On fake animal products
I’ve had the pleasure of taking a few friends to the grocery store to help them on their first day as being a vegan. They usually get excited to see all the mock products; cheese, beef, sausages, bacon, etc. available to them. Yet, I advise them to steer clear of these products, at least for their first few weeks as a vegan. I don’t have a moral objection to these products being on the market, but I am opinionated on the consumption of fake animal products. I’ve watched a lot of uninformed omnivores going vegan simply by eating the same things but in vegan form. Then, they pull an Angelina Jolie and say a vegan diet made them ill. For the same reason, you hear a lot of people griping about how “expensive” veganism is. I’d bet anything these people filled their freezers with Chik’n patties and Boca Burgers. Real, healthful vegan food is dirt cheap. It’s also important that we, as example-setters, don’t demonstrate that we need this junk. Analogues may lead people to believe vegans need synthetic workarounds to accomplish normalcy. Of course, without Boca, Morningstar, and whoever else, we’d be just fine. These products are popular not because we need them, but because they’re familiar. There is a popular misconception that these products allow us to get nutrients we can’t naturally get from a vegan diet. What a load of soy bologna. Again, try the analogues. A lot of them are pretty good. But get your nutrition from like…food. You’re also going to run into dissenting omnivores who reject veganism because they claim actual animal products just taste better. Again, this person is viewing veganism as the synthetic version of omnivorism. Of course when you “fake” something, it’s not going to be as good most of the time. It isn’t any different than if we were to do this the other way around. If someone decided to eat only animal products, they might miss the taste of fruits, vegetables, and grains. Try to make celery from animal products and then gripe about how disgusting omnivorism is. That being said, I’m going to enjoy this year’s mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, green bean casserole, and yes…Tofurky.
