Others

The Folks Around Us

Relationships can be complicated. Our relationships with others when we reach a point where we decide to go vegan get even more complicated. At first, new vegans often worry about finding products, identifying ingredients, the disappointment of limited options in so many restaurant menus, as well as about how they'll be perceived in social situations. This is especially true of new vegans who don't have any sort of established support system, whether in their face-to-face lives or in their online meanderings. Eventually, when things settle, it becomes clear that perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of being vegan isn't how others around us view us, but rather our own thoughts and feelings about our friends, families and others in our daily lives who aren't vegan. I always tell folks who ask that the hardest thing about going vegan is navigating through our relationships with non-vegan loved ones. It's alienating enough to walk around in a world where the majority of other humans view animal exploitation as normal; when you're interacting with people you love or like -- people who are closest to you -- that sense of alienation can feel overwhelming.

Sharing Spaces

It can be particularly hard-on-the-head when you're in a pre-existing relationship with a non-vegan. I was "lucky" in some ways (or so I thought). Shortly after my former spouse and I first got together, I became a vegetarian. We moved in together and -- since I loved to cook and he didn't -- I ended up preparing almost all of our meals, so he ate whatever I made and was happy. When we'd go out to eat together, just the two of us, he wouldn't eat meat. This was a decision he had made himself. After a few years I went vegan and, once again, he said that he was completely happy eating whatever I prepared (and using whichever other household products I selected to purchase). I really went out of my way to make sure that we had a wide range of tasty things on-hand, whether healthy or indulgent (or sometimes both concurrently). I bought cookbooks, lurked in vegan discussion forums, experimented with veganizing favourite or nostalgic dishes, etc. Going out to eat became rare since there were very few places in our tiny city at the time offering anything other than a garden salad or fries on their menus without a heap of animal ingredients. So nearly all of the meals we shared together -- or with guests we had over -- became plant-based.

Sharing Others' Spaces

The exceptions were when we gathered with family in their own homes. Even though I would always bring a couple of vegan-friendly dishes along, members of either of our families would sometimes make jokes about his "deprivation" and those were some of the few times I would see him loading his plate with meat and other animal products. It was those times that it hit me just how completely different our ethics were. Although it made life easier that he was happy (and insistent on) not consuming animal products at home, he was, ultimately, a non-vegan who thought nothing of consuming the bits and parts of other beings. This hadn't changed at all in our time together. It led to my dreading family gatherings which revolved around food. I would always end up feeling sad or anxious (or both). I began to resent him, not because I had any expectation that he would avoid eating animal products out of deference to me in those circumstances, but because it was a reminder that he still considered these animal products "food".

Involving Kiddos

I can't even imagine what it would have been like if we'd had kids involved. I've had vegan friends and acquaintances who've had offspring who've shared with me the unsolicited opinions and advice they'd received from non-vegan family and friends. I've read plenty of accounts of the challenges vegans with non-vegan partners have experienced when raising said offspring. Worse have been the accounts of the additional challenges in co-parenting after the dissolution of their relationships with their non-vegan partners (particularly if the dissolution was acrimonious). In hindsight, I'm often relieved that my ex and I didn't opt to have kids. I can't imagine having to spend years navigating parenthood and having to deal with others constantly trying to challenge or undermine any decisions we made concerning our kid, never mind not being on the same page about veganism, or even ending up co-parenting after parting ways and then dealing with being on different pages about everything. Dealing with others, in this sense, would have been exhausting. 

On Managing Expectations 

People sometimes insist that veganism "was too hard" because they couldn't get enough protein, always felt hungry, couldn't afford meat substitutes, lost weight/gained weight, that they hated having to cook, couldn't find enough plant-based options at restaurants or that they just couldn't find what they felt was a really satisfying plant-based cheese. I roll my eyes a little when I hear those things presented as if they somehow became insurmountable obstacles. Most of those issues seem so easily addressed and resolved with a bit of research and a bit of effort. When you weigh them against just dealing with the realization -- each and every day -- that we live in a world where animal exploitation continues to be the norm for those closest to us, they almost seem trivial. And while some folks may feel it's a struggle to manage their expectations concerning restaurant menus, it's an entirely different story doing so when navigating relationships with your non-vegan loved ones. While doing so for the former seems largely about inconvenience, doing so in the latter case is truly about survival. It's a necessity. How we go about doing so will vary from one vegan to another, but sooner or later, it needs to be hammered out.

Tell Me That You Don't Understand Veganism Without Telling Me That You Don't Understand Veganism

The Same Old

There's a long history of people who know nothing about veganism taking it upon themselves to share with the public how little it is that they know about veganism. Of course, they don't present it as such, and other folks reading what they wrote who have even less knowledge of veganism will nod their heads vigorously at the stereotypes, tired old attempts at arguments, general misinformation, et al. brought forward by those writers. (After all, confirmation bias is real!) When the writer decides to throw in some sort of display of victimhood (e.g. "a vegan was once mean to me"), it seems to cast some sort of additional sense of authenticity to whatever they have written, since the hapless reader is led to believe that the author must have put some serious thought and research into veganism after having been so emotionally wounded.

I stumbled across one of these scenarios today. Why someone would choose to write an attack on veganism in an online aviation magazine is somewhat bizarre -- even if it is an agricultural aviation magazine. Yet, a mostly unknown online publication called AgAir Update featured an opinion piece by a self-described "former livestock owner" called Michelle Miller yesterday. According to AgAir Update, Miller is known as "The Farm Babe". I looked her up and saw that she has around 250K followers on Facebook and claims to be a "mythbuster" of sorts who purportedly exposes the "truth" about modern farming and/or agriculture. Of course, one would expect that to include attacking claims made about the horrors of animal agriculture and, almost by default, attacking vegans. 

Her short article shared just yesterday is titled: "Why There's No Such Thing as 'Vegan'". Miller begins by describing vegans as "passionate" and by stating that whichever personal choices we choose to make for ourselves to make us happy are fine. She then draws a comparison to religion and immediately starts dropping words like "extremist" and "abrasive" and segues into how as a "former livestock farmer" she's received "thousands" of hateful comments (and apparently even death threats). She then downplays and admits that these "attacks" were not, in fact, very common. She then changes the subject to dive into the actual topic of her opinion piece, saying: "The good news is that the negative attacks are not very common. The other news? Sorry, vegans: there’s actually no such thing as 'vegan'”. 

Hello, Scarecrow!

She offers that vegetarians don't eat meat, which she seems to view as a valid description of vegetarianism entails. She then states that "vegans claim that they don't use animal byproducts, either" and then uses this as her strawman to apparently demolish veganism. Now, anyone who has been vegan for a while will be the first to tell you that vegans do not claim to not use animal byproducts at all with nothing more said concerning it. We clearly do our best to avoid them, but I agree with her that it is simply "humanly impossible" to do so in all cases. Where she views making that assertion as more or less taking down a house of cards, her using it as a "gotcha" just reinforces that she doesn't really understand veganism.

In a world where billions and billions of animals are slaughtered for food each and every year and both 1) the slaughter industry's wanting to squeeze every last dollar they can out of the bodies of these animals, and 2) manufacturers wanting to take advantage of the cheap cost of using huge quantities of the by-products of the animal slaughter industry, animal ingredients are everywhere. They're used as additives in food, to make clothes, cosmetics and perfumes, toothpaste, et al. They're also used to make some plastics, paper, fertilizer, batteries and/or electronics and many more things in which we would not expect to find animal ingredients. (Miller refers to a chart of items from "Farm Credit" in the article but there is no link or image that I can see, so I am assuming that it was either omitted, forgotten or that I have a weird browser issue. Regardless, it suffices to say that we know the list goes on and one -- we are surrounded by animal products in almost every single aspect of our everyday lives.)

