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Welcome to the Vegan Theory Club Weekly Megathread!

Question of the week:

What’s a tip you’d give to someone transitioning to veganism?

Feel free to talk about anything, whether it’s vegan-related or not. This is a chill space for connecting, sharing ideas, and supporting each other.

Looking forward to hearing what everyone’s up to!

We abide by the Anarchist Code of Conduct

Vegan Home Cooks Discord

Vegan Theory Club Discord

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Well, here it is!

A few days ago, I made a post appealing for information relating to animal product usage in the music instrument industry. Historically, musical instruments have used animal products. Typically, drumheads were made of animal skin, piano keys of ivory, and violin bows of horsehair. A lot of these processes have been phased out (most drums use Mylar for their skins now, and ivory was banned for pianos in the 80s.)

Here are some patterns I've noticed while creating this sheet:

  1. Drums and harmonicas are the "most vegan" instruments
  2. Acoustic pianos are much more likely to use wool than electric pianos
  3. The violin industry is the worst for animal products. Most violin manufacturers still use bows with horsehair.
  4. Manufacturers specialising in introductory/student products, such as Sigma and Franz Hoffmann, tend to use animal-derived materials rather than synthetic ones.
  5. Actual saxophones are vegan, but a lot of manufacturers use genuine leather straps. All companies that use leather for their straps have been labelled as orange. Trumpets, flugel horns, tubas, and trombones are seemingly okay regardless of manufacturer. Some flutes used to use ivory but again, this practice was banned in 1989.
  6. I discovered that clarinets tend to use goat skin for their pads. Unfortunately, I could not find any information on exactly which companies use animal skin for their clarinets. Sorry.

Another thing I've noticed is that information relating to this topic is EXTREMELY muddy. I would often find a source claiming that a manufacturer did not use animal products only to double check their information pages and see that they use wool. I would find sources claiming a manufacturer isn't vegan only to check their information pages and see that they seemingly use no animal products. For this reason, I cannot guarantee that the information in the spreadsheet is 100% accurate, but this is the closest to accuracy I have been able to get to.

This sheet compiles the top manufacturers in each category of instrument. If anyone has any other manufacturers they'd like me to investigate, please just say so in the comments.

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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by ambiguous_yelp@vegantheoryclub.org to c/vegan@vegantheoryclub.org

A couple of months ago I managed to convince a new friend to go vegan and I was 4y vegan at the time. A couple weeks in they asked me a question out of the blue "hey are pens vegan" and my first thought was well I suppose they could maybe be tested on animals, after all you don't want an ink that would hurt you if you get it on your skin, but what I found was even more disturbing, inks and dyes of many colours can come from various animal sources from crushed insects (cochineal) to bone char in black ink https://veganfoundry.com/is-ink-vegan/ and from weirder sources like snails octopi and cow urine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_dye

Little did I know at the time this would send me down a rabbit hole where I soon learned one by one that papers and cardboard (including toilet paper) use animal flesh as a binding agent https://veganfoundry.com/is-paper-vegan/ https://veganoga.com/is-paper-vegan/ https://www.perfectpapercompany.co.uk/blogs/news/vegan-papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sizing that inks and dyes of all kinds not just pens but printers tattoos ink and hair dyes can contain animal products

So at this point I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, I had this suspicion that due to the relatively niche nature of this information are the vegan certifying orgs even checking product packaging? So I contacted the vegan society by email: " A product's packaging does fall out of the scope of the Vegan Trademark’s standards as there are very few verified options that are widely available. We would however question and potentially reject a registration that goes on to use packaging which is directly sourced from animals." huh? the vegan society probably one of the most outspoken advocates of the rights of vegans is essentially misleading vegans into buying things they think are free from animal products but in reality due to the prevalence of animal based inks papers and glues many vegans may be unwittingly buying animal products that have the Vegan Society stamp of approval, so I tried the vegetarian society: "Our vegetarian and vegan trademark criteria look exclusively at a product’s consumable/usable ingredients and their suitability for vegetarians and vegans. They do not extend to a product’s packaging." then I tried v-label and their response is written out in full in the attached image, if anyone would like the full email transcripts I will post my contact at the end.

Now I'm feeling sad that society has reduced animals lives to worth less than the printing on a box of packaging or literally less than toilet paper we wipe our ass with, I'm feeling angry at the psychopaths that made these manufacturing decisions to save a couple cents on some random box or spaghetti, and I feel betrayed by the vegan society who up until this point I really looked up to as a relentless advocate for animals.

