Fear and Loathing in Las Vegan
Excerpts from the life of your totally super relaxed and very easy-going vegan friend
Crates, conflict and kicking cows
1999: a primary school in West Yorkshire
I am 10 years old. It’s lunch time and I’ve reached the front of the queue.
“Lasagne please!“ I ask the primary school dinner lady.
“But it’s got meat in it Toby” she responds “you said you were vegetarian yesterday”
“Ummm, I want the lasagna” I repeat sheepishly.
2003: a high school in West Yorkshire
I am in year 8, and it is morning break. I exit the lunch room clutching a piping hot sausage roll. I blow on it and take a bite. It’s soft, and greasy, and delicious. My friend Adam is walking beside me, eating a large slice of pizza. He looks over at me.
“You know they keep those pigs in small crates?!” he explains,
“The pigs that they use for that pork. They have to stay in tiny crates their whole life. They don’t even have space to turn around”
I do not know this…
I look at the pastry encased grey substance in my hands, and feel…odd.
I keep eating.
2008: a student house in Liverpool
It’s my 2nd year of university and I am moving into a new house with several friends. Unlike halls we have a decent kitchen, and I’m busily planning all the cool group meals I’m going to be able to cook. Roast dinners, shepherd's pie, BLTs. I’m excited! One of my housemates, Ben, who is not going to get here until next week, puts a message in our house group chat.
“Oh, by the way, over the summer I’ve started being vegetarian”
My heart sinks. Those imagined pies and roasts and bacon suddenly turn into lentils and soy and unaddressed resentment. I start thinking about all my best arguments against being vegetarian. My best one is:
“What if humans were actually intelligent tigers? What if we had evolved as a species of obligate carnivores who needed meat to survive? Would it be right to be vegetarian then? Surely not!? Surely morality can’t depend on an accident of evolution!”
I tell myself that this is a very solid argument that I will hit him with when he gets here.
When he does arrive the next week he will tell me that the message was a joke. “Of course I’m not vegetarian” he will laugh, “that would be ridiculous”.
2011: my parent’s house in West Yorkshire
I am unemployed and most days I can’t muster the energy to apply for jobs. I spend a lot of time browsing reddit. One of the main things I do feel motivated to do is understand other groups, beliefs and ideologies better. I had started joining reddit communities I disagree with to get a clear understanding of their arguments. Alongside r/atheism I am in r/christianity and r/islam. Alongside, r/liberal I am in r/communism and r/libertarian. I am also subscribed to r/vegan. I read their articles and try to understand their funny memes. Unlike the communists, and the christians, I find their arguments harder to dismiss. But I still do.
2013: my partner’s house in Derbyshire
My partner has just come home from work and we are in her bedroom. She has been talking about her day, working in a restaurant.
“There’s this girl at work, Amy,” she says. “Who’s vegan!” she adds, rolling her eyes. “She’s been here for a few months, and keeps saying we should have some vegan options on the menu….It’s really annoying”.
I imagine the conflict and the frustration of having to negotiate with someone with weird preferences like that. I feel tense.
“That does sound annoying” I say.
2014: a farm in the Queensland outback
I am working on a small, family dairy farm. I am helping the farmer herd three recently born calves into a truck that will take them to be raised for veal. They are all quite scared of us, but we manage to get two of them into the truck. The third one panics, forces himself between the truck and the fencing and runs into the farmyard. We chase him for a little while before he falls into a ditch and we grab him. He is heavy. Me and the farmer carry him back towards the truck together. I am holding his front legs. He is wailing and looks confused. He is awkward to carry and at one point my work boot makes firm contact with his head. He yelps quietly. I will hold onto the guilt of hurting that animal for years.
Soy, Singer, and sums about steak
2015: my parent’s house in West Yorkshire
I am lying in bed watching a factory farming documentary (specifically this factory farming video). Those internet arguments in favour of veganism had been sinking in over the preceding years. At the reddit guys’ suggestions I had also read Jonathan Foer’s book Eating Animals and Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation. Factory farming seems terrible. Like unimaginably terrible. It all seems so obviously awful and avoidable.
I decide then to be flexitarian. My policy is that when I have the choice, I will pick the vegetarian option. I will start eating a lot of cheese. I won’t tell anyone because I don’t need to. I won’t even tell my partner at the time. I don’t want to have to defend my choices or make people feel like they need to go out of their way to meet my dietary needs.
