2.9.11

The Vegan Police

After browsing around some websites & forums for new recipes I have been reminded of the existence of a certain type of people; The Vegan Police.

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(Found here, from Scott Pilgrim VS The World)

Like The Breastfeeding Police, The Immunisation Police, The Recycling Police & The Exercise Police, The Vegan Police are full of their own importance & drunk with the “knowledge” that they are right.

The Vegan Police take it upon themselves to educate you about what is & isn’t vegan. The Vegan Police like to chastise you for knowingly or unknowingly ingesting something “wrong”. The Vegan Police award themselves medals of honour depending on how long they have been “hard-core” vegans for (“20 years? That’s NOTHING! I was vegan since before I was even born. Since before my MOTHER WAS BORN MAN.”). The Vegan Police, in simple terms, are dicks who don’t do anything to promote the vegan cause but everything to harm it, put succinctly in this piece from veganoutreach.org;

“It is imperative for us to realize that if our veganism is a statement for animal liberation, veganism cannot be an exclusive, ego-boosting club. Rather, we must become the mainstream. Fostering the impression that “it’s so hard to be vegan – animal products are in everything,” and emphasizing animal products where the connection to animal suffering is tenuous, works against this by allowing most to ignore us and causing others to give up the whole process out of frustration.

The way veganism is presented to a potential vegan is of major importance. The attractive idea behind being a “vegan” is reducing one’s contribution to animal exploitation. Buying meat, eggs, and/or dairy creates animal suffering – animals will be raised and slaughtered specifically for these products. But if the by-products are not sold, they will be thrown out or given away. As more people stop eating animals, the by-products will naturally fade, so there is no real reason to force other people to worry about them in order to call themselves “vegan.”

We want a vegan world, not a vegan club.”

I don’t ever want to be a member of The Vegan Police, but at the same time, since something about them seems so clearly unhinged, I don’t want to piss them off too much either, which is why I hereby revise my dietary status from “Vegan” to “Vegetarian”. “Already?” I hear you ask, obviously bemused. “Already.” I solemnly reply, & here is why;

Yesterday, I was asked a question that I was never asked in all my time as a “hard-core” vegan, & it was whether or not I would eat eggs from pet chickens, not only pet chickens which I had seen with my own eyes, as well as their pen & the way they are kept, but chickens that we used to keep ourselves. Our very own chooks which we had to rehome when we moved, their new owner had swapped the Mr some eggs for some Spinach, Broccoli & whatnot.

Of course I would. My whole argument for a vegan diet is not to eat things that I wouldn’t be willing to go out & get for myself, so saying I wouldn’t eat eggs from the very same chooks that I used to take Punk out to see while we collected their eggs… that wouldn’t make much sense, would it? But that would make me a vegetarian, not a vegan, & an ovo-vegetarian at that. I don’t like that term in the slightest, it seems a bit perverted to me somehow, so I am going to say, as I read here, that I am a vegetarian that eats a mostly vegan diet, vegan ‘cept for those damn eggs from 5 lovely chickens, living out on a farm nearby.

So there you are, Vegan Police. I have admitted my sinful thoughts & am resigning from the ranks of The Vegan Army. I will not perturb you by saying I am “…mostly vegan” or “vegan except for…” & in return, you can’t arrest me or kick me in the head with your pleather stomping boots when I make a veggie frittata.

11 comments:

  1. i have been a vego for the past 17 years and I have heard it ALL! a girl I went to uni with use to say "meat is murder" and used to irritate me so much.
    whatever we choose to do or not do in life is really up to us. I do not like extremists in any subject, and yes, vegan police are one of those groups I would not like to be chatting with.

    ahhh, eat those frittattas Vic & enjoy them.

    hey, do you want another cookbook or are you all cookbooked out?



    word verification : chant (ummmmmm)

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  2. sorry..forgot to add, that to be a hardcore vegan you must not wear leather shoes or eat honey...

    goodluck tossing out your docs!

