Our Florida vacation continues apace. Tonight, we drove up to Fort Lauderdale to have dinner at Sublime, one of the most renowned purely vegan restaurants in the country. There’s nothing like being able to go somewhere new and know that every last thing on the menu is completely “safe”, with no dairy or eggs or honey or any other animal product. The food was exquisitely good.
Greater L.A. has far too few “high end” purely vegan restaurants. (Madeline’s Bistro is perhaps the one exception). San Francisco has the splendid Millenium, where I carbo-loaded for a marathon last summer. And next month, we’ll be checking out the renowned Candle 79 in New York. But we’ve had Sublime on the list for a while, and I am delighted we got to experience it tonight.
A friend of mine asked recently how I, as a vegan, felt paying for other’s meat. I do take friends and family to lunch from time to time, and we rarely get a chance to go somewhere vegan. I always order a strictly vegetarian meal, but many of those whom I care about don’t. Some of my friends and family will eat vegetarian out of respect for my values, but I never insist that they do so. Recently, my wife and I picked up the tab at a dinner where two of our companions ate filet with lobster — about as “un-vegan” a meal as you could get. We had invited these friends to dinner, and we had selected a restaurant with multiple options; as a result, we ended up spending our dollars for something we find morally repugnant.
I want a world where human beings eat an exclusively plant-based diet. (A good friend of ours recently made it through an entire pregnancy on nothing but a vegan diet; at nearly forty, she delivered herself of a very healthy, normal weight infant. It can be done, people, truly it can.) I want an end to factory farming and the slaughter and abuse of animals. I want people to think about the face of the creature whose body they chew on. That said, I also know that real change does happen incrementally, and it happens as a result of dialogue. The most transformative dialogues I’ve ever had in my life have taken place over meals. And I think my best chance at “winning converts” to the cause of genuine rights for animals comes if I am willing to have those chats over food that may well not be vegan.
Every dollar is a vote. I try and direct the dollars I have towards the causes that matter most to me; there are no struggles more important to me than those for women’s equality and rights for animals. It pains me to spend money in ways that are in contradiction to those values. When I’m out with friends and family, and it’s “my treat” or our turn to pick up the tab, it saddens me to pay for meat. At the same time, if I can practice a warm, inclusive, irenic, and winsome veganism, I’ve got the best possible chance of winning converts to the cause. In other words, if I buy a steak dinner for a friend tonight — after a conversation that may well have included the gentle insertion of a few key talking points about veganism — I’ve got a better shot at changing how they eat in the future than if I don’t eat with them at all. (I blogged about this before, here.)
On a related note, my wife and I were recently shopping for new cars; our leases are up on our old Toyotas. We want to buy rather than lease this time, and were determined not to buy Japanese, out of anger at Japan’s whaling practices. As we test-drove a variety of cars, we asked the salespeople over and over again about “cruelty-free” options. Some had no idea what we were talking about, but the folks at a number of European car dealerships did know: we meant no leather. After some research, I settled on the Volvo V70 wagon, which has a non-leather seat option. The car is coming in the next few weeks; several folks at Volvo have already heard my questions about the use of animal products in the vehicle. (There’s nothing to be done about the leather steering wheel, apparently, or the gearshift knob, but we seem in good shape on everything else). The goal is not individual purity, of course. The goal is to use my status as a consumer — one whose preferences are valued — to direct and shape future design and marketing choices. In buying her new car, my wife put another group of salespeople and factory reps through their paces. Though what we will be driving still contains products made from animal bodies, we’ve made what we consider to be the most ethical decisions with our dollars that we could. And about two dozen people in key positions at various car companies now know that some folks really, really care about having an environmentally responsible car that is made without animal products by well-paid, well-treated employees.
My friends and family who are reading this already know I don’t scowl when I see meat being cut up on a tablemate’s plate. But they also know not to mistake politeness for approval. If I’ve asked you to lunch, and you order the shrimp, I’ll still love ya and I’ll still pick up the check. But make no mistake, I’ll be happier still if you order the lentils instead.
There’s a new raw vegan restaurant called “Grezzo” in Boston. If I’d have known about it a few weeks ago I would have pointed you there!
thanks, Katie; I’m trying to build a mental list, and when we come back for WAM 2009, I’ll definitely check out Grezzo.
I feel ya, Hugo.
My father-in-law is a life-long strict teetotaler: while serving in the Army as a young man in the late Fifties, he would go out with his buddies to the bar … and order Shirley Temples. My mother-in-law is not a teetotaler, exactly, but she is the daughter of a Free Methodist minister. Enough said.
