Why Should I...


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in reply to OriginEnergySux
Rennet makes this a much more complicated decision for vegetarians. Like, if I know that the cheese was made with bacteria-derived enzymes, then that's cool, but it's really hard to know and trusting random cheese is just like still eating beef sometimes, so even though I'm vegetarian I end up being so picky about cheese that I hardly eat it anyway.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 9 de septiembre de 2026, 4:45)

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in reply to RobotToaster
It depends a bit om where you are and what kind of cheese. For instance in the EU, Parmigiano Reggiano always has calf rennet, otherwise it's not allowed to have that name. Nowadays a lot of cheeses in the Netherlands do specify it on the ingredients list though.

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in reply to TipRing

Spoiler: milk cows get murdered as well.
A milk cow is productive for about 5 years, after which they usually get slaughtered for pet food.
In that time, they need to have about 3 calves, to continue producing "good returns" amount of milk daily. Two of those calves are not needed to replace the cow, so they get - guess what? - slaughtered and processed to pet food.

Stupid me grew up next to a milk farm and didn't realize that until way later than I care to admit.

Also, I still eat cheese (reduced amounts) and that's a moral dilemma for me.

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in reply to raspberriesareyummy
That ethical problem could be solved (well, not if you are "fully" vegan, and view even keeping pets and livestock, unacceptable), by doing good small-scale production. Factory farming producing the inhuman conditions, is needed to make the operations economically sustainable, in the way it is build into capitalist systems. But if you would keep the cows well, milk products could be made quite ethically... Now of course the costs needed to do that would make milk extremely expensive, and small-scale could not replace the massive demand, so people would have to consume way less anyway.

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in reply to kolmaskommentoija
But if you would keep the cows well, milk products could be made quite ethically…


Could be - but that would also mean taking milk away from the calves for a while. Not sure how much milk a cow would be able to continue to give and what the quality would be after the calf has had enough to outgrow infancy.

Now eggs however, those could be absolutely produced without animal suffering. Just be willing to pay more for the eggs so that hens can live free range in natural environments, and still get to continue living when they produce less or even no more eggs until they die from natural causes.

I don't see a big ethical problem with snatching an unfertilised egg, considering that hens are able to lay like one egg a day. They won't miss it if you take away a bunch of them and let them breed out the odd one.

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in reply to raspberriesareyummy

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in reply to kolmaskommentoija
in reply to raspberriesareyummy
I am aware and I do make every effort to reduce and remove dairy (and eggs) from my diet, but I recognize that I fall short of what I would consider vegan. Like if I'm at a party and am offered cake I'm probably going to eat it even though there's probably egg in it, but I'm not going to order an egg-based dish, same with dairy if we're having pizza or something. As I get older I'm increasingly lactose intolerant anyway, so I have additional incentive to avoid it.
in reply to OriginEnergySux

There are better fake cheeses these days. It's easier to give it up than it ever was. And tons of pizzerias now offer vegan cheese pizzas.

But honestly giving up beef alone should be commended, just for environmental/climate reasons.

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in reply to terranoid

I haven't seen fake cheese that tastes good yet. A good tip is not to try to make vegan food taste like non vegan. Just enjoy the vegan foods as they are.

PS I'm trying the whole "give up beef" thing plus "be vegan one day of the week".

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in reply to hOrni
A good tip is not to try to make vegan food taste like non vegan. Just enjoy the vegan foods as they are.


As a non vegan/vegetarian, I agree fully. By trying to replicate something else, the result often appears like a worse alternative.

I enjoy plenty of vegetarian and vegan foods, but don't try and tell me that a plant based burger tastes the same as a normal burger, that just ruins the experience.

Play to your own strengths and don't pretend to be something you are not, by doing that you reduce the stigma of vegan and vegetarian labels becoming associated with lower quality.

The concept of being vegetarian one day a week sounds like a brilliant idea, not sure that I would go the entire way to vegan across a full day, but a few vegan meals in a week wouldn't be so hard.

