Tag: food

The gray matter of veganism.

Laura Wild1 Comment

I always enjoyed consuming animal products. Though it’s been over five years since I’ve eaten any meat, I can’t deny that I don’t sometimes crave it, and I continue to occasionally consume animal by-products. The reasons I chose to eat more ethically are pretty standard;  I love animals, I’m horrified by factory farming, and think I’m healthier without eating meat. However, over the years I’ve also realized that simply not buying animal products is not a particularly effective way to end animal suffering, especially without being mindful of the numerous other ways I contribute to the meat industry. Recently I’ve begun to embrace a less rigid approach to veganism and I not only feel healthier but feel that my lifestyle is more sustainable, and in many ways has a greater impact on the lives of animals.

Like sexuality, spirituality or anything else one uses to identify themselves, dietary choices are not always something that can be easily explained. For me, being vegetarian is built on the basis of flexibility, and it seems to be working pretty well. It wasn’t always that way. When I first gave up meat I was happy to condemn everyone from ranchers to hunters and fisherman, but I still gladly consumed dairy products as my primary source of protein. I was in denial of the realities of the commercial dairy industry, and was somehow able to justify supporting it while I pointed my finger at other people. Since then my views have evolved, and I’ve come to accept that advocating a meat-free diet may not be the most practical way to support ethical consumerism.

In my experience I have found that some meat-eaters tend to view my lifestyle as privileged, and they aren’t necessarily wrong. When I look at the veg community in the Pacific North West, for example, I see a white-washed group of upper middle class liberals who are devoted to a strict brand of veganism that is not always welcoming to outsiders. A youtube search for vegan recipes brings up a multitude of videos made by urban stay-at-home moms, a demographic that only a small percentage of Americans can relate to. Do I condemn this group of people for their unbending and sometimes unattainable dietary choices? Not at all, I think it’s wonderful that some people have the resources to be healthy vegans and raise vegan families, but I do acknowledge that this is not the reality for many of us. Even I have trouble attaining the nutrient-rich vegetarian diet that I strive for, and I live a block away from Whole Foods. But it is not just the logistics of adopting a completely plant based diet that I struggle with, it is the elitism.

After volunteering on WiMo dairy farm, I was lucky to be able to eat all of the organic milk, eggs, cheese and yogurt that I wanted. While the conditions on the farm were not perfect (as I’ve detailed in some of my older posts) they were so much better than the norm. These cows were valued for more than the milk that they provided, and that made a world of difference. In Boulder, CO, raw milk is a hot commodity, and that is exactly where we sold the majority of our dairy products. Even with the support of the community, it’s important to note that the work required to maintain such an environment is not always economical; the farm I lived on never made a profit for their efforts, and barely broke even. When making a profit is the primary goal of a farm, the ethical standards start to drop significantly. As you can see in the picture above, mass-production dairy feedlots provide a very different reality for animals. As I saw first hand when I rode my bike by the Caballo Dairy in New Mexico, the abuse of veal calves is such standard practice on commercial dairies that farmers don’t even attempt to hide it from the public.

Do I think everybody is ready to embrace raw dairy products from ethical family farms? Though I wish it were the case, I have to say no; not when milk shares start at $20 a gallon. Until there is money to be made in the ethical agricultural business, it seems like it will continue to be an industry only for the elite. In my search for commercial dairies that don’t use veal calves, my results were just as depressing. My goal was to provide a list of cruelty-free brands of milk that are readily available, but I’m sad to say that none of the major commercial brands I researched made the cut. Without readily available cruelty-free dairy options and as most Americans continue to consider dairy to be a staple of their diet, one begins to wonder how best to conquer the high demand for cheap animal products. Instead of trying to find ways around supporting an industry that will always value efficiency over the health of animals, maybe we need to focus less on what we eat and more on where it comes from.

If not being able to give up your favorite foods is what’s keeping you from going veg, by all means, don’t give them up! Maybe you can’t give up your Toblerones and Hershey’s kisses but you’re ready to replace your hormone infused dairy milk with a much healthier plant-based alternative. Maybe you can’t give up any dairy products, but you can support a local farm by buying their pasture-raised beef. This method may not be perfect, but I still think it is a big step in the right direction. It is disconcerting to see two groups of people that are on such polar opposite sides of this issue. Can’t we all agree that supporting small businesses is better than giving all of our money to huge corporations? If so, then buying local is the first step.

