Philosophical Vegan Forum

Well hello to all of you just before the new year (or depending on where you are, Happy New Year already)! I hail from Denver, Colorado (currently spending 5 months in South Carolina to visit family), and I make videos on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/c/haleycarolina) about ethics and morality, personal choice, lifestyle changes, and just my ever-evolving thought process on these topics in general.

I recently uploaded a video where I talked about letting go of the "vegan" or "zero waste" labels in the new year, as well as shared the fact that I've been eating the occasional egg from my sister's backyard chickens (most of which are rescued, but not all). I only do this because she uses the eggs in a lot of her recipes, and I know the chickens are well cared for. We're only living near my sister for a couple more months, and we obviously won't carry on eating eggs once we live in a place where we don't have access to chickens we know are being treated well, but of course, there is some negativity and confusion in the comments of that video that were interesting and kind of disheartening (the whole idea that everything is black and white).

Really looking forward to reading through the forums here, and I just wanted to say that I was invited to join, but I did also hear about this from the YouTube channel Unnatural Vegan (http://www.youtube.com/fitonraw). Thanks so much for being so welcoming already, and I'd love for you to check out the SPECTRUM video essay series I've done on Veganism and Zero Waste (one coming soon on Minimalism) that I feel like could be really interesting and valuable to those in the community here.

Ep. 1 The Vegan Community https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejUAKdldzBQ
Ep. 2 The Zero Waste Movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twYt_9nM_RY

Happy New Year again!
Haley Carolina

Welcome!

The Spectrum series is interesting. Are you open for suggestions on new topics?

Aside from the health aspect (which probably isn't relevant if you're eating a tiny bit and only rarely), I don't see anything inherently wrong with eating eggs that have been abandoned by rescue hens.

Are the chickens no-kill? (Will they be killed when production drops, or are they beloved pets who will see a true retirement and be cared for?)

I disagree with letting go of labels entirely; I think there's a middle ground there between label obsession, and being anti-label, since labels have utility in language and as carriers for memes. Think of a label as a search term that can help give people insight into something without having to explain it to them in a verbal essay. It's a short hand, it's naturally imperfect, but when we don't have time or we want to reach more people with fewer words, it can really help.

I know the vegan label has been tainted by bad advocates and nutters like Freelee, but at the same time, it's a strong brand with growing awareness, and by wearing the label sane and sensible vegans can bring some legitimacy to it.

Basically, the militants can fuck off, you're doing a good thing for veganism by calling yourself vegan, and by extension for the animals.
Think of labels more in terms of what you can do for others by wearing them as a demonstration of what it can mean, rather than as things that define you.

I edited my last post something like five times because I kept thinking of things to add*

brimstoneSalad wrote:I edited my last post something like five times because I kept thinking of things to add*

Haha, I noticed that Great additions! And yes, I'm open to any suggestions for the SPECTRUM series! It's been such a rewarding series to put together so far, and I'm constantly thinking of new topics, so let me know here or on the video if you have ideas

Well hello @brimstoneSalad! A response already That's pretty cool!

To your first point, they are no-kill chickens as she keeps them to maintain her yard and just kind of as pets and for general enjoyment.

To the second point about labels, I guess I meant giving up labels more in the sense of my main online persona. I still label veg recipes "vegan" in the keywords as I'm uploading them, but I spent a year identifying my channel and my persona heavily with veganism, zero waste, and minimalism and I've found that, for me, it has only drawn in a lot of people who already feel the same way instead of new people with different perspectives. If I were a Vegan Recipe channel like HotForFood or a Vegan Discussion Only channel like Unnatural Vegan, I would of course continue using the label as it would help identify my brand to people and bring in those specifically looking for vegan information. But, since I talk about a lot of different topics and am looking to branch out even further in 2017, I felt like it was the right time for me to stop using the label on my channel to not turn away those with different mindsets.

I definitely agree and concede your point that sane and sensible vegans can bring legitimacy to the movement while using the vegan label, and that's important. The only thing I can say for that is that I guess my passion towards specifically the vegan message has been tampered by my semi-recent realization that farm animals are largely dependent on people for their survival and are almost destined for life on some sort of farm (whether it's a backyard setting or a sanctuary or even a small working farm) just due to their domesticated nature. With that said, I think a symbiotic relationship where humans provide shelter and food and in return collect eggs or honey or even milk in some rare cases is beneficial to both parties. Similar to pets but with more than just an emotional exchange of goods.

