#but idk if that's sustainable. maybe i just need to buy snacks and keep them on campus for later nights | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cripplepunk-sylveon · 3 years

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Why would you need to feel guilty if you don't eat animals? i'm confused 😮 wouldn't it be a good thing if possible? I mean, since growing food for livestock is destroying the rainforest and isn't adopting a plant based diet one of the biggest things an individual can do to combat climate change?

As gently as I can manage: no, it's not that simple, and a plant-based diet as most folks think of it is not inherently better for the environment. Nothing any group of individuals from the general public can do will counteract the damage being done by big corporations.

tl;dr: A PBD is not inherently better for the environment, it highly depends on where you live and what you can/should buy, and many folks don't understand nor want to understand that. The history of food is a history of colonialism and violence and we need to address that, especially when it comes to veganism in North America and the importing of non-native foods to support it.

Full essay under the cut that I never meant to write but it sure did happen

Is it possible to go on a plant-based diet (a PBD, for future use of the term, because it will be popping up plenty here) within a localized area because it's more affordable/better for you/better for your environment? Yes. But it takes work to do so. As in, research, a willingness to buy and grow local, and an acute awareness of what the invasive species of your region are.

The unfortunate truth is that many people are unwilling or flat-out incapable of doing said research and work. They just want quick and easy access to plant-based food because they've heard somewhere that it's better and more humane than raising animals for meat/dairy/eggs. This is only possible because we live on colonized land, where we've created a massive distance between us and the origins of what we eat- and brought in non-native animal and plant species to reproduce what our colonizers eat, regardless of the impact on the land and the people. In fact, this was done very much on purpose. Native people reliant on colonial food systems are less likely to cause a ruckus, because they can just be starved out.

For an example, let's look at the Canadian North. The Inuit have hunted whales, seals, caribou, polar bear, and arctic char during the cold months in a sustainable fashion for thousands of years. Inuk people will hunt a single whale and feed their family for a year- never mind the uses for whale oil, baleen, and whale hide. They would use every part of the whale that they could find a use for, nothing was wasted. Nowadays, though... their traditional foods are called "barbaric" and "cruel", and hunting traditionally is frowned upon, while we ship fruit and vegetables that cannot be grown in permafrosted soil up to them and charge them as consumers for the cost to us. Here's a video from 2013 talking about the issue. From 2013! It's still happening now!! I would never recommend a PBD to someone living in such a situation because of both the expense and the destruction of the traditional hunting culture of the Inuit.

Before anyone tries to say I'm shitting on folks who can't eat meat- I'm really not. I get it, the lone star tick is an asshole of epic proportions, and allergies are a fuck you from the universe- I myself can't eat eggs! And they are in EVERYTHING! If we can accommodate allergies and dietary restrictions we absolutely should. I like to think there's a particularly shitty corner of the universe for people who think allergies are a joke or just someone being picky. But those are not choices. Those are required restrictions to keep the person alive and healthy.

Going vegan to "go green", on the other hand, is 100% a personal choice. Unfortunately it's also one frequently shaped by misinformation and propaganda. Vegans never really consider where their food comes from, and because the vast majority of them are city-dwellers who have access to a grocery store, they don't feel like they need to. It's not affecting them personally, so they don't care.

They should though. Many of the plants they rely on for food cause massive ecological damage, way more than growing feed for cattle, chickens, or pigs. Quinoa is farmed using child labour, and the sharp spike in price as white diners demand it- combined with the fact it's a thirsty crop that uses a lot of water that the locals also used as drinking water- kind of destroys any good it's doing by being a "superfood" (It was not a staple crop, however, and has done a little bit of good. Emphasis on a LITTLE BIT). Avocado is facing a similar situation- it was a staple food for the people growing it, now they can't afford it and they're resorting to inhumane measures to grow enough of it to meet white settler demand. (Also, if they fail to pay their cartel fees, they're very likely to have their farm burnt to the ground or worse. El Narco has their fingers in EVERYTHING, even in fruit production.) Cashews are mainly grown and processed in India, where workers suffer low pay and sweatshop conditions and caustic burns to ensure we have them to snack on. Soy products were once the main destructive force facing the Amazon rainforest, and now it's threatening the Cerrado and the millions of species that call the region home while filling local water supplies with silt and grime. There's also hundreds of reports detailing the slavery afoot at soy plantations, AND it's causing topsoil to erode faster.

No, meat and dairy as industries are not without fault. I never claimed they were. It's not hard to find things wrong with beef and dairy, and you can thank militant preachy vegans for that. You can also thank them for those horrifying ads everyone with a certain app spent their first two weeks blocking and reporting with a fervor like no other to make sure they stopped seeing them. (Or, maybe that was just me, idk what tiktok's deal is with giving me PETA and vegan propaganda videos but I'd like it to stop.) HOWEVER. The actual people producing my food, working the land to raise animals for meat and whatnot? They know what they're doing. Many of them have been studying husbandry and animal welfare since they were in middle school at the latest. I trust them to provide a good quality of life for a cow, chicken, pig, or bison that will end up on my plate one day.

Besides, they don't see me eating jerky instead of something I'm deathly allergic to and tell me a horror story about how the cow who provided it was flayed alive (yes, this has happened, more than once- it wasn't even beef jerky, it was bison from a local ranch). They just let me snack in peace and we go about both our days.

