YSK: The term "Genuine Leather", it is not to reassure you that their product is made of leather, rather its the name of the lowest grade of leather a company can use.
Why YSK: The term "Genuine Leather" is a marketing term to sell the lowest quality leather possible.
When purchasing a leather product, look for full grain leather or top grain leather instead. These will provide a much higher quality cut of leather that will look and feel much better and last for much longer.
For example, leather in second hand products it's great because it's durable and often high quality. And, whatever you do, the animal has already been killed and paid for.
I would also buy leather products if it's for something that I intend to use for many years. It sort of offsets the environmental damage from buying multiple synthetic products.
In the right context, leather goods are much more durable and sustainable than synthetic alternatives. That said, leather is a co-product of the meat and dairy industry which is currently ridiculously unsustainable. Leather for leathers sake in designer goods and such is ridiculous.
I wonder what people who upvote this are thinking, obviously the point is moot unless you are also vegan. And who upvotes someone going “meat is murder” in the comment section.
I'm not vegan, but I do personally agree that it's selfish and inhumane to eat meat and use leather - especially on an industrial scale. I eat meat, but I don't have any delusions about where it comes from.
Not meaning to argue, but just to say it's not only vegans that think about this stuff. Also, even if it was, that doesn't mean they're wrong or moot.
I think it's the difference between vegan ethics and being a vegan in practice. I generally agree with vegan ethics, I think that meat and leather are generally made from murder. Perhaps a lesser version of murder than killing a human being, but murder nonetheless. However, animal products are common in both food and consumer goods and I don't have the time or money to commit towards fully avoiding them. Like with the issue of many of our agricultural goods being the product of slavery, I believe that this is something that should moreso be curtailed by the state than any individual consumer.
I think it's because it's irrelevant for someone who would be interested in leather (and this YSK). I'm sure they're well aware of where leather comes from. I will say, though, that if cows are getting murdered for food, then they might as well use the whole animal instead of letting it go to waste.
Perhaps the leather is as/more profitable, but the beef is still being eaten. Kind of misleading to state that Brazil barely exports that beef to the US when there are many other markets that it does export that beef to. It's a distinction that I'm not sure is significant. As much of the cow is being used with little waste. As long as cows are getting killed for food as a "co-product" it'd still be a waste to throw out the leather (or the other way around).
It seems so odd too because if I didn't know better, I'd assume "Full or Top Grain" was lower quality than "Genuine Leather" just by how the phrases sound.
Reddit does it with Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr...
Some of the bigger communities is literally just screenshots of what people say other places.
It would be pretty funny to see an instance that just pulls posts from subs and posts them to Lemmy. Not direct links to reddit, just copy the link/pic/video
fair point.. yeah now that you mention it, a lot of the shit I used to see on reddit was from "curated tumbler", " white people twitter" etc..
I'm glad I left reddit, the api cluster fuck and associated protests (which I joined w/ my rinky dink tiny sub) came at the perfect time to give me the shove out the door I needed. I was spending 3, 4, 5 hours of my day reading the most inane bullshit.
I'm at extremely high risk of it happening again with lemmy, but I like to think it'll never take on the endlessly churning sewer-exit pipe amount of "content" that reddit had with its however many millions of users.
Not quite. The truth is, there is no universally recognized grades of leather. But when bragging about quality, genuine leather is the lowest bar they can go (other than bonded leather, which isn’t fully leather but just a veneer over fabric.
Full grain or top grain is generally what you want.
Also, some are concerned about the use of an animal product. The vast majority of leather is a byproduct of the beef industry. It is skin that would otherwise go to waste. And it is also far more environmentally friendly a material than many alternatives, which are often made of plastics.
Just because America has more of a need for Brazilian leather than their beef does not mean it isn’t a byproduct.
A byproduct is defined as “something produced in a usually industrial or biological process in addition to the principal product.” The principle product is beef.
By your logic, why don't we flay off the skins of all dead people and wear those too? They're just going to waste!
I'm opposed to the animal killing industry and all of its various outgrowths. The less money that can be made from it, the less money will be invested into the industry in the first place. If the skins end up in a landfill, that's lost revenue that makes the industry suffer. Putting money in the pockets of these businesses just lets them reinvest. Stop trying to portray your choice to wear skin as somehow the more ethical one and preach from some imaginary moral high ground.
I'd genuinely prefer if my family turned my remains into a fucking backpack instead of paying thousands of dollars to put them on a cushioned box in the ground
gotta love all the people throwing shade at you but never showing any actual counterargument. Average carnist behaviour, gotta keep the cognitive dissonance at bay.
Don't you see? By not draping ourselves in the flesh of dead animals we're actually being disrespectful of their sacrifices!!! You don't want animals to end up in landfills, do you?
