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What’s Your Take on Eating Animal Product That Was Going to the Trash Can? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 weeks ago by SnakeEyes@hexbear.net to c/vegan@hexbear.net
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Relatives love wasting food, and I usually wait until the last second to take it and eat it, I really hate it, and nagging them hasn't changed anything.

So what's your opinion on this? Or what do you do?

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[-] Inui@hexbear.net 13 points 2 weeks ago

Are you starving or otherwise in poverty to where this would be one of the only things you get to eat?

Outside of those circumstances, I wouldn't do it. For two reasons. To me, it's no longer 'food'. It's the equivalent of eating bark or sawdust, so it doesn't matter to me that it's going in the trash. The waste was created when the animal was slaughtered in the first place.

Even if you don't have that perspective, this creates a weird dynamic where it expresses to other people that you're okay with all of it as long as its 'extra'. Meaning a family member might intentionally save some for you, knowing you'll eat it, because they think you'll starve otherwise.

Maybe they'll buy extra portions of food the next time they get takeout with this same intent. Not necessarily out of ill intent to say "see, you're not vegan", but more like "I'm worried X isn't getting enough protein, so I always get an extra chicken wing and say I can't finish it".

In short, it's their problem, and you choosing to eat it only has potential downsides outside of the dire circumstances I mentioned.

[-] SnakeEyes@hexbear.net 3 points 2 weeks ago

Thank you for giving some insight, I never thought of it as already waste, that really reframes my entire relation with it.

Im not starving thankfully, it's more of a after four days if a cake is still there and it's starting to smell or look weird I'll eat it

Thank you again, I think I just have a bad relation with food

[-] luddybuddy@hexbear.net 8 points 2 weeks ago

Please don't eat the smelly cake, I want you to be happy

[-] JamBandFan1996@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

I agree but also disagree. It totally can send the wrong message and have people hold out food for you, which I definitely don't want. But if you can manage to avoid that, I do think it is less wasteful. It can be very circumstancial, but If I can eat your food that would go to the trash anyway, then I don't have to find food for myself for that meal. I don't have so much food in my fridge that if I eat something else instead then I would have to throw something of mine out. Also consider getting wrong orders, if I don't eat it it is probably just going to get thrown out and I have to still get something for myself anyway

[-] insurgentrat@hexbear.net 8 points 2 weeks ago

I don't but realistically I don't think it's a significant moral issue if someone is scavanging stuff thrown out, like "freegans" or whatever. I just think it's gross, like if someone ate another human they didn't kill.

Eating stuff at family gathering might create incentives for excess and/or send the wrong message though. e.g. that secretly you want it (reenforcing that animal ag is desirable) or that nobody can actually be vegan.

[-] JamBandFan1996@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah I do eat non vegan that people throw out but try to be careful about toeing the line. I don't want to make it look like I was hoping there would be some meat for me, but if someone is literally holding a plate over a trash can I will stop them and eat it

[-] RedWizard@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

[-] towhee@hexbear.net 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Personally I lost the ability to digest meat or something and now whenever I accidentally ingest some (most recently: cabbage rolls filled with rice that had been cooked in meat-based stock) it gives me a bunch of GI distress, especially acid reflux. So for that practical reason I would avoid it.

A similar conundrum presents itself when a restaurant mixes up my order and gives me something with meat. Obviously if I tell them this and they take it back the dish is thrown out and wasted. I occasionally used to just sigh and eat the dish for that reason until the GI issues became too bad. Sometimes if the server is nice they’ll just let us pack up the extra meat dish for someone else to eat.

[-] NotMushroomForDebate@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 week ago

Questions like this are fundamentally caused by either a core misunderstanding of veganism, or a severe detachment from the reality of animal agriculture and exploitation.

If you have to face that reality, either through engaging in activism or watching (not skimming) documentaries, then you will never look at a hacked-off piece of a carcass or the secretions of an animal that was forcibly impregnated, had their child ripped away from them then murdered at a few hours old as "food". Nor would you look at a garment fashioned from their literal skin as "clothes".

Others in this thread have already highlighted some of the issues that come from someone calling themselves "vegan" consuming animal products in front of other people, and how this concept of "waste" is inherently flawed, so I won't spend time on those points.

Ultimately, everyone needs to understand that veganism is an animal liberation movement, not a diet. It has nothing to do with environmentalism, "waste", sustainability, altruism, or any moralistic framing. If you're at a stage where you're consuming the dead bodies of animals for any reason other than desperate survival, it shows that you simply don't have the fundamental theoretical nor practical knowledge to further the cause of the movement.

The advice is as always: read theory, organise, agitate; but in the case of veganism also crucially: see with your own eyes the reality of what we've all been socialised to accept.
I've met many "vegans" who said to me that they've never sat down and watched what happens with their own eyes, or have never joined an org. None of them are serious about animal liberation beyond lip service.