I guess not only am I letting go of the labels but also the mentality that veganism is the moral future for animal or human welfare. It's definitely a new view and one that I'm working out as I do more research and think about things more, so carrying on the vegan label just didn't feel right at this time.

Thanks so much for the thoughtful reply, and now I'm really looking forward to the kinds of discussions to be had on this forum.

spectrumvideos wrote:The only thing I can say for that is that I guess my passion towards specifically the vegan message has been tampered by my semi-recent realization that farm animals are largely dependent on people for their survival and are almost destined for life on some sort of farm (whether it's a backyard setting or a sanctuary or even a small working farm) just due to their domesticated nature.

Why would they be if we don't breed them?

Is there any reason we need to continue breeding over a billion cows into the world to serve our gluttony while wasting resources and damaging the environment?

I can understand true symbiosis, and it may have been like that in the past in some areas of India in particular when we as a species didn't have the technological ability or know-how to farm without animals. But that's not the case today. Today it's a lose-lose relationship.

spectrumvideos wrote:With that said, I think a symbiotic relationship where humans provide shelter and food and in return collect eggs

Providing shelter and care to chickens in exchange for their pest control powers in a garden makes some sense. But modern chickens are bred into miserable mutants, like bulldogs, that suffer severe and life threatening problems due to that. It's a cruelty to breed them more and inflict this genetic abomination upon another generation. Their ancestors lived much healthier and happier lives.

If we want pest control, shouldn't we look to other species of ground foul to help us with that, which won't suffer such effects?

Any time we're breeding chickens for eggs, as opposed to for more sensible and necessary purposes like pest control, we're imposing suffering upon that species for our own tastes.

spectrumvideos wrote:or honey

Pollination totally makes sense. Honey does not. It isn't a novel source of food, we're not even generating new calories from it; we take their honey, and we give them sugar and mass produced pollen so they can make more. Why couldn't we just eat the sugar, exactly? Honey is no healthier, and actually poses health risks in terms of the contamination in it for humans. And the process of taking bees' honey and giving them sugar instead of nectar to make more may be contributing to bee die off and general ill health.

spectrumvideos wrote: or even milk in some rare cases is beneficial to both parties.

For people in developing countries, maybe. Nomads may need milk and cheese as an important source of calories when they have no other industry or food source. It doesn't make any sense for us. Cows don't pollinate plants or provide garden pest control.

None of these relationships in terms of providing animal products directly to humans really sounds like a symbiosis, and none of them are really healthy for people to be consuming unless the alternative is starvation or malnutrition.

Plant sources -- for those in developed countries with access to them -- are more efficient, healthier, more environmentally friendly, and don't come with the severe risk of animal cruelty (which will always be inevitable with commercialization of a sentient being for a commodity when cutting corners saves a bit of money). Add that to the very serious issue of antibiotic resistance, and there is a very strong argument to remove our dependence on animals for food.

spectrumvideos wrote: Similar to pets but with more than just an emotional exchange of goods.

Even pets are subject to animal cruelty and neglect sometimes, but because it's a primarily emotional relationship that protects them more than animals used for food. Abuses and cruelty, cutting corners for profit, are inevitable in animal agriculture.

I don't see the argument for perpetuation of animal use as it's done now, only some arguments for pest control and pollination assistance on their own; and those aspects of true symbiosis are not incompatible with veganism. The only animal product as food that makes sense nutritionally and environmentally is rope grown oysters. Thus bivalvegan/ostrovegan (another very productive label that generates a lot of discussion).

Maybe you've heard arguments I haven't, though.

Haha, yes, I have heard all of these arguments before, and either said or believed them all myself at some point. I think all of these arguments hinge on the idea of mass production and factory farming, which I think almost everyone can agree are bad. Small-time farms, especially backyard operations where a person grows their own fruits and vegetables and raises their own (non-genetically modified) animals does not harm the animals or the planet, so it's kind of a whole different argument.

As far as health goes, I think it's clear that in areas of the world where people are generally living the longest, people still consume some animal products, just not very much. So again, like mass production and factory farming, it comes down to extremes and trying to do too much that is causing the harm (whether to people or to animals). Also, in regards to health, there are billions of people in developing or third world countries who don't have access to B-12 supplements and other fortified foods who actually do still need to get vitamins and minerals from animal products, so just providing plant food staples won't address the whole problem.

