Why most vegans are usually stupid
 Me eating local farmed mussels - © Satu |
There's something I have been wanting to put into writing for quite sometime and that is why most vegans are usually stupid. I don't mean they have a brain the size of a pea or anything no - it's more that they don't use their brain (however big it may be) to consider their ecological footprint. The vegans I have met are fairly self righteous about their lifestyle and often feel certain that the way they live their life leaves the smallest ecological footprint on the earth. Usually I find they have failed to consider several major factors. Just because you eat vegetables and no animal products doesn't mean your diet is totally eco-friendly. While it's true that for every pound of meat you could grow many times more vegetables therefore using up less resources - eating a carrot for example may have required an unknown number of unenvironmentally friendly things (including animal cruelty) to happen before it got to your mouth.
The things I try to consider are:
1) Were any chemicals used which may have had detrimental impacts on the surrounding environment? - most artificial fertilizers and pesticides are damaging to wildlife and humans so I buy organic produce whenever possible. However, although a product may be "organic" that does NOT mean that dead animals were not used to grow it (fish and bone fertilizer - hmm?) and that the fertilizers used were from sustainable sources.
2) Is the product fair trade? - it's often difficult to find fair trade products but I when I see them I always buy them instead of similar items which are not fair trade.
3) Are there any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in it? - I avoid GMOs because the potential and proven environmental disadvantages outweigh the mostly unproved advantages.
4) How far has this product travelled? - I try to buy local produce as much as possible and avoid imported foods from a long way away. The environmental impacts (most notably C02 emissions) of food transportation are a major factor when considering your ecological footprint.
I also try to apply similar ethics to buying clothes and other products although it's not so easy finding things like organic cotton in local shops - especially in small places like Bermuda. Vegans however, boast about the fact that they don't wear wool or leather but what about their plastic shoes and their cotton shirts? There is more to being an ethical consumer than simply drawing a line between plants and animals. I do take my hat off to any vegan who buys local organic produce and wears natural organic clothes. However, most of the vegans I have met do not consider the things I have listed to be as important as the issues involved in livestock farming.
I am totally against livestock farming on land (especially factory farming but when it comes to the sea - as long it's sustainable and doesn't involve needless cruelty - I'm buying it! Of course my oceanic diet is fairly restricted because these days we're overfishing and depleting the oceans of life *rolls eyes* so there isn't much you can eat from the sea without a guilty conscience. However, local line caught fish together farmed mussels and tilapia are usually the best options. I'll talk more about them another time - but trust me on this - mussels - unless they are dredged - are like ZERO ecological footprint seafood ;-) and in my opinion are way better to eat than most vegetable sources of protein.
I know that vegans think I am cruel for eating fish that have no doubt suffered pain but when you destroy native flora and fauna in order to grow vegetables - is that not cruel and shouldn't it be avoided as much as possible? Sure we waste a lot of land growing animals and I am against that but it's even better to eat mussels and locally caught fish than it is to eat tofu... unless you consider killing fish and mussels a terrible sin - in which case - you would really need to find out where all your vegetables are coming from because you'll find that lots of animals died or suffered along the way - and I just don't know how you could justify eating anything unless you were a fruitarian that grew all your own organic fruit and if you were - I'd want to meet you and shake your hand to make sure you were real!)
Technorati Tags: [Vegan], [Meat], [ecological footprint], [seafood], [sustainable], [stupid], [environment], [mussles], [mussles]
Comments
Hi Lis,
good thinking here. I have to consider all that I heard, but not long ago I had a discussion with a vegan friend about soy - a plant not grown in Finland nor anywhere near. While she was stuffing soy seeds to her mouth I was enjoying organic, local bread with local cheese and organic tomatoes, and I was wondering - which one of us is more environmentally friendly?
Posted by: Satul'ka | August 18, 2006 08:47 AM
Hi Lisa,
Excellent post, many people are unaware of all the different environmental impacts they have and it can take some research to truly reduce one's environmental footprint.
