Another episode of “JUST MY THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS (in case anyone cares, LOL) …”
A couple years ago, when I found out that a vegetarian diet (no meat including fish) reduces how many animals need to be harmed by anywhere from 90% to more than 99%, versus a “standard” meat eater diet, I realized that “vegetarian” is a form of veganish, too. Eggs generally involve a lot more harm than dairy, so if you happen to be lacto-vegetarian (no meat, no eggs, no fish), you’re already in the 99% range, but even if you’re a vegetarian eating both eggs and dairy products every day, your diet is eliminating the need for over 90% of the harm that occurs to farm animals and marine life.
It seems to me … vegetarians get so much flak from vegans, and a lot of vegans are woefully uniformed about how much good a vegetarian diet can actually do.
A diet that eliminates the need for 90% to 99% of the harm that is currently happening to animals is a very important thing, I would say. That’s why I think vegetarians and/or mostly vegetarian folk are DYNAMITE. 🤗😍🕺🌈🌱
Check out One Step for Animals if you are interested in learning more about this. The reason a vegetarian diet is so effective is that it does not generally include chicken or fish, and more than 90% of the harm to animals is caused by the chicken and fish industries.
And yet SOME VEGANS (not all, of course) are hell-bent on belittling vegetarians and telling them they’re half assed and what they are doing isn’t good enough … not until they go the full monty and go vegan. 🙄 It’s such a mistake on their part. (Although I did quite enjoy the movie, THE FULL MONTY. 🤗 🇬🇧)
Instead, let’s encourage people in whatever animal-friendly steps that work for them. And being vegetarian is a HUGE, awesome, INCREDIBLE, animal-friendly step … not a baby step (as some vegans would say).
And I say this as a 99% vegan person who is neither vegan nor vegetarian. You could call me vegan since I normally eat all vegan food every day … however, I do keep my options open and am willing to eat anything, depending on the circumstances. So that’s why I prefer to identify as an omni who tries for vegan all the time, which happens to work out to about 99% in my current life situation. And I call that veganish … not because of the 99% but because of my mindset of generally trying for vegan.
If I were in a different life situation where I could only get vegan food 50% or 80% or X% of the time (percentage doesn’t matter) but I was still trying for vegan, I’d probably still think of myself as veganish, but I’m not really sure. I’d have to see how I felt, if I were in that situation.
By the way, it doesn’t matter what anyone calls themselves. I just happen to like this word veganish to describe myself. Some people get hung up on definitions. I always tell people, veganish is a self-described thing … it can mean anything you want it to mean … if it resonates with you, GO WITH IT! 👍🏼 There are no “rules” for who qualifies and who doesn’t.
And there’s no reason why you ought to use vegan, veganish, reducetarian, vegetarian, plant-based, or any other word, to describe yourself, if you don’t like it. Feel free to come up with your own word or use no label at all … whatever suits you is perfectly fine.
What a shame that so many vegans like to go around telling people “YOU CAN’T CALL YOURSELF THAT. You must call yourself this other thing!” No, I don’t feel that way at all. Let people identify (or not identify) as they please. Having clear and concise labels for FOOD is important, but having universally agreed upon labels for PEOPLE is not important at all.
This is an exact copy (no edits) to my July 2, 2019, post on Let’s Go Vegan-ish.
Leave a Reply