In the end, we probably won't ever live in a world where we will eradicate poverty, starvation, and cruelty, but we can strive to, and I see a world without domestication as a world with a missed opportunity for rich relationships with many different animals we now only view as a food source. Cows, chickens, goats, these would all die out fairly quickly in a world where domestication and mutually beneficial relationships didn't exist (and these animals have been domesticated and bred to be the way they are now for many thousands of years, like other pets). Obviously breeding them excessively and without any purpose but for food a la factory farming isn't a life worth living, and I'm definitely not making the "Amazing Atheist" argument that any existence is better than no existence, because these animals would be better off dead than being tortured their whole lives on factory farms. But on a small scale, where they are kept in small numbers, given room to live, not bred or mutated unnaturally for our own benefit, and treated with care (I don't support killing animals), these animals (like pets) can have long, meaningful lives than enrich both parties.

Those are my thoughts for the day! Look forward to hearing more, and I hope you have a Happy New Year!

spectrumvideos wrote:I think all of these arguments hinge on the idea of mass production and factory farming

No they don't. Cows burp and fart whether you have them in a backyard pasture or in a feed lot.
Animal abuse, likewise, is not unique to large operations. There are even dogs and cats who suffer abuse in people's homes.

spectrumvideos wrote:which I think almost everyone can agree are bad.

I don't. They're better for the environment, because the operations are actually more efficient.
They may or may not be better for the animals, it probably depends on the farm.

spectrumvideos wrote:Small-time farms, especially backyard operations where a person grows their own fruits and vegetables and raises their own (non-genetically modified) animals does not harm the animals or the planet, so it's kind of a whole different argument.

That's incorrect on both points. Breeding genetic freaks is not the only thing that harms animals. Neglect and abuse is omnipresent, we have to engage in a cost:benefit analysis. And all operations have environmental impact. If we want less impact, we need veganic farming, not to perpetuate an unnecessary reliance on animal products as food.

Backyard operations, if you're growing it and eating it yourself, cut out some transportation and reduce waste (packaging and spoilage) which helps. Particularly if you use compost or green manure (if you're buying manure and having it shipped to you, that's still packaging and transportation of the nitrogen).

They are not environmentally harmless, though. Particularly if ruminant animals are involved or you are feeding the animals.

Rumens will always produce methane from enteric fermentation.
Honey will always involve harming the bees somewhat by either reducing their food stores or replacing their food with sugar (where are you getting the sugar?).
If you're actually buying chicken feed, there's a severe ecological impact due to the cultivation of that feed. Feeding animals grains and then eating them or their products reduces total available food and harms the environment. Thermodynamics ensures calories will always be wasted.

If you have wild chickens in your yard eating the pests in your gardens and you aren't feeding them aside from that, that's probably a pretty sustainable practice. You're not going to get much yield in terms of eggs, and taking eggs from hens is not always harmless.

spectrumvideos wrote:As far as health goes, I think it's clear that in areas of the world where people are generally living the longest, people still consume some animal products, just not very much.

That's a poor argument that misunderstands the limits of epidemiological studies.
There are no vegan populations of significant size to study, the only large groups of people who are mostly so are so due to extreme poverty.

If you want to look at the effects of modern plant based diets, you either have to look at smaller groups (which are not going to be as statistically significant), or you have to look at mechanistic and intervention studies. Nothing in the science suggests that a small amount of animal products is necessary or useful for good health any more than it suggests that smoking one cigarette a year will make you live longer. Mechanistic evidence is pretty clear that it should be slightly harmful, you just won't find a large enough population of people doing that to control for variables and see an epidemiological effect since the harm of a small amount of animal products or a small amount of smoking is too small to show up over the noise.

spectrumvideos wrote:Also, in regards to health, there are billions of people in developing or third world countries who don't have access to B-12 supplements and other fortified foods who actually do still need to get vitamins and minerals from animal products, so just providing plant food staples won't address the whole problem.

I hear the argument "not everybody can go vegan, so veganism is wrong" often.

Are you one of those people in the developing world? I'm not. The ability to go vegan is often a matter of circumstance.
Those who are able should. There's no reason for US to perpetuate animal agriculture.
Not everybody can avoid burning coal or wood in their homes for heat in the winter either. Those of us who can avoid it by using insulation and natural gas heating should avoid it (doesn't mean we have to be assholes to people who don't have a choice).

There are some people who don't have viable alternatives, and I don't blame them for doing what they have to in order to survive. Often that involves hunting and fishing, burning wood and coal for heat, or even piracy (of the high seas, or DVDs).

