We don't really have vegan social stuff here so at least you got that.

I did have a prettly nice convo with a lib couple yesterday at my favorite vegan food truck. He said some stuff that made me think radical centrist, but she's a recent convert form "Veganuary" and is trying to stick with it. She also helps at Food Not Bombs so it's a bit of a mixed bag. Would be cool to see them grow more and him come over. He even admitted that tho he wasn't a vegan he loved the food there. Maybe some wheels are turning?

r/vegan is awful in a lot of ways, and that includes their uncritical support of plant-based capitalism, but the conversation about plant-based capitalism is something I've thought about a lot, and it's a bit iffy to me. Not necessarily because I see PBC as a good thing in any way, shape, or form, hell no, but because of how I think about it in relation to material conditions.

On one hand, I truthfully don't feel a need to call out other vegans when I see them do things like consume Impossible products. However, that's just if the "consumption" is all there is to it. r/vegan, on the other hand, does more than that; they, fitting terminology considered, soy out over it.

r/vegan is absolutely horrid in how much they're focused on defending plant-based capitalism and the products that come with it more than they are about focusing on actual animal rights causes. However, I wouldn't split hairs with other vegans who do consume these products while simultaneously and rightfully not seeing Impossible as some majorly ethical savior of animals.

The reason why I don't is that the line of what counts as "plant-based capitalism" gets abstract, muddy, blurry, and overall seems more symbolic rather than material once you start raising certain questions. "Impossible" is unequivocally an example of a PBC company, but I feel like, so long as we live under capitalism, the difference between a "plant-based capitalist" product and just a "plant-based" product is often merely branding rather than something actually material.

For instance, a plant-based sandwich at a KFC is, on the surface, extremely questionable because KFC is a company that wears their carnism on their sleeve. However, even though KFC is more anti-vegan in its aesthetic, materially, going to a Walmart and buying plant-based foods there is doing the same thing in the sense of giving your money to a retailer that also sells the corpses of murdered animals and their secretions.

However, the point about animal testing is very important. Animal testing, especially for "unheard of" ingredients, is often required by the FDA to actually release a product with these ingredients. Like you said, plant-based burgers have already been made before Impossible even existed, and they didn't even have to experiment to make their food taste incredibly "meatlike." Impossible went ahead and did it anyway, even in instances where they didn't have to do such testing because those times went beyond FDA regulations.

That being said, the reason why I still wouldn't care to argue with vegans who may do something like, in passing, post a picture of them eating an Impossible burger is simply because I don't hold companies to certain ethical standards in a sense, and in relation to the system, I view the nature of their animal testing as different than, say, the nature of a hygiene company that routinely tests on animals, even though it's still morally repugnant. However, I would absolutely shit on people who uphold Impossible as some grand mark of progress for the animals.

Companies, whether they're selling a PBC product or not, tend to just be inherently at least some degree of awful under capitalism and the carnistic world we live in. Most companies that sell plant-based mock products are not ethically vegan, and most plant-based things you obtain are not going to be from ethical vegans. Why? Capitalism is such a huge part of so many of our lives, but only 1% of the world, maybe even less, is vegan.

All of this in mind, I would not be comfortable eating a plant-based sandwich at a KFC, and the ethical questionability and the literal price of many plant-based capitalist products certainly has made me iffy about consuming many of them as well. I'm looking to make my own things like seitan deli slices and whatnot at home instead.

Nah you're good I mostly use that sub to dunk on shit takes from carnists.