Archive for the 'Veganism' Category

Of food and sex, and how Mary Eberstadt gets both history and ethics quite wrong

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 02, 2009
in Christianity, Food, Sexual ethics and transformation and Veganism
. 20 Comments

Lots of folks in the right-wing blogosphere are excited about this lengthy piece by Mary Eberstadt: Is Food the New Sex? It appears on the Hoover Institution’s website as part of their “Policy Review” series, and it seems an unlikely fit for a center more associated with promoting a staunchly conservative perspective on foreign affairs than on issues like, well, food and sex. The piece got a boost in attention after George Will made it the subject of his column last week.

Eberstadt’s piece is long, and perhaps convincing to those who don’t know their history a bit better. Her basic thesis: as recently as the 1950s, Americans were resolutely non-judgmental about what they ate, and deeply conservative about with whom they had sex. In the last half-century, Eberstadt opines, that moral calculus has been reversed. We now, to be vulgar, care more about what we put in our mouths than whom. Eberstadt offers us a hypothetical “Betty”, a thirty year-old housewife from the Eisenhower era, and “Jennifer”, a thirty year-old single woman from our own time. She summarizes their views thus: Betty thinks food is a matter of taste, whereas sex is governed by universal moral law; and Jennifer thinks exactly the reverse.

Eberstadt thinks that this isn’t a good thing, and is perhaps evidence of a deep inconsistency on the part of modern men and women, at least those modern folks with the sufficient resources to be discriminating about what it is that they eat. (If you are fond of snarky remarks about vegans, the slow food movement, and others who practice ethical consumption, you’ll love this piece. Otherwise, be warned, our Mary is rather tediously middle-brow in her evident contempt for those who are deeply concerned with what we eat.)

There’s a lot wrong with Eberstadt’s piece. First of all, her history is off. She imagines the 1950s as an age blissfully unconcerned with calories and weight, and writes as if dieting emerged sometime during the Sexual Revolution of the subsequent decade. As any student of the discipline known as “body history” knows, she’s off by decades. The first diet books hit the American market at the end of the First World War, in response both to the dramatic fashion changes emerging from France (the new, slim, sleek designs of Paul Poiret, the grandfather in a convoluted way of the flapper dress) and the sudden uptick in the availability of excess food for the majority of Americans (thanks to various technological changes, refrigeration not the least important.) Eberstadt would do well to read Joan Brumberg, our pre-eminent historian of the flesh; see her Fasting Girls and The Body Project.

One of the things about the 1920s is the emergence of what we might call the “moral language of food.” For the first time, as Brumberg’s exhaustive study of girls’ diaries has shown, young women begin to use words like “good” and “bad” to describe their eating habits. It’s in the 1920s, and no later, that we see the emergence of phrases like “I was so bad today” (to refer to an experience of eating something fattening) or “I’ve been good all week” (to refer to having adhered to a strict diet for several days.) Of course, to be entirely fair, it’s in the 1920s that we first see a secular moral language for eating. Any medievalist knows that centuries ago, rich and flavorful foods were given up as acts of penance, and a willingness to subsist on as little as possible (Catherine of Siena is a fine example) was seen as a mark of virtue, particularly for women. For medieval Christians, a disdain for the pleasures of the table was a sign of holiness. This wasn’t just a rejection of gluttony, but of carnal joy itself. (And surely Eberstadt recognizes the double meaning of carnal, which is an ancient one.)

Eberstadt thus makes the mistake that conservatives have been making since at least the Reagan Administration: looking back fondly at the 1950s with the stunningly false assumption that that genuinely anomalous decade represented America as it had always been previously. There may indeed have been women like Eberstadt’s “Betty” running around in 1959. But there weren’t many Bettys in 1929, or 1729, or 1329. Continue reading ‘Of food and sex, and how Mary Eberstadt gets both history and ethics quite wrong’

“Vegan slips”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 17, 2008
in Food and Veganism
. 16 Comments

My friend Bill sends me an interesting email:

Have you ever had a ‘vegan slip’? Eaten meat or animal products only because you couldn’t resist them? Do you think it might be interesting to see if others do? And I don’t mean the times you had traces of eggs are milk becuase you were in a situation where options were limited.

