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EmmaRosalie
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Vegan for 25 years now...raised 2 healthy vegan kids...

I became one spontaneously, last meat meal were shrimps and ugh was ugly lol, I couldn`t do it anymore...havent`s touched meat, fish or eggs all this time but I do use dairy products , luckily nowadays it`s easier to find ethical products..I buy all my veggies from local small time farmers who do things the old fashion way, there are also small companies that make tofuseitan and tempeh (at least in my country, plus you can easily make tofu and seitan your self)...spices are extremely important and over time I incorporated bits and pieces from all over the world like sea weed, (kombu and nori are my favorites), tamari, miso, sprouts etc......btw, not everyone knows how to cook and make a tasty meal (vegan or not), it bothers me when ppl  try one thing which may not be the best example (like kale burger, lol sorry, no offense intended, but what were you thinking?) and decide on the spot all vegan food sucks....it takes time, research and finding your own way, but it`s worth the trouble in the long run (overall health, weight management, more energy etc)

I am not some big time animal lover, I don`t even like pets, but I do oppose to cruelty towards ALL animals, not to mention meat industry impact on environment.....the way I see things, you can`t change the world, but you can start with your self, your family etc...

btw, if you want burgers try this: oat flakes, onion and parsley, smoked tofu or seitan, salt, pepper, warm milk or water a bit of flower, let oat flakes get soft, mix all ingredients, form burgers and put each in bread crumbs+flower before frying...if you eat eggs, you can put one egg inside as well (there are free range eggs on the market now which means no cruelty and no death)...Bon Appetit!

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29 minutes ago, MaxMare said:

(there are free range eggs on the market now which means no cruelty and no death)

Was this supposed to be a joke? You should definitely watch Dominion or Land of Hope and Glory to see what the standard practices are in the animal agriculture. There are many awful things that are legal and aren't easily avoidable in most practical scenarios. Male chicks are still of no use to the egg industry so they are most often either ground up alive in a macerator or suffocated in trash bags. Female hens are soon to be murdered as well when the egg laying rate declines. Even though female hens have been bred to such a degree that instead of the natural amount of, like, 20 eggs per year they are subjected to lay 300 or even 500 eggs per year which is a painful and long practice and puts a strain on their bodies and makes them very prone to some horrible complications. "According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), free range means that chickens have access to the outdoors for at least some part of the day, whether the chickens choose to go outside or not. There are no requirements for length of time the chicken must spend outdoors, the size of the outdoor area or the type of groundcover. " -That is all free-range really means, even though very often we see this criteria isn't even met. 

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I am not American, EU has much better laws when it comes to food (production, allowed substances etc) and getting a "free range" or "eco friendly" certificate is not easy.....personally I don`t eat eggs as stated in my original post but the fact remains, with free range production practices, conditions are better then in standard facilities ... on top of that, I live in a small country  (less then 4mil people)  there is no mass production of any kind pretty much...

USA is not the only country in the world you know... There are so many fundamental differences between how things are done in the US and in EU...just take healthcare and education for example, in EU it is considered a human right, in the US it`s merchandise...

This is why vegans got a bad rep, you completely disregarded everything I said in my original post and focused on one thing that may or may not be 100% correct, depending on your location on the planet....Take it from someone with 25 years under the belt, cook something nice for your friends, there are better ways of getting ppl to try this lifestyle...judgement and attack are not the way to go...

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8 minutes ago, Tru3human3on said:

Was this supposed to be a joke?

   Veganism isn't a rational response to any of the issues it claims to combat. Environmentally, economically, and out of a humanitarian perspective it's not a viable solution on a large scale; when it's just a select few entitled individuals within society it doesn't cause much harm, but the vegan food industry we're seeing today, that's developing out of an increase in vegan sentiment, is many times just as bad if not outright worse than other industries - especially with the increased demand for imported goods, produced in countries with little to no regulation or worker's rights, the cost of biodiversity, emissions from transportation, and high power and freshwater demands in regions where neither is readily available. 

