Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the money-is-murder dept.

The Rainbow Vegetarian Café in Cambridge, England, has announced that it will not accept the new £5 polymer notes, introduced by the Bank of England in September. Last week the British vegan community discovered that the notes contain trace amounts of beef tallow, which is animal fat, and are therefore unacceptable by their cruelty-free standards. A heated online controversy has resulted, including a petition asking the Bank to remove tallow from the polymer.

The Rainbow Café's owner, Sharon Meijland, told The Telegraph that her stance was announced last Wednesday, at the end of a BBC radio interview on the unrelated topic of Christmas food.

"We sponsor the Vegan Fair and announced on Wednesday we would not be accepting the £5 notes because they are dubious ethically. We have been providing food for vegans for 30 years and have tried to be as ethical as we possibly can...This is not just a restaurant, it's a restaurant where tiny details like this are really important."

Is any of our money cruelty-free?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:29PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:29PM (#437757)

    "We sponsor the Vegan Fair and announced on Wednesday we would not be accepting the £5 notes because they are dubious ethically. We have been providing food for vegans for 30 years and have tried to be as ethical as we possibly can...This is not just a restaurant, it's a restaurant where tiny details like this are really important."

    Sometimes when you want to be ethical, there are sacrifices involved. I'm sure you're not expecting the government to cater to your tiny little niche of morality, right?

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Underrated=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:33PM

    by Francis (5544) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:33PM (#437761)

    Well, if they aren't going to be taking that bill, then they'll just have to deal with the people who can't pay their entire bill without it getting a free ride.

    This sort of thing is why nobody takes vegans seriously.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:50PM

      by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:50PM (#437778)

      Living with a vegan, I find that the following becomes truer every day:

      That moment your emotions caused a decision that inconveniences the people you rely on to survive is when you stopped being an impassioned idealist trying to make the world a better place, and just became an asshole.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:58PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:58PM (#437783)

        roomie or SO?

        • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:09PM

          by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:09PM (#437798)

          SO.

          I wouldn't care about the vegan shit if it weren't for the fact that she expects me to buy it for her, and it's twice as expensive as real food (and I'm convinced far less healthy--EVERYTHING is unfermented soy, MSG, and vegetable oil). Then I usually wind up cooking it, because she works a night job and so then I can get it ready by the time she gets home. Of course, I don't mind the second half of that usually. I actually like cooking, but if I'm not hungry, it's hard to get motivated to do something food related when I have other stuff to do anyway.

          The other advantage to doing the cooking myself is that while I'm already in the kitchen, I can cook up a steak or some chicken or something and a pile of veggies then be able to have something resembling food rather than whatever strange paste or soylent green she's eating that night.

          --
          Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:51PM

            by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:51PM (#437829) Journal

            Your wife sucks at being vegan if all she wants is meat and dairy substitutes. My friend's vegan wife learned to, you know, cook healthy dishes out of fruits, vegetables, and grains. The vegan lifestyle works a lot better if you actually understand nutrition.

            I tried going vegan for a month, found myself consistently going for overpriced, nearly-as-destructive substitutes and realized "Nope, this is not for me".

            • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:31PM

              by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:31PM (#437865)

              Ironically, I think I'm better at getting over meat than she is. Before moving in, I basically lived off of stir fry and curry that was effectively vegan most of the time anyway. Every few days I'd toss chicken in for some protein. It's what I was used to eating growing up, but with more meat back then.

              Sure, I ate steaks and hamburgers and stuff, but I could live without them. I don't see a week go by without her rushing from something made by gardein or Boca.

              --
              Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:19PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:19PM (#437913)

                Perhaps she has cravings because she has nutritional deficiencies.

                • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:31PM

                  by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:31PM (#437966)

                  I've thought about that. She takes a pile of vitamins daily. She ran out of B12 and attributed that to the cause of feeling really bad one time, and I enjoyed the hell out of asking her how her "healthy" diet was working out for her.

                  I'm not sure which deficiencies she would not be counteracting with her medicine cabinet of pills. I guess I'll have to go through it and make a list. Personally, I suspect that most of the things she cooks are what she grew up with, and she just prefers it that way, so she goes for the fake stuff and make a compromise, rather than eating an actually semi-healthy vegan diet.

                  --
                  Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
            • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:37PM

              by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:37PM (#437874) Journal

              That's close to my situation. My SO is vegetarian. In addition, she's allergic to nuts, sensitive to dairy (straight dairy is out, has to be well cooked and blended), and she does not like eggs, onions (but she likes onion powder), bell peppers, corn, mushrooms, pineapple, apple, iceberg lettuce, among other things. She also doesn't much like anything she didn't do herself, and that bias includes my cooking. Really cuts down the options. Pizza has to be olive or tomato.

