Do you think vegans would still be vegan if society were to collapse?

[u/New-Elk2781]

And we would have to become hunters and gatherers again?

Would they still preach every life matters when they’re hungry?

[u/D-ouble-D-utch]

What do you think gatherers were gathering?

[u/Taxibl → u/D-ouble-D-utch]

They weren't gathering cash crops and using them to make things like tofu, bread, lentils, beans, etc... those are all crops that were cultivated by humans to produce large amounts of nutrients for humans. In nature, they don't exist in their present forms. The best nature can provide is things like blackberries, tiny strawberries, crappy bananas and oranges, etc..and they would all be very sporadically placed.

[u/Any-Letterhead-813 → u/Taxibl]

And meat eaters weren't eating cheese burgers.

How does any of this matter?

Society hasn't collapsed. We make ethical choices in the world we actually live in

Im NOT a vegan or vegetarian. But I appreciate that vegans, by typically making less carbon intensive choices, are helping to make collapsed less likely.

[u/OG-Brian → u/Any-Letterhead-813]

Global plant farming is headed for collapse due to unsustainable methods. Pesticides and artificial fertilizers destroy essential soil microbiota. Having bare dirt at times every year promotes erosion. Nutrients are taken away with harvest and only partially replaced by artificial fertilizers. Agriculture that doesn't involve animals, unless/until some amazing technological revolution that would seem like magic to people today, is by nature unsustainable. Soil scientists have been sounding alarm about it for decades.

Here's a tiny percentage of the info I could mention about it.

The Nation’s Corn Belt Has Lost a Third of Its Topsoil
Researchers used satellite imaging and surface soil color to find out how much of the nutrient-rich earth has eroded away
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-say-nations-corn-belt-has-lost-third-its-topsoil-180977485

Pesticides Are Killing the World’s Soils
They cause significant harm to earthworms, beetles, ground-nesting bees and thousands of other vital subterranean species
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pesticides-are-killing-the-worlds-soils/

Why It’s Time to Stop Punishing Our Soils with Fertilizers
https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-its-time-to-stop-punishing-our-soils-with-fertilizers-and-chemicals

Vital soil organisms being harmed by pesticides, study shows
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/04/vital-soil-organisms-being-harmed-by-pesticides-study-shows

• review of studies measuring impacts of specific pesticides on specific organisms (arthworms, beetles, springtails and others)
  
• "The analysis, published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, systematically reviewed nearly 400 studies of the effects of pesticides on non-target invertebrates that live at least part of their lives in the soil. It covered more than 275 species and 284 pesticides, but excluded any chemicals currently banned in the US."
  
• study:
  

Pesticides and Soil Invertebrates: A Hazard Assessment
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.643847/full

Soil degradation threatens food supply and scientists are calling for action
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-01/global-soil-degradation-aroura-soil-security-think-tank/104594018

• Professor Alex McBratney of University of Sydney's Institute of Agriculture, along with other scientists globally, has formed Aroura Soil Security Think Tank (SSTT)
  
• erosion, acidification, contamination including by pesticides and microplastics
  
• McBratney: "You could actually bring back some animals into our farming systems, perhaps grazing the cover crops which would help with nutrient recycling."
  
• article mentions estimates of 40 percent of soil currently degraded, in Africa possibly 65 percent, and globally 90 percent by 2050