But wait a minute, did I just say glue? Isn't glue in basically everything? If I want to buy a new hairbrush how do I know its using vegan glue? I suppose I could email the companies, so that's what I started doing, to this date I have emailed, phoned or otherwise contacted over 100 companies trying to get to the bottom of animal product use thus far seemingly largely ignored by vegans, because that's the other thing, if you search for posts relating to ie vegan toilet paper or where to find information about vegan packaging there is shockingly little information about this online which is part of why I'm making this post to collate my findings.

So I start emailing these companies one of the first companies I contact is Huel who respond positively they say yes our packaging is vegan we are a 100% vegan product. I continue to contact many companies most of whom either ghost or refuse to investigate saying boilerplate responses like "we don't have the certification/we can't confirm with our supply chain/customer service doesn't have that information" but I do get some early postive responses from Greggs, BarryM, Seagate, Warburtons, Oatly, littlesoapcompany.co.uk, LUSH, Linda McCartney, and to this day that is the exhaustive list of companies that have verbally guaranteed the vegan status of their entire product line's packaging (Please note time of writing is 2024 this information may be outdated if you are reading in later years), other companies were able to provide a guarantee for specific products when they asked me to specify a product.

In one case I escalated to phoning the physical head office of a grocery story company I think it was ALDI (UK) and they advised me to restate my question to customer services but give them an exact product, and I'm like what you expect me to give you a list of your own products when you know I'm asking about everything, 90% of ALDI's products are owned by the company but it turns out their manufacturing is actually contracted to many smaller companies to whom ALDI would have to contact individually to find out about the packaging material. OK fair enough, so I continue to phone ALDI customer service until they eventually say "if it says vegan on the product then the packaging is vegan too" that remains to date my biggest win.

At some point during this process I also learned that plastics contain stearic acid as a slip agent which can be derived from vegetable fats but is instead often derived from "tallow" (flesh) https://veganfoundry.com/is-plastic-vegan/ https://www.pishrochem.com/blog/en/stearic-acid-and-the-plastic-industry/ or as a plasticity agent like this one used in PVC https://bisleyinternational.com/how-is-calcium-stearate-used-in-pvc/ (honestly theres so many plastic additives it wouldn't surprise me if there were more derived from animals)

I would soon learn from correspondence with PZ Cussons and their brand Carex - an ostensibly vegan friendly brand when you look at the sheer number of their soap products certified by the vegan society - that the process of using tallow in plastic packaging production is "common unfortunately, throughout the industry" for a diverse range of plastics PP, PE and MDO.

So I continued getting red-pilled, I learned tyres can be non vegan for the same reason, wallpaper, wood veneer, ceramics (they can use bones https://www.ethicalglobe.com/blog/what-is-vegan-pottery) and then I started bringing it up to online vegan friends and I was surprised to learn that few if any were aware of this, which is why I've taken to borrowing Humane Hancock's term "Vegan Blindspot" (originally in reference to the problem of wild suffering)

My goal's for this post are 3

  1. Raise awareness to the utterly entrenched nature of animal products in our society (how many times have vegans unwittingly commodified animal flesh by using plastics or glues or paper?)
  2. Encourage vegans to follow me in contacting customer support teams to demand action so that the notion of non vegan toilet paper etc can be a thing of the past and to that end:
  3. Begin a conversation about how best to share our findings (perhaps ultimately in pursuit of a community operated database split by world regions), I have contacted doublecheckvegan and plantbasednews with this information and offers to provide my email records neither have replied

I don't use lemmy very often in fact I made this account just to post this but I will check in to the state of this post for a while and if I don't respond here I will create a simplex address you can contact me through (simplex is the most private secure and anonymous open source messenger that I'm aware of better than briar and cwtch and session and matrix)

I will end by posting the only FAQ page I have ever seen confirming the vegan status of a product lines packaging as well as product: https://support.whogivesacrap.org/hc/en-au/articles/11902182808217-Are-your-products-vegan

edit: related cool and good news: the first cardboard packaging company to be officially certified by the vegan society https://www.smurfitkappa.com/uk/products-and-services/packaging/vegan-certified-packaging the first book to be certified by the vegan society ie that the paper adhesives and inks are vegan: https://www.vegansociety.com/news/news/vegan-trademark-registers-book-materials-world-first

edit 2: idea for a preliminary community vegan product status database: member submitted posts on a moderated simplex room containing a list of what they've found to be vegan so far and then an attached zip file for email proof or whatever other proof

