Bits and Blurbs in the Media

I've fallen out of the habit of commenting on articles of less significance --albeit still of interest to some vegans -- that pop up in mainstream media from time to time. I'll try to be a bit more vigilant and throw out the occasional find. Today's, for instance:


An article in Maine's The Portland Press Herald today contained a lot of information about vegan and vegan-friendly eateries in Portland and elsewhere in Maine. I was surprised to see them leave out Belfast's vegetarian/organic and vegan-friendly Chase's Daily, as well as the deli at the Belfast Food Co-op. Although I never got around to blogging about them, I visited both (the Co-op repeatedly so) while vacationing in the Belfast and Searsport area along the Maine coast a few years ago and really enjoyed both places.

Although it seems to be put forth more and more often as a given in mainstream media, it's still unfortunate that the article equates "becoming vegan" with eating "a totally plant-based diet" and adopting a new "dietary style". Veganism is, of course, much more than a diet.

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The Evansville Courier Press featured an article in which a local chef was asked how he would handle catering a large party with vegan appetizers. It's a mostly positive article but for a guy who stresses the need to "think outside the box", it seems that many of the appetizers are just traditionally animal product based ones for which he uses commercial processed substitutes -- vegan mayo or sour cream, for instance. It's true, though, that there are tons of readily-available, easy to use and tasty substitutes that can be had for most animal products these days and that most of them can be shuffled in to whip up snacks quickly. However, he makes it evident that he's not yet experimented the most recent and popular cheese substitutes like Daiya or Follow Your Heart when he mistakenly asserts that "vegan cheese does not melt". Still, it's always nice to see a positive article stressing that preparing delicious food without animal-based ingredients isn't difficult.

The Difference Between Steps and Standing Still

Veganism as Something-ism

Just a few days ago, I got into an exchange with an individual who subscribes to the My Face Is on Fire Facebook page. It was triggered by a link I'd posted to an article from The Thinking Vegan ("My interest lies in animal liberation, not making more vegans"). Gary Smith's article is largely a commentary on what's been left in our laps as animal rights advocates now that the term "vegan" has been co-opted and mangled by so many to purportedly mean any variation on using less animal products. Not making "more vegans" in this sense means not turning someone on to the former Freston fast craze or Bittman's "Vegan Before Six" thing and then convincing oneself that some sort of meaningful advocacy has actually been done. Smith writes:

At what point do we start to articulate animal liberation, the ethical argument for veganism? At what point do we start to articulate the animal rights message? [...] The outreach we are currently focused on is disingenuous and misleading, and backfires if it takes longer for people to understand the ethical message of liberation.

I do agree with that wholeheartedly and have been writing around that on My Face Is on Fire for a spell now, so it was bizarre to have someone who'd chosen to like and follow the blog's Facebook page suddenly pipe out to disagree with Smith's message about the need to include the ethical argument when engaging in vegan advocacy. The individual asserted that she feels strongly that if you convince someone of the health benefits of eating a plant-based diet that a conversion to veganism is almost a sure thing. We talked in circles around each other a bit as I attempted to explain to her that it doesn't follow that buying into self-concerned reasons having nothing to do with other animals would lead to a sudden epiphany about the immorality of exploiting other sentient beings.

A Step is a Part of... Stepping

As an abolitionist vegan, I'm not just interested in getting some people to not use this or that part of another animal on this or that day of the week. At least, I'm not interested in getting some people to not use this or that part of another animal on this or that day of the week for its own sake and as its own end. There needs to be movement towards not using other animals -- an actual "going" vegan. When engaging in vegan advocacy, it needs to be made clear that this going vegan is the starting point that needs to be reached for each of us to work towards the real goal -- to bring an end to the exploitation of others animals -- and that anything less falls short of it.

The aforementioned individual on Facebook, however, was convinced that using one argument to get someone to stop eating animals would either get them to connect their own dots somehow, or leave them more open to an ethical argument to cut out other forms of animal consumption and exploitation. Somehow, to this individual, this vegan, actually talking to people about animals having an interest in not being enslaved and slaughtered for human pleasure seemed counterintuitive to getting those people to stop providing the demand that perpetuates the enslavement and slaughter or other animals for human pleasure.

Baby Steps or Bog?

Too often I'll hear a "tsk" and the words "baby steps!" when I point out to advocates that the best way to talk to nonvegans about not using animals is to explain to them in clear terms why other animals aren't ours to use. The call for "baby steps!" is patronizing, honestly, as if nonvegans are somehow unable to grasp simple concepts like sentience or to be able to weigh actual facts rather than be coddled. Even more often, I'll hear the term "stepping-stone" tossed around to excuse advocating for variations on reduced animal use. A clear argument for veganism is what got me to go and stay vegan and the many, many years I teetered between lacto-vegetarianism and strict vegetarianism were no stepping-stone at all: They were a bog in which I was quite contentedly stuck, engaging in communal congratulatory backslapping with others in that same bog. I convinced myself that I was doing "enough" until someone finally told me that I wasn't and explained why in plain language. Many other abolitionist vegans with whom I've had conversations over the years have shared similar stories and sentiments. Why on earth would I advocate anything less than veganism and risk leading others into that same bog?

What the Veganism I Advocate Surely, Surely Ain't

So let's go back to Smith's article on The Thinking Vegan and this so-called vegan advocacy in which those who dodge being clear and consistent in providing it with a clear animal rights context now claim to be engaging . What's it left us with? The Huffington Post has become what a fellow-abolitionist and I half-jokingly call "re-veganism central" over the last few years, with its numerous articles by "former" vegans, wool-wearing or honey-eating "vegans" and as of this week (assuming I haven't missed any previous gems!) even butter and cheese eating "vegans". To her credit, Sasha Turgman does indeed add a "mostly" qualifier in her article's title and otherwise occasionally slips it into her article "On Being a Mostly Vegan". The article focuses on diet only, which is no longer a surprise in mainstream media articles touted as being about veganism. Turgman does refer to herself as a vegan without the qualifier, though, as if somehow being a "mostly" vegan is being a type of vegan.

I decided to become a vegan [...]

When I first became a vegan [...]

In fact, she describes herself quite explicitly at the beginning of the article (albeit again merely focusing on diet) as not eating some animal products:

It never crossed my mind that I would choose to give up all the creamy deliciousness of my favorite food to become a vegan, but here I am, meat, cheese and dairy-product free.

She lumps herself in with vegans again by perpetuating a few stereotypes to clarify to her readers that "we're not all tree-hugging, paint-throwing, fanatical activists" and that what apparently differentiates her from those other awful, awful vegans is her own insight into what acceptable veganism should be like: "It's about listening to my body and being healthy, if I eat butter or cheese one night, who cares?" (It's no wonder that she inserts into the article at some point that being whatever-it-is-she-is-that-clearly-isn't vegan "hasn't been hard at all"!)

