I know, I know, we’ve already asked this a million times, but reading the banally sad summary of Grist’s four-writer, 30-day vegan challenge, I have to conclude that either a vegan diet isn’t for everyone. Why it isn’t for everyone is debatable—not knowing the benefits? Not caring? (Not able?)
Regardless, it seems pretty clear that until global warming forces the rest of the world to go animal-product-free because we no longer have the resources to keep animals for food, vegan diets will be the domain of we few. But the way I think of it is, for every “How do you know if someone is vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you” joke, there’s another tofu scramble option at a café. People may not be going vegan forever, but they’re trying it out for a meal, or a month. And that’s not nothing. People know we’re here and that we want almond milk in our coffee, and we’re going to keep asking for it until we get it—or patronize the places that have it. Bring on the vegan challenges; maybe they won’t turn most participants vegan, but most of them will learn something.
Unless you’d rather not see them at all, because “I didn’t want to be rude” is the stupidest answer when the question is “Do you want this hunk of dead animal (whose entire life and death is a testament to humanity’s utter disregard for the earth and its inhabitants)?”
[Photo by Jamie McCaffrey via Flickr]