              She eats a lot of junk food and fast food. Yeah, Cheetos are vegetarian and what dairy they have is highly processed. She insists we buy all organic, but she doesn't know or care whether her favorite restaurants and snacks use organic ingredients.

              • (Score: 5, Funny) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:41PM

                by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:41PM (#437877) Journal

                With those tastes, your SO is apparently 8 years old. I've alerted the FBI.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:49PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:49PM (#437982)

                I hope she really enjoys trouser sausage and protein slurpees or I'd kick her to the curb. Too-many-rules is a symptom that never improves over time. Vegetarians (or vegans) and born-agains all eventually like to proselytize.

          • (Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:53PM

            by ledow (5567) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:53PM (#437832) Homepage

            Is she noticeably healthier than anyone else you know?

            • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:34PM

              by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:34PM (#437870)

              Not really. A little overweight (so am I), but she doesn't have any muscle mass. She either can't lift 40 lbs, out she's putting me on. I can handedly outrun her, and I smoke.

              --
              Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
          • (Score: 5, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:07PM

            by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:07PM (#437844) Journal

            Here's one of my favourite recipes that happens to be vegan (or not, depending...) It's cheap, versatile, tasty, filling, hearty, nutritious, easy. No soy, MSG or vegetable oil anywhere, except a bit of oil to fry in. Surprise your other half with it tomorrow.

            Dump a cup of dried lentils in hot water with a stock cube (vegan stock cubes should be available). Red lentils, green, brown... doesn't matter.
            Peel a heap some potatoes and chop them into halves / quarters.
            Peel & chop some swede and carrots, and any other root veg you have lying around. Turnips are good. Celeriac works well in small doses.
            Chop onion and garlic and (optionally) chilli. Fry it slowly in a big wok with curry powder.
            When the onion is brown, turn up the heat, chuck the veggies in and throw it all around vigorously, coating the veg with tasty oniony, garlicy, oily stuff.

            Now you have two choices: You can either continue in the wok, or you can transfer it to a slow cooker and leave it bubbling all day.[1]

            Either way, you now need to throw in the lentils (which should have soaked up the water and turned soft) and add a load more water[2] to cover the veg. Throw in a bit of tomato puree and mix it all up.

            Now you just jet it bubble until it's a thick stew, then eat, preferably with crusty bread. This is usually about 25 minutes on the hob, or 6+ hours in the slow cooker.

            It's also a great way to use up those bits and pieces sitting in the bottom of the fridge going bad. Got a handful of cherry tomatoes turning a bit wrinkly? Chuck 'em in. Half a green pepper from last week's curry? No problem. Limp celery? Broccolli stalks? The end of a cabbage? Kidney beans? Chop it up and drop it in[3]. Waste not want not.

            Enjoy. Once you've mastered that, look up recipes for dahl. Makes me hungry just thinking about it. Dead simple: Onions, garlic, curry powder/ghee, lentils, coconut milk. Serve with rice. Can't go wrong.

            [1] Put this in the slow cooker in the morning, wash up the wok and when you get home from work you've got a delicious hot meal waiting for you and almost zero washing up. Fantastic in the winter when you want to get the most out of those cosy evenings in with your SO. You can even peel & chop the veg the night before, if you don't have much time in the mornings.

            [2] A nice trick is to use the water from steaming / boiling the vegetables of a previous meal. It retains quite a bit of the flavour and nutrition of whatever was cooked in it, so better to use it than throw it away. I usually have a few tubs of veg water in my freezer for such occasions. You don't even have to defrost it, just dump a block of greenish ice in the wok/slow cooker and let it melt. Dark blue water from red cabbage / purple sprouting always looks good:-)

            [3] Also, when the missus isn't about, add some bacon and/or chicken stock. Bacon+lentils is always a great combo. I like to cut a pack of 8 rashers in half, chopping up the fatty end for the stew and saving the leaner end for another meal.

            • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:19PM

              by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:19PM (#437855) Journal

              Even easier, cook a pound of red lentils in 4 cups of water in a large saucepan. Cook some onions in spices (garlic powder, cumin, black pepper, paprika, etc.). Add some salt or MSG. Combine all the ingredients into the saucepan and add 14 oz of generic tomato sauce. Instant curry.

              --
              [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
              • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:21PM

                by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:21PM (#437856) Journal

                Don't bother washing the lentils (pick out weird bits if they float to the top). Serve on rice.

