this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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Welcome to c/vegan@lemmy.world. Broadly, this community is a place to discuss veganism. Discussion on intersectional topics related to the animal rights movement are also encouraged.
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I'm not Beaver, but I think they're understandably frustrated at consistently being berated for trying to do good by adherents to a prevailing belief system whose widespread harm goes almost completely unchallenged by society. You can see that even this post in a vegan community which is nothing but a polite ask followed by robust scientific sources is at a 75% upvote ratio because veganism is so irrationally hated by society at large that overwhelming scientific evidence for its healthfulness is a target of disapproval.
Pretty nice overall. Food's cheaper, you tend to feel like you have more energy, you often end up discovering interesting and really great new foods that you wouldn't have with a diet revolving around animal products, and your GI tract works like clockwork. Super bizarre, that last one, but I can't not mention it.
All slurs are made up, but this isn't one inherently; "carnism" is just a way to describe the ideology "in which people support the use and consumption of animal products, especially meat. Carnism is presented as a dominant belief system supported by a variety of defense mechanisms and mostly unchallenged assumptions". (Quoted from Wikipedia because they summarize it excellently.) It's a way to challenge that the idea that "veganism" and "vegetarianism" are ideologies while carnism is just "normal". It can be used as a slur, but that's every word for an ideology ever.
You should know that vegans get this all the time. Because vegans care about animals and the environment (the latter of which of course helps the animals too), this comes off as "you better police your tone or the animal killing will continue, and you wouldn't want that, now would you?" This could work, because ultimately all vegans want is to see as few animals exploited as possible, but it can ring hollow for reasons in the next paragraph.
People very often engage extremely politely outside of vegan subs in relevant areas (e.g. posts to news articles about animal welfare) and are downvoted to hell for it, their voices drowned out by ridiculous, bad-faith pseudo-arguments which are easily debunked and regurgitated so often that there's a running joke about vegan bingo. It's frustrating to vegans when carnists have an absolute right to make fun of vegans as malnourished zealots whose way of living is often compared to a fate worse than death, is tantamount to child abuse if imposed on one's children, and is so tenuously held that they just need to "try a cheeseburger" and wake up out of the Matrix. But if they so much as speak out of turn (like what Beaver said is pretty tame in the grand scheme of things, right?) after being berated constantly for just existing, let alone politely broaching the subject where it's relevant, then this is why nobody likes vegans and we were right to make fun of you this whole time and just for that, I'm going to go kill a chicken and vegans are religious extremists.
Vegans tend to distinguish a plant-based diet from being vegan, as vegans stick to it as a way of promoting animal welfare, but more importantly, there are products outside of their diet such as leather that they don't consume either. So you're interested in a PBD, which is still a huge reduction in harm. People who haven't tried one often treat a PBD as a huge commitment, but as a hobbyist cook with not a lot to spend on ingredients, it's one of my favorite parts of being vegan. I have a really hard time making and sticking to lifestyle changes, but I consider it one of the easiest things I've ever done because I feel better, and I enjoy the food I cook and eat more than before. You might be interested in /c/homecooks on vegantheoryclub.org or /r/veganfoodporn on Reddit.
For a while, I landed on the idea that I would be pescetarian and stayed there for a while. From a health perspective, a lot of the benefits of a plant-based diet also come with the so-called Mediterranean diet, and so that's what I wanted. I weaned off of fish largely for environmental reasons at the time, although I also decided that if I wouldn't want to kill a fish with my bare hands, I wouldn't want to pay someone else to do that either. And lastly, I stopped consuming animal products altogether after watching the Dominion documentary. I was never vegan because I was of the opinion that it only slightly reduced the amount of harm from vegetarianism and that vegans were bitter idealogues trying to enforce purism. After the documentary, however, I realized that instead of being 90% of the way there, I was maybe more like 50% if I'm being generous. And so I started cutting out animal products like dairy.
As for "how to maintain that", I think I had a good experience sticking to it because I was able to focus on eliminating specific foods and how to replace them rather than just being thrown into figuring out how to replace large components of my diet. While it is entirely possible to get on and stick to a plant-based diet cold turkey when doing it for ethical reasons, if it's strictly for dietary ones, then I suggest just cutting out red meat first. This is what I did, and I think it's a good starting point both if you're concerned about ethics and the environment and if you don't care about either of those and just want to be healthier.
