Avocados and quinoa harm the communities that grow them
Both are eaten across all diets and neither is a staple of vegan eating. Where the concerns hold, they are about trade and labour practices that apply regardless of what else is on the plate.
Veganism presents itself as the ethical way to eat, yet the plant foods it has popularised carry their own human costs: avocado demand in Mexico has drained water supplies, driven illegal forest clearance and enriched cartels, while the global quinoa boom pushed up prices in the Andean communities that had long relied on it. A diet that claims moral credit for sparing animals should also have to account for the people harmed in producing what replaces them, and moving the suffering out of sight onto distant farmers is not the same as reducing it.
There are real issues here. Avocado cultivation in parts of Mexico has been associated with water stress, illegal deforestation and organised crime; quinoa price rises in the 2000s had complicated effects on Andean producers, though subsequent analysis found that growing households generally benefited.
Neither is specific to veganism. Avocados and quinoa are bought by everyone, and they are not foundations of a plant-based diet, which runs on pulses, grains, potatoes and vegetables. If supply-chain ethics is the concern, it is a reason to look at sourcing across the whole shop, including cocoa, coffee and the labour conditions in meat processing, which are among the worst in the food system.
Meeting a criticism by raising a different issue instead of answering it. A form of tu quoque used to change the subject rather than to rebut.
How it applies here: Answers a question about animal agriculture by raising an unrelated problem with two particular crops, rather than addressing the comparison being made.
Drawing a general conclusion from a sample too small or too unrepresentative to support it.
How it applies here: Treats two export crops as representative of plant-based diets, which are built mainly on pulses, grains and vegetables grown far more mundanely.