The Vegan Imperative

From the get-go, let’s consider two schools of thought about veganism, one in favor and then one opposed.

In favor:

“You get to lessen animal cruelty and exploitation, improve your health and you’re doing your bit to help out the environment too.”

And opposed:

“Yeah, but, mmmmm, bacon.”

If you’re vegan and reading this, then you’ve more than likely heard the bacon “counter-argument” before.  Along with hazy reference to “protein” from people you know have never discussed nutrition before in their lives, but are now suddenly offering opinions on protein intake; desert-island survival conundrums; and if you’re really lucky, the mind-blowing revelation that tomatoes have the same capacity for pain as a Golden Retriever.

For a lifestyle that offers so very much, veganism is daily confronted with either those pearls of wisdom or, is completely misunderstood.

“So, what do you eat as a vegan then?”

The temptation to reply with “I don’t, I’m dead – this is just a very convincing hologram of the former me sent here to toy with you” is so very, very strong.

Snarky replies aside, it really does take a vegan to know a vegan and just why they are vegan.

It is an acceptance that industrial scale pain and misery inflicted upon our long-suffering non-human animal neighbors is never justified for the sake of a fleeting moment of taste.

It is an acceptance that one cannot be a genuine “animal lover” if you pet some and yet eat others.

It is an acceptance that “I couldn’t live with without cheese” is a complete nonsense of any sort of defense - it’s cheese, not a central nervous system.

It’s an acceptance that a family stroll through an apple orchard is a wonderful thing, whereas a family stroll through a slaughter-house would warrant some kind of psychological evaluation.

It is that feeling of seeing fellow vegans browsing the vegan section of your local store and smiling inside as you know the lifestyle is continuing to grow.

Veganism – the revolutionary idea that hurting animals is bad, our health is important and we should take care of the one and only world that we all live upon.