Lifestyle Q&A

When someone finds out that I’m vegan, I’m often met with a slew of questions on a variety of topics.  Here are some questions I’ve heard over the years and my answers regarding a vegan lifestyle & ethics.

Lifestyle

My family is scared of vegan food.  I don’t think they’ll eat it.  What should I do?

It’s interesting how intimidated people can be by the idea of “vegan food.”  I’ve even heard people say that they’ve never had “vegan food” before.  “Vegan food” is fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.  When we take it out of the box, we begin to realize that “vegan food” is food we already know and love.  It’s bananas and apples, green beans and rice.  Once we demystify it, we realize we all eat “vegan food” everyday, regardless of if or if not we’re vegan!

If your family is intimidated by foods that seem unfamiliar, how about making some simple changes to foods you’re already eating?

• If your family enjoys spaghetti, saute lots of vegetables like onions, garlic, broccoli, and red bell pepper, cover them in marinara, and then use that to top your favorite pasta, preferably whole wheat.
• If your family loves tacos, use black, pinto, or garbanzo beans in lieu of meat, and top it with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and guacamole or avocado.
• In your chili, use cooked lentils in place of ground beef.
• Do you have some soup lovers in your house?  It’s easy to make a simple soup with vegetable broth and your favorite bite-sized vegetables.  Then add in beans or lentils.  Serve it with some crusty bread.
• Even the classic peanut butter and jelly is vegan!

I don’t have time to cook healthy.  How do I fit it in?

We hear all the time about how busy we all are, how we’re always going, going, going.  In actuality, I don’t think having time to cook is the issue.  I think priorities and planning are the issues.  If healthy eating is truly a priority, we will make time for it; if it isn’t, all the time in the world wouldn’t change that.

Ways to fit in healthy cooking when time is short include:

• Making a big pot of soup on Sunday that lasts throughout the week for lunches.
• Making rice after dinner while relaxing with the family on the couch, in preparation for dinner the next night.
• When coming home from the grocery store, taking fifteen minutes and chopping vegetables for that week’s meals and snacks.
• When making something for lunch that uses half or a quarter of an onion, chopping the entire onion so that the rest will be ready when you need it later.

What could be more important than keeping our families healthy and giving our children the tools they’ll need for life-long vitality?

I love big family Thanksgivings, and I hate to miss out on those fun traditions.  How can I enjoy Thanksgiving and be vegan?

Of course, all of us enjoy traditions and being close to loved ones.  There’s no reason that being vegan and being close to those near and dear at the holidays have to be mutually exclusive.  I have three suggestions in terms of enjoying the holidays with non-vegetarians.

First, consider the centerpiece of your plate.  While holidays like Thanksgiving seem to be all about a bird’s carcass, what people really like is a centerpiece to unveil.  How about other seasonal centerpieces like a stuffed acorn squash or Portobello mushrooms in a puff pastry and topped with mushroom gravy?

Second, and this goes along with the first, I’d recommend bringing at least a couple of dishes to share.  Thanksgiving is a great time to joyfully show people the bounty that is living and eating as a vegan.  It normalizes vegan food—sweet potatoes, green beans, mashed potatoes are all Thanksgiving favorites that can easily be made without any animal products.  With that said, we have to take care of ourselves at the holidays in terms of food.  Rather than depending on others to make sides, by bringing our own food with us, we can be assured that there are offerings there for us.

Third, make new traditions.  People have a tendency to cling to memories and traditions and think that it has to be done the way it always has been done.  However, it’s really fun to add new traditions to the mix.  See if any vegetarian or vegan restaurants in your area are having Thanksgiving meals in the days leading up to the holiday.  Animal sanctuaries often have events celebrating the turkeys instead of consuming them, and that is a great place to feel reinvigorated and thankful at a time when it can be easy to be sad about the plight of the millions of birds dying for dinners.

For my job I often wind up in other cities eating at restaurants.  How can I be vegan in non-vegetarian restaurants?

If you have a choice in the restaurants you’re frequenting, some cuisines generally have better options than others.

