Check out this adorable video:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ_Sk6p8mpw

Some info about pigs:

One study carried out in Brazil, the world’s fifth-largest pork producer, found that when interviewed, all 44 participating pig farmers believed that pigs are capable of feeling pain. Participants also overwhelmingly agreed that pigs are sentient beings who can feel stress, fear and joy. Farmers additionally attributed personality traits to the pigs including stubbornness, friendliness and gluttony. Seventy-three percent of the farmers agreed that the pigs in their care are intelligent.

Among the indicators of pigs’ intellectual abilities are the ways that they interact with each other and members of other species, their ability to display emotional contagion, their natural desire to maintain a clean living space, and their ability to feel pain and suffer.

There are numerous studies that show pigs have impressive cognitive abilities. In a study carried out in 2009, for example, pigs were able to interpret a mirror image in order to find a food bowl. This demonstrated that the pigs could understand that they were seeing themselves in the mirror, and use this information to solve their problem of finding food. The ability to recognize an image of themselves, known as self-recognition, is only found in the world’s most intelligent species.

An animal displays emotional intelligence if they are able to recognize and manage their own emotions in response to another’s emotions. Numerous studies have shown that pigs can display emotions and understand the emotions of others. The ability of pigs to experience a wide range of emotions was demonstrated in a recent study where pigs reacted differently to different types of music being played. One of the things emotional intelligence also allows us to do is work together to resolve conflict. In another study carried out in 2022, it was shown that pigs can resolve conflicts within groups. The pigs demonstrated an ability to know when a conflict had taken place, and determine whether it was the aggressor or victim pig that they should approach in order to best resolve the conflict.

Animals have different ways of expressing that they are in pain, but we do definitively know that all animals are able to feel pain and suffer. In some species, signs of pain are more difficult to detect, but even those unfamiliar with pigs and their intelligence are able to recognize suffering when they hear the high-pitched squeal of a pig in pain. This is a sound heard all too often from piglets being mutilated on factory farms.

With an average lifespan of 12-18 years, pigs don’t live long enough to test their long-term memory to this extent, but they do still have an impressive long-term memory. In one study, pigs were given a box containing food with a sliding door, and the pigs were able to learn how to solve this test, and retain the memory of the solution for at least six months.

As intelligent as our furry companions[dogs] are, pigs are widely considered to be more intelligent, particularly when it comes to their problem-solving abilities. In a study published in 2020, dogs and miniature pigs were each given tasks to solve. With the more difficult tasks, pigs persisted until they solved them on their own, whereas dogs turned to humans for help.

What we do know about pigs, however, is that they can play, learn and explore. They have their own personalities, recognize emotions in others, and know their own likes and dislikes. This means that when pigs are generally compared to human children, they are estimated to have the equivalent intellectual capability to a three-year-old child.

https://sentientmedia.org/pig-intelligence/

In one study, pigs were confined to two sets of crates for varying times: one set for 4 hours, the other for just 30 minutes2. Most pigs preferred the 30-minute container over the 4-hour one when given the option to choose between the two. As a result, researchers came to two key conclusions: Pigs are capable of both time perception and decision-making based on lessons learned from prior experiences.

(Which would also imply a lack of consent to being confined, something which is done to them for the majority of their unnaturally shortened lives).

Pigs are excellent communicators, both with humans and other pigs. You may have heard about how strong pigs’ sense of smell is, such as how they can detect odors up to 25 feet underground. Their sensitive snouts, however, also enable them to interact with one another through pheromones that are jam-packed with data. Pigs also use body language to effectively communicate with humans, whose noses aren’t quite as keen. They use their nudges, tail wags, stubbornness, playfulness, and even smiles to express their feelings and desires. They can be very noisy when this doesn’t work and will employ a variety of oinks, grunts, and squeals to communicate. Researchers have identified approximately 20 unique noises used by pigs to transmit their emotions.

https://petkeen.com/are-pigs-smarter-than-dogs/

https://www.worldanimalprotection.org.uk/latest/blogs/piglets-factory-farms-day-life/

That carnism is an extremely entrenched mass psychosis or mania, and an insane amount of people need to sober the fuck up.

Lol. The funny thing is they are kind of technically right. All refined sugars have some harmful effects like blood sugar spikes and inflammation, but corn syrup only has a slightly higher ratio of fructose to glucose as table sugar does. In small, irregular doses it’s fine to consume. And for athletes it can even be beneficial since refined carbs can replenish glycogen stores rapidly.

Mainly the people who are profiting from anti-carb diet fads - Atkins, keto, paleo, carnivore, etc.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BKOQOP3G1go

If you’re blaming rising obesity on sugar, it shows you’re more susceptible to marketing than you are knowledgeable about the relevant science.

Refined sugar is generally not good, and certainly whole food sources of carbs are much more beneficial than simple sugars - however, sugar is not nearly as much of a demon as popular health influencers make it out to be. Importantly, it also needs to be kept in mind that the “standard american diet” (sad) or standard western diet is one that’s high in animal products, fat (particularly saturated fat), refined carbs; while being low in whole fruits, vegetables, and fiber and phytonutrients in general.