While I’m still on a self-imposed hiatus from blogging about animal rights issues, I think I can answer this one safely.

First off, I’m a bit leery of using the language of “slips” around veganism (even though I have used the term myself). “Slipping” is a term used by addicts in recovery to describe a relapse. My friend Bill and I have both spent plenty of time in Twelve Step programs; in my case, it was those programs that helped me stop drinking and using drugs. I haven’t had a drink or an illicit drug in well over a decade, and if I were to “pick up” and use again, that would indeed constitute a mighty slip.

But I don’t think of veganism as a recovery program from the disease of carniverousness. It’s true that I tend to approach virtually everything in my life through the lens of addiction and recovery, and that’s obvious in my writing. But that’s a psychological foible rather than a philosophical perspective. And though it’s tempting to do pull a President Bush (who spoke of our nation being “addicted to oil”) and use the language of addiction to describe the attachment most folks have to meat consumption, I’m not going to do it. Not only is it medically an inappropriate term to use, using a word like “addiction” (or its related terms, like “slip”) to describe the relationship people have with animal products makes the mistake of centering human beings and their feelings, rather than the rights of animals, in the discussion. And that’s the wrong tack to take.

But this is not the time to re-hash the moral case for veganism. Leaving aside the words Bill uses, the question are good ones to ask of any vegan: “Do you ever get tempted to eat animal products? What do you do? Have you ever eaten meat or dairy or eggs (consciously, rather than by accident) since becoming a vegan?”

Part of being vegan is eating a balanced, plant-based diet. It’s easy to be a “junk-food” vegan, after all. And I find that when I don’t get enough protein (beans, soy, hemp rice, peanut butter and so forth), I do feel an urge to eat meat. But I catch myself every time, reminding myself that it’s not a steak I crave, but rather the protein within the steak. My cravings are, I’ve learned, always in response to obvious nutritional deficiencies. It’s quite liberating — at least for me — to discover that my longings for certain foods can be controlled by eating sensibly. A craving for meat comes very rarely, and it can easily be assuaged with something else. It’s usually just a sign I’ve gotten a bit lazy in ensuring that I’m eating a wide variety of plants!

I have not eaten animal flesh since a few “slips” (hah, there’s the word) in 2005. But in the last two years, the years in which I have been most intensely vegan, I have made the conscious decision to consume dairy or eggs. I haven’t done so in the USA; all of my recent adventures into lacto-ovo vegetarianism have come abroad.

I can think of two occasions in particular. In January, we were on our Antarctica cruise; my wife and I were the only vegans on the trip. The catering staff on the ship did their best by us, but sometimes — especially towards the end of the voyage, as fresh food supplies dipped, they ran into trouble. And one night at dinner, all they had for us (besides chicken and fish) was cheese lasagna. I had been getting by for days on salads and nuts, hemp shakes and vegan bars. I was tired of feeling so deprived; more than 1000 miles from a decent health food store, I didn’t have a lot of choices. I could have survived without the lasagna, but I chose to eat it. I felt sick afterwards, but yes, it tasted good.

In August, when we were in Croatia, the same thing happened. This time, the choice to eat dairy came in a restaurant in Dubrovnik. I was sick of pasta with marinara sauce and soggy lettuce. I ordered a cheese pizza, and it was very satisfying. Some countries are easy in which to be vegan (Thailand and Israel come to mind); others are murderously challenging (say, Argentina and France). I go easy on myself when I am away from my usual sources of tasty plant-based nutrition. It is not unlikely that dairy or egg products will cross my lips on some future foreign trip.

Veganism is not akin to sobriety. In AA, we learned that if we took a single drink, we lost our sobriety. I know the last date I consumed alcohol: June 27, 1998. Except for communion and kiddush wine in tiny doses during religious ceremonies, I have not had a drop of any alcoholic beverage since that date. But I don’t have a “vegan date.” My veganism is not about measuring my own purity or my own health. My veganism happens to have the happy byproduct of good health, but that’s not it’s purpose. I am vegan because I want to be as justice-centered as possible in my food choices. The “as possible” reflects the reality that I can’t do it perfectly. Animals die in the process of growing plants and making car tires, after all.

