The vegans are out again

[spoofmaster]

They've changed the cover of their pamphlets so that they no longer hint directly at a solution for meat eaters, which I have to say is an improvement (seeing as the hints at "compassionate eating" for meat eaters were always lies, and the pamphlet is really an attempt to convert people to veganism, or at least to part-time veganism). I keep wanting to confront one of them about it, but I get all nervous and don't feel that I have enough time to get into it before my next class. I really need to get out the latest pamphlet I took from them and try to find an email address for their organization. I'm thinking...if I type up a thoughtful, polite response to the pamphlet, I can both email it to them and print out copies to hand back to the people who keep trying to hand me more copies of the pamphlets.

I've already covered this in my last post about the vegans, so you already know...I really think that they're going about this the wrong way. "Compassionate eating" shouldn't refer to merely cutting down on meat and dairy intake - it should refer to making responsible decisions regarding the sources of the meats and dairies we do eat. I say that if you can afford to eat vegan food three times a week, you could probably put that same money toward eating compassionately raised meat instead. I know that I personally would not be able to afford it all the time, but I think if you have enough to buy food like that a few times a week it's better to put that money toward supporting responsible ranchers rather than toward supporting some vegan food manufacturer. Cruelty is not going to go away until it becomes profitable for it to do so.

Comments

[nobleplatypus]

WORD. If you make an effort, you can buy pasture-raised beef and such. It's hard to find (especially when phrases like "free-range" are so vaguely defined that they can mean just about whatever the farmer wants it to mean), but if you're going to go out of your way to improve the lives of animals, it would be better to monetarily support responsible, compassionate ranchers rather than just opt out altogether. There's no incentive for the industry to cater to the whims of people who wouldn't buy their product either way.

[spoofmaster]

Well, and there's the other component of what we need to be doing: passing laws that impose stricter definitions of things like "free-range," and informing the public about the real differences between these different labels ("organic" vs. "grass-fed," for instance. The former often means that the cattle have not been vaccinated. I only even know that because my aunt and uncle raise proper grass-fed beef).

And yeah, it's really hard to find, which is why I was disappointed that their food guide was not a list of meat and dairy producers that could be trusted to raise their animals compassionately. That's especially big with eggs, since the requirements for those nice labels on eggs are so vague that there's no way to verify how the chickens are treated without someone going and personally checking it out. The people who made these pamphlets have apparently infiltrated the industry before, since there are accounts and pictures from the insides of slaughterhouses and ranches and so forth...so why can't they put that energy toward inspecting ranchers who claim to be compassionate producers and verifying those claims?