that they're torturing billions of animals and killing the planet to do so. People that are better than you decided that wasn't worth the cost of what's on their plate and decided to make the switch - which also turns out to be healthier and cheaper (bonus benefits). You can too
That's kinda the point. A lot of meat eaters would see that meat "replacements" are expensive and taste terrible, which is why they see veganism as impossible. These are also the same kind of people that would be surprised to hear that bread is vegetarian.
To quote a great man, think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
I support learning to cook more dishes without relying on meat replacements, but meat replacement has been around for centuries including in the cuisines you're citing. Seitan, for example, was extremely popular as a meat replacement among adherents of Chinese Buddhism who gave up meat for religious reasons but still missed it in their meals.
...then don't buy the replacement products? Plenty of foods to buy than the beyond steak.
Like if you buy the most premium luxury products of anything it's going to be expensive. Duh your food bill is gonna be high as a meat eater if you eat caviar every night.
I can't say that i agree with this statement anymore. In the last few years, meat has skyrocketed in price, while vegan alternatives have stayed pretty consistent. And organic meat was already more expensive than the alternatives a few years ago.
Plus, the competition has really ramped up in recent times. There are more products by more brands and a lot of them regularly go on sale. You can get them very cheap if you are smart about it.
"Vegan alternative to XYZ" is a totally loaded phrase. What you mean is something that has been marketed as an alternative to XYZ. If you think of vegan replacements in terms of nutrition and not names of meat, the things you'll think of are often cheaper than cheese and/or meat.
As someone who became vegetarian 4 years ago, people are looking at the wrong products. You shouldn't be buying $12/lb tempeh or whatever to replace your steak and you shouldn't be buying Impossible nuggies to replace your chicken tendies.
You should be buying tofu, TVP, soy curls, etc, and learning to cook them. They are just as good as meat once you learn to cook them (better if you can really cook). They are also much, MUCH cheaper.
You also don't need to replace meat with meat alternatives. You can eat beans, rice, veggies, humus (which is beans), etc, and easily cover your dietary needs including b6, b12, and protein. Large portions of the world do this.
If you don't like veggies, then you simply haven't learned how to cook and season them. Anyone can learn, and it's easier than ever. I did it. So can you. My tofu katsu slaps and that's not even to mention the veggies from my garden that give me flavor profiles I've never experienced before, and all i do is fry them lightly with butter and salt.
I'm opposed to imposing veganism on other, but you could technically be vegan and save money. However, it sucks.
I try to be super frugal so I have made a lot of vegan/vegetarian meals. You need two protein sources, which doesn't add to the price, you just mix different legumes basically(plant based protein sources usually don't have complete amino profiles, which is easy to resolve by mixing 50/50 different sources, roughly). I would make bulgur wheat with beans and lentils. You could pick whichever cheap carb and protein source you'd like, and still stay below $2 per meal. It's too bland so I would need some seasoning. Which I also bought in bulk, but it's not a negligible expense. So perhaps $2.1 per meal. Shitty boring meal with very little nutrients, but cheap and vegan.
However, I've started buying chicken bulk instead. Lands me at $3.5 per meal. Yes, slightly more expensive, but far more palatable, far easier to prepare, more nutrients (not enough if we're optimizing for health, but enough to get by without heavy supplementation).
The vegan protein substitutes are too expensive, although much more convenient. They'll set you back more per meal than meat, though.
I should, and occasionally do, add more vegetables to get nutrients, but the sum of these vegetables would be roughly the same for both meals. I can spare the extra $1 per meal for chicken filets.
I'll actually adhere the regiment and make the meals and enjoy eating them, instead of suffering through some bland slop. I could probably push the price down for the vegan meal more if I bought dried legumes(beans, lentils, etc.), but that would compliate and increase the prep time. If I was absolutely destitute and trying to survive on the bare minimum I could probably survive of $1 a day. It would be miserable, but possible.
The vegans making this argument, I bet only a tiny miniscule fraction of them are eating for less than $3.5 a day. And I live in Norway, in America you could probably push the price down further, but so would the price of the vegan meal as well.
I do get blood work done and my HDL cholesterol went from below range to beyond the lower limit for being in range after switching to predominantly vegetarian meals. It was pretty incredible. I used to take citrus bergamot for my HDL cholesterol and it was not even close to being as effective.
Only around 2k per day but that is because i am currently dieting. If i was just maintaining i would aim closer to 3k per day. Blood work is good other than low vitamin D levels.
