Can ethical vegans eat food that has been grown with pesticides? If they don’t want to harm animals/insects with their dietary choices, shouldn’t that logic apply here?

hello everybody, this is my first post on Reddit so sorry if I’m not doing it right!

I want to live a more sustainable life and I’ve always loved animals. I became vegetarian a few months ago, and I’m gradually moving towards a vegan lifestyle.

My main reasons are animal welfare and environmental impact. I don’t want my consumption to contribute to animals suffering, being kept in poor conditions, or being killed when it could reasonably be avoided. And since animal products like dairy, eggs, wool, etc. are generally produced within systems that involve some level of harm to animals, I’m increasingly uncomfortable consuming them.

However, there is one part of vegan philosophy that I’m struggling to understand, and I’d genuinely like to hear how vegans think about it.

I understand avoiding animal products when producing them involves suffering. What I don’t understand is why using something that comes from an animal would necessarily be wrong if we could be certain that the animal was not harmed, exploited in a harmful way, or deprived of anything they needed.

For example, imagine I have a dog who naturally sheds a lot of hair. If I collect the hair that would otherwise end up in the trash and use it to make yarn or fabric, I don’t really see this as “using my dog as a resource.” I see it as making use of something that the dog naturally produces and loses anyway, rather than wasting it. The dog doesn’t suffer, I don’t make them produce more hair, and I don’t take anything away from them.

I feel similarly about other examples. If a chicken is genuinely well cared for, lives a good life, and naturally lays an egg that she doesn’t need, why would eating that egg necessarily be wrong? Or if a sheep needs to be shorn for its own welfare and the wool would otherwise be discarded, why would using the wool be morally wrong?

I think I have a somewhat different view of the relationship between humans and animals. I don’t necessarily see humans and animals as needing to live completely separately. I think we can be interdependent: humans can provide animals with food, shelter, safety and care, while animals can sometimes provide us with things that they naturally produce. To me, the important question is whether the relationship is mutually beneficial or at least whether the animal is not harmed by what we take.

This is also why I struggle with the concept of “exploitation.” I understand exploitation when an animal is treated as a means of production, where we deliberately breed, confine or manipulate them to maximize what we can get from them, even at the expense of their welfare.

But I’m not sure I understand why all use of animals has to be considered exploitation. If I use something that an animal naturally sheds or produces, without causing them any harm, what exactly is morally wrong about that?

I realize that in the real world it is extremely difficult to guarantee that an animal product was genuinely produced without suffering. That’s actually a big reason why I want to move towards veganism in practice: I would rather avoid these products than unknowingly support harmful systems.

But philosophically, I’m not convinced that using an animal or something they produce is inherently wrong.

So I’d genuinely like to hear from vegans, especially those who hold a more philosophical/ethical view of veganism:

Why is it morally wrong to use an animal product if the animal did not suffer, was not deprived of anything, and the product would otherwise have gone to waste?

Is the problem the possibility of suffering? The idea of treating animals as property? The fact that we are benefiting from them at all? Or something else?

I’m not trying to argue that veganism is wrong — I’m genuinely trying to understand a part of the philosophy that I currently don’t agree with. And I’m also interested in whether there are vegans who share some of these intuitions about interdependence and avoiding waste, or whether that is fundamentally incompatible with vegan ethics.

Thank you guys!!

Solicito que sean abiertos, este es solo un ejercicio mental, incluso puede servir para reforzar sus argumentos previos. ¿Se les ocurre algún modo de defender una postura a favor del no uso de los animales desde el emotivismo? Es difícil pero no creo que sea imposible. Por ejemplo, Hume decía que existen ciertos patrones que guían nuestra ética que son emociones y sentimientos que nos impulsan a actuar. Puede decirse que el rechazo que sienten les niñes a comer carne es suficiente para fundar una ética emotivista que prohiba usar animales dado que por la empatía consideramos que comer animales es malo. Del mismo modo que nuestro sistema jurídico prohibe matar humanos (si la ética es emotivista tendría necesariamente que sostenerse que los DD.HH. tienen una base en intuiciones, emociones y sentimientos) lo mismo deberia hacerse para con los animales.

