How Many Vegans Are On Here?

[ukanonymous]

I recently learned about the animal industry and became Vegan about 6 months ago. Its horrific to learn about it. Also after you learn you somehow live in denial a bit until you make your mind up. But its sick and I feel cheated that I was lied to my whole life about where food comes from and how animals are treated. Then to connect to their suffering also takes time to adapt because of all this cognitive dissonance we have to live though.
so how many vegans are on here?

[ukanonymous]

I didnt write that correctly not just by eating them... Just by eating them you save less http://www.peta.org/blog/many-animals-saved/

But to be a proactive vegan who also educates others and posts the odd video etc is around 900 per year.

I posted the link to Gary's video thast after watching made me turn from vegetarian - vegan (after I did other research also obviously)..

Its not gorey or nasty its just him speaking and after this I kinda fell in love again haha. But that same guy has also made some other claims I dont agree with but 95% he is a dream and an inspiration to some of my male friends too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4

[SnookerPlayer]

Over an hour long, don't think so.

[mikey4444]

Ummm...I am genuinely not understanding why they don't free range eggs, when there is no cruelty or exploitation involved.

There is an argument to be made for dairy products, as exploitation is involved. But hens will happily lay eggs every day, whether we want to eat the or not.

What I want is for a Vegan to explain why that logical and common sense argument makes no head way with them.

[EcclesCake]

Mikey layers are slaughtered when production drops, very few are rehomed.

[woofgang]

mikey I think its because the hens don’t live out natural happy lives but are killed when the lay rate drops off, also because when the laying hens are being produced, the male chicks are either killed as soon as their sex is evident or they are removed to be raised and used by the meat industry.

Uka, I can get how you might produce a valid number for the number of animals eaten by the average carnivore, used for leather goods and so on (although some will be the same animal) but I do not understand how the calculation is made that says that if you become vegan AND evangelise, the number of animals that you save goes up to 900 a year....I mean who does the counting and how do they count and how to they avoid double counting the same animal?

[mikey4444]

Woofy....I think that most of what you say applies to battery hens, but not to free range, but its seems a very excuse for vegans to take. Vegetarianism is one thing but Veganism really is just a fad IMHO.

And its got nothing to do with pointy ears, mores the pity !

[EcclesCake]

You are deluding yourself Mikey. Even organic, free range chicken farmers send their layers to slaughter when the egg production drops as it doesn't make good business sense to feed them when they are giving nothing in return.

[ladybirder]

Congratulations uka, I wish I could do the same as you. I am making progress but it's hard. Are you finding it difficult?

[eve1974]

I wish I had the moral compass and willpower to be vegan or even vegetarian... I like the taste of meet too much:(. More n more tho my conscience is pricking me... so I hope I have the strength to eventually do the right thing and go vegab

[eve1974]

Meat (not meet!) my typo

[woofgang]

mikey i am afraid that Eccles is right. Commercial free range egg production may well give the hens a better life when they are laying but they are usually still killed when the lay rate drops and roosters are still killed probably as soon as they are hatched or they go into meat production.....I mean what did you think happened to them?

[ukanonymous]

//Cows aren't hurt when being milked but vegans still don't don't drink milk. //

They are locked up and milked every day. Babies ripped from them at birth (if male then killed). The get mastitis of the udders which gets puss in the milk too.
They are raped to impregnate them with a metal rod and an arm. After 3 or 4 cycles of this they cant take any more and reffered to as 'downers'.

Which at this stage they are sent to slaughter houses to get their throats humanely slit.

I dont think you quite understand what they go though. Those happy cows you see on milk and cheese packages are to brain wash you into your current line of thinking.

[ukanonymous]

Normally they would live to 20 years or longer

[woofgang]

uka, if nobody wanted the milk or the beef then they wouldn’t be alive at all.....

[nailit]

Do vegans/vegetarians ever think how much animal life has to be killed in order to produce crops? When a plough or harvester goes over a field it kills untold insects, mice, rats, ground dwelling birds, hedgehogs, worms etc.
Theres no such thing as a guilt free lunch.

[pastafreak]

And if no one wanted the meat or milk from cattle,or the eggs from chickens...what will happen to those species? Will the last remaining few be in vegan-run zoos in a generation or 2? They will die out,as will other groups of animals. What will then happen to the balance of nature?

[pastafreak]

Actually...they couldn't be allowed to live,as all land would be needed for crops.

[nailit]

As someone who worked on a farm in his much younger years, I agree with ukanon, the cruelty is brutal (far from the idilyc countryside scene), but as stated in my previous post, there is no such thing as a guilt free lunch. I used to have a vegetarian girlfriend who got on my nerves with her self righteous diet views. Nature is red in tooth and claw (and plough and harvester)

[ukanonymous]

The answers are a little funny really. Being vegan means limiting the amount t if harm and suffering in the world it's impossible to stop it but being vegan minimises it. Also for the if nobody wanted milk comment well.. it's advertised everywhere as healthy and delicious and yes it tastes good. It it isn't healthy that is a total lie. Also if we didn't eat then they would never have lived lol. What would you rather be living in a life of hell or never have livid. Iean do you see humans as gods or something? The human race is evil to its core and destructive. It doesn't help by all the people who are unable to challenge their beliefs and just do what the TV says and fight for missinformed opinions.

[nailit]

I agree with you re: the milk industry uk. I fail to see how drinking another animals milk is healthy, we wouldnt drink the milk of a pig or a dog and yet we drink cows milk. No other mammal drinks the milk of another mammal.
BUT...I do like milk like I like alcohol.