The Speciesism of So-Called 'Ethical Eating'

"But It's Better Than Nothing."

Never has a sentence left me scratching my head in confusion as much as this one, which is oft-repeated by these recent trend-hoppers who omit one or a half-dozen items from their diets and insist: "It's better than nothing!" and go on to proclaim themselves 'conscientious consumers'. These are the same folks who will list off any number of reasons they simply "cannot" be expected to do more. Take, for instance, foodie writer Alicia-Azania Jarvis and her recent article in the UK's The Independent ("My year of eating ethically") in which she goes to great lengths to a) justify the moral "sufficiency" of her decision to continue to consume animal products, although readily admitting that she is aware of the suffering this consumption entails, b) insist that taking any sort of ethical stance when it comes to the consumption of non-humans or their products inconveniences other humans and leaves you perpetually socially embarrassing yourself, and c) make it clear that omitting any animal flesh from your diet at all will lead to serious nutritional deficiencies. Surely, wringing one's fingers while trying to make strong arguments against not eating animals is not "better than nothing" for those animals?

Is Hypocrisy "Better Than Nothing"?

While alternating between calling herself a vegetarian and a pescetarian (as well as a pescatarian), Jarvis makes it clear in her article that she feels that although there is really no justification for eating fish, she... er... has justification to do so.

The ethics of vegetarianism are far from straightforward – particularly for a hypocritical pescatarian like myself. There's no doubt that if your motivations are animal welfare-related, there's little defence: fish, as people endlessly remind me, have feelings too.

My first strand of reasoning is that it's a matter of degree. You do what you can; pescetarianism is an extension of buying all-organic or free-range-only. It's better than nothing. It's a convenient argument, but also one that I actually believe.

I suppose that one could easily agree that pescetarianism is indeed "an extension of buying all organic or free-range only" (assuming that by "organic", she is referring to animal flesh). After all, eating one species of animal is no different from eating another species. Taking an animal's life for the sake of human pleasure, whether that animal spent most of his or her life in a lake, in the ocean, in a stall or in a field is still taking a life for the sake of human pleasure. I suspect, however, that what Jarvis is trying to say is that consuming non-humans raised according to organic or free-range "standards" (i.e. "happy meat") is somehow more ethical than consuming non-humans who are not, and that consuming fish is more akin to consuming the flesh of "happy" slaughtered animals. Use is use, though, however you qualify it.

Although once upon a time I might have taken issue with a foodie's lumping in the eating of animals (i.e. fish) with vegetarianism, I think that in many ways, the time has come to shrug off that inclusion, since there is no moral distinction between eating animal secretions such as dairy and eggs and eating the flesh of others -- whether or not they spend their lives underwater. Basically, if I'm going to nitpick, I'm not going to waste my time trying to argue over the semantics of a word (i.e. "vegetarianism") that in most of its incarnations is essentially no morally different in describing one's consumption from the word "omnivore". As Jarvis, herself, points out:

[E]ating fish but not meat is no more hypocritical than eating neither but continuing to consume eggs and mass-produced milk.

She's right about that. However, does calling yourself a hypocrite really absolve you of the the problematic nature -- the inherent dishonesty -- of hypocrisy? I mean, it may show that you're not completely self-delusional (although even that's arguable), but is there really anything respectable about admitting that you're too self-important to care that you unapologetically indulge in behaviour that involves doing something you acknowledge knowing is morally problematic? Something you know involves harming other sentient creatures? People often say that ignorance is bliss; when did admitting that you know you're doing harm suddenly become worthy of earning the respect of others? When did people become convinced that admitting you've done something wrong changes that what you're doing is wrong? It doesn't.

The fallback position assumed by most who are called on this is to say that "it's better than nothing". In Jarvis' case, she dismisses the harms imposed on non-human animals with her admitted hypocritical consumption of their flesh and secretions by saying to those who make choices like hers: "[A]t least you're doing your bit for the planet."

On Martyrdom

I want to make a few things clear. First: There is no shame in taking a stand and refusing to participate in animal exploitation. Some, like the unfortunately misnamed Vegan Outreach's Matt Ball might try to convince you that authentically going vegan and actually being consistent about your everyday choices makes veganism seem too hard. Worse, you'll embarrass yourself in front of those who refuse to acknowledge the interests non-human animals have in not being used as things. Jarvis, essentially an omnivore who chooses not to eat the flesh of certain species of animals, steps forward as the spokesperson for the "social nightmare" (her words) of being either vegetarian or vegan:

Become a vegetarian, or pescetarian, or – in fact, especially – become a vegan and suddenly you find yourself Socially Awkward. As far as I was concerned, making some kind of public announcement (aside from via the informal channels of Facebook or Twitter) was not an option. It was too self-important by half and horribly embarrassing.