                --
                [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
                • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:23PM

                  by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:23PM (#438005) Journal

                  Don't bother washing the lentils

                  I don't know about that. I've had bags of lentils that have been really dirty, and since they often have such a high surface area (compared to larger things like dried beans), there can be a lot more of it. Also occasionally small stones or twigs to pick out (though those I tend to find more in bags of beans). And beyond avoiding dirt in your food, rinsing can help avoid most of the pesticides and other such residues that may be in that dirt. (Lentils often don't need as many pesticides as other crops, but all kinds of stuff can accumulate in soil.)

                  I'm not saying it's a huge deal. But it's an easy and quick step, so I do it.

                  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 07 2016, @09:12PM

                    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday December 07 2016, @09:12PM (#438516) Journal

                    I didn't notice any issue the last couple of times I made it, so I'm voting for laziness.

                    The whole concept is easier than any other curry I would make. The lentils get a nice mushy texture in less than 30 minutes. The onions cook in like 10 minutes, concurrently. The rice can be made in a rice cooker. If I wanted to make a "real" curry I would put more effort in.

                    --
                    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:51PM

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:51PM (#437887) Journal

                That's more or less my go-to "lazy girl curry" recipe :) Really helps if you have an Indian or Pakistani grocery nearby!

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:15PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:15PM (#437909)

                And don't forget to sneak in a bit of salt pork when she's not looking.

            • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:38PM

              by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:38PM (#437876)

              Both that and what takyon posted look fantastic. She's got the day off today, so I think she's making fake neat Shepard's pie, but I'm going to try those later this week.

              --
              Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:23PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:23PM (#438476)

                Where, these days, can you find a shepard that is both neat and fake to make a pie out of? Wouldn't it be better just to drop the vegan pretense, and get a real messy shepard?

            • (Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:01PM

              by curunir_wolf (4772) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:01PM (#437894)
              Sounds good. But note that ghee is not vegan.
              --
              I am a crackpot
              • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:33PM

                by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:33PM (#438047) Journal

                So use olive oil instead. Or some other oil if you want, but olive oil is good. Not great for frying things, but reasonable even for that. It's just about the only fat I ever use anymore. (Admittely, I usually use it with "italian herbs", but not by any means all the time.)

                --
                Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
            • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:52PM

              by Gaaark (41) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:52PM (#438444) Journal

              Gluten-free pasta, tomatoes and SPAM.
              Cook the pasta, throw in diced tomatoes and diced up SPAM, maybe add a bit of salt and some fresh cracked pepper.

              Mmmmmmm..... love SPAM!!@!

              --
              --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @04:04AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @04:04AM (#438615)

              Try it with chick peas instead of lentils too, works nicely.

            • (Score: 1) by segwonk on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:48PM

              by segwonk (3259) <reversethis-{ten.knilhtrae} {ta} {nniwj}> on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:48PM (#438885) Homepage

              GreatAuntAnesthesia:
              "[3] Also, when the missus isn't about..."

              That's funny - I kind of assumed you were female.

              --
              .......go til ya know.
          • (Score: 2) by theluggage on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:51PM

            by theluggage (1797) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:51PM (#437888)

            The other advantage to doing the cooking myself is that while I'm already in the kitchen, I can cook up a steak or some chicken or something and a pile of veggies

            Unless your kitchen resembles a bioweapons cleanroom, you cook wearing a bunny suit and adhere to hygiene rituals that Leviticus himself would have found "a bit fussy" then some of those vegan dishes you prepare for your SO probably contain more dead animal than the new English £5 notes that caused all this fuss.

            Anyway, if you eat meat, then anything you cook is the indirect result of animal suffering.

            • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:02PM

              by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:02PM (#437993)

              Unless your kitchen resembles a bioweapons cleanroom, you cook wearing a bunny suit and adhere to hygiene rituals that Leviticus himself would have found "a bit fussy"

              Funny, but there was no guy named Leviticus. For that matter, none of the books in the Torah (also Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) were named after a person...

              The English name is from the Latin Leviticus, taken in turn from Greek and a reference to the Levites, the tribe of Aaron

              --
              "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
              • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:31PM

                by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:31PM (#438009) Journal

                True, though Leviticus is the only one of those books named indirectly after a person, since Leviticus is derived from the Levites, who were a tribe descended from Levi, a son of Jacob.

                • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:53PM

                  by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:53PM (#438023) Journal

                  Jacob thought that kid was a dick.

                  Just sayin'

                  --
                  Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:27PM

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:27PM (#438044) Journal

            I'm a little surprised her vegan diet is costing more, unless she's demanding Boca Burgers or something like that. Tofu, soy milk, pasta, and the kind of stuff a vegan can eat are usually less expensive than meat and dairy. My wife and I spent six months eating vegan once and we saved a lot of money on groceries. Even now I find I can feed our family of four on a block of tofu that costs $2 or less when using chicken would cost me $4-5.