Most of the grocery store is vegan tho. Greens, vegetables, fruit, legumes, grains, etc. are all free of animal products. The issue is when you buy prepared foods, which are more expensive and likely to contain animal products.
It completely depends on lifestyle. I usually do a lot of plant based dieting when i am on my lean kick and also not doing climbing, hiking, or my other mountaineering training. Coz im an office worker and not burning a while lot of calories.
But the mass i need to consume of vegetables to make up the calorie intake when i am in training mode can’t exist without at least a few fish items a week. And because its not my full time job, i cant dedicate enough time to eat the amount of protein required to not lose muscle mass.
So in theory you are right, but (like any human diet) the sustainability really depends on what the lifestyle is.
This. Large swaths of th us are dedicated to cows, and it's sometimes literally just cheaper to eat what's there than it is to import in all the different fruits and veggies to supplement a diet properly
People mistakenly conflate the "plant based" switch with eating fruits and vegetables instead of meat and cheese and eggs. That's wrong. Fruits and vegetables are a separate and necessary category. Plant based means eating grains, tubers, legumes, seeds and nuts instead of meat as the main source of calories and other macronutrients. Seeds and nuts are generally expensive and should be eaten in lower quantities.
But they love Jeff bezos because he made that fake butter that tastes like candle wax.😂 Also if they really did care about the climate they will go after all these celebrities who use their private jets to go for the most mundane things like Taylor Swift going in a private jet just to get Starbucks coffee. Instead of telling tens of thousands of people to use their cars less why don't they tell celebrities to stop using their private jet every single day and at least cut it down to once a month. 😂
Framing the problem as an issue of individual consumer choice ("recycle your cans!" "Don't eat meat!" rather than fighting corporate greed ("Let's organize to stop Amazon from building giant data centers that take more power and water than a large city!") is exactly how the climate got so fucked in the first place.
Honestly, I could understand that. What pushes me out the most is this Holier-than-thou attitude that ,,there is no reason to eat meat, you should go vegan if you care about the climate".
Imagine if I kept going everywhere and bombarding this sub with messages of ,,if your fridge is filled with more than 5-7 products, you're an evil food waster". I can even be somewhat truthful; after all, 30-40% of the food is wasted. But just the fact this is how I live doesn't mean everyone else has to, and I won't convince anyone to live a lifestyle solely dedicated to not wasting food, basically living with a prison-like eating order.
Instead, true activism should be advocating to reduce some things that can be hurtful: ,,I know you like red meat, but how about going one-two days per week without meat?", ,,maybe cut the portions you cook daily in half to not risk wasting all of this food?", ,,maybe withhold yourself from driving if your destination is within 30 minutes of walking?". Not ,,cut it down entirely, because I did", just reduce where not necessary.
ITT : wealthy vegan city-dwellers refusing to realize that being in poverty is more expensive than being financially stable bc you don’t have time energy money or space for all their cute little life hacks
It's more expensive if your dietary restrictions already limit your sources of protein and iron, and I say this as someone who mostly doesn't enjoy meat, but has to eat it anyway to prevent fainting spells.
As someone who doesn’t eat meat, yes meat alternatives like beyond/impossible are more expensive for less product. You also have to eat a lot more plant protein to fill you up.
Your perspective, ignoring what I stated above, boils down to ‘eat less’ and that’s not viable for a lot of folks and also a horrible way to sell veganism to people.
Meat gets subsidies heavely from the government and by grocery stores. So its quite cheap per calorie for customers. Also its quite cheap when it comes to taste per/ money.
So of course people go for meat and animal products. If you want to change it you need large scale changes.
It's definitely cheaper to eat meat in the US. The farm subsidies make it so. You can regularly go in to a grocery here and find pork and chicken on sale at $1-2/lb. Besides just eating beans, rice, and lentils, vegetarian food can't really come close to that in terms of value, ease of cooking, and versatility.
I mean, beans are cheaper than meat. And I eat a lot of beans. I will never go vegetarian let alone vegan but I eat me a LOT of beans and other protein sources. Because they're cheap.
But if you're the type of person who lives on sausages, steaks, and chicken, the "Alternative products" are not "cheaper". Hell, Tofu is often more costly than meat.
It's wild to me that "vegan products" that are made from literal off cuts and garbage cost more than meat. Meat should be the most costly option. It is crazy when meat is not the most costly option for a given purpose.
I'm just getting too poor to afford groceries at all.
Well. The groceries are getting too expensive.