Obviously, though, you need to let people know – if at no other time then at least when they invite you for dinner. In the case of long-standing friends, it can all feel a bit ridiculous. "By the way," you nonchalantly add, while mentally running through all the times you have served them meat, "I'm a vegetarian these days. Um, you can un-invite me if you like." I did, once, neglect to do this.

The result was my only carnivorous divergence so far. At least I think it was; in the event, I decided it was best not to ask what else was in the suspiciously-bacon-y fishcakes my friend served.

So basically, according to Jarvis, it is (OMG!!!) embarrassing for people to evolve and to incorporate changes into their lives that both make them better people, and that make a difference for non-human animals? Furthermore, if you do end up with something on your plate that belonged to someone you've purportedly decided to refrain from eating, just turn a blind eye to it all and carve away? And yes, according to Jarvis, fish are plants and don't count as a "carnivorous divergence", but that's straying from my point...

Let's be Honest

We live in a society where there is a fair bit of familiarity with the concept of not eating animal products for ethical reasons. It's a bit melodramatic to present making it clear to family and friends that you've set boundaries for yourself with regards to your consumption habits as being akin to self-humiliation. I mean, we also live in a society where it's become commonplace for people to assert their food requirements with respect to their allergies and various intolerances (think peanuts, lactose, gluten -- those sorts of things). Those who cannot eat certain food items are not made to feel shame when asserting that they cannot eat those items. Why should someone be made to feel ashamed when asserting that he or she chooses to not eat those items? In Jarvis' case, I can see where there would be much confusion and much eye-rolling, since she identifies herself as both a vegetarian and an omnivore. I'd personally be feeling heaps of social awkwardness if I were Jarvis' friend and on the receiving end of this contradictory information and had to respond to her. But of course, self-flagellation and self-identification as a hypocrite somehow take care of this for Jarvis:

Fingers crossed, meanwhile, that no one finds out you eat fish. Not only have you become the difficult one at the party; the one that caused the chef all that trouble and then tried to convert the guests, but you're a hypocrite. The only solution here, I'm afraid, is full-on retaliation (see above defence of my ethical stance). Hopefully, by the time you've finished, conversation will be have been killed so thoroughly that no one will bother to argue. Or invite you out ever again. In a way, problem solved.

Maybe Jarvis could benefit from reading my blog post from this past February about how effective communication is actually how to avoid social blunders?

Shame, Shame!

Unfortunately, it's not just the fish-eating faux-vegetarians trying to lump themselves into some big ol' "animal people" family with vegans who seem bent on perpetuating the stereotype that talking to others about not using animals is socially unacceptable proselytizing. I can understand how completely emotionally twisted up inside someone like Jarvis must be; she uses animals while pretending to be making choices significantly different from any omnivore's and does so while publicly labeling herself a hypocrite. How could she not want to rip those who talk to people about not using animals a new one? She wears her speciesism like a badge of honour. What's sad, though, is when other vegans perpetuate stereotypes and try to shame their fellow-vegans into staying "in the closet".

Vegan Speciesism

I think that there needs to be acknowledgment and discussion of the fact that many of us, as vegans, are still dealing with our own speciesism. While comfortable on our own turf with our decisions not to participate in the cycle of animal exploitation, some of us are still uncertain of how--or if--that should extend outside of our own bubbles.

"It's a personal choice."

"I don't want to get laughed at."

"But I once used animals, so who am I to judge?"

The truth is that if someone at a social event asks you about your veganism, you're not left to "face the horrifyingly anti-social prospect of wittering on like some sanctimonious evangelist" -- you're answering a question. I find that sometimes the best thing to do while participating in a meal and when asked about being vegan is to keep my answers short and to the point and to suggest elaborating after the meal if the person asking is interested. It's not so much that (as Jarvis brings up) I would be afraid to put someone "off their food", but rather that people are generally less defensive hearing about why I choose to not use animals when they're not slicing into various animal parts at the time.

Let me say it again: There is no shame in taking a stand with regards to refusing to participate in animal exploitation. There is also no shame in communicating to others why it is that you refuse to participate in animal exploitation, or in talking to them about what it means to be a vegan. Given the misinformation that gets passed around by people, like Jarvis' fearmongering about nutritional deficiencies in the rest of her article (even though she consumes most animal products aside from the flesh of land mammals!) and her wishy-washiness concerning "compassionately-informed omnivorism" versus veganism, shouldn't someone be talking to non-vegans about not using other animals? Ideally someone who actually doesn't use animals?

If you won't, then who will?

Hegans, Indeed!

