this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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That is often where the stereotype of a "weak vegan" comes from, teenagers just not knowing what to eat while not wanting to partake in animal products. (But don't believe it, many professional weight lifters are vegan, and even Arnold has left out all other animal products except for eggs.)
But let's not pretend it's really anything complex. B12 supplementation is something that is often required, but like dairy is strengthened with vitamin D, many vegan products like vegan milks, breakfast cereals etc are fortified with B12. B12 comes from micro-organisms, it's just very plentiful in meat.
But for instance hemp seeds:
Am nott vegan btw. Flexitarian perhaps. Love me some good meat but strongly dislike industrialised meat farming. (game meaf from necessary population control = ethical imo)
I think you're underselling the importance of B12 supplementation or the consumption of fortified foods for vegan diets. Permanent neurological deterioration isn't something anyone should leave to chance and even non-vegans often have a mild B12 deficiency in most parts of the world.
With the amount of energy drinks (which contain a lot of vitamin B) being consumed, I'm not really that worried about this particular issue.
That's just not true, lol. You're thinking of the northern (or very southern) parts of the world (during winter) and vitamin D, that's the only way that statement is even remotely true.
That said there's never too much nutritional information being shared. So take care of your nutes, vegans!
At what point do you consider population control necessary? The inconvenient truth is that the worst instance of unsustainable overpopulation is us humans. No other species could come close to the harm and destruction we cause. Making special exceptions for ourselves while we are the worst offenders by far would be very hypocritical. If you consider population control ethical, you ought to consider school shootings, murder, etc. ethical as well.
I think we need to find better solutions than going on killing sprees.
Most western nations have a declining population so there's no need for that. When needed you can implement a 1-2 kid limit and that'd be fairly ethical, no? You can control human populations without killing, not sure why the comparison was necessary.
With our current lifestyles, 7 billion humans aren't sustainable for earth, which results in a lot of habitat destruction, pollution, climate change and so on. That's what my analogy to deer overpopulation was getting at. Even if we had a global 1 child limit, it would take a few generations until an actually sustainable population is reached.
If we have a right to live even though we cause so much destruction, it's inconsistent to kill deer for causing way, way less damage than us.
When it is necessary. Humans have replaced the apex predators in a lot of places. If population control isn't done with deer, the population skyrockets, gets out of control, and destroys the ecology, taking several species and the environment with it, not to mention putting people at risk because of the increased risk of deer crashes.
So for instance in most of Europe, it just is necessary. I only specified "when it's necessary" to avoid having an argument about trophy-hunting, which is immoral and ridiculous rich people bullshit. Actual hunting isn't. There's no cruelty, and it has to be done. And when it is, I eat it. And the venison is delicious.
This is ridiculous. You don't seem to understand what hunting actually does. https://ecosystems.psu.edu/outreach/youth/sftrc/deer/issue-deer
But all that applies to humans, and much more so. The harm done by deer overpopulation is completely and utterly dwarfed by the habitat destruction, pollution and climate change that our overpopulation causes. Based on your argumentation, hunting humans for population control is necessary and ethical.
But of course nobody will apply the logic consistently because of how cruel it would be.
Why don't we implement more humane population control measures for deer, like spaying/neutering? It might have something to do with humans liking the taste of their dead bodies...
If you have to choose between killing a crying child or killing an adult deer, which would you think is the more moral choice?
Unfortunately, you're not using logic.
Why don't we spay entire wild populations of deer? :DD
See earlier sentence, it applies here as well:
Unfortunately, you're not using logic.
Thanks for the laughs though, young city dweller, but if you really value nature and animals, I suggest actually visiting it and reading about it.
What does that have to do with anything? Of course killing a human is worse, but that doesn't mean that killing a deer isn't cruel.
Well, we do this with hundreds of millions of pets and BILLIONS of livestock animals just to improve taste, and hunters already go around shooting them, surely there would be a practical way to tranquilize them and do a snip or something. This is an issue we're responsible for after all, as you said. But yeah, there's no profit and no tasty corpses to be gained so it's not an option, I get it.
