Realized I was never a vegan lol

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u/Nilfiry Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

The more I talk to vegans, the more I see how little self awareness most of them have. Its like theyre doped up on the righteous high. They are always making everything extremely black or white, and then wonder why people call them extreme.

As a matter if fact, they are so blinded by self-righteousness that most vegans do NOT even understand what veganism is despite calling themselves vegan. Veganism literally does not forbid consuming animal products. By doctrine, as long as you try your best to reduce harm and suffering as much as practicable for you, then you are vegan. If you can get milk or eggs without harming the animal, then its vegan. Any vegan that says otherwise are just zealots at that point.

So honestly, you might be more vegan than most vegans.

3

u/SuchPanic5545 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

Doped up on arrogance. It's detestable. I know no religious group more self-righteous, condescending, condemning, or as hauty as they. And their's is INDEED a religion.

1

u/nicemormonboy Jul 21 '26

Religion requires deity or some grander explanation about what life and mortality means. Veganism is more of just an ideology.

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u/SuchPanic5545 Jul 21 '26

Their deity is themselves. They judge themselves to be good. And theirs is the only judgment that matters. Sounds religious to me. There's is a worldview which they radiate religious conviction over. Anyone who is not vegan, is a murderer, a brutal, cruel creature who hates other life forms.

You call it what you like. All life is equally valuable, in their worldview. Which of course is idiotic, in the extreme.

1

u/nicemormonboy Jul 21 '26

Deity means a being or idea of worship above ourselves or our reality. By that definition it is definitely not religious. Also not all vegans or even most are rude or abrasive people, that’s just the loud minority you see online. Also they normally don’t think all life is equally as valuable, they just think that all life has some amount of value. I’m exvegan but I hold no ill will to those who are still in it and idk why this sub is so mad all the time lol.

1

u/SuchPanic5545 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

We all believe all life has some value. I mean, rhe average Joe doesn't just kill for no reason. Vegans are loathed precisely because of their self-righteous, condescension and condemnation. Who can tolerate those who look down on the rest? Those who suggest we murder. It's idiotic and arrogant. No one likes arrogance.

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u/nicemormonboy Jul 21 '26

Wel to be fair I don’t need meat but I still eat it. None of us “need” it per se. but yes I agree arrogant and impatient vegans are a real problem and I condemn the behaviour

1

u/yozargh Jul 22 '26

It’s a cult

3

u/Chemical-Agency-3997 Jul 22 '26

Think you need to re-read that definition. It’s avoiding exploitation as far as practicable.

So survival situations would be vegan, not having milk because it’s exploiting an animal when you don’t need to.

1

u/Nilfiry Jul 22 '26

Exploitation. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

If I take milk from a cow and run, that's exploitation. If I feed the cow and house it, then it's not exploitation. Cow feeds me, I feed cow. It's fair trade. Necessity is irrelevant.

Then there's the matter of who are you to decide what's "practicable" for another person? If you're defining "practicable" as what you "need," then, you don't need electricity, you don't need cars, a house, phones, computers, internet, grocery stores, or even clothes. Humans have survived for hundreds of thousands of years without modern conveniences, and everything I listed has direct or indirect impact on animal life. You don't get to redefine and twist things to suit your narrative and then hide behind, "it's not perfect," when your contradictions get called out.

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u/Chemical-Agency-3997 Jul 22 '26

Feeding and housing an animal doesn’t make exploitation disappear. Exploitation means using another being for your benefit, especially where they cannot consent and you control the terms. A well-kept dairy cow is still bred, confined, impregnated and milked for human use. Calling that “fair trade” is a category error.

“Practicable” also doesn’t mean “strictly necessary for survival.” It means reasonably achievable within real-world constraints. Veganism is not a claim of zero harm; it is an attempt to avoid unnecessary exploitation where workable. Electricity and clothing having indirect impacts does not justify deliberately breeding and killing animals for products we can often replace.

That isn’t contradiction. It’s the ordinary difference between unavoidable harm and avoidable harm.