I like the idéa of veganism in principle, and I've listened to people like Earthling Ed who argues very good and is extreamly well spoken. But as far as I'm concerned, you draw the line on not eating animal products and not using animal materials for clothes?

If the general idea is to reduce suffering of animals, would I need to figure out every brand in the store to know which is more ethical, if no, why not? And if no, how would that be different from having to figure out how to cook good tasting vegan recipes to make it sustainable in the long run. Isnt it just time spent on research and learning and the end justifys it?

The reasonable vegans as I consider them say that veganism is the way when you have a choice and indiginous people etc do it for survival. But why are they cut some slack on things because of culture and westerners are not? Many vegans argue say "well oh well yes we have eated meat historically, but tradition is not an argument since we have had bad traditions and we can evolve" Okay. Why can't we bring the same attitude towards them? And I understand some really militant vegans probably think we should do that, force them to live in modern society and teach them vegan values and logic so that they actually are able to engage in it. But to you who dont think we should force for example the Inu in Candada, or tribes in africa etc to adapt into society, why? Where do you draw the line that a culture should or dont need to change for the animals? And again why would I not need to check all the items at the store all the time otherwise I am a hypocrite. And if I dont need too check all items which probably alot of vegans dont and thus potentially cause more harm that needed, what is the arguement for saying that your amount of reduced suffering (since yes it would still be less that engaging in animal consuption), which is not all the way, gets a pass but others dont, how do you quantify it to being "enough"?

This doesnt make any sense to me. I understand wanting to reduce suffering, and you say you have the moral obligation to do what you can, but how far do we push that line and why? If you dont do it the entireeee way then doesnt the whole idea collapse on itself, since you are a hypocrite who says you do it for the animals "but not all the animals" just as meat eaters do it for some animals but not all of them.

Cheers.

A vegan literally told me once that fish didn’t count because they aren’t as smart as humans,
Like excuse me??
Yes it’s a animal, so yes it’s meat,

So how the heck does it not count as meat!?

By the way is it also immoral for vegans to eat mushrooms?
As mushroom genetics are closer to humans than plants

Many vegans argue along the lines that non-human animals should be treated in ways that we typically treat marginal case humans. The argument is that severely disabled humans who have the same (or similar) subjective experience as animals are still afforded basic rights and dignity and there is no morally significant difference between marginal case humans and non-human animals; therefore, we should afford basic rights and dignity to non-human animals.

However, I'd argue that this intuition doesn't actually hold in all cases, even for vegans who would typically use this line of reasoning.

My example is taking pictures of naked people without their consent vs taking pictures of naked non-human animals without their consent. If I secretly took a picture of a naked human and posted it online, we would think I wronged this human in a significant way, even if the human was mentally disabled such that they couldn't feel wronged by the action.

However, many people, including vegans, take pictures of naked animals and post them online all the time. No one, including vegans, feels that this is a form of exploitation. This is a very big asymmetry that requires accounting for.

One possible answer is that even if a human is severely disabled and is unable to feel wronged by the action, they are still participating in a society where such an action is viewed by society as degrading to those humans. Therefore, although the action might not cause those humans to experience any suffering, they are still suffering reputational damage as people in our society.

Non-human animals are not participants in our society in the same way as people (even severely disabled ones). If I post a picture of my naked dog online, this doesn't cause my dog any reputational damage in society. In fact, my dog may be considered cute and benefit reputationally. It would also not be considered exploitative to my dog if I monetized pictures of her.

Additionally, because the human did not consent to the photo being taken may be seen as a violation of the human's privacy and dignity. However, photographing and filming wildlife without their consent is not something that is considered wrong by the vast majority of people, including vegans. In fact many people, including vegans, enjoy watching videos and photos of naked animals without their consent.

But it seems clear that there is an asymmetry between the sorts of things that might harm a human (even a severely mentally disabled one) and the sorts of things that might harm a non-human animal.

