Happy Cows???

[VGnizm]

Life Loving Bonjour,

Above all I wish to take a moment to update all of my fellow members about my inconsistent presence at the forum. To discuss and learn is probably what I enjoy most but things have been very busy and the workload has been growing exponentially which makes it rare for me to find time and concentration to sit down and share something meaningful.

The Life Loving Foods project won the first vegetable protein contest in France held by the Industry Associations, Prot’Eat, held in June and has been entered into an accelerated industrialization program. It is possible to get details by scrolling through the Twitter account for those interested and I will leave it at that.

What I want to share is related but in a different manner and I feel it affects the future outlook regarding Veganism as well as social attitudes and food-habits.

I chose Happy Cows as the title because it is literally that. In my line of work and being at contests and exhibiting I met a young lady who is dedicating all of her time and effort and most of it unpaid trying to promote a project that scores livestock farms based on how well they treat their animals. The idea is to eventually create a label.

She is not Vegan nor Vegetarian and we often discuss and joke together and I even ate some of the cheese she brought stating it is cheese made from the milk of Happy Cows from a farm that scored above 90%.

Frankly I am supportive of her work from the viewpoint that it is a positive step towards creating consciousness and change. Sort of ' better to light one candle than to curse the darkness” But on the other hand intellectually I think that it might be supporting a message that as long as the cruelty towards animals us reduced it is acceptable to exploit them.

So I am kind of stuck between these two extremes in building a firm opinion.

I am very curious to hear what other Vegans think about this or where they would position themselves. For or against such an initiative ?

My Life Loving thanks in advance!

[Jebus]

I chose Happy Cows as the title because it is literally that.

I think the name might cause confusion as Happy Cow has been around almost 20 years and is a well established brand name in the vegan world.

intellectually I think that it might be supporting a message that as long as the cruelty towards animals us reduced it is acceptable to exploit them.

This is precisely the problem.

I think one can presume that meat consumption of "happy cows" will justify the action as moral among many who have been pondering the issue. This would in turn slow down the growth and possibly reverse the growth of veganism.

One can also presume that happier cows will cause an unhappier environment and unhappier (unhealthier) people.

Moreover, the act of killing will still take place and it won't take place any later. The act of killing a happy cow is even more vile than taking an unhappy cow out of his misery.

[VGnizm]

All of them are very good points. Thank you!

When defending a cause should we limit our options to either winning the war or else not going to battle? Is it not useful to improve the conditions for animals knowing that fundamental change needs time and every improvement helps. Something like pain killers that dont cure but improve the quality of life?

As for the Happy Cows title i do not fully agree because Happy Cow is too general a branding and if it causes confusion it is to be corrected by the Brand itself!

[Jebus]

When defending a cause should we limit our options to either winning the war or else not going to battle? Is it not useful to improve the conditions for animals knowing that fundamental change needs time and every improvement helps. Something like pain killers that dont cure but improve the quality of life?

The negative consequences (mentioned above) would only take place once the public is made aware. Once the public is made aware, the negative consequences would override the positive ones. I am all for animal breeders improving the conditions of "their" animals while not informing the public, but we all know that won't ever happen.

As for the Happy Cows title i do not fully agree because Happy Cow is too general a branding and if it causes confusion it is to be corrected by the Brand itself!

You mean because the product is so different???

[VGnizm]

Since it will never happen then is it not useful to adapt to what will?

I get the impression that you think "Happy Cows " is the name of the livestock farm audit project. It is not at all. I chose it as a title for this topic

What i meant is that if someone chooses common words or phrases as a Branding then he remains the subset of usage and should accept it. Starting with the choice of "Life Loving Foods" as a Branding!

[brimstoneSalad]

Glad to see you again!

The Life Loving Foods project won the first vegetable protein contest in France held by the Industry Associations, Prot’Eat, held in June and has been entered into an accelerated industrialization program. It is possible to get details by scrolling through the Twitter account for those interested and I will leave it at that.

Congratulations! Please do feel free to leave a link to some English language press, I'd love to read more about it!

Frankly I am supportive of her work from the viewpoint that it is a positive step towards creating consciousness and change. Sort of ' better to light one candle than to curse the darkness” But on the other hand intellectually I think that it might be supporting a message that as long as the cruelty towards animals us reduced it is acceptable to exploit them.

I agree on both points, but I think one very important part is missing: even if we reached some state of true welfare, the environmental issue is still unaddressed.
Remember, the more space and the longer lives (all things we would want for cows), the more environmental footprint meat production has.
If we wanted to feed the world meat and dairy like this (Ahimsa dairy is an even better example, they are 100% no kill) we'd have to cut down all of the forests in the world and probably more still to give them enough pasture.

For as evil as factory farming is, it's more environmentally efficient than classical operations. This fact, and the impending environmental catastrophe we face from lives of excess, means we should work toward a plant based option rather than just reforming agriculture to make it less cruel.

[carnap]

There are really two separate moral issues here and I think vegans poorly navigate them because they frequently conflate them because they are against both, namely:

1.) Are we morally justified in inflicting wanton suffering on an animal for our wants?

2.) Are we morally justified in raising and killing an animal for our wants?

I think most people are against #1 on some level but not #2. #2 is the more difficult question as such much of what vegans argue against ends up being related to #1. I think this is really what troubles vegans, once people are satisfied that #1 has been addressed (i.e., the animals are raised humanely) they no longer have a motivation to "go vegan".

[carnap]

For as evil as factory farming is, it's more environmentally efficient than classical operations. This fact, and the impending environmental catastrophe we face from lives of excess, means we should work toward a plant based option rather than just reforming agriculture to make it less cruel.

