I like your resolve around not eating meat so I’d like to make an offer. If you stay sober for a year let me know and I will go vegan for a year. You’ll have to put a diet plan together for me though because I probably can’t figure it out on my own. Likewise I am willing to put a sobriety plan together for you!
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I have been vegerarian for 7 or so (?) years and I have been “as vegan as possible” for about a year. I mostly eat vegan at home, but will eat eggs and dairy when someone cooks for me or there are no other options when eating out. Every meal counts and I do the best I can.
I started out because of health reasons, but since I got educated on the environmental impact of factory farming, the fish industry and so on, there really is no way I could ever go back. There are lots of great resources out there, apart from the sometimes very graphic documentaries “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer had the biggest impact on me when starting out. It also helped that I read “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair around that time 
I’m always open for discussion, even though animal products are as difficult a topic as alcohol, people tend to get personal really quickly… I believe it’s only possible to “convert” people if they want to, so it’s awesome you’re being curious! Thank you for opening the thread 
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I agree. I only participate in well managed substainable fisheries. The sharkfin market disgusts me. We had a huge shark get tangled up in our longline last trip. It would have been really easy to cut its tail off and free up our gear. We untangled it and set it free. It felt good watching it swim away.
As someone who harvests from the sea I feel a strong need to protect it.
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Vegan. Have been for, gosh, not sure…5, 6 years maybe.
I am not an activist. I’m an inspire by example kind of person. Each day I don’t die of a protein deficiency (
) I hope someone thinks “hey, maybe it’s not that hard to do”.
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My ex is an inspire by example person and I know at least 4 people - 2 vegan and 2 vegetarian - who were inspired by her.
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I love this! A positive twist!! So I’ll stay sober for a year and then come back to you? Or did you mean start together? I’d like to hear the sobriety plan 
I have a few ideas on a vegan plan for you
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I agree that, as with alcohol, the first thing you need is a willing participant! And that yes, it does tend to get personal very quickly! People get defensive when asked questions that challenge their deeply held beliefs about the morality of their behaviour and is never an easy subject to broach. I think it’s slightly different than with alcohol- as with taking substances, this comes under the umbrella (somewhat) of personal choice…but when we knowingly pay for violence against animals, this choice no longer just affects us and is therefore not personal. I therefore believe that an individual non vegans feelings being offended is not of more importance than calling someone out with direct, non nasty straight talk. If someone doesn’t like it, that’s fine…but i always ask “how would you want me to advocate for you if you were in there position? Needlessly?”
I believe that 99% of people are against animal abuse, and that not being vegan (when they have the option to be) is them participating in animal abuse…either knowingly or otherwise. For example they are against hurting sharks but feel it is OK to kill fish (for no other reason I assume than their preferences). This strikes me as a really clear double standard. Fish are sentient, can feel pain and we do not need to cause them harm and kill them for such a trivial reason. The justifications such as “sustainably managed” are as ubiquitous as alcoholics reasons for drinking. The euphemisms too “harvest from the sea”…
I feel it is important to be very clear about this and hold people accountable…I have inspired i think its 15/16? people to go vegan (that I know of) including my in-laws (father in law used to be a butcher) because they understood the logic in the very simple points and they empathised with the animals. I get that some people have success with the lead-by-example-approach and this is great! There are as many ways to “convert” people or help them realise the obvious truth as there are ways of people quitting alcohol! This is my way and I own it…if I saw someone hurting a dog, or a dolphin, or a mouse, or a bird (chicken or ostrich), or a pig, fish, sheep or cow, i would try to stop them- even if they told me they only do it once a week and are taking baby steps to improve/their mental health suffers when they don’t eat their flesh/they find it hard to make the change… i would challenge the violent behaviour, because there is no moral difference between those animals. If they told me they only bought dairy occasionally, I would challenge them (in the right circumstance) if they knew the violence, suffering and exploitation inherant in the dairy industry for example. The difference between sometimes and never is the difference between good and evil…
This is the reason I am an activist 
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I’m not a vegan but I am a vegetarian and have been for 6 years. I mostly stick to a no sugar no grains and no dairy diet(minus butter occasionally) however I do eat eggs. I deviate with the sugar eating corn tortillas or chips and sometimes rice. Alcohol was the most taxing on my body and I’m happy to say that I don’t have that problem anymore.
Know any good recipes?
Yes plenty… check out ‘avant garde vegan’ and ‘bosh TV’ on YouTube
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Hi there, Vegetarian for 16 years and eating plantbased for 3 years ore so. I do not call myself a vegan because I still wear leather shoes for example.
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Sorry for the delayed response, work is kicking my ass. When I got sober I had nothing but time as I was not capable of holding a job, had no friends or family who were speaking to me, and was homeless. However, an all-out push was what it took for me. I started with 30 days inpatient rehab, followed by daily AA (or other peer recovery program). I also engaged in 5 months of IOP and eventually moved in to sober living. The first 6 months of my sobriety were dedicated solely to my recovery and stabilization. After I hit 6 months I slowly re-integrated myself in to society. Generally my benchmark for if I should do something was if I could stay sober if things didn’t go as planned. Like getting a job, I didn’t get one until I felt comfortable that I wouldn’t pick up if I got fired.