Vegan-friendly Twitter streams were abuzz with snide exchanges yesterday about an article on so-called "hegans" that had just appeared in the Boston Globe. What is a "hegan"? According to Boston Globe writer Kathleen Pierce, it represents:

the new face of veganism: men in their 40s and 50s embracing a restrictive lifestyle to look better, rectify a gluttonous past, or cheat death.

So according to Pierce, the "new face of veganism" focuses on animal products you eat, and on improving your own health or appearance. Animals shmanimals! Pierce presents this as a departure from ordinary veganism (in this case, it's really strict vegetarianism), leaving one to think that vegan men had, up to that point, mostly consisted of effeminate and emaciated shells of human beings.

Salon writer Thomas Rogers picked up on this, yesterday, and shared a few of his own thoughts on Pierce's invention of a new word to describe "the supposed hot new trend of the male vegan -- men who refuse to eat meat and animal products and yet somehow manage to hold on to their masculinity" . He quips that "the succinct catchiness of the word is almost enough to forgive the weaknesses of the article". Me, I think that Pierce is just another in a long line of food writers hopping on the recent interest in variations on purported ethical eating, who attempt to bring attention to themselves by inventing new terms -- like former vegetarian Atlantic food writer Max Fisher did last year, while failing abysmally to carve out a niche for himself as a vegan-hating pseudo-vegetarian.

"Educated Animal Consumption as an Ethical Dietary Choice"

On Sunday, I wrote about a new weekly foodie piece in Canada's National Post. In response to a couple of comments left on the original story, the description of the non-foodie sister in the introduction was quietly changed from "vegan" to "cheese-hating vegetarian". Then Rebecca Tucker, the writer of "A Meatless Proposal", responded to my post about it here at My Face Is on Fire by clarifying that the series'

purpose is — and will remain — a frank discussion of developing Emily's palate in terms of her extremely discretionary dietary restrictions, and developing mine in terms of my skepticism regarding "tasty" vegan food [...].

Fair enough. But then she wrote:

That said, as a former vegatarian [sic] myself [...], I am entirely sympathetic to misrepresentations of varied ethical approaches to food consumption, and maintain strict standards still regarding what I put in my fridge and my tummy.

I think that's shmancy talk for "since I have veg-cred, I can now justify my choosing to eat animals". Off on a tangent from this (since she is talking about having been a vegetarian, which is really no morally different from being an omnivore), her throwing it in there brought to mind vegan blogger Dan Dunbar's recent and fabulous post "I Used to Think the World Was Round", which discusses the intentions of (and reactions to) people who sometimes feel the need to preface conversations by saying that they used to be vegan.

Isn't it a little bizarre, though, to portray oneself as being sympathetic to "varied ethical approaches to food consumption" by virtue of having once not eaten certain animal products and then having gone back to eating those animal products? I've read enough foodie articles over the past year by people who out themselves as former vegetarians or vegans to know that they almost invariably do so to try to add the weight of "experience" to their claims that there are ways in which eating nonhuman animals can be deemed ethical. Tucker confirmed my suspicions with regards to her own intentions in a subsequent response to my blog post stating the following:

There is in fact a culture of food-minded individuals who do as I have done: Promote the idea of educated animal consumption as an ethical dietary choice. I think there's something to be said here for the conflation of focusing one's food-minded energies on the suffering of animals and considering the farmers and dairies making a conscious effort to oppose the wrongdoing of large-scale factory farming. Vegans abstain from the whole industry — and that's commendable. I simply make sure my grocery dollar supports a more pastoral approach to farming. I'm comfortable with my decisions regarding the consumption of animal products, and have the right to defend them as much as any vegan has the right to defend his/her abstinence from them.

So she intends to promote the idea of "educated animal consumption as an ethical dietary choice" (i.e. happy meat). Basically, this means promoting the idea of using every excuse in the book to delude oneself into thinking that there are such things as "humane" animal products, as well as using every excuse in the book to stop short of facing the fact that simply not consuming or exploiting animals for their flesh and excretions is the most logical option when it comes to so-called "ethical dietary choices".

Tucker also left me further convinced of how she intends to use her weekly series to promote this mindset in its second installment, where she (wait for it!) outs herself as a former vegetarian and states her stance concerning the ethics of consuming nonhuman animals quite clearly:

[T]he more reading I did about the impact of my food choices, the more I realized cutting meat out entirely wasn’t going to be the most ethical dietary decision for me. I began voting with my dollar: by purchasing products from independent grocery stores [...] and limiting my consumption of meat (and other animal products) to products purchased from local farms, on which the animals are raised and treated humanely, ethically and healthily.

She then goes on to describe her awkward attempt to veganize poutine and tourtière and slides in that her sister Emily "admitted that while she’d never had tourtiere before, she could tell it would taste much better with meat".

