Never Again; the scary words
Roughly a year ago, a heap of factors came together which made me reconsider my steak-loving, cheese and tuna toastie inhaling, un-consequence considering eating habits. I was seeing a vegetarian and eating bog-standard veggie food on the weekends while vaguely discussing animal death. I had a phone call from Friends of the Earth informing me that farming animals contributes more to noxious gases in the atmosphere than transport. I realised that a portion of ketchup doesn’t count towards the daily five and over a couple of months phased out meat and then dairy from my diet. Oh, I ate local, organic meat at a festival last July and have ‘allowed’ myself biscuits with milk powder ingredients when I’ve been really hungry…but that’s what I want to consider today.
I am not an ‘animal rights’ activist, which I always believed gave me leeway to regress if I really ‘needed’ to since one cheese pizza (one, in a year) doesn’t contribute that much to the deforestation in South America, right? Plus, it was midnight, I was drunk in London, headed back to my broke ex-boyfriend’s where he maybe had a handful of pasta. Justificaaaaation, away! Who cares if the cows get mastitis from being over-milked, that they’re raped to produce calves and then their children get taken away from them? Not me. I fucking wanted that pizza and I was prepared to lie to myself to get it. I’m 99% vegan. I do more than most people. I deserve a handful of mini-eggs at Easter after all the vegan friendly one’s from Hotel Chocolat were already gone (good for the planet, not for me). But, uh, that’s not vegan. You can’t be 99% vegan. That’s vegetarian. That’s not a moral thing, either, that’s definitions of words. Vegan means no animal products. Ever.
At the beginning of my foray into veganism, I suggested that it was counter-productive to think ‘I am never going to eat meat or dairy again’. It can be a scary thought, especially when you still view it as a deprivation diet. Never. Again. Never? When you start banning people, even yourself, from activities and foods, they do become all you can think about and want to do. (The only thing my Mother banned me from was getting tattooed. I now have around 20.) So the pop-psychology trick of ‘I may do it in the future, I’m just not doing it now…’ is a good idea. At the start.
One year on, I’ve internalised a hundred different reasons why being vegan is better for people and planet. I can whip up tasty vegan treats in moments and frequently stuff my friends with cupcakes. I’ve been vegan in Spain and France where they put chorizo in tinned beans and coat everything in butter, respectively. I know that I can do it. So why am I still ‘allowing’ myself non-vegan food (and calling myself a vegan while I eat it)?
Partly, I got tired of being ‘the vegan’. I didn’t want every meal to be a STATEMENT, an argument, or a battle. I just wanted to eat and not defend myself for my food choices, or force other people to defend theirs. (People have a tendency to immediately jump to their own defence when you mention being vegan, regardless of whether you ask them what their eating habits are. It’s exhausting.) Other reasons include; being around my omnivorous family, rubbish veggie options when eating out and, yeah, drunk and hungry. I decided that letting myself eat what I wanted, or what was easiest, couldn’t hurt in these situations. The mini-eggs had already been bought, what did it matter which mouth they went into? After all, I had never said I would be vegan for ever, just for now.
Gradually though, I realised I was ‘allowing’ myself non-vegan foods more frequently on the basis that I ate vegan ‘most of the time’, and then I wrote ALL OR NOTHING, about the attitude people have towards anyone who tries to change anything. Either do it all straight away, or don’t even start. Certainly don’t talk about what you’re trying to do if you’re not going to live it 100%. Now, everything takes time. You can believe that veganism is the way to live and still be transitioning because you only realised it yesterday and haven’t got the hang of pressing tofu yet. Whatever, you can still talk about veganism and how to go about it. In fact, it’s helpful to other people going through the transition period to do so! Having been vegan for a year and still relying on that fact that I stopped eating meat and dairy over a period of two months in order to justify the odd digestive biscuit though, is a bit ridiculous.
So, I’m saying now that I fully plan to NEVER eat any animal products AGAIN.
This realisation and renewed vigour for veganism was brought to you by the ‘Mystery’ comment on ALL OR NOTHING and inspired by @VoraciousVegan, Tasha, who went on a seven day SoulJourn for World Hunger and made me realise that if she can do that for a cause and there are people starving all over the world due to the power-mongering, money-loving nature of those in power, then I can damn well miss a meal through inconvenience.
