rax | Veganism (or, Ohmygodanotherpostsosoon?)

Veganism (or, Ohmygodanotherpostsosoon?)

(The following is an excerpt from a forthcoming first-coming[0] email.)

So I go vegan for Lent every year [1] or at least have for the past few years. Easter happened recently. In previous years, the first day I could be not-vegan I immediately starting scarfing cheese and was like ``Oh thank God, I can finally eat food again.'' This year my response was more ``Oh man, but I don't _want_ to stop being vegan!'' I thought about this for a while and decided that I can always stop being vegan later. I don't expect it to last forever, but until my body really starts complaining, I'm going to stick with the veganism. If this is forever, OK.

Why? Well, the tongue-in-cheek but not untrue explanation is that I enjoy dietary restrictions. The answer by someone else that I most resonate with is one Mr. Schmidt's ``I was vegan yesterday, so I am vegan today,'' but that's a bit sassy as well. It's almost easier to take some common reasons for veganism and explain why I don't share them and see what's left, so that is what I am going to do:

* I am not vegan because I believe it is wrong to eat animals or animal products. Things eat each other; I eat things whose relatives will, ultimately, eat me. (Can I be buried under lentils?) Being able to choose what I eat to the point where I eliminate large swaths of the grocery store is a privilege caused by my having money and being near grocery stores in the first place. That doesn't mean the right thing to do is throw my money in a fire and move somewhere without stores, but it's worth keeping in mind.

* I am not vegan to protest the meat industry. I've read both evidence I trust and shock pamphlets about how bad the meat industry is, and I'm confident that I am not comfortable what happens to the animals raised as food sources. However, the meat industry and the farm industry and the shipping industry are all exploitative of _humans_, which is (on most days) more important to me. Eating avocado picked by migrant workers who don't make a living wage or benefits is, if not worse than eating meat packed in a plant, at least on the same order of magnitude of increasing suck in the world. Buying organic and local helps some, but I don't always do that and if that were my main goal I'd be limiting my diet by sustainability and human rights rather than by whether or not it came from \textit{animalia}.

* I am not vegan because I don't enjoy food that isn't vegan. While I don't enjoy most large hunks of meat and have never really liked egg, I'm a huge fan of cheese and in the past years of vegetarianism have really missed eel and prosciutto.

* I am not vegan because being vegan is cool. Being vegan is mostly annoying; while occasional random dykes[2] and such will be like ``Oh my god you're _vegan_ that's so _awesome_ I did that for a while'' I am not really interested in hitting it off with people on the basis of what we each choose to not eat.[3] Except maybe to exchange recipes. I'm not interested in using my diet as a statement about my personal politics; I'd rather use my personal politics as a statement about my personal politics.

* I am not vegan for spiritual reasons. ...except inasmuch as ``performing randomly selected rituals that are not tied to any actual spiritual background'' is as close as I come to spirituality. There are a number of spiritual/religious traditions that embrace veganism and other dietary restrictions, and while their practitioners and I may be getting some of the same benefits[4] and vitamin deficiencies from the experience, I think they're coming from a different place than I am.

* I am not vegan just to be weird. I know a lot of people who are intentionally weird at the world around them for no apparent reason other than to push back against the world seeming weird to them. I have mixed feelings on this and have done my own share in the past, but not eating animal products isn't meant to serve that purpose. (The stripey socks might be.)

So what's left? ``Because I feel like it,'' mostly.[5] Well, that's a fine reason. :) I don't think being vegan is any worse than not being vegan, nor do I think it's any better. It's just what I'm going to do for a while. It helps me eat less junk food, too, though I recently discovered that Oreos have been reformulated to be vegan. TEMPTATION IN COOKIE FORM.

Stay good, Rachel!!!

[0] first-coming is a mailing list where I write long-form about my life: Horribly casual essay-ish updates on the project of being me. (Do you see what I did there? I think I understand how academics use the word "project" now.) I pull many fewer punches there than I do on LiveJournal since potential future employers are much less likely to find it. Hi, potential future employers!

[1] I don't celebrate most (all?) other Christian holidays, nor do I really consider myself Christian, though I grew up steeped in the traditions and theology. I just find Lent really useful to me and so I practice it.

[2] Dyke is not intended as a pejorative; I call myself a dyke periodically. ``You're allowed to do that with language, right?'' Maybe what I really mean is ``people in line at the Diesel.''