Whenever I hear other animal advocates insist that they accomplish something by taking an apparently more kind and gentle poke at the status quo as they fall short of talking to people about plainly and simply not using other animals, there is inevitably another Sasha Turgman who pops up in mainstream media. And these Sasha Turgmans indulge in a weird sort of self-congratulatory happy dance, presenting themselves as some sort of vegan while unapologetically condoning -- even promoting -- not just that any human should continue to use other animals, but that vegans should as well. (Y'know, lest you want to end up branded a "fanatical activist" or something.)

You tell me, though: Baby-step or bog? It seems pretty obvious to me that it's incredibly disingenuous of us as advocates to conveniently omit any mention of the actual ethics of using and exploiting others. In teaching people that there's anything about vegan advocacy -- about veganism -- that shrugs off deliberately choosing to continue to exploit other animals, are we in fact advocating the taking of steps or are we merely advocating standing still? And if those of us who engage in advocacy don't present nonvegans with a clear consistent message about what veganism really is and of how it must factor in the rights and interests of others to not be exploited, who will? Surely not "(mostly) vegans" like Sasha Turgman.

To learn more about abolitionist animal rights and about vegan advocacy, please visit The Abolitionist Approach website.

Thanks, but No Thanks!

Never Mind a Slippery Slope: Someone Cut the Brake Lines!

As far as exploring issues concerning animal ethics goes these past several weeks, The New York Times has been less of a trail-blazer and more akin to a drunk wandering home down a dark road, occasionally stumbling into the ditch when squinting at approaching headlights. Seriously. Between columns by its non-vegan writers weaving misinformation and assumptions into messages to the paper's readers about how difficult it is to go vegan and more recently, articles raising eating plants as a notable concern within the context of the overall question of ethical consumption. "Inquiring into justifications for consuming vegetal beings thus reconceived, we reach one of the final frontiers of dietary ethics," wrote Michael Marder, while at the same time, The New York Times' Ariel Kaminer, writer of its column "The Ethicist", was inviting people to step up to the plate to present their best arguments to justify that the consumption of the flesh of other animals could somehow be moral. A contest was launched for one and all, it was, and if not for the sad reality of the matter at hand, it would be all too easy to just write it off as an unfortunate farce. Sadder, still, is that Kaminer trivialized the notion that choosing not to consume other animals could, in fact, be an ethical stance to consider.

Was There an Elephant in The New York Times' Lobby?

Recently, in response to this contest as it neared its conclusion, a number of scholars, physicians and writers came together to sign a letter to The New York Times to express just how wrongheaded the whole enterprise was from the ground up, noting that with one exception, the panel of judges picked was mostly comprised of men who make their living and reputations defending the so-called "humane" use of other animals.

There is an important debate to be had about the ethics of killing and eating animals. But this is not the way to have it. Honest ethical inquiry begins with the question, “How should we live?” or “What should I or we do about ‘X’?” It does not begin with a predetermined conclusion, then work backwards for justification. To throw down a rhetorical gauntlet–”Defend X as a practice”– is not to open up an ethical conversation; it is to build closure into the inquiry, and to stack the deck from the outset.

And that was, in fact, the problem with this contest. It was set up by taking as a given that other animals are ours to use and that those who use them needed a forum to voice their justification for continuing to do so. The best justification coughed up would receive the nods of approval of the who's who of those who champion the idea that conscientious consumerism can--and in some cases should--indeed include the enslavement and slaughter of other sentient beings. The New York Times' well-intentioned readership could emit a collective sigh of relief. After all, even many who are in fact vegan and who do regard themselves as animal advocates sometimes end up applauding these popular and privileged humans as somehow making an actual difference in terms of their respective fans coming to know and to accept that we owe other animals a lot more than to treat them as things.

And the Winner Is...

A few days ago it was announced that Ariel Kaminer would be stepping down from her position as columnist for "The Ethicist". (Aw, really??) This morning, the contest's finalists were announced, including its recipient of the most votes and its hand-picked winner. I don't have much to say about PETA's Ingrid Newkirk's piece, called "I'm About to Eat Meat for the First Time in 40 Years". It's about lab-grown meat and I'll let you take a read yourselves, and then ask you to have a look at Alice Springs Vegan Society co-founder Jeff Perz's essay "The Case Against Test Tube Meat" to see where Newkirk's got it all wrong. The veritable winner, though? He who received the symbolic bobbing-in-unison of the heads of Jonathan Safran-Foer, Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, Peter Singer and Andrew Light? Some environmental studies instructor at a place in North Carolina called Warren Wilson College.

Jay Bost describes himself as a former vegetarian and then vegan who decided to go back to consuming animal products. Claiming that the issue weighs on him constantly, Bost insists that "[t]he reasons [he] became a vegetarian, then a vegan and then again a conscientious meat-eater were all ethical". Bost's emphasis in his short piece is no surprise considering that his work revolves around environmental studies and the only two times he brings up animal sentience are strictly with reference to the killing of a "sentient being". Bost sugarcoats the question of actually using and enslaving other animals by calling doing so "raising meat". Animal flesh and secretions are products, and producing these products are no different to him than growing plant-based foodstuff. With this in mind, he presents what he call his main argument as the following:

[E]ating meat raised in specific circumstances is ethical; eating meat raised in other circumstances is unethical. Just as eating vegetables, tofu or grain raised in certain circumstances is ethical and those produced in other ways is unethical.

An animal is a plant is an animal to Bost, in this sense. He seems to present it as a given that use in and of itself is somehow not an ethical concern, but that how the final product comes to be is the only thing worthy of consideration. Animals are merely machines, sometimes proving to be more efficient according to the environment in which they are used to produce useful calories and protein for human consumption. He goes on to say that

If “ethical” is defined as living in the most ecologically benign way, then in fairly specific circumstances, of which each eater must educate himself, eating meat is ethical; in fact NOT eating meat may be arguably unethical.

Once cannot help but wonder, then, using this narrow interpretation and definition of what is indeed "ethical" whether Bost would agree that where human overpopulation is concerned, perhaps cannibalism could be seen as a viable option and whether perhaps humans not opting to consume other humans "may be arguable unethical". If this seems an oversimplification, it should be pointed out that totally side-stepping the question of what's in fact involved when we use other animals as machines existing for human use is an even more ludicrous oversimplification when it comes to attempting to argue any sort of justification to use them.

His two sole references to sentience are token at best and Bost writes sentience off in the end, winning this contest by asserting that consuming other animals is indeed ethical if 1) we keep in mind that "all life (including us!) is really just solar energy temporarily stored in an impermanent form" (which brings me back to wondering if Bost would extend this to our consumption of other humans in areas horribly overpopulated), 2) be "compassionate" and "choose ethically raised food, vegetable, grain and/or meat" (again, not presenting any sort of case for how it could be deemed ethical to enslave and slaughter another sentient being, other than his aforementioned environmentally-concerned presentation of other animals as efficient energy conversion machines for humans) and 3) that we "give thanks".