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in reply to stoy
don't try and tell me a plant based burger tastes the same as a normal burger


Go to burger king. Get a regular whopper and an impossible whopper. They are literally indistinguishable. Well, until an hour later when the impossible whopper gives you a ton of gas lol.

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in reply to I_Has_A_Hat

That's a straight up case of dumping enough crap on top of each patty that you can't tell what the hell you are eating anyway.

Try cooking each patty with nothing more than a bit of salt and eat them plain with nothing else, not even a bun, and then tell me you can't taste the difference.

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in reply to I_Has_A_Hat
The buns, the catsup, mustard, "special sauce", the onions, the pickles, the cheese, lettuce, and don't forget the sesame seeds! You could put a piece of cardboard in that McDonald's hamburger and not be able to tell the difference......

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in reply to I_Has_A_Hat
You must not pay much attention to what is placed on your burger then. Burger King or McDonald's is all the same stack of crap on a bun. They both smother the patty with all the stuff I listed to hide the low quality. No matter if it's a beef whopper or the impossible whopper. If you don't believe me, buy one of each and take them apart to compare.
in reply to I_Has_A_Hat

Whoppers have a ton of toppings. Lettuce, onion, tomato, mayo, ketchup, and I'm probably forgetting something. The only real taste from the meat is the grilling smoke.

I've had impossible burgers and while they are a bland they did a decent job on texture, so enough toppings make up for it just like with cheap beef.

in reply to stoy

While I understand your argument and fully agree that there are plenty of normal vegan dishes that hold there own, this point always comes from the non vegans 😅

Meat tastes good, and going vegan often means giving up favourite dishes that you grew up with. Having the mock alternatives means that when you do get that itch, you can still kind of scratch it. I also dont think it is fair to write them all of as inferior, there are some pretty incredible options these days.

in reply to jackod

No, having a mock alternative doesn't sceatch the itch, it just reinforces how much better the real version of that thing was. While I haven't tried them all, I have tried a lot due to recommendations by friends and every one has been like comparing turkey bacon to regular bacon. No, it isn't even close.

I enjoy a lot of dishes that are vegetarian or vegan because they play to the strengths of their ingredients without pretending to be something else. Replicating the format is fine, many kinds of dishes share similar formats, but trying to compare it to something specific is a bad idea. I have had some vegsn sausages thst were great for example, but they are their own thing snd not comparable to beef, pork, or combination sausages and there is such a wide variety of meat sausages there is no need to compare it to anything specific. It can be its own thing!

Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 9 de septiembre de 2026, 14:22)
in reply to [deleted]

a big part is the perception of what you're used to, I rarely eat meat nowadays and when I do it tends to be game.

My burger patties have gotten to a point where I prefer them to any meat alternative, I'm not saying they're the same. Outside of serving the same purpose in a burger, but it's pretty wild I scoff at minced red deer meat now - It just doesn't carry the same umfph

in reply to rayf

Non vegetarian here. A vegan friend served me some vegan burger and I was absolutely shocked at how good it was. Did it taste exactly like beef? No. However it hit most of the spots to sate a craving I may have for one. The vegan cheese pretty much perfectly emulated american "cheese", which I don't personally use, but on a burger has a specific place. I have also introduce TVP into my normal diet. If you cook it right it can act as a very good alternative to crumbled ground beef. My friend makes a vegan chili dip that, if not told, almost everyone just assumes contains beef.

Other vegan cheeses I have tried are awful, even some expensive ones. My best friend doesn't process animal protein, so was basically forced into eating vegan style. We have made some recipes from chefs online, mostly using various types of mushrooms, that are to emulate steak, that have been very good.

in reply to terranoid
giving up beef alone should be commended, just for environmental/climate reasons.


Yes, but the post is about veganism, which is the ethical principle that it’s wrong to exploit animals. Cows enslaved for milk are in most cases worse off than those enslaved for their flesh as they are repeatedly impregnated, have their children killed, and are still slaughtered at a fraction of their lifespan just like the flesh cows.

