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craziest thing about gaining significant weight is that people in your life will comment on it totally uninvited & they say they’re just a little concerned for your health

but they’re like, the same people who went partying with you every weekend ages 19-21 & apparently the binge drinking & no sleep & doing lines in bathrooms with strangers or whatever weren’t health concerns bc you were thin 😍

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[stressed-depressed-veganess]

I've been seeing a lot of Discourse around outdoor cats that talks past one of the biggest problems addressing community cats/outdoor working cats so I thought I'd chime in with my two cents.

Many arguments I see just... don't think about the cats at all? Or don't consider the logistics of actually addressing the feral cat problem in a humane way. It's always about how outdoor cats shouldn't be outdoors, which is neither realistic nor helpful.

I used to volunteer at an municipal animal shelter in the USA that had a TNR program (Trap, Neuter, Return) and also adopted out community cats to local farms and businesses. Here's my side of the story.

"Your cat doesn't need to be outside" -- Yes, correct. Your domesticated (non-feral) house cat does not need to go outside at all. They can have a fully actualized life safely indoors. When I see this argument, proponents of indoor only cats are correct in most or all their arguments regarding this.

"Outdoor cats are the largest invasive species in the world, and decimate bird populations." -- This is also correct, and part of the reason why you can help by bringing your house cat indoors. Cats are the largest invasive species. Spay and Neuter your cats, bring them inside, and socialize them so they don't become feral.

"TNR doesn't work." -- False. Whether we like it or not, feral cats exist. We have two methods by which we can address the feral cat population -- decimating them (humanely euthanizing the whole colony) or TNR. For a long time, euthanasia was the preferred way to address the feral cat problem. Afterall, if the cats aren't there, doesn't that save the local wildlife population?

Except that we found, studying these colonies, that when a colony is wiped out, the cats of another colony will spread into their territory and continue to have kittens and the population of feral cats is neither controlled nor diminished.

Hence, TNR. What we found performing TNR on cat colonies was that this controlled the population of the colonies, allowing them to stay in their territory, which kept other colonies from spreading (especially colonies we hadn't performed TNR on yet). We at the shelter felt this was the most humane way to control the feral cat population and safely deflate their existence without dealing with the population blooms that euthanasia caused.

"What about kittens?" -- Kittens from these colonies were brought into the shelter, socialized, and fostered out until they could be adopted. Some of these semi-feral kittens needed special homes to be adopted into, but this was the best quality of life for these cats.

"What about cats that get missed during TNR?" -- We would return to the colony several times over a period of several years to perform TNR on the same colony. We mark cats that have been neutered by clipping their ear (this is done humanely, but is the most reliable way to tell if a cat has been neutered so the poor thing doesn't have to have surgery 3-4 times in their life). Also, during the TNR process the cats would be vaccinated to ensure disease did not spread from the colony (i.e. rabies). Still, even getting 60% of the colony TNR'd would dramatically reduce the number of kittens being added to the colony each year. This controlled the population by allowing the territory to naturally deflate in size over time, buying us time to address the larger feral cat problem.

"What if the colony was in an unsafe location?" -- There were two ways we addressed unsafe colony locations -- remember, we know that when the colony is removed, a new colony will move into its place, so we tried not to move the colony unless we really felt the cats or the public was unsafe -- one was to move the whole colony to a new location. Preferably someplace like a warehouse where we have an agreement with the owners of the warehouse. Some of the cats were even relocated to shelter grounds as our community cats. If the colony was small enough we would bring them into our Feral Cats room and adopt them out as community cats.

"What is a community cat?" -- The way the program worked, was that anyone who needed a working cat could apply to the program. These were often rural farmers or businesses with warehouses that needed rodent protection. We trained the farmers and businesses on how to acclimatize the cats to their new home, and as part of the agreement, they had to care for the cats (veterinary care, vaccinations, food and water). This gave businesses and farms an alternative to expensive and environmentally unfriendly rodent control, and also gave these feral cats good places to live out their natural lives.

"Can't you just adopt out feral cats?" -- No. Cats that have not been socialized around humans as kittens, or who have several generations of feral cat in them could not interact with humans in a way that did not cause them undue stress. This was not a humane way to handle feral cats. However, when a cat was brought into the feral cat room, they would be monitored for up to a week. If the cat displayed signs of being semi-social or fully social (hanging out outside of their den, allowing staff to pet them, showing interest in staff in the room), then we would either move the cat into the adoption room or place them in foster to be socialized before adoption. Feral cats who displayed signs of being able to live full and healthy lives with human companions were NOT adopted out as community cats. We also observed this behavior during TNRs and would do the same for those cats too.

