You are what you eat
August 2, 2007 5:05 AM Subscribe

Meet the vegansexuals. Another woman, also a vegan, declared: "I believe we are what we consume, so I really struggle with bodily fluids, especially sexually."

So far, they have few supporters. Even PETA disagrees: "Sex is a very effective form of outreach and activism," said Dan Shannon, a PETA spokesman, and 10-year veteran vegan, who thought meat eaters could be converted by their partners.
posted by iviken (301 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

This thread needs the image tag. Oh, wait.
posted by dhartung at 5:17 AM on August 2, 2007

I'm not surprised -- I heard onces that vegans consider oral sex (where you consume trace or big amounts of animal matter, depending) is OK between vegans.
posted by NewBornHippy at 5:23 AM on August 2, 2007

Hahaha, those crazy vegans!

My first though upon seeing the article was "Wow, Peter Noone has aged well".
posted by iconomy at 5:28 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

So swallowing liquids that are taken from humans is fine, but drinking cow's milk isn't?

What about the mythondria, the "domesticated" bacteria that power the sperm cells?

The little worlds these people build in their minds must be astonishing.
posted by stereo at 5:35 AM on August 2, 2007 [5 favorites]

I'm not worried. The crazy isn't that hot anyway.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 5:40 AM on August 2, 2007

So swallowing liquids that are taken from humans is fine, but drinking cow's milk isn't?
...
The little worlds these people build in their minds must be astonishing.

Once again, most vegetarians/vegans aren't opposed to consuming "living matter"--obviously not, since they eat plants. They are either simply doing it for health reasons or because they object to exploiting animals. Unless the oral sex is forced, I don't see how that would apply here.
posted by DU at 5:40 AM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

Are we going to do all this again?

There is a whole spectrum of reasons why a person could choose to be vegan, and a whole spectrum of ways to practice veganism. Is pointing to an extreme group in one far corner of the spectrum really the best way to initiate yet another conversation about those crazy, militant, dirty, self-contradictory Vegans?
posted by hermitosis at 5:42 AM on August 2, 2007 [10 favorites]

What's so strange about this? Many of us wouldn't sleep with say Republicans, or smokers - why should this choice be any more controversial?
posted by Flashman at 5:44 AM on August 2, 2007 [5 favorites]

This shit is why I don't like to tell people that I'm a vegetarian.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:44 AM on August 2, 2007 [14 favorites]

I was about to say the same thing about smokers. They smell bad. Diet contributes to body odor, so I can imagine a vegetarian not liking the smell of meat-eaters.
posted by DU at 5:46 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Any vegan who would make an issue out of this deserves a big ol’ facial anyway.
posted by bondcliff at 5:46 AM on August 2, 2007

Any vegan who pretends that he or she isn't a graveyard of dead animals is just fooling him/herself. We're all made of recycled carbon. Whether you got that directly from a plant or from an animal, odds are it was in some other living being before that. After you're done with it, it gets recycled again.

I think it's fine and dandy to have a social conscience - really. But I also think that people who spend their lives worrying about stuff like this make the rest of western society look kind of stupid, arrogant, preachy and pompous to the many in the developing world who have very little choice in what they eat.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:53 AM on August 2, 2007 [11 favorites]

Thought experiment: would vegans drink animal semen, if it was obtained consensually? This is the real issue facing America.
posted by anthill at 5:57 AM on August 2, 2007 [13 favorites]

Eh, people can have whatever nutty criteria they want for having sex. As fetishes go, this is below harmless.
posted by boo_radley at 5:58 AM on August 2, 2007

"I would not want to be intimate with someone whose body is literally made up from the bodies of others who have died for their sustenance," she said.
What is so hard to understand about this statement? [except the 'literally' part] If you don't want any part of animal suffering to be a part of you, you can reject all partakers of any product containing animal products introducing fluids into or on to your body that will make you a participant in the suffering of animals.
posted by tellurian at 6:01 AM on August 2, 2007

Many of us wouldn't sleep with say Republicans, or smokers - why should this choice be any more controversial?

For one, it cuts down your field of available partners by better than 90%. Two, the remaining field is further 90% smug, shoot-from-the-hip liberals. That might work for an evening, but do you want to spend the rest of your romantic life hearing lines like "Tibet is, like, living under oppression and shit,"?

Also, as a leftist straight guy, it's more fun to bang a Republican than some too-sensitive, soft-left liberal. Republican attitudes about sexual politics ensure that if she's consented, it's going to be filthy. Sex with hippies is either Johnny Rotten's "two minutes and 52 seconds of squelching noises," or some elaborate ritual that's supposed to leave you spiritually fulfilled but instead makes you wonder about the score of the ballgame and how quickly you can get out of there when you're done.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:02 AM on August 2, 2007 [20 favorites]

I am offended that people have preferences vis a vis who they are willing to fuck. They should all be willing to fuck me!
posted by chlorus at 6:03 AM on August 2, 2007 [6 favorites]

Man, just imagine all the vegans who will accidentally find this thread, read a sarcastic comment about some hypothetical extreme variant of their beliefs, and then run out and, like, eat a whole cow right on the spot! Because of logic and stuff, man!

It's gonna be so awesome.
posted by No-sword at 6:05 AM on August 2, 2007 [9 favorites]

Interestingly, the sperm of vegan peoples and non-vegan peoples tastes totally different. Non-vegan sperm tastes gross. Not that I would know personally. It's just something I've head. I mean heard.
posted by iconomy at 6:05 AM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

Possibly the dumbest thread I've ever read on MeFi. Woman is picky about who she sleeps with, white male virgins take offense. Like you had a chance.
posted by DU at 6:05 AM on August 2, 2007 [5 favorites]

these people are inhuman, and should be slaughtered (and possibly eaten?) as such.
posted by Palerale at 6:09 AM on August 2, 2007

Any vegan who pretends that he or she isn't a graveyard of dead animals is just fooling him/herself. We're all made of recycled carbon. Whether you got that directly from a plant or from an animal, odds are it was in some other living being before that. After you're done with it, it gets recycled again.

I'm not sure that's really relevant to anyone who doesn't want to exploit animals, whether they're the stupid, arrogant and preachy people in the west who think that way or the many millions of vegetarians elsewhere in the world with similar beliefs.

People would have to object to consuming matter that has been formed in stars first, and outside a mid-season episode of Star Trek that seems pretty unlikely.
posted by vbfg at 6:12 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

News Alert: Vegans breastfeed! Boobies at 11!!
posted by jessamyn at 6:14 AM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

If you are what you eat, shouldn't they be eating other vegans?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:14 AM on August 2, 2007 [8 favorites]

"I would not want to be intimate with someone whose body is literally made up from the bodies of others who have died for their sustenance," she said.

vegans don't swallow, then? I also hear it's very good for the hair.
posted by TheDonF at 6:14 AM on August 2, 2007

@chlorus, I seriously think you hit head on the nail. People find the damndest thing to get upset about.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:15 AM on August 2, 2007

Many of us wouldn't sleep with say Republicans, or smokers

NEVER turn down a piece of meat.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:19 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

LOLZVEGUN
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:20 AM on August 2, 2007

I'd bet dollars to donuts that there are more non-vegans who refuse to swallow than the minuscule amount of vegans that also refuse to swallow.
posted by juiceCake at 6:23 AM on August 2, 2007

LHM, I love MF.

This just goes to prove that bat-shit crazy comes in multiple flavors, including tofu. But as some others have said, a similar stance could be made about smokers.

No soylent green for me please, I'm a vegan.
posted by fuse theorem at 6:28 AM on August 2, 2007

Like any ideology, when it reaches this point of reductio ad absurdum, it no longer has anything to do with a lifestyle choice, but is instead a pathology. It reminds me of the psycho daughter in American Pastoral that wore a veil over her face and didn't shower or bath so that she wouldn't inadvertently consume or kill micro-organisms.

Do they not stop to think that they were given life by parents with "bodies made up of animal carcasses" and BTW, I've had girlfriends who were meat eaters and smoked and they smelled fantastic. So let's not get self righteous here, eh?
posted by Skygazer at 6:28 AM on August 2, 2007

That isn't to say the industrial meat producing system isn't entirely gross.
posted by Skygazer at 6:36 AM on August 2, 2007

"Sex is a very effective form of outreach and activism," said Dan Shannon, a PETA spokesman, and 10-year veteran vegan, who thought meat eaters could be converted by their partners.

No doubt Dan's found that outreach and activism are a very effect form of converting women into sex partners.
posted by scheptech at 6:36 AM on August 2, 2007 [5 favorites]

Slow news day in New Zealand.
posted by donovan at 6:38 AM on August 2, 2007

Skygazer: It's not a pathology, it's a religion or something very close. It goes beyond the generic 'don't be cruel to animals' thing into a whole ascetic belief system about moral purity through physical denial. St Simeon Stylites would have felt right at home.

There are similar emanations of the environmental movement - one group I came across 'met weekly in each other's houses to discuss their carbon footprints and support each other in reducing them'. Te absolvo, filie.
posted by athenian at 6:44 AM on August 2, 2007

Apropos Simpsons quote:

Lisa: "I'm thinking about becoming a vegan".
Hippie: "I'm a level 5 vegan. I don't eat anything that casts a shadow".
posted by zardoz at 6:52 AM on August 2, 2007 [3 favorites]

It's not a pathology, it's a religion or something very close.

Some religions are pathologies.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:53 AM on August 2, 2007

autodidact, turn it around- what would nonsmoking vegetarians want with meat-eating smokers?
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:58 AM on August 2, 2007

As a vegan I have somewhat unofficially followed these guidelines since I've been vegan. I'm not preachy about my beliefs, but I do find it disgusting to tongue kiss someone who had a slab of flesh in their mouth less than 2 hours ago.

Seriously, would you make out with a person who just ate a pile of shit or some equivalent. Don't fault us for having [solidly-established, well thought out] beliefs. The reasons for veganism extend far beyond ickiness, but in this instance I feel it is a valid justification for my actions.

Additionally, semen consumption is vegan so long as it is consensual. When was the last time a cow consented to be eaten?
posted by cloeburner at 7:03 AM on August 2, 2007 [3 favorites]

News Alert: Vegans breastfeed! Boobies at 11!!
posted by jessamyn
Where is the sense in this statement (or more germaine, sex for that matter, is breastfeeding sexual)?
Women that follow the vegan lifestyle have breasts that produce milk. They feed their offspring, but don't think that it's okay to constantly keep a cow in foal by artificial insemination so that she can be milked to provide product for the dairy industry.
posted by tellurian at 7:05 AM on August 2, 2007

Seriously, would you make out with a person who just ate a pile of shit or some equivalent.

No. I would not make out with a person who spoke a pile of shit either. Which rules out vegans.
posted by dydecker at 7:13 AM on August 2, 2007

How is that speaking a pile of shit, Dydecker? Have you honestly spent more than 15 minutes thinking about the ethics of food consumption or do you just automatically reject any thought that challenges your worldview?

Anyway, no one's mind is going to be changed and I am always shocked how a supposedly progressive community like Metafilter can be so fervently regressive when it comes to meat consumption so I will just back out now.
posted by cloeburner at 7:18 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Where is the sense in this statement

The sense is that I thought it was a funny joke. Sometimes when we talk about vegans here people start in with the breastfeeding thing which is ridiculous for exactly the reasons you describe.
posted by jessamyn at 7:20 AM on August 2, 2007

what would nonsmoking vegetarians want with meat-eating smokers?

Usually it's my hot body. Y'know. Sexually.
posted by slimepuppy at 7:20 AM on August 2, 2007

Fucking idiots
posted by ob at 7:22 AM on August 2, 2007

What do you call a meat eating guy who seriously prefers to be with non-smoker vegetarian chicks (bonus points if they are dancers)? Vegetarians smell better, all around... skin, private areas, and breath. They tend to be slimmer and also to stay slimmer over time than your burger-eating chicks.

I'd call him what he is: shallow. Seriously I can't believe people have such a surfeit of wonderful partners that they exclude people based on such irrelevant criteria such as diet.

I suspect that this kind of extreme vegan discrimination is more of a post-hoc explanation rather than a choice. Everybody else who has even a modicum of respect for personal liberty will have split the social circle long ago.

I'm a very picky eater with a pretty unique diet. I go to great lengths to avoid imposing my quirks on other people. Why? Because I recognize my dietary freedom depends on theirs as well. I get to eat what I want because nobody else imposes on me and I reciprocate. When you start feeling justified in discriminating like this on frankly irrelevant dimensions you are opening yourself up to a world of hurt. Sure you're vegan but what if you are not vegan enough. What if you are too vegan? Your potential dating pool shrinks and shrinks until it is just you alone who matches your particular diet.
posted by srboisvert at 7:22 AM on August 2, 2007 [7 favorites]

I dunno Pope but all my serious girlfriends have been non-smoking vegans with nice legs. Usually they're into me because, like them, I'm not "mainstream" and am a decent communicator. I'm also pretty physically fit and dancer types are into that. I only smoke cigarettes when I'm drunk and not offending anyone, so it's not like I always smell like an ashtray. I'm also considerate enough to brush my teeth or at least pop some Clorets gum before attempting to kiss anyone after smoking.

And my current, just-quit-smoking, meat-eating love interest JUST texted me while I was writing this, to say she can't come to a wedding I've already frigging RSVPd +1. I have decided to stop calling her stinky murdering ass!

Just FYI sorry for threadjacking!
posted by autodidact at 7:22 AM on August 2, 2007

srboisvert, it's not shallow. It's a personal preference that revealed itself in hindsight. I've dated lots of meat eating smokers but only the non-smoking vegans ever got me into a serious thing.

So it turns out I'm really into slim chicks who smell good, not to mention put a lot of thought and care into taking care of themselves. How is that shallow?

this kind of extreme vegan discrimination
Extreme? Get a grip man!
posted by autodidact at 7:26 AM on August 2, 2007

What about if i had just gorged out on a bag full of yummy deep fried Grasshoppers and chewy Maggot delights,
does that rule me out for some hot veggie shagging?

Are insects allowed in a vegetarian diet?
posted by ItsaMario at 7:29 AM on August 2, 2007

I believe this issue was covered in detail by Dead Eye Dick in their song New Aged Girl

Funniest song line ever:

She don't eat meat but she sure likes the bone.
posted by any major dude at 7:30 AM on August 2, 2007

It reminds me of the psycho daughter in American Pastoral that wore a veil over her face and didn't shower or bath so that she wouldn't inadvertently consume or kill micro-organisms.

Whoa, really? Because that was a plotline in Bloom County once. Opus and Binkley wind up hanging themselves by the ankles from trees. One of them said, "Wait a minute! We're breathing and massacring countless micro-organisms!"

But then it ends when someone, I think Opus, says, "Except I'm absolutely dying for a pepperoni pizza."

I didn't realize the influence that Breathed had on Roth.