edit 3: useful list of items and materials that may not be vegan including items I didn't talk about above: Reference: plastic is not always vegan https://veganfoundry.com/is-plastic-vegan/ ; https://www.pishrochem.com/blog/en/stearic-acid-and-the-plastic-industry/ ; https://bisleyinternational.com/how-is-calcium-stearate-used-in-pvc/ paper is not always vegan https://veganfoundry.com/is-paper-vegan/ ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sizing inks/dyes are not always vegan https://veganfoundry.com/is-ink-vegan/ ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_dye glues are not always vegan https://bitesizevegan.org/is-glue-made-from-horses-vegan-glue/ Ceramics/Pottery are not always vegan: https://www.oxfordclay.co.uk/blog-1/blog-post-title-one-2ess6 Tyres are not always vegan: https://veganfoundry.com/are-tyres-vegan/ Various arts and crafts tools are not always vegan like pens pencils brushes paints crayons chalk https://chompthis.com/ingredient/?id=773 https://doublecheckvegan.com/vegan-art-supplies/#veganchalk Makeup brushes are not always vegan: https://ethicalelephant.com/vegan-makeup-brushes/ Shaving brushes and razors are not always vegan: https://vegan.com/beauty/shaving/

Household Products

https://doublecheckvegan.com/guide-to-vegan-household-products/

Art Supplies

https://www.artsupplies.co.uk/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-vegan-art-supplies-for-conscious-creatives

Musical Instruments

https://vegantheoryclub.org/post/475246

Simplex Contact https://simplex.chat/contact#%2F%3Fv=2-7&smp=smp%3A%2F%2FUkMFNAXLXeAAe0beCa4w6X_zp18PwxSaSjY17BKUGXQ%3D%40smp12.simplex.im%2FADxWlMmoMmzsMG8isEJ_l_w9fnE7wh4N%23%2F%3Fv%3D1-3%26dh%3DMCowBQYDK2VuAyEAZnCpc3cQa4VLOwxhQ8TW5n8jQsspX3OeRSBxmn-F9k0%253D%26srv%3Die42b5weq7zdkghocs3mgxdjeuycheeqqmksntj57rmejagmg4eor5yd.onion

Edit 2024.11.29: Added a second source on animal products in paper

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vegan spirituality? (vegantheoryclub.org)

hi all - this might be a dumb question, so forgive me, but are any of you vegan because of your spiritual beliefs? or, alternatively, i guess a broader and more interesting question might be how do your spiritual beliefs (if any) interact with and inform your veganism?

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Check it out, it's called Foodchoices https://foodchoices.app/

Basically it has information relevant to all the common reasons people give as to why they don't want to go vegan, along with sources.

It's very simple.

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Welcome to the Vegan Theory Club Weekly Megathread!

Question of the week:

Who are your heroes in real life?

Feel free to talk about anything, whether it’s vegan-related or not. This is a chill space for connecting, sharing ideas, and supporting each other.

Looking forward to hearing what everyone’s up to!

We abide by the Anarchist Code of Conduct

Vegan Home Cooks Discord

Vegan Theory Club Discord

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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by hamid@vegantheoryclub.org to c/vegan@vegantheoryclub.org

Welcome to the Vegan Theory Club Weekly Megathread!

Question of the week:

Tell us about a personal project, hobby, side thing, activity that you've been getting into lately.

Feel free to talk about anything, whether it’s vegan-related or not. This is a chill space for connecting, sharing ideas, and supporting each other.

Looking forward to hearing what everyone’s up to!

We abide by the Anarchist Code of Conduct

Vegan Home Cooks Discord

Vegan Theory Club Discord

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submitted 3 weeks ago by phpinjected to c/vegan@vegantheoryclub.org

having to stop eating meat is fuarking hard ngl tbh

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submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by hamid@vegantheoryclub.org to c/vegan@vegantheoryclub.org

Hello,

We created a new community for pictures of and promoting being in nature! We would really appreciate if it you can subscribe from your local instance so that the posts show up in all and we can get more people to go out into nature and share with us.

Press the 🔍 search button and search !nature@vegantheoryclub.org to discover and add it to your local instances communities!

Vegan Theory Club: Nature

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Soylent alternatives (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

lookin for something like soylent that comes in closer to $1/serving. i've had huel before, too, and i'm not opposed, but i discovered i really like soylent original, i just don't like paying for it.