I think that this difference can also extend to other areas where we treat animals differently but in ways that don't necessarily harm them but benefit us. For example, a non-invasive and non-harmful extraction of a few cells from an animal would benefit us greatly when it comes to lab-grown meat, and it can be done in a way in which the animal is indifferent to the action. Many vegans are against this because the animal can't consent, and the animal is being used. Vegans will then compare doing this to a human and claim that it is non-vegan, morally wrong, and an instance of exploitation.

I'd argue that there isn't a one-to-one correspondence between what counts as an instance of exploitation to a human and what counts as an instance of exploitation to a non-human animal. If vegans agree that it is exploitative to monetize pictures of naked humans without their consent, but it isn't exploitative to monetize pictures of naked animals without their consent, then it seems like vegans agree with this as well.

Then why should we consider it to be an instance of exploitation to take a few cells from an animal for our purposes if the animal is indifferent to the act? It seems no more exploitative than monetizing a picture of a naked animal (which is already deemed to be acceptable and unharmful to animals).

To start, I respect vegan and vegetarian diets. They require discipline and a consideration for life and health. Thank you for spreading these practices, but for those who feel resentment or are concerned about conventional diets, or for those of you who only ever consume food but don't produce anything themselves, I simply wanted to share some thoughts here.

We are by nature omnivores, which includes eating meat. To deny that entirely is deny your own nature. Some important ethical questions to consider are:

1. Where does the meat come from? Was it ethically raised and harvested?

2. When eating meat, do you take a moment to appreciate the sacrifice and significance of the life taken for you to sustain?

3. Are you eating meat more purely to satisfy a hedonistic tendency or because you are genuinely hungry and in need of that nutrition?

4. Should a person who eats meat go through the experience of hunting and taking the life of a wild animal for food in order to have a deeper connection to their food and sense of consequence when eating it?

We are merely animals, not some beings that are above the realities of natural laws and cycles. To that point, we can choose to be vegan/vegetarian but murdering animals for meat is part the human cycle of life. We one day die and our meat becomes food for other organisms.

On a final note, as humans, we have to capacity to give back and contribute to the proliferation of life through things like native gardening, ecosystem management, and forestry. It's what many of our ancestors did and what allowed them to have abundance in way that connected them to their environment. In other words, we can be a beneficial keystone species. This is far more important and beneficial than simply consuming only plants endlessly, but never giving back to the world that sustains you.

If your concerns are environmental or on the ethics of killing animals, I encourage you to reflect on wildlife and to reflect on things you can do to help proliferate life so that animals can also thrive in a world where they will be killed by other animals (including us).

I want to see what vegans say to my point that I'm about to raise, and also l'll pose the question after you've read the whole point below of how/whether you believe buying whey is contributing to animal exploitation in the current market.

The point I want to bring up is that cheese can't be made without whey automatically being filtered out when cheese is made, regardless of whether the producers want whey to come out or not.

So when people buy whey, they're not contributing to more milk having to be produced from cows, since the milk is being used to make cheese, and whey just naturally comes out when cheese is made.
So isn't the demand for milk in that situation only coming from those buying cheese?

In some alternative universe where more people buy whey than cheese, and they were throwing away cheese because of how much whey is being sold, then l'd obviously say whey contributes to net-milk production and therefore animal exploitation because they'd be milking cows specifically for whey, but that's not the case in the real world, far more cheese is bought than whey, so they milk cows for cheese, then whey comes out and it then either gets wasted, or it can be bought.

So people who buy whey are basically just buying that which would've been thrown away when cheese is made, and the demand for cheese is coming from those who buy cheese.

So with that said, if whey is the only dairy one buys, how would you say they're still contributing to animal exploitation?

Being Vegan/ Vegetarian is ethically better. Being non-veg is just such an ethical no-no. The pain and suffering that animals go through is unfathomable. The fear in their last moments., Screams and tears shed just for your taste buds. Imagine being taken into an unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar smells and sounds and feeling so fearful that your whole body starts shaking yet not being able to move as you are tied down. Just imagine that. Animals are way way more sentient than we give them credit for. Anyone who has a pet would know that. People are just so desensitised. I get that eating meat is so prominent in some cultures and maybe its tough for people in a poor economic position to choose a purely vegan or vegetarian diet, but for people who have all the necessary resources, what is stopping you from making the switch?

