The description for the Vegetarian Statement Tee seems like it would suit a Vegan Statement Tee more.

The description says "Start making an impact on reducing animal cruelty today!"

You can be vegetarian and be cruelty free but being vegetarian does not mean you are cruelty free.

Vegetarians still eat dairy products and they are not all produced in cruelty free ways.

Now I know it says reducing not stopping so I suppose it does work but I feel it gives the wrong impression.

Honestly, both the Vegetarian Statement Tee and Friends Not Food Shirt, along with just the general "help fight/stop animal cruelty by going vegan/vegetarian" thing--

It just seems.. weird to me.

It's possible to be a meat-eater who doesn't support animal cruelty. You don't mistreat the animals in your life, and you get your meat, eggs, etc products from sources that treat their animals well and with care. This is what I aspire to do above everything, because it's not reasonable for me to drop animal products from my diet, but I still want livestock to be respected and treated as well as possible. It's not cruelty at all to kill and eat living things, it's the cycle of life; just be merciful and reduce suffering as much as you can.

And, yeah, you can be vegetarian and get your milk, eggs, fish, etc from sources that don't treat animals well. Like, chickens from battery factory farms: that's an incredibly, overwhelmingly cruel way to farm chicken eggs, terrible for the animal in too many ways. Anything that isn't free-range life for dairy and meat cows seems unreasonable. Not even going to get started on the treatment of fish/fish products and how they seem to completely skirt the "humane treatment" thing because they're fish.

- I agree you can be a meat eater and be cruelty free.

Maybe cruelty free shouldn't be attatched to diet as it is more of a moral choice.

Personally I'm bothered by conflating "cruelty free" with either vegetarian OR vegan. It's entirely possible to eat any diet including one heavy in meat and dairy while still being cruelty free. Likewise both veggie and vegan diets can be just as cruel as any other.

(Like many pointed out in the news and reaction threads, many vegan substitutes are incredibly destructive and/or cruel not just to animals but also to people and the wider environment. A kindly kept local beehive or dairy farm is less harmful by far than the agave trade or non-native almond+cashew orchards and the endless water and pesticides needed to maintain them.)

I would have been much more comfortable with the event and the various items if there'd been a clear distinction between vegan and cruelty-free. It's possible to be one or other or both, but they aren't the same thing.

edited to fix spelling

- on a personal note I am curious about you saying vegan substitutes can be cruel. Please tell me more (no sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested).

Hi there, sorry to but in! I think an example of this would be palm oil. Some vegan substitutes (butter) are made with it. Palm oil itself can be considered vegan, but producing it has actually lead to deforestation and displacement of the animals where it is produced.

- so the displacement of the animal would be considered cruelty. I had never thought of it like that.

Yes, I would say that someone simply eating "plant based" would consume the oil (as the oil itself does not come from an animal); but someone who considers themselves cruelty free would stay away from it, or at least research brands that have made the move to sustainable palm oil and use those instead.

“According to the World Wildlife Fund, an area the equivalent size of 300 football fields of rainforest is cleared each hour to make way for palm oil production. This large-scale deforestation is pushing many species to extinction, and findings show that if nothing changes species like the orangutan could become extinct in the wild within the next 5-10 years, and Sumatran tigers less than 3 years.”

- yeah palm oil is not a good thing but in so much.

I had always thought of animal cruelty being directly at the animal and not about the destruction of the environment as cruelty but I guess it is.

By that standard no diet can be labeled as cruelty free only individuals things or people.

... thinking.... is there anything consumed by humans, food or products, in the world that has not affected the planet and therefore the environments animals live in? So surely nothing can be truly cruelty free.

I don't think anyone can realistically live 100% cruelty free, but it's not a contest. I believe the main objective of veganism/vegetarianism is to reduce animal suffering as much as they possibly can. They are aware that their mere existence impacts the planet, they just aim to lessen that impact. That's why I'm glad the shirt says 'reducing' animal cruelty.

Most vegetarians/vegans would consider meat/the act of killing the animal an act of cruelty.

Buut all of this is can be debatable. I'm gonna stop there as I don't want to get too far off topic and turn this into a debate forum lol

Well, like I said a lot of people already covered this better than I can. But to kind of paraphrase other users + environmentalists and animal welfare peeps...

Agave is a really common vegan alternative to honey. But harvesting agave nectar is hella destructive to the habitats and lives of the bats and other pollinators that live off it, it has to be shipped halfway across the world so the fossil fuel cost is immense, and the people who harvest it are often wage slaves being horrifically abused by the system. Meanwhile beekeeping (including harvesting honey) is fantastic. It maintains and protects local bee populations from natural threats like disease or predators, is a natural and essential part of virtually all types of farming, the environmental impact is nearly nonexistant, and a single local beekeeper with a small set-up can safely harvest an absolute fuckton of honey every year because honeybees naturally create a huge surplus that's far more than they'll ever need to survive. Plus honey can be stored damn near indefinitely so food waste isn't a problem.

