Why I am vegetarian and not vegan

[BleuNoir]

Hello, this is my sixth post here. The main reason I joined this forum is that it appears to be a place where the argument I am about to post can be discussed rationally.

Let me give you some background. Approximately 13 years ago, I switched to veganism. I lasted four months. I don't recall my reasons for going vegan at the time, but I was pretty determined. I was, however, living alone and on a tight budget as a grad student. I was especially bothered that being "vegan" meant not just avoiding animal-based foods but also leather shoes. As an environmentalist, I knew the problems with plastic. I bought a pair of canvas sandals, which became disgusting after a week of use and had to be thrown out. On top of all this, I had to spend the summers doing research in Japan, where they put fish stock into almost everything. As the time for me to go to Japan approached, I wavered. If I couldn't even call myself "vegan," the whole thing didn't seem worth the effort. I finally gave up when I was at an Italian restaurant with a friend; it was too much to resist putting butter on my bread.

Over the next 11 years, I ate more meat than I ever had previously. Rare steak and sashimi became my favorite foods. I liked pork chops because they were easy to prepare. Every now and then, I would wish I could be vegan, but it seemed impossible.

Almost two and a half years ago, while recovering from a medical procedure, I watched "Vegucated." The film is not well-made, but it's convincing, perhaps because of its non-judgmental attitude. I decided that I couldn't continue to support the factory farm industry. (At the time, I wasn't against eating animals, just against eating animals who had been tortured. Now, I'm against eating animals altogether.) I convinced my husband to watch the film as well. We decided that, rather than being total and giving up after four months, we would be flexible. At home, our diet is totally plant-based; we don't purchase any meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, or dairy. When we go out, I do my best to eat plant-based; my husband sometimes gets cheese on his veggie burger. About once a month or less, we make an exception and have cheese pizza. If we're on Amtrak (we take the train as much as possible rather than flying to reduce our carbon footprint), we choose the vegetarian entree if there is nothing vegan. When in Europe, we eat vegetarian, since being plant-based when eating out is more difficult there than it is in the U.S. and Canada, at least for foreigners.

What I'm against is the all-or-nothing attitude of the (online) vegan community. I don't agree that vegetarians are no better than omnivores. During the 11 years that I was an omnivore after being vegan for four months, if I had just been vegetarian or even pescetarian, the lives of countless cows, calves, pigs, chickens, and ducks would have been saved. Perhaps most importantly, I would have set a better example for the people around me.

Moreover, I find the focus on a "vegan lifestyle" (as opposed to a "vegan diet") to be un-quantitative. If you look at all the animal products a typical omnivore consumes, over 99% will be food products. A typical omnivore buys a pair of leather shoes about once a year but eats animal products two or three times a day. It may be true that leather increases the profit made by the factory-farm industry, but if everyone stopped eating animal products, the price of leather would go up by at least an order of magnitude. How many people would pay $1200 for a pair of shoes? That's when we would start seeing high-quality, affordable, and environmentally-friendly alternatives to leather shoes. In other words, if a large fraction of the population switched to a plant-based or even vegetarian diet, everyone would be buying less leather as a result.

Finally, no matter how hard I try, I can't convince myself that the "vegan lifestyle" is good for animals. I have a down comforter that lets us turn off the heat at night all winter; with a synthetic comforter, we used to have to keep the heat on. I find that I can turn the heat down lower on winter evenings if I'm wearing a wool sweater than if I'm wearing an acrylic or cotton sweater. I'm not sure most vegans realize that acrylic and polyester are forms of plastic. When they're washed, tiny particles of plastic go into the waterways and end up in the stomachs of fish and birds (See https://sarahmosko.wordpress.com/2011/1 ... polyester/). The definition of veganism that the (online) vegan community accepts as being beyond discussion dates back to the late 1940s and early 1950s -- a time when the dangers of plastics were not understood. In my mind, a consumerist "vegan" who frequently buys plastic shoes and clothes, and accepts plastic bags at stores, cannot claim to be better for animals than an anti-consumerist "vegetarian" who eats an almost-completely plant-based diet, uses cotton bags for shopping, buys one pair of leather shoes every year or two, wears wool sweaters, and uses a down comforter.