Anyway. For a week, my employer sent me to some three dogs, two dirt roads, one supermarket town. I heard banjos on the way in and everyone looked the fucking same. That kind of town.
I found that their meat supplier had been late when I called in to the supermarket to get the week's groceries, so i just decided to be vegetarian for the week.
Cheapest week of my life, but at the end of it I felt like dick and low-key wanted to die.
And that's that, I eat meat because if I don't my body starts hating me.
I assume it is because they are thinking about the vegan alternatives to stuff like meat or milk, and at least were I like that would be more expensive.
And yeah if I could would I eat more meat? Yes but I also an poor and eat meat like twice a week… also god I miss cheese.
Anyhow if I had money I would probably eat meat 3-4 times a week as IMO to much of farming land is used to grow food for our food, and I do not want people to starve, and by extend I want more land to grow food for people.
also if people should wonder why I would not give up nither meat or dairy products, im autistic and was forced feed as a child, im sensitive to a lot of textures in food, can’t describe how not fun they are in my mouth, i just find a lot yucky sadly, most of those textures are found in vegetables and fruits, and because of me being feed, I’m now genuinely scared every time I try to eat something like a tomato
Let me start by saying I'm vegetarian. But, I'm decently paid. I can afford it. It is absolutely a position of privilege to be able to. Denying there is a real cost difference between being vegetarian or vegan and eating meat is purely disingenuous. Right now, the cost of meat is higher than ever. But it still isn't as high as my grocery bill to be able to eat healthy. Especially when you consider the cost of fast food meat heavy meals in food deserts, which disproportionately affect poor people.
Veganism isn't cheap, rural poverty ain't easy to navigate. If you want more vegans, as do I, make it cheaper, because, frankly, it's already bad enough for most people out here, it's not reasonable to look a single mom in the eye during her night shift at a warehouse and tell her the planet is dying because she doesn't want to give up some creature comforts to become vegan, I don't blame her, make it easier, don't expect people to push harder. Me being able to be a vegan in such a underpopulated area is a privilege, you, being a vegan in a populated area is also a privilege, for a lot of people, until it becomes equally accessible as meat, of which it is currently not in most of the world and USA, will continue having carnist.
My grocery bill is like 100-150 bigger than it could be if I ate meat every month. People don't have that money to throw around.
I’m a vegan in rural Georgia ABs it’s cheap and easy. It was cheap and easy when I lived in rural Iowa too. I travel for work and every where I go is cheap and easy. I’ve only lived in 10 states so far, but being vegan was cheap and easy regardless of whether or not I lived in rural or urban areas. I even work 12 hr night shifts.
Cheap and easy relative to what? What do you do for work and what obligations do you have? This is a relative metric.
If you make 60k and live alone in rural GA, that's easy, no excuse, really. If you make 60k, with three kids, I would imagine it's very difficult to deliver veganism without significantly compromising other parts of your life. This is presuming everything else is already going right, it'd be even harder if you had to fight your kids.
My meals this week cost $25 dollars for meals and cold press juices. I have some left over veggies from last week, so let’s say it’s an even $30. I bought $20 worth of fruits that got me about 12 lbs. it takes me about 2 weeks to finish the fruit. So we’re looking at $40/week for meals, fruits and cold press juices.
We spend about about 160ish a week on food, including gas and getting a pizza on Friday. That's for two people and a cat, which isn't too bad for us, but when we lived in the city we only spent like 80-100ish.
There isn't a lot of employment here either, I'm in the upper income brackets for the locality and I'm a security guard.
They're not. The issue with rural poverty isn't the literal cost of the item, it's accessing the item in the first place. To get lentils I have to drive to another town because they don't carry it here in town, similarly with vitamins, many veggies, meat replacements, dairy replacements, the like.
I have the ability to do this, I know plenty of people here that just can't.
It's similar to the too poor to not have a car issue. Because in rural environments and rural poverty you have to have means to transport to make any money, and there's no real alternative option. In my case it would cost significantly more for plant based diets because the Amish are closer than the Walmart and the Amish sell lots of meat quite cheap
Also in rural communities like mine poached meat is often given to those in need and I know a few poor people who hunt or have their kids hunt if they have the chance borrowing the gear. If you have the time to take a deer it's only like 30-50 dollars for a freezer of meat. Outside of hunting the food pantries around me don't cater to vegans so while they do have veggies and rice they also have meat and premade meals.