• At a Mexican restaurant, a black bean burrito with salsa, guacamole, lettuce, and rice is a good choice.  (Be sure to check on the broth the rice was cooked in and if the beans include lard.)
• At an Italian restaurant, good choices include bruschetta and pasta with marinara sauce and lots of vegetables.
• Indian restaurants generally have several vegetarian choices that can be made without ghee (clarified butter).
• Thai and Chinese restaurants are also nice choices.  (Just ask about fish sauce and oyster sauce being omitted.)
• Even if you end up at a diner or steak place, talk with your server about your needs, and usually something can be put together like a salad with beans or a baked potato and steamed vegetables.

What’s the point in being vegan when there’s so much we can’t control?  If we go to a restaurant, they might use butter when they sauté vegetables or lard in their beans and we’d never know.  What’s the point in trying?

Think about it like this, what if you hit a cat while she was crossing the street?  It was an accident.  It was not your intention, but it happened.  Does that mean you should give up and just start aiming for cats everywhere you drive?  Of course not!  Colleen Patrick-Goudreau says, “Don’t do nothing because you can’t do everything.”  We can’t do everything, but let’s be honest and ask ourselves, “What can I do?”  And let’s do it.

The point of being vegan is not to be perfect or pure.  It’s to reduce suffering.  When I go into a restaurant, I’m very clear (and friendly, of course) with the servers.  I let them know that I’m vegan and what that means, and I ask a lot of questions.  I’d certainly hope that restaurants would be diligent about their customers’ specific needs, whether it’s because a customer has a need based on health, allergies, or ethics.  I find out how they cook their rice, their beans, how they sauté their vegetables, and if their chana masala contains ghee.

But you know what?  If unbeknownst to me, some ghee got into my chana masala in the kitchen accidentally, and I never knew and I never found out, I would hardly say that my being vegan wasn’t worth it.  It’s not as if that chef stole my veganity!    I’m vegan, because I want to reduce suffering.  I’m vegan, because I don’t want to take part in the harm of others.  I do what I can.  If I didn’t go vegan just because somewhere down the line something “not vegan” might cross my path, well, I think I’d really be missing out.

My friend teases me for going vegetarian, because he said I used to eat meat with no issue.  He doesn’t understand why I’ve changed.  What should I say?

It’s a human tendency to want to compartmentalize people.  We see this with politicians.  They’re expected to have the same views and the same ideas, and if they change, well, the media jumps on it.  They show that the politician said something in opposition twenty years ago, and boy, do they hear it.  In actuality, isn’t the point of living that we continue learning and growing?  We get new ideas, and we’re introduced to new concepts, and we change our minds.  Is there a point along the way where we’re supposed to decide who we are and just stop?  I don’t think so.  What a boring and unsatisfying existence that would be!

The next time your friend teases you, ask him if he’d feel the same way if you were a smoker who stopped smoking.  You used to smoke, does that mean you have to continue doing it forever, even in the face of all that we know about the harmful long-term effects of smoking?  The cancer that it causes and the way it shortens your life?  I think it takes a truly present person to not only be open to hearing information that’s in opposition to the way that we’ve been raised but also has the follow through to change habits and act on that information.

Ethics

What if you were on a deserted island, would you eat animals then?

To my mind, the question of what a person would or would not do in a dire situation has nothing to do with what we can do today.  I live my life in the here and now, not based on what I may or may not have to do in some kind of “what if” scenario.  For example, there was a situation many years ago in which people in a plane crash on icy mountains were forced to cannibalism, eating the bodies of fellow passengers.  Should we do the same because there were people somewhere at some point who were forced to make that difficult decision?  Of course not.

But in answer to your question, would I eat animals if I were on a deserted island?  I don’t know.  I’d like to think that if there are animals on this imaginary deserted island, those animals are likely eating plant foods.  Maybe I’d just follow them around and eat what they are eating.

As often as this question comes up, I’ve never met any vegan who has accidentally wound up on a deserted island.  So I’ll focus on the here and now.  Today I have a bounty of plant foods that are filling and prevalent, and those are what I choose to eat.

What about plants?  They feel pain.