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I’ve been Vegan for 7 months now and I love it! Of course it’s a huge adjustment finding swaps for my go to means, but with practice I’ve gotten a pretty good eating/cooking routine going. Pinterest has been the biggest help in finding all the best recipes.
The website www.nutritionfacts.org along with the nutrition facts podcast and the book how not to die cookbook are all ran by a vegan doctor and I’ve found his info to be very motivating when I’m struggling to remember why I made this decision.
In 7 months I dropped my blood pressure from 140/73 to 116/65 and lost 30 pounds! Obviously, giving up alcohol also played an important role in that as well.
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Before I went vegan, I wasn’t aware of the cruelty that is inherent in producing eggs until I looked into it myself in detail. The more I thought bout it, the more I knew that- to be consistent, afterall I was vegetarian because I was against animals being harmed for my food choices- that i couldn’t financially support them and eat the product of cruelty. Let me know if you would like to know more. If not, take care
Chickens have been bred to lay ten times as many eggs as they originally did, which is incredibly unnatural. No natural chickens exist anymore. Even if they have first names and are taken good care of (which is better of course than buying from supermarket/eating in restaurants) taking their eggs puts enormous strains on their bodies. When humans take their eggs (we don’t need to taken them for health), it triggers their bodies to lay more, hence more nutrients taken from their bodies. Also, this slightly more ethical version of animal use normalises the use of animals. Many people who only eat backyard eggs will eat products containing eggs from factory farming and may eat eggs in restaurants etc. Its often called symbiotic…but they exist purely as machines for humans pleasure. We could just rescue them and give them a safe home without causing the damage of taking their eggs, like a dog or a cat- the only thing we get from them is companionship. This could be the same with chickens but people only keep because they get a product from them. Here is some more information about backyard eggs if you’re interested
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Maybe some day I’ll try to go vegan, but for now, I’ll stick to meat two-three times a week as for me, my main motivation is the environment. The meat industry is really bad for the environment and eating processed meat daily increases the risk of various illnesses. Though, a lot of vegan options are also quite bad for the environment and health. Especially soy. I think if the whole world and specifically some western countries(you know who you are 
) would reduce eating meat to 2-3 times a week and eat reasonable pportions, it would take a lot of strain of the environment. As for the animal cruelty, I agree and disagree. As a Christian, I believe God put animals on earth partially as a source of food, hence why I don’t think eating meat is cruel. However, there are many cases where there is actual cruelty, for example pigs being boiled alive. That’s fucked up.
Who knows, maybe some day I’ll be more interested in the subject and actually try to find out the best diet for the climate
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All the info to your points is in the video I linked. You don’t agree, that’s your perogative but it makes some pretty sound points, none of which you’ve addressed. The relevance of artificial selection is that the result of it has lead to suffering when the chickens lay eggs. Us taking them makes it worse. By not taking the eggs, we would slightly improve the damage we’ve done as a species.
Animals are here with us- not for us. This is the problematic ideology that led to the messed up way we treat them. But yeah Idk, it’s very rare to actually convince someone of this basic idea that animals are not resources for our taste pleasure/convenience. Good luck to you bro
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This thread is full of lulz.
Should be titled “How to make people dislike vegans”.
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I hope one day you do decide to go vegan! there’s a lot I could unpack here but nowadays I tend to just lean into the ethical argument because it is the one everyone should all be able to agree on.
You say you believe God but animals here as a partial food source. No religion mandates that we must eat animals. God doesn’t say we must eat animals. He gave them the ability to feel pain, suffer and have an interest in living (if you stab an animal with a knife, they cower and scream and run to save themselves). God also made it so that we can survive (and often thrive) without killing his creations.
So then, if we have a choice to either kill God’s creatures (twice a week, every day of the week or zero times a week) which one do you think would be more in line with the will of a compassionate loving God? Bear in mind we are caretakers for the planet and the animals on it.
Yes the meat industry (and dairy and egg, leather, wool all the same) are horrific. I believe that eating meat is inherently cruel. Killing the innocent when you don’t need to is cruel.
Tbf I believed the same several years ago before I looked into it. When I realised the extent of the cruelty in this documentary, I realised I could not be a part of it. But even if they kill the animal instantly, it is still needlessly killing. And for what? To survive? No- its for our taste pleasure…our own greed. A 5 minute meal we won’t won’t remember weighed up against the animals life
As I said, before I did my research, I thought exactly the same so I get it. I would recommend watching the video which is rspca approved, red tractor approved, legal, standard practice for breeding and killing animals for food. Ask yourself if you think its the work of God…if he sanctions that (the most humane way we have), then I would want to have a serious chat with him about it
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Aaaaand in come the meatflakes. People are either open minded and happy to explore new ideas or they get triggered and take the automatic anti vegan mentality. I get it… Making a thread about veganism and then discussing that topic in that thread with the people who engaged is really annoying.
Feel free to go about your business so I can’t be accused of forcing my opinions on you
