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/

One popular answer is that sometimes people just experience things that they find scientific answers to not be able to answer adequately. We as a species are still far from knowing everything.

I’m a spiritually-inclined person. Also think it’s totally legit to be atheist. You’d think that actively wanting diversity of belief would be reasonable, but evidently a lot of people just want uniformity and cultural erasure.

I can respect that you mean well, but there’s a lot of issues with your comment, which I’ll get into.

Haven’t really seen it mentioned here, but for those who don’t know, the male chicks are not used for chicken nuggets, but primarily for pet food or plant fertilizer. Also not every country does this practice.

The first problem here is that you’re still treating chicks like they’re commodities. What their carcasses are used for is irrelevant, because we’re never going to continue progressing morally until we can learn to see these beings - who think, feel, and have their own qualia - as someone, not something. We can discuss side issues all day, everyday, like the environment, health, and pandemic potential. But we also have to stop being afraid to recognize this as a matter of justice.

Not only that, but eliminating eggs from the human global diet would be unfeasible. This is because eggs are the best source of protein, with only whey protein coming second.

Protein is not the only nutrient that matters, and it’s generally effortlessly easy to get all the protein you need on plants alone. The view that people can’t get enough protein on plants is such a thoroughly debunked myth that it’s embarrassing that vegans have to dispell this nonsense in virtually every discussion still.

They are also the only food with such a high protein content that also contains all essential nutrients.

This is a dangerously bad take. In the first place, eggs do not contain all essential nutrients. Eggs either completely lack some essential vitamins and minerals, or have them in such low quantities that you would have to eat an insane amount of eggs to meet your daily needs. Just as importantly is that the nutrients are a package deal - eggs contain almost as much fat as they do protein, and are so high in cholesterol and saturated fats that the more you eat, the faster you are on your way to a heart attack, stroke, and/or erectile dysfunction.

And before someone posts “but da beans!” - no, they’re not on the same level. Although beans are a good source of protein, they’re neither complete

Protein “incompleteness” in plants is so misunderstood that it’s effectively an outright myth. Virtually all plants have all 9 of the amino acids that are essential for humans. Where the incompleteness comes in is that human muscle tissue is composed of amino acids in a particular ratio. If we don’t have enough of even one of those aminos in our diet, our bodies can’t synthesize new muscle. For this reason it was believed that the closer a food matches the amino acid ratios in our muscles, the better that food is for gaining muscle. Obviously this way of thinking supports the idea of consuming other being’s muscle tissue since that’s naturally going to be the closest to our own (and yes that kind of thinking implies that cannibalism provides the “best” protein).

But that line of thinking breaks down under scrutiny. For starters, there are thousands of chemicals our bodies make that require amino acids, why are they not a factor in discussing “protein quality”? Second, a food being really high in protein is not necessarily a good thing. There’s growing evidence that animal proteins themselves may be harmful for health and longevity.

https://www.pcrm.org/news/health-nutrition/plant-based-protein-lowers-risk-premature-death-heart-disease-dementia

Anyway, I really want to drive home the point that the protein incompleteness thing is damn near a nonissue. If you’re a person who is strength training on a vegan diet, yes, you will make your life easier by diversifying your protein sources. But for the average person, the low amount of methionine in beans can easily be overcome by either simply eating some grains from time to time (or daily, grains are fucking great), or the person could eat 4 servings of beans in a day to get their rda of methionine (and all other essential amino acids).

nor are they actually as high as they seem, because the protein they have isn’t as bioavailable as that of eggs (speaking of, this is why there’s certain practices in vegan diets to gain more nutrients, such as eating leafy greens with an acid to get more iron or soaking pecans to remove the pyric acid in them to absorb the minerals they have better).

Food synergies are important for everyone, not just vegans. If for example you’re trying to get the antioxidant and antiinflammatory benefits of eating berries, obviously you would rather increase those benefits by getting the synergies that come from eating a mix of berries, as opposed to mixing those berries with milk or bananas which are known to reduce or cancel out the berries beneficial effects.

Anyway, I’ll finish my protein rant with a link to a YouTube video on the subject, from a real nutritional scientist who specializes in the subject. Tl;dw? The bottom line is that it’s not only possible, but easy to get all the protein we need on plants alone. Carnists seriously need to just drop the whole protein thing because y’all just do not have a case in your favor here.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DMwf_9wqWY0&pp=ygUqZXZlcnl0aGluZyB5b3Uga25vdyBhYm91dCBwcm90ZWluIGlzIHdyb25n

Removing eggs from the world diet would actually lead to more ecological harm, even without more ethical chicken rearing practices becoming wider spread, because the amount of farm land needed to ensure proper nutrition for everyone with a mixed vegetable diet would be significantly higher than ensuring there’s just enough eggs for everyone.

I’m not going to get into this one because other commenters have already done so. But no, that’s preposterous on the face of it. Any animal agriculture is fundamentally going to take more land and resources to produce food because those animals need to be raised on plants, so why not raise the plants for ourselves directly? And before anyone chimes in about the suitability of land for agriculture, maybe take some time to learn more about things like Permaculture and regenerative ag. If a person can grow a small food forest on an abandoned parking lot with 12 inches of manure in the midwest, or Geoff Lawton can re-green the desert, it warrants investigating just how many places we can make abundant. Anyway, Cowspiracy is a good documentary to learn more about animal ag land use.

You don’t like baby chicks getting ground up? Don’t own carnivorous pets, and buy from more ethical egg farmers.

No, the purchasing and consumption of eggs is what drives chick culling. They do it because male chicks are considered a waste product of that industry, and any commodities sold from it likely grew out of a way to recoup costs. If you want to end chick culling, the best way to do it is go vegan.