            Maybe tell her you'll buy her vegan stuff, but not the packaged food with all the fancy labels on it.

            --
            Washington DC delenda est.
            • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:58PM

              by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:58PM (#438072)

              Yeah, it's stuff like Boca and gardein's fake chicken and beef. Costs about as much for half the volume of food.

              10.8 oz of gardein chicken is about $6 and some change. Meanwhile chicken breast fillets are $1.99/lb here ATM.

              Yeah, telling her that she's gotta get her own processed crap if she wants it is the next step.

              --
              Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
              • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @10:26PM

                by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @10:26PM (#438088)

                Also on the topic, vegan butter is 5.58 / lb*. Real butter is $2.99 / lb.

                A gallon of almond milk is about 20 bucks (!). It's about 2.50 for a gallon of milk here.

                If you're trying to make the same type of food you did before, you're paying a crazy amount of money to do it.

                * I am genuinely not sure how this differs from margarine. She says it tastes like butter. I can tell the difference, but I have never compared it to margarine.

                --
                Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
                • (Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:57AM

                  by Francis (5544) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:57AM (#438199)

                  Around here the almond milk often goes on sale. I wouldn't pay full price for it anyways. I'm not a vegan, I just avoid it because I no longer have the necessary bacteria to digest lactose properly. It's one of the downsides of not consuming dairy for such a long time, now the bacteria that were doing that aren't there any more.

                  If you're really cheap, you can always grow your own almonds and turn them into almond milk, or just eat them as almonds. One of the nice things about that is that the almond flowers are relatively nice to look at.

                  • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:47AM

                    by dyingtolive (952) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:47AM (#438245)

                    Almond milk doesn't really go on sale, but there's a discount food store (similar to an ALDI) that frequently stocks it at a reasonable price that we usually get some from when it's there.

                    I'm not sure it would work with our space constraints, but growing almonds is a VERY interesting idea.

                    I actually like the taste of almond milk, but because it's slightly sweet, you have to do some really strange things to get it to taste like real milk in things. I figured out I could make a white gravy out of it that actually tastes like gravy by adding just enough paprika to kill the sweet flavor without being noticeable on it's own. You can also almost curdle it like real milk to make buttermilk. It doesn't taste the same, but it comes out close enough when you bake it.

                    --
                    Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
                • (Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:40PM

                  by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:40PM (#438302) Journal
                  Almond milk is almost as bad for the environment as Cow's milk, since Almonds are so thirsty, and are primarily grown in California (at least US almonds), where they could put that water to better use. Keep an eye out for Rice milk, coconut milk, cashew milk, Pea milk.. all tasty
                  --
                  Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:28PM (#437861)

        That moment your emotions caused a decision that inconveniences the people you rely on to survive is when you stopped being an impassioned idealist trying to make the world a better place, and just became an asshole.

        That's the false narrative of dispassionate decision making at work.
        Nobody makes decisions free of emotion, especially not decisions that are wrapped up in personal identity.
        If you believe yourself to be immune to it, that's just self-deception.

        In fact, Michael Lewis (of Moneyball, The Big Short, etc fame) is running a PR tour right now for his new book at that examines exactly that phenomenon, its called "the undoing project."

        • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:42PM

          by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:42PM (#437879)

          The key wasn't just the emotions making the decision, but the qualifier about the people you depend on.

          That being said, your book sounds intriguing.

          --
          Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:06PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:06PM (#437898)

            > but the qualifier about the people you depend on.

            And that's just as specious.
            No, really.
            If they inconvenienced people they didn't depend on, then they would be accused of being bad citizens, uncaring about the public welfare. We see it every time there is a public protest.

            Support from the people you depend on is the point of having people you depend on. Its practically the definition of having people you depend on. If that support was zero-cost there would be no dependence. Your thesis comes across as very reductive and transactional - that you don't support the people you love because you love them, only for what they can give you and once their needs from you are greater than your needs from them, they need to cut that shit out and conform to your expectations.

            • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:24PM

              by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:24PM (#437957)

              The alternative would be to NOT inconvenience people, or rather more realistically, minimize the amount of inconvenience you do to those people. If you really loved them, I'd think you'd want to avoid being a burden on them as much as possible.

              You're right about the zero-cost thing. I was not considering any sort of initial dependence upon a person an inconvenience. I suppose I should have said "further inconvenience".