The key to a PBD is nonperishable staples like legumes, nuts, seeds, and grains. Those can be paired with fruits and vegetables. For plant-based milk, I highly recommend Almond Breeze unsweetened (not vanilla), as I think this is about as close to milk as you can get without drinking the sweetened kind (which destroys a huge health benefit of switching to plant milk) or drinking pea milk (which is the best but is expensive). But if almond milk isn't your thing, the amount of variety for plant milk is so enormous that you'll probably land on something you like if you keep trying. I think it's paramount to have a wide variety of dry spices bought in bulk, because these along with sauces take what can be boring foods and turn them into something incredible. This isn't so much a concern for a health-centric PBD, but getting mired down in plant-based alternatives to animal-based ones (I think with the exceptions of milk and yogurt) is the easiest way to make it as hard as possible, because it's really not sustainable if you have any sort of a budget. Lastly, knowledge of what non-homemade foods are plant-based just comes with time, but if you're doing it for health reasons rather than ethical ones, the fact that milk powder rears its head in places it has no business being would be much less of a concern.
Much appreciated. I think the stigma of vegans as people physically wasting away for their beliefs ought to be addressed first because it's really just incorrect, and while there's a kernel of truth because nutritional deficiencies can happen if you're extremely stupid about it (fruitarians come to mind), I think a huge part of it comes both from industry propaganda and from something people can hide behind so they don't have to confront the ethics of animal agriculture ("well it's that or being healthy, so..."). It's possible to go plant-based and have nutritional deficiencies, but it's also possible to have a terrible, nutritionally deficient omnivorous diet. If done right (which shouldn't be a lot if you don't have some sort of medical issue; I supplement B12 via nutritional yeast and am otherwise pretty loose with my diet, and my labs are always great, even much better than before), you can easily be healthier than on an omnivorous diet in huge part thanks to the reduction in saturated fat and the increase in unsaturated fats and fiber.
Thank you much for the verbose reply. I think I have misunderstood the concept of veganism up until this point, conflating its fundamentals with PBD. It seems like the PBD is actually a byproduct of the concept of veganism rather than the starting premise.
That being said, I don't think I can engage with the "vegan community" in a way that is satisfying to either party. I grew up eating an animal protein every meal, but I don't feel like that's really necessary or beneficial in the long run. There are lots of good reasons to go PBD, but I'm looking at it like alcohol: I enjoy it, but I don't need to have some every single day. Cutting back (or out) is objectively good, but I'm just not interested in completely removing animal protein from my life. Maybe for that reason, a key problem I have getting comfortable in a PBD is I don't want to eat plants pretending to be meat or dairy or cheese: the ones that I have had are like if I described to a scientist what gas station cheese / butter tastes and feels like. I would rather eat plant dishes that are tasty and nutritious in their own right without a supplement sprinkle / other ingredients pretending to be eggs or milk or what have you.
It's not easy to get started building a repertoire of meals, but you've at least given some good tips besides letting me know I'm looking in the wrong place / barking up the wrong tree.
I will reread what you wrote again tomorrow.
Praise be the good faith interaction.
Indian, Ethiopian, some Mexican (e.g. bean stews), the Buddhist food in SEA and EA food (Thai in particular) are all great places to look for food that is "not trying to be" carnist variations.
Almost all of us grew up eating animals every day, I would strongly recommend the dominion documentary linked. It is not an easy watch but it is important to know what is actually going on. Unlike alcohol, the harm isn't just to you. The change seems harder than it is, realistically almost immediately you'll probably feel better (combination of health + feeling good about your choices) which makes it a lot easier.
I'll give a watch when the holiday weekend is over, probably not great content for my 2 kids under 4.
Favorite Ethiopian dish? Been wanting to try making something in that vein.
TBH I don't make it enough to have a favourite dish, my sister does more than me and I just love everything she pulls out at family gatherings. I'm more Szechuan/Thai/Indian and weird experimental, improv food myself.
Shiro wat is pretty good. A thick soup made of chickpea flour (buy at an Indian grocery, everywhere else it will be more expensive and lower quality) thickened with nut-butter. A comforting and simple meal.
Everything berbere I've had is great. Actually making something based on that mix today but it's more a everything leftover in the fridge than recipe haha.
Sis makes some sort of peanut stew. Idk what it's called but it slaps, it's almost like satay in that it's a thick, rich saucy stew. Instead of fish and like flavours though it leans earthy. Good shit, may find if you look around.
Without elaborating further, I'll agree that no kid should be going anywhere near this documentary.
Yeah... I still get flashbacks
Thank you so much for this reply. I really appreciate you taking the time to write this. I wish more people would read it as with your other comments!