Or if you can, honestly just get your own chicken or 2. You’ll have enough eggs with even a single chicken to be honest. Hens don’t need much space, males can be eaten once their 4am crowing drives you crazy - although they do keep the hens happy.

From a practical standpoint, raising your own chickens puts you at risk of getting h5n1. The more time goes by, the more that risk increases. From a moral standpoint, you might be causing less suffering to chickens this way, but you’d still be causing suffering as well as being an exploiter of that animal. Chickens have been unnaturally bred to produce way more eggs than their bodies can handle. Not only is this prodigious amount of egg laying an uncomfortable experience for them, it generally leads to nutrient deficiencies that end up causing their bones to break under their own weight. They can regain that lost nutrition by consuming their own eggs, which is something they sometimes naturally do.

As an alternative, consider either supporting an existing animal sanctuary, or start your own. As a bonus, you could use their manure to help grow a garden. Veganic agriculture can involve animals, as long as those animals are free-living, safe, comfortable, and they’re not being exploited.

If you can afford it or don’t have very particular diet restrictions, go vegan - you probably don’t need as much protein as you think.

But up there you just said… oh nevermind. 🤔 Yes, go vegan. Also, in most places it’s less expensive to be vegan, especially when you factor in the cost of healthcare.

I used to be vegan until kidney failure, and now with a transplant am back to mostly vegetarian (at least for now until I can go back to being fully vegan). I also used to raise animals for food and farm because I came from a poor family initially. If you don’t care, then just consider eating less meat and eggs will ya? Too much ain’t good for your health either. Plus it’ll taste better if you don’t eat it every day. A weekend bbq is way more special when you haven’t had meat the prior everyday.

A weekend bbq is a lot more special when it becomes fully uncoupled from the guilt of living on the commodification, exploitation, suffering, and atrocities of other sentient beings. Reducitarianism might be gaining traction, but it really hasn’t led to any appreciable results. Experts in fields like health coaching all insist that the most effective way to adhere to a more ethical diet and lifestyle is to go all in. If you mess up, that’s okay, just forgive yourself and try again. It’s absolutely worth it.

Here’s one that emphasizes health.

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

There is a vegan keto, and at least one study has found it to not have the same harms that other variants of keto has. The problem there is that it’s an extremely restrictive diet, so good luck to anyone trying to stick to that.

Aside from the one legitimate use it has - alleviating seizure symptoms - keto is just plain a diet that makes no sense for humans whatsoever.

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.

What is it?

Umm, yes you are.

Sounds well reasoned.

Or, more memes. 🙃

It’s a sample size issue. What percentage of people make the effort to get swole? It’s maybe (maybe not) a similar figure to how many vegans bother to get strong. Now what percentage of all people are vegan? Estimates range from 1% to 10%, with 3-5% being probably the most reasonable estimate.

But you’re the one making the claim without backing it up. Vegans can get all the protein they need, even when strength training. And the best part is we do it without the heart disease, cancer risk, and autoimmune diseases.

Veggie Burger.

Easy to point the finger at everyone doing this, but every person who continues buying and consuming animal products are still most primarily to blame for this situation.

If this does become a new pandemic, we might be talking about an unprecedented ~50% of the human population killed. A real life Thanos event. Thanks omnivores.

Was this written by a vegan?

Why are the animal’s choices never considered in this equation? Freedom is something the west places a high value on, but it’s generally agreed that freedom should never go so far as to harm others, yet your “freedom” to choose what to eat is resulting in a horrifying sort of perpetual holocaust.

Why is your fleeting sensory pleasure (something that can be had just as easily from plants) more important than the entire lives and wellbeing of all the animals you paid to have killed?

“No ethical consumption under capitalism” says nothing about the abstaining from consumption.

https://animalclock.org/

If someone is being a bigot, should they not be shamed for it? Why should I feel like I have to tip-toe around animal abusers? You’re the one doing the wrong thing. Would you adopt a vegan lifestyle if I presented my message in the way you approved of?

That’s definitely untrue. Carnists never shut up about bacon.

If I use a technique that you approve of, will you stop abusing animals?

I remember reading about why greenhouse gas emissions are such a hot topic in environmentalism. The author showed how a lot of the other important environmental degredations we need to fix all interrelate right back to ghgs. Tackling emissions is a nexus problem - solving it simultaneously solves a lot of other environmental problems.

Veganism is similar. In the first place, we are never going to meet climate goals without also becoming significantly more plant-centric, since the animal ag industry is one of the single largest climate change contributors (in addition to their other environmental harms like fecal pollution and deforestation).

https://www.surgeactivism.org/aveganworld

Going vegan also happens to be a form of fascist resistance, as the animal ag industry is one of the largest funders of conservative groups (including Democrats).

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?cycle=2024&ind=G2300

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?cycle=2024&ind=A04

Going vegan is likely also one of the best choices you can make for your own health, particularly if you go the whole-food plant-based route.

https://www.redpenreviews.org/reviews/proof-is-in-the-plants/

Going vegan as a society is probably the only response that has any hope of averting an h5n1 pandemic - which could wipe out as much as half of the human population when it occurs.

https://www.surgeactivism.org/notifbutwhenbirdflu

And if worker rights and worker exploitation matters to you, then you should know that animal ag is one of the worst offenders.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sWyK389BJoI&t=915s

Going vegan solves many problems, and it’s an issue that can’t be handwaived with the line “but corporations produce 70%” — sorry. No magically ideal government is ever going to get 99% of the population to go vegan. It’s cultural, and that means individual action matters. If even one person adopts a vegan lifestyle, it’s estimated that as many as 200 fewer animals will be slaughtered per year.

Like it or not, we all have a responsibility to stop animal abuse. Doing so just so happens to help eliminate or at least alleviate a lot of other pressing problems as well.