I always scratch my head at this whole business of trying to justify the torture and killing of another being by emphasizing gratitude and the act of expressing this gratitude. I mean, really? To whom is this gratitude expressed? To the animal whose life was hijacked and taken from her? To the offspring torn from her so that we can drink her secretions? Would it not be ludicrous to posit that if someone were to enslave another human being and to torture and then kill her for sheer pleasure that it might somehow be more ethical or excusable to have done so if the torturer or killer gave thanks? But we live in a world where we view other animals as existing for human use. Bost's short piece takes this as a given. The New York Times' contest in "The Ethicist" took it as a given, as well, and its panel of expert judges have also expressed this through their own writings and work. So I'm left going back to my original quote from the letter signed by 59 scholars, writers, artists and physicians to protest the contest and to explain why the whole thing was a farce from the word "go":

There is an important debate to be had about the ethics of killing and eating animals. But this is not the way to have it. Honest ethical inquiry begins with the question, “How should we live?” or “What should I or we do about ‘X’?” It does not begin with a predetermined conclusion, then work backwards for justification. To throw down a rhetorical gauntlet–”Defend X as a practice”– is not to open up an ethical conversation; it is to build closure into the inquiry, and to stack the deck from the outset.

There is indeed an important debate to be had. What The New York Times attempted to do (and accomplished) was no more than a sensationalist and lopsided poke at an issue which is trendy and talked around a fair deal in mainstream media, but ever so rarely addressed clearly, consistently, coherently and in earnest. It was no surprise, but was and is a true shame, nonetheless.

Copy of the "Letter to the New York Times: The Ethics of the Ethicist"

Writer and historian James McWilliams posted this letter on his Eating Plants blog yesterday, written--and signed--in response to a horribly wrongheaded and tacky contest recently initiated by the New York Times' "Ethicist" columnist Ariel Kaminer.

It was announced yesterday that Kaminer will be leaving her post as Ethicist columnist and returning to the New York Times' metro desk. Her final column will run this weekend and a replacement will soon be found. According to editor Hugo Lindgren:

While her official goodbye column closed this week and will run in the April 29th issue, she will unveil the results of her overwhelmingly popular 'ethics of meat eating' writing competition (which set a new impossibly high standard in reader-engagement projects) in the May 6 issue and then will close the cover story for the May 13 issue. That story could well be one of the biggest of the year for us.

Is the timing of her departure a coincidence given all of the recent negative publicity? Perhaps. Perhaps not. If this contest is what the New York Times' editor sees as setting "a new impossibly high standard in reader-engagement projects", I'm almost afraid to see how low they'll go next.

Below is a copy of the letter shared by McWilliams and which is being widely circulated this week. Please do share it.

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What follows is a letter signed by 59 scholars, artists, writers, and physicians (including me) who disagree with the motivation and spirit of the New York Times Magazine’s “Defending Your Dinner” contest. Please spread this letter far and wide. We very much hope it will be published.

Editor, The New York Times Magazine

Dear Editor,

We are a diverse group of scholars, researchers, and artists from such disciplines as philosophy, women’s studies, sociology, law, political theory, psychology, and literary studies, writing to take sharp issue with the Magazine’s decision to run a “Defending Your Dinner” contest.

Do ethical vegetarians, a growing but still quite small percentage of the population, pose such a “threat” to the meat and dairy industries that the Times Magazine must now invite its millions of readers to shout them down? Is the point of this contest really to open up honest debate about the meat industry, or is the point, rather, to close it down?

We find it disturbing that the Magazine would organize such a one-sided contest, and moreover that Ariel Kaminer should introduce it with such frivolity. “Ethically speaking, vegetables get all the glory,” Kaminer writes, caricaturing vegans as members of a “hard-core inner circle” who have “dominated the discussion.” With her very breeziness (“Bon appetit!”), Kaminer seems intent on trivializing the warrant for ethical veganism. A more serious-minded critic would have given at least cursory attention to the empirical basis of the position, namely, the known facts about animal cognition and the unspeakable suffering that farmed animals endure so that they can end up as meat on our plates.

First, there has been an explosion of scientific research in recent decades showing beyond any doubt that many other species besides our own are emotionally and cognitively complex. Farmed animals are capable of a wide range of feelings and experiences, including empathy and the ability to intuit the interior states of others. The evidence suggests that they experience violence and trauma to their bodies as agonizingly as we do.

Second, most people are now aware of the horrific cruelty and violence that goes on behind the locked doors of the meat industry. Billions of cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys, geese, ducks, and aquaculture fish suffer each year in abominable conditions, then are brutally slaughtered, many of them while they are still fully or partially conscious. Such so-called factory farming accounts for 99% of the meat consumed in our society. The mass slaughter of oceanic fish, meanwhile, is so catastrophic to marine life that even the Fisheries Centre of the University of British Columbia (the academic arm of the Canadian fishing industry) has frankly compared today’s commercial fishing campaigns to “wars of extermination.”

These and other facts have led a majority of contemporary moral philosophers who have studied the question to conclude that killing animals in order to eat them is not a morally defensible human interest, certainly not in a society such as ours, where vegan alternatives are widely available.

Even on purely prudential grounds, i.e. human self-interest, meat finds no rational justification. Numerous studies have shown meat-based diets to be associated with myriad negative health outcomes, including higher risks of cardiovascular disease and cancer (to name but two). Meanwhile, animal agriculture has proven to be an ecological and public health catastrophe, poisoning human water supplies, destroying vast tracts of the rainforests of Latin America, causing soil erosion, and creating dangerous new pathogens like Avian Flu and Mad Cow Disease. Animal agriculture is also one of the leading sources of global warming gas emissions.

Given these and many other facts demonstrating the nightmarish consequences of the meat industry for humans and nonhumans alike, why has the Magazine invited its readers to defend that industry, their essays to be judged chiefly by proponents of “humane” meat eating?

Kaminer implies that she has assembled the most judicious and meat-averse line-up of judges, a “murderer’s row” that will be hard to persuade of the case for eating meat. But is that true? Michael Pollan promotes Joel Salatin and other organic meat producers. Mark Bittman publishes meat recipes. Peter Singer has consistently defended, in principle, the killing of nonhuman beings for human purposes (provided that it be done “painlessly”). Jonathan Safran Foer, in his otherwise admirable book “Eating Animals,” defends small animal farms and backs away from open advocacy of vegetarianism. Only Andrew Light seems to hold a position that finds no ethical justification for meat eating as such.

So the contest’s overt bias (“Tell Us Why It’s Ethical to Eat Meat”) is compounded by its pretense with respect to the judging. Kaminer might instead have tapped any of dozens if not hundreds of prominent scholars, writers, critics, and well-informed activists who unequivocally oppose meat production for ethical reasons. The fact that she did not tells us everything we need to know about how seriously Kaminer takes the “ethical” issues at stake in this debate.

Kaminer’s lack of balance reveals itself further in her having stocked her bench solely with men, when there are so many prominent feminist theorists and writers available to provide a critique of our society’s masculine penchant for organized violence against vulnerable populations, whether against women and girls, foreign peoples, or other species.

