It happens to me several times a week at least.  I read an article by some well meaning reporter talking about their trial runs of eating vegan, and I just get frustrated.  Honestly, I should just stop reading them.  They hardly ever contain any real useful information for people who may want to go vegan.  Worse, the article is usually filled with laments of “how hard” is is to shop for vegan food or “how expensive” it is to eat vegan food.  Which is, simply not true.

So I am left with a dilemma.  Should I, be happy that veganism is being talked about and tried or, give in to my frustration that veganism is misrepresented (again) in the media?  Here’s the thing, veganism is a touchy subject for most people.  For vegans, the vegan lifestyle is personal and goes beyond what they put in their mouths.  It centers around the belief that all non-human animals deserve to be free from fear and suffering at the hands of human animals.  But for our non-vegan counterparts, the mere mention of veganism spurs confrontational discussions about who belongs on the top of the food chain.  Now, to be fair, I’m sure that there are non-vegans who couldn’t care less about veganism (!) or even bother to have a discussion about it.  I’m sure that they are out there, it’s just that I’ve not met any of them yet.  And I’m talking from personal experience.

Today I read an article in The Express-Times by Kelly Huth.  Huth set out to see if vegan food tastes like its meat counterparts.  I could have saved her the two weeks, it doesn’t.  The article begins by talking about how hard it is to shop for “vegan” food.  Sigh.

She says, “The verdict on vegan food? Difficult to find but delicious.  Shopping for vegan ingredients is no easy task. You’d think shopping for vegetables and healthy ingredients would be easier than plucking a Hungry Man dinner out of the freezer. But it’s nearly impossible to locate vegan ingredients in grocery stores and the ingredients are more expensive.  For all the vegans out there, I feel your shopping pain.”

Beans (dried, canned or fresh), canned and fresh vegetables, soymilk, rice, and pasta are all vegan and easily accessible in any grocery store.  Part of the problem comes from the fact Huth was searching for specific brands of meat-free products, like Gardein.  As many vegans know, supplementing your diet with a lot of pre-made meat-free products can be convenient, but expensive.  It is comparable to purchasing your meat items, fully prepared, from a deli case.  It may be convenient, but it is also pretty pricey.

I find it hard to be pleased that veganism is in the media when, information in many of the articles is misleading or inaccurate.  I feel the same about the people who try veganism to loose weight, detox, or “as an experiment.”  Should I be thrilled that someone gives up meat for 2 weeks?  That, as I’ve been told before, every little bit helps?  But does it really?  Only if I accept that humans do not have a responsibility towards other non-human sentient life.  That, it is acceptable to choose between death and life for the thrill of eating a hamburger at McDonald’s.  The real point of veganism is missed for these people.  The message of compassion towards living creatures is lost among complaints of not being able to find a great tasting vegan cheese.  Instead of forming an opinion of veganism based on the food,  it should be formed after real research. Watch a video of animals about to be slaughtered, or visit an animal sanctuary.  I’m not saying that food isn’t a great advocacy tool, because it can be.  But it shouldn’t be the sole tool.  Educate on what human animals do to non-human animals, then decide.

However, the vegan meals Huth prepared did provide some “food for thought” for her family.  Her father even seemed to be drawing a faint line between his dinner plate and the animal who died to be on it, although he calls them “resources.”  Saying, “It doesn’t hurt to try something new…This whole meal really makes you question where your food comes from and what resources it takes to make a meal.”

But her brother-in-law was thinking about something completely different saying, “Although it takes more land to get the quantity of meat for a meal than it does to grow vegetables, how much energy does it take to process 12 ingredients to make a fake piece of meat and to transport all those ingredients to a manufacturing plant versus raising and eating a chicken?”

And that is why I feel that education, advocacy, and placing an emphasis on the lives of non-human animals (rather than the vegan diet) is so important.  If the public were exposed to the methods and conditions of “raising animals,” it is likely that most would become vegan.  The average person will never step foot on a real farm, or a factory farm where our “food” is “raised.”  Our society is so far removed from our food production, it is no wonder that people have a hard time having empathy and compassion towards non-human animals.

I’d like to see someone really take the “vegan plunge” and educate themselves, not only on the food but on the lives of the animals themselves.  Now that would be a true investigative article.  Then we could find out which is really harder, learning to eat a varied and lush vegan diet or continuing to contribute to the pain and suffering of other living beings.

[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]