self righteous and sanctimonious

These are words I would use to describe many vegans I have observed on various social media platforms. And it is so sad and such a pity.

No vegans – you are not more evolved that meat eaters, or omnis as they are called in the vegan world. For fuck sake, it is a life style choice you made, not a sainthood you earned. And unless you are also pro-life, accepting refugees into your spare bedroom, officiate gay marriages and have adopted needy children – and that’s just your weekend – you are not more ethically or morally evolved than anyone else who makes a simple food decision.

Furthermore, if you eat tofu imported from China with a carbon footprint of a yeti, or use Himalayan salt at the expense of Pakistani mountains, don’t be throwing evolved around to describe yourselves.

 

Say no to pink salt, say yes to renewable sources only

(photo of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pan from http://anettemossbacher.photoshelter.com)

No vegans – other people choosing a vegan lifestyle is not an opportunity for you to say you were right all along. Well done, you got there before other people, pat yourself on the back and then see how many people got there before you did. You are not the first person to decide not to eat animals so stop pretending you invented it and everyone else has finally seen you were right.

You weren’t first and you won’t be last

How about rather just offering help and support and encouragement to new vegans instead of doing a bloody victory dance with an order of gloat on the side. Way to alienate people, dickhead!

(image from http://midnightmeowth.deviantart.com/art/victory-dance-291812692)

No vegans – your decision not to eat meat replacements does not make you a better vegan than those who chose to. If soya mince is what gets a person through a day without harming an animal for food, then let them have at it. You and your lentil burgers are no better that soya mince scoffing people. So stop pretending you are.

 

No vegans – not everyone can run out and buy vegan mayo and vegan biscuits and seitan steaks. When a new vegan asks for help how about being a bit more aware that for some people these options are out of financial range. And if those people, once they see how much less food costs when meat and other animal products are not on the shopping list, realise that the mayo is within reach, no gloating and saying I told you so. Not even implied!

 

No vegans – omnis do not want your opinion on their food. Shut up and eat what you chose and allow others the same freedom. Meat eaters know what vegans think cos vegans never shut the fuck up about it. If someone asks, answer, but how about not forcing your opinion on people trying to enjoy their meals.

 

Veganism feels a bit like religion – the principal is great but many of the supporters ruin it.

But all of that being said – there are some amazingly supportive vegans and vegan social media spaces. But it is less fun writing about the nice than the nasty.

But I will – next time.

what colour is an egg yolk?

I learnt a very interesting lesson while teaching in Zambia that I have never forgotten

Chickens in Zambia (where I was living) truly are free range. They wander around farms and plots scratching in the ground for food. The eggs I bought at the markets were often caked in mud and chicken shit and more often than you might like had blood in the yolk. Real proper free range eggs.

Delicious even if a bit off putting when half-chick half-yolk.

However, the yolks were not yellow. I don’t know if we here in the land with battery chickens and money feed the chickens something to make the yolks yellow, or if the chickens there in the land of truly organic farming and roosters getting at the hens there is something missing from the food they find in the dirt – but the result is beige egg yolks in Zambia.

Delicious eggs but beige yolks

Which brings me to the lesson

Never ever assume that your experience of anything is the absolute experience.

What you call egg yolk yellow is not necessarily what someone else has experienced as egg yolk coloured

I wonder how many immigrant kids (or house painters) got called stupid (or fired) for selecting beige when told to select egg yolk yellow!

How often have you judged someone by their understanding of ‘egg yolk yellow’?

people who get on my wick

Here is my list of things that piss me off on today of all days – world aids day

1. The beetroot brigade

Now, we all know that eating well is good for you, all round. If you are sick, with anything, and eat well, you will get better faster. If you eat poorly, disease lurks and punishes your body big time. However, eating well does not cure diseases, least of all ones caused by viruses. HIV + people who eat well do have a better prognosis, but they are still HIV +.

 

2. The pharmaceutical bashers

These are often also members of the beetroot brigade. Of course the drug companies are making money from the ARV drugs they make. They are businesses who make money out of drugs production and sales. It’s called economics! To suggest that these companies created the HI – virus and are now selling unnecessary medicines to treat the disease is ridiculous. If they were going to, do you not think that maybe they would have made the epicentre of the disease fat rich American and not poverty struck Africa? Again – it’s economics!

 

3. The judges

These are usually middle class white people who get exasperated by having to replace their maid and/or gardener much too often than is convenient because they keep dying. ‘Don’t these people know about condoms?’ is their war cry. For many people, women mostly, in this country, sexual equality and any sexual power whatsoever are as alien a concept as compassion is to many of the judges. These women do not choose to have unprotected sex, or, often, any sex at all. They have no negotiating power when it comes to this aspect of their lives. That is the privilege of the middle classes!

 

4. The unaware

It is from this group that the questions are raised about why kids begging are not at school. ‘After all, it is 15 years since the birth of our new land and all kids have the same opportunities.’ Yeah right! The 12 year old AIDS orphans who are working the streets, begging and hooking, to feed their younger siblings have exactly the same opportunities as the rich kids off to their schools in air conditioned 4x4s.

 

5. The preachers of abstinence.

In an ideal world we would all rock up at our weddings pure and virginal and ride into the sunset with our soul mate. Only we are an infinity from that world. So saying that if the teenagers and young people didn’t have sex they would be safe and therefore it is a personal decision they make, and therefore infection is just deserts, is just beyond archaic. No condoms to school kids does not stop them from having sex – it just stops them from being safe. No condoms to prisoners does not stop them having sex – it just stops them from being safe. No condoms to underage girls does not stop them from having sex – it just stops them from being safe.

 

6. The punishment advocates

Anyone who has a god that they truly believes punishes people for sexual activity or drug use by giving them aids deserves an eternity with that god. What we all need to do to get this disease under control is to stop judging.

We need to admit that the sexual aspect of the transmission of this disease makes us uncomfortable, and get the hell over it.

570 000 people died last year in South Africa from AIDS related disease! More than half a million people! Our people, the people of our land!