Tucker uses her sister's convenient confessional moment to jump into her next characterization of veganism (and justification of her own eating of nonhuman animals):

Eliminating animal products from your diet is a tricky thing. There are only so many ways to replace meat without compromising taste and, in some cases, nutrition. Ultimately, I decided to resume meat-eating because I could no longer abstain from certain things.

So, although she may have asserted to me that the series' raison d'être is to be "a frank discussion of developing Emily's palate in terms of her extremely discretionary dietary restrictions, and developing mine in terms of my skepticism regarding "tasty" vegan food" ; I have a hunch based on what she's written so far, that it's really more of the same trendy foodie obsession with portraying veganism as difficult and promoting the consumption of happy meat. The bottom line is that if you remove the text of the recipes themselves from this second installment in her series, she devotes almost half of it to lauding the consumption of nonhuman animals.

I guess that time will tell. In the interim, watch this poutine-making video by The Sexy Vegan. For vegan tourtière, try this recipe from The Vegan Dad. No kidney beans or mushrooms were harmed in the making of either.

More Misrepresentations of Veganism in the Media

Canada's The National Post has recently started running a weekly piece in its food section called "A Meatless Proposal". It's about two sisters who move in together, one a "meat-loving gastronome" and the other a supposed "vegan who's just 'not into food'". The piece is written by the omnivorous sister who decides to "show her [vegan sister] how to like food, even if it means cooking vegan". So what about this token vegan sister?

For Emily, a vegetarian diet wasn’t a choice made for ethics or taste; she is simply uncomfortable with the thought of eating meat. “I consciously deny myself something I enjoy,” she said, by way of explanation. “It’s sort of masochistic.” She also, however, doesn’t eat cheese — with the bizarre exception of Parmesan — because she simply doesn’t like it. I know. Mind-boggling.

Although she's described as a "vegetarian" in this particular quote from the piece, it's made clear in the article's introduction that Emily is a "vegan". Yet, her veganism is presented as having nothing to do with ethics but everything to do with self-deprivation. Her veganism also has a Parmesan cheese exception (and apparently egg and anchovy exceptions, given the bacon-free Caesar salad she is mentioned as having recently eaten). My guess is that there's some bandwagon-hopping going on. At the very least, it's obvious that neither the article's writer nor her supposed sister has any idea of what veganism entails. It's a shame that this confusion and misrepresentation will be presented weekly in a major Canadian newspaper.

Stewart White of The Business Spectator Minces Words

OK, I'm kidding. President of Food Media Club Australia and "The Digestive Tract" columnist for The Business Spectator, Stewart White went on the anti-vegan rant of the week today. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, he plugged eating pigs to fight diabetes, citing the results of--an Australian meat industry funded study! Go figure.

Some highlights? First:

Vocal minority food zealots can be so tedious. They are invariably self-righteous, ill-informed “believers” who have some flaw in their existence that gets them liverish about something and they will bang on ad infinitum in their blinkered and myopic crusade.

Then:

If it weren’t for the fact that these fanatics dig into their anthropomorphic chaff bag of skewed anecdotes from which to launch these sallies – on the face of it there would be a modicum of logic in the argument – but changing a person’s eating habits – changing lifestyle habits – are not done easily as most sane people who’ve ever tried to do – or not do something – would attest.

A quantum leap into vegetative boredom is a big call for anyone to seriously adopt and maintain from a lifetime of a normal omnivorous diet. So get over it. Modifying is the buzz word here. Modify the diet – make incremental changes – and it will stick … hopefully.

Today I read how there is a health issue with sprouts on the veggie market. There’s a whole lot of salmonella going down with mung, alfalfa and other mouth-watering sprout offerings. I have to say, I’d prefer to take my chances losing weight with one of 15 heart foundation approved cuts of lean pork than a gusset-filling gastro dose from alleged human grade fodder.

His use of the term "logic" was almost endearing. I think that I've written "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" papers in junior high-school that reflected a bit more maturity than this opinion piece by an obvious Australian meat industry mouthpiece.

Since When Is Self-Preservation Ethical Eating?

Scanning through things in the news early this morning, I found yet another article that seeks to blend interest in supporting local farmers and in eating healthily with the idea of not harming animals. This new "conscientious consumer" fad has lumped so many things in together that they've become interchangeable to some as they're each given equal moral weight. It's enough to make you dizzy to read these pieces like this one from Tuesday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Take, for instance, the 20-year-old described as the first exemplar of conscientious eating who "doesn't want to hurt anything or anyone as she goes about her life" so she eats meat from "animals who are raised on the range, not in a cage". According to the article:

For decades, ethical eating was largely limited to vegetarians and vegans, who don't eat milk or dairy in addition to forgoing meat. But the movement has grown to include many kinds of foodists.