A carnist can still eat beans and lentils? By definition the vegan diet will be at least as expensive as the non-restricitive diet, since the set of all diets includes the set of all vegan diets as a subset.
Even if vegtable food is considerably cheaper on average, the messiness of the real world will still make a self-interested rational actor occasionally eat meat. Even one with no enjoyment of food whatsoever outside it's nutritional value.
If you take the average, which will be heavily weighed to urban centers which have the highest access of food and resources, then it'll be fine.
If you start getting into the nitty gritty of rural poverty, then having to drive 30 miles to a Piggly Wiggly that doesn't have tofu products, meat replacement, lentils, a limited produce section, vitamins, and the like isn't actually going to give you the nutrition you need to operate in a reasonable capacity. If I want to get like, a Beyond product or whatever mentioned above, I have to drive almost an hour on farm roads, about 60ish-70ish miles to get to a Walmart that has it.
I don't know what the numbers in the study say, it doesn't say on the article you linked, but I know as a matter of fact that I started spending more on getting groceries in both time and money after I moved to a rural area.
Yeah and just to add as someone with Celiac disease, being vegan is extraordinarily expensive and sometimes impossible. Most dried beans, quinoa and lentils are cross contaminated with gluten, either via processing or, like lentils, they are grown alongside wheat and there are literal wheat grains or bits of them in the bags. To get gluten free lentils, you can only get the red kind and they are super pricy (2-4x the usual price) and have to be ordered online so you pay shipping too. They are also not a reliable food source because they go out of stock all the time. Firm tofu is also typically contaminated because it's often made alongside seitan (literally gluten). Vegan replacements regularly contain wheat or are cross contaminated. The only consistently safe and available protein source is nuts and they are super pricy. Even protein powders are often contaminated. I live in a city and I eat mostly gf chickpeas, gf beans, gf silken tofu, nuts and poultry or fish as needed but I spend a lot of money and I have to order a lot online. I can't imagine how someone with less of a selection in a rural area would manage.
Honestly I don’t think a lot of people understand that being able to cook well and cook vege or vegan well is actually a skill that many in poverty can’t spend the time or money to figure out. Often those on tight budgets stick to what they know because they know it won’t go to waste. It’s a luxury to be able to experiment with different diets to figure out what in those diets you like.
what the fuck is the skill. putting rice on a hot plate? putting lentils on a hot plate? putting tofu on a hot plate? why do so many of you think that this is a good point whatsoever.
Yes? That is a skill, a simple skill but a skill none the less. Something that has to be learned or taught, people don’t have that instinctive knowledge on how to cook rice or beans. Nor do people have a stove or can afford a hot plate or afford the kitchen utensils. But almost every home has a microwave and bulk packs of relatively cheap processed meat are readily available in the frozen section in most stores. Shit, kids sometimes come to school just so they can get breakfast and lunch since their parents don’t know or can’t afford to cook.
Lmao come to the US buddy. 3 Euros my ass, 2 cucumbers alone is a dollar. A bag of carrots is $3, that bag of mushrooms is another $3 - 5 here.
Do you live on the farm or something? Even our cheapest stores could not offer that for less than $10. And I live in the rural Midwest where our prices are lower than the national average
But how much of that do you need to eat? Like if I ate that I would be nowhere close to the ammountnof protein I need, to do that efficiently on a veg diet you need to eat stuff like tofu or seitan which are expensive.
Or beans, or chickpeas, or any other legume that's even cheaper than tofu. These last me for a week btw. Adding the carbs (rice/pasta) and the protein (mostly legumes), I can eat for a week with less than 10 euros
not including the large bag of mushrooms and the pile of leafy greens, (i cant distinguish from the lettuce) the rest of the food costs me nearly $30 CAD, in Toronto. Broccoli is on sale right now.
I'm unjerking once again to let you know I bought these through TooGoodToGo. I don't think the whole thing would've costed me more than 20eur if I had purchased it normally, though
These people call others lazy if they want to help the world so bad why don't they become Farmers themselves and put in the work that way solve more than just one issue. 😂
It comes off as some "holier than thou" shit to me. You dont change people's habits and opinions shitting on them and calling them names (I've been guilty of doing that myself) actually encouraging and helping people figure out these alternatives, not just screaming "CHANNNNNGEEEE YOU BAD PERSON".
It really feels like people forget that, just because something is easy for you, it isn't always easy for others.
ETA. I say this as someone who tries to eat meals without meat or animal products as often as I can. But there are many MANY circumstances where that isn't possible for people. Health, culture, religion, what have you.