There is an important debate to be had about the ethics of killing and eating animals. But this is not the way to have it. Honest ethical inquiry begins with the question, “How should we live?” or “What should I or we do about ‘X’?” It does not begin with a predetermined conclusion, then work backwards for justification. To throw down a rhetorical gauntlet–”Defend X as a practice”– is not to open up an ethical conversation; it is to build closure into the inquiry, and to stack the deck from the outset.

Signed*,

Karla Armbruster, Ph.D., Professor of English, Webster University

Anurima Banerji, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures, UCLA

George Bates, DVM, Associate Professor of Veterinary Medical Technology at Wilson College

Kimberly Benston, Ph.D., Francis B. Gummere Professor of English, Haverford College

Susan Benston, M.D., Visiting Assistant Professor of Writing, Haverford College

Chris Bobel, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Carl Boggs, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, National University

G.A. Bradshaw, Ph.D., Director of the Kerulos Center & President of the Trans-Species Institute

Thomas Brody, Ph.D., Staff Scientist, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland

Matthew Calarco, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy, California State University, Fullerton

Jodey Castricano, Ph.D., Associate Professor Critical Studies, University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus)

Elizabeth Cherry, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology, Manhattanville College

Sue Coe, Artist (represented by Galerie St. Etienne, New York City)

Susana Cook, Playwright (New York City)

Ellen F. Crain, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

William Crain, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, The City College of New York

Karen Davis, Ph.D., President of United Poultry Concerns

Maneesha Deckha, LL.M., Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria (Canada)

Margo De Mello, Ph.D., Lecturer, Central New Mexico Community College

Josephine Donovan, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of English, University of Maine

George Eastman, Ed.D., Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Berklee College of Music

Stephen F. Eisenman, Ph.D., Professor of Art History, Northwestern University

Barbara Epstein, Ph.D., Professor, History of Consciousness Department, University of California at Santa Cruz

Amy Fitzgerald, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology, University of Windsor (UK)

Gary L. Francione, J.D., Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers University Law School-Newark

Carol Gigliotti, Ph.D., Faculty, Emily Carr University, Vancouver, BC (Canada)

Elizabeth A. Gordon, M.F.A., Instructor of English, Fitchburg State University

Roger Gottlieb, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Michelle Graham, M.A., Lecturer, Department of Writing, Literature & Publishing, Emerson College

Kathy Hessler, J.D., LL.M., Clinical Professor & Director, Animal Law Clinic, Center for Animal Law Studies, Lewis & Clark Law School

Laura Janara, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia (Canada)

Victoria Johnson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Missouri

Melanie Joy, Ph.D., Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Joseph J. Lynch, Ph.D., Professor, Philosophy Department, California Polytechnic State University

John T. Maher, Adjunct Professor of Animal Law, Touro Law Center

Bill Martin, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University

Atsuko Matsuoka, Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Social Work, York University (Canada)

Timothy M. McDonald, M.F.A., Assistant Professor of Art, Framingham State University

Jennifer McWeeny, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy, John Carroll University

James McWilliams, Ph.D., Associate Professor, History, Texas State University

Helena Pedersen, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Faculty of Education and Society, Malmö University (Sweden)

Steven Rayshick, Ph.D., Professor of English and Humanities, Quinsigamond Community College

Carrie Rohman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of English, Lafayette College

John Sanbonmatsu, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Kira Sanbonmatsu, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University

Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Mathematics, College of Staten Island

Michael Selig, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Emerson College

Jonathan Singer, Doctoral Student, DePaul University

John Sorenson, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, Brock University (Canada)

H. Peter Steeves, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University

Gary Steiner, Ph.D., John Howard Harris Professor of Philosophy, Bucknell University

Marcus Stern, M.F.A., Lecturer in Dramatic Arts, Harvard University

Deborah Tanzer, Ph.D., Psychologist and Author

Susan Thomas, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Political Science, Hollins University

Gray Tuttle, Ph.D., Leila Hadley Luce Assistant Professor of Modern Tibetan Studies, Columbia University

Richard Twine, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Lancaster University (UK)

Zipporah Weisberg, Doctoral Candidate, Programme in Social and Political Thought, York University (Canada)

Tony Weis, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Geography, The University of Western Ontario (Canada)

Richard York, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies, Director of Graduate Studies for Sociology, University of Oregon

"The Challenge of Going Vegan" (as Explained by a Non-Vegan)

It's been a while since I've thought of Tara Parker-Pope, a health/food writer for the New York Times. She last caught my attention back in the summer of 2009 when her "Wellness" column featured a guest piece by by Mark Bittman, who shared how he had suddenly become protein deficient from only eating animal products after 6 pm. According to advice received from a purportedly well-credentialed nutritionist (who had obviously neglected to read any research concerning protein after 1980), Bittman wasn't just not eating enough protein, but wasn't eating enough so-called "complete" proteins. (Note: The theory of protein combining--aka the "protein myth"--has long since been nixed.) Although I haven't been keeping track of Parker-Pope's work, I have been discussing food ethics these past few weeks with an interesting non-vegan friend who does, and it was he who sent me a link to her most recent column ("The Challenge of Going Vegan").

As far as I know, Tara Parker-Pope isn't vegan. Also, as far as I know, she has no immediate plans to go vegan. So why would she write a column about the supposed challenge of going vegan? Why not, really? It's a trendy topic for foodies to kick around these days and in Parker-Pope's case, she really does end up giving it what ultimately feels like a not-so-friendly kick. Her focus is unsurprisingly on food and one is left speculating whether Parker-Pope is 1) limiting her discussion of veganism to its dietary aspect, or 2) conflating strict vegetarianism with veganism (since "going vegan" isn't restricted to what you do or don't eat). Either way, what does Parker-Pope have to say about shuffling animal products out of one's diet?

Eatin' Vegan is So Hard!!

Parker-Pope assures her readers from the very beginning that going vegan is hard. It leaves you with a mess of "physical, social and economic challenges" unless you are wealthy enough to have someone with special culinary qualifications to cook for you. Indeed, she tells us that it is a "struggle" to go vegan. Your friends and family will be "harsh" with you, and giving up your beloved dairy foods for their apparently necessary substitutes will "shock your taste buds". It's a meat eater's world according to her first token authority, an academic whose research focuses specifically on people's acceptance of meat substitutes. (Sheesh! Two paragraphs into this column, I'm even starting to think that veganism may very well be too daunting for me to handle.)

Parker-Pope does admit that the number of people in the US who self-identify as not eating meat and of those who self-identify as vegan is impressive, citing a 2008 Vegetarian Times poll. However, she's also quick to point out that regardless of obvious public interest, we really have no way to tell how many people's attempts to go vegetarian or vegan ultimately end up as failed experiments. A token vegan-wannabe student is brought up to illustrate this, claiming that she can only "manage" [to eat "plant-based" food] around "75 percent of the time" since there are not enough options on her campus, apparently no grocery stores within a 20-mile radius from where she lives, and since the processed vegan meat substitutes are more expensive than their animal-based counterparts. Parker-Pope tells us that this student needs "vegan specialty foods for cooking". Is that what they're calling grains, legumes, nuts, seeds and produce these days--vegan specialty foods? Or am I missing something? Also, if you think that those around you--your loved ones--are going to be anything ranging from supportive to apathetic, Parker-Pope's token vegan shares a story about her family's condescending reaction to her gift of vegan donuts to them. Going vegan, in case you weren't sure of her point, is hard.

