Seen a lot of posts on Lemmy with vegan-adjacent sentiments but the comments are typically very critical of vegan ideas, even when they don’t come from vegans themselves. Why is this topic in particular so polarising on the internet? Especially since unlike politics for example, it seems like people don’t really get upset by it IRL
No one likes being criticized and labeled a monster by an ignorant prick. They way too frequently act like every egg comes from a half zombie chicken that’s kept in a little box and tortured just for fun, or that a cow couldn’t possibly end up in a cheeseburger after living its best life. Factory farming is bad for lots of reasons, but it’s not characteristic of the entire industry.
If you want to eat meat or dairy or whatever, sure go ahead. But don’t expect it not coming from factory farms, because it’s likely not.
TIL the eggs from my backyard chickens might be from a factory farm
That is very nice! But most people don’t have their backyard chickens. What I mean is that many people think the meat they buy at the supermarket is not from factory farms. Sadly, most of it is. Like it is litterally characteristic for the industry to come back to your comment. Of course not 100%, but very close.
https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-are-factory-farmed
Most isn’t all and that’s the point. You can be concerned about the ethical treatment of animals without going full vegan, you’ll just need to pay more attention and money at the grocery store to support the right products.
I don’t want to get philosophical on the first part of this comment, but the second part is sadly just wrong. Paying attention and spending more money most often doesn’t change a bit - at least where I’m shopping. Maybe the animals have a little more space on their factories and their feeding uses slightly less land, water etc.
But this is a very important point for many vegans: It is a way to critique and boycott a very shitty system that doesn’t allow for any good choices.