Letters to the Editor
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...But Nary A Drop To Drink
I also have to concur with the poster who states that the vast majority of vegan/vegetarians are urban dwellers, living within short distances of various organic health food stores, and almost NEVER farmers or hunters, or had any exposure to real animals (besides dogs and cats)...
-- Laurel962
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Laurel1962, I agree with you here. City dwellers should eat a lot less meat, recycle, use public transportation or bicycles, and conserve electricity and here in California, conserve water. Water conservation, not vegetarianism is my most passionate cause. Because of our numbers, city dwellers and suburbanites NEED to be the most environmentally friendly. Vegetarians require less water and energy to maintain ourselves.
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Regarding vitamin B-12 and davidedelberg’s post
“It does seem counter-intuitive that a a nutritional lifestyle that requires you to take a vitamin in order to avoid an actual illness (B-12 deficiency) could be deemed a healthful one.”
That is one of the reasons I stopped being a vegan and went back to eating a Meditteranean diet. It doesn’t make any sense to supplement a “healthy” diet with synthetic vitamins.
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The Real Moral High Ground
Eat local.
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Haven't read all the letters...
but so nice to see that very few of them have been mean to vegans in general. Good stuff.
The woman in question is clearly just an asshole who is convinced her way of doing things is the one and only way of doing things. There are plenty of people like this. George Bush is one of them (exporting "democracy" to the world, everyone should be a Christian, etc.). If your friend really thinks so poorly of your choices and the way you live your life, I agree that you probably shouldn't be friends. She seems to be the sort of person who can only handle being surrounded by the like-minded and cannot fathom a person whom she likes not sharing her views.
Laurel, I am vegan even though I grew up in the Midwest visiting my grandpa's dairy farm and spending a hell of a lot of time with cows. I think the reason many vegans are city dwellers is that they don't know where to go to get meat, dairy and eggs that aren't obtained from animals in factory farm conditions. So much of the labeling is arbitrary and confusing. Beef could be labeled organic and yet still come from a cow that lives its life in a pen and can't graze. A person who lives in the country either knows where to get meat raised humanely or is surrounded by these things all the time and so is accustomed to them. And I'm perfectly fine with hunting and fishing for food. The animal gets to live out its life as it should and dies in a humane fashion with a minimum of suffering. So I think in many cases for city vegans it's just opting out of a system that is shitty. If factory farming were not so prevalent in this country I don't think there would be nearly as many vegetarians and vegans.
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Not up to you
LW, I don't think this is up to you. You are fine with being a Vegan, but your Vegan friend is not fine with your meat eating. She holds a very strong moral conviction, and you are violating that moral conviction. Your friend will either have to accept what you do, or end the friendship.
I disagree a bit with Cary, because I think you *can* use moral judgments in a friendship, and that if you don't, you do your friend a disservice. Hopefully a friendship is about two people with sometimes very different points of view coming together in support. But what if your friend does something heinous? What if your friend is cheating on their taxes or their spouse? What if your friend drinks too much or takes too many drugs? You have to have a point where you speak your mind honestly. You might also have to make a decision about whether a friend's behaviour is bearable anymore or if you've been so offended that it's over. I think that is exactly what LWs Vegan friend needs to decide, and unfortunatly, I don't think there's anything LW can do to assuage the judgment.
BTW, my preferred types of food have to do with red meat, preferably rare to medium rare.
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Catfood For Thought
Tearose, what should sonofabastard feed his cat…tofu?
If it is immoral for humans to eat meat isn’t it equally immoral for humans to feed meat to their pets?
-- gorgona
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Gorgona, the reason I mentioned my cat was that she needs meat to survive, and yet I love her dearly. I don't believe humans who eat meat are immoral, which was the whole purpose of my original post. Why are meat eaters so defensive? I'm beginning to realize the militant vegan is just a figment of the letter writer's imagination. He/she probably doesn't even have a friend in California, and is just using her for a strawman argument. This is a typical right wing tactic.
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I'm a Level 5 vegan.
I don't eat anything that casts a shadow.
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Yes, very true
It's really not meat-eating per say, it's the horrible way millions of aminals are "raised" and slaughtered. Meat/vegie is not a black/white issue.
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Dividing Lines
This letter struck a chord with me. Reminds me of my best friend who used to be a hemp sandal-wearing vegan and then moved to a red state with a man and now hunts with him. (And not just to sustain themselves, by the way, for fun and for sport). Although I've been a flexitarian (I eat meat every once in a while, more as a condiment not a main course) for quite some time, I really dislike people prying or trying to debate it with me as I don't really make an issue out of it. So with my friend, I've asked what she loves about the sport of hunting, and tried to understand, but she knows it's something I won't be able to comprehend--how people can enjoy killing animals in their spare time. So we've just had to agree to disagree, and not really discuss it. It's bizarre and honestly a little troubling to me, but this life-long friendship is ultimately more important than the differences between us. Letter writer may want to ask her friend what's more important--their differences or the things that bind them as friends, and go from there...