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Gen Z has the highest rate of veganism in history and it's reshaping the food industry

https://vegoutmag.com/news/s-tns-gen-z-has-the-highest-rate-of-veganism-in-history-at-4-and-its-reshaping-the-food-industry/
renegadespork @lemmy.jelliefrontier.net - 2day

It’s nice to see Gen Z getting more qualitatively neutral headline language. Millennials would’ve been “killing the meat industry.”

Also, this is really good. While we don’t all need to become total vegans, reducing the number of domesticated animals would have a significantly positive impact on both the environment and the quality of those animals’ lives.

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Aiastarei @lemmy.world - 2day

Tbh it's from a vegan souce, and probably written by millenials too

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canihasaccount @lemmy.world - 2day

Millennials bore the brunt of a ton of media framing their changes as evil, so they aren't doing the same to subsequent generations. A similar inference could be made about the positivity towards veganism (i.e., coming from a vegan site).

OP isn't implying anything about validity; they're just explaining the article's positive framing.

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Canaconda - 2day

Yea I was thrown off by the "tbh" at the beginning and misconstrued "vegan source" to imply they were alleging bias.

Millennials bore the brunt of a ton of media framing their changes as evil

Yes we did. Hence why I was trigged lol

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canihasaccount @lemmy.world - 14hr

Not sure why you were downvoted. Take my Lemmy silver as a way of expressing my agreement.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⢠⣤⣤⣤⣼⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣄⣤⣤⣠ ⢸⠀⡶⠶⠾⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡷⠶⠶⡆⡼ ⠈⡇⢷⠀⠀⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢰⠇⠀⢸⢁⡗ ⠀⢹⡘⡆⠀⢹⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡸⠀⢀⡏⡼⠀ ⠀⠀⢳⡙⣆⠈⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⠇⢀⠞⡼⠁⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠙⣌⠳⣼⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣞⡴⣫⠞⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠓⢮⣻⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡼⣩⠞⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠛⣆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⠞⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠳⢤⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⠖⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠉⡇⢸⡏⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡇⢸⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⠖⠒⠓⠚⠓⠒⣦⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⣠⣞⣉⣉⣉⣉⣉⣉⣉⣉⣉⣉⣙⣆⣀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠓⠲⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠶⠖⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

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bearboiblake @pawb.social - 1day

Millenials love blaming stuff on other generations, they just go for boomers instead. It'll probably be Gen Alpha next. Kinda already is with the scorn over stuff popular with alpha, such as skibidi toilet and 6 7.

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teft - 23hr

Ah yes, being made fun of for making up words is the same as being blamed for entire industries falling.

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canihasaccount @lemmy.world - 14hr

I've actually seen a lot of millennials likening 6 7 to 1337 and such that millennials made a big deal over at that age.

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Asidonhopo @lemmy.world - 7hr

1337 was definitely a late gen x meme that millenials appropriated, went well back into the 90s before America was OnLine.

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bearboiblake @pawb.social - 2hr

Yeah, and a lot of boomers disagreed with the characterization of millenials in the media, too. Generations are not a monolith, but often the differences between them are exploited by the ruling class to drive a stake between members of the working class.

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jjjalljs @ttrpg.network - 2day

While we don’t all need to become total vegans, reducing the number of domesticated animals would have a significantly positive impact on both the environment and the quality of those animals’ lives.

This is where I'm at. Half-assed vegetarian. I don't buy meat but if someone serves it at a dinner I don't refuse to eat. Baby steps. It's making progress without the shock of an abrupt change all at once.

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renegadespork @lemmy.jelliefrontier.net - 2day

Yeah I turned meat into a “special occasion” food, and it was way easier than I thought once I got over the perfectionism. Animal products are a lot easier to reduce than completely eliminate, but every little bit helps.

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the_q @lemmy.zip - 2day

This. This is the healthiest take.

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ceoofanarchism - 2day

It's not about your health its primarily about the exploited group.

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the_q @lemmy.zip - 2day

I mean healthiest in the "all or nothing thinking is bad" way.

