Hey, hostile visitors! Do you have an opinion about, for example, Mary Koss’ rape research? Do you want to discuss it even though the topic has not actually come up by itself in any of the threads and none of my recent posts really have much to do with the specifics of anyone’s rape research? Well, from now on you can discuss it here with anyone who wishes to follow you to this thread.
Added bonus: If you continue to try to discuss it in other threads you’ll be banned!
This also applies to future derailers riding hobbyhorses of their own having nothing to do with Koss.
Happy discussing!
Note: If you wish to discuss the topics at hand, you know, topics directly related to my posts and/or to what other people are discussing and that aren’t, you know, personal hobbyhorses of yours that involve long screeds and various things that you’ve probably already cut and pasted into the comments sections of various other websites until you were banned from them for endless derailing and general asswipery, feel free to remain in the original threads.
![The Amazing Atheist spits on the memory of Amanda Todd [TW: bullying, sexual shaming, self-harm, suicide]](https://i2.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/amandatoddscreenshot2.png?resize=50%2C50)
Thanks for the links. I’ll probably get eat vegan 400 a day when some spare cash for books comes my way
You’re welcome. 🙂
I should point out that the $80/week isn’t just for food. It also covers toiletries, cleaning products and paper products, so the weekly amount we spend on food is less than that. I should also point out that while we buy local and organic whenever we can, those concerns take a back-seat to price. Finally, we also stockpiled canned goods and bottled water for emergency-preparedness.
Bob:
Did you gloss over where I said cities? Do you think someone in a food desert here in the U.S. can go vegan/vegetarian easily?
@bahumbugi
I do agree, however, that easy access to a variety of food options is representative of privilege, whether you’re a vegan or not.
@hellkell,
I think it’s easier than most people assume. I live in a neigborhood that’s been classified as a “food desert,” and I have no problem at all doing so. The problem with my “food desert” isn’t lack of access to healthy food, it’s prevalence of shitty food. Fast food restaurants and junk-food convenience stores outnumber the markets and grocery stores. But the markets and grocery stores are still there, and even the convenience stores have started offering healthier options like fresh fruit.
I’ve lived in “food deserts” all my life. All that changed is that I adopted a new perspective, made different choices, and re-arranged by food budgeting priorities. I think it can be empowering to people living in these areas to show them how to make healthier choices even within the constraints imposed on them.
I won’t pretend that my experience can be universalized, but I will admit that I have grown more skeptical of the food deserts narrative.
Another part of the food miles thing is that even though big semis transporting food to supermarkets travel a long way, they also carry a massive amount of food at once. Compare that to how little a farmer carries in his pickup to a local farmers market, and the amount of gas used might be pretty close if you’re looking at gas used per pound of food transported.
Here is from the Telegraph (btw, the link had an ad with sound, so if you click it at work, you might want to turn down volume first)
I’m in the weird food position of having one vegetarian system member, and one who ADORES his flesh of the innocent. We try and swing it by just eating as little meat as possible, but taking it if it is offered at a friend’s dinner or when we go out. However, the ED complicates things; I destroyed my health using “eating better” as an excuse.
So I’ve been forced to relax things and just rig it to make it as healthy for my brain to eat as possible. Which still bugs me but I’m stuck for it.
Are we debating if food desserts exist? Because story time!
When I was in Pittsburgh proper, I was nearly next door to two family stores — Mediterranean (mostly Greek really) and Indian. The later was almost all vegetarian, the former had plenty of veggies. Down the road, within walking distance if you can carry grocies 1~2 miles, was a huge Giant Eagle, and just a bit further to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. basically, fucking ideal.
Then I moved just outside the city (Milvale, for the Pittsburgh savy folks) and there is nothing — one shitty grocery store by irregularly scheduled bus, a dollar store, gas station, and subway. Only one that sold any sort of fruit was the gas stations bananas and apples, no body had veggies, subway was actually the healthiest food that wasn’t a nightmare to purchase (that bus route really was unreasonable, at the best of times, and the veggies barely edible anyways). None of it meshing with a clinically depressed poor person’s ability to eat. Beans last, sure, half mushy cucumbers do not.
Dollar store did have Quaker oatmeal though, for cheaper than Giant Eagle.
So yeah, having moved from the city proper, with impossibly easy access to nuke and eat vegetarian food, to fuckvile with dollar store, gas station and subway…I ate a lot of subway, when I had cash. When it was food stamps…the dollar store and what they had, all of it stuff from a box.
