On Self-Delusion and Seeking Absolution

A friend of mine sent me a link last week to a small blurb on the ever-inconsistent This Dish Is Veg website. The piece, "Can I make a case for eating eggs?", is the sort of thing you'd expect to see left out as bait by a writer to generate hits and comments. For its writer Shana Kurz, however, it seems more an attempt to garner a little bit of sympathy from readers so that she can feel better about her decision to go back to exploiting other animals.

Kurz begins the short blurb stating outright that giving up eggs was easy -- that she didn't eat them and had otherwise found simple substitutes for them where she might have used them while cooking. Regardless of this, though, Kurz proceeds to try to make a case for her going back to using them. She does so in such an illogical manner that one can't really help but wonder if she's serious.

The eggs from her CSA come from "happy" chickens, she insists, "adopted" from organic farms who'd relinquished them as unproductive. These "adopted" chickens are allowed to roam, she tells her readers. Of course, she also adds that when the chickens go from being less productive to being unproductive altogether, they are either passed on to others or "killed" and that she has no idea of just how these chickens are killed, but is speculating that it must somehow be "humanely". (One almost envisions Kurz crossing her fingers, eyes squeezed tightly shut!)

So someone who had already found substitutes for eggs has a CSA that treats chickens as things and whose slaughter practices for those chickens are unknown to her. So? She views this as triggering some sort of "diet related dilemma" but says so while admitting that she's already made the decision to order them on a weekly basis (i.e. so much for any dilemma). One has to wonder about her self-identifying as having "compassion for animals" considering her eagerness to obtain a sort of absolution from her readers as she informs them of that decision. Even more so, one has to wonder why in the little bio following the blurb, This Dish Is Veg describes her as a "Certified Health Coach (and vegan)".

One also has to wonder if Kurz can really be that oblivious to the fact that the chickens on those original organic farms came from breeding operations where male chicks (deemed worthless) are invariably killed, often simply ground alive or suffocated. It's a shame that -- while not even knowing how the chickens meet their deaths when her CSA deems them useless and disposable little feathered machines -- she still clings to this myth that there is such a thing as a humane way to slaughter another. What's bizarre, however, is that she then chooses to assume -- based on nothing but a hunch -- that the chickens whose eggs she is taking must surely be killed in a manner in which that killing somehow seems more ethical to Kurz.

It's unfortunate that this is the sort of sloppy writing that This Dish Is Veg continues to feature on its website, particularly from someone it presents as being a vegan consultant.

Oh, Those Celebrities!

Just last month, The Biggest Loser's weight loss trainer Bob Harper lost an opportunity to promote not using animals. Harper went public in June of 2010 to self-identify as vegan and in doing so, has joined a handful of other celebrities who've spent the past few years sending one confusing message after another out to the public about what veganism actually is.

Last November, Harper was interviewed by Fitness magazine to talk to them "about his vegan lifestyle" and when asked for "healthy eating tips" he'd give to "readers who may or may not be interested in veganism ", Harper included trendy Greek yogurt with his vegan options. I don't know about the rest of you, but if given an opportunity as a vegan to educate the public about what to eat, my go-to place certainly wouldn't be to promote animal products. If I were a vegan who was also deemed an authority on personal health and fitness, I'd certainly jump at every opportunity to talk to others about not eating animals or their products.

But what do I know? Even celebrity-beloved Farm Sanctuary seems a bit confused about whether or not humans -- even those who engage in animal advocacy -- should be using animals or promoting animal use. Some of their supporters questioned them on their Facebook page this past October 1 about whether Harper was a suitable spokesperson for their Farm Sanctuary Walk for Animals Campaign. At the time, Harper was also plugging Jennie-O Turkey, a company which sells turkey meat and is a major sponsor of Harper's Biggest Loser TV show. Farm Sanctuary's response to this reasonable question?

