On fables, food, fashion, and feeling fabulous.

I am a vegan.

When I tell people this I usually encounter raised eyebrows as if I just told them that I am a Scientologist or a member of the Flat Earth Society. But, honestly, I don't know what all the fuss is about. While I acknowledge that humans have eaten animals throughout history, to me, being a vegan today doesn't feel strange or extreme at all. In fact, it feels totally reasonable.

Just like most children who grew up in Colorado, I spent many a snowy winter afternoon reading and watching movies. These beloved stories taught me many things, particularly about animals and how they should be treated. The Jungle Book, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin all taught me the value and joy of animal companionship. From Charlotte's Web and The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck I learned that farm animals are sentient beings who can experience joy, fear, and sorrow. From Bambi and The Fox and the Hound, I learned that hunting is barbaric and wild animals should be left to live out their lives without human interference. 101 Dalmatians taught me that only evil crazy ladies wear fur. Dumbo taught me that circuses are no fun for animals. And Free Willy taught me that aquariums aren't either.  

After all of this, is it really so strange to not want to use animals for food or fashion or entertainment?

I find it very interesting that adults avoid telling young children where meat comes from so as to avoid discouraging them from eating it. As Harvey Diamond once said, "Put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car." In other words, perhaps eating meat is not so instinctual after all? Perhaps we do it purely because that is what we have been taught. Perhaps it is all a matter of tradition or habit or convenience.

If it was instinctual, you would think it wouldn't bother us so much. When we do eventually discover where our meat comes from, we use the term "pork" instead of "pig" and "beef" instead of "cow" to make it easier to cognitively assimilate loving animals (those creatures that are alive) and also loving meat (those creatures that are dead). We try to ignore the facts about factory farming. We try to forget that we are eating something that once had a family. That had a personality. That felt pain. We imagine happy cows living out their lives in green meadows until they are humanely killed (whatever that means). We are fooling ourselves. 

So this brings me to my three current reasons for going vegan. 

1. Moral

I am a vegan because I cannot justify the ideology that the lives of humans are more valuable than the lives of animals. In the words of Plutarch, Eminent Greek moral philosopher and biographer (A.D 46- 120),

“Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? 

For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?… 

It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless, tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like tinting of their flesh, not the persuasiveness of their harmonious voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may be found in the poor wretches.  

No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being.”

In short, I can sleep better at night knowing that my body is not a graveyard. 

2. Environmental & Social

I am a vegan because raising animals for food results in enormous resource wastage and environmental destruction. This awesome infographic pretty much sums it up. 

I can't support a system in which tons of grain is fed to livestock while people go hungry. Fact: Britain continued to import grain from Ethiopia to feed livestock during one of their worst ever recorded famines in 1984. This cannot go on.

3. Health

I am a vegan because it makes me feel great. I have done a significant amount of reading and documentary watching around the health benefits of well planned veganism (check out The China Study or Forks Over Knives, if you're interested) and I am pretty convinced. While I am not a doctor or a nutritionist, and do not have the expertise to say whether the scientific claims behind these arguments are valid, I can say that after changing my diet I feel so much better. I have more energy. I can run farther. I handle stress better. I am happier. That's good enough for me.  

So, after I explain my thought process, people often ask me what I eat. My answer? "Smoothies, muffins, cereal, sandwiches, soup, salads, pizza, pasta, burgers, hot dogs, casseroles, risotto, sorbet, cupcakes, pie... The same things that you eat, but without the animal products." (If you want specifics and recipes check out my Pinterest boards. I promise I have collected some gems!).

I recognise that meat and dairy can be delicious. Most of us who have been carnivorous at one time or another can agree that cheese and bacon taste awesome. But, as a conscious person, I am not willing let my taste buds determine my way of being in the world. I'm sure the flesh of a Jack Russell would also taste delicious smothered in barbecue sauce. Human fingers grilled and dipped in mustard would probably be even better. But, of course, we all make moral judgements to abstain from these potentially tasty "foods." We decide what is, and is not, appropriate to consume based on a plethora of social and ethical concerns. As humans, we have been blessed with the power of reason, and the bottom line is, given the facts, I cannot hold the use of animals for food, fashion, or entertainment as reasonable. 