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pressedhams - 2day

For you. Let other people have other perspectives and they can all be valid.

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ceoofanarchism - 2day

"Perspectives" doesn't work when they are beings being harmed. When they are victims let people oppress isn't a good take.

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pressedhams - 2day

Sure it does when we’re discussing the motivation for someone to choose eating less meat. If they are doing it for health reasons that’s no less valid than your reasons.

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bearboiblake @pawb.social - 1day

I'm just saying, if your reasons for being against the holocaust is that burning the corpses contributed to greenhouse gas emissions, you are kind of a shitty person, but hey, whatever gets you there...?

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pressedhams - 21hr

You’re the vegan everyone complains about.

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bearboiblake @pawb.social - 18hr

Complain all you want, at least I don't pay people to kill animals so that I may consume their corpse. Merry Christmas though!

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anarchaos @lemmy.ml - 21hr

godwin strikes again

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Canaconda - 2day

Over >50% of the space humans occupy is for agriculture. 3/4 of that space is dedicated to livestock/feed.

Recently I learned that plants like Bambara Nuts (africa) and Water Lentils (duckweed) have complete amino complexes and b12. They're probably not the only ones either.

There's also many pest/drought resistant perennial crops that are nitrogen/nutrient fixers that eliminate the need for fertilizers and pesticides.

I expect that the impending climate induced supply chain collapse of global agriculture will force people to return to these more ancestral, and arguably superior, food sources.

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NaibofTabr - 2day

Huh, isn't duckweed pretty easy to grow?

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Canaconda - 2day

Just watched a lady "grow" it in buckets of pond/tap water. It doubles in biomass every 48h. Literally just let it sit there.

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Ms. ArmoredThirteen - 2day

Most things with weed in the name is going to be easy to grow. A lot of people with aquariums or ponds feel plagued by it. I love it for aquariums it's one of the few things that can out compete algae

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Canaconda - 2day

Youtube has sent me down the rabbit hole. Almost every common weed that's not native to North America was once a staple food crop in Europe.

But in the mid 20th century big agriculture realized they'd make more money selling annuals, fertilizer, and pesticides... instead of letting people grow perennial plants that solved those problems on their own.

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Tollana1234567 @lemmy.today - 1day

most of them escape in the wild, and established wild population. iceplant is another one, its from south africa, it actually doesnt help with preventing spread of fires,it blankets the coasts of california. relatives of the plants are quite nifty succulents for hobbyist(aizocae, aka stone plants) while the ornamentals are very hard to take care off, the iceplants is very hardy and invasive. blue gum, a type of eucalyptus grows fast, also invasive but the biggest problem is since its a eucalyptus it makes fires more dangerous because of the oils.

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Tollana1234567 @lemmy.today - 1day

yes, but also super invasive. we have them in areas where thier are bonds in norcal they blanket the entire water surface. they spread by vegatative propagation.

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Ephera - 2day

By the way, all plant foods have all amino acids. They just have them in proportions to one another that don't quite match the proportions that we need. But this is only relevant, if you eat the minimum amount of protein necessary to sustain your body tissues.
In a Western diet, we typically eat significantly more protein than that. As such, if e.g. black beans only provide 50% of an amino acid compared to the other amino acids and compared to what we need, you can totally eat 200% black beans to make up for it.
Or, what's more likely the case, you're not gonna eat just black beans, but rather mix and match them with lots of other protein sources, which will have different amino acid distributions. Even wheat and rice contain protein. Well, and then you're gonna eat significantly more of that mixture than you actually need, so you don't need be particularly cautious at mixing+matching either.

Not the most scientific source, but has some decent illustrations: https://vegfaqs.com/essential-amino-acid-profiles-beans/

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Canaconda - 2day

The human body require 20 amino acids of which 9 our bodies cannot produce. A "complete amino complex" contains all 9 of those unproducible acids. Most plants do not contain all of them. Black beans lack methionine; so simply eating more black beans will not suffice.