Good thing I chose to spend my literature-consuming time reading Bloom County instead of American Pastoral. That was a shrewd time-saver.
posted by ibmcginty at 7:30 AM on August 2, 2007

"I believe we are what we consume, so I really struggle with bodily fluids, especially sexually."

Christ, what an asshole/dick/pussy.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 7:30 AM on August 2, 2007

I do find it disgusting to tongue kiss someone who had a slab of flesh in their mouth less than 2 hours ago.

That cracked me up. It's a good thing that the human tongue isn't a slab of flesh or you'd never tongue kiss anyone.

What's the big deal anyway? So some vegans don't want to fuck meat eaters, so what? All this filter does is greatly reduce the vegan's pool of potential mates, and I'm not seeing how that's a bad thing (especially after seeing that pic in the linked article).
posted by MikeMc at 7:32 AM on August 2, 2007

This thread is madness. Insanity lies beyond.

When you're lying on the floor covered in your own filth, gibbering constantly, don't say I didn't warn you.
posted by aramaic at 7:33 AM on August 2, 2007

They may have a point. Certainly farm animals show no remorse when it comes to swallowing my semen.
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:37 AM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

When was the last time a cow consented to be eaten?
posted by cloeburner at 9:03 AM on August 2

If you come to my in-laws' farm, I will show you a cow that will, of their own free will, walk up to the barn, stand in the usual milking spot, stand perfectly still and placid while she is milked, and then return care-free to the pasture when done.

Would you be willing to drink the milk then?

That's as close to consent as you're going to get in the animal kingdom, since "consent" is a human concept.
posted by Ynoxas at 7:39 AM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

Certainly farm animals show no remorse when it comes to swallowing my semen.

Naughty!
posted by ob at 7:39 AM on August 2, 2007

this kind of extreme vegan discrimination
Extreme? Get a grip man!

Get a grip on what exactly? If ruling out partners based diet isn't extreme then I don't know what is.

You appear to implicitly recognize this when you restate your preference from being simply based on slimness and diet to encompass more things like being thoughtful and taking care of themselves in order to make it a more reasonable overall judgment rather than ridiculous irrelevant single dimension rejection.
posted by srboisvert at 7:44 AM on August 2, 2007

I can't stand seafood. I find it beyond disgusting.

Would it seem logical or reasonable to exclude people from my life who ate seafood?

What about a certain kind of cheese? Or a certain soda pop?

Of course people have the RIGHT to do it, but if this post were about some guy who wouldn't have sex with girls that drank Pepsi, everyone would be ridiculing him.

And rightfully so, I add.

Understand that you can ridicule a vegan for something they do, and not be ridiculing veganism as a whole.
posted by Ynoxas at 7:48 AM on August 2, 2007

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. - Jack Handy
posted by any major dude at 7:51 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

What about a certain kind of cheese? Or a certain soda pop?

I don't know about you, but there's no way I would ever touch anyone who drank Tab.
posted by god hates math at 7:51 AM on August 2, 2007

AUGH. MY FOOD CHOICES ARE ABOUT ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT. NOT ICKINESS. I WON'T SWALLOW IF YOU DRIVE AN SUV EITHER. GO AWAY.
posted by Esoquo at 7:53 AM on August 2, 2007 [3 favorites]

Have you honestly spent more than 15 minutes thinking about the ethics of food consumption or do you just automatically reject any thought that challenges your worldview?

Have you spent more than 15 mins yourself? Animals have no ethics, and have no rights. Which is why they eat other animals, and no prisons. It's called a food chain, baby, and I will stop eating meat when other animals stop eating meat themselves.
posted by dydecker at 7:56 AM on August 2, 2007

I'm surprised no comments on the PETA quote in the FPP: "Sex is a very effective form of outreach and activism,". And even more surprised that to find positive sentiment in a statement coming out of PETA. This would be a very effective way to approach the issue: You want to sleep with me? No animal based products for a week before. (not as punishment but as reward for someone whom they'd normally not sleep with).
posted by kigpig at 8:00 AM on August 2, 2007

Skygazer writes "It reminds me of the psycho daughter in American Pastoral that wore a veil over her face and didn't shower or bath so that she wouldn't inadvertently consume or kill micro-organisms."

That's pretty close to this.
posted by krinklyfig at 8:07 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Ynoxas: That's as close to consent as you're going to get in the animal kingdom
The robotic/automatic milking systems are based on this concept, actually. With AMS, the cows are free to decide the moment, duration and periodicity of their milking time (whether this is better from the cow welfare is still debated though).
posted by elgilito at 8:07 AM on August 2, 2007

"Here’s what I want you to do, Oregon Vegetarian: stand in front of a full-length mirror looking at your body, and then smile really nicely at your body as you say to it, I am so much smarter than you. That is what it means to be a vegetarian."
-Ray the Cat
posted by Kwine at 8:09 AM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

some of my best friends are veans.Bui I would not want my son to marry one.
posted by Postroad at 8:09 AM on August 2, 2007

kigpig writes "I'm surprised no comments on the PETA quote in the FPP: 'Sex is a very effective form of outreach and activism,'. And even more surprised that to find positive sentiment in a statement coming out of PETA. This would be a very effective way to approach the issue: You want to sleep with me? No animal based products for a week before."

No, it doesn't work that way. I've known many people who change their diet to meet the more strict requirements of their partner, out of sympathy, harmony, etc. Sometimes it's just to get laid more. But I've never known anyone to give their partner an outright ultimatum. Sex isn't usually that black-and-white.
posted by krinklyfig at 8:10 AM on August 2, 2007

I do find it disgusting to tongue kiss someone who had a slab of flesh in their mouth less than 2 hours ago.

You mean if they were tongue-kissing someone else?
posted by hermitosis at 8:12 AM on August 2, 2007

Ah, MikeMc hit it first.

I'd still tongue-kiss it two hours later though...
posted by hermitosis at 8:14 AM on August 2, 2007

I like to keep my options open for anything. Our primate ancestors made all that effort to switch from a frugivorous diet to survive (and thank them for doing so, because that Ice Age was brutal), I don't feel like giving up an advantage that took millions of years to develop simply because that advantage, along with other milestones in development like speech, mental capacity and bipedalism, put us on the top of the food chain. And now that we are we have to feel sorry for everything below us? Ethical veganism or vegetarianism or whatever, based solely on the morality of killing an organism that happens to be similar to us, is patronizing to the animal.

If it's a choice by any other reason, I'm forgiving. But a choice based on the idea that it is cruel to animals? What we eat exists to be eaten, particularly now that we don't hunt wild game. You let loose the cows and the chickens they will go feral and they will be mean. Have you ever seen a feral cow? Do you think that cow will give a rat's ass about how you?

I can't wait for scientists to discover that all plant life form a single Gaia-like entity where every time a corn is plucked, it screams.

Oh, yeah, about cows and milking: cows want to be milked because a full udder is very painful. Getting milked is such an enormous relief for them that they will voluntarily go up to the machine.
posted by linux at 8:19 AM on August 2, 2007

Brings to mind a line I once heard:
"I'm a vegetarian...not because I like animals, but because I hate plants."
posted by eye of newt at 8:21 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

After seeing that picture of Nichola Kriek in the article, I'm damned glad my lovely girlfriend is a meat-eating honey.

Now I'll go chug some pineapple juice and ponder the plight of vegans living in Buenos Aires. Speaking of which, the week after next I'll be eating a steak in that city with my girl, so we'll talk about this thread and have a nice chuckle.

But as far as being picky about lovers, there's the story of a girl named Wendy who I once dated briefly, very briefly. When I found out that she apparently had an affair with none other than Oliver North, I bolted but fast. We all have our dealbreakers.
posted by dbiedny at 8:23 AM on August 2, 2007

Hey linux based on that big gap in your comment I think you need upgrade to the new kernel with the scheduler change.
posted by srboisvert at 8:23 AM on August 2, 2007 [4 favorites]

Seems totally normal. I would sooner eat nails than go near a smoker, and I expect to a vegan someone that eats animals is farther along on the scale of repellancy.
posted by docpops at 8:27 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

You want to sleep with me? No animal based products for a week before. (not as punishment but as reward for someone whom they'd normally not sleep with).
It happens.
posted by tellurian at 8:28 AM on August 2, 2007

This thread is just an excuse for autodidact to brag about how many skinny vegan chicks he's fucking.

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by nasreddin at 8:28 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Sex is a very effective form of outreach and activism," said Dan Shannon, a PETA spokesman, and 10-year veteran vegan...

Yeah. PETA thinks it's wrong to use animals for our needs, but they sure don't have any problems using women's bodies for theirs when protesting the fur industry. Exploiting animals: bad! Exploiting women (and the sexist nature of advertising): Good!

Boo on PETA for this.
posted by rtha at 8:37 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

If ruling out partners based diet isn't extreme then I don't know what is.

I'm a vegan who will never get into a serious relationship with a meat-eater simply because it reveals an insurmountable incompatibilty in our individual beliefs. It's the exact same reason that I will never get into a relationship with someone who believes in god, enjoys Ayn Rand novells, or thinks it's okay to kick puppies. What's so difficult to understand about that?
posted by cmonkey at 8:38 AM on August 2, 2007 [4 favorites]

There are similar emanations of the environmental movement - one group I came across 'met weekly in each other's houses to discuss their carbon footprints and support each other in reducing them'. Te absolvo, filie.

Forgive me if I'm just a bleeding heart for caring about the effects of my lifestyle, but what the hell is wrong with this?

Waitasecond, we should persecute all forms of community activism! It's cultish! You shall know them by the blue bins at the ends of their driveways!
posted by Esoquo at 8:52 AM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

I believe in puppies, enjoy God's "novels", and think it's okay to kick Ayn Rand. Wanna make out?
posted by hermitosis at 8:53 AM on August 2, 2007 [4 favorites]

But I've never known anyone to give their partner an outright ultimatum. Sex isn't usually that black-and-white.

Hence the comment in the parentheses afterwards. Giving someone an ultimatum like that is cruel and negative reinforcement. It would only cause resentment. I was looking at the positive reinforcement, say a friend or acquaintance who would normally be of no interest to them. Offering a sexual reward, because especially with something like dietary changes it can be very difficult to physically take the sudden change even if the mind is willing, could make it feel more like a goal to accomplish. In return even if the attraction is never there, a difference was made in someone. Something to feel good about right? win-win for both parties involved.

Now, I'm not myself a vegan and only avoid animals sometimes out of disgust for them as violent barbaric creatures. But imagine if this was done with other political matters...
posted by kigpig at 8:54 AM on August 2, 2007

The smell of self-righteousness never fails to turn my stomach. Hence, no vegans for kittens.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:55 AM on August 2, 2007

rtha writes "Yeah. PETA thinks it's wrong to use animals for our needs, but they sure don't have any problems using women's bodies for theirs when protesting the fur industry. Exploiting animals: bad! Exploiting women (and the sexist nature of advertising): Good!"

Not to defend PETA, but where does the exploitation of women come in? Is nudity automatically exploitation? Would it be exploitation if it featured naked men?
posted by krinklyfig at 8:57 AM on August 2, 2007

Would it be exploitation if it featured naked men?

Since fur in fashion is primarily an issue that they are reaching out to women about, I'm surprised they don't exploit a few more naked men.
posted by hermitosis at 9:01 AM on August 2, 2007

Oh, yeah, about cows and milking: cows want to be milked because a full udder is very painful. Getting milked is such an enormous relief for them that they will voluntarily go up to the machine.
posted by linux at 1:19 PM on August 2 [+] [!]
The booklet I was given and totally absorbed to the exclusion of any other possibility of existence was explained thus:
A cow will not produce milk unless it is with calf. It will not be with calf unless it is inseminated.
Do you you have some other method of inducing a cow to produce milk?
posted by tellurian at 9:02 AM on August 2, 2007

I believe in puppies, enjoy God's "novels", and think it's okay to kick Ayn Rand. Wanna make out?

That'll be hot, but I have to be back in time to FPP a thinly disguised excuse for making fun of people who believe things that I find unusual to MetaFilter because that is truly the best of the web.
posted by cmonkey at 9:08 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's the exact same reason that I will never get into a relationship with someone who believes in god, enjoys Ayn Rand novells, or thinks it's okay to kick puppies.

The Fountainhead Cafe in New York's West Village is (or was?) a vegetarian restaurant for Ayn Rand fans.
posted by iviken at 9:08 AM on August 2, 2007

I'm...not sure what to make of that. But I objectively wish Chad the best of luck in all of his objective objectives as an objectivist.
posted by cmonkey at 9:16 AM on August 2, 2007

Not to defend PETA, but where does the exploitation of women come in? Is nudity automatically exploitation? Would it be exploitation if it featured naked men?

Not exploitation in the sense that they strip unwilling women naked and force them to stand outside furriers, but yeah, if they used naked men (and I believe they have in some recent campaigns), it would still be exploitative. I understand PETA's reasoning on this is along the lines of "sex sells, the ad business knows this, we know this, we'll use it to our advantage," and I think it's just as wrong (and gross) to get your message out using these demeaning means as it is when Abercrombie & Fitch does it, or American Apparel, or Chanel. Nudity in advertising is rarely anything other than exploitative.

Since fur in fashion is primarily an issue that they are reaching out to women about, I'm surprised they don't exploit a few more naked men.

Fashion advertising works by making you want to be the model (slimmer, sexier, more gorgeous, wealthier, etc.), not sleep with her; it says "you can look like this" (and therefore be desireable), not "you can fuck this".
posted by rtha at 9:18 AM on August 2, 2007

i quit drinking when i dated two girls in a row who were recovering alcoholics. i quit eating meat when i dated a vegetarian, and then went back to it again when i dated a meat-eater. (at the time, i had not yet learned to cook.)

i caught teh veganism from my committed life-partner, who caught it from his previous girlfriend. there was no ultimatum, but i couldn't argue effectively with his well-reasoned ethics-professorly statements, and i doubt anyone else could either. the general fight for meat-eating doesn't hold up and usually degenerates into "cuz i don't wanna quit cuz they're so tasty." (i admit i cheat for a good organic gouda, and left to my own devices, living alone, i'd eat good organic cheese once in awhile.)

would i ever have another lover who ate meat? i might, given a temporary insanity, have sex with them. but i wouldn't see them as a long-term prospect, just like i wouldn't a smoker or someone who hunted. now, i wouldn't even have sex with a republican, an idiot, or a big SUV/hummer owner. THOSE are dealbreakers.
posted by RedEmma at 9:24 AM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

Many of the views expressed in this thread stand as proof that being vegan filters a lot of dull twats and hackneyed no-think types out of your life. That's just another bonus for me.
posted by Abiezer at 9:28 AM on August 2, 2007 [3 favorites]

I suspect that this kind of extreme vegan discrimination is more of a post-hoc explanation rather than a choice. Everybody else who has even a modicum of respect for personal liberty will have split the social circle long ago.

That's right, freely choosing not to have sex with people who regularly engage in an activity one deems abhorrent is discrimination! Just like those people who insist on only having sex with people they're attracted to!