But as I’ve said a thousand times, and will say a thousand times again, there’s no point in letting the impossibility of perfection be a reason to stop pursuing the most ethical life possible. The best cannot be allowed to be the enemy of the good. I will never run as fast as Paula Radcliffe, but run I can. I will never be able, as a prosperous American, to undo all the harm that is done sustaining the life I lead. But I can take a great many steps to mitigate that harm, and to mitigate it significantly. Eating vegan food and buying vegan clothes is one very tangible way to do that. And when I don’t do it perfectly, for whatever reason, I don’t put on the metaphorical hair shirt. I let myself be human, and then return to the task of doing the best I can.

One motto I learned early in recovery is useful here: ‘do the next right thing’. 99.9% of the time, the ‘next right thing’ for me to eat is something vegan. One time in a thousand, I might choose cheese - not out of a failure of principle but because of a failure of other options, and a failure to plan perfectly. And I’m not going to beat myself up for that. I’ll just do the next right thing.

NOTE: This is not the place to raise the old and bitter arguments about animal rights, vegan philosophy, and so forth. This is a post about what it means to try and live ethically, with the knowledge that on occasion, one falls short of the mark. The post is about how to think about what it means to fall short. It is not the time to question the merits of pursuing that particular goal in the first place.

A hiatus from AR blogging: taking a topical time out

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 16, 2008
in Animal Rights and Veganism
. 17 Comments

No, this is not that kind of hiatus. I’ll be blogging fairly regularly for at least the next month or so. The hiatus of the title is topical: I’m going to give the subjects of veganism and animal rights a rest for a while. After reading the tone of my own exchange with Amanda below this post, I realize I’m just not in a good place to be a winsome advocate for other creatures.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I can’t seem to exercise the same degree of calm and irenic thoughtfulness on animal-related issues that I like to think I am able to provide on at least some other topics. Though I’ve been involved in the animal rights community for many years, it’s only recently that I’ve made veganism and AR work a more explicit focus here on this blog. Though my commitment to animal liberation and to veganism is undiminished, I recognize that my feelings are sufficiently intense and my beliefs sufficiently out of the mainstream that I am in danger of alienating a great many people if I continue to write as I have written. (See some of my more recent posts and their comments sections.) I have received private emails from friends and fellow bloggers whom I respect, folks who are a bit concerned by what they see as an increasingly radical public position on my part. One friend, an attorney, has advised me that it’s not wise to be even obliquely supportive on this blog of “direct action” for animal liberation. I have no particular wish for a long interrogation by the FBI about where some of my money goes.

So until at least 2009, no more posts about animals (except, perhaps, some cute stories about chinchillas). No more posts about veganism. Just as I needed to take a year away from posting about abortion, I need some time to rethink how I make the public case for animals and for a plant-based diet. I’m a nice and moderate fellow on so many issues, but somehow, when I write about animals, my inner zealot emerges. I try to sound like Leo Buscaglia, and I come across like Girolamo Savonarola. It’s time to give this particular topic a rest.

And hey, I’m open to taking requests on the usual topics: relationships, gay history, feminism, men in feminism, older men/younger women, Christian faith and gender justice, and so forth. Suggest away, please!

Parental pride, parental anxiety: on ever-earlier adolescence and the ever-present double standard

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 13, 2008
in Body, Feminism, Veganism and Youth
. 54 Comments

Comments should be open.

As I’ve written before, each semester in my women’s history course we spend some time looking at Joan Brumberg’s wonderful Body Project. Brumberg talks about the four to five year drop in the onset of puberty between the late nineteenth century and the present. The best medical evidence we have from 1900 put the average age of menarche at 16; today, it is just over 11. And of course, with earlier menarche comes earlier development of other secondary sex characteristics. The same is true with boys, though males lack the single defining demarcation line of the onset of menstruation to mark an entry into adolescence.