Thanks for inspiring me to make my blog a bit less text heavy and add some photos and other images.
Satul'ka is quite right to have chosen the local, organic bread, cheese and tomato option.
Posted by: Lamana nasus | August 20, 2006 10:54 AM
Oooops that should have read Lamna nasus not 'Lamana'. :o)
Posted by: Lamna nasus | August 20, 2006 10:56 AM
Lamana nasus wrote: "Satul'ka is quite right to have chosen the local, organic bread, cheese and tomato option."
Local and organic aren't unconditionally the best choice. There are many other factors to consider than those two designations. For example:
My flock of chickens are fed organically. This time of year they forage for most of their food ( I chose this breed for their hardiness and that reason ), but the soy, corn and oats in their commercial feed, though mixed somewhat locally, likely is not grown nearby. The kelp in their feed surely isn't produced locally.
Are their eggs locally produced ? They come from my back yard. I don't know about anyones legal definitions of "local", but it seems that here in New York, USA, where the final salable product comes from is what defines "local".
Dairy in Finland. Hmmm... I don't keep cows, nor know very much about them, but:
The pasture is, of course, local. Cows are also oft fed not only soy, but corn and other grains. Finland - at a rough guess I'll say a little more winter than here, a little less summer. Let's use half the year winter just to save me the searching of statistics.
That would mean that the cows are fed from storage at least half the year. The feed could come from local fields. It could also be trucked in from who knows how far away ?
I'll guess that Finland does not produce all the grain that it consumes, and probably not by far. There's a good chance that much of what is fed "local" cows (or goats ) is mega-shipped from the US central states. To Finland that would mean about 12 or 13 thousand kilometers. Is the milk local ?
Until about 10 years ago Organic Certification here in the US was done by local and regional NGOs. Standards were quite high. Then, in the early-mid nineties the federal government was prompted to wanted a piece of the growing "industry". Now, since the USDA has tried to superimpose it "standards" over prior certifying orgs, many formerly certified organic farmers have dropped the certification. You would have to ask them for the reasons. Me, my farming is very small scale and my standards are generally higher than any certification ever demanded.
So what's in a name ? Check with your local laws about the meanings of "organic" and "local" if you're interested. And then compare what you learn to both what you understand and what you believe "sustainable" means. Those labels "local" and "organic" may have legal and commercial meanings that are quite different than what whomever would like them to mean.
Peace, Joy, Light, and pretzels if you like them,
Posted by: listenin | August 26, 2006 07:48 AM
a real vegan would set a good example by walking all the way from wherever they are to the forest or jungle or whatever of their choosing to lay down and die and let nature consume them.
it is sad of course that any animal must be denied its absolute freedom to be raised for food. but i feel the same way as well for the salad i eat. i even take thought to the salt on my fries which came from either the rock itself or the ocean.
but i dont fanaticise because i trust in humankinds decency to reduce the necessary evils of self perpetuation as much as possible. just breathing will always take more from the earth than we can ever give, that plant could have photosynthesized something else other than your breath.
shouldnt it be okay for vegans to drink milk from a cow anyway, since if a cow is not milked it can cause an infection in its udders and cause it to die needlessly?
what do vegans feed their cats or dogs anyway?
eating seeds is like abortion.
why is eating plants and grains any better than animals, who grow just as naturally.
i have to make a vegan meal for someone whos attending my christmas turkey dinner and its a total hassle. i cant even serve them a slice of cake because theres a couple eggs in it.
vegans could at least set aside their differences *sometimes.* the world is alot less savage now than it was in the past.
You vegans can swallow your pride for a meal and eat a turkey dinner, and next time ill suffer myself to eat a plain salad next time, the karma will be balanced and the world wont spin a little less.
"if you live de life chasing dream, you may miss beauty right in front of eyes." -Borat
Posted by: Marc | December 23, 2006 10:15 AM