[3] If I turn on the Imagination Machine and try to picture myself dating a meat eater, though, it doesn't work so well; it seems like there would be _logistical_ problems if nothing else. Luckily I don't need to worry about this.

[4] Do you know how hard it is to get vegan food poisoning? :)

[5] Well, and it allows me to wander around the grocery store with a handful of vegan burgers saying ``Veganveganveganveganvegan'' like the bacon dog from the tele-vision. For some of us, this is sufficient reason alone.

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WRT footnote 4, and the paragraph containing it:

You still have other food safety concerns, especially if you are eating many raw plant foods, which is less of an option with animal foods so is generally not done. But you knew that.

As regards vitamin deficiencies, there is some chance that trying to at least partially embrace traditional diets from said vegan traditions may reduce the risk of deficiencies. Food science is still struggling to get a grip on all that the human body needs and how it needs it, but a traditional cuisine that leads to malnutrition tends not to last very long as a tradition.

I have been aware of your thing for arbitrary diet restrictions for some time, and it has intrigued me. Because of you, I've been toying with the idea of at least having the experience of arbitrary restrictions to understand the experience. (You are not the entire cause though. I also blame discussions of fasting in Siddhartha)

I'm not k0re enough to go vegan or even vegetarian just yet and fasting would be a Fail with my blood sugar issues. I do want to try something harder than swearing off of peas and cottage cheese or the like. As such, I've decided that Kashrut law is a set of restrictions that still allows a lot of food I enjoy, but will force me to be mindful and attentive to what I eat.

Lent seems like a reasonable arbitrary timespan. Shorter than Ramadan, and most people in the culture in which I live expect you to be more picky about food then anyway. Passover would be another choice, but wouldn't work well because I am not brave enough to eat in a manner that is Kosher For Passover, and trying to keep standard Kosher during passover would be potentially problematic (as well as maybe tacky)

So, in summary, I have a grand plan to, somewhat perversely, keep Kosher for Lent. I was planning to start this year, but the whole exploding marriage leading to divorce thing kind of sidetracked me.

I'm not directly imitating you, I'm just intrigued by your reasons and inspired to experiment. Unless you find imitation to be a form of flattery, in which case then I am imitating you.

Sorry for making such a long comment in your journal which is about ME, but I thought it was topical.

I was planning to keep Kosher for Passover this year if I didn't stay vegan; I might still try but it's _severely_ limiting. Cassandra has threatened to eviscerate me if I try Ramadan. :) Let me know how it goes!

You could try to be Kosher for Passover AND vegan, if you wanted a real challenge. What's for dinner? Matzo and water again. Yay!

It is also convenient that the Twin Cities have a very high Jewish population. So while I will be trying to make most of my food myself (which is a separate ongoing project) there is also a ready supply of prepackaged Kosher food. A lot of which I already eat.

Also, since I'm already making a multitude of small replies:

What would be wrong with Ramadan? Isn't it just normal Halal eating (almost the same as Kashrut) but only while the sun is down? Or is there more to it that I haven't researched?

Not eating when the sun is up is Hard.

Well yes. I just wasn't sure if there was something else at issue.

Wow, that sounded like I was making a covert accusation of racism or something, which I wasn't doing at all. It just sounded like there might be even more harshness in Ramadan than I was aware of, based on the strength of her objection.

The hardest part about keeping the Ramadan fast for me was fixing my sleep schedule. It felt like cheating to me if I woke up at 5 to eat, then went back to sleep until noon, and got to eat again at 5:30 or 6 or whenever sundown was.

Also, the Ramadan fast requires no smoking, no liquids (so no water which makes exercise hard), no sex, no music, and a whole pile of other restrictions depending on which imam you listen to (like, my father's imam says no t.v. or talk radio either, and when I was in middle school, books read purely for pleasure were also forbidden).

Wow, I didn't know about all of those. I guess not all of them were relevant the last time I looked at this seriously, which was high school. :)

The sleep schedule thing would work for me if other people I lived and worked with were doing the same thing. Having a spouse who isn't interested in shifting her sleep schedule for it basically makes it a no-go for me. (Obviously that wouldn't be the case if it were part of my religious tradition, but as a "recreational faster" I find that too much of a hurdle.)

I suspect your spouse might take issue with "no sex while the sun is up" also ;-)

We _are_ morning people... ;)

That's surprisingly harsh.

Isn't is the case that many primarily Muslim countries with climates such that going from dawn to dusk with no water is downright dangerous?