So when my wife and I got married, there was a Question as to whether alcohol would be served at the wedding. In the end, we went to my in-laws and said: We will have beer and wine, and we will not spend one red cent of yours on it. Your money will go to clearly defined things that are not alcohol.
And they were OK with that.
And, yeah, it’s bad hat to spend people’s money on things they find morally repugnant.
While we’re sharing vegan restaurants, there are three particular Chicago institutions I’d like to recommend. First is the Chicago Diner (3411 N Halsted), which is hugely popular among vegetarians but not, actually, my favourite. That honor goes to Soul Vegetarian East (203 E 75th). It’s quite a bit out of the way if you’re visiting the usual tourist spots, but it’s definitely worth the trip. Third is the Heartland Cafe (7000 N Glenwood), which is not strictly vegan but has fantastic lentil burgers. (They serve, if I remember right, ostrich and buffalo meat. The Chicago vegan community was incredibly upset when they added meat to their originally vegetarian menu, but I decided this was mostly a case of the progressive circular firing squad.)
I hope you’re getting the cloth seats in the Volvo–the synthetic leather makes you sweat…Ugh.
“Every dollar is a vote” I don’t see it that way. The dilutes your responsibility for what you are doing. Spending is an act. If you are paying for something that you think violates rights, then you are paying someone to violate rights, and this makes you responsible. The conclusion I draw here is that you don’t really think animals have rights. Which is fine with me — neither do I!
Lester, this is an issue of genuine complexity where competing goods collide: the need to stay connected with friends and family (many of whom only are willing to connect over non-vegan food) and the need to “witness” for animal rights. There’s a lot of thorny compromise in all of this.
Candle 79 is tasty, but not so much better than other veg*an places that I think it’s worth the price. But I’m poor, and Candle Cafe is more in my budget. If you want other suggestions for your NYC trip, just ask; there are plenty to choose from!
I went to an event that Candle 79 catered last year, and was blown away. We’ll probably hit the cafe too; any other Manhattan suggestions are welcome!
Silly me, I thought I was bugging you by once again asking you to help me make a decision when you were otherwise engaged. Turns out that my question inspired one of your more interesting and helpful posts.
This came about because my family is having Passover this weekend and I wanted to have a vegetarian one. Between the considerations of where to have it and what was available the best I could do was have it at a place that will serve vegetarian options. I asked Hugo(whom I also had invited)to be King Solomon about the paying for meat aspect and the result was this post. Any misgivings I had have now been assuaged so thanks my friend (and there will be no lamb shank, that I was firm about).
Now since you opened up the car can of worms I feel like you almost can’t win with that. The whaling practices are one thing but the environment and foreign oil dependency(and for me,concern for the latter wins out slightly over the former)is another. Thus the allure of the Hybrids, the best and most popular of which are Japanese. However, as one of the only disappointed Prius owners I know, not only does the rear visibility suck but I’m not without concerns over those gigantic batteries that they use. What’ll become of them down the line? Plus the car still uses plenty of gas and like other Japanese cars is as solid as aluminum foil.
So now I’m drawn to the VW biodiesels, a much more solid car that uses no gas and potentially runs on vegetable oil. That certainly sounds eco-friendly and foreign oil conscious. But then as a Jew I’m ambivalent about buying cars from the house that Hitler built.
Clearly the only solution is to move back to New York and enjoy the commuter trains………..or to a planet where such decisions don’t have to be made.
Sorry to be tangential, but reading about veganism and animal rights always reminds me of my own non-vegan desire to see an end to animal cruelty. There are a number of specific changes that I (and probably many other non-vegans) would like to see happen: and end to CAFOs, pasture feeding of cows, human treatment, a large scale reduction in meat consumption and livestock rearing, etc.
…and I predict that these changes, if they occur, will come not from the vegan movement but from the demands of meat eaters and milk drinkers. Vegans constitute a very small niche, and may always. The main selling point seems to be the moral right of farm animals to not be killed for human consumption. No matter how much people may abhor animal cruelty, most of them won’t hold this position.
Because veganism is a niche movement consisting of people who have opted out of eating livestock (nearly) completely, it will never have the ears of the meat industry. A movement to protest cruel practices by omnivores, such as to eat less meat or to boycott milk from factory cows, would be more likely to succeed simply because it is possible to get people to commit to smaller or short-term changes.
All this may have been said a thousand times before me, but I have never seen it.
would boycotting car brands that have their HQ based in japan yet have a branch in the U.S. be effective?
the percentage may be off a bit, but i do believe that 95% of the cars that are sold in the U.S. with a Japanese brand have the cars manufactured in the U.S.. As in everything from the raw materials to the final product the cars are assembled in factories within the u.s., and thus any purchase is reciprocal to america on a whole due to the money going back to the economy.