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  3. aHHH yes i know "those" vegans well. living in an "alternative" community there is a lot of extreme. In particular Steiner Parents, in this town. I have absolutely no porblem with steiner education or the overwhelming majority of the parents whose children attend however there are a small, but incredibly vocal group of parents who are hell bent on telling everyone why they are doing everything wrong and that there way is the right way etc etc etc- when people get like that it is no different to fundamentalism of any kind. if you start a sentence with "well my children go to steiner..." it is not a license to then insult people and the way they choose to do things. The rest of us just roll our eyes as they have no idea about the way i parent yet think if my child doens't attend steiner then her room must be covered in dora explorer and her diet consisting mainly of McDonalds. GIVE me a Break!!!
    You can call yourself a vegan Vic, its all about YOu not "them"

    And in respoinse to the meat is murder tshirt Chef had 2 in the past that said "meat is murder, tasty tatsy murder" and another that said "I am not vegetarian but I am off my chops" BaharrhahahHar harrrr

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  4. *sigh* labels urgh? Always going to be problematic.

    Just be who you want to be. You're not accountable to anyone but yourself. You're you. [Full stop]

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  5. I've spent a bit of my life being vegan and getting teased at school for having "no milk Milk" and "no cheese Cheese". It really took its toll. I just stood out as being SO different. (Although we were never REAL vegans. We ate honey and wore leather!)

    Since then I've gone back to being vegetarian, but I have a brother who is vegan, and so is his whole family. My husband eats meat, but doesn't eat it at home.

    I think whatever it takes to make you happy. To be vegetarian is still so good for you and for the environment, so I commend anyone who wants to do better by their bodies/the environment/the animals.

    Great post. And I'm hearing you about those police. It's all about finding balance hey?

    xx

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  6. Sadly it's not only the vegan police. It's the 'everything' police. I'm so sick and tired of people judging how other people choose to live.
    If I want to eat meat, then I shall eat meat. If I want to listen to mainsteam music, vote for mainstream political parties, read mainstream newspapers, listen to mainstream radio stations, watch trashy reality tv then I shall. It's my life and it's a free country!
    Rant over!

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  7. ha ha ha well really it's just a label. that's why i aint jumping on no bandwagon with a label. i hardly ever eat meat, infact i could give it up quite easily. but i want to be open to new stuff. not limited by some silly label that dictates what i can or can't eat. the only label i do like is 'flexarian'. that's me :)
    oh and next time you see those vegan police, tell em i said i'm so not vegetarian i made my vegetarian mum eat meat when she was pregnant we with me!! ha ha see how they like that. yea.

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  8. Oh that is too funny, we had this discussion at lunch yesterday. The what and why vegan thing. I started it by talking about a new slogan we could use for our eggs that says 'our chooks don't die working for us, in fact they are very happy' ( I hate people who advertise their meat products with pictures of happy animals, YUK!! Anyway, what ever you call yourself, whatever you eat, you are ace. x

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  9. I am not vegan, nor vegetarian, though I imagine I could easily be. I have cool vegan friends and militant vegan friends, I don't see the militant ones very often, they never come to our Barbecues, hmmm...

    For me, when someone goes all preachy and self righteous, it reminds me of my very religious upbringing and I immediately want to do the opposite just to piss them off.

    I have a family member who is a Montessori teacher, everything must be up to Montessori standards, if not than you are wrong, wrong, wrong! Funny thing is, her son is the biggest, meanest, scariest bully around. So, I have to question how that's working out for her.

    Each person must live according to their own conscience. Don't put me down and point your righteous finger at me, and I wont kick you in the teeth.

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  10. You do make me chuckle. Screw the Anything Police.

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  11. You do make me chuckle. Screw the Anything Police.

    On a side note, we went out for breakfast for the first time in 152 years this morning. I ordered poached eggs, mushrooms and tomato. They arrived with a mountain of bacon on top. Not really a veg-friendly cafe...

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Let's have a chat. And a biscuit. And some tea. And another biscuit.

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