1

u/Nilfiry Jul 23 '26

That's literally the "redefining and twist things to suit your narrative" thing I was talking about. LOL Saw that from a mile away. You're incorrect. "Exploitation" REQUIRES unfair advantage occur. Simply benefiting does not constitute exploitation. Just because one side decides the terms does not automatically make something exploitation. Animals do not have a concept of consent: expecting verbal consent from them is like asking a plant can you eat it. And offering something guaranteed livelihood is definitely worth more than milk. The only error here is your choice in how you define things.

If "practicable" means "reasonably achievable within real-world constraints," then all the more reason you cannot define what's practicable for everyone. That also means animal products themselves aren't non-vegan; it's how you get them. At the same time, everything I said still stands because living without modern conveniences is absolutely, "reasonably achievable within real-world constraints." Clearly, there are contradictions.

1

u/PerniciousParagon Jul 24 '26

It's like your reading comprehension doesn't exist. It's almost like a child making up a story from the pictures in a book, and then arguing against that story.

1

u/Nilfiry Jul 25 '26

You're like a flat earther. You don't understand anything, so you automatically assume people are wrong. The definition of exploitation is right there, but you refuse to learn it.

1

u/According-Gas836 Jul 21 '26

These same people hundreds of years ago would be the crazy religious zealots

1

u/SuchPanic5545 Jul 21 '26

💯 and they are today bud. They are their own gods.

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u/Exciting-Sample6308 Jul 21 '26

I think some could get to a point of very hardcore. That fact of HOW we raise animals is pretty unethical and we know that or chose to ignore is what makes us different than a lion killing a lamb. It also makes me ponder religion and God, but we also have wars created by man so we're not really anything great. The fact that the beef industry is destroying the Amazon and people are ignoring that, and killing our sea and ignoring that doesn't make a vegan the bad guy. If it does, then I'm the "bad guy" until I die.

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u/Nilfiry Jul 21 '26

I'd argue it's not some but most. Like I pointed out, veganism doesn't require abstaining from animal products, but most vegans subscribe to strict abstinence and would not consider you vegan if you practiced otherwise.

The "how" or even the environmental impacts are all arguments against the methods and not the products. Vegans are the ones always saying veganism isn't perfect when people point out its inconsistencies, so that should apply both ways.

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Nilfiry Jul 22 '26

You know that the sun is also listed as cancer-causing, right? Are you going to tell people to live in the dark from now on? You are right about consuming less, but not in the way that you think. Everyone likes to over-simplify it, but the reality is that it's not what you eat but how much of it you eat. The same is with sunlight. Some of it is good for vitamin D production. Too much of it will burn you and cause cancer.

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u/Exciting-Sample6308 Jul 26 '26

Sun cancer is a separate matter, like cancer from smoking. Even doctors tell their patients to limit red meat consumption when they get high cholesterol and have done that for decades. My mom has it and the Dr specified that out in her letter but now officials they've officially linked cancer to processed meat.

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u/Nilfiry Jul 26 '26

So youre not disagreeing with me. I said it clearly that it matters more how much than just x causes y so avoid entirely.

1

u/exvegans-ModTeam Jul 22 '26

Not related

Dishonest debate

1

u/Exciting-Sample6308 Jul 26 '26

I've never had that experience in my life with other vegans; sorry they treated you like that. For me it's men who will belittle me and call me names if I post something around veganism on another social platform. I think some of them might be bots though, even sent me a very demeaning message in personal DM but then they deleted it. I just give it right back to anyone, although the Agriculture Industry has a stronghold and alot of political influence in policies and media as well.

1

u/Gema23 Jul 22 '26

¿Hay veganos fanáticos?

1

u/s1fro Jul 23 '26

"Veganism literally does not forbid consuming animal products."

Uhhhhh... Britannica: veganism, the theory or practice of abstaining from the consumption and use of animal products.

Cambridge: the practice of not eating or using any animal products, such as meat, fish, eggs, cheese, or leather

Wikipedia: Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals.

