Why I Can't Be Vegan Anymore

Don't worry. I'm not giving up on veganism. Neither is the maker of this video, nicknamed Richie Fruitbat. It's an excellent video that refutes some of the myths spread around by former vegans who go back to their omnivore ways.

There is a lot of wisdom in this video. I'm not a raw food vegan like Richie (I don't think I can go quite that far), but I really like what he does with this video and - as he points out - what he says is applicable to raw food vegans and regular vegans alike.

Check out this video, if you get a moment. It's insightful and really good at refuting the anti-vegan myths.

Watching Omnivores Struggle

The slippery slope.

It's interesting to watch omnivores grappling with their food choices. I just finished reading an article in the Toronto Star defending meat eating. "Why Consuming Animals May Be the Right Thing to Do," said the headline.

Echoing a New York Times contest in March asking readers to defend meat consumption in 600 words or less (which, not surprisingly, the big food industry/factory farm shill Temple Grandin entered), the Star published a litany of familiar excuses justifying the act of killing animals and then devouring them.

Author and New Yorker contributor Adam Gopnik led the charge: "All animals die. The choice for a pig is not between painful death and perpetual life, but between one death and some other. If we ate only animals that died naturally, then could there be any rational objection to our eating them - to eating their flesh in celebration of their life rather than burying it to rot or merely burning it?"

Toronto butcher Stephen Alexander, a big supporter of buying local, "humanely" raised meat, is clearly wrestling with the ethics of meat eating when he tells the Star: "You're killing them to live, you're killing them because you enjoy meat and it's good for you. But at the end of the day, there is the cold, hard truth that you're killing animals to eat their meat.... You have to justify it to yourself and that's all there is to it."

"Ethics are an individual choice," reasoned Heather Travis, who handles public relations for Canada Beef Inc., which represents 83,000 farming families here in Canada. Travis said her organization "strongly advocates beef as part of a balanced diet," and warned that staying healthy on a meat-free diet "can be trickier if you eliminate animal protein sources from your diet."

The temptation is great to pick apart these arguments one by one, and most intelligent vegans would be able to dance circles around these people in a debate.

But to me the most interesting element of all of these defenses of meat eating is the extent to which omnivores feel the need these days to justify the act. Five years ago, when I was an omnivore, I never felt any need to defend my choices. I liked meat. I ate it. End of story.

Today, five years later, more and more people are either going vegan, or feeling the need to justify and explain their food choices. I run into thoughtful omnivores all the time who are really - really - struggling with consuming animal products. Increasingly, it's getting so only an over-the-top fruit loop like Ted Nugent gives absolutely no thought whatsoever to chowing down on the flesh of sentient beings.

Famous food journalist Mark Bittman.

For the rest of us, it's a different story. I personally think the New York Times' challenge - which triggered an avalanche of responses from across the country - was a useful exercise in getting omnivores to think about why they do what they do.

A decade ago, the renowned and widely respected New York Times food journalist Mark Bittman gave little or no thought to the animals he was cooking (by his own admission). But in recent years, Bittman has developed profound misgivings about eating animals. These days, he believes that "20 or at most 50 years from now, those of us still alive will express incredulity at the way we once treated animals destined to become food." (Source)

Gordon Ramsay and friend. 

Bittman is not alone. Not long ago, famous TV chef Gordon Ramsay watched a hidden camera video of the inside of a factory farm (in this case, a pig facility). Seeing the male pigs being castrated without any anesthesia, sows chewing nervously on bars, and pigs shrieking in horror during the last days of their short lives, Ramsay was visibly shaken - and disgusted - by what he witnessed. Of course, Ramsay didn't go vegan. But the treatment of animals, an issue that for the longest time was never on his radar, has entered into his consciousness.

Bittman has been much more aggressive in moving away from cooking animal products than Ramsay. In fact, Bittman gained fame for his Vegan Until 6 diet, spotlighted in his book Food Matters, that advocated going vegan before dinnertime for improved health. Yet what began for Bittman as a health issue keeps coming back to the more significant matter of animals and their suffering. He can't get away from the issue. These days, in fact, he keeps bringing it up. It haunts him, just as it haunts any thoughtful omnivore. And this trend is working its way into corporate America. Burger King made headlines in late April when the chain announced it will switch to cage-free eggs and pork by 2017. Other fast food restaurants are likely follow.

Pigs in a factory farm. Many omnivores are troubled
by what's happening in the food industry. 

