This question is easy for me — hog farming is, overall, a greater harm because we are talking about more pigs and more horrendous conditions. Both are morally impermissible, in my opinion, which is why I keep to a vegan diet and don’t wear fur.
Putting aside the harms to animals for a moment, we might consider both mink farms and hog farms to be part of a larger problem, which is monoculture agriculture. Minks weren’t meant to live in tiny cages all cramped together, and neither were hogs, and weird ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ (life out of balance) things are going to happen when we do that — just like raising nothing but corn and killing everything else on farmland will eventually deplete the soil.
This isn’t some subtle act of interpretation; the evidence is all around us that industrial-style practices applied to living things have negative externalities that plausibly outweigh their benefits.
Barely anyone cares about fur products, but people are too stuburn to stop general meat consumption - even if not totally - not matter the cost. Eating more vegan meals is probably the best personal action one can make for the environment. Most other significant actions can only be made on a corporate level.
If anything, I would say fur gets a disproportionately high amount of attention from animal rights activists, relative to the total number of animals affected. According to Animal Charity Evaluators, an effective altruism group that focuses on animal welfare [0]:
> Of domesticated land animals used and killed by humans in the United States, over 99.6% are farmed land animals, about 0.2% are animals used in laboratories, 0.07% are used for clothing, and 0.03% are killed in companion animal shelters.
I am assuming they are grouping animals farmed for fur in the ‘raised for clothing’ category.
If I want meat I will eat meat. Plants aren't meat. If you want people to eat plants then promote some vegan dishes that are good on their own without relying on comparisons to something else. "It tastes like meat" is not a compelling pitch.
Bacon isn't advertised as "better than plants" or "tastes like plants". It doesn't need to.
BMW doesn't run commercials during NFL games where members of the public think their cars are Chevys.
When you pitch "plant meat" you are implying plants are inferior to meat in some way.
Yes, I know. But I am not one if them. "It's less cruel" is not a compelling enough argument for me to stop eating meat. If you tell me about some vegan dishes that are good on their own I will probably start eating them sometimes and my meat consumption will go down as a side effect. I'm literally telling you how you can sell more people on the idea of plant-based diets.
Exactly. Meat is meat and happens to taste good. But vegetables can taste good too. I can appreciate them for what they are, and do not need or want them to taste "like meat".
Many people choose to stop eating meat because it's cruel, not because they don't enjoy eating meat. Therefore plant based meat is a fantastic invention :)
And even then it only works for people who lack the discretionary income for meat. That's a significant number of people but not everyone. If your goal is to reduce meat consumption in general then the pitch should be "plants are better than meat" rather than "plants can be kinda like meat".
I absolutely agree. Many plants are delicious. I will take eggplant, courgette, cabbage or any number of other delicious plants over a brown mush of unknown plants and other things that tries to pretend to be meat, thanks.
Many people choose to stop eating meat because it's cruel, not because they don't enjoy eating meat. Therefore plant based meat is a fantastic invention :)
Nobody is arguing that. This thread is about the marketing of plant-based diets to meat-eaters. The reasons for being vegan are well understood. They just aren't compelling to everyone. Cost is just another compelling argument.
I’ve tried a wide variety of plant based “meat”. I’ve also tried a wide variety of meat. Some of the plant based “meat” is surprisingly good, but “mind blowing” is going way too far, and setting up unrealistic expectations that will end up being detrimental to the goal of getting more people to reduce or eliminate meat.
It's subjective, but I personally find it mind blowing how similar Impossible Burgers or Beyond Sausage are to the real thing. I also find it mind blowing that I can create a vegan version of a British classic ;) sausage, chips, and beans and not be able to tell the difference from the real thing :)
It's amazing how people's subjective experiences can differ so much. Impossible and Beyond are good, but to me they are really, really, really different from meat, to the point that I don't even understand why people eat them: Vegetables are delicious. Why try and fail to make them similar to meat, and simultaneously make it harder to understand what is even contained in the thing you're eating?
If I don't eat meat for the taste (which is a gross notion to me) but for the nutritional value does plant based substitute provide at least comparable nutrition? Does it have the aminoacids I would get from meat?
There are lots of mouse studies that point to bad metabolic effects from soybean oil consumption. Many of these mechanisms are the same in humans. If one wants to start pulling the metaphorical thread on seed oils, this is not hard to do, as long as one realizes that the companies who sell these things will always tell the consumer they are healthy.
Seed oils did not exist in the food supply before the late 1800s, so the idea that they are this amazing health food, while also being incredibly cheap/profitable to produce and really useful in creating junk food really stretches credulity.
Animals are killed to provide for your vegan diet too, though you can argue they are indirectly killed. And then there is the moral issue of murdering plants and consuming them.
> Minks weren’t meant to live in tiny cages all cramped together
The same goes for plants/vegetation used to feed vegans. Unless you are grazing the great plains like wild buffalo.
> just like raising nothing but corn and killing everything else on farmland will eventually deplete the soil.
What about clearing the land for avocado, almond, etc? Also, do you know what helps replenish the soil? Animals...
