Well, I made it through the month as a vegan and I’m emerging pretty unscathed, though I will admit to a pregnancy scare 'cause my period took the month off in protest, likely due to my sudden drop in weight and unrelated spike in stress-level. Of course the fear of having a flaxseed/spelt bun in the oven led to the purchase of a home pregnancy test, the creation and marketing of such I'm sure was somehow linked to animal exploitation and countless tests on tabby kittens.
I haven't broken through the plant only dietary restriction finish line yet, though I have the feeling I will tomorrow with something as seemingly benign as my still beloved and dearly missed French Vanilla CoffeeMate. The conclusion I've come to, if I can be pompous enough to pretend that I've come to any conclusion from this experiment, is that food, in this societies, serves a much more varied list of functions than in other places in the world. While some cultures break bread to share in tradition or, you know, not starve, here in America (or maybe I should say in a predominately educated, largely white, mid-sized city such as Portland) a diet becomes a fashion statement, a political remark, and an accessory.
I will admit that it was fun at times to have been contrary and difficult when it came to food choices these past few weeks, and usually this was due more in part to the company I was in, or the level of attractiveness that the waiter or waitress possessed. But because the decision to cut out animal products stemmed mainly from a desire to step up my game when it came to talking shit while thrift store shopping or waiting in line for a Diet Coke at some hipster-filled bar, I learned the details regarding the various avenues that led "natural" vegans to their path only after I started to play Jenga with my own personal food pyramid. This means that I did get an education along with that Whole Foods 365 White Corn chip on my shoulder.
For example, I wouldn't have known that calves to be used as veal have their movement wholly restricted by neck shackles, or that a chicken slaughter line can decimate up to 8,400 chickens per hour, if I had simply scoffed at my roommate's revulsion towards chicken flavored ramen or my well-coiffed friend‘s pallor when seeing veal upon a local restaurant menu. I wouldn't have felt such serious adoration and respect for chef Brian Hill, the staff at Food Fight grocery, or John Janulis who co-owns the Bye and Bye, if I didn‘t know how fucking difficult it is to find vegan gum or that purchasing vegan lip balm is pretty much as easy as acquiring a PhD in acquired physics. I would have judged vegans with a broad, and yet ignorant, brushstroke. And, sure, the skinny-jeans wearing masses who seem to embrace a dietary restriction simply to stand out from the omnivorous (and mainly less privileged) global population will still my wrath and hear my venomous snorts at the checkout counter of New Seasons. But I've learned that sometimes the function of privilege, education, and the luxury of not dying from malnutrition can be used towards making a statement that all living things are equal. It’s the application of our dumb dietary luck of being born in this country that can illustrate the unfortunate fact that ignorance to the ridiculous bounty we’re able to access every day breeds the problem. If every person, and every vegan, used their brains along with their mouths we might be able to slowly devour the system that leads to cruelty, consumerism without compassion, and over-consumption in the first place.
I still have a lot to say on the topic of food as a means of giving comfort, but I’ll save that for another day. I ate a burrito this evening that fell so heavily in my stomach, they could have felt Anaheim chili aftershocks as far away as Klamath Falls. Vegan food comas are as exhausting as their sinew strewn nemeses.
Stay tuned for my next culinary adventure, where I only eat black pudding for the entire month of June.
Just kidding.
(Here's the link to Vegan Action, a pretty badass site.)
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3 comments:
You did it! Unless you count the Big Mac Attack on day four, the KFC on that one Wednesday, and the month-long sausagefest... I wouldn't count those things, though, and people who do are just being picky.
Culture, masculinity, consumerism, entitlement, and privilege form a salty brine which makes decisions about how to eat difficult. I'm proud of you for taking the time to learn about the big dirty sea we little fishies are swimmin' in before you hit that sushi bar. Even if you eat meat again, it'll be an informed choice, not a foregone conclusion. Good work!
Okay, first of all, my brain totally wants to make out with your brain.
Now that I have that detail out of the way, onto the topic at hand: veganism, privilege, & related matters.
The food thing is so complicated. I used to be a vegetarian - and then I was homeless, and realized I was the animal I most urgently needed to save. So it was a choice between a 79 cent cheeseburger on the Ave or taking some sequence of buses I couldn't much afford either to get to some awesome Seattle hipster place where I could have paid five to ten times that much for a viable veggie alternative (plus tip, because yes, having worked in food service, I will always tip, even if I'm fucking homeless).
Then those emergencies faded at eating flesh became a habit, a very depressing habit which I finally broke as a birthday present to myself last November. I'd go vegan too but having some difficulty with the concept of parting with real cheese. We're also still not particularly well-off; our combined household income (even before my husband got laid off), sustaining two kids and two adults, is low enough that our girls get reduced price meals at school. Not as bad as having been homeless, of course, but still pretty sucky.
I guess what I'm trying to do now is just eat as low on the food chain as I can, given our own (relatively) precarious position in said chain. It's not, thank goodness, going to be on par with the predicament of a shackled veal calf. And I'll not go back to my lifelong history of poverty time and time again as a reflexive excuse to not do better, because one can always try to do better.
Finally, it's phrases like "started to play Jenga with my own personal food pyramid" that caused me to snort our loud here, even when you were addressing some quite serious matters. Your wit simply astounds.
Not sure, but i think kosher meat is supposed to include painless slaughter. I'm certainly an omnivore.
I also look pregnant, but as i'm a guy, there's not much need for a pregnancy test. And if a vegan diet would help, maybe that's what it takes.
Still, chocolate is a vegetable.
I may be expanding faster than the universe, but i've started running, over a mile a day. From a health standpoint, it appears to be more important than being thin. Though, it's harder running with 50 extra pounds.
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