“as a Jew I’m ambivalent about buying cars from the house that Hitler built”
FuntFunt-
Ouch. As a German I have to say that one hurt. I think most Germans would be horrified to hear the country referred to in that way, as we are quite ashamed of any influence he had on our country, and have tried since then to build a country solidly committed to human rights, peace, and tolerance.
It is certainly your right to choose to not buy a German made car, but please do not give such a vile human being from our history the credit for building any part of Germany and what it is today.
A cruelty free car? Surely you jest! Hugo, those piles of fur by the side of the road do not get there courtesy of space aliens; cars run them over. Based on personal observation, I strongly suspect that the automobile kills far more wildlife in this continent than the fur industry. When you add in the more far reaching effects of petroleum refining, habitat destruction caused by road building, and the effect on animals of pollution from car exhaust, gas spills, and extravagantly toxic automotive fluids, and the idea of a “cruelty free car” seems like a hollow joke. At least the animals whose skin goes into leather seats got fed, cared for, and protected up until they went to the slaughter house; they did not crawl off a road in their final agony and end up rotting away as “collateral damage: for the car culture.
If you want to mitigate the baneful effects of the automobile, consider this challenge: go 30 (non-consecutive) days without driving, taking taxis, or having food delivered by car. Take transit (if you ride the bus, politicians will have an incentive to build more). Ride a bike. Try to spend a day or two each week where you don’t drive.
A.L.,
My remark referred to the company Volkswagen, which Hitler certainly was involved with, not the country of Germany. And in retrospect it was a bit much and I’m sorry to have hurt your feelings, or anyone else’s.
Actually, I’m more on the side of buying one than not. My point was more about how it’s seemingly impossible, in some cases, to buy a car other things without compromising SOMETHING. But in the case of VW I actually am more on the side of,’the people involved now are not the people involved then’.
First things first, I’m supportive–enthusiastically so–of the core idea that motivates this post.
But seriously, what John said about cars. We are, ultimately, profoundly destructive and cruel creatures, and cars are one of–probably the–most efficient tool with which we inflict our destructive cruelness on the rest of life on the planet (meat is probably #2). If you’re serious about reducing the cruelty of your car(please try to think about how ridiculous the phrase “cruelty-free car” is), the best thing you could possibly do is buy the most fuel efficient car you possibly can, and drive it as little as possible. Climate Change is going to wreck some serious havoc on the lives of all kinds of future animals and humans, and with all the flying you do you’ve probably got an outsized carbon footprint even if drive very little.
Furthermore, the boycott of Japan seems really arbitrary, bizarre and uncharacteristically nationalistic. First of all, as people have pointed out, country of ownership is a poor way to think about MNCs. Secondly, it smacks of collective punishment–you’re not boycotting whalers, you’re boycotting those who share a national identity with whalers. Thirdly, in a world full of cruelty, how does whaling get elevated to such an important position? At least the whales get to live a free life in the wild up until the end. Factory farming is far, far crueler, and is practiced by every nation on earth. In all the ways that cars are associated with cruelty and destruction, how this became the major issue driving your decision is something I have a really hard time wrapping my mind around.
Funt and A.L., regarding the issue with VW, VW was originally organized under the Third Reich based around a Ferdinand Porsche design favored by Hitler, which came to be called the KdF-Wagen (Kraft durch Freude, “Strength Through Joy”, the name of the NSDAP’s public morale and leisure organization), as an inexpensive family car that the families of the Reich could afford (Wolfsburg, the town in Lower Saxony where VW was established and is headquartered to this day, was actually founded in 1938 as “Stadt des KdF-Wagens” as a planned industrial community, and was renamed after the war). Civilian vehicle production was halted during the war, so the KdF-Wagen was manufactured principally as a military staff car. It would later be sold after the war as the VW Beetle (that a symbol of the 1960s hippie counterculture was originally produced as a Nazi economic and military initiative I find a rather amusing historical irony). The “Volks” in “Volkswagen” was also a Nazi-inspired moniker, applied to a number of products sold in Germany in that era.
I’ve had relatives on my wife’s side of the family who avoid VW, and also Mercedes for the same reason (Daimler-Benz produced military engines and munitions during WWII, and allegedly engines used in KZ gas-chambers).
Personally, in general, I’ve found this site an interesting nexus on questions of radical individual moral choices, which I generally don’t subscribe to myself but find interesting and informative nonetheless. I guess that trend continues.