Islam isn't some kind of heinous abusive cult that forces people to do things that are dangerous. And even if it was, given that an overwhelmingly large percentage of Muslims observe the fast, you'd think it if was that dangerous, Islam would have died out due to large numbers of dehydration deaths every year.

In most Muslim countries, everyone is fasting from sunup to sundown. Field workers and other manual laborers take/are given long breaks during the hottest part of the day, and most businesses run on severely reduced hours, if they don't shut down entirely. There are also exemptions for anyone travelling more than 50 miles from home (this was far more important before the invention of the car), pregnant women, menstruating women, anyone sick or taking medications.

I was never saying any such thing about Islam. I was curious as to how that rule was interpreted and dealt with. I know religious laws tend to have limited flexibility, but also as you say don't tend to last long if the adherents all die out. Therein lies the interesting question of the theory and practice of religious law.

It seems as if you interpreted my question as an attack on Islam. Is there something about what I said that caused me to come off that way?

It seems as if you interpreted my question as an attack on Islam. Is there something about what I said that caused me to come off that way?

I did see it as an attack, or at least, a looking-down-the-nose at those poor ignorant heathens. One part of my interpretation was the overwhelming amount of Islamophobia and general white man's burden-esque bullshit I see every day coming out of our government, our politicians (even the presidential candidate I've been giving both time and money too :( ), the mass media, and at least half the people I talk to individually on a daily basis. So given someone I don't know I do the math and say the probability is that any random person I encounter is more likely than not to have unfounded prejudices against Islam. The second part of my reading of your comment was that in your first comment to me, you didn't write the nuances contained in your second question. If you had added something of the form of "I'm curious how fasting from water works and how the religious laws deal with the risk of dehydration" that would have gone a long way towards making your question sound less like the stereotype of Enlightened Western Cultured Person Explaining to the Ignorant Heathen Why They Are Stupid. Finally, since you are commenting on Rachel's journal, I read your comment in the same somewhat harsh, supercilious tone I expect from certain alums in our social circle. (If you know tibbetts or plitwack, you will know exactly what I'm talking about).

I guess that makes sense. It is probably a worthy goal to give people the benefit of the doubt as not being hostile by default, but in the particular case of America's attitude towards Islam I can see how that would be rather hard.

For my part, I am an Atheist who finds all religions equally somewhat baffling, and equally extremely fascinating. Since in my local small social group there is no stigma attached to Islam (even though there aren't any Muslims in the group, merely by chance) so I'm not used to watching my words. If anything we stigmatize Christianity a bit (though we try not to) due to constant exposure to the dark and hateful side of Christianity in our culture.

I am more likely to ask stupid and simplistic questions about Islam since I have had less chance to ask basic questions than I have of Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism. Most Muslims in my part of the country are recent African immigrants who don't tend to interact socially with the rest of the population, so I haven't had occasion to know any well enough to ask the questions I would be inclined to.

As a possibly irrelevant aside: The first person who I was aware of being Muslim who I did have occasion to know socially was a Pakistani friend of mine in college. After getting to know me for some time, and after a long conversation in which my theories for being a moral person and interacting with the world were discussed, he stated to me that in his (admittedly unusually liberal view) I was a Muslim. His argument was that despite not believing in God personally, I had still Submitted myself to His Will in the most important area of trying to be a good and moral person in the ways that my friend considered important to his own faith. As such, he argued, I was a Muslim in the true sense that I had "Submitted to God" in the manner that he felt was truly important.

Now, this is certainly not a conventional view, or one that I expect anyone to share. And I don't know enough about the theology of Islam (interpreted highly liberally OR more conventionally) at this point in my life to even really intelligently discuss his assertion, which is surely not a representative one.

The only reason why I even bring the story up is to make the point that I considered it to be one of the greater compliments that has been paid to me when this conversation happened. In November of 2001.

In short, not all Americans have bought into the post 2001 anti-Islam hysteria. In my experience, most thinking people are rather distressed by out culture's latest bout of frothing petty bigotry.

I'm sure you didn't do this intentionally, but your last two comments just pushed a whole lot of my buttons. Please forgive me for bowing out of this conversation, but I won't bring drama to Rachel's journal.

Ah, I feared I might have done so, and come off horribly wrong. I apologize for giving offense.

If you do feel that I am being wrongheaded or ignorant about the subject under discussion, or am otherwise deeply in error, I would welcome you to email me at maekern@gmail.com at some point to discuss it privately, if you wish to. If you do not wish to, that is a valid choice. You're welcome to be openly rather upset at me as long as you're willing to try to be constructive and help me understand WHY.