Their reasons are many: Some want to improve their health. Others hope to sustain the environment or to stop the mistreatment of animals. And a growing number of people hope to support local growers and businesses, rather than out-of-state — or even out-of-the-country — conglomerates.

So, how is it that wanting to improve your health makes you an ethical eater? I always thought that was just about self-preservation. And although I've certainly understood some of the ideals behind the locavorist tendency to buy from area farmers, I can't help but sense that it's turning into this whole us vs. them mentality, where it's no longer so much about protecting the environment anymore as it is about not supporting outsiders. But I digress...

The article goes on for the next few paragraphs to talk about people's interest in buying fresh local produce for health reasons. I glimpsed the word "vegan" for the second time in the article, only to find them describing a token vegan couple who run a vegan deli:

The Menseys chose to give up meat and its byproducts after learning more about the antibiotics and steroids used in some animals. Mensey said they both want to take care of the "best investment" they have on the planet, their bodies.

What does wanting to avoid polluting your body with chemicals have to do with veganism, honestly? I guess I'd hoped that in an article that's purportedly about ethical eating that someone--anyone--would have thought to actually discuss not consuming animal products at all for ethical reasons, rather than talk about veganism in terms of self-motivated health concerns, which really aren't what veganism is about. The article drones on about Oprah, healthier eating, organic foods, eating locally and includes a quote from some guy who "aspires to be more of a vegetarian" but who eats fish and chicken, because "'[i]f you eat meat that's high in fat, it's not good for you'". It's not exactly "good" for the party being eaten, either.

I thought that maybe there'd finally be some focus on animal ethics upon reading the title of the article's next section, "Treatment of Farm Animals", but then read its first paragraph:

Another factor is the environment. Rhodes believes a lot of land that is used to grow grains for animals in confinement could be used to grow crops to help curb worldwide hunger.

Aha! So it's wrong to confine animals since they eat up grain that could be used to feed hungry humans. Got it. The article then quotes a token vegetarian who is "opposed to concentrated feedlot operations" and quotes him as saying something about carrots not suffering when they're eaten. This vegetarian goes on to quip about his friends who are "devoted carnivores" and how he juxtaposes himself with them as someone who's thought about what he eats, while they have not. I can't help but think that he hasn't really thought things through, since if you really think about what you eat, not eating animals or their products at all (and the ethics of not doing so because they have an interest in not being eaten or enslaved) should, at the very least, be some sort of consideration on your radar, shouldn't it? At least, you'd think that it would have gotten a passing mention in a newspaper article about ethical eating. But who's really thinking these days, anyway?

Even Non-Meat Eaters Endorse the Eating of Animals

My early morning read pretty much clinched it for me today that people need a stronger grounding in both semantics and basic logic. Yesterday I heard about lacto-vegetarians wanting to call themselves lactovegans; today, I read that the writer of a column called "Vegetarianismism" is now calling people who eat meat "fellow vegetarian[s]". What's next, really? (This is going to be a little long.)

Max Fisher, The Atlantic's token vegetarian foodie, has now gone on record as 1) endorsing the eating of animals and 2) conflating vegetarianism with the eating of animals. In his piece from Wednesday called "The Case for Semitarianism", Fisher revisits ethical relativism with that same delight recent Pollanite foodies have been oozing while oohing and aahing over their hands-on involvement in the slaughter of some non-human or another. In Fisher's case, his oohing is over someone else's participation in the slaughter of a pig. Fisher uses terms like "beautiful" to describe how the Greeks have (here comes the euphemism) "celebrated pork". He immerses himself completely in his Pollan-gasm, writing:

I looked at the bright, smiling faces in Aglaia's photo as they held the severed head of the pig and resisted my knee-jerk reaction that meat is "wrong." I thought how silly it would be to tell these people to eat tofu instead, and what a loss to Greek culture, to all culture, it would be if they did. Food is absolutely central to the cultures that make the world so interesting, and that food includes meat

then invites us all to "understand why the cost of universal vegetarianism would be perhaps too high". Heaven forbid that we wipe the gleeful expressions off the faces of those Greek children during photo ops with severed heads--that would just be plain ol' mean.

Fisher does admit that this fixation on meat is "bad for the animals who die to produce it", but I guess that how bad it is for the animals isn't a particularly weighty or relevant concern for him, since his solution is that there should be "compromise" and that some animals are just going to have to be collateral damage so that humans can still cater to their taste buds and indulge themselves in their bloodlust.

