Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Here’s what Mary at animalperson.net has to say:
I used to complain–a lot–to my husband about living in South Florida. I felt a kinship with almost no one, I was a freak to all, and the closest vegan restaurant is 70 miles away. I wanted to move back to New York, or perhaps to San Francisco or even Chicago (where he’s from). Maybe even Asheville. All I know is I wanted to feel like my community had a clue and was doing something other than holding events for $500/ticket where $200 goes to the cause, filet mignon is served, few people eat it (because they might gain weight), and it is promptly tossed into the garbage.
…
When people say that veganism is easy, I can’t help but think: It’s easy for you. Try having to go out to lunch and/or dinner with clients every day in a snooty town that has not one vegan restaurant (oh, and neither one of us enjoys Indian food). Whether or not it’s easy to be a vegan largely depends on where you live and how you’ve set up your life. If we lived in Manhattan I wouldn’t be writing this.
Being vegan is easy for me because I have near-total control over my environment. I buy and prepare the food I want to eat, I’m rarely at the mercy of anyone else’s restaurant choice, and when I am I might eat before I go and have a fabulous glass of wine and call it a day (or night).
But not everyone has the luxury of living the way I do, and I think we have to acknowledge that and say there are myriad factors involved in whether going or being vegan is easy (like, is your partner or parent/s vegan; where do you live; what is your work situation like; is your community friendly to the idea).
Veganism is essentially against human nature. We are hunter gatherers.
And the insufferable, self righteous attitude that seems to come along with it is even worse, considering it is a blatantly hypocritical idea. As was mentioned above, their are animal byproducts in almost everything, from bike tires to Insulin shots.
So not only does it defy nature and make people annoyingly smug yet completely hypocritical…it’s COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE.
I pretended to be a vegan for about ten years.
The deep problem with veganism is that you can’t live in the modern world and do more than pay lip service to the idea (both figuratively and literally).
Do you use tires (that is, do you drive or ride a bike)? Beef "byproducts" in the rubber.
Do you own photographs? Gelatin (an animal product) in most of the coatings.
And it gets harder still: I am a long-time organic farmer and gardener and I know that it is impossible to raise any field crop without doing damage to animal life. Earthworms, moles, voles, mice, rabbits … killed by tractors or even shovels.
The understanding I came to over time is that life consumes life. The best we can do is to not be consciously cruel. To live low on the energy chain and keep close to the cycle of life. Local grass-fed beef may have a lower impact and represent more kindness to animals than California avocados or lettuce. This isn’t as easy a choice as avoiding things with eyes, but life isn’t easy.
Amory Lovins, perhaps the smartest theorist on low-impact life alive today, says his bumper sticker reads "Eat more lamb: 50 million coyotes can’t be all wrong." His point is that lamb is grass fed, a low-impact protein source which avoids the massive fossil fuel input of grain-fed meats or farmed fish.
Tough choices all around. Mostly, we need to make less people.
it might not be easy, but it is the only way to go. every time i look into the eyes of an animal i know this.