I swear, the whole “You know if someone is a vegan because they’ll be sure to tell you” thing is a total myth. Never seen it once in my life.
2010s, OMG they were everywhere. It was just a thing. Veganism became super trendy and people hopped on the bandwagon. Now that it’s not cool anymore, most of them have hopped onto another bandwagon or have aged out of chasing trends altogether. But they’re always out there. Right now, I hear a lot about K-Pop, Formula 1, and… third places. That last one catches me off guard because I have a related degree and when I was in school the concept was relatively obscure, so it catches me off guard, but in a good way (I work in a museum which charges for entry).
Anyway, eventually enough pretentious attention-seekers hop on the bandwagon and annoy enough people that they become the subject of ridicule. They move to the next thing, and the OGs get to be the butt of the joke for a generation. It blows.
Spot on for my Dad. Don’t tell parents anything at all about personal things anymore. I’m not even vegan by any means. They just sneak lactose into everydamnthing as a sweetener and I prefer not taking earth-shattering shits every time I somehow miss it and being in pain when I wake up.
Person: “Vegans won’t shut up about being vegan”
Vegan: embarrassed sigh
Person: “They’re constantly telling me about it.”
Vegan: hiding behind something
Person: “I just don’t get it! They’ve got leather clothes. Where do they think wool comes from? Protein is nutrious! Are they too good for eggs?!”
Vegan: Slinking out the back door
Everyone is tired of hearing about vegans. Whatever you want to do in your own bedroom is your business. The end.
You’re now only allowed to eat in the bedroom. Don’t ask me, I don’t make up the rules.A lot of committed vegans I know don’t sweat over it if mistakes are made on the “vegan” menu. They advise the staff politely, discarding what they can by hand and eating that they can’t. Wasting a meal makes a mockery of the point of being a vegan in many ways.
This teenager possibly gets it. Dad is intentionally overdoing it. There is a lot we can learn about how to do better politics here. Perfection is the enemy of the good.
Edit: Obviously allergies and diseases are a whole other thing. There is a reason getting it right is still very important, but if that’s the case nobody is messing around, especially not Dad.
My wife has a milk allergy. Depending on the ingredient, it can go pretty bad. If they put regular cream in something, she might need to use her EpiPen.
There’s no grumbling or clarification that works. The server will almost always write down no milk, no cheese. Half the time, the kitchen will forget, mix up, or ignore it; sometimes, the server grabs the wrong thing from the warmer.
Oh I certainly agree there are people for whom it’s serious. That’s not this meme.
I have a milk allergy as well. I know her pain.
My I recommend getting into Asian food and trying vegan restaurants? Way less potential for accidents.
Oh we’ve been dealing with it for a long time now :)
She does a lot of vegan places when she can, when she can’t she tries to pick stuff that’s unmistakable.
For the most part it’s mexican food and subs where she gets screwed, it can be hard to tell crema from mayo and cheese from mayo
Without knowing your location many if not most restaurants in US will only allow allergy meals be delivered by a manager. When I worked Buffalo Wild Nuggets the manager would have to prepare and deliver the allergy meal. It keeps the customers more honest when it isn’t just a server taking the blame.
I’ve never heard of that. It’s not a bad idea.
Yeah, US, It’s super rare for her to be taken seriously. I don’t think we’ve had a manager come out for an allergy in 8 years now and that was vacation at Disney.
More often, if they try, they’ll send the waitstaff back out to complain that she can’t have the meal because there are eggs in this or that when she was clear about it being milk, they want to tie it into dairy and for some unknown reason, eggs are considered dairy.
Yeah, why ARE eggs dairy? Just because milk products and eggs are both refrigerated? (in the U.S.)
AI slop has frustrated me in my search to find out. I don’t need 100 hastily-generated pages telling me that eggs aren’t actually dairy. I want to know why they are in the dairy category!
Eggs are not dairy, that’s why you can’t find it.
Unless you are using some esoteric definition of dairy that I’m not aware of.
It’s likely because eggs are usually found in the dairy section, and people are stupid.
I’m sure that’s the case now, but I’m curious why it started. Is that not the case in non-western countries?
