#as if food can't be sources ethically and locally and you just have to accept exploited workers picking your food

[starlightswordfight]

UHH REMINDER ALSO SINCE I HAVE BEEN SHARING A LOT MORE NEGATIVE THINGS LATELY that amid literally everything that's been going on, there are still things that you can do to retain control in your life in at least some areas!! not everyone can actively protest right now, not everyone has the means and that is OKAY! do what you can when you can!!

this post is a wall of text of me rambling about things you can do Right Now in your community or to keep yourself happy and motivated and going. it's a long one so it's going under read more. I also talk a lot more in the tags

i also use terms like Current Events a lot so I also apologize for the vagueness in some places!! I do not know if this will get flagged if I get more specific and my account has tried to go down twice now

#1: BONDING WITH YOUR COMMUNITY (WITH PERSONAL SAFETY IN MIND)

getting involved in your local community is a big big big thing I've seen talked about lately and I agree with that entirely!! the #1 best thing I feel like anyone can do right now is either volunteering at local support groups or getting involved in local activism

if you have a local community you can connect with for whatever reason then that's absolutely a good idea for both practical and emotional reasons. it can be for anything really, actually. reach out to friends, reach out to family, keep talking to people if you have the energy! it really does make a difference!

^ related to the above, if you can involve yourself in volunteer work, or mutual aid, or just helping others out in some other way, then absolutely do that! you can start with asking around, or searching up aid or other groups that may need extra help in your area, and go from there!!

I see a lot of people have been saying for months to organize and then absolutely no one ever explains how to organize, and if you don't plan on starting something up Yourself that is how you get involved. you find like minded people and you lend your hands. I just looked up "volunteers needed/mutual aid [insert town here]" and went off of that

and there are a lot of different places people might need assistance for. one example being food banks, pantries, are basically always accepting new donations -- if you have produce, not all of them will accept it due to safety regulations, but a local community garden might! libraries also will exchange more than books, and protecting libraries by showing involvement and interest in them is important now more than ever

local businesses, emergency aid if you have the certification, environmental work and disaster cleanup, assisted living areas, shelters, a lot of other specific areas I can't name right now. if you are physically able to seek out support and give back in turn (and if you aren't able to do one or both of these that's also okay!!) i highly highly recommend it. mutual aid especially goes both ways. do not be afraid to reach out for help, that is what they're there for

speaking of libraries!

#2: KEEP INFORMED

this can refer to a lot of different things, but on a federal and local level it is never ever ever a bad thing to keep up to date with what's going on. anyone trying to do bad things on a government level is relying on you not noticing or staying uninformed in the invent that you do notice. keep track of what's going on in your area and plan accordingly!!

keeping up with the news (and fact checking, always, because journalism isn't always ethically practiced), finding where your local city hall or equivalent is and staying up to date on local legislation, has always been important for safety and especially is right now. know how to determine a reliable source from an unreliable one, and know how to pick apart the difference between fact and misconstrued ideas spoken as fact. I'll probably make a post on that too at some point and link it here when I'm done

it is overwhelming to hear just how much is getting worse so quickly, but it's crucial that you don't allow yourself to become unaware, because that makes you easier to lie to. you do not have to work yourself to burnout or to a breakdown, please take breaks whenever you need to and put your own health first!!

but don't do yourself the disservice of not knowing what's happening around you. I want everyone to be as safe as they can, and to be safe you have to be informed

#3: FIND SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO (AND ALSO KEEP CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE EVEN IF IT'S IN SMALL WAYS)

staying up to date on current events has been overwhelming for me, but it also has helped me to maintain a sense of control in my life. and there are a lot of other ways to do that, too, and also give you sources of happiness and things to still look forward to! I'm listing what works for me but I'm sure there's infinitely more ways to pull that off

taking up or getting back into hobbies or interests is a very effective way to keep joy in your life, and this goes double if you're sort of stuck in your house like I am most days. you should get to do things that make you happy!! you deserve to still have things to look forward to!!!