              The problem is that I have a general sense of one-sidedness about it. Ranty anecdote time: She was a vegetarian, then after she moved in, suddenly went in with the vegan bullshit. Singlehandedly, she caused the monthly food budget to go up 350-400% (200% people, fake vegan food roughly 150%-200% the price of real food). I had to cut back on things I enjoy doing significantly as a result of it, which is fine, but then later, when I told her that, with her other bills on top of that, I was struggling to save anything, and had already cut out about everything I could. I told her that I couldn't afford to sustain her, and she needed to get a job. She said she was going to get one, but never did. That became a fight, and she begrudgingly (after I showed her the numbers and invited her to find something else I could cut out) found a job that barely covers her personal bills, self-righteously citing that she "doesn't need that much money to be happy," nevermind that I'm still paying for everything else. Now she's "too busy working to help with housework" and gets mad at me for not doing more, though I work 20-30 hours more a week than her, and cook almost every night.

              I don't like keeping score, but that one event stuck in my mind so vividly, even now. Just the total ungratefulness of everything I'd been trying to do already as well as the total resentment about needing to do something other than sit on her ass all day long. Prior to that, I'd never bothered her about the job. Never demanded it of her. So in the case of my anecdote, I'd say yeah, she needs to cut that shit out and conform to my expectations. I'm struggling under the load. She needs to pull HER fucking weight and help out. Maybe that makes me the bad guy. If it does, I don't really mind.

              --
              Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
              • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:56PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:56PM (#437986)

                Poor bastard. You forgot the cardinal rule. If it flies, floats, or fucks it's cheaper to rent. You've taken on ownership responsibilities.

              • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:04PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:04PM (#437995)

                > The alternative would be to NOT inconvenience people, or rather more realistically, minimize the amount of inconvenience you do to those people.

                Anything that challenges the status quo will cause inconvenience. If it did not cause inconvenience, then it would be the status quo.

                You seem to at least partially recognize that because you are now softening your position to "minimize." But that is a completely undefined definition, your version of minimal isn't necessarily going to be anyone else's definition.

                > Ranty anecdote time:

                I am not even going to read past that because your personal relationship problems are not a basis for a general principle. You trying to make them into such a principle is a variation on the appeal to authority fallacy because it lets you abdicate responsibility for working things out with this person in favor of unilaterally declaring them wrong and you right.

                • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:16PM

                  by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:16PM (#437998)

                  Why does anyone's definition of "minimize" need to be consistently defined across any set of people? For any given person, if you have principles, and your principles inconveniences that person sufficiently, that person will not like you and go elsewhere.

                  --
                  Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:30PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:30PM (#438008)

                    > Why does anyone's definition of "minimize" need to be consistently defined across any set of people?

                    Because you've offered it up as a general principle for when to judge if someone is in the wrong.

                    If it can't be consistently defined, then its not a general principle. Its situational.

              • (Score: 1) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:59PM

                by cmdrklarg (5048) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:59PM (#438027)
                She may not need much money to be happy but she appears to be quite happy being a leech.
                --
                The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
              • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:02PM

                by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:02PM (#438030) Journal

                You might consider getting a new girlfriend. Money breaks up most marriages, and it sounds like you're not doing well on that front already. If she's behaving this way now, how do you think she'll behave when she thinks she owns you? Cut your losses and move on.

                --
                Washington DC delenda est.
              • (Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:47PM

                by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:47PM (#438304) Journal
                So, it sounds like her Veganism isn't the issue, but a symptom of other issues you have with her. It's become a convenient target for your outrage at several of her behaviours... It sounds like if you want to salvage your relationships, there needs to be some hear to heart's.. (and if she doesn't need much to be happy, she should be able to live on a food budget.. there are a lot of youtube videos out there for how to eat for literally dollars a week while being vegan). The issue isn't her veganism, it's that she doesn't want to put work into it, and you're resentful of that..
                --
                Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
        • (Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:00AM

          by Francis (5544) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:00AM (#438202)

          Veganism is 100% about emotions. The difference in health between eating a little bit of meat/animal products and eating none at all is pretty significant.

          It doesn't take much meat to make sure that you're diet is nutritionally sound, but trying to construct a diet that's vegan and nutritionally sound is incredibly difficult. I used to go to a college where there were a ton of vegans and they always looked malnourished and usually were. I have known a vegan powerlifter who appeared to be in great health, so it would appear to be possible to get the necessary nutrients without the animal products, but I have to wonder if it would be affordable for people who aren't independently wealthy and don't have advanced degrees in nutrition to accomplish.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:41PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:41PM (#438323)

            Or as seen from the other side:
            Veganism is 100% about morality. The difference in morality between committing even one murder and not murdering at all is pretty significant.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:45PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:45PM (#437883)

        Living with a vegan, I find that the following becomes truer every day:

        That moment your emotions caused a decision that inconveniences the people you rely on to survive is when you stopped being an impassioned idealist trying to make the world a better place, and just became an asshole.

