To the best of my knowledge—and I am not a biochemist or a neuroscientist—intracellular response to cell damage is mediated through chemical messengers. Intercellular responses to cell damage, depending on how the cellular structure of the tissue, may use direct chemical messaging (as seen in tight junctions) or transduction of a chemical signal to an electrical impulse (as seen in gap junctions, which is how most cells in a nervous system communicate).
A nervous system doesn’t so much ‘detect’ damage as it communicates the detection of damage mediated by these local cellular signals, basically saying to a larger region of the organism (or the entire organism), ‘hey, I think there might be a problem here’. This process of communication is known as nociception.
Nociception is not technically equivalent to ‘pain’, however. Pain is an experience. So while you can have a nociceptive process eliciting an aversive response from the organism to address the detected damage (and stimuli causing it), this entire process can occur without the element of consciousness required for the phenomenon of pain to occur. Likewise, there are certain neurological conditions where there is no actual tissue damage (and no nociceptive signaling) and yet the person suffers acute pain.
Again, I am not an expert on this topic so if there’s anyone out there who is more familiar with this field and feels I’ve miscast or misrepresented anything written above, speak out.
I’ve met a handful of people who always tell me “they hardly eat meat” when I tell them I’m vegan, and then unsurprisingly I never see them eat a meal that doesn’t have meat in it.
You think eating meat is unethical, you try to live an ethical life, but regularly eat meat, and don’t think that’s hypocritical? Like, how hard are you really trying to live an ethical life if you regularly eat something you know isn’t ethical?
Take a week researching charities and then start donating 90% of your disposable income to them. Think about how many lives you could save? How can you ethically go out for a dinner and movie knowing how much good that money could do for that charity?
Pass a homeless person on the street and instead of ignoring them, or giving them money and then ignoring them, try making a personal connection and hanging out with them for a few hours, maybe even form a friendship. If you’re lucky you can give them the social support to change their lives, if not you at least give them some human decency.
Not to say I do either of these things, but my point is that none of us is living a perfectly ethical life. I think it’s our duty not to do anything particularly horrendous, but when it comes to the smaller stuff (and I think eating meat qualifies here) we’re all going to choose our battles.
In my circle of high school friends, some complained about these sort of annoying people.
The complainers were generally conservatives with an axe to grind against liberals.
When they said ‘vegetarians’ or ‘vegans’ they usually meant our friend Johnny. Johnny wasn’t so bad. He never haraunged me about eating meat anyways. We mostly talk about scrabble and banjo playing.
It was a bit underhanded of me, but there is where I wanted the conversation to go…
Now if pain is an experience, as you’ve made clear. Do we think that a lobster and a human experience pain (or really anything) in a way that is equivalent? Or are we apomorphicizing when we make broad statements about the experiences of other lifeforms?
Of course this whole pain thing ignores that it is possible to kill a mammal in a way that it can’t possibly process nerve impulses in the distance they must travel before going unconscious. Not that industrial agriculture is practices with maximum effort placed on the experiences of the animals involved, I’m only arguing under ideal circumstances.
If whatever they use to get their proteins in a vegan way causes less spectacular farts than the conventional additives I could get wholeheartedly behind this.
Or perhaps you are not accounting for the fact that you say you met 100+ Vegans but they never mention they are vegan, so you knew they were vegan because…?
This is all a bit silly
There’s a big difference between telling a stranger/acquaintance about your dietary choices out of context, vs the topic coming up naturally (perhaps when sharing a meal?)
My grandmother had the same position since the 1950’s (afaik), but she called it vegetarianism. All vegans are vegetarian, but not all vegetarians are vegan. Vegetarianism is certainly a broader category in terms of diet alone, as people can have completely different sets of restrictions and be considered vegetarian. A vegan diet doesn’t include dairy, eggs, seafood(animals!), or honey and a vegetarian diet can have the same exact restrictions.
But what where I draw a distinction between veganism and vegetarianism is on the non-dietary aspects. There is a real differences for a vegan lifestyle, and you can call it a philosophical, political, scientific, or personal belief. One example, it is my understanding that vegans don’t purchase animal products such as leather shoes. I see some flexibility with vegans on wearing animal products in some situations because it would be a waste to throw away an old hat or old shoes. But the key is not to support market forces that create an industry centered around the raising and slaughter of animals.
My medieval European ancestors would have eaten peas as a staple. They have a lot of antinutrients, especially heirloom varieties. Which explains a lot how how people traditionally prepared them (stewed them for many hours), because peas are a terrible raw food. But to depend on something so highly processed as pea protein power seems a bit weird to me.
I guess I have the romantic homesteader fantasy that I could grow or raise everything complete meal myself. (I don’t grow rice because I find corn, squash, yams, peas, green beans, dry beans, and potatoes easier)
Whey is so damn cheap because if it’s not packaged and sold for human and animal consumption it basically becomes industrial waste that is a bit troublesome to dispose. Maybe if the world didn’t eat so much cheese we’d have less of it.
Veganism aside. I’d peg the appropriate price for whey to be around the energy cost of dehydrating it and shipping it. It ought to be free protein and 2 lbs should be equivalent to the costs of a liter of distilled water, anyone that charges more is making a huge profit. (I typically see $10 for 1 lb at the health food stores. It’s likely closer to 35 cents to process, package, and ship it. (rough guess from running some numbers vs distilled water which is a similar energy expenditure). Supply and demand of course lets people pay way more if it is not treated like a commodity.
I’m not making any claims as to results. I just wanted to address your assumptions that they must be hypocrites because they have to use whey-based protein.