In other words, when you don’t drive, and have shitty public transit, and have to shop on food stamps, your options don’t really end up healthy, even if they are vegetarian.
And I’ve never even been a big meat eater, vegetarian for a decade, having subway charge the same (more or less) for a salad or a spicy Italian, and cured meats being my guilty pleasure…yeah. Doesn’t bode well for vegetarians, fuck vegans (oatmeal only will turn into “fuck my diet is gruel” in no time).
I mean, congrats that your food dessert is miscalculated by putting too much weight on their being fast food and not enough weight in their being real grocery stores, but food desserts totally exist. (And my fist act upon moving back to Pittsburgh proper was to stock up on what I’ve taken to calling Indian MREs, because nuke and enjoy your chickpeas = lovely)
That got long, sorry.
Oh and I maintain that family dairy farms must continue to exist because the best pie I’ve ever had is made by the female head of one (I refuse to call her “the farmers wife” as she does so much around there…including being an unofficial no kill shelter, people literally down cats at her doorstep, she vaccinates them, let’s them roam the barns and pasture, and her kids are usually “you want a cat? We have cats!”…my aunt’s adopted two officially, a third hangs out in her garage when it feels like it)
And yeah, that. The grocery store being a nightmare to access became an excuse to eat way less than I should’ve been. Like, I moved back to the city, gained all of 10 lbs, and was having everyone rave about how much healthier I looked. Food desserts are really unhealthy if you aren’t mentally well.
LBT — how’re you doing? (In general, or whatever context you want to discuss)
@Argenti — I don’t deny the existence of food deserts. I’m certain that there are many places where access to affordable healthy food is a serious problem. But, I am skeptical that such places are so common in urban areas (which is where the definition of the term is usually applied) as to make it simply unthinkable that people living in them have no choice but to eat crappy food.
The other thing that bugs me about the concept is that it’s often used by privileged foodies as an excuse to not examine their own habits and food ethics critically. Even if food deserts are a thing, that doesn’t give people who aren’t trapped in them immunity.
And anyway, I approach the issue primarily from an animal rights perspective; personal health, though important to me, isn’t what convinced me to go vegan (though done right, it’s one of the healthiest ways of eating there is). You don’t have to eat vegan or vegetarian to be healthy.
Oops. That should have read: “as to make it simply unthinkable that people living in them have a choice whether to eat crappy food.” Anyway, it’s what I meant.
Okay, here’s something that’s slightly weirding me out. I get like, wanting to be able to get good foods, or vegan foods, in a food desert.
What I don’t get is saying some people are only using privilege as an excuse. Like, even if it’s technically possible to track down the sources for vegan food, some people have different priorities and don’t have time to track it down.
I … really can’t tell whether people are trying to say that those people are bad or not. This thread got confusing for me
Well, I think it is an excuse when it’s used by people who don’t live in them.
^to add: or just don’t have an interest in it.
Like… why? I mean, do you think it’s a speaking out of ignorance thing, or… I can’t tell.
Is it just as bad when vegan people who don’t live in food deserts insist that it’d be easy to find vegan food anywhere?
In other words, if I have different priorities, or no meaningful ethical objections to meat-eating, or whatever, and I don’t live in a food desert myself, then pointing at people who do live in food deserts as an excuse for why I shouldn’t change, or be asked to think critically about my own food choices, is… well, it’s just a bullshit excuse. And frankly, kind of insulting and paternalistic towards people in food deserts.
That makes a little sense, I guess.
I mean, I don’t think people need excuses to eat what they want, so it is weird to try to use other people as a way to “excuse”* it.
*in quotes b/c I already said I don’t think people need excuses
RE: Argenti
I’m doing okay, actually–I had about a month of actively fighting a relapse, which sucked, but I didn’t succumb! Proof my food plan totally works! *thumbs up* And now I’m feeling better, which helps. Extreme moods–down OR up–are what spur the ED, so right now, I’m in the comfortable middle ground. Sneak made me a wee naan pizza for lunch with cheese and sundried tomatoes and spinach; it was great.
Also, today is Mac’s six-year-anniversary of moving in here! So we’re going to grab some delicious frozen yogurt with mochi, which is one of the few foods everyone in the system can agree is awesome.
Regarding buying food in bulk: God, I wish I could. It’d make shit SO MUCH EASIER. But I’m sharing a small kitchen with five other bodies, a bunch of whom also have food issues, so it means there is NO SPACE to put food. (Even if I COULD get out to one of those shops and lug a ten pound bag of stuff back home.)