I am doing good things for my body, for my fellow earthlings, and for the environment. I am doing as little harm as possible, and I feel fabulous. Now tell me, what is unnatural or extreme about that?

♥ Z

Picking up the pieces...

Hello again, everyone! It's been a while. A semester, to be precise. While I thought I could multi-task like a boss (balancing varsity, choir, volunteering, tutoring, and regular blogging, along with the rest of my life) it turns out getting a Master's degree is quite a lot of work. I didn't even have time to see The Lorax. Sad.

However, I did have a productive semester. I completed half of my coursework with distinctions (whew!), sang in six concerts with the Cape Town Youth Choir, and marked more second year Poverty, Development, and Globalisation essays, tests, and assignments than I ever want to think about again. It was busy, but good. Life was good. I learned some economics. I had my passion for health and environmental sociology reignited. I made some changes in my life that I am very proud of. I started running. I went vegan. Yes, fully vegan. More on that journey to come... But for now I will just say, I feel great. Sadly, my Project 365, Thankful Thursdays, and learning Xhosa fell by the wayside for now. But, I have finally started to learn Italian (which reminds me that today is Sunday, or "Italian Day," or the day of the week when my Italian boyfriend only speaks to me in Italian. Splendido!). 

I wish I could say I will have more time to post in the coming months but I know that this semester will be just as hectic as the first (if not more so -- Human Sciences Research Council internship in the pipeline -- fingers crossed!).

Also, I have decided to silence the voice in my head that has a tendency to take that reprimanding tone ("You haven't posted in three months? You must be really bad at following through on your goals..."). I have come to realise that sporadic posts are just fine and certainly not a legitimate reason for stress or guilt. I do not want to think of blogging as a scheduled chore, like doing the laundry ("That reminds me, you haven't done the laundry.")...  

However, jokes aside, when horrific things happen like they did this week in Aurora, just a few miles from my childhood home, I get a feeling in the pit of my stomach as though I am going to burst unless I get my mind around it. I obsess. I have nightmares. In this, I know I'm not alone. This is why I need this blog. I need to avoid the cold paralysing grip of anxiety and paranoia which naturally follow from tragedies such as these. I need to be able to start a dialogue and to be reminded that, for the most part, people are good and trustworthy. I need to remember that disturbed people may act in disturbing ways, that this has always been the case, and it is not a sign of the dissolution of society as we know it. I need to grieve in context.

A friend of mine from Berkeley posted this on facebook on Friday:

We moved to Colorado just a year or so after the Columbine High School massacre; post-shootings, high schools and middle schools all throughout the state began employing metal detectors, all students were prohibited from wearing trench coats and sagging/baggy clothing, gun control measures were taken via federal and state legislation, and bullying and adolescent/teenage psychopathy stood at the forefront of issues that were *finally* being acknowledged and addressed. Over a decade later, a 24-year old med school student and gunman kills 12 people in a Colorado movie theater. A pre-meditated killing, as the perp entered the premises, gas canister in one hand, firearm in the other, equipped with a bulletproof vest and gas mask. Where do we go from here? What more can we control and regulate? Where and how else shall we be imposing security precautions? What the hell is going on?

What the hell is going on? While control and regulation is essential to security, perhaps we need to take a long hard look at the underlying social currents permeating the societies in which we live. The acceptance and glorification of violence in many spheres, the use of force rather than diplomacy, the epidemic of entitlement, the widespread obsession with fantasy. Perhaps none of these things have anything to do with what happened in the theatre that night, but all deserve further attention. While I must grieve in context, I must also try to understand within the context.

So to close, I wish to express my deepest sorrow and send wishes for comfort and peace to the families and friends of the victims while they pick up the pieces in the aftermath of this tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.

♥ Z