TIRED of constant unresearched/blatantly false and/or misrepresentative 'checkmate vegans' takes breaching my dash. can't you people find anything better to reblog like pictures of clouds or mp3 uploads of 40 second grindcore tracks
Part of what's so frustrating about seeing shit like this is that most "anti-vegan" arguments are not designed to change the minds of vegans, but to reinforce a sense of comfort and complacency in people who experience cognitive dissonance around issues of animal rights and animal exploitation
People might be 'plant based' for health or environmental reasons, but people are vegan because they have chosen to avoid animal exploitation as much as possible, so arguments hinging on how ACTUALLY X 'vegan alternative' is worse for the environment (pleather is just plastic! agave is more destructive than honey! buy local vs no meat! your body needs animal protein etc) fundamentally are not designed to address the concerns of vegans. They're designed to placate people who might otherwise feel guilty for not being vegan
Vegetarian, not vegan, but the ones that irritate me the most are the ones that focus on plants being 'just as bad'. Posts about how the agricultural industry is actually super exploitative to its workers, or about how certain fruits and things have to be imported when they're out of season.
Cause on the one hand they have a point. Agricultural workers are exploited, and importing food from far away is less environmentally friendly than the alternative.
But on the other hand I have never met a meat-eater who didn't also eat plants, so I have no idea why people seem to be treating it as such a check-mate against plant based diets specifically.
I saw a post a few days ago where the OP was arguing that veganism was pointless because pineapples have to be imported from some ungodly distance away, and that uses a lot of jet fuel. Pineapples.
I have never met a meat-eater who abstained from pineapple for any other reason besides allergies or just not liking it. Equally, I have never met a vegan or vegetarian who consumed noticeably more pineapples than anyone else.
(Not to mention that all these arguments seem to assume that the meant industry is some sort of bastion of workers' rights, which is not necessarily the case.)
These aren't arguments against veganism, they're arguments for buying food locally and sustainably. Which I don't think is actually incompatible with veganism.
I mean, it would probably take a lot of work to do it properly, possibly more than most people would be willing to put in, but acting like the two options are: a) be vegan and buy exclusively imported fruit and veg from the supermarket, or b) eat meat and only ever buy from local farmers, is ridiculous.
Especially when the vast majority of people I know actually choose option c) eat meat and buy it and all your other food exclusively from the supermarket, without knowing where it came from or who harvested it. Like why not target those people?
I think this all summarizes anti veganism more than I ever have. I’ve never seen an antivegan whose target audience was vegans. Their goal is always to reassure fellow antivegans.