What I’m really missing right now is fucking EasiYo. GodDAMN, do I miss EasiYo…
I think in many cases, it’s just habit talking. Humans are creatures of habit and tradition, and we like to hear good news about our bad habits.
This video explains what I think about the underlying reasons (SFW; it’s just a short lecture) — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJzpKxBer7I
Yes. I don’t mean to come off like that. I know it’s difficult in many places. But that’s not a good reason to not do it if we don’t live in such places.
Bob: you were doing so well until the mansplaining and utter condescension. This is why militant vegans piss me the fuck off.
And therein lies the real conflict, I think.
I think people who have choices do need good reasons to eat foods that are harmful to other sentient beings, other people, and the environment.
The smug self-righteousness is coming off my monitor in cartoon stink lines.
hellkell,
I’m sorry. I was just trying to answer your question from my own experience and perspective. Which part came off as mansplaining?
Is this a thing that happens? Pardon me if I’m misinterpreting, but it sounds like you’re saying that people who, like, eat foie gras at gourmet restaurants are using the existence of different people who live in food deserts as an excuse to keep eating foie gras.
I can’t imagine this ever actually happening, because it boils down to food enthusiasts excusing their food choices because of lack of options, and foodies never want to admit that limited options might govern the way they eat at all.
Almost all of it, but especially that last bit. That was the money quote.
@Bob
But there’s a reason they eat meat when they can get it – it’s because meat is an important source of nutrition, and some people depend on it to survive. Even in more developed countries. You also must understand that most cuisines around the world are full of meat. Just look at Pakistani cuisine.
Assuming that you’re not a moral relativist, I think you would likely contend that cultural practice is no excuse for eating meat (from the vegetarian perspective). But when meat is so deeply integrated into a particular cuisine, alternatives to meat are inevitably less accessible.
I know this from experience. When I went to Nagoya, Japan several years ago, my father didn’t allow me to eat un-Islamically slaughtered meat (unless it was fish). I ended up resorting to eating things like scones at Starbucks. I didn’t eat fish, sushi, etc. because I was picky at the time.
The reason I had so little to choose from is that meat was almost everywhere I looked. Could I have survived on nothing scones and the like for a period longer than 2 days (the amount of time I spent there)? Sure. But it certainly wouldn’t be healthy. And that’s just one example of culture making vegetarianism too unfeasible to espouse.
I sympathize with vegetarianism as an ethical stance, but I also think that there are a lot of problems with the typical approach to vegetarianism I see. Meat is only a status food for some people – for many others it’s practically irreplaceable unless there’s a revolutionary change in the culture.
That’s what I think, too. I really don’t feel like it’s my business what other people eat. If someone is a vegan, good for them. If someone eats bacon cheeseburgers for breakfast every day, more power to them.
I am lucky enough to live in a city with grocery stores. I’m extremely lucky that Aldi’s is in town, because they are way cheaper than Walmart, even if you ad match and use coupons. I make my grocery choices based on what’s cheapest, but I would still consider myself a foodie because I like good food. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, either, because eating is one of life’s pleasures.
Another thing about being vegan is that it’s not an option for a lot of kids. The school breakfast and lunch menu usually have animal based food, like sausage, grilled cheese, cheese pizza, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and chocolate milk. So for me and a lot of other parents, switching our kids to a vegan diet would mean losing two free meals a day, which puts an undue strain on family budgets.
And by “sympathize,” I mean “I can see why people espouse it.” I’m not actually vegetarian.
Even if I wanted to be vegetarian or vegan, I can’t. Being this anemic, I need the red meat. Beans are out because I can’t eat them without wanting to gag.
You are really getting mileage out of those sun-dried tomatoes.
@hellkell,
OK, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand why. Why, specifically, is it mansplaining, self-righteous and condescending for me to say that I think people need good reasons to engage in behaviors that are demonstrably destructive?
@Yeah, it’s a thing. Any time I’m asked about my veganism, it’s one of the go-to objections thrown out by more informed diners. It’s sort of a variation on the “trapped on a deserted island” or “starving people in Africa” objections.
@katz: Yeah, it’s a thing. Any time I’m asked about my veganism, it’s one of the go-to objections thrown out by more informed diners. It’s sort of a variation on the “trapped on a deserted island” or “starving people in Africa” objections.
This is true, Aaliyah.