It’s a women’s studies class, so we spend much more time focusing on the impact of earlier puberty on girls than on boys. We refute some of the common myths (like the long-standing notion that the Virgin Mary was fourteen, and thus menarche must have happened for her before she was to be wed). We talk about the role of changing diet, particularly meat consumption, in driving adolescent growth. I quote from PCRM’s summary of a Harvard study:

Some studies suggest that the growth of vegetarian children is more gradual than that of non-vegetarians—in other words, vegetarian children grow a bit more slowly at first, but they catch up later on. Final heights and weights for vegetarian children are comparable to those of meat-eating children. Interestingly, breast-fed babies also grow more slowly than bottle-fed babies. Somewhat less rapid growth during the early years is thought to decrease disease risk later in life.

On the other hand, diets rich in animal protein, found in meat, eggs, and dairy products, appear to reduce the age of puberty, as shown in a 2000 study from the Harvard School of Public Health, which found that girls who consumed higher levels of animal protein compared to vegetable protein between 3 and 8 years of age went through menarche earlier. Nature may well have designed the human body to grow up more gradually, to reach puberty later, and to last longer than most people raised on omnivorous diets experience.

Bold mine. The full study is here. I never hide the fact that I’m a vegan, and so I’m quite clear about my bias: if future parents want to make sure that their children “don’t grow up too fast”, raising them with a minimum meat intake (or as vegans) is the best way to go. Take Harvard’s word for it — there’s a lot to be said for delaying physical puberty by 24-36 months, to give the mind time to keep pace with the body developmentally. MTV can’t make your daughter menstruate earlier than you did; McDonalds can.

But please believe that I don’t just use the palpable anxiety my students feel about the “vanishing of physical childhood” to push my vegan agenda. Yeah, I do that - but there’s more as well. We also spend a great deal of time exploring the historical, psychological, and cultural implications of a much earlier adolescence. Those students who are comfortable doing so are invited to open up dialogue with older female relatives (this is not required); many in my classes, filled as they are with first-generation Americans, have grandmothers who are a foot shorter than they are — and who report “starting” substantially later.

In journal assignments, many of my students write about their own worries about their younger sisters or daughters. (I have many single parents, mostly moms, in my courses). A great many talk about rethinking the diets that they will offer their future children. But interestingly, none of them express any anxiety about early puberty in boys. When the subject comes up — which it has — in my men and masculinity courses, I never hear a student say “Gosh, I want to make sure I raise my son vegetarian so he can stay in a boy’s body longer.” In my women’s history courses, I constantly hear “I want to do everything I can to delay my daughter’s development”. Continue reading ‘Parental pride, parental anxiety: on ever-earlier adolescence and the ever-present double standard’

The Best and the Good Enough: Abolitionists, Welfarists and the agonizing quarrel over the Humane Farms Initiative

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 23, 2008
in Animal Rights, Environmentalism, Politics and Veganism
. 8 Comments

The initial polling looks good for Proposition 2 here in California, the Humane Farms Initiative. Backed by a coalition of animal welfare, veterinary, and family farming groups, the proposition is modeled on initiatives already successfully passed in New Jersey, Florida, Colorado, and Arizona. It’s just about the simplest initiative in town, requiring that every farm animal in California be allowed the freedom to stand up, turn around, and spread its wings (or other limbs.) Implementation will not be required for nearly seven years, until 2015. The proposition is endorsed by the Humane Society of the United States, most of the leading veterinary groups in the state, and a variety of small family farms that struggle to compete with the heavily mechanized agricultural behemoths (the ones, of course, who use the harshest confinement practices.)

The proposition has attracted bi-partisan support. No one would call congressmen Elton Gallegly (R-Ventura) and John Campbell (R-Orange County) liberals; both have written to their colleagues asking for congressional backing for Proposition 2. (See PDF here). Gallegly in particular represents a district with a heavy agricultural presence, making his support all the more noteworthy. The primary public opposition comes, of course, from the biggest of the agricultural producers, along with a loud minority of veterinarians who insist that current confinement practices (in which veal calves cannot stand up, and chickens in battery cages cannot spread their wings) are humane. But there are others, normally on the opposite side of the issue from Big Ag, who are also strongly against Prop 2. Continue reading ‘The Best and the Good Enough: Abolitionists, Welfarists and the agonizing quarrel over the Humane Farms Initiative’

Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, 1949-2008

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 21, 2008
in Food, People, Politics and Veganism
. 0 Comments

I’m in Europe still, but breaking hiatus to express my great shock and sadness at the death yesterday of Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones. Tubbs-Jones died suddenly following a brain hemorrhage.