Predictably, he quotes New York Times foodie Mark Bittman who recently co-opted the term vegan to help promote his book and latest food fad) and uses this as his stepping-stone to advocate the occasional eating of animals. He calls this "mitigated meat". As if the name-dropping, bandwagon-hopping and euphemisms weren't annoying enough, he then redefines the term vegetarian by providing the example of a "lifelong vegetarian [sic] friend [who] allows herself meat on holidays and special occasions". (One has to wonder whether Fisher extends this own redefining of the term to himself, since he frequently reminds his readers that he's a vegetarian.)

So what to do? According to Fisher, it depends on whether you view animal flesh as "an indulgence similar to alcohol: a social norm harmless in careful moderation" or if you view it as being "more like cigarettes--a harmful vice at any level". I guess that viewing it as the product of the torture and slaughter of a sentient creature isn't an option anymore. It's either naughty to eat animals, or naughty and unhealthy. It's all about us and not about them. Fisher's take (and introduction of yet another foodie term crafted to make people feel hip and lovely about eating animals)?

For me, the latter view makes sense, though that has a bit to do with my addictive personality (I can either eat three burgers a week or no burgers at all) as well as my moral qualms. But I see no problems--ethical, dietary, or culinary--with what I like to call semitarianism: A diet of sometimes vegetarianism, sometimes omnivorism.

So now I wonder, just how much meat do you have to eat and how many times a day do you have to eat it to qualify as an omnivore? 'Cause it seems to me that by definition, if you eat it at all, that makes you an omnivore. Is it just me, or does it seems as though foodies would like to make the word taboo, without actually condemning the eating of animals itself?

In asserting that he sees no ethical problems inherent in eating animals, Fisher contradicts what he'd written earlier about his own vegetarianism stemming from how he'd "long thought that eating a (once) living thing seemed fundamentally immoral". Fisher takes his philosophical meanderings further off-track by contrasting his proposed new "semitarianism" to (another foodie term for omnivorism) flexitarianism, stating that his new form of vegetarianism "is borne out of philosophical conviction, and that conviction is no less legitimate for food-lovers who abstain from meat one day a week or all seven". Furthermore, sounding more like Palin than Pollan, he asks all vegetarians and vegans to "recall that even the most fervently ethics-based vegetarianism isn't really about an ideological purity of all-or-nothing, us-versus-them purism activist groups foster".

Fisher then explains that what vegetarianism and veganism are all about is reducing animal suffering and he absolves humans of any sense of agency or accountability by reassuring us that "[w]hether one person gives up meat or three people cut out a third, it's all the same to the cow, and it should be the same to us". So if someone kicks me in the shin hard enough to bruise it or three people kick me in the shin a little less hard to produce the same bruising, should it be all the same to me? More importantly, should it be all the same to them?

Max, Stop Pulling on My Pigtails, Will Ya?

Yesterday, The Atlantic's "Vegeterianismism" writer Max Fisher tweeted about his latest article--this one focusing on what he assesses as vegetarians' proper behaviour. In his tweet, he linked to my blog post from a month ago, where I'd commented on his own piece where he'd directed a fair amount of hostility at vegans for not being hypocrites about their ethics when it comes to consuming animals. The funny thing is that in his tweet, he described my original piece as "hate mail". I certainly don't hate dear Mr. Fisher, nor have I ever mailed him. But I certainly have an appreciation of how easy it could be for some to misunderstand very basic points. And I digress...

In "Risotto, Not Rhetoric (or Red Meat)", Max Fisher starts off in a self-deprecatory manner by describing what a lousy cook he was after first having become a vegetarian. He also shares how obnoxiously preachy he feels he was at the time, trying to "shame others" into shunning meat. Fisher states his point quite clearly that preaching is "hypocritical" and that he's "always found it amusing that vegetarians can be so concerned about the well-being of animals and yet quite ready to shame their own parents". He then goes on to express how the only real way to spread the vegetarian word is by focusing on the "joy" inherent in it, and not "the harm of others". That's kind of like saying that you should try to convince people to not smoke by conveying to them the joy of breathing (for instance), while avoiding any mention of lung cancer, emphysema, or stroke.

Fisher then tells a tale that I think is meant to be a success story exemplifying his championed method of avoiding "the V-word" while sneaking vegetarian food into dinner guests. He shares the tale of how he managed to get his unhealthy college professor to give up eating red meat, stating how it was "evidenced by the prodigious amounts of chicken he ate at our regular dinners". Less cows, more chickens? I guess that the "V-word" that should be avoided here is 'victory'. At least where the chickens are concerned.