Plants don’t have central nervous systems, pain receptors, or nerves.  However, we know with absolute certainty that animals DO have all of the above and feel pain when they are killed.  Therefore, I’ll continue putting my compassion where it is most definitely deserved.

When I hear this question, I can’t help but wonder how genuine a person’s concern is for plants.  I mean, do they really think it’s the same thing to mow the lawn or cut a head of lettuce as to cut the head off of a dog?  But if there actually are people out there laying awake worried about plants, they should still go vegan.  To feed plants to animals, who eat considerably more than humans do, it means a lot more plants are used in the process.  It takes sixteen pounds of grain and soybeans to produce one pound of beef.

Finally, I think this question trivializes the pain of the animals and belittles our concern.  If there was news about a war and someone spoke up and said, “But what about the cacti that are dying when bombs are dropped? They feel pain too,” everyone would know immediately that it’s a silly comparison.  Just because plants react to their environment does not make their experience equal to that of a pig being slaughtered in a slaughterhouse.

Don’t you think vegans are hypocrites?  I mean, small animals and bugs are killed in the processing of plants.

It is an unfortunate truth that when I drive or walk, bugs are killed.  When I was in high school, I hit a dog on the freeway who ran in front of my car.  And in the harvesting of plants that I eat, bugs and small animals are killed in the production and harvesting.  It is not a perfect world, and with it, I am imperfect.  All I can do is reduce suffering where I can.

That said, even with the small animals/bugs who are killed in the processing of plants, many more are killed in animal agriculture.  First, ten billion animals are killed in the U.S. alone every year for human consumption.  That number goes to 45 billion when sea life is included.  Three million wild animals are then killed to protect grazing livestock animals.  About 70% of the grain grown in the U.S. is fed to animals.  When it is harvested, many more small animals/bugs are killed in the processing.  Finally, with the excess of manure and urine of raising vast amounts of animals, the waterways become polluted, killing birds and fish.  Eating a diet that includes the consumption of meat means far more suffering than the consumption of only plants.

What’s wrong with eating eggs?  No animals died for them.

I can see how it seems that way.  Since female chickens naturally produce as eggs as a part of their monthly cycle, it seems like no animals would be harmed in that situation.  Unfortunately, that’s far from true.

Most egg laying chickens in animal agriculture spend their lives in cages stacked on top of each other with little to no access to the outdoors in spaces so small that they can’t spread a wing.  After the chickens are weak, sick, and/or not producing, they’re slaughtered.  Because of their bruised bodies, these are generally the chickens whose bodies end up in pot pies and soups.  Egg laying chickens are killed when their production declines, regardless of if they are cage-free, free range, organic, or whatever other marketing term is the darling of the day.  For a business to be profitable, it only makes sense to kill those animals who aren’t producing.

Also egg laying chickens come from hatcheries.  In these hatcheries, male chicks are useless because those chickens are bred to be smaller than ones used for meat.  Of course, male chicks don’t lay eggs, and so that means that 200 million chicks a year in the US alone are killed almost immediately by grinding them or being thrown into dumpsters, still alive and then crushed by other chicks on top of them.  While buying eggs may seem like it has no casualties, that is sadly far from true.

Do vegans eat honey?

Some argue that honey can be taken from bees without hurting them.  Some say that is not true.  To me, that’s not the point.  While honey for some may seem like a gray issue, to me, it’s not.  Honey is a product made by bees for bees.  Their secretions are used for their food and for their homes, and more than anything else, it’s not mine.  I think it’s easy in our culture to decide that animals are here for us.  If they have bodies, let’s eat them.  If they have secretions, let’s drink them.  If they have skin and fur, let’s wear it.  If they can fit in cages, let’s experiment on them.  If they can be trained, let’s put them in zoos or circuses.  To me veganism is a less entitled way of looking at life.  The bees didn’t decide their honey would be a wonderful sweetener for me.  They’re making it for themselves.

Plus, despite what people who are out to sell honey might say, honey is not a miracle food.  It’s a sweetener.  There are plenty of other sweeteners.  My favorite is agave syrup.  It has a similar texture and color, and it can be used in the same way.  Maple syrup also works well in baking.

