One thing I’ve learned from you is it’s important to emphasize that it doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. I’ve mostly been vegetarian for 8 years or so, but sometimes I really crave meat. If impossible burgers aren’t cutting it, I’ll have a liverwurst sandwich. In practice, I eat meat 1-2 times per year. There was also a period I fell off the wagon for like a month. It’s important for people like me to understand ourselves as vegetarian even if we don’t always live up to our ideals.
I'm not sure of any inherent difficulty - there have been millions of Chinese and Indian people who are vegetarian, and certainly someone is doing something right here
Yes, but that's in cultures where it's currently normal (though not universal) and there are lots of well-established tasty and nutritious vegetarian options without going far afield from the typical cuisine. That's simply not as much the case for Westerners today. While obviously there are lots of options available because we have access to all of the above cuisine, that doesn't mean everyone is aware of those options or how to prepare them so they taste really good, they may not like them, or there may even be stigma attached to eating those foods and not meat (try serving the average Red Tribe American dude tofu, no matter how well-prepared). Western food traditions around meat are very much downstream of it being a luxury that we all ended up with good access to before globalization, with no major religious vegetarian traditions, and so a lot of our existing vegetarian options are obvious poverty food and lack spices to make them more palatable (or are usually eaten with meat now).
Well, it's not surprising that Indian and Chinese vegetarian cuisine has been well developed, given how many vegetarians there are. I do agree with your comment- all I wanted to point out that inability to retain vegetarianism is not inherent thing, something acultural
I 100% agree. This type of reasoning is actually one of the reasons of why I founded Connect For Animals; I currently think that we're leaving a lot of impact on the table because of failure to retain the interest, behavior change, and belief change that we've generated. To me, this seems like one of the most underinvested areas in the animal advocacy space, so I'm investing a lot of time and energy here.
One thing I’ve learned from you is it’s important to emphasize that it doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. I’ve mostly been vegetarian for 8 years or so, but sometimes I really crave meat. If impossible burgers aren’t cutting it, I’ll have a liverwurst sandwich. In practice, I eat meat 1-2 times per year. There was also a period I fell off the wagon for like a month. It’s important for people like me to understand ourselves as vegetarian even if we don’t always live up to our ideals.
I'm not sure of any inherent difficulty - there have been millions of Chinese and Indian people who are vegetarian, and certainly someone is doing something right here
Yes, but that's in cultures where it's currently normal (though not universal) and there are lots of well-established tasty and nutritious vegetarian options without going far afield from the typical cuisine. That's simply not as much the case for Westerners today. While obviously there are lots of options available because we have access to all of the above cuisine, that doesn't mean everyone is aware of those options or how to prepare them so they taste really good, they may not like them, or there may even be stigma attached to eating those foods and not meat (try serving the average Red Tribe American dude tofu, no matter how well-prepared). Western food traditions around meat are very much downstream of it being a luxury that we all ended up with good access to before globalization, with no major religious vegetarian traditions, and so a lot of our existing vegetarian options are obvious poverty food and lack spices to make them more palatable (or are usually eaten with meat now).
Well, it's not surprising that Indian and Chinese vegetarian cuisine has been well developed, given how many vegetarians there are. I do agree with your comment- all I wanted to point out that inability to retain vegetarianism is not inherent thing, something acultural
Hey Ozy!
I 100% agree. This type of reasoning is actually one of the reasons of why I founded Connect For Animals; I currently think that we're leaving a lot of impact on the table because of failure to retain the interest, behavior change, and belief change that we've generated. To me, this seems like one of the most underinvested areas in the animal advocacy space, so I'm investing a lot of time and energy here.
Steven Rouk
Great post! I suggest posting it on the EA Forum if you haven't already.