I’ve had a hard time explaining my diet to people lately. As recently as a month ago, there was a unique and convenient word that conveyed exactly what I ate, or rather, what I didn’t eat: Vegan. “I’m Vegan,” I’d say, and leave it at that. Once in a rare while, people weren’t familiar with that word. “It’s like a vegetarian,” I’d explain, “only I don’t eat eggs or dairy.” This wasn’t the end of the conversation. Invariably, if they had never heard of veganism, this response would provoke a series of increasingly incredulous questions.
“No eggs or dairy?”
“No.”
“Honey?”
“No.”
“You don’t even eat honey?”
“No.”
“Huh.” Pause. “Do you wear leather?”
“I don’t use anything that comes from an animal.”
“You don’t eat cheese?”
“Nope.”
“Ice cream? How can you not eat ice cream?!”
And so on.
It got to the point where, like a movie you’ve seen a million times, I could mouth the words of their lines. I originally went vegan because I became a vegetarian for animal rights reasons at the age of 15 and realized I could do more. As time went on, I recognized the health and ecological benefits of this diet. As I grew up, I saw more and more benefits of eating this way and, essentially, got stuck in my ways.
***
It all started with a cookie. Like most things do.
One night, I came home to find my roommates snacking on something. It was later revealed to be a bag of cookies one of my roommates’ mothers had sent. Homemade chocolate chip cookies.
At this point in the story, I have to pause and say that I never really missed anything. Not pizza, not ice cream, not cheese. Nothing. The only thing I really missed was being able to share things with people. I missed being able to walk into a restaurant and just order what looked good. I missed being able to partake when someone said in ecstasy, “Oooh. You’ve GOT to try this.”
That said, I wasn’t about to give up on 12 years of veganism for a chocolate chip cookie.
Well, I guess I should clarify. It’s impossible to say that over the course of the years, I haven’t eaten any animal products, whether purposefully or accidentally.
So there were these chocolate chip cookies. And I thought to myself about my roommate’s mother. That I had met her. That she was a kind woman. That these cookies were made with love. (She had sent them in a care package. How much more love could they have been made with?) And I thought, I don’t really know that my enjoying this cookie is significantly contributing to the amount of animal suffering in this world.
Now, I recognize that this is a poor philosophical argument. You could even say that it is not an argument at all, but rather a justification.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that I’m beginning to realize that universalist ethics just do not reflect the nature of the world we live in. I’m trying to embrace the gray area more, and part of that means that I have morals as a general rule that can afford some breaking from time to time, depending on the circumstances.
I first started considering this when I had thought about spending time in the less developed world. I imagined myself at a tribal feast, my presence being celebrated by the locals, and being handed, say, a leg of the lamb that they had just slaughtered in my honor. How could I refuse that?
The closet developed world analogue to this situation occurred while I was living in France. One of my teaching colleagues invited me over to dinner and, though she knew I was vegan, offered me a piece of cheese. When I declined, she couldn’t understand. Predictably, not eating cheese is anathema to the French. (In fact, the word for “vegan” is only one letter different from the word for “vegetarian,” and when spoken quickly, sounds nearly identical. Additionally, when you order something without meat in a restaurant, it comes with fish on it.) “Really?” she asked, her tone betraying her sense of insult at my refusal. “I know where this came from. I know the man who sold it to me well. I say ‘tu’ [the informal form of ‘you’] to him. I’ve seen the animal that this cheese came from.” I had to admit that this cheese was more ecologically sound than, say, heating up a veggie burger from a processed conglomeration of soy beans, shipped all over hell to get first to the market, then to my plate. Still, I wasn’t ready to give up the way I had eaten the whole of my adult life.
There has been a push lately to demote the organic label on our produce in favor of local products. (Of course, both is better, but the current wisdom is ostensibly that if you can only have one, make it local.) There are a great deal of environmental factors that contribute to this conclusion, but I’m beginning to see the sense in it. Especially as it relates to local dairy. The other night, I made an experimental pasta dish that relied on a great deal of butter. (Now, let me be the first to admit that vegan butter, which is essentially solidified olive oil, is no replacement for real butter.) I had chosen a non-hydrogenated vegan butter, but realized that if my choices were between the chemically derived yellow goo I often use and, say, a stick of butter from a local dairy, the choice wouldn’t be as black and white as it has always been for me.
Changing your diet is a scary thing. I’ve defined myself for a lot of my life in terms of what I reject. I don’t eat meat, I don’t eat dairy. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t do drugs. I don’t. I don’t.
I don’t know that I’m ready to completely take the plunge. Though I sometimes eat things that contain dairy, I could never see myself eating meat, even local meat. Even if it’s ecologically sound, it’s too emotional a process for me. I still haven’t purposefully bought anything that wasn’t vegan, but sometimes I’ll partake in something someone else makes. I’m aware that this doesn’t make it any better than if I bought it myself, but I’m just not there yet.
And sometimes I think I don’t even want to be there. I still have a heart for animal rights. I still think eating animals is wrong. I still cringe at the idea of eating meat. I still believe that animals shouldn’t be commodified.
But anymore, it’s hard to point the finger at the greatest harm. I have to acknowledge that I contribute to the suffering of the world in many ways. Even when I eat vegan, I sometimes drive a car. I fly in airplanes. I know that even at my best, my diet–indeed, my very way of life–is not sustainable. I know that I participate in a culture of disastrous environmental practices, and that I live in one of, if not single worst offending countries on earth.
So I suppose the only conclusion is to do what I can and be intentional about what I am doing.
Maybe I’ll have a cookie while I’m pondering all of this.
All Are Welcome: Preparing the Table 