        A friend of mine's band used to have this great bassist who suddenly quit and we hardly ever see the guy at other common friends parties anymore either. When asked about it he gave a few reasons and capped it off with "I guess we should have seen this coming when he suddenly went vegan."

        I decided long ago that vegetarians weren't worth dating, at the very least I wasn't going to deal with the hassle of separate meals and knowing that the relationship will eventually just grow toxic and they try to "convert" you.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:19AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:19AM (#438216)

        I can see you possess some strong principles, being that you are apparently unwilling to inconvenience others in order to follow them.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by dr_barnowl on Wednesday December 07 2016, @09:27AM

        by dr_barnowl (1568) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @09:27AM (#438266)

        Honestly.... I'd get out of that relationship.

        I married someone who was not a vegan, but an incredibly finicky eater. Wouldn't try new things, would refuse to eat a plateful of food if you so much as touched the plate with something she imagined had a trace of some contamination on it. Wouldn't let me do the food shopping, complained about having to do it and pay for it herself. Hated me cooking, for various control-freak reasons.

        After our marriage fell apart, I'm with someone who is an ex-vegetarian. A little less widely-eaten than me, some vestigial traces of finicky eating left, but she's a born-again lover of food, and actually seeks to broaden her horizons. She's recently overcome her prejudice against prawns and actually started enjoying them. Cooking is no longer something I'm not allowed to do, it's something we share, and we can share the product of that mutual activity and really enjoy it. We discover new foods we love together. The hard part of picking a restaurant isn't finding somewhere she's prepared to eat, but picking from the enormous choice we have available.

        Food is a substantial fraction of the human experience. I firmly believe that we need to be with someone gastro-compatible with ourselves as much as we need to be with someone sexually compatible.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:44PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:44PM (#438325)

          A little less widely-eaten than me

          Is that a fancy way of saying "slimmer"?

      • (Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:26PM

        by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:26PM (#438298) Journal
        As a vegan, I'd say it sounds like you're the asshole... Maybe you should have some empathy for her feels, man...
        --
        Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
        • (Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:43PM

          by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:43PM (#438324) Journal
          After reading more of your comments farther down, I somewhat retract that... I just think you're misidentifying the causes of your issues.. It's her approach to things, not veganism itself..
          --
          Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by mendax on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:53PM

    by mendax (2840) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:53PM (#437781)

    we would not be accepting the £5 notes because they are dubious ethically

    The whole concept of money is of dubious ethicality. You never know what was done to earn that money and you don't know what it is going to be used for once you pass it on to someone else. Money is essentially a fiat for generic goods and services, and they can run the gamut from buying a pack of gum to arranging for the murder of your wife. And because money is issued by governments, ethics fly right out of the window there.

    --
    It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
    • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:18PM

      by cubancigar11 (330) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:18PM (#437954) Homepage Journal

      Money is power in the form of currency. Money was invented by men because men realized easy transition of power creates stable system.

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:43PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:43PM (#438056) Journal

        Nonsense. Money was invented because people couldn't trust the purity of the gold they were being asked to accept, so this family associated with government (I'm not sure if it was originally government, and it could well have been the king) started issuing small bars of gold embossed with their seal as a guarantee of its purity. This was the foundation of the wealth of Croesus.

        Of course, contracts of various forms predate that by a long time, so if you want to consider a hunk of mud with a picture of a donkey on it, and somebody's seal, to be money, then it goes so far back that we can't trace it. But it pre-dates writing, and was one of the foundations on which writing was built.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
        • (Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:17AM

          by pnkwarhall (4558) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:17AM (#438141)

          David Graeber hypothesizes money was popularized by the advent of nation-states needing to fund standing armies. The armies were necessarily non-local, being coaxed or forced away from their original standing as productive members of a local community's economy. This dislocation forced a transition, from long-term, relationship-based bartering-type transactions, towards the use of fiat currency that was useful for the short-term and semi-anonymous transactions characterized by an army member's "stranger in the city" situation.

          Your assertion that the transition to fiat currency was based on trust fits this theory. But Graeber's POV is that governments created the need in the first place for fiat currency, as a replacement for the long-term trusting/interdependent relationships that characterized a hyper-local, bartering-based economy.

          --
          Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
          • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:46AM

            by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:46AM (#438162) Journal

            I think that armies were a secondary growth, and the original consumers of money were merchants.

