Veganise Me

I wanted to create an alphabetical list of actions that cause pleasure or benefit to one party and suffering to the other. Some of these are looked down and illegal in our society, but some are still perfectly legal. But they all cause unnecessary suffering to somebody so I believe those should be reconsidered.

• Animal testing
• Bullfighting
• Child molestation
• Circuses with animals (including aquatic animals)
• Dairy and eggs (in most cases)
• Eating meat
• Hunting / fishing
• Kidnapping
• Buying leather / fur
• Murder / serial killing (depending on the killer and reason)
• Pesticides / “pest” control
• Racial cleansing
• Rape
• Slavery / low paid workers
• Theft
• Torture
• Zoos (in some cases)

Taking the usual meat eater’s justification for continuing their practice, it’s easy to put things into perspective and see how others have justified their actions, however atrocious they seem to the ones who don’t agree with them.

Animals taste good and since I am more powerful I feel I have the right to eat them. Animals are inferior beings, they don’t have our level of intellect so I don’t see anything wrong with eating them. They were bred for this purpose so their suffering is non-important as long as I get meat on my plate. Our society has eaten animals for hundreds of years, it’s a part of our culture and I’m not the one who’ll change that.

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Slaves are useful and since I am more powerful I feel I have the right to own them. Blacks are inferior beings, they don’t have our level of intellect so I don’t see anything wrong with using them. They were bred for this purpose so their suffering is non-important as long as the job gets done. Our society has enslaved other races for hundreds of years, it’s a part of our culture and I’m not the one who’ll change that.

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Women bring me pleasure and since I am more powerful I feel I have the right to rape them. Women are inferior beings, they don’t have our level of intellect so I don’t see anything wrong with raping them. They were born for this purpose so their suffering is non-important as long as I get pleasure. Our society has raped women for hundreds of years, it’s a part of our culture and I’m not the one who’ll change that.

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Jews are not a pure race and since I am more powerful I feel I have the right to kill them. Jews are inferior beings, they don’t have our level of intellect so I don’t see anything wrong with killing them. They are bred for this purpose so their suffering is non-important as long as Germany is free from them. Our society has killed inferior tribes for hundreds of years, it’s a part of our culture and I’m not the one who’ll change that.

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If the above comparisons sound far fetched to you, it’s worth remembering that your current views would sound equally far fetched to those people. I think the time has come to extend our morals to respect all creatures capable of suffering, regardless of color, race, gender or species.

So, I recently started a new job at a church and through the normal ‘getting to know  you’ type stuff, the topic of “why are you a vegan?” obviously comes up a lot.  Usually during meals.  This made me really focus on my “vegan elevator speech” or whatever you want to call it. Basically, a one or two sentence statement that qualifies or explains the reasons why you do what you do.  Mine goes something like this:

God gave man dominion over the animals.  Animals are one of God’s creatures that we are to love and respect.  I do not want to support an industry that tortures and mistreats animals.

There, that’s pretty much a light summary of what I believe.  Of course this is usually followed up by one or two notorious questions:

“So if you don’t eat meat, how do you get protein?”

and

“So I can understand not wanting to kill an animal, but what about cheese and eggs? Nothing dies for those.”

This is good reinforcement for you as to why you believe in being vegan and also can be used as a chance to spark conversation with people who would never think to consider where their food comes from. Also, for new vegans, this might serve as something to hold on to so that when confronted, you have something to say that will, hopefully, knock their socks off.

So here is my question for you guys:

What is /your/ vegan elevator speech? and what are the most common follow up questions?

Two men have been arrested by police hunting the killers of a young pig. In a chilling turn of events it appears that the men have actually eaten parts of the pig’s body.

Officer, Mike Fowler, said this has been one of the most gruesome acts he has dealt with in his 10 year career as an officer.

The pig, a bright 1 year old had been subjected to a gruesome attack as he grazed in a field with his friends and family.

Mrs Kingsbury, a school teacher, said: “This was an entirely species motivated attack.  That pig was killed and eaten purely because he’s of a different species to us – it’s not fair, he couldn’t change which species he was.”

Superintendent Terry Sherwood, of the National Animal Police Association, told the BBC’s Today programme that the murder was “an unequivocal indication that the cancer of speciesism is still here”.

