Do angry vegans turn you against going vegan?

[ddraig]

they're scared and think that's the right response, they've had crisis meetings about it
never mind the number of vegans is "minuscule" "insignificant" and it's all a fad

 

[PaoloSanchez]

That’s bizarre.

Awaiting the announcement of Meaty March...

...and possibly extending veganuary publicity for yet another month for free? lol

I think the activists would be ok with that.

I agree with the Huff post article that Februdairy actually is more helpful to those wanting to spread the vegan message than it is to the dairy folk. Time will tell.

 

[AnnaKarpik]

To be fair to Paolo I think he meant that specifically in the context of veganism. Not that middle class privilege doesn't exist, but that you can only be vegan if you are middle class.

Precisely, thank you for putting it so succinctly.

Of course it goes without saying that people who are financially comfortable are able to afford to feed themselves adequately (although even rich people can, and often do, have poor nutrition).

It appears to be a fairly persistent and stubborn myth that "not everybody can afford to be vegan", and that you need to be well off, when it's not something that applies uniquely to vegans. It isn't any more expensive to be vegan than to be a meat eater, and if you can use your loaf, it should in theory be cheaper imo.

There's another equally persistent and stubborn myth that the poor could feed them selves perfectly well on their pittance if they only buckled down and made a fucking effort. Cheap ingredients are only a small part of keeping yourself fed; you can't rustle up a lovely dahl if you're living in a b&b or the leccy's been cut off or the pantry's full of cockroaches.

 

[PaoloSanchez]

There's another equally persistent and stubborn myth that the poor could feed them selves perfectly well on their pittance if they only buckled down and made a fucking effort. Cheap ingredients are only a small part of keeping yourself fed; you can't rustle up a lovely dahl if you're living in a b&b or the leccy's been cut off or the pantry's full of cockroaches.

All of that might well be true but nobody has said that in this thread and it has bugger all to do with being vegan.
The point being made was that being vegan is a middle class privilege when it isn't.

 

[AnnaKarpik]

All of that might well be true but nobody has said that in this thread and it has bugger all to do with being vegan.
The point being made was that being vegan is a middle class privilege when it isn't.

Hang on, am I some kind of untermensch that isn't allowed to mention anything that hasn't been said before? Something that is commonplace in the real world outside of this thread?

You talk about myths around food choices, that's ok, I talk about myths around food choices and that's irrelevant.

 

[Kaka Tim]

There's another equally persistent and stubborn myth that the poor could feed them selves perfectly well on their pittance if they only buckled down and made a fucking effort. Cheap ingredients are only a small part of keeping yourself fed; you can't rustle up a lovely dahl if you're living in a b&b or the leccy's been cut off or the pantry's full of cockroaches.

Also if you are on a low income, then you are constantly on the look out for supermarket reductions and/or picking up cheap/free food from community food schemes and (shudder) food banks (i.e. the community centre where i work doles out greggs leftovers twice a week) then you cant really afford to exclude two thirds of the food that's on offer.

 

[editor]

Oh look, more new vegan restaurants.

Last year saw a boom in vegan restaurants across Greater Manchester, and with accolades pouring in for plant-based food, 2018 looks set to be even bigger.

Last week, Stockport's vegan restaurant The Allotment was awarded 'best restaurant' at the CityLife Awards. It was a huge achievement for owner Matthew Nutter, who was also awarded best chef at the MFDF17 awards.

But more than just a personal achievement, it signals a change in the way people view vegan food; no longer a niche, it's an established part of the food scene, able to fight it's corner against even the beefiest of restaurants.

Perhaps spurred on by the success of fellow vegan establishments, a new flurry of animal-friendly cafes are launching soon.

From a vegan ice cream parlour to Ital Caribbean food - here's three new vegan restaurants either recently opened or opening soon in Manchester.

Veganism booming in Greater Manchester as THREE more restaurants open

 

[PaoloSanchez]

Hang on, am I some kind of untermensch that isn't allowed to mention anything that hasn't been said before? Something that is commonplace in the real world outside of this thread?

You talk about myths around food choices, that's ok, I talk about myths around food choices and that's irrelevant.

You can mention whatever you feel like, but it's unrelated to what was being discussed when you quoted me.

 

[AnnaKarpik]

You can mention whatever you feel like, but it's unrelated to what was being discussed when you quoted me.

