Dear friends,
This is not going to be one of those rants about meat eating being better than being vegan. This is also not a secret way of drawing meat eaters in with a subject title and then trying to convert them to a vegan lifestyle.
This is my, extremely specific story, and I just wonder if it resonates with others.
This morning, I was noodling around on youtube, and this video by Mayim Bialik (Yes, I still think of her as Blossom) came up in my suggested feed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofcUGuMhGGo
Because I'm a technological idiot, that link is to a video where she explains, very honestly, and diplomatically, the reasons she is vegan. I do think it's interesting that she doesn't bring in whether or not she feeds her children a vegan diet, but I suspect that perhaps she doesn't, and discussing her reasons why might cloud her message. I pass absolutely no judgement on her if that's the case, if nothing else, having a baby has taught me that I can make decisions with my own ethical principals in mind, but I have no right to force those decisions on my baby. I have to make decisions for him with his health and safety as the deciding factors first and foremost.
But I digress...
So, back in 2001, when I first entered the world of disordered eating, going vegan was actually my first foray into anorexia.
Of course, that's not how it started at all.
It started with an expose in the October 2001 issue of Adbusters magazine.
I had already started my "project", which is what I called the calories counting and restricting I was using to lose weight, but yogurt was a fundamental part of my breakfasts, and cheese was a large part of my dinners. I had started skipping the meat they served in my school cafeteria because it was pretty nasty, but I got a lot of protein from dairy and eggs, so even though I wasn't eating as much as before, and the approach to eating was still unhealthy, I wasn't depriving myself of vital nutrients.
I was blown away by the expose. It showed unflinching photographs of meat factory farm conditions, and showcased the conditions in other countries where food was either scarce or hunted, and I remember very clearly, it was the first time I felt guilt, horrible, all-consuming guilt, about food. I felt like I could never let meat, dairy, or eggs ever pass my lips again otherwise I might as well be force-feeding piglets or trapping chickens in cages with my own two hands.
I went vegan, then and there.
Immediately, my diet changed radically. Instead of a big bowl of yogurt and granola for breakfast, which kept me relatively full until the afternoon, I suddenly started eating a bowl of grapenuts cereal with soymilk.
I stopped loading my dinner time salads with cheese and eggs and I skipped the hot and buttery garlic bread I'd been eating on the side and started eating salads sprinkled with cubed tofu (this was before tempeh, seitan, quorn, and all those fun meatless products had debuted in grocery stores, let alone college dining halls), and since the only dairy free option for dressing was vinaigrette that's what I used. I also subbed a piece of dry, multigrain toast for my garlic bread.
I remember carrying my tray through the milling crowds of students with their hamsteaks and tator tots. Their cheesy nachos and plates of spaghetti and meatballs. I felt virtuous. I felt like an activist.
I felt like I was not contributing to the horror that my peers were, and that made me feel less guilty.
But I also started losing a lot more weight.
As my weight plummeted, my feelings of virtue increased so that my will power wouldn't crumble. I firmly planted associations of morality to food that still plague me to this day. I had no idea that they weren't about me rescuing pigs and chickens. Those feelings might have been there, but larger than that was the classic anorexic's feeling of mental strength and superiority.
I won't go into the rest of my ED story, since I've already chronicled it here, but I'll talk about how after I started to get help, I still refused to eat meat, not for another 7 years would I begin to be the mindful omnivore I am now.
Now let's talk about the video...
See, I still feel as strongly about the factory farm industry as I did at that first moment of revelation.
In fact, I don't see how anyone, once they know what's going on to get that burger on their plate could be complicit in the industry, however, I would now like to talk about privilege.
Mayim Bialik is a successful actress. She is a scientist, a mother, and many other very cool things, but economically, she's a very well paid actress. Compared to the millions of dollars Brad Pitt gets for sneezing onscreen, I'm sure she makes peanuts, but compared to me, she's doing pretty good.
Unfortunately economic hardship is what determines how parents feed their families.
This is what drives the factory farm industry. The average American family cannot afford to ethically feed themselves because the price of doing so is impossible. The industry has created its own need by using such horrible shortcuts to mass produce meat that they can afford charge cut rates for their products. It's easy any time you go into a grocery store.
I stand next to the eggs and it's 99 cents for a dozen white factory eggs. A dozen farm fresh eggs from a chicken that got to eat regular old corn instead of gmo "feed" is $3.29.
Are you kidding?
I can't afford three bucks for eggs, and I'm guessing neither can the majority of poverty level Americans.
So here we are.
I don't skip buying the eggs.
I hate myself a little, and I promise myself that as soon as we're financially able, I will be buying the free chicken eggs, but my priority right now is to feed my family the most nutritious food I am able.
This is where I use the term mindful omnivore, because, yes, as a society, we do rely far too heavily on meat and animal products. They make up way more of our diet than is necessary.
So I feed my baby eggs, but I also feed him beans.
If I can, I buy the non-antibiotic chicken, and I feed him little bits.
I make as much food as I can myself to cut down on additives, chemicals, and processes which condition our palettes to prefer the industrially produced food, but I do not flog myself with guilt if my budget doesn't give me wiggle room enough to buy organic produce, because the thing I've learned is that I have to feed my baby andI have to feed him well. Everything else is details.
So I guess I will close this by saying, as long as you're trying, as long as you're thinking, and actively making the healthiest choices for yourself, your family, and your babies, don't let anyone, especially a wealthy celebrity make you feel guilty for not being able to support her cause.
I love Mayim Bialik. I love Kat Von D. I love a lot of actively vegan celebrities, and I fully support them and their motives. I am, however, not privileged enough to maintain their lifestyle, and that doesn't make me a bad person or a bad mother, quite the opposite actually. Doing what's best for us, and however that has to be, is what makes me a great mum.
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