Per the title. If an animal dies out in nature without any human involvement, shouldn’t it be considered vegan to harvest any of the useful parts from it (not nessicarily meat, think hide), since there was no human-caused suffering involved?
Similarly, is driving a car not vegan because of the roadkill issue?
Especially curious to hear a perspective from any practicing moral vegans.
Also: I am not vegan. That’s why I’m asking. I’m not planning on eating roadkill thank you. Just suggesting the existence of animal-based vegan leather.
Found RFK, Jr’s Lemmy account
Veganism isn’t a hivemind. We’re all individuals that came to similar conclusions. And we will have different opinions on the details.
Some folks will say consuming those that died naturally is a-ok. Others will argue that it incentivizes creating conditions under which animals die “naturally” to harvest them.
Personally, I’m part of the group that is probably the largest by a long shot, whose opinion is: Why are we even thinking about that?The vast majority of vegans find corpses gross, much like anything you might derive from corpses.
It also seriously does not happen often, that animals drop dead in front of you. And there’s nothing on an animal’s body that you can’t find a different alternative for. So, it really just is not a relevant question in our lives…How about using birds’ discarded feathers for decorations? Discarded seashells? Pearls from clams that died naturally?
Well, I hope you are happy with the answers you already got, because my answer is that I personally don’t care to keep these items, so I don’t have much of an opinion on it. 😎
That’s kind of the point I was trying to make up there, that I don’t have to be the arbiter of all morals, just my own morals…
But if you want to keep such trinkets and you feel like you’ve informed yourself enough to know that no harm is done to these animals, and that makes you decide that it is moral, I will gladly accept your decision.
If I learn that it does harm in some way, I would let you know, though. Not to attack you, but because I would assume that you want to do no evil. And that you don’t subscribe to thehorseshitbelief that your own ignorance of evil makes it moral.I feel like I really need to drive home that veganism is when you care, but you’re also lazy. I don’t want to have to inform myself about every supply chain for my food and every possible moral effect that my actions might have. So, I just nope the fuck out of a large chunk of that by not dealing with animal-sourced products.
Like, yeah, if a bird drops a feather in front of you, the supply chain is quite obvious and I would hope you don’t set off a trend of enough people wanting feathers in their homes for there to emerge an industry.
So, it’s almost certainly fine. But if I myself don’t actually want a feather, you can bet your ass that I will gladly stop thinking right then and there.
If these were not just random examples and rather genuine questions, then I would try to help you reason through it, but ultimately the decision is yours…
They’re not just random examples for some people though. For some indigenous peoples these items are a foundational part of their cultural practices.
Then those indigenous people need to figure out their morals. Chances are, they are embedded in a context where this is a lot easier, because they don’t have factory farming. They are part of the food network and take only as much as nature can recover.
You want me to be the arbiter of all morals? Well, there’s my take. Indigenous people hunting are not the problem. Other parts of the hivemind might have a different view on that, though, and I’m not gonna apologize for their take.
I find corspes yuck because it feels the same as cannibalism to me. I have no issues with touching human hair or fingernails, but I wouldn’t eat your arm, spleen or eye. Does this help?
Speaking for every single vegan on the whole world: If you fancy that stuff, go for it. We won’t deny you our universal seal of approval for that.
It’s true, I can’t deny that vegans approve of protecting the universe’s seals.
If you don’t like broccoli, why don’t you eat it when it’s half rotten?
You missed this part in the post:
“not necessarily meat, think hide”
This. When I was a kid, I asked this same question and it took me years to fully wrap my head around it.
The ELI5 - When we pick food, we often pick it when it’s the most fresh. We want the freshest apples, the healthiest corn. That also applies to meat. We kill animals at their peak, and harvest them for meat.
When you die, it’s because something is rotten. Lung. Heart. Cancer. Its part of aging. If some part of your body was rotten enough to kill you, that means that was circulating through the rest of your body. Say that a rabbit was killed by poison gas. Would you eat it, if technically, the poison was mostly in its lungs?
We kill animals at their peak, and harvest them for meat.
That’s not the case. There’s even different words to the meat depending on the age the animal got slaughtered. There’s no single “peak”.
What if I was the killer using the poison gas
Vegan just means causing as little animal suffering as possible. Us existing in a capitalist society causes suffering for animals. But where it is possible to avoid it, it should be avoided is what vegans want. Like if a vegan drives a car and a squirrel runs in front of the car the person does not suddenly stop being vegan
You mean it’s not Scott Pilgrim rules?
Cars and roads cause a lot of suffering for animals in general
Humans especially. I wouldn’t have to go to work if the roads all vanished
In fact, the numbers are estimated to be around 2 billion animals a year globally.
As for people
What if that person had no remorse for the squirrel?
I would think driving a car is not vegan because it’s fueled by dead dinosaurs.
Oil is not from dinos.
It was a lame attempt at humor since it’s called fossil fuel… I know oil primarily came from ancient algae and plankton that died and sank to the ocean floor.
I’m not vegan myself but I had asked a similar enough question to a vegan friend a while ago and liked his answer:
He said for him it’s 2 parts, 1 is that while the animal that died may not have been harmed by humans, the ecosystem that relies on scavenging carcasses will be hurt if humans effectively start removing their entire food source (same way we have driven species to extinction by hunting).