When Duplicating Fails

Minus a bizarre bit about her token vegan-wannabe's misadventures trying to use miso to stuff pasta shells (which maybe sheds some light on that person's family's reaction to her homemade vegan donuts), much of the rest of Parker-Pope's column is fixated on this assumption that vegans need to replace meat and dairy with fake meat and dairy. Rather than discuss the more recent substitutes which have made their way into the market to win people over (e.g. Daiya and Gardein), Parker-Pope backs up her assumption by bringing in two more authoritative voices--two food-related researchers--to drive home that since humans eat meat and drink the milk of others as early as infancy, the taste and texture of these products become sort of imprinted on our palates and cannot be reproduced effectively. One expert insists that "[a]ny substitute would have to mimic the total sensory experience elicited by meats". The other dismisses non-dairy milks, stating that

[c]onsumers do feel the difference between milk-based and soy-based products. And once their first reference is milk-based products, they tend to reject plant-based products made with oat and soy or other vegetable-based food.

Other attempts to replicate a cheesy flavour using "weird" ingredients like miso, nutritional yeast or blended cashes, Parker-Pope tells us, end up being "overwhelming" for new vegans experimenting with them for the first time. Her continuing message? Say it with me, kids: Although some may persevere, going vegan is really hard.

So Here's the Thing About Habits...

Old habits can indeed be a pain in the arse to change. The thing is that this applies to any significant changes we attempt to make in our lives. When we weigh the idea of going vegan, we're not simply contemplating changing one bad habit like biting our nails or guzzling soda with meals: Going vegan means having to reexamine all of our choices as consumers and to change the way in which we make many of those choices. This can seem a little overwhelming at first, I admit, but doing some initial research (e.g. on hidden animal ingredients) and keeping resources and reference materials--or even a vegan mentor--handy can make the initially overwhelming a lot less daunting. The internet is a great place to start, with websites and apps providing information on animal ingredients abounding (see here and here, for starters). Social networking sites and services like Facebook and Twitter are also good places to seek out basic information, in many cases from just regular old vegans.

... and About Coping with Others

Parker-Pope's token vegan wasn't too far off the mark in describing what many vegans do experience interacting with others. I've written a few times before (e.g. here and here) about how the hardest part of being vegan isn't the process of learning to go vegan. Learning to familiarize yourself with the sources of animal exploitation so that you can more easily avoid them is something that can take a bit of time and patience, but it gets easier. What's often most complicated about being vegan, though, is interacting with others and learning to stay afloat in a mostly non-vegan world. Individuals in our lives may not always react well when we make major changes which reflect a shift in how we view of the world and how we want to live in it moving forward. There are no simple or easy answers to how to go about navigating our relationships with non-vegan loved ones, regardless of any defensiveness or animosity they may display in the face of our ethical choices. The most we can do is communicate our wants and needs clearly while staying true to our choices and sharing with those loved ones why the manner in which we make those choices has changed. Having a support network of other vegans will also certainly help and the truth is that although some of our loved ones may end up becoming antagonistic upon hearing of our having gone vegan, in most cases that antagonism will wane. Issues will invariably arise, but such is the business of this thing we call life, whether we wander through it as vegans or otherwise, no?

On Phonies that Taste Fake

As for this question of substitutes, Parker-Pope ends up making an assumption that I guess you could say she comes by honestly, since so many non-vegan foodies make the same assumption that vegans somehow need plant-based clones of animal-based foods. She also makes an assumption that because meat and dairy analogues don't taste precisely the same as meat and dairy that most people will reject them, bringing in her experts to emphasize this. The funny thing is that every single year, all I see are more and more (i.e. in terms of both number and variety) non-dairy milks and cheese and meat analogues on my store shelves. When I look in people's shopping carts, I see soy and almond milk, tofu dogs and Daiya, sometimes even alongside animal products. Something's obviously working since there's obviously a demand for these products.

It's also worth pointing out that not all vegans (or those who decide to go vegan) crave replicating and continuing to experience the taste of animal products. For some, the association is decidedly not a positive one, so although they may seek out substitutes for convenience or to feed those with whom they co-habitate, it's not really an issue for them if those substitutes aren't exactly like the flesh and secretions of nonhuman animals: In some cases, they prefer that it not be so.

Who Needs a Phony, Anyway?

Although some non-vegan foodies like Mark Bittman have also perpetuated the myth that being vegan involves eating mock meats and other animal product substitutes, the reality is that not all vegans consume them. The reasons whether they do so or not differ. Some prefer to cook with whole foods and have learned to think beyond the meat-starch-vegetable dinner plate of yore. Others (as mentioned above) aren't interested in seeking to replicate either the taste or texture of products they associate with suffering, injustice and death. Then again, there are indeed others who may fall into the camp described by Parker-Pope and who are uninterested in consuming analogues because they don't find their taste and texture convincing--so they just don't use them. It may be surprising to Parker-Pope, but the thing is that vegans don't need substitutes, whether psychologically from having the taste of meat and dairy imprinted on them as infants or for nutritional reasons. We just don't. Presenting that those substitutes aren't up to par or that they're too expensive and that this poses a challenge to those seeking to go vegan smells a little straw-manish, but it would be disingenuous of me to pretend to have expected a non-vegan--even a New York Times columnist like Tara Parker-Pope--to present a reasonable account of what authentically and realistically constitutes a challenge to going vegan. But of course, how would I know?

'Vegan' as a Qualifier

For the past few years, I've been sifting through articles and opinion pieces on the websites of various newspapers and magazines, trying to make sense of how it is that writers have come to so clumsily and conveniently bend--or altogether ignore--the actual definitions of words that have become buzz words. It's as if once a word associated with some sort of popular trend is known to draw a reader in, license is granted to co-opt that word, however its meaning ends up being misrepresented or mangled in the process. Whatever sells, even if that "whatever" gets watered down or redefined, right? Years ago when I'd first started exploring vegetarianism, it was made pretty clear to me that veganism was what the "serious animal rights people did". Veganism meant not just abstaining from eating other animals and their secretions, but also refraining from using them to make clothing or personal care products, for human entertainment and so on. These days, if I use the word "vegan" to describe myself, there's a small (albeit realistic) chance that I'll be asked if I'm doing a cleanse. Worse is when some well-meaning person will pipe up and say: "Oh, my son's girlfriend is a vegan... but she treats herself to turkey at Christmas and will eat fish if her body tells her she needs it." Indeed, it's hard to blame anyone for their confusion, given that with what's being written in mainstream media, folks are being bombarded with increasingly confusing messages daily.

