The best advertisement for being Vegan is not being Vegan. Please give up being Vegan.
OK … let me explain a little.
Whilst working for an often awarded and world famous wholefood maker and wholesaler, I met a young worker who was very different from the usual archetypal “vegan”. I’d did not pry. I do not judge people solely by what they eat. But after a few weeks I asked him if he was vegan, not having seen him eat anything that was not. “No”, he replied without any explanation.
We carried on working with each other and a few days later I asked him, “What do you eat?”. “No meat, no fish, no dairy, no animal products at all”, he answered. “Well, does not that make you a vegan then”, I replied. “Sort of …”, he said, “I just hate the labels people stick on you if they think you are vegan”.
In the Western media, and especially as portrayed by comedians, vegans are generally portrayed as being angry, hippies, smelly, skinny, strange and humorless, and contradictorily idiotic pacifists or militant, aggressive eco-warriors. Within the Vegan movement, there are elements of “vegan police” policing individuals for their vegan-ness; categorizing, sub-categorizing, condemning and outcasting others “less Vegan” than them. If this is what being Vegan means for you, please stop or call yourself something different.
In fact, if you are vegan … stop “Being Vegan” altogether. Just be yourself.
Recently, renown environmentalist George Monbiot wrote
But I cannot advocate a diet I am incapable of following … after almost every talk I give, I am pestered by swarms of vegans demanding that I adopt their lifestyle. I cannot help noticing that in most cases their skin has turned a fascinating pearl grey.
Whilst admitting …
A vegan makes a massive contribution to global food stocks.
Why does being Vegan raise people’s ire so much?
As a fairly pacifist minority, vegans are easy to pick on. The truth is, of course, vegans are as individually varied as any other sub-group of humanity and are, in general, a damned healthy bunch eating a far wider variety of food than omnivores. I have never seen a “grey” vegan in my life.
Justine Butler of the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation (VVF) replied to Monbiot showing how lifelong vegans could lower the incidence of heart disease by a huge 57%, compared with the 24% of lifelong vegetarians … and vegetarians only eat about 33% less saturated fat and 50% of the cholesterol of omnivores. Vegans consume no cholesterol at all.
A huge study comparing over 1,000 vegans with thousands of meat eaters and vegetarians showed that the latter two groups were significantly heavier. The vegans came out slimmer in every age group. Less than 2% of vegans are obese, compared to 20% of omnivores. Another large-scale study involving over 33,000 meat-eaters, 10,000 fish-eaters, 18,000 vegetarians and 2,500 vegans found that the vegans had the highest intake of iron.
But it would be dishonest to say that our community does not have issues and these should be understood and discussed. I have never seen a grey vegan but I have met plenty of crazy vegans suffering from some psychological illness who project these as part of their “vegan-ness”.
Perhaps such negative stereotypes are based on the ‘visual vegans’ within our world, and not on the 10,000s of otherwisely normal ‘invisible vegans’ who make it up. By “visual vegans” I mean the hardcore of animal rights (AR) activists who, for the general public, may be the only real vegans they see on their television sets and at angry demonstrations.
Sadly, amongst the all too visual or audible vegans there are many of the genuinely nutty ones too. It is easy to see why the general public becomes confused between what is fruit and nuts and what is Vegan.
I would be the last person to condemn the AR or eco movements. Activists don’t give a damn about how they or you look and have much more important things to be doing than living up to a PR man’s dream of how “perfect vegans” should act. However, I would like to say that there is more than one way to serve or promote the vegan movement … and one of the best ways is just to a being normal healthy person and going about a normal healthy life … as a vegan.
To become vegan, you don’t have to be anything, there are no rules, but it would be nice if you could be something other people wanted to be.
As noble as liberating animals from testing facilities might be and as boring as the alternatives might sound, taking Vegan “to the people” and portraying it as something normal and attainable … whilst being free of any black shirt and tattoo anarchist type conformity or psycho-drama elements … is an equally fine thing to do. The more vegans the better … the more varied the vegans the better … the more normal the vegans the better.
Is there any such thing as a “stereotypical vegan” in Japan? Read on …The best advertisement for being Vegan is not being Vegan. Please give up being Vegan.
