Change Doesn’t Start with a Sports Drink, It Starts With Veganism

By Published On: 17 May 2013Last Updated: 17 January 2017

Tracy Morgan implores us to change America by drinking a sports drink. I implore you instead to change the world by being vegan. Start a revolution of your own. It's easier than ever, once you stop listening to the noise around you.

What's in this post

This is part of our Ad Nauseam series- a look at advertising through the ethical vegan lens.

change

I’ve been seeing this ad for MiO FIT “water enhancer” lately. The fact that I am used to Tracy Morgan yelling at me from a television screen may give you the impression that I watch too much television. But all of that yelling still wasn’t enough to block out the following statement in a procession of silly statements about boybands and greeting people with “‘Sup?”: “We didn’t like the shape of chickens, so we changed them to nuggets!”

America is apparently so keen on change. In fact, according to this ad, that’s what has always kept this country moving forward. The MiO FIT folks tried so hard to distract us from what’s really important here, but let me break it down for you…

We eat unnatural foods and claim we’re at the top of the food chain. Because, like the mighty lion who tears into the flesh of his prey with sharp teeth and claws, our industrialized CAFOs are the way nature intended things to be. You see, our food supply can change, but our position in life – Human Being, King of Everything, cannot.

We would rather process our food beyond recognition and pump it full of added vitamins and minerals – or, in the case of our animals, full of antibiotics – than eat plants. You see, it’s cheaper, easier, and tastier that way.

We would rather down a sports drink or a water “enhancer” than simply drink water – and when we do drink water, we drink it out of plastic bottles. You see, we need electrolytes in our bright green drinks and as for H2O, the tap water in that bottle is way better for us than the tap water in our tap.

We would rather genetically modify our food, and if given the opportunity, we don’t want to know about it! Ignorance is bliss – big business thrives on that motto, and we are happy to let them. We don’t want our slaughterhouses to have glass walls, and we don’t want our food labels to tell us when GMOs are used – at least, that’s what Californians decided in their last election. You see, we don’t want to be aware of where our food comes from – there are people who worry about that for us and far be it from us to be informed.

I am not exactly a fan of Michael Pollan, especially after he tried to justify the atrocities of meat production by claiming that they have “one bad day” in a good life on Oprah when she did a vegan show. But he’s on to something when he says we shouldn’t be eating anything our great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. Chicken nuggets are a good example, even if that wasn’t what the ad execs behind MiO had in mind in their commercial.

We claim that we thrive on change, yet it takes a revolution to make it happen when it really counts. You see, being vegan is revolutionary. It’s a decision to question why the system is set up to oppress and to exploit those who cannot fight. It’s a decision to question the safety of the food-shaped things we are told to eat by ad execs, concession stand operators, and school lunch ladies. It’s a realization that the environment needs attention and there’s a big way to give it. It’s a decision to do better, because we know better.

Tracy Morgan implores us to change America by drinking a sports drink. I implore you instead to change the world by being vegan. Start a revolution of your own. It’s easier than ever, once you stop listening to the noise around you.

Photo credit: Ben Terrett via Flickr

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HELLO! I'm KD Angle-Traegner.

Writer, activist, and founder of Four Urban Paws Sanctuary. I’m on a mission to help people live a vegan life. Read more about KD…

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