• cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I think the argument is more that we shouldn’t be using any animal products to reduce the impacts of farming animals.

    I think it’s a weak argument, but vegan materials are a lot better than they used to be.

    • bob_wiley@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That was kind of my point of mentioning leather is a byproduct. From what I understand we’re not raising cattle for the leather. If beef production goes down, leather prices will go up as it becomes less available. But it seems like if an animal is going to be getting killed, we can at least try and respect it enough to use as much of it as we can, like the Native Americans.

      What are those vegan materials made out of? Are we talking some kind of canvas case, or some petroleum based material pretending to be leather?

      • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Mushrooms are a big one, and they might have a promising path forward eventually.

        They’re just not there. Leather is extremely versatile and excellent at a bunch of different applications depending how you choose to split it and tan it (in addition to being fucking beautiful if handled correctly at the start and over time).

    • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      “Better than they used to be” is kind of meaningless when they’re still not anywhere close to competitive with trash ass bonded leather.

      • cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I owned a vegan leather jacket many years ago and it literally disintegrated, it just turned into flakes and a thin layer of some fabric underneath.

        I’ve heard cactus leather is quite good and seen it used by a few brands. Behind that, I don’t know much about this.

        • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I have no issue with trying to find new ways to make similar products. It’s definitely interesting in terms of material science and processes. But the options aren’t particularly close to anything anyone would actually choose side by side without any of the discussion of ethics. Which, if that’s something you care about, whatever. I don’t, and won’t. That’s what a cow is.

          But if you have issue with it for whatever reason, there are plenty of perfectly fine and perfectly functional natural options for most things that don’t try to pretend to be leather. There are a variety of woven fabrics that work just fine. I’d be willing to bet that you could make some kind of waxed canvas case that’s a hell of a lot more durable than the crappy leather Apple uses for a decent bit less money.

          • cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            This is like when my in laws invited everyone over for burgers but didn’t tell people they were vegan burgers. They served Portobello mushroom patties and a bunch of stuff mixed in and it was quite good, but people were expecting burgers and the whole thing went over horribly.

              • cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                There were some faces like Ron not getting his steak from Mulligans, but it mostly just featured extended family complaining on Facebook drama.

                Since it wasn’t my side of the family it’s kinda funny how big of a deal people made it. People knew they were vegan, I don’t know why they were assumed it wouldn’t be vegan food!