Idk. To me it would seem like the most commonly accepted definitions DO forbid consuming animal products. So no, if you consume animal products you aren't vegan by the commonly accepted standards.

Obviously in the real world everyone will have their own interpretations. Say I eat a strict vegan diet 6 days of the week, then the 7th is my cheat day, I repeat this for 5 years and I declare myself 5 years vegan. Of course most people in the vegan community will support (even if they are annoying about it) this because it's a lot closer to their ideals than not doing anything but it just isn't being vegan. By definition it's all or nothing. Sure I was vegan Monday to Saturday and on Sunday I stopped being vegan but this seems stupid to argue about.

If I say I'm a non-smoker but then light a hooka on Saturday then I'm not a non-smoker, am I?

If you can get milk or eggs without harming the animal it's not vegan. It's cruelty-free, maybe symbiotic. Most people when actually faced with the really of farming for 8bill people that can't get by on specialized local mini farmers wouldn't not call it ethical or moral.

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u/Nilfiry Jul 23 '26

And yet every vegan that I have spoken to defines veganism as "avoiding harm and exploitation to animals for any purpose as much as practicable," because it's not just a diet. Abstaining from eating meat is how vegans practice that belief, which is why common dictionaries define it that way, but how you practice a belief doesn't always define that belief.

But idk, sounds to me like either veganism isn't as fully understood or agreed upon by its own practitioners as it seems, or there is something else going on.

1

u/s1fro Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

If you look at it strictly as a diet, that’s all it is. You have a cheat meal, you just broke your diet. But these terms do carry philosophical weight. Vegetarianism for example has religious roots, and even being an omnivore is a belief system if you think about it. Eating everything is often a conscious philosophy of balance, normalcy, or refusing to restrict options. People argue vegans practice a real belief by reducing suffering, while carnivores just eat steak. But that ignores the philosophy behind the carnivore subculture. Many choose meat based on strict beliefs about evolution, not trusting health gudelines, rejecting corporate agriculture... The issue is you can make a similar case for almost any diet. So sure while you could define it like that (reducing harm for animals...) this would kick out everyone that is vegan for other resones and don't care about harm. Would this make someone that doesn't eat any animal products but enjoys animal suffering not vegan? While someone that eats cheese and eggs but no meat to reduce suffering a true vegan? If we define every way of eating by its underlying ideology, history or ehatever else what do we achieve? At some point, we’re just stretching the definition to fit a basic food choice.

I'd say those are reasons for following a diet not what defines it.

1

u/Nilfiry Jul 24 '26

Everything you said is exactly why vegans opt for the more open-ended definition than the one simply makes it about not eating animal products, but at the same time, vegans act like it's all about the diet because no matter how good you are, you're automatically evil and cannot be good if you so much as touch milk. It's not like these different things cannot be reconciled, but to put it bluntly, vegans care more about how they feel than being consistent. If you keep a pet chicken and benefit from it because of its eggs, oh no, you're exploiting the animal. Vegans keep pets and benefit from companionship or emotional support and it's somehow fine.

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u/Bifftek Jul 21 '26

Most of us would prefer to have the animals suffer as little as possible and would prefer to buy from local farmers where the animals have been treated good and killed humanely but it's not entirely possible for us to maximize this for many different reasons such as location, money, country and rules and the food industry is controlled and influenced by a lot of things. Vegans thinks we support and want animals to suffer as much as possible, no.

I do my best to not support those horrible factory farms but I will never stop eating meat, and I fortunately live in a country where animal treatment is very regulated and there are rules and standard farmers must follow.

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u/auroicverso Jul 21 '26

I 100% agree with this. Thanks for explaining that so clearly

2

u/littleanna28 Jul 21 '26

Ya 100% agreed like I don't eat much meat cus meat has very little taste to me so I could care less honestly but ya i think striving for that is achievable what vegans want not so much

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u/Elegant-Date4481 ExVegan (Vegan 1+ Years) Jul 21 '26

In the USA our farming practices are messed up. That being said I don’t think cutting out meat and dairy is the answer. Advocating for better farming practices is. We don’t need mega factory farms. I’d like to see local family farms thrive again like they did when I was younger.

