I really don’t mind eating Vegetarian meals, but Vegan is too far for all but a handful of meals.
The lack of dairy is my cutoff point.
That being said, I’m not a Vegetarian, I just make vegetarian meals regularly for my family because they enjoy them. I also make a lot of reduced meat meals, where it’s a flavour component rather than a significant nutritional component. Like throwing 30g of Bacon in a stew per serving, or halving ground beef with tofu on a rice bowl.
I don’t get why people are down voting this. Your approach is a perfectly acceptable blueprint for reducing meat consumption. Getting upset at you because you haven’t fully embraced veganism is letting perfect become the enemy of good enough.
I agree, reducing meat consumption is all heading in a helpful direction. But I do get a bit irritated by how every mention of the word “vegan” triggers someone to pop up saying “Here’s why I’m not a vegan.” It seems defensive, irrelevant, and a bit self-centred. So I wouldn’t assume all the downvotes reflect vegan purism.
I acknowledge I can’t completely remove myself from contributing to suffering and climate change (short of killing myself, which I have no intention of doing.)
However I’ll do all I can to minimize my impact. Including being vegan, living a generally minimal consumption lifestyle, buying secondhand as much as possible, walking or cycling everywhere, and not bringing any children into this world.
I’ll also acknowledge my individual actions don’t really make any difference in the grand scheme of things, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try to live in a manner that won’t make our planet inhospitable to our species before the end of the century.
There are plenty of activities you could be doing that would have a hundreds of times more impact than going Vegan. You’re right that your individual consumption actions don’t really make a difference in the grand scheme, but that’s not true for other actions you could be taking though.
You could work in the field of birth or population control, every baby you prevent being born is likely worth more than your entire lifetime consumption.
You could become a research scientist and work on recycling, pollution reduction, carbon capture, etc.
You could work together with others to purchase and protect large swaths of land or water.
The best thing an individual can do for the climate crisis is switch their home heating to an electric heat pump powered by renewable energy sources, in combination with better insulation and increasing the density of their housing (apartments require less heat/cooling per person than townhouses, which use less energy per person than detached houses)
Home heating/cooling is the single largest source of emissions for an individual (on average) in developed countries.
It sounds like you already eliminated or significantly reduced the personal car, which is the second highest average individual source.
The emissions from the food you eat is usually the third largest individual source.
100% Veganism globally would be expected to drop global emissions by about 17%, but even switching to just replacing 75% of red meat with other meats would still drop global emissions by 10%, and full vegetarianism (no meat) would drop it by 14%. Veganism is definitely the most reduction, but it’s not necessary at all if we just reduce the red meat and fix some of larger heating/cooling and transportation issues.
I really don’t mind eating Vegetarian meals, but Vegan is too far for all but a handful of meals.
The lack of dairy is my cutoff point.
That being said, I’m not a Vegetarian, I just make vegetarian meals regularly for my family because they enjoy them. I also make a lot of reduced meat meals, where it’s a flavour component rather than a significant nutritional component. Like throwing 30g of Bacon in a stew per serving, or halving ground beef with tofu on a rice bowl.
I don’t get why people are down voting this. Your approach is a perfectly acceptable blueprint for reducing meat consumption. Getting upset at you because you haven’t fully embraced veganism is letting perfect become the enemy of good enough.
I agree, reducing meat consumption is all heading in a helpful direction. But I do get a bit irritated by how every mention of the word “vegan” triggers someone to pop up saying “Here’s why I’m not a vegan.” It seems defensive, irrelevant, and a bit self-centred. So I wouldn’t assume all the downvotes reflect vegan purism.
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lol when I went vegan I used a lot of meat substitutes to get me over it. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good though!
Here is a great resource for vegan substitutes
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/top-10-vegan-substitutes
How do you know someone isn’t vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
Sorry my diet doesn’t cause enough death, suffering, and environmental destruction for your tastes.
Even your existence and diet causes plenty of that. Yet you continue with your own life, and will likely even reproduce.
Plenty of good reasons to be vegan, but that ain’t one of them.
I acknowledge I can’t completely remove myself from contributing to suffering and climate change (short of killing myself, which I have no intention of doing.)
However I’ll do all I can to minimize my impact. Including being vegan, living a generally minimal consumption lifestyle, buying secondhand as much as possible, walking or cycling everywhere, and not bringing any children into this world.
I’ll also acknowledge my individual actions don’t really make any difference in the grand scheme of things, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try to live in a manner that won’t make our planet inhospitable to our species before the end of the century.
There are plenty of activities you could be doing that would have a hundreds of times more impact than going Vegan. You’re right that your individual consumption actions don’t really make a difference in the grand scheme, but that’s not true for other actions you could be taking though.
You could work in the field of birth or population control, every baby you prevent being born is likely worth more than your entire lifetime consumption.
You could become a research scientist and work on recycling, pollution reduction, carbon capture, etc.
You could work together with others to purchase and protect large swaths of land or water.
Going vegan is the best thing a individual can do for the climate crissis
Objectively, no it isn’t.
The best thing an individual can do for the climate crisis is switch their home heating to an electric heat pump powered by renewable energy sources, in combination with better insulation and increasing the density of their housing (apartments require less heat/cooling per person than townhouses, which use less energy per person than detached houses)
Home heating/cooling is the single largest source of emissions for an individual (on average) in developed countries.
It sounds like you already eliminated or significantly reduced the personal car, which is the second highest average individual source.
The emissions from the food you eat is usually the third largest individual source.
100% Veganism globally would be expected to drop global emissions by about 17%, but even switching to just replacing 75% of red meat with other meats would still drop global emissions by 10%, and full vegetarianism (no meat) would drop it by 14%. Veganism is definitely the most reduction, but it’s not necessary at all if we just reduce the red meat and fix some of larger heating/cooling and transportation issues.