One of the unfortunate thing about being vegan is that so many people think it is just about food, and very little else.
Making things worse are those who have been able to make some sort of living out of providing ‘food’ advice disguised as vegan education. Whilst I am not denying their ability to make money out of whatever they are able to, I just think it is insulting to non ‘food’ animals.
Because a majority of us have this weird obsession with food, these individuals quickly climb the social media ladder gathering a large defensive following who appoint them ‘vegan educators’.
Though what does it say about the movement, and veganism when these people trip, stumble, and then fall away from veganism completely?
Alex Jamieson made the bold move by publicly declaring that she was no longer vegan, with the ensuing feeding frenzy enamoring her more with her new market and further reinforcing the stereotype of vegans being extremists.
Over the past few months I have seen it happen with the authors of other mailing lists that I am on, and even seen it happen with a few on facebook.
What is the impact that it has on the movement and acceptance of veganism in general, when these people fall?
When people like the chef Pete Evans come out on facebook saying they were an ethical vegan for 5 years then their health started to decline so they gave it up. It doesnt look good for us.
Though he does hit the nail on the head when a few comments later he says that everyone would be much better off joining forces and encouraging the ethical treatment of animals rather than wasting energy trying to prove who’s right and who’s wrong about dietary theories!
Focusing on the ‘treatment’ of other animals, as most foodies do, makes it easier to eat these animals at a later stage. Slowly moving to ‘ethical’ consumption is able to be justified to those who are food obsessed when you consider the ‘betterarian‘ and ‘make it possible‘ campaigns by the MLA and Animals Australia respectively.
[GARD]It may be fine and dandy to share pics of some raw food queen who parades around wearing next to nothing claiming that she got that way be eating nothing except fruit, and espousing that diet. Though when you realise they are making a living from promoting that diet, you really do need to cautiously think about what they are saying. This becomes even more important when they start moving away from the 100% raw to a raw til 4 version. There isn’t really much difference between that and the vegan before 6 diet that was promoted last year. You also have to wonder how long it will be before they start promoting some sort of ethical meat consumption as most of the other foodies have done before them.
Putting some food guru on a pedestal as a vegan educator does very little for the animals or veganism in general. When they fall off the vegan wagon, it isn’t only the movement that suffers, the animals do too.
Isn’t this why most of us went vegan in the first place? To save the animals!
This article was written by the founder of VeganPolice.com.au, Cameron Blewett.
Cameron is a long term vegan (30+yrs), and is passionate about veganism, and helping people to understand more about it and giving other animals equal consideration.
You can find Cameron’s other rants on his website, CameronBlewett.blog