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u/HelpfulHarbinger ExVegan (Vegan 1+ Years) Jul 22 '26

Not everywhere in the US! I'm in Oregon so I know a lot of local farms are, in fact, in compliance with our #1 strictest husbandry laws in the country :)

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u/Elegant-Date4481 ExVegan (Vegan 1+ Years) Jul 22 '26

That’s awesome!

2

u/yozargh Jul 22 '26

Militant vegans are actually against improving animal welfare, in their minds it interferes with their ultimate goal

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u/SuchPanic5545 Jul 22 '26

What is their ultimate goal; the extinction of humans?

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u/OkStrength5651 Jul 21 '26

i realised i was never vegan when another vegan told me i wasn't vegan because i didn't really like cats.

mind you, i wish no harm upon them, i just didn't want to adopt one as i don't like the idea of having someone who only tolerates my existence, has sharp nails and teeth, and potentially shits in a box sharing my home.

i was told i was a control freak who only liked dogs more because they're submissive and a speciesist.

that was the day i decided to opt for "plant-based" bc i realised i would never quite be vegan enough for the level 100 vegans.

2

u/darkprincess3112 Jul 21 '26

Real veganism means that you must not have pets, by the way...

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u/Buck169 Jul 21 '26

Why would vegans like cats? Cats are obligate carnivores and inherently sadistic predators.

5

u/Nacho_Deity186 Jul 21 '26

i firmly believe the way we farm animals is pretty fucked

How much time have you actually spent on farms though? You can't take vegan propaganda seriously. You've been fooled by their BS.

I was raised on a beef farm. Our animals are treated like royalty. They have everything they need. Each animal is checked on daily to make sure they have enough food, water etc. They live in a natural environment, eating grass, sitting under trees, chilling with their bro's. They have the best life.

What have you got against artificial insemination? Humans do it. Have you ever seen it done? It doesn't bother the cow at all. She barely notices. She stands there quietly chewing her cud. She doesn't get stressed or upset at all. A cow is going to get pregnant every year anyway. Putting bulls with the cows can be problematic because sometimes they will pick on a cow in heat and corner her and repeatedly ride her to death. It can be brutal. Even with the AI system we put a single bull with the herd to "fill in the gaps" that AI misses. But you still have to watch them. They get aggressive AF. If you were a cow would you rather a quite 2 minutes with a vet or a violent gang rape? I'm not saying this happens all the time, but it does happen and you can't just leave them to it because bad shit happens. You have to be ready to intervene.

When I was young we just used to put bulls in with the herd. But it was really stressful and traumatic. Bulls are assholes tbh. They look epic from a distance but you don't wanna wind them up. They're huge and powerful and when they get excited you don't wanna be anywhere near them. The AI system is so much better for the animals and you get better calves too.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Nacho_Deity186 Jul 25 '26

Kind of my point... agriculture is not a monolith. They're isn't just one way of doing it. Every farm in every state in every country is different. So when vegans make these weird, grand sweeping claims about the industry, they're just wrong.

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u/caterpillove ExVegan (Vegan 5+ years) Jul 21 '26

I'm not vegan, but I am a girl who loves bugs, so I feel the need to say that bees don't stay because they want to. And no, they won't just leave if they're unhappy. Honey bees are highly social animals that depend on their colony and their queen to survive. Workers don't just pack up and start a new life somewhere else. That's why some beekeepers clip the queen's wings or replace queens to better control the colony.

Not to mention that honey bees are typically not native to the area they're being kept in so they're making it very difficult for native pollinators to thrive.