   In an idealized presentation of how veganism could work, yes, it's better than the modern food industry - but it's just about never optimized in practice to meet up with what's on paper, and the more factors you bring in, the more an idealized presentation of a balanced diet wins out. The best way to deal with it is already presented to us by nature itself; you can't just grow crops over and over and over, it consumes the nutrients of the earth every time you do so, and so we fertilize - usually with synthetic fertilizers these days - whereas you can achieve a working balance through crop rotation and animal handling, and produce a variety of crops and animal feed which nets you vegetables, fruit, grain, dairy, eggs and meat. We did that for millennia, it's the over-specialization and industrialization of the process that causes the issues. The world won't succumb to 'cattle farts' because 'there are too many cows and sheep'; the grass they eat bind more carbon than they produce (when we actually let them graze grass), and they aren't so flatulent until you start feeding them corn and grains which contains a higher amount of nutrients but which they aren't made to digest. 

   And as Max says, the EU is very different from the US. Here, it's often difficult to take vegans seriously at all, especially when they present the facts and figures of sheep in Brazil and Australia, or the American beef industry - those numbers just aren't applicable here. In my country, we even look down on the EU standards as being too meager and half-hearted, and I would never dream of purchasing meat produced in Germany or Denmark, even when it costs half as much as our domestic products, simply because their regulations don't meet my standards - just as I'd never purchase a banana or avocado, because that's downright stupid. 

   The other year we had huge media coverage of how we had gotten our first 'Tofu production plant' - but we can't grow soy here, so they import it from southern France; it would be better for the environment to serve pork chops from our domestic pork industry, or even just produce the tofu in France so that we don't import a bunch of stuff which is largely going to end up as waste.

   If someone doesn't want to eat meat because they can't unsee the fact that it was once a living beast - fine, don't, no one cares. But when you start ranting the dogmatic creed of religious veganites, expect to be laughed at - or punched in the face. 

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3 hours ago, Tru3human3on said:

Was this supposed to be a joke? You should definitely watch Dominion or Land of Hope and Glory to see what the standard practices are in the animal agriculture. There are many awful things that are legal and aren't easily avoidable in most practical scenarios. Male chicks are still of no use to the egg industry so they are most often either ground up alive in a macerator or suffocated in trash bags. Female hens are soon to be murdered as well when the egg laying rate declines. Even though female hens have been bred to such a degree that instead of the natural amount of, like, 20 eggs per year they are subjected to lay 300 or even 500 eggs per year which is a painful and long practice and puts a strain on their bodies and makes them very prone to some horrible complications. "According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), free range means that chickens have access to the outdoors for at least some part of the day, whether the chickens choose to go outside or not. There are no requirements for length of time the chicken must spend outdoors, the size of the outdoor area or the type of groundcover. " -That is all free-range really means, even though very often we see this criteria isn't even met. 

I can assure you if a chicken lays 500 eggs a year would turn inside out after a week. Don't believe everything. 

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56 minutes ago, Zzevir said:

I can assure you if a chicken lays 500 eggs a year would turn inside out after a week. Don't believe everything. 

   How dare you question the numbers provided by veganite lobbyists?! They're like holy scripture! 

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3 hours ago, Tru3human3on said:

This is why vegans got a bad rep, you completely disregarded everything I said in my original post and focused on one thing that may or may not be 100% correct, depending on your location on the planet....Take it from someone with 25 years under the belt, cook something nice for your friends, there are better ways of getting ppl to try this lifestyle...judgement and attack are not the way to go...

The point that free-range farming systems don't include death and cruelty is wrong in and of itself. That's the only thing that I quoted and it was separate from any other things you said. The only one that misrepresented and disregarded relevant parts to the made points was you. All the things I said were applicable to all countries, including the EU, except the citation about what free-range entails in the US, as I won't paste regulations from all countries. And you can see what happens in countries that have the highest welfare standards in the world and even some free-range or organic farms in the documentaries I mentioned- Land of Hope and Glory (the UK) and Dominion (Australia).

About the advice on how to be an activist: that is not an argument. I wasn't talking about effective ways to turn people, so that was uncalled for, especially from a vegetarian.