> the evidence is all around us that industrial-style
Except that the only way vegan diet works is through industrialized farming/transporting/etc. There are no such things as a vegan homestead. You cannot live harmoniously in nature via a vegan diet. Whereas an omnivore diet can be supported by a homestead.
You can argue industrialized farming is bad. But that's the only kind of farming that can support vegans. An inuit in alaska or a homesteader in vermont cannot survive on locally produced vegan diet.
As a matter of fact, no human can survive in nature on a vegan diet. All humans on a vegan diet would die of starvation/disease in nature. It's why no vegan human society has ever existed.
You can't be against industrialized farming and be for veganism. You have to be one or the other because they are necessarily contradictory of each other. Omnivore can be against industrialized farming because we can survive without it, unlike vegans.
In general, I like it when people make their objections to veganism explicit, rather than just going about their lives eating meat. It suggests openness to conversation that I appreciate. So an upvote for you.
To the point that veganism requires industrialized farming: this may be true, I don't know. I think we do know that widespread veganism would reduce some of environmental harms associated with industrialized farming, because:
* A lot of currently cultivated farmland produces feed for livestock (Vox estimates 36% [0]);
* This paper [1] estimates that switching land currently used for animals to plants would lead to a manifold increase in nutrient output per acre;
* The BBC [2] estimates that "A meat-eater’s diet requires 17 times more land, 14 times more water and 10 times more energy than a vegetarian’s;"
And so on [3] [4].
I don't think we know for sure what would happen if the world stopped eating meat, but I think overall, environmentally and ethically, it would be an improvement.
(To a point about worse nutritional profiles of vegan vs.
omnivore diets (raised in [4]), I think the answer is to eat oysters, clams and mussels, which are high in iron, protein, and fish oil, but don't have capacity for pain/experience, as far as we know. This is called ostroveganism and I picked up the idea from Michael Huemer [5].)
> To the point that veganism requires industrialized farming: this may be true, I don't know.
It's a fact. You can't even be a vegan on a family farm. Try it and find out. How is an innuit in siberia or alaska going to survive on veganism when native tribes in the amazon or lush jungles can't even survive on veganism?
> A lot of currently cultivated farmland produces feed for livestock (Vox estimates 36% [0]);
Don't link to vox garbage. They know as much about farming as they do about [fill in the blank]. A lot more farmland would need to be created for human consumption.
> This paper [1] estimates that switching land currently used for animals to plants would lead to a manifold increase in nutrient output per acre;
But it's not 1 to 1. Most of that nutrient output won't be any good for humans. And secondly, most of those nutrients can't be grown in the places you grow grain to feed animals. Meaning you can't grow avocado's, almonds and all the other virtue signaling vegan products in nebraska or iowa. Okay?
> * The BBC [2] estimates that "A meat-eater’s diet requires 17 times more land, 14 times more water and 10 times more energy than a vegetarian’s;"
Don't link to BBC garbage. Also,we were talking about vegans, not vegetarians. Nice try. That's another debate altogether.
> but I think overall, environmentally and ethically, it would be an improvement.
Nope. The most immoral ( both to humans and animals and plants ) is the vegan diet. Veganism is environmental catastrophe. It's mostly naive children who think a perfect utopia is possible. The kind of lunatics that try to force veganism on their infants/pets and starve them to death. Go ask any farmer or any person who has experience with life. It's like as a child wondering why we don't just send out garbage to the sun.
> I think the answer is to eat oysters, clams and mussels, which are high in iron, protein, and fish oil, but don't have capacity for pain/experience, as far as we know.
So, eat meat? I'm glad you finally came around.
> This is called ostroveganism and I picked up the idea from Michael Huemer
It's called pathetic rationalization.
1. If eating meat is wrong because of "pain/experience", then we shouldn't eat plants either.
1. Science shows that plants can experience/feel pain/communicate, then should virtue signalers abstain from eating plants?
2. If it is immoral to kill an animal for meat, then is it okay to eat roadkill?
3. If it is immoral for animals to be killed, then is it immoral to own pets ( dogs, cats, snakes, etc ) that eat meat?
4. If it is immoral for animals to be killed for meat, then must we protect animals from other animals? Should we stop wolves, bears, etc from killing other animals?
Or have the privileged pathetic few gotten so rich and lazy that their want to feel superior over nonsense?
Like I said, we can end industrialized farming and go back to an omnivore diet like our ancestors. But we can't end industrialized farming and go to a vegan diet because everyone would starve to death. I wish all the self-righteous and hypocritical vegans in the world would get together and buy a large farm and practice what they preach. Veganism would disappear within a season.
Putting aside the harms to animals for a moment, we might consider both mink farms and hog farms to be part of a larger problem, which is monoculture agriculture. Minks weren’t meant to live in tiny cages all cramped together, and neither were hogs, and weird ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ (life out of balance) things are going to happen when we do that — just like raising nothing but corn and killing everything else on farmland will eventually deplete the soil.
This isn’t some subtle act of interpretation; the evidence is all around us that industrial-style practices applied to living things have negative externalities that plausibly outweigh their benefits.