"But aren't cats bad hunters?" -- Compared to other species, cats are not the most effective form of rodent control. This is true. However, you have to understand that feral cats exist. There is no "undo" button we can push to stop them from existing. We have to deal with the problem we have right now, which is to safely and humanely decrease the number of feral cats in our communities. And yes, we do that by using cats as rodent control in the community.

"What can I do?" -- Stop saying community cats shouldn't exist. That's not helpful and doesn't solve the problem we have. Bring your cat indoors. Spay and neuter your cats. Adopt from shelters. Volunteer with a TNR team. Support TNR efforts in your community. Recognize that those of us actively dealing with the community/feral problem are trying to do what is in the best interest of our communities and the animals we love. We aren't sitting over here saying these cats should exist -- a feral cat will not have the same quality of life as one that is indoors with a family -- but we have to address the problem in practical terms. We don't have the moral high ground to just do nothing while pontificating solutions that have no basis in actuality.

And yes, it's okay to celebrate community cats. If your local farm has a couple of working cats, that means that farm is helping participate in the safe deflation of the feral cat population. Don't shame a farm or business for using community cats. We're all doing the best we can to solve the problem that we have.

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Just the fact that so many people talk about "feeling fat" and "looking fat" despite not actually being fat, betrays that it's fucking not all about health. People fear even this perceived proximity to fatness. "I feel fat today" means "I feel ugly and therefore some kind of unworthy". "I look fat in that picture" means "I appear uglier than I consider myself to officially be". Neither of them means "I feel compelled to check my cholesterol" or whatever

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perhaps some will disagree, but i think the world got worse when we changed the colour of the night

[stressed-depressed-veganess]

Wait no stop pls stop

What if we didn't make jokes and normalize microplastics like we did with our privacy & FBI/NSA agent.

What if we were actually really mad and stayed mad and screamed at these companies instead of making memes like microplastics in dirt and blood and water is funny and not horrifying.

What if instead of making them think they're just giving us new meme content and that they don't have anything to change cuz we're too apathetic about them destroying the planet... What if we talked shit and insistently called for the shutdown of every company who isn't investing in minimizing plastic use or plastic products. What if we refused to normalize and make light of it.

What if we made them realize Exactly how serious it is and that we aren't just gonna lie down and take it this time.

We don't need it. Not everything used to be in plastic.

Pls do not make this another thing that only activists are trying to stop. Don't make this another thing everyone just accepts so correcting it becomes an uphill battle.

Don't fucking do that to all of us, please.

Don't just accept this.

#not sure about not making the jokes but reblogging for the information on reducing plastic

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Pinned Post

Hello! I am Doxion, Doxi or Dox for short, and i am a queer aroace vegan/vegetarian flexitarian. I'm 25 at the time of writing and my pronouns are she/they.

while i still feel uncomfortable with eating meat, i have fallen out of vegan beliefs somewhat. However, i still believe its good to be plant based for the environment at least.

While this blog does not have a dni, i would like to kindly say fuck off to terfs, ableists, fatphobics, and nazis/neonazis.

This blog supports the right of people to choose if veganism is right for them.

This blog supports indegenous, neurodivergent, or those of non-english cultures to decide not to be vegan/be vegan in the way that makes sense to them if they feel it is right.

This blog supports people recovering from eating disorders to decide if a vegan diet is right for them or not.

This blog supports listening to those with personal issues with veganism, and being considerate where possible.

This blog supports fat people and does not support diet or weightloss culture in any way.

Thank you.

#torn leaf speaks #please dont discourse btw on this post its just a pinned post

[stressed-depressed-veganess]

carbs are my best friends actually. i love rice and pasta and potato and bread and i don’t think “evil food” exists

[stressed-depressed-veganess]

Will weight loss make you happier?

Many people believe that weight-loss will make them happier. But is this true? Let’s examine the scientific evidence.

A meta-analysis of 34 randomized and controlled weight-loss experiments revealed no benefit of weight loss for depressive symptoms or general well-being. [source]

And when studies do observe that weight loss interventions improve depressive symptoms, such improvements are independent of actual weight loss. In other words, some other aspect of the interventions – like social support, or exercise, or increased fruit and vegetable consumption – is actually responsible for the observed benefits to mood, not weight loss itself. [source] 

Most concerning of all, weight loss may even cause depression in the longer term. In one recent large-scale prospective study, healthy fat people who lost more that 5% of their body weight during a four year period experienced a nearly three-fold increase in depressive symptoms. [source]

So will weight loss make you happier? Not at all. In fact, it may just make you miserable. 