You (and others) were arguing that that veganism is not the domain of the privileged middle class because staple vegan foods are cheap.
The counter argument that the price of the ingredients is not the deciding factor in what people eat is entirely relevant to the discussion.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

You (and others) were arguing that that veganism is not the domain of the privileged middle class because staple vegan foods are cheap.
The counter argument that the price of the ingredients is not the deciding factor in what people eat is entirely relevant to the discussion.

Surely there is a huge gap in between privileged middle class and those relying on food banks though?

 

[mojo pixy]

The point (if I understand it) is that "being vegan" is all-or-nothing. You can't eat a cheap ham and cheese pizza one day if it's reduced to 15p and still "be vegan". So yes, while it may be a good idea to make efforts to reduce consumption of animal products, and while (if one knows how to cook from scratch, which is itself a privileged situation) it may end up cheaper to cook only with pulses and fresh or frozen veg than cooking with meat or eggs (though the cheapest eggs are extremely cheap) .. many vegan ingredients are quite expensive, or at least difficult to get cheaply, and if one week someone buys what happens to be on offer, and it's not vegan, then one can no longer be in the vegan gang (so to speak)

 

[AnnaKarpik]

Surely there is a huge gap in between privileged middle class and those relying on food banks though?

Do go on, I can't see what point you're making.
I don't think that someone who loses their well-paying job, then their privately rented flat, then their credit rating will find the gap nearly huge enough,btw.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Do go on, I can't see what point you're making.

That it's not the preserve of the privallaged middle class.

 

[PaoloSanchez]

You (and others) were arguing that that veganism is not the domain of the privileged middle class because staple vegan foods are cheap.
The counter argument that the price of the ingredients is not the deciding factor in what people eat is entirely relevant to the discussion.

Except that the price of the ingredients is what is cited to be the reason for it being on the "domain of the privileged" and why "not everyone can afford to be vegan", which is false.

Now you may wish to expand on all the other socio-ecomomic factors that shape what people eat, that's up to you, however cost is not any more of an impediment to being vegan that it is to being a meat eater, and that remains my point.

 

[lazythursday]

I think it's true to say that if you are on a truly poverty income it's likely harder to be a vegan for a whole host of factors. But there's a big group of people between there and 'the privileged middle class'. If you are on average household income it's likely cheaper to be vegan.

 

[mojo pixy]

I believe there's some confusion here over what "being vegan" actually means. Eating some vegan food sometimes is cheap and easy enough, but keeping 100% vegan day in day out is not so cheap, unless you bolster your diet with cheap multivitamins. Which is somewhat revealing of the shortfalls of a cheap vegan diet IMO.

 

[lazythursday]

I believe there's some confusion here over what "being vegan" actually means. Eating some vegan food sometimes is cheap and easy enough, but keeping 100% vegan day in day out is not so cheap, unless you bolster your diet with cheap multivitamins. Which is somewhat revealing of the shortfalls of a cheap vegan diet IMO.

I don't think this is at all true. The main 'difficult' nutrient (B12) can be obtained from something like nutritional yeast which is about £3 for a big tub. What are these expensive vegan ingredients everyone should have? The trickiest part of eating vegan is keeping a good stock of herbs / spices / flavourings, but not all of these are especially expensive.

 

[PaoloSanchez]

I think it's true to say that if you are on a truly poverty income it's likely harder to be a vegan for a whole host of factors. But there's a big group of people between there and 'the privileged middle class'. If you are on average household income it's likely cheaper to be vegan.

My original point remains that the vegan "middle class privilege" argument is bit of a nonsense. It seems to be a bit of a last ditch argument used when the usual "protein tho" and "canines tho" arguments have been thoroughly debunked. I guess anyone posting on this forum would also be amongst the "privileged middle class" that has access to the internet, has mobile phones, has time to post on forums, sitting here rubbing it in the faces of the poor.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

I don't think this is at all true. The main 'difficult' nutrient (B12) can be obtained from something like nutritional yeast which is about £3 for a big tub.

Or from a standard multivitamin tablet which contains 100% RDA of b12 - you can buy a two month supply from sainsbury's for £1.

 

[AnnaKarpik]

Except that the price of the ingredients is what is cited to be the reason for it being on the "domain of the privileged" and why "not everyone can afford to be vegan", which is false.

