Someone tell me if I'm being a total idiot?
To:
JanneM Janne Moren
Subject:
….
Hi,
I hope you don’t mind me asking, what do you mean about no garlic, onions or strong herbs?
Alex
From:
JanneM Janne Moren
Subject:
Re: ….
Veganism is part of a religious tradition, and one of the dietary tenets are to avoid the “five strong tastes”; most practitioners avoid all onions, like yellow onion, shallots, leeks, garlic and so on, as well as strongly fragrant herbs like coriander.
By contrast, the western “vegan” movement seems to simply have taken the name as a synonym for vegetarianism; a rather strong impression is that western “vegans” are simply those who don’t think “vegetarian” sounds cool enough. To take a photographic example, they’re people who like to refer to “giclee” since “inkjet print” doesn’t sound high-brow enough.
I sympathise with vegetarians and could well consider it at some point or other; that sympathy does not extend to those I called “20-something vegan posers”.
To:
JanneM Janne Moren
Subject:
Re: ….
Thanks for explaining that.So taking assumptions from what you said, do you consider those people who do not eat meat but eat by products of animals, milk and eggs for example, not vegetarians?
Do you think vegetarians should only be able to call themselves that if they do not consume any animal products at all?
The only reason I ask is because you made a point that the term vegan should be reserved for those following it from a religious tradition.
It leaves a gap between vegetarians who will eat animal products that do not result in the animal’s death (arguable) and those people who do not consume any animal products at all.
So what about 20 something vegan non posers? Is that not allowed? Is anyone young not allowed to be vegan. Most people who are serious about it don’t boast about it or push it in people’s faces. They simply get on with it.
From:
JanneM Janne Moren
Subject:
Re: ….
Anybody is allowed to call themselves a vegan, just like anybody can call an inkjet print for giclée. I can call myself a vegan if I want, even as I finish a plate of spareribs. It’s not a protected term. But using “vegan” for “vegetarian” does mark the user out as somebody who uses words without knowing what they actually mean. Such people are often disparaged and ridiculed by others, and not without reason.
I do know some of the harshest critics of “veganism” are vegetarians who - not without reason - worry that the very negative impression created by the sometimes infantile poseur mentality spills over on to vegetarianism in general.
Who is a vegetarian? I don’t know. Do we really need a separate term for those who eat egg but not fish, or who eat fish but touches nothing made from landbased animals, or who eats nothing with eyelashes (a former colleague actually uses that precise criterion) or whatever? Why can’t it all simply be “vegetarian”?