If you love animals and you want to make a difference, do whatever you can to reduce your impact on their lives and, more specifically, their deaths. If that means you still enjoy the occasional steak or burger, don’t let that stop you from advocating for animal rights. If you think that confining calves in small cages and forcing them to stay immobile is wrong, take a stand against buying veal. Support ethical farms whenever you can, even if that means buying your steak from them; this part just may be the key to seriously changing the factory farming industry for good. It is up to us to define what the future will look like for livestock animals, and while a vegan world may not be on the nearest horizon, I think that a more ethical, free-range agriculture may be.

 

Being hungry in New Mexico.

Laura Wild4 Comments

This was the part of my trip that I thought I would be in the best shape my life. I was not yet to the point in my journey that I was eating at Waffle House multiple times a day but I was still packing away a fair amount of calories in New Mexico, consisting mostly of peanut butter, tortillas, plantain chips, and anything else I could buy at Walmart. I was eating almost constantly and even when I wasn’t I was still thinking about food. I didn’t even care what kind of food- anything and everything was good enough for me.

I guess I always assumed that riding my bike 3,000 miles would be enough to cancel out all of the carbo-loading and binge eating but alas, I was sadly mistaken. Any attempt at dieting that I made on my journey was short lived; I didn’t have the energy to practice much self control. At the time this was a real disappointment for me; riding my bike across the country had seemed like such a crazy thing to me before I left, and I guess I always thought that embarking on it would not only leave me enlightened but also slimmer and more attractive. Yet by the time I reached Texas I still looked the same, I felt the same, and as we inched our way eastward I began to realize that I was going to return to my home essentially as I had left it; restless and ambitious, but ultimately average.

Now, as I look back on the whole thing, that is one of my favorite aspects of the experience; the fact that I did it all while still remaining as mediocre as ever, especially as far as cycling was concerned. I loved discovering that going off on these types of adventures was not reserved for the elite, I think knowing that has left me more enlightened than the act of cycling itself. I was in the gray area of being both an athlete and a couch potato and that felt weirdly freeing to me, despite the fact that it wasn’t what I had envisioned for myself.

At least I was not alone in my desperation. The four days that we were in New Mexico were disturbing not only in the way that they left me ravenously hungry (which was understandable; they were all almost 70 miles) but also because we were plagued by the presence of bird-sized locusts that had, by the grace of god, been given the ability to fly. When they weren’t hovering in the air too close for comfort they were crouched over their dead siblings on the pavement, feasting on their brothers without an ounce of guilt for the moral crime that they were committing. Cannibalism was a way of life for them, and in that state, I didn’t feel inclined to judge them for it. The only difference between us was that I was a vegetarian.

The constancy of my food cravings was similar to the constancy of my thoughts of home, my loneliness, and the tiredness of my body. This kind of rhythmic thinking was hypnotic. As to be expected, days were beginning to bleed into each other. When paired with the hours spent shuffling all of the songs on my iPhone, time began to pass in a blur and before I knew it I was through one state and into the next. The circular motion of the day was broken up by the same, predictable incident; I would be pedaling along on a gust of breeze from the west when suddenly my position in the atmosphere would drop two inches lower, and my rear tire would begin making an awful hissing sound. This happened every day, even up to two or three times. The warped rim of my bike was making holes in my inner tube, and the broken spokes that were held together with zip ties were causing enough friction on my tire that it was wearing thin. Just like my patience, and what little spunk I had left from the first week of my trip. I was starting to get worn out and I knew that it was too early for that to happen.

So I let myself be hungry, in every sense of the word. I let myself daydream about green chile Rellenos in family owned restaurants and nachos with queso blanco. But I also dreamed about the idea of a new, shiny bike, and craved the thought of being able to go one whole day without having to change my tire. I fantasized about Texas, and Louisiana, and the ocean. I thought about what I would do when I got home, and what kind of adventures I could plan next. New Mexico taught me one of the most valuable lessons I have learned, and I have stayed true to it ever since; being hungry can be a good thing.