I love showing people that one can advocate for the animals without being strictly vegan or strictly vegetarian or strictly anything else. Yes, Choosing Vegan for the Animals Doesn’t Mean You Have to Reject Non-Vegan Stuff.
As I’ve posted before, I normally bring vegan food for our bridge inspections, and I even bring vegan meals for my coworker because she usually skips breakfast, and then she has something to eat as well.
On this particular morning, I wasn’t able to bring my own food (worked late and had to get up early and was exhausted) … and my coworker had brought this pastry with honey from her favorite coffee shop. We shared it as that’s all the food we had, and it was great!
After we completed the bridge inspection, we stopped off at Veggie Grill, an all-vegan restaurant in Walnut Creek. My coworker ordered a vegan crispy chicken sandwich, and I ordered the spicy Korean style bulgogi salad, which comes with kale, kimchi, faux meat bulgogi, and lots of veggies. It was fabulous.
When I first went vegan in 2005, I thought that I had to be 100%, and never make any exceptions. That’s because I had read books like Meat Market and Vegan Freak, where it seemed like one had to do it all or nothing; otherwise people would call one a hypocrite.
In practice, I have found that the opposite is the case. If a person says they’re vegan for the animals, but they insist on vegan food, even when that means going hungry, or throwing away otherwise nutritious food that they aren’t allergic to, that comes across as phony, dishonest and hypocritical. Because obviously these types of behaviors don’t help animals.
That’s why the “ish” in veganish for me is really important. Yes, I go for vegan items as my usual thing. But there’s no reason, for the animals, to go hungry, or to waste food.
This is the kind of thing that resonates with 90% of people all around the world, I’m pretty sure. And I believe it’s a big reason for why more than 90% of people don’t want to be totally vegan or totally vegetarian. Nobody wants to end up in a situation where they have to go hungry because the food that’s available isn’t quite suitable for whatever they vowed to avoid. If a person isn’t vegan or vegetarian, there’s never any reason to go hungry when edible food is available. Hurray.
Viva la veganish!
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