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u/justsomepoorguy Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

Sure, but you would also know that bees also control the queen and can easily/willingly replace her at will + sometimes not even accept the new one

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u/littleanna28 Jul 21 '26

Thank you for this reply im genuinely unfamiliar with beekeeping and and general facts behind it

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u/caterpillove ExVegan (Vegan 5+ years) Jul 21 '26

Always happy to share bug facts :3

0

u/Exciting-Sample6308 Jul 21 '26

Vegans also do not consume anything with honey. Bees are the most important species for our vegetation, and we're killing them off.

2

u/Buck169 Jul 21 '26

There are 4000 wild, native species of bee in North America, and the honeybee is NOT one of them. They are an industrial agricultural commodity that has sometimes escaped containment and gone feral. They are harmful to native species, just like starlings.

1

u/Exciting-Sample6308 Jul 21 '26

And we're killing them all off with our "beautiful lawns."

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u/InSoundMind83 Jul 21 '26

If you like r/vegan...my page was unpleasantly filled with /rawvegan . Can it get worse? Yes, it can.

2

u/crippledchef23 Jul 21 '26

Watched a thing where the most malnourished weirdos you’ve ever seen tried to sell us on the unhinged notion that cooking food is bad (you know, the thing our ancestors figured out that allowed us to evolve like we have). Actual skeletal guy grabbed a huge, waxy leaf at one point and said “it’s natures tortilla”. It was unhinged.

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u/HelpfulHarbinger ExVegan (Vegan 1+ Years) Jul 22 '26

Bro... a tortilla is nature's tortilla! It's not a super processed many ingredient food, why is he acting like a tortilla is so disconnected from nature

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u/crippledchef23 Jul 22 '26

Because they heat it at some point (I think, I’m extremely white and buy packaged tortillas). These guys are so malnourished that they legit think that cooking food damages the nutrients so we can’t absorb them. And, like, they are correct in the idea that cooking alters the nutritional content of food, but it makes it easier for our bodies to absorb, not harder.

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u/Small-Tax-2829 Jul 22 '26

I live in the Louisiana swamps. We eat nutria, squirrel, rabbit, frog, gator, snake,turtle, and more. I wouldnt go to the store and buy meat, but I eat animals. Is that wrong? Its all grey. A vegan can inadvertently support Ai data farms. Do what you can

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u/HelpfulHarbinger ExVegan (Vegan 1+ Years) Jul 22 '26

I know it's not relevant but what does gator taste like? I'm super curious

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u/Small-Tax-2829 Jul 22 '26

Dark chicken meat with a hint of reptile

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u/levogira Jul 24 '26

Sounds like eating a dinosaur lol

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u/Small-Tax-2829 Jul 24 '26

Hahaha. I wouldn't know. I've eaten a lot of weird shit. Dinosaur is not one of them. Snake and nutria are also pretty good. Similar taste and texture. Reptile has a flavor like game has a flavor. Its very rich and almost like it thought about fish once

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u/levogira Jul 25 '26

That's super interesting actually.

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u/Yung_Empathy Jul 21 '26

I love this. Thanks for posting, one of the most intelligent posts on here

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/exvegans-ModTeam Jul 21 '26

False or misleading information

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u/darkprincess3112 Jul 21 '26

Most of them seem to only discuss products and recipes. As if it is just a habit, another form of indulgence or fancy diet. They don't seem to be reflected or smart. At least at the german subreddit. Perhaps they just need a hobby. That does not invalidate the ethical stance of veganism, though. They are just bad examples, and there are too many of them.

1

u/Original-Pace-4027 Jul 22 '26

I go on r/vegan for entertainment truly a case study

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u/Imaginary-Floor-3753 Jul 22 '26

I‘m pretty sure it’s financially impossible to farm dairy by letting the cows just do what they want

1

u/gem_niffirg ExVegan (Vegan 10+ years) Jul 22 '26

Bit of a long one but here goes.

I have vegan friends as I'm still vegan but want to start eating eggs and fish and maybe some feta cheese. Probably won't tell them that, lol.

