Meat Eaters to Vegans: Just Stop It Already!

The College I attended is among the most progressive in the nation, both in terms of the students and the policy, diversity was embraced and even cultivated. One of the most popular classes was a gender studies course. You get the idea, not exactly a backwoods place.

And yet one of the biggest issues of contention was the cafeteria. The college's vegan population had finally forced the corporate entity which ran food services on campus to offer vegan options. These people were cheap as hell, and so you can imagine what horrible food choices were offered. Well now cut those choices in half and add equally horrible vegan food. You've got a recipe for a foodfight.

And that's what we got, on campus, in the newspaper, everywhere meat eaters complaining bitterly and blaming the vegans for the deteriorating conditions of campus chow. The vegans didn't want to eat the swill served by Aramark (yeah I'll call 'em out) so they ditched the meal plan en masse and started holding potlucks. Aramark was not pleased and twisted the administration's arm to ban any non-company food on campus. The vegans went underground.

I can see this theatre of the absurd replaying itself at Loyola and it makes me so sad

Soup! The thought pops into your head, a faint glimmer of hope at first, but soon a fantastic plan for salvation. You stride over to get yourself a nice hot bowl of hearty minestrone but gack! You are presented a choice between vegan potato leek and vegan lentil.

Obviously this guy doesn't like lentils and feels he needs actual meat. Of course he blames the vegans and just can't see why they have to be so "extreme". In between neanderthal grunts of meat-withdrawal he makes the stupid, yet pervasive argument that the existence of cage free eggs and "naturally" produced milk, whatever that means, indemnify him from any responsibility and make vegans and their "extremism" obsolete:

So, extremists, why not switch over to a more omnivorous lifestyle? I know that many of you take a moral issue with factory farming, and I agree with you. Mistreating farm animals is a horrible practice that we need to eradicate soon. But the fact of the matter is, hens are going to plop out an egg a day whether you eat it or not. Mama cows would still give enough milk to share between their calves and us, even if we stopped stuffing them with hormones. And unless you’re a baby, milking cows is a lot less creepy than drinking human milk.

Animal by-products can readily be consumed in an ethical way. If we do it right, we can promote the proper treatment of animals while living more moderate and well-rounded lives ourselves. Not to mention the fact that non-extremist soup tastes a lot better.

Translation: I have ethical concerns about this horrible food system of ours too, but have adopted the existence of less horrible methods as an excuse to not do anything about it. Your lifestyle reminds me that I'm not living up to my own inner ideals, therefore change it so I can go back to feeling like a non-hypocrite.

It's everywhere folks: Lierre Keith, the response to Foer's Eating Animals, even in your local university dining hall. And the interesting thing is, just like homophobia, the most passionate opposition to even the *existence* of veganism comes from those who most agree with the concept of veganism deep down inside. These people *are* vegans already, they just don't know it yet. They're in the closet even to themselves.

It's up to us to convince them it's safe to come out.