6 Reasons Not To Go Vegan
It would be easy to sit here and list off the laundry list of alarming issues humanity and the world are presented with due to animal agriculture. From animal suffering, catastrophic climate changes to the rise of zoonotic disease like COVID-19. Every rebuttal to these valid points of logic comes under intense scrutiny from every direction of society. The carnist justification stacks like a house of cards that collapses with the slightest scientific response to their claims. Furthermore, dismantling logical fallacies to the likes of plants feeling pain is equivalently simple. Yet many vegans can attest, even here science is disregarded because it does not fit the carnist narrative of normal, natural and necessary. Refusing to relinquish their stance, the carnists are as foolish as old time cowboys in a spaghetti western who shoots his last shot and now needs to throw his six-shooter as his last line of defense.
Instead of reflecting on their choices, carnists prop up arguments against veganism to help aid the perception that it is an intolerant movement. Similar to how other social movements have been undermined throughout history. We even see on occasion, vegans abetting carnist viewpoints leading to further subversion against animal liberation. A majority of these arguments against vegans are specious at best. The plethora of positions perpetuating palate pleasure as just would never be spoken to defend any other immoral actions. Further examination of six common “validations” against veganisms reveals these carnist perceptions to be nothing more spurious and failing to meet the burden of proof to advocate their actions.
There is No Ethical Consumption Under Capitalism.
If there ever was an award for the most overplayed carnist argument, it would be the unwavering belief in that torturing and murdering animals is acceptable because under the socio-economic system of capitalism, exploitation is inevitable. Animal products are intrinsically unethical and by design, exploitive. This reduction of sentient beings to mere commodities and resources is defended by carnists as a necessary evil for our continued survival as a species. In turn this propagates the message that veganism is merely a diet or consumerist choice. Done with the intent of invalidating the position of animal rights, the no ethical consumption slogan is a dead end for conversations of ethics. What carnist fail to recognize when warranting one form of abuse under this umbrellaed argument, the door for other forms of abuses to be rationalized to the same degree is swung wide open from sweatshop factories to human trafficking.
A Vegan Diet Is NOT Cruelty Free
As vegans, it is foolish for us to market our diet as “cruelty free” because we would be erasing the human aspect of suffering that is a result of industrialized capitalism. Vegans are not exonerated from our participation in capitalism and it’s pitfalls that lends to the suffering of our fellow human beings. It would be naive however to point the blame solely at vegans but carnist continue to do so by pushing the misconception that only vegans eat plants. Even if that were the case, carnists still fail to acknowledge the simple fact that 85% of the world’s crop production is meant to feed livestock. This statistic alone negates the carnist attempt to equivocate the resulting suffering by disregarding the volume of those impacted because in actuality, the carnist population consumes, directly and indirectly, more crops than all vegans combined. While we all play a role in the exploitation of other peoples, in regards to agriculture, you can improve working conditions and increase wages. You can choose to support fair trade and direct trade but you can not remove the psychological trauma inflicted on workers in slaughterhouses and meat processing plants while supporting it in any other fashion.
A Vegan Diet Is Still NOT Cruelty Free
The argument of worker oppression will always fail to prove the carnist logic that the cruelty committed by vegans is on par with theirs. Carnist are left grasping at straws in effort to make comparative correlations that will pull vegans down to their level and their favorite defense is the number of animals killed in industrial crop harvesting. A futile attempt to downplay the 70 billions animals whose bodies and resources have been commodified for human consumption. However quantifying the number of deaths due crop harvesting is difficult as studies are few and far between and utilize small sample sizes. Studies with field mice do not support the carnist logic as there was a 97% survival rate after crop harvesting. A majority of deaths was contributed to predators taking advantage of the loss of protective coverage provided by crops. The mice eventually adapted with 80% eventually migrating to the surrounding shrub. Without resounding quantitative proof and with the small amount of evidence speaking to the contrary, this delusional debate of animals killed in crop harvesting is used to condone carnist support for a system that feeds 70 billion animals a year while 10 millions humans are left to starve to death.
Vegan Is Ableist
Most carnists have never taken the time to sit down and learn the actual definition of veganism. If they did, then they would know it clearly states, “veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.” Now read that again and pay attention to the part where it says, “as far as is possible and practicable,” because there is an understanding amongst a majority of vegans that there is a small portion of who cannot be healthy without the consumption of some animal products. One of the most popular examples of vegan ableism is vegans not being empathetic towards those living in food deserts. Yet in America, those in food deserts only accounts for 7% of our total population and with the consistency that this fact is used to attack vegans, it must be assumed that a majority of carnists using this defense have never experienced life within a food desert and therefore by propping up someone else’s position as their reasons for not going vegan thus becoming ableist themselves. Branding the entire movement as ableists removes the efforts of those who tirelessly fight for day in, day out for animal liberation by working to grow the community and making it more accessible to everyone.
Vegans Care More About Animals Than Humans
In 1983, Audre Lorde wrote, There Is No Hierarchy of Oppression, a plea for everyone to recognize that all oppressive systems and hierarchies are intertwined from the same fundamental through process: “We are better.” Veganism attempts to fight back against this mental quagmire to justify commodifying animals not because we value the lives of animals over human beings. Many go vegan once the correlation between the need for violence, oppression and exploitation to maintain the status quo of animal agriculture is revealed to mirror those systems that have operated to oppress human beings from the slave trade to the patriach. Vegans reject the dominion humanity holds over all over species and demand liberation, at the same time it would be foolish to believe that animal rights activists have not been on the forefront of fighting against human injustice. This connection to all suffering to systems of oppression, has helped to create community that not only works from animal liberation but stands in solidarity with various social movements and are involved in direct action in the fight against racial and gender inequality, for equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community as well as volunteering their time to help the fellow human beings. As the vegan movement continues to grow, it’s diversity can be seen as one of its most vibrant aspects. Even within the vegan community, this diversity is defended and celebrated each time bigotry is challenged within the movement thus demonstrating our passion for animal liberation is only matched by our desire for human equality.
Vegan Is A First World Privilege
Fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, legumes and seeds are vegan staples and aren’t considered expensive by any means. Many developing nations live predominantly on plant-based diets. For instance, in Bangladesh, a person consumes only 4 kilograms of meat per year while the average citizen of the United Kingdom consumes 84.2 kilograms of meat during the same time period. What makes this comparison even more daunting is once you factor in the population disparity between the two nations with Bangladesh having over 100 million more people than the United Kingdom. The high meat consumption of the United Kingdom is not an anomaly of the first world countries as we see similar results in the United States with each person consuming 120.2 kilograms of meat a year. The evidence is a stark contrast to the claims of carnists and illuminates the fact that this pretentious practice of consuming is animals is far more of first world privilege than adhering to a vegan lifestyle. A majority of vegans even in these developed nations fall within the lower end of the income spectrum with several falling beneath the poverty line. The misguided belief that veganism is expensive diminishes the work of vegans confined within these socio-economic barriers to live a life that challenges systems of oppression and removes as much exploitation from their hands as possible.