Stephanie Tubbs-Jones was a dedicated progressive, and was perhaps best known for her role in vigorously contesting the 2004 Ohio presidential election results. What was less well-known was her role as an animal activist and a crusader for healthier eating. We sat with her at the 2007 PCRM Gala, and she and my wife chatted at length about the role that a vegetarian diet could play in reducing obesity and heart disease rates in the African-American community. (I mentioned that talk in this post.) Though Tubbs-Jones was not a vegan like her next-door neighbor in the House, Dennis Kucinich, she was convinced that education about and access to a plant-based diet was a crucial component in saving lives, both animal and human.

I told her that I intended to come before a House committee someday, pleading for a nationwide ban on fur pelting. Tubbs-Jones smiled and told me she looked forward to it. I don’t know if I’ll ever testify before Congress, but I knew that I would have had a very friendly welcome if I had made it there under her watch. Ohio and the country have lost a devoted advocate for the poor, for women, and for the interconnectedness of healthy eating and justice for animals.

Unattainable perfection versus the attainable good: of cruelty, veganism, and the lamentable Wesley J. Smith

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 24, 2008
in Animal Rights and Veganism
. 24 Comments

I’ve debated, over the last forty-eight hours, whether it was worth responding to this risible National Review article (is that a redundancy, I wonder?): Veganism is Murder. Wesley J. Smith, who is apparently writing a book about the animal rights movement, opines:

Listening to animal-rights activists bray on about the wrongness of slaughtering animals for food — summarized in their advocacy phrase “meat is murder” — one would think that the choice we have is between a diet in which animals are killed and a strictly vegan diet involving no animal deaths.

But life is never that simple: Plant agriculture results each year in the mass slaughter of countless animals, including rabbits, gophers, mice, birds, snakes, and other field creatures. These animals are killed during harvesting, and in the various mechanized farming processes that produce wheat, corn, rice, soybeans, and other staples of vegan diets. And that doesn’t include the countless rats and mice poisoned in grain elevators, or the animals that die from loss of habitat cleared for agricultural use.

Smith is hardly the first to point this out; indeed, serious environmentalists (Smith is neither) have gently made that case to some of the more naive members of the animal rights community. It’s absolutely true that no respirating, masticating, clothes-wearing consuming human can ever claim that the life they live is entirely free from the stain of death. Plant-based agriculture takes lives. A squirrel on the motorway can be crushed as easily by a Toyota Prius as by a Ford Expedition, and the chemicals released by companies making synthetic shoes can do nearly as much harm as is done by those who use real leather. No thoughtful, educated vegan believes the myth of his or her own absolute personal purity. We know, better than most folks, how complicit each of us is in the ongoing Great Crime that human beings are perpetuating against our fellow creatures. Continue reading ‘Unattainable perfection versus the attainable good: of cruelty, veganism, and the lamentable Wesley J. Smith’

Bumper stickers, license plate frames, and the importance of courteous driving

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 21, 2008
in Memories and Veganism
. 10 Comments

On the back of my Volvo, I have a license plate frame that says “Go Vegan.” I’ve never been a big fan of bumper stickers, but I usually have some sort of statement on the frame that surrounds the license. (My front frame is the standard Cal Alumni one, made of faux brass.)

I’m not a bad driver, but having a statement about veganism on my car makes me a better one. I know that there are others out there who connect the political messages on a car with the courtesy (or lack thereof) with which the car is driven. If I’m swerving all over the road and cutting people off, I know that it’s possible that someone will look at my plates, and, cursing under their breath, say “That vegan’s an idiot.” I doubt I’m going to win any converts to a plant-based diet solely by virtue of having this frame on a well-driven car, of course! But I know that when someone with a slogan on their vehicle has been particularly courteous towards me on the road, it affects — if only for a second — my feelings about the politics they’ve endorsed. If, say, someone with an NRA sticker ends up letting me into their lane, and we end up exchanging friendly waves, it helps lessen some of the antipathy I normally have towards the pistol-packing set.