The (online) vegan community cannot accept the kind of arguments above. Indeed, this post would probably have gotten me banned from most vegan forums. The reality is that being kind to animals and the environment is not straightforward in our modern society. This is why I am vegetarian and not vegan. I suspect that my lifestyle is kinder to animals than that of many vegans.

[brimstoneSalad]

The (online) vegan community cannot accept the kind of arguments above. Indeed, this post would probably have gotten me banned from most vegan forums.

You're absolutely right, and that's a real shame. I can't stand those forums. You will not get banned for critical thinking or questioning dogmatic assumptions here.

Leather, being a byproduct and not a primary product of the beef and dairy industry, is not typically why cows are raised and killed, and I consider it a much lesser issue. I don't typically criticize people for wearing leather shoes, or wool, or whatever (although I would really recommend buying second hand if you think these materials are better).

That said, it's complicated. If leather was just given away to manufacturers, I would completely agree with you. But, it isn't. Instead, it actually makes up a fair bit of the slaughter profit margin, due to high demand for leather.
What's that mean? It means it makes meat cheaper when people buy leather, and that results in people eating more of it.
I'd need to see some studies on the effect of price subsidization vs. demand for beef. If we had that data we could relate a pair of shoes to a certain increase in meat consumption, but those numbers are hard to find and my Google-fu is failing me at the moment.

I'd also like to see better data on quantifiable harm from plastics, because I don't really believe it. There is a certain environmental toll in terms of methane from petrochemical extraction I could calculate, but I'd need something to compare it to and I would be skeptical of it being more than that from increased meat consumption due to leather subsidization.

On the vegan front, I would just say maybe you could cut back on the deliberate cheese pizzas (I get if if there's nothing else to eat of course), otherwise I'd have no problem with you calling yourself vegan, just explain to people when they point out you're wearing leather. If they're vegan police and they won't listen, then just ignore them. Or maybe ask them if they consume palm oil.

[EquALLity]

What I'm against is the all-or-nothing attitude of the (online) vegan community.

Even I, a vegan, was kicked out of a vegan group for suggesting that it isn't always unethical to "steal" milk and eggs from animals on a post that said:

I get why people are vegetarians (am because of animals) but not vegan because I live in Canada and I know where all my produce comes from, is this ok? And I know the animals are not being tortured or slaughtered

Everyone lost their shit, and talked about how we're "not meant to drink the milk of another species" etc., and here's how some of the conversation I had with them went-

Paraphrasing-

Me- "It doesn't matter what is technically vegan, it matters what is ethical or not, and the definition of vegan isn't necessarily that strict anyway."

One person- "No, it IS about what's vegan, and stealing from animals is never vegan! Please stop posting these things saying eating animal products is ok in a vegan group. It's offensive."

(I think this quote applies:)

Can't you just feel the emotional trauma these poor people must be suffering? No, me neither. Oddly, however, it is still enough to make you weep.

Mod- "Oh, also, stop trolling with your comments about semantics. That stuff is completely irrelevant. All off-topic posts will be deleted."

I would go on, though that might ACTUALLY be off-topic, but yeah, I definitely agree.

Or maybe ask them if they consume palm oil.

Isn't that a tu quoque?

I agree that you should get leather etc. second hand, and with the stuff about pizza.

[Anon0045]

I find the focus on a "vegan lifestyle" (as opposed to a "vegan diet") to be un-quantitative. If you look at all the animal products a typical omnivore consumes, over 99% will be food products. A typical omnivore buys a pair of leather shoes about once a year but eats animal products two or three times a day. It may be true that leather increases the profit made by the factory-farm industry, but if everyone stopped eating animal products, the price of leather would go up by at least an order of magnitude.