            OTOH, you can point to small "armies" that predate the existence of money, and it is true that agricultural populations couldn't, in many social structures, support a standing army without money. One could point to Sparta as a potential exception. They had money, but it was, by law, based on iron, and thus not readily portable, so effectively they were without money.

            OTOH, it partly depends on how you define army. The Aryan invasion of India required a large "army", and was before the existence of money. But the "army" was an entire tribe. I'm not sure about the timing of the Hittites conquering Egypt, but that may also have been prior to the existence of money. And certainly in the middle east large armies started being common after money was invented. But this also corresponded with the time of the centralization of power and control being rapidly increased. And tax records go back far prior to money as normally understood.

            --
            Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
        • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:32AM

          by cubancigar11 (330) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:32AM (#438193) Homepage Journal

          I have heard that theory but in all of its forms that theory fails to explain why people love gold so much (diamond-water paradox). Anything that is commonly used for barter and doesn't hold any intrinsic value by itself is money. If you look at little kids in poor villages you will inadvertently find them bartering with random stuff used as money such leaf, some particular rock, or marbles. I think we suffer from associating invention of money with finding historical money in non-perishable format i.e. gold. There is no reason to believe money wasn't used before gold was discovered and in fact there is no reason to believe money wasn't used among small tribes that could manage it personally. I propose the very invention of civilization (as in classical civilizations) is due to invention of money that makes it worthwhile be part of the system by making transactions easier.

          Leaving all that and just focusing on kids who play with marbles - they don't care about gold - they care about establishing an order of power (who is better player than whom) and invention of money makes it very easy to always know, assert, and barter that power over time.

          • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday December 07 2016, @06:53PM

            by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 07 2016, @06:53PM (#438463) Journal

            That's plausible, and is why (in one of my comments) I mentioned that it depends on what you are willing to consider money. Certainly the oldest *known* thing that can be called "money" is balls of clay with clay figures hidden inside them. These were "promissory notes", or, if you will, IOUs. Calling them money is a bit uncertain, however, because it depends on what you mean by money. There's no necessary conversion rate between a donkey and a chicken. And certainly trading items predated the promissory notes, but barter isn't using money.

            --
            Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
            • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday December 08 2016, @07:01AM

              by cubancigar11 (330) on Thursday December 08 2016, @07:01AM (#438653) Homepage Journal

              Money, as in currency, is still IOU and nothing else, except that if you don't honor it goons (police) will come and harass you (by putting you in criminal justice system) and society won't interrupt (by voting for a government). The conversion rate is natural outcome when large number of people start participating on same system. To take your example, it is very possible that I can sell a donkey for a chicken via eBay today - I pay the seller of chicken 1$ and he uses that to buy donkey from me in 1$. But if a large number of people start selling donkeys and chickens on eBay the conversion rate will automatically emerge from the averaging. That is what I was saying - the whole invention of money is only to ease the transaction so more people can participate in it. Money, in that way, is literally nothing but power.

              • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday December 08 2016, @07:39PM

                by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 08 2016, @07:39PM (#438819) Journal

                You can only do that if there is some way of standardizing the quality of chickens and donkeys. Which is one of the reasons gold was favored, and which is why a trusted certification of purity was important. When you buy something it is presumed that there is some way of assuring the quality of the received merchandise. If there isn't, the system soon breaks down.

                --
                Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
        • (Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:04AM

          by Francis (5544) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:04AM (#438203)

          Money was invented because society needed a way of storing funds. Prior to the invention of money, you had to barter for the things you needed. If you didn't need something right then or know what you'd need in the future, you had a bit of a problem. Plus, if you got into a bad situation because you forgot or didn't offer anything of value, you couldn't get your way out of it.

          With money, we can earn money and then spend it at a time when it's more convenient. Which is rather hard to do with milk, pork bellies or goats. And good luck if you needed to spllit a cow between two people that didn't want their share at the same time. Money fixes all that fairly conveniently.

          • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:04PM

            by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:04PM (#438469) Journal

            That's why money was more generally useful than the prior systems, but IOUs, or contracts for payment, predate money, and were transferable. The thing is, "If some one promises a donkey in exchange for the IOU, do you trust him to trade you a donkey that isn't at death's door?". The guy who makes the original deal may have reason to trust the guy he makes the deal with, but what about a guy who trades with him? So things like lumps of metal that were presumably trustworthy were traded (i.e., actual goods) rather than IOUs when it was feasible. But then impure hunks of metal that were hard to tell from the good stuff started being traded by some who were less than totally honest. So somebody put his name on the line, and started marking hunks of metal with his seal (for a price) as a guarantee of purity. Which is when I decided to call it money. But you could really point at any point of the development and say "That's when I start calling it money.". The exact point of demarcation is nearly arbitrary. Some people are uncomfortable calling it money until it's in the form of coins, and that's OK as long as they make clear what they mean. The classical Greeks, however, decided to say that the division came when this family started putting their seal on bars of gold, and that's as good a marker as any.