We’ve been eating meat since forever.  Don’t you think it’s the natural thing to do?

While we could look at our digestive system and how it is more similar to an herbivore and quite dissimilar to a carnivore, or we could consider that lions for whom meat eating is natural don’t get heart disease and we do, what I find more interesting is the concern over something being “natural.”  It’s curious that when it comes to eating meat, suddenly people care about “natural” a whole lot more than I ever see them care about it in other areas.  I don’t see people moving out of their air-conditioned homes for fear it’s not natural, or shying away from flying in airplanes because it’s not natural, or avoiding surgeries because it’s not natural.  I think clinging to “it’s natural” where the topic of meat eating is concerned is a convenient excuse, because it’s a habit, and it seems easier to keep our habits than to break them.

That said, I don’t think there’s anything about agriculture today that is natural.  We breed animals by the billions.  We make it so that they grow larger and more quickly than they ever would have naturally.  We pack them close together with no sewage facilities for them, meaning the earth and water gets polluted and E coli from the feces washes into areas where our fruits and vegetables are growing.  Because the animals are in such close quarters, they are more prone to illness, and so we give them antibiotic-filled feed to slow down the incidence of illness.  Then after we’ve used massive amounts of grains and water, we kill them.  Everything we do—from breeding animals to kill them and all of the steps along the way—are completely unnatural.  Then when you consider how well we’re all doing: suffering at higher levels than ever of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, cancer, and type 2 diabetes, well, I’d say it’s not working out so well for us.

Finally, what I think is truly natural is compassion.  When we’re driving down the road and we see an animal has been killed in the street, we don’t start salivating like a carnivore would.  We feel sadness for that animal.  That is our natural reaction.  When we see cows or sheep with their young in the fields, it buoys our spirits, not our appetites.  There’s a reason slaughterhouses don’t have glass walls.  Seeing animals suffer pains us.  Seeing them thrive delights us.  That’s what is natural.

What’s wrong with eating organic and free-range chickens?

When people buy organic chickens, what they may not realize is that “organic” doesn’t mean an improved life for the chickens.  It only refers to the feed that the animal is consuming.  It means no pesticides have been used on that feed.  As for free range, more than anything, it’s a marketing term.  It can mean as little as there’s a window or door in the shed where the animals live.  There are no legal definitions and it’s not enforced.  Plus, it still means that the chickens are killed after just a few weeks, and most of the time they go to the same slaughterhouses as the chickens in factory farming.  Mostly, terms like “cage free” and “free range” gives the buyer a false sense of security about eating animals.  It removes some guilt, but it does very little for the chickens.

Don’t you think veganism is a diet for the privileged?

No, I don’t think that veganism is a diet for the privileged, and in fact, I think it’s quite the opposite.  The base of a “vegan diet,” is lentils, beans, fruits, and vegetables, nuts and seeds.  These are simple foods without fancy packaging and marketing campaigns.  Furthermore, by eating these simple and inexpensive foods, we also minimize our risk for a lot of diseases and ailments that those who are eating diets heavy in saturated fats and cholesterol battle.

What I think is privileged is having 10 billion land animals in our country alone who receive grains and water, while there are people elsewhere who are starving.  I don’t think breeding and feeding animals to kill them is our best use of resources.  Furthermore, animal products may seem cheap, because they are subsidized by the government.  We don’t pay what these products should actually cost.  However, when I see families who are struggling with high cholesterol and early onset adult diabetes and wondering if they can pay for either medication or “healthy food,” I think it’s really sad that the foods that seem cheapest have a much higher cost in the long run, and that cost is our health.

Finally, what always strikes me when I hear that veganism is a diet for the privileged, is that the only people I hear this question from are people who live in first world countries with access to grocery stores, people who have cable, and the internet, and cars…  When I’m told that veganism is a diet for the privileged by people who are privileged, I wonder why aren’t you going vegan then?  Out of solidarity with the disadvantaged?  I think this is an excuse.  I think this is a way to marginalize veganism, and furthermore, I don’t think it’s an accurate portrayal.  At all.

I know people who have very refined palates.  For them, eating things like foie gras and veal are elevated to another level.  Don’t you think it’s okay if people are truly connoisseurs?