If you come to my in-laws' farm, I will show you a cow that will, of their own free will, walk up to the barn, stand in the usual milking spot, stand perfectly still and placid while she is milked, and then return care-free to the pasture when done.

And I'll show you an animal that's having lactation artificially induced and being conditioned to seek relief from the discomfort (and, if milking is too long delayed, injury) caused by a full udder. When you deliberately cause something to feel pain, acting as though giving the victim the choice to relieve that pain is admirable is ludicrous.

That cracked me up. It's a good thing that the human tongue isn't a slab of flesh or you'd never tongue kiss anyone.

Yes because that's totally the same and you are such a clever boy.

Animals have no ethics, and have no rights.

You, however, are a human being, endowed with the ability to act ethically and therefore the duty to do so. The means by which animal products are produced are systematically cruel and inhumane both to the animals and to those employed in the industry. "HURR DURR ANIMALS DON'T HAVE ETHICS" is just a willful refusal to consider your actions. Lacking introspection is one thing, but refusing it is reprehensible.

The smell of self-righteousness never fails to turn my stomach.

This would explain your chronic nausea. If you're sick of smelling crap all the time, your first step is to wash the crap off your shoes.

Look, you don't have to believe in animal rights to recognise that acting cruelly, regardless of the victim, is sick and wrong. It poisons those who so act, and those who benefit from said cruelty are equally responsible. I know, I know, you like meat. Guess what? So do I. That doesn't excuse me from responsibility for my actions.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:28 AM on August 2, 2007 [8 favorites]

I'm a vegan, and half of a mated vegan pair. Neither one of us was looking specifically for a vegan, nor did we automatically exclude anyone who wasn't; it just happened that way. But I'm not particularly surprised it did -- people with similar philosophies of life often end up together long-term. There is some truth to "opposites attract", and people can be tolerant of some remarkable differences of opinion, but honestly, I strongly suspect that most people don't particularly want to be with someone who finds their deeply held beliefs repellant, and vice-versa.

Still, I'm always surprised whenever anyone codifies this into a litmus test, e.g. "I would never date a smoker/Republican/whatever." Plenty of people do this, of course, but don't like to -- I think because I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I like to think I have rational, well-thought-out reasons for being a vegan, and that therefore if I explained myself to people (which I don't do unless asked because it's boring), they might see *me* as a person and not the LOL-vegans-are-crazy-hippies-who-don't-know-they're-made-of-meat stereotype brought up so often in this thread. And if I want that from people, it seems reasonable to at least wait until my date explains *why* they're a Republican, instead of ending things instantly upon making this likely disturbing discovery.

So, I don't particularly agree with the people the post is about, but I also have to say I seriously doubt I'd have sex with the people making fun of them, either.

The gf insists I add that the rumor that vegan, er, fluids taste better is largely true.
posted by kyrademon at 9:36 AM on August 2, 2007

The smell of self-righteousness never fails to turn my stomach. Hence, no vegans for kittens.
posted by kittens for breakfast

I'm sick of this bullshit stereotype that Veggies/Vegans are all self-righteous assholes.

My household is largely Vegan, my wife, daughter and I eat cheese and eggs occasionally, but that's it. I have a lot of Vegetarian friends. I belong to a Vegetarian society here in Winnipeg.

You know what, I could give care what anyone else eats, it's their decision. I've made mine, and I'm happy with it, and I trust that everyone else is happy with their choice too.

So a hearty 'fuck you' to Kittens.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 9:44 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm often struck by the importance (to vegans) of converting others or at least telling them the 'good news' about their lifestyle. It's one thing to talk about your eating, as food is a pretty social thing for us, but the zeal and emphasis on me trying their way has always struck me as feeling quite religious.

Even though Pope Guilty's moral arguments are valid, veganism or any other diet change does not have to be based in a moral argument, it can be based in a completely Randian objectivist argument.

YOUR MEAT EATING IS CONTRIBUTING TO THE DEGRADING HABITABILITY OF THE PLANET I LIVE ON. STOP IT.

Your food is just another type of fuel, albeit from your body and not for your car or other means of transport. If you aren't conscious about where you're getting it from and the effects it has on the environment, you get viewed with the same amount of disgust as the jackass in the hummer.

And it also does not have to be an ALL OR NOTHING argument.

Eddy "3 steaks a week" : Hummer driver ::
Very occasional meat eater : sedan driver ::
Vegetarian : hybrid driver ::
Vegan : Bikes everywhere/uses public transportation.

Grrrr.
posted by Esoquo at 9:48 AM on August 2, 2007 [4 favorites]

"albeit for your body" not from it.
posted by Esoquo at 9:50 AM on August 2, 2007

It's funny. I eat meat and smoke cigarettes, but I don't lable myself as a meat-eating smoker. I'm sorry to hear that a lot of people in this thread would and therefore choose to ignore me. It's the same close-mindedness that appears in politics and religion. Unfortunately people like that tend to speak louder than their non-judgmental counterparts, giving veganism (and vegetarians and us omnivores) a bad name.

So, I may be a part of the dull twats and hackneyed no-think types because of my eating choices, but anyone who chooses to label me as such and summarily dismiss me as a human being is not worthy of my time or respect.
posted by slimepuppy at 9:52 AM on August 2, 2007 [5 favorites]

So, the real burning question here... how do vegans feel about maple syrup?
posted by cockwaffle at 9:55 AM on August 2, 2007

You are what you post.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:56 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Thank you all for this. I love it when this happens.
posted by yerfatma at 9:58 AM on August 2, 2007

Look, you don't have to believe in animal rights to recognise that acting cruelly, regardless of the victim, is sick and wrong.

These are loaded terms, and I'm not interested in getting in an argument over whether eating meat is or isn't wrong -- which is my whole point. If someone makes the choice to be a vegan, and maintains this lifestyle in quiet self-satisfaction, groovy. It's really not an issue for me. But when someone decides to become a vegan and takes each and every available opportunity to express his/her disgust with the vast majority of human beings who have not elected to become vegans, it's headache inducing and annoying.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:59 AM on August 2, 2007

I'm sick of this bullshit stereotype that Veggies/Vegans are all self-righteous assholes.

...So a hearty 'fuck you' to Kittens.

Nope, no self-righteousness here. Thank you, folks, and goodnight!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:00 AM on August 2, 2007

I'm sick of this bullshit stereotype that Veggies/Vegans are all self-righteous assholes.

Something tells me that this thread isn't going to do much towards dispelling that stereotype.

If you aren't conscious about where you're getting it from and the effects it has on the environment, you get viewed with the same amount of disgust as the jackass in the hummer.

What about the people that don't have that luxury? Those who have to eat what they can get or die are they jackasses? At least some of us of have the luxury of considering the "ethical" ramifications of our meals (even if we don't).

So, the real burning question here... how do vegans feel about maple syrup?

Tree raper.
posted by MikeMc at 10:02 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

But I've never known anyone to give their partner an outright ultimatum

I have. I eat an almost exclusively vegetarian diet, but every few months I'll have something with meat in it; my ex was a proper vegetarian. He refused to kiss me any day I had eaten meat, and usually gave me a little lecture to boot. This was the method by which his first girlfriend had persuaded him to a vegetarian diet fifteen years earlier, you see.

It worked less effectively with me, as you can well imagine by how charmless his tactics sound.

But on the face of it, I can understand the principle at work here: you don't want to share intimacy with people whose ethics or beliefs or principles vary so fundamentally from your own. What's the fuss?
posted by Elsa at 10:07 AM on August 2, 2007

I don't know but I've read that even though eating meat is bad for health, and also has many other negative effects that are not well known even now, abstaining from meat leads to significant psychological problems when you live among people who do eat meat. For that reason, in early xian churches people would eat meat except for certain periods during the year, so that they'd minimize both psychological problems and meat-related health problems, etc. In ancient India this was dealt with differnetly, the warrior caste would be the only one that was not only allowed, but in fact had to eat meat. The untouchables could eat anything they wanted, because the idea was that they're so screwed up nothing can make things much worse or better. So, are we all untouchables now? All other castes were not supposed to eat meat at all. Gurdjieff wrote about this.. but he ate meat himself. He also was fond of making vegetarians eat meat and making meat-eaters abstain from meat, because, in his view, that was educational experience for both of the groups. On a few occasions in the last 5-6 years when I ate meat I felt I had much more energy on the next day. But the interesting thing about meat eating that the whole process of buying and preparing it for a meal is pretty unappetizing, once you get out of the habit, so I didn't really feel that it's worth it. And then I've read one part in Thoreau book where he caught a fish and cleaned it off and made a soup out of it and he felt that basically the whole thing was too much work and there was too much mucking around with fish scales, fishy smell, cleaning it all up and all in all too much of a mess. I'm guessing that if people had to prepare food for themselves, they'd only bother with meat and fish only if other food was in shortage.
posted by rainy at 10:07 AM on August 2, 2007

And here I thought it was my dislike of the stench of patchouli and BO that kept me from fucking vegans all those years.
posted by nanojath at 10:09 AM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

Imagine for a moment having a strong belief that something is morally wrong. Now imagine that you live in a society where that thing is universal and even celebrated. Imagine that you know that Soylent Green is people- would you stay quiet? Of course not.

And yet you are the same person who constantly rails against proselytizing Christians. Their beliefs, you see, aren't trendy enough.

You, however, are a human being, endowed with the ability to act ethically and therefore the duty to do so. The means by which animal products are produced are systematically cruel and inhumane both to the animals and to those employed in the industry. "HURR DURR ANIMALS DON'T HAVE ETHICS" is just a willful refusal to consider your actions. Lacking introspection is one thing, but refusing it is reprehensible.

Your first sentence is unproven and unprovable.

As for the rest, your argument seems to be this:

1. The meatpacking industry sucks.
...
3. We shouldn't eat animal products.
4. Therefore people who eat animal products are "reprehensible."

The missing premise is:
2. Individual refusal of meat consumption has a measurable effect on humanitarian standards within the meatpacking industry.

This premise is false. You might say, "Well, if everyone else were vegan..." But you, Pope Guilty, don't believe in the effectiveness of voting; how do you believe in the effectiveness of an individual boycott? The awful humanitarian standards of the meatpacking industry are the result of structural influences of capitalist development, structural influences which are largely unaffected by individual consumer behavior. I dare you to find me a study that shows that veganism has done ANYTHING to improve these humanitarian standards.

I can understand if you're saying, "The meatpacking industry is disgusting, so I refuse to be associated with it." But that doesn't justify your extreme arrogance and self-righteousness with respect to the people who have made a different choice. What gives you the justification to baldly assert that they have refused to introspect? Perhaps they, like myself, have decided that an ineffectual moral stand based on a questionable premise is an insufficient justification for giving up meat. I'm not saying you're a bad person because you've decided to become a vegan, but for some reason you feel the need to say that about me.
posted by nasreddin at 10:13 AM on August 2, 2007 [3 favorites]

Imagine for a moment you're instead talking about Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and maybe you'll get an idea of what this actually sounds like to other people.

Sure, but most of us vegans-for-reasons-other-than-health are quite content to do what we can to not support a system that we disagree with, and don't bother to try and "convert" you because we damn well know that you'll just sit there and labouriously tell us how much you like bacon and, well, we'd rather spend our time doing just about anything else. Like having amazing sex that involves sharing our good tasting bodily fluids.

This whole "all vegans are self-righteous, pushy preachers" thing makes about as much sense as the whole "Jewish bankers control the world via the UN world ZOG" thing that people seem to believe. Neither is grounded in reality, yet neither belief seems to ever go away, at least when it comes to getting all riled up about it on the internet.
posted by cmonkey at 10:14 AM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

Can't we all just get a long pork?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:14 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Nah, it was your deeply unappealing personality and curiously deformed genitalia, nanaojath.
posted by Abiezer at 10:16 AM on August 2, 2007

Me, I'm just looking forward to the boobies at 11.
posted by everichon at 10:16 AM on August 2, 2007

cmonkey: yet here you are, lecturing in a back-handed way.
posted by boo_radley at 10:23 AM on August 2, 2007

This whole "all vegans are self-righteous, pushy preachers" thing makes about as much sense as the whole "Jewish bankers control the world via the UN world ZOG" thing that people seem to believe. Neither is grounded in reality, yet neither belief seems to ever go away, at least when it comes to getting all riled up about it on the internet.

Well, to be honest, I'm speaking mostly here about the majority of self-proclaimed vegans in this thread (my other contact with vegans being time spent working in a secondhand bookstore; I can't say the 3-D version came across a whole lot different). I suppose it's very possible that I casually know many more vegans than I realize, that the less obvious vegans are even the majority, but on the evidence of known contact, I'd say that the fire and brimstone vegan is not an urban myth (though evidently the notion that abstaining from meat makes one less prone to aggression is).

Comparing people who get annoyed by vegans to anti-semites is pretty ridiculous and out there, by the way. You are not an ethnicity, unfairly persecuted or otherwise. You're people with strict diets. I mean, really.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:24 AM on August 2, 2007

i come with parma prosciutto atop my pizzas, several racks of lamb and a duck in the fridge, lots of cheese and ice cream, a modest inventory of italian red wines and occasional clouds of tobacco smoke!
posted by bruce at 10:24 AM on August 2, 2007

...labouriously tell us how much you like bacon...

You've clearly been talking to the wrong bacon-eaters. Telling people about bacon should be fun and effortless, the furthest thing from a distasteful chore!
posted by rtha at 10:24 AM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

Fuck vegans.
posted by RakDaddy at 10:29 AM on August 2, 2007

Fuck vegans.

Not an option, apparently. What else have you got on the menu?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:31 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

You know, I got a pamphlet from Canadian Peta (not sure if it has a different name) a while back that encouraged me to reduce my meat consumption. It specifically said that reducing your overall meat consumption- to once a week or so- would have a much greater impact over the long term than taking up a vegan or vegetarian diet for 2 weeks and then dropping it. Obviously, they encouraged solely vegetarian diets, but they knew that most people weren't ready to go completely meat-free immediatly. The pamphlet also contained several tasty vegetarian recipes. At the very least, that pamphlet got me to start eating tofu regularly instead of breaking out another pack of chicken breasts. I was really encouraged by the pamphlet because it made solid arguments that weren't based on moral superiority, it proposed goals that were reasonable for everyone and it included recipes.
Just saying- there are a lot more effective ways to promote dietary awareness than the attacks above, although I can't say I exactly blame the vegans in this thread- hearing about how we eat meat because animals are SOOO TASTY probably gets old at around the, oh, 300th time. But just keep in mind that we're all possible vegan converts, and you catch a lot more flies with honey than "fuck you."
posted by 235w103 at 10:32 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oh, and recipes! I cannot stress the recipes strongly enough!
posted by 235w103 at 10:33 AM on August 2, 2007

"What about the people that don't have that luxury? Those who have to eat what they can get or die are they jackasses? At least some of us of have the luxury of considering the "ethical" ramifications of our meals (even if we don't)."