I'm not sure why you felt the need to be a condescending prick by the way. Maybe basic decency and manners aren't valued in your culture, so I'll try not to judge your character based on that. Have a nice day anyways.
And hmm, might there be some sort of a difference in how practical it is to spay DOMESTICATED animals versus ONES IN THE WILD?
"Surely there would be a practical way to tranquilize them and do a snip or something"
You can't be serious :D
Tell me you've never been outside a city without telling me you've never been outside a city. You don't seem to have any idea how big the outdoors is. It would be as easy to spay every deer as it would be to empty a lake of fish. Of every single fish. And then put them back alive. And then not understand that you still need to leave a breeding population, or you're genociding said animal and removing it from the ecological niche it's in, meaning the environment will be unbalanced and die. Congratulations, you've destroyed nature because you wish to pretend that predation isn't something that is necessary.
It's not my fault that you have an inferiority complex. You can probably help that by actually informing yourself of things, so that doesn't trigger so easily.___
You wouldn't need to sterilize more deer for population control than with hunting, obviously. You'd need to sterilize less in total because they'd still compete for food and habitat, just have no offspring. How is that unfeasible? I never said that you'd have to sterilize every single one lol, just enough to impact the fertility of their population in regions where its necessary due to human influence.
So you're sterilising deer for literally nothing, as a sterilised deer still has to eat, deary.
https://wildscapedeermanagement.co.uk/pages/ecological-impact-of-deer-overpopulation
"How is that unfeasible"
Because the non-spayed deer will just procreate more. You're not doing population control at all with your approach, even if it was possible. I ask you, do you think you can take a fishing pole and fish a lake empty? No, ofc not, that is ridiculous. What your proposing is equally if not more ridiculous. You're thinking about nature as if it was a fenced area that you are in charge of. Very arrogant of you, tbh.
You're the type of person who gives veganism a bad name, imo. You're probably one of those people who think "Thanos was right", huh?
OTOH, you won't see many bodybuilders at the highest competitive levels that are vegan. (Compare the physiques of the people you see when you search for vegan bodybuilder with Mr. Olympia 2023 images.; while yes, absolutely, everyone in Mr. Olympia is taking metric fuck tons of drugs to get huge, there shouldn't be anything preventing a vegan or vegetarian from doing the same.) When you are being absolutely scrupulous about hitting your macros, getting sufficient protein on a bulk cycle without also getting high carbs or fats is very, very difficult on a vegan and vegetarian diet. The stereotype of a BBer eating nothing but boneless, skinless chicken breast, brown rice, and plain steamed broccoli during a clean bulk or cut is pretty accurate, because that makes figuring out exactly how much protein, carbohydrates, and fats you're eating really simple. If you're trying to do a very clean bulk or any cut, you're going to need to avoid food that has multiple ingredients unless you're planning on weighing everything that goes into it first. Which also fucks up your recipe, but, oh well.
If you're a power lifter, it's less of a concern; you may be getting more carbs or fats than is ideal, but since you aren't trying to cut to 5% bodyfat, that's not really a huge problem. Same with endurance athletes (who, TBH, need to eat significantly more fats and carbs anyways; if you need to eat 8000 cal/day just to maintain, then eating super clean is probably not a concern).
Take your example of hemp seeds: for 30g of hemp seeds, you get 10g of proteins, but you also get 15g of fat. For 100g of dry lentils, you get 27g of proteins, but also get 60g of carbohydrates (48g net carbs if you subtract fiber from your totals). For 6 oz of B/S chicken breast, 53g of protein, and 3g of fat. (...Which is slightly better than ON whey isolate powder, which has 1g fat, 2g carbs, and 24g protein per serving.) So if I'm trying to hit 250g of protein in a day, it's easy to say that I need about 28oz of b/s chicken breast each day, and do my meal prep all in one go for the week. It gets more complicated if I want to have lentils, quinoa, brown rice, and asparagus.
I'm not saying veganism isn't viable as a meal plan, because it toally is! Like you expertly explained, there are considerations you have to take in to cut meat from your diet, and supplements you have to be sure to seek out in vegan-specific foods.