Think You’re Immune to the Noise Around You? Read This.

By Published On: 10 July 2013Last Updated: 17 January 2017

Once it clicks and veganism becomes your philosophy, there are a lot of things about the world around us that suddenly don't make sense.

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head in the sand

Once it clicks and veganism becomes your philosophy, there are a lot of things about the world around us that suddenly don’t make sense.

Foodie magazines, cooking shows, and billboards that glamorize animal-laden dishes suddenly seem twisted in their camouflaging of the dead flesh and secretions on the plate. Watching horses trot around a major metropolitan city, amid the millions of people, cars, and noises suddenly seems illogical. Girls wearing their sheepskin UGGS year round – even in the summer – suddenly seems nonsensical. The healthcare industry suddenly seems like a sickcare industry: invasive, expensive, and often not successful for anyone but the ones making money.

You can turn off your television and skip over the ads in magazines, but the advertisers still hope to find you – at the movie theater during the “preshow entertainment,” at the side of your screen when checking your email or browsing a website, on billboards on highways throughout the country. Supermarkets are laid out in a precise way so that you are tempted to buy what they want you to buy. Holidays seem to revolve around food and/or gifts containing animal products. Birthdays are celebrated at the office with cheese pizzas, egg-containing sweets, or roast-beef and turkey sandwiches.

We love to fight wars, too. No, not (just) the wars against other nations in the world. The War on Drugs. The War on Obesity. The War on Cancer. We never take accountability for these wars; we simply pretend they are wars to be fought. Meanwhile, we continue to sell foods and products that have no beneficial characteristics to people who have no idea that they were probably tested on non-human animals, as if that is any indication of how it will affect a human being.

I was at a hospital last week, sitting on a bench with Dad as Mom went to get the car in the (overpriced) parking garage. The bench was in a “designated smoking area.” Pardon my French, but what the fuck is a hospital doing with a designated smoking area anyway? Days later, I sat in the ICU visitors lounge at another hospital. The vending machines in the corner were full of Coke, potato chips, candy bars and cookies. Perhaps there should also be bars in the hospital cafeterias, too. Let’s complete the trifecta.

Admittedly, I am overly sensitive to what seems to me to be the complete brainwashing of our society.  And now it’s spreading to other countries around the globe. Can we talk about this? What’s the answer to the problem? How do you turn off the noise? And how do we get others to change their frequency and hear a different story than the one we’ve been told?

Photo credit: tropical.pete via Flickr

6 Comments

  1. Daria Zeoli July 21, 2013 at 7:25 am - Reply

    @Tracie – Wow! The hospital Dad’s been in and out of doesn’t have free soda – you have to feed $1.75 into the vending machine for a bottle. I did find one vending machine in the cafeteria that had vegan options – vegan cookies, roasted edamame, etc. It sure is hidden, though!

  2. Tracie July 16, 2013 at 4:41 pm - Reply

    What I also find sad and stupid in hospitals is the little hospitality rooms on each floor that offers sodas for visitors. All you can drink sodas–just fill your glass when it’s empty.

  3. Daria Zeoli July 11, 2013 at 4:17 pm - Reply

    @Deb: Celebrity endorsements make believing the hype a lot easier. It’s why those “Got Milk?” ads were so darned popular.

    @Susan: Thank you for the reminder that change is happening and that happiness matters. Congratulations on your own change!

    @Allyson: My dad’s meals for the past few days have been an interesting look at the system. His peppermint tea was ruined by the curdled milk he put in (not that he should be using cow’s milk anyway)… I hate to think how many patients are drinking sour milk with their meals! Change is happening; I’m just impatient! :)

  4. Allyson Dwyer July 11, 2013 at 8:45 am - Reply

    Really great article, Daria. As someone who also has been present in hospitals the past few years, it has infuriated me to see the kinds of foods they serve! Macaroni and cheese, skim milk or fruit punch (full of sugar), artificial iced tea, and I’ve even seen hospitals serve those Sara Lee pound cakes for dessert, or a pre-packaged muffin for breakfast with an ingredient list 20+ long. Just the little things seem to pop up and astound you. I was actually extremely grateful at a hotel I stayed at last month because they offered soy milk at the breakfast buffet (but only if you asked). I don’t think I would have seen this a year ago or so. I think these things are happening in slow, slow steps.

  5. Susan July 10, 2013 at 6:59 pm - Reply

    Take heart that things are changing. My kids changed, they changed me, I am talking to others. We must keep growing louder, we will eventually cancel the noise. Can you take heart in that, being a happy vegan is the most important thing you can do. Who does not want some of that happiness!

  6. Deb Hanrahan July 10, 2013 at 2:42 pm - Reply

    The Activia commercial with Jamie Lee Curtis especially make me sad. How many people believe that by eating that stuff, they are doing something healthy?

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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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