The Miller weirdly asserts in two separate short sentences, as if they're her KO punch: "Yep. Sorry. Your beer is not vegan. Really, though, nothing is." Shortly, the word "hypocritical" is predictably inserted into the article. She takes off running with this and asserts that since you don't even know how something was grown and whether or not it was done with animal-derived fertilizer that you have no way to determine whether absolutely anything you eat or wear is (according to her simplistic definition), in fact, "vegan". Then of course she brings up that tired old argument that animals are killed in all forms of plant-based agriculture (so, by this, she seems to be implying that eating anything at all unless you grew it yourself using veganic or hydroponic farming would make you non-vegan). She takes it even further saying that "you're probably not vegan if you live in a house or drive a vehicle". 

Again, no reasonable and intelligent vegan would ever claim that they 100% completely avoid using all animal products. That would be absurd (and other vegans around them would quickly point that out). That it is absurd, however, doesn't invalidate doing whatever we can to avoid knowingly participating in animal consumption and/or exploitation when and where we can. It certainly doesn't invalidate veganism -- or vegans! Veganism is an active way of living. We use this ethical framework to inform the manner in which we engage with others and the world around us. We reject the commodification of other sentient beings and reflect this rejection of it in our ordinary actions. I like the wording The Vegan Society uses in its description of veganism where it states that we avoid all forms of animal exploitation "as far as it is possible and practicable". 

Just because there are instances all around us where avoiding animal products isn't possible or practicable doesn't mean that we should throw our arms in the air in defeat and then indulge ourselves in those forms of animal exploitation or consumption which are avoidable. Just because it isn't possible to completely avoid using all animal products around us is in no way a justification for anybody to shrug off at least making an attempt to consciously avoid them where it is possible and practicable to do so. 

Not being able to avoid it anywhere and everywhere doesn't make us hypocrites: It just makes us try harder, hoping that the world will eventually change enough to make it possible to do more for other sentient beings around us. It leaves us trying to change that world. 

Remaining Silent Isn’t Being Polite

I often still hear vegans mentioning that they don't discuss veganism with non-vegans unless they're asked about it. They insist that they don't want to "preach" to others or to "dictate" to others what they should or shouldn't eat, wear or otherwise use and that we all have the right to make our own "personal choices". I see a few problems with mindsets like these. The first is that we conflate the normal discussion of something which shouldn't be allowed to remain a taboo subject with "forcing" opinions on others. 

If an acquaintance of yours made a racist comment or bragged about having stolen money from an elderly aunt, would we think we were "forcing" our opinion on that person by speaking up and questioning their behaviour and pointing out that it's wrong? Of course not. So why is it that merely mentioning veganism -- simply casually discussing why we, as vegans, refuse to participate in animal exploitation -- gets misrepresented by so many vegans as "forcing our opinions or personal choices" on others? There's no "forcing". 

Why are we trying to silence vegan voices by writing off any mention of animal ethics in such a negative manner? If people are uncomfortable hearing about why animal use is wrong, instead of blaming ourselves for having somehow caused that discomfort, shouldn't we instead realize that all we're doing is pointing to the facts and that the discomfort they feel has to do with those facts and with their participation in the process? Also, I'm not vegan because it's my personal opinion that it's wrong for *me* to participate in the torture and slaughter of others; I'm vegan because that torture -- that slaughter -- is just so horribly wrong in and of itself. All animal use is abuse. How on earth could I sit and smile politely and say nothing? If nobody had ever spoken to me about going vegan, I wonder how much longer it would have taken for me to go vegan. I'm already ashamed that it took as long as it did. I really am.

Let's keep the issues and the discussion on the table instead of making it taboo to bring up speciesism. Let's not allow the continued compartmentalization and self-delusion in which non-vegans engage continue to be the status quo. We're not going to solve the horror that is animal exploitation by shrugging and smiling politely about it when others around us participate in it and defend their doing so. There are billions dying each and every year. Remaining silent isn't being polite: It's being complicit.

The Selective Compassion of Speciesism

"Kids Can Be Cruel"

A vegan mum posted in a local mixed "vegetarian/vegan" group on Facebook about an uncomfortable incident at a party which she had just attended with her vegan youngsters. Apparently, other kids (including the host's own offspring) decided to make a game out of catching and killing frogs around a pond on the property. The vegan mum's children were horrified and expressed as much to her when they went to tell her what was happening. She then raised the issue with the host and the host vaguely re-directed his kids who, then, started catching and killing various insects. The vegan kids distanced themselves from what was happening and went off to play by themselves. When the non-vegan kids then went back to killing more frogs, the vegan mum simply packed up her youngsters and left. She shared her experience with the local mixed "vegetarian/vegan" discussion group, saying that she wished her kids had more vegan friends to avoid situations like these. 

On Purporting to Define Monsters (or Necessity)

Many immediately weighed in, myself included. The vegans were obviously horrified since part of being vegan means rejecting that it's in any way a big joke to treat other sentient beings as existing for our own amusement or pleasure. We don't want to be a part of any avoidable actions or processes which involve treating other beings as things -- never mind causing those beings harm or even taking their lives. We could all definitely feel empathy for these poor kids who ended up witnessing these acts. And if these others non-vegan kids were in any way deliberately trying to upset the vegan kids (and from the mom's story, it sounded as if some of them were well-aware of the vegan kids' discomfort), it does make it feel a bit more gross. That said, how many times have vegans witnessed adult non-vegans taunting vegans with pro-animal use comments and anecdotes, disturbing photos, memes, etc. on social media (and how often are they not just shrugged off, but often actively cheered on by other non-vegan adults on the sidelines)? Like grown-ups, kids can be jerks.

"Psychopaths!" was a term brought up by many in the discussion thread to describe the kids. "Monsters!" was another. Many pointed out that serial killers often start out as kids who engaged in behaviours involving cruelty to animals. Quite a few people who joined in the discussion condemning the actions opted to self-identify as non-vegans, singling out what had happened as "unacceptable" and insisting that their non-vegan kids would never have done anything similar:

"You don't have to be vegan to have compassion. There was no need for those kids to be killing those frogs!"

"I'm not a vegan, but I would never let my child kill another animal like that."

"My kids eat meat but would never do anything like cruel! Those kids were killing those frogs for fun! They were ENJOYING it! Their parents should be reported to the authorities!"

"This isn't a vegan issue! These kids are sick in the head!" 

I pointed out that living in a pretty overwhelmingly rural Canadian province means that a lot of the parents at that gathering probably indulge in hunting or fishing and find great joy in either of these acts, sometimes even bringing beer along to add to their fun. Furthermore, many parents get absolutely giddy about bringing their kids along with them to teach them the "thrill of the hunt" or to teach them how to catch and kill fish; the kids in turn often feel great delight at getting praise and approval from their parents. These kids end up more or less killing animals for pleasure, as well -- theirs, as well as their parents'. 

"It's not the same thing. Most of the people who hunt or fish do so because they need the food. At the very least, the meat is eaten or given to family and friends and it doesn't go to waste." 

So if the kids at the party had ended up cooking and eating the frogs, I asked, would it have made it more OK for them to have been killing the frogs? A non-vegan replied that it would have been "unnecessary" killing since "there was already food at the party". I pointed out that some people hunt and fish when their freezers are already full of food. A lot of people go out and purchase meat when their cupboards are already full of beans, grains, nuts and seeds and others foods and purchasing that meat is (following that line of thinking) unnecessary since there's "already food at the party" (or in the pantry, in this case). 

On Arbitrary Justifications

To call a killing unnecessary -- and thus wrong -- if whomever is killed doesn't end up eaten, but ethical if the being who ends up killed can be eaten (i.e. and not "wasted") just seems odd. And it's weird to discuss "waste" when already dealing with abundance. The fact that you can kill and eat a being doesn't mean that you need to kill or eat that being and the fact that you can doesn't mean that you should. At the end of the day, neither those frogs at the party, nor a fish caught with a hook, a deer shot with a gun, nor a pig stunned and slaughtered by a human ultimately cares whether or not he or she ends up -- or could end up -- in someone's belly. 

As for taking joy in killing other animals? If it's wrong (according to those non-vegan parents) for children to take pleasure in killing frogs, why should the joy children (and adult) humans obtain from hooking fish by their mouths or using other weapons to steal the life from another being be any different? And why should the joy or pleasure they experience from eating or otherwise using a being whose life was taken by another individual be any different? That life was still taken for their pleasure, even if the taking of it wasn't directly at their own hands. Some argue that people who fish or hunt don't want to see an animal suffer -- that they don't derive pleasure from that, yet how often do you hear people sharing their tales of favourite fishing outings were great and lengthy struggles are involved as the fish fights desperately for his or her freedom? Or the excitement they feel when the animal they're hunting realizes they're being followed and becomes anxious and fearful?

