The Vegan Avocado Debate Put to Rest

The Vegan Avocado Debate Put to Rest is an article that resolves the argument often put to vegans in debates.

I’m not publishing this article for vegans – I don’t need to, most vegans I know can easily handle this rebuttal from people who are not vegan.

This article is geared towards educating those who put it forward.

It is put forward as a kind of “gotcha” argument, whereby the person putting it forward feels they have somehow found a gaping hole in the vegan way of life.

The Vegan Avocado Debate Explained

Let me explain the vegan avocado debate for those who don’t know.

There are vegans that are motivated to veganism by taking an environmental stance and subsequently coming to the conclusion that if you are not vegan you are causing excessive damage to the environment.

The person who is not vegan then brings out the avocado card and states that because avocados are shipped around the world traveling great distances that this is also bad for the environment and therefore vegans are also causing environmental damage.

So they cannot complain about the ecological damage that meat eaters are causing and if they do, well then the vegan that is motivated by the environment is a hypocrite.

That’s in a vegan nutshell.

This argument is the meat eaters’ trump card, their get-out-of-jail card, their ah-ha card.

Is this a strong argument?

Well no it’s not a strong argument at all.

It’s meat eaters scrapping the bottom of the barrel trying to justify their decision to eat animals.

Why is it not a strong argument?

The reason why the vegan avocado debate is not a strong argument is for the following reasons:

1. Vegans do not take up an absolutist position on not damaging the environment

Vegans know full well that they cause damage to the environment. It’s unavoidable.

The very act of living a life no matter what type of lifestyle you choose will cause destruction and death somewhere along the line.

The point of veganism is not to be 100% perfect but to live a life that mitigates on the unnecessary damage we cause and to do so in ways that are practical and reasonably doable in everyday life.

I’m an ethical vegan as opposed to an environmentally motivated vegan. I have been so for 15 years. In no way do I think nor have I ever claimed that I have 100% abstained from causing harm to animals.

However, I can prove beyond question that I cause significantly less destruction to animals than people who consume animal products.

To point out that vegans are hypocrites, therefore, is not a valid stance to take because vegans never claimed to be 100% free of damaging the environment

This brings me to my second point

2. Vegans aren’t living for perfection they are living to make the world better

Another argument that is similar to the avocado debate is that field animals are killed in the harvesting process. This is true.

If you eat wheat you are responsible for killing animals and destroying their habitats. This is due to the destructive power of combine harvesters that thunderously run over the land destroying everything in their path.

However, the majority of the grain produced is not consumed by people. The majority of the world’s grain is consumed by animals, (which are then eaten by people), and to manufacture some cooking oils, fuels, cosmetics, and alcohols.

This means only a lesser proportion (45% according to the Economist) of the world’s grain is fed directly to the consumer. Out of that lesser proportion – taking into account 1-2% of the world is vegan – only 0.0045 are vegan.

This is very minuscule, so clearly choosing vegan is undoubtedly causing the least amount of damage while still allowing you to live a life with your belly full of food so as not to deprive you.

Here’s my final point and the final nail in the coffin of this debate

3. The Avocado industry is not fuelled by vegans

Vegans make up about 1 to 2% of the entire world. Do you really think an avocado industry would exist on the global level if the industry was dependent on hungry vegans?

The vast majority of avocados consumed are consumed by people who eat meat.

So if a meat eater is claiming that you (the vegan) are causing damage to the environment through your eating of them, then they should know they are responsible for a hundred times more damage than the vegan they are accusing of causing damage, because collectively they consume a hundred times more avocados.

A meat eater simply has no moral or environmental ground to challenge vegans because they are responsible for causing damage 100 times greater than that which they are accusing the vegan of causing.

A meat eater that puts forward this argument is simply ignoring logic and maths.

It’s not a well-thought-out argument because it essentially digs a hole for the meat eater that they can’t climb out of.

They are condemning you for doing something that they do 100 times worse.

It’s the intellectual equivalent of a serial killer telling you not to hurt people. Seriously Hanibal, seriously you want to play that card?!?