After yesterdays thoughts on a ‘best possible’ diet I thought I might do an experiment for a week, trying out Vegan only. I want to see if it’s do-able without eating loads of extra imported tropical products – coconut mostly. Everything specifically vegan seems to have coconut in it!
Walking around Asda a minute ago I found myself in a real grump. Thinking ‘what’s the point of this? – I don’t know why I’m choosing to do it when I’m quite irritated by the whole Veganism thing going on right now’. It’s not that I’m against animal rights or anything, I think that animal welfare is a really important topic, it’s just that it all seems a bit extreme, and some what faddy. Yet again someone is profiting off the back of people’s need to feel ‘on trend’, or in with the ‘now’. And how many people are actually thinking about the wider implications of their choices. – Does this vegan product have palm oil in it for a start. Or, is it highly processed, and therefore adding to the destruction of health, natural environments and the welfare of the planet through the need for chemical additives, processed white sugar, and all the machinery and fuel needed to run a food producing factory.
I wonder how many vegans live in modern homes, snort cocaine, drive environmentally unfriendly cars, and so on and so forth. I don’t expect vegan’s to be able to achieve a perfect life where they never accidentally kill a spider or anything, but I would at least expect them to have thought about all the wider implications of their actions and understand their own reasoning on this. And this is what I want to achieve, I want to understand my own position regarding food and the environment and in the end feel that I can squarely justify my own reasoning to anyone who asks. After all, the world that we are currently privileged to live in, despite it’s multitudinous flaws is pretty luxuriant in terms of food choices, and the fact that it is readily available in great quantity.
This is what has arisen from the Blackcurrant philosophy, the notion of how easily we get food, and in what quantity.
For me to be able to eat mindfully would require me to slow right down, stop drinking coffee, get over my addiction to sugar (– because this tends to cause the high-speed snaffle reflex), and be able to sustain a varied enough organic (wherever possible) diet of locally produced food. A difficult if not entirely unachievable prospect for someone looking after a family of 5 on a low budget!
The experiment starts tomorrow morning, so I’ll keep updating to keep myself committed, for now I might check out Cowspiracy or something.
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Veganism is not a 'best possible' diet, it is an ethical or moral choice. There is, as you say, plenty of vegan junk food, cash crops, high carbon footprint and abused growers in the vegan sector. Veganism is for people who wish to cease all use of animal products. This is not a diet decision, it is bigger than that. No leather shoes or handbags or wallets. No beer or wine cleared with fish-based finings. No medicines that have been animal-tested (good luck with that). No woolly scarves. It is not a diet. It is a way of life.
If you care about the suppliers and farmers or workers overseas being abused, FairTrade is the way to go.
If you care about the chemicals and crap that gets put into your food, go organic.
If you care about the quality of your food, buy ingredients and make your own.
If you care about your carbon footprint, only buy locally-produced food.
If you care about unnecessary packaging, buy from markets and never Marks & Spencers (who are the utter bastards of food retail anyway).
If you care about the human rights abuses of the countries of origin, you might want to boycott products from the likes of Israel.
If you care about sustainability and soil erosion, you will need to do lots of research into your providers (or go organic and cross your fingers).
If you care about additives, you'll need to do some balanced research onto what they all are: most E numbers are perfectly safe, contrary to propaganda. But some you might want to avoid like the plague: some sweeteners may be much worse than the sugar they partly replace.
If you care about animal husbandry, read up on it and make sure you only buy animals reared and killed humanely and with very little transport. (Then you'll see why some of us think it should be a legal requirement to say when meat is halal.)
But if you want an ethical, healthy, balanced diet, it is going to be a compromise of all the above.
I've been learning this stuff for over 30 years, partly due to my sister who went vegan 40+ years ago, and partly due to the OU's T101 module covering soil erosion &animal husbandry, and partly having access to an excellent organic grocer and a superb organic butcher. There's a lot to know, and everyone's in it to make a profit.
But don't believe the hype on either side: both tell lies. Do your own research. E.g. Holland & Barratt sell chemicals and junk food, not health food. Morrison's meat is about as good as you'll get anywhere (outside an organic butcher).
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Thanks Simon for your comments, as you said, there is so much to consider.
When I said 'best possible diet' I didn't mean it in an optimal health way, because, absolutely there is vegan junk, and I'm not convinced that an animal free diet is always better for you. But instead I meant it as a well rounded, healthful, and environmentally least destructive way.
Watching 'Cowspiracy' was an eye opener. I didn't realise just how massive a cause this industry is for the general destruction of the planet, but living surrounded by lush grass and well cared for farm animals in the south west I'm not yet convinced as to whether the argument plays out the same.
I never knew about the fish in wine thing!