“Unfortunately, young, innocent animals are subject to it, and I think it is a sad day,” he said. “I have every confidence that the police will catch these people and put them before the courts and demonstrate that we will not tolerate these abhorrent acts of speciesism on young, innocent animals.”

Speaking last night, the chief constable, Larry Sullivan, said: “It is a disgrace that a young pig has been brutally murdered. It is even worse when you think that the only reason for this attack was the victim’s species.”

“Any murder is awful, and this one is particularly abhorrent since the men have allegedly eaten the pig’s body. I can’t emphasise enough the part that the community and members of the public have in helping us to find those responsible for this despicable murder.”

“We are determined to arrest those responsible for committing this murder”"

When witnesses Ginny Messina and Leah Fiennes saw the pig being attacked, they ran off to get help, trying to flag down passing vehicles and banging on doors.

When they returned minutes later, they found him slumped on the ground with his throat slit and several parts of his body missing.

The local priest, Mrs Sanders, said that species related attacks are “entirely untypical of the community in which it happened”, which she described as “settled, peaceful, decent”.

I’ve just read Roger Yates’ blog post Neo-Welfarist Animal Liberationists where he introduces the term neo-welfare animal liberationists (N-WALs) in an attempt to use something that will be less objectionable to the people who Gary Francione terms new welfarists.

Traditional welfarists are people who care only about the treatment of animals but who support the use of animals for food, entertainment, research and other uses. Francione coined the term “new welfarist” to refer to those animal advocates who would like to see an end to such uses of animals but who believe that incremental welfare reforms will both ultimately lead to that goal and alleviate suffering in the meantime. Francione disagrees with this position and believes it undermines abolitionist efforts by presenting a confusing message, by making people more comfortable about their “humane” use of animals, by legitimizing and further entrenching the institution of animal slavery, and by taking away resources that would be better devoted to vegan education. Francione also argues, from his experience as a lawyer, animal rights theorist and activist, that such reforms do not lead to fewer deaths or substantially better conditions for nonhuman animals. Continue reading

Vegans get asked a wide assortment of questions, since at present, our lifestyle APPEARS to diverge so much from the mainstream. Some questions can be answered with a quick Google search or off the top of one’s head, but others are serious issues that require much prior thought. These are the kinds of questions I would like to address. I will address questions from both the serious, contemplative nonvegan and the nonvegan who seeks to be exceedingly annoying and attempts to invalidate veganism with a single objection to the lifestyle. The first question I will present in this series is one I personally received from a nonvegan of the former type.

If you could have a pet cow that you could milk yourself (painlessly) to get butter, cheese, milk – would you eat dairy products? Continue reading

Hello readers!

My name is Eliana, aka BlueAngel, I’m 23 and I am a new member of the veganise.me community. I stopped eating meat about 4.5 years ago, and I recently made the transition to a vegan diet. I am also experimenting with raw foods. Please have in mind that English is my second language (I’m Colombian) but I think I have fairly good English writing skills ;)

Feedback will be appreciated.

Best,

Eliana

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I remember the shock in my face when a friend in college told me she didn’t eat meat. “What do you eat then?” I asked. “Salad?”.

Before being vegan, I was one of those college girls trying to lose weight on a high protein diet. I was eating ridiculous quantities of steak and eggs and cheese. Although the weight was coming off, I was feeling heavy and sleepy all the time. I thought it was because I was eating a few carbs again (cereal and fruit) so I cut them out, thinking I would feel fine. But I didn’t. Somehow, my body was telling me “this is not for you”. I wasn’t sure what my body wanted, until the day I saw a vegetarian cookbook at my college’s library.

After reading the chapter called “Why vegetarian?” everything made sense to me. And I decided to give it a try. And I told my parents I had decided to become a vegetarian and that meant no more chicken, fish, or meat (at that point I was still eating eggs, cheese and low fat dairy products).  For the look on their faces, becoming a vegetarian was almost like If I had told them I was pregnant. “What are you gonna eat then?” they asked.  Sound familiar?

Continue reading

We all know that people have many different motivations for being veg*n, such as concern for animals and/or the environment or health reasons. But I know few who become vegan, citing political beliefs as their main motivation. So I’d like to post @jordanbsanders ’s reason for being vegan.

