nataliedee.comI was vegan once -- it was great. After being a vegetarian for three years I went vegan for one full year. In my own life/home it was easy. Socializing and eating with others -- more difficult. For that reason and the fact that I love Persian and Indian dishes (adas polo tastes so much better with mast khiar and palak paneer has cubes of cheese) I decided to become a "Flexible Vegan" > definition: one who eats vegan when in control of food selection but vegetarian when under the control of others.
Any vegan will hate that definition. Whaddya mean under the control of others? Who's in charge of what goes in your mouth? All true. But if you are invited to a new friend's house (or an old friend for that matter) and they proudly fix you a vegetarian dish and are so excited about what they did... do you refuse to eat it? If you are at work on a busy day and the drug rep that provides lunch brings you a special big salad (no one else gets one; they all eat BBQ on white bread buns with hush puppies and coleslaw) that has shredded cheese and wedges of hard-boiled eggs on top but no meat... do you turn it down? (Remember, you're hungry as hell and didn't bring your own lunch because you were too busy kissing all the kitties before going to work so that they would be happy and snooze peacefully while you are gone for 10 hours.)
During my vegan years I was better about fixing my own food daily. I've gotten lazy in that respect. I spend more time on my computer these days and have acquired Apathetic Food Prep Syndrome (AFPS.) I actually enjoy food preparation but resent the time it takes when I have so little time for myself and after being on my feet all day I don't relish standing on them in the kitchen. As a vegan I also decided to kindly explain to the drug reps why I decided on this animal friendly choice, thanked them for bringing me the vegetarian option, but wouldn't eat what they brought me and ate my vegan lunch at the table with everyone else. Thus mealtime became a bit of an ordeal instead of the pleasurable social occasion it's meant to be.
Yet I am pulled DAILY towards veganism. I consistently drink soymilk instead of cow milk, I always decline "would you like cheese on that?" despite the fact that I love cheese, and I have even begun harassing my husband about the free-range eggs we buy because I've learned that those egg-laying hens suffer almost as much as the regular factory farm layers. We now only buy eggs from supposedly local farmers with cage-free, free-roaming hens... but I don't trust them. I don't trust anyone anymore. I love eggs as much if not more than I love cheese, but what happens to the hens when they're finished laying eggs? What happened to their brothers when they were discovered to lack the required egg-laying equipment? They got thrown into a garbage can to smother with their brothers or got ground up alive to become feed for other animals. (link) and (link) and (link)
I think I can only do one thing. Go 100% vegan again. I suppose there could be a circumstance in which I would relent but I can't imagine what it would be right this minute. And I do believe that being 99% vegan is better than being 90% vegan. It's all about reducing the animal suffering and taking a stance on an issue I find ethically compelling. I do not want to contribute to animals suffering any more than I have to, so any step in the right direction is a right step.
“Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn’t motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn’t enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when?” ~~ Jonathan Safran Foer in "Eating Animals"
3 comments:
I go through the same dilemma a lot. I loved being vegan when I was vegan, but it def. made the life of others around me much more difficult. It also required a LOT of my time to make sure I always had food to eat. I'm not even 50% vegan anymore, b/c I can barely figure out how to make my lunch and Cyrus' lunch every morning before running to the clinic, but maybe I'll have more time later to be more true to my values. I agree, that the principles that make me vegetarian should make me a hard core vegan.
-Shirin
You have an awful lot on your plate right now (in addition to your dairy and eggs :-)) and we've always talked about it being a process. It would be so much easier if our food production methods reverted to the ways of the past. I will never eat flesh again no matter how the animal is raised because I don't think eating another creature is OK. I could easily see eating eggs from hens raised the Joel Salatin way but I would want the hens to die of old age or be euthanized humanely at that point, not sent off to the slaughterhouse. It's the treatment of animals as unfeeling commodities that bothers me.
I empathize, Ingrid. I was a flexible vegan for several years--until less than a year ago, actually, when I buckled down and finally decided to stop eating eggs and dairy in social situations. It's not always easy, but I've learned to not worry about making other people uncomfortable. Thanks for sharing your journey!
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