I just find it wild that vegans can simultaneously come to the conclusion that all forms of animal farming is unethical but still accept that keeping pets is ethical. My wife grew up on a milk goat farm, every single goat had a name (and they had hundreds of goats), and the goats generally lived lives as good as the average pet. They’d run around and play, get attention from the people who lived and worked there, and every once in a while escape the pens just to prove that they can (they’d literally be standing around the yard waiting for their escapades to be discovered)
Even if the concern is “some farms are unethical and I’m not able to validate where my food comes from to make sure its a farm that isn’t abusive to its animals” there’s ways around that, like buying from your local coop (in the case of meats, buying from a local butcher) or buying direct from the farm. Usually when you’re that close to the farm its really easy to trace your products back to a specific farm, or even make a deal with the butcher/coop to only buy products from a specific farm
Honestly at that point I think it’s lower effort to just go vegan. You’re already avoiding meat in every situation where you can’t investigate the supply chain, so no meat at restaurants, fast food, friends’ houses, etc. I guess if you really crave the taste of meat or something or if you live on a farm already I could see a case for it. For me, the case of going to the grocery and making a meal at home was always the easiest case to have a vegan diet (and avoiding all the extra prep and cleanup from preparing meat were nice perks), the parts that were actual hurdles were the convenience of fast food and not wanting to assert myself in group meals.
Personally, I figure that the tiny sliver of meat that’s produced ethically can go to the tiny sliver of people with weird dietary restrictions, and to cats, I guess. We still need to see a massive reduction in meat consumption if we want to address the abuse that’s rampant in the vast majority of meat production.
I just find it wild that vegans can simultaneously come to the conclusion that all forms of animal farming is unethical but still accept that keeping pets is ethical. My wife grew up on a milk goat farm, every single goat had a name (and they had hundreds of goats), and the goats generally lived lives as good as the average pet. They’d run around and play, get attention from the people who lived and worked there, and every once in a while escape the pens just to prove that they can (they’d literally be standing around the yard waiting for their escapades to be discovered)
Even if the concern is “some farms are unethical and I’m not able to validate where my food comes from to make sure its a farm that isn’t abusive to its animals” there’s ways around that, like buying from your local coop (in the case of meats, buying from a local butcher) or buying direct from the farm. Usually when you’re that close to the farm its really easy to trace your products back to a specific farm, or even make a deal with the butcher/coop to only buy products from a specific farm
Honestly at that point I think it’s lower effort to just go vegan. You’re already avoiding meat in every situation where you can’t investigate the supply chain, so no meat at restaurants, fast food, friends’ houses, etc. I guess if you really crave the taste of meat or something or if you live on a farm already I could see a case for it. For me, the case of going to the grocery and making a meal at home was always the easiest case to have a vegan diet (and avoiding all the extra prep and cleanup from preparing meat were nice perks), the parts that were actual hurdles were the convenience of fast food and not wanting to assert myself in group meals.
Personally, I figure that the tiny sliver of meat that’s produced ethically can go to the tiny sliver of people with weird dietary restrictions, and to cats, I guess. We still need to see a massive reduction in meat consumption if we want to address the abuse that’s rampant in the vast majority of meat production.
She grew up on on a milk goat farm but never learned that goats don’t give milk from the goodness of their heart?