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in reply to terranoid

I've never cut beef out entirely but it is surprisingly easy to dramatically reduce how much one uses. Nearly everything that's good with beef is also good with other meats. I also found doing meatless Mondays to be a great way to experiment with vegetarian/vegan dishes without feeling like I was missing out on anything and then I could take that knowledge into other days

I think a big problem is a lot of people are not confident in their ability to cook. They maybe know how to make a couple of their favorite childhood dishes and a couple things they picked up along the way, maybe. It's hard to replace a burger with a portabello if you don't know how to critically approach cooking temps and times so it ends up awful, or trying to cook a passable ratatouille and not knowing how to use a knife or having any spices in the cupboard

in reply to OriginEnergySux
It was hot when I first bit it, hot as a glede, and my mouth was scorched, so that I doubt if ever again I shall be free of the pain of it. Yet even as I write it is cooled, and it seemeth to shrink, though it loseth neither its beauty nor its shape.... But for my part I will risk no hurt to this thing: of all the works of ranching the only fair. It is precious to me, though I buy it with great pain.

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in reply to 🍉 DrRedOctopus 🐙🍉

As a person who check all cheese in the supermarket for this. The current state (EU/NL) is almost 60%, 60% of the cheese in our supermarket is without murdering baby cows. Which I up from last year, and it has been trending up for a while.

I have no clue how other countries are doing, my guess us worse. Some france people still label 'Fish' as 'Vegan'

in reply to JelleWho

That number moves much closer to 0% if you start counting the baby cows killed in order to keep their mothers perpetually lactating, rather than just those whose bodies were used as a direct ingredient.

A cow will be impregnated 6-8 times during her life on a typical dairy farm, before she is killed af half her natural lifespan to be replaced by a younger cow. One of those baby cows will be raised as that replacement cow, the rest will be killed shortly after birth.

Killing baby cows is an inherent part of cow-milk production.

Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 9 de septiembre de 2026, 9:31)

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in reply to davepleasebehave

hardly any dairy calves end up as veal.

::: spoiler the math
ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/48685/milkcowsandprod.xlsx?v=1413.4

catalog.data.gov/dataset/livestock-meat-domestic-data/resource/257788c4-e153-4712-abf3-f2f339bbefec

thousands_of_head_of_cows = 9448.0
actual_cows = 1000 * thousands_of_head_of_cows
annual_male_calves = .5 * actual_cows
veal_weight_of_calves_in_pounds = 260
annual_veal_production_in_millions_of_pounds = 58
annual_percentage_of_bobby_calves_that_become_veal = ((annual_veal_production_in_millions_of_pounds * 1000000) /  (veal_weight_of_calves_in_pounds * annual_male_calves))*100
print(annual_percentage_of_bobby_calves_that_become_veal)

4.722204129486094

:::

Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 9 de septiembre de 2026, 13:16)
in reply to hans

It's highly market-senstive what happens to them, but I have previously worked on dairy farms in NZ and AU, and in both countries, calves(except replacement heifers) that get raised at all are a rounding error, maybe a handful per farm that are kept for personal slaughter and consumption.

If the bobby-calf (aka veal) market is paying well enough, then they are shipped off for slaughter at ~4 days old. If the market doesnt pay well enough to justify 4 days of rearing costs, then they are killed immediately and sold for their skins.

in reply to toomanypancakes
cows don't naturally live to 20 years. they can live that long if they are well fed and watered and protected from disease, predators, and the environment. that's an artificial life span.
in reply to parlaptie
I'm not bringing any moral value, just the note that synthetic remnet is cheaper then real one, another commenter said that about 60% of cheeses use it,i thought it would be much more.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 9 de septiembre de 2026, 13:51)

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in reply to ulterno
I would really like to be the case more often. I'm a cheese eating vegetarian and I have to look on the ingredients every time I buy cheese.
Some brands will even switch from animal to microbial rennet and viceversa within the same product without warning.

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in reply to OriginEnergySux

I cut way back on cheese because of the salt, also it's expensive and high in calories. I could easily go through a large block (or even two--8000 calories!) of sharp cheddar in a week, and that was too much.

This is why I gave up red meat, and processed meat:

health.clevelandclinic.org/is-red-meat-bad-for-you

Here’s something you may not realize: The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies red meat as a Group 2A carcinogen, which is described as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Carcinogens are substances with cancer-causing potential.