At least in the US, its economically more efficient due to subsidized water and crops but not necessarily better for the environment (not sure what you mean by "environmentally efficient"). For example pastured cattle emit more green-house gases than grain-fed cattle but a pasture system has other environment benefits. Environmentally and economically speaking a country like the United States would have no issue raising the current number of cattle in a pasture system. And the biggest risks of poultry are actually related to high-density operations (concentration of waste, evolution of viral diseases, antibiotic resistance, etc) otherwise their environmental impact is relatively low. Though humanely raised poultry has a much higher premium than humanely raised cows or pigs.

[brimstoneSalad]

I think this is really what troubles vegans, once people are satisfied that #1 has been addressed (i.e., the animals are raised humanely) they no longer have a motivation to "go vegan".

That is the rationale of some minority of extremists being against animal welfare, but it's a bad argument. This is the kind of problem you want to have. Ultimately it shouldn't be any more difficult to argue against using animals against their interests without them experiencing harm than it is to argue against slavery of humans (or even harvesting humans raised for food) without them experiencing harm (e.g. being in ignorance and living lives without inordinate suffering). If one is permissible, the other should be too, and not very many people will bite that bullet. There's no reason for vegans to think that an awakening to the problems of animal suffering go against that unless we aren't confident in the strength of our arguments.

In terms of your generalizations about "vegans", you don't seem to know very many vegans, most of whom seem only really to be concerned with animal suffering when it comes to the actions of others, and are more on the fence about death without suffering (enough to perhaps err on the side of caution and not want to cause it, but not enough to be concerned about that when it comes to what others cause). Of those who actually understand the problems with killing animals for our wants, we're generally confident enough in our ability to argue for continued improvements beyond welfare.

For example pastured cattle emit more green-house gases than grain-fed cattle

That's what I'm talking about, and it's the only reasonably objective metric we can consider.

but a pasture system has other environment benefits.

No it doesn't. That's Allan Savory pseudoscience. Pasturing is only "beneficial" to a certain aesthetic, a psychopathic aesthetic that comes at the cost of harmful effects to sentient beings. The only way it's beneficial to the "environment" is if you load the question circular logic style by defining environment by that pastoral aesthetic.

Environmentally and economically speaking a country like the United States would have no issue raising the current number of cattle in a pasture system.

Complete bullshit. We're already far beyond the amount of greenhouse gases we can sustainably output. No, we can not scale up agricultural greenhouse gas output even more by converting the current number of cattle to pasture-- at least if you care at all about any of the human beings in less privileged countries who will suffer the consequences of our actions. Although I'm sure if you're a white nationalist or something you have no problem with suffering of poor non-whites in other countries for your own gluttony. That's not where I stand.

And the biggest risks of poultry are actually related to high-density operations (concentration of waste, evolution of viral diseases, antibiotic resistance, etc) otherwise their environmental impact is relatively low.

Poultry, as monogastric, have lower environmental footprint. However, they still consume food that could be used for human beings and increase the amount of crops we have to produce. It's an inefficient use of resources. The only poultry operations that are arguably efficient are based on integrative pest management since we have no practical way to harvest small pest insects and weeds for food. However, I know of no such operations that do not use significant amounts of supplemental feed. If there were such operations, in the least we would still have to scale far back on consumption.

[VGnizm]

It is actually I who is glad to hear from you and the community and what actually got me interested in Veganism a few years back was the unconditional sincerity I felt from the few Vegans that I met.

Most of the material about LLF is in French for now but what is more important is the reason why it was selected the unanimous winner out of a large number of participants. I will open a separate topic to exchange about the subject because I feel it is both interesting and useful towards future of food and global food security issues.

I had a moment to read and comment about the feedback and my sincere thanks as it helps me reduce the schizophrenia of being philosophically vegan and working in a plant based food industry. Meaning to say that industrial, social and regulatory requirements are pushing towards plant based food solutions and also placing barriers towards Veganism in the process.

It is no longer allowed to label meal options as vegan in University and School menus. What is allowed is 'vegetale' meaning plant based. I think the reasons are due to restricting ideological messages.

As for the Happy Cows I personally tend to agree that regardless of humane concerns animal sourced foods are rapidly becoming unsustainable. The vicious cycle of climate change affecting agricultural projections is accelerating and the double effect is leading to serious trouble. Much sooner than the 2030 published date I believe.

The main issue I feel is more food pleasure related than cruelty. I still meet many people who do not understand the ethical concern behind eating animal products. A good example is people who love their pet animals. They love animals but also love to enjoy animal foods. Yet they cannot conceive the idea of harming their pets in any way.

I personally think it is related mostly to food pleasure addiction as well as inherited habits. We feel that what we grew up doing is normal therefore morally correct.

I realize that change will have to come in parallel rather than head on. When I am asked to explain my being Vegan to genuinely interested individuals I try to choose elements that we have in common. Concern for health, the environment, food security as well as empathy and concern for the well being of animals. It has more acceptance and builds bridges.

That is why I felt supportive of the Happy Cows project because the Lady was genuinely concerned for the well being but did not consider exploitation or slaughter as a problem. Knowing that she lives and works in rural areas since many years I realized that the process is part of her personal culture and it would be confrontational to tell her that it is wrong.

Another interesting observation is that almost no one I meet, whether vegan or not, knows about sentience!

It seems more and more to me that Veganism will remain limited to a few ideological followers who see the food habit as only one of the expressions of sentient concern but the rest of the world will become more plant based!