Compartmentalization is such a strange thing. When it comes to other animals, we work hard to convince ourselves that one of two very similar things isn't really what it is -- that it is somehow significantly different from the other -- until it eventually becomes so ingrained in us, we just never bother giving it another serious thought. We don't bother reexamining the reasons we tried to convince ourselves that it wasn't what it really is in the first place. Shooting a stray dog is wrong; shooting a deer is OK. Eating a cat is wrong; eating a pig is OK. So many of us take things like these as givens without asking whether they really make any sense. We don't stop to ask why. We just take it as a given because we think it's easier that way, when actually it takes what's really simple to most of us on some level or another and convolutes it. When someone decides to go vegan, it's usually in a moment of great clarity where someone finally gets it: A dog is a pig is a cat is a boy is a parakeet is a chicken. A member of one species shouldn't somehow deserve more than a member of another species just because we think it's our right to impose labels on them according to how we decided they're best used by us.

At least this is what vegans realize and what vegans desperately hope that their friends and family -- their neighbours and coworkers and acquaintances -- around them might eventually realize. We hope that they, too, might become aware of the cost of speciesism to those whose ability to live their lives on their own terms truly matters dearly to themselves and to recognize them as the sentient beings they are instead of continuing to view them as things existing for human use and pleasure.

The Least You Can Do

On Punching

Very many years ago, a vegetarian acquaintance would regularly try to drag me into an argument. He would attempt to force me to pass judgment on his vegetarianism (and this would almost always happen after he had consumed a number of beers). He would press on and on and always present me with the same two options: I should either 1) roleplay to embody a "preachy judgmental vegan" stereotype to give him the fight he wanted so that he could come out swinging, or 2) I should placate him by telling him that he had indeed most certainly fulfilled his ethical quota for the critters and had no reason whatsoever to bother with the "extremist" idea of going vegan. The most I would do (after failing repeatedly to change the subject) was to try to tactfully explain again what he already knew was the position I held (i.e. that going vegan is the very least we owe to other animals – that it’s a starting point) and to repeat to him that I had zero interest in arguing with him, particularly when he was drunk and spoiling for a fight.

The thing is that he followed the posts on my blog's Facebook page and he took personally each thing I wrote about how dairy/egg consumption is really no different from the consumption of meat. He processed these posts as if I were directing them specifically at him. and instead of trying to understand why there's no real ethical difference between consuming one animal product or another, he felt insulted and resented me. And times like these he’d come out swinging, trying to push me into that same old corner, knowing that I meant him no ill will and that I'm not a confrontational person and also knowing that I'm not a liar. It had become personal to him for reasons that had little to do with me and everything to do with him and I refused to be some sort of emotional punching bag to let him work through those feelings. Yet, as calm as I attempted to remain, he would simply punch harder to try to provoke me, saying things like: "So you think you're a better person than me because you're vegan and I'm not, don't you?"

He knew that I certainly didn't (and don't) view myself as a "better person" than anyone else simply because I am vegan and they're not. We're not stick figures living in that simplistic a world. Nobody is vegan because they think they're better than another individual; if anything, people generally tend to go vegan for a completely different reason -- precisely because they don't see themselves as being any more important than other beings. We don't see our pleasure and convenience as trumping the interests of those other beings and we do what we can to avoid participating in -- or contributing to -- any facet of their exploitation.

Then Crunching

At some point in this attempted argument, my vegetarian acquaintance would (predictably) try to number-crunch: I had been a vegetarian for around 12-13 years and had only been vegan for a few years at the time these confrontations occurred. He would remind me that he had been vegetarian for over 25 years and that he had obviously done "much more" for other animals in all those years than I had during my shorter stint as a vegetarian (and even shorter stint as a vegan). "You've been vegan for an hour," he'd say. "I've saved far more lives than you and you'll be lucky to ever catch up." I'd point out to him that veganism is not -- and never has been -- a contest and that veganism is really not about past actions, but is about what you're doing now and how you’ll proceed moving forward. And if what you're doing now involves choosing to continue to treat other animals as treats existing for your convenience or pleasure, you're really missing the point about what it is that we owe other animals. But he was convinced that he has doing his "part" and was doing "enough" and that there was no need for him to even weigh going vegan. (Never mind that every single meal he consumed included cheese or eggs.)

More Crunching

Every once in a while, people message me through this blog's Facebook page to ask me for suggestions for places or organizations to which they can donate money. Around a year ago I got into a discussion with one of them. He told me outright that he had "a lot of respect for people who choose to go vegan" but that it just wasn't something he felt he could do because of its "inconvenience". He told me that to "compensate" for this, he would donate at least a few hundred dollars a year "to groups like PETA" but that he wanted to give a little bit extra that year, so wanted my recommendations. 

I pointed out to him that throwing money at PETA was a complete waste and that his dollars would be more useful in the hands of small vegan-run sanctuaries or to grass-roots groups engaged in educating others about veganism and in helping people become vegan. I also told him that if he really wanted to make a difference, going vegan himself was the least he could -- and should -- do. I asked him if there was any way I could help him sort out what he felt was inconvenient about going vegan. He told me that he didn't really want "to feel bad about [his] personal decisions" and he thanked me for providing him with the names of a few groups and sanctuaries. He messaged me again a few weeks later to report how much he had paid to whom and to thank me again for the suggestions. He joked that he felt better after having paid "[his] annual guilt money".

In the End

Is it great that a couple of small sanctuaries in need received a few hundred dollars they had not been expecting? Sure. But what about when the person donating the money is one of the reasons farmed animals end up in these sanctuaries in the first place (the fortunate ones, anyway)? It becomes no more than a sort of self-imposed "meat tax" where the person tries to make themselves feel better about choosing to continue to be part of the problem.

Is it great that someone chose to eschew eating meat while continuing to consume dairy and eggs and perhaps even in larger quantities than before? Not really. You're just shuffling stuff around on your plate and kidding yourself since we all know there’s as much suffering and death in the dairy and egg industries as there is in the meat industry – even more so.

At the end of the day, it’s sort of nonsensical to try to convince yourself that you’ve taken steps to chip away at a problem while deliberately choosing (easily avoidable) actions and (easily changed) habits which contribute to that very problem. While it may make you feel you’re doing something, throwing money at other animals and/or shuffling parts of them around on your plate won’t substantially change anything at all for them. You still view and treat them as things existing – in some form or other – for your pleasure and convenience instead of viewing and treating them as beings with rights and interests of their own. And for all those who would insist that any semblance of change, any well-intentioned gesture (even if misdirected or self-delusional) should be applauded as a “baby step” instead of described as what it actually is (i.e. walking in place while going nowhere), you’re missing the crux of the issue. Until we realize, accept and act upon the fact that other animals aren’t ours to use, we’re just crunching and shuffling while going nowhere. It’s when we do realize that we owe other animals so much more that it becomes clear that the logical first step to take – the starting point – is to go vegan.

What Vegans Eat: Revisited

I was looking through old food photos I had posted here years back and actually felt kind of shocked at how humdrum my meal preparation has gotten over the past few months. I used to eat a LOT of raw fruits and vegetables, a lot of legumes and whole grains, a so much wider variety of seasonings and condiments. I am certainly no cooking expert. If anything, after a few decades of indulging in it as a hobby (and usually so when cooking for others in my life), the last few years have left me falling back on making a handful of the same simple dishes over and over again, or relying on processed convenience foods. 

It all started with a bad leak in the kitchen ceiling of the apartment I used to rent. The owners of the building couldn't nail down its source and by the time the situation was close to a resolution, I had gone a few months not wanting to prepare anything in what I was pretty sure was becoming a kitchen with a mold-infested wall adjacent to my stove. I gave my notice and moved and ended up in a tiny apartment with a tiny ill-lit kitchen, where everything was hastily-crammed into cupboards or makeshift storage containers. It's been over a year and I still try to remember where I put this or that food ingredient. I still remember exactly where I would have found certain things in my old kitchen (which had been brightly-lit and had so much more storage space to better organize things). 