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1 hour ago, Zzevir said:

I can assure you if a chicken lays 500 eggs a year would turn inside out after a week. Don't believe everything. 

My bad. It was 500 eggs per hen. Her whole life, per 100 weeks. And there are articles about companies striving to reach this, as this one https://www.joiceandhill.co.uk/en/news/german-free-range-farm-achieves-500-eggs-100-weeks/

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3 hours ago, Orwar said:

Veganism isn't a rational response to any of the issues it claims to combat. Environmentally, economically, and out of a humanitarian perspective it's not a viable solution on a large scale; when it's just a select few entitled individuals within society it doesn't cause much harm, but the vegan food industry we're seeing today, that's developing out of an increase in vegan sentiment, is many times just as bad if not outright worse than other industries - especially with the increased demand for imported goods, produced in countries with little to no regulation or worker's rights, the cost of biodiversity, emissions from transportation, and high power and freshwater demands in regions where neither is readily available. 

   In an idealized presentation of how veganism could work, yes, it's better than the modern food industry - but it's just about never optimized in practice to meet up with what's on paper, and the more factors you bring in, the more an idealized presentation of a balanced diet wins out. The best way to deal with it is already presented to us by nature itself; you can't just grow crops over and over and over, it consumes the nutrients of the earth every time you do so, and so we fertilize - usually with synthetic fertilizers these days - whereas you can achieve a working balance through crop rotation and animal handling, and produce a variety of crops and animal feed which nets you vegetables, fruit, grain, dairy, eggs and meat. We did that for millennia, it's the over-specialization and industrialization of the process that causes the issues. The world won't succumb to 'cattle farts' because 'there are too many cows and sheep'; the grass they eat bind more carbon than they produce (when we actually let them graze grass), and they aren't so flatulent until you start feeding them corn and grains which contains a higher amount of nutrients but which they aren't made to digest. 

   And as Max says, the EU is very different from the US. Here, it's often difficult to take vegans seriously at all, especially when they present the facts and figures of sheep in Brazil and Australia, or the American beef industry - those numbers just aren't applicable here. In my country, we even look down on the EU standards as being too meager and half-hearted, and I would never dream of purchasing meat produced in Germany or Denmark, even when it costs half as much as our domestic products, simply because their regulations don't meet my standards - just as I'd never purchase a banana or avocado, because that's downright stupid. 

   The other year we had huge media coverage of how we had gotten our first 'Tofu production plant' - but we can't grow soy here, so they import it from southern France; it would be better for the environment to serve pork chops from our domestic pork industry, or even just produce the tofu in France so that we don't import a bunch of stuff which is largely going to end up as waste.

That's some mind-blowing science work you should have discovered. Mind I get some evidence for these incredible claims (actual studies/scientific articles). 

So do you not agree with the figures of livestock sector emitting more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector or the animal agriculture being the leading cause of species extinction (while occupying 83% of global farmland for 18% of calories), consuming 1/3 of fresh water?

And based on my ideological and dogmatic vegan research I have found that cattle that are grazing (on grass) emit more than 3 times more methane than those fed on grains https://academic.oup.com/jas/article-abstract/77/6/1392/4625488?redirectedFrom=fulltext. Maybe you could comment?

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11 minutes ago, Tru3human3on said:

That's some mind-blowing science work you should have discovered. Mind I get some evidence for these incredible claims (actual studies/scientific articles).

   Yes, I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific as to which claims exactly it is you're curious about, as I have no desire to spend my evening tracking down every article I've read on the various subjects brought up.

13 minutes ago, Tru3human3on said:

So do you not agree with the figures of livestock sector emitting more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector or the animal agriculture being the leading cause of species extinction (while occupying 83% of global farmland for 18% of calories), consuming 1/3 of fresh water?

   You're again pushing for a globalist view, which is of absolutely no interest to me; if China, Brazil, Australia or the US wants to pollute their soil to the point where the land masses become incapable of supporting human life, they can go right ahead and do so for all I care - here, 6% of our national emissions are from cattle, but the fact that we keep open landscapes in which they feed has a positive effect on biodiversity, and binds more carbon than the entire agricultural, forestry and transport sectors emissions combined (and forestry is a 'fairly large' part of our industry).

