MILK IS MURDER

[gogmagog]

WARNING: RANT AHEAD WHICH MAY OFFEND SOME

...Where are all the sane vegans?

I'm sure they must be out there, but I have yet to meet them. Maybe they're around and just never mention their dietary preference, I don't know. But it seems that seriously 99.9% of vegans out there are crazy proselytizing psychos who act like PETA members faced with Beyonce in animal fur and who insist on telling those who aren't vegan that we're horrible, ignorant people who probably kick kittens and would eat human flesh if it was covered in enough barbecue sauce.

(What's strange is that I've known plenty of regular vegetarians who were not this psycho...is there some natural antipsychotic in dairy/eggs that these vegans just aren't getting, or what?)

But yes...I don't know what it is about veganism that attracts so many zealots, though a lot of them seem to be affluent suburban white kids who now feel that they must STICK IT TO THE MAN by eating vegan and getting tattoos and piercings and not washing their hair, and if people respond poorly to their attempts at indoctrination then they are being ZOMG OPPRESSED!!!1!

I've had a few run-ins with vegans during my (what seems like a million) years of college, and I've heard all the arguments before - have in fact done some research on the issue, as well as, y'know, thought about it with the common sense that I have - and while I'm perfectly happy to respect other people's decisions (i.e., if I had a friend who was vegan, I would cheerfully ensure that I made vegan-friendly dishes when they came over, and wouldn't be all "NOM NOM TASTY MEATFLESH" around them), I generally find their claims overstated. Yes, I do believe that there's a lot of animal mistreatment that happens in commercial farming - it's one of the reasons I try to buy organic, and nearly always do when buying milk and eggs (and on the rare occasions I buy meat) - but I also recognize that organic food is freaking expensive and that to expect everyone to buy it is unrealistic and quite frankly shows a blatant disregard for other people's lifestyles. Similarly, even though I do try to buy organic, free-range eggs and milk, I find arguments that we shouldn't drink milk EVER completely flawed. Especially because they're frequently stuff like "drinking milk isn't natural!!!1! we're the only species who drinks other animals' milk, or drinks milk after infancy!!!1!"...but then said arguers refuse to accept the fact that we do a lot of things that are "unnatural," - like, say, cooking food, or BEING VEGAN GIVEN THAT WE'VE EVOLVED AS AN OMNIVOROUS SPECIES, DUH. It's fine if folks want to not eat animal products for moral or health reasons or whatever, but to argue that it's "natural" not to do so is both problematic (as is any definition of what's "natural" behavior, really) and also ridiculously fucking disingenuous.

*huff* *puff* ...Okay, rant over.

So, er...if any of y'all are sane vegans, please let me know? I hate generalizing "vegans = psycho," but it's difficult not to when pretty much all of the ones you've met are pushy, preachy fucksticks (and hypocritical at that, because if you were to do the same to them, butting in while they're eating their tempeh and telling them they should eat meat for nutritional reasons, they'd be the first to scream ZOMG OPPRESHUN!!!1!).

This was sparked by discussion on this ONTD post; yes, I know ONTD is the armpit of LJ, and that sanity is SO not a requirement to post there, but it really just brought up some issues that had been irritating me offline for a while.

Edit: Also, I just got a sales call that assumed I only spoke Spanish and asked for a "Jose Rodriguez." STEREOTYPING FOR THE LOSS.

What's even funnier is that my mom sometimes gets this too, despite not being Mexican except in last name (she didn't change it when she divorced my dad). Though to be fair her Spanish is better than mine - i.e., it exists - and because while she was married to my dad they actually spent a lot of time with his family, she probably makes a better Mexican than I do, lol.

Comments

[bemysty.livejournal.com]

I know several vegetarians and two vegans - and those two vegans are FUCKING INSANE. I've blogged about one of them before occasionally (compare this) because she's just so fucking out there I keep wondering whether the anti-psychotic theory is right. Also, she keeps trying to convert about everyone to her lifestyle and despite my frequent explanations that a vegan diet could very well KILL me, she refuses to budge. It's come to the point where I'm thinking of putting fingers into my ears to make her shut up. Gah!

I really wonder what it's about... why are the vegetarians usually perfectly normal and the vegans all crazy?