People are not always calculating and doing what is most effective. Even if you were right, that focusing on leather does nothing, they probably would still focus on "vegan lifestyle", because for many people like myself, the individuals matter, not just statistics where 0.001% doesn't matter much. It's the attitude that you can hurt someone for no good reason, have cheat days and hurt someone, that's disturbing. By feeling this way, having this perspective, I think it's less likely to go back to eating animal products than focusing on health or environment alone.

[brimstoneSalad]

Or maybe ask them if they consume palm oil.

Isn't that a tu quoque?

That's why you justify yourself first in a calm and rational way.
Then it's just changing the subject a little in order to highlight the real meaning behind veganism (to reduce suffering; e.g. the spirit behind it), if they disagree about palm oil, you've just found somebody who inherently can not agree on the spirit behind the word, and is more interested in the letter of the law than preventing suffering.

[BleuNoir]

Thank you for these thoughtful comments.

Let me try to clarify what I meant about leather. The statistic I have read is that up to 10% of the revenue from an a cow comes from its skin (i.e., leather). In other words, if everyone stopped buying leather, the price of the rest of the animal would go up by 10%. That's not a huge increase. For example, the price of a $5 package of meat would go up to $5.50. (In fact, the increase would be less, since there are other costs involved, such as transporting the meat.) Some people might eat less meat as a result, but most wouldn't notice the price difference.

On the other hand, if everyone stopped eating meat, the price of leather would go up ten-fold. Suppose a pair of shoes costs $120, and $60 of that comes from the leather (a conservative estimate). That pair of shoes would now cost $660. That would mean people would be buying significantly fewer shoes, which in turn would mean fewer animals would be killed.

My point is not that using leather is without consequences but that the vegan community's general insistence that anyone who is not 100% vegan is just as bad as a meat eater is counterproductive. While avoiding leather may increase the cost of meat, avoiding meat increases the cost of leather even more. The reason it is so hard to avoid non-dietary animal products is that people's diet is so heavily animal-based. I think that any effort a person makes to reduce animal suffering should be applauded. In my experience, once one starts on the path of caring about how one's actions affect animals, one's convictions get only stronger over time.

I actually try to avoid leather shoes when I can, but for some people whose feet are difficult to fit (like my husband), leather is often difficult to avoid. One should not assume that a person wearing leather shoes is not doing his/her best to minimize animal suffering. In fact, my husband and I switched to our almost-totally plant-based diet not for health reasons but for animals and the environment. And the main reason to protect the environment, in my opinion, is to reduce animal suffering. The focus on the original definition of "vegan" also misses a lot of new ways to help animals, such as reducing one's consumption in general, and planting native plants in one's garden.

As for the cheese pizza, this is along the lines of Peter Singer's argument that if eating steak once a year keeps a person plant-based the rest of the year, it's a good compromise. I'm not sure steak is a reasonable example to use here, but I believe the occasional cheese pizza we eat together is what keeps my husband plant-based at home and most of the time when out. He's the one who cooks for us, so if it weren't for him, I would probably be eating out a lot more, which would inevitably involve more unnoticed animal products as well as more environmental damage.

I made the mistake of posting my last message just before leaving on a trip, so I won't have any internet connectivity for the next few days. I'll try to post some links on plastics next time. Thanks for creating a friendly environment here. Incidentally, I had no idea that palm oil was bad. The main issue is damage to the environment, right?

[brimstoneSalad]

10% is HUGE (actually 11.111...% increase, but 10% is close enough). I didn't expect it to be that high; I was thinking maybe 2-3% for rawhide if I were to guess.

You can't at all ignore those kinds of numbers.

