vegan
Please also check out vegantheoryclub.org for a great set of well-run communities for vegan news, cooking, gardening, and art. It is not federated with LW, but it is a nice, cozy, all-in-one space for vegans.
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Welcome
Welcome to c/[email protected]. Broadly, this community is a place to discuss veganism. Discussion on intersectional topics related to the animal rights movement are also encouraged.
What is Veganism?
'Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals ...'
— abridged definition from The Vegan Society
Rules
The rules are subject to change, especially upon community feedback.
- Discrimination is not tolerated. This includes speciesism.
- Topics not relating to veganism are subject to removal.
- Posts are to be as accessible as practicable:
- pictures of text require alt-text;
- paywalled articles must have an accessible non-paywalled link.
- Content warnings are required for triggering content.
- Bad-faith carnist rhetoric & anti-veganism are not allowed, as this is not a space to debate the merits of veganism. Anyone is welcome here, however, and so good-faith efforts to ask questions about veganism may be given their own weekly stickied post in the future (see current stickied discussion).
- before jumping into the community, we encourage you to read examples of common fallacies here.
- if you're asking questions about veganism, be mindful that the person on the other end is trying to be helpful by answering you and treat them with at least as much respect as they give you.
- Misinformation, particularly that which is dangerous or has malicious intent, is subject to removal.
Resources on Veganism
A compilation of many vegan resources/sites in a Google spreadsheet:
Here are some documentaries that are recommended to watch if planning to or have recently become vegan:
- You Will Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again
- Dominion (2018) (CW: gore, animal abuse)
Vegan Fediverse
Lemmy: vegantheoryclub.org
Mastodon: veganism.social
Other Vegan Communities
General Vegan Comms
Circlejerk Comms
Vegan Food / Cooking
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Completely agree. This needs to be better communicated. Vegan junk food is not meant to be healthy, it's meant to be ethical.
This whole subject is a misunderstanding.
PS: I would go further and suggest that vegans stop insisting that a vegan diet is more healthy in itself. In the absolute, it clearly is not. Perhaps vegans are generally healthier eaters than non-vegans, but that's because they pay more attention to food in general, not because they are vegan. In other words, the healthiness argument is a conflation of cause and correlation. I don't think that this disingenuity helps anyone in the end.
A vegan diet is definetely not healthy by definition but for many specific products I would still argue that the vegan version is indeed healthier. And especially for junk food. If you take sausages for example, then both versions - let's say pork and soy/wheat - contain plenty of fat and salt. But meat products have...
Animal based food on the other hand has better protein quality. E.g. eggs or meat contain a way better composition of amino acids than soy, wheat, peas etc. alone. This negative aspect of a vegan diet can be compensated by combining various different sources of protein (e.g. a mix potatoes, spinach, beans, peas and soy in one meal rather than just soy).
This obviously can be done but it requires some knowledge, practice and more time if you want to prepare everything yourself. Using pre-processed food can make things way easier, more convenient and not necessarily unhealthy. If you can buy a healthy vegan something that tastes good, has similar nutrients like an egg and doesn't take hours to prepare that'll make the transition for people a lot easier. If you give them complex recipes and long tables instead of what should be combined with what, it will scare off many folks.
Therefore, if we want more people to go vegan in a we shouldn't object pre-processed food in general. We should rather praise manufacturers that manage to produce healthy substitutes. Without adding loads of sugar, cheap fats etc. There's nothing wrong with large-scale food processing in general.
Agreed on all that. Interesting points about sausages. My simplistic assumption has been that animal-based junk food is probably nutritionally superior to plant-based junk food not because of its protein but rather because of the sheer variety of molecules that animals contain by virtue of being higher up the trophic pyramid. I still think that's generally true but thanks for pointing out those qualifiers.
To be clear, ethically vegan food is superior across the board.