   The difference here between serving a vegetarian meal, a meal containing pork, or a meal containing chicken is, in terms of emissions, practically non-existent. But, since you want some sources, how about the Swedish National Agricultural Society.

 

  • Metan från världens kor ger ungefär 5 procent av de samlade utsläppen. Källa: IPCC
  • Metangas kan inte jämföras rakt av med koldioxid då metan har en livslängd på ca 10 år i atmosfären medan en betydande andel, ca 40 procent, av koldioxiden stannar i atmosfären i 100 år och ca 20 procent finns kvar efter 1000 år. Källa: Chalmers. Läs mer här
  • Utsläppen från svenskt nötkött är cirka 25 procent lägre än medelproduktionen i EU och utsläppen från produktionen i EU är cirka 60 procent lägre än den globala medelproduktionen. Källa: J.P. Lesschen etal. Animal Feed Science and Technology, 2011
  • Svensk mjölkproduktion ger 44 procent lägre utsläpp av växthusgas per kilo mjölk jämfört med världsgenomsnittet. Källa: FAO respektive Gerber, P.J. et al. Tackling the Climate through Livestock, FAO och J.P. Lesschen et al. Animal Feed Science and technology
  • Mjölkproduktionen i hela världen orsakar mindre än 3 procent av de totala globala utsläppen av växthusgaser. Källa: FAO Tackling climate change through livestock 2013, samt J.P. Lesschen et al. Animal Feed Science and technology, 2011 respektive Lesschen, 2011

   For those who don't speak Swedish, a rough translation:

  • Methane from the world's cows is roughly 5% of the total global emissions.
  • Methane can not be directly compared with carbon dioxide, as methane has a lifetime of ca. 10 years in the atmosphere, whilst a considerable portion, ca. 40%, of the carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for 100 years, and ca. 20% are still present after 1,000 years.
  • Emissions from Swedish beef are ca. 25% lower than the average in the EU, and the emissions from European production is ca. 60% lower than the average global emission.
  • Swedish milk production has 44% lower emissions of green house gases per kilogram of milk, compared to the global average. 
  • Milk production globally produce less than 3% of the global emissions. 

   The report goes on to say that Sweden needs more grazing animals if we are to successfully reach our biodiversity goals, and only 3% of Sweden's water goes towards our agriculture. 

   This is because we have a responsible, sustainable agriculture with some of the world's strictest laws on quality and animal welfare - I highly doubt that this has to do with us 'being Sweden'; this could be done in any country that is actually willing - and we certainly could do better still. Such as banning the import of soy products, rice, foreign meat products, avocados and bananas. 

   "The increasing demand for this tasty fruit in America is not sustainable. As a result of the demand from the US for avocados, farmers in Mexico are influenced to increase the size of their farms, which is now leading to environmental issues including deforestation and increased greenhouse gas emissions."
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/avocado_consumption_environmental_and_social_considerations

   "Various aspects of soy production generate greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Tropical countries like Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay face emissions from deforestation and area conversion. The Brazilian Government estimates that carbon dioxide emissions associated with conversion of the Cerrado are equivalent to more than half the total emissions from the United Kingdom for 2009."
https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/soy

   "Rice cultivation generally takes place in irrigated fields to maximize crop yields but constant water supply stimulates anaerobic soil environment formation which augments the CH4 emissions [34] In fact, rice paddy is the primary anthropogenic source of methane, accounting 11% of the total CH4 anthropogenic emissions [35]."
https://www.scirp.org/pdf/AJPS_2015082514031710.pdf

   "Mendis and Van Bers (2001) noted several health effects brought about by chemical use in banana plantations. Health problems associated with exposure to toxic 8 chemicals among farm workers and nearby residents are severe and widespread in fruitgrowing regions of Latin America. They ranged from acute conditions such as poisoning (resulting in vomiting, fever, vertigo, and other symptoms), skin burns and rashes, and eye injuries to more chronic health problems such as cancer, birth defects, nervous system damage, and sterilization."
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/65595/65_AssessingBenefits.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

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