So far I’ve discussed the keto, paleo, Whole30, food sensitivity, and Tom Brady diets, and there are many more out there. I’m going next to veganism as a lifestyle. As I’ve said before, there are two principles to keep in mind in looking at these various eating plans:
1) People are free to choose how they eat, and
2) Personal convictions/conscience should not be violated.
In my post on the “food choice pyramid” I laid out a three-part rubric on why people would harness themselves to some kind of restrictive eating plan, with the middle tier’s being the realm addressed in #2 above. If you truly think it’s abhorrent to kill animals for food then you shouldn’t eat meat. It is a violation of your conscience, and “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23b KJV) That choice shouldn’t be argued with or ridiculed by those who disagree. I find it’s best to just say, “Oh, okay,” and let it go at that. Whenever I provide for a big gathering I try to provide varied items so that everyone can eat something, but I don’t drive myself crazy.
In this post, though, I want to address veganism as an entire lifestyle and not just as a diet. So if you are following these guidelines because you are what is sometimes labeled an “ethical vegan,” you will do your best to avoid the use of any animal products at all, and there has been a push in the last few months because of a so-called “landmark case” in Britain to treat this form of veganism as a recognized religion. (I haven’t seen that the case has been decided; it involves the firing of a man who says he was let go because he revealed that his employer was using animal testing for its products; his employer says he was fired because he was incompetent.) So when I say that for some people this eating plan does indeed rise to the level of religion I’m not exaggerating or going off on my own tangent.
To quote from a very good-humored article on veganism from the wonderful food website Food52:
The Vegan Society defines vegansim is “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.”
I’ve always liked this definition. I like that it frames veganism not only as a diet, but as a lifestyle that extends to clothing and personal care items as well as to food.
The woman who wrote this article comes across as a well-balanced person who’s made her choice with a good appreciation of the effort and trade-offs involved and who seems to have a healthy sense of self. “Here’s what I’ve decided to do, and here’s why, and I feel comfortable with it.” Okay. That is perfectly fine. (Not that she needs my validation.)
But for other people who choose this lifestyle it can spiral into obsession and an eating disorder. Those who are making a living off of the huge followings they have on social media can feel trapped in their own success. (Not that anyone held a gun to their heads, as I often say.) I want to explore further a story from an article in the Washington Post that I posted on my author Facebook page a few days ago. To be fair, the woman in the story, who goes by the online name Rawvana (real name Yovana Mendoza Ayres), touted not only veganism but raw veganism. She had well over a million followers on YouTube and was selling a $49 “Raw Vegan Detox & Yoga Challenge” kit even after she had started eating cooked food and incorporating fish and eggs into her diet on the advice of her doctors. She was experiencing serious health problems while following her RV diet, with amenorrhea for months at a time and severe digestive issues, including something that sounds truly horrifying: “small intestine bacterial overgrowth,” a condition in which the bacteria in the small intestine get totally out of whack. She was outed by another vegan YouTube star who caught her on film eating fish during a vacation in Bali. I’ve watched the clip a couple of times, and it’s very interesting to see Rawvana lower her arms over her plate as she realizes what’s happening. (It’s not clear to me whether or not the other vlogger meant to catch Rawvana in the act.) Backlash was swift and harsh; she lost many followers (although how many is a subject of dispute) and, more importantly, was treated as a heretic, a failure, a traitor. She was called “disgusting” and much, much worse. Her mother took down her own public Instagram account after she was castigated for having brought Rawvana/Yovana into the world.
This ain’t normal, folks. If you’re so invested in a food-related lifestyle that you show this level of outrage, you’ve left normalcy far behind. I do hope that everyone who bought the “kit” mentioned above demands his/her money back; that is only proper. Rawvana shouldn’t profit from a product that caused her own health problems. But she hasn’t suddenly become a worthless human being! The interesting thing is that this vlogger and many others like her truly believed in what they were pushing online; their material wasn’t just a cynical money-making endeavor. Rawvana kept trying to stay on her diet, her doctors would plead with her to eat more fat and protein, she’d follow their advice and feel better for awhile, and then she’s go back to her raw veganism. Two quotations are very telling here:
“I felt really good, because I wasn’t eating anything,” she said. “I got to the point that I just preferred not to eat because I was afraid anything I would eat, I’d get sick off it.”
and
“This was really hard because of what I believed for so long, because of what I preached for so long.” (Both quotations from the Washington Post article.)
Well, that’s enough for today. There’s a lot more to be said about this whole idea of food as religion, so I’ll get to another post early next week.