Righteous Vegan
I’ve become so used to the judgmental stereotypes given to vegans by the media and arts that I tend to just brush them off. The news simply wants something that’ll catch attention. The authors think they’re telling a joke that everyone can relate to.
The 2000s has been really good to the image of vegans. We’ve strayed away from our reliance on anger and ironic violence. We became a food centric tribe. You’re probably saying, ‘how was veganism ever not about food?’ Well it has always been about the animals, sometimes about the environment, and sometimes about one’s own health.
Thanks to food technology vegans don’t have to live without ice cream or ‘chicken’ or mayo. We’ve got butter and milk, even cheese that melts and stretches. There are thousands (if not more) of people who make their living by sharing vegan recipes on blogs. We have turned to food as activism for veganism - Meatless Mondays, Mark Bittman’s VB6 (vegan before 6) book, numerous instagram accounts titled Vegan______ that just share pictures of food vegans are making all over the world.
Are we viewed as righteous because we made substitutes of the food non-vegans eat? Are we viewed as righteous because our way of taking care of our environment and our health is through the food that we eat?
The word, ‘righteous’, on its own isn’t necessarily an insult. Simply put, morally right. But from if you put the word, ‘self’, in front, it becomes an insult. By being vegan we’re saying that we’re better than non-vegans? Our choices in food and our behaviors make us better, more moral people?
If we aren’t judging our own morality, then who is? I have a clear idea of what’s right and wrong, and I feel horrible when I make the slightest slip to the wrong side of the line. That has nothing to do with being vegan, but everything to do with being human.
