Vegan perfection and compromise

September 16, 2006

I just wanted to add to the discussion on wool/beeswax etc. It is always

important to keep in mind why you are vegan. I am vegan so as to reduce the

gross and obvious horrific suffering of feeling animals. So I don't eat

meat, dairy, eggs, fish. I am not vegan so as to reach some kind of

spiritual karma of perfection in my own body. I aspire to show others how

easy and delicious it is to be vegan. Meaning: that it is easy and important

to not eat animals and their products. I do not worry about the last .5% of

ingredients. Billions of animals die each year to supply our plates with

meat and milk and eggs. If you could convince many people to cut out the

meat, milk and eggs from their diet, it would save far more animals than if

you and a few others were 100%vegan down to the last bit of bone char, honey

and beeswax.

So, no, I will not tolerate wool in any form. The suffering of sheep in the

vast majority of wool production farms is enormous and I cannot support

that. But beeswax, while I certainly don't go out of my way to buy it, is

not a dealbreaker for me. For example, at a La Leche League meeting I used

to attend regularly, another member specially made muffins for my daughter

and me to eat. She proudly told me she had replaced the eggs and the dairy.

But then suddenly her face fell as she realized that she had used a little

bit of honey in her recipe. I don't think it would have helped the animals

at all for me to have said, " Oh thanks, but I won't eat them then. " The

suffering of honeybees is certainly worth attention, but no one can deny the

heartbreaking suffering of laying hens, discarded male chicks, dairy cows

and their babies; it is usually only because people do not know how bad it

really is that they continue to support it. So while I would not bake

muffins in my own home with honey in them, I have no problem eating foods

with some honey in them occasionally.

Vegan Outreach has a great article on this also:

http://www.veganoutreach.org/howvegan.html

Also, here is an excerpt from another article on their site:

Potential Vegan (PV): Oh, so you're a vegan. I know someone else who is

vegan. You know, I really think it's terrible how they treat the animals,

but I could never do it. Animal products are in everything, aren't they?

Vegan: They are in a lot of things. But you figure out what you can and

can't eat and then it becomes easier.

PV: It just takes too much discipline for me.

Vegan: I could give you a list of the names of all the different possible

animal ingredients. There's less than 10,000 of them! And I can give you a

list of 500 companies and whether they test on animals or not. It's not so

bad. Hey, where are you going?

Now our answer goes:

Vegan: To me, veganism is not about personal purity, but a way to stop

suffering. You don't have to avoid every animal product, just the obvious

ones for which an animal was bred, raised, and eventually killed. Some

vegans avoid all they can as a symbolic gesture, but minuscule amounts of

animal products or by-products will fade away as the meat, dairy, and egg

industries fade.

Sometimes a potential vegan will say, " I could just never give up ice cream

(or cheese, etc.). " Some vegans now reply, " Then give up everything but ice

cream. " These types of reactions will often surprise the potential vegan and

make them realize that veganism is not about making yourself pure, but about

doing what you can to stop suffering.

September 16, 2006

Very cool. I've never really thought of it that way. I do what I can, and I

avoid all I can that's bad, but that's a really neat way to think of it and

discuss it with people. Thanks for that!

Kadee Sedtal

leena <leena wrote: I just

wanted to add to the discussion on wool/beeswax etc. It is always