Comment by Beto@lemmy.studio on What's some really unpopular opinion you have?

Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.

Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?

Everyone should be vegan. It’s great for your health, for the environment, and more importantly, it would save more than a trillion (yes, with a T) lives every year.

In a hundred years we’ll look back and be ashamed of what we did to animals.

I accept that a vegan diet can be healthy for many people, however, it may not work for everyone due to individual variations in nutrient absorption and metabolism.

In a hundred years, I think our species will be ashamed of a great many things.

Technically, veganism requires only what is possible and practicable. If you genuinely needed to eat a hundred grams of chicken each week for unavoidable health reasons, you’d still be vegan, if you abstained from any other animal consumption.

It also doesn’t have to work for everyone, just for most people. If you 20% of people were vegan, we’d end up with a snowball effect that made the world a better place.

The mental gymnastics here are fascinating. It’s as if you thought “Veganism has good effects. Therefore, Veganism is good. Therefore, not-Veganism is bad. But people will be offended if we tell them that their well-intentioned-but-restricted choices are bad. So we should expand the definition of Veganism so that anything which is good, is Veganism.”

Congratulations! You made it a religion!

Or maybe you’re just misunderstanding what veganism is abiut in the first place.

Some people (mostly non-vegans) seem to believe it’s about blindly and thoughtlessly abstaining from animals products. That’s how veganism might look like from the outside but it’s not actually what it’s about at it’s core. That would be to avoid all unnecessary suffering. Vegans are for example aware that the farming of plants does indeed cause animal deaths. But we can’t avoid those without starving. So it’s not unnecessary. And still vegan.

Within the same logic if someone, for whatever reason, would need meat to survive he could consume it still within the same ethical framework. And theoretically that could be vegan. The thing is: For 99.9% of people it’s BS that they need meat. So obviously in the vast majority of cases it wouldn’t be vegan, just a hypocrite lying to themselves.

The Vegan Society says that “In dietary terms (Veganism) denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”

Vegan.com says “The word vegan was originally defined as a diet free of meat, dairy products, and eggs. The term now also refers to any item, from shoes to shampoo, made without animal products.”

Both pages, and the Wikipedia article, do mention the ethical considerations, but all make it clear that that is distinct from dietary Veganism.

It’s all very well to say that there is a deeper philosophy and decision-making framework driving one’s choices than simply “meat bad” - and that’s a noble motivation! - but you appear to be in the minority in your claim that a vegan diet can still include animal products. Maybe vegan-inspired, maybe “ethically aligned with Veganism”, but not “a vegan diet”.

EDIT: to be clear - from everything I can tell, Veganism is a sensible, moral, responsible, ethical, frugal choice; most people could derive great benefits both to their health and their wallet from drastically reducing or entirely cutting out meat and animal products, as well as benefitting the world in general. It’s a noble choice, it’s one I fully support, and I’ve seriously cut down my own meat intake over the last couple years and have great admiration for people who cut it out entirely. I’m not arguing with you because I love meat or hate Veganism - I’m arguing with you because, by being a dipshit about definitions, you are undermining a worthwhile cause and making it look ridiculous to people sitting on the fence.

Did you seriously look at the FAQ of the vegan society, picked something that confirmed your preestablished opinion, and ignored the sentence right before it?

Here, let me show the whole quote:

What does it mean to be vegan?

A vegan lifestyle involves living a life that is more compassionate towards animals and the environment. The precise definition of veganism is:

“Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude – as far as is possible and practicable – all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”

You just have a very superficial view of veganism. Just ask yourself this: Why abstain from animals products? What is the intention of a vegan lifestyle? You’ve claimed that a nuanced application would have “made a religion”, but the opposite is true. It would be a religion if we’d blindly apply a rule of conduct without any considerations. Which we don’t, as you will see all over the vegan society’s website. Just check what they write about animal products in medication. They are absolutely clear how a vegan lifestyle should work: “As far as is possible and practicable.” An important principle that practically every single vegan out there knows and lives by.

I’m not sure we can handle that type of population increase. It those numbers are right meat is probably keeping the population density under control.

“save” is a bit of misnomer. The animals are forcibly bred into a life of pure suffering. That is what they are being saved from. The less demand for animal torture, the less the industry needs to breed.

Living near a rural area in Australia, my unpopular opinion is the cows bread for meat in the whole area are living beautiful lives. Roaming in lovely paddocks, with good food, care and medical taken care of. They’re happy, healthy and live an enviable life. Not sure what it’s like where you’re from, but generally here farmers really look after the animals.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here, considering you’re on lemmy.ml, and assume you understand how capitalism works. You also know how the exploitation of the planet, the minoritized, and the worker class works.

Why in the world would things somehow magically be different when it comes to animals? They are resources with very little rights. Any and all suffering that increases profit is MANDATORY under capitalism. It’s a huge billion dollar industry, why in the world would they suddenly be any nicer than every other industry?

More importantly, they exploit actual humans, with acutal rights, that can actually talk, every single day. It’s insanity to believe they wouldn’t treat animals, who can’t speak and have less rights, well.

To your example: My grandparents are land lords. They’re really nice. By your logic, every landlord is therefore nice and I shouldn’t ever question their existence.

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