I wouldn’t think that there’s anything about dairy cow ranching that specifically lends itself to also raising egg hens, but I’m no farmer!
It’s fairly common in my neck of the woods for ranchers to also have a few chicken houses, but I doubt that’s the reason the two are conflated. But my area is one of the major chicken farming areas in the state.
I think it’s just people assuming they’re related because they’re in the same section of the store, but really that’s just so they don’t have to have a separate cooling setup just for eggs.
Best I can tell, and that’s not with much authority, the people who made the US food pyramid put them together because they were stored in the same place in the grocery store. And it was the pyramid that was seen as a source of authority. From every other angle the don’t line up.
That sounds truthy.
Assuming you are willing/qualified to be a spokesperson for vegans:
When you encounter a menu item marked “Vegan” and discover that it isn’t, do you often speak to the manager to advise them to either remove the label or change the recipe?
I’m not vegan, but I often (not OFTEN but more frequently that my wife would prefer!) mention menu mistakes to the server/cashier in the hopes of helping a future guest.
Depends if you like the place and want to come back again. Or indeed if you have the time to do a good deed for others. Power to you good sir. I try to do the same.
I just don’t sweat the small stuff myself. I’m not a vegan or someone with allergies/sensitivities. Power to anyone who wants to be a strict vegan, but I’m just arguing unless you have dietary health reasons, when it comes to minor mistakes, a bit of flexibility just takes the tension away. You aren’t a bad person if you’re not a perfect vegan every meal and nobody (including yourself) should hold it against you if you just eat what’s served, whether a restaurant or friends house.
As another non vegan (AKA “carnist”) I agree FWIW.
I think they were talking about the line cooks making a mistake, not the menu being fraudulent.
Certainly possible!
I remember hearing a dunk on vegans a while back that went “how do you know someone’s vegan? they’ll tell you.”
but in my experience it’s more like “how do you know someone hates vegans? they’ll tell you.”
how do you know someone’s vegan? they’ll tell you
That statement reads to me the same as “how do you know someone has food allergies? They’ll tell you.”
EDIT: Just to be clear, I know that allergies are different than boycotts. If the girl could get anaphylactic shock from a drop of milk, the dad would be justified in reacting that way. However, in both cases, it makes sense to inform people that you can’t/won’t eat something.
Of course vegans will tell you, it’s a dietary restriction.
If you’re even halfway intimate with someone, you’ll likely share a meal or cook for them.
I’m not even vegan, but this particular phrase annoys me hahaha.
Its a catch all punch down cliche for anything where people are trying to improve themselves or the world around them. See crossfit or Linux as other major examples. Its often that they see someone being passionate about something and mocking them for it.
You think linux people DON’T mock others for using windows? Normally in this situation I’d advise you to go use Lemmy for an hour, but…well…here we are, and you still hold that view.
The example is that people mock Linux users with the phrase “How do you know someone uses Linux? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you!”
That says nothing about how Linux users treat others, only how they are used as fodder for people with low self-esteem.
I think it’s a lot like any group, religion is a good example. I don’t mind that my best friend is religious. I’ll even wait to start eating and bow my head so he can say a prayer. Because I love and respect him but also it’s just the decent human thing to do. I don’t push my atheism on him and he doesn’t push his religion on me. There are religious people and atheists that I can’t stand. There’s vegans and non vegans I can’t stand. In general I try to remind myself that it’s usually the annoying minority I can’t stand I remember the most and isn’t reflective of the group as a whole. With most things generally.
Yes that seemed to be a big thing cca 10 years ago
The dad is making a big show of how much he supports his daughter… Yet still orders chicken?
(I know not all vegans demand others share their diet, but it would be a nice gesture for him to do)
Would it be as nice gesture if she was to share chicken with him?
TBF, her diet was an ethical choice, and his is probably an unexamined cultural default.
No, her being vegan is a dietary choice. No more or less ethical than being an omnivore or carnivore.
If you don’t see ethical differences between killing a live creature and not doing so, your ethical compass is basically non-existent.
the question is “why”. as in 'why would you kll it" and if the answer is almost any justification (for food, for clothing, for medicine), then it’s probably fine. everything dies and if their death serves some purpose, that’s good.