I'm all for winning people over with their taste buds and happily-filled bellies. Years ago, I worked in in an office where monthly potlucks were the norm and I always took the opportunity to bring a couple of creative vegan dishes to share with colleagues, to give them the chance to get a taste of just how delicious vegan food can be. That being said, I hope that Mr. Fisher isn't actually advocating that those who are serious about what he calls the cause should refrain altogether from ever talking about their reasons for not wanting to use animals. I mean, somewhere between browbeating people over dinner and donning an apron to convert people from eating cows to eating chickens, there's gotta be some grey area, no? At least, let's hope that we can acknowledge a more effective way to help animals.

I particularly appreciated what Professor Gary L. Francione had to say a little over a year ago about the many opportunities that exist to educate people about veganism, and of how "the most effective opportunities are calm, friendly exchanges between two thinking human beings". Talking about ethics isn't tantamount to proselytizing. Sometimes it's just a question of helping people connect the dots. And as Professor Francione writes, "every person who goes vegan is a vital contribution to the nonviolent revolution that will eventually shift the paradigm away from animals as property and toward animals as persons". How one chooses to communicate is indeed essential. It's just as essential, however, that vegans not, in turn, be shamed into not talking about their veganism. After all (and as I hope Mr. Fisher agrees on some level), the ultimate goal is to help the animals--not harm them.

Lard? Really?

Slate published a story on Tuesday about how lard's supposedly making a comeback. With all of the frantic foodies tripping all over themselves to sing the praises of meat consumption recently, this progression (or regression, really) doesn't seem that far-fetched. Slate's Regina Schrambling wrote:

I'm convinced that the redemption of lard is finally at hand because we live in a world where trendiness is next to godliness. And lard hits all the right notes, especially if you euphemize it as rendered pork fat—bacon butter.

Schrambling goes on to laud lard as being an essential ingredient in much authentic (e.g. Mexican) cuisine and to focus on its apparent health benefits (e.g. she says that since it has a higher burning point that frying chicken in it leaves the chicken absorbing less of it -- sorta irrelevant for most of the folks who read this blog, I'd say).

Schrambling also stresses the superiority of lard to shortening, calling the latter the "go-to solid fat" of the '90s. That's like promoting low-tar cigarettes as a healthy thing by comparing them to cigars, really. Plus, in the last ten years, I don't think that I've purchased a single cookbook that's ever called for shortening in any of the recipes. Touting lard as a better option to something that's not really used much in the first place is misleading.

She also states that the saturated fat in lard has a neutral effect on blood cholesterol. Someone should inform the American Heart Association of this, since it's still asserting that saturated fat does indeed raise bad blood cholesterol and it lists lard several places on its website where it discusses minimizing one's consumption of saturated fats to avoid heart disease.

In case anyone has any doubts, Schrambling pretty much clarifies which bandwagon she's hopped on halfway through her short piece, stating that:

[w]hat matters more, though, is that lard has become the right ingredient at the right time. It fits perfectly into the Michael Pollan crusade to promote foods that have been processed as minimally as possible: Your great-grandmother surely cooked with it, so you should, too.

She then wraps up by waxing on about the environmental / sustainability motivation to return to using lard, getting all hot and sassy post-Pollan foodie-style by describing how its usage is finding a niche in high-end restaurants and quipping that "[l]ard is just about the last stop before the squeal when pork producers are extracting every savory bit from a pig". 'Cause Schrambling thinks that pigs are things, don't you know.

So head's up to all: "Lard: Coming soon to clog another artery near you!"

Veganism in The Media

I write (too?) often about the increase in non-vegans' co-opting (and often distorting) the term "vegan" to cash in on the current mainstream interest in exploring the ethics of eating; it's getting even more annoying to see a rising trend in bits or interviews with vegans engaging in confessional-like admissions to non-vegan indulgences, often shrugging them off as indiscretions. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish between non-vegans pretending to be vegan, and vegans trying to gain the approval of mainstream foodies by offering up titillating bits of information that only seem to perpetuate the current foodie obsession with presenting the eating animals (and their products) as overwhelmingly enticing.

For instance, yesterday there was a quick reference to Lorna Sass' new cookbook Short-Cut Vegan by Boston Globe foodie Sheryl Julian. Tucked away in it was yet another supposed vegan's confession, and its mangling of the meaning of veganism:

Sass was vegan for almost a decade and wrote a bunch of vegetarian books, which she told me are really vegan books. She only broke her very strict vegan regime when she met a guy who liked to eat cheese and sip wine.

Well then, she wasn't vegan for almost a decade if she ate cheese, was she? The full interview with Sass should appear next Wednesday; it'll be interesting to see how she ends up clarifying her statement, if she does so at all.

Watering Down 'Veganism'

Indianapolis' IndyStar.com featured a surprisingly positive piece by Shari Rudavsky today on going meatless. She ends up focusing on the health aspects of eating a completely plant-based diet, touching upon how consuming substances like dairy can often aggravate allergies or other medical issues. Her piece also addresses some aspects of the protein myth by explaining that protein deficiency is far from being a concern for vegans, and that we don't need to worry about complementary proteins -- an erroneous belief that's still promoted in mainstream media.