No.  I think there is a higher ethic than being a foodie.  Furthermore, it hits me as a rather classist notion that when one person eats meat it’s somehow different than another simply because one is a so-called epicurean and one is not.

In the “making” of foie gras a metal pipe is shoved down the throat of a goose or duck, and he is force fed many times what he would naturally eat until his liver is swollen and diseased.  In the case of veal, calves generally live for 18-20 weeks in wooden crates so small that they can’t turn around, stretch their legs, or lie down comfortably.  Instead of their mother’s milk, they’re fed a liquid milk substitute, deficient in iron and fiber, designed to make the calves anemic and result in light-colored flesh.  Having a so-called refined palate does not legitimize this cruelty.

I encourage you to watch this video about foie gras production and decide for yourself if it mirrors your own values of compassion.

I know some people who pray over their meat before they eat it.  Don’t you think it makes it better when people really appreciate the animal and give thanks for sacrificing her life?

Think about this, if someone killed your companion animal at home and told you they said a prayer over your cat or dog’s body, would you feel better about it?  Would you think they did your dog a favor?  Of course not.  When you think about it, there’s something pretty self-congratulatory by acting like we’re helping animals when we pray over their dead bodies.  Just because it alleviates our guilt doesn’t mean we did the animals any favors.

It can be nice to think that the animal “sacrificed” his life, but in actuality, that animal’s life was taken from him.  No animal runs towards the slaughterhouse with his chin raised in the air.  Animals fight until their last breath.  Like all of us, their most basic desire is their desire to live.

When we feel uncomfortable with something, there is a habit to romanticize it in some way to make ourselves feel a bit more comfortable with it.  We may dress it up and call it “tradition,” or “our history,” or we might add an element of ritual, like a prayer, and act like we are part in a great “circle of life.”  However, the animals who are dying in this situation didn’t have any choice or say in the romanticizing of their deaths.  I think they would see it quite differently.  If they had a choice, they’d choose life every time.   To me, not eating them shows much more compassion and mercy in deeds than prayers uttered in words.

Vegans and animal activists spend all this time helping animals, but I think there are a lot more important things out there to worry about.  I mean, people are up in arms over chicks being ground up at some hatchery while (insert terrible thing here) is happening.  Why aren’t vegans out fighting for that instead?

One, our hearts are big enough to care about more than one thing at a time.  Most animal activists that I know aren’t helping animals to the exclusion of helping people.  Their love and compassion towards animals is an extension of their love and compassion in other areas of their lives.  The great thing about being vegan is that it’s something we can do every day that reduces the suffering of others.  We can do it while helping children.  We can do it while helping an elderly lady cross the street.  We can even do it while watching television.

Two, this idea about which causes are worthy of our attention says more about the person asking the question than it does anything else.  The subtext is, “Why don’t you care about something important?”  When I hear this question what it says to me is that the questioner sees little value in helping animals or in reducing their suffering.  It doesn’t make the cause less valid.  I think working towards the reduction of suffering is always worth doing, regardless of the victim.

Three, what is the alternative?  Fix one problem at a time based on perceived importance?  Figure out who is suffering the most, and then go from there?  Based on this need-hierarchy, if I saw a child at a school who didn’t have lunch, would I have to turn that child away without lunch because there’s someone in the world who is suffering more, someone who hasn’t eaten all week?  What’s the point in quantifying suffering?  I’m going to do what I can.  I’m going to reduce suffering where I can and because I can.  When we are quiet about injustice and abuse, the only one we are helping is the abuser.

Furthermore, when we look at this question realistically, why would caring about animals mean we don’t care about people?  That doesn’t even make sense.  Do other kinds of activists get this too?  Do people say to someone who is walking to raise money for breast cancer research, “Hey, why don’t you care about Autism?”  Or would they say to someone who is raising money for needy kids, “Hey, why don’t you care about the homeless?”  What about someone who volunteers as a Sunday school teacher?  Do people say to her, “Why don’t you care about the environment?”  It just doesn’t track.   Why get mad at people who are using their efforts to enact positive change?