Now, I am all about going vegan if that’s your thing. Heck, I WAS a semi-vegan for a very short time, before a block of cheese came and pulled me out of the animal product-free cave. But lately, especially that I’ve been reading and thinking so much about what this world needs, food justice-wise, some vegans are beginning to irk me. That said, I think going vegan can be very effective in terms of helping with environmental and world hunger issues. But when veganism and its righteous opinions go sour, it can truly be more harmful than anything else, such as a disturbing piece I read in Herbivore Magazine. Luckily, the vegetarian mag didn’t disgust me entirely, since neighboring the disturbing piece was a critical article about the overtly sexist and tired PETA ad campaign, which I thought was a fairly good critique. (Seriously, is a fourteen-year-old boy in charge of their ad department?)
The disturbing piece–at least, to me, as a person trying to be the best sustainable food activist I can be–was an “open letter to Whole Foods”. Open meaning an angry letter. Now, Whole Foods deserves angry letters. That much is for sure. But for reasons least of all for the one written and printed in Herbivore Magazine. In it, the writer talks about her disgust of walking past the meat section, glancing in the stretch of glass casing several types of meats, and seeing, besides pink and red abstract blobs of beef and chicken, a seemingly skinless rabbit, body intact. That is, in the shape of an actual rabbit instead of a semi-rectangle or something. It might have even had eyes still.
Ok, fine, I know, vegans, this might seem sort of disgusting to see. Especially if you think killing animals is wrong. But wouldn’t a vegan think this is actually good for a meat eater to see? As more and more shoppers are practically starting to believe that potatoes grow in a produce aisle in Albertson’s, and that chicken is nothing more than slab of pink wrapped in plastic, it’s plain to see that our connection to food is deteriorating. A person eating a rabbit should know they’re eating a damn rabbit. See those bunnies hopping under your fence in your yard? Well, recognize it and see it in the shape of the dinner you’re buying. Be aware! A seemingly more rational vegan response should be one of progress: if it disturbs people to eat rabbit that looks like a rabbit, maybe they wouldn’t do it. Connection and knowing what food you’re eating is the first step of many in food sustainability.
A better letter would be how the “organic chicken meat”, also behind the glass, is hardly organic by any eater’s standard. The pink blobs are made from chickens in crowded factories that are swamped with disease and reek of ammonia; they’re “organic” by letting them eat certified organic grains. Lucky them. And lucky us too: I mean, yum, ya know? But seriously, vegan activists, I’m down with not eating meat, but the fact is, there will always be meat eaters. And shouldn’t we concentrate on alleviating the suffering of animals and the well-being of the enviroment by creating sustainable and healthy conditions for them, pre-butchering?