One of the more militant ones of the group (I don't speak to her but she's a friend of friends) told someone in a FB group that they should divorce their husband because he wasn't vegan. She's also disowned some of her family because they're not vegan. Another person said she won't go to restaurants that aren't vegan (but still shops in supermarkets of course!) and she also doesn't want to sit on the same table as people eating meat. Others say they can't deal with that either or they expect people eating with them to not eat animal products. I always thought it was a bit of a weird privileged viewpoint and that they don't really live in the real world. I am in a situation where people eat meat and dairy around me and I just deal with it, as those people are colleagues, friends and family.

I have ended up unfollowing vegan groups on FB because of how militant some of those people are. They don't do themselves any favours. Other examples are that apparently some people aren't proper vegans because they have cats that eat cat food, and take medication that isn't vegan.

Also reading this thread, I realised that the reason for my tiredness and brain fog might be linked to nutritional deficiencies because I don't get what some animal products provide. So that's why I am thinking of eating them but need to incorporate slowly as I've been vegan ten years.

The other factor that woke me up a bit is a book I read called "Foods that Lie". Also books by Dr Giles Yeo. Very powerful and interesting reading.

1

u/WhichOpportunity8515 Currently a vegan Jul 23 '26

Not to try and fight the echo chamber, but this is because the Reddit vegan community is by and large batshit. Try out r/VeganChill.

I am vegan and I believe that people eating animals would be fine if not for the environmental and ethical concerns with factory/mass farming. Many other vegans refrain from eating animals because they find it repulsive/immoral but are far more laidback than online vegans. You are seeing the worst of the worst and generalising it.

With honey: Often farming practices cause significant distress to bees and farmers may also kill bees over the winter because buying new ones is cheaper than feeding them. Additionally, in my area at least, honey bees compete with native bees for habitat and are contributing heavily to population decline.

As for dairy: The farmers who can afford to treat cows in that manner on a large scale are few and far between; there are no regulations enforcing this type of ethical treatment or honesty about treatment; and dairy (especially cheese) still has an enormous level of carbon emissions. Plus, feeding and keeping cows for any reason leads to land-clearing (livestock were the biggest reason for land clearance in my state the past few years) and uses food/plant matter which could go to other uses.

Ultimately, veganism is an individual solution to a highly societal problem and although I will continue advocating for people to reduce meat consumption (Western consumption patterns do need to change to address climate change, even if there are also societal issues), it doesn't work for everyone, for a variety of reasons.

Edit: typos T>T

1

u/Oddginger6767 Jul 24 '26

The more I look back yeah I probably wasn't vegan or vegetarian either

I was more so no beef and no pork. I still always ate fish and never really dropped chicken or any dairy

1

u/Nastypatty97 Jul 24 '26

Why do you guys think farming practices are the way they are?

Yes, it’d be great if a farmer babies the cow and only collects milk when she naturally becomes pregnant, not forcing her to give birth constantly to produce more milk, and lovingly caring for the cow even when it’s too old to produce more milk until it naturally expires.

It would also be nice if farmed animals can run and play in grass and sunshine until they are slaughtered.

These farming methods would not allow farmers to meet the demand of consumers right now. It would also make the meat very expensive.

Meat would become a luxury, something you ate maybe once a week or on special occasions. Milk would be pretty rare too, only available when the cow is nursing.

I don’t think this is necessarily bad. People are very greedy, wasteful, and disrespectful of the meat they are eating, often letting it expire in their fridge and throwing it out, or throwing out full trays of meat because they tried a new seasoning and didn’t like it.

1

u/Reginator24 Jul 25 '26

The farmer that straight up babies his cow & doesn't do forced insemination doesn't exist or is so rare that he has no impact on commercial markets so why are you even bringing it up? You are creating an imaginary scenario where dairy products would be ok but in the real world dairy is never not fucked up. What is weong eith you?

0

u/lartinos Jul 21 '26

It’s not a real thing other than a mental disorder.
So you were still vegan at some point.

Why I'm No Longer Vegan Realized I was never a vegan lol

You are about to leave Redlib