Philosophical Vegan Forum

I wanted to know whether it makes a difference if one person eats honey and uses clothes made from animal products. These are items that I believe can't spoil like meat and dairy would if people didn't buy them. Doesn't that also mean that it would take a lot of people to stop buying meat and dairy before they stopped ordering as much. There must be a lot that goes to waste even in a situation where everyone is non-vegan, right?

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what it is you're asking. Can you please clarify?

Viking Redbeard wrote:Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what it is you're asking. Can you please clarify?

Is there an impact if one person eats honey, uses clothes made from animal products, or use products that were tested on animals? Also, isn't there a lot of waste when it comes to meat and dairy which is not bought? Even if everyone was non-vegan there would be a lot of food that goes to waste, right?

Unsold food is thrown away, this is nothing new.
People waste more meat by not going vegan, since buying meat furthers the production of more meat, and some of that meat will go unsold.

There's no way out except to cut and run. Some unfortunate soul might feel like buying meat so that the animal didn't die in vain, but this just causes the meat company to kill another animal to replace the meat that this person bought.

Perhaps a more helpful way of looking at it is to treat all the animals who died as having gone to waste, even if their meat gets sold. If someone raised a dog, from birth, entirely indoors and confined it to a cage its entire life, completely alone, and this dog has never seen the sunlight, and never able to run, before finally being killed for its meat, we might view it as a tragic and cruel waste of a dog even if its meat was sold and thoroughly satisfied the person who bought it. It would be absurd to look at it any different for other animals who share many similarities to the dog and the humans, particularly for pigs which are said to be more intelligent than dogs.

zeello wrote:Unsold food is thrown away, this is nothing new.
People waste more meat by not going vegan, since buying meat furthers the production of more meat, and some of that meat will go unsold.

There's no way out except to cut and run. Some unfortunate soul might feel like buying meat so that the animal didn't die in vain, but this just causes the meat company to kill another animal to replace the meat that this person bought.

Perhaps a more helpful way of looking at it is to treat all the animals who died as having gone to waste, even if their meat gets sold. If someone raised a dog, from birth, entirely indoors and confined it to a cage its entire life, completely alone, and this dog has never seen the sunlight, and never able to run, before finally being killed for its meat, we might view it as a tragic and cruel waste of a dog even if its meat was sold and thoroughly satisfied the person who bought it. It would be absurd to look at it any different for the cow, the bird, or the pig, which are roughly as intelligent if not more so intelligent than the dog.

But are things so down to a science that one person really impacts the system?

One person may or may not impact the system. But this is not how one's moral decisions should be decided on an individual level. It's not just about what you do, but what you would have *everyone* do. If the individual feels that veganism is right, the individual must do his part by going vegan himself, without thinking about the small difference he alone makes. It's perhaps not really any different from voting in elections. And shouldn't really be any different whatever the moral issue is. (Littering is one example. There's garbage everywhere but each person only added a small amount. That shouldn't be an excuse to litter.)

But most of all, it's not about impacting the system, but about impacting those around you to make the right moral decision.

Lastly, if someone's choice to go vegan could impact the system so that even ONE fewer animal is raised for its meat, for some people that is enough of a reason to go vegan, especially considering how abominable is the treatment of animals in the system.

Welcome to the forums by the way.

Can one person impact the system in any meaningful way? Well, the honest answer is I don't know. However, if one person wears clothing made from animal products, supply and demand dictates that said person will be sending out the message that there's money to be made from animal skins, furs, and such like, and will give suppliers cause to kill more animals. And, of course, for every animal skin or wool sweater you buy, some animal somewhere was exploited and killed. This is something that I refuse to have any part of. That's why I'm vegan.

Second point, the production of animal products is just about the most wasteful business there is. You're right to say that a hell of a lot of meat and dairy goes to waste, and given that it takes 6 to12 pounds of plant protein to create 1 pound of animal protein, 28 calories of fossil energy to create 1 calorie of animal protein, etc., etc., etc., I think it's fair to say that even the meat and dairy that isn't thrown away is the end product of a criminal amount of waste.

If wastage is of serious concern, veganism is the logical conclusion.

Every person makes a small difference. In a completely non-vegan world, one person going vegan (or one fewer person born) would also make a difference.

Supply and demand is a pretty strong law of economics, and industry is very responsive to even small changes.

You can find industry articles all over the place about the drop in production and demand for, for example, beef:
farmprogress.com/blogs-both-meat-production-consumption-are-declining-5135
Some of them, like that, even talk about price affecting consumer spending.

There are other articles expressing concern over veganism, and the growing movement away from meat for health reasons, or trying to pep-talk the industry. The industry is worried, and it's production and profits are dropping. Farms are even closing due to drops in profit.

In terms of byproducts:
When people buy leather, for example, they drive up the price of leather, subsidizing the price of meat and driving meat prices down, which increases spending on meat by others. The two are inextricably linked, due to the supply and production being linked.
It's not exactly true that leather doesn't "spoil" and cost the retailers money; every day on the shelf or in the warehouse is expensive, in terms of real estate, storage, and fashion depreciation, rather than depreciation due to freshness.

Anyway, even one person eating less meat makes a small difference. And that applies to buying leather too.

Regarding waste:
Grocery stores are mostly digital now, in terms of stock keeping, and pretty efficient. They have small margins, so they can't afford to waste much. If they sell fewer units of meat, they can adjust that dynamically in their orders over the course of a week or so.
The whole thing ripples up through the supply line.

Let's take the worst case scenario:
If you were buying a lot of raw meat that spoils quickly, and you stopped suddenly or decreased your demand and nobody else increased it, a little bit of meat might go to 'waste', and then the grocery store would adjust its supply.
I wouldn't expect more than a week's purchase to go to waste before the grocery store adjusted its orders. You could ask the store you went to.
But the fact is the store will usually put things like that on clearance sale, and then some bargain shoppers will grab it and put it in the freezer if they already have enough. So, often nothing will go to waste, because consumers themselves are responsive to excess supply, and grocery stores actively work to maximize profits by minimizing waste.


Getting into more technical detail, an important thing to understand is that the economics of production at the large scale is more of a statistical matter.

Producers aim to produce exactly the amount that the consumers will buy, and no more. BUT they don't know what that amount is. Their estimates are pretty good though, and they are very responsive to changes.

The actual production amounts to somewhere in the margin of error around the "real" ideal number. As the real/ideal number shifts, so do those margins, and statistically, average production ends up lower. To the degree actual production varies from ideal production, the price fluctuates and modulates demand in response, and profit margins fall.
The detailed answer requires a more advanced understanding of statistics and economics.

But the short/simple answer is: Yes, one person does make a difference.