Hacker News Reader

Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

I think vegans attempting to avoid exploitation are being counter productive and exchanging animal suffering for human suffering.

Many fruits and vegetables require planting / harvesting / maintenance by humans because no mechanized system has yet been created. The people working these jobs are usually the poorest people which can be found and often work in squalor.

60% of child laborers age 5-7 are "employed" in agriculture.

If you have a grain-heavy diet with well sourced meat (avoiding confinement-raised animals) you can be assured that the people who worked to produce your food made a decent living.

If you only eat from the produce aisle you have to ask yourself how well the people picking your food were treated and how good their lives were, the answers generally aren't very positive.

View on HN

The biggest change to my diet when I went vegan was that I replaced meat with various other protein sources. These are typically going to be soy (tofu) or wheat (seitan) or some other type that is made of a widely available and automated food source. By eating this way, I am making my food production far more efficient. 75% of all of the grain grown in the US goes to feeding cows, pigs, chickens, etc.; the meat industry. This is because feeding animals to feed people is highly inefficient.

I don't know that I eat more fruit & vegetables than the average US citizen. I'm not particularly a fan of them, although we do include them in dishes that we make.

My first point is that being a vegan reduces agriculture by a great deal.

I'll also submit that it is highly likely that in comparison, due to the processing around meat, that it has similar if not more exploitation of people in its production, and not a small part of that is the sheer amount that the agricultural sector needs to grow in order to support it. They chop down the Amazon Forest to grow soy. Not to make tofu, but to feed cattle.

> ...due to the processing around meat, that it has similar if not more exploitation of people in its production...

Would you rather work in a field under the open sky with a fresh breeze while harvesting edible parts from plants all day, or work in a foul-smelling, ugly warehouse faced with nonstop scenes out of a horror movie while killing and dismembering cows all day?

As far as labor conditions go, I don't even see how you can compare the two.

soy has been demonized by the weightlifting/masculine community, but there's no estrogen in soy, just trace amounts of phytoestrogen.

meanwhile, these dudes drinking jugs of cow breast milk

Hormones are active in trace amounts. That is all it takes. Never ever eat soy, unless maybe you are menopausal.

Your mention of "dudes drinking jugs of cow breast milk" brings to mind a fond memory I have of my son bringing milk home. It was sold in gallon jugs with red caps. He was riding a unicycle. To stay balanced and not fall over, he bought two jugs. They were cold and the handles would dig into his hands, so the only comfortable way to hold them was against his chest with the red caps aimed forward. Passing traffic took notice. :-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com