Comments on: On the Varieties of Vegetarian Experience.

By: Vegan

Vegan — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:17:23 +0000

Ah, go vegan. I was just browsing ’round here and found your Adam Ant video. Anyone who loves Adam is a friend of mine. BTW, “loathe” is a verb – for your article here, you’ll need the adjective “loath.” Veganism makes you smarter. Veganism AND Adam Ant make you sexier.

By: Chandelle

Chandelle — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 02:12:38 +0000

I’m sorry; I was just leaving a quick comment and it sounded more brusque than I intended.

You have a good point, and in the industrial setting, this issue could and should be argued. On a small scale, however, there are many alternative farming methods that not only preserve animal life, but also protect and enrich the soil (while industrial deep-tilling has the opposite effect, causing erosion and other soil degradations as well as, yep, the destruction of countless small animals and their habitat), while producing similar yields. The animal issue is just one more reason why I choose to buy from small-scale farmers when I can. I don’t think our first response to the issue of accidental animal death should be resignation and indulgence.

By: JohnW

JohnW — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:36:52 +0000

Sorry, I should have made it clear I wasn’t attacking.

I’m just saying that the harvesting of grain, for example, requires the death of many many animals. Deliberate, institutionalized, and unnecessary vs. accidental seem like things which could be argued.

By: Chandelle

Chandelle — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:26:06 +0000

Of course they matter. But as I said above, there’s a difference between deliberate, institutionalized, and unnecessary destruction, and accidental, individual destruction.

By: JohnW

JohnW — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:14:01 +0000

In “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” Michael Pollan asked whether the animals which are killed in fields during mechanical harvesting of plants don’t count because we don’t consume them.

Is it the death, the consumption, or that we have to draw the line somewhere?

By: Sunday in Outer Blogness: Freedom and Sunstone Edition! | Main Street Plaza

Sunday in Outer Blogness: Freedom and Sunstone Edition! | Main Street Plaza — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:31:34 +0000

[...] to lifestyles. John gives us the top ten reasons to go vegetarian — can you think of any others? On a related note, Kerfuffler gives a graphic picture of our [...]

By: Rich

Rich — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:54:31 +0000

I feel compelled to mock (knowing beforehand that it’s wrong to mock) those vegans who refuse to consume honey, seeing it as an animal product. I mean, it’s made from bee spit for crying out loud! Since when does the consumption of saliva (or perhaps vomit is a better term) constitute the violation of “the prime directive”?

It logically follows that any who engage in sexual activity, including kissing (thereby exchanging bodily fluids) are, by definition, hypocrites!

By: Chandelle

Chandelle — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:23:10 +0000

I haven’t given up honey, which is my one area of contention as a vegan. Actually, I’ve never met a vegan who doesn’t eat honey, but I know they’re out there, hating me. I do love honey and I like to buy it from local farmers with backyard bees. But you totally grossed me out with your description of honey-drizzled avocado. That’s just wrong, dude. Then again, avocado is one of the few foods I really dislike (along with turnip greens and lychees – it’s true, I’m not perfect).

By: Rich

Rich — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:16:35 +0000

Chandelle, I’m pretty sure if you were my spousal unit I would have far less of a problem living the vegan life! Food-gasms indeed! )

My Swedish wife however has introduced me to way too many good cheeses and yogurts to even think of abandoning dairy. And the thought of giving up honey would pretty much kill me. There is NOTHING better in the whole wide world than ripe avocado spread over wheatberry toast and drizzled with clover honey. Pure tastebud heaven!

By: Chandelle

Chandelle — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:40:51 +0000

I smiled when I saw your reference to boring vegetarianism, Rich. I’ve been cooking this way for quite a while now. I love to cook, I think I’m pretty adventurous, and I run a food blog so I feel compelled to come up with new dishes all the time. I rarely make anything twice. I have an attention deficit when it comes to duplicate dinners. But man, I DO remember my ardent college vegetarianism, when I “lived” (barely) on Top Ramen, endless vegetable soup (a crapload of random veggies dumped in a pot with some plastic-packed broth, then boiled to death), and soy lattes. Ah! those were NOT the days. I do realize why some people might believe vegetarianism is pretty nasty and boring. But for me, I’m still a hedonist and glutton at heart, and if my food didn’t taste pretty damn good, all the ethics in the world could not make me continue as a vegan. Now I try to win people to veganism primarily by inducing food-gasms.

