Food Deserts
Last updated
Last updated
A food desert is an area where accessibility to food is limited. It is often argued that veganism is not a moral obligation for everyone because some people are in food deserts and do not have access to alternatives. There are a variety of flaws with this argument. Veganism is defined by doing what is practicable. It isn't practicable to starve to death. Nothing about the philosophy of veganism necessitates this. Therefore everyone can be vegan.
As far as cost goes, plant-based foods are almost always cheaper than animal products, because animals must eat plants to grow in the first place anyway. Trophic levels and FCRs corroborate this.
The pages in this section give several examples of areas that are frequently argued to be impossible to live and eat plant-based, and yet there are people who live there and are vegan. This isn't to say that there isn't a hypothetical survival situation where it could be impossible to be plant-based without starving to death, just that these situations aren't typically present in civilized society.