I'm sure all those third-worlders will be glad you've defended them, just as soon as they can scrape together a few years of wages and get onto the internet.
posted by klangklangston at 10:34 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

But just keep in mind that we're all possible vegan converts, and you catch a lot more flies with honey than "fuck you."

Back away from the flies, 235w103.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:35 AM on August 2, 2007

After seeing that picture of Nichola Kriek in the article...

Not so fast - I hear she's a real zucchini in the sack.
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:39 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Comparing people who get annoyed by vegans to anti-semites is pretty ridiculous and out there, by the way.

I wasn't comparing them to anti-semites, I was comparing them to people who cling to equally bizarre ideas that persist in the face of evidence to the contrary. People who think all vegans are pushy are like people who think that all panhandlers live in mansions and commute to their panhandling job in SUVs, or people who are convinced that Microsoft executives get together on Monday mornings to figure out how they can be as evil as possible.

cmonkey: yet here you are, lecturing in a back-handed way.

I dunno how I'm lecturing in any way, but it wouldn't be much fun to just let this be an irrational anti-vegan navelgazing session, now would it?
posted by cmonkey at 10:39 AM on August 2, 2007

"He refused to kiss me any day I had eaten meat, and usually gave me a little lecture to boot."

I don't like kissing people after they've smoked cigarettes or eaten meat. I don't lecture, but I don't like it, so I don't do it.

"You know, I got a pamphlet from Canadian Peta (not sure if it has a different name) a while back that encouraged me to reduce my meat consumption. It specifically said that reducing your overall meat consumption- to once a week or so- would have a much greater impact over the long term than taking up a vegan or vegetarian diet for 2 weeks and then dropping it."

Christ, if only USA PETA could figure that out— everything I see from them makes me facepalm nearly immediately. Is it just that Canadians tend to recognize and respond to reasonableness generally?

We should probably bomb them to clear that up.
posted by klangklangston at 10:40 AM on August 2, 2007

Well, to be honest, I'm speaking mostly here about the majority of self-proclaimed vegans in this thread (my other contact with vegans being time spent working in a secondhand bookstore; I can't say the 3-D version came across a whole lot different). I suppose it's very possible that I casually know many more vegans than I realize, that the less obvious vegans are even the majority, but on the evidence of known contact, I'd say that the fire and brimstone vegan is not an urban myth (though evidently the notion that abstaining from meat makes one less prone to aggression is).

posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:24 PM on August 2 [+] [!]

Well to be honest, every poster I've encountered with the words 'kitten' and 'breakfast' is an ass. Must mean they all are. You know, evidence and whatnot.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 10:50 AM on August 2, 2007

I'm sure all those third-worlders will be glad you've defended them, just as soon as they can scrape together a few years of wages and get onto the internet.

Third worlders? Who mentioned them? Oh, you assumed I meant dark skinned foreign people. You may want to take a look in your invisible knapsack.
posted by MikeMc at 10:55 AM on August 2, 2007

Well to be honest, every poster I've encountered with the words 'kitten' and 'breakfast' is an ass. Must mean they all are. You know, evidence and whatnot.

You're really not doing the best job of "debunking" me, if that's what you're going for here.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:57 AM on August 2, 2007

It's 11:00! Where are the boobies?

(looks down)

Oh. Huh. That was anticlimactic.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:00 AM on August 2, 2007

KfB, I'm pointing out logical errors in your vast and unfounded stereotypes.

'I know a couple of vegans' is not the same as 'I can speak authoritatively about all vegans'.

Speaking as someone who you are so casually lumping together with those others, you are wrong.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 11:03 AM on August 2, 2007

The boobies are here (last link "naked vegans" is probably NSFW).
posted by iviken at 11:05 AM on August 2, 2007

"Third worlders? Who mentioned them? Oh, you assumed I meant dark skinned foreign people. You may want to take a look in your invisible knapsack."

So, you're going to argue that there are a slew of first-world folks who can't afford to go vegetarian, and are having to hunt and forage for their food? Further, let's grant that the homeless here might not be able to choose so much what they eat (and leave aside an argument over diet agency)— you still don't see the irony of pretending that they're not the outlyer, and that defending them on the internet is a purely rhetorical position for you?
posted by klangklangston at 11:06 AM on August 2, 2007

Oh, and white privilege? You're gonna get into that here? Bring it.
posted by klangklangston at 11:08 AM on August 2, 2007

Quick questions for some vegans.

So since PETA is actively trying to convert people to a vegan lifestyle. As a vegan would it be smart to let PETA become the figurehead of your personal choice? Do vegans exist that own pets, and could this lead to PETA dividing the Vegan society at large into different groups? Am I eventually going to get to slam the front door in the faces of PETA members as I currently do with Mormons and Scientologist
posted by hexxed at 11:10 AM on August 2, 2007

Hexxed -- No, yes and yes, and I wouldn't put it past them.
posted by kyrademon at 11:14 AM on August 2, 2007

Really, look, it doesn't shock me that people made certain lifestyle decisions for themselves and then decide that other people who don't make those same choices are going to have a hard time fitting into their lives. Being a vegan is a huge, huge lifestyle issue. It's totally understandable if you had no desire to rearrange your lifestyle to fit around that of a meat-eater's.

My religion imposes certain lifestyle obligations on me, and sometimes I think it would be best if I didn't subject myself to people who don't share those same (I don't act on this impulse as much as I probably should, however). It makes sense for vegans to feel the same way.

hexxed, PETA is a rather entertaining performance art troupe. I don't know any vegans or vegetarians who are actually members or consider them their spokesman. Journalists looking for quotes for the "vegan perspective" may feel differently, of course.
posted by deanc at 11:15 AM on August 2, 2007

Personally, I don't like PETA. I like the message, but not the tactics. I also disagree with them about issues such as pet ownership.

Having said that, it's not people like me that fund PETA and 'let them become the figurehead of your personal choice'. They get a lot of money from hollywood types, and will likely always have more money to burn than your ASPCA and local Humane Societies. They have the cash and get the exposure.

It's like asking Christians why they let the mega-churches and guys like Ted Haggard represent them.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 11:16 AM on August 2, 2007

PETA's done a damn good job of dividing vegans - between the 90% that roll their eyes and cringe when PETA does yet another idiotic stunt, and the 10% who weren't paying attention to the news that day.
posted by cmonkey at 11:18 AM on August 2, 2007

Speaking as someone who you are so casually lumping together with those others, you are wrong.

WD, if you reread your namecalling and abrasive comments to me, you'll find that pointing to yourself as evidence that all vegans are not self-righteous assholes* is about as weak an argument as you could ever hope to muster.

That said, I never claimed to be the authority on all vegans (are you?), but I think I can say with some authority that the disdain expressed here in this thread by many vegans for people who are not vegan is certainly evidence that vegans of this stripe would make for lousy romantic partners if one is me -- a person who generally does not enjoy being preached to or told what to do -- just as I presume I would be a disagreeable partner to them. I can't imagine you'd disagree.

*Your words, not mine. "Self-righteous" I said. "Assholes" I did not say. I don't think they're synonymous.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:21 AM on August 2, 2007

Microsoft executives get together on Monday mornings to figure out how they can be as evil as possible.

They don't? Sheesh, what a letdown. I always thought it would be the best part of working at Microsoft.

I'm always kind of baffled by people who have such stringent criteria about who they will and won't fuck. I mean, over and above liking and physical chemistry and so on. What do you do, carry a questionnaire around? Not speak to those you suspect might be on your complex blacklist? Suppose you meet someone totally awesome and then two weeks later, after the best time of your life, you discover that they once voted for Bush after eating two Big Macs? What do you do then, weep and cut your losses? It's an interesting mindset; I think people tend to be more than the sum of what they eat, how they vote, what they drive: there's so much that goes into that equation of liking and love and lust that disqualifying people on some weirdly arbitrary standard just seems sort of self defeating.

Of course, I do smoke and drink and occasionally eat meat and want to have a sex life, so I guess I have to keep all my options open. I did have a vegan boyfriend once who had no objections to me but then he was one of those vegans who actually lives on PBR and Tater Tots, so there you go.
posted by mygothlaundry at 11:21 AM on August 2, 2007

I think it's important to point out that this chick looks like a monkey.
posted by Mister_A at 11:25 AM on August 2, 2007

I won't sleep with anyone who shops at wal-mart.
posted by Hildegarde at 11:26 AM on August 2, 2007

Give me a break KfB. There is no justification for stereotyping, no matter how hard you try to rationalize it.

And, no I'm not self-righteous about my eating habits at all. Some people I've worked with for five years don't even know I don't eat meat. I also don't go around grouping large numbers of people into convenient stereotypes so that I can mock them.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 11:27 AM on August 2, 2007

Oh yeah, because when I use the word "irresponsible" it's not like I'm talking about people who are above the poverty line and have, you know, RESPONSIBILITY for their own economic decisions.

And replacing your meat intake with, (what the bulk of any vegan or vegetarian diet should be) grains and beans is REALLY EXPENSIVE. I mean. Have you SEEN the price of lentils today?

The limiting factor isn't economical, it's educational. The reason why America has an obesity epidemic isn't because people can't afford to eat anything besides fast food, takeout chinese and pizza. It's because they can't take the time to research a healthy diet, purchase healthy foods, and cook them.
It's the same with vegetarianism/veganism.

PETA can absolutely be blamed for this, they waste their time with radicalism instead of teaching people how easy it is to healthily adjust your diet. I know people who wanted to be vegetarians, probably won over by PETA's campaigning, but were at a loss how to stop themselves from getting an iron deficiency.
posted by Esoquo at 11:28 AM on August 2, 2007

So, you're going to argue that there are a slew of first-world folks who can't afford to go vegetarian, and are having to hunt and forage for their food?

No, I'm saying you don't have to live in the Third World to be poor and hungry. If you're homeless and hungry and the shelter is providing a free lunch of a ham sandwich and chips are you really going to forgo the ham and remain hungry over ethical qualms about factory pork farming?

"...and that defending them on the internet is a purely rhetorical position for you?"

Of course it's a purely rhetorical position for me but isn't rhetoric what these forums are for?

"Oh, and white privilege? You're gonna get into that here? Bring it."

Do you deny that your privileged position influenced your assumption that I was referring to "Third Worlders"?
posted by MikeMc at 11:35 AM on August 2, 2007

kittens for breakfast, you just need to stop fighting the superior lifestyle and embrace you latent veganism. We can't offer you everything as you once knew, but there's a new range of tofu badgers that make a fantastic brunch.
posted by Abiezer at 11:48 AM on August 2, 2007

Forgive me if I'm just a bleeding heart for caring about the effects of my lifestyle, but what the hell is wrong with [environmentalist groups meeting in each others' living rooms].

1. I forgive you, my child :-)

2. I didn't say I thought there was anything wrong with it. I said that the evening self-examination approach to reducing CO2 had more than a little in common with some religious groups' approach to reducing sin. I don't think that's bad, I think the parallels are interesting, and I'm not suggesting that we should persecute anyone.
posted by athenian at 11:51 AM on August 2, 2007

Ah, vegan threads. I'm glad to see so much respect, tolerance, and civility.

Seriously I can't believe people have such a surfeit of wonderful partners that they exclude people based on such irrelevant criteria such as diet.

Diet and religion are tightly intertwined. People have excluded sex partners based on religion forever, and will continue to do so. Veganism is similar to a religious belief, in my experience.

Exploiting animals: bad! Exploiting women (and the sexist nature of advertising): Good!

Again, a factor of consent is involved. A whore isn't a whore if he or she chooses to be a whore. He or she is a sex worker. Same for advertising. They are "spokesmodels," not "hot asses." And they git paid!

Animals have no ethics, and have no rights.

Humans are animals, and you don't get to decide who has "rights."

the general fight for meat-eating doesn't hold up and usually degenerates into "cuz i don't wanna quit cuz they're so tasty."

That's the only argument I honestly believe, and I give some credit to people who can say "Eating meat is morally reprehensible, and modern meat production is a cancer on the planet, but I love it and I'm going to eat it anyway." At least those people are honest.

Even PETA ...

And even more surprised that to find positive sentiment in a statement coming out of PETA ...

PETA is a rather entertaining performance art troupe. I don't know any vegans or vegetarians who are actually members or consider them their spokesman.

I am a vegetarian/vegan, and PETA definitely speaks for me, like many other vegetarians and vegans. I don't make much money (all relative, of course), but PETA gets some of it.

What about the people that don't have that luxury? Those who have to eat what they can get or die are they jackasses?

See: Buddhism. If you're starving and the only way to survive is to eat meat ... of course you'll accept alms. I'd even eat you. And your pretty little dog! ;)
posted by mrgrimm at 11:55 AM on August 2, 2007

a few comments removed -- kittens for breakfast and WinnipegDragon, take the lovefest to metatalk or email
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:01 PM on August 2, 2007

Get over yourself, oh singular and omnipotent judge of all others.

You argue poorly. You are unworthy. Send another!!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:02 PM on August 2, 2007

Okay, okay, Jessamyn. I was about to start providing responses from my magic eightball anyway.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:03 PM on August 2, 2007

"No, I'm saying you don't have to live in the Third World to be poor and hungry. If you're homeless and hungry and the shelter is providing a free lunch of a ham sandwich and chips are you really going to forgo the ham and remain hungry over ethical qualms about factory pork farming?"

Right. How many folks is this a reality for? In which the choice is explicitly between eating meat and going hungry? Now, for the "privilege"— What do you think the odds are that a person in the first world is making those types of subsistence decisions versus those in a developing country? Pretty fucking low? I mean, we're willing to concede that the homeless ethical connundrum is an outlyer that only matters for some Kantian construction of ethics, right? And that you were bringing it up to distract from the fact that you, personally you, do have the ability to choose to be vegetarian or vegan, if you want to, correct? And that you were further trying to muddy the water with a discussion of assumptions of privilege, implying that I did have them while you didn't, while we're both on the internet (which generally has a fairly high barrier to entry, especially outside of the first world)?

"Of course it's a purely rhetorical position for me but isn't rhetoric what these forums are for?"

So, you don't actually care about how your actions affect the world around you? I mean, if that's the case, all of the privilege stuff is just a canard, right?

"Do you deny that your privileged position influenced your assumption that I was referring to "Third Worlders"?"

Bluntly, yes. I was sarcastically pointing out that your objections weren't realistic ones based on the context of this discussion. Are you denying that your privileged position leads you to be overly concerned with deflecting focus on your action by resorting to classist rhetoric?
posted by klangklangston at 12:07 PM on August 2, 2007

I know this guy that fucked a watermelon.
posted by Divine_Wino at 12:07 PM on August 2, 2007

Sorry, I'm over-reactionary because discussion groups and community support are exactly the sort of thing that should replace the radicalism/judgmental approach used to "educate" people about their impact.