            --
            Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:45PM (#438019)

      Nonsense. Insightful? Nay. Idiotic.

      By the same reasoning, you must admit into your world view the notion that teaching a child how to read and write and speak is of dubious "ethicality", because that child might one day use those skills to transform himself into a tyrannical despot.

      It is not the exchange of money for bananas which bears the burden of dubious ethics; the dubiousness only enters when the money is then actually exchanged for arranging a murder.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:59PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:59PM (#438074)

        Even if those bananas were grown by slash-and-burn agriculture?

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by tonyPick on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:09PM

    by tonyPick (1237) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:09PM (#437796) Homepage Journal

    "it's a restaurant where tiny details like this are really important."

    So presumably they also don't allow Soap, Deliveries via car, people travelling on Bicycles, any music played with an instrument [treehugger.com] and also don't own computers or mobile phones [wikipedia.org]?

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:40PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:40PM (#437819) Journal

      So presumably they also don't allow Soap, Deliveries via car, people travelling on Bicycles, any music played with an instrument and also don't own computers or mobile phones?
       
      It's even better than that!
       
      FTA: One puzzling inconsistency is the fact that the Rainbow Café is vegetarian, not strictly vegan (although it does offer vegan menu items). This means that some animal products are still used on the premises, which makes Meijland’s stance a bit surprising.
       
      I'm not necessarily on-board with all the vegan-hate going on in this thread but that's just funny.

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:57PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:57PM (#437836)

        No, that just unmasks the charade for what it is: a shitty publicity stunt meant to get them more business from retards with more money than brains... I mean vegans.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:03PM (#438307)

    Personally I'd have used bacon grease vice beef tallow. That would not only drive off the looney vegans but the jews and hajis as well.

  • (Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:55PM

    by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:55PM (#438328) Journal

    Sometimes when you want to be ethical, there are sacrifices involved. I'm sure you're not expecting the government to cater to your tiny little niche of morality, right?

    I'm sure they don't expect it, but that doesn't mean they can't fight for it. How do we bring about any change if we just accept the status quo? Those in power love little sheeple like you... so many people in the world see a big wrong that needs to be righted, and look at the enormity of the task to address it, and just throw up their hands.... When in actuality, if they fought to change it, they could do a lot of good just working towards changing it. Not everyone in the world needs to go vegan to reduce animal cruelty substantially, and help the environment substantially. If most people just cut back meat consumption to very small portions a couple times a week, that would go a long way towards helping some major problems. So, vegans promote the issues hoping people will at least see the wrongness out there in what is happening, and will at least think about things, and maybe take some small steps (and eventually after enough small steps reach the final destination)..

    --
    Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 07 2016, @02:49PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @02:49PM (#438352)

      Those in power love little sheeple like you...

      Ha. If you had actually read any of my comments here you'd know that isn't me. This whole "issue" is just so silly (as stated elsewhere literally zero cows will be killed to make the money) that it's not worth a fight.

      Not everyone in the world needs to go vegan to reduce animal cruelty substantially, and help the environment substantially. If most people just cut back meat consumption to very small portions a couple times a week

      Kind of drifting from this thread's topic, but okay whatever.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:36PM

        by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @04:36PM (#438409) Journal

        Ha. If you had actually read any of my comments here you'd know that isn't me.

        You're probably right... I was too lazy to go to your profile and read every comment you made.. I apologize for the sheeple comment. I just get tired of people looking at an ethical fight and just giving up instead of at least attempting it and making progress... What's that old saying? something like, if you strive for perfection and don't attain it, you'll still end up at pretty good? something along those lines.. I see a lot that type of attitude when it comes to animal cruelty, (and saw it elsewhere in this thread). I probably let that cloud my thinking when reading your comment.

        --
        Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
        • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:32PM

          by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:32PM (#438431)

          "Perfect is the enemy of good" is how I've heard it put, although I think that's meant to be the opposite sentiment -- e.g. in software development, you can work on making it perfect forever, but at a certain point you need to ship something.

          I'm hesitant to apply your sentiment to e.g. rewriting the Constitution because of the risk of ending up with something much worse (especially in our current political climate).

          The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

                  - George Bernard Shaw

          --
          "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"