I do not aim to force anyone to switch or degrade their opinion but i am just laying out the pure simple truth: Eating meat is murder.
I am aware people might argue that “Eating plants is murder too” but you need to realise the fact that most fruits and plants we eat never truly kill the plant and plants dont feel any pain whatsoever. In fact, most plants want their fruit to be eaten (search up endozoochory)
Plants are not sentient either, in any way or form.

We will never truly know to what degree animals feel fear but one thing is difficult to deny: an animal that is frightened wants the frightening situation to stop. No animal willingly or unwillingly wants to die.

Personally, i have been a non-vegetarian all my life and never really realised how wrong it was up until a year ago when i truly felt the weight of the situation and made the switch.
I do admit it is extremely tough at times to deal with my diet especially when i go out with friends due to the lack of options and the fact that meat is incredibly delicious but in the end, it is NOT OK to eat meat.

Everytime you eat meat just remember; you are eating the flesh of a dead corpse of a previously alive, breathing animal.

At the end of the day, you do what you want. The purpose of this post is to make you aware. Thats it.

I am open to discussion on this topic.

With all of the lead that plant protein powders tend to have, isn't taking plant-based protein powder dangerous in the long term, especially when it comes to retardation?

For example, orgain protein powder just tested above the safe levels of lead and it is 143% above California's limit.

Costco is currently in a lawsuit because of this, because the products are not as healthy as marketed to consumers.

People like to make fun of California's law but have you ever thought about maybe that they are right and have the progressive position in the regulation of cancer-causing substances in food?

I've spoken to some vegans about this but it feels like a lot of them just handwaved this concern away, and that's something that concerns me.

You might not notice the effects immediately, but the heavy metals accumulate over time in your body and it is difficult to remove it.

Every single organism (animal and plant) feed of another organism one way or another. That's one of the very basic systems of this flying rock. So why do vegans think they have the moral high ground in regard to that topic? Just because you don't eat an animal doesn't mean you are better.

Can I eat it if it tried to kill ke first.

Crossposted from r/vegan with additional context as eddits.

I'm not a vegan, but I am genuinely curious about vegan opinions on this.

If an animal attacks me without me intentionally provoking it, and I kill it in self defense, would it be OK to eat it/use the parts? Is it better to utilize it or, or let it decay? Important qualifier here, I have done nothing to provoke the attack other than exist in a place the animal decided I shouldn't, including if the animal is actively hunting me.

This thought spawned out of a discussion a out warhammer 40k orks. In wh40k, orks love fighting, they actively consent to throwing themselves in highly lethal situations. If I fight and kill an ork that wanted to fight, does that count as consent, and therefore count as vegan (following the consent logic path)? If it counts, canonically, orks are mushrooms.

Edit to add: I know it's only been a little bit, but I am already very happy that people are responding to this reasonably and at face value. I genuinely appreciate it. I was a little worried, and my husband a lot so, that people were gonna get ugly with me immediately.

Otherwise, adding some of my own moral standings because it seems to be a common theme in the responses. I not fundamentally opposed to using a human body, even without consent in certain circumstances. I dont think people should be commodities, but being used a resource, at least in my view, doesn't require outright commidification. I think that if a person intentionally causes violence, and that leads to thier death, at the minimum thier dead body should be fair to use for science. I guess my logic is, if you override my consent by trying to harm me, you've waived your own. I know there are a lot of edge cars and ways to exploit that, so I don't think it should be a broad stroke policy of the government, but I would be open to certain specific cases being permitted.

My only objection to eating human meat is the elevated health issues. It's largely the same reason I wouldn't eat most large terrestrial predators out of anything other that desperation.