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submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by TherapyGary@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/vegan@vegantheoryclub.org

(Meme is not OC)

Instead of framing it as a question of morality, a matter of logical consistency, and/or an environmental concern, I've started taking an amoralist/egoist approach and simply saying:

"The thought of eating animal products is gross to me, and I don't want to participate in the killing of animals when it's easy for me to avoid"

Which is quite hard to refute, because its about how I feel/my experience. They can question why you feel that way but, if you exclusively respond with 'I statements,' they really have no room to argue. I also feel that this is more likely to persuade people without having to actively encourage them- it has the potential to open an actual dialogue

What are your thoughts? Do you have your own method?

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submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by hamid@vegantheoryclub.org to c/vegan@vegantheoryclub.org

This is in regards to all the screenshots, communities and users who engage in this behavior and not about any specific instance or community even though I cribbed this post from elsewhere.

We think its really irresponsible to host, maintain and participate these communities. we think that hosting and participating in these kinds of communities is toxic for the Fediverse and Lemmy. Anyone who has any sense would avoid Lemmy because of this kind of stuff and only douche bags want this. As soon as it is sniffed by people posting in good faith they are out of here and I don’t blame them.

If you are a user on Vegan Theory Club, please do not participate in these communities. If you are an admin of a server we implore you to please reevaluate hosting them. This goes for all of them if I agree with them ideologically or not. This isn’t Reddit with millions of people and venture capital (and now stock market cash) to forever grow, this is small human scale social media that can only grow by being enjoyable. Instead of promoting the block button these communities are killing this platform and you’re just going to be left with a group of hateful losers circle-jerking to themselves forever until we run out of our personal money for it.

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Welcome to the Vegan Theory Club Weekly Megathread!

Question of the week:

What's one small habit that makes vegan living easier?

Feel free to talk about anything, whether it’s vegan-related or not. This is a chill space for connecting, sharing ideas, and supporting each other.

Looking forward to hearing what everyone’s up to!

We abide by the Anarchist Code of Conduct

Vegan Home Cooks Discord

Vegan Theory Club Discord

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Deleted (vegantheoryclub.org)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by vtctechadmin@vegantheoryclub.org to c/vegan@vegantheoryclub.org
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best friends (vegantheoryclub.org)
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This is despite the current federal government pledging to phase out animal testing by 2035.

The EPA was amended to direct departments to investigate alternatives.

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(no)

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Welcome to the Vegan Theory Club Weekly Megathread!

Question of the week:

What made you decide to go vegan?

Feel free to talk about anything, whether it’s vegan-related or not. This is a chill space for connecting, sharing ideas, and supporting each other.

Looking forward to hearing what everyone’s up to!

We abide by the Anarchist Code of Conduct

Vegan Home Cooks Discord

Vegan Theory Club Discord

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I don’t know who needs to hear this but if an item at ALDI (UK) says vegetarian or nothing on the packaging check https://groceries.aldi.co.uk it often says “vegan,vegetarian” under the lifestyle section of the product listing, beats me why they have no issue printing “vegetarian” on products but “vegan” no that's too far even though it would be a more accurate label.

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Making this post so users can share information on cruelty-free clothing that is built to last.

Ideally this will mean both vegan and natural materials but I'm aware synthetics are near unavoidable. Please feel free to share synthetic materials that are made for long-term / indefinite use.

In summer I typically wear only cotton / linen but as the weather gets colder I'm looking for warm or waterproof winter clothes. I asked this question to a vegan community already and I'll put their responses in a comment below.

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by hamid@vegantheoryclub.org to c/vegan@vegantheoryclub.org

I don't think "vegan news" is a valuable service and leads to low effort content.

This is supposed to be a social media site for friends, not whatever this is. @josie@vegantheoryclub.org made by far the best post here and I really appreciate that. The rest of the content is boring and banal in my opinion.

Is there anything we can do to change this community? I'd like this to be more about us and our veganism than about vegan news or memes. Please let me know what you think

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Vegan

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22 users here now

The vegan place to discuss things.

Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.

Resources:

Getting Started

Vegan Cheat Sheet

Animal Products to Avoid

Vegan Company Guide

Vegan Statistics

Fair Trade International

Rules:

  1. Keep discussions civil.

  2. Arguments against veganism will be removed.

  3. No bigotry is allowed - including speciesism, racism, sexism, classism, ableism, castism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.

  4. Sealioning will not be entertained.

  5. No promoting of plant based capitalism

founded 7 months ago
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