Not everything that elicits emotion is an appeal to emotion. If I argue with a conservative and say that “anti-trans legislation leads to more trans suicides of the children you pretend to protect”, is that an appeal to emotion just because the conversative might get emotional?

Yes.

Appeals to emotion are intended to cause the recipient of the information to experience feelings such as fear, pity, or joy, with the end goal of convincing the person that the statements being presented by the fallacious argument are true or false, respectively.

the statement "Look at the suffering children. We must do more for refugees." is fallacious, because the suffering of the children and our emotional perception of the badness of suffering is not relevant to the conclusion.

If you cut out the part where they're a terrible hypocrite if they don't agree, that would be a logical argument instead of an emotional one. For the topic,

"You should switch because it costs less, is more environmentally sustainable, and carries much the same nutrition while being more advantageous to your health" is a logical argument. All of these are verifiable and the reader may decide on their own how persuasive the facts are.

"vegetarianism is cheap and healthy, you should switch because killing is wrong and you're making poor, defenseless animals suffer and be repeatedly raped, and you're a terrible person behaving immorally," is a emotional argument, and laughably manipulative.

The problem is morals are subjective. You might think stomping bugs is mean. I might stomp all day. We can argue about bugs all day long and never get anywhere, because you're trying to force me to feel something I don't actually believe. I'm more likely to listen to data I can't physically argue with.

Now, regarding effectiveness, I don’t know what’s better. All I know is that the people that aren’t activist always seem to know exactly how to do activism correctly. . . . Veganism is not a diet, so just giving recipes without a philosophical backing will likely not create a lifelong lifestyle shift.

The philosophy part seems to fall short a lot those reasons. Most meat-eaters are well aware, they just value something else more. Be that finances/accessibility (hunters), self-image (Red-blooded American Tradition, Grrr, Manly Caveman), or simplicity/dependability and the transient comfort of familiarity (me @ the horrors of life).

If you're like me and giving more energy to struggling, your instinct might be to go, "Ooh, animals are suffering? Food is sad? Mfer I'm sad too, I can't even afford laundry."

With their values elsewhere, the likelihood any will go Full Plant forever is small at best. But if I continue eating eggs/steak and replace burgers and chicken with their just-as-good meatless counterparts, I still consider it a partial win vs a total loss. More open to the idea. Less money to the industry.

It has to be far and beyond exhausting to have the people you're convincing correct your speech instead of ever focusing on the content. I grant you that.

I'm not pulling it out of my ass because I want The Activists to leave me alone, it's my stance because years of perceived bitching never swayed me any more than it seems to persuade anyone else in this thread. Being nagged and told you're a bad person isn't going to make most people want to hear about all the ways they're bad.

What got me to consider it was a former friend who never pushed the issue except to offer me some of her plate. It was fucking delicious. A bit expensive, still, since that's just where fake meat is right now, but I'd buy it again.

Asking a vegetarian sub about an unidentified dish in a wedding spread didn't net me answers, sadly, but for someone whose main concern is a tendency towards anemia, a user showing me tofu has slightly more (non-heme) iron than meat put it on my radar. Way more fun than the 40% chance of being dogpiled and called a murderer.

I will admit that "on my radar" turned out to be more "info my handicapped brain filed away to be accessed only if I ever saw it in a section I associate with ice cream," so that will be rectified.

Regarding tofu I’d say think of it like plain chicken. It has zero real taste of it’s own, so just put it into stuff that’s tasty. Since it doesn’t have to be cooked for a specific time like chicken or lentils, I often just crumple a bit into whatever I’m making if it’s lacking “mass”.

I've heard that, not surprised. A bit sad, but easy to work around. If there's no set cook time, is there...a disadvantage to cooking it? As in, it's easily burned or something...? Maybe I'm asking too many things. The only cookbook I've ever owned was an heirloom from WWII, so I have some stuff to look up 😅