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Ephera - 1day

No, that's what I'm saying. Black beans 'lack' methionine in that they have less milligram methionine per gram protein than other protein sources, but they don't have none.

This table in the source that I linked is to be read as "you should eat 4.59 cups of black beans per day to cover the methionine RDA (if you weigh 70kg and all you eat is black beans)":

https://lemmy.ml/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fvegfaqs.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F07%2Fbeans-amino-acids-servings-2.png

Here's another diagram showing that black beans do contain methionine, which got published in a scientific paper:
https://lemmy.ml/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fprofile%2FJuan-Torres-41%2Fpublication%2F351804462%2Ffigure%2Ffig1%2FAS%3A1180545358802944%401658475355142%2FAmino-acid-composition-of-quinoa-black-bean-and-lentil-proteins-g-100-g-of-protein.png
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Amino-acid-composition-of-quinoa-black-bean-and-lentil-proteins-g-100-g-of-protein_fig1_351804462

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ceoofanarchism - 2day

No we need to free all slaves not just some.

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anarchaos @lemmy.ml - 22hr

comparing slaves to animals is exactly what slavers do

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aperson @beehaw.org - 2day

Given the source of the article, of course the title is going to have a positive tone.

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ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace - 2day

That's true. But I'm willing to bet it's also because it's less affordable.

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renegadespork @lemmy.jelliefrontier.net - 2day

While it feels weird to argue that something should be more expensive, I think it’s best that meat is treated like a luxury for special occasions.

Meat is inherently an expensive process, and it was only ever cheap because the cost was paid elsewhere—mostly by horrible conditions for animals & human workers and environmental destruction.

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ceoofanarchism - 2day

Except the opposite is true by all accounts assuming you aren't eating fancy meat substitutes all the time.

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ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace - 2day

The opposite?

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apotheotic (she/her) - 1day

A vegan diet is dramatically cheaper than a diet with a significant amount of meat, assuming you aren't eating expensive meat substitutes

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ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace - 1day

Aaaah ok I get it. Thanks for the explanation.

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ngdev - 1day

4% compared to 2%

i am not a vegan but if this means more interesting recipes then it's a W

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DigitalAudio @sopuli.xyz - 1day

Hell, I'm not vegan (or vegetarian), but I'm almost 100% sure I eat much less meat than Millennials and Boomers did when they were in my wage and age bracket.

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gandalf_der_12te @discuss.tchncs.de - 15hr

yeah, meat consumption should be about "kg of meat eaten/(person*year)" instead of "percentage of people who eat meat".

because you can have a society where 50% of people eat meat and eat like 100 kg of it per year or you can have a society where 50% of people eat meat and eat 30 kg of it per year, makes a lot of difference.

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Korhaka @sopuli.xyz - 1day

Yeah, who can afford meat anymore? Not sure if poverty is a win..

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DigitalAudio @sopuli.xyz - 24hr

I mean, I can afford it (I'm not American or anything) but I just don't find it essential. There are other things I eat far more often and that I enjoy more as well.

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VitoRobles @lemmy.today - 16hr

All those food recalls in the last two decades has made me eat more vegetables, or find meat alternatives.

Also, rising prices. It's like $10 a lb for quality burger meat. Or I can buy vegetarian burgers.

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ngdev - 14hr

dont forget whats going on with the fda lol its a risk but i sous vide so theres practically zero risk

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Clent @lemmy.dbzer0.com - 17hr

It's also bad data analysis, young people outgrow veganism. There is nothing in the base study that indicates any change in this trend.

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Geth @lemmy.dbzer0.com - 2day

Interesting. I've noticed the hype dying down in recent years and some of my favorite vegan products disappearing off the shelves or changing recipe and then dying a slow painful death. I blamed it on people and companies treating it as just a fad, so reporting that it's still a thing people do is surprising to me.

It's true there are still more vegan products than before, but the dedicated sections in my local supermarkets are tiny.

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Resonosity @lemmy.dbzer0.com - 2day

Subsidies for the animal agriculture industry are still lopsided against veganism, and the Far Right escalation in social media awarded by algorithms favors carnism over veganism.