So cooking (which used to be a spontaneous event where I could reach for just about anything I had on hand to improvise) has become more of a chore, usually involving the need for a plan, then the need to dig around a while to locate a few wayward spices or forgotten grains. The pandemic hasn't helped. Between not really feeling like doing much of anything on some days and my reluctance to hop out to the store to fetch a missing item or two more often than necessary, there's been repetition and food waste. I even tossed my sourdough starter a few months after lockdown after finding that I was spending more time fussing over it than actually using it in anything at all. As for plating and natural lighting to take great food photos? That's become a thing of the past, as well. I used to have a lot of fun with it, though. I may try to rig something up at some point if I get back into the hang of cooking more interesting things. In the meantime, here are some things I have been making over the past two years:

Ployes (a French-Canadian Brayon favourite--pancakes made with buckwheat flour) with maple syrup, Gimme Lean sausage patties and oranges.

Chickwheat! Seitan made using a take on the Gentle Chef's recipe.

Tacos with Yves ground round fried up with onions and seasonings and then cheddar Daiya shreds folded into it, avocado, coconut yogurt, salsa and green onions.

Rolls with smoked tofu, marinated carrot sticks, avocado and bell peppers.

Prolly one of the prettiest tofu scrambles I’ve ever made. I used onions, tofu, garlic, shredded carrot, tomato, Swiss chard, mini sweet peppers, turmeric, tamari, parsley, pepper and black salt.

RIP my first ever sourdough starter. The pandemic was too much for you.

Homemade dough. Sauce w/fennel seed, basil, oregano and crushed red pepper. 

Thinly-sliced Gusta Italiano cheese, Yves salami, crushed garlic, chopped up Gardein chick’n strips, oven-roasted sweet potatoes, garlicky pan-sautéed mushrooms, slightly caramelized red onion, 

pickled jalapeño peppers, seasonings.

Homemade falafel (the best I've ever had!) using a recipe from Tori Avey.

Orange bell pepper, spiralized beets and mushrooms on arugula, baby kale and baby spinach. Topped with croutons, sunflower seeds and dressing.

Kolhapuri masala using sweet potatoes, potatoes, tofu, Chinese eggplant and peas 

and brown rice.

Lasagna with almost everything coming from a package or a jar.

Whoopie pies.

Veggie dumplings with bibimbap (brown rice hidden beneath the sliced shiitakes, sesame-roasted asparagus, shredded carrot, blanched and seasoned bean sprouts and 

bulgogi-marinated seitan).

Clementines, cantaloupe, blackberries, raspberries, Kimmel bread and hummus.

Shanghai choy, yu choy, shiitake mushrooms, smoked tofu, scallions and a bit of kimchi in a broth made using miso and gochuang (spicy Korean paste).

Tofu vindaloo with zucchini and string beans, brown rice and chili poppadum.

Does it Matter? Well, Yeah...

Veganism, Plant-Based, Whole Foods, et al.

The UK's Cambridge Independent ran a piece by a plant-based restaurant owner today which purportedly sought to examine the question "Vegan or plant-based: What’s the difference and does it matter?". In it, Louise Palmer-Masterton positions vegans as having issues with the term "plant-based" because they view it as "ethically inferior". To her, she says, the two terms "mean the same" (although much of her piece ends up confirming that she thinks the opposite).

[T]he truth is, [my restaurant] is all about wholefood plant-based ingredients, ethically sourced, low carbon, circular, compassionate and cruelty free. So, is that vegan or plant-based? And what is the difference anyway?

Palmer-Masterton goes on to mention Donald Watson's coining of the term "vegan" but says that its final definition wasn't hammered out and "clearly defined" until "the 80's" at around the same time that Dr. T. Colin Campbell "coined the term 'plant-based'". He did so, she says, "seeking a term that described this diet without invoking ethical considerations". With a focus on health, he specified that a plant-based diet would also need to be a "whole foods" diet. So Palmer-Masterton sums this up by saying that veganism isn't health-focused, but that a whole foods plant-based diet is. Her restaurant, she says, is both.

But Veganism Isn't a Diet 

If a plant-based diet means one "free of animal products and/or exploitation" then one can say that a vegan's diet is plant-based. Using the term "vegan" to describe food (or other things) rather than specifying its use to describe actual people adhering to veganism has always been problematic in this sense, with many people choosing to self-label as "vegan" because a few times a week, they consume meals which don't contain animal ingredients. We end up with people trying to sub-categorize veganism to include animal exploitation (or conflating "plant-based" with "vegan") when they're all really completely different things. Palmer-Masterson seems to imply that vegans who point out this distinction do it as a condescending sort of nose-thumbing, adding that vegans will sometimes "have a go" at people who self-label as plant-based. (Mostly, I am guessing that vegans are simply again caricatured here as waving their fists angrily whenever they try to explain to someone that veganism isn't a diet. Everybody loves to perpetuate the "angry vegan" stereotype.)

Veganism as a Dirty Word

Historically, she says, veganism has always been very "fringe" and that its being associated with animal rights activism was uncomfortable for many in the mainstream. Because of this, she says, it was "unattractive" to the "average" person. That the term "plant-based" gained popularity and entered the mainstream "contributed significantly to the rise in popularity of veganism" she says. But did the term really contribute significantly to the rise in popularity of actual veganism? Or did it contribute to a rise in popularity of a watered down misinterpretation of veganism--one which leaves open the option to shrug off the ethics of animal exploitation where the sake of the animals themselves is concerned? Particularly those animals who don't end up on your plate.

Hold the Animals; Save the Planet!

She writes that current day environmental concerns are leading people to choose to lower their consumption of animal products. She asks whether they are "eating more vegan food or more wholefood plant-based food" and proceeds to argue that consuming whole food plant-based food versus eating "a vegan diet containing processed foods" is better for the environment. But here she seems to be insinuating that 1) veganism is a diet (it isn't), 2) plant-based foods are somehow de facto non-processed foods (they're not) and that 3) "vegan" and "processed" go hand-in-hand (nope). I doubt many vegans would deny that eating fewer processed foods is beneficial to the environment, but the point she seems to be arguing is that someone's following a plant-based diet is more environmentally sound than a vegan consuming what's actually a similar diet and that simply makes no sense. 

When she wraps up and turns her attention to clothing, her focus remains on sustainability and the environment. Although she does point out that manufacturers are wrong when they claim that clothing containing animal products have been more sustainably or ethically produced, she states that "[t]here has to be a deeper dive into production beyond simply avoiding animal derived ingredients". The truth is that many vegans do indeed understand and accept that going vegan is the least we can do--that it's merely a starting point and that we need to do more.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

Palmer-Masterton says that she sees "wholefood plant-based eating and veganism converging in the coming years". (Has she no idea that many vegans actually do consume a whole foods plant-based diet? There is overlap.) She asks that "wholefood plant-based and vegan people" make "peace" with each other as if there's a war going on and that everybody should just hug it out since we're all on the same team, fighting the same fight, changing the world for other animals, et al. 

The thing is that we're not all on the same team. We have different intentions, a different follow-through and some of us choose to continue participating in animal exploitation while some of us take the rights and interests of other animals seriously. Although vegans may consume a whole foods plant-based diet that's suitable for them, someone who consumes a whole foods plant-based diet may not give a fig about what happens to other animals (except solely in terms of the extended effect meat and dairy industries have on the state of the environment). Plant-based diet followers who aren't vegan often gripe about vegans in shared online or IRL groups because the dieters who continue to participate in animal exploitation simply loathe there being any mention of ethics. Vegans will generally gripe about plant-based dieters when the latter often self-label as "vegans" and get offended when told that veganism isn't a diet and they can't lumped in as some sub-category of vegan.

