Posts tagged ‘Vegan’
When is a vegan not a vegan?
My first reaction to Dirty Rotten Vegan Cheaters by Annie Hartnett was positive. I can appreciate other vegans encouraging other vegans- especially if they fall off of the “vegan wagon” so to speak. Annie’s point is that you’ll “slip up” in your journey to be vegan. Okay, I agree. I’ve been vegan for more than 5 years now and I still make mistakes. I simply learn from them and more on.
But then I came across this:
And I don’t miss the way I ate before veganism, but I cheat when I’m careless or lazy. Vegan food isn’t always readily available.
Annie implies that it’s okay to choose to eat animal products every once in awhile. That, if you do, you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it- just move on.
Let me ask you, would you want me to careless or lazy with your life?
Then why is it acceptable to be careless or lazy with someone else’s?
And please, don’t give me any BS that vegan food isn’t “readily available.” Since when is it hard to find an apple or a banana? They sell them at freaking gas stations these days. Brown rice and dried beans, just to name a few, can be found at (icky) Walmart. It’s not rocket science to know that whole foods like these are readily available to most people, even college students.
Am I getting worked up over nothing? Annie might be a vegan, she does advocate for animals- all of that is a good thing. But, as a vegan, why give the impression to non-vegans that it’s fine to be lazy or careless? Doesn’t that go against what real veganism is?
Can you still be a vegan if you are careless and lazy? Or does that make you a flexitarian with a heavier emphasis on vegan foods?
Or, am I just being a pissy vegan? Chime in, I’d love to know what you think.
At least someone in DC is paying attention
An intern at the Environmental Protection Agency posted this on the EPA’s official blog:
Regulations can be made to help prevent the effects of meat production, but the easiest way to lessen the environmental impacts is to become a vegetarian or vegan.
via thehill.com
The bigger picture…
I’ve been reading a lot of griping lately on vegan blogs about unhealthy vegan “junk food”. People naturally assume that all vegan food must be healthy since it doesn’t contain any nasty animal ingredients, right? Well, no. Just because it is vegan doesn’t make it healthy. And some bloggers want you to know that eating vegan junk food is not going to win you good eating awards anytime soon. But other bloggers, they adore vegan junk food and promote it as “quick food for busy people” or similar. Take this article, written by the Long Island Press, about food that’s “good (and vegan).”
Check out the beginning of the article:
“Hey, we’re not proud, but we’re honest. And we have discovered a few things along the way that are amazing, that just happen to be vegan. Some are junk food. Some are processed frozen foods. But cut us some slack. As much as we’d love to whip out a list that starts with marinated hijiki, lentils and rosemary and ends with watercress salad topped with glazed beets and walnuts de-shelled with love, we live in a different kind of reality. So we present you now with the less sophisticated, I’m-lucky-I-have-time-to-eat-at-all version.”
As much as I’d like to agree, I can’t. I am a firm believer of eating healthy and do so the majority of the time. I do have a sweet tooth and enjoy vegan junk food from time to time. But I would never, honestly never, pick up a box of pop-tarts because I was too busy to walk down a different aisle in the store to grab an apple or banana. The food you put in your body is one of the most important things you do each day. The choices you make either fuels your body, thereby working with your body’s natural processes, or bogs your body down with unfamiliar ingredients that your body can’t process. That’s it, there is no middle ground. And for most people, unfortunately, their choices are the latter. They can’t seem to make a connection about the food you eat and their health. I know folks who baby their vehicles. They never miss a scheduled maintenance task and wash (and hand wax) the car lovingly every week. They use premium gasoline and talk about their car as if it were a child. But the same people will ignore the foods that they choose to put in their bodies. The car gets better “ingredients” than their own bodies. It’s baffling. And yes, even vegans can eat unhealthy.
But at the same time, just because you want to eat vegan and healthy doesn’t mean that you require hours of time to prepare “marinated hijiki, lentils and rosemary and ends with watercress salad topped with glazed beets and walnuts de-shelled with love.” It’s a ridiculous example to make a point, I get that. But it’s the underlying message that healthy vegan food takes a long time to prepare that I have a problem with. Because that is just simply not true.
But, I’m sure I am reading too much into the article. The author just wanted to tell you that Pop-tarts are vegan. They probably didn’t think about the bigger picture of one’s health. I can accept that. Just don’t ask me to understand why, at the “precise moment, when stress, hunger and pain blend into chaos”, you can’t choose something healthy (and vegan). Because I could and so could you.
Oh, one more thing, how the hell did Earth Balance (vegan buttery spread) make a list of convenient vegan food? Was butter like, an issue before? In a hurry? No time for butter? Earth Balance has the answer! No more messy buttery spread spills, Earth Balance comes in a convenient, portable plastic tub. And Earth Balance is easy and fun to eat! Simply remove the top of the container and dig in!
Bizzare.