A review of studies on the relationship between red meat and cancer found that eating high levels of red meat is associated with a higher risk of:

Breast cancer
Colorectal cancer
Uterine cancer
Hepatocellular carcinoma
Lung cancer

That’s not all: Processed meats are categorized as level 1 carcinogens. This puts them in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos and means they’re known to increase your risk of cancer.

in reply to OriginEnergySux
*(GASGÛL) They were once men; healthy men. Then Tongue the Deceiver gave to them nine rounds of Cheese. Blinded by their hunger, they took them without question, one by one falling into gassness. Now they are slaves to his will. They are the Gasgûl: Fartwraiths, neither living nor dead. At all times they feel the presence of the Cheese, drawn to the power of the lactose. They will never stop farting. *
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 9 de septiembre de 2026, 7:34)

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in reply to OriginEnergySux
Something is better than nothing.
"I could never be a vegetarian/vegan because of bacon"
"Ok, then eat vegetarian AND also eat bacon then?"

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in reply to ComradePenguin
flexitarian is the way to go first: my understanding is thats its more controlled, not everyday (maybe even only to special occations) eating of meat

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in reply to Little1Lost
my understanding is thats its more controlled, not everyday (maybe even only to special occations) eating of meat


IS IT????

I thought flexitarian was someone who can perform very flexible oral sex. 🤯

in reply to CADmonkey
I mean the critique of cheese (honey and eggs, too) is that they, like all foods, are statistically near always sourced from factory farming methods that are harmful to all involved. The only difference is that wheat isn't sentient enough for ethical consideration. I'm glad your chickens are treated well. I'm glad you ethically source your eggs. Being "one of the good ones" isn't a defense though; we still need to end factory farming as it exists today.
in reply to OriginEnergySux

Dairy is the most challenging thing to give up. There are good alternatives - particularly when they're made of nuts and seeds that have been fermented traditionally - but they're good in their own way, don't expect them to be the same.

The stuff made out of almost pure coconut oil is universally disappointing, and coconut is arguably not vegan given the environmental footprint and resulting animal endangerment.

in reply to VitoRobles

I mean, Daiyo is an example of the artificial-basically-mostly-coconut-oil cheeze I mentioned previously. Most stuff that you can find in the average grocery store is going to suck. Have you tried anything along the lines of, say, this almost award-winning plant-based cheese? Stuff like that is way better, but again, unique. Don't expect it to be the same, although things may be changing soon since people have figured out how to get one of the key dairy proteins from non-animal sources.

There's also homemade stuff, which varies. It's pretty easy to make super creamy mac and cheese with plant-based sources only, for instance.

in reply to AnimalsDream

One of my close friends went vegan right around the pandemic beginning, when everything first started shutting down. Our local bar shut down the day of St Patrick's day so we invited him over to our place instead for shitty beer with green food dye (it was 3 of us total and we worked in close proximity daily, AND we were very pro-mask)

He used it as an opportunity to introduce us to a vegan version of the cheesy spinach and artichoke dip from like Applebees/Chilis/insert old people restaurant here, but it was made with cashews.

It took him an hour but OH MY LAWD my husband and I still talk about that dip to this day as non-vegans. Better than anything we've ordered at a restaurant. We tell everyone about that shit.

in reply to grranibal
As a non-German living in Germany. Abendbrot goes hard. Like I didn't expect it to be so enjoyable, but it's tasty, easy, and cheap. I know it's traditional to include cold cuts, but I usually just use cheeses and veggies. Fucking tasty
in reply to OriginEnergySux
Especially funny because while there are other things vegetarians will eat that vegans won't (Other dairy, eggs), cheese is actually physically addictive because the same protein that makes it curdle breaks down through digestion into a substance that acts like dopamine. It really is the "one ring" of veganism and often the last / hardest thing to give up when one goes vegan.
in reply to OriginEnergySux
I've never tried to convince anyone to take up veganism. Instead I avoid bringing it up at all cost because people get weird about it.
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 9 de septiembre de 2026, 14:21)