2016: a fancy restaurant in Huddersfield
I am eating dinner with my family at a fancy restaurant. I am puzzling over the options on the menu. I consider just getting the vegetarian options for both courses. I expect my parents and brother would find this surprising and I don't want to have to explain why. And the steak also seems very appealing. I think about the calf I kicked in Australia, I think about his wailing. I also think about how much suffering a cow experiences per steak. I’d recently seen this analysis and reassure myself that steak was the least-bad option.
I order the steak.
2017: a supermarket in Huddersfield
I am in the supermarket buying soy milk for the first time. I've just moved out of the house I was sharing with my now ex-partner. The independence means I no longer have to worry about negotiating about food. The night before I had watched the Simon Amstell film Carnage and despite it being (or because it was) a comedy it had pushed me over the edge. Buying animal products no longer felt justifiable. Taking the soy milk home and putting it on my cereal feels odd. It tastes different, but fine. Over the next few months I would still occasionally eat cheese, but less and less each month.
2017: a pub in central London
I have just moved to London and am in a pub with some new prospective friends. They are talking about being vegan.
“Are you vegan?” one asks me.
“Yes I am vegan” I confirm, taking on the label for the first time.
It feels good. I wonder if the reason I am adopting the label is to fit in with this new group. On the way home I will worry about having to explain this to my friends and family.
Food orders and feeling frustrated
2019: an Indian restaurant in central London
It’s February, and I am having dinner with about a dozen colleagues after work. I have found a nice sounding vegetarian curry on a menu that doesn’t have vegan options marked. There is some chance that it contains butter, but I try not to hassle wait staff about minor amounts of animal products. My colleague leans over,
“Oooh this must be hard for you” he exclaims, pointing at the menu, “you can’t know which ones have cream or butter in them!”
I think back to the previous week when this colleague had gone out of their way to bring me vegan options in for our team lunch. I can’t bring myself to explain that I’m not actually always super strict, and that I’d prefer to just risk it rather than try and figure out what’s in everything.
When the waiter comes over I decide to ask him about the curry. The idea of asking if it’s vegan makes me uncomfortable, cringy, like I’m trying to make a big deal out of it. I don’t want to say the word. So instead:
“Is there any dairy in the curry?” I ask.
The waiter looks confused, and asks me to clarify.
“Is there any dairy in the curry, any butter?” I ask again.
He still looks confused.
At this point the whole table seems to have gone quiet and is looking at my struggle. I imagine I am making it look really awkward to be vegan.
“Is it vegan?” my director interjects, trying to help me out.
“Oh! Yes!, Totally vegan!” the waiter confirms.
I feel deeply embarrassed about not being able to handle that myself.
2020: a train, somewhere in Oxfordshire
I am travelling alone from London to Cardiff. I am about to go on holiday in Wales with a group of 8 friends, and friends of friends. One of the people is already there and is about to go shopping for food. She posts a message in the group chat that we created for the trip:
“I am just planning some meals for the week - does anyone have any dietary restrictions?”
The other post their messages in the chat. Most people are omnivorous, there are a couple of vegetarians, there are no other vegans. My heart sinks as these messages come in. I imagine the annoyance of the group for having to cater for me. I post that I am vegan in the chat. I consider making some additional comment about how I’m super cool about it and will make my own separate meals if people don’t feel like making sure there is a vegan option every day. But I don't actually want to do that, so I don’t say anything else. On the holiday, everyone who cooks makes sure there is some food that is vegan. I feel a mix of appreciation and guilt every day.
2022: my flat in East London
Several friends are coming round for dinner. I am excited as I think about all the options for what I could cook. I end up deciding to cook my signature seitan curry. I get out the wheat gluten, mix it with spices, nutritional yeast and water and happily start kneading it.
My partner comes into the kitchen and sees me with the mock meat. “Ummmm…. Kate doesn’t eat gluten.” she explains. “You can’t cook seitan!”.
I feel frustrated. The image of the delicious meal fades from my mind.
“Eugh”, I exclaim, dropping the seitan and pulling some tofu out of the fridge, “that’s annoying”
That's a great ending 😂 I actually really enjoyed reading this. I feel my brother may be feeling some of this, I'm gna send it his way