Becoming Mostly
Consumerically Vegan
Though after watching the brutality of the violence against
animals, becoming consumerically-vegan wasn’t a rash decision.
I have entertained and cultivated this idea for a really
long time, and my understanding has evolved to the point where I feel like
now’s the time.
Now what does being “consumerically-vegan” mean? It just means that I try not to buy products
that use animals. It means that I will
still eat meat if its around, but I just won’t buy it. We do not want to support the
industry. But in eating contexts where
there is a lot of socializing such as family parties or with friends, we don’t
really want to waste what has already been killed, so we will eat whatever
they’re eating.
The first time I heard of Veganism was during my first year
at UC Santa Cruz. It was a big kid named
Nils who took a lot of apples from the dining hall to brew beer in his dorm
room.
Vegetarianism was one thing.
Fairly understandable if not untenable, at least to my 18-year old, son
of a Filipino immigrant-grow-up in LA-mind.
Fairly understandable because I understood that OK, you just sit around
all day and stuff yourself with leafy lettuce and tomatoes all day. OK, that’s cool, for hippies.
But Veganism to me when I first heard about it was a little
extreme. Sitting around all day,
stuffing yourself with leafy lettuce and tomatoes while also making sure that
anything you eat has no milk, eggs, cheese --- dairy products. Hippie.
Extremism.
To me it just seemed like way too much trouble. Why go out of your way? What’s one less dead animal?
A few days ago, I joined the hippie extremist part of my
18-year old mind. 31-year old going on
32-year old me has decided to become a consumerist-vegan. A “consumerist-vegan” meaning I just try to
actively not buy any animal products.
I come in with the idea that I control my wallet better than
I control my appetite. So if I curb the
spending and choose not to spend on meat, then it will not be available, and I
won’t have any choice but to eat anything without animal products.
What had appeared to be a lot of rules and restrictions
about what I could eat has now become something I’ve simply decided just not to
actively seek out.
What’s Helped Me Make
This Choice?
A lot of things have fallen into place over the years.
First and foremost, I was strongly inspired by the visual of
what happens to animals. Seeing videos
of brutality against the animals drove the point home.
On a Saturday night in January, my wife and I had actually
just come home with a meal from our favorite burger joint in Wilmington. Not exactly a vegan-friendly establishment
though I never looked past their fish sandwich and fries.
Per Saturday night, we watched a Netflix movie, of three
people considering Veganism being coached up to become Vegan. I thought the host of the movie was kind of
self-absorbed and smug, but her movie did pack a few punches. One, she showed the naked brutality of the
treatment of cows, chickens, etc. Two,
she showed the foods that were “accidentally Vegan.”
There was a time in my life as a cynical prick-ish teenager
when I wouldn’t be as disturbed by the contents of a documentary, but I guess a
lot more life experience and regard for life has grown, so has the pull to make
such a dramatic lifestyle change.
Secondly, we’ve each experimented with the lifestyles of
Vegetarianism. She more than me. She actually was Vegetarian for a relatively
long time. She started eating meat while
at the convent because it was the only food offered, and they made her feel
bad.
Me, I ate Vegetarian meals because of who I happened to be
dating. Girlfriends #2 and #3
were/probably still are vegetarians.
They didn’t try to force me into it, and I wasn’t at all interested when
I was dating either. I was just waiting
for the times when I could eat meat.
However, from girlfriend #2, I learned about the Vegetarian-ish
foodscape particularly in central LA, and from girlfriend #3, I learned about the
concept of the foodscape, with which I am actively analyzing and
deconstructing; more of that below.
Thirdly, little trinkets of conversation over the years to
help me little by little come to the realization that Veganism was a mindset
that I could actually attain.
I realized that eating vegan wasn’t necessarily focusing on
eating vegetables to the exclusion of everything else. I think the popular perception,
certainly the idea my college-educated sister, and I had about vegetarianism
and veganism were that they just ate vegetables all the time.
However, for me at least, someone on a basketball message
board deconstructed that idea. Just
because they were vegan didn’t mean they spend their whole time obsessed with
vegetables and greens. The poster made the point that s/he ate things like
apples --- that’s vegan. It's a subtle
point that kind of stuck.
It wasn’t till I watched the movie and they listed a handful
of “accidentally vegan foods, that I decided OK, this really could be done. On the list of accidentally Vegan foods: Aunt Jemima and Pancakes, Lay’s BBQ Chips,
teddy grahams.
Fourthly, not only this backdrop of information overload
(Google and Yelp), but some more intimate knowledge of where I can get good
Vegan take-out or sit-down meals around the South Bay Los Angeles area.
It helps that I’ve been somewhat exposed to a handful of
vegetarian non-meat-based restaurants and products.
So far, my wife and I have “discovered” the Veggie Grill in
Torrance as a fine substitute for many of the eateries we used to go to in and around the South Bay. The only piece of meat that I really miss is In-N-Out, but apparently there's a few ways to make substitutes.
In addition to Trader Joe's, we've learned of the Vegan foods at stores we normally go to such "Vegan treats at Target" and "Vegan products at Costco."
I’ve slowly came to realize that
the quality of food matters more than scarcity. My mom taught me how to go for anything
cheap and convenient. Cheap clothes. Cheap shoes.
Cheap gifts. Cheap food. The more you get the better, every time. And that’s just how I thought and shopped
till I met my wife, who shopped at Trader Joes.
We are appalled at how cheap and convenient it is to not be Vegan. Going vegan, even as just a consumer is as if were paying for the privilege. Apparently it's just cheaper and easier to raise and then kill an animal.
What does it mean to
be consumerically-vegan?
I briefly told you of my wife’s story of converting from
vegetarianism back to meat-eating.
Some Anthropologists have also told parallel tales of
quitting vegetarianism only to eat meat because they would have offended their
participants.
My wife and I am sensitive to the fact that many people
around me and their diets are still based on animal products so a “consumerist-vegan”
is the best compromise to “living” Vegan while also not putting people around
us on the defensive.
Times where we have
lapsed
We are definitely not strictly “consumerically-vegan” as we
are learning all the dos and don’ts, and there are times when we have lapsed
into buying animal products.
Though its been far and few and between, here is a listing
of times we’ve lapsed:
-Buying cupcakes at a small bakery in Lakewood; I didn’t want to be rude to the one employee
there after stepping in
-Buying a trail mix with yogurt chips in it at Costco in Lakewood; kind of inexcusable
-Buying pizza while out with friends at Cpk in Lakewood
-Buying chicken pho and Thai Tea to celebrate my wife’s
birthday in Gardena; my wife’s favorite food
-Buying whole milk at Smart N Final in Compton;
for our kid
-Buying yogurt at Smart N Final in Compton; for
our kid
What makes it even harder is that my wife and I have a
one-year old. We were recently told by
our pediatrician that it was OK to have him drink whole milk; we asked if we could do Soy, but she gave us
the impression that it was to be used only if he had lactose intolerance.
He recently also had a bout of diarrhea and vomiting, which
to us as relatively new parents, is scary.
It seemed like he didn’t have a good reaction to the whole milk.
One solution to his dose of double trouble was doing the
BRAT(y) diet, which I read of online. It
consists of banana, rice, applesauce, and toast – a bland diet. The [y} in parentheses stands for yogurt, and
to me it makes sense because it is a probiotic --- good for his gut bacteria.
Neither of us are physicians, pediatricians, or
nutritionists, and were not as secure in our knowledge of dos and don'ts.
We want to be able to give him all the vitamins he needs,
and were kind of wary of supplements.
So our education continues.
