A few weeks ago, I wrote a
column about my attempt to become a vegan — that is to say, one who partakes
neither of meat nor fish nor dairy.
It's not an easy life, I
said. It seemed like a fairly non-controversial thing to say, although I was
sure that meat-eaters would respond with scorn and vitriol.
As it turned out, I was
wrong. Everybody responded with scorn and vitriol — meat-eaters, vegetarians,
vegans, and organic farmers, as well as people who think of Big Macs as health
food.
"It's not OK to cheat
from the viewpoint of the dead abused animal you ate," one woman wrote.
"This includes fish that were suffocated to death."
You're going to have to take
my word on this, lady, but I never suffocated a fish in my life. Anyway, if you
did it, wouldn't the pillow get wet?
But the shots kept coming
from all directions:
The vegetarian: "Sorry
but your article is filled with half-truths and distortions, the biggest one
being that a vegan diet is healthier than a vegetarian diet."
The faith-based: "I know
you are not only a weak, weak, weak person but you don't know what it is you
are really trying to do…You should start by reading your BIBLE to find
out."
The secular: "It really
doesn't help that the author put this in terms of 'sin' and 'cheating.'"
The environmentalist:
"Did you know that 98 percent of pollution and destruction of habitat is
caused by corporations and the rich?"
The racial: "Strange how
so many militant vegans always seem to be white."
The anthropological:
"Humans are designed by evolution to eat meat. Your diet will lead to
neurological decline and an early death."
The counter-anthropological:
"Wrong, wrong, wrong. Not designed by evolution but by Madison avenue,
McDonald's, and the meat industry."
The people who were commenting on my column at AlterNet.org just started arguing with each other
about everything, pretty much without reference to anything I'd written. For
example, the person who chimed in with "Adolf Hitler was a
vegetarian" was immediately checkmated by someone who wrote:
"Hitler was not a vegan
and that's what we're talking about."
I felt as though I could
steal out of the room at that point without anyone noticing, so I did. No one
noticed. They may still be arguing for all I know.
I found the experience dispiriting. There were nearly 300
comments posted in response to the column. As far as I could tell, not one
betrayed so much as a hint of a sense of humor.
Well, if that's what it takes
to be a vegan or a vegetarian, count me out. Life without funny is too great a
price to pay for good health.
I mean, what's the sense of
going on a diet if you can't cheat on it once in a while? A life without guilty
pleasures is hardly worth living.
Let me make myself clear, or
at least try to. I'm not a committed vegan, even less one who seeks to change
the way you eat. I am an experimental vegan who
admittedly falls off the wagon from time to time. I'm trying to see if it works
for me because I've seen the health improvements it can produce in others and I
have several areas that need improvement.
If you're interested at all
in the topic, I suggest you get the film Forks Over
Knives, which is available on Netflix, or read The China
Study. If you don't find these arguments persuasive, no harm
done.
As for me, I'm going back to
writing about something non-controversial, like politics.