Vegans need to be aware of those limitations, and help people who have trouble find proper nutrition. There are a lot of vitamins that the very poor are missing out on.

spectrumvideos wrote:In the end, we probably won't ever live in a world where we will eradicate poverty, starvation, and cruelty, but we can strive to,

Moving from animal agriculture, particularly in the developed world, is an important part of that due to its impact on global warming and resource use. It's not a perfect or complete solution. If the developed world goes vegan will it solve poverty in the world? Not necessarily. But it will see the development and proliferation of more viable protein sources, and represent a better model for the developing world to follow, and it could stave off climate change a little to allow more people to escape poverty and relocate if necessary before things get really bad.

Being vegan doesn't mean you have to think veganism solves everything. It just has to be a little better than the alternative of perpetuating animal agriculture where it's not needed.

spectrumvideos wrote:and I see a world without domestication as a world with a missed opportunity for rich relationships with many different animals we now only view as a food source.

If you understand epidemiology, it's also a world with much less disease, which largely comes from human-non-human interaction.
What kind of rich relationships are you talking about?

I'm in favor of zoos and petting zoos where animals are well cared for to instill a sense of compassion and care for animals and the environment to the next generation. The educational and empathy value of that, since very few animals can influence millions of people, probably outweighs the harm.
Any significant use in agriculture wouldn't be that, though.

spectrumvideos wrote:Cows, chickens, goats, these would all die out fairly quickly in a world where domestication and mutually beneficial relationships didn't exist

Some breeds might go extinct if they weren't bred. What do you think the intrinsic value in a breed is?
It's like saying we have to keep breeding and keeping bulldogs or they'll go extinct. Why shouldn't they go extinct?
Suffering is a tragedy, and so is death. But extinction itself?

Why does it matter if we have particular kind of cow, chicken, or goat in the billions? Why does it matter if we have pandas even?
A species is not a sentient being. It can't suffer, only individuals can. And these species aren't sapient enough to suffer any existential dread related to being the last of their kind that members of a human culture might.

What kind of value framework puts the arbitrary survival of species over the well being of individual sentient beings?
If they're suffering and being killed that's one thing. If they just aren't being bred anymore and they die off on their own, though?

spectrumvideos wrote:(and these animals have been domesticated and bred to be the way they are now for many thousands of years, like other pets).

Yes, it's terrible.
Why should we continue doing such a terrible thing if it's no longer necessary for us?

spectrumvideos wrote:But on a small scale, where they are kept in small numbers,

If you're not talking about more farms to distribute the same billions of animals, this would mean most of the world basically going vegan. If there's any good in it relative to what we do now, it's the reduction of harm through a reduction of scale of use.
I support the reducitarian message, it's a good one. Doesn't mean vegan isn't better in theory, but reducitarian messages may be better received.

That's still harm, though.
We may never get to zero, but why should we protest or stand against the idea of reducing harm to none or as low as it can go by just not supporting these practices personally? Particularly where there's no benefit to make up for that harm.

spectrumvideos wrote:given room to live, not bred or mutated unnaturally for our own benefit,

If they aren't wild animals, then they're being bred for our benefit (unless they're rescues, but this isn't a sustainable source).

spectrumvideos wrote:and treated with care (I don't support killing animals), these animals (like pets) can have long, meaningful lives than enrich both parties.

I understand pets, and zoos, and petting zoos. But I don't see any utility in keeping animals to consume their products. It means the animals have to be fed more to generate those.

Even a breastfeeding human mother, to feed an infant, needs to consume something like 500 extra calories a day.
It's physics: there is no free energy.

Better to keep a dog, who needs to eat less and provides good companionship, than a goat who must eat more and then provide milk (with less calories than the additional food eaten to make it) which is also bad for you to consume and harms the environment more than the (vegan) dog would.

When it comes to plants, it totally makes sense: grow plants which will provide you food and be beautiful. They ARE making calories from nothing (the sunlight that would otherwise be wasted on the ground). Doesn't make thermodynamic sense for companion animals, though.

Even if you did happen to want a goat as a pet (as a person in a modern developed country), it doesn't make sense to milk the goat. Not for your health, or the environment, or even for the goat.

spectrumvideos wrote:Those are my thoughts for the day! Look forward to hearing more, and I hope you have a Happy New Year!

Thanks, you too!

Welcome to the forums, I hope you'll enjoy it!

Man, looks like you'll be adding a lot to discussions here, spectrum. I'll be sure to check out your channel!