We vegans tend to be somewhat dismissive toward omnivores who are struggling with their food choices. But it's impossible to overemphasize the importance of this development, because it's a very new one. And it's becoming more and more widespread. Recently, I went on a local radio station to talk about these very issues on a program about farming and agriculture.  I could see the host, himself an omnivore and advocate of what he called "humane" livestock farming, was also grappling with these same issues. He and I shared a sense of uneasiness with the growth of big, corporate factory farms. A lot of omnivores, having watched documentaries like Food Inc. and Forks Over Knives, are experiencing these same feelings. I believe Bittman is absolutely correct, that  "20 or at most 50 years from now, those of us still alive will express incredulity at the way we once treated animals destined to become food." This is not a Pollyannaish notion. It's a reflection of the changing reality of our times.

A growing number of omnivores are troubled by their actions, and the increasing defensiveness of some is an outgrowth of a moment in history when the animal rights movement is gaining traction around the world. For those of us who feel passionately about animals and their rights, this shift may seem too slow and way overdue in coming. But it is happening, little by little, and it offers a glimmer of hope.

Maybe Vegans Before 6 might also become... You guessed it: Vegans after 6!

The latest Vegan Diet Craze comes from famous New York foodie and highly respected food journalist Mark Bittman (see his website here), who is proposing a new diet: Vegan Before 6. (Bittman is pictured above.) The idea behind this diet - as you've probably guessed by now - is that everyday before 6 p.m. you go totally vegan. After 6, go wild. Then watch the pounds and inches come off fast.

Before going vegan and starting this Blog, I have to admit: I didn't think much about food. I just popped shit in my mouth all the time without thinking about it. Meat, potatoes, candies, cookies, Chinese food, Indian food, Italian food, cheese, crackers - you name it, I pretty much ate it. Now that I have become an uber-hardcore rigid vegan (who doesn't even eat things that say, "May contain traces of milk or egg" on the ingredients list), I know the ingredients of everything I put in my mouth. And I have become more aware of who's who on the North American - and global - food scene.

I applaud Bittman for coming up with his Vegan Before 6 regimen, even if it might not be veganism for all the right reasons. Bittman, as I said, is extremely respected. When he advises people to go vegan, even if it is only before 6, a whole lot of folks are going to do what he says, out of sheer reverence for the guy.

Here's a quote from a recent Washington Post article about Bittman:

Still largely an omnivore as he completed his vegetarian cookbook, Bittman says he didn't make the big change in his diet until he (a) saw statistics about the environmental impact of large-scale livestock production; and (b) recognized, as he turned 57, that he had high cholesterol, high blood sugar, sleep apnea, bad knees and 35 extra pounds. "My doctor said, 'I think you should become a vegan,' " Bittman says, referring to a diet that includes no animal products, "That's when I decided to try the 'vegan before 6' thing," he says. "It worked for me."

"Vegan before 6" entails eating a vegan diet every day until 6 p.m. After that, Bittman enjoys whatever he wants to eat in whatever portions suit him. "In three months, I lost 35 pounds," he says, adding that he gained five of those back. "My cholesterol went down and stayed down. My blood sugar went down and stayed down. My knees pretty much got better," and his sleep apnea vanished. "It solved everything."

Veganism has done the same thing for me. Without really dieting, I've lost 25 pounds since the fall of 2009. Veganism is a proven way to lose weight. And I actually love food now more than I ever did when I was an omnivore. Maybe that's because I'm far more mindful of what I eat now than I used to be. But the question remains: what about all of these people who are going vegan for personal reasons and not for the larger, more abstract issue of animal rights?

You may recall not so long ago, I blogged about so-called Hegans, who are middle-aged overweight guys (like I am) who decided to go vegan to lose weight and improve their health. These guys aren't moral vegans. They don't go vegan for higher principles. They go vegan to feel better and shed the pounds. Certainly, some animal rights activists would diss this course of action as problematic. I could hear good old Gary Francione - an author, scholar and animal rights activist who has had a huge influence on me - criticizing these Vegans-by-Convenience for their lack of awareness about the suffering of animals.

And he might have a point. Thank God for people like Francione for fighting the good fight all the time. But the truth is, if everybody went "Vegan Before 6" - as Bittman suggests - the slaughter of animals would plunge sharply. And once someone becomes a Vegan-by-Convenience, they will most likely discover the Vegans-by-Conscience community that is so widespread on the internet. And maybe - just maybe - there will be some hope of converting the Vegans-by-Convenience to the cause of animal rights. Certainly, they'll be an easier bunch to win over than the omnivores who just can't go a day without their steak or pork chops or chicken or whatever (fill in the blank).

So I like what Bittman is doing. I like the idea of "Vegan Before 6." If more people go this route, not only will fewer animals be slaughtered, but I believe there's also a distinct possibility that some adherents might go "Vegan Before 6 & Vegan After 6." Maybe "Vegan 24/7" is a better way of putting it. In the meantime, thanks to compromisers like Bittman, the idea of veganism is starting to seem less extreme, less radical, to people who might've dismissed it five years ago. As far as I'm concerned, this is a win-win for us vegans.