Look, a vegan!!

A friend posted on facebook that he was trying a vegan diet. One of his friends commented:

Dude!! Tell me u r not going vegan!!! First of all as a Texan, that makes u a disgrace. Secondly, go online and in real life and look at vegans. Have u really seen any that look “healthy”?!?! Our teeth r meant for meat and veggies, not just veggies!! ;)

Now, I was vegan for 4 years, and have been a vegetarian for 12. If anyone is looking to build a vegetarian/vegan line-up to see how incredibly weak we are, let me know. I’m available, and I can pick up a fridge.

What really surprises me about this is insinuating that vegans are a rare breed, like Big Foot. “Look up the Loch Ness monster on the internet!” “Look up what gays are on the internet!” “Look up what redheads are on the internet!”

This friend and I live in NYC. Everyone’s around you. Every opinion, lifestyle… to think you’d have to look anything “up” is insanity. Vegans aren’t lying on our bedroom floors, too tired to get up. We actually participate in society, just like pediatricians, drug lords, teachers, chimney sweeps, dummies. (Wait, they all could be vegan, too!)

Finally, this guy has no idea why people go vegetarian or vegan. In some cases it’s for medical reasons. Sometimes, it’s for environmental concerns. Sometimes people just don’t want to eat a carcass. To insinuate that makes someone a “disgrace…” Well, I don’t even have to comment on that.

Now, I know I’m being a voyeur into two friend’s conversation, albeit it a public conversation, but that’s not an isolated sentiment. I’ve heard it too many times, and it’s just dumb.

Animal flesh

I became a vegan in December, 2000.  I did it because:

  1. Around age 13, I stopped believing in God.  If God was written off, so was Heaven, Hell, the idea of a soul, and all that stuff Jesus did was just really good magic.  So, this life is our only go-round on the ferris wheel.  This is our only play.  We’ve got one shot at this target.  <Insert your own cliche.>

    Inevitably, things changed: Daydreaming during mass became a competitive sport.  I vowed to never drink because I didn’t want to lose one night to a black out or one day to a hangover.  I forced myself to acknowledge that humans aren’t special.  We eat, shit, fuck, and are vain like any colorful peacock or horny great white shark. (I’ve also always thought that animals are smarter and more sensitive than we think they are, but that’s because I’m generally overly-sensitive, myself.  Like a foreskin.)
  2. I learned about how the food industry in the US treats animals to get their by-products.  It only takes a few books or movies (Fast Food Nation, Food Inc, Omnivore’s Dilema, PETA’s website) to shock anyone with a stitch of empathy. Agriculture is an industry concerned about revenues like any other, so animals are easiest considered a soul-less product (like a car or iPhone) to allow the company to maximize output while minimizing cost.  It leads to conditions where animals are mutilated so they don’t peck themselves to death out of boredom. They are fed calorie-rich corn their system, literally, can’t digest they are kept on a steady antibiotic supplement so they don’t die from frothy, stomach infections.  Teats get so raw from milking, puss makes it into your milkshake.  Slaughter conditions (especially in the US) are so driven by the volume of product output, animals suffer unnecessarily, mistakes are made and our food supply is peppered with sexy additives like ecoli and salmonella. 
  3. I moved to NYC. It wasn’t feasible to become a vegetarian while growing up on a steady stream of Jamón Serrano, Paella Valenciana and Camarones al Ajillo.  Then there was college in Boston, and I’d eat everything and anything to get through a chemical engineering thermodynamics problem set at 4am.  It wasn’t until I moved to NYC’s liberal, vegan-friendly streets that I was ready.

My decision has only since been bolstered by additional findings like high mercury levels in fish, the incredible amount of greenhouse gasses raising livestock creates (much more than what we pump out with our transportation), how raising animals for slaughter heightens food shortages where perfectly good nutrition is shoved down a turkey’s throat to quickly fatten him up. The argument for giving up animals and their by-products is only going to get more strong as global resources are stretched and (hopefully) more people are educated about the industry. 

I was strict vegan for three years, and I had more energy than when I was tossing down flesh.  Dairy and eggs have since made their way back into my system - being staffed on a consulting project in Dallas, TX for over a year will do that.  I do float back to veganism from vegetarianism for spells and I buy organic, free range.  I still keep a vegan life with regards to clothes and my ablution products, except that night creme that’s made from human stem cells. 

I don’t expect anyone else to make the choices I’ve made.  You can toast god with a soft merlot while cutting up veal piccata across the table from me, and it won’t change how upbeat my tweets will be about the evening.  (There was only once I ran to the bathroom to vomit: I was at a table with eight people tearing apart lobsters and the animals’ juices were flying everywhere like we were at a water park.)

What does bother me, though, is that people don’t understand there is an animal on their plate, or that there is an egg from an animal in their omelete they only ate half of.  Americans, in particular, like to ignore that dimension.  

When I recently posted this photo of an NYC street fair on instagram, the comments were pretty unanimous: “Gross. A street fair is no place for that.”  I disagree.  I think we need more transparency.  Let’s not hide where our food comes from; that can only lead to indifference.  Let’s not ignore the fact that something with eyes is in that fried chicken.

With all of that being said, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is my new hero.  He has used his world-wide platform to bring attention to that delta between the animal in a farm and the cheeseburger on your plate.  In a report on Fortune today, he spelled out why he is looking to only eat meat he, himself, has killed: 

To start, let me give you some background on what I’m doing. Every year in recent memory, I’ve taken on a personal challenge — something to learn about the world, expand my interests and teach myself greater discipline. I spend almost all of my time building Facebook, so these personal challenges are all things I wouldn’t normally have the chance to do if I didn’t take the time.

Last year, for example, my personal challenge was to learn Chinese. I blocked out an hour every day to study and it has been an amazing experience so far. I’ve always found learning new languages challenging, so I wanted to jump in and try to learn a hard one. It has been a very humbling experience. With language, there’s no way to just “figure it out” like you can with other problems — you just need to practice and practice. The experience of learning Mandarin has also led me to travel to China, learn about its culture and history, and meet a lot of new interesting people.

This year, my personal challenge is around being thankful for the food I have to eat. I think many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat, so my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that and being thankful for what I have. This year I’ve basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I’m eating is from animals I’ve killed myself. So far, this has been a good experience. I’m eating a lot healthier foods and I’ve learned a lot about sustainable farming and raising of animals.

I started thinking about this last year when I had a pig roast at my house. A bunch of people told me that even though they loved eating pork, they really didn’t want to think about the fact that the pig used to be alive. That just seemed irresponsible to me. I don’t have an issue with anything people choose to eat, but I do think they should take responsibility and be thankful for what they eat rather than trying to ignore where it came from.

Bravo, Mark.  Natalie Portman and Hugh Jackman have put a “pretty face on veganism.”  I’m so happy someone’s stepped up to put a “reality-check face on our food sources.”  It’s not as glamorous a title—it’s not even a title—but this dimension of the conversation can impact people more than a glossy photo of a pretty person in a tabloid.   

Educate yourself.  You’ll be moved to change… and slit some throats for dinner.