By: Rich

Rich — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:17:31 +0000

I was an “almost-vegetarian” for about a year some while back (meaning I didn’t eat any red meat or chicken, but allowed eggs and dairy and fish), but mostly gave it up because it was really hard to maintain; it got really boring! Making it as a vegan would (for me anyway) require a lot more creative energy than I’m usually willing to put into planning and creating meals. Most days I tend to be pretty lazy.

I also came to the awareness that we are predators; that in order for me to survive, something has to die. I can respect those that draw the line at vegetable, but FOR ME, it’s somewhat of an arbitrary distinction. I evolved with canine teeth, designed by natural selection to consume flesh. And let’s face it — I really ENJOY the taste of a wide variety of animal products. Food FOR ME is as much about enjoyment as it is about nutrition. We evolved to the top of the food chain. Of course we have a responsibility to be ethical and sensible about our stewardship at the top. But should I feel guilty about being there?

So some days I celebrate life with awesome squash soup or a tossed green salad piled high with avocado and home-grown tomatoes, other days with some yummy salmon, and still others with spaghetti made with lots of squash and mushrooms and onion and garlic and tomatoes and a little ground beef.

I make an effort to make my diet more vegetable than animal, mostly for health reasons. And I buy eggs from my neighbor, whose chickens free-roam his back yard. Some days I put skim milk on my breakfast cereal; other days it’s soy milk. I also try to limit the amount of refined sugars and processed foods in my diet. I also go out of my way to support local farmers. I ride my bike to work when I can. I mostly drink water, out of the tap (but I live in Utah where it also tastes good; I grew up in So. Cal. where it was pretty nasty).

Anyway, I applaud your move toward a more vegetable diet John, and I admire folks like Chandelle who can fully live off a vegetable diet (it certainly is much healthier to do so).

By: John

John — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:25:52 +0000

hmmmm. freakonomics.

Also, got those comments for you, Chandelle. Thank you for engaging this issue head on. We definitely have different approaches, but I think they are both worth exploring, and that we may reach more people between us.

By: John

John — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:25:36 +0000

leisurelyviking, I really appreciate your comment. I follow the freakanomics blog, which is constantly pointing out the complexities of the systems we live in and some of the counterintuitive or unintended consequences of our actions. I think that this contributes to why I have a hard time drawing ethical lines on issues like this, and it encourages me to devote more effort to trying to understand these interactions.

By: Chandelle

Chandelle — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:09:07 +0000

Melissa, you’re right, and that’s why I made it clear in my comments that I’m referring to those living in privileged countries such as our own. But even from the point of view of poverty in the Western world, veg*nism has validity. Plant foods that should make up the bulk of a healthy diet – vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds, etc. – are the cheapest foods almost anywhere, and also some of the easiest to obtain locally.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:55:17 +0000

Okay, I’m going to probably freak everyone out here, but I have to say this: being vegetarian as a choice is a sign of a certain level of affluence. When you can CHOOSE not to eat something, for whatever reason, you’re already better off than more than half the world.
Am I opposed to vegetarian/veganism? Heck no. I was a vegan for 2 years, and a veg-head for 10. But then I realized that others didn’t have the choices I do. And while vegan, I missed cheese. And as a vegetarian, I missed deer…and elk….and antelope. (Hey, I’m a Montana girl!).

