Part-Time Veg Pundit: Damaging to the Cause?
Before we get started, I would just like to say I’m not bashing people who attempt to decrease their meat/dairy intake. I’m not pointing a finger at vegans who fall off the wagon from time to time. BEEN THERE, DOING THAT.
But I do want to talk about the watering-down of the word “vegan” as a buzzword amongst foodies and dieters. In my mind, it IS harmful when people take the label “vegan” and apply it to a half-hearted diet plan, as opposed to a lifestyle choice. It’s becoming increasingly common for “vegan” to be applied in a situation such as this one: “oh, you know, I’m not eating cheese right NOW, so I’m vegan until I eat that burger later.” Dubbed a “flexitarian” by some, this person represents a vegetarian of convenience, but not of mindset.
Newsweek published an article claiming that being “a little bit vegetarian” is like being “a little bit pregnant.” You either are vegetarian (or vegan) – or you’re not. It’s a full-time commitment. You can’t say, “I’m a vegetarian/vegan three times a week” or, “I only eat meat for dinner”…it kind of skews the word vegan. This could also apply to other lifestyle choices like, “I’m going green today, but tomorrow I’m going to take the Hummer for a cruise across the country.” It’s a daily commitment to live what you believe.
The Newsweek article talks about Dawn Jackson Blatner who makes the statement: “(Being a part-time vegan) gives you the health benefits of a vegetarian diet without having to follow the strict rules.” But those strict rules are precisely what separates veg-movements from other fad-diets. She goes on to say, “We know that people live longer and live healthier when they eat vegetarian, but it’s just too darn hard to do it 100 percent of the time.” I’m glad she’s encouraging people to eat less meat for their sake and for the sake of the environment. But to label a decrease in eating meat ”vegetarian” may begin to erode the plight of people who do this “full-time”. It’s an argument of ethics that, to vegans, seems pretty black and white.
The Vegan Before 6 diet is another example that is getting some press. Mark Bittman is the originator of this movement, and as a pretty popular foodie blogger, he’s got a lot of clout. But. Ya aren’t vegan if you are planning to go home and eat an entire side of cattle. Bittman claims to allow himself one meal a day where he eats “pretty much what I want,” and notes that it’s usually indulgent. I do realize that it’s easier (and catchier) to say “Vegan until dinnertime” instead of “Dude only eats meat at night, and a lot of it,” but using the word vegan in this way doesn’t do vegans who make a serious commitment to a true vegan lifestyle any favors. Think about any other term people hold dearly due to the exclusivity it implies. “Pro-athlete”, “executive”, “chef”…these are things that involve a certain level of commitment. A hobby-cook is not a chef. A part-time runner is not a pro-athlete. A fellow company employee is not the executive. Certain words are used because they are descriptors of who or what someone is. I hate to bring up the “hipster” debate but it’s another lifestyle choice (a la the “beats”) that now gets thrown around like a trendy fashion craze. Does the word ‘vegan’ face the same careless decline?
Natalie Portman, in a guest spot on Huffington Post, claims her transition from vegetarian to vegan stemmed from Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals. She talks about how hard it was for her initially to tell people what they should and should not eat. But after reading Safran Foer’s book, she realized how important it is to tell people that eating animals is wrong. What is to become of this movement if there is no adequate way to identify oneself from the non-vegan? That may be a little extreme, but these kinds of media “hot topics” are what cause these changes in etymology over time. From Portman’s post:
Foer “reminds us that being a man, and a human, takes more thought than just, ‘This is tasty, and that’s why I do it.’ He posits that consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don’t believe in rape, but if it’s what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it).”
You can take our meats and cheeses (we don’t want them) but you can never take our vegan.
And I leave you with that.