I guess my point is that when it’s not a matter of survival, it becomes a matter of choice. And choices stem, at least in part, from beliefs. And beliefs are subject to moral and ethical evaluation, even if they are old and deeply ingrained.
I don’t think something being cultural or traditional is, in itself, a sufficient ethical defense, although it might present a legitimate practical obstacle. Too many awful things have been defended on that basis to really make it an acceptable answer for me.
Yeah, animal products can be essential even in places that aren’t “food deserts.” I mean, in addition your example, there’s also the fact that a lot of essential medicine probably uses animal products. And getting rid of it just because of animal products would be disastrous.
Yes, but it seems that you’re making a false dichotomy here. Technically people can survive without meat, but some people need meat to be healthy even if they won’t starve to death by eating meat. Look at hellkell’s example. I hope you can see the nuance here.
No disagreement here. I just think that you may be underestimating the force of culture here as it definitely can make being vegetarian much more difficult if not impossible.
Bob, I think the issue here is how many different things you could mean when you say “people need good reasons.”
If you just mean “people should think about the ethical implications of their actions,” then sure, I don’t think too many people will disagree with that. But it’s noticeable that you’re only saying that about veganism, as if that were the only action with moral implications. You don’t seem to be concerned at all about the conditions of workers that produce food, for instance (that I’ve seen).
But that’s not what it sounds like you’re saying. It sounds much more like you’re saying “what I do is right and people had better have a really good reason for not all following the clearly correct course of action that I’m following.” Which is total bullshit. Aside from being far too reminiscent of “no birth control unless you can prove you have a medical condition” and that sort of thing, you’re defining an ideal lifestyle around one thing that you do and then condemning everyone who makes different choices. That’s the exact archetype of the asshole vegan.
RE: katz
You are really getting mileage out of those sun-dried tomatoes.
No joking. I went without them for a good while, which means I’m finding a way to integrate them into EVERYTHING. Couscous for dinner? Add sun-dried tomatoes! Scrambled eggs? Sun-dried tomatoes! Macaroni and cheese? SUN-DRIED TOMATOOOOOOOES!
They are quite the versatile foodstuff.
Case in point: Virtually all vaccines are grown in eggs.
But you shouldn’t have to come up with reasons why eating meat is necessary in one case or another; I reject the premise that Bob gets to adjudicate the morality of my actions. I’ll eat meat if I want to because I don’t think there is any special moral problem with doing so.
Katz: WORD.
Even as a long-time vegetarian, I agree with Katz’s breakdown about how you phrased things, Bob.
I hope that doesn’t make you go away, because it’s pretty cool to have another paleobiologist around.
Have you made an egg, cheese, spinach, and sun-dried tomato omelet yet?
Mmmmm, I gotta get some sun-dried tomatoes. This thread is making me hungry.
(Since it sounds like I just sit around gnawing on a giant haunch of venison all the time, I’d like to mention that I try to eat a minimal amount of meat, and it’s for the same reasons as everyone else: Ecological concerns, animal-welfare concerns, etc.)
Katz: same here. I was trying to limit my meat, especially red, intake. Life happens.
Well, um, I guess we’ll just agree to disagree?
The thing is, it’s not like veggies or w/e are cruelty free, either.
yes. My opinions, too, but phrased more coherently
RE: katz
Have you made an egg, cheese, spinach, and sun-dried tomato omelet yet?
…Well, now I know what I’m having for dinner! 😀
True. But I think you have have misunderstood me; I’m not literally saying that we should only eat meat when we have no other feasible alternative. (After all, I myself eat meat.) I’m just saying that, from a vegetarian perspective, one has to consider the barriers to practicing vegetarianism and can’t simply assume that it’s easy for everyone. My objections are based on a vegetarian perspective and directed at Bob’s views from a vegetarian perspective.
You could also just say that I’m only arguing for the sake of arguing. =P
LBT — glad you’re doing well, and getting treated to your husband’s cooking skillz by the sounds of it (and Sneak’s…sounds a little scary but I’m wary of kids cooking, sounds like ze used zir superhero powers to avoid setting the oven on fire though)
RE: Argenti
Well, Sneak’s an older teenager, and a very bright one. Zie’s perfectly trustworthy around cooking equipment. So’s Gigi, though she’s so insanely picky that she’s long since been banned from being in charge of food. (We went… a dangerously long time under her reign living purely on tiny servings of bananas, cucumbers, pickles, green beans, and noodles with no sauces or toppings.)