A.L: “…but please do not give such a vile human being from our history the credit for building any part of Germany and what it is today.”. Just thought I’d add as a little joke, now how ’bout them autobahns? ;)
go 30 (non-consecutive) days without driving, taking taxis, or having food delivered by car. Take transit (if you ride the bus, politicians will have an incentive to build more). Ride a bike. Try to spend a day or two each week where you don’t drive.
I’ve done this. It wasn’t entirely voluntary — my car’s had alternator problems for the past year, and I generally lack the resources needed to fix the problem (can’t afford to take it to the shop; don’t know how to fix it myself; too busy to buy a book and figure it out for myself). Whenever the battery dies, I just don’t drive until I have the time and willpower to pull it out and recharge it with my plug-in trickle charger.
So I didn’t have a working car between mid-August and mid-October last Fall, and the second half of February through the middle of March this year. It helps that I live half a mile from school (walking distance, even well below freezing) and I’m single and childless (so I only have to go to the grocery store once every 5-10 days). But there were several cold and/or stormy days over the past year when I either biked or walked the 2-mile (round) trip to the grocery store. (The bus system in my crumbling Rust Belt town is effectively non-existent.)
I also don’t usually bother with a car once the daily temperatures are above 60. Gas is expensive and I am poor but able-bodied. Consequently, in the past two years, I’ve driven just under 3,000 miles.
I agree that cars are inflicting tremendous damage on our planet. If I lived somewhere other than Los Angeles, where public transportation is virtually non-existent, I’d be much more amenable to giving up a private automobile. As it is, I drive as little as I can.
I chose the Volvo because it finished first on a list of a series of requirements I had: minimum use of leather and other animal products; produced in the greenest possible factories; greatest likelihood of longevity; well-paid workers. I also liked the way it drove.
As for boycotting Japan — no other country has as willfully and cruelly flouted international law on whaling. No other country is as committed to the wholesale slaughter of the most intelligent creatures in the ocean (dolphins and whales) as is Japan. Yes, I know Volvo is owned (partly) by Ford; but the vehicle is primarily built in Gothenburg. (I checked). I’d rather dedicate my dollars to Swedish values than Japanese ones. (If Volvos were made in Norway, however, I might think differently). MNCs are not all interchangeable, not yet.
But, of course, those are not the only two options.
Other options:
1. You can go dutch where each person pays their own way.
2. You can go to a vegan restaurant.
3. You can cook yourself.
4. You can give your friend money or a gift certificate before the meal so it’s their choice how to spend their money - this emphasizes the idea that your gift is to them, and that your gift is not the dead animal flesh.
5. You can enjoy a nonfood activity together.
no other country has as willfully and cruelly flouted international law on whaling. No other country is as committed to the wholesale slaughter of the most intelligent creatures in the ocean (dolphins and whales) as is Japan.
I’m willing to agree to disagree about the relative awfulness of whaling in the grand scheme of wrongs we do to animals, but I just want to press you again on your ascriptive nationalism here. You’ve written beautifully from a sort of Christian cosmopolitan perspective against nationalism on this blog before, but in your thinking here you’re holding a massive entity known as “Japan” collectively responsible for something a fraction of Japanese whalers, consumers, and politicians allow (indeed, your own link suggests the majority of Japanese aren’t involved in and don’t approve of whaling, although it somewhat hysterically invokes “the Yakusa” as the impetus for Japanese whaling, a dubious empirical claim). This sort of collective responsibility and punishment seems out of character for you.
(I’m also curious why Japan is singled out for on whaling. Canada and Norway quit the IWC altogether, refusing to be held to any standard by the international community. Japan exploits a loophole in the IWC moratorium, and I suppose one might say that’s worse, but they’re still reluctantly part of the process. I’m curious if you’d refuse to purchase from Canadian and Norwegian companies as well?)
DJW, you may well be right that the majority of Japanese abhor whaling, just as many Americans abhor the idea of water-boarding. I suppose that being a Greenpeace member gives me a particular sense of horror at whaling (and seal-clubbing). I would prefer a Swedish car to a Norwegian or a Canadian one, too.
Elaine, those are all excellent — even preferable — options. I’m moving in that direction, mind you; just not all the way “there” yet.
Thinking through why I’m annoyingly hounding you about this, I think there are two main reasons. One, my discomfort with nationalist collective punishment on philosophical grounds. The other, I think, is a strong suspicion that negative ‘voting with dollars’ (ie, boycotts) needs to be far more narrowly and specifically targeted than the third largest economy in the world if they’re likely to actually effect change.
@djw: well said. you highlighted all the points that came to mind when i read this entry.