The 2nd part is that with humans everything with even the tiniest loop hole will get abused… Imagine that we say this is okay. Today it may be the odd naturally deceased animal, in a month it’ll start including animals “killed accidentally”, in a year it’ll be someone farming animals with some weird way of culling them so they can claim it’s still natural causes by some twisted logic… at the end of it we’d just not be able to trust any of it anyway so it’s easier to not even entertain the thought - the energy to figure it all out would be better spent on improving alternatives.
Slippery slope argument. Much more valid today then you would think. Its my primary go to to argue against deportation of immigrants for whatever reason.
Some of my friends were “freegan”. Meaning if meat or something was literally getting thrown away, or if they dumpster dived and found something that wasn’t vegan, it was fair game.
Take that as you will I guess
Really depends on which lens of veganism you view it through. I usually judge things by the economic lens, where veganism is the response to capitalism incentivising the exploitation of animals. It’s probably one of the easiest ways to think about it, but essentially it goes like “As long as you don’t pay money for exploitation, you’re fine”
So roadkill would be fine. Saving food that would be thrown out is fine. Shoplifting is fine. Served the wrong thing at the restaurant- Complain and get your money back. Second hand down jacket from a relative who would have thrown it away otherwise - gross but fine. Stealing chickens from a factory farm and eating some of their eggs- fine. Et cetera.I don’t think that sort of logical line can be applied to anything but individuals though. I still wouldn’t be buying leather from a company that claims to only use roadkill, as my money would still be a financial incentive to expand the operation.
I’ve wondered about this myself since like age 7, when our otherwise perfectly healthy horse Sissy got struck by lightning while standing under a pine tree out in the field in a storm. 😢
Living out in deer hunting country, they could have given the neighbors a shout and basically be like hey the meat’s fresh, y’all come help cut it up and stock like 10-20 freezers for free…
🤷
You probably don’t want to eat horse meat these days due to the drugs that are often given to horses, (mostly wormers). They tend to not flush out of the horses system no matter how long you wait.
Because animals that died naturally are animals
So is the point to NOT eat animals or not cause suffering?
I’m all for #2 but #1 seems arbitrary given nature.
Being vegan means not consuming animal products. The reasons are irrelevant in the definition
The reasons are not irrelevant to the question being asked though. Vegan for health reasons? Sure the question is irrelevant if you get sick from any animal products. You aren’t going to eat them. Same way celiac avoids gluten.
Vegan for ethical reasons? Then the question is very relevant. Is it ethical to have a pet cat? They are carnivores and will suffer and die on the wrong food. No pets at all would be most ethical. Are you concerned about mass farming of vegetables? If machinery is used, field mice and such are getting killed to harvest your vegan diet. Are you concerned about human trafficking of migrant workers or just farmed animals? If a bear kills a deer in your yard in Montana, eats half and fucks off, is it ethical for you to eat the rest? You had no hand in it’s death and suffering. You’ll have to do something with the carcass or you’ll have more predators in your yard. Are you only eating locally grown, in season fruits and vegetables, hand harvested by fairly paid workers?
If ethics is the reason, it’s fully legitimate to debate and figure out where your personal line is drawn. We live in an imperfect world and there’s no perfect solution.
The question asked why vegans don’t eat animals that died naturally. The reason is because vegans don’t eat animals.
Well that’s just dumb.
I think it would depend who you ask. I consider myself vegan and would have no major issue with someone using roadkill for parts. I mean, I would find it disgusting and could never myself, but if they want to and still call themselves vegan, I see no problem with it as the harm has already been done to the animal. Seems the same as harvesting bones from the forest - what’s dead is dead.
Seems the same as harvesting bones from the forest
Umm… Wut? Why are you being a bone harvester, what do you need them for??
Bone stuff, why are you asking so many questions?
Whatever I want.
If you die in the woods I will find you.
Lots of people like to use things like antlers or skulls as decorations
Witchcraft
Why don’t you eat humans if they’ve already died?
Because I’m not allowed in the morgue anymore.
You made me literally laugh out loud. Thank you
prion disease lol
I would totally try it if it was legally allowed and there wasn’t a risk of diesease from eating human flesh. 🤷♂️
And, if in a situation like the Donner Party: That’s generally what happens. They don’t kill someone just to eat 'em.
i hear children taste the best. maybe we should adopt a system of indefinitely milking mothers while eating their children like is done with cows. Double Bonus. Tastiest meat plus milk.
They have to die on their own tho. And I’m not sure it would be safe to eat unvaccinated children who died of preventable illnesses.
Because of the karma loss 🙄
They call themselves freegans
A see the issue as more about habit formation and incentives, rather than the act in isolation being a problem. Those that come to rely on animal products from roadkill will inevitably turn to more conventional methods when roadkill is not available since they have become habituated to using animal products (although this is likely worse with more regular habits like meat eating).
Additionally, if this method became widespread enough, there would be an incentive to increase the amount of roadkill (or at best, not decrease it) when in reality roadkill itself is a failure of transport design and land use.