Bleh. There's nothing worse than these preachy types who try to assuage their guilt by presenting their practices as ethical. At least carnists that don't care about animals are honest with themselves
Nope. I've mostly accepted that the only way some communities will ever exist is if someone becomes a dedicated poster and jumps off the cliff every day to keep them active, at least until they can attract their own userbase.
Yeah, honestly you should buy leather products based on brands than on description of "genuine" leather.
And agree, real leather is a much better alternative to the ridiculous amount of micro-plastic synthetic leather generates, especially since it'll last you decades if you maintain it well.
I think this is a good point and well sourced; however, it doesn’t take into account the longevity of the product, which is also important. Best practice is probably to thrift existing leather products since we already have so much material in circulation.
Yeah I have a cork-leather wallet, it's awesome. Lasting better than my prior two supposedly leather ones. Not sure it would work as a belt though, idk
Except for a few specific cases, indo not enjoy them at all... Oat milk is okay if the milk is not a major player in taste. Coconut milk is good if you want a coconutty taste.
That’s fine, but if you’re going to advocate for an alternative product, you should believe in it enough not to pretend it’s the thing it’s supposed to replace or that the the people you're trying to convince are too stupid who notice the difference.
Don't buy leather. Cows are sentient beings with their own subjective experience. Actions that inflict unnecessary harm upon others should be reconsidered.
If you downvote, you must have a justification for buying leather and I'd love to hear it.
Justification: I like to eat cows, they taste good. Might as well use the skin when the animal is killed anyway. Also leather is a really good material for a lot of things.
I love meat, I like a good leather jacket. I want a world where we take good care of our animals, take no more than we need and then use the entire animal as efficiently as possible. Reality however is a lot more cruel and wasteful. It is everyone's personal choice but I chose to stop purchasing cow and pig products.
You don't need leather or meat. You are taking more than you need. You should really watch dominion so you can see that you absolutely don't take good care of the animals. A personal choice does not inflict harm on others. We should aim to minimize cruelty and wastefulness.
the harsh truth of this existence is that some life kills other life. its just the way it is. from the cellular level all the way up to orcas killing seals. its natural and fine imo. of course we shouldn't go out of our way to inflict unnecessary pain and suffering. but if im going to eat a cow which i do regularly, then im also going to use every part of the cow because its the right thing to do. including its skin to make myself a nice leather knife sheath or a nice pair of leather boots. leather is an excellent material for all kinds of things humans can use.
Why do you think it's wrong to waste part of a cow? It's clear you think they deserve moral consideration, but you don't need leather or meat, so it is automatically unnecessary pain and suffering. Many terrible things happen in nature, rape and killing and eating babies etc. We don't use what happens in nature as moral justification.
Right so we still have to decide whether or not rape and murder are morally okay considering it happens elsewhere in nature. If someone else does something, does that make it okay to do it to another person?
is it morally right to destroy thousands of acres of land to grow soy? what about the animals that used to call that place home? the only way to live a life free of any moral infractions is to die on the spot. i choose my moral infractions as wisely as possible. my meat comes from a local butcher that practices circular agriculture. is it perfect? no something must still die so i can live. but something must die so you can live as well. i just don't sit on a high horse and pretend im better than others.
77% of the soy grown is fed to livestock. If the world went vegan, we could reduce total farmland by 70%. The other thing is as science develops, with perfect farming methods, vegans would cause zero deaths, whereas animal farmers are always going to be killing animals intentionally. You should minimize the harm you cause. A cow doesn’t care if it was murdered locally or not. All these businesses that pretend to sell an ethical animal product are scamming people with trivial labels. The animals you murder are living their own lives, why take that from them? Deer have families too. Hunting is also totally not practical for a significant portion of the population to do. Farming plants can feed the planet without destroying the it. The animals you kill are living beings with their own experience.
You should also know that technically only the piece marked as genuine leather needs to actually be genuine leather. If you buy something made with multiple pieces, the rest could be made from any material so long as that one piece is genuine.
You know what's cool about "natural flavors"? They just have to be found in nature to call them that. They can be synthesized in a lab and still be a "natural flavor."
P.S. don't fall for the naturalistic fallacy. This comment is about tricky vocabulary used by the food industry. Whether or not a chemical is found in nature has nothing to do with whether it is good or bad for you. Arsenic is natural.
Okay so I did debate on whether to use that example, because yeah I'm a skeptic and don't fall for the naturalistic fallacy. But it just happens to be a good example. Such a silly thing, made of "natural" and/or "unnatural" ingredients covers 100% of things lol.
Yup! "All Natural" is just a marketing term, there's no regulations behind it. USDA Organic is a real thing though, farms need to be organic for 7 years to be labeled that, if I recall correctly at least
Not sure about the pagan part I'll be happy to switch once something can really take its place, might have to be lab grown or something, but I'm really looking forward to the open source spider silk yeast being worked on.
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