Hey, would you be fine if I kill you with a justification? For example, I like your stuff, will it be OK if I kill you and take your stuff? What if I also eat your leg, will it be better or worse?
Carl Cohen said “Speciesism is not merely plausible; it is essential for right conduct, because those who will not make the morally relevant distinctions among species are almost certain, in consequence, to misapprehend their true obligations.” and you are demonstrating this for everyone right here
It’s also important to note that there’s not a single part of the animal that doesn’t get used.
Shit, even livestock that dies before slaughter gets used. Dirty Jobs has a few episodes about it
“If you don’t see ethical differences between our real faith and other fake religions, your ethical compass is basically non-existent!”
Another evangelical vegan 🙄
You’re on the same level of evangelism, it’s just you’re advocating both for status quo, which is ew, gross, but also for killing animals, which is a bit evil.
killing animals, which is a bit evil.
Says who?
status quo, which is ew, gross,
Evangelical vegans are certainly unpleasant and deeply disturbed individuals. Not sure if I would call them gross though.
I don’t mean ethical in the sense of her choice being good or bad, but in that people intentionally choose to be vegan because of their ethical belief, as opposed to a cultural preference or a medical restriction.
TBC, I’m not a vegan.
Vegans aren’t a problem. Why would you care about what another person chooses not to eat?
Holier-than-thou vegans with pamphlet level arguments they force upon everybody are a problem.
Thankfully there aren’t too many of those around. Less than Jehova’s Witnesses, at least.
It does seem like America in particular has a cult of people hating on vegans, and I gotta ask; why do you think you’re better than them, if you’re expressing the same attitude as the worst kinds of vegans?
A lot of the vegan haters are uncomfortable with the moral issues with meat consumption and rather than seriously work through their feelings and try to figure out where they stand they just mock those who make them uncomfortable and conflate them to the most annoying of the group.
Very similar to people who haven’t worked out their religious trauma hating on even decent religious folks
moral issues with meat consumption
Why do you assume omnivores have any “moral issues with meat”? Your comment implies that vegan diet is somehow morally supreme, which is an utter rubbish. It is a dietary choice, the same as eating bread or not.
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Why do you assume omnivores have any “moral issues with meat”?
Would you have moral issues with factory farming and then slaughtering dogs and cats? If so, then you have moral issues with meat. For vegans, these issues persist regardless of the species, whereas most other people make arbitrary distinctions between which species they care about and which species they don’t
everyone makes such distinctions. including vegans. they don’t care that animals are displaced by agriculture, killed in the protection of crops, or their harvesting.
It takes far more plant matter to feed a cow than to feed a human. As you go up the food chain you lose the majority of energy to heat (up to 90% IIRC) so it actually takes far less to plants to just est them directly rather than eat meat. For that reason alone there would be far more displacement with a carnivorous diet, but then there is also the added land displacement from the actual rearing of the animals themselves. So if you care about animals killed by the protection of crops, or displaced by agriculture, then a vegan diet makes the most sense.
people can’t eat grass or silage. but that’s entirely besides the point. vegans don’t avoid plants that were protected from pests and scavengers. they decide to treat some animals differently for just as arbitrary reasons.
I think you’re letting perfect be the enemy of good here. You’re acting like the options are (a) cause as much suffering as you like, or (b) literally not eat anything at all. But of course there is ample middle ground between these two poles.
Note that in my other messages I said the point of veganism is to not cause any unnecessary suffering. Eating a burger is unnecessary. Eating in general, however, is necessary. That said, there are ways of eating that which cause drastically less suffering (ie by being vegan). So if your goal is to minimize suffering, that’s the way to go.
And, there you go, as per the original comment above: “Holier-than-thou vegans with pamphlet level arguments they force upon everybody are a problem.”
🙄
You are only “more moral” on the same level as Jehova Witnesses are somehow “more moral” than other religions.
I was literally just answering your question
By quoting a pamphlet 🙄 And I don’t remember asking you anything.