I would think people would be more open to suggestions on how to make changes if they were gradual, included helpful suggestions (such as information on public transportation, scheduling carpools, changing energy sources in your home, suggesting recipes, information about companies not to support, etc.), and were coming from a group of supportive friends and neighbours.

(And the first thing that came to my mind wasn't actually sin-resistant religious groups, it was AA)
posted by Esoquo at 12:10 PM on August 2, 2007

Did it consent?

(The guy whose office is next to mine is spending the morning looking for either a fake pig that we can pay someone to fuck, or a real pig that we can pay someone to pretend to fuck.)
posted by klangklangston at 12:10 PM on August 2, 2007

Vegans are sexy.
posted by Mister_A at 12:15 PM on August 2, 2007

It's really very simple:

Drop a vegan - ANY vegan - into a situation where this is nothing to eat but meat. Wait a week, maybe a little more, perhaps less. Said vegan will then chow down on sewer rat as if it were a tasty pumpkin pie. The survival instinct has a way of reducing any human to the base level of an animal, which is quite appropriate as that's what we are. I'd be willing to bet that in third world countries, this whole argument either gets reduced to religious issues, or is simply non-existent. When you're hungry enough, you'll eat just about anything.
posted by dbiedny at 12:18 PM on August 2, 2007

Isn't western culture pretty much founded on grossly inequitable distribution of limited and non-renewable resources? If one finds this or any aspect of it to be "unethical" (a possible position, for sure, but not a given) I'd think you would have two choices: secede entirely, live off the grid, and consume nothing you don't produce or procure with your own two hands, or find a level of compromise that you can live with.

I can certainly understand somebody finding the literal machinations of mass animal-based food production to be so distasteful that they choose not to participate in it, but if they're simutaneously enjoying any other fruits of western industrial le gran luxe, and claiming "well, I'm a little less compromised than you", such a position doesn't seem to have any inherent moral or ethical superiority to it.

The line "you are what you consume", (esp. if extended beyond food to other vegan-marketed consumer products like clothing or soap) seems to play into the same mass consumerist mindset to which some vegans would claim to be objecting to in terms of food production. This article (and subsequent book) get into that in general, though not in relation to veganism itself, there seem to be a few parallels.
posted by anazgnos at 12:21 PM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

When you're hungry enough, you'll eat just about anything.

I had this really funky piece of watermelon the other day.
posted by Divine_Wino at 12:21 PM on August 2, 2007

Well, no. As a life-long vegetarian, I tend to get really ill if I eat meat. And the number of situations where there is NOTHING to eat but meat is pretty low, and I'd probably start looking for bugs first.
posted by klangklangston at 12:21 PM on August 2, 2007

bugs and fish are vegetables, stupid.
posted by Mister_A at 12:26 PM on August 2, 2007

Drop a vegan - ANY vegan - into a situation where this is nothing to eat but meat. Wait a week, maybe a little more, perhaps less. Said vegan will then chow down on sewer rat as if it were a tasty pumpkin pie. The survival instinct has a way of reducing any human to the base level of an animal, which is quite appropriate as that's what we are. I'd be willing to bet that in third world countries, this whole argument either gets reduced to religious issues, or is simply non-existent. When you're hungry enough, you'll eat just about anything.

Place a human in a situation where the choice is to eat another human or starve to death and some certainly will. Place them in a condition where they need to steal or kill to get food. They'll do that too.

I'm all for inhumane psychological experiments, but what really would this one prove? Dire conditions produce dire results?
posted by kigpig at 12:28 PM on August 2, 2007

I had this really funky piece of watermelon the other day.

Seedless? :)
posted by dbiedny at 12:31 PM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

What's this about anyway? Are we still arguing about the idea that some people won't fuck other people for various reasons? Veganism is a big part of life for committed vegans, and if they want to fuck other vegans exclusively, good for them. It's their choice. What's all this nonsense about "put a vegan in a sub under the north pole with nothing but tuna and crab juice and see what happens". Mmmm, tuna, vegan, and crab juice sub is what happens.
posted by Mister_A at 12:36 PM on August 2, 2007

I will only have sex with circumcised, thin vegans, who have had their claws removed.
posted by everichon at 12:38 PM on August 2, 2007

When you're hungry enough, you'll eat just about anything.

Yeah, and if you dropped me into a wholly vegan environment, I'd eat like a vegan. I wouldn't like it, but where's the choice?
So a lot of people here find vegans/vegetarians irritating, but seriously, what harm do they do you? Drivers with road rage, oligarchs, the little punk who keeps spray painting gang shit all over the nieghborhood... these people deserve MY irritation, not some poor shlub who's chosen to avoid dairy. YMMV.
posted by maryh at 12:42 PM on August 2, 2007

I don't give a damn if vegans want to mate with other vegans because it's easier with regards to food choices or morals or whatnot. Fine. That's rational.

However, the "I refuse to make out with a meat eater because they are a walking graveyard" makes me roll my eyes, hard.

imo, the vast majority of people will refuse to make out with someone because they're uglier than them and they don't even have the decency to admit it. Further, I can't think of a single person I've met that didn't have a large list of people that they wouldn't mate with or engage in any minor sexual activities for reasons they don't even bother to understand.

Even if the principle is weak which that quote kind of is, treating sexuality on a reward/punishment basis based upon shared ideology is a vast improvement over most of the populace (though I'd like to see more on the reward than punishment side as I said before).
posted by kigpig at 12:45 PM on August 2, 2007

So, you don't actually care about how your actions affect the world around you?

I'd say that's an overly broad statement (and no doubt intentionally so).

I mean, if that's the case, all of the privilege stuff is just a canard, right?

Actually it's not. Some of us have more choices than others. You seem assume that everyone has the ability and/or capacity to make the "right" choices.

Are you denying that your privileged position leads you to be overly concerned with deflecting focus on your action by resorting to classist rhetoric?

Yes, yes I am. You can focus on my straight, white, male privilege all you want, I don't mind. Really. Having grown up several steps lower than my current position on the socio-economic ladder I do have some first hand knowledge of poor/working class life and how that can limit one's choices. Not everything I post is drawn directly from my rectal archive.
posted by MikeMc at 12:51 PM on August 2, 2007

Also, I categorically deny ever having had carnal knowledge of any fruit and/or domestic livestock.
posted by MikeMc at 12:52 PM on August 2, 2007

Drivers with road rage, oligarchs, the little punk who keeps spray painting gang shit all over the nieghborhood... these people deserve MY irritation, not some poor shlub who's chosen to avoid dairy. YMMV.

ALL of these people deserve to be dropped in the meat pit.
posted by Esoquo at 1:03 PM on August 2, 2007

Mmmm, meat pit....
posted by Mister_A at 1:15 PM on August 2, 2007

But just keep in mind that we're all possible vegan converts, and you catch a lot more flies with honey than "fuck you."

Hmm...faulty logic, 235w103. Neither flies nor honey are vegan.
posted by mewithoutyou at 1:22 PM on August 2, 2007

"Having grown up several steps lower than my current position on the socio-economic ladder I do have some first hand knowledge of poor/working class life and how that can limit one's choices."

Having grown up dirt poor AND vegetarian, I'd suggest that you're full of shit.
posted by klangklangston at 1:22 PM on August 2, 2007

I see we've hit the insane "if you were trapped at the North Pole with a cow" phase of the discussion. Let me take a look back ... the food chain argument, check ... the ethics-is-a-human-construction argument, check ... the "I met this vegan chick once in college and she was rude to me and yelled at me when I was eating a steak so all vegans are stupid plus she wore leather shoes!" argument - essentially, check ...

Hey, wait a minute. There has been NO pointless and largely meaningless back-and-forth about evolutionary biology, tooth shape, and intestinal length yet! What is WRONG with you people!

Get on it, slackers!
posted by kyrademon at 1:25 PM on August 2, 2007 [4 favorites]

Can vegans eat GMOs that have, let's say, bacterial genes inserted? What about plants with animal genes? A big plate of bacteria? What if the bacteria are harvested from an animal, but the animal is not harmed and is in fact helped by said harvesting? What about a fungus with ears? TIA, vegans.
posted by Mister_A at 1:25 PM on August 2, 2007

Sex is a very effective form of outreach

More like reach around amirite?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:29 PM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

This thread is just an excuse for autodidact to brag about how many skinny vegan chicks he's fucking.

Christ, what an asshole.

Not biting!
posted by autodidact at 1:30 PM on August 2, 2007

ALL of these people deserve to be dropped in the meat pit.

Thank you Esoquo. I am now adding "Meat Pit" to my list of crude terms for female genitalia. It will make a wonderful pairing with the male form "Meat Bat".
posted by MikeMc at 1:32 PM on August 2, 2007

~Mister_A: Vegans can do whatever we want to do. If I get kicked out the national chapter, I'll just spend more time here. ;)

My answers.

1) no
2) no
3) i dunno. maybe. why? it seems like i eat a "big plate" of bacteria every day just by walking around.
4) same answer as #3. mostly, why?
5) yes, but i'm not exactly sure what you mean. i only rarely eat fungus.
posted by mrgrimm at 1:37 PM on August 2, 2007

For the record, primate dentition clearly shows we are meant to be omnivorous!
posted by autodidact at 1:43 PM on August 2, 2007

Having grown up dirt poor AND vegetarian, I'd suggest that you're full of shit.

Oh please. So when your mom made meatloaf did you storm away from the table in a huff and go gather acorns to gnaw on? Maybe your parents were veggies but mine weren't. The choice was eat what's been made or don't eat. Eating some of the things on the plate was not an option. Those stuffed peppers,for example, were not going to waste no matter how revolting I found them.
posted by MikeMc at 1:47 PM on August 2, 2007

mrgrimm, I'm pitching a show for Spike TV, and this is important stuff to know.
posted by Mister_A at 1:47 PM on August 2, 2007

Sure, but most of us vegans ... don't bother to try and "convert" you because we damn well know that you'll just sit there and labouriously tell us how much you like bacon...

As generalisations and misconceptions go, this one is pretty awesome.
posted by slimepuppy at 1:47 PM on August 2, 2007

Everyone go read this comment from Divine_Wino. Eating meat and vegetables and grains and fruits and dairy products can be delicious; eating delicious things is part of what makes being a human fucking awesome; it's part of what it means to be a human. If your moral system tells you that enjoying a delicious BLT is wrong, then you have the wrong moral system. If you can't appreciate the form of the delicious described in Divine_Wino's comment, you need to recognize that there is something wrong with you: you have a deficient sense of the delicious. Just about everyone has some deficiency or other. The deficiency that keeps a person from appreciating delicious food is not a moral deficiency, in the same way that not being able to appreciate amazing art and music is not a moral deficiency. So, it's not really a big deal. But that doesn't make it not a deficiency.

BLTs like the one Divine_Wino describes are an amazing synthesis of meat, fruit, vegetable, and grain. They are delicious. I'm going to go have one right now.
posted by Kwine at 1:49 PM on August 2, 2007

Hmm, I'm surprised I haven't heard the hypothetical vat-grown meat brought up... Well, at that point, would it even be meat? It'd be like meat, but grown without animals...
posted by c0nsumer at 1:50 PM on August 2, 2007

Again, a factor of consent is involved. A whore isn't a whore if he or she chooses to be a whore. He or she is a sex worker. Same for advertising. They are "spokesmodels," not "hot asses." And they git paid!

So, if someone is paid, they cannot be exploited?

Advertising, by its nature, is exploitative. It exploits its workers as well as those that it advertises to (us, the great unwashed, who are supposed to imagine how much smarter/sexier/richer we'll be if we don't wear fur, or do wear Rolexes or Axe body spray or fill-in-the-blank). I've never been a huge fan of PETA's, but I was particularly icked out when they began using Nubile! Cute! Nearly Naked! women to sell their message. "Everybody does it" is not a good reason to do anything.
posted by rtha at 1:53 PM on August 2, 2007

Actually I kind of covered that, c0nsumer.
posted by Mister_A at 1:55 PM on August 2, 2007

"Oh please. So when your mom made meatloaf did you storm away from the table in a huff and go gather acorns to gnaw on? Maybe your parents were veggies but mine weren't. The choice was eat what's been made or don't eat. Eating some of the things on the plate was not an option. Those stuffed peppers,for example, were not going to waste no matter how revolting I found them."

My parents were vegetarian as well. And again, pretending that children, who most would agree have limited moral culpability, are the best example is just more bullshit.

And certainly, when I was a kid some 20 or so years ago, it was CHEAPER to be a vegetarian than to be a meat eater. Boiled bulk beans were near free. Likewise, lentils and squash. You're again looking for excuses rather than just taking responsibility for your eating habits.
posted by klangklangston at 1:57 PM on August 2, 2007

I doubt you know what dirt poor is.
posted by Snyder at 2:03 PM on August 2, 2007

I would like to remind everyone that I, personally, am a terrible monstrous person in desperate need of outreach. Whatever you find horrific, I probably believe in.

Therefore, you may now sex me up. In exchange, I will consider your belief systems. If sufficient sexing-up is involved, I will convert to your belief system and attempt to spread it to others.

"Belief system" not being a euphemism for STDs, or some horrible Stephenson nano-cult. Well, I hope not, anyway. I await the imminent arrival of appealing naked bodies.
posted by aramaic at 2:11 PM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

I do not doubt you are an asshole.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:13 PM on August 2, 2007

What, you think you've got a bigger poverty-dick? Go for it.
posted by klangklangston at 2:13 PM on August 2, 2007

facepalm.txt
posted by knowles at 2:15 PM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

man, people who equate discriminating sexual partners on the basis of veganism to discriminating based on random diet quirks are utterly clueless.

Veganism is not just a dietary quirk. It represents a whole, related set of shared values.

Are you going to say people shouldn't discriminate mates based on shared values? Mindless idiocy.
posted by lastobelus at 2:15 PM on August 2, 2007

You think you're poor?
posted by Mister_A at 2:16 PM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm a happy omnivore (bacon and cheese weakness) and my lovely girlfriend is vegetarian. I'm more and more converted every day. I don't know about vegan, but my experience with vegetarianism is you need to be a better cook, and plan your days better, two things that are in demand everywhere if you believe home-targeted advertising.

The single best thing about vegetarianism for me? Not having to worry about what knives/cutting boards have touched raw chicken. Also, being able to eat everything while cooking - one tofustick for the grill, one for the chef.
posted by anthill at 2:20 PM on August 2, 2007

I bet I'm poorer than all of you put together! Nyah!
posted by rtha at 2:20 PM on August 2, 2007

What, you think you've got a bigger poverty-dick? Go for it.

While this thread hasn't had much effect on my eating habits, it certainly has convinced me that I need to use the phrase "poverty-dick" as much as possible.
posted by dubold at 2:20 PM on August 2, 2007

Your fringe beliefs are my indicators of psychotic delusion.
posted by Down10 at 2:25 PM on August 2, 2007

"Can vegans eat GMOs that have, let's say, bacterial genes inserted? What about plants with animal genes? A big plate of bacteria? What if the bacteria are harvested from an animal, but the animal is not harmed and is in fact helped by said harvesting? What about a fungus with ears? TIA, vegans."