As for the whole foods slant on it? Many of these same discussion groups are littered with people who constantly health-shame (or even body-shame) vegans for not adhering to a strictly whole foods diet. Is a strictly whole foods plant-based diet better for health and for the environment? Very likely. Could vegans benefit from incorporating more whole foods into their diets? Very likely. But veganism isn't a health movement. Additionally, shaming people who've already substantially lowered their carbon footprint by eschewing the consumption of animal products (particularly when the one doing the shaming chooses to otherwise participate in animal exploitation)? Well, it just seems a bit weird. At the end of the day, though, if the two movements do "converge", it has to be with the understanding that veganism is the starting point.

On Taking Advice About Veganism from Non-Vegans

Veganuary

It's that time again. Someone out there in the world decided that an article was really needed about their botched experiment with "veganism". (I use that term very loosely while writing about this, since in almost all of these cases, it's completely misused.) Whether it's a reporter for mainstream media or some university student writing for their school paper, these things pop up over and over again throughout the year. Thanks to Veganuary, January tends to dredge up more of them than usual since many of the large animal welfare organizations mount well-funded publicity campaigns to encourage people to "try veganism". What they invariably mean (and if you read the "about" section on the Veganuary website it's spelled out pretty clearly) is to "try following a plant-based diet for a month" for health, environmental and even ethical reasons.

Failure as a Win

Of course veganism is so much more than a diet. And going vegan isn't something that one does temporarily, leaving open-ended whether or not to walk away from it after a set period. Without any forethought at all, without resources or a support system (if even only a single vegan contact) and, mostly importantly, without having made a conscious decision to reject participating in animal exploitation because one has connected the necessary ethical dots, it's just plain silliness to write about spending a month floundering and presenting it to an audience as an earnest attempt to "try veganism".

The writer of such an article is almost always setting themselves up to fail, but then it's probably a case of having the conclusion set before even putting pen to paper. (Do people even put pen to paper, anymore?) Since most of the writer's audience consists of non-vegans, that writer's reaching a conclusion that involves remaining non-vegan is probably the most satisfying to the largest percentage of their readers. So it's ultimately a win for the writer and a win for the publication.

Unfortunately, since so many people believe whatever they read, the frequency of these articles likely leaves people thinking that adopting a plant-based diet -- or actually going vegan -- is about as enjoyable as getting a root canal.

The "Experiment"

In the University of Warwick's purportedly award-winning student newspaper, The Boar, writer Shay Solanki decided to take a kick at the can. She writes that she decided in December of 2019 to reduce her meat intake and that she and her sister then decided to take the leap for Veganuary. While her sister decided to follow a vegetarian diet for the month, Solanki decided to "bec[o]me vegan". 

Just into her second paragraph, Solanki complains that "[s}omething, however, felt quite empty to [her]". She points out that she had been a daily meat eater and that "vegetarianism was mainly reserved for [her family's] older generation" and that although Indian food was "closest to home" for her because of her background and that she was a good cook, that she never felt truly "satisfied" when eating anything.

Describing how "restrictive" it had all been, she informs her readers that as soon as January ended, she "ran straight to fry some fish and felt relieved" and that she continued to eat it and "normal foods" (words matter here) for the following two weeks until she felt guilt and then stopped. But January had been "really tough", had left her "not feeling good" and she had taken it "too seriously", she adds. A friend of hers who had also "tried veganism" for Veganuary had apparently decided to stick with her newfound plant-based diet and Solanki writes that she felt a lot of "pressure" from her to do the same.

So the outcome for Solanki? She decided to take it easier on herself and to be "mostly plant-based" since if she ever traveled to another country "like Morocco or Lebanon" she wouldn't be able to find any food that was "culturally significant" and that it "would be a waste to not explore their culture" by eating food containing animal products. (I laughed at the mention of Lebanon, since it's widely-known that there are so many of what some call "accidentally vegan" traditional dishes to be had there.)

"Fake Innocence"?

Solanki begins to wrap up her article by saying that the worst thing about veganism for her is its "fake innocence". Veganism must be, according to her, simply evil.  She repeats that it purportedly restricts people from being able to experience other cultures and then  she gets really serious: veganism (gasp!) "hinders" you from being able to buy "certain cosmetics and clothes". 

She goes on to list a mishmash of some of the common stereotypical complaints against veganism. In researching its history, she says, you'd find its origins in the work of some white guy in the 1940s, but that if you research "properly" you'll find that its origins go back to "ancient Indians and other Mediterranean cultures". (Like Lebanon?) This recent "wave" of veganism, she says, has made plants and meat-alternatives' prices "surge" and that in diverging from its "ancient roots" (presumably by having been promoted by the aforementioned white guy in the 1940s), it has become exclusive and that this exclusivity is "unfair" and "not worth the hassle". 

This confuses me quite a bit since she wrote at the beginning of her article that she spent Veganuary leaning on Indian cuisine, since it was familiar and accessible to her. When I think of traditional vegan-friendly Indian cuisine, I think of chickpeas, lentils and mung beans. I think of potatoes, tomatoes, spinach and zucchini. I think of rice and wheat flour. How would this be too expensive or exclusive? It's such a worn and tired argument against veganism to insist that unless you can do all of your shopping at Whole Foods (or stuff your freezer with overpriced packages of Beyond Sausage), you can't possibly feed yourself as a vegan; it's particularly weird and out-of-place coming from someone who has knowledge of and experience with whole foods (lowercase!) Indian cuisine. 

Solanki then delivers that predictable final blow by attacking vegans directly. "It's a running joke" she says "that vegans are annoying and forceful". From her own expansive experience "it's entirely true in most cases". In fact, she says that (emphasis mine coming up) "as a former vegan, I've often felt guilt pushed on me by other vegans for eating fish". So she's a worldly and weathered vegan after a traumatic one-month stint* feeling deprived for having limited cosmetics choices and having to rely on the the "accessible" dishes she said are basically relegated to her family's "older generation". And pissy vegans who reject animal exploitation didn’t champion (or sanction) her choosing to exploit other animals. (*At the very end of the article, she states out of the blue that she was "vegan" for six months.)

At the end of the article, after piling stereotypical excuses over each other, Solanski softens her tone to say that veganism might be OK for some. And just in case she wasn’t emphatic enough about it in the article, she confesses to her readers that it just wasn’t for her. 

"Why I No Longer Call Myself Vegan"?

Being Vegan

People who are vegan and who intend to remain vegan usually remember a moment, a conversation, a book or film -- something that finally helped to cement their previous thoughts about animal exploitation. Then they go about their business of becoming and then BEING vegan. It's a mindset. It's an ongoing action. It basically informs each and every choice you make as you go about your day. The decision you make is to step back and to remove yourself as much as it's possible to do so with having any involvement in animal exploitation. You make this decision because you have come to realize and to accept that other sentient beings do not exist for your convenience and pleasure. You realize and accept that they have lives of their own and interests of their own and that those interests don't include being trapped in the living hell which comprises most aspects of the "animal industry". All use is abuse. It's a meaningful conviction and it alters how you view others around you. It's not something that will change on a dime depending on which food item someone has tried to temptingly leave on your plate. And for the ever-loving sake of Pete, it's not something that reject in a huff or tantrum because some other vegan was a jerk to you. I don't kick puppies. I'm not going to wake up one morning and decide to go out and kick puppies just because some other person who doesn't kick puppies hurt my feelings or pissed me off.

"Former" Vegans 

How can you find the "former" vegan in a crowded room? He/she/they will be telling EVERYBODY that they are and why they are. They'll do this, of course, while whipping out each and every vegan stereotype or bad trope you've heard whenever the bacon-worshiping hoards descend upon vegan-positive comments on the internet. They'll pull out the long-debunked protein-myth and mention the visible signs of the abrupt and severe onset of nutritional deficiencies they experienced. They'll go on about never having anything to eat (not mentioning that their previous diet perhaps consisted of frozen pizzas and Chef Boyardi ravioli) or about how absolutely unaffordable it was because Beyond Burgers and shopping at Whole Foods are soooo expensive. You've seen the articles. There are at least 1-2 a month in newspapers, magazines, student papers, blogs. Heck, the big "reveals" happen so often in YouTube videos that they've rapidly become cliché. When a nobody makes the announcement, it's usually just to try to drum up controversy and sales; when somebody better known makes it, it's usually to drum up sympathy and sales.

