Vegan Week

"In the strict scientific sense we all feed on death - even vegetarians."
-Mr. Spock, Star Trek, "Wolf in the Fold"

Fig.1 Have you hugged a chicken today?

One sunny Floridian January Saturday, I drove up to Gainesville to hang out with my friend Casey and meet his boyfriend Joseph for the first time. We checked on the community events for the day and unanimously decided to attend the Hoggetown Medieval Festival. Of course, we had to find a place to eat beforehand, since Joseph is vegan and ren faires are not well known to serve up anything more vegan than giant roasted turkey legs. Luckily, it’s as easy to find a vegan-friendly eatery in a college town as it is to find a coffeehouse in a college town. At the fest, while perusing the numerous vendor tents drinking our mead (vegan!) and scoffing at the bevy of overwrought Scottish accents floating into our ears, theology got injected into the conversation. I have no idea how.

“I consider veganism my religion,” he said.

“Really?”

“Lots of people write in their religion as veganism on the census.”

Veganism is a religion? I’m so there.

Fig.2 They also call loved ones "Agave nectar" instead of "Honey"

Thus, Vegan Week was born. Now, I can do Vegetarian Week standing on my head. Since I started doing Buddhism, I’ve been observing Vesak--the holiday that celebrates the birth, enlightenment, and nirvana of Gautama Buddha--by avoiding meat for the week leading up it. Plus, I renounce meat on full and new moons. And I don’t tend to eat meat all that much anyways.

I’m not addicted to meat, is what I’m saying.

But veganism is a lot of work. I spent a few weeks beforehand researching how vegans sidestep and tip-toe around consuming animal products. Mulling over concepts like incorporating organic alfalfa sprouts, fermented soy tofu, and textured vegetable protein to meals, I paused the way people do when they know they’ve just stepped in dogshit and don’t want to move for fear of hearing that aromatic moist sucking sound you get when you lift your sneaker. But when I picked up my foot and started walking again, collecting recipes that sounded exotic and tasty, I found there was no unpleasant odor clinging to my sole.

Sure, I couldn’t eat anything from the box of Godiva chocolates I had just gotten for Valentine’s Day or sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese on my beloved Italian dishes or dump a little whole milk in my chai tea every morning, but I was going to survive. If it’s good enough for Emily Deschanel (girlcrush!), then it’s good enough for me.

I’m addicted to dairy products, I guess is what I’m saying.

Fig.3 I count broccoli myself

My sister volunteered to take the vegan plunge along with me, so, armed with a list and some recipes, we went to Publix and the Green Bean organic market to gather supplies. We surprised ourselves at how quickly the flip-the-box-to-parse-the-ingredients-list obligation instilled itself into everyday life. I would zero in on the tiny type and wag my finger at any evidence that animals sacrificed their lives or comforts in the making of that product. Whey? Exploits milk cows. Egg whites? Exploits chickens. Honey? Exploits bees. Non-dairy creamer powder? Contains milk derivatives. “Non-dairy” my ass.

We got soy yogurt and soy milk, which we’ve had before and generally enjoy. We made sure to avoid butter and only use olive oil or corn oil for cooking (again, not a big issue). We’re already big fans of nearly every variety of beans (fava, by the way, look and taste like cockroaches, FYI), so we made hummus to use as a sandwich spread for lunches. We also picked up some things we had to learn to prepare, like tofu, bean sprouts, seitan and tempeh.

We had Portobello mushroom Parmesan on spaghetti with crunchy fried tempeh instead of meat crumbles. I made veggie burritos, tofu-cashew curry, and even discovered that vegan brownies taste even more chocolatey than regular ones. Tofutti ice cream, though, is a sad excuse for dessert, sorry to say. And Joseph warned me against “vegan cheese” which not even he would touch. In the end, we survived just fine. It was a challenge, but we came out of it better for doing it, and we learned some new favorite recipes (vegan waffles ROCK) that we’d happily eat outside of Vegan Week.

When our little experiment concluded, I decided that I could never deny my inherent foodie sensibility and significantly limit my intake of the myriad dishes this world has to offer my widely varied palate, but I am apt to expand my meatless options and explore the tastes of vegan cooking. It's always fun to try new recipes, and it's just plain good karma.

Fig.4 Contrary to popular myth, vegan food does not taste like this

One of Joseph’s favorite Simpsons episodes, appropriately enough, is “Lisa the Vegetarian,” in which Lisa realizes that the only difference between the lamb at the petting zoo and the lamb chop for dinner is that one spent two hours in the broiler. Her refusal to dissect an earthworm and inquiries into school lunch policies triggers Principal Skinner into screening an educational video from the Meat Council for the class. Troy McClure gives a little boy a tour of the beef industry, showing off the high-density feedlots and the killing floor of a slaughterhouse, leaving the little boy trembling and emotionally disturbed. When the video is over, the class is treated to a pile of tripe to snack on.

In all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more masterful evisceration of the beef industry, much less satirized in a wildly popular television show. Read Fast Food Nation or watch Food Inc., and you’ll admit that The Simpsons didn’t exaggerate at all.

At one point in the Meat Council video Lisa is force-fed, Troy McClure displays a chart of the food chain. The image is a drawing of a few dozen wild animals, all with arrows pointing straight at the human drawn in the center, proving that eating meat is totally normal and just part of the natural order of things. And if we're totally honest with ourselves, you have to agree with Mr. Spock on this. Things have to die so we can survive.

This is not propaganda. Humans are omnivores and have evolved to eat both flora and fauna. Our cranial capacity developed as a result of hunting animals, which takes a lot more brain power than picking berries. If our ancestors didn’t eat meat, we wouldn’t be half as smart as we are today. Smart enough, in fact, to make choices about what we cram in our mouths. Vegan Week taught me my own gustatory boundaries and how to explore them, and while I may not be cut out for a completely animal-free diet, I am certainly more aware of how to be educated and judicious about what I consume.

Awareness is what distinguishes an enlightened mind. Christians are working to be aware of Jesus’ love. Muslims practice to be aware of the will of God. Jews believe it’s a duty to be aware of God’s presence. Hindus are occupied with being aware of the divine within each person. Vegans try their best to be aware of our connection to all living things and choose to treat them with the same respect we give to our human race.

That's as good a religion as any.


Fig.5 I agree