I would imagine the answers to such questions might depend heavily on whether they were American vegans, or came from a culture less overrun with obsessive dualism.
posted by lastobelus at 2:32 PM on August 2, 2007

eating delicious things is part of what makes being a human fucking awesome; it's part of what it means to be a human. If your moral system tells you that enjoying a delicious BLT is wrong, then you have the wrong moral system.

What if you are delicious, Kwine? Should I eat you? Why not?

If I enjoy fucking your partner behind your back, it may be fucking awesome. Would I have the wrong moral system if I felt I shouldn't do that?
posted by me & my monkey at 2:36 PM on August 2, 2007

"You think you're poor?"

LUXURY!
posted by klangklangston at 2:37 PM on August 2, 2007

"Hmm, I'm surprised I haven't heard the hypothetical vat-grown meat brought up... Well, at that point, would it even be meat? It'd be like meat, but grown without animals..."

here you go
posted by kigpig at 2:37 PM on August 2, 2007

Okay, so some vegans couch their choice in terms of opposition to factory farming. Alright, I can get that. I think factory farming is reprehensible too, but--as said above--I just fucking like meat. So, I'm weak, but I'm honest about it.

So if that's the objection, what about free-range animals? Wild animals which have been (carefully and sustainably, with minimal waste) hunted? They're not being tortured by the cruelties of the factory farming system.

What's that? Vegans still won't eat it? Oh, okay, so the factory farming thing is a big lie, since they still won't eat the meat if the factory conditions are removed.

Oh, right, it's a moral choice. Fuck off. Animals eat other animals. That's what we do. We also eat plants. And sure, especially in North America we have a diet tilted way too far in favour of protein derived from animals, and the methods of raising those animals are questionable at best, but seriously? Get off the high horse.

There is nothing inherently morally wrong about eating animals. The only vegan argument that holds water is the environmental one, and even that isn't as airtight as you'd think.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:39 PM on August 2, 2007

Poverty-dick? No, I don't wave around my personal experiences for street cred, and, also unlike you, I don't think my personal experiences with poverty, or any other given subject make me an expert, or that I'm somehow representitive of all people I have something in common with. As you say, being on the internet is a sign of pirvelage, I'm just saying that growing up poor with two parents in Ann Arbor probably dosen't give you the worms eye view of poverty in America, pal.
posted by Snyder at 2:40 PM on August 2, 2007

And again, pretending that children, who most would agree have limited moral culpability, are the best example is just more bullshit.

I think you missed the larger point. When you are dependent upon others for food your choices are limited to what you are given, this applies to adults as well as children.

My parents were vegetarian as well.

That explains a lot. Come to the dark side...I'll buy you a bratwurst (the good kind with veal).

You're again looking for excuses rather than just taking responsibility for your eating habits.

I take full responsibility for my love of bacon cheeseburgers.
posted by MikeMc at 2:43 PM on August 2, 2007

Is a meat eater who won't eat dog, cat or human a hypocrite? What about road kill skunk?

Or is it in fact true that virtually every human being's diet is a subset of possible foods?

In the case of vegans, the scope of the subset is generally determined not just by what they grew up eating or what is available in their culture, but also by a set of values. Since these values are pretty fundamental, it should be a non-brainer that they affect choice of mate.
posted by lastobelus at 2:45 PM on August 2, 2007

Animals eat other animals. That's what we do. ... There is nothing inherently morally wrong about eating animals.

By that logic, it must be acceptable to eat other people. People are only animals, after all, and it's what animals do. And presumably, any other behavior you see in the animal kingdom must be acceptable as well.

Holding up "it's what animals do" as a moral standard is equivalent to saying that there are no moral standards. And that's fine with me - I don't believe there are "inherent" moral standards either - but you should at least be honest about what you're saying.
posted by me & my monkey at 2:45 PM on August 2, 2007

"But I respectfully submit that anyone who, for other than grave medical reasons, refuses to submit to the unearthly temptations of such fine cheeses as Gorgonzola, Roquefort, Pecorino, Fontina Val D'Aosta, Gruyere, or Emmenthaler, is not worth sleeping with anyway, since they have no concept of true carnal pleasure."

Pecorino, Gruyere and Emmenthaler are delicious. Gorgonzola's only good in larger dishes (I had some stuffed figs with gorgonzola and walnuts, with a balsalmic reduction that was amazing). But I've never had a good Roquefort.

Thus, I woll not sleep with you.
posted by klangklangston at 2:52 PM on August 2, 2007

By that logic, it must be acceptable to eat other people.

There have been more than a few cultures over the course og human history that did find it acceptable.

Holding up "it's what animals do" as a moral standard is equivalent to saying that there are no moral standards

There are no moral absolutes so keep your morals off my meal.
posted by MikeMc at 2:54 PM on August 2, 2007

Kwine,
Thanks for the shoutout, but personally I really don't care what other people eat and if they don't like BLTs I don't think that means much more than that.
posted by Divine_Wino at 2:58 PM on August 2, 2007

Imagine for a moment you're instead talking about Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and maybe you'll get an idea of what this actually sounds like to other people.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:02 PM on August 2

How incredibly well put.

Almost every single Christian I know goes out of his way not to push his beliefs on anyone. This includes a dozen clergymen. And yet the stereotype persists. Why? Because the vocal minority ruin it for the rest. Deal with it, or tell your local self-righteous preachin' vegan to shut her trap.
posted by nasreddin at 12:29 PM on August 2

Are they Protestant? Because many Protestant denominations are founded upon the premise of evangelism and spreading the good news. If clergymen are not spreading the good news of Jesus Christ, then they are not very good clergymen, in my humble opinion. They should be winning souls for Christ.

You know, upon some reflection, I'm not sure there's anything wrong with vegans who proselytize. I don't like it, however. Just like I don't like Christians who do.

Disclaimer: I quit "winning souls for Christ" in about 1997.
posted by Ynoxas at 3:01 PM on August 2, 2007

Holding up "it's what animals do" as a moral standard is equivalent to saying that there are no moral standards. And that's fine with me - I don't believe there are "inherent" moral standards either - but you should at least be honest about what you're saying.

No, it's not equivalent to that at all. I should think that it was tolerably obvious I was talking about sustenance, especially since I pointed out that I do think the way we treat animals in factory farming situations is reprehensible.

Nice try, though.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 3:01 PM on August 2, 2007

,"?

,"?

,"?

,"?

AAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH
posted by tehloki at 3:03 PM on August 2, 2007

A set of values that wholly rejects all the delicious cheese in the world. Reject bacon all day long if you want. But...anyone who...refuses...the unearthly temptations of such fine cheeses as Gorgonzola, Roquefort, Pecorino, Fontina Val D'Aosta, Gruyere, or Emmenthaler, is not worth sleeping with anyway, since they have no concept of true carnal pleasure.

Equating whether one likes cheese with whether one will be good in bed is, I'll be blunt, just stupid.

I'm not a vegan, and I like some of those cheeses (though non-aged gruyere or emmenthaler makes me vomit. The proper swiss cheeses are bergblumenkase, tete-de-moine, & rohmilch weinkase. )

However I've never liked red meat much, even as a child with no concept of dietary morals, and after 20 years of almost entirely avoiding red meat it mostly makes me want to vomit if I encounter it by accident, with the possible exception of very good, thinly sliced ham, cooked until fairly dry.

So when vegan's say they don't like the taste of meat I have no problem believing them. I probably would be a vegan if my body reacted well to it, but it doesn't. More than a few days without some high-protein meals and my ADD symptoms go off the charts.
posted by lastobelus at 3:04 PM on August 2, 2007

Aramaic, I would love to sexually infect you with my belief sysetm, but I'm not sure exactly how to get to the small metal box, currently headed toward Proxima Centauri, where you are apparently located.

Dirtynumbangelboy, I don't like killing things, unnecessarily and pretty much solely for my own pleasure, which, as far as I am able to deduce from reasonable evidence, have a desire not to be killed. I don't think I have the right, even if I do have the ability.

Most nonpsychopathic people find this argument perfectly rational when applied to humans. After observing the behavior of other living things and learning enough to have a good layman's understanding of neuropsychology, I have also decided to apply this to animals, but have decided that plants are OK to eat.

Milk and eggs, on the other hand, I boycott because I dislike factory farming. And I'm happy to consume eggs or milk from someone's obviously happy pet cow, by the way.

I understand that many people disagree with me, but the idea that this is a completely nonsensical argument strikes me as ... well, kind of weird. What about it makes no sense? I mean, I understand if you, say, consider animals to be robot-like creatures with no desires as humans comprehend them, but can you honestly say that I am insane for believing otherwise, given the available evidence of animal behavior and neural structure?

That's a very strange tack to take on this discussion.
posted by kyrademon at 3:05 PM on August 2, 2007

I once was a pagan but now live like a vegan and give meticulous thought to bean plates.
posted by phoque at 3:08 PM on August 2, 2007

"Pet chicken or pet cow", should have been, darn it. I even foresaw that typo before I wrote it.
posted by kyrademon at 3:10 PM on August 2, 2007

"I think you missed the larger point. When you are dependent upon others for food your choices are limited to what you are given, this applies to adults as well as children."

And I think that you're not actually making that point, in that, aside from determinists, the gradiation of free action means that the vast majority of adults eat what they damn well please.

"Poverty-dick? No, I don't wave around my personal experiences for street cred, and, also unlike you, I don't think my personal experiences with poverty, or any other given subject make me an expert, or that I'm somehow representitive of all people I have something in common with. As you say, being on the internet is a sign of pirvelage, I'm just saying that growing up poor with two parents in Ann Arbor probably dosen't give you the worms eye view of poverty in America, pal."

Oh, we're pal's now, huh? See, I do feel like I have a pretty good insight into what poverty looks like— I've lived rural poor, I've lived mid-sized town poor, and I've lived student poor. I've got a lot of family that's Indiana dirt floor poor, and I was on the board of a housing co-op that explicitly dealt with low-income housing (after living there a healthy chunk of my life). I know what section eight looks like, not from just one experience, but from years of living in it, and from having my neighbors live in it, and my friends live in it, and my family live in it. I know what a failing family farm looks like, and what bankruptcy looks like, and what government cheese looks like. So, yeah, you wanna denigrate that as "street cred" posturing, go for it. But to pretend that you've got the insight into poverty that I don't have, that you can tell me that I don't know what poor is? Well, you're full of shit. There's no other way to put it, Snyder. You can pretend that this is all posturing, because I spent most of my life in Ann Arbor, but hey, you live in Tucson. That means you can't know what poverty looks like either, dipshit.
posted by klangklangston at 3:15 PM on August 2, 2007

It all reminds of that line in Pulp Fiction where S. Jackson's character is all like "My girlfriend is vegetarian which pretty much makes me vegetarian...."

Personally,I hope those crazy hippies stick to their guns (so to speak, not like a hippy would have a gun). With any luck, they'll not be able to find a partner, and they'll all die off.

I man can dream, right?
posted by jaded at 3:16 PM on August 2, 2007

"A" man. Not "I" man. .pfft.
posted by jaded at 3:17 PM on August 2, 2007

What if you are delicious, Kwine? Should I eat you? Why not?

If I enjoy fucking your partner behind your back, it may be fucking awesome. Would I have the wrong moral system if I felt I shouldn't do that?

It is, I've claimed, a basic constitutive principle of being a human that eating delicious, omnivorous food is awesome.

Is eating delicious humans a basic constitutive principle of being human? I submit, respectfully, that it is not.

Is fucking someone else's partner behind their back a basic constitutive principle of being human? Less clear. Fucking other humans is awesome! seems to be a plausible basic constitutive principle, but surely "fucking someone else's partner behind their back" is a bit too fine-grained to be such. Thus, if your point was that I can't admit that eating meat is permissible without admitting that fucking other people's partners behind backs is permissible, you've got some work to do.

I'm leery about this basic constitutive principle stuff I'm pushing, but anytime you think hard about moral theories, you get leery about them. I wish I had more time to spend on this, but the real world unfortunately beckons.

Sorry to put your words to work in ways that you find unappealing, D_W. I don't really care what other people eat either. Well, I don't care in a moral way.
posted by Kwine at 3:17 PM on August 2, 2007

"It is, I've claimed, a basic constitutive principle of being a human that eating delicious, omnivorous food is awesome.

Is eating delicious humans a basic constitutive principle of being human? I submit, respectfully, that it is not."

Does not follow. If your premise is that OMNIVORE=GOOD, human flesh still falls under omnivore.

(You're generally right in your conclusions, but not by the logic you're putting forward).
posted by klangklangston at 3:21 PM on August 2, 2007

Equating whether one likes cheese with whether one will be good in bed is, I'll be blunt, just stupid.

Anyone who likes to eat cheese is willing to have things with rather pungent aromas in their mouths and enjoy it.
posted by kigpig at 3:26 PM on August 2, 2007

In matters of taste, there can be no dispute.
posted by SaintCynr at 3:30 PM on August 2, 2007

I've never had a good Roquefort.

Klang, that's really too bad as out of that list I prize Roquefort over any of the others. A good Roquefort is fantastic and I can't recommend it enough. If you can, seek it out, sir!
posted by ob at 3:50 PM on August 2, 2007

>>Matters of morality and ethics, on the other hand . . .

One man's meat is another man's poison.

:)
posted by SaintCynr at 3:53 PM on August 2, 2007

One man's meat is a Frenchman's poisson.

(Whereas one man's poison is a German's gift.)
posted by klangklangston at 3:56 PM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

But to pretend that you've got the insight into poverty that I don't have, that you can tell me that I don't know what poor is?

I'm not the one who's pretending insight to poverty, moron. You flaunt that, "I was poor, and I was able to do X, so everyone else should do it too," like the most privileged of College Republicans, posturing that you have the end-all-and-be-all knowledge base, and you act like you can see through all your privileged upbringing leads me to believe that your talking out your ass, if not for street cred, then for your ability to shout anyone down who disagress with you. To I think you have some insight to poverty, yeah, sure. So do I, and so do a lot of other people, some (strange as it may seem,) about things you don't know about, so you're not the fucking Oracle and we don't have to take your pronouncements as fucking universal truths, you pompus ass.

You can pretend that this is all posturing, because I spent most of my life in Ann Arbor, but hey, you live in Tucson. That means you can't know what poverty looks like either, dipshit.

Fine, I don't know what poverty looks like, you obviously know much more about it than anyone else, but I'm not the one who loves bringing up their experiences like some kind of trump card.

I'm not going to argue about what you know, I'm going to argue that you don't have a fucking monoploy on all things poor.
posted by Snyder at 4:13 PM on August 2, 2007

and what government cheese looks like.