“Wait, You Mean That I Have to be 'All In'?”

"Former" vegans are generally pretty bitter and determined to get their punches in and to attack other vegans. Very often, they'll blame "other vegans" for having turned them against veganism. They were "too strict", "too holier-than-though", "too militant", "too elitist", etc. We all know, of course that what this probably meant was that at some point, the "former" vegan had it simply pointed out that, no, sneaking a piece of cheese off her girlfriend's plate at a potluck wasn't, in fact, OK -- that viewing consuming an animal product as some sort of indulgence or reward wasn't, in fact, in keeping with veganism. Or maybe they just felt slighted reading or hearing discussions of why veganism isn't a part-time gig and the resentment just built up. The very same people who accuse vegans of being an "elitist clique" are often just upset that they can't honestly and accurately refer to themselves as vegans while continuing to deliberately participate in animal exploitation. I mean, how cliquey for vegans to have the audacity to shrug and say that you need to be vegan to call yourself a vegan! The absolute nerve!)

A friend of mine in an old-school online discussion forum used to say "If you're not vegan now, you never were." There's a lot more truth to that than most may realize. When someone announces to you that they've come to a different conclusion from when their supposed "journey" began, it's often wise to see where and what that "beginning" actually was. People like to say "we're all on the same journey" when referring to vegans and vegetarians or plant-based eaters (or flexitarians), when they issue is that they're assuming that everybody has the same goal. For vegans, veganism is pretty much a starting point. You're either vegan or you're non-vegan. If you're transitioning towards veganism, great -- but that doesn't make you a vegan. And if your not a vegan but just have some sort of variation of a lifestyle which eschews eating or otherwise using a particular species, or you abstain from using animals some of the time (e.g. some meals, some days, etc.) that doesn't mean that you have any intention of going vegan or that you've come to realize and accept that using other animals is inherently wrong. You follow a plant-based diet for health reasons but think animal rights activists are nut-cases who anthropomorphize other species? We're not on the same journey. We don't regard other sentient beings in the same manner and without having that in common and acting upon it accordingly, we're not "playing for the same team" and no, I won't just "agree to disagree" with you about what it is which we owe other animals so that you can co-opt a term. That doesn't mean I'm being judgmental, holier-than-thou, et al. but just that I'm sticking to the facts.

How NOT to be a “Former” Vegan

When you're working your way backwards from what someone positions as a different conclusion (e.g. becoming a "former" vegan) from that which they position as having been their starting point (e.g. being vegan), it's always worth taking a closer look at how they qualify that initial position and what took place between A and B. Take for instance, this opinion piece from a Boston University journalism student written for the website Study Breaks.

The author states that she went vegan at 15 and that five years later, she now "follows a plant-based lifestyle". She calls the latter a "relaxed" version of veganism which allows for the consumption of dairy. She insists that both are just awesome for the animals and for personal health reasons, but that veganism is "stricter and oftentimes more toxic". The word "judgmental" gets used to describe vegans. She talks about getting sucked into a vegan online community that "thrived on shaming non-vegans" and mentions that she got pulled into it because of her “youth”. Reading between the lines, I assume she is suggesting that she was naive and just didn’t know any better.  So, vegans are from the start portrayed as assholes.

It was "maturity" which led her to see that eating chicken nuggets doesn't plainly leave a person complicit in what happens to the chicken, she asserts. Then the same old tired arguments (which are intended to pass for maturity?) start.

[A] lot of areas of the U.S. don’t have access to the high-quality plant-based ingredients needed for a well-rounded vegan diet.  

Also, a lot of vegan food is expensive. Like, really expensive. For most Americans, a $200 per week grocery budget is just not feasible.

To claim "a lot of areas don't have access" makes it sound as if the majority of the US is a food dessert. Are there food desserts? Absolutely. Are they a serious issue? Absolutely. But to use the vague "a lot" is grossly inaccurate here. The rest of the quote makes it clear that the author thinks that eating a vegan's diet means needing to shop at Whole Foods for Beyond Burgers, Miyoko's cheese or Ripple pea milk — and that's simply untrue. A lot of processed vegan foods have gotten significantly more affordable over the years and can be purchased for cheap at the neighbourhood supermarket or Walmart. But over and above this, vegans don't need to rely on processed foods to get their nutrients.

Her effort to describe how unfair it is to ask people to go vegan goes even further with this gem. A few Google searches and a basic familiarity of plant-based nutrition enough for anyone to conclude that this is just an appeal to emotion.

Not to mention, cutting out meat and dairy means people with nut, soy or gluten allergies are basically left with nothing to fulfill their protein needs because the vast majority of meat substitutes include these ingredients.

This is just ridiculous. Around 1% of the US population has a tree nut allergy. Between 0.3 and 0.6% of the US population is allergic to soy. Celiac disease affects maybe 1% of the US population. Plus there are so many other sources of plant-based protein available so that this tiny percentage of the US population needn't worry about malnutrition if and when they should might attempt to go vegan. Between 96 and 98% of the US population isn't vegan, so that leaves a helluva lot of people who, if all they could eat to fulfill their protein needs were nuts, soy or gluten, could and would be just fine. Thankfully, this isn’t a bonafide argument of any sort against veganism.

The author then claims she struggled with whether or not to continue to call herself vegan while eating Chips Ahoy! cookies and other foods containing animal ingredients while in college, felt guilt, turned to her "trusty" vegan community for support (methinks sympathy) and was reminded that veganism was about the animals. Rather, as she snarkily puts it (because, keep in mind, we're so far operating on the premise with this article that matter-of-fact vegans are assholes):

I was harshly reminded that animals were being tortured all over the world and by not refusing to eat granola bars with honey in them, I was personally contributing to their suffering. 

So after not getting the answers she wanted from vegans, she looked to "former" vegans who had gone back to exploiting animals for I épuration and decided that the term vegan "no longer suited [her]". She was unable to go to Whole Foods (seriously, it's in the article). She found it too hard to "deny [herself]" the yummy non-vegan foods her friends enjoyed or the yummy non-vegan cookies family friends would send her. She went back and forth between eating plant-based and eating animal products for a during her college years and felt guilty and her vegan community didn’t assuage her guilt. So she decided that the solution to no longer feeling guilty was to just go ahead, shrug it off and indulge, since feeling guilty wasn't "healthy".

She ends her article advocating baby steps and small changes, citing her vegan heroes as those who are accepting of others' diets, adding that not all vegans are judgmental assholes and that the vast majority of us don't "shame and blame" non-vegans "for a host of environmental and ethical issues". She adds: "Does this mean any human who chooses not to go vegan due to dietary concerns, lack of access to nutritious vegan food, or any other perfectly viable reason is immoral? No." But according to her, nutritious vegan food can only be had from Whole Foods and "any other perfectly viable reason" can mean any single type of food craving you may get when you're out having fun. So?

So basically: Author decides to go vegan, won't give up easily avoidable animal products she regards as treats, turns to online vegans for a pat on the back, gets offended when she's asked to think of the animals instead of herself, feels guilty, grows bitter, finds inspiration in popular "former" vegans to stop feeling guilty for consuming easily-avoidable animal products and decides to stop calling herself a vegan as she continues to consume easily-avoidable animal products.

At least she finally decided to stop calling herself a vegan.

Normal

I remember while transitioning to becoming vegan when my former spouse and I traveled to my hometown to visit my family and of how he called me from my sister's (where he had been giving my oldest nephew a guitar lesson) to say that she had asked him to stay for lunch. When she dropped him off later at my mother's, she said to me that it was a lot easier to just have him over for a meal instead of both of us because he wasn't "as picky as [I was]".

I remember a vegetarian friend arguing with me furiously when I'd mentioned that the spouse and I were talking about having or adopting a child and that we planned to raise said child as a vegan. He insisted that I would be "forcing" my beliefs on this hypothetical child and that I should let them make up their own minds about whether or not to go vegan.