Milk substitutes are also bad news. The production of cashews and cashew milk is absolutely brutal. Here's a quick rundown on that (not the best source, sorry): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/11577928/Blood-cashews-the-toxic-truth-about-your-favourite-nut.html

Almonds and almondmilk require a tremendous amount of water to grow. And soy + soymilk production dumps tons and tons of pesticides into the environment. Both crops also have a bunch of other downsides to them, including the human cost. A lot of mega crops like these are harvested by wage slaves who are being brutalized in order to deliver these crops to the consumer at a price we're willing to pay. If the average person had to pay $30/half gallon of almond-milk, you can bet it wouldn't be so popular. And of course, that isn't even touching on the price of hauling almond/soy/cashew-milk halfway across the country or world.

Meanwhile, a single dairy cow or handful of dairy cows can be comfortably kept in a fairly small pasture+barn setup (cows are lazy af and don't require as much roaming/running space as, for example, horses). A well-designed and well-kept pasture practically maintains itself, particularly when other herbivores are helping to graze it, so the cost to keep that cow is pretty minimal (water, maybe some supplemental hay or other feed as needed, medical care). Meanwhile that cow can easily produce enough milk to supply a family with plenty of cream, milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, etc. With multiple cows, there'll likely be dairy to spare. The calves can be raised as dairy cows themselves, or raised for meat, leather, etc. And the dairy cows can also be butchered when they finally pass away. A couple of cows provides a huge amount of food over their lifespan, with relatively minimal environmental impact outside of the land and water usage. Goats are even better in many regions bc they provide all the benefits of dairy+beef cows, plus they can graze on much rougher scrub.

Turning soymilk into soy-based vegan cheese generally requires a factory (+ the problems involved in industrialized food production). Nutmilk vegan cheese takes the problems of nutmilks and adds in all of the extra ingredients that have to be farmed, shipped around the world, packaged, etc. The environmental impact is widespread. Real cheese requires just milk, rennet or alternative coagulants, and salt. It can easily be made locally and stores well for long periods so food waste is minimal. (Rennet comes from calves' stomachs and thus is harvested during veal butchering. Whether or not veal+rennet production can be "cruelty free" is obv up to individual people to decide.)

Chickens are kind of similar to dairy cows in that they require minimal feed, water, and maintaining a healthy coop is pretty easy. They can provide a ton of eggs for very little input, with almost no environmental impact. And eggs are enormously calorie- and nutrient-dense foods.

Basically, there's a reason humans have been practicing animal husbandry since prehistory, and it's bc livestock is an absolutely phenomenal food source for the time and resources put into it.

The problems behind quinoa have become more publicized lately. Quinoa has become so popular now, particularly among vegans and gluten-free people bc it's full of nutrients that are difficult to get on restricted diets. It sells for so much that the farmers in S. America just export most of it rather than eating it themselves. It's become too expensive for the local people to afford, basically, which has been pretty devastating for some people bc it was such a critical part of their diet. There's a lot of other staple food crops like quinoa that have had much the same issues, as veg*n, gluten free, and other special diets take off in the west and those crops become unavailable for the people who used to rely on them. This can lead to increased health problems in those local populations as they replace nutrient-rich foods like quinoa, millet, and tef with processed garbage like pasta or white rice. Plus, of course, there's always the cost of hauling it across the planet.

There's a bunch of other vegan and vegetarian substitutes that are kind of dubious, but honestly I can't remember all of them off the top of my head and this has gotten super duper long already -_-;

There's plenty of great vegan alternatives, and it's totally possible to be vegan without consuming bad products like this. Unfortunately a lot of people see the word "vegan" and think it means ethical, or cruelty free, or organic, or whatever. But that isn't the case at all and it's important to do a lot of research if you're aiming for reducing cruelty to animals, humans, or the environment.

(Hopefully this isn't derailing the thread too much, woops!)

The thing with alternate eating, to me anyways and I don't expect anyone to agree with me, is that they are there for those of us who cannot break down food normally, due to lacking enzymes or medical conditions that impart dietary restrictions. That, to me, was the point of alternate diets and who they were supposed to be for, not for the rest of the general public or average person to switch over because "it's trendy and the celebs are doing it" or "a way to lose weight" or "be healthier".

For me, I cannot break down casein in dairy. I've had to give up cow's milk for alternative sources. I've tried goat, but couldn't get over the tang of it. I can't drink soy milk because of a soy allergy. So I drink cashew and almond milk. Believe me, I wish I could continue consuming cow's milk because I love ice cream too much. But I have to eat this way so I don't destroy my gut. Same as someone who cannot eat gluten due to Celiac: they're forced to change their diet so they don't end up sickly or dead. And of course there's also cultural/religious norms that may affect one's diet. I respect that greatly.