When working with celebrities, we understand that they are under immense pressure to maintain their public platform, and at times, and for a variety of reasons, their personal values may not always be reflected within their public persona. When we focus our energies on who is the purest amongst us, we do a disservice to animals.

So actually going vegan or(gasp!) expecting other self-described vegans to not promote animal use, according to Farm Sanctuary, does a "disservice to animals"? I guess, then, that they've found their ideal spokesperson -- although they at least didn't go so far as to select him as the celebrity face for the Adopt-a-Turkey Project they were in the middle of promoting. (I'm guessing that the suits at Jennie-O would have disapproved at such a blatant contradiction?)

Harper's spent a lot of time since outing himself as a vegan talking about the personal health benefits of veganism. During a Star interview this past May, which ended up discussed by many animal advocates online, Harper focused on veganism being about "feeling good" oneself. However, he also stressed that it's not altogether necessary to go vegan to attain this feeling of well-being:

I tell people all the time that you don't have to be a vegetarian or vegan to feel good, but I want people to rely more on plant-based foods. [...] For animal-eaters it's important that you get grass-fed meats and all organic produce. If you make sure you are eating in that way, you may pay more now-but you will save a lot on medical costs later.

Furthermore, although he did call himself a vegan in the interview, when asked whether he "miss[es] meat", Harper responded with an emphatic "definitely" and proceeded to elaborate that he's a vegan who indulges his cravings for animal products because he doesn't feel that he should impose rules upon his consumption:

Look, nobody is perfect and I definitely have cheated but I don't beat myself up for it. I don't want life to be so regimented. If I want some cheese or something I definitely let myself.

In fact, when prodded further and asked if he allows himself "a cheat a day", Harper responded:

I don't necessarily have a cheat day, but I do allow myself to indulge once in a while without beating myself up. The other day I broke down and had some pizza-and it was so good!

Not to "beat" Bob Harper up, or anything -- since he seems quite concerned with not getting himself down over his self-identifying as vegan while continuing to indulge in consuming animals or their products because they're "so good!" -- but surely he's an intelligent enough fellow to understand basic definitions? Surely?

Not only does Harper call himself vegan while admitting to eating animal products in interviews, but (according to the non-vegan site This Dish is Veg) as recently as yesterday, he tweeted that he gave in to a craving for egg whites. To promote veganism? To promote Farm Sanctuary? It seems that the only thing Harper ended up promoting is his self-indulgent use of non-human animals. When asked by another tweeter if it was the first time since going vegan he'd consumed animal products, Harper (in flat-out contradiction to to the responses he gave in the interviews to which I've linked above) replied with an emphatic "YES!!!!!". When another tweeter asked him if he thinks that egg whites are vegan, Harper gave some indication that he does, in fact, understand the definition of "vegan" when he responded "NO".

Today, Harper seemed surprised that some of the people who may have nonetheless thought he was the real deal have responded to his gushing over egg whites. His stating that he'd gotten "really HORRIBLE messages" was a little over dramatic, though; with the exception of one nasty pro-violence tweeter, most of what he received by that point were earnest questions from other animal advocates asking "why" he'd eaten eggs. Still, he chose to limit his response to that one nasty tweeter earlier. Judging by the hundreds of supportive responses he's gotten so far from non-vegans (and former "vegans") asserting that there's nothing wrong with consuming eggs, that what he eats is his personal choice, that there's such a thing as "happy eggs", I'd say that so-called "vegan" Harper's done a solid job delivering a clear message to the public that there's nothing wrong with consuming animal products. And no thanks to that one nasty tweeter, Harper's also helped facilitate the public perception of vegans as being hateful and deranged, as well as to hold himself up as a bit of a martyr.

Was he ever vegan? Probably not. But what concerns me isn't whether he was or wasn't; what actually concerns me is the fall-out from yet another celebrity's having presented himself as such and caused more damage than good. Sadly, it looks like the biggest losers today will be the non-human animals.