• @MystikIncarnate
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    224 days ago

    I think you’re on the right track here, I would be hard pressed to disagree.

    The idea that reduction could hinder sometimes goals of becoming vegan is similar to any other habit or addiction. In some scenarios, reduction is the only option since cutting yourself off entirely can be fatal (methodone is one such example). In cases like smoking, going “cold turkey” can be significantly easier, since the idea is that you remove all of that item and all temptation to use it, from your life. Give yourself as few opportunities to fail as you can. You can’t pick up smoking again without going to get more cigarettes. That can be a fairly involved task to accomplish. If you have no cigarettes, you can’t not quit. In the same example context, reduction requires significant self control. Since you have the cigarettes, and nobody will stop you from having another. So it becomes entirely up to you to decide to reduce your intake. In that context, it’s easy to, instead of reducing your intake, you simply go back to your normal habits, causing your efforts to reduce/quit, to fail entirely.

    In the context of veganism, quitting by reduction still requires nontrivial willpower. It would be easy to grab a burger or pull out some other meat product to eat wherever you feel like it, and it can actively harm any efforts to be more vegan. Going the “cold turkey” route, you’ll have a few weeks of discomfort and cravings, but as long as you stick to it, within a month, you should not have those cravings (at least, not nearly as severe), anymore.

    It’s easy to mentally justify that it’s “just this once” or “I’ll do better tomorrow” when you’re deciding on a food option. However, if you go with an absolute disconnect of “if it has meat, say no” kind of thing, it would be harder to back slide into old habits.

    I dunno. I’m just saying words. Everyone is different. We should respect other people’s choices, whether that’s for veganism or not. It’s not like meat eaters are going around in their off time trapping chickens in closets for fun or anything. 90% either don’t know, don’t want to know, don’t care, or don’t feel like they can do anything about the factory farms. If they were informed, they would probably disagree with what’s happening, but ultimately not feel any personal responsibility to take further action. They’re not committing those kinds of atrocities, so it’s not them doing the bad thing.

    I know most vegans disagree with that mindset.

    I dunno.

    Anyone have some jerky?