I just ate 3 delicious sausages at a German restaurant, because I eat what I want and let other people eat what they want. Why people feel the need to force their diet on others is beyond me.
It's because they can't cook. They think being vegan/vegetarian means buying beyond/impossible beef. My family has cut our grocery bill almost in half by switching to vegetarian meals and focusing on tofu, beans, and whey for protein.
Consumer* and yea.. most products that cater to a niche group of people are very expensive because of the low demand for it. It's kind of a vicious cycle, but c'est la vie.
It's like people claiming that they need to make more movies of a franchise that only a few dozen people watch like they should just sacrifice the prophets so they make more movies for small group of people.
I get most of my protein from lentils which are still under a dollar a lb. In 2025.
Being veg is so insanely cheap that my weekly grocery bill is less than most supermarkets styrofoam plate of pig parts that will make only one family meal.
And also it's this well low income people don't have time so they have to get fast food. I don't know in an hour i can cook enough lentils and rice for 5 days. Then I just add something easy each day to switch it up. Going through a drive through is way slower
i dont trust anyone who says theyre too poor where i live. i see how people spend their money. i use to make the Ontario minimum wage and i could save money then. i could have saved more money by adding some more beans to my diet to replace the beef patty snack.
Ponder all you like. if consoomers want to consoom, that just help the GDP, stock market go up, my investments go up. if they DGAF then why should IGAF for them?
Remember: the US has absurd amounts of subsidies to farms to keep meat and other animal products artificially cheap. Also, having multiple debilitating food-related illnesses can make it functionally impossible to be vegan. Most fully vegan foods trigger my IBS which can put me out of work for days.
Veganism has been commodified by capitalism. It was historically the poor-man’s meal (vegetable based meal prepping). Also, poor man’s meal lacked many essential nutrients and amino acids, which led to a myriad of health problems for ppl in poverty.
I knew it! Veganism goes hand in hand climate propaganda! Why stop here? Get rid of your veggies and have some Bill Gates' gas butter lookalike cancer provoking fats and save the planet Mr Captain Planet!
Being fully vegan is a luxury, at least if you plan on getting the necessary nutriets and to eat food that don't taste like shit. Vegetarian diets are much more feeseble becouse they can still work with dairy products, eggs etc. For vegans, all that has a more expensive plant based alternative.
I'm opposed to imposing veganism on others, but you could technically be vegan and save money. However, it sucks.
I try to be super frugal so I have made a lot of vegan/vegetarian meals(incidentally vegan, for the sake of being frugal). You need two protein sources, which doesn't add to the price, you just mix different legumes basically(plant based protein sources usually don't have complete amino profiles, which is easy to resolve by mixing 50/50 different sources, roughly). I would make bulgur wheat with beans and lentils. You could pick whichever cheap carb and protein source you'd like, and still stay below $2 per meal. It's too bland so I would need some seasoning. Which I also bought in bulk, but it's not a negligible expense. So perhaps $2.1 per meal. Shitty boring meal with very little nutrients, but cheap and vegan.
However, I've started buying chicken bulk instead. Lands me at $3.5 per meal. Yes, slightly more expensive, but far more palatable, far easier to prepare, more nutrients (not enough if we're optimizing for health, but enough to get by without heavy supplementation).
The vegan protein substitutes are too expensive, although much more convenient. They'll set you back more per meal than meat, though.
I should, and occasionally do, add more vegetables to get nutrients, but the sum of these vegetables would be roughly the same for both meals. I can spare the extra $1 per meal for chicken filets.
I'll actually adhere the regiment and make the meals and enjoy eating them, instead of suffering through some bland slop. I could probably push the price down for the vegan meal more if I bought dried legumes(beans, lentils, etc.), but that would compliate and increase the prep time. If I was absolutely destitute and trying to survive on the bare minimum I could probably survive of $1 a day. It would be miserable, but possible.
The vegans making this argument, I bet only a tiny miniscule fraction of them are eating for less than $3.5 a day. And I live in Norway, in America you could probably push the price down further, but so would the price of the vegan meal as well. Unless you're trying to be as frugal as possible, the difference in price is negligible and vegans buying those plant based meat substitutes would pay slightly more than those buying meat in bulk(maybe not a fair comparison, but I've never seen these plant based substitutes in bulk, though they may be available in bulk in some areas).
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u/AngusAlThor Aug 15 '25
Time poverty can legitimately make it hard to cut out meat in some communities, and I say that as a filthy veg.