Thanks to people like Mark Bittman, the word "vegan" has even been downgraded to being used as a qualifier to mean something akin to "that moment you ate something plant-based". In opinion pieces like Mary Schwantes' in Suburban Journals yesterday ("Try 'semi-veganism' to eat healthier"), the term seems presented as meaning that someone, for health reasons, is eating a few more fruits or vegetables than usual. Now, I'm all for people eating more fruits and vegetables (or whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes and other plant-based fare). The thing is, though, that when you start calling the slipping in of a few extra bites a day of plant-based food "semi-veganism", you really miss the point altogether of what veganism is about. You might as well call someone who goes an extra few hours between romps in bed "semi-celibate", for all the meaningfulness contained in distorting the term so.

Credentials as Credibility?

According to Suburban Journals, Schwantes is a "retired professor of dietetics and nutrition", so it's no surprised that the piece misrepresents veganism as merely a diet and focuses on health as an incentive. What's bizarre, however, is how its author presents eating a single dish without animal products as if it were a vegan act in and of itself:

My point here is to make "semi-veganism" work for you. Once a week, let oatmeal burgers stand in for hamburgers, leave the meat out of your pasta sauce and add mushrooms, make a risotto the likes of which you've probably never had with pecans, mushrooms and fresh spinach or butternut squash — and you may just find yourself eating "better".

So if you indulge in Meatless Monday, you're kind of a vegan. Heck, according to Schwantes, if you have a weekly bowl of cereal (with soy milk, one assumes), you could even consider yourself a semi-vegan. It's that easy! I mean, using this logic, every single human on the planet could be considered a vegan while he or she sleeps.

Speaking of Authoritative Voices...

It's so easy, in fact, that an increasing number of people are self-identifying as "vegan" (which given articles like the aforementioned really doesn't bode well for nonhuman animals). Furthermore, many of these people self-identifying as vegan--whether or not they actually are vegan themselves--are offering themselves as authentic and experienced vegan voices and then sputtering into the pre-existing pile of confusion to just gum it all up further. Take for instance an article on "veganism" by Sharon Riley which appeared in Toronto's The Globe and Mail last week ("Why I'm a vegan [and why it's okay that you're not]"): The focus is again on diet alone, with Riley referring to "thoughtful veganism" as "the best approach to food". Where the plight of nonhuman animals is concerned, it's evident that her sole preoccupation is not that they're used, but of how they're used. She also makes it clear that the issue of animal use outside of what she chooses to put in her mouth is is definitely not an issue for her:

Just the other day, my 12-year-old cousin was confused as to why I was wearing socks made from wool from my mom’s sheep. “I thought you didn’t like things that come from animals?” she asked, flummoxed. I had made a tradeoff in my own mind: They are treated like pets, and relieved to be rid of their warm coats every summer. I eventually replied, “Everyone has to make their own decisions about what they think is right.”

In one fell swoop, Riley makes it clear that she's not opposed to the exploitation of nonhuman animals as long as she can convince herself that the animals we call "food" (or in this case "sock providers") are treated in a similar manner to those animals we call "pets". Self-identifying as someone who happily uses animal products, she also makes it clear that she's not vegan. It's also troubling that as she presents herself in this Globe and Mail piece as a vegan and thus attempts to speak with some sort of authoritative voice on behalf of others who are indeed vegan, that she doesn't view veganism as any sort of moral imperative and seems rather unconcerned about whether or not others choose to use animals and the degree to which they might.

And so it goes...

The thing is that if she did actually take the rights and interests of other animals seriously, it wouldn't be much of a leap for her to see it as the minimum standard of decency in terms of what humans owe other animals. It's evident that she does neither, however. In and of itself, this is sad. What's sadder, perhaps is that her views should be shared by a publication such as The Globe and Mail as representative of vegan views. It's sad, but given how widespread the misrepresentation and mangling of the word "vegan" has become, it's certainly no surprise.

The Subtlety of Stereotyping

The Piece

CNN ran a piece yesterday on how differing diets can affect relationships ("Love is a cattle field: When diets divide relationships"). Part of it involves a couple consisting of a vegan and a nonvegan, and the issues they've found themselves facing over the years. What was disappointing is that no context is provided for how they came to be together or how and when he went vegan; it's also made painfully obvious that the two have never really discussed how to live their lives together as a vegan and nonvegan.

Communication: Is It Really That Complicated?

The husband is presented as the cause of awkwardness when his wife tells the story of his first going to dinner at her parents' home and of how "he just put salad on his plate, passing up most of the huge gourmet meal [her] father had cooked [which left her] thinking [his veganism] might be a problem". It would seem to me that if someone was bringing a significant other home to 'meet the folks' for the first time that a mention of that significant other's dietary needs would have been a given, if not just so that the dietary needs could have been accommodated, then so that the hosts wouldn't have felt slighted when said significant other wouldn't have dived into all dishes provided regardless of their content. That his wife would have viewed this event as some sort of indicator of problems to come seems odd and reflective of her own early inability and willingness to understand and to help accommodate her significant other. Would it have been so hard to say "Hey, Mom and Dad, my date's vegan and can't eat _______"? Instead, the reader is left with this image of the vegan as somehow rude and as being an inconvenience.

Context Is Important!

The article goes on to mention how the birth of the couple's first child eventually triggered a need for couples counseling. One would hope that a vegan and nonvegan deciding to start a family together would have the wisdom and common sense to discuss beforehand how they would choose to raise offspring, no? The article addresses this in a really clumsy manner, referring to the wife's inability to produce enough breast-milk when their daughter was born, stating that her husband suggested feeding the baby almond milk. First of all, what's not indicated is the age of the baby at the time of this recommendation. One's left wondering (and I really hope that it wasn't left vague on purpose) whether the husband was, in fact, recommending almond milk as a substitution for human breast-milk, which would of course be absurd. It's not specified whether the baby was old enough to be weaned and whether almond milk was suggested as an alternative to cow's milk. It's also not indicated whether the almond milk in question was fortified. Sure, it's brought up that a pediatrician may have been consulted, but it's disappointing that CNN didn't see fit to fill in some more information to assure its readers of why the almond milk in question would have, in fact, been suitable.

This concern shows up in the comments to the story left by its readers. The bottom line? It was sloppy writing. With all of the news stories that have popped up in recent years of so-called vegan parents being charged with malnourishing their children, these details are especially significant. Not filling in the blanks concerning this seems neglectful and potentially (if it's not too harsh a word) misleading. How on earth could a CNN reader be expected to fill in those blanks properly?

It's great to see veganism being discussed so readily in mainstream media, but at the cost of allowing it to be misunderstood and doubted further? Not so much. The article leaves more questions than answers and most of those questions reflect badly on veganism. Whether this is due to its unfortunate choice of subjects to illustrate vegan-nonvegan relationships, bad or negligent reporting and writing or a deliberate sloppiness to allow a taste of sensationalism to slip in, who knows? Here's hoping that more lucid and well-rounded pieces show up in mainstream media in the future to portray veganism outside of its stereotypically accepted representations.