I hasten to add that if I managed to inadvertently cause such a strong reaction it seems as if there is probably some deep-seated misunderstanding that I have that I am probably not aware of. If that is the case, I'd like to know about it so I can examine it more closely. The only thing worse than being a jackass is being a jackass and not KNOWING it, or knowing why.

Or if you prefer a public forum, as some people do, feel free to comment on my journal.

That said, I will now shut up and leave you alone. Again, sorry for giving offense.

Of course, now that I read that back, it sounds like a much more elaborate way of saying the standard weaselly "No really, some of my best friends are foo..." that bigots like to hide behind. But meh; I know what I'm trying to say, and if I've butchered my attempt to say it, then at least I tried.

[5] Well, and it allows me to wander around the grocery store with a handful of vegan burgers saying ``Veganveganveganveganvegan'' like the bacon dog from the tele-vision. For some of us, this is sufficient reason alone.

The only flaw I can see in this is that the logical conclusion to such an escapade is a narrator telling us in a sly voice-over, "Rachel doesn't know it's not vegan!"

Deceived and punished! :)

You left out hating plants and wanting to destroy them. Or have you made up with our leafy green overlords?

Shhhhhhh they might hear you!!!!

though I recently discovered that Oreos have been reformulated to be vegan

This is kind of fascinating.

Also, fwiw, your statements resonated with me, as I feel similarly not-why-I'm-a-vegetarian, even if I'm not hardkore vegan like, you know, vegans. I do admit a tiny thrill whenever I meet another vegetarian, though. There are very few at my workplace. This may be the same thrill I get when I meet someone who enjoys emacs. (There aren't so many of those at my workplace, either, though in my mind, the vi people and we are one group against the masses using nedit or "emacs, but only for the drop-down menus".)

I told my parents (possibly foolishly) that I would reevaluate vegetarianism at the 10-year mark, maybe start eating fish again or something. The 10-year mark was last month. I marked it, it passed, and I decided, "Huh. Guess I can stop being vegetarian later."

Finding other veg*ns at work is a tiny thrill because I might actually be able to eat with them, for me. Finding other vegans in, say, class, has the potential to be interesting but also has the potential to be annoying. I guess having a shared interest is always kinda neat, since I'd rather talk about nutritional yeast than the weather. :)

Ten years! Man, I hope I make it ten years with some form of vegetarianism. That would be nice. Go you :)

Apparently Oreos were reformulated because Hydrox were Kosher pareve and Oreos were not (Kosher at all, let alone just dairy). But I have that information second- or third-hand.

Really? I'm surprised anyone considers that worth messing with the recipe for something as well-known (and widely considered addictive and the icon of junk food) as oreos.

I am posting in a Rax entry. :3

(all the cool kids do!)

Whoah, haven't heard from you in forever! Drop me a line sometime, say hi!
Are you still in California? (rachel@akrasiac.org, AIM raxvulpine)

Oreos have been somewhat-vegan for awhile. One of their plants made them with whey and one didn't so it involved a bunch of label-reading and risking disappointment to find the ones that were vegan. Cool if they've finally gone over to being entirely-vegan. They still sort of frighten me.

It amuses me that our macro-reasons for being vegan are so similar (although I see it more as a negative, in that I don't want to not do it more than I actively want to do it) even though our micro-reasons are very very different.
On one hand, yours is more confusing to explain and leaves you more open to people whining to you if you inconvenience them. On the other hand, it's always a bit tricky to explain my more stereotypical reasons in a way that doesn't come off as judgmental (especially since I don't really care what other people do). I like finding out people are vegan, but it doesn't feel any more important than, say, finding out someone likes a band/book/movie/whatever I like.

It's always nice to read long-ish posts about veganism. :> I started about twelve years ago, and it's been a very interesting road.

I feel very, very differently about the politics of veganism... to me, it's extremely political to refrain from oppressing nonhumans. Things eat each other, sure, but we have big brains and it's not difficult, or it shouldn't be, to figure out "hey, this causes suffering, let's not do it". With power comes moral responsibility.

I've read some vegan-feminist critical theory (Carol Adams, Melanie Joy) and it's become apparent that there is no "greater than"... human and animal oppression intersect. The fruit picker or slaughterhouse worker exposed to dangerous working conditions is exploited for the same reason that animals are, because our culture has decided that some groups are fair game.

