Friday, August 1, 2008

mythbusters

surprisingly so, the hardest part of vegan ain't the eatin'--it's dispelling those wacky myths created by the very unvegan world we live in! i'm gonna address these in no particular order:

http://inthefray.org/images/stories/72324165.jpg
gosh, stop being such a baby and eat yer dang flesh!



vegans are whiny pains in the ass (PITA)- according to who? i shamefully admit i used to buy into this lie, esp. during my brooding ex-vegan days. let me hip you to this trip: being a whiny PITA knows no eating pattern. it just seems that way because we live in an animal consuming culture that encourages us to eat it, eat it, put in yer mouth and feed it without ANY questions. is it really whiny to ask what's in our food, clothes, or beauty supplies? that's 1/2 the creamy nougat of most vegans malcontent, is trying to find what we need among all the crap that's out there, and let me tell you there's animal shit in EVERYTHING! don't make a blanket statement about someone based on a few vegan knuckleheads-(and YES, they exist--we've all seen that pretentious vegangelical on Wife Swap) that you encountered in college. conversely so, some vegans could benefit from not making blanketed judgements about omnivores as well. we want to attract people to the vegan way, not send 'em running for the hills.


http://www.treehugger.com/happy-elephant-01.jpg

being a vegan will help you lose tons of weight aka "she/he can't be vegan...they're too FAT!"

WRONG! ever seen a cow, hippo, or elephant? what do you think they eat? don't be so gullible. people come in all shapes and sizes. some of this is hereditary, some of this is lifestyle. it's not my job to make judgements about someone's size because fat hatin' is so wrong. being skinny isn't a bill of health-(doesn't necessarily mean someone is anorexic either) and being fat ain't a death sentence. i've seen vegans that hardly consume vegetables, eating nothing but french fries, chips, pop, and fake meat. hell, i was one of them!
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/img/v3/02-21-2007.NF_21two.GSG23A5PV.1.jpg
note: 8th Continent soy milk technically isn't vegan
because the source of vitamin D comes from lanolin-YUK!
information from Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World

you won't get enough vitamins and minerals being a vegan- not true. most soymilk and other soy products are fortified with all the vitamins and minerals that one needs. one can also easily obtain these vitamins from...guess what? eating fruits, grains, and veggies.


being vegan is expensive- i also used to buy into this lie. sure if you buy specialty pre-packaged food items all the time, it just doesn't pay to be vegan. however, if you read vegan cookbooks and make things from scratch, most items are fairly cheap. i learned this from Vegan with a Vengeance, How it all Vegan, and La Dolce Vegan. there are more cookbooks out there i want to get my mitts on, but i'll have to wait my turn. there are currently 9 people waiting to check out Veganomicon! most of the time i usually do a google search for a vegan recipe and almost always come across one i can use. veganism is all about DIY culture.

vegan food is gross-well, that's just silly! does any of this look gross to you?
http://www.pjchmiel.com/photo/food/karynscooked-pizza.jpg
karyn's vegan pizza
www.pjchmiel.com
http://www.veggiediner.com/images/chicagodiner-steak.jpg
from a Chicago Veggie Diner on Halstead

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/127/354298347_50653c4154.jpg?v=
and yes, vegan cheesecake DOES exist!




vegans care more about animals than they do other people- i honestly don't know how to answer this. i recall a VDB*-(VeganDoucheBag) in my past that I had witnessed berating a teenager for not being vegan-(he would move on to annihilate me for falling off the vegan wagon) and i asked him how could he possibly send a message of compassionate living when he was treating another human that way? he said his job was to speak up for animals because they couldn't speak for themselves. i understand his logic, but i'm afraid that if animals could talk they wouldn't yell at some teenage girl who didn't understand what happens to her food and make her feel like shit. who knows-- maybe i'm being arrogant trying to predict that an animal would be nice if he/she could talk. for all i know, they might just yell at us, using fowl-(ha-ha) language. i'm even thinking if they could talk, they could do other things too and as a bit of poetic justice there would be a free range human farm and we'd be on special order. my spouse asked me if i was driving down the road and there was a human and a dog in the middle of the road and i had to hit one of them to avoid hitting the other, which would i choose? he added that the human was wearing a rebel flag t-shirt. knowing that the said teeshirt represents good ol' fashioned southern hospitality, my instinct was to hit...the...human? why can't i save them both? so maybe this myth isn't a myth at all. i love animals, and that's part of why i choose ethical veganism, but i don't hate my own species. all life matters human, animal, insect et al. some people just suck.
http://www.markaelrod.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/PETA.jpg

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Very interesting & well thought out. Glad to have you in the tribe!

Jen said...

thanks for the compliment...any way i could be invited to read yours?

VeganCowGirl said...

Ok - great blog! Having sex with 'the nug' is just about enough to make me cry, and VDB - you managed to find a term that captured a pile of thoughts swimming in my head about boobs who pontificate rather than eat and shut their mouths.

Great blog!