What you'd want is called Price Elasticity of Demand: http://www.netmba.com/econ/micro/demand ... ity/price/
Which is kind of confusing since it uses an average, but the crude number is close enough (change in demand divided by change in price)

This is from February 2010 (people are actually MORE willing to give up meat now, and price is a factor in that, so these numbers would only be better today):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2804646/
See table 1: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... able/tbl1/

Price elasticity of demand is between 0.29 and 1.42 for beef.
For a 10% change in price, that's 2.9% - 14.2% reduction in demand.

Being as generous as possible, that may be comparable to a 7.1% reduction in climate change.
More conservatively, a 1% reduction. But do plastic based leather alternatives really account for 1% of climate change?

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=34&t=6

Very, very unlikely. The total in the U.S. is 2.7% of oil, 1.7% of natural gas, and 1.7% of electric power. For all plastics produced in the US.
Which appears to be crudely half of the plastics consumed there.

Most plastic waste goes into packaging. Could leather replacements really make up 17% of all plastic production?
Judging based on my plastic waste alone (and I waste very little plastic compared to most people), the amount of synthetic shoes and cloth I buy in a year definitely doesn't weigh 17% of my plastic garbage. Closer to 2%.

These are crude estimates, but comparing leather to plastic shoes, the environmental harm from leather is probably about ten times more.
Even if some of my numbers are very wrong, in this comparison the difference is about an order of magnitude, so fudge them though one might, I can't see leather coming out on top as more environmental. Please, though, correct me if you see any problems here.

On the other hand, if everyone stopped eating meat, the price of leather would go up ten-fold. Suppose a pair of shoes costs $120, and $60 of that comes from the leather (a conservative estimate). That pair of shoes would now cost $660.

If people stopped eating meat, I doubt they'd keep buying leather, but I don't find that to be a conservative estimate.
Most of the money that goes into a pair of shoes is not the materials
http://www.soc.duke.edu/~s142tm17/makingshoe.htm (it's store markup, manufacturer profit, distribution, labor and overhead), in terms of materials, the total is probably less than half of the cost to the manufacturer (although for leather shoes it may be a bit more), the sole is also a very big part of that cost.
And most of the cost of leather is not the raw hide (a $70 hide might become a $300 piece of premium tanned leather, whereas ground meat is pretty much just that).

http://www.ehow.com/way_5864547_much-le ... hoes_.html

Four square feet. Maybe up to ten for boots.

I would put it at $8 - $20 going to the slaughter house for material. So it would be more like $120 becoming $300.

That is of course a bigger price increase than the meat. I'm mostly just nitpicking your estimate. Again, not that it matters, because I doubt many people would be buying it if they didn't eat meat (and it would be viewed more like fur is now).


I know leather is hard to avoid for shoes. Particularly for boots or in hard to find sizes. It's most important that people stop eating meat, and when they do, there will be more non-leather options for shoes.



Palm oil- Yes, it's environmental (massive scale of devastation). Also health (it's nasty stuff).

[TheVeganLily]

Hi! I'd just like to make a two points.

1) Leather
Most of the leather that we (in first world countries) consume is not actually the byproduct of the cows that we eat. The majority of the leather comes from cows (Mainly from India) whose 'life purpose' was to provide skin (leather) for us humans.

2) Acrylic and Polyester
Becoming a vegan doesn't necessarily mean replace your animal products with plastics. These materials can be easily be replaced with plant-based materials, such as, cotton. In addition, the vegan would seem to have a less direct effect on the animals, even if they were replacing every single animal product material with a plastic material.

Thank you!

[EquALLity]

^Hello!

You should make an intro post!

[brimstoneSalad]

^Hello!

You should make an intro post!

Definitely, welcome VeganLily, I hope you post an intro.

You're right that, in the case of plastics, there's less direct harm. The pressing consideration with those is environmental harm (which is more directed to humans, but may affect wild animal populations through displacement when humans tear down their ecosystems to build new cities).
It's hard to guess the extent of harm that global climate change will have on non-humans, but we have a good sense of the devastation it will cause for human populations from other natural disasters that destroyed massive amounts of infrastructure.