The article's focus on health issues leaves it falling short a bit in terms of giving readers a glimpse at the full picture concerning veganism, unfortunately. Rudavsky reassures readers that "it's not necessary to go all the way to see a health benefit. Just forgoing meat one day a week or before 6 p.m. can have an impact." She's obviously been reading Mark Bittman, the NY Times foodie who's been cashing in on veganism's rising popularity by attempting to co-opt the term.

One bit of the piece reflects precisely how people's misunderstanding of the philosophy behind it have led to attempts to water down the term 'veganism'. For instance, Rudavsky describes a man who managed to lose around 120 lbs over the course of a year and a half following a plant-based diet that was mostly raw. She then says that "more recently, the Indianapolis student has become more of a self-described 'flexitarian.' About 95 percent of his diet is vegetarian, and he is still largely vegan, mostly for health reasons." The thing is that you're no more "largely vegan" than you can be "largely celibate". Either you are, or you aren't.

It's contradictory to call someone both flexitarian (which, let's face it, is a kinder gentler term for 'omnivore') and a vegan in the same sentence. People like Mark Bittman and others trying to label-drop by calling variations on meat-eating 'vegetarian' or 'vegan' are just confusing the issue. Furthermore, asserting that someone is vegan for health reasons ignores the fact that veganism involves eschewing all consumption of animals and animal-derived ingredients -- not just the ones we'd eat.

Foodie Fads: Trying on and Discounting "Veganism"

There are two major themes that are playing themselves out ad nauseum in confessional-like foodie articles in mainstream media today. One, of course, is the trend towards the purportedly sexy hands-on involvement in the slaughter of animals that some foodies seem to think leaves them holding the ethical equivalent of a "get out of jail free" card with regards to their embracing their more carnivorous urges (and they sure as heck like to harp on the "c" word). Another trend popularized by some folks like Oprah Winfrey (and no, this isn't going to be an Oprah rant, for those of you who've expressed concern over my dissing her in the past for her cleanse last year), where for one reason or another, veganism -- more often, a strict vegetarian diet -- is tried out temporarily for its short term benefits, or sometimes merely to assess its merits outside of any sort of ethical context.

One article I stumbled across this morning was written by someone in the latter camp -- and to be fair, this person is more of a general "writer" than an actual foodie. Tulsa World's Cary Aspinwall's five day stint eschewing animal products reads like a disgruntled teenager talking on the phone to a friend about having been forced to participate in a family outing. Plus, it includes all of the customary (obligatory?) jabs at veganism and the ethics inherent in it. For instance, she starts off the article mentioning her long-time curiosity about veganism, but qualifies that it's

curious, with a mild disdain. Good for vegans if they don't want to eat any cows, pigs, lambs, chickens and fish. In my view, those animals died for the sake of deliciousness.

Yes, we get it, Cary: Savouring the taste of animals is hip. Mark Bittman loves you. And since most of your five days were spent trying to find identical substitutes for animal products instead of really exploring all of the other things that you could have tried eating -- and since you've stated outright that you walked into this with your nose wrinkled, you were disappointed.

So? The article ends with a bunch of regurgitated information about the potential health benefits of lowering one's consumption of animal products somewhat, and touts the John Hopkins Institute's "Meatless Mondays" as being an ideal path to follow in lieu of veganism (and by "meatless", this means "abstaining from red meat, poultry and high-fat dairy products" and that "fish and seafood, especially those high in omega-3 fatty acids, are encouraged"). I remember getting a lot of spammy comments on my blog from one of their people sometime before Xmas, more or less saying the same thing over and over again as leavers of spammy comments are wont to do. But I digress... It's a shame that in writing an article about the possible benefits of reducing one's consumption of animals that Aspinwall felt the need to both misrepresent and undermine the lifestyle that's most conducive to reducing one's consumption; it's also a shame that she did so without even once taking a fair and serious look at the ethics behind that lifestyle. Ultimately, though, presenting eating animals as sexy is what's selling in mainstream media today, so this article was just yet another feeble manifestation of this trend.

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Although it's not worthy of its own post, I thought I'd also tack on this link to an article by a vegetarian of eight years who decided to try to go vegan for a week, but who -- while avoiding any real discussion of the ethics behind veganism -- failed to reproduce what she deemed a tasty vegan mac and "cheese" dish, and so decided that veganism is too time-consuming and expensive to bother. She asserts that she envies those with enough willpower to be compassionate, but that she feels that merely focusing on being a "conscious" consumer is the better way to go.