I remember just weeks after the end of my 10+ year common-law marriage (most of which I'd spent as a vegetarian), how over drinks one evening the ex told me that his mother had expressed relief at no longer having to take my diet into consideration for food at family gatherings anymore.

I remember the last Xmas dinner I attended at my sister's, watching my brother-in-law from across a crowded room glance around and then spoon chicken bouillon powder into pots of string beans and baby carrots I had been told would be suitable for me to eat, then shield the container of chicken bouillon from me with his body after we made eye contact and I approached him to verbally confirm he had done what he had done. I remember being told to please not make a big deal out of it. I didn't and I never ate there again.

I remember an old friend telling me that she might consider becoming a vegetarian, except that her naturopath had told her that she needed to eat meat because of her blood type. She told me that her naturopath had told her that I needed to find out my own blood type, since I was very likely killing myself. (We had the conversation about how the "Eat Right 4 Your Type" diet had long-since been debunked, but since I didn't have a piece of paper saying that I could officially peddle woo...)

I remember planning a small plant-based dinner party for a half-dozen friends, asking each one about dietary restrictions and food preferences or aversions and how one close friend asked me if they could bring a macaroni and cheese casserole because they couldn't see themselves having a meal where they couldn't "at least have cheese". I remember that friend declining the invitation when I asked them if they could for this occasion not bring anything containing animal products.

I remember the friends who told me that they hadn't invited me to their own barbecue because they didn't want the rest of their guests to feel guilt-tripped as I ate my veggie burger.

I remember my second manager at my last job holding a celebratory lunchtime pizza party for our staff of around a dozen, telling me that she couldn't order something different for "everyone" and that I was welcome to pack my own lunch and join them. (I passed.)

I remember years ago reconnecting with an old college boyfriend on Facebook and getting caught up with a couple of really long phone-calls, then how suddenly every few days he posted anti-PETA comments and when I explained to him that I (and many other vegans) have no love whatsoever for PETA, he instead posted articles mocking vegans or those news stories about child malnourishment court cases where the parents self-identified as "vegan" (never mind that they were feeding their child a diet consisting of nothing but water and potato chips or of rice milk and frozen berries -- it's always about their being "vegan").

I remember a cycling buddy of mine suddenly develop an interest in debating veganism with me at a local coffee shop (he particularly dug in his heels about plants having feelings and how avoiding animals but not plants was speciesist and made vegans hypocrites), and how he decided one day to say that he had purchased a fishing rod and planned to bring it on our long trail bike rides so that he could "bring back [his] supper", then how I told him that I'd probably bike further or do something else to not have to be around him as he hooked fish. I remember him getting angry and accusing me of "passing judgment" on him for merely stating I had no interest in being a spectator. We never went bike riding again.

I remember going to NYC with a moody non-vegan travel companion and meeting up with vegan friends of mine for dinner at an old Italian restaurant and how he grumbled at me later for having "deprived" him of an opportunity to have "good" pizza since we had decided to split everything we ordered and everything was, thus, plant-based -- including the delicious pizza.

I remember running into an ex of mine after an amicable split a year earlier and his asking me if I was "still vegan" and my jokingly responding with a "no" and how he told me what a relief it was that I'd "finally come to [my] senses" and how frustrating it had been to always have to find restaurants that had a plant-based item on the menu and felt unfair to him that we couldn't go absolutely anywhere he wanted to go because of it. I remember his telling me that he was "happy" that I'd "come back to normal". I didn't bother wasting the breath it would take to tell him that I hadn't been serious.

I remember another ex telling me that although he'd never complained about the dozens and dozens of meals I'd lovingly made for him while we were together -- food he had often praised at the time -- that  he'd never really been crazy about my cooking and that he was "happier without all the tofu and beans".

I remember being told that the hardest part of being vegan would be interacting with friends and family who chose not to be. Knowing doesn't prepare you for it, though, does it?

We're a Happy Family! (Or Why "Veg" Groups Don't Work.)

Backstory

I spent years as a vegetarian. I've talked about this before. I first decided to eschew meat when I was around 19 years old. I had become an environmentalist, reading up as much as I could on how human habits were wrecking the planet. I became a less wasteful consumer and then sought to do more. At one point, I wrote a weekly column for my hometown paper; later, I spent a summer working on a project to promote recycling. An old high school friend who'd become a vegetarian soon easily convinced me that not eating meat fit in with my environmentalist ethics and so I stopped eating meat. It's bizarre to me in hindsight that, as a lifelong animal lover, I never connected the dots about animal use and its effects on those very beings who are actually being used. I didn't even really think about it when I decided to stop eating their flesh to "save the planet". There was no World Wide Web yet.   

I remained vegetarian for a few years, focused intently on ensuring that I consumed enough legumes and whole grains to meet my protein needs. The "protein myth" was still being passed around at the time and the old second-hand vegetarian cookbooks I found also presented the need for carefully complementing proteins as a given. I also upped my consumption of dairy (mostly cheese) and although I had never really liked consuming eggs, I shuffled them in as a semi-regular part of my diet. I had to "replace" the meat I wasn't eating, after all. I began regularly scooping tofu out of the briny bin of my city's health food store and added it to absolutely everything. Usually plain and raw. I eventually lapsed a few upon starting a new relationship which led to my sharing a living space with a non-vegetarian musician. The trees would be alright without my help for a while, I figured.

I picked it back up again after watching a documentary on the Chinese fur industry with my cat Tarwater curled up on my lap. I watched footage of cats and dogs crammed into cages, listening to the reporter describe their fate. I started to cry and held Tarwater more closely. Then a few animal rights activists were interviewed and they mentioned vegetarianism and how killing cats for their fur was no worse than killing chickens for their flesh and that eating meat caused so much environmental devastation. That did it! I had to become a "vegetarian" again! 

My Introduction to Online "Community" and to "Those Pesky Vegans"

It wasn't long after this that I found myself with internet access for the first time ever. My reasons for re-exploring vegetarianism had become more animal-related than tree-inspired and I promptly located and joined a large and popular "veg" internet forum and found community. My life was spent interacting with non-vegetarians (including coworkers who constantly tried to challenge or debate me in the communal workplace kitchen and family members who viewed my vegetarianism as a rude social imposition on them at gatherings). The online forum I called "home" for the next couple of years was predominantly made up of vegetarians who avoided meat for any number of reasons -- health, the environment, allergies, religion, etc. There were some vegans in the community, but the terms "veg*an" and "veg" were tossed around a lot to lump together both vegans and vegetarians. The forum's vegans had their own separate "veganism" and "animal rights" discussion boards and were repeatedly directed to them by forum moderators. 

In fact, discussions of veganism felt as if they were more or less relegated to those boards. Whenever a vegan had the audacity to gently point out what was ethically problematic with a form of animal use brought up by a non-vegan, it only took one or two vegetarians to pipe up that they felt "judged" or "offended" for the vegan in question to be swiftly reminded that there were already designated "vegan discussion boards" to discuss vegan issues. A public scolding of the vegan usually ensued and everyone was reminded that the forum was "a place were all veg*ans" could "come together in kinship", since we all purportedly "shared common values" and were "all on the same path, but just at different points along our respective journeys"--as if we were all, in fact, moving toward some sort of common goal. Vegans who spoke up for themselves or for other animals were disparaged as whiny, disrespectful and combative and as ruining all of the hard work accomplished by the site's wealthy hosts. Vegans in general were often written off as being vegetarianism's extremist fringe-dwellers.

But you know what? As a young non-vegan vegetarian who was dealing with being mocked and misunderstood by those around me offline for choosing not to eat meat, I was grateful to find company with others who could relate when I shared my experiences. I wanted the comfort of community -- of peaceful community. Defending my choices and getting wrangled into debates offline could be exhausting. To be honest, I at first resented those pesky vegans for rocking the boat. They were upsetting the day-to-day camaraderie I enjoyed with others who'd also shuffled this or that animal product from their diets. They were upsetting people -- vegetarians -- by pointing out to us how we were not doing enough. "The nerve of them!" I thought. "Can't we all just get along? Isn't it bad enough to get attacked from people on the outside without having to be attacked by others 'like us' in what should be a safe space?" I was singled out as a weirdo in the offline world for choosing not to eat meat and (even though no comments were ever directed at me specifically) felt I was being singled out by vegans in this merged community for not doing more. I couldn't shut up my offline critics, but I was grateful that my fellow vegetarians and the moderators maintaining the peace on this site were able to shut up the vegans I felt were picking on the rest of us.