That’s an interesting fallacy, I haven’t heard it before. I’ll have to note it down, “dismissal from imaginary pamphlet”
Reread my original message. I literally quoted your question in it word for word
I love this description of morality, but am curious about your opinion on the arbitrary decisions comment: do you feel that cultural tuning (often underpinned by cultural heritage and available food options) is an invalid way to select “acceptable” meats? No judgement, your comment just got me thinking
I think in general culture is a pretty poor way to determine what behaviours are morally acceptable. Moral progress is often a matter of overcoming the moral defects of our cultural heritage.
For example the idea that women should be subordinate to men is/was very deeply engrained in Western culture for a very, very long time. But that’s not an argument against gender equality. It is, instead, an argument for improving our culture. So anyone who said “hey, we can’t have gender equality because it goes against our cultural heritage” would be missing the mark. Sure, it might go against our cultural heritage, but so what? We must change our culture to match morality, not ignore morality to preserve our culture.
And its not just our culture that falls into this trap, other cultures can be deeply flawed too. For example, in some cultures female genital mutilation and child marriage are the norm. Does that mean these behaviours are okay, simply because they are culturally accepted? Clearly not. Human rights are universal. If these behaviours were human rights violations in, say, Denmark, then they do not cease to be human rights violations just because they are taking place in a different country with different cultural attitudes.
Now regarding our attitudes to animals, it is true that there is a lot of cultural variation in which animals are acceptable to eat. In India, eating a cow would be largely be seen as disgusting and disrespectful. In Canada, for example, eating a dog would be an outrage, but in some Asian nations this is not the case.
Is this because the value of the individual animals lives shifts from culture to culture? Or is it because the pain these animals experience differs from country to country (does getting your throat slit hurt less for dogs in South Korea than dogs in Canada)? The answers to these questions are no and no. The only differences going on here is culture, and nothing more. These different cultural attitudes do not track any relevant moral differences; they are merely accidents of history.
It is no different than how different regions tend to be racist towards different groups. For example, in the US (to oversimplify a bit) the primary target of racism has been Black people, whereas in China the primary target of racism has the Uyghurs. Is this because racism against Black people is okay in the US (but not in China) and conversely because racism against the Uyghurs is okay in China (but not the US)? No, it’s not. The Americans primarily focus their racism against one group due to circumstances of history, and the Chinese primarily focus their racism against another group due to the circumstances of their history. But that’s all that’s going on. There are no relevant moral differences here, just differences in history and culture. Because in all circumstances, and in all countries, racism directed at any one of any group is morally indefensible.
It’s similar with animals. Causing significant unnecessary suffering to a being who does not want to suffer is morally indefensible. It does not matter who the being that suffers is. It does not matter if that being is a dog, cat, pig, chicken or human. If that being does not want to suffer, and there is no strong overriding reason as to why they ought suffer, then we have no morally defensible reason for causing them to suffer. Culture does not change that.
So, since farming and slaughtering animals with industrial efficiency causes animals significant suffering, the compassionate thing to do is to simply not partake in that system. And in order to not participate in this system one must have a vegan diet.
If you’re interested in this line of reasoning then I recommend checking out the paper All Animals Are Equal by Peter Singer. It gets into the ethics behind veganism with much more detail and clarity than I can provide here.
Thank you for your question, I hope you found this response helpful.
I see you got into an extensive discussion with the other poster, I’m looking forward to digging into that.
While it hasn’t shifted my own opinion, I want to thank you for a very well elucidated commentary, this was extremely insightful and responded to my question well. I sense the passion underpinning it.
I will definitely take a look into the Peter Singer article. Thank you again, take care :)
Hey thank you for this response. This topic often triggers a lot of emotion in people so when I talk about it I’m used to people responding with hostility. So it was very refreshing to get this message.
I hope you find the Peter Singer article interesting. If you any thoughts or questions or what to discuss the article after, then I’m happy to chat. You take care as well.
Not the person to whom you were replying, but I appreciated your comment.
These are really fun philosophical topics, that I’ve enjoyed talking about in person several times. I don’t think that human rights are universal, because I don’t personally believe that morality exists external to culture.
If these behaviours were human rights violations in, say, Denmark, then they do not cease to be human rights violations just because they are taking place in a different country with different cultural attitudes.
This implies that certain cultures’ mores are more correct than others’, which probably feels right to you because those countries’ norms align more closely with yours. I feel the same way, but I don’t think it’s a FACT.
