Vegan

Been a Vegan for multiple decades & recently noticed that foods' labels are now saying-
May contain Milk &/Or Etc.

Like they cannot possible know! Obvious sarcasm.

Before I noticed, the now establish- Made in facilities that make Milk &/Or Etc.

How BLANKED-UP that is that governments allow this. Of course does not surprise me, so many horrible or no regulating going on, especially picked-up lately. Example- way, way & way too small writing of what is in stuff & in scientific terms, instead of just plain terms.

Lately my elderly & not perfect eyes roommates could not find our regular Vegan for sure foods & proudly label as such & bought another brands' foods that had this labelling, not where ingredients listed & tiny writing (by the way, I have awesome eyes sight). So I just do not eat the foods, they do (& I leave it for them).

In most U.S. prisons, inmates cannot legally obtain plant-based food - even if they offer to pay for it themselves.

Yet I find it disturbing when I buy something that contains astonishing animal products.

E.g. I bought some truffle mayonaise. I expect it to contain eggs, but not fish. Indeed, after getting home and reading the fine print, it said anchovies were used. WTF.

Ramen noodles are also a game of chance. Big Chinese writing, a pic of veg on noodles, then the very fine print often buries the use of sea creatures. I spend a lot of time reading a huge list of ingredients (without a magnifying glass) in attempt to be diligent... and I still get burnt.

The injustice of accidentally buying veg that someone expects to be meat is far less of an injustice than the inverse of that. Yet the EU is fixated on regulating veg suppliers.

Host David Roberts speaks to Bruce Friedrich about how fake meat, plant based or lab grown, can reduce our land use substantially, reduce emissions substantially, and end or reduce the cruelty of animal agriculture. Notably, Friedrich contends that fake meats could end up on a learning curve to bring down the price of these meat alternatives to be cheaper than the real stuff. Much in the same way that we got better at making solar panels and flat screen TVs to the point where those items are magnitudes cheaper than they were just 10 years ago.

Friedrich, a vegan himself, chooses to lump plant based imitations together with the more controversial (but possibly more marketable) lab grown animal tissues for purposes of conversation, particularly when it comes to the economics.

Note, this is primarily an environmental tech podcast. And while the host, David Roberts, wishes he had it in him to go vegan, he has had to settle for reducitarian as he, like many, is weak. Much of the conversation is through the environmental lense, but the content is still valuable to this community.

I like this website a lot, they also have an active tumblr presence.

Maybe someone else will find it useful, I didn't see it posted in this c/ yet :)

• El PEPP Framework propone principios éticos y legales para investigar la comunicación animal, ante riesgos que van desde el estrés hasta la manipulación de las especies.
• El proyecto surge de académicos de la Universidad de Nueva York, quienes identificaron una brecha regulatoria frente al uso de tecnologías como IA, robótica o bioacústica.
• El marco plantea proteger la autonomía animal, prevenir daños y asegurar la participación de comunidades locales e indígenas.
• Por el momento, la adhesión es voluntaria, pero se espera que así se inicie un tránsito hacia la creación de regulaciones vinculantes.

Researchers have proposed a new ethical framework to regulate emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, used to decode animal communication, Ana Cristina Alvarado reports for Mongabay Latam.

The proposed guidelines, known as the PEPP Framework, which stands for Prepare, Engage, Prevent and Protect, lay out the principles for studying animal communication responsibly. Scientists at the More than Human Life Program (MOTH) at New York University and the Cetacean Translation Initiative (CETI) warn that poorly regulated research can cause harm to animals.

“Even routine recording and playback can cause stress in animals,” CETI founder David Gruber told Alvarado by email.

In one documented case, researchers studying elephant communication played a recorded call from an individual that had already died, causing significant distress to the elephants that heard its call. The elephant family went wild calling and looking around for their dead relative. The dead elephant’s daughter called for days afterward.

That's a great way to at least get more people to give it a try