Since most of these populations tend to be insignificant or uncommon,less than compared to the average person, the environmental impact wouldn't be that detrimental. But with more and more average folk jumping on the bandwagon due to misinformation being spread, the impact is becoming problematic. That's where the issue is imo. If you don't need to eat alternatively for medical or religious/cultural reasons, then don't. We were designed as omnivores for a biological reason. Some of us just got dealt shitty DNA strands that give us more problems than the average healthy person.

Everything runs in a healthy balance of not being too much or too little. We give, and we take, no more, no less. When it becomes unbalanced in either direction (too little or too much of something), that's when everyone suffers the most. Earth, nature, animals, and humans. It is our duty as a highly-skilled intelligent species to make sure keep that balance in order. And lately, as a whole, I feel we have not. And so we're seeing the consequences of that more and more.

ia 100%

I hope it didn't come across like I think those foods shouldn't be eaten at all! I also have some food issues, and I think it's great that we have these alternatives for the (like you said) insignificant slice of the population that needs them. It's totally possible to supply plenty of almond and cashew milk to that group of people who need it, without doing such huge amounts of damage to other people+the environment.

But when you start looking at wider demographics like vegans/vegetarians, or when these items simply become the next trendy food craze, then the damage can become much more widespread. That's why I think it's so important for people who are focused on eating ethically to actually do some research rather than hopping on the "vegan=cruelty free" band wagon.

Sourcing your food close to home from reputable, ethical suppliers (whether that's a local veggie farm or local hunters or a local dairy) does way more for animal welfare and the environment than simply rolling your shopping trolley through walmart and tossing in whatever vegan food you see on the shelf.

Agreed! My brother-in-law's sister-in-law claims to be vegan, and has had her toddler on a vegan diet since he was born, which I don't agree with because it could affect his growth and development. My one friend waited til her boys got older to think and make decisions for themselves, giving them the choice to continue to eat a normal diet or eat vegan. They chose vegan for now, but I'm curious to see if that will change as they grow into puberty. You know how kids get when they hit the teen years; they don't want to do whatever their folks are doing.

Well I've been extremely grateful for this kind of information being shared. I'm naturally skeptical of anything news outlets claim as "the hottest, healthiest food trend". And my mom is very gullible for this sort of shit, so I have to put up with it daily.

Another Subeta “feedback” thread becomes an anti-vegan post.

Factory farms are cruel. The majority of meat, dairy and eggs produced in this country come from factory farms. All of the justifications, like “a handful of dairy cows” wreaking less environmental havoc than the soy milk industry is comparing apples to oranges. The overwhelming majority of soy grown in this country isn’t even made for so-called vegan-specific foods. It’s grown to feed factory farm animals.

Vegans were the ones who first started calling out palm oil for its direct relation to the destruction of orangutan habitat, but anti-vegans always seem to use it some sort of message against vegans, because palm oil is technically considered a “vegan” food, since it contains no animal products. Yet, no acknowledgement of the fact that, again, the vast majority of palm oil is used in countless common items you’ll find on your grocery and drug store shelves. But because some brands of vegan-marketed butter have it (and vegans were the first to draw attention to the issue) now it’s used as an argument to put veganism down.

Honestly, if people put half the energy into actually doing something about the cruelty that happens in factory farms as they do trying to argue against veganism, maybe some real change would happen. Vegans are not in it for the newest diet fad (as opposed to those just following a plant-based diet). They are doing the best they can to not contribute to the heinous cruelty that happens to animals in factory farms. If you’re also opposed to that cruelty, maybe spend a little more time on the anti-factory farm bandwagon and a little less on the anti-vegan one and wouldn’t it be amazing what we could accomplish together.

Thank y'all both for the very informative posts ^x^ I learned a lot.

And to stay on topic:

I'm neither vegan nor vegetarian, but I think this is a great way of putting it, and I agree that "reducing" is a good choice for the wording :)

nobody disagrees factory farms are the worst. I despise them too. Blame that on corporations and having to feed a bunch of people in this country and export out of the country as well. It's not an anti-vegan thing so much as realistically acknowledging there are simply issues beyond our control.

At the end of the day, what can be done? Small, family-owned farms get bought out by corps because that's just how the country works. Everything is turning automated. Everyone suffers, not just the animals in those factory farms.

Not eating or buying from them is one thing, but it's not enough to change the status quo. Animals are still suffering from deplorable, stressful conditions; whether you end up eating them after slaughter or not doesn't change that. Those corps still make a profit, even if 1/4 of the population doesn't buy from them. They don't care.

