Eating meat encourages cattle farms which lead to huge methane emissions that are having a far worse impact on the planet that carbon emissions. I'm not a vegan but there are a lot of pros to it. I don't know any vegans who are having to take supplements to top up their diet, they just eat a balanced diet of a variety of different fruit, vegetables and nuts.
The farting cows question thing isn't absolutely true. There are plenty of beef farmers around who reckon cattle can be fed and reared in such a way as to reduce emissions dramatically. However that would mean reduced yields so farmers would need paying more for the beef. For me that's a win/win. Beef is dearer so people eat less of it, good for health. Farmers can produce less so fewer emissions and better quality meat and they get paid properly.
True, this goes for most things including my industry in horticulture growing salad crops. I'm afraid that the public want cheap cheap cheap bogof and all that. We spend 10s of thousands of pounds on bio control so we don't need to spray etc. I pride myself in my organic production. I could go on more but I would bore you to tears. Finally no farmer or grower worth his or her salt want to spray crops.
When I eat a lot of fruit and veg I fart a lot. Once I open a packet of nuts I eat the lot and then I get tummy ache. Mind you, after a good steak, I fart a lot. Maybe I should give up eating.
Very much this, the majority of buyers are happy to pay supermarkets a pound for 10 "beef" burgers and then complain that farmers are using intensive farming methods. Same goes for chicken and although not seen mentioned on the news fish. Just looked for % of income spent on food, now it's less than 10% in years gone by it was over 30%
According to the t'internet Vegans produce 60% more methane than meat eaters. I'm deffo cutting down on sprouts now.
I can imagine ... if they are taking 'vegan' to an extreme. For others, like me (vegetarian not vegan) it's easy! A plate full of everything bar the flesh of the animal is great (but yes, farts may follow, but won't they for all?!). Easy to add one non-meat option to the table, but it wouldn't even bother me if not (Edit: not that I'm invited). Hopefully the trend of less consumption of our fellow animals continues apace, be it for health, environment or fellow animal compassion reasons (all 3 for me). Unless there's some special person specific reason, once a week B12 is the only supplementation likely to be needed, and that's true nowadays for many animal eaters too. For most it isn't even needed, and is nowadays anyway added to quite a few products. (All doing our bit for Den's 1500).
Meat and other food aside, I think the choices we all have to make are pretty tough if you think them through properly, and few are likely to spend the time. That's why it's easy to accuse others of gesture politics. E.g. Quality leather shoes last for years, are an artisanal skill to produce, and when worn out will fully biodegrade. Introduce cotton or synthetic fabric and plastics and rubber and there are other issues about sourcing, petrochemicals, waste etc that may be even worse than using animal skin for production. We're not going to stop consumption (although some greens favour degrowth, it effectively imposes a form of poverty on people), so we can and should all do our bit to work out what radical changes we can and should make for ourselves and the planet. Individually we'd do more for the green movement by moving to electric and public transport as it would impact fossil fuel demand. Maybe stop buying anything overpackaged in plastic too while we're at it. That applies to vegans and omnivores.
