Comment on A shrubbery!
Tonava@sopuli.xyz 2 days agoAlso just supporting bad agriculture in general, since pesticides kill crazy amounts of stuff, deforestation, giant monoculture fields suffocating native wildlife, producing the fertilizers unethically, transporting stuff half across the world needlessly… if you do anything the “optimize profits” -way things get shitty. All of these things apply to plant based diets as well, but vegans often focus on the whole chain of ethical and ecological problems whereas vegetarians tend to focus more to the personal level of things. So even what plant products they buy and consume might have some big differences in ecological impact and ethical concerns
flora_explora@beehaw.org 2 days ago
Hm, I think there is a clearer ethical distinction between vegetarians and vegans. But this doesn’t necessarily translate towards the participation in our capitalist system.
For example, I’m a long-time vegan but due to my financially very limited resources I mostly buy cheap conventional food, even vegan meat substitutes from actual meat companies (they are way cheaper). In contrast, a friend of mine is living vegetarian, but she works on an organic farm. So she works towards a more sustainable agriculture while also consuming nearly only organic products.
Tonava@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Oh for sure, I made a very broad generalization there, to simplify the point. Just someone trying to live ethically and using only local products, but eating meat (hunted, organic, etc. locally small scale, animal suffering minimized and all that) could very well have a lesser ecological impact than someone being vegan but relying on imported soy etc. In my experience vegans are just the most likely to even think about this stuff since veganism usually goes further than just being about a diet, but that doesn’t mean all vegans do, or that a lot of non-vegans don’t.
And having the possibility to choose options based only on ethics and sustainability of course is a privilege a lot of people just don’t have