I've also been personally using my interests to try to learn how to do more practical things that might help me and the people I live with; I'm a gardener so I've been working on trying to grow food, starting with sweet peppers. don't know if I'll end up needing that one day (or if my neighbors might, but as the economy completely fucks itself it could get very useful very fast), but having the knowledge and the means helps me feel more in control of what happens in my personal life, and it really has made me feel better and have a source of hope

I really hope that everyone who sees this is doing as well as they're able right now. saying all of this because I don't want to contribute to any ideas of complete hopelessness, if that makes sense. there are things worth getting up in the morning for and every one of you matters and you deserve to be happy. and I love you /p

even if you aren't utilizing your hobbies in that way (again, PERFECTLY fine, do what you need to forever), something like that might be useful for you, too! you can learn new skills or read up on all those things you already wanted to look into but kept putting off, you can carve out a little space in your world for Joy and for Whimsy if you don't have one already! it's good for you!! it's incredible in fact!!

[a-dragons-journal]

Not applicable to the poll, so just answering the other questions:

Do you feel like your nonhuman identity influences the way you feel about meat/other animal products? If so, could you explain how? Not particularly, honestly. You'd think it would, being a probably-obligate-carnivore dragon, but I just don't like meat all that much (I just can't stand the alternatives even more, mostly for texture sensitivity reasons), and while I do have hunting instincts and a prey drive, it doesn't affect my views on meat that's already been killed.

How do you generally feel about animal agriculture? Do you believe there is a way that it can be done ethically? Yes, absolutely there is. Humans have been doing animal agriculture for thousands of years, and the massive industrial farms that raise ethical concerns are a new development. A domesticated animal has no cognizance of "lost" time being slaughtered before it naturally would have died - it only knows that the life it has is comfortable, well-fed, and happy (in an ethical scenario, of course).

How do you feel about hunting? I have no issues with hunting for food, and in fact in many areas it's a necessity where we've driven out natural predators and caused an unhealthy overabundance of prey, and/or introduced invasive species that are now causing harm to the local ecosystem. In these cases, it's more ethical to hunt and eat these overpopulated and/or invasive species than to ban hunting entirely - if we can't reintroduce the wolves, we have to be the wolves. My feelings on trophy hunting are somewhat more complicated, and mostly boil down to "please just don't," but I'm willing to accept there are probably specific scenarios where it does overall more good than harm by encouraging funding and maintenance of wildlife and nature management to support licensed, controlled trophy hunting. It feels instinctively wrong to kill and not eat (which probably is dragon brain), but logically there are probably some scenarios where it's not actually a net evil.

How do you feel about trapping? I wasn't honestly aware this was a separate issue from hunting in general; I assume the same morality rules apply, as long as any lethal traps used are immediately lethal (I know this isn't for food, but glue traps for mice are horrifically inhumane in my opinion).

Where does your information about how animal agriculture, hunting, and/or trapping works come from? Mixed sources; partially websites specifically designed to give information on this topic, partially my mother being a wildlife veterinarian, partially social media (ie people who actually own farms or hunt, which I do neither of, talking about it, including Native Americans talking about traditional methods of land management)

If somebody asked you about where they could find information about animal agriculture, hunting, and/or trapping, what organizations, individuals, or websites would you refer them to? Probably their state's Fish & Wildlife department (or their country's equivalent, if one exists) for the latter two; I honestly don't have a source off the top of my head for the first. Anyone but PETA.

If you have a carnivorous nonhuman identity and have no problem with eating meat/animal products, would you ever consider hunting or being part of slaughtering animals for your own food? Have you ever done either of those things? If you have any desire to or if you already have, do you feel like your nonhuman identity might influence/has influenced how you might feel/felt about participating in it? Maybe, if I was invited to, but probably not. Hunting with a gun or even a bow is meaningless to dragon brain; if you're not hunting with your own teeth and claws, it's not interested, and obviously that's not possible. It would be a lot of work and discomfort only for the "fun" part to not actually happen. Similarly, slaughter isn't interesting to it; it wants the thrill of the chase and the struggle, and obviously that would be inhumane to inflict if it's not necessary to. It would be entirely human brain focused on doing it correctly to minimize the animal's opportunity to feel fear or pain, and that's not really appealing to me, it's just a thing that has to happen.

