I work weekends as a chef in a restaurant. A vegan restaurant? No. A small ski town restaurant in Vermont. Vermont is where dairy accounts for more than 70% of its agricultural economy so restaurants are full of meat and cheese. It’s hard. Every dish put out, hundreds each week, represents so much suffering to me. I have to keep reminding myself that I used to eat meat. I used to consume dairy. I had lived in blissful ignorance of everything that went into the food on my plate. I also try to remember that it’s not good people vs. bad people but rather good choices vs. bad. When people find out that I’m vegan, there is an immediate response to let me know that they eat vegetables or like tofu too. Sometimes they talk about how much they love their pets. I can almost see the cogs of cognitive dissonance grinding away behind their eyes. They don’t want to have someone think less of them because of their food choices but they kinda know that maybe it’s not a great thing. And sometimes they don’t want to be informed at all. ‘Enough’ is the response I had when I suggested that farmed salmon are miserably overcrowded even if they are fed organic food. [For the record, I’m not a broken record on the topic. I rarely discuss the food or make any ‘vegan’ comments at all. I think it was the confronting of unwanted facts that led to the sharp reply.]
I don’t think people are ‘bad’ because of what they eat but I would like them to make an informed choice. Would they chose otherwise if slaughterhouses had glass walls, as the McCartney’s suggested? I have friends that campaign in support of reproductive rights - females have the right over their own bodies! However the connection to dairy production goes by the wayside. No mother should be forced into pregnancy and have their child taken away so why is it ok to do this to gentle sociable cows? Someone at the restaurant actually thought that cows just gave milk. It’s just what they do. I gently told them that it’s because they are mothers producing milk for their child, like all mammals. It led to thought but not different choices and maybe that’s the progress needed. My hope is that nonviolence to all beings, ahimsa, will be the standard. We will care for our environment and everything in it. Until then I will keep trying to be an example of what a vegan can be - strong, understanding, healthy, caring - even in the middle of Vermont.
@roegueone