On Getting that 'Word' Out!

'Veganism' Is Everywhere!!

I remember a few years ago how articles about veganism in online media sources were just occasional finds. They still are, really. I mean, the word 'vegan' gets tossed around a fair bit these days. You'll find it in food and health-related articles in the NY Times or in articles on the ethics of factory farming in The Atlantic. You'll hear it brought up on daytime talk shows whose hosts have either dabbled with some sort of plant-based thing or who've actually taken it further to refrain from using animal products altogether. You'll hear it in soundbites on entertainment gossip shows when this or that celebrity self-identifies as having embraced and/or rejected veganism (e.g. Larry Hagman is the latest to throw his hat, claiming to have 'gone vegan' to fight his cancer, while Eva Longoria was recently widely-quoted as having suffered almost immediate negative health effects when she supposedly went vegan). The thing is, though, that with few exceptions, none of these article that drop the v-word actually educate the public about anything having to do with veganism.

Partitioning Veganism

We end up with a jumble of mixed messages from mainstream media sources or others in the public eye. Even so-called animal advocacy groups like Vegan Outreach end up condoning animal consumption, either setting up false dichotomies or basically shaming vegans that we're wasting time and energy in actually avoiding personal consumption of animal products. In the words of its co-founders Matt Ball:

I like to sum up this philosophy by pointing out that a half hour of leafleting will likely reduce more suffering than the effort it takes to go from 99 to 99.9% vegan for one’s entire lifetime.

You had better turn a blind eye to those anchovies or to that casein, lest you somehow magically get a couple of hours lopped off your life that you could have used to hand someone a pamphlet!

Vegan Outreach's other co-founder Jack Norris, a self-identified vegan, takes it even further, calling upon vegans to consume animal products to convince others that it's easy to not consume some animal products :

If a food is 99% vegan, then it’s vegan enough for me. I want other people to think that they too can boycott animal cruelty and still eat in as many places / situations as possible, but I also feel okay about it knowing that the small amounts of animal products I might be eating are probably not causing any measurable harm, especially compared to alienating one person from trying vegetarianism for even a few meals.

A few issues arise from this statement, assumptive and straw man-ish as it is. First of all, Norris is using percentages to qualify a food as being "vegan enough" to indicate how convenience should influence the quantity of animal products a vegan should feel comfortable consuming. The fact that it's sometimes difficult for a vegan to eliminate all animal products from his or her daily life (e.g. driving or riding in a car involves using a vehicle whose manufacturing has at some point involved animal testing, tires containing animal products, etc.) isn't a license to shrug and deliberately choose easily avoidable animal products just for the sake of convenience or the sake of appearances. As for appearances: Do you really think that by eating animal products, you're going to convince another human being that going vegan is easy? If anything, you'll just be successful at conveying to that human being that vegans shrug off animal use. Norris doesn't mention trying to convince another human to go vegan, though, but uses the term 'vegetarian'.

I suppose that if you self-identify as a vegan and want to convince your meat-eating friend that it's easy to find a meal that doesn't include meat, going ahead and ignoring that pat of butter on your baked potato or the sprinkle of parmesan on your marinara sauce might be effective. I should hope that as a vegan, though, you'd know enough that there's no ethical distinction between eating a chicken's leg or her eggs, a cow's tongue or the milk meant for her calf. There's as much suffering involved in the lives of those enslaved for their so-called products as there is for those enslaved for the taste of their flesh. There's no less injustice involved and the truth is that they all end up in the slaughterhouse in the end. Where eggs and milk are concerned, even additional lives--those of male chicks and of the calves produced through repeated impregnation--are lost. Norris confuses the issue completely. To him and to Vegan Outreach, it's "vegan enough" to continue to deliberately provide demand for this enslavement and slaughter of others. And why? To convince someone that it's not difficult to sometimes consume some animals, since it would supposedly be off-putting to try to show them that it's not difficult to be vegan? Vegan outreach, indeed. And it's not just Vegan Outreach rejecting the opportunity to send a clear vegan message. PETA does it in all shapes, sounds and smells (e.g. in a letter to the editor where they promote "go[ing] vegan -- at least for one or two days a week" to save water).


Mostly Plant-Based Diet?

The truth is that when the word pops up in print these days, its meaning has become quite commonly understood to be something akin to 'mostly plant-based diet'. We have non-vegan foodies like Mark Bittman to thank for that, along with every other food or health fad writer who's jumped on the bandwagon to find ways to pimp the word 'vegan'. Upon pointing this out here or there on the interwebs, I invariably end up with at least one person raising an objection, insisting upon one (or a combination) of the following, that

a) every little bit counts,
b) I can't expect things to be 'all or nothing',
c) anything that lessens [sic] animal suffering at all should be celebrated,
d) I'm being overly-critical/judgmental/divisive in not embracing that Person X (who is advocating not eating this or that species or part of an animal on this or that day of the week) and I are really fighting for the 'same cause',
e) and that it's important to get The Word out there. (Apparently, I tend to forget about this thing called The Word again and again!)

The thing is, though, that something is spreading, but this so-called 'word' has little to do with examining the ethics of using other animals. More often than not, it has nothing to do with educating others to reject animal exploitation at all--even when it appears to do so.

The Result?

With wrongheaded messages like these, is it really any wonder that those outside of advocacy get it wrong? When so-called animal rights activists--well-funded groups perfectly capable of disseminating truthful and consistent information--choose instead to 1) send mixed messages to the public, and 2) to shame those who take the rights and interests of animal seriously out of trying to set things straight, should we be surprised that the word 'vegan' is now being tossed around by so many to mean anything from vegan, to someone who occasionally eats an occasional salad with an oil and vinegar dressing? All of a sudden, everyone's a spokesperson for veganism and neither being vegan nor actually taking animal rights seriously seem to be qualifying criteria for this.

A blurb I read sometime last week on the Indianapolis Star's website ("Vegan diet can be a healthy, satisfying start to the new year"). In this bit purportedly promoting a "vegan diet", its author, in fact, recommends "eating vegan or vegetarian a couple of times a week" and partitions veganism into 1) something that merely means not eating animals and 2) something that sometimes means not using them at all. In this other article I read today ("Local vegetarians have limited options"), a self-described "flexible vegetarian", who excuses away awkwardly re-branding her regular old omnivorism bent by insisting that she doesn't like "labels", is quoted as saying that it's "hard to be a vegan" in her area and that one would likely "starve to death". The article continues by using 'vegan' and 'vegetarian' interchangeably and quotes another apparently stellar authority on veganism-cum-vegetarianism, an assistant professor of dietetics, who offers up that it's hard to find vegan-friendly food in grocery stores and that (because he's also got a degree in sociology or psychology tucked into his jeans), it's also difficult to not eat some animal products (e.g. meat) because you can't go out with your friends and not "be the picky one". These are the people who are out there getting the so-called 'word' out.

Get Talking!

Who's going to tell the public that veganism isn't about having the occasional grilled cheese sandwich or sprinkle of smoked pig's flesh on a salad and calling it "vegan enough"?