Until someone tries to challenge these factory farms as inhumane, expect nothing to change. Vote for the politicians who support your beliefs and would try to do something about it. You'd get a lot further than simply not eating a chicken that's born into that life and doomed anyways. Find a way to make it so that chicken can be born into a more humane environment to thrive to its fullest potential.

Calling out problems with the movement and problems with the insinuating wording of onsite items is not anti-vegan.

In this country? Which country? The country of subeta? :p In my country cattle MUST be allowed outside daily to practice normal behaviour and eat grass and silage like they're supposed to. The bare minimum legally is 8 weeks in the grazing season but in practice i see the same herds outside for as long as there's grass to eat, lol. Unfortunately there's currently no legislation wrt marking what meat/dairy has been fed imported soy, although soy-based feed is on a downward trend and on average only makes up 3-10% of our cattle's pellets. Either way i rarely eat beef due to environmental concerns. I'm not familiar with others, but there are tons of strict rules to follow, like closed single-stall barns were made illegal to build in 2004 and older ones will be forced to be rebuilt into free-moving barns soon. Modern barn setups are tailored to allow free movement, choice of company, sleeping spots, and decrease stereotypic behaviour. They must have access to mattresses or straw or sawdust to sleep on (there's a minimum height for optimal comfort). Idk if there's an english term but we use a traditional method called a "talle", meaning the urine sinks to the bottom of the straw/sawdust and gets trodden down into a tight piss mattress, which sounds much worse than it is lmao, and the top layer is cleaned of poop and replenished as needed. The top layer means the ammonia doesn't rise and fuck up the air quality, but it also actually keeps the barn warm and is nice and soft for them to lie on. There have been like studies on this in sweden iirc but i don't know of them by name because i heard about them at a horse barn that used the same method. If you've ever been in a horse barn you know they can stink to high heaven, but when you use this method there's much less ammonia stink, just a normal whiff of horse. The bottom layer is scraped out once or twice a year usually and then becomes slow acting fertilizer, reducing the likelihood of eutrophication. Most cattle operations here are also small family driven ones. When my brother worked with dairy cattle (a herd of 8 at pasture) he'd massage their tiddies one by one before hooking them up to the milking machine, to increase milk letdown and reduce risk of mastitis, and they have a great old time grazing all over the mountains and then coming back home demanding to be milked and cuddled. And dairy cows love cuddles <3 What i mean by this tl;dr is that A) agricultural science is dang fascinating, and B) it's perfectly possible to support sustainable agriculture, both of the carnist and vegan variety. Animal agriculture is constantly changing as our knowledge (both the science of it and what we as customers can demand) increases. For instance all the recent ruckus about extreme chicken breeding has led to less extreme breeds becoming much more commercially available here. I'm still not satisfied with my country's chicken industry and plan to raise my own birds. I know there are "anti-vegans" (a silly term really) who will defend concentrated animal feeding operations/"factory farms" (and to be fair there is science both in favour and against them, wrt welfare and sustainability both) and just so it's said, i'm not one of them. Regardless of what the science and the industry says is the gold standard of care i think it's only ethical to ensure the animals we eat/dairy animals can have happy, stress-free lives and perform natural behaviours in natural sized herds, not the massive thousands of animals packed together in a feedlot.

My post was too long so here's the rest:

Anyway here are some cute free range moos i saw on a road trip

I’m not so nihilistic as to think what I do makes no difference, which is why I don’t contribute to the system, nor am I so optimistic as to think it can be done alone, which is I vote for and support causes that align with my moral values. I hope you can see the irony in your statement that you think that me choosing veganism makes no difference because I’m one person, but you think my one political vote does make a difference. I hope one day you’ll believe that you can make a difference, even if you are just one person, in whatever you may be passionate about.

People pointing out the problems with vegan/vegetarian merchandise, and how it doesn't make sense in places, isn't "anti-vegan"; it's just pointing out holes in arguments. Don't take it as a personal attack or anything. (And the "why are you doing this when you could be making a difference" thing flies both ways-- why are you here when you could be doing more? Not trying to be rude, but... the principle is not one-way.)

Yes, we could be putting our energy into doing small things that supposedly "help" the environment-- but it's also good to keep in mind that, at least in the USA, this excessively capitalist society, it's seriously really hard to make a distinct individual impact on industry and environmental matters. Everything is dictated by a very small handful of influential, rich people; perhaps two greyhound buses' worth. Mobilize and push and eat the rich do what you can, where you can.

The best we can do is push for change where we can, mind our own habits, and learn where our meat comes from. Yes, factory farms are evil and cruel and terrible, and perhaps that's the cruelty that this item is pointing out-- but at the same time, there are many, many farms that have free-range animals. I live in Wisconsin state, which is basically 80% farmland, and the free-range, open-air cattle farms heavily outnumber the less pleasant, "factory"-esqe ones.