Rabbit Advocacy Animal Matters

The vegans are coming: Lindsay O’Donnell

March 30, 2012 The Georgia Straight Lindsay is vegan

It used to be that they stuck to their hippie cafés, wearing clothes without elastics and keeping their clammy white skin well away from sunlight. You’d run into one now and again, silently listening to their ridiculous tales of tasty kale and flax seed while nodding politely. But this mythical vegan is as extinct as the Discman. Vegans have grown in astonishing numbers with celebrities, politicians, and even your neighbours praising a “plant-based lifestyle”. BusinessWeek even coined the term “Power Vegans” for some of the world’s most powerful people who have traded chicken wings for veggie dogs.

Restaurants, cookbooks, blogs, and magazines featuring mouth-watering plant-based recipes and products are everywhere and veggies are even being celebrated once a week with Meatless Mondays. Depending on the source, it’s estimated that between four and eight percent of Canadians call themselves vegan or vegetarian. But when did this happen?

Personally, I blame the Internet for vegans growing in numbers. YouTube has made it harder to ignore the horrid conditions inside slaughterhouses that most of the 25 billion animals eaten every year die in. We can no longer purchase our bacon blissfully ignorant of gestation crates or erase the image of a calf kept chained in the dark its entire life so its anemic flesh can be sold as veal. Plus who can enjoy a hot dog as much as before after knowing that it used to be grey sludge?

Books like Fast Food Nation and countless others keep reminding us that approximately 70 percent of the antibiotics consumed in the States are put into the meals of the animals we end up eating. Canadians couldn’t ignore that our meat is not much safer here with the 2009 Maple Leaf Foods recalls. Plus, diseases like “mad cow” have arisen because we forced cattle to cannibalize each other. As Jerry Seinfeld said, “And then we call the cows mad?”

Environmentalists like David Suzuki won’t stop talking about the enormous amounts of carbon dioxide that goes into our air, toxic sludge that ends up in our water, or the millions of acres of rainforests that are clear-cut annually as result of our insatiable appetite for meat.

You might even find your family doctor suggesting a vegetarian or vegan diet to lower your chances of certain cancers, diabetes, high cholesterol or heart disease. Bill Clinton cut out meat after recommendations from his doctor which ultimately reversed his heart disease and the man has never looked better.

All of this has meant no one is safe from turning vegan—your neighbors, your friends, and even your family. You never know who is going to show up at your door and smugly offer you some surprisingly delicious kale chips while talking about how their new vegan lifestyle has improved their skin, increased their energy, and possibly improved their sex life.

Restaurants and grocery stores continue to offer even more mouth-watering vegan options that are tempting for even the most steak-loving folks. Some of Vancouver’s hottest new places to eat, like Cartems Donuterie or Indigo Food, have people lining up for their vegan options. Even established chain restaurants like Joey and Subway are promoting vegan dishes.

Does this mean that the simple life of a meat-loving carnivore is a thing of the past? Is veganism a trend that will die soon like the organic avocados in your fridge? Unfortunately, not really and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Meaning you’ll likely find even more shelf space dedicated to soy cheese at your grocery, there will be more vegan options at your favorite hangouts, and vegans will continue to grow smug. Eventually a new trend will take its place but veganism isn’t going away and, knowing Vancouverites, the new trend will likely be something like even more healthy—like a raw food diet.

But there is hope: if you can’t beat them join them (even if it’s only on meatless Mondays). Next time someone tells you about the link between steaks and high cholesterol, respond by showing them photos of your nutty yam burgers from last night or the dairy-free triple chocolate chip cookies that are now sitting in your fridge. You will shock and impress them and they’ll sheepishly ask for the recipe.

However, I must warn you that there is a possibility that you too could join the growing number of vegans that are now overtaking this city.

World Weeks for the Abolition of Meat (WWAMs) will be at the Paris Veg Fest June 11th. Worldwide, six million sentient beings are killed for food every hour. The number of water animals killed is even greater. Meat consumption causes more suffering and deaths than any other human activity although it is completely unnecessary. Individuals from all walks of life are becoming more aware of this, and are mobilizing and organizing to help create change for society’s animals.

World Meat-Free Week

Visit our Factory Farming Page for more!