Say what you will but, two slices of bread, a little butter and a slab of government cheese makes an awesome grilled cheese. Yes vegans, I said cheese and butter. I don't know if the government still hands that stuff out but you could tell what sectors of agribusiness were getting subsidized. Cheese, butter, powdered milk ,rice and peanut butter (did I miss anything klang?) a virtual Who's Who of farm subsidy.
posted by MikeMc at 4:16 PM on August 2, 2007

Lube.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:18 PM on August 2, 2007

There have been more than a few cultures over the course og human history that did find it acceptable.

Do you? Other cultures have done truly horrific things. Is that an acceptable justification for anything?

No, it's not equivalent to that at all.

... because?

I should think that it was tolerably obvious I was talking about sustenance

Actually, no, that's not obvious at all, and irrelevant in any case.

It is, I've claimed, a basic constitutive principle of being a human that eating delicious, omnivorous food is awesome.

Is eating delicious humans a basic constitutive principle of being human? I submit, respectfully, that it is not.

I see no reason why the source of delicious food would be relevant. You haven't drawn any distinction between delicious human meat and delicious meat from other animals. For that matter, I don't see why eating delicious food is a constitutive principle of being human, but I'm willing to accept that for the sake of argument.
posted by me & my monkey at 4:20 PM on August 2, 2007

"Cheese, butter, powdered milk ,rice and peanut butter (did I miss anything klang?) a virtual Who's Who of farm subsidy."

Lots and lots of dried beans, and canned corn (canned anything, really, from green beans to tomatoes). Oh, and garbonzo beans, which I've grown to loathe.
posted by klangklangston at 4:23 PM on August 2, 2007

I should think that it was tolerably obvious I was talking about sustenance

Actually, no, that's not obvious at all, and irrelevant in any case.

Given that the entire topic of discussion is sustenance, it's not only obvious but extremely relevant. I'll be happy to discuss this with you when you stop being intellectually dishonest.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:28 PM on August 2, 2007

"I'm not the one who's pretending insight to poverty, moron. You flaunt that, "I was poor, and I was able to do X, so everyone else should do it too," like the most privileged of College Republicans, posturing that you have the end-all-and-be-all knowledge base, and you act like you can see through all your privileged upbringing leads me to believe that your talking out your ass, if not for street cred, then for your ability to shout anyone down who disagress with you."

Oh, bullshit. I've lived on food stamps, I know it can be done as a vegetarian, and done without much extra work. So fuck your "College Republican" aspersions, retard— no extra privilege is needed to make a pot of beans. In fact, most of what I eat is the cheapest ethnic food— pastas, beans, lentils, potatoes.

And since you've copped to not knowing one good goddamn about eating poor, maybe now is the time for you to go back to making snide one-liners?

"Fine, I don't know what poverty looks like, you obviously know much more about it than anyone else, but I'm not the one who loves bringing up their experiences like some kind of trump card."

No, you're the one who won't shut up when I rebut someone else's assertion that there are some great class of people too poor to be vegetarian. It's simply not true, and yes, my personal experience proves that. Maybe if you weren't so caught up in your bullshit, you'd be willing to concede that and shut the fuck up about something about which you know nothing.
posted by klangklangston at 4:31 PM on August 2, 2007

"How did this go from a post about floozie vegans who don't do it with non-vegans to a discussion of klangklangston's days in Ann Arbor living on dried beans, canned corn, and apparently not very good hummus?"

And now what I want to know is why I can't get good Middle Eastern food out here in LA. The falafel, the humus, the tabouli— all shit! All expensive and shit!
posted by klangklangston at 4:34 PM on August 2, 2007

Given that the entire topic of discussion is sustenance, it's not only obvious but extremely relevant. I'll be happy to discuss this with you when you stop being intellectually dishonest.

You obviously do not require meat for sustenance. The thread is about other people who likewise do not require meat for sustenance. Who's being intellectually dishonest here?
posted by me & my monkey at 4:40 PM on August 2, 2007

Do you?

Depends on whether or not it's the Special of The Day. Seriously, you know the answer to that. But in some cultures the consumption of human flesh was (is?) acceptable. Had I been born and raised in another place at another point in time I very well might have without a second thought. Some people, obviously, are trying to shift societal norms to the point where consumption of animal flesh is as taboo as the consumption of human flesh, well, good luck with that.

To all you radical vegan/animal right folks out there: You are not latter day abolitionists. Animals are not humans no matter how much you attempt to anthropomorphize them. Society will not adhere to your dietary puritanism. I had pork roast for dinner. That is all.
posted by MikeMc at 4:44 PM on August 2, 2007

Can you deny that:

1) Omnivorous animals eat both plants and vegetation
2) Humans are omnivorous animals?

Of course you can't. Stop being asinine.

Omnivorous animals eat other animals. Humans are animals. To pretend that eating animals is immoral is patently absurd. To claim that our treatment of factory-raised animals is immoral is supportable.

And, of course, you'll raise the same ridiculous point you originally raised. At no point did I say that everything animals do is fine for humans to do. If I did say that, I really would love for you to show me where I did. Go on, show me. I'll wait.

What's that? You can't? Oh, there's more? Why, yes, I was applying what I said to this discussion only, and not to other areas of human behaviour, your strawman claims to the contrary notwithstanding. Glad to see that you're finally understanding that.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:46 PM on August 2, 2007

Seriously, you know the answer to that. But in some cultures the consumption of human flesh was (is?) acceptable. Had I been born and raised in another place at another point in time I very well might have without a second thought.

Either that's a justification or it's not. If it is, anything goes I guess. If it's not, why bring it up?

Animals are not humans no matter how much you attempt to anthropomorphize them.

This has nothing to do with anthropomorphism, and everything to do with empathy. You folks pointing to the "state of nature" as justification for what you do, you're the ones conflating animals with people.
posted by me & my monkey at 4:50 PM on August 2, 2007

Empathy presumes there is something there to empathize with, which is sort of the deifnition of anthropomorphism.

Again, nice try.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:54 PM on August 2, 2007

Gawd, even when PETA tries to sound normal they sound crazy.
posted by poweredbybeard at 4:56 PM on August 2, 2007

I just want to say that through all this dick-fighting, I haven't gotten a single recipe. A single god-damned one. If someone can tell me what soft tofu is good for other than making dips or some sort of hideous slurry, please do.

I hear good things about Alton Brown's Moo-less chocolate pie. Silken tofu (but the extra firm kind) is very good barbecued* in the oven, too.

* I understand that anything cooked in an oven is just "barbecue." But it is pretty tasty nonetheless.
posted by Tehanu at 4:57 PM on August 2, 2007

a young figure sits still by a pool
he's been stamped "human bacon" by some butchery tool
he is yoooooou...
posted by anazgnos at 4:57 PM on August 2, 2007

dirtynumbangelboy, WTF? Of course I can deny that, quite easily. I am human, and omnivorous, and do not eat both plants and [other animals] (I assume this is what you meant. because the other way doesn't make sense.)

I *can* eat both plants and animals, of course, because I am omnivorous, but I deny that I do, because, well, I don't.

So ... huh?
posted by kyrademon at 4:58 PM on August 2, 2007

"klang, if you post an AskMe question about where to find good middle eastern food in Southern California, I won't know how to answer it, but I'll favorite it for sure. I've been dying for the stuff for years here."

Done.
posted by klangklangston at 5:00 PM on August 2, 2007

Thanks, dirtynumbangelboy. We now have a real life example of begging the question that we can point to when people misuse that phrase. Can you see the logical fallacy, kids? Humans eat animals because humans are omnivorous!
posted by team lowkey at 5:05 PM on August 2, 2007

The only vegan argument that holds water is the environmental one, and even that isn't as airtight as you'd think.

What about the one where I just think it feels nice? I'm a vegetarian because it seems like a kind thing to put a little bit less pain into the world. It also makes my body feel good. If other people don't feel that way, it's fine with me.

I understand that some vegans are preachy and self-righteous and that that bad behavior makes non-vegans feel defensive. It also seems that when vegetarianism comes up even in a neutral way non-vegetarians often still immediately leap into yelly screamy you would eat meat if you lived naked on a pile of ice at the north pole plants can also feel pain and I love meat meat meat bacon you big jerky hypocrite-type stuff.

And that doesn't seem nice. So I don't much like it. As established above, I like things that feel good better than things that feel bad.
posted by lemuria at 5:09 PM on August 2, 2007

Oh, bullshit. I've lived on food stamps, I know it can be done as a vegetarian, and done without much extra work. So fuck your "College Republican" aspersions, retard— no extra privilege is needed to make a pot of beans. In fact, most of what I eat is the cheapest ethnic food— pastas, beans, lentils, potatoes.

Well woopty-doo for you! You think that, after what I've written here, I give a shit about your eating habits?

And since you've copped to not knowing one good goddamn about eating poor, maybe now is the time for you to go back to making snide one-liners?

Sweet Jesus, fuck your lack of reading comprehension, I was simply giving in to your egocentric need to have a goddamned pissing match about which one of us is more down with 'Real Life,' dude. Go on having fun with your superiority complex, nitwit.

No, you're the one who won't shut up when I rebut someone else's assertion that there are some great class of people too poor to be vegetarian.
I won't shut up? You're the one jumping all over someone because they responded to an asinine moral judgment?

It's simply not true, and yes, my personal experience proves that.

You're right, anything that you can do, regardless of any background or circumstances you might have, Klang has done it, therefore all can do it! All hail the Universal Subject!

Maybe if you weren't so caught up in your bullshit, you'd be willing to concede that and shut the fuck up about something about which you know nothing.

My bullshit? What, pray tell is that? Is it my disagreeing with you, or is it my lack off willingness to suck your cock about how fucking amazing you are? Just because my circumstances have lead me to believe something different then what you do, does not make me "know nothing," you ignorant know-it-all. I just have the intellectual honesty which you lack to admit that my experience is not universal in any capacity.
posted by Snyder at 5:13 PM on August 2, 2007

I find it fascinating that the only person here who is actually claiming that their belief is the only valid ethical system in a prosyletizing manner is the militant omnivore.
posted by kyrademon at 5:14 PM on August 2, 2007

I'm proslyetizing how, exactly?

Choose not to eat meat? Fine by me. I really don't care. Choose to eat meat? Ditto.

But don't make the mistake of thinking it's some superior 'ethical' choice because of the poor widdle animals. The only case in which that argument works is related to factory farming. Hunting or free-range farming really doesn't bear up to that argument.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:20 PM on August 2, 2007

I believe we are what we consume

Confirms what I always thought: vegans are all nuts & fruits.

Seriously, though, I've always thought that a vegetarian would have to be pretty stupendously awesome in every other aspect of their personality for them to be a viable relationship option for any omnivore, and vegans are right off the scale altogether. Imagine putting up with a lifetime of workarounds & restrictions imposed upon you by somebody's largely arbitrary lifestyle choice!

If these self-righteous quasi-germophobic orthorexics choose to exile themselves even further by even refusing to have sex with omnivores, then I find it hard to see who is losing out, other than them. Bye, guys! We won't miss you!
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:22 PM on August 2, 2007

235w103: If someone can tell me what soft tofu is good for other than making dips or some sort of hideous slurry, please do.

It's really only useful for making dips or sauces. When I make lasagna, I mash soft tofu with spices and a little bit of liquid smoke and spread it between the layers. Just about everything else requires firm or extra firm tofu. What kind of recipes do you want? I have a lot.
posted by cmonkey at 5:25 PM on August 2, 2007

Metafilter should have a recipe sharing subsite.

(This is the only pseudo-positive thing this thread has made me think about.)

It could be organized like Music where a different theme or ingredient is chosen every week/month? like iron chef.

Or it could be more like regular metafilter, with the tags used to list ingredients/dietary restrictions.

Then Matt could sell a Meficookbook one day.
posted by Esoquo at 5:29 PM on August 2, 2007

Everyone, I'm sorry for the derail, it was totally out of proportion to the "offense," and while I still have a problem with klang's phrasing, all in all it wasn't that big of a deal, and wasn't prudent of me to get involved with the dick-waving. I'm sorry for my part in it.
posted by Snyder at 5:31 PM on August 2, 2007

"My bullshit? What, pray tell is that? Is it my disagreeing with you, or is it my lack off willingness to suck your cock about how fucking amazing you are? Just because my circumstances have lead me to believe something different then what you do, does not make me "know nothing," you ignorant know-it-all. I just have the intellectual honesty which you lack to admit that my experience is not universal in any capacity."

Well, your bullshit would start with telling me that I don't know what it's like to be poor. You do remember doing that, don't you? And your bullshit would continue by not conceding the point that hey, occassionally, I do know what the fuck I'm talking about, and that it is fucking possible to be both dirt poor and to eat vegetarian. And that's without needing any super-secret help from white privilege (which was a fucking absurd claim to begin with, and I'd be more amazed at you continuing to trot it out if you weren't so obviously fucking retarded). Fuck you if you can't understand the difference between a descriptivist account and a normative one, moron.

But instead of conceding that, you've got this whole thing about how you want to suck my cock but can't or something, and about how you're the lone voice of fucking reason. So hey, again, feel free to shut the fuck up and stop trying to pretend that instead of me stating honestly something that I've been through that I'm trying to argue that everyone should do what I did, or that it's the best and most fun awesome super kawaii way to be. That's intellectually dishonest, Snyder, and if you weren't just continuing a pattern of being a snide asshole, you probably would have just stayed quiet to begin with.
posted by klangklangston at 5:33 PM on August 2, 2007

Well, for what it's worth, I should have let this drop a while ago, and will now.
posted by klangklangston at 5:34 PM on August 2, 2007

You should be sorry.

The /whole/ time I was biting my tongue to tell you about when we had to eat my sister because the cupboard was dry.

(It's when I decided to become a vegetarian actually.)
posted by Esoquo at 5:34 PM on August 2, 2007

(I think it's funny that you two got into vegetarian/non-vegetarian cocksucking. . . which started this whole thing anyway.)
posted by Esoquo at 5:35 PM on August 2, 2007

(I think it's funny that you two got into vegetarian/non-vegetarian cocksucking. . . which started this whole thing anyway.)

And thus the circle is complete.
posted by MikeMc at 5:39 PM on August 2, 2007

Aramaic, I would love to sexually infect you with my belief sysetm

Right-o, if I had a .sig, it would have a new line! Bow down before me ye sexless, for I am your king!

(Um, your belief system does let me rule with an iron fist, doesn't it? It doesn't? Aw heck.)
posted by aramaic at 5:39 PM on August 2, 2007

Hmm. This thread is predictably ridiculous. Can I return to the post for a moment? This is a really simple issue to deal with:

1. If someone pulls out a hypothetical checklist of "things that will disqualify you from a sexual relationship," that's understandable.

2. If that checklist contains anything regarding diet that's as common as "eats meat" or "vegetarianism," then they don't need to ask the question, because my personal checklist has "self-righteous prick" somewhere near the top. I don't care if you're a carnivore-evangelist or a goddamn Jainist. Get bent.