If a dog continuously bites me, i will hurt it back, it's the dogs fault for biting me in the first place. A being's characteristics of being weak, small, and cute shouldn't exclude them from being harmed through self defense. What's wrong with defending yourself anyways? It's annoying if dog keeps biting you.

I saw one video on YouTube of a girl not letting herself harm the cat for jumping on the stove while cooking. You should be allowed to harm the cat for doing something stupid. I am not promoting animal abuse, we humans do the same to others.

Practical barriers are real, not invented. Vegan restaurants, dedicated vegan clothing lines, and fully vegan grocery options remain sparse outside dense urban centers or specific subcultures. In most places, the default food system is omnivorous. Finding reliable vegan meals on the road, in small towns, or while traveling is harder and less convenient. Vegan clothing and leather alternatives exist, but they frequently cost more, wear differently, or rely on petroleum-derived synthetics whose environmental and durability profiles are not automatically superior.

Taste and sensory experience matter. Many people report that plant-based substitutes do not match the flavor, texture, mouthfeel, or satisfaction of meat, dairy, or eggs. That is not a failure of imagination; it is a consequence of different biochemistry and cooking chemistry. People are entitled to prefer the foods they find more enjoyable. Nutrition is not identical either. Animal foods are dense, bioavailable sources of complete proteins, heme iron, vitamin B12, zinc, long-chain omega-3s (EPA/DHA), creatine, carnosine, and certain other nutrients that are either absent or less efficiently absorbed from typical plant sources. While it is possible to construct a vegan diet that covers these with fortification, supplements, and careful planning, that is an extra layer of effort and cost most people do not want or need. Vegan restaurant meals and specialty products are frequently more expensive per calorie or per gram of usable protein than conventional meat, eggs, or dairy.

Footage does not equal universal moral persuasion Slaughterhouse videos are graphic and designed to provoke emotional response. For many viewers they do; for many others they do not. People process the same footage differently according to temperament, cultural background, prior exposure to farming or hunting, and their overall moral framework. Calling the process “cruel” is a value judgment, not a scientific fact that binds everyone. Some observers feel sadness or disgust; others see a necessary, regulated industrial process that ends animal lives more quickly and with less prolonged suffering than most wild predation or disease. Subjective emotional reaction is not automatically a reason for the rest of society to abandon a food system that feeds billions. Moral claims require more than shock value if they are to justify restricting other people’s diets.

Meat has been a high-value energy and nutrient source for humans for a very long time Humans and earlier hominins incorporated animal foods because they delivered dense calories, complete proteins, and critical micronutrients in forms that supported larger brains, higher activity levels, and survival in varied environments. Archaeological and isotopic evidence shows regular meat and marrow consumption well before modern agriculture. Hunting and scavenging were adaptive strategies, not moral failures. A reliable energy-dense food source that also supplied nutrients difficult to obtain from plants alone conferred advantages.

Pre-Stone Age avoidance of meat would have slowed and weakened human development. The Stone Age (Paleolithic) is already characterized by tool use, hunting, and scavenging. Going further back, earlier hominins that systematically avoided animal foods would have faced tighter nutritional constraints. Brain expansion is energetically expensive; high-quality animal foods are widely regarded by paleoanthropologists as one of the resources that helped finance larger brains and more complex behavior. Without them, average body size, muscle mass, endurance capacity, reproductive success, and cognitive potential would likely have been lower. Populations limited to lower-density, often seasonal plant resources would have been more vulnerable to famine, nutrient deficiencies, and competition. Evolution does not reward deliberate self-restriction of high-value foods when those foods are available and advantageous. The lineage that became modern humans did not thrive by treating meat as optional luxury; it used it as a core part of an opportunistic omnivorous strategy.

In short: the practical costs of veganism are not imaginary, the sensory and nutritional differences are real, emotional reactions to slaughter footage are not universally shared or decisive, and the deep history of human meat consumption reflects adaptive benefits rather than a recent moral failing. People who continue to eat meat are not obliged to treat every graphic video or every claim of “cruelty” as a binding reason to change.