Who's going to tell the public that the animal enslaved and slaughtered for human use doesn't care whether you wear her flesh on your feet or gnaw on rib once she's dead? Meat = dairy = eggs = leather = fur.

Who's going to tell the public that we owe other animals more than to continue to use them for the sake of convenience, or worse, for the sake of appearances?

Who's going to tell the public that we owe other animals--these sentient persons--more than to continue to use them as things?

Who's going to tell the public that we don't need to keep participating in or perpetuating this cycle?

Who's going to show them by example that going vegan is easy?

If not vegans, then who else? If you're not vegan, then please consider what's involved in your continued use of other animals today. Visit Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach for more information. If you are vegan, get that 'word' out--but please just make sure you get that 'word' right. Talk to someone about veganism today.

On Bob's Red Mill and Misplaced Indignation

Last week, The Informed Vegan ran a piece about how Bob's Red Mill is planning to donate $25 million towards nutrition education to the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). According to The Informed Vegan, OHSU is notorious for animal testing and because of its decision to make this donation, Bob's Red Mill's "standing as a conscious and compassionate company is about to take a serious hit". In last week's piece, it's mentioned that both OHSU and Bob's Red Mill were vague in addressing whether or not any of the donation will be targeted specifically for animal testing, and thus The Informed Vegan goes on to suggest that its "loyal customer base of animal lovers and vegans may boycott" the company in response.

Confusing a "Who" with a "What"

In an update today, The Informed Vegan commented on company co-founders Bob and Charlee Moore's official written response yesterday to the buzz about their donation. And yes, as it was pointed out at This Dish Is Veg (a website which promotes welfarism and vegetarianism alongside veganism) in an editor's note to yet another online expression of outrage over the news, it is indeed the co-founders' donation and not the company's. In February 2010, Bob gave the company to his then 200+ employees. Of course, this sorta relevant information seems either forgotten or blurred in the flurry of blog posts, green website articles, Facebook status updates and angry tweets that have been popping up online over the last few days and with most of them calling for a boycott of all Bob's Red Mill products. Proof of this can be seen in a recent open letter to the Moores from Your Daily Vegan's KD Traegner ("Should You Boycott Bob's Red Mill?"), who informs the Moores that because of the donation, she will no longer be a Bob's Red Mill customer.

Here's the scoop, though: Bob's Red Mill isn't donating money to OHSU. The company's co-founders who are no longer its owners and have not been so in well over a year and a half are donating money to OHSU. As pointed out earlier, the company is now owned by the people who work there -- Bob's former employees. One could argue that the money the Moore's are donating comes from the profits they'd reaped as owners, but boycotting a company from which they no longer profit to retaliate against their using past profits as they see fit just honestly makes no sense. The only ones who'll suffer in the end are Bob's Red Mill's new owners -- those who now run the company. The Moores have already stated that they have already committed themselves to making the donation. The Moores are no longer the owners of Bob's Red Mill. The truth is that this whole proposed boycott begs the question: What is hoped to be accomplished with a boycott in the first place? Of course, this is assuming that a boycott by a small section of a company's customers (vegans, in this case), other circumstances being different, would even be effective. (That's an entirely separate potential blog post altogether, though.)

Cherry Picking and Low-Hanging Fruit

Traegner's open letter reflects the sentiment expressed in The Informed Vegan's follow-up post on the matter that regardless of whether the money goes to directly fund animal research, it's funding an entity which engages in animal research. There are a couple of things I'd like to point out before going any further. First, I'd like to point out (the obvious?) that I certainly have no issue whatsoever with vegans refusing to purchase products either tested on animals or from companies who otherwise fund animal testing or other forms of animal exploitation. As a vegan, I'm against all forms of animal exploitation, whether it takes place on a farm, in a lab, in someone's backyard -- you get the picture. Also, I like Traegner. I've interacted with her over a few topics on Your Daily Vegan's Facebook page and over a period of time have appreciated her responses to others' queries and have enjoyed our own exchanges quite a bit. I was a little surprised to see her get behind the Bob's Red Mill boycott buzz, but it seems that many have taken off running with it, so I hope that she doesn't view me as somehow having nefarious reasons for singling out her website. I've just used it as an example of what's being written by various activists across the interwebs this week.

Now, just to play devil's advocate, let's put aside this whole nasty reality that contrary to over-publicized belief, Bob's Red Mill is not, in effect, donating a cent to OHSU. Let's pretend that Bob and Charlee Moore are, in fact, still the owners of the company (which, as I've pointed out repeatedly, they are not):

Bob Moore isn't vegan. He's not even vegetarian. From 1978 and then until he turned the company over to his employees in February of 2010, Mr. Moore's profits from the company were going to purchase the various food items, sundries, clothing and so on containing animal products which are habitually consumed by non-vegans (and no doubt including the purchase of products involving animal testing). Although some of the company's new owners may indeed be vegan, chances are that all 200+ of them are not, so even now, the company's profits are being taken and reinvested into various forms of common animal exploitation -- no doubt including the purchase of products with ingredients which were tested on animals. Of course, this is the case with the overwhelming majority of food manufacturing companies (e.g. Tofutti) and it's honestly almost impossible to avoid when purchasing any manufactured products.

It's a little odd, nonetheless, how Bob's Red Mill has been held up as some sort of exemplar for "conscious" manufacturing when its previous owner was not vegan and since Bob's Red Mill isn't even a vegan company. Some of its products contain dairy. When I first read the story about Bob's Red Mill's purportedly donating money to OHSU and of how vegans the world over should particularly be outraged, the first thing I did was hop over to its site to see what on earth was already there over which nobody had bothered to previously express outrage. On top of some of its actual products containing dairy, the Bob's Red Mill website actually promotes and facilitates the consumption of animal products. If you check its recipes section, you'll find a sub-category for "vegan", but the use of various animal products is the norm for the majority of the recipes and the default even in those where a reference may have been made to an animal-free substitute as an optional replacement (e.g. dairy-free milk). From eggs, butter and milk listed off in a user-submitted recipe for Kamut Cherry Crumb Breakfast Cake to the cheese and meat in a Bob's original recipe for a Spicy Sausage Kasha Bake, animal-based noms are plentiful on the company's website. Where's the outrage over this? Why initially single out this company for a purported donation to a research facility that conducts animal experimentation but turn a blind eye to the fact that the company both facilitates the use of (i.e. through its recipes section) and sells animal products to begin with?

I've no doubt that this question will be overlooked or dismissed as irrelevant by some. Hell, for the moment it seems as if the more obvious and pertinent fact -- that Bob's Red Mill itself is not making a donation to OHSU -- is being completely overlooked. Do I think it's unfortunate that the Moores have decided to take $25 million and to hand it over to a facility which exploits animals? Absolutely. I also think that it's unfortunate that as non-vegans who once owned a non-vegan company, they're being held to task over this as if they or Bob's Red Mill had ever been exemplars for vegans in the first place. They're not and they never were.

Let's get our facts straight.