OK … let me explain a little.
Whilst working for an often awarded and world famous wholefood maker and wholesaler, I met a young worker who was very different from the usual archetypal “vegan”. I’d did not pry. I do not judge people solely by what they eat. But after a few weeks I asked him if he was vegan, not having seen him eat anything that was not. “No”, he replied without any explanation.
We carried on working with each other and a few days later I asked him, “What do you eat?”. “No meat, no fish, no dairy, no animal products at all”, he answered. “Well, does not that make you a vegan then”, I replied. “Sort of …”, he said, “I just hate the labels people stick on you if they think you are vegan”.
In the Western media, and especially as portrayed by comedians, vegans are generally portrayed as being angry, hippies, smelly, skinny, strange and humorless, and contradictorily idiotic pacifists or militant, aggressive eco-warriors. Within the Vegan movement, there are elements of “vegan police” policing individuals for their vegan-ness; categorizing, sub-categorizing, condemning and outcasting others “less Vegan” than them. If this is what being Vegan means for you, please stop or call yourself something different.
In fact, if you are vegan … stop “Being Vegan” altogether. Just be yourself.
Recently, renown environmentalist George Monbiot wrote
But I cannot advocate a diet I am incapable of following … after almost every talk I give, I am pestered by swarms of vegans demanding that I adopt their lifestyle. I cannot help noticing that in most cases their skin has turned a fascinating pearl grey.
Whilst admitting …
A vegan makes a massive contribution to global food stocks.
Why does being Vegan raise people’s ire so much?
As a fairly pacifist minority, vegans are easy to pick on. The truth is, of course, vegans are as individually varied as any other sub-group of humanity and are, in general, a damned healthy bunch eating a far wider variety of food than omnivores. I have never seen a “grey” vegan in my life.
Justine Butler of the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation (VVF) replied to Monbiot showing how lifelong vegans could lower the incidence of heart disease by a huge 57%, compared with the 24% of lifelong vegetarians … and vegetarians only eat about 33% less saturated fat and 50% of the cholesterol of omnivores. Vegans consume no cholesterol at all.
A huge study comparing over 1,000 vegans with thousands of meat eaters and vegetarians showed that the latter two groups were significantly heavier. The vegans came out slimmer in every age group. Less than 2% of vegans are obese, compared to 20% of omnivores. Another large-scale study involving over 33,000 meat-eaters, 10,000 fish-eaters, 18,000 vegetarians and 2,500 vegans found that the vegans had the highest intake of iron.
But it would be dishonest to say that our community does not have issues and these should be understood and discussed. I have never seen a grey vegan but I have met plenty of crazy vegans obviously suffering from borderline psychological illness and some clearly with psychological illness who project these as part of their “vegan-ness”.
If this is you … really … please stop “Being Vegan” altogether.
Perhaps such stereotypes are based on the ‘visual vegans’ within our world, and not on the 10,000s of otherwisely normal ‘invisible vegans’ who make it up. By “visual vegans” I mean the hardcore of animal rights (AR) activists who, for the general public, may be the only real vegans they see on their television sets and at angry demonstrations.
Sadly, amongst the all too visual or audible vegans there are many of the genuinely nutty ones too. It is easy to see why the general public becomes confused between what is fruit and nuts and what is Vegan.
If this is you … really … please stop “Being Vegan” and blaming it on the rest of us.
I would be the last person to condemn the AR or eco movements. Activists don’t give a damn about how they or you look and have much more important things to be doing than living up to a PR man’s dream of how “perfect vegans” should act. However, I would like to say that there is more than one way to serve or promote the vegan movement … and one of the best ways is just to a being normal healthy person and going about a normal healthy life … as a vegan.
As noble as liberating animals from testing facilities might be and as boring as the alternatives might sound, taking Vegan “to the people” and portraying it as something normal and attainable … whilst being free of any black shirt and tattoo anarchist type conformity or psycho-drama elements … is an equally fine thing to do. The more vegans the better … the more varied the vegans the better … the more normal the vegans the better.
Is there any such thing as a “stereotypical vegan” in Japan? Read on …
mac