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
Currently being vegan or vegetarian is a choice of privilege. An healthy and varied diet becomes more difficult and expensive, when you start removing dishes from your pallet.
So it becomes coupled with a status symbol, instead of being the default way. As long as people call themselves “vegan” or “vegetarian” because of their choice (people being vegan or vegetarian because of mental or medical issues, is different case), they highlight that status over “normal” people.
Creating societal change, to make vegan or vegetarian the default position, will also lessen their status. So they have incentives to not produce a political or societal change.
Vegans & vegetarians should go on protests and lobby to make vegan food cheaper and easier than meat, so that it becomes the default. If they don’t do that, and still call themselves vegan/vegetarian then that means it is all about showing their status, and people don’t like that.
Consumer choice is a privilege and not about creating a effective societal/political movement.
Most poor people can’t afford meat so this is just an USA point of view
During (and after) COVID I did, however, use some vegan tricks to make my food budget go farther. Specifically, using tvp to stretch out the amount of ground beef I needed to buy. I buy medium ground beef and use about half as much as I would usually use, then I add in tvp which absorbs the fat from the ground beef and takes on its flavour. This works especially well for any dish requiring ground beef in a sauce. Disclaimer: tvp is made from soy.
Oooh that sounds like a good idea! I’ve been noticing how much meat is taking a bite out of my food budget and trying to play with ways to stretch it a bit more until the kids are in school and my wife can start working.