3. Yes, discriminating on that basis is your prerogative -- and probably rational, judged on its own terms -- but it doesn't mean you're not self-righteous any more than if "Christian," "atheist," "different ethnicity," or "poor" are automatic DQs for you, either. Denying that fact just makes you delusional, and hey! "delusional" happens to be on my checklist as well. On the other hand, thanks for not wasting my time by showing your nutcase cards up front.

Oh, and N.B. for PETA: using sexual discrimination as political leverage is exploitative, no matter how much moral authority you manage to wrap it in. The sooner you paleolithic hypocrites all fuck off to your yurts, the quicker we'll be able to fix all the issues you've managed to taint with lunatic-fringe over the years. Thanks. Don't come back.
posted by spiderwire at 5:56 PM on August 2, 2007

I like how apparently all beliefs, regardless of how thoroughly considered, shallow, whacky, or sensible, are equally meritorious. That's a great little bit of failure, right there.

"You have beliefs? And you don't like those other people who have beliefs? That's hypocritical, 'cause you both have beliefs!" What rot.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:21 PM on August 2, 2007

My apologies, dirtynumbangelboy. I was making the assumption that the only possible reason for someone to so vehemently proclaim the rightness of their belief system and the wrongness of another's was to attempt to convince people of that. Apparently you ... just happen to like proclaiming that?
posted by kyrademon at 6:36 PM on August 2, 2007

I thought the main reason humans shouldn't eat other humans is because of the obvious disease vector which makes it ridiculously risky. Could we? Sure. Should we? Most definitely not.
That said, if someone came up with a way to ensure that human meat were safe for me to consume I'd gladly do so.
I personally don't understand the "eating meat is morally wrong" aspect.
posted by nightchrome at 6:59 PM on August 2, 2007

Ugh. Crawl back under your rock and eat some moss or something.

What part of 'choose to do whatever you like' isn't getting through? Is your low iron somehow affecting your comprehension? Am I the only person in this thread who has stated that X belief is irrational because Y?

Of course not.

But you seem to think I am. Why is that, exactly? I'm not telling you that OMG YOU MUST BELIEVE WHAT I BELIEVE. Am I? Perhaps it's your turn to show me where I said something that I didn't say. I'll wait.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:00 PM on August 2, 2007

That was aimed at kyrademon, btw.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:02 PM on August 2, 2007

Autodidact's Super Crispy Onion Rings:

YOU WILL NEED:
3 to 4 cups canola or vegetable oil in a small pot, heated to 165 celsius (medium-high on a stove burner)

4 white onions, sliced 3/4 inch thick and separated into rings (you have to cut them sideways to make rings)

BATTER:
8 oz. of beer or alcoholic cider
1/2 cup cornstarch
2 cups flour
1 egg (whites only if you want light batter, include yolk for heavier batter)
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt and pepper
1 tbsp spice of your choice (I use "Pain is Good" crushed chile powder blend)

Whip that shit up in a bowl. Use a fork if you're hardcore or a near-useless bachelor like myself. With practice you'll find your desired thickness for the batter. To test for thickness, lift some of the batter with the fork. The batter should not slip through the tines very fast. It should ooze through slowly.

DEEP FRYING

Drop the onion rings into the batter and stir until they're all coated.

Drop the coated rings into the oil in batches. You want to double fry them for maximum crispiness. First fry them at 165 for about five minutes or until they are just becoming really brown. Remove from oil and set on paper bags or newspaper while you do the first fry on the remaining coated rings. Heat the oil to 180-185 for the second fry (close to maximum on a stove burner), which only needs to last a minute or two. The rings will become extremely crispy and brown. Drop the rings onto paper again and salt immediately.

If you have a deep fryer as I do, you can make that many rings in one batch, most likely. It's a great snack for watching movies.
posted by autodidact at 7:49 PM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

Vegans are TWO with nature.
posted by HTuttle at 7:52 PM on August 2, 2007

If these self-righteous quasi-germophobic orthorexics choose to exile themselves even further by even refusing to have sex with omnivores, then I find it hard to see who is losing out, other than them. Bye, guys! We won't miss you!

He/She/It does not speak for all of us sweet sexy vegan girls! Please come back! You know I don't mean to, just sometimes I get angry. And I have to eat me some meat. But I promise, I'll never do that again to you baby. Never!
posted by kigpig at 8:01 PM on August 2, 2007

What's with people bitching about plain soft tofu?

The stuff's plain, bland, and lacks texture.

There's tons of other protein-rich (relatively) prepared vegan-safe products!

Wheat gluten! (purchased already seasoned in a variety of styles - ketchup, 5-spice, mustard, fermented mushrooms, &c&c. It's also really good in meat stews.)

Fried tofu balls/puffs! (Cut in half; the fried outside is good texture, the inside bits suck in whatever other flavours you have in the stew/hot pot. One can get vegan hoisin sauce; fried tofu puffs, agar [or the other one, aq... something, can never remember] based "pasta" spindles, baby bak choy, and various mushrooms makes a great hot pot. Hell, throw in some bona-fide "liver-tofu" [hard tofu, usually seasoned] Throw in some canned "baby corn" and you have American-style Buddah's feast)

Dried tofu! (Cut into 0.5x1xwhatever cm the length it is splinters. Boil some fresh bamboo shoot in salted water; peel shoot, cut cooked core [mmmm, nutty] into similar dimensions. Cool, and toss both in your favourite chile sauce. Add half-cooked beansprouts if you like.

As for plain soft tofu? Cut into 1.5cm square slabs, put a couple of 1/6thed 10,000 year-old egg on top, sprinkle some pork fluff on top. Serve cold. Grrrreat.

Soft tofu - cut into bits; makes for filler in chicken-based broths (throw in various mushrooms, drop and stir in an egg, maybe some over-night salted pork... quick and good stuff).

There's also desert tofu, which is softer than soft tofu and sweetened (and you can add liquid sweetener to it). Great stuff.

If there's a "Buddhist" grocery store near you, check it out! There are "faux meats" made from components from mushrooms to peas to soy to wheat to various sea-based plants, &c. All in a huge variety of completely vegan flavours and textures.

There's a pea-based hotdog sausage that I like that tastes (and has a better mouthfeel) than hog-snout-based hotdogs.

/militant omnivore who takes bacon and beef steak very seriously
posted by porpoise at 8:31 PM on August 2, 2007

so, like, is this thread totally powered by sperm, or what?
posted by From Bklyn at 8:47 PM on August 2, 2007

so, like, is this thread totally powered by sperm, or what?

Is there a Metafilter thread that's not powered by sperm?
posted by spiderwire at 8:53 PM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

kigpig, it's amazing how one single missed comma can transform an otherwise coherent comment into jibbering nonsense...
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:57 PM on August 2, 2007

hey, my identical twin was thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time! what are the odds against that?
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:58 PM on August 2, 2007

heh, I see that now. I would say it helps to preview but that would make it sound like it wasn't just a matter of gross incompetence on my part. Oh well I guess no vegan girls for me now (I hear they're all really smart and educated and care about things and stuff).
posted by kigpig at 9:04 PM on August 2, 2007

That said, if someone came up with a way to ensure that human meat were safe for me to consume I'd gladly do so.

Hmmm - well, it was only a short time ago that we could satisfy our Cannibal curiosity both safely and without pissing off the Vegans...

Unfortunately they closed their doors, but wikipedia comes to the rescue - so, without much further ado, I give you....

HuFu

...A tofu-based, human flesh alternative...

Unfortunately sales were lower than expected and they had to shut their doors mid-2006. Truly an idea that was ahead of it's time.
posted by jkaczor at 9:07 PM on August 2, 2007

I don't see how veganism advances ethical treatment of animals. You've removed yourself from the target market, so the meat-industry has absolutely zero interest in pleasing you. Bravo for not supporting it, but don't think that you're affecting change. If, however, more people would start buying ethical/organic meat, and boycotting battery farmed animals, the industry would be forced to move to a more ethical way of treating livestock. There has been a definite shift in this direction in the UK at least...
posted by slimepuppy at 12:14 AM on August 3, 2007

Free-range, grass-fed, hormone free meats for me. Not that I buy a lot of meat - but when I do I make a conscious choice to buy stuff that was not factory-farmed. Little things like "contagious deadly bird flu" makes me a bit shy of factory farming conditions.

Healthy animals are better for everyone, whether you choose to eat them or not. Sustainable agriculture and ranching is a good thing. I do also teach my students quite pointedly that, in terms of energy efficiency, eating plants is a better conversion of sun power to human tissue than is eating animals.

That said, I also point out that we quite likely evolved the way we did - tool use, large brains, upright posture - as adaptations directly related to our move from trees to plains in search of carcasses to scavenge. We're humans because our ancestors figured out that fats and meats are great sources of high-energy foods.

I have no problem with vegetarians or vegans. Several of my family members are vegan, and although we like to tease each other about it they don't get preachy and I don't start making tasteless jokes about bloody flesh for dinner.

I do however have problems with evangelical vegans. I don't walk around trying to convince others to eat more meat, and I do not understand why so many people seem to feel that a vegan lifestyle should come with a giant cross to bear in public for all of us heathen omnivores to see. You make your choice, for whatever reason you wish, and live with it - I'll do the same. I won't make fun of you unless you refuse to shut up about your choice. Same goes for your choice of religion, political party, clothing style, music, and everything else.

Many people drop the crucifix after they leave college, realizing that in the real world you do not have to make your entire lifestyle a matter of public record. Some small subsets of people continue to live up to the stereotypes, perpetuating them to the extent that stupid statements like "your body is an animal graveyard!" make many, many other people spout angry retorts out of annoyance.

What really kills me are the people who force a vegan lifestyle on their pets. The most common pets - dogs and cats - are strict or semi-strict carnivores. They aren't given a choice in the matter by a vegan owner who feeds them grain-based foods, are they? My two happy cats eat a sustainably-produced cat food that is primarily ground duck and chicken. They seem pretty damn happy about that, and I don't blame them. Cats are not built to eat greens and grains.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:56 AM on August 3, 2007

To pretend that eating animals is immoral is patently absurd. To claim that our treatment of factory-raised animals is immoral is supportable.

It's ok to kill, but not to torture. Got it.

At no point did I say that everything animals do is fine for humans to do.

No, you didn't. However, you haven't provided any way to differentiate between the things that animals do that it's ok for us to do, and the things that would be wrong for us to do. Other than an implicit "because I said so." Your justification for why it's ok to eat animals is ... because we eat animals.

Empathy presumes there is something there to empathize with, which is sort of the deifnition of anthropomorphism.

Uh, no, that's not the definition of anthropomorphism, and empathy can be extended to any sentient being that can feel pain. Empathy is why we have animal cruelty laws, why we think Michael Vick is a bad person, etc, etc.

Again, nice try.

Your snideness is not supported by your logic.
posted by me & my monkey at 8:04 AM on August 3, 2007

I don't see how veganism advances ethical treatment of animals. You've removed yourself from the target market, so the meat-industry has absolutely zero interest in pleasing you.

Vegans don't want to be pleased by the meat industry. They want nothing to do with the meat industry.
posted by me & my monkey at 8:09 AM on August 3, 2007

I'm not a fan of all-or-nothing approaches. They don't tend to accomplish much. Screaming at people that all meat is murder is less likely to change minds than to suggest that the meat that you do consume could be grown and murdered more ethically and reducing the amount of meat consumed is good for everyone.

So, if you're an apathetic vegan that wants nothing to do with the meat industry, don't get upset when the meat industry keeps doing its thing.
posted by slimepuppy at 8:24 AM on August 3, 2007

So, if you're an apathetic vegan that wants nothing to do with the meat industry, don't get upset when the meat industry keeps doing its thing.

If you're apathetic, you're not upset by definition, right? Also, I find the phrase "murdered more ethically" a bit jarring. Maybe that's just me, though.
posted by me & my monkey at 9:04 AM on August 3, 2007

"Unfortunately sales were lower than expected and they had to shut their doors mid-2006. Truly an idea that was ahead of it's time."

Well, that and it was a hoax.
posted by klangklangston at 9:16 AM on August 3, 2007

And I'm happy to consume EGGS or milk from someone's obviously happy pet COW, by the way.

lolz.

speaking of eggs, my partner's dad has started raising chickens. it's an idyllic life, out there near the lake, eating grass and beetles, hanging out in the fabulous chicken coop he built with the big picture window. so will we vegans be eating puffy-cheeked Pete (who was one mean rooster, and the first to have had his neck chopped, a week or two ago. dang, i miss him.) or all his buddies in the freezer? we get most of our produce from Ray, all perfectly organic and canned for the winter too, by Lucille. so why not eat those plump happy little chickens? or their eggs? god i used to love eggs.

we've talked about it, but i think we're just over meat. there are a load of reasons not to eat meat with indeterminate origin, but i've decided i don't really want to go over there taking portraits of chickens (yes, i'm weird that way) and thinking about how i'm going to eat 'em later. the eggs are a different story, and i will, as usual, be polite and eat Lucille's wonderful baked goods which include those eggs. but i won't be taking a dozen home for myself, since a) we want to maintain our vegan household, and b) i'm not missing eggs nearly like i used to. my tofu scrambler is to die for. shrug. lifestyle choice doesn't include liquid meat.

we are not proselytizers, but when it comes up, which it does often if one eats in public with meateaters, i'll state in some very shorthand way why i am a vegan. i often try to joke that i was infected by my partner, while throwing in something vague about environmental concerns and ethics. i am never the one who prolongs the conversation, getting all wound up and defensive, or even angry. and i don't get excited about it or expect anyone else to become one because i told them why i am. but the respect for my choice, even amongst people i like, is not often forthcoming. the proselytizing, in fact, seems to come from the other direction, IMO. one of my oldest friends recently dropped me because i quietly stuck to my guns while he railed loudly over beers the Penn and Teller argument. i confess i was bewildered by his insistence that i convert to meat-eating because of his sermon.

i would also like to add to my statement upthread that it's much easier now as a forty-yr-old to exclude people from my sexual possibilities. i wouldn't have done so 20 years ago, and didn't. it's just that i'm no longer eager to have meaningless sex with people who are only interesting because i'm attracted to them. having wholly different ethical bases for lifestyle is just a recipe for conflict, and i'm over conflict as aphrodisiac. having done that fifty-odd times, i think i'll leave that sort of stuff to others.
posted by RedEmma at 9:48 AM on August 3, 2007

bad link above. this is better.
posted by RedEmma at 9:52 AM on August 3, 2007

Your snideness is not supported by your logic.

I'd say that your wilful obtuseness isn't supported by your logice, but seeing as you have none of the latter with scads of the former, it's all a bit pointless.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:25 AM on August 3, 2007

If I'm so obtuse, why don't you explain, in tiny little words please, why we can justify our behavior based on what animals do in some cases, but not in others?
posted by me & my monkey at 11:14 AM on August 3, 2007

dnab, not sure why you chose to interpret my last comment as meaning the opposite of what it said. It meant what it said. I was not being sarcastic. Just a bit baffled.
posted by kyrademon at 11:47 AM on August 3, 2007

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