Hi everyone, I know this topic probably won’t make me many friends, but I’d still be interested to hear what my fellow Swiss think about it. This is about vegan alternatives to animal products. I’m not vegan myself, but I try to reduce my meat consumption to a minimum. It has been shown that a vegan diet is more sustainable. On the one hand, there is the environmental aspect: meat production requires significantly more water and agricultural land. On the other hand, there is the ethical aspect. In my view, no animal wants to be killed, and many of us probably wouldn’t eat meat if we had to slaughter the calf or cow ourselves. Even if an animal has had a good life, I don’t think that necessarily justifies killing it for food, when you have alternatives. Nowadays, we have alternatives, and they are widely available. Almost every supermarket offers vegan products that can replace meat, and these alternatives are getting better and better. In some dishes, you can barely notice the difference anymore. So why kill an animal if I can simply use a vegan substitute instead? For me, the same applies to milk and other animal products. What I mainly want to discuss, however, is the fact that we spend a significant amount of money every year subsidizing our farmers and the agricultural sector. Organizations such as Schweizer Fleisch or Swissmilk promote the continued consumption of animal products. The meat we buy at discount supermarkets is cheaper partly because agriculture is supported through our taxes. At the same time, a product like Planted, for example, is relatively expensive in supermarkets, even though producing it involves much less animal suffering and requires less land and water. So my question is: Wouldn’t it make sense to subsidize these vegan alternatives as well, while reducing subsidies that support meat production and consumption? From my perspective, this would make sense on several levels and could encourage many people to eat less meat. If Planted were significantly cheaper than meat, I think quite a few people would reconsider what they buy. What do you think? TL;DR: Why do we use tax money to subsidize meat production and consumption, while barely subsidizing vegan alternatives? From an environmental and ethical perspective, that doesn’t make much sense to me. submitted by /u/Electroboy5
Originally posted by u/Electroboy5 on r/Switzerland