"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." –John 16:33

Love the sinner, hate the sin

“Veganism is a diet and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.”

Animals are great. I love my cats, and as I’ve said before, I wouldn’t go hunting if my life depended on it. BUT I do have this little problem with ethical vegans. Vegan and vegetarian lifestyles don’t bother me at all if health is the only incentive. But ethical veganism… ger! Ethical veganism can carry all sorts of annoying baggage with it, like fluorescent light bulbs, Obama posters, and PETA membership cards. This anti-veg feeling started in earnest a couple of months ago. Before this experience, I had been fairly apathetic towards veggie-only types. It all started right after I had finished my workout at the Y. I had finished earlier than usual and was waiting on Mom and Christian in the lobby. The Y has tons of magazines in their lobby. They usually have something interesting to read, but on this particular day they had a golfing magazine, a hunting magazine, a Family Circle and a certain vegan lifestyle magazine. Golfing magazine had a golfing green on it’s cover. Hunting magazine had guns and dead animals on it’s cover. Family Circle had a bunch of articles on, I don’t know, losing baby fat and the psychology of your three year old. Vegan magazine had colorful cupcakes on it’s cover. It was very attractive. I opened it. It was pretty inside, too! Until I actually started reading it. Creepy tattoos and vegan punk bands dotted it’s faux-cheerful pages. One article likened eating eggs to stealing money from a rich, sick old man. ‘He won’t know the money’s gone, but it would still be wrong’. Likewise the chicken wouldn’t know the egg was gone but it would still be wrong to ‘steal’ and eat the egg.

I believe the chicken was made for two purposes. To make delicious eggs for my Saturday morning omelet and/or to become an 8-piece bucket at KFC.

It got worse. I found out one of the regular columnists was one of my favorite cartoonists. Their article on vegan weddings made me hope I would never, ever meet anyone special from downtown Portland. The ‘hearty’ recipes had absolutely NO animal byproducts in them. No pork! No beef! No snakeskin or leather or cow’s hooves or CHEESE! The worst part was the magazine’s air of condemnation. Call it guilt if you like, but the entire time I was reading the issue, I felt as if a thousand soybean stained fingers were pointed at me. Thankfully the Y always has a selection. I picked up the hunting magazine.

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8 Comments

  1. Lyle

    Jay and I took part in a vegetarian potluck it was very good. We ate salad and more salad. When we were done we went to KFC and had some fried chicken.

  2. Anonymous

    I once tried a vegetarian menu for dinner and had to laugh when Ryan wondered where the main course was.(:

  3. Ruthie

    Kelly, you crack me up! I absolutely love reading your posts. I had to read this one to Tisse using the intonation I assumed you would read it with. My favorite line was the one that included the ‘soybean stained fingers’ pointing at you. Haha I always wonder, if they are truely trying to get away from the meat thing altogether, why do the names of some vegan/veggie meals include the name of a meat…like vegetarian turkey burgers or vegan egg omelette…or why even try to make a ‘burger’ out of something that is not meat….just make something completely different. To me, people who were trying to move away from the ‘meat’ aspect of meals would sit down to eat their “ground beef or turkey burger” substitute, and just dream about the real thing. I suppose that meat lovers who feel the need to eat less meat may actually be helped by this “tastes just like chicken” mindset, but it is funny to me nontheless. I will have to write down some of the names of the vegan/veggie items the next time I hit a Trader Joe’s. You will get a better idea of what I am talking about.

  4. Hunter

    I should point out that chickens would probably consume human flesh if they had the chance. I wonder how many Vegans know that?

  5. Ruthie

    Had a baby chick try to poke my daughter’s eyeball out once…hmmmm, I wonder….

  6. Soybean stained fingers. LOL. I loved your article. You are a great writer.

    Lynn

  7. Lyle: haha you guys know how to do things!

    Trisha: That looks AMAZING!! And so simple with no absolutely vegetable in sight!!

    Ruthie: Thank you 🙂 I never thought about that discrepancy before… that is very true! I’ll keep an eye out 🙂

    Mrs. W: Thank you! 🙂

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