[stressed-depressed-veganess]

There are some very angry people in my notes and inbox this week. Apparently,  I am “toxic” and “evil” because I reported the results of 50 years of weight-loss research. They are mad because the research definitively and conclusively demonstrates that long-term maintenance of weight loss is virtually impossible. They also think I am “delusional” because I criticize the medical establishment for keeping this fact a secret from the general public.

The truth is that the ineffectiveness and harmful nature of intentional weight-loss is well known within the scientific and medical communities. If pressed, most doctors will affirm that their clinical experience conforms to the scientific results: Basically everyone who loses weight will go on to regain that weight within 3-5 years. In 75% of cases, they will regain more weight than they lost. 

This knowledge is why doctors became so desperate that they resorted to amputating parts of the digestive tract in the hopes that it might finally result in long-term weight-loss. Except oops, that doesn’t work either. Oh, and it causes death,  addiction, malnutrition, and suicide. Whoopsie daisy.

Diet culture is fucking toxic. And people deserve to know the truth.

[stressed-depressed-veganess]

i always hear the argument that farming is necessary because animals eat food that humans are not able to eat (grass etc.). And apart from the fact that we cut down a lot of forests to make room for that grazing, it doesn't really hold up, due to the sheer amount of animals we feed. The FAO released a graphic that was eagerly picked up by meat advocates, where they said that only about 14% of animal feed was edible to humans

the thing is, that is 14% of 6 billion tonnes. lets just take the 13% that are grains, and edible for humans.

13 % of 6.000.000.000 is 780.000.000

so 780 million tonnes of grain, edible for humans

that's 780.000.000.000 kg

depending on what grain is used (corn, oats, barley, rye), calories vary a bit, but since we're talking about dried matter, lets say 1 kg has about 3000 calories.

so we have about 2.340.000.000.000.000 calories from grains every year, that we feed to livestock (mainly in rich countries). if we assume that every person needs 2.500 calories a day and add that up to a year, how many people could we feed with those calories every year?

2.564.383.561. over 2. billion. people. obviously we would lose some of that food to waste, obviously people cannot just eat corn, rye and oats. but still. so much food.

"For every 100 calories of grain we feed animals, we get only about 40 new calories of milk, 22 calories of eggs, 12 of chicken, 10 of pork, or 3 of beef." so we are just wasting calories here

if everyone shifted to a plant based diet, we could drastically reduce land use and feed more people

not everyone can shift to a plant based diet right now. but if you live in a high income country you are generally in a very privileged position in which your lifestyle is made possible by exploiting the planetary resources (outside your countries borders) and human lives and going as plant based as you can in your diet might be the single biggest thing you can do to reduce your negative impact on planet earth and the beings who live on it.

[stressed-depressed-veganess]

When someone mentions soy we often think about foods such as tofu, soy milk, tempeh or edamame beans. This feeds into the argument that meat and dairy substitutes – such as switching from meat to high-protein tofu, or from dairy to soy milk – is in fact worse for the environment. But, only a small percentage of global soy is used for these products. More than three-quarters (77%) of soy is used as feed for livestock.

Over one-third (37%) of global soy is fed to chickens and other poultry; one-fifth to pigs; and 6% for aquaculture. Very little soy is used for beef and dairy production – only 2%. One-fifth of the world’s soy is used for direct (i.e. not from meat and dairy) human consumption. Most of this is first processed into soybean oil. Typical soy products such as tofu, soy milk, tempeh and edamame beans account for just 7% of global demand. Soy can also be used for industrial purposes. Around 4% is used for biofuels, lubricants and other industrial processes. Biodiesel alone accounts for 2.8%.

highy recommend reading the article for more detail, graphs, and sources.

#vegan #statistics #soy #food #torn leaf speaks

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6 hour workday maximum i’m not kidding, if it can’t be done in that timeframe it doesn’t need doing.

[stressed-depressed-veganess]

god i hate how normalized diet culture and shit like bmi and calories are. bmi is based on eugenics. calories are a measurement of how much energy something gives u and not at all of how much weight or fat ull gain. diets have been proven to be harmful and ultimately unhelpful in actually losing weight. fatness has been largely proven to not be inherently unhealthy and doesnt inherently cause health issues.

if anyone has more good links to add on then please do and if anyone knows more on this stuff than me then dont hesitate to correct me!

[stressed-depressed-veganess]

god i hate how normalized diet culture and shit like bmi and calories are. bmi is based on eugenics. calories are a measurement of how much energy something gives u and not at all of how much weight or fat ull gain. diets have been proven to be harmful and ultimately unhelpful in actually losing weight. fatness has been largely proven to not be inherently unhealthy and doesnt inherently cause health issues.

if anyone has more good links to add on then please do and if anyone knows more on this stuff than me then dont hesitate to correct me!