I haven't noticed anyone saying the price of vegan ingredients is expensive, this is demonstrably false, but saying veganism* is a pastime beloved of the resource-rich is self-evident. Dicking around with your food isn't high on your list of priorities when work, housing, benefits, health, shoes for the kids are things you are struggling with.

Now you may wish to expand on all the other socio-ecomomic factors that shape what people eat, that's up to you, however cost is not any more of an impediment to being vegan that it is to being a meat eater, and that remains my point.

Do you understand that your attitude here is typical of middle-class moralizing? You know what people can afford to do better than they do.

*veganism - getting to choose what you eat and wear on grounds other than price or availability, pretty near the top of whos'names hierarchy of needs.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I haven't noticed anyone saying the price of vegan ingredients is expensive, this is demonstrably false, but saying veganism* is a pastime beloved of the resource-rich is self-evident. Dicking around with your food isn't high on your list of priorities when work, housing, benefits, health, shoes for the kids are things you are struggling with.



Do you understand that your attitude here is typical of middle-class moralizing? You know what people can afford to do better than they do.

*veganism - getting to choose what you eat and wear on grounds other than price or availability, pretty near the top of whos'names hierarchy of needs.

Is there an assumption going that everyone on this thread is middle class and doesn't have to make choices every month or struggle a bit?

 

[lazythursday]

I hate this assumption that you are either queuing up at the food bank or you are privileged middle class. Most working people are somewhere between the two.

 

[AnnaKarpik]

Is there an assumption going that everyone on this thread is middle class and doesn't have to make choices every month or struggle a bit?

An assumption by me? Paolo Sanchez thinks everyone on the thread is middle class because they have access to the internet.
I tend to think of people as middle class based on a combination of resources and attitudes. If you are short of money at the end of the month because you like to eat out or go to the cinema or educate the kids privately that's a different thing to being short of money for food, shelter, heat and clothing. People with resouces have genuine choices, people without do not.

 

[ddraig]

I'm signing on atm and manage
Lazy vegan in kitchen too

 

[ddraig]

Anyway we had all this part of the tedious hypocrisy hunting at least once on this very thread

 

[mojo pixy]

It's not hypocrisy hunting, it's simply trying to explain that keeping 100% vegan 100% of the time (anything less and you ain't vegan after all) is a) more expensive and b) more challenging in practise than eating some vegan food, some dairy and occasional meat and fish. Mainly because food containing dairy, meat and/or fish is often on some reduced to clear shelf or on offer. Eating it is cheaper but no matter how much vegan food you eat the rest of the time you don't get to be vegan if you eat that cheap ham and cheese pizza (15p). Go and buy the vegan pizza for £2.75 (specialist item, no reduction) instead if you want to stay in team vegan.

It's not a difficult or obscure point, in fact it's self-evident. So the misunderstandings being presented here are clearly deliberate.

 

[ddraig]

More weird justifications
How often does your hypothetical 15p Vs £2.75 pizza conundrum actually happen???

 

[Ralph Llama]

I haven't noticed anyone saying the price of vegan ingredients is expensive, this is demonstrably false, but saying veganism* is a pastime beloved of the resource-rich is self-evident. Dicking around with your food isn't high on your list of priorities when work, housing, benefits, health, shoes for the kids are things you are struggling with.



Do you understand that your attitude here is typical of middle-class moralizing? You know what people can afford to do better than they do.

*veganism - getting to choose what you eat and wear on grounds other than price or availability, pretty near the top of whos'names hierarchy of needs.

The vegans I have known tended to live off homus and bread they got out the tesco`s skip and were itinerants TBH

 

[NoXion]

More weird justifications
How often does your hypothetical 15p Vs £2.75 pizza conundrum actually happen???

Plenty often if you're able to elbow your way through to the discounted section. I used to pick up cold cuts and cured meats for cheap that way.

 

[PaoloSanchez]

More weird justifications
How often does your hypothetical 15p Vs £2.75 pizza conundrum actually happen???

Weird indeed and rather desperate. It's as if they're searching for the holy grail of "outs". I wonder how many more far fetched and ridiculous excuses and Heath Robinson like convoluted scenarios these clowns are going to come up with next. "Reasons not to be vegan, Part 3" - (round or skinny bottoms)