Leafy recently posted a debate between animals-as-property abolitionist Gary Francione and libertarian philosopher Jan Narveson. I was appalled at Narveson’s stance that if it is in humans’ interests (even in the trivial interests of entertainment or fashion), it is entirely morally acceptable to torture an animal in any conceivable way. To him, it’s “weird,” but we shouldn’t ever stop anyone from doing it. I presume his reasoning is that he wouldn’t want to interfere with a person’s “freedom” to torture another feeling being.

For context, this was originally posted on a private forum with about twenty (non-veg*n) members.

The longer I remain vegan and think about my motivations for being so, I’ve realized that they stem from larger societal issues. This is the point where this post might start offending people, and I truly do not mean it to. Any examples I provide or situations I describe are not directly pointed at anyone, least of all anyone here. I don’t know anyone here very well (or even decently well), so this is just a statement of how I feel. (More direct disclaimer: Every thing said in this post is directly from my point of view. The topics herein contained are stated as facts. Their factness may remain debatable to some, but from my point of view, they are fact. I believe wholeheartedly that there is no such thing as objective/absolute truth so read what I say with that lens. )

I don’t much like labels, but one of the most fitting labels for me is Libertarian. While I will not completely identify myself with that political party, I agree with basically all of their tenets. To me, it all means one thing – freedom. You should be free to do whatever you want to do, however you want to do it, for as long as you want to do it so long as you don’t infringe on another’s right to do the same. Any restriction on this is an outside party/force trying to control behavior for his/her/its/their own purposes. Manipulation of a population is a heinous crime and is the antithesis of freedom. That being said, if humans are guaranteed this (and I know they aren’t but ultimately, that is what I hope for), why are animals not?

The answer to that question boils down to one simple belief. Humans are superior to animals. If one believes this, I counter with a simple, “why?” If it is because we possess greater mental capacity, I might remind you (generic you, not the reader) that the one (and practically only) advanced ability that humans have over animals is the ability to recognize “complex” patterns. Yet, I find it disheartening that this ability receives very little reward in our society. The people who make the most money are not the ones who have mastered this defining characteristic of our species, but are the ones who have mastered their physical bodies to play games. We are “superior” to animals yet our largest forms of entertainment of at the same level of the entertainment of animals. If we are that similar to animals, then perhaps a higher authority has deemed humans as a “superior” species. Regardless of one’s belief in said higher power, I personally must go back to what I said in the last paragraph – manipulation of a population is a heinous crime and is the antithesis of freedom. If this “higher power” has decreed that we are “superior” that that power is manipulating us by infusing an alien belief structure into us. While it is generally easier to remain ignorant of this lack of self-definition, I do not feel that I can accept that.

So, all of that being said, I feel that animals are neither superior nor inferior to humans. Humans are animals. In that light, the meat industry is akin to slavery in that a group of people are restricting the life of other individuals to make a significant gain from the life of that individual whereas on the other side of the coin, the individual is not allowed to live a natural life. This is a grave injustice. It is sickening to me the more I think about it. I cannot support something which betrays my most base moral code…the prevalence of justice (what can I say, I’m a Libra).

I sincerely hope that this post was not taken as a sermon. I have no right to tell you that what you feel/believe is wrong. In fact, I am a moral relativist, but that does not quell the fire of my own beliefs. There are about a billion other related topics about which I have an unyielding blaze of criticism/commentary, and I hope that I can one day discuss these things rationally with rational people such as are here. I welcome any critiques of my post/thoughts and would love to start a dia/tria/more-alogue about the subjects and any related (or non-related) ones.

This essay attempts to answer age-old questions about how the consumption of animals fits into our moral framework. Do animals suffer, and if so, does their suffering have any moral relevance? Is it immoral to eat meat, or immoral not to? What is the religious significance of butter? Should we be eating other primates?

Perhaps Rene Descartes was right when he made the compelling argument that animals don’t feel pain. After all, he was right about a lot of other stuff.

Descartes was a vegetarian for health reasons. He, did, however, skin dogs and rabbits alive for research purposes. He reasoned that if the animals felt pain then what was done to them would be so horrific that God would never allow it. Since God did, in fact, allow it, then it follows logically that dogs and rabbits don’t feel pain. There is no reason to think any other animals do, either. As Descartes went on to argue, animals don’t have souls, and without a soul, you can’t feel pain. Continue reading