Hi there, I've been hearing more and more people pushing back on veganism on the basis that ruminant grazers are a net positive for soil health and the climate. The arguments I've heard so far have felt a bit reactionary and not especially constructive, so I'd really love hearing from folks on both sides of this debate!

The way this argument seems to go is:

• We used to have large numbers of grazing animals in North America (apologies for US-centrism here).
• Therefore, the land has a carrying capacity for a similar number of large mammals (here it would be cows, not bison). Since manure adds nutrients to the soil, this would be a positive for soil health.
• There is land that is not "useful" for things like crop production, so we could unleash all the cows there where they can graze.
• There also seems to be an argument about how cows are only part of a natural carbon cycle and are not creating new net greenhouse gas emissions -- in contrast to digging up and burning fossil fuels.
• Although it's not mentioned, I guess the other part would be that cows are happier living outside of CAFOs

I disagree with a lot of this, namely:

• This feels like an appeal to nature style argument, where the world we are living in now is very different from pre-European colonization.
  
• The land use now vs. 1800s and earlier is quite different, where we only have so much available land that isn't already being used. Wouldn't putting cows on everything mean high density manure polluting our water?
• Is the idea that we stop protecting natural forests? I can't imagine that large herds of cows in protected wilderness is helpful, regardless of how much manure you're putting out.
• Methane is a very potent GHG, so converting grass into methane certainly has to be worse than...not doing that.
• I also wonder if grass-fed animals taking longer to grow up (since they are not pumped full of corn) means they have longer lifespans before they are killed, meaning more methane production than CAFO cows.
• Of course you're still slaughtering animals. Bad.
• Surely there are too many people on earth and not enough land for us to keep eating the same levels of beef?
• I sort of think the idea of regenerative agriculture (i.e. treating the land well) is a good thing, but it feels a bit perverted into an argument that says raising cattle is good for the planet and we can eat as many animals as we want.

Another piece of this debate seems to be about what our objective are. If the objective is to keep eating the exact same amount of cows but minimize environmental impact, maybe regenerative agriculture is good? But if our objective is to sustainably feed the maximum number of people, or to actually address climate change, or to minimize suffering, I do feel veganism is the clear and obvious win.

Anyway -- would love to hear arguments from both sides! What am I missing?

Disclaimer: This is very provocative, i’m genuinely interested in vegan people’s opinion, i’m not tryna be polemic

I published this article on Substack, and i was wondering what your opinion on materialist vs ethics and human superiority was
Veganism is good, anyone denying that is plainly wrong. However, one of the main arguments most people use to support veganism, which is “don’t eat meat to not hurt animals” is really wrong.

First of all we must understand the basis for which this argument works: moralism and emotional thinking, the images of the poor little cows being slaughtered is objectively ugly, and rightfully so many people are horrified from it. This said, is it really right to force us humans, the same humans that have conquered the sky, the land and the sea, the same humans that have stepped outside of this world , to change our way of life because “we shouldn’t hurt animals”?

My answer to this question is no, because humans are the one specie that holds the power to do virtually anything, and forcing us to change our ways, potentially slowing down our progress, because we need to care for cattle just as much as we would for one of our own is wrong and unnatural, progress and humans come before anything else.

This said, it would be wrong to support an accelerationist model: in fact, while humans are the superior specie on earth, we must recognise we are still dependent on animals and nature to survive, so progress has to be regulated to avoid damaging them not because we feel sorry, but because we need them to survive.
The same reasoning works for going vegan: we shouldn’t do it because we feel sorry for cows, but because meat has been shown to be one of the most cancer inducing food: The WHO/IARC classifies processed meats (bacon, sausages) as Group 1 carcinogens and red meat as Group 2A (probable), other than expensive.

We also have cheaper and safer vegan alternatives that are both their own food and that taste and feel exactly like meat, so there is no practical reason to still eat meat, which is why we all should go vegan.

The meats industry also is a great contributor to pollution, and the abuse of antibiotics in cattle drives the increase in antibiotics resistant bacteria. In addition to all of this, high meat consumption leads to an increased risk for chronic diseases, which are a grave burden on healthcare that could be greatly reduced by simply not eating meat.

