COUNTLESS PEOPLE MISTAKINGLY ORDER VEGAN CHICKEN NUGGETS AT MCDONALDS EVERYDAY.
Have you ever had vegan cuisine? If so, then it is clear that this was not a choice made for taste. Imagine if every meal you had contained three ingredients with a “—substitute” attached. Milk-substitute, egg-substitute, meat-substitute; the list is as long as it is unappetizing. “Human beings don’t die on a vegetarian diet” (Coetzee 103): this statement, though true, is only true in a literal sense. Countless vegans die daily of boredom, blandness, and hunger. “This vegan sausage is so blind I could die.” “This soy milk makes me want to kill myself.” People may observe vegans, but they never truly connect with them. They might say “I see the suffering of that person”, but they never say “I am that vegan, eating that disgusting food,” or “I am that vegan, sitting on the toilet praying that the tp doesn’t run out.” It is almost like the holocaust: just as the prisoners were given meager rations, vegans can almost never find sufficient rations. And their holocaust is far from over.
There is one thing that confounds every animal rights activist: the ignorance of the world around them. How can we noble humans bear to sink our teeth into the flesh of our animal counterparts? How is anyone attracted to the stench of marinating steak? These activists scoff and smirk at the deterioration of the omnivore’s colon and the weak morals on which they base their base lives. Haughty Animal Rights People (HARP) aren’t necessarily taller than the rest of the world, but for some reason they always seem to be looking down. They feel they are surrounded by pets—pets by Smuts’ definition: “The very word ‘pet’ connotes a lesser being” (X756). They yearn the day when everyone shares their superior view, but at the same time they seem to bask in their elevated status. Surely if there is any reason to not eat meat, it should be to join this elite group. But wait—there’s a catch. These HARPy’s live in a world of suffering that is shielded from the public eye. Painful bloating and sub-par stools are assumed, but there are two more things that poison their existence: ceremonial dinners and the taste of their meals. Listen, if you can bear, to the pain endured by these saintly homo-sapiens.
Sure there is cruelty in factories. Animals’ entire lives are dictated from birth to death, and their miserable lives are cut short with a short cut to the throat. Still, this is no match to the suffering imposed on a vegan trying to eat right at a public event. Think about it—while there is usually a vegetarian option at these various fundraisers, free dinners, and school events, the vegan’s plight is almost always overlooked. Hosts of such events may have a good cause, but the catering induces so much emotional stress that there ought to be another fundraiser to compensate the vegans that attended. An excellent parallel can be drawn from Hardy’s Jude the Obscure: Jude and Arabella starve their pig just as the hosts starve their vegans, and it most certainly “accounts for [their] crying so. Poor creature[s]!” (53). If there is any justice in this world, the future will accommodate all vegans equally, whether animals are treated right or not.
Sure there is cruelty in factories. Animals’ entire lives are dictated from birth to death, and their miserable lives are cut short with a short cut to the throat. Still, this is no match to the suffering imposed on a vegan trying to eat right at a public event. Think about it—while there is usually a vegetarian option at these various fundraisers, free dinners, and school events, the vegan’s plight is almost always overlooked. Hosts of such events may have a good cause, but the catering induces so much emotional stress that there ought to be another fundraiser to compensate the vegans that attended. An excellent parallel can be drawn from Hardy’s Jude the Obscure: Jude and Arabella starve their pig just as the hosts starve their vegans, and it most certainly “accounts for [their] crying so. Poor creature[s]!” (53). If there is any justice in this world, the future will accommodate all vegans equally, whether animals are treated right or not.
THIS FOOD LOOKS DISGUSTING-EVEN TO A VEGAN
Have you ever had vegan cuisine? If so, then it is clear that this was not a choice made for taste. Imagine if every meal you had contained three ingredients with a “—substitute” attached. Milk-substitute, egg-substitute, meat-substitute; the list is as long as it is unappetizing. “Human beings don’t die on a vegetarian diet” (Coetzee 103): this statement, though true, is only true in a literal sense. Countless vegans die daily of boredom, blandness, and hunger. “This vegan sausage is so blind I could die.” “This soy milk makes me want to kill myself.” People may observe vegans, but they never truly connect with them. They might say “I see the suffering of that person”, but they never say “I am that vegan, eating that disgusting food,” or “I am that vegan, sitting on the toilet praying that the tp doesn’t run out.” It is almost like the holocaust: just as the prisoners were given meager rations, vegans can almost never find sufficient rations. And their holocaust is far from over.“Silently, a vision enters, slips through the focused silence of his shoulders, reaches his heart, and dies” (X763). This vision, for vegans, is of meat. They too are animals, and it is in their blood to crave meat. But they are above this. Cows have the right to wander aimlessly on grassy plains, chickens have the right to ceaselessly search for seed, and pigs have the right to eat rotting fruit in rainforests. Let these animals live up to their full potential, let them thrive and prove their worth. We cannot understand a cows point of view because we are not cows; therefore, we do not have the right to assume that eating is probably one of the most complex thoughts they have. It is our duty avoid eating animals, despite their nutritional benefit. If everyone had to butcher their own meat, we would all be vegetarians. This might because it is too time consuming for everyone raise their own personal hamburger cows, but the message remains: eating meat is not natural—even if only for a certain, elite group.
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