By: leisurelyviking

leisurelyviking — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:51:53 +0000

As a biology enthusiast, I’ve come to appreciate the balances inherent in ecosystems and the roles humans play in maintaining and upsetting those balances. I suppose this relates to Chandelle’s principle that it is ethical to take life only when saving other life. As we have replaced the top predators in many ecosystems, prey (like deer and elk) have become so abundant in places that areas once covered by aspen and willow are now grasslands because all the seedlings are eaten by herbivores. For reasons like this, I think hunting can be good because it brings us closer to that balance. Also, most domesticated plants and animals have coevolved with humans for millenia- because these species are attractive to humans as food and companions, they leave more surviving offspring, so it’s actually evolutionarily advantageous to be a really excellent type of human food. I work in a lab studying the ecology of invasive species, in particular a snail that clogs up renewable power generation equipment and outcompetes a lot of native species to become the dominant benthic invertebrate. I don’t feel bad about killing the snails after experiments. I do feel bad about euthanizing the trout I sometimes use to look at effects of species interactions, even though I believe the research is important. I’m glad I do, and I think the act of killing itself should always feel wrong, even if it’s for a good purpose. As long as you can minimize pain, though, I think that killing animals is often necessary and not inherently less ethical than killing plants. I do think that it’s important to minimize our impact on the earth, and if I were to become vegetarian, it would be for that reason (transfer of energy from one trophic level to another is about 10% efficient, so it takes about 10x as much land for you to eat meat as it does for you to eat plants).

By: Chandelle

Chandelle — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:42:53 +0000

I absolutely agree with what you’ve said, Isaac. I encourage people to make small changes, to do what they can, to educate themselves – I support the idea that every little bit counts. But I don’t believe the label of “vegetarian” applies to this practice. Surely people can commit to reducing meat in their diet, for whatever reason, without attaching a label to it that just confuses it for everyone. I understand the desire to set oneself apart from a meat-centric environment, but it’s simple enough to say, “I don’t eat meat very often,” or “I’m moving toward a vegetarian diet,” rather than saying, “I’m a vegetarian, except I eat meat once a week, and at restaurants, and on holidays, and basically whenever it’s convenient or pleasurable for me.” It’s really kind of disrespectful to, and perhaps ignorant of, the actual commitment. I know a lot of vegetarians who “slip” and sometimes eat meat, but they still have the commitment. That’s different from saying, “I’m a vegetarian but I eat meat, and I don’t see a problem with it, and I don’t intend to stop.”

By: Isaac

Isaac — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:52:59 +0000

What I think some people miss is that dramatic change over large demographics is almost always incremental. There may be moments of sea change and dramatic swings in attitudes at moments of crisis, but otherwise it’s a series of baby steps. When one looks at the advice of someone like Bittman (and others)–first, they are trying to solve a specific problem. Second, the advice is still good advice for incremental change, even if they don’t mean it. The article I linked at the beginning of this discussion is his suggestion for how to not be so meat-centric. Things like not building the meal around meat are literally revolutionary for some people. But it’s also an amazing first step. If instead of steak, I am making bean stew which includes prosciutto, I can easily say “geeze, I don’t even really need the prosciutto” because the meal is otherwise vegetables than to say “I’m going to get rid of the bulk of my meal.” I think these things are important. Some people have the drive, desire, and ability to change over night–but most people change with incremental progress.

By: xJane

xJane — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:11:03 +0000

DH & I often eat vegetarian without consciously seeking it out. Sometimes I will say that I or we “try” to be vegetarian, to imply that we don’t always eat vegetarianly, but mostly do. I wonder if, like “locovore,” which implies a preference for closer rather than farther, “vegevore” might better describe this.

I sympathize with Chandelle’s desire for the labels to mean something, and totally get where she’s coming from (godmatic or not , but at the same time, think that most people would benefit from a mostly rather than a totally vegetarian diet.

‘Course, that said, I’m in Germany right now where everything is made of meat. I think today’s brunch was the first meal I’ve had since I got here that could be called close to vegetarian: a mozzarella sandwich with mayo. But I also know that it’s all local.

By: John

John — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:16:27 +0000

Thanks, Chandelle, for sharing your boundaries so clearly. I admire your level of self-awareness and how carefully you’ve thought this through. This is a question that I’ve returned to again and again. I’ve definitely come to my own set of conclusions that I think are ultimately more cynical and fatalistic (compared with you, but maybe more idealistic when compared to most Westerners) about my complicity and participation in this omnivorous, capitalist, humanist, classist, racist, sexist society I am a part of.