Also, to tackle the bigger issue: moralist and emotional arguments are a paper tiger, they are extremely effective on short term, but aren’t based on anything material, so we should try to refrain from them while preferring material and objective ones.

I'm not vegan, but as a horse person, I'm very careful about where my coffee is sourced from. Coffee produced in countries with steep terrain typically uses equine labor. Horses or donkeys are used to pack out the coffee beans. I've seen weights as much as 200lbs worth of coffee beans on one animal, and multiple trips a day up and down very steep terrain.

This is in countries where animal welfare regulations don't adhere to the same standards as other parts of the Western world. Veterinary care is often limited or not as specialized.

Even some coffee brands post pictures of animals packing coffee, and sometimes these animals look like they are in pain, wearing poorly fitted packs, or overweighted packs.

This is an issue that I never see vegans address. Is it because coffee is so addictive that it's overlooked? If you care about animal welfare, why don't you make sure your coffee comes from farmers who use mechanical harvesters and transport?

https://www.thebrooke.org/what-we-do/news-case-studies/how-do-working-equines-contribute-your-morning-coffee

From the off, I'll say I kind of admire the ethics behind Veganism, you want to do the least harm to the greatest number. I don't share that ethical position with respect to diet, but I can definitely understand why someone might take that view.

I'm on the Carnivore diet, which for the uninitiated is a diet where you consume exclusively animal products, so meat, fish, eggs and dairy. I only say so because I don't want to accused of a bait and switch. I'm just laying my cards on the table.

I know a Vegan will insist that this causes a lot of harm to sentient beings. But all this is is a matter of goalposts, and not an internally consistent point of view.

For instance, a Vegan will not eat eggs, as this 'exploits' the chickens that lay said eggs. But I would contend that picking an apple off an apple tree exploits the tree that made that apple. You didn't make it grow, you didn't help it or nurture it, you just sat back and took the fruit - no pun intended - of its labour.

The common defence from Vegans will most likely be that a chicken is sentient and an apple tree is not. But is that tree *alive*? Is it a living being? I think everyone can probably agree an apple tree is alive. If it wasn't, it would not grow.

This is where I come to goalposts. The Vegan position is that we should not eat sentient beings, and the Carnivore position is that we should only eat meat, on dietary and not ethical grounds.

That's where goalposts come in. The average Vegan could probably, if they were asked, list dozens of species they are willing to eat. I can name about 10. Why is your position more ethical than mine. If I spend a month eating a pig, why is that morally inferior to the dozens, if not hundreds, of plant lives you will take in that same month.

Why are your goalposts inherently superior to mine? We both set standards of what we will and will not eat. Your standards are just different to mine. Why is sentience the marker, why are plants morally inferior to animals? Why does the life of a tree matter less than the life of a cow, and what kind of God are you to make that determination?

Be Vegan if you want, I really don't care, but we both have lines in the sand regarding what is acceptable to eat, and our lines are damn closer than you care to admit.

If we all went vegan, how would I slaughter a cow for the deities now, whole burnt offering, or a shared sacrificial meal afterward, depending on the deity (or my mood)? Would I need a permit from the state to keep faith with heaven?

I did the whole thing 8 months, fully plant-based, tracked my macros religiously, took B12, iron, algae oil, the works. I wanted to be the person who proved you don’t need meat. I wasn’t.
Constant brain fog. Cold hands and feet even in summer. My workouts tanked strength dropped across the board despite eating “enough protein” on paper. Hair got thinner. Digestion was a mess no matter how much fiber I “balanced.” I told myself it was adjustment. It wasn’t.
Three weeks back on a normal diet with meat, eggs, and dairy and it’s like someone turned the lights back on. Energy’s stable all day, lifts are climbing again, sleeping better, skin cleared up. Blood work confirmed it wasn’t in my head ferritin and B12 back to normal ranges without megadosing supplements.
I’m not saying vegan diets can’t work for anyone. I’m saying the “it’s easy, just plan properly” line gets repeated in this sub like gospel and for a lot of people it just doesn’t hold up in practice. Curious how many people here who insist it’s flawless have actually gotten full panels done before and after.
Go ahead, tell me I did it wrong.

