Really great answer and I think you touched on most of the points that make veganism not only rational but a great choice. I actually have a question for you then, that maybe you'll have an interesting answer towards
I find there is a big difference between eating vegan, being vegan, and shopping vegan. Not in the fact that animals are left out of it, but rather in what exactly we are doing with the plants in the middle.
I find that a lot of foods that are labelled (or at least advertised) "vegan" in super markets are far from healthy, and are in reality highly-processed (meaning they involve wasteful agro-industrial processes...)
What one would eat on a well-balanced plant-based diet in pre-modern times and what one might eat as a "vegan option" of a popular meat-dish are different in this day and age just like the difference between woolly mammoth meat and a big mac...
A lot of this seems "wrong" for lack of a better word because we don't get rid of or challenge many of the ideas that set in motion the whole cruelty and anti-ecological idea of "meat everyday"... It's like part of the factory-farming billions of cows being killed problem is the supermarket, the fridge, getting our food from non-local sources.
All of this is a huge problem that veganism on the surface, and mainly shopping vegan, almost looks like it fixes it, but in reality it doesn't.
The whole soylent green idea that they are just feeding us the same old GMO designer garbage
That's why over time even though I am all for a plant-based diet and do believe I and almost everyone on earth could thrive on one, I do not believe that particular battle gets fought "as consumers".
I would argue that we can't consume our way to a better, fairer, more just world... and that the whole concept of organic, fair-trade, vegan food is a capitalist plot to further enslave us mentally down this path of hyperconnected madness?
At the same time, I believe in voting with our dollars, supporting the businesses and business practices we like, certainly withdrawing our purchasing power from businesses with no ethics or morals, etc...
Ideally, until we are living a subsistence lifestyle and producing our own food, clothes, energy, etc... I don't think we are putting our money where our mouth is.
But that's okay, I also don't believe this is a race or anything.
I really respect and admire the put an end to cruelty argument of veganism, and believe that on a spiritual level if we ingest the meat or fruit of a creature that has suffered, then a part of that suffering is transferred to us...
But that's also where I would say it runs both ways, that I believe that an animal that had lived a happy life and found contentment in every phase of life would not be harmful to a human being.
If you can go as far as saying that "it was natural and necessary while the human race was evolving" then that is indeed interesting because I still have little to no idea where and how human truly originated but in any case, I believe we still have a good deal of evolution to go and I would say that probably living off of herbs and berries with tremendous plant-chemicals and phytonutrients we could live wonderful lives.
I think there isn't a single idea in veganism that I do not agree with and yet the label "Vegan" either has a branding problem or it's the fact that it is a brand created for our post-modern consumerist world that to me makes the idea of "labeling as vegan" a kind of Trojan horse, where we think we are winning but in reality it's not quite?
Do you see any problems like this with eating "plant-based" (but somewhat to highly processed) foods out of supermarkets?
Thanks for your time and your submission, and have a lovely n blessed continuation with your life x
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