#veganism tw

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fairycosmos · 5 years

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--TW EATING D. --idk why but i keep convincing myself i dont have and ED?? like i fast for hours and then binge like crazy. there was one time i did a ''water fast'' for 6 days. i didnt eat for 6 days. no one in my family said anything but like that is fucking alarming??? no one fucking does that. i also cant recognize my body sometimes. mirrors makes me suicidal. im sorry idk what this is. i just feel totally insane. btw PLS DONT ANWSER THIS IF IT MAKES U FEEL BAD or triggered ILYSM

:(( fuck i’m sorry babe, that sounds so painful and stressful holy shit??? i can’t imagine how hard it must be for you at the moment, god. i’m honestly proud of you for dealing with it all so far. it counts for a lot that you’re still trying and that you’re still here. to me it seems like even though you go through phases of convincing yourself you don’t have an ED, you still have a caliber of self awareness and on some level, you want to be helped. that’s a genuinely good thing. hang on to that as much as you possibly can. i mean, you’re sending this ask, right? even that’s a good start. and you know it’s fucked up/dangerous not to eat for six days, you know mirrors shouldn’t make you suicidal, you know this isn’t healthy or right. you have to treat yourself the way you’d treat a friend if they were going through what you’re going through. force yourself to take on that perspective, so you don’t get trapped in the ED’s lies. even if your mind tries to convince you otherwise, try your hardest to stay grounded in the facts of reality: you’re in a very unhealthy place right now, you’re doing serious damage to your body and you can’t trust your brain when it tells you not to eat, or that you’re gross, or whatever kind of bullshit it spews at you. it is actively trying to sabotage you. it wants you to feel depressed and alone because that makes you easier to control. you don’t have to fully buy into it. you are stronger than you will ever fully realize. i’m not saying you have to suddenly start eating normally again, obviously. i’m not saying you have to have everything figured out - it’s ok not to know what to do. i get that ED’s and logic don’t go together very well. but it’s about making small, positive changes, right? eating half a snack. disconnecting your worth from your body in your head. and above all, reaching out. making the active choice to put a stop to this before it’s too late. it’s in your control, not the eating disorder’s, but yours.

and listen i’m really fuckin pissed off and kind of appalled that your family didn’t notice that you didn’t eat for so long. that’s insane. and you deserve so, so much more than that. your ED will probably use it as an excuse - if no one noticed, you can continue, right? if no one cares, why should you, right? but that’s just another form of toxic thinking that is going to kill you in the end. i don’t know why your family is so oblivious to your struggles, but it’s not a reflection of you or because of anything you did. it’s not your fault. and it doesn’t mean you’re allowed to deny yourself the help that that you very clearly need. are you still in school? if you are, i think it’d be a really good idea to talk to a teacher or the counselor about what’s going on. if that’s not an option, maybe call a hotline or look into mental health resources in your community, such as support groups. (there has to be something, there will be, if you seek it out.) or go to your regular doctor and let them know that you need help, even if you have to tell someone in your family first in order to do that. fucking scream it at them if you have to. you don’t have to be quiet about this anymore, you don’t have to accept what you’re doing to yourself. i know you don’t want to talk. i know every part of you is rejecting this idea. but i’m trying to be straight up, and i’m trying to stop you from doing any more serious harm to yourself. it’s over. you don’t want to live like this anymore, and you don’t have to. but the way to achieve that is by seeking the professional guidance that you need. going to long term counseling/therapy, learning simple coping mechanisms and thinking patterns, developing a care plan to make sure you’re getting the nutrients you need even when it feels like the most impossible thing in the universe. all of those things will let you breathe again. no matter how scary they are at first. the bottom line is this: you don’t deserve to live a life that is controlled by food and anxiety and self consciousness. there is so much more to you, and to the world, than that. i promise, you don’t have to hurt yourself physically to show that you’re hurting emotionally. you can communicate instead, and it will be okay. you’re not alone, i swear. so many people have been where you are at the moment, so many people have felt what you’re feeling. you don’t have to act like your only otpion is fighting this by yourself, alright? your family isn’t your only option. seriously. this isn’t a sustainable way of life, man. it’s going to end one way or another - you might as well make the right choice and put your mental health first for once. please, please consider it for now. even just calling a hotline anonymously will give you some sort of idea of what to do to help yourself in the future. you’re not going to regret opening up to people, especially professionals, but you WILL regret hurting yourself to such an extreme extent if you don’t at least try to stop. it’s alright for it to take a lot of time and energy. it’s supposed to a be a process. and you’re allowed to feel however you want to about it - angry, scared, sad, exhausted. register all of, let it wash over you. and do your best to cope in a healthy way. as long as you don’t let these temporary thoughts/emotions control whether or not you talk to someone. you know logically what you need to do. please attempt to do it when you’re ready. i’m rooting for you so much. i know you’re capable. i believe in you and your ability to get through this with all of my heart and soul :( i hope you’re okay. sending my love. if you want to talk more about it, or if you need a friend, please message me anytime. i’m always here.

https://www.verywellmind.com/things-to-stop-if-you-have-an-eating-disorder-1138275

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/eating-disorders/eating-disorder-treatment-and-recovery.htm

https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/recovery/self-help-tools-skills-tips/overcome-negative-thinking

#tw eating disorder #tw anorexia #tw starving #anon

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