I am a vegan for all of the following reasons:
- Health.My diet, with its concentration of whole grains, beans, soy products, olive oil, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, and fresh spices is one that is extremely high in protein, and very high in vitamins, beneficial monounsaturated fats, and antioxidants and other micronutrients, while being moderate in sodium and calories, and very low in saturated fat, mad cow prions, e-coli, and chicken manure. Yep, I'm gonna be healthy for a long time. When people try to talk smack about my vegan diet, regurgitating the same tired out old misconceptions, I usually say something like “Look at me, then look at you, and tell me who has the healthier diet.” This gets the point across about 99% of the time.
- Ethics. Something seems very wrong about just heading over to a grocery store to buy a chunk of animal or animal derivative while someone else, most likely a migrant laborer, took care of pumping them full antibiotics, cleaning their tiny filthy cages, slaughtering / milking them, and cutting them into convenient little parts. I would feel differently if I went out and killed and cut up some free roaming animal in a fair fight - then I'd probably eat it. But it's just seems wrong to leave all the unpleasant and dirty details of snuffing out a life to someone else.
- Aesthetics This one applies to dairy mostly. When you eat that ice cream cone or all that gooey melted plastic on your pizza, you are basically sucking on a cow's tit. Isn't that nasty? It is to me. I stopped nursing at about two years old, and I'm done with it.
- Environmental responsibility There is a whole body of knowledge about the environmental impacts of having three times as many domesticated animals as people on this earth, and I'm not going to reproduce it all here. The major points are that for the amount of protein and calories you can get out of an acre of consumption vegetable crops, you need something like ten acres of graze land if you want to get it out of animals. Furthermore, the methane released by all those animals actually competes with the internal combustion engines of the world as a major source of pollution. And, of course, all of the antibiotic use necessary to keep the herds alive under the prevailing filthy factory farming conditions are leading to the emergence of dangerous new strains of resistant microbes.
But the most compelling reason might be:
- The food! It’s just better. When you cut out all of that sensory overwhelming vulgar stuff – the kinetic gorging on meat, the fleeting comfort of the gooey cheese – you really start to appreciate the flavors of food. Nature has given us a bounty of wonderful flavors that most of us then mask with all of this smokey, salty, fat-laiden garbage. As a vegan, you really get to experience the subtleties and beauty of all of the world’s great cuisines - Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Southern Indian, Thai, Mesoamerican, East Asian, East African - and all of the wonderful ingredients form the Earth that make them unique. Plus, on those occasions when you really have to fit into that barbeque or tea party, we have soy meats and soy ice creams that are just as good tasting and way better for you than the animal-based versions.
While I'm at it, here's what I don't like about being a vegan:
Peoples' misinformed / ignorant-ass attitude.
I would say about half the time that I have to inform somebody that I don't eat animal products, like for instance when they are strongly suggesting I eat something with meat or dairy, they get either defensive or offensive. Either way their comments go one of three ways.
In one tack, they might try to tell me that I am not getting enough nutrients, especially protein. Most of the time these people don't even know what an amino acid is, let alone that there are six essential ones that humans need in our diet, and that grains and legumes in combination provide all of them, and so does soy by itself. Somehow it hasn't occurred to them that I have carefully researched the protein content of various foods and generally planned my eating accordingly. Ditto for iron and calcium - I've got those figured out too, what with all the beans and fortified soy products in the world. And sometimes they bring up vitamins. Aren't I worried about getting all my vitamins? That's a killer! Where do vitamins come from, sherlock? Vegetables!1
In another tack, they take it upon themselves to try to poke holes in what they suppose my ethical reasons to be. Now, I do welcome debate and I believe that people should always have their assumptions challenged from within and without. But people always have to say things in a smug tone that as though in my blind tree-hugging idealism I haven't thought of their brilliant revelations before. Yes, gasoline is essentially just dead dinosaurs, so I'm using animal products in that case. So the fuck what? Ya gotta drive (at least here in California), but you don't gotta have processed animal parts for dinner. And yes, I swat away mosquitos. I still don't want to eat them, or their more sentient cousins elsewhere in the animal kingdom.
Oh, and I don't care what my hunter-gatherer ancestors were 'meant' to do. Refer to item #2 above before being the umteenth person to bring this up. Furthermore, maybe it's not the greatest idea to emulate the diet of a people whose life expectancy was in the low 30s.
The final possible tack is less malicious, but still annoying. "Oh my god!! What do you eat??" they say as their jaws hit the floor. How can you explain to someone in a short conversation that there is more to food than mac & cheez, hamburgers, and ranch dressing? It's just so hard.2
The lack of vegan options many places. This is definitely improving, along with the general state of food in America. I have had wonderful food experiences as a vegan living in Brooklyn, Cincinnati, and Santa Barbara. Still, I shudder to think about the problems I've had on some camping / road trips, and what it must be like for any vegans unfortunate enough to be living in these towns. Also the propoganda factories known to some as 'schools' do everything in their power to prevent young people from discovering this wonderful diet. It must be extremely difficult to have to take your meals in a cafeteria setting where the only thing on the menu is that day's way of preparing pieces of Secretariat and Man O' War.
1 Yes, I know, vitamin B12 seems to come mostly from animal sources. Well, that's what fortified soy milk is for.
2Especially because their ability to concentrate on what I am saying is compromised by those mysterious chest pains and that abdominal discomfort.
Well, I've been told that my writeup is very much like some musician's CD liner notes. I've really never read the notes in question, but if they really are too similar to what I wrote above, I welcome feedback from an editor.