Back when I was first getting sober, twenty years ago, I tooled around town in a beat-up Honda Accord. When I got my first thirty-day chip in my sobriety program (I got far too many of those), I went out and bought a little bumper sticker with the famous triangle inside a circle, symbolizing the Twelve Step program with which I was affiliated. I later got the diamond within a circle, which symbolized another program. I felt as if I was honoring the anonymity of the program while still sending a message; I know that when I was frustrated in traffic, it helped calm me down if I saw another car with one of “our” messages (One Day at a Time, Easy Does It, Live and Let Live) or the Triangle itself. And it helped me drive better, knowing that I was “representing” the program. My first sponsor told me “Your recovery will manifest in your driving”, and I kept that in mind.

So now I’m reppin’ the vegan life with all that it entails. And it carries with it a responsibility to be attentive and courteous.

How do you readers feel about messages on cars? Does how the car is driven connect with how you perceive the message on the bumper sticker or the plate?

Familiar faces

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 11, 2008
in Veganism
. 4 Comments

Some familiar faces profiled in this month’s issue of Good Medicine.

Cruelty-free means humans too: some thoughts on a more holistic veganism

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 02, 2008
in Animal Rights, Class, Food, Politics and Veganism
. 9 Comments

On some feminist blogs, there’s been good discussion about veganism and larger issues of race and class. Here’s Elle, BFP, and BFP again. The last of these posts deals with the much-ballyhooed “three-week vegan challenge” that Oprah Winfrey recently completed. There’s a lot of PETA-bashing that goes on, but that’s all-too-common on feminist websites, and I’m not interested in dredging up that old issue once more.

What is valuable in these posts is the discussion of whether or not veganism is, inherently, a cruelty-free lifestyle. Those of us who, like myself, don’t consume animal products in any form (food, clothing, etcetera) tend to describe our modus operandi as “cruelty-free.” When my wife and I were buying our new cars, we went out of our way to special order vehicles without any leather in the interiors whatsoever, a request that led to several months wait and not-inconsiderable expense. Of course, not only was our ability to make that choice rooted in privilege, in some sense it was imperfect — animal byproducts end up in tires and other places. We spoke to the car dealers about our desire to be “completely cruelty-free”, but we both knew as we did so we were pursuing an imperfectly attainable goal.

A vegan lifestyle, of course, doesn’t automatically mean an absence of connection to death. When even organic farms are tilled, little field mice are not infrequently cut to pieces. Most organic vegetables are grown with animal manure, usually collected from farms where animals are raised for meat. Trying to avoid all complicity with the machinery of death is, alas, nigh on impossible. Most vegans know all this, of course. They don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, however, and with the limited options at their disposal, they seek to exercise the best possible choices available in any given situation, recognizing that few if any choices they do make will be truly “cruelty-free.” Continue reading ‘Cruelty-free means humans too: some thoughts on a more holistic veganism’

Dirty Harry, vegan

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 01, 2008
in Movies and Veganism
. 6 Comments

Taking a break from a day of exercise, errands, and watching the women’s college world series to note this surprise from an article about Clint Eastwood in this morning’s Times:

People ask him to autograph rifles, but Eastwood is no Charlton Heston. A vegan, he was distressed to hear Hillary Rodham Clinton boast recently about bagging a bird. “I was thinking: ‘The poor duck, what the hell did she do that for?’ I don’t go for hunting. I just don’t like killing creatures. Unless they’re trying to kill me. Then that would be fine.”

I had no idea — but I am delighted to discover — that the former mayor of my home town (for whom I did not vote) was a fellow vegan. PCRM, Farm Sanctuary or PETA need to sign Clint up pronto. I’m already imagining some terrific PSAs.

On a only distantly related note, I saw a bear on my trail run this morning; there are still a few left in the San Gabriels, but it is always a spine-tingling delight to come flying around a curve and see one of these magnificent creatures just yards away. It, uh, made my day.