I agree about organic's importance -- it's an absolute must. I'd rather spend all my money on organic produce than be rich and eat crap (not that organic produce /shouldn't/ be cheap and available to everyone). Not a locavore, though. One, I feel good about sending my money southward, and two, I freaking love plantains. :p

Sorry, I'm sure you didn't expect a stranger talking your ear off! It was such an enjoyable post that I had to comment.

Glad you enjoyed! I don't mind strangers, I'm one of those freaky extroverts. You appear to know some people I know, so bonus!

I guess I have a mixed relationship with the whole personal as political thing... I understand that in some ways anything I do is going to be a political statement but I think that actions can have multiple interpretations and, at least where I can, I like to point to the interpretation I Mean. I may be anti-suffering (and I probably even am, though not in the same way as you or anyone else necessarily) but honestly my approach to dietary restrictions is as much "Recreational fasting" as anything else.

I'm not familiar with vegan-feminist critical theory; while critical theory in general is kind of rubbing me the wrong way at the moment, I am always on the lookout for new good stuff. I absolutely agree that human and animal oppression intersect, and I find that very problematic.

That's a good point about wanting to send money elsewhere... I think fair trade kinda dealies are likely better than strict local, though I don't know if I can get, say, fair trade avocados. I hadn't considered that. (There are probably environmental impacts to shipping these things, of course, but ha ha I lose at zero footprint, known issue.)

Twelve years of veganism! That's awesome. I hope I make it that far. I think. :) Thanks for commenting!

I've been eating vegetarian for ten years and a lot of what you write resonates with me. It's frustrating how variously problematic food can be with respect to exploiting humans, animals, the environment, or even limited fuel resources. The intersections of all of those and the difficulty in balancing among them all can be quite depressing when you try to comprehend the whole problem at once.

I'll admit to hitting it off better with veg*ans, but it's much more due to a shared joy of food and of cooking than anything else. Maybe it's just my social circle, but there's a ridiculously high correlation between folks who eat vegetarian and folks who love to cook. That's not to say that I don't know meat eaters who enjoy food, but they tend to both not cook and be "quantity over quality" connoisseurs. I find it hard for me to empathize with that mindset.

I can empathize with your relationship with the idea of the personal as political that you mention above in a comment. I don't know how this has worked for you, but vegetarianism is surprisingly a decision that often gives me the social room to explain myself and dispel misinterpretations. Most people I meet and find out that I don't eat meat will ask me why I do it. (In my case, that explanation does happen to be fairly political--I think meat-based diets are less sustainable on a global scale.)

Trying to balance everything makes my brain hurt. I usually don't. Have you succeeded?

I do enjoy people who enjoy food more than people who don't but that's less correlated with veg*anism around here. Though the people who are just like "Rar! I grill meat!" I am like "...OK!" and don't know what else to say.

I would agree with vegetarianism giving a lot more social room to explain than, say, being queer. No one asks "What made you decide to like girls?" (even and maybe especially not if that would be straight for the you in the question) Of course, if someone asked me that, I have no idea how I would answer it...

Since you bring it up, I'm curious --- what _is_ your explanation?

No, I certainly haven't succeeded at balancing all of that. It's just too overconstrained. In practice, I eat a little of everything (organic, local, fair trade, and some of "none of the above") and I don't feel guilty about not determining the optimal answer for an impossible problem.

I've had a handful of (straight) people ask me "how long have you known [that you're queer]?" I never quite know where to begin with that one either...

So, what's my explanation for liking girls? Um...well... oh, maybe you mean my explanation for eating vegetarian? Right then.

Mostly it's "environmental vegetarianism" (thanks to Wikipedia for providing me with a label I'd never heard of.) In short, producing meat currently takes quite a bit more resources (space, food, water) than non-meat does. I try (in this instance, at least) to consume less in order to do a small part in letting humanity scale more gracefully. That's the main reason. There also some desire on my part to not cause unnecessary animal suffering. As you put it though, things eat each other. I certainly feed my cats meat.

Environmental vegetarianism! OK. That's a totally admirable reason to be vegetarian. I mean, hey, why not? It's sort of a metaphorical personal act rather than an actual solution, but I think so is more or less anything you or I or anyone else is going to do alone. I feed my cats meat too; they're not the ones who enjoy dietary restrictions, I am. :)

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Veganism (or, Ohmygodanotherpostsosoon?)

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