[-] kojiqurac@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago

And i think answers like this are maybe too concerned with theoretic purity and maintaining a certain label. Do you do what you do so you can call yourself a vegan or do you do it for moral / practical reasons? Personally I would be too disgusted to consume it even though I'm extra agitated when I see it go to waste. A living being created to suffer and die for an abominable purpose and then not even used for that purpose. It's like a mockery and just takes the complete lack of respect for life they have to a higher level. In my mind at least.

Anyway, my point is that an understanding of what veganism is and choosing to be part of it won't cause someone to not see corpses as food. Rather I'd say it's the other way around if anything. One doesn't see corpses as food thus decides to become vegan. But of course that shift in perspective doesn't really occur in some or even most people that go vegan. I mean most of them still like the taste and texture of corpses thus the booming replacement market. So it's more like they're forcing themselves to be vegan. Repressing their urges though the urge is still present. I mean sometimes it can evolve gradually. But as we know most people ''quit veganism''. You can't really consciously decide to not crave something. You can only decide whether to act on that craving or not. Anyway, the way i see it, from a purely pragmatic and utilitarian standpoint, I don't necessarily see his behavior as a problem as it's not actually contributing to the industry to eat what would go to waste. Do i think he can call himself a vegan? Probably not, but I don't really care honestly. It's just a label. What really matters is the consequences of one's actions. Which in his case don't seem to be negative. It's not like it affects the movement in any way either.

That said idk how comfortable i would be with a person like that in the movement and how much i would trust their conviction. So I do sort of agree with you as well. Just wanted to share my thoughts i hope you don't mind. As for your final point, it's exactly why the term vegan itself has soured on me as I feel it's an entirely different ''species'' of an ideology. The distance between what passes for vegan and actually being into liberation is quite large imo.

[-] NotMushroomForDebate@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 week ago

i think answers like this are maybe too concerned with theoretic purity and maintaining a certain label.

Having a clear message and working towards the goals of the movement is not "being concerned with theoretic purity". Words have meanings for a practical purpose, and stripping those meanings away makes it more difficult to organise.

A living being created to suffer and die for an abominable purpose and then not even used for that purpose. It’s like a mockery and just takes the complete lack of respect for life they have to a higher level. In my mind at least.

The issue here is that this is just untackled speciesistic thinking. It's not "respectful" to consume the flesh of someone who was killed, nor is it worse to "waste" the products of their exploitation.
Every human under capitalism is "created" to serve capital. It is not a "waste" if they were to die without getting completely exploited for all of their labour power to the day they die, except through the lens of a capitalist.

I mean most of them still like the taste and texture of corpses thus the booming replacement market. So it’s more like they’re forcing themselves to be vegan. Repressing their urges though the urge is still present. [...] You can’t really consciously decide to not crave something.

People like certain tastes and textures, especially things they are used to. There is no reason to give up something they like if they can have it without murdering someone. The same applies for clothing and entertainment. There are no supernatural urges or cravings, and practising a vegan lifestyle is not a stoic struggle towards noble virtues through suffering.
Changing any habit takes some time and adjustment, there is nothing special about it.

But as we know most people ‘‘quit veganism’’.

Actually, no, we don't "know most people ‘quit veganism’’. A lot of people go on plant-based diets for any number of reasons and call it "going vegan" because the word vegan has become synonymous with plant-based food in many countries (this has both positive and negative consequences, but it's out of the scope of this discussion) and is often used as a marketing term.
People quit all sorts of diets all the time. It's nothing out of the ordinary.

It does not take much investigation to find that the overwhelming majority of people who say they are "ex-vegan" have never had anything to do with the movement at all. There are some examples of activists going "ex-vegan" and it gets very publicised, but ultimately it's a very small number of people.

I don’t necessarily see his behavior as a problem as it’s not actually contributing to the industry to eat what would go to waste. Do i think he can call himself a vegan? Probably not, but I don’t really care honestly. It’s just a label.

I'm not interested in any one person, nor am I trying to be the "label" police. My take regarding this has to do with organising and how having concrete terms with concrete meanings is crucial to that process; this is not exclusive to veganism.
There are practical reasons behind the labelling of certain organisations and individuals as "TERFs" rather than just "Feminists", for example.

What really matters is the consequences of one’s actions. Which in his case don’t seem to be negative.

Like I said, others in this thread have already tackled this, so there is no reason for me to rehash it here, but in short, I do not agree that the consequences of those actions are not negative.

Ultimately, I believe you focus too much on individuals and individual actions rather than the big picture and how the movement as a whole, not individual vegans, should conduct itself.

My perspective is shaped by my experience in organising locally and engaging with dozens of other organisations nationally and internationally. I have seen many strategies from across the spectrum, many mistakes (made many myself), and many successes. I started organising first, then arrived at theory later out of practical necessity.

"Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.",
"[...]practice gropes in the dark if its path is not illumined by revolutionary theory.", etc. etc.

It's not through a concern of "theoretic purity", rather a practical concern with driving the movement forward.

this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2025
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