Walter Kempers rice diet is worth learning about. It was a terrible diet - patients could basically only eat white rice, sugar, and fruit. But despite being an absurdly high sugar and high carb diet, a lot of patients saw dramatic improvements in their health, particularly when it came to things like obesity and type 2 diabetes reversal.

https://www.drmcdougall.com/education/information-all/walter-kempner-md-founder-of-the-rice-diet/

Looking forward to getting a Pinetime. It might not be polished, but community support never truly ends.

Here’s one that emphasizes health.

https://annas-archive.org/md5/9fb9b2b1d763d1030d56c4161e2541d6

What I’ve been finding so far about lemmy is that if I post something vegan that puts all the blame on corporations, the upvotes come rolling in. But anything else is either closer to a 1:1 ratio, or downvote abyss.

Veggie Burger.

Was this written by a vegan?

Every person still buying and consuming animal products paid for this.

I do think the name itself is problematic. To anyone unfamiliar to the ideas, the word hints at something to do with vegetables, and yes that currently plays a role, but it’s not the point. It’s more of an animal rights milieu, and plants are only relevant at this point in time because it’s the least harmful way humans can sustain themselves for now. But that ignores that animal rights go far beyond diet, and that fact tends to get lost during any outreach since all most people are thinking about is the foods they dread to give up.

Only replying to your last point, and on that I only have to say that perfection is the enemy of greatness. The vegan philosophy is about doing the best we can, within practical limits. I can’t stop myself from breathing or my mere existence causing harm to beings I can’t even see, but doing more feasible actions like abstaining from animal consumption and electing not to purchase or use other animal products has substantial benefits that are felt.

Here are more details (and more context is in the article):

"Someone had tipped off the foundation on something that disqualified Climax, Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sarah Weiner told the Washington Post. The complaint potentially arose from Climax’s use of the ingredient kokum butter, which has not been designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Zahn told the Washington Post that the company has replaced the ingredient with cocoa butter, which was the version he said he submitted for the awards (although Weiner contests this).

The Good Food Awards also didn’t require GRAS certification for all ingredients back when contestants submitted their products — rather, the foundation added this to the rules later on. Zahn claims the Good Food Foundation never reached out to Climax to inform the company of the new requirement, although Weiner told the Washington Post it attempted to. SFGATE could not reach the Good Food Foundation for comment in time for publication.

“It would have been very easy for them to reach out to us and tell us about the new requirements,” Zahn told SFGATE. “… The thing that’s upsetting to me is that they were kind of unprofessional by changing the rules a week before the event.”"

https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/berkeley-vegan-cheese-good-food-awards-19431532.php

A baby human consuming their mother’s breast milk is vegan, because the mother is consenting to it. A cow cannot consent to being forcibly, artificially impregnated for the sake of producing milk. They don’t consent to having their horns chopped off. Nor do they consent to their children being stolen from them almost immediately after birth to be butchered for veal.

Yes plant-based cheeses are intended to mimic animal cheeses. But that doesn’t mean they have to be identical. Guilt puts a tint on the things we experience, and the way we feel can be considered a dimension of flavor. I would imagine a lot of people would argue they don’t feel guilty about consuming animals or their secretions, but that’s only because they’ve never experienced any time without that guilt. If you’re used to feeling a certain way every day, you start to forget about the feeling all together, even though it’s still effecting you in the background.

The idea with plant-based alternatives is to have all of the good properties of their animal-counterparts, and none of the bad. Cheese that’s free of the shame and guilt of causing unnecessary harm and suffering to thinking, feeling, sentient beings inherently tastes better.

The point of vegan cheese is that they most certainly do not taste like murder. 😁

I bet the people who ran these animal torture rings feel the same way.

Animals are generally killed significantly younger than their natural lifespans. The short lives they live are entirely in conditions that are comparable to history’s worst concentration camps. You’re literally living on the rotten flesh of traumatized children.

Have you ever stopped to wonder what they want?

Currently billions of animals are raised in atrocious conditions and slaughtered against their will, for food, every year. This alone should be reason enough to want it to end, but the problems don’t end there. Most of the top causes of death in industrialized nations is the result of lifestyle diseases such heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancers. The main drivers of these diseases is overconsumption of animal products. In other words eating animals is the leading cause of death in humans.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56984912-the-proof-is-in-the-plants

To make it worse, food deserts in low income areas results in disproportionately higher incidences of these diseases and causes of death for black people, indigenous people, and all persons of color.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w9ixJ3YcmZg&pp=ygUldGhleSdyZSB0cnlpbmcgdG8ga2lsbCB1cyBkb2N1bWVudGFyeQ%3D%3D

even worse, animal agriculture is one of the worst sources of environmental destruction. It is one of the top causes of climate change, the single largest cause of deforestation, and causes rampant pollution.

https://www.surgeactivism.org/aveganworld

And again, it gets even worse. Not only is it strongly arguable that consumption of animals and their products is the cause of the covid pandemic; animal ag is also the leading cause of antibiotic resistant diseases, and if it’s allowed to continue it will only be a matter of when, not if, we end up with an H5N1 pandemic - a flu that has a 50-60% death rate. This should be reason enough for governments to outright declare animal agriculture a threat to national security, and pursue strong policies to transition away from animal consumption as rapidly as possible.

https://www.surgeactivism.org/notifbutwhenbirdflu

When something is this bad, aren’t modest proposals the last thing we need?