"Those Pesky Vegans" Re-examined

Veganism was portrayed as an extreme point at the end of a purportedly shared journey. Vegetarians (regardless of whether or not they had voiced intentions to actually go vegan) were lumped together with them, often protectively coddled as "potential" vegans. More often, they were condoned as "doing good" wherever they'd decided to "pause along their journey". So vegans were told to keep their "preaching" and "proselytizing" to themselves. In fact, those who failed to comply immediately were often heckled by a small handful of longtime regulars (who were often vague about their own animal use, while making it clear that they were financially well-off and tight with the site's financially well-off owners). Labels like "vegan police" and "holier-than-thou" were thrown around to shame vegans into silence. Many vegans left the forum altogether, since standing up for themselves (or for other animals while in "mixed" company) often escalated into a very public expulsion and (usually) banning. The vegans were viewed as the wrongdoers. Even within a so-called "veg" community, vegans were made to feel ashamed about expressing aloud (or in print, as the case may be) what they knew we really owe other animals if we take their interests--their lives--seriously. 

But you know what else? Watching what was going on had an impact. Hearing these "oh-so-extremist" vegan messages politely -- or passionately! -- pop up again and again? Watching vegans get shamed into silence for expressing themselves in what was supposed to be an inclusive community? It left me wondering why only the overlapping points -- the lowest common denominator, if you will -- were deemed acceptable to bring up. One way or another, even though I had not yet connected the dots to go vegan, the constant anti-vegan hostility was enough to make me look for a new community. I explored a few more places over the years, including one I helped build after experimenting with veganism and where (although the vegan vs. vegetarian dynamic was much healthier and much more respectful of veganism) I still found myself feeling as if I needed to censor myself. I had begun my transition towards veganism and I wanted to be able to talk about it without worrying about being accused of hurting the feelings of others who had no desire to go vegan. That said, being "around" other vegans was great, helping the vegan-curious who wanted to transition was validating. 

I couldn't as time went on, however, deal with the awkwardness of sharing a community with some folks who were vegetarian and who'd made it clear that they had no interest in or intention of going vegan. I was finally connecting the dots and finding myself meeting blank or incredulous stares when talking to friends or family about my decision. The community I needed at the time had to be more than a meatless mirror to what I was experiencing offline. I eventually stumbled across the Vegan Freak Radio podcasts and discovered the amazing online forum called "Vegan Freaks" where veganism was promoted, discussed and shared in a no-nonsense and unapologetic way. I'd finally found my cohort. No more excuses: I went and stayed vegan and it was a true relief.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

With a perceived rise in interest in veganism on a local level, I recently joined a regional Facebook group set up for both vegetarians and vegans in my area. I thought it might be interesting to get to know other vegans offline. I soon got into a heated discussion with a vegetarian dog breeder who had stated outright that she had no interest in going vegan and that since the group was for both vegetarians and vegans, that she expected the vegans to respect her choice to continue participating in animal exploitation. She distorted my calm and objective criticism of breeding dogs for profit and human pleasure (particularly when millions are killed in shelters each and every year) and accused me of launching a personal attack. She, in turn, launched into a passive-aggressive defense of her "choices" calling me "judgmental" and insisting that I was making her feel unwelcome.

One astute member of the group messaged me to point out that the breeder had just recently appeared to be flaunting her animal use and trying to shame vegans into censoring themselves. She had criticized a photo someone had posted about the plight of dairy cows, outraged that it had been permitted in the group, insisting that it was offensive to those in the group who consume dairy. She'd then started up a discussion to get vegetarians to list off their favourite dairy cheeses. (Goading with gouda?) But her behaviour had been overlooked. Her outrage came to a head after my debate with her about dog breeding. As a result of my not bowing down and telling her that there's nothing wrong with using animals for pleasure and profit (or with breeding dogs into existence when so many are abandoned into shelters and killed each year), she made several furious posts threatening to leave the group and to form a separate group excluding vegans where "vegetarians wouldn't be judged".  It's one of the first hissy-fit tactics they'd teach you about in "Online Forums/Groups 101" if such a course existed. Make a lot of noise, play victim, garner sympathy and portray the person with whom you have a difference as a vicious bully. Many stepped up, showering her with her attention and reassurances that "different views" were respected in our group and that she should stay. She left anyway.I ended up getting a personal message from one of the group's moderators. I was told that I was being negative and "alienating" by calling animal use other than meat-eating unethical. I felt as if I'd been swooped back in time. I quote from the message: 

"We are all on the same page and our hearts are all in the right place. Some just aren't there yet and need love, encouragement and acceptance for the changes they do make and not criticism for the changes they haven't been able to make yet. Every little bit counts and should be encouraged. Something is better than nothing. Please keep your opinions about milk and eggs to yourself unless someone specifically asks you for them. Please do not criticize someone's livelihood or profession. This group is to unite us in our common cause and we should focus on the values we share and not on our differences. You're making vegans look unkind." 

It's sad enough that animals are used unapologetically by over 98% of the human population and that vegans are shamed into silence when walking around in the regular old world. To have the moderator of a group for vegans and vegetarians basically tell me to shut the fuck up about the ethics of animal use lest I offend someone who chooses to use them felt like way too many steps backwards.

Veganism Is Not Vegetarianism

It had been over 20 years since I had first encountered that sort of chastising in a "veg" community. Had absolutely nothing changed? But it got me thinking again about why these mixed groups don't work and wondering why on earth I had thought it would be any different at a local level. Basically, it was more of the same moral confusion I'd encountered over a decade earlier. Disagreements are pretty much a given whenever vegetarians and vegans share a space. Why? Because we're not the same. The truth is that you either deliberately choose to exploit animals for your pleasure and/or convenience or you choose to avoid -- as far as possible -- to exploit animals for your pleasure and/or convenience. Vegetarians who are not actively transitioning towards veganism choose to continue to participate in animal exploitation. Plant-based dieters who otherwise use animals and reject veganism as extreme or unnecessary choose to continue to participate in animal exploitation. They are no different than others who choose to do the same, whether those others are pescatarians, flexitarians, or eat-everything-arians. There are vegans and there are non-vegans. Sometimes there are non-vegans who are going vegan. But we need to stop assuming that all non-vegans are going vegan. We need to stop feeling obliged to lump ourselves in with non-vegans who are not going vegan and to sacrifice truth or to sacrifice vegan community because we're crossing our fingers that if we're nice enough, maybe those stubborn non-vegans will stop willingly participating in the torture and slaughter of other sentient beings.

And if we do share spaces, rather than choose the lowest common denominator as a guideline for behaviour or as a foundation for community standards (i.e. to act as if animal exploitation is OK), we should opt to raise the bar. I'm 100% behind helping others who want to transition. But these shared spaces -- if they are to successfully exist -- should be ones where vegans feel safe and where the non-vegans in them are actually actively and in good faith seeking help to go vegan. These spaces should be ones where vegan principles are respected, upheld and promoted. If a non-vegan hasn't gotten to the point where they are willing to behave accordingly in a space shared with vegans, then that individual has obviously not connected the dots about whether or why they should go vegan. That individual is no different from any other non-vegans outside of that space who thumb their noses at vegans or at veganism. And a space in which speciesism and exploitation are either condoned, shrugged off or promoted surely ain't the place to get anyone to connect any dots. This is especially so in "veg" communities or groups which are comprised of those who reject animal exploitation and of non-vegans who see no ethical issue with the continued human use of other animals.

You either reject animal exploitation or you don't. If you don't reject it, we're not "on the same team". We're not "on the same path". And you're not part of my vegan community. I don't want my vegan community to grow by using non-vegans as filler to make it seem larger than it is; I want my vegan community to grow by changing people's hearts and heads about what it is we owe other animals and to help them go vegan. I don't think that's unreasonable to ask.