A follow-up poll from my other poll (if you haven't answered that one yet, please do if you feel so inclined!)

Note that there is no "view results" option - this is to keep results from being skewed too far in the "view results" direction. There are some questions beneath the poll that anyone is welcome to answer in reblogs or tags or comments, though!

Secondary optional questions that anyone can answer in reblogs, comments, or tags (feel free to answer as many or as few as you'd like):

Do you feel like your nonhuman identity influences the way you feel about meat/other animal products? If so, could you explain how?

How do you generally feel about animal agriculture? Do you believe there is a way that it can be done ethically?

How do you feel about hunting?

How do you feel about trapping?

Where does your information about how animal agriculture, hunting, and/or trapping works come from?

If somebody asked you about where they could find information about animal agriculture, hunting, and/or trapping, what organizations, individuals, or websites would you refer them to?

If you have a carnivorous nonhuman identity and have no problem with eating meat/animal products, would you ever consider hunting or being part of slaughtering animals for your own food? Have you ever done either of those things? If you have any desire to or if you already have, do you feel like your nonhuman identity might influence/has influenced how you might feel/felt about participating in it?

If anyone is curious as to why I'm asking these questions, I'm a therian who is studying sustainable agriculture and food systems, and I'd like to write an essay about the intersection between my therianthropy and how I experience my part in the food system, but also about the general community's experience with their own intersections between nonhuman identity and diet in general (if there are any at all)

[herbwicc]

you don’t have to be vegan but that post is completely uninformed. Animals are given B12 supplements because most eat a corn based diet and b12 is found in dirt. Veganism CAN be affordable, I am living proof. Vegans care just as much about exploited farm workers, but you do realize they are also the ones growing food for your cows, right? So you’re doing double damage? I literally don’t care what you eat, but leave vegans ALONE for trying their best to eat ethically

This one I mostly answered in the tags of the previous one so I'll try not to do the thing I do where I continue in the tags: the part of the post that says that supplementing makes your diet unhealthy is, to me, pretty dumb. Even the regular diet of Americans has fortified food because it doesn't have everything we need. It's fine to take supplements. I think the WORST argument of that post is the one about how many people would lose their jobs lmao that's the same argument the fossil fuel industry uses- we can make... Better jobs... Or better yet not base someone's ability to survive on what they do for work.

There are also many things we SHOULD be doing as a society to make sure veganism (or any preferred diet) is affordable for working class families barely scraping by, not just individuals. Like I said in the previous answer, if people WANT to be vegan, they deserve the opportunity to financially have that choice. NOT everyone does have the financial opportunity, that's fact, but everyone should. So, again, happy that your preferred diet is affordable to you. Realize this is not the case for everyone.

Finally, not that I need to be divulging my own dietary choices to you, but I try to eat as ethically as I can for my community and the environment while still practicing the intuitive eating I personally require for a healthy recovery from anorexia. For me currently, that means sourcing ethically. I unfortunately have met quite a few vegans who do not consider the impact on exploited workers, if that's not you then it's not about you, simple as that.

The post here, again, isn't about vegans being bad, and no one is trying to stop you from being vegan. It's not whining about your food choices, you can be a vegan, for gods sake. It is aimed at the type of vegans who don't understand it's not for everyone and includes some examples from people about why they personally can't (sans shitty arguments from that one reblog), those personal examples of why they can't is WHY I reblogged it. It's particularly aimed at the type of vegans who assume everyone who isn't vegan is just a heartless piece of shit. From your previous message, that seems like you. It's also aimed at vegans who think the work ends at veganism, that if you're vegan then that's it, you're as morally clean as Jesus himself. The type who see people doing huge steps in environmental activism but ignore it for lack of veganism. If that's not you, then it's not about you.