Oprah, veganism, and the real inconvenient truth

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 22, 2008
in Environmentalism, Food and Veganism
. 15 Comments

It’s been a happy birthday so far. I admit I really appreciate Facebook, which I didn’t have for my last birthday — all the kind notes showing up on my “wall” make me very happy.

The vegan world has been abuzz with the news that Oprah Winfrey is on a 21-day cleanse, using only plant-based foods. The queen of all media is blogging about her experience here. I love what she says in her first entry:

Wow, wow, wow! I never imagined meatless meals could be so satisfying. I had been focused on what I had to give up—sugar, gluten, alcohol, meat, chicken, fish, eggs, cheese. “What’s left?” I thought. Apparently a lot. I can honestly say every meal was a surprise and a delight, beginning with breakfast—strawberry rhubarb wheat-free crepes.

Now, most vegans don’t go as far as Oprah’s going. I eat wheat and sugar everyday, and my wife likes a nice glass of wine quite regularly. Those of us in the animal rights community respect Oprah’s enormous cultural power; we know what she can do for books and presidential candidates. We also know that she’s been very candid about her many years of struggle with body image issues; the world has watched her weight fluctuate for two decades. Though veganism is much more than a weight-loss regimen (and indeed, there are plenty of plump vegans), I’m confident Oprah will be amazed by how much energy and “bounce” she has over the next seventeen days or so. Continue reading ‘Oprah, veganism, and the real inconvenient truth’

Hugo’s back pages: of charity galas, sophomoric cynicism, veganism, PETA, socks, and the very real sense that the world can be changed

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 19, 2008
in Age, Animal Rights, Veganism and Youth
. 9 Comments

I’m bleary-eyed at my desk this morning. United flight 33 from JFK to LAX landed at midnight, but it was just five or six hours ago that I finally got into bed. And today is my long day, one which will see me on campus thirteen hours. On the other hand, I am entirely the architect of my own adversity in this regard, so there will be no whining.

We were in New York this weekend to participate in Farm Sanctuary’s annual gala. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about our visit to the Orland farm; we had a very different but nearly-as-enriching experience in Manhattan.

I like events like this, and it’s not because I enjoy running around in black tie and getting goodie bags. (Okay, I do like both of those things, but in moderation.) What I find so exciting and inspiring is the chance to spend an evening in the presence of people with whom I share the same passionate commitments. As any vegan will tell you, spending a lot of time in debate and argument with folks who don’t share those same values can be exhausting and dispiriting. It’s the same thing with feminism, or any other ideological commitment that involves a holistic transformation of how one lives, thinks, acts, and consumes. Being in the presence of those who do what you do, and have often done it longer and more publicly, is galvanizing. Continue reading ‘Hugo’s back pages: of charity galas, sophomoric cynicism, veganism, PETA, socks, and the very real sense that the world can be changed’

Tender-hearted in Tehama County: a weekend at Farm Sanctuary

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 05, 2008
in Animal Rights, Traveling and Veganism
. 6 Comments

My wife and I spent the weekend up in Northern California. (Parenthetically, we really were in Northern California this time, up in Butte, Glenn, and Tehama counties. Like most southlanders, I tend to refer to the Bay Area as “Northern” California when that region is, clearly, closer to the center. My childhood homes in coastal Monterey and rural Alameda counties are almost as close to Mexico as they are to the Oregon border.)

We went up north to attend the spring hoe-down at Farm Sanctuary, which has rapidly become one of our favorite charities. I’ll get pictures up tonight or tomorrow of some of the pigs, geese, goats, sheep, turkeys, rabbits and cows with whom we bonded. We also got to meet vegan animal activists from all across the West, enjoy some delicious food, and hear some inspiring and moving speeches about the next steps for both Farm Sanctuary in particular and the animal rights movement in general. Continue reading ‘Tender-hearted in Tehama County: a weekend at Farm Sanctuary’

Buying my friend a filet: of veganism, Volvos, and the complexity of seeing every dollar as a vote

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 16, 2008
in Money and Veganism
. 25 Comments

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. Continue reading ‘Buying my friend a filet: of veganism, Volvos, and the complexity of seeing every dollar as a vote’