I absolutely also agree that FGM is bad, but being a human rights violation in Denmark doesn’t ipso facto prove that it’s true. I.e. in the U.S. it’s now illegal for many industries/schools/orgs to promote DEI, but that doesn’t mean that other countries should do the same. I’m sure Denmark has some bad takes too, though I don’t know the country well enough to think of any.
Just starting an argument online for fun while on the throne, don’t take me too seriously, friend!
I don’t think that human rights are universal, because I don’t personally believe that morality exists external to culture.
I was just using human rights ad a shorthand here. You don’t necessarily need to believe in rights per se to believe that morality is more than just a cultural phenomenon.
The biggest problem with the idea that morality is solely a cultural phenomenon is that it leads to some pretty crazy conclusions. To give an example: in the culture of Nazi Germany, they did not think that the holocaust was a bad thing. They actually thought it was a moral good. Is there no sense in which we can say, actually, no, the Nazis were wrong on this one: rounding people up and torturing/killing them en masse is actually wrong, regardless of what your culture says? Similarly with slavery. In the culture of the confederacy, slavery was okay. Is there no sense in which we can say, actually no: a culture in which slavery is okay is a flawed culture; it is better to have a culture that does not promote this sort of thing? If morality is only a product of culture then we cannot actually assert this, just like we cannot say that the Nazis were in the wrong even though, from the point of view of their culture, they were in the right.
This implies that certain cultures’ mores are more correct than others’, which probably feels right to you because those countries’ norms align more closely with yours.
As a vegan, I don’t think is the case! I think our cultures norms around animals does not align closely what feels right to me at all. Of all the cultures that have ever existed, the Western treatment of animals is by far the worst. Christian doctrine places animals very low down on the totem pole of moral consideration. Other religions, that have influenced other regions of the world, do not do this. Granted our system of factory farming is being exported to the rest of the world, but there are still some holdouts. For example there some Indigenous or Inuit cultures in rural Canada or Greenland that still partly live their traditional ways of life. I think those cultures are actually better than ours.
Well, at least we can agree on the distinction being arbitrary.
They seem to imply that in their experience omnivores do indeed have such moral qualms with eating meat. That does not mean that they think that is objectively the case or the case for everyone.
Sounds like Dad’s heart is in the right place.
He’s either trying to help and overdoing it to embarrass her (a responsibility of us dads) or he’s overdoing it to support her publicly and loudly (which is good but annoying).
The one time it’s completely appropriate to tell people you are vegan is when they ask what you want to eat…
That girl has to shut up about her veganism no one cares but she constantly brings it up. /s
Sounds more like a teenager problem than a vegan problem
Hahaha, my parents do this too. I don’t get what perverse satisfaction they get from it
I forgot that dragon roll is a real thing for a second, and thought that the joke was implying eating dragon is vegan.
Also, doesn’t a dragon roll usually have shrimp in it?
There was opportunity in there for a far better and wackier joke, but instead we get a watered-down veganism joke and a jab at an annoying parent’s habits that the artist will regret hating one day.
Every dragon roll I have ever had has had lobster and at least one other fish in it. No cheese 🤮
People always talk about pineapple on pizza (I don’t approve either), but I think cheese in sushi is even worse. It just ruins it.
Shredded tuna too. I love fish sushi, but I’d take a veggie one over a roll filled with cooked, shredded tuna. It doesn’t work.
Oh my god cheese in sushi sounds disgusting
In my experience it’s eel that’s the ‘dragon’. Although one place around here has fucking chicken in it.
The dragon rolls I’ve seen considered of shrimp tempura and avocado topped with unagi. The eel is the dragon, while the shrimp provides a tail.
I guess that if dragons are related to dinosaurs chicken is about as close as you can get.
Is dad being an asshole? Or is dad being a dad and intentionally embarassing her?
His face and volume suggest asshole, like he’s actually causing a scene.
But I could see this as having been a much less loud/angry encounter, with dad basically giving his daughter shit by being as dramatic as she is at home. And this whole encounter is being told through the daughters perspective, who inflated the scene/comic.
My take is that he’s being well-meaning but overbearing, based on the “it’s really important to her” comment.