I like to think that veganism is more of a grass roots (pun intended) movement focused on whole foods in favor of processed foods.

All these things may contribute to veganism's seeming decline in the last few years, although I may be wrong (and that decline may just be a lack of reporting)

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some_kind_of_guy @lemmy.world - 1day

I feel like it's a difficult thing to measure, because like you said, the OG vegans are just eating a plant-based diet of whole foods. Veggies/greens, rice, beans lentils, nuts, grains, tofu etc... which health-conscious meat eaters will also eat. Must be hard to get the signal from the noise there. I would imagine that meat replacement type products would be more faddish and less stable because they're often popular with those trying to transition to a plant-based diet.

Plus, these foods are just kind of weird IMO, and way more expensive than just eating a regular diet of plants. They're not going to do well when consumer sentiment is shaky at best.

Disclaimer: I'm not vegan myself, just spent some time in the food industry (organic/natural foods in particular).

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PrimeMinisterKeyes @leminal.space - 2day

Anecdotally, this is not the case where I live. Vegan ice cream has taken a hit, but the other sections seem to be expanding year after year.

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whoisearth @lemmy.ca - 16hr

Imma eat my friends because they're delicious.

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DupaCycki @lemmy.world - 6hr

Please do eat your friends out.

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Resonosity @lemmy.dbzer0.com - 2day

Vegans rise up! Nobody in any Imperial Core countries should have to eat animals, as there are so many plant-based options today. It's so easy these days, and I'm happy to say that my family's Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners this year were and will be mostly vegan!

I hope all of this Gen Z momentum translates into political will on the policy level, where we see more and more animal sanctuaries both on and off shore.

But of course our impact doesn't just stop at the Imperial Core. We need a global movement of veganism if we should ever want to change what we do to the natural world

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grrgyle - 2day

Yay! 🥕🐇

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ceoofanarchism - 2day

Not enough can't stop till no animal is enslaved and exploited.

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callmechiko @lemmy.zip - 23hr

Love to see it!

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chunes @lemmy.world - 1day

I absolutely misread that title as vampirism and it had me confused for a solid 15 seconds

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MagnificentSteiner @lemmy.zip - 2day

highest rate of veganism in history

India says hello

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Jim East - 2day

The massive dairy industry with a stranglehold on Indian culture and politics says hello.

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MagnificentSteiner @lemmy.zip - 2day

OK, India still has the highest rate of Veganism in the world.

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PrimeMinisterKeyes @leminal.space - 2day

Also the highest rate of vegetarianism, by far, if this link is to be believed.

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spacesatan @leminal.space - 1day

There really isn't good data on rates of veganism, especially globally. I'd be surprised if 50% of Mexicans could actually accurately describe veganism. There is no way in hell 1 in 10 are actually vegan. I know reddit is gross but this thread echoes my sentiment with some more context.

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spacesatan @leminal.space - 10hr

Because it's a single mediocre poll producing a wildly outside expectation result that hasn't been reproduced. Every time a poll doesn't rely on self-identification and instead asks more explicit questions like "do you avoid consuming ___ for moral reasons" or "are you willing to eat ___ if it is freely offered" the numbers drop like a brick.

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Gammelfisch @lemmy.world - 2day

Will Gen Z fix the shitty US healthcare system and labor laws?

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some_kind_of_guy @lemmy.world - 1day

I know it's wrong to expect a younger generation to clean up our mess, as it was expected of ours (I'm a young millennial) and we haven't done shit, and it sucks. Not entirely our fault, as at least everyone in my circle was (and still is) balls deep in student debt and always busy WORKING just to get the basics. And some of us are starting to take care of elderly parents to boot.

The kids really are alright though. Starting to wake up to the fact that college isn't always the right choice, or at least not the full picture, so that's progress.

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x00z @lemmy.world - 21hr

Maybe ask this in a US based community?

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BeigeAgenda @lemmy.ca - 2day

It's nice with a good selection of vegan options, makes it easier to eat less meat.

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