[weruletheschool.livejournal.com]

I was always secretly delighted when vegans would order sandwiches at one of the coffeeshops I worked at, because while the sandwiches themselves were vegan friendly, the panini grill was covered in cheesy, meat greasy goodness that would get on their sandwiches and SECRETLY MAKE THEM ONE OF US.

::is evil::

[brandchan.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you. This reminds me of my friend's crazy girlfriend, who is the most annoying person on the planet I suspect. One time she joined us when we were playing D&D (apparently she thought we were having some sex orgy, and wanted to make sure her boyfriend wasn't messing around on her, because D&D couldn't take hours to play according to her). We all normally ate dinner together, and we were having a hard time coming up with things to eat because she's a vegan on top of being crazy. In the end we made pasta, though my friends started to crack up after she left because it was meat sauce. She made her boyfriend leave early so that she could have some "maki sushi". Which I was like so you eat fish? And she was like no it's vegetarian sushi, and I was like uh no...it's rolled sushi not all of it's vegetarian... But at this point we did all want her to leave so we left it at that. Then we knew why our friend never brought his girlfriend around.

[bobthetrout.livejournal.com]

Vegans are kind of like born-again christians about meat and animals I think. Instead of seeing the light and learning a higher truth about God and Jesus, it's about animal rights. With vegetarians I know people that are that way because they don't like meat or are strict buddhist or whatever, but with vegans it's always they have found a Higher Truth. Because of that I think they feel they have the moral high ground and get preachy.

Honestly though, the worst offenders are the vegetarians that have a cat or dog and stick the poor animal on a vegetarian diet that it's not really able to survive well on.

[supplanter.livejournal.com]

Well, my sister is pretty sane... she'll eat free-range chicken eggs, so some ppl are like "that's not a vegan!" but when all the other restrictions are in place I don't think there's much of a difference, only she's less likely to go anemic.  I don't know if she'll eat eggs when she eats out, though.  Though I doubt she'd be horribly distressed to know that animal juices may be getting in her whatever because of the kitchen.

I guess she isn't super hardcore, though, because she said if she were she'd have to eat special sugar, because apparently some animal byproduct is used in processing?

PEOPLE ACTUALLY BELIEVE THIS

[tastystirfry.livejournal.com]

[courters28.livejournal.com]

OMG, I was totally laughing my ass off through that whole post. I whole-heartedly agree RE: vegans=psychos and hypocrites.

I also don't really agree with vegetarianism, but like you said, I am more than happy to cook vegetarian or eat vegetarian, we even go vegetarian once a week! I just believe that humans should eat meat for a reason (and it would be nice if that meat was cruelty-free, but unrealistic as of right now).

You are totally awesome and all your posts today have totally rocked. I miss you and your awesome in person rants!!

[eggsbenedict]

There's a sane vegan on my flist! She replied to my recent Delia rant XD;;;

I know lots of sane vegetarians too, whether it's for dietary or religious reasons. We probably eat vegetarian once or twice a week just in the course of cooking our own meals but Puu and Albert can probably tell you what a pair of foodfags we are.

The psycho vegans are the extreme animal lib types, which is unfortunately... most vegans. I hear what you're saying though, their sites are constantly like "EGGS ARE UNHEALTHY, MILK WILL KILL YOU" and it's totally laughable.

(You should totally wind them up and let us know how it goes... after all, they can't kill you!!)

[iowayehudit.livejournal.com]

I had a roommate in college who had this hilarious (to me, not her) poster of the earth made of meat with a big juicy bite taken out of it, and whenever I ate meat in front of her (which was rare at first, because I tried to be sensitive, but she was so crap that in the end I didn't care), she'd look at the poster, then at me, and sigh. She also had her own tiny refrigerator so her food wouldn't get mixed up with my disgusting meat products, but she tried to put said refrigerator under MY desk (where were my legs going to go?) and acted like this was perfectly sane because clearly I was inconveniencing her by eating meat, so it makes sense I should be inconvenienced by her stupid refrigerator.

Also, she stole my Pop Tarts. And she was always going on and on about the "feral cat problem" on our campus. I think she's probably on the side of the road somewhere selling "healing crystals" by now.