Beyoncé and Her Husband Want You To Go Vegan for Concert Tickets

[beysactingcoach]

https://instagram.com/p/BtSNVwqAmXv
The wannabe billionaires have endorsed a plant based diet for the last couple of years in order to prepare for tours. Looks like fans will have to opportunity to reap the rewards of a plant based diet. If the fans enter the contest and commit to adapting a vegan diet, they can win free concert tickets for life

Comments

[kinokol]

I think what's more effective than shaming people for eating meat is advocating for a better food system in general. Like you can enjoy a vegan diet full of hfcs or other corn products that supports corn subsidies and giant corporate controlled monocropped factory farms that exploit workers and are terrible for the environment. Istg I have no patience for certain vegans.

[totteringg]

Yeah, but eating meat is worse than committing to almost any plant based diet in every single way since when you choose to eat meat you’re always supporting the worst parts of the non-meat ag industry in addition to the torturous factory farms that have a ton of their own labor issues.

[kinokol]

...or you could purchase ethically sourced meat and animal products from small local farmers? I'm not saying that's what most people do or that's plausible for everyone, but that is very much a real thing. And many people have cultural ties to certain food.

I am a former ag worker so I feel like I'm pretty informed about all that goes into growing, packing, storing, and transporting food. And probably sound like a hypocrite after recently commenting on enjoying field roast products, but just because something is vegan, it does not mean it was produced or distributed in an ethical or good for the environment way. I believe in eating local whenever possible and supporting small, sustainable farms, growing my own food, etc. You know, proactive solutions and not just telling people that they're bad people if they enjoy chicken and maybe don't have the resources or desire to eliminate a major part of their diet.

[totteringg]

I personally think you can get certain types of ethically produced animal products but there's no such thing as ethically sourced meat outside of maybe straight-up hunting but that's kind of an aside. There's also no sustainable way to produce meat for billions of people because of how inefficient meat is.

Some local small farms are great, but others definitely aren't for the same reasons that small businesses tend to actually be worse for pay and labor violations than your average big corporation.

No one says you're a bad person if you enjoy chicken, but you can't get mad at people for maybe thinking it reflects badly on you that you prioritize your personal tastes over considering the lives of animals. It's not shaming anyone to ask people to put a little bit more thought into what they're doing when they're consuming something daily. I still haven't seen a good moral defense of meat eating.

[totteringg]

You're basically making the argument that people who exist in society in any capacity don't have the right to have any judgements about anyone else for anything which is obviously ridiculous. You wouldn't say people who own an iphone for example don't have the right to also think it's morally wrong to give business to companies that hire scab labor and to judge people who do when there are readily available alternatives.

Meat-eating is completely unnecessary, producing meat always involves an unbelievable amount of suffering, and the supermarket is full of alternatives which involve less human and animal suffering. The production process in most consumer goods has been obscured to the point that it's almost impossible for any normal person to actually know the toll it took on the people creating it but once it's known, yeah that should impact your purchasing decisions.

[vivahodie]

I agree that you can’t make the argument that vegan diets are not objectively healthier for most people and the planet as a whole. But the reason that vegans, however well-intentioned, are not more successful at converting people has do bad communication strategies. I don’t agree with the “annoying vegan stereotype” but surely you can admit that going plant based is a difficult decision that comes with so many barriers.

You can’t guilt people into making healthier choices. It’s like the Chris Hemsworth exercise post. Another commenter explained this better but essentially you are asking people to make a huge cultural shift as well as a logistical one

[hjalmartazar]

thank you for your replies

[peddlestools]

small businesses tend to actually be worse for pay and labor violations than your average big corporation.

Do we want to get into Driscoll and how they treat their strawberry pickers or the migrant workers who pick Wendy’s tomatoes b/c trying to make an argument that veganism is somehow more ethical vis-a-vis human rights is ridiculous.

Not saying it’s any better for people working in slaughterhouses and the like, but most big produce vendors expose farm workers to conditions that are tantamount to slave labor. And they use child labor too.

I am an omnivore and am careful about the local farmers I buy from and the restaurants I patronize - no one’s perfect, sometimes I get a fuckin’ happy meal tho. Fortunately, most of the restaurants worth eating at when I do eat out shop the same stalls at the farmer’s market and publicly list their vendors either on their menus or online.

But vegans have to be equally careful about the produce they buy too.Reply

[xtinkerbellax]

A lot of vegans are? vegans tend to be more aware about making ethical purchases across the board because veganism is not just a diet and extends into all areas of consumerism. Farm workers are exploited across the board but by not buying any meat dairy or eggs vegans are cutting their contribution to that by a lot, its not like meat eaters don't also eat produce, and I doubt most people only by in season and local unless they live somewhere like CA.

[hjalmartazar]

it drives me nuts when nonvegans forget that they eat fruits and vegetables too, and not only that, all the crops that were grown to feed the animals who they eat.

[xtinkerbellax]

Vegans' choices are picked apart when they make up a tiny percentage of the population, as if the average meat eater is an ethical consumer. I also notice people trying to shoehorn in issues that aren't vegan ones into vegan conversations. Not every ethical issue is a vegan one.

[totteringg]

The conditions that the big produce companies subject their workers to is horrific, but that problem isn't avoided when you buy from local farms because they also have similar, and often worse, horrific working conditions. Buying from the farmers market doesn't actually mean anything in terms of the treatment of the farm workers and because those farms aren't subject to even the limited oversight that big operations are (and we see how they still get away with treating workers horribly) and the profit margins are smaller so the pay tends to be even worse (even if they somehow were doing things completely by the book which they obviously don't, farms with fewer than seven or so employees aren't even legally obliged to pay workers minimum wage

[kinokol]

I feel like a lot of this is unfounded and implying that there's no point in trying to support small local farms because they're just as bad because that is patently false

[totteringg]

Which parts exactly are unfounded? It's a fact that small farms have much higher rates of worker injury and death than large farms. The woman who wrote the Jacobin article wrote a book after interviewing hundred and fifty workers on local farms in NY. I'm definitely not suggesting that working on a large corporate owned farm is going to be a good experience, but with some exceptions, it's not going to be any better to work on a small local farm where you might not get paid if the farm-owner is having trouble making ends meet and they coerce you into accepting it because you're part of their small "family" even though they're holding your immigration status over you

[kinokol]

I understand what you're talking about, but the definition of "small farm" is extremely broad. IIRC it can mean anything less than an acre to 200+ acres. They can make $1000-250,000 a year. Of course there are people out there who will abuse the fact that they are exempt from certain small business laws, I have worked for a couple of people exactly like that. Just because there are technically laws preventing a certain abuses doesn't mean those same issues or related ones aren't rampant on larger scale operations. There should be more awareness of the plight of workers in general so there is public demand for more legal and financial protection for people and their families at every level