Swimmer963 comments on Effective Altruism Through Advertising Vegetarianism? - Less Wrong

20 Post author: peter_hurford 12 June 2013 06:50PM

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Comment author: SaidAchmiz 13 June 2013 12:07:53AM 9 points [-]

Are you suggesting that one simply advertise the existence of good vegetarian recipes without mentioning surrounding reasons for reducing meat?

I agree with Viliam_Bur that this may be effective, and here's why.

I bake as a hobby (desserts — cakes, pies, etc.). I am not a vegetarian; I find moral arguments for vegetarianism utterly unconvincing and am not interesting in reducing the suffering of animals and so forth.

However, I often like to try new recipes, to expand my repertoire, hone my baking skills, try new things, etc. Sometimes I try out vegan dessert recipes, for the novelty and the challenge of making something that is delicious without containing eggs or dairy or white sugar or any of the usual things that go into making desserts taste good.[1]

More, and more readily available, high-quality vegan dessert recipes would mean that I substitute more vegan dessert dishes for non-vegan ones. This effect would be quite negated if the recipes came bundled with admonitions to become vegan, pro-vegan propaganda, comments about how many animals this recipe saves, etc.; I don't want to be preached to, which I think is a common attitude.

[1] My other (less salient) motivation for learning to make vegan baked goods is to be prepared if I ever have vegan/vegetarian friends who can't eat my usual stuff (hasn't ever been the case so far, but it could happen).

Comment author: Swimmer963 13 June 2013 12:49:46PM 2 points [-]

White sugar has animal products in it?

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 13 June 2013 02:09:29PM *  1 point [-]

Not as such, no, but animal products are used in its manufacture: bone char is used in the sugar refining process (by some manufacturers, though not all), making it not ok for vegans.

Comment author: Swimmer963 13 June 2013 06:15:44PM 2 points [-]

Wow. I learned something that I did not know before :)

Comment author: [deleted] 14 June 2013 09:11:59PM 0 points [-]

I had heard that plenty of times, but I had never bothered to check whether or not that was just an urban legend.