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Comment by shoto_io | Hacker News Reader

It’s definitely not chicken…

it's not vegan too I don't understand this product? Is it for vegetarian?

It results in less meat consumed, so it's better for the environment, etc. A bit of egg vs. a lot more meat. And chickens produce a lot more egg than they do meat if you're raising then for eggs, so it's better. Not perfect, but better.

If you went for perfection, you'd never use any form of motorized transport, never eat any foods shipped across state lines, set your thermostat for survival temperatures, and go full "freegan" for everything you consume. There's a point at which better is all you really can do - just how much better is the question.

What's so hard to understand about vegetarian products?

Vegetarian is hard to understand once looking from an ethical perspective. Why is the chicken flesh bad, but the eggs okay while producing those eggs also has chicken killed?

Same for dairy.

It seems vegetarians are okay with lifelong encagement, and eventual killing, as long as they dont have to eat it. Leather is "vegetarian", and so are wool and silk.

It’s because it doesn’t involve the direct killing of the animal but yes it’s a bit weird. Also one in theory gets more eggs per hen than chicken flesh so more protein per animal, at least if the hen is kept for multiple cycles.

But yes, veterinarians and fish makes no sense.

Leather can make sense to me until cows start being raised just for leather or the price of meat is such that it would be uneconomic if the price of leather was not factored in.

Leather can make sense to me

It doesn't to me. The alternatives are all plastics. So sure you're saving animal lives, but you're also just contributing to our oil addiction. It's like Christians picking and choosing which things to believe from the Bible, but with ethics instead.

The only reason leather makes sense to me ethically is that we can take it from animals that died naturally.

> Vegetarian is hard to understand once looking from an ethical perspective. Why is the chicken flesh bad, but the eggs okay

They aren't for vegetarians stricto sensu, hence why ovo-vegetarians are distinguished.

> Same for dairy.

Yes, exactly the same for diary, which is why lacto-vegetarians are distinguished.

“vegeterian” ≠ “ovolacto-vegetarian”

Defacto: vegeterian === ovolacto-vegetarian (and leather, and wool, and silk, and zoos, and animal circus, and ...)

We needed the word vegan because vegetarian was such a silly line in the sand ethically speaking (just dont eat their flesh!).

You can eat/use non-vegan vegetarian food and things without hurting animals.

What you describe is more related to industrial production rather than vegetarianism - although I have to admit that it's still on point in this particular discussion.

wait, do they kill chickens after they lay eggs?

They do not go to chicken retirement houses after they age beyond peak egg production.

Also the males are not needed of breeding breeds, they go straight to the wood chopper after they've hatched.

It’s also for people who simply look to eat less meat, but aren’t strict vegetarians.

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