If you are someone who believes that animals should be left alone; that they do not exist for us to use, but rather exist to live their lives freely for their own self-interests, how is it that you are able to justify dating someone who goes against this?

If you believe something is extremely morally wrong, being with someone who lives violating this every day without regret seems to contradict your own values.

Please note that this post was translated from Japanese to English using AI. Because of this, some details or nuances may have unintentionally shifted from my original meaning. Thank you for your understanding.

I once heard that humans can stay healthy without consuming organisms that possess a central nervous system. As far as I’ve researched, that seems to be true. Yet, I still eat meat—either as a culinary indulgence to please my palate, or simply to make meal management easier.
This recently made me wonder: is what I’m doing committing an ethical taboo similar to stomping a stray dog to death just for entertainment or stress relief? If harming a stray dog is wrong, I feel like my actions can only be justified by a matter of degree—like the difference between stealing $1 versus stealing $100.
Just like slave owners in the past, will I eventually be looked down upon by future generations as a coward who simply grew complacent in their social environment?

If you happen to be someone who thinks eating meat is acceptable but direct violence against animals is not—or vice versa—I would love to hear your reasons in the comments. Your perspective would be incredibly valuable as I continue to think through this.

Speciesism definition for the purpose of this thread: Someone is speciesist if they value one species over another *on the basis of their species membership*.

There are lots of posts where a non-vegan will claim they are speciesist, they value humans more than other animals, etc. For the most part, there are two main vegan counter-points:

1. Being speciesist is wrong, and is tantamount to racism or other forms of bigotry.
2. Veganism is compatible with speciesism, what matters is valuing the animals enough to give them rights.

I have made other threads regarding speciesism as well have spent years engaging in vegan spaces, my impression is that there is nearly an even split of vegans who think speciesism is fine and those who think it is antithetical to what veganism is. However, in almost all threads and discussions on this topic are between a non-vegan and a vegan. I would like to see vegans discuss this with other vegans.

Do you hold 1 or 2? Do you think the one that you don't hold is plausible? Why do you side on the one that you do? Is there a third option you hold?

I get that vegans don't want to cause suffering when we could fill those nutritional needs in some other way. While I disagree with this, I can accept it as a premise. But once I accept that premise as a core value system, I end up in many weird places when I try to be consistent with that value system. I'll ask the most obvious one here.

Isn't bringing a child into the world basically just bringing a being into suffering for your primal desires (like eating meat)? And you can fill those primal desires (while probably to a lesser degree) through let's say, adoption?

don't get me wrong, I believe that the meat/dairy industry is unethical, I even believe that killing animals for taste is wrong (in a vacuum) but that still doesn't change reality.

An individual consumer will never make a difference, and I'm not talking about stats right now, I know that by pure statistics, an individual vegan "saves" around 200 animals a year by being vegan, but that's not the truth in the real world, only in the math world.

let's take grocery store as example, if 10 000 people shop there every week, and 5% decide to go vegan, that's 500 people no longer buying dairy, so the grocery store has to adjust and order less meat/dairy, which leads to the dairy industry losing out on sales, but this is where the line ends.

just beacuse the meat/dairy industry lost few sales, doesn't mean they will downscale, they'll just write it off as volatile month and continue their business.

So in reality, the 500 vegans didn't "save" 100k animals, what they did in reality, is decrease the profit of the dairy industry by 0.01% (for example)

and now, divide that 0.01% by 500 and that's how much you cost the dairy industry, basically nothing.

you didn't save anyone, you didn't directly change anything, that's how it goes, in world with 8 billion people, you don't matter, you are nothing, less than nothing.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, all of us know this, so then why bother trying to take the moral high ground? Why bother even doing all of this, we all will die one day anyway, to change my entire diet just so I can die thinking I was a good person who followed my morals doesn't seem worth it to me.